BuzzMachine

Digg courage

Digg courage

: Glenn Reynolds says:

AN ANTI-TERROR RALLY BY MUSLIMS in Antelope Valley, California.

You know, if these people had blown something up, they'd be getting more press. Which suggests that if the press wants to help eliminate terrorism, it should adjust its priorities.

Let's shame them into it with our Digg for terrorist inciters, excusers, and opponents.

Baiting Bernie

Baiting Bernie

: James Wolcott, antimatter to Bernie Goldberg's matter, taunts him in promoing an appearance on Al Franken's show:

As many of you are no doubt aware, Al outranks me. He's #37 on Bernard Goldberg's list of the 100 people screwing up America--a book that should be more properly titled, Hey, You Liberals, Get Off My Lawn!--while I place at #64. Yet I'm not envious. If anything, I'm embarrassed that my ranking is as high as it is. I've only been screwing up America for a few paltry years while Oliver Stone and others who placed below me in this feebleminded gimmick of a fake book have spent decades of blood, sweat, and tears trying to undermine everything Goldberg holds dear in the studios of Fox News, where he seems to have set up a cot in the green room so that he can be always on call.

And, I know, by merely quoting that, I'll be asked by commenters: "Haven't you learned?" Oh, yes, I have.

The unstory

The unstory

: What's most impressive about the nomination of John Roberts is how the White House made it into the unstory.

I don't see the blogs going crazy. There isn't much to say. Atrios very briefly had a moment's hope that Roberts had a connection to Iran-Contra. Oops. Wrong John Roberts. Nevermind.

We're not hearing scandals or scandalous opinions from the guy. We're not hearing any particular protest that he's the whitest white guy they could find.

The TV pundits and blathershows and the columnists aren't using their scarce ink and airtime to probe every Roberts angle because there aren't any.

As I mentioned below, Kos et al were already moving on -- like the good political strategists they are -- to figure out how to find victory in defeat. And they're back to hammering the Rove story.

In an absolutely bizarre post today, PowerLine defends Roberts against gay gags (because he was once caught in plaid pants).

It is the unstory.

Nonetheless, Howard Kurtz' Reliable Sources is talking about Roberts coverage and reaction on CNN this Sunday and I'll be on. Gee, I hope they don't think it's going to be so quiet that they have to invite Bernie.....

The scarcity killer

The scarcity killer

: One of the slides in my PowerPoint BlogBoy dance calls the internet a scarcity killler and contemplates what that means for media: when advertisers can always find somewhere else to advertise and when access to scarce airtime and presstime is no longer valued.

It doesn't kill commerce but it changes the rules and the value. So, for example, the scarce commodity might not be paper but may be trust. And so those who establish trust gain value in the future.

At Always On, George Gilder went on a nice, hyperbolic riff on scarcity:

"TV is dying fast and it will be followed by Hollywood. These industries fed on scarcity. There are only a few channels available. TV was technology of tyrants. It fed this advertising model that has collapsed," Gilder told an audience at the conference. "The thirty-second spot is just going to die. Nobody is going to watch any ads they don't want to see.

"Book culture and blog culture can redeem a civilization," he said.

It's ain't Taco Bell

It ain't Taco Bell

: I'm a simple man with simple tastes. I'd be happy going to Taco Bell for lunch every day (grilled stuffed burrito, chicken, please) but today I made a rare, very rare appearance at media canteen Michael's. Apart from my map Elizabeth Spiers (whom I passed by going in, late for lunch, but saw going out) I did not notice a single one of the luminaries listed here. Not even David Hasselhoff!

Me-Owe!

Me-Owe!

: The NY Post has just about the meanest front page and story I've seen (since the days of Bill Clinton, at least) on Jude Law's nanny. The lede:

Hey, Jude, you burned Sienna for . . . this?

Even all tarted up for a photo shoot for London's Mirror newspaper, nanny Daisy Wright looks more like a late-night belt-notch than a top-shelf taste worth scrapping an engagement to a gorgeous A-list actress.

The reviews are in

The reviews are in

: In the comments below, there are plenty of people giving Donny Deutsch's show and me bad reviews and that's fine: A critic is fair game for criticism. And we can all disagree.

That's what makes America great (and not screwed up).

I'll answer a few of the points:

On reading books for TV: I didn't read the book. I said so here before the show. I did go looking for it but on short notice didn't have time to read it if I had. I read articles and posts about it and the summary sent over by the show's producers. And I will also say that I wasn't sure I wanted to add one more notch in the book's bestseller count (see below).

As some commenters point out, don't think that every time you see Matt Lauer interviewing an author, he has read the book. Authors who get publicity on TV know that their books are rarely read by their interviewers but they take the publicity. If they wanted more than three minutes of stone-skipping, then they should go to C-SPAN, where people read the books but nobody watches the shows.

And I don't think there is some moral imperative to read the book. There's nothing sacred about a book. When I'm called on to do the point-counterpoint TV dance with, say, someone from the PTC, I don't read their every screed and I don't expect them to read my every screed and we can still discuss and disagree about issues.

As Linda Stasi said, we were there to discuss the list, which had gotten plenty of publicity: I was prepared to discuss the notion of it, she was there to discuss the names on the list. Which leads to the next point:

Was it an ambush? I don't know that it was. I was told that Donny liked what Goldberg did, even though he, of course, disagreed with some of the names on the list. Donny started off with a polite discussion of substance about the list but Bernie got hostile quickly. That set the tone: If you disagree with him, you're ambushing him. He attacks other people -- and spends a whole book attacking people -- but yet he can't take the pushback himself. It was a bizarre start to the show.

When they came back for the next segment, Donny called on Linda Stasi. Keep in mind, she is a columnist for the New York Friggin' Post, one of the top conservative papers in the nation. It's not as if they brought in Jim Wolcott or Eric Alterman and threw it to them. They called on a Postie.

