BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis

June 30, 2005

Dell hell: Deus ex machina

: So the wonderful guys at EVDOinfo snuck me a new driver, due out next week, to make my high-speed Verizon card work on the newest Macs (thanks, Mike!). I went back to CompUSA (no, I don't have that much spare time; I was next door working at a Borders while I wait to pick up my son at computer camp) and installed the driver with great help from the Apple rep in the store (thanks, Bruce), who said if this worked, it would help him sell more Powerbooks. It works! There I was, connected to high-speed cellular from the store. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I swear to God at that very moment, my cell phone rang and it was a customer service person from Dell. She was calling because of the email I sent to her chief marketing officer and vice president of US Dell. She told me she'd read the emails -- and blog posts -- and get back to me. And that's fine.crack civilization 4 no dvd

But what a criminal shame that it took sending an email to the head of Dell U.S. (not that he has his email address online; I guessed it: Dell puts an underscore between the first and last names of employees) to get the first and only attempt to solve my problems. crack civilization 4 no dvd

It didn't come because they noticed I had to send the machine back and get most it replaced and send them scores of emails and wait forever to get any service and still did not have a working machine. crack civilization 4 no dvd

It didn't come because they monitored what their customers are saying online. crack civilization 4 no dvd

It came because a VP didn't want to be bothered and so they have this chain of complaint, standard. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I told the nice lady that I was in the store right then getting ready to buy an Apple. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Divine intervention may well get me out of Dell hell. But it wasn't from Dell. It was from Mike and Bruce. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Money, meet mouth

: There is a crapsquall brewing over Time Inc.'s decision (underplayed on their own site) to hand over reporter's notes in the Plame case to the court. See Tom Watson and Chris Geidner and Staci Kramer's thoughtful post here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I want to add one thing: When I saw a picture of Time reporter Matthew Cooper with his wife, Mandy Grunwald (whom I met maybe once when I was at Time Inc.) and child, I thought of my own scene at the hearth and wondered: Would I have the courage to go to jail to protect a source? After watching Oz (not meant flippantly), I honestly wonder. I support the war in Iraq, but when I see pictures of the violence there or the fatherless families back home, I also have to wonder whether I would have the courage to go or, worse, to allow my son to. The only honest answer is that I don't know. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Did Time cave or did Time try to protect its reporter? I have no idea. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Last night, I got email from a show to come on and talk about this and I said I couldn't because, now that I'm working as a consultant for The Times, I think I'm in a conflict of interest. I'm also in a conflict of opinion; I don't know what I think about shield laws now. This is what I said to the show's producer: crack civilization 4 no dvd

I firmly believe that anyone and everyone can do journalism; I am a blog triumphalist, a proponent of citizens' media. So there should not be a special privilege for people who are somehow officially accredited as journalists -- not only because that excludes citizens who do journalism but also because it puts those credentialed at risk of having their credentials pulled by authorities. We do not want to find ourselves in that position.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Should there be a privilege? When everyone has it, there is also the danger that someone will claim privilege to hide criminal behavior: Someone will claim via a blog that they are doing journalism and have privilege and thus refuse to reveal a source of what they wrote in civil or criminal matters.crack civilization 4 no dvd

This had led many to say that privilege should not extend to criminal activities: that it is an obligation of citizens who know of criminal activity to reveal that. If that were the standard, then Miller would still not have privilege.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Frankly, I'm not sure where I come down. Ying-yangs:crack civilization 4 no dvd

I do believe in the necessity of privilege to enable the watchdogging of the powerful.crack civilization 4 no dvd

At the same time, I think we have grossly abused confidential sources in media and perhaps ruined privilege in the process.crack civilization 4 no dvd

I do think that if journalists have privilege then all citizens have privilege when they practice journalism, which now anyone can do: Anyone can publish.crack civilization 4 no dvd

I also believe there need to be limits -- for example, regarding criminal activity. But then that, too, defangs privilege.crack civilization 4 no dvd

So the long and the short of it is is... and this is rare for a blogger or a TV guest to say: I don't know.
crack civilization 4 no dvd

As Groucho used to say...

: There has been a rousing discussion on the Media Bloggers Association's listserv about whether the MBA should have a code of ethics and standards and such. Well, actually, the discussion started with what kind of code it should be to get a committee going on the task. I entered the word "whether" into the discussion. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I said I didn't think we should have a code, echoing what I'd said in reaction to Bayosphere's pledge here and here. I believe codes are for institutions that have lost their humanity while blogs are human and trust here is measured every day by everyone with whom we interact. And I don't want to see blogs turn into institutions and closed societies. I also agree with Fred Wilson that lists of the Top N this or Top N that are silly in a medium where the meat's in the middle, where everyone determines their own Top N lists and where the top for everybody becomes merely a least common denominator. (I will confess to coveting Technoratijuice but rationalize faw egotism in that case because that it's about links rather than lists and it enables the conversation; this is also why I enjoyed blogebrity skewering the lists and those on them by creating one with no rationale except random ego tweaking; and this is why I didn't link to another Top list that just came out). crack civilization 4 no dvd

I also want to say that I wasn't crazy about the discussion occurring on a listserv rather than on the open web. Ditto some great discussions that have occurred out of a few Harvard confabs. Listservs (let alone ones from Harvard...) are closed conversations themselves and I think we get the wisdom of the crowds (and the lack thereof in isolated cases) when discussions are held in public.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Well, today Corante's Dana Blankenhorn took the MBA discussion public with a bang -- a bang on my head.

I figure a group like the MBA could at least enforce simple rules by creating valuable member benefits and kicking out those who refuse to conform, following some objective process.crack civilization 4 no dvd

But that’s not how it’s going down, mainly due to one person, Jeff Jarvis (right).crack civilization 4 no dvd

Jarvis wants no standards, and certainly no policing. Might as well disband the committee.crack civilization 4 no dvd

“Why pledge to be honest? Only if you're assumed to be dishonest.
Used car salesmen should take the pledge. My blog friends do not need to.”crack civilization 4 no dvd

No objective measures of ethics, thus anything goes. Want to lie, misrepresent, ignore facts, engage in personal destruction for the sheer fun-raising hell of it? Heck, there’s no such thing as truth. We define what’s truth based on who yells the loudest.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Well, pardon my language but bullshit. There’s a fine line between libertarian and anarchist, and Jeff Jarvis just crossed it.

And on... and on... Go read the rest there. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Since this is in public, where it should be, I'll quote (obnoxiously) from my own emails that said why I think we need to look at the world differently. (I'll leave it to others to quote their on views on their own blogs.)

It may be contrarian of me, but I will argue that we should not adopt a code of ethics and standards. That is for institutions to declare because they lose touch with their publics. Weblogs are, in the end, people and, as in our everyday lives, we exhibit our ethics and standards without swearing to codes.crack civilization 4 no dvd

I have my pesonal code of ethics. You have yours. They probably all boil down to this: Be honest. But we shouldn't have to pledge to be honest; that should be assumed. Or to put it another way: If you have to pledge to be honest, then you have a problem.crack civilization 4 no dvd

I do not think we should mimic the trade groups of media; we are something new and different and need to explore new ways....crack civilization 4 no dvd


This is also about educating the world -- particularly the world of big media -- about weblogs: that a parody NYTimes correction site from Bob Cox is news/commentary/journalism just as is an interview on Pressthink just as is an editing of the best of big media on Winds of Change... and that the voice of one citizen speaking -- which is what a weblog is -- is just as valuable in the public discourse as the voice of the guy who owns the printing press. In the end, it is up to the person on the other end of conversation, formerly known as the reader, to judge the credibility and ethics of any of us: Trust is in the eye of the beholder. It always has been, only journalists forgot that as they thought they could control this aspect of the relationship with the public as they controlled others: They wrote codes of ethics and decided what's ethical and what's trustworthy. Or they thought they did. I hope we can start to show how we have a new relationship with our publics....crack civilization 4 no dvd


[In response to an email about how bloggers and journalists do different things:] I disagree that "the rules and expectations are different for each." We are all bloggers and there is not blanket rule about what a blogger -- or a journalist -- is and isn't and I wouldn't like to see one. Bloggers do journalism. Journalists do blogging. To make a sharp line is to start excluding people and their activities and voices. That is antithetical to blogging, in my view....crack civilization 4 no dvd


This is also about educating the world -- particularly the world of big media -- about weblogs: that a parody NYTimes correction site from Bob Cox is news/commentary/journalism just as is an interview on Pressthink just as is an editing of the best of big media on Winds of Change... and that the voice of one citizen speaking -- which is what a weblog is -- is just as valuable in the public discourse as the voice of the guy who owns the printing press. In the end, it is up to the person on the other end of conversation, formerly known as the reader, to judge the credibility and ethics of any of us: Trust is in the eye of the beholder. It always has been, only journalists forgot that as they thought they could control this aspect of the relationship with the public as they controlled others: They wrote codes of ethics and decided what's ethical and what's trustworthy. Or they thought they did. I hope we can start to show how we have a new relationship with our publics.

This is about more than a bit of high-school hallway snarking (though, as one unnamed member said in email to me: at least high school had girls!). This is about more than what this organization should be about. It's about what blogging is. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I have to constantly kick myself to stop thinking of blogging in big-media terms, to stop judging it by the top of the power law and in silly lists, to stop assuming that bloggers want to do what media does, to stop thinking that blogging has to be media, to stop thinking of blogs as publications and remember that they are people. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I keep trying to hear Doc Searls and David Weinberger in my ear as they insist that this isn't a medium and it's not content. It's new. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I don't want to see blogging turn into just another old media institution. But I don't think it can. It is that new. crack civilization 4 no dvd

So perhaps I'm the odd one out. Scratch the perhaps. I am an odd one out, but just one of many. That's why I blog. crack civilization 4 no dvd

As I said in an earlier post on all this, perhaps the real lesson for me is that I'm not a joiner: Let those who want to start their societies start them and I should stay out of the way and drift from this conversation to that one, the social nomad. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Is the blogosphere a society of joiners or a vast plain of nomads? That's the real question, isn't it? crack civilization 4 no dvd

The pity in not joining would be that there is strength in numbers when it comes to support, education, defense, lobbying, selling and, besides, blog confabs are a lot of fun. So I still ask: Do we need codes and standards to have that?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Apple heaven?

: So I just went into a CompUSA to see whether a Powerbook would work with my Verizon Novatel V620 EVDO card. The nice man let me install the helpful ap from EVDOinfo. But when I put the card in, the Mac doesn't recognize it, doesn't ask me to configure it, only lets me power it down. Any help? For the want of a card, heaven is mine, sayeth the Jobs. A nice commenter told me the guys here are experts, so I emailed them as well (imposing to ask for free advice).crack civilization 4 no dvd

: I just got a most generous dose of help from the folks linked above who run the incredibly helpful (am I gushing?) EVDOinfo. Bottom line: In a week, they should have something that will work better on the lastest OS X. Thanks, guys. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Guten tag

: Sean Bonner's Metblogs just added one of my favorite cities: Berlin.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell hell, neverending

: OK, I'm going to the Apple store and putting in my EVDO card and if it works, I'm walking out with a real computer. crack civilization 4 no dvd

After four days, I still have not heard from the reputed supervisor who Sunday said I'd get a new disk drive but still, after three emails from me, has not followed through to get it to me. The wireless networking is now completely schizo: it thinks it's not working when it is and is working when it's not. And this morning, I woke up to another blue screen of death, a fine way to start the day. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I just sent this email to Michael George, chief marketing office and vice president for US consumer business:

Mr. George:crack civilization 4 no dvd

Since you are in charge of both marketing and Dell's U.S. operation, I think you would find it instructive to look at your own files to see how I am being handled by your company after having just bought a machine -- my third and last Dell -- that is broken in innumerable ways. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I am writing about this on my weblog in detail and you are losing customers by the day... including me. I am going to the Apple store in one hour. You may go read what I've written here. But first, I urge you to read what consumers say in the comments there. And before that, again, please read your own customer service email trail first and tell me whether this represents the best of the Dell brand. crack civilization 4 no dvd

In its first two weeks of use, this machine has so far gotten a new motherboard... cpu... memory... keyboard... wireless networking... and case. The disk drive is so bad it won't even run your diagnostic. The wireless networking still does not work. The machine goes to the blue screen of death frequently. The keyboard is still faulty. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I paid for both at-home service and complete care but have received neither. Your at-home care is a fraud; your own person has said in writing that the technician would arrive without parts sufficient to fix the machine. Complete care? The machine is clearly a lemon under federal warranty statutes and regulations and you'd be better off just to replace it. If it just burned up -- which it has come close to doing -- you'd send me a new one. But instead, your people put me through service hell. And I am left unable to do my work because I have an unreliable Dell computer. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The email trail is positively frightening. Your people don't even pay sufficient attention to get my name right. Sunday, a reputed supervisor told me I needed a new disk drive but I cannot get them to reply to three emails to follow through and get me that. crack civilization 4 no dvd

My readers on my weblog have been very helpful. They have said I was an idiot to buy Dell and its service plan and that I should get an Apple as soon as possible. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The last straw: Four days without a response from your alleged supervisor about a disk drive and one more blue screen of death today as the machine can't figure out whether its wireless is on or off. crack civilization 4 no dvd

This machine is a lemon. Your at-home and complete care service is a fraud. Your customer service is appalling. Your product is dreadful. Your brand is mud. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But at least perhaps you can learn from the experience. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Sincerely,crack civilization 4 no dvd

Jeff Jarvis

I also just noticed that Dell has a chief ethics officer. So I forwarded the note to him. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And here's a new one: Now the machine doesn't recognize that it has Bluetooth. Somebody shoot this poor animal and put it out of its misery!crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 29, 2005

Catching up

: The web has always been about sharing and creation. It has always been the medium of the people, with big companies horning in. Now a bunch of big companies -- with John Markoff reporting -- are just catching up to this notion and they think it's new. No, only their realization is new.

Indeed, the abundance of user-generated content - which includes online games, desktop video and citizen journalism sites - is reshaping the debate over file sharing. Many Internet industry executives think it poses a new kind of threat to Hollywood, the recording industry and other purveyors of proprietary content: not piracy of their work, but a compelling alternative.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The new services offer a bottom-up creative process that is shifting the flow of information away from a one-way broadcast or publishing model, giving rise to a wave of new business ventures and touching off a scramble by media and technology companies to respond.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"Sharing will be everywhere," said Jeff Weiner, a Yahoo senior vice president in charge of the company's search services. "It's the next chapter of the World Wide Web."

With all due respect, Jeff, that's a load of Yahooie. Maybe that's the next chapter for Yahoo but the internet from its very first day about about sharing links and content and conversation and ideas and about connecting people so they can share all that. Wake up and smell the web, man. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Hell, even AOL knew this. Three years ago, at Foursquare, I asked Jonathan Miller how much time his users spent on user-created content and he said 60-70 percent of the time. I use that slide in my blog-boy speech (available for hire -advt.) to say that the people value the content the people create. Only now are media learning to value it. Witness this very story. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Markoff goes on:

Many Internet developers think that the Internet's new phase will shift power away from old-line media and software companies while rapidly bringing about an age of computerized "augmentation" by blending the skills of tens of thousands of individuals.
But what do you think Google is? It is the collected wisdom of millions of individuals. What do you think blogs are? Yup, the aggregated wisdom of millions more. Flickr, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and other functional innovations are merely ways to further explore and enable that potential. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I'm glad the true essence of the internet is getting recognized. And at least it's ahead of Marshall column, below. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Look beyond the headlines, continued

: In today's Times, John Burns and Edward Wong write a piece reported by Iraqi reporters under the headline Some Iraqis Optimistic About Sovereignty. I think I'm seeing a trend here, following Jennifer Eccleston's story on CNN last night finding the progress that is occurring in Iraq. But just as in that story, they could not report good news as balance to all the bad -- or as an attempt to find the clearer picture of what is happening -- without throwing in more bad.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Here is Burns' lead:

When Shaker Assal was approached in his butcher's shop on Tuesday and asked what he thought about life in Iraq a year after it resumed formal sovereignty, he responded with a blast of invective as heated as the sunbaked sidewalks in his Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya.
But read down six paragraphs and you'll find this:
But in an informal survey of opinions across Baghdad conducted on Tuesday by Iraqi reporters on the staff of The New York Times, the butcher's outburst was a relatively rare case of untempered hostility for the Americans and the Iraqi governments they have worked with in the past year....
And read down two graphs more:
But perhaps more striking, considering the huge gap between the hopes stirred when American troops captured Baghdad in April 2003 and the grim realities now, were the number of Iraqis who expressed a more patient view. Among those people, the disappointments and privations have been offset by an appreciation of both the progress toward supplanting the dictatorship of Mr. Hussein with a nascent democratic system and the need for American troops to remain here in sufficient numbers to allow the system to mature.
And if that was the essence of the story, why wasn't it the lead?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Take these two episodes together with Bush's speech last night (which I didn't get to watch live thanks to a business call; I read it in the paper this morning) and we continue to see that the war at home is a war of PR. Now I know that many couldn't stand when I cast the Bush execution of his policy and the Downing Street Memo in the light of PR. Fine. But the impression of the war in Iraq -- the bad news and good news, the perception of progress or lack of progress, the enmity or optimism of the Iraqis themselves -- obviously has a very direct impact on the support for the war here, witness the polls, and thus the execution of it in Iraq. What we see in these two stories is an inability to report progress -- which itself is a form of balance to all the car-bombing stories -- without balancing the balancing with more dark clouds. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Living in the past

: Marshall Loeb just wrote a blog-belittling column at Marketwatch. I have some personal history on this with Marshall, who's a very nice guy, and so let me start there. We worked together years ago at Time Inc. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Didn't hear from Marshall for years upon years. But a few weeks ago, he found himself on a panel about blogging at some press association or another and so he called me to find out what this blogging this is all about. He said he didn't know a thing. I filled him in as best I could in 20 minutes as I dashed from meeting to meeting in New York. Apparently, I was bad salesman now Marsh delivers his blog broadside, a bit late to the party:

Blogging can be both a cost-effective and time-efficient way of connecting with people, providing many benefits that can enrich your life.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Some of the benefits are:crack civilization 4 no dvd

* Creating a family network of blogs to keep yourselves updated on the goings-on of your far-away relatives.
* Turning blogs into scrapbooks where you can upload and post digital photos. This saves you the cost of getting film processed, and sharing your blog with others is free.
* Encouraging your young children to create a blog that keeps track of their daily activities and chores. Also, your new college-bound kids can keep blogs so that you won't feel like they're so far away.

So those are the benefits of blogs: quaint personal, family gimmicks. But dangers lurk there.
But not everything is perfect, and here are some warnings about blogs:crack civilization 4 no dvd

* Don't trust everything you read in blogs. While more and more news organizations and companies are creating blogs of their own, many blogs are filled with false information.
* Never keep a blog in which you trash the company you work for or your boss. Also, never put your company's sensitive or inside information in your blog. There have already been cases in which people have been fired for blogging about their employers. It might be tempting to use a blog to vent your work-related frustrations, but it could come back to haunt you.
* Don't give out too much personal information in your blog. Even using your real name, rather than a pseudonym, puts you at risk. We live in an age of identity theft and you don't want to unwittingly give thieves a road map to your personal records or financial information.

Well, thanks. Next, can you tell us how to get rid of that dangnabbed flashing 12 on our VCRs?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Marshall was, by the way, the executive at Time Inc. who first rejected my proposal for Entertainment Weekly -- six years before it ended up launching. As the head of magazine development, he parrotted the words of Henry Grunwald, then editor-in-chief of Time Inc., saying that such a magazine about the full range of entertainment could not possibly succeed because people who watch TV do not read. Ahem. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 28, 2005

Look beyond the headlines

: On tonight's Anderson Cooper 360, he urged us to "look beyond the headlines" and you will see that "some things have improved on the ground in Iraq." Well, yes, considering that the headlines are all bad, you'd have to look beyond them. He hands over to CNN's Jennifer Eccleston for "that side of the story."


JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The big day has arrived for Piras Odisho and ---. Despite the daily disruptions to life in Baghdad, a rising number of young couples like them are taking the plunge.crack civilization 4 no dvd

PIRAS ODISHO, GROOM (translator): Life must go on. There must be marriages and happiness.crack civilization 4 no dvd

ECCLESTON: Marriages are up 30 percent since Saddam's overthrow and the judge signing their wedding contract thinks he knows why.crack civilization 4 no dvd

GHANI AL-ISAA, JUDGE (translator): There is an increase since the income of all sectors of Iraqi people has gone up.crack civilization 4 no dvd

ECCLESTON: Measuring Iraq's economic health is not an exact science, but those in work, like the 350 judges trained in the past two years, are better paid, thanks to U.S. subsidies.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The Iraqi dinar holds its value. Gone is the rampant inflation of the '90's. There are more goods in the shops, in part, thanks to low import duties and a thriving black market.crack civilization 4 no dvd

It's estimated that there's five times more traffic on Baghdad's roads than there was pre-war and then, there is, what some call, the freedom index. In January, nearly 60 percent of Iraqis voted, choosing from a wide variety of parties. The assembly they voted for is meeting and is beginning to frame a new constitution for Iraq and 25 Sunni delegates are participating.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Internet cafes, unknown under Saddam, have sprung up in Baghdad. There are more than three million telephone subscribers, compared to fewer than a million before the war and many of them are on cell phones. Some 170 independent newspapers and magazines offer competing opinions and there are 80 commercial radio stations.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Wealthier Iraqis have satellite dishes and watch channels from around the world, a luxury unthinkable three years ago. Much of the country away from the Sunni dominated north and west is not racked by sectarian violence and some 150,000 Iraqi security forces are trained, equipped, and playing a larger role in battling the insurgents.

Well, bravo, at long last, major media concedes that the agenda it has set in Iraq -- of unrelenting doom -- has another side. But they can't leave it at that. She returns to say:
Now, despite the undeniable progress in Iraq, one year after the handover of sovereignty, the grinding violence, the lack of personal security, the hardships of day-to-day living, not enough power, not enough water, inadequate sanitation, this limits most Iraqis ability to believe their governments and American assertion that life is indeed improving...
Yes, we couldn't just balance months of dire coverage with a moment's good news without returning to the dire. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Faith in the White House

: I happened by the religious PAX tv tonight -- for some odd reason, it's channel 3 on my cable system -- and they're broadcasting the most incredible hagiography I've ever seen: George W. Bush: Faith in the White House. I wish I had the energy to live blog the thing but I'm too damned drunk on demon rum.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Bad taste on bad taste

: I was nonplussed (yes, it's possible) when I listened to this week's On The Media and heard a parody of cable networks devoting themselves to missing white women. In a bit borrowed from thePoorMan.net, they create a new network called Where the White Women At. Now that would have been funny after the attack of bridevision but right now when the missing white woman of the week is a teenager presumed murdered on an island... well, this was in uncharacterically bad taste, I'd say. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Googlewood

: Google put up its new video service but I'm not on it. As soon as they announced they were taking submissions weeks ago, I put up a vlog just to see how it worked. Now Google's video service and player are up but I can't find it. No idea why: Not up to Google's high standards ("Love ya, babe, but your dialogue needs some work")... pissed off Google... need a new agent. Doing the latest new ego search, it did find two videos that mentioned me... but those videos, from PBS, are not available, only searchable. Drat. And I was so ready for my close-up.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell hell, continued: Self-service

: So Dell knows that my hard drive is broken but after two days, I still haven't received a reply to the latest email, in which they said they'd set up a service call to get it replaced, whatever that means. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I was thinking about this service process, in which Dell and other computer makers make us suffer through service with them. They take some S&M glee in making us wait on hold and talk to their people for hours (costing them money, by the way). crack civilization 4 no dvd

In what other consumer product or service do we have to have such a role in service?crack civilization 4 no dvd

When my car breaks, I drop it off and tell them what's wrong and leave. They fix it. They verify it's fixed. They don't make me get into the greasepit with them. crack civilization 4 no dvd

When my electricity goes fritz at home, I call in the electrician and tell him what's wrong and he fixes it and tests it and I pay him and thank him. I don't have to hang out with him and hand him wirestrippers. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But with computers, we are expected to suffer through the process; we aren't allowed to say, "Just fix it: The machine you made is broken so fix it and make sure it's fixed."crack civilization 4 no dvd

Why the hell do we tolerate this?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Film at 11... and 12... and 1... and 2...

