August 23, 2004
From the front(s)
: Salam Pax puts up lots of pictures from his sojourns into Najaf and Sadr City.
. . .
War is sad
: Jay Rosen says the essence of the Swiftie story is sadness: It's sad that we're still fighting (over) Vietnam.
The way I said it this weekend: "The real lesson of the whole Swift Board brouhaha is this: America isn't over Vietnam -- not by a long shot."
Glenn Reynolds quotes Dale Franks today with a proposal for a truce -- the same one I have been proposing since the beginning of this: In order to move the presidential campaign away from what happened or didn't happen in Vietnam 35 years ago, I offer a suggestion. Since the Kerry camp wishes to argue that official Navy records are conclusive proof that Kerry served honorably and with distinction, I suggest that those of us opposed to Kerry offer to accept that argument, as long as the Kerry people accept the logical corollary: the official Air Force records indicating George W. Bush was honorably discharged from his service is conclusive proof that he properly met his obligations as well. Sold.
But now, sadly, we've moved from fighting over Vietnam again to fighting over who started fighting over Vietnam again. Reynolds says Kerry violated a truce on Vietnam in American politics.
Can you say "quagmire"? Vietnam was invoked by Iraq-war opponents and they would probably say it was Bush's fault for creating another Vietnam. (Readers of this site will know I am not a quagmirist and wouldn't take the position.)
Well, my fellow Americans, it seems we need to go back on the couch to deal with this Vietnam thing.
But in the meantime, we have a President to elect. Don't we all just want to move on?
. . .
Technoloot
: Om Malik gets the scoop on Technorati's new financing, reportedly $6.5 million. Good. And congrats! (Now buy some servers or a new architecture that's reliable! That's because we depend on you.)
: MORE: Ross Mayfield also announces that he closed a round of financing, adding Pierre Omidyar to his list of illustrious investors. Congrats here, too!
: Omidyar (founder of eBay, in case you've just left the cave) also announces on his blog that he has expanded past a foundation to a fund to invest in and support for-profit ventures. I like the philosophy, of course: To understand why we decided to expand, you have to understand how I look at things like eBay and Meetup.
In talking about eBay over the past few years, I've emphasized the way eBay has helped people pursue their individual passions and discover their own power to make good things happen; how they've become empowered by participating in an open and honest marketplace, in a level playing field, meeting and working/trading with people who share their interests.
When I first learned about Meetup, I saw much of the same thing at work, though quite different on the surface: people discovering their own power, and connecting with others to realize that power to make good things happen.
Ever since eBay, I've been inspired by people discovering their own power, and believed that every individual can make a difference....
. . .
Yo, anarchists!
: I do hope that the anarchists coming to New York for the Republican convention aren't stupid enough to bring violence to this city. New Yorkers will not tolerate it. More violence -- violence from smelly, obnoxious Americans -- is the last thing this city needs. I swear if these bozos try any of their tricks, New Yorkers will as one descend upon them without mercy.
Last week, the Times wrote about anarchists as, well, unpredictable.
Then, last night, a commenter below pointed to the twits at Indymedia putting up the names, addresses, phone numbers, and hotels for RNC delegates -- and there's only one reason to do that: to spook or assault these people. I won't link to it so as not to be an accessory to this would-be crime.
. . .
Is character really an issue?
: It's accepted wisdom that character is an issue in elections, especially Presidential elections. Let's examine that assumption.
Sure, if you know with good evidence that a candidate is a lying, thieving, stealing, sliming, philadering, cheating, insane idiot and louse -- well, then, yes, character is an issue.
But when is any human being really so one-dimensionally flawed (and when -- since 1933 -- are every one of his backers so hypnotized or stupid or corrupt to allow him to get this far in life)?
Now I know what some of you are going to say: Aha! You have a problem with character because Kerry's character is being attacked and you're likely to vote for him; how friggin' convenient for you! Think what you will; you will anyway. I had the exact same problem with Michael Moore going after Bush's character and even went on CNN to defend Bush against Moore. I am equal-opportunity on this topic: I hate both sides' muck. So try to rise up out of the primordial ooze of political mud and mire for a moment and consider the question of the real value of debate over a candidate's -- any candidate's -- character.
I find that I have many problems with character as a campaign issue:
1. Character is not a measure of competence. And what I really want in a President is competence. Jimmy Carter had character; he was a terrible President. Jerry Ford was his Republican counterpart: good guy, nothing President. Bill Clinton ended up with a cracked character but I say he was a good President. Richard Nixon had the character of a cockroach, yet he was, in many ways, quite competent.