Linda and I were in the same studio, on the same couch (though we weren't supposed to acknowledge that; we were on separate cameras). I talked to her before the show and saw her notes preparing for the talk. She was going to engage Goldberg on his terms, on his list, and throw out her own nominees. That's how she started: She wanted Rush Limbaugh on the list, which was also her way of pointing out that Bernie had nothing but liberals on his list. That's a perfectly legitimate way to discuss the book. But this quickly devolved into shouting, with Bernie yelling at Linda to "shut up."

I'd say it was Linda Stasi who was ambushed by Bernie Goldberg: He was hostile and rude and though he kept saying he would answer her question he never in fact tried to (an old TV trick from an old TV hand). He yelled and insulted. He made it personal, as he did with me later. She was disgusted with it and was ready to take off her microphone and walk out and she had every right to.

I shrugged: It's just a silly discussion about a silly book on a silly TV show.

But then, I hadn't yet had Bernie talking about my humping.

And so now to the substance: As I said in my post before the show and as I said on the show, I don't buy his premise:

America is not screwed up.

Oh, we have plenty to disagree about and we damed well should be debating about how to solve our problems and face our mutual enemies and issues. But I do not think it is productive to make that personal and act as if some people are out to screw up America. We have met the enemy, Bernie, and it isn't us.

Oh, there are plenty of people on Goldberg's list he and I would agree to disagree with. But I think that most of them are sincere and are not bad people out to "screw up America". Michael Moore behaves badly but he's sincere. Noam Chomsky has inane opinions but he's every bit as sincere as Bernie Goldberg.. oh, is he.

They disagree. We can debate their disagreements. That is the very essence, again, of what makes America great. That is why America is not screwed up.

But turning that debate into an ambush on the 100 people on this list and making it personal and mean is not a productive discussion. And we see too much of that in debates today. We saw it on cable until Jon Stewart killed Crossfire and that tide shifted (until last night, I guess). We see blogs often accused of that (though I do believe that's the exception and that most discussion in this medium -- unlike TV -- has the opportunity to be substantive and to link to all sides).

To me, the mere exercise of trying to name 100 people on the other side as the bad guys who are screwing up our country is like freeze-drying the worst and most shallow of cable TV shout shows and online flames. It is the worst of making politics personal instead of productive.

If anything is screwing up America, that attitude is.

MORE: People in the comments are asking me to say I am wrong. No, we just disagree and I stand by my opinions and my view from being in the thick of it. They ask me to say I made a mistake. No, I didn't set up the event. I will say that I regret being part of it. I don't think anyone who was involved does not regret being part of it. It was not pleasant. It certainly was not informative. It was not good TV (though in its time, people tried to define such moments as good TV; those days are over).

: LATER: Crooks & Liars has the video up.

: AND NOW I'M WONDERING.... Who is nastier to me when I piss them off, conservatives or liberals? Hmmmmmm........

: THIS IS GETTING COMICAL: Bill O'Reilly teases Bernie coming on to whine and waaaaaaaaaaaa about this "harrowing experience" on CNBC; the screen calls it a "TV Nightmare!," complete with exclamation mark. This from O'Reilly, the shut-up king and Goldberg of CBS News, the ambush kings.

OK. I'm fed up now. I return to my original position: Bernie's bonkers... or a damned good book salesman.

: Atrios has the appropriate one-word review:"Hilarious.

: And here's Bernie waaaa-waaaa-waaaaaing his way to Rush Limbaugh:

The big point is that this is what the cultural elite liberals do these days. They can stab you in the back. No problem, because they know what's best. That's the problem. This time, they did it to me. Big deal. Big deal. Insignificant show. Big deal. They did the exact same thing, Rush, to Judge Bork. They did the exact same thing to Judge Pickering, the judge from Mississippi who they made out to be soft on cross burners -- and they're going to do it again, Rush, with Judge Roberts, and that's why Ralph Neas, the head of People for American Way is #10 on the list in this book.

He called the people on the show not just liberal but leftist. Can somebody tell Oliver Willis and Kos and Eric Alterman for me? Maybe I'll get my official party membership card back.

: Now O'Reilly is calling it "TV terrorism."

Twits.

: Now I'm getting fag-bashing email from the Bernieacs. Nice bunch, them. It gets better. It's homophobic and racist. Sweethearts.

: On O'Reilly, Goldberg says "the culture in this country has gotten way too angry and way too nasty." What the hell are you, Bernie?

Bill is sympathetic on "the shut-up thing." Uh-huh.

Poor widdle Bernie. Waaaa-waaa-waaaah.

Bizarro Bernie

Bizarro Bernie

: Yesterday, I taped Donny Deutsch's show with Bernie Goldberg about his book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (earlier post here). It's going to be on CNBC tonight at 10:30p and you have to watch, for you will see a bizarre performance that continued after the cameras went off.

Bernie went bonkers.

Or Bernie is bonkers.

We report. You decide.

The show started with Bernie snarling at Donny for no good reason. Then, in the second segment, Donny came to NY Post TV critic Linda Stasi, who was prepared to discuss Bernie's silly list (giving it more dignity than I would have have). With good humor and energy, she asked why Rush Limbaugh wasn't on it.

Well, that set Bernie off. And downhill we went. Bernie shouted to Linda to shut up. He got downright mean. Linda and I were in the same studio (though we were on different cameras) and we looked at each other to confirm that we weren't nuts; this was. Bernie growled about how he can't stand being on "panel show." It got so bad that Donny had to scold Bernie for his behavior.

