The New Cold War

Mediascout Canada on perceptions of intentions between Russia and the West.

The Biden Scoop

...was gotten by at b2b reporter. This is really worth researching, as Obama had said his mobile-using supporters would get the news of his VP pick first via text message. The message did go out, and the method was widely heralded as "breakthrough," but the media had already go Biden's nom out.

Paul Conley posted his take, with relevant links.

Citizen journalistists, transparency and trust

Thanks to Gawker for this take on Bill Clinton's "scumbag" moment and the means by which it was achieved.

While I'm all for reporters being upfront about their trade around people they want to quote, Hamsher makes two good points in this excerpt alone:

1. Clinton should have been a bit more aware
2. Journalists should be trustworthy for the benefit of the public (and even those they may make look bad) rather than their access.

Granted, I'm not fighting it out in the Dailies trenches on the American political front, so my view is ultimately ignorant and (let's face it) irrelevant. Still, it would be nice to think I could retain an ethic or two on the battlefield.

CAIRS gone

"The federal Conservatives have quietly killed an access to information registry used by journalists, experts and the public that users say helped hold the government accountable."
-CBC, May 2

UPDATE May 9: Michael Geist reported yesterday that "The House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics has issued a report "deploring" the cancellation of the CAIRS database and demanding that the government reinstate it."

Links for April 22, 2008

NYTimes - Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.

Flickr post (via BoingBoing) - Radio for back up, an illustration of what's happening in the UK regarding public photography. Changing laws, could set a global precedent in our ongoing war on terror. Must investigate topic further.

Ad Age- Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Resigns... for later reference.

Bad Moon Rising

John Gorenfeld has just published a book on the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, leader of the so-called Moonies (a Messianic cult with Moon as its Messiah that claims to be the a unification of all Christian faiths), publisher of The Washington Times, and very rich man. Lots of people follow this guy, and even more give him money.

More recently, he was crowned King of... something... at U.S. Senate offices by members of the American government, among others.

Gorenfeld broke the story on Salon, and has made a short documentary (approx. 15 minutes) about Moon to promote his book. It's mind blowing. Check it out.

Sorry for the lousy formating.


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Sheriff threatens reporter after story about imprisoned son

Gawker gave me this beaut about a Texas sheriff who threatened to imprison a journo after they reported on his son's imprisonment.

"Christopher Maher wrote a front-page story about the arrest of the sheriff's 42-year-old son Miguel Barrera on charges of public intoxication and resisting arrest. According to the newspaper, when Maher called the sheriff about another story, Barrera said, "If you guys keep interfering with my business, I'm going to have you arrested."

Nicole Perez, managing editor of the Echo-News Journal and The Freer Press alerted the county attorney.

"I am bringing these remarks to your attention in the hope that they will remain as such, just remarks," Perez wrote Duval County Attorney Ricardo Carrillo. "However, considering the volatile political atmosphere in Duval County I have no doubt that Sheriff Barrera would carry out such a threat."

The rest of the story is horrific in that stereotypical-southern-US-Gothic kind of way where man + badge = way too much power.

Links from Feb 2, 2008

Rogue Columnist - I should investigate this gent's writings more, but here's a link from BoingBoing to his post on what's really wrong with the modern newspaper's business model: its ad sales mentality.

Threat Level - "Afghan Student Sentenced to Death After Downloading Report." Reporters Without Borders has a statement on the situation here.

Bloggos and Journos may get protection

From David Jones' PR Works blog, a note on a new bill that may get passed providing reporters and some bloggers with some protection from governments wanting access to confidential sources.

CNet has a story on the blogging half of the equation.

CIA to declassify its "illegal operations" papers

The US Central Intelligence Agency is to declassify hundreds of documents detailing some of the agency's worst illegal abuses from the 1950s to 1970s.

...and further down...

"Among the incidents that were said to "present legal questions" were:

* the confinement of a Soviet defector in the mid-1960s
* assassination plots of foreign leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro
* wiretapping and surveillance of journalists
* behaviour modification experiments on "unwitting" US citizens
* surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971
* opening from 1953 to 1973 of letters to and from the Soviet Union; from 1969 to 1972 of mail to and from China"
-from the BBC website, June 22

Much of this is already known in the public sphere. The papers' release will undoubtedly renew attention. Check back with this one.

Related edit: June 25
According to the NY Times and BBC, the U.S. government is also reclassifying many documents that were once public.

Edit: June 26
Wired's Danger Room blog coverage of the declassified info.
Something called The National Security Archive, linked from BoingBoing.

ABC called "Traders" (that's traitors, right?)

More BB links:

ABC had, apparently, blown the cover of a U.S. covert operation in Iran. Reaction has been mixed (surprise surprise).

LAPD vs. reporters?

A BoingBoing post that nicely collects facts and footage of an immigration protest that turned violent.

Allegedly...
-bottles and rocks thrown at police
-rubber bullets and batons used on protesters
-reporters attacked and injured

Videos of LA immigration reform rally, posted by Mark Frauenfelder.