2. Character is used mostly as an excuse for good old-fashioned political mudslinging: Dig and sling some dirt at a candidate and then hide behind the oh-so-noble notion that you're just trying to reveal the candidate's character when all you're really doing is running a dirty campaign.
3. Character is the argument that will never end. If you don't like the candidate, you'll say he has crappy character. If you like the candidate, you'll defend his character and say that the other side is just a bunch of character assassins. Wheels spin, mud spurts, and we don't get anywhere. It's mean-spirited. It's unproductive.
4. Character cannot truly be measured until it is tested. You won't know whether someone has the character to face the Presidency until he or she faces it. You won't likely know whether they'll step up to the plate or steal it until you watch them faced with the choice.
5. Character is a distraction from the issues that really matter, the issues a President can influence that, in turn, affect our lives. Look at this campaign in many blogs and certainly on TV: We're not arguing the important issues that supposedly divide us; we're sniping instead. Once again, it's unproductive. Worse, it's divisive and destructive.
6. Character is a proxy for morality and morality is a proxy for religion and religion mixed with government always scares me. We hear candidates attacked because of their character and values and what that too often really means is that the snipers disagree with the candidate's stand on abortion or gay marriage or school voucher or even the environment and development. Slippery, that slope.
None of this is to say that we will not or should not vote on character. At the end of the day, unless a candidate has a stand or stands we simply abhor, each of us will inevitably end up judging whether to vote for candidates based on whether we trust or admire or like them. That's as it should be.
But when we start arguing over such intangible and personal criteria -- when we start yelling at other people that they should or should not trust or admire or like someone the way we do -- then the argument reaches often absurd and usually useless depths.
This election, its issues, and its choices are too important to let that happen.
Is character an issue or a distraction? Is character and issue or a weapon?
. . .
Testing blog mettle
: Think of the next 11 weeks until the election as a challenge: as a test of weblogs' real value:
When we wake up after the election, will we be able to point to the ways and posts in which this new medium contributed, or at least tried to contribute, to improving the coverage of the campaign and the policies of the candidates and the wisdom of the electorate? Will we have made a difference at all? Or will we have made it worse?
Did we push the coverage and the candidates in ways that mattered? Or did we wallow in mud?
Now is our opportunity to show what we can do. So what can we do?
I am blogs' biggest booster, blathering on to any who unfortunate enough to listen about the power of citizens' media.
But I also have to say that I've been a bit disheartened in recent days by the incessant gotchaism of some blogs and more commenters in our new medium.
OK, we're human. And we're independent. Bloggers have opinions and the means to share them. A blogger is under no obligation or expectation from anyone else to fix the world or do journalism's job or cure its ills or, Lord knows, to repair politics. You want to say -- and say again -- that you think Bush/Kerry is a liar or stupid or a flip-flopper or frightening or incompetent, great: Have at it. Pluck the low-hanging fruit of democracy.
But we also say that blogs gives us all an opportunity to present a new viewpoint and to bring together information from disparate sources and to turn news and campaigns and even government into conversations and to improve them.
So are we?
I'm not talking just about the Swifies or the Mooreites, so don't get mired in all that. And I'm certainly not trying to say that I'm any paragon of value or virtue myself, so spare us your sputting comments; I'm no expert in health care and that's why I wish wiser bloggers than me would illuminate the subject. And as I say in another post today, I also don't want to find this wallowing in another roundabout about character.
I hope that what we can contribute is better conversation and debate and information and questions about the issues that affect our lives and our world. I hope that we can contribute is a better gauge of what citizens are saying. I hope that what we can contribute is a push to improve campaigning and coverage of it.
So here's my challenge: As you see examples -- on the blogs you read or the blogs you write -- of posts that in any way improve this campaign, save them. When it's over, on the morning after, I'll ask again. And then let's assess our value.
We bloggers are all quick to judge mainstream media. Shouldn't we turn the same spotlight on ourselves?
. . .
August 22, 2004
Yankee go home? Ok, we will
: I was hoping the David's Medienkritik would translate this irony-rich piece from Die Zeit; my German isn't good enough to catch the nuance: Namely, Zeit notes the humor of Germans suddenly whining about our troops leaving. Ach, look, how the Americans have again suddenly become so dear and precious to the Germans when it hits them in the wallet. The announced withdrawal of large numbers of US troops stationed in Germany has unleashed consternation at the threatening loss of jobs and accusations that the Americans want to get themselves out of their “Nato responsibility.” Nanu? Since when is it a part of the responsibility of Nato and the US Army to maintain jobs in Germany? Just a year and a half ago the majority of Germans were certain the USA and its President represented a greater danger to world peace than Saddam Hussein, and the US armed forces were considered fearsome executors of the sinister US plans for world domination. Now, however, German politicians and union people, who marched at the very front of the peace demonstrations, are pouting and grimacing like children who feel they have been left in the lurch by Daddy because the number one war-monger wants to deny us the trusted presence of our uniformed American friends.