Later, Bernie insisted that he wasn't a "church lady" (after Donny and I defended one of the names on his list, Howard Stern) but then he went on about people talking about "humping" on TV. When I said he did indeed sound like a church lady, he came back and said less-than-polite things about whom I hump. I said that's a fine way for him to talk.

You get the flavor.

And then the madness continued.

Bernie called a producer at CNBC and reduced her to tears.

He called media outlets -- starting with the, cough, sympathetic Washington Times -- arguing that he was ambushed.

He called Fox -- where, according to one of the other guests, he has already appeared eight times to promote his book -- to whine and get on Bill O'Reilly's show.

One theory is that this is all a publicity ploy. Another is that he's acting wacky. I think it's a combination of the two: This is the behavior of a paranoid who needs enemies to keep his paranoid rantings -- and publicity -- alive. Bernie wanted to be ambushed. He made it into an ambush. And the strategy is working. The book's selling (at time of taping it was No. 3 on Amazon behind only Harry Potter; now it's No. 6). Except we on the show didn't buy the book. And that really pissed him off.

Here's what appeared in The Washington Times:

"I've been doing this a long, long time, and I have never, ever, ever, never -- I could say never and ever 10 more times -- experienced what I just went through," Mr. Goldberg told Inside the Beltway late yesterday after he taped the show, which is to air tonight, from Miami.
"Deutsch disagreed with everything, and that is just fine," said Mr. Goldberg, the best-selling author of "Bias" who has written the new book "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is No. 37)."
"But then, unbeknownst to me, they brought on a panel of five, plus Donny, all of whom took the other side. And it's not like they just respectfully disagreed; there was name-calling, ganging up; it was unbelievable. And not one of them even read the book. They admitted it.
"It was more than an ambush," he said. "It was the most cynical, dishonest thing I have ever been lassoed into. They misled me."
Immediately after the taping, Mr. Goldberg said, he told the show's producer, Marilyn Cutler, that Mr. Deutsch had been "dishonest."

And the spin continues. Someone masquerading as an "informed source" contacts the CaptainsQuarters with more whining:

However, instead of debating cultural issues as the producers had explained the segment to Goldberg, it turned out that the show had stacked the panel with people who disliked Goldberg's book -- and ganged up on him to belittle it.

The show issued a statement in response:

Mr. Goldberg was invited on our program to discuss his new book. We asked him if he would be willing to stay and join a panel of print and online journalists to discuss the people and issues he raised in the book and he agreed. At certain points during the segment, Mr. Goldberg, the panelists and Donny did not always agree. We felt that it was a healthy and robust conversation.

We treat all of guests, including Mr. Goldberg, with nothing but the utmost respect and courtesy. We encourage people to tune into CNBC tonight at 10:30PM and watch for themselves.

: Now here are a few quotes from the show. I don't have a full transcript yet. This quote from me comes after he attacked Stasi and Barbara Walters before that, after the heat was already on high.

You know, Bernie, you put yourself up on a high pedestal here as if you're above journalism. But you know what? You're just using the oldest trick I know--and I did it myself--in: 'Let's come up with a meaningless list and then a meaningless debate about.' [That's] almost certainly what's happening right now.

Let's start with the premise. America's not screwed up. Let's start there. America is a good place. It's a wonderful place....

And to say, `Well, I've got the list, and I have in my hand a list with names.' It's a ridiculous unjournalism, unnews exercise, and you make fun of Barbara Walters and others for blurring the line between news. This isn't news. This isn't journalism. It's a way to get promotion you're getting right now and then complaining about. It's really pretty hard to take, Bernie.

: And now a sample of the exchange between Bernie and Linda:

Ms. STASI: Well, I just think it's incredible that he writes a section on vicious celebrities and he's being so vicious. And we're just sitting here discussing it. You don't have to tell me to shut up, you know. It's just—I mean, don't you find that vulgar if you're yelling at somebody to shut up on television? Because I find that really vulgar.

DEUTSCH: I couldn't agree more.

Unidentified Guest: Yeah. Yeah, I don't understand how you could like...

DEUTSCH: Wait, let him respond to that.

Mr. GOLDBERG: No, I only did it because you don't shut up.

Unidentified Guest: I don't understand...

Mr. STASI: You know what? You see what I mean. It's so ignorant.

Unidentified Guest: ...how do you tell a woman to shut up?

Ms. STASI: It's ignorant.

Unidentified Guest: A woman, tell her to shut up? I mean, come on.

Ms. STASI: It's just ignorant. It's just ignorant.

DEUTSCH: What signal is that? You're talking about cultural wars? To any young girl watching out there, you tell a woman to shut up?

Ms. STASI: It doesn't matter if I'm a woman or not, what he says...

Mr. GOLDBERG: Donny!

DEUTSCH: It does matter.

Ms. STASI: ...is just silly.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Donny, Donny, that's interesting.

Ms. STASI: It's vulgar and silly.

Selling your soul

Selling your soul

: I pass by the AM New York freebie paper stand today and see the screaming headline: MOVIE THEATER STUNS AUDIENCES. It doesn't take a minute -- or a genius -- to see that it's an ad for Motorola, Loews, Cingular. The ad takes over the front page. Oh, there's still a real front page inside; this is a wrapper around the real paper. Still, this is the front page you see screaming at you from the valuable space of the newsracks; this is the image AM New York presents to its public.

Now this is hardly the first paper to put an ad on its front page; that may be holy space, but everybody has his price. Nor is this the first paper to put on a wrapper, though those are usually handed out at events and I've never seen one in a newsstand, because newsstands are all about selling papers -- and news sells papers (doesn't it?).

But, of course, this paper isn't sold. It's given away. And that changes the rules. Letting an ad take over the front page doesn't depress newsstand sales; there are no newsstand sales.

And putting an ad with a giveaway on the cover may even help drive free papers out of the rack. All the better if they'd been giving away free sex.