: Every TV news outlets played and replayed the tapes of the BTK killer coldly recounting his crimes yesterday. I watched it on MSNBC. After I left there last night, I listened to it in my car (via Sirius) on Fox and CNN, where Anderson Cooper devoted his entire show to the confession, saying that we would learn something. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But would we? What do we learn from the sick and evil? crack civilization 4 no dvd

I had the same reaction when I first watched Oz and as a result gave it a bad review in TV Guide... though I confess that I did end up watching the series, became riveted by it, couldn't stay away. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Not to trivialize them by comparison, but we do the same with the perpetrators of massive crimes. crack civilization 4 no dvd

What is it about watching the worst in us? Is it merely sensationalistic voyeurism? Is is relief that we're sane? Is it bad taste?crack civilization 4 no dvd

So I'm not sure what I think of last night's instant obsession with the BTK video. I certainly don't think it was educational. I did think there was something wrong about intruding on this last moment of truth for the victims and their families. I was a little bit ashamed of us all for showing and watching the tapes. But I can't help but be chilled by the dead-cold soul of this man.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Did I listen to his words passively as producers packed them into the shows I tuned into? Yes.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Did I understand the judgment that went into playing these sickly compelling scenes? Of course. I'm a tab editor myself. I preach "impact."crack civilization 4 no dvd

But here's the new question: In a new world of get-the-news-I-want-when-I-want-it, would I have clicked on a link to watch the confession if I knew what I would hear? No, I don't know why I would have. crack civilization 4 no dvd

So when we become our own editors and producers and pick the news we really want instead of the news others think we want, will we still be voyeurs? Or will we reveal the tabloid editors and producers to have been right about us all along? Who will end up having better or more sensational news judgment: the people or the press? crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 27, 2005

We're forever blowing....

: What do these two headlines have in common? crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Google passes $300 per share. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: $60.54 per barrel.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Ecstasy, that's what. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Oh, and add this: three bedrooms for $2.5 mil. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Do not build it. Not there.

: Both The New York Times and the New York Post editorialized on the fight over the International Freedom Center and Drawing Center at Ground Zero. Of course, they don't agree. But they both show what a mistake it was for Gov. Pataki to put himself -- and all of us -- in this most uncomfortable position:crack civilization 4 no dvd

When you put these opportunities to speak at such a place you will, of course, have controversy that can offend some. And if you try to stop that controversy, you will be accused of censorship. crack civilization 4 no dvd

That is why it should not be built. Not there. Let the discussion and disagreement and controversy and art occur elsewhere. Let the memorial happen there. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Says The Times:

Gov. George Pataki's decision to side with increasingly vocal critics of the cultural plans for the World Trade Center site is not surprising, but it is alarming. The governor has been deeply and rightly sensitive to the concerns of the families of the victims of 9/11. Like all of us, he honors their loss and their grief. But by bowing to some of the survivors' growing hostility to any version of 9/11 except their own, Mr. Pataki is doing a disservice to history and to the very idea of freedom.
That's practically nasty to the families. It also assumes that this is an issue for the families only. It's not.
The protesters - and the governor - seem to have little faith in the emotional power of the memorial to the victims, which will be the central focus of ground zero, emotionally, politically and architecturally.
This almost puts them at war: the memorial overshadowing the centers.
But it is meant to remember something more than a day of tragedy. It's meant to remember the lives of those who died there, lives that were rich, complex and politically and culturally divided.crack civilization 4 no dvd

What those lives stand for now is American freedom, in its full implication and all its contradictions.

Loaded word, "contradictions." Yes, that's exactly what the IFC sought to examine. It seeks to probe controversy. Not there. The Times calls that censorship. Not if it is moved elsewhere, it's not. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The Post says:

Gov. Pataki — despite his assurances to the contrary Friday, and despite what some newspaper editorialists may choose to believe — couldn't keep "Piss Flag" out of the Drawing Center even if he wanted to, even if he were still in office.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Defenders of trash, and compliant judges, would surely block any effort to "censor" works.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Similarly, "scholars" like, say, Ward Churchill — the nut who compared World Trade Center workers to Nazis — won't be easily stopped from gaining a forum at the International Freedom Center (IFC), also planned for the site.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Maybe these cynical showmen deserve that forum.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Click Here!crack civilization 4 no dvd

But not at Ground Zero.

The Post calls for "banning" the groups. No. They should merely be moved. The Post says they should move themselves:
Citing "inevitable tensions," a statement from the center said: "The dilemmas raised by this juxtaposition are challenging . . . Clearly, the Drawing Center, like any other cultural institution, has a responsibility to its mission."crack civilization 4 no dvd

Actually, we couldn't agree more.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Which is why, if these two groups had decency, they'd bow out on their own.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Clearly, they wouldn't want to compromise their independence. Nor lead the governor, and the public, to think they could meet his requirements and still carry out their missions faithfully.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Again, the only solution is for these groups to locate off-site.

Yes. crack civilization 4 no dvd

***cialis***

: I had to put "cialis" in my comment-spam filter to stay ahead of the swine. But, of course, this is stopping people from putting up legitimate words. I should fix that. But I'm kind of enjoying the discovery. First, they couldn't say "socialism" and thought I was trying to turn that into a dirty word. Now it's "specialist." Can we ask the makers of performance-enhancing drugs to please come up with names whose order of letters does not appear elsewhere in the English language?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Finite

: It's inside media-baseball, but go read David Carr's hilariously snarky column today about former Conde Nast President Steve Florio's unbook. Great lead line, calling Florio "a knockabout guy from Jamaica, Queens, blessed with a very finite set of skills - a knack for selling advertising pages and a facility for slicing the conversational baloney..."crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Oh, how I wish a birdie would put Florio's entire proposal online or ship it to someone who would. crack civilization 4 no dvd

On the air

: Barring dead celebs, I'll be on MSNBC's Connected today in the 5p hour doing the regular blog segment (Tony is exec-producing the show for two weeks). Will be talking about blog reaction to the Supreme Court decisions, the Iran election, and LBJ and the internet (below). Please leave any tips and links in the comments. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: LATER: Ian Schwartz has the video. crack civilization 4 no dvd

We win

: The Supreme Court rules that 10 commandment displays that tried to sell them violated the separation of church and state, but displays attempting to present religion as part of history are OK. Oh, some will be up in arms, but this appears to be a good ruling that, though fuzzy, stops government from selling religion without banning religion. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Quotes: crack civilization 4 no dvd

Eugene Volokh says: "I have often heard it said that the Ten Commandments are an important part of the foundation of American law, and I think that's true to a point. But here's a quick question for you: How many of the Ten Commandments are actually implemented as legally binding obligations under modern American law? (To avoid confusion, let's focus on the list in Exodus, chapter 20, King James Version, available here.)
It turns out that the answer today is pretty much three, #6 [that is, don't kill], #8 [don't steal], \and #9 [don't lie]."
Coveting thy neighbor's house is, after all, the basis of the housing bubble.crack civilization 4 no dvd

And John Podhoretz at National Review reflects the confusion about the fuzziness of the ruling:
"Why didn't the Supremes just say you could display the 10 Cs on Monday, Wed, and alternate Fridays, but not on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Or that they could be viewed inside government buildings, but only on the walls of bathrooms and in janitors' closets? Has anybody ever advanced this radical opinion -- that the five justices in question may be intelligent and thoughtful people individually, but that together they form one blithering idiot?"
crack civilization 4 no dvd

We lose

: Grokster loses. Thus so do toolmakers and enablers of any sort ... which, after all, is the very definition of the internet. The decision is terribly out of sync with the future. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Susan Crawford, who knows whereof she blogs, is awaiting the decisions to say more but offers this:

And the content industry's victory in Grokster means that inducement is officially recognized as part of contributory infringement. I'm hopeful that the test for inducement is straightforward enough that technology innovators have some certainty.
crack civilization 4 no dvd

: The Wall St. Journal has a panel of legal brains discussing the import; free linkn here. Q&A with background here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Scotusblog has great ongoing discussion of both cases. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Ernie Miller is way on top of the news here. Copyfight will, of course, be on top of the case. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The exploding newsroom

: The Lenslinger contemplates the future -- in a week or two -- when everyone in a newsroom has a camera and a pencil: Specialties merge, egos deflate.

Now, Young Broadcasting, KRON’s owner, is announcing that another of their stations, WKRN of Nashville, is jumping aboard the solo train. Not only that, WKRN is doing it NOW. Having already purchased 30 Sony Z1 cameras (at a mere 3 pounds apiece) along with 16 Dell laptop editors, KRN management announced an eight week training course that will transform 13 traditional news crews into 30 video journalists....crack civilization 4 no dvd

Jill Reporter-Bunny might shoot her own stuff, but chances are Chet Graytemples won’t pack his own lens when he saunters off the set long enough for a series shoot.crack civilization 4 no dvd

If he does, then that would be a revolution, one in which the star-making nature of your local news factory might indeed crumble. Imagine a TV newsroom where even the top anchor schleps gear, thus tarnishing the artifice of suave superiority inherent in the dapper newsreader model. While that’s not likely to happen, one aspect of the changing times does excite me: the gradual transformation of local correspondents from overdressed poseurs to blue-collar news gatherers.

crack civilization 4 no dvd

A pixel is worth...

: A pretty blogroll. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell hell, still burning

: Now it's my hard drive that is so flawed I can't Ghost it and the diagnostic Dell wants me run on it won't even bother to run. So let's add up the tally: motherboard... CPU.... memory.... wireless network.... battery.... keyboard.... case.... hard drive. What's left? The Dell logo? No, that's broken, too. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Home service? Complete care? Complete crap. Earlier rants here; follow the links. Went to the Apple store today with my son. If I can prove that my EVDO Verizon card will work (so I can avoid it not working and having to pay a 10 percent restocking fee), I may well follow the light. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I just got more Dellspeak: "Ms. Kolar," says the Delly, still refusing to pay sufficient attention to get my name right -- or thinking he is being cute to find some way to insult me, "I am a Supervisor at Dell and I am concerned with the problems you are having with your computer and wish to resolve them very soon." Boilerplate babble; seen it in every email. So sincere. "In order to resolve the issue that you are facing, we need to setup a service to replace the hard drive of your system." Notice they're not telling me when they are going to ship me a hard drive or a computer or a refund. No, that will take more hours' of email back and forth with somebody else on the next shift. "Please try and understand that as per Dells policy, we can not provide you with a system exchange. System warranty is there for such failures only." Well, look at the list of everything that has gone wrong with this so-called system. I'd call that failure. But Dell won't... not yet. "After a period of thorough troubleshooting, either over the phone or through email, when a Dell technician determines that it is necessary to replace a defective hardware component." I just gave the guy exactly what he asked for: the results of his diagnostic. But, no, they have to slog me through the mud a little longer. "At that point, a replacement is dispatched or the system is taken into the depot for repairing." And what about the AT-HOME REPAIR I'm paying for? Not mentioned. "And this system is still in a repairable state, so system exchange is not a possibility at the present stage." Repairable? Says who? They've replaced damned near everything you can and it still doesn't work. I don't call that repairable. "While I say this, I don't mean that even if the system is not repaired to your satisfaction, we cannot replace it. We can exchange the system, but only after exploiting all the possible avenues of repairing." Like buying a Mac? Infriggingcredible. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell sucks. Dell lies. Don't buy Dell. Sell Dell. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 26, 2005

Do not build it. Not there.

: TakeBacktheMemorial.com reports receiving more than 1,000 signatures from 9/11 family members and 18,000 signatures total in its petition not to build the International Freedom Center and Drawing Center at Ground Zero. Earlier post here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Supporting news

: The latest Pew Research Center survey on the press is out. Kit Seelye's take from The Times:

The latest survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has found overwhelming American dissatisfaction with the news media, with a rising number of people saying that the press is "too critical of America."

And while Democrats have generally been more supportive of the press than Republicans, the survey found a marked increase in the number of Democrats who say reporters are too soft on the Bush administration....

"Republicans increasingly express the view that the press is excessively critical of the United States," the survey said, with 67 percent agreeing with that statement, compared with 42 percent in July 2002.

About one-quarter of Democrats say the press is too critical, the same level as three years ago.

Any good will that the press earned after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, appears to have eroded.

In November 2001, 69 percent of all respondents said that the press stood up for America. Only 17 percent found it too critical. At the same time, 60 percent said the press did a good job of protecting democracy while only 19 percent said it was hurting democracy.

Now, only 47 percent say the press protects democracy and 33 percent say it hurts.
But the Pew Research report says it's not all bad:
Yet despite these criticisms, most Americans continue to say that they like mainstream news outlets. By wide margins, more Americans give favorable than unfavorable ratings to their daily newspaper (80%-20%), local TV news (79%-21%), and cable TV news networks (79%-21%), among those able to rate these organizations. The margin is only slightly smaller for network TV news (75%-25%).crack civilization 4 no dvd

In fact, the favorable ratings for most categories of news organizations surpass positive ratings for President Bush and major political institutions ­ the Supreme Court, Congress, and the two major political parties.

Now that's a case of damning with faint praise if I've ever heard it....crack civilization 4 no dvd

pew1.gifBut here's the really bad news: The public believes the press less and less:

The gap is most striking between the public's evaluations of the credibility, and favorability, of their daily newspapers. The percentage saying they can believe most of what they read in their daily newspaper dropped from 84% in 1985 to 54% in 2004. But the number expressing a favorable opinion of their daily newspaper, based on those familiar enough to give a rating, declined just eight points over the same period (from 88% to 80%).
And, not surprisingly, younger Americans are getting more of their news from the internet:
One-in-four (24%) list the internet as a main source of news. Roughly the same number (23%) say they go online for news every day, up from 15% in 2000; the percentage checking the web for news at least once a week has grown from 33% to 44% over the same time period.crack civilization 4 no dvd

While online news consumption is highest among young people (those under age 30), it is not an activity that is limited to the very young. Three-in-ten Americans ages 30-49 cite the internet as a main source of news....crack civilization 4 no dvd

Fully 62% of internet news consumers say they read the websites of local or national newspapers....crack civilization 4 no dvd

People who read the newspaper online have a far less favorable opinion of network and local TV news programming than do people who read the print version, and also have a somewhat less favorable view of the daily newspaper they are most familiar with. But consumers of online newspapers feel far more favorably toward large nationally influential newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Lots more interesting stats there. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Speaking of supporting news

: Newsweek reports on codpiece snuggies. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Blogging pays

: Romenesko makes $152,163. And yes, it is a blog, albeit a self-loathing blog. [via Reynolds]crack civilization 4 no dvd

Have at me, Apple cultists

: OK, I'm so disgusted with Dell I am thinking of switching to Apple. Mind you, the entire reason I left Apple in the '90s was its very sucky laptops. But Apple has changed, eh? So have at me. Why should I?crack civilization 4 no dvd

I've also been thinking that someone should start the Lexus of laptop companies: I would pay more if I actually believed that I would get quality, albeit expensive, service, as I did with my trusty RX300.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: NEXT question: Anybody using a Mac Powerbook and the Verizon EVDO highspeed wireless card?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Sorry, Al Gore... LBJ invented the internet

: This week's On The Media has tape from the speech Lyndon Johnson gave when he signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and here's the amazing part: Like a science-fiction author, he invented the internet long before it is what we know today. Listen:

I believe the time has come to stake another claim in the name of all the people, stake a claim based upon the combined resources of communications. I believe the time has come to enlist the computer and the satellite, as well as television and radio, and to enlist them in the cause of education....crack civilization 4 no dvd

So I think we must consider new ways to build a great network for knowledge-not just a broadcast system, but one that employs every means of sending and of storing information that the individual can rise.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Think of the lives that this would change:
--the student in a small college could tap the resources of a great university....
--the country doctor getting help from a distant laboratory or a teaching hospital;
--a scholar in Atlanta might draw instantly on a library in New York;
--a famous teacher could reach with ideas and inspirations into some far-off classroom, so that no child need be neglected. Eventually, I think this electronic knowledge bank could be as valuable as the Federal Reserve Bank.crack civilization 4 no dvd

And such a system could involve other nations, too--it could involve them in a partnership to share knowledge and to thus enrich all mankind.crack civilization 4 no dvd

A wild and visionary idea? Not at all. Yesterday's strangest dreams are today's headlines and change is getting swifter every moment.crack civilization 4 no dvd

I have already asked my advisers to begin to explore the possibility of a network for knowledge--and then to draw up a suggested blueprint for it.

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Just do not build it!

: With short-sighted attempts to distract from the 9/11 memorial with cultural institutions, Gov. Pataki has only built himself a political hole deeper than the empty crater at the World Trade Center. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Pataki and his cohorts are now offending absolutely everyone possible. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The only solution, the only way out, is to do what the families and I have been saying: crack civilization 4 no dvd

Do not build it. Not there. crack civilization 4 no dvd

After the New York Daily News revealed yesterday that the Drawing Center is equally offensive to the International Freedom Center next door, Pataki tried to backpedal. He said he didn't want either to be "offensive." But, of course, that offended those who are putting together the exhibits and who now cry free speech. I'll fly my free-speech flag next to any other, but this is not about free speech -- at least, it wasn't until Pataki stuck his foot in his mouth. It is about the memorial. And so Pataki also offended the families for not going far enough, for not stopping these mistakes. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Pataki can't win -- because he's a loser.

Gov. George E. Pataki delivered an ultimatum to two important cultural players at ground zero yesterday, demanding "an absolute guarantee" that they would not mount exhibitions that could offend 9/11 families and pilgrims to a proposed memorial nearby.
Now that's absurd on its face: One cannot give an "absolute guarantee" of offending no one in an age of offense. So right there you see how hopeless his predicament is, a predicament he made for himself when he took over Ground Zero and tried to please everyone, pleasing no one.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The Times can't even try to be subtle about his vice:

Treading warily into the nexus of art and politics, the First Amendment and the symbolism of the twin towers site, Mr. Pataki made the demand after learning that one of the groups, the Drawing Center, has featured some politically themed and controversial artwork in its shows. A current display at its SoHo gallery, for instance, appears to make light of President Bush's description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the Axis of Evil.crack civilization 4 no dvd

While saying that he respected artistic expression, Mr. Pataki invoked the solemnity of past battlegrounds in promising to preserve the hallowed ground in Lower Manhattan and ensure that no one will come away feeling offended by the reborn site.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"I view that memorial site as sacred grounds, akin to the beaches of Normandy or Pearl Harbor, and we will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom, or denigrates the sacrifice or courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11," Mr. Pataki told reporters in Albany.

So don't build it, Governor. It is in your power, if you'd just realize that.
Referring to the two cultural groups, he continued, "They have to do that, or they will not be at the memorial site - to the extent that I have the ability to do that." As governor, Mr. Pataki appoints members to oversight boards for ground zero's redevelopment, and after more than a decade in office, he almost certainly has the allies and the clout to change course and block cultural institutions from the site.
There. The Times says it in front of the world: You have the power, Governor. But do you have the leadership and courage to make a decision?crack civilization 4 no dvd

The Times goes on to show the fix he's in: "Mr. Pataki's demand, which was denounced by several arts groups and Democrats as a violation of free speech..." Once given the opportunity to speak, taking it away is a most unfortunate position to put yourself in. Oh, yes, people who use this opportunity to speak offense over the graves of the innocents and heroes of that day are offensive themselves, but Pataki will not have that defense. He will be the man who cut off their speech. Or he will be the man who invited it: "At the same time, several relatives of Sept. 11 victims have complained increasingly about the location at the memorial site of the proposed cultural center for the two groups...."crack civilization 4 no dvd

So who's going to decide what's offensive, Governor? You want that job? I don't think so. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And you'll get no help from your even less testosterone rich colleague, Mayor Bloomberg:

At his own news conference yesterday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appeared to wrestle with his own sense of obligation to the site, to the governor and to First Amendment principles.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"The problem is, of course, that you can probably not find any reputable cultural institution any place in the world where some of what they display or do would be appropriate there, but not appropriate at this site," he said. "And so the balance has got to be, and the challenge for the curators is going to be: given the context of where these cultural institutions are, what's appropriate here?"

Listen to yourselves, gentlemen. You have no way out except to say: crack civilization 4 no dvd

Do not build it. Not there. crack civilization 4 no dvd

You should have said that immediately. Now you can suggest that they build it somewhere else and you'll still find them yelling at you. But better that than leaving as your legacy for generations to come the most tangible memorial to political compromise ever built. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: In the Daily News, Pataki tried to sound tough but his words only gloss over indecision:

We will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom or denigrates the sacrifice and courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11....crack civilization 4 no dvd

Sure, there can be debate. But I don't want that debate to be occurring at Ground Zero.

If you don't want debate then, indeed, you don't want speech. But what do you expect when you ask in the crew you did to build these centers? crack civilization 4 no dvd

Once again, Governor, you do not want to find yourself editing the the discussion to make sure it's not debate, not offensive. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I said the same thing to Debra Burlingame, who, bless her, brought this to our attention: There is no point in trying to unstack the committees or edit their content. The only point at Ground Zero is the memorial. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: The New York Post sees through the efforts at tough talk:

Shame on Pataki.crack civilization 4 no dvd

If ever there was a time for him to stand up and do the right thing for New York, yesterday was it.crack civilization 4 no dvd

As always, his rhetoric yesterday sounded tough.

: But enough rhetoric. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Here is my suggestion for what to do, Governor: Go use some political capital, if you have any left, to get a rich friend and benefactor to donate space for each center somewhere else in New York. Take the government and government funds out of this. You can say that this is best because there must be no distraction from the memorial at the World Trade Center. You can say (if you are good at keeping a straight face, which you are) that you wanted to find a new home for the centers with new funds to depoliticize them. You can say (with pure sincerity) that we must do nothing to stand in the way of the memory of that day. crack civilization 4 no dvd

That's what you should do, Governor. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And you, dear readers, can join the thousands at TakeBackTheMemorial.com who have signed the petition telling the governor: crack civilization 4 no dvd

Do not build it. Not there. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell still sucks. Dell still lies.

: Well, my Dell hell continues. The machine's networking just goes off on its own; the green connection light goes off and the machine either turns off or does not recognize its networking (while other machines in the room work fine). I even got a new wireless router to make sure there was no problem on that end. Other machines: fine. Dell machine: sucks. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The machine then freezes and gives me the blue screen of death, which I never once had with my Sony Viao's -- which is what I will buy as soon as I get a refund for this piece of crap. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The keyboard still does not work. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And I'm getting email from Dell people who clearly are not paying attention. "Dear Mr. Langley," said one. I corrected them and said the name's Jarvis. The response: "Dear Ms. Kolar."crack civilization 4 no dvd

It'd be funny if it were SO DAMNED IRRITATING. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The issue here remains: Dell sold me "at-home service." They sold me a high-end warranty. They sold me "complete care" promising to replace this machine if I lit it on fire... which is very tempting, believe me. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But they take their sweet fucking time sending me email that doesn't give me the confidence that they even know who they're talking to.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Well, the machine they made is is a DAMNED LEMON and under federal warranty law, they are warned. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And their warranty is a fraud. I'm not getting my machine fixed. I am not getting at-home service. I am not getting complete care. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Is anybody at Dell listening? I know you are. What do you have to say, Dell?crack civilization 4 no dvd

: While you're at it, Dell, go here and and here and here and read the comments and see how y our customers hate you. (And that extra space in "your" is because of your broken keyboard, by the way.)crack civilization 4 no dvd

: A snarker in the comments says, "Buyer beware."crack civilization 4 no dvd

No, we are in the new era of "Seller beware." Now when you screw your customers, your customers can fight back and publish and organize. I just sent this link to Dell's media relations department and told them to read the comments and see what their real public relations look like. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Oh, and by the way, the ONLY reason I bought this Dell was because of the alleged at-home service. The machine is not as well-designed as a Viao. It is heavier. There are cheaper machines out there. But now that I'm self-employed (that is, without the blessed in-house PC support department,) I decided to buy a machine from a company that offered me at-home service and a complete care guarantee. And I decided to pay extra for it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

That is the heart of the issue here. That is the essence of the fraud. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 25, 2005

And the Paris talks begin

: The Times of London says the U.S. is in continuing talks with Iraqi insurgents. crack civilization 4 no dvd

By the way

: I'm enjoying the Blogebrity blog, which isn't a hoax, just a blog. I'm not saying that get get more links and stay on the A list. Really, I'm not. Trust me. crack civilization 4 no dvd

BlogPulse need caffeine?