UPDATE (May 4)
More links to videos and blog posts, along with a bit of interesting comment from the LAPD on the historical import of the event.

Only pro journos can film violence in France?

I'm linking to this story on MacWorld about a new French law so I can confirm it later. Comments are welcome of course, as always.

Open letter to C-SPAN's Brian Lamb

C-SPAN issued a take-down notice to Nancy Pelosi (see details in this BoingBoing posting), and Carl Malamud has something to say about that.

He takes C-SPAN to task on its dubious use of the term "non-profit" and its perceived failure to acknowledge its place in the American media business landscape. Basically, they got upset at Nancy Pelosi for using their "copyrighted" material.

Lots of angles on this one. Is C-SPAN obligated or allowed to protect its assets in this way? Does being non-profit mean we must value its product differently? How would this situation work in Canada?

On a personal note, I respect Malamud's conviction on this issue. He was so sure that using C-SPAN video should fall under fair use, he bought some of their taped material, "ripped more than one minute of video from the disc, and used it for the creation of a news and satirical commentary of compelling public interest and then posted the resulting work at the Internet Archive. I did not ask C-SPAN for a license and I assert fair use of this material."

So he did what he thought was right and was unafraid to tell the big boys about it.

You can find his work here at archive.org. Gotta respect a man who puts his money where his mouth is.

Edit: A related story about C-SPAN freeing up its footage.

Advancing its longstanding mission of bringing government closer to the people, C-SPAN announced today two major initiatives designed to greatly expand citizen access to its online video of federal government activities, such as congressional hearings, agency briefings, and White House events. These actions are intended to meet the growing demand for video about the federal government and Congress, in an age of explosive growth of video file sharers, bloggers, and online 'citizen journalists.' The policy change is effective immediately.

· C-SPAN is introducing a liberalized copyright policy for current, future, and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency-- about half of all programming offered on the C-SPAN television networks--which will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution.

· In addition, C-SPAN also announced plans to significantly build out its capitolhearings.org website as a one-stop resource for Congressionally-produced webcasts of House and Senate committee and subcommittee hearings.

Do You Have A Facebook?

This is only tangentially related to news media, but it's important enough that I want to remember it later.

Nicole Cohen (current editor of Shameless Magazine and all around cool friend of mine) wrote an intriguing post on Shameless' blog.

It concerns Facebook and our willing participation in new advertising schemes.

More chilling, however, is her link to this presentation on the connection betweenFacebook and the U.S. government... which could mean nothing, but could mean a lot. I haven't unpacked it all in my brain yet.

Notes before News War

A friend has been gracious enough to tape the first instalment of News War tonight (I don't have cable and I don't trust my internet connection to hold through a one-hour webcast... does DRM cover that?). I'll watch it as soon as I can, but before I do here are some thoughts.

Clearly, someone read this blog and then went back in time to produce this show. They're doing a lot of what I'd like to do, right down to posting what appear to be full, unedited interviews such as this one with Seymour Hersh. There are 50+ interviews on tap for this project--not a small accomplishment, given how lousy reporters are as interview subjects.

When I first found News War, my first thought was, "Oh, so there goes the project." But then I realized that there's still room for this project next to News War. Theirs is an American project examining the American news landscape. Their focus is sharper and, granted, way more relevant in this age, but issue-focused and not as broadly appealing as what I'd like to do.

So I'm watching this one to see what will work and what won't.

News War on PBS

I am very much going to watch News War online. I found this mentioned on BoingBoing.net (thanks again Mr. Doctorow!).

(270 minutes) In a four-and-a-half-hour special, News War, FRONTLINE examines the political, cultural, legal, and economic forces challenging the news media today and how the press has reacted in turn. Through interviews with key figures in the print and electronic media over the past four decades -- and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media to the post-Watergate popularity of the press, to the new challenges presented by the war on terror and other global forces now changing -- and challenging -- the role of the press in our society.

Paul Wells' "Inkless Wells"

Here's a link to Maclean's columnist Paul Wells' popular blog.

Oh, and speaking of Media vs. Media, Wells believes The Globe and Mail swiped a story from Maclean's. Eek.

DRM and freedom of information

I found this on BoingBoing.net, but I'll link to the original posting on the Technology Liberation Front.

Now, I'm quite ignorant about DRM (digital rights management), and this is apparently where Microsoft intends to make its future billions, so I clearly have some reading to do. Also, I have no firsthand experience with this sort of thing, so I'm taking the posting at face value for the sake of asking the questions below.

But even if you don't know about DRM, this story is interesting.

The gist: a digital government document has been protected from copying and pasting by a password system. Basically, because the American government has used a specific technology, it has limited how people can access and use information to which they are supposed to have unfettered access.

Given that large organizations (like governments) are digitizing huge amounts of their paper files to allow stakeholders (citizens, shareholders, community members etc) to get at info without bogging down workers, this is an interesting development. How will it affect FOI requests (already a ponderous process) if a government puts every document it has online, but makes them untouchable?