Journalism Issues

EXCERPT FROM BELOW:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576362861950356484.html

"Facebook's done a number of things which I admire. Facebook can be understood as a great site to spend time with your friends and photos and postings and social updates. But another way to understand it is that it's the first generally available way of disambiguating identity. And identity is incredibly useful because in the online world, you need to know who you're dealing with. Historically on the Internet, such fundamental services are not owned by a single company. They're multiple sources. I think the industry would benefit by having an alternative to that. From Google's perspective, if such an alternative existed, we would be able to use that to make our search better, to give better recommendations for YouTube, to do various things involving friends."

FULL TEXT:

The New Online Wars
Google's Eric Schmidt on the 'Gang of Four', privacy and evil dictators

Eric Schmidt spent 10 years as chief executive of Google Inc., taking the company from a rapidly growing search engine to a global behemoth that provides operating systems for mobile phones and Web-based software for consumers as well as being the synonym for finding stuff online. Mr. Schmidt, who recently handed over the CEO job to Google co-founderLarry Page, is now the company's executive chairman. He spoke with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg about the new platform wars, keeping information private and using technology for good and evil. Here are edited excerpts of that discussion.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt kicked off the D9 conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. In this highlight reel he talks with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher about the "Gang of Four," his biggest regret from his tenure as CEO, and his unique retirement plans, among other things.

MR. MOSSBERG: There's a new platform war taking place. Everyone knows about the
Windows vs. Apple platform war, which Microsoft won handily in the PC era.
We're in the post-PC era, and there's another platform war going on. You have
this idea about the "Gang of Four." Can you talk about that?

MR. SCHMIDT: If you look at the industry as a whole, there are four companies
that are exploiting platform strategies very well. One of them is Google; the
other three being Apple, Amazon and Facebook. We've never had four companies
growing at the scale that those four are in aggregate, in customers, cash flow,
reach, partners, software development tools and so on. These are global
companies with reach and economics that 10 years ago or 20 years ago, one
company hadâ€"typically, Microsoft, or before it IBM.

What's more interesting to me now is that each of them is exploiting in one way
or the other a platform for creativity that people are building on top of. If
you look at Facebook, you have now a set of competitors on top of Facebook who
are going to exploit the identity-relationship model that Facebook has built.

MS. SWISHER: You left out Microsoft in this group because?

MR. SCHMIDT: Because Microsoft is not driving the consumer revolution in the
minds of the consumers. Microsoft has done a very good job of getting itself
locked into corporations and much of their profits now comes from the union of
Windows server and the clients, which they do very well at.

MR. MOSSBERG: If we came back here in a couple of years, would we be down to
two or one, or do you think this Gang of Four continues?

MR. SCHMIDT: It's unlikely that the number consolidates because of mergers
between them, because they're all too big to get through the necessary global
regulatory structures. More likely as one begins to miss the mark, a successor
comes along.

MS. SWISHER: Let's talk about each of them and Google's relationship to them.
It's been testy for sure with Apple.

MR. SCHMIDT: It started off very much a partnership. Now with the success of
[Google's mobile-phone platform] Android, it's more rough.

MS. SWISHER: And with Facebook?

MR. SCHMIDT: We've tried very hard to partner with Facebook. Traditionally
they've done deals with Microsoft, I think basically because Microsoft was
willing to give them terms that we were unwilling to give them. But perhaps in
the future.

Facebook's done a number of things which I admire. Facebook can be understood
as a great site to spend time with your friends and photos and postings and
social updates. But another way to understand it is that it's the first
generally available way of disambiguating identity. And identity is incredibly
useful because in the online world, you need to know who you're dealing with.
Historically on the Internet, such fundamental services are not owned by a
single company. They're multiple sources. I think the industry would benefit by
having an alternative to that. From Google's perspective, if such an
alternative existed, we would be able to use that to make our search better, to
give better recommendations for YouTube, to do various things involving
friends.