: Matt Galloway wonders wazzup with BlogPulse. I suggest we ask them. I shot them an email. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: UPDATE: See Blogpulse's Pete Blackshaw's response in the comments.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Lost in translation

: Yesterday, I did my blogboy dance for a bunch of French print and wire-service editors on an IFRA tour (ironic, when Loic -- whose reputation they all knew -- could tell them more on their homefront than I could). Anyway, I asked how many of them read blogs; most but not all. I asked how many of their journalists read blogs. They all put their thumbs and forefingers a millimeter apart. Un petit peu crack civilization 4 no dvd

Vs. the U.S. in ClickZ:

Journalists mostly used blogs for finding story ideas (53 percent), researching and referencing facts (43 percent) and finding sources (36 percent). And 33 percent said they used blogs to uncover breaking news or scandals. Still, despite their reliance on blogs for reporting, only 1 percent of journalists found blogs credible, the study found.
Snotty, those reporters. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Tim Porter talks to some smart journalists who use blogs.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The moderate revolt

: Andrew Sullivan sees the Rove strategy at work in a new poll that finds disapproval of Bush equivalent among Democrats and independents, vs. solid approval among Republicans:

This strikes me as a direct result of the Rove strategy of brutal partisanship, Christianist pandering, and general fiscal and military fecklessness. Some readers have said that my criticism of the administration makes me sound like a liberal these days. Well, from these results, I'm not the only one being pushed by right-wing extremism into opposition.
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June 24, 2005

Dell sucks. Dell lies. Continued and continued and...

: I just got my Dell back. They replaced the system board, the CPU, the memory, the palmrest assembly, the keyboard, and the wireless NIC. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Within a half hour, it's proving not to work. The heat, according to an ap my son found, is up to 154 degrees. The machine is overheating. The fan is on high. And the CPU is running at 100 percent. Dell sucks. Dell lies. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell makes lemons. No lemonade. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell sucks. crack civilization 4 no dvd

TV explodes

: The other day, I said that the reduced take in TV's upfront ad selling season was the tipping point -- tipping the wrong way indeed -- for broadcast TV. Here's the next evidence making the case: An ad agency exec smells weakness and demands lower rates:

Advertising spending growth may slow from next year as TV networks in the U.S. are forced to cut rates as audience levels fall, Saatchi & Saatchi Chief Executive Kevin Roberts said at an industry conference.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Ad spending worldwide should increase 5 percent or 6 percent this year, Roberts, 55, said in an interview at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France. Annual growth will slow to an average of about 4 percent after 2005 as TV prices ``come down,'' he said late yesterday. ``They will have to. Otherwise advertisers are going to leave the medium.'' ...crack civilization 4 no dvd

In the U.S., television networks ``seem to be gouging advertisers,'' Roberts said. ``Their rates are going up and the return on investment is coming down.'' ...crack civilization 4 no dvd

Television will remain the largest advertising medium, Roberts said. ``How it will be used will be very different. It will become more interactive.'' Advertising will also change to be more ``emotive'' rather than ``yelling at you,'' he said.crack civilization 4 no dvd

New Mediacrack civilization 4 no dvd

The current year of TV programming, which runs into 2006, will be the ``biggest ever year in history on television advertising,'' Roberts said. ``While the return on investment in television is deteriorating, because rates are going up, clients are still flocking to the medium.''crack civilization 4 no dvd

That will change over the next few years as techniques are developed to measure the effectiveness of ads in new media such as mobile phones and the Internet, he said.crack civilization 4 no dvd

``We don't have enough pre-testing and measurement of emerging media. What we need is a bit of time behind us so that we get some empirical data'' and advertisers will become more confident with such media.

And I will argue that advertisers are fools waiting for the perfect data when they could be using new media aggressively and still quite inexpensively and learning along the way. But, hell, they're the fools with the money and so we need to build that data for them. And now is our opportunity, as TV explodes. [via Lost Remote]crack civilization 4 no dvd

And it's not just TV. See also newspapers here and here and here and follow the links therein. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Covering Hoder covering the election in Iran

: The LA Times writes today about Hossein Derakhshan, "the godfather of the Iranian blogosphere," returning from exile to cover the election in his homeland. Hoder has left Tehran for London but his coverage continues. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Stuck in the fringes' tug of war: We're the rope

: I just read a longer excerpt of the Rove screed in the NY Post and here's the real problem: He is doing precisely what he is accusing the other side of doing. He says:

Has there ever been a more revealing moment than this year. when the Democratic senator, Democrat Richard Durbin, speaking on the Senate floor, compared what Americans have done to prisoners in our control in Guantanamo with what was done by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot — three of the most brutal and malevolent figures of the 20th century?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Let me put in this in really simple terms. Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Sen. Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

OK, Rove, and now your remarks are being repeated all over the world to show how we are at war with ourselves.... and not with the enemy. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And, Rove, you whine when Howard Dean calls Republicans all a bunch of white Christians (said perjoratively, which causes this white Christian a moment's pause). Yet you turn around and call all liberals a bunch of terrorist sympathizers (which causes this liberal hawk a moment's pause as well). crack civilization 4 no dvd

You're both wrong. Your all wrong. You think you're going to win at the edges because that's the way the game is played today. But you have lost the middle. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The NY Times' op-ed graphic illustrates the point, uh, graphically today. It shows that the number of moderates in Congress -- not in the nation, mind you, but in Congress -- has greatly reduced because:

The differences are attributable to the emergence of the permanent campaign, the rise of partisan news media and, most of all, changes in Congressional redistricting. The expansion in the number of “safe” seats in the House that began in the 1980’s has put an increased importance on primaries, which favor more ideological candidates. A number of these sharp-edged representatives have then moved to the Senate, where they have helped widen the partisan gulf we have talked about — and now can see.
The system is as broken as the American auto and airline industries. It's time for a political restructuring. It's time for a revolt of the middle. Right now, the middle is simply revolted at "leaders" such as these.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The victims have no problem calling them terrorists

: The BBC -- which just went out of its way to call "terrorist" a bad word -- reports that Arab media is (finally) seeing Iraqi "insurgents" for what they are: murderers. Meanwhile, the witnesses and victims know what they really are: terrorists.

Al Jazeera - often accused by the Americans of stirring anti-US feeling - has adopted less of an "Us and Them" approach.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The militants are no longer referred to as the "resistance" but as gunmen or suicide bombers.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Eyewitnesses are shown denouncing them as "terrorists" - condemnations that are echoed by a parade of Iraqi officials and religious authorities.

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For the record

: Yes, Karl Rove is an ass. But you didn't need me to tell you that. crack civilization 4 no dvd

This liberal wasn't calling for therapy. This liberal was calling for bombs.
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Network blog wars

: Brian Williams blogs the news meeting and makes rundown decisions transparent... beating CBS News to the transparent blogging punch. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell hell, continued: Laptop 51

: I have no way to verify whether this is true, but a commenter in my Dell laments says he found a spy in his laptop. crack civilization 4 no dvd

It didn't take two seconds to smoke the hoax: see the comments. I posted this on the train; found the nearest starbucks; came online and there was the fact-checking mob. Thanks, guys. Of course, something smelled funny but I'm glad you found the cheese. You're better men than I, Gungas. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: UPON REFLECTION: What I should have done: (a) I shouldn't have posted this on the train, where I was bandwidth-challeneged and didn't have the time, in any sense of the word, to look it up. (b) I should have posted it as a question: I can't believe this is true; has anyone seen anything about this? (c) Whenever I see anything that's too amazing to be true, I should go to Snopes first. I'm going to head over there right now to see whether Google's stock price is a hoax. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Lessons learned. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Can't see the forrest for the papers

: Jon Fine, ex Ad Age and now covering media at Biz Week, hears the bells tolling for newspapers:

Newspapers are cockroaches. No matter what is introduced into the media ecosystem, the oldest of the Big Media survives. Despite decades of doomsayers, newspapers prospered through radio, through TV and cable, through video games, through the Internet....crack civilization 4 no dvd

Not so fast. Suddenly, even sober Wall Street analysts think something new is afoot.crack civilization 4 no dvd

What looms now "is different from all other threats," says Lauren Rich Fine (no relation), a Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER ) analyst who has covered the industry since the 1980s. Consumers are shifting decisively to online information, says Fine, especially the young, and are no longer yoked to the local newspaper. "Ads are following the eyeballs to where they make transactional decisions." Fine recently forecast that newspapers' profit margins are set to enter a long period of decline.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The new and troubling reality for newspapers is that even if they excel as purveyors of information to appreciative audiences, they still face tough business terrain. "They can try to be the destination where you go online and [can] be really successful with citizen journalism and blogs," says Fine. But such innovations are "not going to pay a lot of bills."

Yes, the economics of news have changed, fundamentally. Now the business of news has to change. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: See earlier post on business models for new here and follow the links at the bottom for more. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Nanny news

: In this country, the nannies are using time delays to protect our sensitive selves from breasts and four-letter words.crack civilization 4 no dvd

In Britain, the news nannies are using delays to protect the people from... news! The new BBC ethics policy dictates that:

The corporation will also introduce a time delay on its live coverage of sensitive news events such as September 11 and the school massacre in Beslan.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The time delay will last several seconds and will allow editors to cut any scenes they believe are too shocking for viewers.

Incredible. What do they think they're protecting the public from? The acts of evil terrorists? What is served by softening that? Softening the terrorists? crack civilization 4 no dvd

Since when did you think it was your job to protect the people from the truth? crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Here is the BBC's policy. Here they say they don't want to report the demands of, say, hostage takers and influence the outcome of their actions. OK. But they also say:

we install a delay when broadcasting live material of sensitive stories, for example a school siege or plane hijack. This is particularly important when the outcome is unpredictable and we may record distressing material that is unsuitable for broadcast without careful editing.
What's suitable and for whom?crack civilization 4 no dvd

: There's enough in these guidelines -- a "book," they call it -- to keep a Kremlinologist busy for years. For example:crack civilization 4 no dvd

: On war reporting: "The tone of our reporting is as important as the reliability of our reporting." And just what does that mean? What did that mean in their reporting of the latest war?crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And also under war: "We will ensure our online message boards are hosted to maintain a full debate and avoid offensive postings by switching to pre-moderation if necessary." What, so they don't turn into war? crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And here we have the boogey applied to the word "terrorist:"

The word "terrorist" itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term, without attribution. We should let other people characterise while we report the facts as we know them.crack civilization 4 no dvd

We should not adopt other people's language as our own. It is also usually inappropriate to use words like "liberate", "court martial" or "execute" in the absence of a clear judicial process. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as "bomber", "attacker", "gunman", "kidnapper", "insurgent, and "militant".

Oh, so insurgent, and militant, and bomber are ok but terrorist is not? Well, I'm offended not calling a terrorist a terrorist. The refusal to use that word carries a value judgment, or lack of judgment, in itself. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: I was having such a good time, I flipped back to read the beginning. Here, the BBC thinks it can do nothing less than get the truth.

We strive to be accurate and establish the truth of what has happened. Accuracy is more important than speed and it is often more than a question of getting the facts right. We will weigh all relevant facts and information to get at the truth.
Others would say it's their job to report the facts and ours to judge the truth.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Under "Harm and Offence," it advises this:

We aim to reflect the world as it is, including all aspects of the human experience and the realities of the natural world. But we balance our right to broadcast and publish innovative and challenging content with our responsibility to protect the vulnerable.
What the hell does that mean?crack civilization 4 no dvd

: On sources: "We should be reluctant to rely on a single source. If we do rely on a single source, a named on the record source is always preferable." And: "We should normally identify on air and online sources of information and significant contributors, as well as providing their credentials, so that our audiences can judge their status." And on anonymous sources.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Surely this is a parody. First, the guidelines say: "We should not distort known facts, present invented material as fact, or knowingly do anything to mislead our audiences." And I'm wondering, did they really have to say that? But then they add "We may need to label material to avoid doing so." And just when do you need to distort facts, invent facts, or mislead audiences? crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And on the old objectivity thing:

our journalists and presenters, including those in news and current affairs, may provide professional judgments but may not express personal opinions on matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy. Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC programmes or other BBC output the personal views of our journalists and presenters on such matters.
In other words, do a really good job of hiding what you think. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: No hypnosis, no exorcism, no subliminal programming. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: On weblogs:

: We will exercise the same level of editorial care with weblogs as we do with other forms of content. This policy will also apply to associated external links and user generated comments.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Members of staff who write and publish weblogs should refer to their line manager. See Guidelines on Conflict of Interest

Why under Harm and Offence do they have a picture of two naked men?crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Nasty words are nastier online:

Offensive language can give rise to widespread offence. The use of certain, mainly four letter, words in text on the Internet may be far more offensive than a fleeting expression on radio or television. Such words may be used only in exceptional circumstances, there must be a clear editorial justification for their use and express approval must be obtained.
: LATER: On the time-delay from the NY Times story:
Some journalists questioned, though, whether removing some scenes might mislead viewers.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"It could be a dangerous precedent," said Jean-François Julliard, an editor at Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group based in Paris, which campaigns for the protection of journalists and their freedoms.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"In some cases I could understand that some editors might want to use it," he said in an interview. "But they must say they are using it. It should be a very transparent process. If they say it is live when it is not, that is a lie."

: FOR A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE on TV showing violence, read the Lenslinger. crack civilization 4 no dvd
June 23, 2005

She is not a crook

: The half-hearted apology that includes such phrases as, "If I made a mistake..." usually precedes the resignation under continued fire by only a few days. Tick. Tick. [via Glenn Reynolds]crack civilization 4 no dvd

Fair and balanced

: Didn't get a chance to link to John Podhoretz' great column yesterday taking apart Ed Klein's effort to take apart Hillary Clinton.

Because if any book in recent memory reads as though it has been written out of greed — a greedy hunger to separate millions of conservative book buyers from their hard-earned 25 bucks — it is Ed Klein's "The Truth About Hillary."crack civilization 4 no dvd

This is one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn't have to suffer through another word.

: And I'm amazined Klein is still on Parade's masthead playing Walter Scott. He's not on a personality parade anymore. He's on a personality perp walk. crack civilization 4 no dvd

French trees shout: Vive l'online!

: Editors Weblog tells us (who don't speak French) about a report from a French government think tank predicting the demise of daily, printed newspapers. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The reaction to this is typically French/EU: Spend some government money to swim against that tide. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Says John Burke at the weblog:

A report just released by a French government think tank that analyzes present situations and predicts the future of various public and private organizations paints a bleak picture for the future of the French printed press. The threat from the Internet and foreign news sources will, according to the think tank, transform all French news organizations into multimedia companies, of which only 2 or 3 will be left standing by 2011. Result: " a majority of newspapers will disappear by 2011... if nothing is done".crack civilization 4 no dvd

The report cites the need of French government aid to journals that undergo innovative reforms and that improve their public service. To further involve young readers, French government subsidies should be used to provide free temporary subscriptions for 18 year-olds. For the French media in general, the report calls for improved training for journalists, a radical reform of Agence France Presse, and a reform of news distribution.

Did they create a tax to feed the horses when the car came along?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Here and here I swatted at the notion of government helping journalism for then it can be used to influence journalism. Just ask PBS. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Beyond that, though, if the people want to get their news online why not give it to them there? If the French government wants to support something, wouldn't it be better to support the future than the past? Wouldn't it be better to underwrite development of online? Or are they afraid it will steal marketshare from the Minitel? crack civilization 4 no dvd

Chief clueless sod

: Simon Waldman quotes Gavin O’Reilly, incoming chair of the World Association of Newspapers, and COO of Independent News and Media, saying at the recent world newspaper confab in Korea:

I think participative journalism is a dangerous precedent for our industry. People forget that newspapers have always been an interactive medium, people have always been able to interact with us through the mailbag.
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TV just exploded

: The inevitable just happened: The broadcast networks earned less in upfront (preseason) ad buying this year than last year. That's a big deal. It's not a cycle. It's an explosion. Mark this date as the day TV exploded and the mass market went pfffft with it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

It had to happen. Year after year, network audiences declined, yet ad rates and buying went up: Marketers were paying more for less (and I thought only cable customers did that). The delta between those two lines on a chart is a measure of advertisers' inability to change or worse. But now that has changed. crack civilization 4 no dvd

It's all downhill from here. Oh, this doesn't mean that broadcast is dead. But it will not grow again. It will shrink. Ditto other big, old media outlets. And with that, the media industry will change as it is forced to find new ways to produce lower-cost programming and as advertisers are forced to abandon easy mass-market buying in favor of putting together ad hoc, targeted, and more efficient networks in more measurable media, including media created by people outside media companies (aka you). The dollars will flee to online and its many media at a higher, faster rate than audience declines on the networks as advertisers finally begin to value online appropriately (though online is a scarcity killer with unlimited content and traffic and that will depress rates). crack civilization 4 no dvd

Media Post reports:

Verklin implied the shifts were not merely a function of a cyclical weakness in the TV ad marketplace, but part of a fundamental realignment of marketing priorities, and the way marketers and agencies look at television in their media mix.
And the Wall Street Journal says (not a free link):
The decline appears to signal that, after years of debate about the effectiveness of TV ads, advertisers finally are cutting back on their spending....crack civilization 4 no dvd

This year's decline appears to relate more to questions about the effectiveness of traditional TV commercials. Debate about traditional advertising has risen in recent years as digital video recorders have made it easier for viewers to zap through ads and as people have spent more time on the Internet and playing videogames....crack civilization 4 no dvd

Advertisers for years have believed broadcast television offered the biggest bang for the buck, with millions of viewers tuned in to a single program. In a world where people can easily zap through ads, advertisers increasingly are interested in marketing avenues that capture more of consumers' attention, including the Internet.

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It's not a medium, it's a focus group

: The Wall Street Journal (free link) sums up companies who are monitoring blogs to get the pulse of the market. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell hell, continued

: As I sent my machine to Dell in the Airborne ambulance, I took the hard drive out at Dell's demand (what if it's the hard drive or the registry that's broken? they will make me spend hours on the phone to diagnose that, said the man). I put it in my son's Dell, which is exactly the same: an Inspiron 600m. Ah, but I saw that it was not exactly the same, not at all: When the machine started up, my laptop's brain in my son's laptop's body started recognizing no end of new and strange hardware. And that's to say that there is no consistency at all in the Dell product. Tom Friedman wrote about that, admiringly, in his World is Flat book: In their just-in-time gusto, they grab a part from this supplier or that supplier and slap them in there. And so there is no consistency to the product: The 600m I bought and was satisifed with two months ago is not one bit like the 600m I bought next. It's as if I went to Burger King and they substituted pork for beef because it was cheaper today. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But you know what, that's Dell's problem, really: All I should care about is having a computer that works. How it works and how it's made is their problem if I have a warranty, right?crack civilization 4 no dvd

But that's what bothers me most: I bought that warranty, the top-of-the-line, most expensive warranty that warrants to send someone to my home to repair my machine.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Except that's a big fat Dell lie. The person they would send to my home would not have the parts (or, according to some of my commenters, the expertise, training, and intelligence) to repair that machine. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Smells like fraud to me.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Smells like a class-action suit to some of my commenters and emailers. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Calling Mr. Spitzer. Calling Mr. Spitzer. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dell lies. Dell sucks. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I pledge not to pledge

: Yesterday, I suggested that Dan Gillmor should have wikied his pledge and Sean Bonner has done it. Dan has some links. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Thinking about it last night, I liked the idea of a pledge even less but thought I should explain that more. crack civilization 4 no dvd

A pledge assumes ill will and mistrust, requiring that we promise we won't do something bad. If we're decent and you trust us, we shouldn't have to do that. I don't have to take a pledge not to torture little puppies for you to trust that I won't do it. I shouldn't have to pledge to be honest to be honest. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The whole point of this new medium is that it is human and not institutional. In a human relationship, apart from wedding vows and oaths in court, we don't take pledges. When you meet a neighbor, you don't feel the need to say, I pledge not to dump my garbage in your backyard. The compact of civility and trust is assumed until it is broken. That's the way I think this new medium operates. A blog is a person. Buzzmachine is me. You either like and trust me or don't (and there are plenty who don't; just read the comments). Or to put it another way: Like me, like my blog; dislike my blog, dislike me. I keep coming back to the conclusion of my blog chat with NY Times exec editor Bill Keller: Though blogs can do journalism and do media they are still essentially human. Journalism is institutional, impersonal, and dispassionate; blogs are human, personal, and passionate. Institutions takes pledges because they have become separated from the people they serve and they need to. Humans -- bloggers -- shouldn't need to. Doesn't mean you have to trust a blogger. But saying "trust me" doesn't mean anybody should trust you more. crack civilization 4 no dvd

At the end of the day, I don't want to see blogs turn into an institution, or try to, for then they wouldn't be blogs anymore. They are human and operate on a personal and social scale and it's a mistake to see them through institutional eyes. When I sat at an Annenberg confab on journalism a few weeks ago, I flashed on the frightening notion that in 50 years, there could be such confabs among bloggers fretting over trust, ethics, professional standards, educational needs, government relationships.... But then I snapped out of it. I was looking at blog through institutional eyes. No, blogs are just people speaking. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 22, 2005

Career a clef

: This is awfully inside baseball, but I have to report that everyone I know in media was giggling and gaffawing today over the news that former Conde Nast head Steve Florio is going to write a book about management. The perfect media oxymoron. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Taking the pledge

: Dan Gillmor asks contributors to his Bayosphere to take a pledge. I respect Dan more than anyone I know in journalism. I know what he's aiming for, to establish a paragon of citizen journalism, and I respect that as well. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But I don't know about taking his pledge. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Anybody can nitpick any such pledge or code of ethics. In fact, that's what I say the public should do in this case. Dan suggests discussing the pledge in a forum. Better yet, Dan, why not put your pledge up as a wiki and see what the people think it should be? Let your public create it. The days of the guys with the power and the presses and the initials -- ASNE, APME, NAA, etc. -- setting the standards are over. Now the public sets the standards, right? Well, they always did set the standards but we didn't listen. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Among my nitpiks with this pledge: crack civilization 4 no dvd

He requires us to promise to "work in the community interest." What community? What interest? Who's to say what the community interest is? I can only guarantee that I will post in my interest; whether I post in the community's interest, the community will have to decide. crack civilization 4 no dvd

He requires that I be "fair: I'm always listening to and taking account of other viewpoints." No, there are some viewpoints I will not take into account and not listen to. I won't listen to trolls I've put on my ignore list. I won't listen to terrorist sympathizers. I know that's not what Dan and company are asking with this, but others would. This is the issue with such a pledge: It's open to such varying interpretation: Someone will say gotcha, you didn't listen to people who hate America. And I will say: Damned straight, I won't. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Most of the pledge is very mom-and-Apple pie: I will be open and transparent and correct errors and such. I can't argue with most of this. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But I would sum the pledge in two words:crack civilization 4 no dvd

Be honest.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Doesn't that pretty much cover it? crack civilization 4 no dvd

Still, I'm not sure I want to go signing any pledges. Signing a pledge doesn't make me more trustworthy or more accurate or more decent or more ethical. Either you trust me or you don't. That's up to you and it's based either on my abilities or your fairness. Pledges are not the measure of honesty. Codes are not the measure of ethics. Actions are.crack civilization 4 no dvd

I'm just not a pledge kind of guy. I'm not a joiner. Guess that's why I am a blogger. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Declassified

: We are seeing signs of the new distributed world of classified ads:crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Lost Remote reports that Monster is now providing jobs to TV sites from ABC and Worldnow. Except for a brief time in the boom when I heard job ads on radio, classifieds have never been right for broadcast because it's, well, broad; it's more expensive and inefficient than newspapers. But once broadcast brands came online, they could start snarfing up some of the classified marketshare they've long lusted after. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Scott Anderson points to a Bambi Francisco column arguing that the big news from Google won't be a new PayPal but will be an entry into classifieds:

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that if Google really wanted to get at the heart of eBay's business, it would simply turn on a classifieds or listings business.crack civilization 4 no dvd

After all, it wouldn't be a big leap for Google to let users list an item for sale much as they post an advertisement....crack civilization 4 no dvd

By a listings or classifieds service, I mean listings by individuals of their one-off items, or listings of items from small or medium sized merchants. I don't believe it matters if Google chooses not to get into auctions. EBay would still feel the pain from a Google listings business in a fixed-price format. That's because 30% of eBay's gross merchandise sales are done in fixed-price formats....crack civilization 4 no dvd

A classified/listings business would also be a smart and easy way to fill up Google's Local search-results pages with advertisements from local merchants, and listings of goods from residents. For now, Google's Local page says, "Find local businesses and services on the Web." It would be easy to add a line saying: "place your items for sale here."