Why the hell do I care? Because the free-news economy changes the rules and I am always fascinated to see how this happens.

I saw this happen at People in the '80s, when stars and their flacks realized that their images were being used on covers to sell magazines and they wanted something for it -- if not money then at least control ("picture approval" was their first bid).

Economics change media.

Here, AM New York's value is distribution -- greater distribution than the paid papers precisely because it's free. So that makes its front page more valuable to advertisers than it is to AM New York.

I'm not pulling a holier-than-thou newspaper attitude about this; not making an ethical judgment about this. I'm just noting how the economics affect the product.

The medium isn't the message. The bottom line is the message.

So what does that mean for online? Where's our real value? Is it distribution? (No.) Is it audience? (Maybe.) Or is it relationships. (Yes.) And how does that make the product?

The 100 lists I hate

The 100 lists I hate

: I'm supposed to do Donny Deutsch's show (with Linda Stasi) later today regarding Bernie Goldberg's 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America. And, yes, I should be ashamed of myself for giving this unimportant exercise in unjournalism more publicity. The nice folks at CNBC spared me reading the thing and sent me a nice summary by email. All Goldberg is doing is taking the most basic trick of soft news editors, unnews editors -- that is, city magazines, feature sections, talk shows: He's making a meaningless list and having a meaningless debate about it. But his list isn't just meaningless. It's just mean. Oh, I also hold some of his choices in less than high esteem. But what Goldberg is doing here is lumping together people who are truly hateful (terrorists) with people who don't agree with him. He's holding his own cable TV shoutfest without having the other side on to shout back. It's silly. But what's even sillier is that he uses this to pontificate about how he thinks America should be run. SpeakSpeak is giving him hell for it. But I like Jon Stewart's response to his pompous prudery best:

Goldberg: Once upon a time, not too many years ago, a drunk in a bar wouldn’t use the f-word. Now-he may be your pal-but Chevy Chase goes to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC at a gala where people are wearing tuxedos-and-gowns and calls the president of the United States a dumb blank.

Stewart: Once upon a time, Thomas Jefferson f**ked slaves.

Perspective, people.

LATER: Well, I hope the appearance goes better than this:

John Davison, editor at 1UP.com, deserves kudos for having the guts to walk off of the set of The Big Idea (CNBC) when it became evident that he'd been tricked into appearing on a show designed to do nothing but bash video games. It takes balls to walk off a show like that when things go sour because of manipulation instead of honest debate. It also takes more than a little self-respect. The nice thing about being a member of the media, though, is that you can still get your opinions out when you're comments are edited from existence by a two-faced TV broadcast.

Here's Davison's saga.

AFTERWARDS: Bernie sure comes off as the angry, nasty, self-important, humorless prig. He went after Linda Stasi, who was very nice, and played the paranoid victim with Donny Deutsch. It's on tonight at 10p, if the Supremes don't preempt it.

OH, AND: My first point: America isn't screwed up.

: HUH: Well, now I have no idea what's happening. Deutsch has an entire show on polygamy.

Changes at the top

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.

He doth protest a heckuva lot

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.

Democracy Guy writes about the interview here.

News at the front

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.

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.

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.

To witness

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'.

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?

And what makes fellow citizens lay people next to reporter-priests?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Hear Yost

Hear Yost

: Just got email from Cam Edwards, who says that Mark Yost, center of much journalistic controversy, will be on his Sirius show on Patriot 141 (friendly territory, no doubt) on Friday at 5:20p ET.

Press criticism criticism

Press criticism criticism

: There have been a fair number of pixels devoted to the discussion over St. Paul Pioneer Press editorialist Mark Yost's criticism of media coverage of the Iraq war. Yost wrote:

I know the reporting's bad because I know people in Iraq. A Marine colonel buddy just finished a stint overseeing the power grid. When's the last time you read a story about the progress being made on the power grid? Or the new desalination plant that just came on-line, or the school that just opened, or the Iraqi policeman who died doing something heroic? No, to judge by the dispatches, all the Iraqis do is stand outside markets and government buildings waiting to be blown up.

I also get unfiltered news from Iraq through an e-mail network of military friends who aren't so blinded by their own politics that they can't see the real good we're doing there. More important, they can see beyond their own navel and see the real good we're doing to promote peace and prosperity in the world. What makes this all the more ironic is the fact that the people who are fighting and dying want to stay and the people who are merely observers want to cut and run....

Instead, we get Monday's front-page story about a "secret" memo about "emerging U.S. plans" to withdraw troops next year. Why isn't the focus of the story the fact that 14 of 18 Iraqi provinces are stable and the four that aren't are primarily home to the genocidal gang of thugs who terrorized that country for 30 years?

And reporters wonder why they're despised.

Fair criticism, I'd think.

But over in Romensko's letters, Steve Lovelady seethes:

Amazing. Mark Yost, an [editorial page] editor at Knight Ridder, the ONE news outlet which has consistently exposed the lies at the heart of the Iraq invasion and the grim reality of the current occupation, turns on his colleagues.

I can't wait to see how the KR Washington bureau and the KR Iraq
contingent reponds to this one!

There he is, guys. Go get him. You owe your readers no less.

What is amazing about this is that Lovelady is the managing editor of the friggin' Columbia Journalism Review Daily. You'd think that he would welcome intelligent, reasoned, two-sided discussion about media's coverage of this controverial story. Instead, he acts like the fat kid on the playground egging on the bullies in a fight.

And we certainly know where the Columbia Journalism Review stands on war coverage, don't we now?

But I'd like to see a real discussion on this. So I'll egg on a fight, but one fought without eggs: I would love to see a debate between Yost and Lovelady. I just emailed them both:

Gentlemen:

How about engaging in a debate on Iraq war coverage in American media?