. . .
Good news!
: New York journalist and Iraqi hostage Micah Garen has been released.
. . .
Go, team!
: Drudge says Bush may go to Athens to root for the Iraqi soccer team. No, really.
. . .
SHOUTING POINTS MEMO
: Ed Cone has a downright brilliant column giving into the trend in political discourse these days with a SHOUTING POINTS MEMO. An excerpt of his advice: I am right, and you are wrong.
You are not just wrong, you and those like you are intellectually insufficient and morally suspect. Why do you hate our country? Think of the children....
You speak in cliches, slogans and sound bites. I speak in pithy phrases and time-tested words of wisdom. You call names, I tell it like it is. You are vulgar, I am colorful.
My candidate is a hero. Yours is a zero. One cannot compare the youthful hijinks of my guy with the youthful wantonness of yours. My guy makes mistakes, yours commits sins of the worst kind. And likes it. My guy was misquoted, or simply misspoke, while your guy was caught on tape saying exactly what I expected him to say....
Your attempt at humor reveals your narrow-minded bigotry. Your reaction to my own attempt at humor shows that you cannot take a joke.
I disagree with what you say, and I will defend to the death my right to tell you so. Jerk. Enjoy the rest. Mark my words: This is going to be a classic.
If we in this supposedly conversation medium will not stand up for a higher level of discourse, who the hell will?
. . .
Tet offensive
: Meep leaves a wonderful comment below and I quote in full: Jeeez. Boomers.
Vietnam was over before I was =born=. And boomers =still= think they're the center of America. Well, I've gotta say, not for much longer.
Most people my age don't even know what the whole Vietnam thing was about, and why it's considered a "bad" war compared to those "good" wars. What's the diff between Korea and Vietnam, I'd like to know, other than in Vietnam we let the commies win?
You know what this reminds me of? "The South Will Rise Again" nuts. Think of the bitterness of the old confederate vets that festered for years... and the South remained a backwater until it gave up that confederate outlook and decided to join the 20th century and become a magnet for business. Are boomers going to be eating their livers in retirement because of Vietnam? Sounds like it to me.
Looking at my mortality tables (I'm an actuarial-type), I note that boomer deaths are really going to pick up over the next couple decades. I'm hoping that will finally get people to shut up about Vietnam. I notice that generation Xers (my generation) don't go on about this crap - unlike the children of the confederates, we're not carrying this forth to future generations. So I guess the boomers should wallow in this while they're still alive, because their children sure won't. I just hope that in 2035 someone not yet born writes in a medium not invented: "Jeez. Xers. Iraq was over before I was =born=."
Come to think of it, I do hope that in 2035, someone not yet born writes, "The war on terror was over before I was born." We can only hope.
: Anil adds in the comments: Being the same age as Meep, I have to agree and also point out that it's likely that we're the ones (those born 1975 and later) who are likely to decide this election. Keep on blathering about non-issues, folks... : And Robert Sterling pipes in:FWIW, I'm an early X-er born in 1970, with a fairly keen recollection of the mid-70s. I remember how bad hippies smelled, and that alone is nearly sufficient to indict your generation. Hey, I was clean. I wore really goofy purple shirts and sandals (no socks). But I was clean.
. . .
Cablevision sucks!
: But we knew that, didn't we? The reason they suck today: Suddenly, I couldn't send email. After wasting an hour of my time and Hosting Matters' time, it turns out the damned cable ISP overnight switched to require all outgoing mail to go through only its SMTP server. Now correct me if I'm wrong (please) but when I go to the office tomorrow, I'll just bet I'll have to switch it back again; and then switch it tomorrow night, and on and on. They didn't tell anybody; they just did it because, hey, we're the cable company and we suck but you're stuck. (I live too far away from a central phone company office to be able to use DSL, so I am stuck.) Cablevision sucks.
: UPDATE: It gets better. Two Cablevision managers said to me with straight face that I could upgrade to a business account. So I could move from my $40 account to one that costs $110 just because Cablevision decided to change a rule to inconvenience its customers (and, by the way, this also shows that Cablevision did not have to change this rule). That's clearly not good, I said. "Well, it's an option," they said. Yes, and so is sitting on top of a flagpole in my underwear. But I think I'll pass.