MR. MOSSBERG: What about the fourth oneâ€"Amazon?

MR. SCHMIDT: Amazon has done a very good job with the cloud layer to build a
set of services generally known as S3. They also have a lot of applications and
they're able to actually integrate that across the e-commerce sites. They've
also done a very good job with their physical platform, the distribution of
goods. And they continue to grow it very rapidly.

--- END EXCERPT ---

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page R3

One of four free-lance bloggers paid by the Cleveland Plain Dealer to provide political commentary was fired after the paper's editor learned the blogger was a $100 contributor to an opponent of a congressman the blogger routinely criticized.

The blogger says his political leanings are obvious from his postings, that he considered regularly disclosing his contribution, but balked at agreeing to cease writing about the congressman. The paper's editor says if she had know he was a political contributor beforehand, she would not have let him be hired.

In August, the Cleveland Plain Dealer retained four Ohio political bloggers to contribute to a daily political group blog called "Wide Open," located at http://blog.cleveland.com/wideopen . The project involved two bloggers with liberal leanings and two with conservative leanings.

Blgger Jeff Coryell (jeffcoryell@gmail.com) said in an emailed statement sent to the Media Giraffe Project on Oct. 30 that he was terminated after U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette, D-Ohio, a Republican, complained to the newspaper about his support of two of LaTourette's opponents.

He said the paper asked him to refrain from writing about LaTourette, and he refused.

"As a political blogger, I am a partisan," Coryell wrote in his emailed statement to the Media Giraffe Project. "My political orientation as aprogressive Democrat is an integral part of what I do and is completelytransparent to my readers. This is a crucial component of being a politicalblogger/activist, and sets us apart from journalists in the classic sense.It was understood among the four participants in "Wide Open" that we arepolitical partisans and that we would engage in political debate from our respective political points of view."

Coryell went on to say that the Plain Dealer had "bowed to pressure from an elected official" in a manner which "strikes a heavy blow at freedom of expression."

Susan Goldberg, the Plain Dealer's editor, said the paper's decision was not motivated by LaTourette's complaint.

"We didn't bow to any political pressure," she said in an email to the Media Giraffe Project when asked to comment on Coryell's email. "Had we known that he had contributed to the opponent of a person he was writing about, we wouldn't have hired him in the first place. Once we learned of the issue, we asked him not to write about the congressman he opposed. When he refused, we decided that we couldn't pay him any longer to blog for us."

Goldberg says the standard she applied is the paper's own and "not imposed on us by any outsiders." As to the general issue of newspapers sorting out how to handling blogging, she observed: "We, and everyone else, continue to wade into this, learning new things every step of the way."

Coryell, in a brief phone interview, said he realized the paper's decision was an example of the evolving relationship between bloggers and journalistic ethics.

Coryell's personal bog is at:

http://www.ohiodailyblog.com. The Cleveland Heights resident describes himself as a former private and government attorney who is now an artist and art teacher.

----------------------

Coryell: cell 216-337-3780; land 216-321-9183
SUSAN GOLDBERG (SGOLDBER@plaind.com)

ORIGINAL URL:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2007/09/the_good_news_about_bad_news_i.html

LINK TO PEW STUDY (pdf download):
http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/newsinterest1986-2007.pdf

STUDY AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/574/two-decades-of-american-news-preferences

By Roy Greenslade
The Guardian Unlimited

Tuesday September 4 2007

The good news about bad news - it sells

What news do we read and why? I'm always suspicious of surveys that try to discover the answer to the first of those questions because I believe people tend to lie to researchers, claiming to have an intense interest in serious news while, in practice, ignoring it in favour of somewhat lighter material. Even allowing for that, a recent American survey does appear to have revealed at least one interesting detail about news consumption.