Steve Lovelady: I found your snipe at Romenesko to be, well, unsatisfying. It did not address the issues raised by Mark Yost.

Mark Yost: I would like to see you engage Steve and those who believe as he does.

So how about a debate, sirs? I suggest an email debate. I'll be happy to post your responses on Buzzmachine.

First question, if you are willing:

Is American media coverage of the Iraq war balanced? Or do American media harbor an agenda in its coverage -- and if so, what agenda? Do American news media succeed -- or even try -- to present the positive and the negative news coming out of Iraq? Is there an obligation to be balanced? Or do you believe that balance would present an inaccurate picture of the news there?

I'll let you know when and if I get responses. Meanwhile, please give your own in the comments.

: LATER: Steve Lovelady emails:

Jeff --
I'll have to decline, on several counts.
First, if I were going to debate Yost, I would want to do it at CJR
Daily, not at Buzzmachine, for obvious reasons.
Second, if you think my "snipe" at Romenesko did not address the
issues Mark raised -- when in fact I spent my entire letter
pointing out that the very specific and detailed Iraq coverage of
his OWN newspaper chain puts the lie to his careless accusations --
then you most assuredly would find my stance in any further debate
"well, unsatisfying."
Third, if what I currently read on Romenesko is any indication, poor
Yost already has enough fires to put out within the trade -- and
most especially within his own shop. I think the kindest thing any
of us can do at the moment is to leave the hapless lad to stew in
his own juices.
He's in it deep, and it's going to take a while to wade out.

All best,
Steve

ps --Another option for you: Try David Cay Johnston, at the Times.
In a rather clinical but systematic manner, he pretty much
disemboweled Yost on Romenesko today after doing three minutes'
research on the Internet.

: Here's another link to a Yost colleague going after him. The link to which Lovelady refers is here, a bit of the way down.

: And who says journalists are dispassionate? Everybody in this argument is seething and spitting and acting like they're on the playground still. There is a legitimate debate to be had over coverage of the war in Iraq. I don't see it yet.

: LATER STILL: Mr. Lovelady emails again and I quote in full:

Jeff --
There's another reason not to engage in a debate with the most
unfortunate Mr. Yost:
The prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Take a fresh look at Romenesko. This poor bastard has become the
pinata of the day.
Latest to weigh in:
* Charles Laszewski, a Pioneer-Press colleague of Yost;
* Clark Hoyt, KR Washington bureau chief (who addresses his remarks
not only to Yost but to the editors of all 33 KR papers, which
tells you something about Mr. Yost's future);
* and Hannah Allam, KR's eloquent Iraq bureau chief.
All of whom, as it happens, speak with lethal precision about the
matter at hand.
My guess is that by Monday Mr. Yost will be too busy standing in
line outside the St. Paul unemployment office to engage in
leisurely Internet debates.
Which, frankly, is as it should be. He's a right-wing shill who
belittled and betrayed the hundreds of reporters who go into harm's
way every day to tell us what the hell is really going on.
Steve
ps -- Please consider this on the record too. In fact, if you'd
publish it, I'd be grateful

So anyone who questions the party line, the orthodoxy, the company way, the union line should be banished to unemployment? Whew.

Can American media's coverage of Iraq be questioned and judged? I would have thought that the answer should be, "of course." But the answer is, "of course not."

What a fine lesson in journalism this is.

: AND HE KEEPS EMAILING: Another missive from Mr. Lovelady, quoted in full:

Jeff:
This one takes the cake.
What an intellectually dishonest schmuck you are.
I supply you with
* Charles Laszewski, a Pioneer-Press colleague of Yost, who is
embarrassed at even being in the same building with the guy and who
eloquently explains why;
* Clark Hoyt, KR Washington bureau chief, who has for two years led
KR's groundbreaking coverage of the Iraq lie in Washington;
* Hannah Allam, KR's brave and brilliant Baghdad bureau chief, who
daily lives a life that would turn Mark Yost into a sniveling worm
hiding under his bed.
* David Cay Johnston, your colleague at the New York Times, who
demolishes Yost after 3 minutes on the Internet collecting contrary
information.
And you accuse me of wanting to avoid discussion ?
These four are far more eloquent than I at exposing Mark Yost as the
fraud, safely ensconced (for the moment) in an air-conditioned
office in St. Paul, than I could ever be.
How much "intelligent, reasoned, two-side discussion" do you want?
I gave you enough to last a week, Bubba.
Shame on you.

I still see the kid on the playground, not the experienced, dispassionate journalist and academic open to criticism of journalism; he collects links of those who agree with him in trying to lambast this guy Yost. Keep the email coming, Steve.

I am asking whether there is room to question and criticize American media's coverage of the war in Iraq. I believe there is. Lovelady et al appearently believe there is not. Whether or not Yost is the ideal critic, I don't know. But an earnest discussion of the successes and failures and issues and shortcomings of coverage of the war should always be in order. And that's why I find it doubly shocking that the managing editor of the Columbia Journalism School's CJR Daily only seems interested in attacking this critic. Aren't there legitimate issues here to discuss? I think there are.

If only Rather had a blog....

If only Rather had a blog...

: CBS News announced its big new internet strategy after hiring CBS Marketwatch founder Larry Kramer as the head. They invited a bunch of bloggers to the press announcement (but I couldn't attend, being off in my mountain retreat).

Full disclosures (it's a day for full disclosures): In their early stages of planning, I spoke with Kramer, CBS News President Andrew Heyward, and CBSNews.com editor Dick Meyer offering my two cents.