If you're a Cablevision customer victim, the man in charge is one Wilt Hildenbrand at 516 803 2300. Call and complain. If you walk to Cablevision, demand that your complaint be escalated, as well.
. . .
Not so swift
: The real lesson of the whole Swift Board brouhaha is this:
America isn't over Vietnam -- not by a long shot.
I said when Kerry gave his acceptance speech and John-John salute in Boston that I couldn't believe Vietnam had been rehabilitated as a word and a war in America. Well, I couldn't believe it for good reason. What we're really seeing in this alleged controversy now -- besides mud-slinging for mud-slinging's sake -- is the old prowar and antiwar sides fighting over the war once more.
By emphasizing Vietnam, Kerry scraped the scab of the war. And then the Swifties -- backed by Bushies -- poured salt onto it. The wound is not healed. And it's stinging again. If we're not careful, it will start bleeding.
Nothing good is coming of this. It's not illuminating anything about the candidates. Oh, you can screech at me all you want about this in the comments -- Lord knows, you have -- but all the screeching won't tell me what to think. As a voter, I still say I don't care.
I don't care about the Vietnam war.
We are in a war now. We are in a war against terrorists and Islamofascists and for modernity and civilization and America. That is the war I care about.
You can blame whomever you want for this fuss and muss. I don't care about that, either. You can argue that this is really about character -- Kerry's or Bush's; I'll have a fuller answer to that shortly.
And you can say it's about media but note that news media are doing what news media should do: They are reporting. They didn't just swallow what the Swifties had to say. They dug and found out that everything isn't as the Swifties or as Kerry says; it's never that simple, folks. So see the Chicago Tribune today, where one of Kerry's men points to the untruths of the Swifties. See the Washington Post this weekend sorting through errors of fact or memory on both sides. See the New York Times Friday pointing to inconsistent statements of the Swifties and their Bush backing. Be careful what you wish for: Big news media is paying attention and it's reporting.
But this argument can go back and forth forever and will we be one bit better off? No, we won't be.
I watched the start of Meet the Press this morning (before the kids hijacked the TV for Sponge Bob) and not one second was devoted to how to improve the country, only to the mud.
Vietnam has moved on and we haven't.
Meanwhile, there are issues pressing us today: the war on terrorism and terrorists' war on us; health insurance; the economy; education; free speech; technology innovation; energy independence; and on and on. And we're wasting sweat and bile over this. Throw away your WayBack machines, folks.
Vietnam is over. It's the war we lost and we keep losing it.
: MORE: After writing this post, I read a comment left below by David Crisp, who seems to be editor of BillingsNews faulting bloggers of both sides on this story:
....bloggers have blown the Swift Vets story bigtime. I've been looking through the blogosphere for two weeks for even one fair-minded account of this controversy. Every place I turn, I find only pro-Kerry folks who think it's a nonstory and pro-Bush folks who start with the assumption that Kerry is a liar.
That's just garbage. I want the facts before I decide whether it's a story. And I'm willing to entertain the possibility that Kerry might be a liar, but that's not where I want the discussion to start.
To get a handle on where this story really stands, I have found no worthy alternative to the mainstream media. They may have moved more slowly than bloggers, but they did real reporting, added new information, put the issues in perspective and made sense of it all.
Maybe somebody in the blogosphere has done that, too, but I sure haven't managed to find it. Maybe I rely too much on Instapundit. Please, somebody tell me where to find a balanced blog account. All I find is arrogance, flim-flam and self-congratulation.
What's really sad is that bloggers and reporters could make great partners: reporters asking questions on the ground, and bloggers doing research and fact checking and creating a forum for discussion. I would love to run a tough story through a gantlet of concerned bloggers who would help me hone, focus and sharpen it. But as a working reporter, all I seem to get from bloggers is contempt.
If blogging is what we have to look forward to as a replacement for newspapers, then I think I'll give up reading altogether.
. . .
Free radio
: Doc Searls writes an amazing piece on the possibly doomed fate of radio -- and more than radio -- at the hands of so many competing forces who have it in their crossfire, including Congress, the FCC, the music industry, and more. I can't summarize it and do it justice -- so go read it -- but I will quote this: To Congress and the FCC, broadcasting isn't speech. It's transport: a delivery system for "material" and "content".....