The Pew research centre survey, Two decades of American news preferences, is a synthesis of 165 separate surveys across the United States, so it is should be regarded as an accurate snapshot. (Its author, Michael Robinson, provides a helpful short commentary here). One of its central findings is that, over the course of 20 years, peoples' interests have remained remarkably similar. In short, they are war, weather, disaster, money and crime. In a list of 19 categories, "celebrity scandals" come last. I wish.

Anyway, whether that's entirely true or not, the finding that I do believe concerns the overall changing level of interest in news. According to the survey, the percentage of people who claim to follow the news "very closely" dropped from 30% during the 1980s to 23% during 1990s before jumping back to 30% in this decade. As Columbia Journalism Review's Curtis Brainard argues, that swing has less to do with changes in information technology than with changes in world events, or "reality" as Robinson calls it.

In other words, peoples' interest in news is much more intense when there is a perceived threat to their way of life. They care much less about what happens around them when they enjoy relative peace and/or relative prosperity. I think there is extra proof for this in studying the greater level of interest in news in developing societies and emergent democracies. Fear and poverty stimulate greater interest in news.

Note how fear in developed countries, created in recent times by terrorism, also sells many thousands more newspapers. That apart, the lack of interest in news is traceable to the comfort provided by relative affluence. This aspect of self-interest - or, more pejoratively, selfishness - may be unsurprising. But it does have all sorts of ramifications for news-gatherers.

First, it implies that the regular calls for papers to publish "good news" rather than bad is largely a waste of time. People are stimulated to read by the latter. They want to know what has gone wrong rather than what has gone right. Second, it reminds us that "real news" - about events - wins far greater attention than "manufactured news", about personalities and scandals. Third, it proves that journalists face an uphill task in trying to tell people what is happening. The audience just isn't reading or listening.

And fourth? I realise I may be overstating this, but it does suggest that people do not bother to inform themselves about what is being done by those who govern them in periods between the eruption of crises. This means that they are not aware of the complexities of problems until it is too late for them to take a coherent stance for or against policy decisions. This situation tends to favour political leaders.

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http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/

News Consumption: Peering into the Future

The Shorenstein Center has released a new report which attempts to gauge the future of news in America through an examination of trends in Internet-based news traffic. The report, titled Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Look at News on the Internet, suggests that the Internet is redistributing the news audience in a way that is benefitting some news organizations while harming others.

FULL REPORT:

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/carnegie_knight/creative_destruction_web.pdf

NEWS ACCOUNT AT COMPUTERWORLD.COM
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9031378

NEWS RELEASE BELOW FROM:
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/carnegie_knight/creative_destruction_release.doc

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: 617 495-8269
August 16, 2007 Harvard: Tom Patterson

thomas_patterson@harvard.edu

Harvard Study Finds Internet Is Redistributing News Audience Shorenstein Center Reports America.s Daily Newspapers Most at Risk

Cambridge, MA. Like the cable and broadcast revolutions, the Internet revolution is redistributing the news audience in ways that has and will continue to benefit some news outlets, while harming others, according to a research report released today by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Based on an examination of traffic to 160 websites over a year-long period, the research found that traffic to newspaper-based sites has leveled off. The overall traffic level, however, hides important differences within the newspaper sector. The web sites of nationally known newspapers.the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today.are gaining audience. On average, their site traffic increased by 10 percent over the past year. In contrast, the websites of most other newspapers.whether in large, medium-sized, or small cities.have lost audience. Their sites on average have substantially fewer visitors now than a year ago.

The websites of national .brand name. television networks, such as CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and Fox, experienced increased traffic during the past year. In fact, their traffic increase exceeded 30 percent on average. The websites of local commercial television and radio stations also gained audience, though at a slower pace than that of the .brand names..

The biggest gains in audience occurred among the non-traditional news providers. The sites of search engines, service providers, aggregators, and bloggers grew faster on average than the sites of traditional news providers, whether print, broadcast, or cable. The sites of Google, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN, along with sites such as newsvine.com, topix.net, digg.com and reddit.com, saw large increases in traffic during the past year.