Features of the new CBS News strategy include:

: A new blog that will "create a candid and robust dialogue between CBS News journalists and the public -- a move unprecedented among CBS's peers in broadcast and cable television journalism." It will "serve as the conduit between the public and CBS News to take viewers and users inside the news gathering, production and decision-making process via the use of original video and outtakes, interviews with correspondents and producers, and input from independent experts, among other methods." It's not an ombudsman; it's not an anchor blogging; it is an effort to open up two-way communication with CBS' audience about how CBS News makes its decisions.

They say it's to be edited -- not sure why they don't say written -- by Vaughn Ververs, the National Journal's editor of The Hotline.

: A "cable bypass strategy" -- which is to say that CBS News missed the cable train and so now it's trying to catch the internet plane. So they will serve news directly to the internet. Broadcasting & Cable reports that this will include a video player called The EyeBox to show 25,000 news clips and an initiative to get TV staffers to feed news to the web 24 hours a day. Let's hope they have more luck doing this than newspapers have had....

This is a response to many developments: missing out on cable... the growth of the internet as a primary means of delivering news... the shrinking (and aging and dying) of the network news audience... and, yes, l'affaire Rather. If they'd had that blog when the Rather scandal developed, we would have had a place to look for and demand their response and they would have had to have responded. Things might have turned out differently....

The story so far

The story so far

: In news, I'm no fan of scandal journalism because I tend to get lost in the games of he-spat-she-spat and I think that most scandals ultimately have very little to do with our lives and distract from issues and stories that do matter.

In the far less momentous word of so-called personality reporting, I also was no fan of the equivilant, what I came to call bodily fluids journalism: the emphasis on personal scandal over professional products. That is one essential reason why I created Entertainment Weekly: Because of a number of factors in the mid '80s (the remote control and cable and the resultant fragmentation of the audience; the rise of personality and the value of celebrity to market media; the increasing power of flacks as the new gatekeepers to the famous and what came to pass for news...), the stars' movie or TV show or album became far less important in media than the stars' sex scandal or baby or disease or death. So I started a magazine about product over personality, that helped you decide where to spend your money and time.

I don't mean to stand up above the scandal mongers, all haughty. That's pretty hard for a former gossip columnist and People writer to do. It's just the way I look at things.

And that's why I tend to pay little attention to scandals until I have to... which means I'm often behind the times. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing for a newsman. I was behind on l'affaire Rather until you, my readers, made me catch up and you were right to do so.

Yesterday, I got email from a blog friend asking why I haven't been on top of l'affaire Rove (formerly known as l'affaire Plame) and the truth is that I just didn't keep up with all the ins and outs. The implication when people ask a blogger why he's not writing about a story is that there's a political motive: Why are you and Reynolds ignoring Rove? Confess! Apologize! Blog! But, in fact, it's usually just the case that the blogger simply doesn't care about the story and since a blog isn't a newspaper of record -- a blog is personal -- that's perfectly fine. I have not been a devotee of the Niger-Wilson-Plame-Miller-Cooper-Rove game of hot potato from the start. It's a pretty sleazy story of overlapping hidden agendas. I don't get my rocks off digging into scandals. And so I have not written about it. I haven't had anything worthwile to add.

Still, I will admit it's time to catch up. But I look at the mountain of charges and countercharges with exhaustion. Just today, I read the NY Times story about White House silence (what we used to call stonewalling) on the hit reality show Rove and the Reporters past the jump without getting a summary of what exactly is now known or acknowledged about Rove's involvement. The Times assumes that we're all keeping up on every back-and-forth like good Sisyphusean scandalmongers. I haven't been. But The Times can't edit every story for ignorant dolts like me who haven't been keeping track of a story. Newspapers try; they add background graphs into the middle of tales but in the case of a saga like Rove/Plame, it's impossible to sum it all up in a graph or two.

About a year ago, I wrote a post (which I can't find right now, being bandwidth challenged in the mountains but here's the same material in a Powerpoint on how technology changes news) arguing that if you created a news product from scratch today, you wouldn't include those background graphs. You'd link to the background instead. News would fork into 'now' and 'then.' The only problem is that news organizations aren't structured to give the news that way. Newspapers especially don't tell you what's happening right now; they tell you what happened a few hours ago, when they're good and ready. Apart from the scattered background graphs, they also aren't good at getting you up to speed on a story you've missed; they don't gather collected wisdom. Newspapers and newsrooms just aren't structured to do that.

But the web is structured to do just that: to tell you what's happening right now and to gather collected wisdom.

So I need someone to give me the story so far. Or the scandal so far.

I went to Wikipedia's entry on Karl Rove and it was pretty good, though this triple negative took me 5 minutes to parse:

It would not have been illegal if Rove was unaware that Plame's CIA employment was classified information.

[The only way to make that sentence more befuddling would be to put it this way: "It would not have been illegal if Rove was unaware that Plame's CIA employment was not public information." A quadruple negative. But I digress.]

Now you can the argument about whether Wikipedia is factual and edited and journalistic and all that. But at least it did help me get up to speed.

Now the question remains whether I care. Sorry, but if I went to a party and heard one group dissecting Plame/Rove and another group dissecting War of the Worlds, I'd join the latter conversation. In a blog, it's hard to feign interest.

: LATER: If you subscribe to the content analysis school of you-are-what-you-don't-write-about then Dave Winer finds evidence that NPR is part of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

What's in a name?

What's in a name?

: Tom Gross, author of an influential newsletter about coverage of Israel, writes a wonderful op-ed in the Jerusalem Post about the BBC's brief rediscovery of the word terrorist, which its ridiculous editorial guidelines all but ban -- except, it appears, within hours after a militant-insurgent-bomber nearly blows up your journalistic ass:

Britain's first bus bombing took place barely half a mile from the BBC's central London headquarters, and for a day or so after last Thursday's multiple bomb attacks the BBC, the influential leftist daily Guardian and even the British-based global news agency Reuters all seemed suddenly to discover the words "terrorism" and "terrorist." In Saturday's Guardian, for example, one or other of these words appeared on each of the first 11 pages.