I'm not sure she has that exactly right but I do think that if it can target, Google will grab local retail and merchandise advertising and compete not only with eBay but with papers' sites. And then others will come along and compete with Google in an ever-more-efficient (and thus, ever-less lucrative) market. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I've said here before that the future of classified is decentralized and distributed. What we're seeing happen in content today -- as it spreads out like dandelion seeds in the wind -- will come to classifieds. How anybody makes money -- or at least, as much money as they used to -- in such a new, declassified world, I'm not sure. But I do believe tat the future is distributed. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: YET MORE: More on the distributed future: eBay is finding people establishing businesses on its platform and then leaving because they can do better on their own. Middlemen are falling like flies. The WSJ reports (not a free link):

In 2002, John Wieber started worrying about his business, which sold refurbished computers through Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. Although he was earning $1 million a year in revenue, profits had started to slip as competitors flocked to the site. EBay also raised its fees, further cutting margins, and fraud was becoming a problem.crack civilization 4 no dvd

So Mr. Wieber revamped his Web site and began selling through other online companies, such as Amazon.com Inc. and Yahoo Inc. Last year, his sales neared $5 million, but his eBay revenue grew at a much slower pace, making up only a quarter of the total. ...crack civilization 4 no dvd

EBay, with more than 147 million users world-wide, has long been regarded as the dot-com survivor that could do no wrong. Mr. Wieber's story shows why the company may be losing some of that luster. Setting up an online store is so easy these days that sellers needn't rely on eBay as a source of customers. Advertising is simple and inexpensive, thanks to new technology from companies such as Google Inc. And multiple competitors, including Amazon and Yahoo, are pulling once-loyal eBay sellers into their orbit.

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June 21, 2005

Dell lies. Dell sucks

: I just got a new Dell laptop and paid a fortune for the four-year, in-home service. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The machine is a lemon and the service is a lie. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I'm having all kinds of trouble with the hardware: overheats, network doesn't work, maxes out on CPU usage. It's a lemon. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But what really irks me is that they say if they sent someone to my home -- which I paid for -- he wouldn't have the parts, so I might as well just send the machine in and lose it for 7-10 days -- plus the time going through this crap. So I have this new machine and paid for them to FUCKING FIX IT IN MY HOUSE and they don't and I lose it for two weeks. crack civilization 4 no dvd

DELL SUCKS. DELL LIES. Put that in your Google and smoke it, Dell. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Rah Rah

: Well, the new AOL on the web can't be totally without redeeming value. It's there that I found a professional cheerleaders' blog. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And I shouldn't be surprised they'd find that for under the search box on the new page, they list most popular searches and no. 3 is "bikinis."crack civilization 4 no dvd

: The AOL public site is now up at aol.com. I'm aggressively underwhelmed. As someone said this morning (and I got permission to steal his line): "It's so 1998. It's so Excite."crack civilization 4 no dvd

: UPDATE: I am now told that I didn't link to the new-new public AOL.com. Click on the beta link on the left column. I remain underwhelmed; it's prettier but not revolutionary. But I'll play with it. I showed it to the same guy I showed it to this morning and he ruled, "It's so MSN."crack civilization 4 no dvd

The rumor is true: They are following Yahoo into having an RSS reader. This is a screenshot of the page.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Wiki cooties and the death of editorials

: Well now the LA Times has given wikis cooties. The New York Times and other media outlets have covered the collapse of its wikitorial project and I've heard more than one old-media person say, well, I see LA tried wikis and it's dangerous. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But no. This is like hearing Kathie Lee Gifford try to rap and then, upon hearing the results, declaring hip hop dead. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The LA Times didn't understand what it was doing and made three criticial mistakes:crack civilization 4 no dvd

1. Collaboration vs. argument -- I said this from the start: They didn't get that wikis are a collaborative medium where, even when people disagree, they try to find common ground, knowing there can be only one outcome, or else the wiki will, by its very nature, fail. This is why I suggested having two wikis, instead -- one pro, one con and let the best wiki win -- and Jimbo Wales was starting to do that... but the trolls took over the forest first. crack civilization 4 no dvd

2. Care and feeding -- All communities need attention. The Times should have gone to Jimbo and, he said today, he would have had a few good Wikipedians watch over their foray. You don't build a town without cops. You don't build a community site -- a town online -- without a clean-up crew, either. He also would have explained how to use wikis, since he knows. But the paper thought they knew best and this leads to be biggest mistake:crack civilization 4 no dvd

3. Newspaper ego -- Here is the Times' worst mistake and its most predictable: They think everything is about them. I've sat in meetings with newspaper editors who earnestly think that the best use of internet interactivity is to let the people talk about what they have written, to discuss them, to keep them in the spotlight they built for themselves. There is no bigger institutional ego than a newspaper's. Presidents and popes get humbled more often than editors. Well, at least they used to.crack civilization 4 no dvd

No, guys, the best use of a wiki would have been to have the public create wikis to share their knowledge and viewpoints with you. I don't know what the big issues are in LA, but here in New York, it might work better just to open the gates to watch people create pro and con wikis on the Olympics and a new Manhattan stadium and 10 ways to improve the schools....crack civilization 4 no dvd

But even that is an exhibition of media ego. For the truth is, if people wanted to do that, they could go to any number of places and do it on their own. They don't need newspapers to give them technology. And they certainly do not need newspapers to tell them what to talk about. crack civilization 4 no dvd

If newspapers would just listen -- and use this techology to do that -- they'd find that the people don't want to talk about what the editors talk about. And they certainly don't want to talk about the editors. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Let's take it up a notch:crack civilization 4 no dvd

What this really points toward is the death of the editorial page. Why the hell do we need editorials anymore? In their day, they were the voice -- the bully pulpit, as Rupert Murdoch says -- of one person: the publisher, the guy who had the ultimate conch, the printing press. We, the people, never said we gave a damn what he thought, but we had no choice but to listen. And so over the years, he convinced himself that we cared. What if we don't?crack civilization 4 no dvd

The truth is that an editorial is just another blog post written by one person witih one viewpoint. Here's a case where you can't argue that it makes a difference having a journalism degree and a newsroom. Editorialists and columnists get to read the same stuff we do and they put on their pants and opinions just the way we do. So why should they have rights to the mountaintop? Who died and made them Moses? Let the people speak. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Look at this vision for a newspaper of the future and how opinions work from the blogger at Reasons Unbeknownst:

A successful newspaper of the future is going to have a bigger op-ed section filled with the latest, highest ranked opinions found on Blogdex.net. Maybe the entire paper version of the paper goes op-ed. Why print real news if it’s just going to be outdated and lack animations and videos compared to the web? Internet aggregation on paper. Mmmm, just had a business idea.
Right. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And so, in the end, the newspaper becomes a wiki. And it's not wikis that have cooties. It's newspaper editorials. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: See also Ernie Miller:

Reporting that the wiki has been shut down is the easy part. Letting people know whether the experiment was otherwise successful is the hard part, and no one in the traditional press seems eager to confront it....crack civilization 4 no dvd

It is bad enough that many in the traditional media don't understand how wikis can succeed - they can be exceedingly useful and productive. It'll be worse if they don't understand how wikis can fail.

: AND: Let me be clear: I hope the LA Times gets back on the bike and rides again. I salute them for the effort; the heart is in the right place. But I would hate to see one misstep cancel the race ... for the LA Times and for other newspapers, all of whom need to learn how to listen. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: I didn't see the LA Time story today on my first search. They say they might restart it:

But managers of the newspaper's editorial and Internet operations, which have undergone a number of changes in recent months, said they might attempt to resurrect online editorials written collectively by readers.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"As long as we can hit a high standard and have no risk of vandalism, then it is worth having a try at it again," said Rob Barrett, general manager of Los Angeles Times Interactive....crack civilization 4 no dvd

Although marred by some profanity by contributors, the experiment got off to a fairly high-minded start, said Michael Newman, deputy editor of the editorial page, who proposed the wikitorial idea. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Voluntarily overseeing part of the discussion was Wikipedia founder Jim Wales, who soon encouraged "forking" the editorial into two pieces — one taking a pointed anti-war stance and the other arguing for the ongoing U.S. presence in Iraq.crack civilization 4 no dvd

After midnight Saturday, Newman said, he stopped monitoring the site for the night, and later the pornographic images began to pour in.

It appears that part of the problem is that an editor was monitoring the site and had to sleep. He needs help. At Advance, my last job, we put together a network of forum cops who responded to alerts from readers when something bad went up. Note two important elements: First, you have to give the readers the tools to report problems. Second, you have to make sure someone responds to the alarm. If you respond, this will work and the people will snitch for you; if you do not respond and they are calling a 911 line that never answers, then it will turn into -- as this did -- outtakes from Caligula. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And here's Joe Gandelman's take.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The sound of trees clapping

: My friend Dave Morgan, head of Tacoda, writes a devasting analysis of the quicksand newspapers are in. crack civilization 4 no dvd

He begins saying that newspapers are not only losing tremendous classified ad volume to the likes of Craig but, more importantly, are also control of their rate card: That is, without a monopoly, they can't control prices anymore. This, he says, is what used to happen to the second paper in towns, when there were second papers. But now the surviving papers are second to the internet:

But unfortunately for newspapers, these Internet companies are presenting a competitive profile that is much more threatening than just having another local newspaper to contend with. Google et al. have dramatically lower cost structures. They have larger and more attractive audiences. Their pricing models are more advertiser-friendly--selling qualified leads, not just space. And, they have nicer dispositions.crack civilization 4 no dvd

This dynamic, as it accelerates, will present a serious threat to the viability of a number of newspapers. Given the enormous cost structures attendant to newspaper publishing, from buying newsprint and operating printing presses to paying the salaries of editors and reporters, these companies can sustain price destruction for only so long....crack civilization 4 no dvd

This means that local ad pricing will drop, and competitively driven pricing schemes, like performance-based pricing and auction-based sales, will take hold. Most likely, this means that newspapers' revenue from their current advertisers and ad products will drop... precipitously. This means trouble, because while revenue from existing operations will likely be cut, there is almost no way to make comparable cuts in cost structures. Too much of newspapers' cost structures are fixed.

Will newspapers die? Morgan hopes that it doesn't take dead dead-paper to wake up the news business as the ends of Eastern and Pan Am woke up airlines... and look how healthy they are today. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: A few of my earlier posts on the need for new business models for news here, here, here, here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 20, 2005

I, reporter

: Amy Gahran says she's starting a site on citizen journalism called I, Reporter. crack civilization 4 no dvd

All this to kill a tree

: David Weinberger tells you about the agonizing process of selling a book. Happy ending: It's sold (to Jay Rosen's editor, by the way). Can't wait to read it. So get writing, Weinberger. crack civilization 4 no dvd

wtc0620.gif

Not here

: A coalition of 9/11 families' groups held a press conference at the World Trade Center today to call for exactly what I hoped they would when I spoke with Debra Burlingame last week: Do not build the International Freedom Center here. Do not distract from the 9/11 memorial and bring politics and polemics to this place. Let the memorial speak for itself. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I went into the city to attend the event. As I got there, Debra and other organizers were strategizing about the Port Authority, which had tried to move the group off World Trade Center property under the argument that the PA does not allow PA systems on its land. In other words, it doesn't allow speech. Now that's a fine lesson for an International Freedom Center, isn't it. But the leaders decided that they would go ahead -- let them kick us off in front of the TV cameras, a few said -- and Debra brought out a small, portable speaker and microphone from her purse. She's amazing. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The families, always with the pictures of their lost loved ones, began changing: "9/11 memorial only" and "take back the memorial." And then a few family members spoke. crack civilization 4 no dvd

One appealed to the American people to join with them and take back the memorial. Anther said that lessons of a freedom center would be fine, "but not here, not on sacred ground." crack civilization 4 no dvd

"Nobody is coming to this place to learn about Ukranian democracy and be inspired by the courage of Tibetan monks," he said. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Another spoke for many when he said that the remains of his family member were never found. "We have no place to go," he said, "we have no place to grieve" -- other than this place. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The sister of a firefighter pointed to her 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter and asked whether the lesson of what is to be built at the World Trade Center will be that "9/11 is something to be ashamed of."crack civilization 4 no dvd

"We will make sure this site is not violated a second, time," she said. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Another warned that the Freedom Center will make the site a "magnet for protesters."crack civilization 4 no dvd

"The IFC msut go elsewhere," he said. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Edie Lutnick, sister of the head of Cantor Fitzgerald and of one of the victims of 9/11, said she was not comfortable speaking and the first time she did so was at her brother's funeral. But she was most eloquent here, thanking Americans for their shows of support -- their children's letters, their flags, their quilts -- and said this was not the families' tragedy but our tragedy. crack civilization 4 no dvd

"Now we have another tragedy -- forgetfulness. 9/11 is being buried underground."crack civilization 4 no dvd

The event did what it was supposed to do: It brought out the press and made the International Freedom Center an issue. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: On the way back home, I heard Mayor Bloomberg dismiss the concerns expressed there. Tonedeaf, that man is tonedeaf.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: The New York Post today:

Burlingame, a director of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, specifically charged that Tofel and others are planning to host exhibits at Ground Zero devoted to such wholly off-topic issues as the alleged "genocide" of Americans Indians, the fight against slavery, the Holocaust and the Soviet Gulag.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Worthy subjects for study, each and every one — but not at Ground Zero.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Tofel, for his part, insists that the controversy is all about nothing.crack civilization 4 no dvd

But when Cavuto asked, specifically, whether the museum would feature "atrocities Americans have committed," Tofel repeatedly refused a direct answer.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"Atrocities is such a loaded word," he stammered, the weasel.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Tofel needed to say — unequivocally — that the museum will not impugn or disparage America in any way, shape, form or manner.crack civilization 4 no dvd

End of discussion.crack civilization 4 no dvd

But that probably would have been a lie. In fact, the IFC seems destined precisely to become a multimillion-dollar bash-America palace.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Real Americans, after all, have no trouble recalling that Ground Zero is the site of an unspeakable atrocity committed against them. They'll wonder by what perverted logic is it appropriate to use the spot to dredge up shameful, painful episodes in American history that have nothing to do with 9/11.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Yet that is transparently Tofel's plan.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Slavery in America, for example, "probably" would be focused on, he said, because a key goal is to "inspire an end to hatred, ignorance and intolerance."crack civilization 4 no dvd

Let's be clear: America did nothing to deserve 9/11. Indeed, the fanatics — infused with "hatred, ignorance and intolerance — targeted the United States precisely because it stands as a monument to freedom and the material prosperity it produces.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The Islamists hate freedom because it threatens their power and underscores their failures.crack civilization 4 no dvd

And they hate material prosperity because it has eluded their culture; thus they must deny it to everyone.crack civilization 4 no dvd

So destroying the iconic evidence of the fruits of U.S. freedom — the Twin Towers — was vital to sustaining their credibility.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Which is why it would be outrageous for the IFC to entertain even the possibility that America somehow deserved what it got on 9/11. And yet that seems to be exactly what is going on.

:Sign the Take Back the Memorial petition here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Saving public broadcasting

: I have a humble suggestion for how to save public broadcasting: crack civilization 4 no dvd

Make it truly public broadcasting, supported by its public instead of by government. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The hooha going on over the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is precisely the danger of taking government money: It's taking political money. It is a worse compromise than taking advertisers' money, for advertisers' agendas are clear -- selling things, making money -- while politicians' agendas are far more slippery. So I say it's time to take the bull by the horns:crack civilization 4 no dvd

1. Get Howard Dean's fundraising geniuses to get out a bat and start a combative fundraising campaign: For every dollar the politicians try to cut, you vow to raise two dollars (as when, in the Dean blog, every troll attack brought in more contributions). crack civilization 4 no dvd

2. Use that money to underwrite just the kinds of programs the conservative opponents of public broadcasting will hate most: Alan Alda narrating a five-part series on the wonders of stem-cell research.... Sex education, the series.... Probing televangelists.... An investigation of America's health-care crisis....crack civilization 4 no dvd

3. Get celebrities signed up. Guarantees free publicity. Might even get you in their wills.crack civilization 4 no dvd

4. Send the stars -- and Jesse Jackson -- into companies to get them to pay up, concentrating on the companies of new media that are upsetting the old. Hey, Google, if you're getting into the news business, why not start supporting the content you so love to link to? Hey, Apple, if you really want to support education, pay for Sesame Street? Hey, Bill Gates, if you want to improve public health, throw some money to PBS for an informative series on AIDS? Yahoo, you want content for online, why not underwrite a broadcast series and tie it to online presentation? crack civilization 4 no dvd

5. As the money is raised, get PBS supporters in Congress to go along with the cuts in CBP budgeting on one condition: Every dollar that leaves public broadcasting goes into education. crack civilization 4 no dvd

In addition, PBS especially needs to get smarter about new media. Follow the BBC's example and start putting all programming up online for free distribution (with underwrwiters' and pledge messages included): If your mission is to serve the public, then serve them where and how they want to be served. And:crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Involve the public more in the creation of programming. I won't replay that sermon here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Reexamine the mission of public broadcasting in an era when the public can broadcast.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Reexamine the mission of public broadcasting and when cable provides so much more value, like historical and educational programming (and I'm sorry that 11 percent of the country don't get TV via cable but, hey, crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Here's the tough one: Try to raise money based on quality programming, not on John Tesh specials. Get rid of those named touchy-feely cultish self-improvement bullshit shows. Have some pride in quality again. crack civilization 4 no dvd

This is the long-term strategy public broadcasting must follow if it is going to avoid complete politicization. Yes, we can argue that it's a shame that the government does not support public broadcasting. But taking money from politicians gets you politics. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: AMEN: See Doc Searls.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Ernie Miller says:

We really should reexamine the mission of public broadcasting, not only in the context of cable, but in the context of the internet and the coming of broadcatching. Perhaps we may want to figure out how to democratize distribution, rather than subsidize flawed distribution schemes.
crack civilization 4 no dvd

Blog anything

: The irrepressible Marc Canter proposes a universal blog-this button at reblg.com. If I'm getting this right, he will create a routing system that will send any post's permalink to any blogging tool (and, I assume, the same could work for subscribing to any RSS feed via any RSS reader... something we need). Marc's email announcement:

With ReBlog.com end-users will be able to click on a ‘ReBlog’ button and send a piece of micro-content or microformat to their favorite tool for editing, annotating or just plain prettying up. End-users would specify what is their favorite tool at a simple web service or in a MIME handler that they downloaded and run on their own machine.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Even though it’s been possible for years, most of today’s aggregators and tools do not support the notion of displaying a button to easily allow end-users to “Blog This” particular post or article. Sure some aggregators enable plug-ins to kludge this option, but in general most bloggers are forced to ‘cut’ the source of a post and ‘paste’ it into their favorite tool. With each tool or environment comes a different kludge or hack, with its own rules and gotchas to contend with....crack civilization 4 no dvd

ReBlg.org would enable end-users to register their favorite tool of choice so that wherever they traveled on the web, by simply clicking on the ‘ReBlg’ button – they could easily send that post to their favorite tool. If the end-user doesn’t want to rely upon our web service, then they can simply download a MIME handler to do that routing for them.

crack civilization 4 no dvd

Take a memo

: I haven't written about the Downing Street memo because to me it's such nonnews: Of course Bush had decided to invade Iraq long before he said so. No one is surprised by that. The scandal here is not that he invaded Iraq -- a policy decision about which reasonable and unreasonable people can disagree -- or that he was determined to do so as soon as he took office -- what politician doesn't have hidden agendas? -- but that he did such a bad job selling it before and after the fact. crack civilization 4 no dvd

It is a scandal of bad PR. And apart from outright theft, aren't all political scandals about that: transparency, not telling the truth, trying to game the people, trying to treat us as if we're dumb enough to buy the spin?crack civilization 4 no dvd

I said from the start that WMDs were the wrong justifcation and a dangerous one at that: What happens when we don't find them? Well, now we know what happens. And the truth is that WMDs were never the real justification. Everyone knows that. So Bush would have been in a stronger position if he'd just told the truth:crack civilization 4 no dvd

1. He should have said that he needed to finish his dad's job (and clean up his mess) and get rid of the tyrant we let stay in power to murder his own people. This is the humanitarian -- yes, liberal -- justification for war that is harder to argue against, harder to undercut. crack civilization 4 no dvd

2. After 9/11, he should have said he'd follow the Tom Friedman doctrine (and blame him for it): We have to find a foothold for democracy in the Middle East and why not Iraq? crack civilization 4 no dvd

3. He should have said that we were going to engage terrorists on their turf instead of ours. That's not to say that the 9/11 terrorists were connected to Iraq, but in the Middle East, you turn over any rock and you'll find terrorists underneath. That has been the real truth of the Iraq war: Coming there to fight us and bomb Iraqis is a regular terrorist tourist industry. crack civilization 4 no dvd

4. When we took Baghdad, he should have gone on that aircraft carrier not to declare victory but instead to warn of the long, hard, dangerous, costly war ahead. The war wasn't over. it was just beginning. He should have managed expectations. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But he did none of that. It is a scandal of bad PR. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: SEE ALSO: Jay Rosen on big news now living by the rhythm of the people's news.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: JEESH: I am amazed sometimes how literal one has to be in the blogosphere. Yes, I said bad PR. It's a wry way to say he lied -- yes, indeed, he wanted to invade Iraq from the first and we all knew it -- and he would have been better off if he had told the truth. There, is that clear enough?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Do not build it

: Reminder: Today, a coalition of groups are holding a press conference at the World Trade Center at noon to urge that the so-called International Freedom Center not be built. I've seen coverage on WABC TV in New York. My post on this here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 19, 2005

Something new

: Dave Winer is working on an OPML editor. Frankly, I'm not smart enough to figure out exactly what it is or what it means. But when Dave is digging in like this, you can bet there's a truffle to be found. His explanation:

So you can use the OPML Editor to open and edit subscription
lists for all the major feed readers and aggregators, tune them up, merge
them and split them, publish and share them. Finally, there's a rational way
to edit the subscription lists.crack civilization 4 no dvd

OPML has also become the standard format for the podcasting directories. All
the nodes in the community directory are edited in OPML, many of them by
hand. Now there's a tool that's designed for exactly this purpose.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The OPML Editor is good for all kinds of lists, directories, project
planning, designs. The tool can be used by professionals and managers,
doctors, professors, lawyers, accountants, writers -- basically anyone who
thinks for a living.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Another way of looking at it -- RSS is great for news, but not everything is
news, some things, like the distance between the Earth and the Sun, or the
elements of the periodic table, don't change. Or change slowly, like the
teams in major league baseball, or the top home run hitters. For information
like that, knowledge, representing the relationships between nuggets is
what's important, and that's where outliners like the OPML Editor, that's
now in beta, excel.