Think of a metaphor as a box of words. We all think and talk inside the shipping box when we speak about "moving" or "delivering" goods we call "content" to "end users" or "consumers". This is what Powell does when he describes broadcasting as a "medium" through which we "receive" stuff he calls "material".
Broadcasting isn't the only business in the shipping box. In fact, business itself lives there. Ever since the industrial revolution created an enormous system in which the few produce for the many, most business finds itself somewhere amongst the distribution chains that run between producers and consumers. That's why we have so many more people "adding value" than creating it.....
All the talk about "content" reveals a conceptualization of broadcasting as a delivery system, primarily for visual goods: stuff you see. Not stuff you hear or read as you would with speech--the freedom protected by the First Amendment....
Which brings us to the place where we're peaceably assembled right now, the Net. That's what we need to defend, against the very transport metaphors we all unconsciously use. Specifically, we need to fight against the characterization of the Net as yet another medium....
We're fighting for a place here. Or, in the original parlance, a space. Either way, it's no freight-forwarding system. Go read the rest.
. . .
Google: go transparent
: Seth Goldstein makes a good case for Google to be transparent about its clickstream: the number of searches, the number of sponsored clicks, and the average cost per sponsored click. He makes this argument on behalf of investors, now that they are public, since Google has -- with what is, sadly, becoming its typical hubris -- declaring that it's not going to report financial results the way other public companies do. (But just watch: This will deflate the company's value and they will be forced to do what the investment community demands. In the end, the Google IPO turned out the way the investment market would have had it turn out. The marketplace always wins.)
But there is another reason for Google transparency: Its customers and affiliates deserve to know what's happening. Advertisers want to know more about where their ads appear and what happens to them. And content owners should get more details on what is served on their sites and what they are paid as a resalt.
Google is now a public company and must be transparent in public. Transparency is one protection against evil.
. . .
August 21, 2004
McGreevey speaks (sort of)
: NJ Gov Jim McGreevey writes an op-ed in the Sunday Times. It's all about justifying his decision to resign effective Nov. 15. It's not about the tough questions he needs to start answering -- regarding his employment of Golan Cipel, among other things.
. . .
Salam
: Commenter CharlesWT tells us that Salam Pax is back at this blog. But, once again, we need to wonder about the identity; there's no link to this from his old blog, only an odd link to something else.
. . .
In the shadow of terrorism
: Odd, but it was only this morning, as I watched the Olympics, that I remembered the reason People magazine sent me to L.A. as part of the team to cover the Olympics in 1984:
Terrorism.
I was the hard news guy in the house that fluff built, having worked on newspapers. And so they sent me in case disaster struck, as it had in Munich in 1972. (I was also assigned to write just-in-case obits of Prince Charles and Diana in case they were killed on their wedding day, which also happened to be our closing day. The fluffier staff members thought this quite ghoulish. It was just news.)
The threat of terrorism in America seemed quite distant then; we had a few contingency plans (it was news to them that if something happens, you should go right to the hospitals) and then we sat out by the pool.
Of course, today, this is more than a threat. It is experience.
Like Jay Rosen in his latest 9/11 post (this is the last time I'll link to that today), I was struck by Washington Post New York bureau chief Michael Powell's phrase: ...those of us -- myself and his wife, among others -- who came within the shadow of the falling towers on Sept. 11 had acquired an intimate view of terror.... An intimate view of terror. That is so right.
So during these games -- as on any given random day in New York -- that view is in the back of the mind. Happened before. Could happen again. Now we know. I'm relieved that a week of the Olympics have gone by without problems. I pray the next week is the same. I pray the same for the convention in New York and the election and every day after that.
Back in 1984, in America, terrorism was a distant possibility you'd nod at. Today, terrorism is an ever-present fear you live with.
. . .
The flag
: In Jay Rosen's latest post about 9/11 and journalism, there is this about journalists wearing the flag: Apparently if you say things like "journalism changed after 09/11" you sound like a fellow traveler with Fox, and with the Right's work-the-refs view that "journalists are unpatriotic and bad because they show bad stuff on TV which undermines Amerca," as [Matt] Stoller put it. Use language like "duty to the nation" and you sound like a winger.
Well... I think any journalist of any persuasion would have been wise to wear a little American flag on their lapel after 09/11, and even wiser to explain what the symbol meant in that context, going on air with the news. If necessary, fight about the flag and what it says when worn in a gesture of solidarity.
But I'm also intrigued with the idea of the flag-less press, which shows no signs of membership, no solidarity, except the fraternity of fellow observers. I'm so glad to hear Jay say that.