The Web particularly threatens daily newspapers. They were among the first to post news on the Internet but their initial advantage has all but disappeared in the face of increased competition from electronic media and non-traditional providers. The Internet is also a larger threat to local news organizations than those with national reputations. Because it reduces the influence of geography on people.s choice of a news source, the Internet inherently favors .brand names..those relatively few news organizations that readily come to mind by Americans everywhere when they seek news on the Internet.

Although the increase in Web traffic to the sites of non-traditional news providers is a threat to traditional news organizations, the latter do have strengths they can leverage on the Web. Local news organizations are .brand names. within their communities, which can be used to their advantage. Their offline audience reach can also be used effectively to drive traffic to their sites. Most importantly, they have a product.the news.that is in public demand. Ironically, some news organizations do not feature the day.s news prominently on their websites, forgoing their natural advantage.

The research was funded by a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, for the consideration of the Carnegie-Knight Task Force on the Future of Journalism Education. The Carnegie-Knight Initiative was launched in 2005 and focuses on curriculum reform at graduate schools of journalism, an innovative student internship program called News21, research, and creating a platform for educators to speak on journalism policy and education issues. All of these efforts grew out of a partnership involving the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the following member institutions: Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California; College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin; Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University; Graduate School of Journalism, University of California at Berkeley; Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University; Medill School of J!
ournalism, Northwestern University; Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri-Columbia; Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland; and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, Syracuse University.

The report was prepared by Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and is available at http://www.shorensteincenter.org.

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This memo from the executive editor of The Seattle Times, posted by Romenesko, raises questions about journalism ethics. When is it not OK for news personnel to express their personal opinion? What is political opinion? And -- adding for discussion a hypothetical extreme: If a reporter is covering a high-school basketball game, does she refrain from singing the National Anthem at the beginning?

ORIGINAL URL:
http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=12791

View Forum Post
Topic: Miscellaneous items
Date/Time: 8/15/2007 6:27:28 PM
Title: Seattle Times editor elaborates on cheering item
Posted By: Jim Romenesko

Seattle Times executive editor David Boardman's memo to staff:

DAVE'S RAVES
(and the occasional rant)

Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007

Posted by Dave on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 at 12:01 PM

My Raves admonition on politically based cheering in the newsroom has ignited the predictable flame-throwing in the blogosphere, particularly from the portside. Allow me to riff a bit further on that, and on my reasoning.

First, the reaction from such people as Dan Savage (whom, by the way, I personally respect and whose work I generally enjoy) and the Huffington Post crowd brings to mind one of my favorite quotes, from Democratic political strategist James Carville, who borrowed from Mark Twain: "Americans these days use the media the way a drunk uses a lamp post: for support, not illumination." The postings nearly everywhere speak not to the fundamental issues around newsroom decorum, but instead spring from one's place on the spectrum of Bush/Rove "Bad" or Bush/Rove "Good."

I ask you all to leave your personal politics at the front door for one simple reason: A good newsroom is a sacred and magical place in which we can and should test every assumption, challenge each other's thinking, ask the fundamental questions those in power hope we will overlook.

If we wore our politics on our sleeves in here, I have no doubt that in this and in most other mainstream newsrooms in America, the majority of those sleeves would be of the same color: blue. Survey after survey over the years have demonstrated that most of the people who go into this business tend to vote Democratic, at least in national elections. That is not particularly surprising, given how people make career decisions and that social service and activism is a primary driver for many journalists.

But if we allowed our news meetings to evolve into a liberal latte klatch, I have no doubt that a pathological case of group-think would soon set in. One of the advances of which I.m most proud over the years is our willingness to question and challenge each other as we work to give our readers the most valuable, meaningful journalism we can.

The result: A newspaper that is known nationally for aggressive watchdog and investigative reporting, without fear or favor. From a Democratic United States senator (Brock Adams) to our region's biggest employer (Boeing) to a large advertiser (Nordstrom) to our school districts and courts and police, we have confronted them all with tough questions to which they had no good answers. The result has been a better community, laws changed, lives saved.