crack civilization 4 no dvd

Open ads

: In the discussion about sell-side advertising -- ads selected by publishers, who know best what will perform on their sites -- I pushed a few further notions, including (a) open-source ad calls to allow ad-hoc networks to be put together by any marketer anytime involving any publisher, (b) transparent targeting, allowing the consumer to save the advertiser bucks by telling him not to bother selling him something he doesn't need, and (c) open creative, arguing that consumers can create better messages to sell products. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Here is OpenAd.net, a marketplace that at least allows marketers and creatives to pitch needs and ideas to each other. I'm not sure how it works but Trendblog writes it up here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Wikitorial redux

: The LA Times wikitorial says it is "closed" now and I see no way to get in to see the latest version or the history. No explanation: Just closed. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Hope I didn't help break it. I said that having both sides of an issue fight it out over the same text just wouldn't work in a wiki. Wikis are about collaboration; you may disagree with your fellows but the mutual goal is clear. A wikitorial is bound to turn into a tug-of-war.crack civilization 4 no dvd

So I suggested in a listserv discussion of it that there should be two wiki versions of the editorial: one for proponents of the editorial's stand, one for opponents; let them put their best stuff forward and may the best side win. It seemed to be that this would be like an Oxford debate, brought to software. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Wikigod Jimbo Wales replied in the listserv on Friday: "I changed it to this earlier today. I'm not sure the LA Times wants me setting policy for their site, but it is a wiki after all, and what was there made no sense."crack civilization 4 no dvd

I went today to see what was happening and find it closed. Drat. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: See Tim Windsor's link in the comments explaining what happened. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: See Chris Anderson's reassessment of the experiment.
crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 18, 2005

Tag optimization

: Today there is an industry devoted not just to search engines but also to search-engine optimization. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Jenny the librarian points to a post that makes me believe that tag optimization will be the next big thing in distribution and marketing of content: Googlejuice meets Del.icio.usjuice. Kevin Hale at Particletree writes in an article that extols the data virtues of RSS because it's free of spam and design and other distractions for search engines:

I don’t think Google really feels threatened (or has ever felt threatened) by portal strategy. I think what they’re afraid of is the rise of applications that seem to be tracking importance and trends better than search. In the race to find what deserves face-time, services like Del.icio.us, Technorati and Digg.com in combination with the rapid adoption of web apps like bloglines, newsgator, feedster and kinja are making Google’s search seem very, very slow. And it’s all being accomplished with RSS technology.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Google vs. Del.icio.us
Let me give a concrete example based on our experiences here at Particletree. When we launched this site, we knew that the tutorials and information we were gathering and creating were good—that they would be somewhat valuable to the web development community. The problem was that we didn’t want this useful, time-sensitive information to sit around for days (or even weeks) waiting to be picked up by search bots and then found by people accidentally or when they were desperate for a solution.crack civilization 4 no dvd

So I proposed that we turned to Del.icio.us to expand our readership. Every time something went up on the site that I felt would be good enough for a wider audience, I added it to my Del.icio.us account with the appropriate tags and descriptions. Our goal was to try and get a feature on del.icio.us/popular by the end of July and to our surprise, we accomplished it in less than a week. After two weeks of diligent posting and tagging, Google gave us a little over 50 referrals while Del.icio.us gave us over 700.crack civilization 4 no dvd

I think the reason Del.icio.us is so successful at bringing the appropriate audience to good material is because they track the changing web by using people to calculate what is essentially “page rank.” They get access to decent fuzzy logic for a fraction of the cost and the democracy of the system allows anyone to get their idea of what deserves face-time into the system almost immediately.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Basically, tagging systems are wonderful breeding grounds for the principles contained in Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. They do a great job of gathering Salesmen, Mavens and Connectors all in one place. Mavens stalk the new entries on the front page and certain tag pages to filter through the chaos and find the latest treasures. The RSS feeds act as a sort of technological bridge/pseudo-connector to get the information to the real Connectors and Salesman. From what I’ve noticed, a good idea can make it into del.icio.us/popular in about 5 days, a good Salesman/Connector/Maven like Dave Shea or Jeffrey Veen can get a good idea into del.icio.us/popular in less than two hours.

He also predicts that RSS AdSense will be Google's next pot o' gold. crack civilization 4 no dvd
June 17, 2005

Full circle

: Steve Silver informs me that Entertainment Weekly now has a blog. Jeesh, for creating the mag, you'd think I could at least get on the blogroll....crack civilization 4 no dvd

A cause

: Tom Watson has been leading the cause for Mukhtaran Bibi, victim of a tribal council gang rape in Pakistan. He has all the background and the latest. The news that she is free to travel is misleading; she has no passport. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Cookie monster

: I like cookies. Cookies are good. Cookies are our friends.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Cookies remember my passwords, because I can't. Cookies remember which ads I've suffered through so I don't have to suffer through them again. Cookies can target content and ads to what I want. Most important, cookies allow sites to more accurately count their audience and traffic so advertisers can pay them to support those sites I like. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I am a cookie monster. I firmly believe we need more cookies. We need cookies on blogs so we, too, can make that money and support this medium. We need cookies on RSS so we can count that audience, too (everybody's linking to TLB ecosystem traffic counts but the truth is that they're pretty meaningless because they don't include RSS readership -- I'm now serving four times more RSS than HTML -- because RSS isn't cookied). crack civilization 4 no dvd

But there is an idiotic belief in some quarters that cookies are bad because they somehow impinge on our privacy -- when, in fact, I dare anyone to say how a content site's simple traffic-tracking cookie violates your privacy in any meaningful way. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Privacy is the boogeyword of the age. It is tech's version of politically correct idiocy. All you have to do is invoke the spectre of "privacy" against someone and they're assumed to be evil. It's a particularly comical form of nerd McCarthyism: I have in my hand a list of cookies! crack civilization 4 no dvd

All this is leading to stupid moves that hurt the internet: its convenience, its revenue, its business. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Spyware programs massacre cookies (and with them, your passwords and other helpful bits). Firefox kills cookies on some regular basis. Cookies aren't being built into new programs that matter, like RSS readers.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The result for publishers is that they can no longer accurately count their audience for advertisers, to support their work: At my old day job, we saw what looked like a rise in audience but in fact was a rise in cookie murders, making old friends look like new audience. Ad agencies will catch up to this and use it to devalue our new medium (which is already horribly devalued against overpriced old, mass, untargeted media). crack civilization 4 no dvd

So the media and marketing industries have decided to fight back. They started Safecount.org. I'm not a member and didn't know it was starting up but Fred Wilson told me about it and I will sign up. See Fred's anti-anti-cookie screed here. And here's a Wall Street Journal story about the effort (free link). crack civilization 4 no dvd

It's time to take the cooties off of cookies!crack civilization 4 no dvd

Blog biz

: Congrats to John Battelle for closing his first round of financing for blogco FM Publishing. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 16, 2005

Bloggers at the bar

: Heather Green at Business Week says that if the Times/Time source case goes before the Supreme Court, it could affect bloggers because attorney Floyd Abrams, representing the reporters, said on TV recently:

I think a blogger ought to be protected also. It seems to me that the purpose of this privilege is to protect the people who play a function in American life. It's not to protect reporters as such. It's to protect people who gather information and disseminate it on a widespread basis to the public.
Journalists are citizens and citizens are journalists. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Used (and abused?)

: Jonah Peretti at Eyebeam ran another brilliant experiment in contagious media and Marc Glaser has all the details about how Forget-Me-Not Panties, Crying While Eating, and Blogebrity racked up traffic, links, and publicity in a timed contest. Great stuff and most entertaining. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But be honest: Sometimes, once you find out that these things are hoaxes, don't you feel duped and used? crack civilization 4 no dvd

In the case of Blogebrity, the straight lines were neon-obvious. And that's why I didn't link to it (and didn't get duped by it): I didn't want to be used. The poor fools in the press who reported on it as if it were real -- and the readers who believed them -- surely felt used and abused. crack civilization 4 no dvd

So I'm wondering, just wondering: What's the line between a joke, a hoax, and a lie? What's the line between a contagious media experiment and a phoney phone call? Does it matter? Is there an ethnical responsibility to duping people and duping the press and affecting the credibility of a reporter or a publication or an entire medium: the internet? Or is this a nonfret?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Of course, half the responsibility for getting a joke lies with the jokester and the other half rests with the audience. Some poor souls are just born humorless. A few weeks ago, Howard Stern had on his Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator vowing to blow up the moon to end PMS and idiots in a British paper and an American cable show reported this, even huffily editorialized about it, as if it were news. It was a joke. Any fool could see that. Well, most any. crack civilization 4 no dvd

So what's the difference between that and a phoney phone caller who gets himself onto a news show in a crisis by impersonating a county official with news on a crime? crack civilization 4 no dvd

Motive matters, I think. The Schwarzenegger bit was a joke those shlubs didn't get. The phoney phone call was meant to deceive and succeeded with news schlubs. Is there a difference? Is one meant to amuse and one meant to humiliate? Does that matter?crack civilization 4 no dvd

And where does a contagious media experiment fall on that scale? If it's just a joke, it's just a joke and it's up to the beholder to figure that out. But this experiment, in particular, was designed to get links and attention. Does that mean it was mean to deceive or that it was just a damned good joke?crack civilization 4 no dvd

I really don't know my own answer to these questions. I think they're worth asking just because some serious souls use these episodes to question the credibility of the press or the good will of the people. Or maybe they're just being too serious. Maybe it's time to go get a drink.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: LATER: Yes, break out the beer. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I wrote that and then I read Stacy Shiff's column in The Times yesterday wringing hands about the state of truth.

More than 60 percent of the American people don't trust the press. Why should they? They've been reading "The Da Vinci Code" and marveling at its historical insights.
Well, that itself is a ridiculous stretching of truth. One has nothing to do with the other except that Shiff doesn't trust the sense of the public. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The eternal truth is that truth is in the eye of the beholder. It's up to each of us to judge whether we will believe a newspaper or a hoaxter or a novelist or a columnist or a blogger. It's up to them to maintain the credibility in the face of doubt and punchlines. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Still, if I had been taken in by Blogebrity, I would have felt used and abused. I suppose because I didn't, I'm supposed to feel smart. But I only feel lucky. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Iran

: Iran's "election" day is upon us and I'd like to point you to two blogs:crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Hoder continues to report from Tehran with his savvy perspective.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And go read Blue Bird Escape. This is a blog by a remarkable young Iranian-American woman whom I first came across a few years ago, when she returned to Iran after moving to America. She returned to her homeland filled with hope and memories but discovered once she got there that she could not see the country the same way, once she knew freedom. Her blog told that with eloquent but unvarnished honesty. Today, on the eve of the election, she writes:

Iran was always a great country in my childhood eyes. I left Iran at the age of 11. It was not until I went back to Iran at 15 that I saw with my own eyes what Iran didn’t have. There was no democracy. Walking on the streets of Tehran brought back so many memories, but I couldn’t imagine myself walking those streets for the rest of my life. It was nothing compared to walking outside on a street in Virginia or anywhere else in the U.S. I felt guilty as I watched people because I knew I was free and they were not.
Another election has arrived for Iran and I am thinking…are they really going to get what they deserve? Are they really going to get their freedom, their democracy? What can I do for them? The only thing I can do, as I am sitting here, on my comfortable bed, reading a magazine on Hollywood gossip, while Iranian women are protesting for equal rights, is to vote....
crack civilization 4 no dvd

Do not build it and they will not come

: A coalition dedicated to not building the International Freedom Center is calling a rally and press conference at noon Monday at the World Trade Center, details here. My plea to not build the center here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Cavuto took up the cause on FoxNews; video here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

A mass of class

: The BBC is wowed at 650,000 Beethovan downloads in a week. Repeat after me: John Stewart on Crossfire got 150,000 viewers on CNN but likely more than 10 million downloads. What's more powerful: The networks that Time Warner and the BBC own or the networks no one owns? Obvious lesson to all broadcasters: Let there be downloads. All the folks who are bragging about their streams would be blown away by floods of downloads. Distribution is so yesterday. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Distribution is so yesterday

: Amazon is producing and airing a concert with Nora Jones, Bill Maher, and Bob Dylan for its 10th anniversary. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I'll just bet this marks the start of Amazon 2.0: the content company. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Amazon was in the distribution business and it did a great job of finding new efficiencies and market shares and customer needs in it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But distribution has been dethroned as a business. Owning the broadcast tower still makes you money -- but as your audience departs for limitless new competition, it won't grow. Owning a cable franchise is a great monopoly -- but growth is there mostly because you can sell new services, broadband and VOIP, and before you know it, you'll be nothing but the pipe: the next telco. Owning a monopoly newspaper used to be a great business -- until more efficient marketplaces replaced yours and your presses and trucks and Teamsters suddenly looked not like a strength but like a cost. When I went to work for the Newhouses, I got excited at the prospect of working with Random House, which they then owned, but my boss wisely told me it wasn't what a thought -- "it's just a distribution business," he said.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Amazon was in the distribution business. But now it has relationships with millions of customers and a network of sales people -- that is, its own customers writing reviews and creating valuable data about likes and dislikes. Now it has a brand that is trusted for content. Now it can enter the content business. Why not produce a show or a book directly for Amazon and sell it there? Why not turn Amazon into a powerhouse of advertising targeted to both content and consumer? crack civilization 4 no dvd

When that concert is performed, I'll be watching the Amazon Channel. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Ernie Miller says it's not a channel. He's right. In fact, I put this the wrong way: Amazon isn't a content company, then, producing content itself. Amazon is not a network. But Amazon is a networking company, putting together buyers and sellers, readers and writers (and vice versa). So what I meant to say is that sometime soon, someone will chose to publish via Amazon directly to the public and skip the middleman formerly known as the publisher. That makes Amazon merely a conduit. One could say that it's about distribution but in the case of digital content, the distribution is meaningless. It's just a place that helps A find B. It's a maven. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Share the knowledge

: The BBC has put up a comprehensive and free course in shooting better video (see Journalism.co.uk for more). crack civilization 4 no dvd

How smart of them. This is what the future of news is about: sharing. crack civilization 4 no dvd

By teaching those who care to learn, the BBC is building an army of news-gatherers in the world. One of them could be there when the huge story happens. One of them will be inspired to go out and report a story. And that video will end up on the air -- on the BBC or on the internet or elsewhere -- and we're all better informed. crack civilization 4 no dvd

You could argue that the BBC, which has also talked about starting a journalism school for citizen reporters, can do this because it has a different mission than a commercial network: It is supported by license fees to inform the public, period (which would make you think, by the way, that NPR, PRI, and PBS should be doing exactly the same thing here). crack civilization 4 no dvd

But I'll argue that the wise commercial station -- and newspaper -- should be doing this, too, because it will produce more news and improve the reporting of that news reporting at a lower cost, while also taking down the barriers that have been built up between the press and its public. It's good journalism. It's good citizenship. And it's good business. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 15, 2005

Is real estate real?

: Over at On The Media, Bob Garfield interviewed Daniel Gross about the purported real-state bubble. I have two quibbles:crack civilization 4 no dvd

First, Gross says (and Romenesko quotes) that real-estate editors won't say bad things about real estate as if this is new:

Garfield: ... At the risk of tossing you a softball, Dan, gee, why aren't these stories on the real estate pages? crack civilization 4 no dvd

GROSS: Whether it's subconscious or conscious on the part of the editors who run those sections, it doesn't behoove you to speak ill of the product that your section is there to sell....

Uh, except, guys, in most newspapers the real estate "editor" isn't an editor at all. Most real-estate sections -- like most jobs and autos sections -- are pure advertising sections not run by the newsroom or the paper's editor and the content them is bought fluff. One can argue whether that's right or wrong.... and come to a conclusion about the time print classifieds die anyway.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Second, in a show in which Garfield talks abouut the observer's paradox -- the observer having an impact on the observed -- isn't that true of bubble blather? Market prices are all about confidence and even mood and if you keep reporting that the mood is exhuberant and wrong and soon to burst, don't you think that has an impact on that mood? Isn't the cliched bubble-soon-to-burst story self-fulfilling reporting? crack civilization 4 no dvd

State of the art

: So I just returned from a few days at the Annenberg confab on journalism, democracy, and all that, in a room fillled with smart and experienced people, journalists and academics, who care deeply about the country and the craft. crack civilization 4 no dvd

As usual at these things these days, I feel a bit like the stranger in the strange land -- probably because I am strange -- but it's also worth noting that blogs are no longer treated like meteors from outer space at such gatherings. crack civilization 4 no dvd

A few random observations at the end:crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Our new world of weblogs and citizens' media is all about possibilities -- many of them unrealized, I grant -- while the world of the big, old media is increasingly about worry: fretting over declining revenue, resources, audience, quality, trust. That is one good reason for big media to embrace the small, rather than trying to recapture the old: It's optimistic, energetic, new, open, growing, and fun; it's the medium in the better mood and that's catching. In short: Bloggers make better barmates. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Related: I sometimes hear a defeatism in journalism today -- mixed with anger and defiance: We're shrinking and can't make money so we need to take charity or, worse, government help (which I certainly believe is dangerous). crack civilization 4 no dvd

What we should be doing instead is finding new business models for news. Those models can include nonprofit or public-supported journalism but they also should include new, profitable news businesses. But see the next related item:crack civilization 4 no dvd

: I mentioned it before, but I am shocked at the hostility to profit I often hear in some quarters at such gatherings. Perhaps we did ourselves a disserve taking the necessary wall between church and state and putting barbed wire on top, for it made journalists too purposely ignorant of business and the marketplace. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Just because we journalists don't let ourselves be influenced by the advertisers and certainly don't sell the ads, that doesn't mean that we should be ignorant or, worse, disdainful of the business realities that pay the checks and support the journalism... or hurt it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

This institutional attitude has separated journalists not only from power over their products but also -- more importantly -- from the market, which is to say the voice of the public. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I've been there. When I launched Entertainment Weekly, I didn't have the biz cred sufficient to argue how the circulation department was the one making $30-million mistakes and I vowed I wouldn't be in that position again, even when editors lectured me that I should let the business guys worry about the business. Learning the business side is necessary to give us influence in the business side, in the creation (or saving) or our own products. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But it's about more than money. It's also about learning to trust the marketplace and thus the public. If we dismiss the will of the marketplace, we show a lack of respect for the wisdom and will of the public we are supposedly here to serve; we start to believe that "we" are smarter than "them" when "we" are "them." And if you truly think that the public is stupid, then you should quit media and become a monk.crack civilization 4 no dvd

All this is why -- especially now, as the industry changes -- j-schools should be sure to teach courses in the business of journalism. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: I waited until the last hour to say what I thought might get me shot: that media consolidation is not necessarily a bad thing at all. Anger at big companies may, indeed, be a product of the journalistic nose-holding about business (above). But the economic, marketplace reality of it is that in many cases, consolidation is the act of dinosaurs huddling to stay warm in the face of their coming ice age. Without consolidation and the savings that come with it, I said, it's quite possible that some news outlets could die. And how is that better? But nobody threw a pie at me. In fact, some acknowledged that big companies still have the resources and sometimes even the guts to try new things. We should remember that and remind them of that. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Related: Some spoke of the need to strengthen government regulation, not only regarding ownership but also to revive the notion of the public trust in broadcast licenses. But I said that the best TV is coming out of unregulated cable today. Regulation is dangerous. Period. The last thing we of all people should want or need is government involvement in speech.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: You will be glad to hear that many people in the room at Annenberg, like me, swatted at notions about credentialing journalists. Some people want to credential those who are trained or adhere to a code of behavior. But, of course, that can also be used to try to exclude others from an alleged elite. It can be used against the credentialed when someone in power withdraws the certification and the rights that go with them. It can be used against the uncredentialed when, to paraphrase one participant in the room, a lawyer in a libel case can say, "what makes you think you can practice journalism when you're not a real journalist." And besides, who's a journalist when anyone can commit acts of journalism? In a world where we want to try to expand by taking advantage of what the public knows, why close down the definition of journalist? Why not expand it by sharing our knowledge and training and experience generously? crack civilization 4 no dvd

: I sat there and wondered whether, 20 or 50 years from now, there will be similar confabs of citizens' journalism with organizations and reports and academic counterparts and worries. I hope not. I hope that citizens' media stays loose like fireflies that get away. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: But if you had sat there with me, I know that you would have been impressed with how much these people care. They care about the good of the nation, about informing the people, about quality journalism, about rebuilding trust, about educating children to empower them to run the world. crack civilization 4 no dvd

So I wish you had been there. Future journalism confabs should invite bloggers as proxies for the public both so the journalists can hear their perspective, but also so the bloggers can see the earnest desire to serve that you'll see in these good and smart people. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Similarly, blogging confabs should make it a point to invite journalists to show how much bloggers care about the medium and the nation and about news.... and also to show how much fun we have (and so we can have somebody who can expense-account the drinks at the bar). crack civilization 4 no dvd

Speaking of which, I think both groups should also invite business people because if we don't bring them along in trying to create new products and business models, we won't support these new and better endeavors. Business people don't have cooties. But they do have wallets. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Blog comment question

: Quick question for a friend: Remind me of the names and addresses of external blog comment systems (that is, if you don't have Movable Type and comments there you can use.....)crack civilization 4 no dvd

Investigate this

: Accepted wisdom in journalism is that investigative reporting is its highest calling and perhaps highest art. I just returned from two days at an Annenberg confab at which journalism educators lamented declining resource and dedication for investigative reporting. And last night, I appeared on MSNBC's Connected, where two guests and the two hosts similarly lauded this kind of reporting and complained that not enough is being done (each end of the political spectrum wishing for more watchdogging of the other, naturally). crack civilization 4 no dvd

Of course, when feeling paranoid or pissed, you want somebody to probe the guy you don't like and bring him down. And the prize economy in journalism is all about awarding big, expensive, long, and self-righteous indictments of the corrupt and nasty. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But I'll be heretical enough to ask whether investigative journalism is what the public most wants from the press, whether chronic suspicion -- as opposed to skepticism -- can breed chronic cynicism, whether ever-sparer journalistic resources are best put to bringing down the bad guy or to helping us in our daily lives. What is the proper calling of journalism?crack civilization 4 no dvd

The Archbishop of Canterbury probes the probers today:

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will tonight launch an attack on the media, berating the "adversarial and suspicious" nature of modern journalism, which he says holds people "guilty until proved innocent".crack civilization 4 no dvd

Dr Williams, who won an apology from the Sunday Telegraph in December after the paper erroneously said the Asian tsunami had led him to question his own faith, will say a far-reaching reassessment of the press is needed to raise "embarrassingly low levels of trust" in the journalistic profession....crack civilization 4 no dvd

While stressing that a thriving media is vital to a "mature democracy", Dr Williams will also tell his audience the way news is packaged inhibits the public from becoming engaged with issues and understanding them fully.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"There is a tension at the heart of the journalistic enterprise. Its justification is that it promises to deliver what other sources can't - information that is needed to equip the reader or viewer or listener for a more free and significant role as a human agent.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"But at the same time it is bound to a method and a rhetoric that treats its public as consumers and the information it purveys as a commodity."

We love that line. Ironically, though, investigative reporting is one element of journalism that resists commodification and that's why journalists love it: They get scoops, they get bylines, they get the thing the other guy doesn't have.
Dr Williams will say the central task of the media is to "nourish the common good" of society, and praises the courage and commitment of many journalists.
Is that the task? There was a lot of talk at Annenberg about how journalism's duty is to create an informed democracy. Is that more about education ... or investigation ... or communication?
However, he will add that "some aspects of current practice" are "lethally damaging" to the profession.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"High levels of adversarial and suspicious probing send the clear message that any kind of concealment is guilty until proved innocent. That is a case that needs more than just assumptions to be morally persuasive." ...