I never but never was a flag-waver or -wearer before 9/11. I started afterwards. My view: Evil swine killed thousands around me and tried to kill me that day just because I am American. So, of course, I will wear my flag as the tiniest sign of defiance. I know that wearing the flag confuses people (flag=right) but I don't care. I want to reclaim the flag from partisans and apologists and terrorists. I wish we all wore the flag. I wish we were all united enough to do so.
I am an American. As we say here in Jersey, You gotta problem with that?
. . .
Golden
: Olympic swimmer Scott Goldblatt blogs [shhhh; don't tell the IOC; see the post below] about Michael Phelps' amazing decision to forego another medal to let a teammate compete and win.
Goldblatt also wants us all to know about a charity auction of Olympic athletes' memorabilia that he is organizing for the Melanoma Research foundation. Details here. Pass it on! More info on the auction: ATHENS - Together with eBay Giving Works, two-time Olympian Scott Goldblatt ( Scotch Plains, New Jersey / Kansas City, Kansas ) is organizing an Olympic Team memorabilia charity auction to benefit the Melanoma Research Foundation....
In May of 1997, Goldblatt lost his mother, Linda Goldblatt, to this disease.
"I have seen what this disease can do, and together with your help, hope to educate others in the prevention of the disease," said Goldblatt.
Goldblatt is asking Team USA members to help in this auction by donating a unique item.
. . .
IOC's restraint of speech and trade
: The International Olympic Committee is barring competitors, coaches, anybody involved in the games from blogging them. As if they have a chance in hell of stopping it. The International Olympic Committee is barring competitors, as well as coaches, support personnel and other officials, from writing firsthand accounts for news and other Web sites.
An exception is if an athlete has a personal Web site that they did not set up specifically for the Games.
The IOC’s rationale for the restrictions is that athletes and their coaches should not serve as journalists — and that the interests of broadcast rightsholders and accredited media come first.
Participants in the games may respond to written questions from reporters or participate in online chat sessions — akin to a face-to-face or telephone interview — but they may not post journals or online diaries, blogs in Internet parlance, until the Games end Aug. 29. What a crock of crap. The IOC says competitors can't be journalists? That's saying they do not have any right to free speech and can speak only through journalists. That's offensive and stupid. But then, that's the IOC. [via Loic]
: UPDATE: Dan Gillmore says this is about greed. Period.
. . .
Journalism at eye-level
: When I talk about the news business these days, I find myself constantly returning to the same refrain:
We must bring journalism down to a human level, down from the tower it built to separate itself from the public, down to eye level.
Please allow me to glue together a series of thoughts on the subject:
: I found myself ranting on the topic a few times recently when I was talking with separate groups of smart folks about the branding and image of journalistic endeavors. The topic of names came up and all the obvious ones for news products have been words you want to etch in granite: Tribune, Times, Guardian. That's news the way it used to be or some hoped it would be: behind stone walls, inside the cathedral, separate, cold, above, beyond.
Now we are seeing that if journalism is to survive, let alone prosper, it must speak at a human level and must also listen; it must join in the conversation of the community.
Given that, the names we should consider should be more human, like Pulse, Sinews, Face, Eyes, Ears, Tongues, Hearts, Feet, Guts, Shout, Spit, or, yes, Spleen.
: Now see Jay Rosen's two inspiring posts about whether 9/11 changed journalism -- or rather, whether it changed journalists.
Do we admit we are human and have a human reaction to the event? Do we allow ourselves to root for our side in this war -- which requires recognizing that we are at war and what side we are on? And if we don't -- if we act as if we do not have our own worldviews, as Jay puts it -- doesn't that too often end up perverting our coverage so, in a futile and misguided effort to be objective, we try to be fair to terrorists (did anybody worry after 1933 about being fair to Hitler?)? Just because you have a worldview doesn't mean you have to do nothing but argue for it; it doesn't mean you can't ask tough and uncomfortable questions; it only means that your questions have some context.
This is really about admitting that we are human. As a human being, you must have a reaction to 9/11 and to deny it, to hide it, is to lie to those to whom you are trying to be truthful, your public. To instead be human and admit your reaction and the worldview it reshapes is to give a context to what you say so your public can better judge it. Isn't that more honest? Isn't that thus better journalism?
: Now see a wonderful speech Hodding Carter gave to the AEJMC journalism confab in Toronto two weeks ago. I'll quote at length; he begins by talking about his newspapering days:
We practiced journalism with zeal and, occasionally, foolhardy abandon. We took up the implicit demands – the implicit responsibility inherent in the First Amendment – and let people know our editorial mind when most of them would have happily been spared that opportunity. We covered our region, warts and all.