In marked contrast to BBC reports about bombs on public transport in Israel – bombs which in some cases were even worse than those in London since some were specifically aimed at children and most were packed with nails, screws, glass and specially-sharpened metal shards in order to maximize injuries – terms like "guerrilla," "militant," "activist" or "fighter" were suddenly nowhere to be seen.

Nor – again in contrast to their coverage of Israel – did BBC correspondents, on either its domestic or international services, provide sympathetic accounts of the likely perpetrators, or explain to viewers that we must "understand" their "grievances."

Tom points us to Gene's post on Harry's Place with screenshots of the BBC's coverage before and after a crackdown by its PC police.

Empower the people

Empower the people

: WKRN TV in Nashville is becoming a -- maybe the -- leader in understanding and exploiting the value of citizens' media (thanks to good advice from Terry Heaton and Michael Rosenblum). They just held a training session for viewers to shoot news video. Now that's the ticket: empower the people and everyone will win.

Novak who?

Novak who?

: Jay Rosen says it's time to give the cold shoulder to Robert Novak:

I, for one, have had it with Robert Novak. And if all the journalists who are talking today about "chilling effects" and individual conscience mean what they say, they will, as a matter of conscience and pride, start giving Novak himself the big chill.

: It was Novak yesterday who said that Rhenquist was retiring, setting cable news operations across the land into high alert. He was wrong. I half wonder whether somebody wasn't gaming Novak to game his credibility.

Stupid TV

Stupid TV

: I'm in an office in New York and cut off from the world of TV news because, apart from the BBC -- which is, of course, getting hammered right now -- none of the big networks streams its news live over the internet; they're putting up clips that become stale the moment they're up. Oh, yes, they don't want to piss off the cable companies. But how about pissing off the public they serve? Get online, people. It ain't 1990 anymore.

: I also tried to listen to the BBC or CNN or Fox via Sirius on the internet, since I pay for it. But, apparently, licensing deals cut that off. I tuned into a left talk station and they said they didn't know what was going on. Now, at last, I'm listening to the BBC via WNYC.

Millions of people are now cut off from the news these organizations are serving.

On shields

On shields

: I don't have a simple, 1-D opinion about what Judith Miller and Norman Pearlstine did in the Plame case, nor about shield laws.

I'll likely be drummed out of the corps of journalism (if I haven't been already and, if I have, what the hell, I'm not a joiner) but I've come to see that Time Inc. Editor in Chief Pearlstine did the hard thing, probably the right thing. The easy thing for him to do would have been to defy the court, stand by the journalistic orthodoxy, refuse to hand over the subpoened documents, lump fines that wouldn't mean diddly to Time Warner, and go into the J-Hall of Fame on the back of his jailed reporter, Matthew Cooper. The hard thing to do was to defy the orthodoxy and conclude that, indeed, news organizations are not above the law. If the law is an ass, then change the law; that's what we do in this country.

Meanwhile, Judith Miller is taking the brave move of protecting her source and I have to respect that even if others do not.

And I am relieved for Matthew Cooper, getting his get-out-of-jail card at the last minute in the form of a dispensation to testify from his source. To quote a more charitable blog than the last one linked:

The First Amendment may suffer for Cooper's decision, but telling your six year old son that you may not come back for 180 days to uphold press freedoms not granted under the scope of a federal investigation makes the decision easy.

I've confessed that I'm not sure I would have the courage to go to jail and say goodbye to my children over professional privilege; I might be tempted to open an ice-cream stand instead.

As for shield laws: I'll repeat what I said before:

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.

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.

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.

Frankly, I'm not sure where I come down. Ying-yangs:

I do believe in the necessity of privilege to enable the watchdogging of the powerful.

At the same time, I think we have grossly abused confidential sources in media and perhaps ruined privilege in the process.

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.

I also believe there need to be limits -- for example, regarding criminal activity. But then that, too, defangs privilege.

This onion has more layers:

On the one hand, not having protection for confidential sources means that they will be less likely to blow the whistle on power and that is bad for democracy.

Let's not forget that the prevailing issue here isn't just journalistic secrecy but government secrecy and what should and should not be kept from us in our alleged interest. And who's going to determine what that interest is?

On the other hand, for journalists to claim "privilege" is for them to separate themselves from the public they serve and we've had too much of that. Journalists used to be citizens with a press. But now all citizens can have the press. Now we all can be journalists with sources and secrets and the public's interest at heart. So where does that leave us?

I said before -- and suffered the scorn of one particularly snooty, nasty, old-fashioned journalist as a result -- that if Watergate happened today, Deep Throat would get a blog. That was seen as another moment of blog triumphalism. But I already have more than enough of those.

What this really means is that the state of anonymity and secrets changes. Now someone with a secret to reveal can do it and does not need to hide behind a reporter's shield to do it -- and, in many cases, cannot hide behind that shield: The source can go to the internet and reveal the secret directly, and anonymously. The internet becomes the anonymizer that reporters have been. So then no one knows who the source is. And no one knows how credible the revelation of the secret is. But that is where we head when we kill the middlemen.

Of course, as we get to the stinky middle of this onion, we will find all kinds of smelly motives of people using people to push their own agendas. It's not just about principle. It's about politics.

: Full disclosures: I consult for About.com, owned by The New York Times Company. I know Norman Pearlstine and used to work for Time Inc. I used to work for Matt Cooper's late father-in-law, Henry Grunwald.

Filtered coffee

Filtered coffee

: Chris Anderson has a nice riff on the role of the filter vs. the friend (that is, the middleman/editor vs. the recommender/neighbor) in the post-scarcity, mass-of-niches era of media and products.

