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July 18, 2005

Changes at the top

: Who says you can't blog about your own office? Steve Baker tells us about changes at Business Week and what they mean:

The most important change (from a blog perspective) is that one managing editor position has been turned into three--count 'em--executive editor posts. Yet only one of these editors will focus on the paper-and-ink magazine. The other two will direct BW Online and new ventures. That means that two-thirds of the top editing team will be focused away from our paper magazine. Gives you an idea of where the growth is.

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He doth protest a heckuva lot

: Go listen to the latest On The Media to hear a mind-boggling interview with Cleveland Plain Dealer Editor Doug Clilfton about his decision not to publish two stories based on leaked government docs in the aftermath of the Judith Miller jailing (sorry but the link to the segment doesn't work and transcripts aren't up yet but it's in the beginning of the MP3 atop this page). I wish I could quote and characterize it to give you a sense of what happens there but you have to listen because it's just bizarre. Clifton snaps at interview Bob Garfield and at The New York Times for reasons that aren't entirely clear. vue esprit ver4 crack

Democracy Guy writes about the interview here. vue esprit ver4 crack

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Carnival of the walkers

: As you may know, I'm working with good folks at About.com on such things as blogs and one of the enthusiastic, blog-smart guides there, Wendy Bumgardner, has just started a Carnival of the walkers. vue esprit ver4 crack

The challenge, of course, is that there aren't a lot of blogs devoted just to walking. But we all do it. And I know there are good stories about good vacation walks with good photos and Flickr sagas memorializing these walks. vue esprit ver4 crack

So do me a favor: Post about your favorite walks and walk photos and walk stuff (cameras, whatever) and send the links to Wendy: walking.guide@about.com.vue esprit ver4 crack

I'm inspired by going on gorgeous strolls at Skytop last week and now that I'm back in miserably muggy Gotham, I want to smell the fresh air of freedom again. Beside, walking is the perfect topic for bloggers, isn't it: Left-right-left-right....vue esprit ver4 crack

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News at the front

: Good on Reuters for supporting the creation of an Iraqi wire service.

The charitable foundation of the Reuters news agency plans to announce this week that it is turning a grass-roots Iraqi news Web site into that nation's first independent commercial news service.vue esprit ver4 crack

For the last several months, the Web site, Aswat al-Iraq (Voices of Iraq), has relied on a team of 30 stringers and the help of three of Iraq's independent newspapers, as well as feeds from the Reuters Arabic-language service, to publish hundreds of stories a month on politics, culture and even the taboo topic of AIDS in Iraq.vue esprit ver4 crack

Now the site, www.aswataliraq.info, will become a full-fledged newswire, managed and staffed by Iraqi journalists in Baghdad and operated independently of Reuters. It will use $800,000 from the United Nations to create a newsroom and post reporters in each Iraqi province. When the service goes live in a few months, it will feed breaking news to both Iraqi and foreign news outlets.

Yes, I can anticipate the cracks in the comments: Reuters and the U.N., what a team... we'll never see the word "terrorist" there. But I say give it a chance to prove its journalistic value. vue esprit ver4 crack

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Gawker 1, Page 6 0

: Yesterday, Page 6 popped a vein over Gawker's snarking. Today, Jessica Coen gives Page 6 some advice:

Thesaurus.com is my top bookmark, and I suggest you make it the same on your browser. Then you needn't use words like "snarky" over and over again. Say I'm contemptous, irritable, cranky, cocky, insolent, sneering. Call me a dimwitted bitch, for all I care. Just don't use "snark" twice in the same item.

[via Blogebrity]vue esprit ver4 crack

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To witness

: The Guardian's John Naughton -- a blog supporter -- has second thoughts about the citizen reporting that occurred in the London bombings. I disagree. He says in the Observer:

Hmmm ... Can I be alone in having mixed feelings about all this? I think it was Heidegger who said that 'technology is the art of arranging the world so that we don't have to experience it'.vue esprit ver4 crack

I find it astonishing - not to say macabre - that virtually the first thing a lay person would do after escaping injury in an explosion in which dozens of other human beings are killed or maimed is to film or photograph the scene and then relay it to a broadcasting organisation.

Whoa. Isn't that the reflex that every reporter has? What's so wrong with anyone else having the same need to remember and share and report and witness? vue esprit ver4 crack

And what makes fellow citizens lay people next to reporter-priests? vue esprit ver4 crack

On September 11th in New York, I didn't know what I was: witness, reporter, survivor. I stayed at the World Trade Center to report after the first jet hit. My wife remains, well, disapproving of that decision, but that's because, as it turned out, the danger was far from over. I, too, disapproved of my decision when I was enveloped by the cloud of destruction. vue esprit ver4 crack

But danger apart, I knew I had to report. A few days later, I started this blog to continue remembering and witnessing. I also bought a camera phone to replace the plain phone lost in that cloud, because I often thought how different our view of that day would have been if it had been seen at eye level and not from rooftops miles away. vue esprit ver4 crack

As a journalist, you would think that Naughton would welcome more truly eyewitness reporting, more facts, more stories, more humanity. And who better to provide this than witnesses themselves, now equipped not only with cameras but also with the knowledge that they could report what they saw themselves. Isn't that better than second-hand reporting?vue esprit ver4 crack

Naughton complains that some of the material they recorded was too graphic to be shown. Well, isn't that true of any photographer's rolls? That is why editors edit. vue esprit ver4 crack

I've heard others fret that just-people, lay people, would be too obtrusive -- but that assumes that professional journalists are not. Oh, but we are. vue esprit ver4 crack

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When freedom becomes a unique selling proposition

: So I was listening to Sirius yesterday and heard one of its (many) promotions for its comedy channels and their pitch was that it's "radio that's cool, without the FCC rules." vue esprit ver4 crack

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No escape

: Go read Tom Evslin's hilarious memory of a really bad day on the job. vue esprit ver4 crack

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