It.s not about "balance," which is a false construct. It isn't even about "objectivity," which is a laudable but probably unattainable goal. It is about independent thinking and sound, facts-based journalism -- the difference between what we do and the myopic screed that is passed off as "advocacy" journalism these days.

Readers notice. In contrast to much of our industry, we are achieving great readership results both in print and online. Our page views to Seattletimes.com are up almost 40 percent year over year, and at this point we are actually selling more newspapers on a typical day than we did last year.

Thanks for listening, and for all of your amazing effort that keeps this the magical place it is.

A COLUMNIST'S ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/davidpostman/archives/2007/08/why_reporters_shouldnt_cheer.html

Journalism Educators Bar C-SPAN Cameras
http://webcast.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=171140

Journalism Educators Bar C-SPAN Cameras

(Broadcasting & Cable) _ We know some Supreme Court Justices are skittish about cameras (Antonin Scalia http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA410079.html comes to mind), but Supreme Court reporters?

According to C-SPAN http://www.broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138/post/650011065.html, it was required by conference organizers to remove its cameras from a panel session with those reporters -- at a meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication http://www.aejmc.org in Washington, D.C., Thursday -- when New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/linda_greenhouse/index.html objected.

While C-SPAN said it was perplexed by Greenhouse's reluctance, it was even more worried about journalism educators excluding their cameras. "If professors of journalism and working journalists taking part in a journalism education conference don't stand up for open media access to public-policy discussions, who will?" a top C-SPAN executive said in a letter to the AEJMC and the panelists. Greenhouse told B&C she did not refuse to participate, but instead told organizers that if C-SPAN covered it, it would not be the same full and frank discussion she would be able to have if the cameras were not there. "The whole format of the thing was that we were told not to prepare anything and that it would all be Q&A," she said. "So, of course, I did not know what the questions would be and, of course, whatever they were, I wanted to be able to answer them as fully and frankly as I could. I'm sure you can understand the difference between a classroom-size group of academics and 30!
0 million people. And I just didn't feel like it was something I was obliged to do."

She added that there turned out not to be any particularly probing questions, "but I didn't know that at the time. I didn't say that I wouldn't do it," Greenhouse told B&C from the Supreme Court press room Friday. "What I said to the organizer [Professor Amy Gadja] was that nobody had told me this was the nature of the event, and I didn't feel it woulde be as candid and fruitful a conversation with the cameras rolling." Greenhouse says she then "sat down and read my paper and let her figure it out. And that's the choice that she made."

AEJMC barred the C-SPAN crew, said the public-affairs cable network, which was not happy. C-SPAN -- which has been pushing the Supremes to open their appearances to TV cameras -- immediately complained to organizers in a letter. Programming vice president Terrence Murphy had the following hand-delivered to the conference's organizer at the Renaissance Washington Hotel Thursday:

"This morning, after working with AEJMC on event logistics for many days, C-SPAN cameras were shut out of a panel discussion entitled 'Covering the Court' just a few minutes before the session began. The session moderator, Prof. Amy Gadja, told our production-crew chief our cameras had to be turned off because one panel participant, Linda Greenhouse, Supreme Court reporter for The New York Times, did not want her remarks covered by C-SPAN."

The network continued, "I must say, it's perplexing as to why Ms. Greenhouse didn't want to permit C-SPAN to cover her remarks, since our program archive lists 51 different events where we've covered her over the years. But the larger concern is why AEJMC organizers allowed Ms. Greenhouse's view to prevail. If professors of journalism and working journalists taking part in a journalism education conference don't stand up for open media access to public-policy discussions, who will?" It concluded, "We look forward to hearing from you that your organization shares our concern and agrees that it was inappropriate for C-SPAN cameras to be turned away from this event."