And we participated in the life and civic causes of our town – Greenville, Mississippi – with avocational fervor. We saw ourselves as citizens as well as journalists. We saw ourselves not simply as a mirror reflecting what was happening in the community, or as its critics, but as indivisible from it, a piece of the community’s fabric....
We practiced civic journalism, public journalism, regularly and routinely, without ever having heard the term. God knows we did so with no anticipation of the intensely vapid and frequently demagogic controversy that was to surround its articulation or of the overt attempt by certain of the journalistic elites to suffocate its resurrection three and more decades later.
For us, the journalist as citizen was not a doctrine or a debating point – it was the whole point of the enterprise....
Grieve over the polls’ mounting evidence of the separation between the people on the one hand and the institutions designed to protect and advance their interests on the other.
Gaze steadily at the decline in the public’s belief that the First Amendment should be taken at face value, embraced as the lifeblood of democracy, respected in practice under the most heated of circumstances.
And then consider the slow but steady erosion in the connection – as measured by readership and viewer ship – between the public on the one hand and print and television media on the other.
All are part and parcel of a mushrooming societal phenomenon, not random unrelated phenomena....
We in journalism and in the academy have been playing the wrong game, the game of separation from our own society.
We complain because “they” don’t read what we write, appreciate what we teach, understand the fundamentals of our trade and our society – but we complain at arms’ length, from on high, from the sidelines.... The journalist is a member of the community, not apart from it. The journalist is a citizen equal to every other citizen. The journalist is human.
: This isn't just about opinions and bias and honest people having honest disagreements about how they view the world and the news. Yes, that's most of it.
But it's also about business. It's about how our audience/market/public views us and what we try to sell them. It's even about how we deliver the news.
I mentioned a few weeks back going to focus groups at which news consumers, casual and fervent, looked at the mirror -- knowing that Journalism was on the other side of it -- and complained in one voice, "Your stories are too long!" For them, our stories are repetitive. They are filled with show-off paragraphs. They waste the readers' time and that is a terrible sin.
If you were having a conversation with someone and realized you were boring them, wouldn't you shut up or at least get to the point? But that's just the problem: News, until now, hasn't been a conversation.
[And, yes, I recognize the irony of making that point in the middle of an unusually long and rambling post. As a wise editor of mine once said to me as I was writing a breaking story on deadline: "Find the nearest period." I'm almost there.]
This is also about how, where, and when we deliver the news. We used to inconvenience the audience because we didn't have much choice: We made you wait until we delivered the paper or put our show on the air. Well, now, we can deliver you the news wherever and however and whenever you want and if we don't do that, aren't we being rather rude? Aren't we still being haughty if we think you will go out of your way to read or hear what we have to say about the news you already know?
Making journalism human is about humility.
: Of course, humility is being thrust upon journalism, like it or not, by the likes of Jayson Blair. Nothing makes it clearer that journalism is not an infallible institution, but rather the product of a bunch of quite fallible humans.
Humility is also thrust upon journalism, of course, by the birth of bloggers: Now mere mortals can do what the high priests of journalism do without the institutions, the capital, the educations, the infrastructure but with the push of a button. Bloggers can question and cajole the institution. They bring it down to size. They even the playing field. They make everybody human.
: Good things come of making all journalism human. It makes all humans journalists.
Last week, as I said here, I went to Flemington, NJ, for a hyperlocal blog MeetUp and almost 30 good neighbors showed up eager to spark and join in the conversation of the community. These good people will share more information than a paperbound newspaper ever could afford to gather and print. But it's also important to note that most of them came there because the newspaper told them about it and the editor of the newspaper was there. Everybody has something to contribute to this conversation.
: Now this all seems obvious and trite because it is. But even so, we in journalism lose sight of this all the time. That is why we come together to have conferences about transparency and about public journalism and why we appoint ombudsmen to listen to the public.
But it's really quite simple: Journalism is about people telling people things they want or need to know. If you remember that, if you see journalism as a conversation at eye-level, then you're less likely to hide behind priestly invocations of objectivity; you're less likely to hide your own opinions and emotions; you're less likely to bore and inconvenience those you're hoping to serve; you're more likely to listen; you're more likely to actually end up knowing what the people you're serving want and need; you're more likely to succeed.
We're only human.
. . .