In the existing Short Tail markets, where distribution is expensive and shelf space is at a premium, the supply side of the market has to be exceedingly discriminating in what it lets through. These producers, retailers and marketers have made a science of trying to guess what people will want, to improve their odds of picking winners. They don't always guess right--there are surely as many things that deserved to make it market but were overlooked as there are things that made it to market and then flopped--but the survivors get a reputation for some sort of mystical insight into the consumer psyche.

But in Long Tail markets, where distribution is cheap and shelf space is plentiful, the safe bet is to assume that everything is eventually going to be available. The role of filter then shifts from gatekeeper to advisor. Rather than predicting taste, post-filters such as Google measure it. Rather than lumping consumer into pre-determined demographic and psychographic categories, post-filters such as Amazon's custom recommendations treat them like individuals who reveal their likes and dislikes through their behavior. Rather than keeping things off the market, post-filters such as MP3 blogs create a markets for things that are already available by stimulating demand for them.

His chart:

It can also be expressed as first-person vs. third-person markets.

An industry, befuddled

An industry, befuddled

: This post on the Editors' Weblog sums up the state of the collective vision and strategy in the worldwide newspaper business:

Who has the best business model? Associated New Media announced recently that it was to scale back its Evening Standard website because it was cannibalizing sales of its print edition. Today, the news is that Mirror Group Newspapers, parent company of the tabloid The Daily Mirror, plans on expanding its online ventures in order to increase online revenue and readers.

Armed and on-air

Armed and on-air

: So I get email from Move Forward America making the beginning of a right-wing radio talk-show host tour if Iraq starting next week. I never thought I'd say this about a bunch of right-wing radio talk-show hosts but... I hope they're armed.

Money, meet mouth

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.

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.

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

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:

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.

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.

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.

Frankly, I'm not sure where I come down. Ying-yangs:

I do believe in the necessity of privilege to enable the watchdogging of the powerful.

At the same time, I think we have grossly abused confidential sources in media and perhaps ruined privilege in the process.

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.

I also believe there need to be limits -- for example, regarding criminal activity. But then that, too, defangs privilege.

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.

Look beyond the headlines, continued

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.

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?

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.

Look beyond the headlines

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.

PIRAS ODISHO, GROOM (translator): Life must go on. There must be marriages and happiness.

ECCLESTON: Marriages are up 30 percent since Saddam's overthrow and the judge signing their wedding contract thinks he knows why.

GHANI AL-ISAA, JUDGE (translator): There is an increase since the income of all sectors of Iraqi people has gone up.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bad taste on bad taste

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.

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

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.

But would we? What do we learn from the sick and evil?

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.

Not to trivialize them by comparison, but we do the same with the perpetrators of massive crimes.

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?

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.

Did I listen to his words passively as producers packed them into the shows I tuned into? Yes.

Did I understand the judgment that went into playing these sickly compelling scenes? Of course. I'm a tab editor myself. I preach "impact."

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.

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?

Finite

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..."

: Oh, how I wish a birdie would put Florio's entire proposal online or ship it to someone who would.

We lose

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.

: 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.

: The Wall St. Journal has a panel of legal brains discussing the import; free linkn here. Q&A with background here.

: Scotusblog has great ongoing discussion of both cases.

: Ernie Miller is way on top of the news here. Copyfight will, of course, be on top of the case.

The exploding newsroom

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....

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.

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.

Supporting news

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%).

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....

But 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.

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....

Fully 62% of internet news consumers say they read the websites of local or national newspapers....

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.

The victims have no problem calling them terrorists

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.

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

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

Can't see the forrest for the papers

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....

Not so fast. Suddenly, even sober Wall Street analysts think something new is afoot.

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.

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.

: See earlier post on business models for new here and follow the links at the bottom for more.

Nanny news

Nanny news

: In this country, the nannies are using time delays to protect our sensitive selves from breasts and four-letter words.

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.

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?

Since when did you think it was your job to protect the people from the truth?

: 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?

: There's enough in these guidelines -- a "book," they call it -- to keep a Kremlinologist busy for years. For example:

: 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?

: 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?

: 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.

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.

: 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.

: 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?

: 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.

: 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?

: 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.

: No hypnosis, no exorcism, no subliminal programming.

: 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.

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?

: 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.

"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.

"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.

She is not a crook

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]

French trees shout: Vive l'online!

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.

The reaction to this is typically French/EU: Spend some government money to swim against that tide.

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".

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?

Here and here I swatted at the notion of government helping journalism for then it can be used to influence journalism. Just ask PBS.

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?

Chief clueless sod

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.

Career a clef

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.

Declassified

Declassified

: We are seeing signs of the new distributed world of classified ads:

: 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.

: 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.

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....

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....

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.

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.

: 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.

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. ...

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.

The sound of trees clapping

The sound of trees clapping

: My friend Dave Morgan, head of Tacoda, writes a devasting analysis of the quicksand newspapers are in.

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.

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....

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.

: A few of my earlier posts on the need for new business models for news here, here, here, here.

Saving public broadcasting

Saving public broadcasting

: I have a humble suggestion for how to save public broadcasting:

Make it truly public broadcasting, supported by its public instead of by government.

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:

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).

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....

3. Get celebrities signed up. Guarantees free publicity. Might even get you in their wills.

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?

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.

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:

: Involve the public more in the creation of programming. I won't replay that sermon here.

: Reexamine the mission of public broadcasting in an era when the public can broadcast.

: 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,

: 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.

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.

: AMEN: See Doc Searls.

: 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.

Used (and abused?)

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.

But be honest: Sometimes, once you find out that these things are hoaxes, don't you feel duped and used?

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.

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?

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.

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?

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?

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?

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.

: LATER: Yes, break out the beer.

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.

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.

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.