Greenhouse had a response for C-SPAN, which she read to B&C. "Dear Terry: Your letter concerning yesterday's panel discussion at the journalism educators' convention misses the point. The question here is not one of 'open media access to public-policy discussions,' as you put it -- it is one of communications and simple courtesy. Since you chose to send copies to my fellow panelists, as well as the organizers of the program, I will do the same." The letter continued, "You claim to have spent days arranging C-SPAN coverage of the event. That may be so, but it is irrelevant to the question raised in your letter. I learned about the plan to cover the Supreme Court panel only when I showed up and saw the cameras. Professor Gayda told me she had only learned at 5 p.m. the day before that C-SPAN intended to cover our panel. Some months ago, when I accepted the invitation to speak to a roomful of journalists and professors, no one said anything about a nationally televised even!
t."

It went on, "There is a difference between appearing before a room of 50 or so professors and speaking in front of national television. I'm sure you recognize this. I did not agree to do the latter and, notwithstanding my willingness, as you know, to appear on C-SPAN dozens of times in the past, whether to do so remains, it seems to me, a matter in which I still have a say. I am neither a C-SPAN employee nor a public official. My past voluntary appearances do not give C-SPAN rights in perpetuity to broadcast events in which I appear whether I agree or not. In fact, you may or may not be aware that over the years, I have from time to time declined to appear at events that I had assumed were to be private when at the last minute I was informed that C-SPAN coverage was a fait accompli."

The letter concluded, "In the future, I will continue to be receptive to invitations to appear on excellent C-SPAN programs such as American Journal and at other events that C-SPAN arranges to cover. However, I think it is incumbent on C-SPAN and program organizers to do their homework by ensuring that participants understand, either at the time the invitation is extended or sufficiently in advance of the event to afford them the meaningful opportunity to gracefully opt out ' There is a difference between being invited and commandeered."

AEJMC executive director Jennifer McGill, to whom Murphy's letter was directed, could not be reached at press time -- the Washington conference is still ongoing.

Greenhouse added that had she known from the outset that C-SPAN was part of the equation, she probably would have said yes: "Had I been told at the time I was invited that this was going to be a nationally televised event, I probably would have said, 'Fine.'" But she also said: "The fact that I have been on C-SPAN 51 times in the past doesn't mean I am obliged to be on C-SPAN anytime they show up where I am."

Copyright © 2007 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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The article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

ORIGINAL URL:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070809/lf_afp/usmedia_070809222839

AFP
US public sees news media as biased, inaccurate, uncaring: poll

Thu Aug 9, 6:30 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than half of Americans say US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don't care about the people they report on, a poll published Thursday showed. And poll respondents who use the Internet as their main source of news -- roughly one quarter of all Americans -- were even harsher with their criticism, the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center said.

More than two-thirds of the Internet users said they felt that news organizations don't care about the people they report on; 59 percent said their reporting was inaccurate; and 64 percent they were politically biased. More than half -- 53 percent -- of Internet users also faulted the news organizations for "failing to stand up for America".

Among those who get their news from newspapers and television, criticism of the news organizations was up to 20 percentage points lower than among Internet news audiences, who tend to be younger and better educated than the public as a whole, according to Pew.

The poll indicates an across the board fall in the public's opinion on the news media since 1985, when a similar survey was conducted by Times Mirror, Pew Research said. "Two decades ago, public attitudes about how news organizations do their job were less negative. Most people believed that news organizations stood up for America... a majority believed that news organizations got the facts straight," Pew said in a report.

The Washington-based Pew Research Center describes itself as a nonpartisan "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.
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This article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070810/ap_on_hi_te/at_t_pearl_jam

AT&T says it errs in edit of anti-Bush lyrics

By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 10, 10:43 AM ET

SAN ANTONIO - Lyrics performed by Pearl Jam criticizing President Bush should not have been censored from a webcast by AT&T Inc., a company spokesman acknowledged Thursday. AT&T, through its Blue Room entertainment site, offered a webcast of the band's headlining performance Sunday at Lollapalooza in Chicago. The event was shown with a brief delay so the company could bleep out excessive profanity or nudity.