There, too, I'm not sure Williams is on the right track. Concealment does not equal guilt. But it does yield suspicion. Or to put it another way: Transparency, we now hold, is a virtue. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Still, Williams has a point. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The cliche is true: The watchdog role of the press is a vital check on the powerful in a democracy. But does every investigation serve the public interest or is it a gotcha moment that serves the ego of the reporter and his institution? Is it good to bring down the powerful or does the constant dogging of the powerful only divide us and sour us? Is it better to trap a lying politician or to bang the heads of our leaders to make them stop yelling at each other -- on our cue -- and start working together to make them fix health care? crack civilization 4 no dvd

And what role can citizen journalists play in this? Are we unleashing watchdogs on the unwatched -- our local school boards, our heads of public works -- or are we starting an epidemic of rabies? Are we the watchdogs on the watchdogs or merely growlers who don't understand or appreciate the value of shoe leather?crack civilization 4 no dvd

These are not idle questions as the news business faces its economic crisis and restructuring, as they ask where to put their resources (task force or hyperlocal), as they grapple with the lack of trust in journalists (could it because we fostered that by trusting no one?). So what are your answers? Is investigative reporting journalism's highest calling and highest art?crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 14, 2005

Know your rights and responsibilities

: Bravo to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for creating a resource for bloggers on their legal rights and responsibilities. Long needed. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Ghosts of bubbles past

: Vin Crosbie finds the punchline to the bubble: A liquidator is selling 3 million CueCats at 30 cents each. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The one moment in my internet career I should probably be proudest of is convincing my bosses not to do CueCat. That was the single creepiest meeting I attended during the bubble.crack civilization 4 no dvd

A plea: Do not build the International Freedom Center

: I'm turning off the blog bluster about the International Freedom Center planned for the World Trade Center and making a simple, sober plea:crack civilization 4 no dvd

Do not build it. Not there.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Moving ahead with the plans for the center will only bring more fighting, more politics, more tortured compromise, and more delay to the World Trade Center. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But worse, it will distract and detract from the memorial and the memory of the heroes and innocents of that tragedy. And that is what I can't bear. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Last night, I spoke with Debra Burlingame, sister of the pilot of one of the 911 jets, a leader of the families' movement, and the woman who brought to light some of the disturbing elements of the plans for the Freedom Center in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (following the first hints of the politicization of the project here). I won't speak for Debra but will say what I advised: crack civilization 4 no dvd

It is fruitless to nitpick the Freedom Center's committee (add a moderate, add a conservative, find a different historian) and edit the plans (if you're going to portray freedom's enemies, will you devote a wing to the Saudis and the Palestinian terrorists or will you fear offense?) and launch a fight to take over the center (more dueling op-eds, more diggging up the controversies around the planners). crack civilization 4 no dvd

The truth is that we do not need this center there and it does not belong there. And so that is the call to action, that is the plea: Do not build it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

If the people behind the center want to raise private money and find another place to build it, then God bless, please go do it. I'll visit. I'll agree or disagree with its choices and tone and message. But I won't find it to be what it is now: an inappropriate and likely offensive politicization of the memorial at the World Trade Center. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I make this earnest plea to Gov. Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, Speaker Silver, Mayor Guiliani, Sen. Clinton, Sen. Schumer, the LMDC, and the Freedom Center committee itself: crack civilization 4 no dvd

Do not build it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Here is Debra Buringame's Take Back the Memorial blog. My earlier, blog-blustery posts on this are here, here, here, here, here, here. And here is the Freedom Center's site (which still does not answer the issues raised by Burlingame, me, and others, despite its protests in a myth-v-fact page). crack civilization 4 no dvd

Gov giveth and gov taketh away

: Continuing the day at the Annenberg event, Tim Cook, an impressive LSU professor, made a case for government helping media. He was supposed to be provocative and I was predictably provoked. I said I'm not a libertarian but I'd sound like one as I shared the lessons Susan Crawford has taught me, that asking for government help in one cause only invites government interference in another, whether in spam or indecency or freedom of speech and the press. Various ideas were raised by respondents that made my spine shake: taxing ads to support publications with fewer ads, giving postal subsidies only to publications below a circulation threshold, government search engines. Arrrgh. Oh, plenty of ticklish issues are raised -- shield laws, spectrum regulation... -- but I suggested three principles:crack civilization 4 no dvd

1. Journalists are citizens and citizens are journalists and deserve the same rights under the constitution. crack civilization 4 no dvd

2. The press is supposed to distrust, or at least watch and be skeptical about, the government, and so it must not set itself up in a position to be beholden to government. crack civilization 4 no dvd

3. We should invite no compromise to the protection of the First Amendment Congress shall make no law.
crack civilization 4 no dvd

Journalism's warped mirror

: The Annenberg Foundation, at whose event I'm sitting right now, released a survey of journalists and members of the public, often about the same questions but with very different views. Some highlights:crack civilization 4 no dvd

: "To what extent do journalists who report the news try to do so objectively and fairly, without regard to their own political views?..."
56 percent of journalists said they do to a great extent and 38 percent to a moderate extent, adding up to 94 percent
But only 18 percent of the public say to a great extent and 47 percent to a moderate extent, adding up to 65 percent.
One could argue that 65 percent is still a good majority, but it's a rather wide gulf. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Journalists were asked the reason why journalists "unintentionally let bias into their reporting."
38 percent say they accept information without checking, 29 say they have strong personal views on a subject, 18 percent blame tight deadlines, 7 percent blame writing for editors' approval.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: On Dan Rather, the two groups were not far apart on three questions: A sizable majority of both groups said that a major or minor reason for running the Bush story included that CBS and Rather "believed the story was accurate" and they were "in too much of a rush" and that they "were lied to by their sources." A split came on this theory: "CBS News and Dan Rather are liberals who dislike President Bush." 41 percent of journalists said this was a reason, major or minor, but 69 percent of the public believed this reason. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Here's a fun one: Both groups were asked whether people on a list were journalists or not. I'll list the number from journalists the public's number for each name with my comments: Peter Jennings 91/88; Mike Wallace 92/80; Brian Williams 80/69; Bob Woodward (question asked before Deep Throat's PR) 96/64; George Will 64/50; Katie Couric (note the shift) 49/62; Chris Matthews 49/55; Larry King 26/43; Bill O'Reilly 12/55 (now there is a disconnect); Rush Limbaugh 3/32.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: The two groups certainly disagree about whether journalists get the facts straight.
86 percent of journalists think they get the facts straight while only 45 percent of the public agree; 11 percent of journalists say they are "often innacurate" while 48 percent of the public say that is the case. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: They also disagree about whether mistakes are corrected.
74 percent of journalists say they quickly report they have made a mistake vs. 30 percent of the public.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: The public thinks most journlists are liberal but most American aren't.
Asked to describe the majority of journalists, the public said 42 percent are liberal, 29 moderate, 16 conservative. As to the majority of Americans: 17 percent liberal, 39 moderate, 33 conservative.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Journalists are asked the same question on many job descriptions. I'll quote just the liberal number: 54 percent say the majority of newspaper journalists are liberal, 34 percent for TV and radio journalists, 34 for editors and producers, 5 for media owners, and 6 for radio talk show hosts. And the public? Only 1 percent of journalists say the majority of Americans is liberal. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: 30 percent of journalists say news media have been more critical of the Bush administration, 64 percent of journalists say they were more critical of Clinton.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: On the idea of news organizations having "a decidedly political point of view in their coverage of the news," the two groups split... but I think the question is not properly put. The issue in the minds of many is not whether journalists have a bias but whether they reveal it. In any case, 16 percent of journalists say it's very or somewhat good to have a decedily political point of view in coverage while 80 percent say it's very or somewhat bad vs. a split public: 43 percent say it's very or somewhat good and 53 says it's very or somewhat bad. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Asked about watching "shows such as the O'Reilly Factor or Hardball," I find it interesting that the public argues against the echo-chamber theory: 80 percent say they watch because they "like to listen to people who have a different point of view than me."crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Asked whom they believe in all or most matters, here's the public's ranking: Local TV news ranks first at 72 percent followed by CNN, 65; Jennings and ABC, 64; Williams and NBC, 60; the local daily paper, 59; Fox, Time, and CBS tied at 56; People at 23; Limbaugh at 20. Some are amazed by that local TV news number but I think it makes sense because (a) it's local and local is what matters in our lives, (b) it's easy and doesn't try to, in the words of one participant here, treat news as porridge, (c) it's human and has a personality, vs. impersonal and institutional newspapers. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: 85 percent of journalists think it's not easy for the public to distinguish journalists from nonjournalists. (Whatever the hell a journalist is....)crack civilization 4 no dvd

: On blogs, 45 percent of journalists say they have a very or somewhat positive effect on the quality of news; 38 percent sasy very or somewhat negative.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: As for eading blogs, 20 percent of journalists do it every day, 17 percent a few times a week, 15 percent a few times a month, 5 percent once a month, 18 percent less than monthly, 24 percent never. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 13, 2005

Verdict in

: Not that we should care, but the Jackson verdict will be read at 4:30p ET. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: It's funny: I was at this Annenberg roundtable thing about high-fallutin' topics like press and democracy and no one was supposed to be interested in the verdict but, still, they put the trial up on the big screen above our heads even as I sat there on a panel pontificating about citizens and media. So we're all tacky....crack civilization 4 no dvd

Input meets output

: Martin Tobias finds a neat little application that tracks the links people click on on your blog. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Our man in Tehran

: Hoder is reporting from Iran (on dial-up with his own domain blocked).crack civilization 4 no dvd

Using the innocents, continued

: I've changed my mind. I don't want to redo the International Freedom Center to turn it from an flagellation fest into a celebration of democracy and freedom in America. crack civilization 4 no dvd

No, I want to eliminate it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The memorial at the World Trade Center should say everything that needs to be said. crack civilization 4 no dvd

So in the place of the so-called Freedom Center, I want to see the truest expression of American freedom: commerce. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I want to see stores that sell scanty clothes, no burkas allowed. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I want to see restaurants that serve liquor. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I want to see movies that show anything, even sex. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I want to see bookstores that celebrate free speech. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I want to see stores selling products from all over the world: the fruits of globalization. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I want to see life there. Defiant, unapologetic life. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Just to be clear (reacting to a comment): I am not talking about the memorial; I endorse the memorial. It is this -- as Ed Cone put it -- noise around that from the Freedom Center that is bothersome. crack civilization 4 no dvd

So don't bother with the Freedom Center, not here. Let the memorial speak for itself. And hand the rest of the space back to the living. That's what I'm trying to say, in my hyperbolic way. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Declaration of f'ing independence

: Esquire rips a web-page out of the Parents Television Council's play book with a declaration of independence you can sign and send to the FCC with a click. Howard Stern is our founding father.

The history of the present Federal Communications Commission is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over the airwaves, bringing with it a tyrant's notion of "decency." crack civilization 4 no dvd

To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world....crack civilization 4 no dvd

The FCC should be reminded that all radios and televisions have a button. This is called an "off" button, and it can be used when citizens find broadcast content to be disagreeable. It strikes us as tiresome to have to repeat this old remonstrance, but whatever. Furthermore, there now exists all manner of filters and blocks that can be used by parents and guardians to protect children from content that is not suitable for them. We, however, are not children, and we will not be treated as such by our government....crack civilization 4 no dvd

...the radio host Howard Stern does not lack for literary merit. Rather, he is part and parcel of a long, ribald tradition of gloriously undignified art that includes Rabelais, Henry Miller, and James Joyce, all of whom discussed "fingerbanging" in one way or another. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The radio host Howard Stern does not lack for educational merit. Rather, he is charting the sexual mores of our great nation, much like noted anthropologist Margaret Mead did....crack civilization 4 no dvd

In every stage of his oppressions, Howard Stern has petitioned for redress. He has railed against the FCC on his radio show, urging the citizenry to vote against one George W. Bush. He engaged in a tense discourse with former FCC chairman Michael Powell on the air, pointing out that television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey also discusses anal and oral sex in detail but is not equally oppressed because she is beloved by the media aristocracy and gives away motorized carriages to her audience....crack civilization 4 no dvd

For when faced with the termination of his astonishingly high-paying job, when faced with censure from his very own employer, Howard Stern refused to do what most of us would do: He refused to make accommodations. Rather, he declared revolution. And this is a great and good thing. This is the very act that defines a hero. This is the very act that defines an American man. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And now as a free and independent radio host, he will be able to discuss masturbating to Aunt Jemima at his discretion. It's possible that he will be discussing masturbating to Aunt Jemima to a total of four listeners. But this makes him no less a patriot. God bless Howard Stern, and God bless America, land of the free, home of lesbian porn stars and angry drunken dwarves.

I signed and clicked. In fact, be like the PTC: sign and click often. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: ALSO: Here's a very nice vlog showing the absurdity of PTC complaints against Arrested Development. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Brother, can you spare a scoop?

: Updating this post as the day goes on, below. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: I'm at an Annenberg event in Philadelphia bringing together mostly journalism academics and others to talk about the role of the press in a democracy. I'll blog it occasionally. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Tonight, Chuck Lewis, who founded the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit source for investigative journalism, argued in favor of a nonprofit model for reporting, saying that an organization such as the CPI can dog stories and spend money news companies often can't. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I do believe that nonprofit reporting will have a growing role. NPR is invoked by many, with contributions and foundations supporting quality and growing journalism (though it's interesting to me that many newspapers have larger staffs covering one town than NPR has covering the nation and the world, according to the numbers I heard tonight) crack civilization 4 no dvd

The questions after his talk raised interesting issues. A few (I among them) cautioned that foundations, too, have agendas and when they pay for reporting that's just another means of using money to control journalism. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Others pushed for hybrid models. One academic suggested the need for an Associated Press of investigative journalism and I like that: such an AP doesn't handle commodity news but real reporting... if news organizations can give up their addictions to scoops. Someone who has run a nonprofit journalistic organization for years said that when alternative newspapers goosed the news business a few decades ago, none of them thought for a second of running their businesses on contributions; they supported themselves the old-fashioned way -- with profits -- and ethnic journalism is doing the same thing today. I also, predictably, raised the prospect of individually supported reporting: witness Hoder going to Iran, Josh Marshall going to New Hampshire. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: After the wine and before the food, the room introduced itself and there were some interesting moments in that: One academic said, "get rid of objectivity"(I stopped myself from applauding). Another academic argued for the British model of journalism. One TV producer said, "the economic models are hopeless broken." An alternative journalism vet says there should be profit caps on media companies (I stopped myself from hooting). A dean said we need to stop serving "the porridge of journalism, forcing it down people's throats." A newspaperman said we must "stop thinking of our readers as stupid because they don't want us... We must abandon our core products." These were the soundbites I want to hear more about. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: LATER: Jim Naughton, former head of Poynter and a nostalgic former editor on the Philadelphia Inquirer, just pushed a proposition that newspapers should advertise the value of journalism to the public: Wearing a Darth mask, he said, "We must go to the dark side, we must market." crack civilization 4 no dvd

Arrrrgh. Merrill Brown said what needed to be said (and what I wanted to say) -- that that is moving the deck chairs, that this is a dying industry that should be spending money on changing the product and then we should advertise that. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: I'm surprised -- but shouldn't be -- at how much I hear in this crowd of academics and editors disdain for corporations and profits. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I, on the other hand, believe that the marketplace is journalism's best hope. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Case in point: Claude-Jean Bertrand, professor emeritus from the University of Paris, says: "A free market is indispensible but it cannot create good media as is evidenced right now in this country."crack civilization 4 no dvd

Arrrgh II. This displays an essential mistrust of the public the press tries to serve. What are we all but the marketplace?crack civilization 4 no dvd

He puts forward a list of more than 80 "media accountability systems." crack civilization 4 no dvd

I'd counter that with three notions that cover it as far as I'm concerned: conscience, good sense, and transparency. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: They talk about news councils and such. I blurt out that we have a million press critics and they are our readers and former readers. We have to read them. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Dave Winer would have a screaming fit at an event such as this: One person takes the mike for 40 minutes; one person responds; a few people get to raise their hands in what passes for discussion. In this kind of crowd, the Bloggercon nonconference model would work best: capture the wisdom of the crowd via discussion and a meritocracy of ideas. Rather than have people present papers and propositions, it would be better to present, read, and react to them beforehand online so we can arrive for the center of the discussion rather than the prelude. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And, yes, I wish Winer were here. What these journalism confabs always miss on the invitation list is the public they should be serving and hearing. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Sticki wiki

: Via Dan Gillmor at Bayosphere, I see that the LA Time is planning to start wikitorials -- wikified editorials that can be rewritten by readers, one of many interesting changes in the paper's opinion pages. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Sounds like a cool idea... but I think it goes up against the essential nature of wikis and probably won't work. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Wikipedia brags about its NPOV (neutral point of view) enforced by the wisdom of the crowd and the desire to get the facts right and maintain a valuable resource. crack civilization 4 no dvd

An editorial is, of course, not neutral. And so what you'll likely find is a never-ending wikiwar: yes he did, no he didn't, he did, no he didn't, yes he did, no he didn't, nya, nya, nya...crack civilization 4 no dvd

Besides, I think this does what papers do too much: It tries to make the paper the center of the discussion. Turn around, guys, and look outside the newsroom and see what everybody else is saying. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Here's editorial page editor Michael Kinsley on the changes, quoted in the NY Times:

"It may be a complete mess but it's going to be interesting to try," he said. "Wikitorials may be one of those things that within six months will be standard. It's the ultimate in reader participation."crack civilization 4 no dvd

Mr. Kinsley also started an experimental feature, "Thinking Out Loud," where readers, op-ed and editorial writers hash out tough issues like immigration and traffic. "We hope within a year that we will have a solid, consistent, intelligent and correct position on these two issues and it will result from a process that is not only transparent but readers will participate," Mr. Kinsley said.

: Ross Mayfield says that wikis work best not when the public is offered something baked but something unbaked. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Ernie Miller is also dubious. crack civilization 4 no dvd

You know, the best, most open, most bloggy and webby way to do this might have been to post a note saying, "I'm thinking about doing this... what do you think?" And then the best minds online -- Ross and Ernie among them -- would have been happy to share their reaction and wisdom. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Jump out of the stream

: Lost Remote reports that MSNBC served 30 million streams last month. That's great. But I guarantee you that they'd serve many times that if:crack civilization 4 no dvd

1. The site allowed you to download and subscribe to video (especially come the days of portable, unwired video). crack civilization 4 no dvd

2. The network put up all its stories and segments online so you can watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Sex sells, news doesn't

: Steve Baker of Business Week has a theory explaining why I didn't get many comments on the new newsroom post:

Either commenters are taking the weekend off, or they're far more interested in airbrushed nipples than the future of journalism.
crack civilization 4 no dvd

Where in the world

: Poynter's Larry Larsen wants news orgs to post GPS coordinates for their stories. Yes, that'd be great, along with tags and more metadata. But I can tell you, having spent years trying to get newsrooms to put stories online, that it's hard enough to get a sports story in the sports section. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 12, 2005

The latest

: Lost Remote reports that a Miami TV station is making good use of mobile alerts (and the same use could be made of RSS): hurricane alerts. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Using the innocents, continued

: To be blunt: The so-called International Freedom Center at the World Trade Center should be nothing less than a temple to democracy, modernity, tolerance, separation of church-and-state, capitalism, and America -- yes, damnit, America. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I couldn't get the reputed Freedom Center out of my mind this morning because, as our church year ends, we talked about the start of the next, which happens to fall on September 11, the four-year anniversary. On that date, I know I will debate whether to mark the moment, memories, and memorial at one holy place or another: at church or at the site of the crime and sacrifice of our innocents. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The World Trade Center is a sacred place and so I hate to see it used as a monument not just to those innocents and to freedom but also to those who try to deprive others of freedom. Oh, yes, you can argue that they are two sides of the same card, two ends of the same lesson. But I agree with those who say that lesson can and should be taught elsewhere. And wherever it is taught, it must be completely: It must include all the many affronts to freedom, democracy, and human rights that occur in the lands that allegedly hate us. And I don't care if they hate us. I don't care, not at that place, not at that moment. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The World Trade Center should be the one place where America and what it stands for is defended against any assault. It should be like the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetary, and the Statue of Liberty: a place to be proud of our nation and what we stand for against those who would try to defeat us. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The more I think about the so-called Freedom Center, the more offended I am. But I didn't say it as bluntly as this before; I mistakenly saw that we needed to edit the plan that was presented to us. No, we need to start over with a proper plan. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Between now and September 11th, Gov. Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, the LMDC, and other officials should assure that the Freedom Center will, in fact, celebrate Freedom and mean it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

My earlier posts here and here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Defending their own

: The debut NY Times business column on blogs takes the opportunity to defend newspapers against blogs:

A reporter for The New York Times, she writes, "is just a blogger who happened to attend college; impress some bosses with his or her talent; get some training through experience - and possibly (though certainly not always) journalism school; and receive a podium for his or her pains."crack civilization 4 no dvd

Which is a little like saying a lawyer is just someone who likes to argue who happened to go to law school, pass the bar, and get a job at a law firm. There is little doubt that blogs are transforming the news media, mostly in positive ways. But what the "blogs will destroy the media business" argument misses is that there are fundamental economic reasons that it can never happen.

And just why is that? crack civilization 4 no dvd

It's not necessarily that blogs become a new force to challenge newspapers and bring them to their knees. It's that newspapers' business models -- the very thing the columnist thinks is their salvation, without explaining how -- are vulnerable. Sing along: plummeting classified revenue, falling retail ad revenue, declining audience, new competition. This creates a competitive void into which blogs and the internet can march... unless newspapers stop trying to keep them at bay, and instead finds the ways to embrace and take advantage of this great new source of news, information, and diverse viewpoints. See a new newsroom. crack civilization 4 no dvd

A case for Supernanny

: A leaked government report in Britain recommends identifying future criminals as early as age 3 and sending them to foster homes. Or perhaps Guantanamo. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 11, 2005

Whom do you trust? Not us.

: Confidence in news media -- newspaper and TV -- has reached an all-time low in Gallup's survey of trust in institutions.

Those having a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers dipped from 30% to 28% in one year, the same total for television. The previous low for newspapers was 29% in 1994. Since 2000, confidence in newspapers has declined from 37% to 28%, and TV from 36% to 28%, according to the poll.crack civilization 4 no dvd

However, some other institutions fared far worse this year, suggesting a broad level of distrust, cynicism or malaise.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Confidence in the presidency plunged from 52% to 44%, with Congress and the criminal-justice system also suffering 8% drops. Confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court fell from 46% to 41%. The 22% confidence rating for Congress is its lowest in eight years, and self-identified Republicans have only a slightly more positive view of the institution than do Democrats.