But monitors hired by AT&T through a vendor went further and cut two lines from a song to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall." One was "George Bush, leave this world alone" the second time it was sung, and the other was "George Bush find yourself another home," according to the band's Web site. AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said that the silencing was a mistake and that the company was working with the vendor that produces the webcasts to avoid future misunderstandings. He said AT&T was working to secure the rights to post the entire song ÿÿ part of a sing-along with the audience ÿÿ on the Blue Room site.

Blue Room offers live concerts, sports interviews, video game advice and other entertainment content that requires a high-speed Internet connection. Although viewing the content is free, San Antonio-based AT&T uses the site as a way to promote its DSL broadband services. Besides Pearl Jam's show, AT&T showed 21 other performances ranging from Pete Yorn to G. Love and Special Sauce during the three-day Lollapalooza music festival. Coe said no other complaints have been made about censoring.

Pearl Jam said in a posting on its Web site that in the future, it would work harder to ensure live broadcasts or webcasts are "free from arbitrary edits."

"If a company that is controlling a webcast is cutting out bits of our performance ÿÿ not based on laws, but on their ownpreferences and interpretations ÿÿ fans have little choice but to watch the censored version," they said.

The alternative rock band and Internet advocates were also using the incident to try to draw attention to the prospects of Internet service providers like AT&T deciding to give preferential treatment to content they favor or have deals with, leaving the rest on slower-moving Internet bandwidths. Jenny Toomey, executive director of the Future of Music Coalition, said that although net neutrality wasn't being violated in this case, it still raises questions about whether AT&T and other service providers can be trusted not to hurt artists. Internet speeds that depend only on the size of files, not the kind of content that's in them, is a democratizing force, she said. "We've got to protect that, and artists get that," Toomey said.

AT&T and other providers would like the ability to charge more for transmitting certain kinds of data, like live video, faster or more reliably than other data but have insisted such premium services would help, not hurt, consumers. Coe said, regardless, the issue of net neutrality is entirely separate from the mistake during the Pearl Jam show. "This was our own Web site," he noted.

On the Net:

Edited Webcast as posted on YouTube by the Future of Music Coalition:

http://tinyurl.com/37wst3

AT&T Blue Room: http://attblueroom.com

Pearl Jam: http://pearljam.com

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This article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

ORIGINAL URL:
http://www.hoinews.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=42732

ALSO SEE:

http://www.peoriastory.com

/ ehopkins7@prodigy.net

Citizen Journalism: Who Qualifies?

By Meghan Fisher
WHOI, Channel 19 (ABC), Peoria Ill.

Posted: Monday, July 30, 2007 at 6:13 PM

Every Monday, you see bloggers come on our newscast to talk about hot topics in the area. Some of the issues are opinions, some are fact-oriented, and some have made terrific news stories that have brought change to central Illinois. It's those stories that make some bloggers seem more like citizen journalists. Recently, the definition of blogger, journalist and media in general is becoming a hot topic.

Elaine Hopkins runs a blog called peoriastory.com. She is a retired reporter from the Journal Star and was recently kicked out of a juvenile courtroom because the judge ruled she was not a member of the media. Law states only news media and the crime victim are allowed in court. We asked some local bloggers to submit their opinions on the topic. Here are some responses we received.

Blogger Response: "If there's a question about access to the courts, the judge should air and the side of caution and allow access. The potential for harm comes not from allowing access, but from denying it. The primary beneficiaries of secrecy are not the children caught in the system, but the judges, lawyers and government employees who can hide their activities from public view."