Or it could suggest that they're all just doing a piss-poor job. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Note also that the new pondscum of public institutions with the lowest trust of all are... drum roll and fart sound-effect at the ready, please... HMOs.
crack civilization 4 no dvd

Actually, people want you to lead

: When he got the job, I said that Howard Dean could resist himself. He hasn't gone to anger-management class. Today, he says:

"People want us to fight," Dean told the national party's executive committee. "We are here to fight."
No, Howard, that's what lost you the primaries. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Both sides are role-playing into each others' hands. Dean is acting like the rabid underdog and the Republicans are acting like cornered kitties and both are ridiculous. See John Cole, Republican, on the Republican act:

And while we are at it, can we conservatives please stop this laughable cult of victimology? We have the Presidency (for the second time in a row and the fifth time in the last seven elections). We control the Senate by a ten seat margin. We control the House by a larger margin. We have dismissed or dismantled virtually every institutional check in order to limit opposition debate and increase institutional control, regardless how short-sighted that might be. We are ramming through just about every judge we wanted, and are about to reload the Supreme Court with Antonin Scalia at the helm.crack civilization 4 no dvd

We control dozens of governors offices and an equal number of state legislatures. We have hundreds of think tanks, hundreds of talk show hosts, hundreds of conservative columnists, millions of bloggers. We have dozens of partisan magazines and pundits, legions of 527's and grass-roots organizations, and dozens of think-tanks. We have, ostensibly, our own damned cable news channel and so many right leaning editorial boards of newspapers I can't even begin to count them. Memes that start in obscure blogs find their way onto the front page of allegedly liberal newspapers in the matter of two days.crack civilization 4 no dvd

We may be a lot of things, but persecuted victims we are not. To assert otherwise is to engage in a self-defeating flight of fancy that should be met with nothing short of outright ridicule.

crack civilization 4 no dvd

What's wrong with news

: This one headline from the AP says it all:

2,200 Journalists Await Jackson Verdict
It's wrong not because the story is tacky but because the news is a commodity: crack civilization 4 no dvd

There will be one bit of news that comes out of the end of this trial: Guilty or not guilty. It takes one person to report that and today that word can spread around the world in no time and every news site and every TV and radio station and every blog can know it without sending 2,199 journalists to sit there and wait and repeat the exact same news. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Oh, you want to see how ridiculous Jackson looks under his umbrella as he gloats or mopes? Fine, give that one person a camera and hook it up to the internet. We'll all see it. We'll all be able to comment on it just like the chippies before the camera. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Guilty or not guilty. crack civilization 4 no dvd

You certainly don't need legal analysts to explain that verdict to you. But you'll have them. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Why are those 2,200 journalists there? Ego, pure institutional ego. The Daily Blatt thinks its readers give two hoots that its own reporter is there instead of running the AP's story. MSCNNFOX news worry that without their own reporter and camera there, you'll watch the other guy. But which one you watch is really just a multiple choice question in which all the answers are wrong: You'll hear no newer, better, extra news on this story on one channel or another. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Those 2,199 extra journalists could be off reporting real stories we don't all already know about. Or they could be fired, saving their employers money and saving us their moaning about the state of the news business today. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: 1115.org finds quotes from CNN head Jon Klein regretting the volume of Jackson coverage (can't get to the original story becausae of a registration block):

“If I had one decision to take back, it would be the extent of our coverage,” says CNN/U.S. chief Jon Klein, six months on the job. “Looking back, we should have just covered the beginning and the end.” ...crack civilization 4 no dvd

“We committed to a reporter and crew there every single day,” Klein says. “I have not found it to be a very satisfying meal. CNN ought to do stories nobody else has. We did what everybody else did. It was the safe thing to do.”crack civilization 4 no dvd

In terms of news value, the case “wasn’t even close to being the biggest priority,” Klein says. In the future, “we will be a lot more careful about committing to ongoing coverage.”


crack civilization 4 no dvd

A new newsroom

: I'm going to link again to my post about reinventing the newsroom because I was hoping for more comments like this one from Business Week's Steve Baker, riffing after a comment by Blogads' Henry Copeland:

Funny that Henry should mention "only the paranoid survive." Because I think that the key to success in whatever we end up calling this new age is overcoming fear. Paranoids build walls. They keep secrets. They stitch together back-channel alliances. All of these maneuvers are designed to defend them. But they all limit connections with the rest of the world. I think that people who figure out how to share secrets, consort with the enemy, and camp out on foreign soil stand to win these days. I think the blog world is a laboratory for this.
And, no, he's not saying bloggers are the enemy. He is one. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Mark Tapscott says on his blog:

One of the biggest challenges for MSMers is getting out of the Old Media way of thinking that is anchored around the concepts of the single hard-copy or broadcast being the basic news product and the daily deadline cycle required to produce that product. Thinking in those terms is a prescription for death these days, but that fact doesn't make it any less difficult for folks who have operated in traditional newsrooms throughout their careers to start thinking in completely new ways.
: Dwight Silverman, tech blogger on the Houston Chronicle, quotes part of my post and says:
Yeah. I'd love to work in a newsroom that operated like that. Bring it on.
Well, Dwight, it may not be as far off as you think, considering that the good conversation I had this week on this topic was with a bunch of editors, including yours. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Laurence Simon remixes my post quite nicely and bluntly:

On 1. Input, stop chewing and vomiting back AP and Reuters. Report on original and local material in your backyard. I see an attack on the herd mentality of media, sending crews and reporters to stories already well-covered by partners and other outlets. Also, an attack on "vanity crews" just so you can say you sent a crew there and are reporting live from the scene far far away....crack civilization 4 no dvd

3. Jarvis' Mantra - Newspapers aren't the source. They are the amplifier and mixer for many sources. "Houston's Leading Information Source" isn't right in that regard... it's not a source but a conduit. Does it reproduce the signal faithfully? Is it mixed without much error or loss?...crack civilization 4 no dvd

Blogging as Metaphor - massive IT investment and reworking of the newsroom workflow. Everything goes into a MASSIVE DATABASE with enough tags to make it easy to store, find, crosslink, reference, edit, share, and publish. As the lifecycle of a story progresses, the public has the ability to watch it form, like a man tossing pizza dough in the air....crack civilization 4 no dvd

4. Train the reader - The reader is no logner a reader, but a participant...

Couldn't have said it better myself, Laurence, though I tried.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Mark Tosczak says:

To me, as a working journalist, it's becoming increasingly clear that the old skill sets most reporters and editors were trained with are simply inadequate. Now we have to not only be writers, but also broadcasters, designers, programmers, moderators. We have to be multimedia savvy. Used to be you could have a good career (at least in newspapers) with basically just writing, interviewing and editing skills. Now we all need to know something about design, about photography, about sound recording, about video, about speaking and appearing on camera. More skills, broader skills. It's a brave new world, and exciting.
Note he says "exciting," not "frightening." See Baker, above. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And thanks, Craig, for the link. crack civilization 4 no dvd

At the temple

: Jay Rosen, my rabbi, continues his lessons about the religion of the press with a fine parable about a CNN reporter who thinks you can't wear a flag and be a reporter at once and also about a prodigal son of journalism who chose not to worship at the big, one-size-fits-all temple but instead to go to another on the right edge of town. Go read his sermon first and then come back for coffee hour....crack civilization 4 no dvd

The problem in the religion of big journalism is that you're not supposed to have opinions. You're not supposed to be American. You're not supposed to be human. You're a reporter. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And that, of course, is just so much hubristic hogwash. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I found myself in a discussion about blogs and newspapers recently -- I feel as if I never leave that discussion -- one of them asked the inevitable question about reporters blogging: Should they have opinions? I said I'd give them my blogboy answer: Of course. crack civilization 4 no dvd

One of the editors gave the example of an ongoing smoking ban story. Should the reporter express an opinion for or against in her blog? It took me a minute before I came up with the right answer: It's not so much about an opinion on that story as it is about transparency. So, like a good New Yorker, I answered the question with a question: If the reporter were a smoker, wouldn't that be relevant? Doesn't the audience deserve to know that? If the audience caught the reporter grabbing a smoke, wouldn't they properly see it as a scandal? If the reporter doesn't reveal that, isn't that a lie of omission, a hidden agenda? So if the reporter has an attitude about that smoking ban, might that be relevant, too? crack civilization 4 no dvd

The problem with this objectivity doctrine is that reporters and editors didn't just make themselves adherants of a religion, they made themselves monks, even gods: higher beings who do not suffer from the human foibles of opinions and viewpoints and who think having open conversations with those who do is below them. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But the truth is that they are Americans covering an American war and smokers covering a smoking ban and Catholics covering church sex scandals and Jews covering Israel and citizens covering politics. They are not above or apart from us. They are us. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: See also Ernest Miller. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Skype sex

: Jeremy Wagstaff finds a new application on top of Skype: Someonenew.com arranges finding people and then using Skype to chat via voice. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Helping Hoder

: As I mentioned below, Hossein Derakhshan is headed back to Iran, were he started the blog revolution, because he believes the election will cause the regime to behave and not jail and torture him. He's asking for our help: Donate to help pay for his trip and if he does get detained, Hoder has a list of our responsibilities. crack civilization 4 no dvd

My relationship with Hoder and the Iranian weblog society -- and following that, the Iraqi blogging scene and a new world opened up by this medium -- began the day before another Iranian blogger and friend of Hoder's, Sina Motallebi, was arrested in Tehran. Sina credits the attention bloggers brought to his case to his release. So take Hoder's request seriously. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Hoder promises to report and take videos and pictures... " if I can find a wi-fi hotspot in jail."crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 10, 2005

Los Alamos update

: Wizbang links to the debunking of the Los Alamos whistleblower's contention that he was beaten up because of his whistling.... and files it under dumbasses. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Who's news

: PrivateRadio started tracking the news sources on GoogleNews because they're not transparent about it; the tracking started when I started complaining, with others, about a neonazi "news" site soome Googler let in. Well, PrivateRadio has done amazing things to the tracking, now analyzing top stories and top sources by topic. Go take a look. crack civilization 4 no dvd

A long trip to the polls

: Hossein Derakhshan is returning to Iran for the first time since he started the blog revolution there to witness the election. It's a brave move, considering the things that have been said about him in regime papers, but with the whole world watching, let's hope he is safe. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Tough love

: I love Technorati like a brother. But my reaction to the new design is that I'd put less effort into design and more into performance. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Painting deckchairs

: AOL CEO Jonathan Miller tries to tout the wonders of AOL's soon-to-be-public portal (a decade-late strategy, also known as conceding defeat) in a New York Times interview:

The intent, Mr. Miller said, is to differentiate AOL.com from Yahoo by having a distinctive "voice" tuned to popular culture. The site's main screens are meant to have the chatty personality of a morning talk show or women's magazine, focusing on celebrities, health topics and the news of the day, drawing users to participate through instant polls and links to AOL's chat rooms.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"The day I thought we nailed it was the day that Terri Schiavo died," Mr. Miller explained. Yahoo and most other portals highlighted the story with headlines copied from news agency obituaries that read something like, "Terri Schiavo dead at 41," he recalled.crack civilization 4 no dvd

"The AOL headline was, 'Terri Schiavo's sad story comes to an end,' " noted Mr. Miller, who said the AOL version better reflected the emotion of the case.

That's just pathetic. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Oh, gawd, I wish I had sold my Time Warner stock before AOL came along and my FU money said FU. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The distributed newsroom

: The Guardian has a good roundup of what it calls independent media hubs -- places where people can share and remix media. We used to call that a newsroom, only now it's freed of the room. See also the New Newsroom post below. crack civilization 4 no dvd

What is truth?

: Vin Crosbie quotes Slate's Jacob Weisberg at the Editor & Publisher echo chamber: "Newspaper editors publish a story once they think it is true. Bloggers publish a story to see if it is true." I don't think that's true. For the implication is that bloggers don't care about the truth. No, the real difference is that bloggers are more open to the notion that a story can be corrected and improved after it is published. But that doesn't make for such a neat quote. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Once a snob...

: Kurt Andersen, the original snarkmeister, gets snotty about blogs. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I screwed up: Sorry!
:
: As I was purging the latest attack of comment spam, I just accidentally killed the latest 300 comments. I screwed up. Sorry! I see no way to get them back. Three hundred apologies....crack civilization 4 no dvd

A new newsroom

: Over recent months, I've had many conversations with news executives in various media and various companies about how to adapt the newsroom of yesterday for the realities of today: People want news anytime, anywhere, specific to their interests and needs. People want to gain control over the news and be heard. Newsrooms are hard to change. In that dangerous intersection, I lived until recently. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I chose not to be the change agent in a newsroom and instead to pursue change from without just because that's the kind of guy I am: difficult. But having had so many of these discussions with so many smart people who are grappling with a strategic imperative to change -- and because I just spoke with a roomful of editors and will be in another roomful of them again next week -- I decided to try to put my money where my mouth is (well, I guess I did that when I changed careers... and I can tell you how much that damned mouth of mine cost me, to the penny). So I will explore some of the issues and ideas on changing newsrooms here. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I was going to post this yesterday morning, before I sat in that first roomful of editors, but didn't because I wasn't quite ready and because I thought to rather hubristic -- even for me -- to make such suggestions to people who actually run newsrooms. But they are trying to figure out new ways to do their business; it was an impressively open discussion and so, at the end, I pretty much read this post and didn't find myself hooted out of the room (at least not until after I left). So...crack civilization 4 no dvd

The first part summarizes earlier blatherings of mine (pardon the repetition) to try to frame the strategic imperative for change in the newsroom. And, by the way, I'm always confused about which first-person hat I wear; in this case, I'll wear my mediaman instead of my blogboy beret (but I'll switch back). Please join in....crack civilization 4 no dvd

As I see it, there are three imperatives for change in newsrooms:crack civilization 4 no dvd

1. The input: New news gathering: Newsrooms need to redefine news and news gathering. They need to be open to new sources of news, including the reporting of the people they used to view as the audience: yes, even bloggers. To use our parlance today, newsrooms need to think of themselves -- again -- as aggregators, gathering -- and sometimes packaging, sometimes not -- the news their communities create. crack civilization 4 no dvd

They also need to waste less effort, talent, and money on commodity news, the news we already know, the news we could write ourselves if we watched CSpan or CNN. If you can link to it, if the audience already knows it, why spend ever-more-precious resources redoing it? Instead, it is better to concentrate on a newsroom's real value, reporting: journalists' ability to ask the questions people in power don't want asked, to be an advocate for the public to power, to get to the bottom of debates, to add perspective, to be local. Journalists aren't the only ones who can do that, but that is still their primary value. crack civilization 4 no dvd

2. The output: New dissemination on new schedules: We've said it a million times: We no longer wait for the news -- for the paper to land on the doorstep or for the show to start. Now the news waits for us -- when we want it (when it happens or when we are curious), where we want it (online, on mobile, or on yet-uninvented toys), and how we want (just our topics, just what we don't know). crack civilization 4 no dvd

But I've learned just how difficult it is to get newsrooms to shift to serve these needs. They operate on a once-a-day clock with just one number on it: closing time or showtime. So how does that change -- if you can't afford a continuous news desk like The New York Times and The Washington Post have? I'm not sure, but I'll make a suggestion in a minute. crack civilization 4 no dvd

3. The back-and-forth: Join the conversation: And we've said this a million times, too: News is a conversation and that conversation is going on with or without us. We used to think the news was done, baked, finished when and only when we published it. But that's when the news starts, when the public -- who, as Dan Gilmor has repeatedly said, knows more than we do -- adds its questions and facts and perspectives. The news doesn't belong to us; we just gather and disseminate it in a world that abhors middlemen. We need to enable the conversation or get out of the way. crack civilization 4 no dvd

OK, so how to change this? I don't know. But I'll throw out a few ideas:crack civilization 4 no dvd

1. Compensation: Editors should be compensated on total audience and audience satisfaction across all media, not just the old one. And they should be compensated for growth in the new media. Yes, the new media produce a lower margin than the old, but wishing that not to be true won't make it false. There's no growth in old media. The growth is in new media and those who aren't growing there will die.crack civilization 4 no dvd

2. Blogging as a metaphor and as a new publishing tool: Of course, you could count on me to find a way to make blogging the cure for all ills. But stick with me for a minute: The way newsrooms operate today, it's hard to capture and share the news as soon as we know it. It's also hard to capture the value of a reporter's voice and perspective. And it's hard to make news conversational when it's all fed into a one-way pipe. So imagine if blogging software became the publishing system of the newsroom. Imagine if reporters were told to put everything into that system: They come back from reporting a story and write up the pitch or skedline, as we say, with the essence of the story. That reporter or an editor could with one button publish that to the internet. They could link to the AP story that has more details until the reporter writes the bigger piece, if that's even necessary. The public could weigh in and ask the reporter questions or share knowledge to improve the story before it is "finished" and published. They could do this even before it is reported, when reporters ask for help. The reporter could post the transcript of her interviews, in case anyone wants to see that. The reporter could post audio interviews, photos, video scenes. The reporter and editors could ask the public to add their photos and stories. And after the story is published -- or, as we like to say, posted -- the public can still join in and add facts or viewpoints or links. And the reporter and the public can find themselves in a conversation about the story. In short: Anything can be posted and made public anytime. crack civilization 4 no dvd

3. Aggregate: In the old days, completeness was judged by what we wrote. Now it should be judged by what we gather. A town reporter should be reading the blogs and reports of citizens and even competitors and linking to it all -- or else he is providing an incomplete service, isn't he? This can be automated with RSS aggregation. It can be improved with judgments about quality and trust of each source made by the reporters and editors and public, too (you don't have to link to everything but you should link to the good stuff). crack civilization 4 no dvd

4. Share: If we're going to rely -- yes, rely -- on citizen journalists to help us expand -- yes, expand -- our news coverage even as our revenue dwindles, then we need to share with them: We can share knowledge by training those who want to learn how to get access to information and how to avoid being sued and how to check facts. Not everyone will want or need that training but those who do will become better partners. We should share news, whether that is our headlines or our interviews. We should share promotion (now known as links). We should share trust, helping to identify those reporters whom the public believes. And we should share revenue to support their efforts (which will end up being less expensive than hiring staff we can't afford).crack civilization 4 no dvd

5. Meet, greet: When I was a reporter on small, local papers, I loved meeting the readers. By the time I hit the big papers, I lost that affinity, perhaps because I became a snot or perhaps because half the folks who bothered to write letters to the papers wrote them in crayon. But blogging reformed me; it has taught me to value the quality of the relationship over the size of the numbers. I suggest that reporters and editors get out and hold MeetUps and talk with the public we serve, not behind focus-group mirrors but over coffee or beer, at eye level. crack civilization 4 no dvd

6. Transparency: We must open the sausage factory to regain trust and respect from the public we serve. Most of us deserve that trust and respect but not as a birthright, only if earned. crack civilization 4 no dvd

7. Any media anytime: Reporters and photographers should carry the tools of multimedia -- a voice recorder, a video/still camera, a keyboard -- and use them all. They need to be trained. They need to be encouraged. Then they should tell the story however it is best told. If I can record a podcast, anyone can.crack civilization 4 no dvd

8. Burn the business cards: No one in a newsroom should think of himself or herself as "print" or "online." That has turned news into an us-vs-them battle in the newsroom when it should be joint battle to survive and grow. This is not to say that there aren't still specialties: a graphic artist knows graphics, an online producer knows RSS. But we're all in this together. crack civilization 4 no dvd

9. Burn the org chart: The second-biggest issue in all this is control. Everybody wants to control every medium but then nobody will have anything to control because outsiders are running away with the content and the business. I'd play 52-card-pickup with job descriptions and move people -- starting with managers -- all around the news operationcrack civilization 4 no dvd

10. Culture: Now here's the biggest issue, the elusive newsroom culture that resists change. Well, that's a crock, of course; it's just a job, but in the palace to passive-aggression that is the newsroom, resistance to change is made into a religion. But don't let anyone fool you that such culture is really so rampant in newsrooms; it's really just an excuse. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Faced with the strategic imperative to change -- the moment of restructuring that has come to most American industries and now is coming to news -- the smart and sensible will change. The only question is how. But that's a big question. crack civilization 4 no dvd

As Mom used to say, 'I don't care who started it'

: A little more than two weeks ago, I got to thinking that small is the new big and I started making notes for a post about that (yes, I sometimes actually do think before I type). And then I saw two great posts about bad, big companies and good, small ones by Seth Godin that backed up that notion. I linked to them and said I was working on a post called "small is the new big." Then, before you know it, there was Seth writing a post under that very headline. My fault for waiting too long to write mine. But I linked to his and wrote my small is big post. He wrote another post on the topic; I linked to that and found more legs in the notion here and here. . I linked to others who carried on the riff. And lots of others riffed as well. Yesterday, Fred Wilson said he doesn't know who started it. I say it doesn't much matter. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But I just got a most gracious email from Seth saying it's cool that we had the same thought the same way at the same time. He nicely joked that I could grab the book title. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I wrote back and said, great minds and all that: "If there's one lesson old-media guys learn in this new medium it's that we can no longer publish/broadcast/converse/share on our schedule, for somebody's sure to be ahead of us. But in the end, that's what so fun and wonderful about this medium, isn't it: We feel as if we're sharing brains. And that's better than hiding them."crack civilization 4 no dvd

And that is what is so nice about that moment in our very open medium: We were seeing the world the same way and sharing similar thoughts and didn't worry -- as we would have in the old media world -- about who was first or who "owned" the idea but only about adding to it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Seth and I are finally having lunch next week. And that is the best part: Goood ideas make good friends. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 09, 2005

Using the innocents, continued

: Following Debra Burlingame's devastating attack on the International Freedom Center's plans for the World Trade Center, its head, Richard Tofel, writes about it in today's Wall Street Journal -- but does not answer one of her (or my) issues. I challenge anyone to read Tofel's drivel and tell me what the center will do, what it will have, what it will say, unless its walls will be covered in platitudes like his. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Michele Malkin continues the attack on the center. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Oliver Willis, in turn, attacks me for agreeing with Malkin on this. But, unfortunately, that's the high-school mentality Oliver brings to such matters: He doesn't address the issues but instead judges people merely by their associations. Malkin and I have met and agreed that we don't agree about many things. But we most surely agree about this. We will not tolerate seeing the construction of a Why They Hate Us Pavillion, a Selective Sin Center at the World Trade Center. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Kathy Shaidle isn't suggesting what could happen at the new Center -- and neither am I -- but she can imagine what it might be. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: The big question is what we can do about this. We the people had some small input into the decision on the memorial -- we at least got to submit our own and saw all the submissions. That process was transparent. This is opaque. As Wizbang says, Tofel merely tells us to trust him. But I don't. crack civilization 4 no dvd

This mess at the World Trade Center falls -- once again -- squarely at the feet of Gov. Pataki. We need to demand that Pataki and Bloomberg open up the process and assure us that this will not turn into the International Flagellation Center. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Agree/disagree

: Gallup has put up a bunch of handy RSS feeds of polls. The only problem is that some of it goes to pay pages ($95/year). But it's good for pulse-checking. I also subscribe to Polling Report, which aggregates many results in ongoing topics. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Are you a thyroid patient?

: Mary Shoman, who writes the excellent thyroid guide at About.com (where, remember, I'm consulting: full disclosure) is looking for a thyroid patient in the New York area to appear on a big national TV show to talk about treatment. Go to her post to see the requirements. It so happens that I am a thyroid patient myself (having waved goodbye to half of mine... that's how I know Mary's site) but I don't meet any of those requirements, save for living in Jersey. Pass the word, please. crack civilization 4 no dvd

God's work

: Thanks to Carsonfire in the comments below, we read a most remarkable evangelical Christian editorial opposing attempts to extend FCC censorship to cable and satellite. It's more than just tactical, political advice; it takes the evangelical imperative to say that such intereference is distracting and dangerous. Amen, brother. Jordan J. Ballor writes:

Such an unprecedented move speaks to the growing influence of evangelical Christian political activism. Indeed, some evangelicals have long supported huge increases in FCC fines and expanded powers for the governmental agency....crack civilization 4 no dvd

Christians should certainly be active participants in every facet of society, including politics. But Christian activists need to be wary of falling prey to the temptation to use political power to impose external standards of morality for a number of interconnected reasons.crack civilization 4 no dvd

First, there is a disturbing trend among American evangelicals to stress public exhibitions of virtue, often to the detriment of personal practice. The furor over the public displays of the 10 Commandments is one example, but the fight over broadcast decency has taken on a similar flavor.crack civilization 4 no dvd

For Christians, the significance of the new covenant means that it is more important that the law be written on our hearts than that it be displayed in our courtrooms. For Christian concern to be otherwise brings us under Jesus’ condemnation of Pharisaical hypocrisy.crack civilization 4 no dvd

This truth flows into a second and closely related problem. Overzealous political activism poses a threat to the fundamental task of the church: proclamation of the gospel. Many criticize the relief efforts of nominally Christian groups, such as the National Council of Churches, which divorce evangelism and charitable work. But where Christians rightly decry such inconsistency in other quarters, we should also beware the temptation elsewhere to confuse or obscure the fulfillment of the Great Commission.crack civilization 4 no dvd

The gospel is not reducible to the institution of laws amenable to Christian morality.