Blogger Response: "Regarding bloggers and journalists: The fundamental problem is that the term "blogger" is too vague. It's like saying "printer" or "broadcaster." It describes the medium, not the content. So, for instance, on radio you have disc jockeys on one station and news reporters on another. On TV, you have actors on in the afternoon and journalists on in the early evening. You wouldn't give media credentials to *everyone* who blogs anymore than you'd give credentials to *everyone* on TV and radio. It's not the medium that's important, it's the content of your particu l ar show, publication, or blog site.

In general, I think that if you are running a news blog -- an online news magazine, if you will -- and wanting to report on an event, then you should be treated as a reporter. Since bloggers don't have a company behind them, but are self-published, it necessarily follows that this will have to be determined on a case-by-case basis. The CIA recently changed its definition of news media to this (emphasis mine):

CIA LINK:

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/E7-13931.htm

Representative of the News Media refers to any person actively gathering news for an entity that is organized and operated to publish or broadcast news to the public. The term ``news'' means information that is about current events or that would be of current interest to the public. Examples of news media entities include television or radio stations broadcasting to the public at large, and publishers of periodicals (but only in those instances when they can qualify as disseminators of ``news'') who make their products available for purchase or subscription by the general public. These examples are not intended to be all-inclusive. Moreover, as traditional methods of news delivery evolve (e.g., electronic dissemination of newspapers through telecommunications services), such alternative media would be included in this category.

I think news blogs would fit into this category, although it remains to be seen how the CIA applies this rule in practice. ABC News says the NSA specifically mentions blogs in its revised policies."

See: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/07/spy-agency-oks-.html

Blogger Response: "Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay were not members of established newspapers when they printed the Federalist Papers arguing in favor of the ratification of the Constitution. Our national Constitution does not define what "the press" is. Journalists ARE citizens, and many of our Founding Fathers were what we would today call "citizen journalists" -- maverick writers working outside the established press. There is no reason bloggers can't be bound by the same contempt of court threats as traditional journalists if bloggers want to print the name of a minor in a closed juvenile court proceeding. It is not the business of the government -- legislature, executive, OR court -- to define who is and is not a journalist, nor to restrict individuals from exercising Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms on the basis of what description the world appends to their occupation. I never noticed words like "blogger" or "newspaperman" or "journalist" i!
n the First Amendment. It is disappointing to see a judge sworn to protect and uphold both our federal and state Constitutions and charged with interpreting and defending them in court instead choosing to undermine them and to undermine the rights of the citizens of the state of Illinois and of these United States."

HOI 19 News got in touch with David Ardia. He is currently the head of the Citizen Media Law project at Harvard Law School. He read our story and looked at Hopkins' blog. He says her site is very high quality and seems to be exhibiting all the practices of journalism that any established media organization does, but she just doesn't have an organization attached to her name. He says media is going through a transition and although this is the first case he's heard of nationally like Hopkins', he's sure it will open the door to some much needed discussion among the courts. Ardia added in this case, he believes there was a very narrow-minded view of what journalism is. He believes there is room for figuring out a way for bloggers to obtain credentials, but says the devil's in the details! If the focus is the type of work they do, frequency of publication, procedures in place for verification etc., the process may work. Ardia says, "the best approach is to have the media or!
ganizations in Illinois sit down with judges and bring in citizen journalists to decide what's best for the citizens in Illinois, the juvenile court system and the juveniles themselves." He adds that it is in the public's best interest to have more voices cover news stories, so this is a conversation that needs to happen.

The issue Chief Judge Richard Grawey of the 10th judicial court reminds us of is the fact that bloggers don't have editors, bosses, or credentials, so they could potentially write anything they wanted. Even some bloggers agree with him, saying bloggers are not journalists. Blogger Response: One blogger writes, "Blogging is, and was pioneered by self expression of ones own beliefs, thoughts and opinions," and goes on to say, "Journalist's are supposed to be unbiased and report the facts as a matter of record, not how "they" interpret the facts. Bloggers write about what is important to them as bloggers, thus they can say anything they want."

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This article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.