Isn't that wonderful? In short: You can't legislate morality. You have to live morally.
And a disproportionate emphasis on such laws tends toward a position that is inimical to Christianity. Yet the perception often remains that the way the church is to “engage culture” is primarily, if not solely, through public policy.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Beyond these theological problems lies a prudential question of the wise use of political power. While Christians maintain the influence to form policy in a certain area, the laws are likely to remain in accord with Christian morality. The danger is that once the power of such regulation of speech and free expression has been ceded to the government, it is nearly impossible to get it back. And it is almost certain that the current season of Christian political influence will eventually wane.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Today perhaps the antics of a Howard Stern will be outlawed by increased governmental regulation. But tomorrow it may be that simply reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans will be prohibited as hate speech, indecent or otherwise intolerant.

Couldn't have preached it better myself. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Every tyrant's 15 minutes of fame

: Do we smell a trend: A week ago, Tom Brokaw got into Iran for a series of reports and now ABC News is getting into North Korea. [via MediaBistro]crack civilization 4 no dvd

Effective immediately

: Has anyone noted the irony that just as GM touts giving consumers the same benefits it gives its employees, it fires thousands of employees. So will it soon give its former customers severence?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Small is the new big, continued

: Evelyn Rodriguez continues the riffing on the notion that small is the big (see me here and here and Seth Godin here and here):

MBAs train for BIG. Most business books will advise you on BIG. Yet you often simply cannot take BIG ideas and transfer them directly to SMALL without disasterous results. You often need completely new thinking.
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Offing Tony

: Rep. Bernie Sanders warns what will happen if Congress passes the numbnutty attempts to extend the FCC's numbnutty censorship to cable and satellite:

And it won't just be the Sopranos getting the boot from primetime. There'll be no more Chris Rock specials. No more Howard Stern on the E Channel. No more R-rated films.
He goes after the White House and the Republicans but the sad truth is that Democrats are in this too. Too many are too afraid to stand up for free speech. How pathetic is that?[via SpeakSpeak]crack civilization 4 no dvd

The buttons that changed the world

: Ernie Miller notes the 30th anniversary of the VCR. The other day, I noted a fellow panelist marking the 28th year since the remote control reached 50 percent penetration in America. crack civilization 4 no dvd

These are the buttons that changed the world. I say this so often when I do my blogboy dance, I might as well just pull up the podcast of my life and hit play: crack civilization 4 no dvd

The most important invention in the history of media was not the Gutenberg press but the remote control, for it gave the people control of media. crack civilization 4 no dvd

This led to cable and in turn to the internet, which allowed us to control not just the consumption but also the creation of media. And we know how that is changing the worlds of media, marketing, politics, government, education, dictatorships, life.crack civilization 4 no dvd

It started with a click. crack civilization 4 no dvd

It started with handing over control to the people. crack civilization 4 no dvd

This is how my book starts.... crack civilization 4 no dvd

... if I can find the time to write the damned thing. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Aw, shucks

: Australian blogger Paul Edwards writes a post sure to warm the hearts of and get links from many a Yank blogger today: Thanks, America. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The lady doth protest a heckuva lot

: CNN rounds up all the big-buck advertising campaigns old media are undertaking to try to change their image. Methinks that changes in the products will say more than any ad campaign.

To be sure, newspapers, radio and magazines still control roughly half of the $180 billion-plus U.S. advertising market. But their growth rates are among the slowest of all major media, causing concerns that they will lose out to the faster-growing Internet and cable television in the long run. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Kimball and his radio and magazine counterparts see the image makeovers as a way to shed their industries' reputation for stodginess and to refute the impression that their industries are doomed by new technologies. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Radio, for instance, is touting its move toward high-definition radio. The industry is also embracing a popular new practice called "podcasting," in which users can download popular radio shows onto their computer hard drives or a portable device. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Newspaper and magazine publishers are looking to tap digital technologies for new revenues streams, including providing content to cell phones and other wireless devices. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Newspapers, criticized for failing to see the revenue potential of online job searches and other forms of classified advertising, are taking business risks now that they never did before, said Kimball.

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June 08, 2005

Euphemism du jour

: Just heard a commercial for Zelnorm promising that it "helps coordinate movement in your GI tract." In short: It helps you take a dump. It's your dump coordinator. Whoever came up with that phrase deserves the high salary. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Bloguspat

: I can't imagine anyone get mad at Chuck Olsen. But someone did in a rather spectacular overreaction. Auteurs, you know. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The gubble

: We have arrived at the Google bubble -- the gubble: The company is now worth an alleged $80 billion, more than any media company in the world. OK, so media companies are overpriced. But this is just as ridiculous as all the old bubble wonders. I'm not ready to short Google. But I still say that it will reach a tipping point of being too big and that there are tons of smaller competitors who will nip at its heels and do smaller tasks better than big Google can do (e.g., job searching). Remember: Small is the new big. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And then there's the prediction that there will be 53 million blogs by year's end. I suppose that's a blubble. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Where nipples are welcome

: My rant about female media mutilation got a link from a naturist blog. There's somebody who's not blogging in pajamas. crack civilization 4 no dvd

FM unwrapped

: John Battelle is finally taking the veil off the worst kept secret in blogdom and medialand: His FM blog ad network. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Jason Calacanis live-blogged it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Using the innocents

: We should be ashamed of ourselves. The great tragedy of 9/11 is almost three years gone and still the hole stares at us because we are too political and incompetent to fill it and, worse, we are allowing the innocents and heroes of that day to be used to fulfill political agenda. The latest:crack civilization 4 no dvd

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal carried an op-ed by Debra Burlingame, sister of a pilot of one of the 9/11 jets, that paints an enraging picture of the work behind the so-called International Freedom Center being planned for the site. crack civilization 4 no dvd

I smelled something bad there when The Times -- in a review of the plans filled with the writer's own political agenda -- revealed that a picture of Iraqis holding up their purple fingers of freedom -- a picture worth well more than a thousand words about freedom and democracy -- was taken out of the presentation. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Burlingame says that the center is practically being turned into what Bill Maher has wanted: a Why They Hate Us Pavillion.

The organizers of its principal tenant, the International Freedom Center (IFC), have stated that they intend to take us on "a journey through the history of freedom"--but do not be fooled into thinking that their idea of freedom is the same as that of those Marines. To the IFC's organizers, it is not only history's triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures. The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man's inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich's Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond.
Why? And why here? crack civilization 4 no dvd

On my grave, please do not build a memorial to the mistakes of my neighbors and ancestors. Don't stand on the grass above me and flagellate. Just let me lie there in peace, please. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Oh, and by the way, when you build this center, will you include the atrocities of the Saudis and Saddam Hussein and the PLO and all the tyrants of the Middle East? Will have you have an exhibit about the women there who do not have the freedom to vote or even drive? crack civilization 4 no dvd

Will you build a special wing for the special sickness that is suicide terrorism -- in Israel and in Iraq and at the World Trade Center? Or will you be afraid of offending Muslims?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Well, I'm offended. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The World Trade Center is a place for remembrance of the innocents and victims of that day and for a return to life. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Burlingame has problems with many of the people behind the center but here is the gem:

Eric Foner, radical-left history professor at Columbia University who, even as the bodies were being pulled out of a smoldering Ground Zero, wrote, "I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House." This is the same man who participated in a "teach-in" at Columbia to protest the Iraq war, during which a colleague exhorted students with, "The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military," and called for "a million Mogadishus."
: Michele Malkin is also angry. More blog ire under Burlingame at Technorati. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Roger Simon has a few suggestions. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: Update: An emailer wants to point out that Foner called the colleague's Mogodish remark "idiotic."crack civilization 4 no dvd

The moneyed monarchy

: So in New Jersey, we now have the rich guy vs. the rich guy running for governor: Sen. Jon Corzine v. Doug Forrester, who has pummeled the state with ads for more than a year. And next door, of course, we have the rich guy mayor. Not that there's anything wrong with being rich. Not that there's anything wrong with using your own money to exercise your own free speech (after fighting for the First Amendment against the FCC, readers here made me see that I had to fight for it against the FEC, too; speech is speech). But the system is leading us to a point where the rich guys spending their own bucks will be taking over every office they can afford. There's something so... so... colonial English about that. Finance reform is not the answer, clearly; it is taking power away from the people and giving it to the powerful. We need to fix that (again) and at least shorten the length of campaigns so there's less time to spend all that wealth. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: LATER: Dick Meyer, editorial director of CBSNews.com, has an interesting take on rich politicians, inspired by The Times' class-war (class-spat) series (whose premise I don't entirely buy, being the grandson of folks who lived in a holler myself) and by The Times' own coverage of how the rich live:

I just want to point out the irony of running an excellent set of pieces about the anthropology and demographics of the hyper-rich in a paper that is dining out on them. It is a kind of limousine liberalism that I believe also afflicts the Democratic Party too often, a conceit that "we are the enlightened rich."crack civilization 4 no dvd

Bill Clinton didn't bash the rich a lot, but he could have; Johns Kerry and Edwards did bash the rich a lot, and it flopped. It flopped partly because Americans who are not rich simply do not have a European-style, class base resentment. Americans aspire to being rich. That's the American way. But the '04 Democratic rhetoric also flopped because the guys spewing looked like such phonies; they weren't just rich, they were richer than the Republicans: they were hyper-rich....crack civilization 4 no dvd

The point is not that being rich, or exploiting interest in the rich to sell newspapers, should be disqualifiers for tackling issues of economic justice. The point is to do it with some humility and an ear well-tuned to hypocrisy.

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After my own heart(burn)

: How could I have missed it? A blog devoted to burgers. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 07, 2005

More new-fangled ads

: Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer at Publicis Groupe Media and one of the very smartest guys in the future, says that...

Fragmentation and consumer control will drive the cost of digital media upwards by 20 to 30 percent annually over the next several years,.... crack civilization 4 no dvd

"At some stage it becomes more expensive to buy Google than to buy network television," said Tobaccowala, citing the pay-per-click auction environment and the costs of re-aggregating audiences once reached via a single network TV buy.

Google? Yes, probably. But aggregated, ad hoc, quality networks of citizens' and professional media? No, I don't think so. Because the unlimited world of content is by its nature a scarcity killer and because I do believe -- if we get off our asses and make it happen -- that new technology will enable advertisers to buy across those ad hoc networks of content and conversation of all sorts from any type of source and that that will end up being far more efficient than advertising today. Yes, it's not going to be as easy to buy big globs of audience. But when you end up buying directed clusters of real customers, the pay off, the ROI as we say, will be far greater. See also Small is the New Big: Not all products and brands will be mass anymore and so their advertising will not be either. Yes, today, as Rishad points out, that re-aggregation of audience is expensive but that is in old media with old methods. Rishad continues:
Tobaccowala also predicts media buyers will simply have to pay more to capture people's attention in an increasingly consumer-controlled culture. crack civilization 4 no dvd

"The cost of getting someone's attention is going to go up much, much more," he warned. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Some of those costs will be driven by targeting and measurement technologies necessary to reach increasingly fragmented audiences, while others will stem from the need to make creative more attention-getting, Tobaccowala said. Combining rich data with outstanding creative ideas is what's needed in the future media environment, he opines. crack civilization 4 no dvd

"We believe the future is left brain and right brain. We believe it's both," he said. "It's not going to be the tyranny of numbers, nor is it going to be the petulance of artists. You can program and numericalize as much as you want, but sooner or later you're going to need the people and the ideas."

Yes, yes, and yes. And how's this for a punchline:
"People say, 'media will take over everything; data will take over everything; digital will take over everything; search will take over everything,'" he warned. "And the truth of the matter is nothing will take over everything."
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New-fangled ads

: Via John Battelle, a survey of advertisers says: "64% would advertise in blogs, 57% would place RSS ads." OK, easier said than sold. But still, don't think that blogs and RSS have ad cooties; they have ad heat and the real question is how to capture that and make it happen....crack civilization 4 no dvd

When indecency is pervasive, is it indecent

: Adam Thierer writes in today's Washington Post that the spreading ooze of content regulation -- aka censorship -- holds more dangers on the horizon:

Some lawmakers seem to believe that once any media technology becomes popular enough, it becomes "pervasive" and therefore some degree of censorship is justified. But the notion that "popularity equals pervasiveness" is frightening, because it contains no limiting principles. This wasn't the standard we applied to print outlets such as newspapers as they grew in popularity. Nor is it the standard we apply to the Internet. In fact, recent Supreme Court decisions have rejected attempts to apply indecency controls to cyberspace.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Of course, none of this is going to stop pro-censorship policymakers from pushing the envelope to incorporate new media -- at least basic cable and satellite programming -- into the indecency mix. If this "popularity equals pervasiveness" regulatory paradigm becomes law and passes muster in the courts, we will have entered a world in which the public has to pay to escape censorship. Anything Congress or the FCC deemed "indecent" would likely be forced onto a premium or pay-per-view tier, where consumers would spend considerable sums to receive some of their favorite programs. But here's the really interesting question: If large numbers of viewers still flock to premium or pay-per-view services to get their favorite programming -- such as HBO, or Howard Stern's new show on satellite radio -- wouldn't the "popularity equals pervasiveness" calculus apply to those channels as well? If so, we could look forward to still more laws to protect us from ourselves.

[Thanks, Ruth]crack civilization 4 no dvd

The Great Nipple Hunt continues

: We've been dutifully reporting attacks of prudes on tipples and now here's another case of national mammarophobia:

Teen actress Lindsay Lohan's breasts have been digitally reduced for forthcoming Disney film Herbie: Fully Loaded, to avoid offending family audiences.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Test screenings for the new movie, the fourth sequel to the 1968 film The Love Bug about a Volkswagen Beetle car with a mind of its own, indicated that some parents felt Lohan's character Maggie Peyton was too raunchy for a children's film.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Disney technicians were forced to plough through numerous scenes - especially those showing the busty actress jumping up and down at a motor racing track, reducing her breasts by two cup sizes and raising revealing necklines on her T-shirts.

The director denies it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The problem these days -- when grown people make news hunting down nipples -- is that you can't tell the parody from the truth. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And then again, let's not forget the surgical speculation.crack civilization 4 no dvd

All of which leads to just one conclusion: In America, breasts are news. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: SPEAKING OF WHICH....crack civilization 4 no dvd

The Los Alamos whistleblower

: The Los Alamos blog that has been dogging management there is covering the brutal beating of a fellow whistleblower. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The person next to you is nuts

: The NY Times reports today that more than half of us will be "mentally ill" sometime in our lives. Well, if more than half of us will, doesn't that make it normal? We're just screwed up, we humans.crack civilization 4 no dvd

: LATER: Arianna Huffington -- who's as crazy as a fox -- has her own view of this. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 06, 2005

Apple's enemies

: Ernie Miller asks when and whether Apple will sue CNet for revealing company secrets the way it sued some humble bloggers. crack civilization 4 no dvd

10 million Luthers

: Jay Rosen -- who's never half-baked but who's always eager for conversation -- took his sweet time to formulate his responses to Deep Throat's unveiling and to the announcement of a big-money effort to fix journalism education and he put them together in a post that examines the religion journalism has become and the conclave of cardinals that the Carnegie-Knight initiative is. crack civilization 4 no dvd

The commonly accepted tenets and practices of our religion are due for questioning and one would hope that journalists -- so proud of being skeptics -- would be the questioners and that journalism schools -- where academics are so proud of questioning -- would be the place for this to occur. But, of course, journalism and journalism education are institutions that attempt to preserve their religion. So Jay's response to the big load of cash that landed in the collection plate last week is this:

Maybe what we need is not funding for a new church, but a breakaway church, or two, or three of them. (And what is Fox News Channel, but that?)
And what are bloggers but 10 million Luthers pounding on the door?crack civilization 4 no dvd

This is not to say that I reject the instititutions of journalism and I don't think Jay rejects the institutions of journalism education or we wouldn't both be men of the paper. But we do believe that the breakaways, the challengers, the heretics are good for these institutions, which should be questioning their ways to find betters ones. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Among the religious tenets that should be questioned, in Jay's post: Did Woodward and Bernstein and Bradlee bring down the emperor Nixon... or -- to make a bad metaphor unbearable -- did Mark Felt as Brutus bring down this Caesar, did agencies of government do the job more than institutions of journalism? And are we really so skeptical, we reporters, are do we too often report what the powerful want us to report? Is it right and necessary that journalists pay their dues working their way up the institutional ladder when others are walking around that ladder to do the same work? Are the products of journalism's two holy sacraments -- investigative reporting and good, old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting -- what the public really wants or what journalists want?

Watergate has been treated by journalists as a consensus narrative, with an agreed-upon lesson for all Americans. The Fourth Estate model not only works, it can save us. The press shall know the truth and the truth shall check the powers that be, whether Democrat or Republican. Chasing stories, exposing corruption, giving voice to the downtrodden: that's what we in journalism do, the myth says. We do it for the American people.
That's what we want to believe in journalism, but is it true? crack civilization 4 no dvd

: MORE: Laura Washington writes in the Sun-Times that journalism's mirror is cracked:

When the journalism profession looks in the mirror, it doesn't like what it sees.crack civilization 4 no dvd

It sees a public turned off by the news -- news of a never-ending succession of our journalistic crimes from plagiarism to fabrication; squabbles over anonymous sources; half-hearted mea culpas, and just-plain-old screw-ups. It sees a profession in crisis....crack civilization 4 no dvd

When readers and viewers look into the mirror that is our media, they don't see themselves. A recent report by Columbia's own Project for Excellence in Journalism found that in the last 17 years, Americans have "come to see the press as less professional, less moral, more inaccurate, and less caring about the interests of the country." Surveys taken between 1985 and 2002 reveal the proportion of Americans who view news organizations as "highly professional" declined from 72 percent to 49 percent. Those who considered news organizations "moral" fell from 54 percent to 39 percent. And news consumers who "thought the press got the facts straight" fell from 55 percent to 35 percent.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Joe Six-Pack doesn't read the newspaper over his morning eggs and coffee anymore. The couch potatoes are furiously clicking off the nightly news. Readers and viewers see the media as an elitist bunch that neither live nor reflect their reality. The news honchos who have the most sway over writing and producing the news are mostly white men over 50....

Whoa about there. I was fine until she turned this into a quota thing... and that's not just because I am a white man over 50 (not that there's anything wrong with that, right?). She falls into newsroom-think: that diversity is about the colors of the people you see inside the newsroom. No, diversity is about the voices and views outside and whether they are heard. They are beginning to be heard online, because they can be, so why do they need to go inside the newsroom? No, it's up to the newsroom to listen to what is happening outside its walls. [Thanks to Paladin in the comments for the link!]crack civilization 4 no dvd

Small is the new big

: I've been trying to figure this out for sometime: On the one hand, things in our world are getting bigger: Walmart... media conglomerates... Dell... merged airlines... megachurches... Home Depot... merged banks... Microsoft...crack civilization 4 no dvd

But on the other hand, things are getting smaller: The empowered individual can create a media company, using blog software; create a manufacturing company, using somebody else's factory and somebody else's distribution; create a multinational enterprise, using nothing more than a Skype line.crack civilization 4 no dvd

I wondered whether small was just a trend or a new organizing principle for the business world. I now think it could be the latter. Small won't replace big, of course, but small will add up to considerable new competition. And that is because small can now succeed. The economies of scale must compete with the economies of small.crack civilization 4 no dvd

On the supply side, the point of critical mass has imploded. It used to be, you couldn't make money writing unless you got paid by a big publisher; now you can begin to make enough money blogging. It used to be, you couldn't make money running a store unless you had location and marketing and capital and employees and enough revenue to support all that; now you can make enough money on eBay. It used to be, to get a job you had to be willing to dress up and commute; now you can work at home online. The cost of running business has declined; the revenue you need to be successful thus declines. crack civilization 4 no dvd

But there's the critical calculation: The price of independence declines. In a world where most people are sick of their jobs -- be honest now -- this is big. There is no loyalty from employer to employee and given the chance to earn FU money, there will be no loyalty from employee to employer. We'll see more and more people trying to make it on their own and now more and more can. crack civilization 4 no dvd

On the demand side, I do believe that the market will embrace alternatives to the one-size-fits-all malling of the world. Before the Berlin Wall fell, I was amazed to find a Benetton in East Berlin. Now you can find the same stores from the same malls everywhere -- all over Berlin and even filling once-hip Soho in New York. Everything's the same, nothing's unique, and that takes the fun out of shopping. So given a chance to buy something special, wouldn't you? You'll find it on eBay or even an Amazon zShop or on one of the craftsman's group sites online and you won't need to buy much to make that seller successful. crack civilization 4 no dvd

You'll also save money. We'll see the death of many middleman. That is what Craig's List is all about. Who the hell wants to pay real estate brokers if you don't have to? Direct, person-to-person commerce with the aid of services like eBay and FedEx reduce friction and cost and put middlemen out of business. And that is what internet media is about: direct, person-to-person communication. crack civilization 4 no dvd

And you will come to a new definition of value built on trust. Dealing with big companies today -- airlines, banks, stores -- you know you're going to get screwed and consumer victory is avoiding that. In the person-to-person marketplace the internet enables, you do business with and converse with those you trust. They value that trust and earn it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Walmart won't die. But it will have a million new competitors. Newspapers won't die (maybe) but they better figure out how to embrace the small guys who can cover the news they can't afford to cover. GM won't die (maybe) but look at one of the links below to see a guy who put together his own company making scooters with his own design and others' manufacturing; can cars be far behind? Microsoft and Intel and Apple won't die, but see another link below about a guy who's using someone else's manufacturing to make his Pez-like MP3 players. Airlines will die because they don't know how to get small and any old Joe can't get a berth at JFK and that's why airline travel today sucks. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: I'd been contemplating this and the other day, I mentioned in a link to Seth Godin's blog that I was working on a post about how "small is the new big." Then, the next day, Godin headlined a post with just that notion.

Small is the new big because small gives you the flexibility to change the business model when your competition changes theirs.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Small means you can tell the truth on your blog.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Small means that you can answer email from your customers.crack civilization 4 no dvd

Small means that you will outsource the boring, low-impact stuff like manufacturing and shipping and billing and packing to others, while you keep the power because you invent the remarkable and tell stories to people who want to hear them.crack civilization 4 no dvd

A small law firm or accounting firm or ad agency is succeeding because they’re good, not because they’re big. So smart small companies are happy to hire them....crack civilization 4 no dvd

Is it better to be the head of Craigslist or the head of UPS?crack civilization 4 no dvd

Small is the new big only when the person running the small thinks big.

: See also Fortune on the "amazing rise of the do-it-yourself economy."crack civilization 4 no dvd

: See also Business 2.0 on the "new instant company."crack civilization 4 no dvd

: See also this Powerpoint on the death of blockbuster media -- an industry built on the hope of getting massive mass -- and the rise of micromedia. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: And the funny thing is, small keeps getting smaller. Here is The New York Times chastising eBay for being too big and telling them they should learn some lessons from li'l ol' Criag. crack civilization 4 no dvd

: SEE MORE: Trendwatching.com's latest newsletter touches on how marketing happens in a small-is-the-new-big world: Of course, it's about recommendations -- links -- from friends and trusted cohorts, first. And TW says this leads to "twinsumers" (yes, they get paid more for making up obnoxious names for things... and "bloggers," "vloggers," and "podcasters" can hardly throw darts), which means that people are in search for their "taste twin." That is the ideal and the infrastructure of the internet is now enabling it. crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 05, 2005

But I don't

: Craig Newmark reacts to a nice New York Times feature on Craig's List and the observation that he is hubris-free with this plea: "I need you to tell me when I'm full of shit."crack civilization 4 no dvd

June 04, 2005

Just bury me in the backyard

: The Washington Post reports a trend in home funerals. crack civilization 4 no dvd

Sure enough, you can buy coffins on eBay. crack civilization 4 no dvd