August 20, 2004
Blogpulse news
: I've been playing with Blogpulse, comparing references in blogs -- not in media but in blogs -- to swift boats (or swiftvets or swift) in blue, vs. Cambodia in yellow, vs. health in green. Note how much blog users -- thank goodness -- care about health issues over the nonissues of the Swifties.
By the way, here's Bush (in blue, for variety's sake) vs. Kerry (in yellow, make no inferences) vs. Nader (in green, how appropriate):
. . .
The hostage we know
: Tristan Louis, a blogger, knows the latest hostage in Iraq, Micah Garen, and worked with him at Earthweb. See Tristan's post here and Doc's post here.
. . .
Lemmings to the fryer
: Went to the new Jersey City Fatburger for lunch today. Ridiculous line. Didn't move. I left. It's just a burger, folks.
: UPDATE: Could New York be the death of Fatburger?
Ken Layne reports in the comments: Fatburger is slooooooow. It's not fast food. (And it's not my favorite California burger, but it is very tasty and very substantial. More like a burger you'd get in a decent steakhouse.)
Even with nobody in line -- say, at 2:30 a.m. -- it takes forever. I will admit to falling "asleep" in my car at the drive-thru window. More than once.
Wait a week or two for the novelty to pass, then make your order, go out for a newspaper or whatever, and then you will have a happy lunch. New Yorkers aren't patient like Californians; I learned that first-hand when I lived out there. I'd go psycho waiting for a table while all around me were drugged. New Yorkers have places to go, people to see, things to do. New Yorkers have lives.
. . .
Reporting for duty
: Gizmodo reports on a high-tech cup that will test the motility, fertility, motivation, eagerness of your sperm.
. . .
News TiVo
: Microsoft's Newsbot is trying to serve you personalized news based on other news you looked at, very TiVolike and Amazonlike. Interesting idea. Execution so far is iffy: If I look at "general news" I get more "general news." But I like that I can look at my history and delete stories from it.
. . .
McGreevey dominoes
: Ya gotta love Jersey politics: a surprise every day. Pick up today's Jersey Journal right here in Jersey City and see this: I'M GAY, AND MAD
Freeholder says governor is using sexuality to deflect criticism
Hudson County Freeholder Ray Velazquez is so offended by the governor's handling of his legal troubles and so worried that the gay community will be hurt by the scandal that he is publicly acknowledging that he, too, is a gay elected official.
Most troubling, he said, is the allegation that Gov. James E. McGreevey put his lover on the public payroll.
"It's not enough to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm a gay man,' to cover up those things," Velazquez said this week at his Downtown law office....
A relative newcomer to county politics, Velazquez was selected by the Hudson County Democratic Organization in July 2003 to fill the seat of Nidia Davila-Colon, who resigned after being convicted a month earlier of corruption charges. : Meanwhile, the latest on the guy who claimed he was Golan Cipel's gay lover... in the pages of the NY Post and News. The Star-Ledger (which did not run the original story) reports today that he was arrested:But in addition to his sex claims, police reports reviewed by The Star-Ledger yesterday show Michael David Miller has falsely told police he is a CIA operative and that the satellite dish on his house is used for CIA communication. In a series of phone calls to police and Essex County courts, the doctor has told a bizarre tale of an Iranian tenant he claimed would blow up the Essex County Courthouse in Newark.
Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said Miller "has a serious problem with reality," and sheriff's officers, along with officers from the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, arrested the doctor last night.
Miller was taken into custody about 11:30 p.m. at his home on a warrant charging him with impersonating an FBI officer and causing false public alarm, the sheriff said. Anybody can hold a press conference and end up in the News.
. . .
At the front
: Reporters are either a brave or stupid lot but they do risk their lives to try to bring us the news. See Christian Science Monitor reporter Scott Baldauf's account of a caravan of journalists who dared to go to ground zero in Najaf. On the horizon we could see the gold dome of the shrine.
If anyone was going to turn back, now was the time. Eighteen cars suddenly dwindled to eight.
We moved past one more US checkpoint, and then into a no man's land. To our right was the old cemetery, site of what US officials have called the heaviest hand-to-hand fighting US forces have seen since Vietnam. Ahead of us, we could see Mahdi Army fighters moving around into firing position. We waved our white flag and proceeded slowly. [via Lost Remote]
. . .
Infantile politics
: Fell asleep on the couch last night before I had a chance to recommend Dahlia Lithwick's guest column in The Times on the backfiring attempts to infantalize Bush as a campaign tactic of his opponents.
The tactic backfires because when you call Bush an idiot you also, by necessary extension, risk calling anyone who ever voted for him or considered voting for him or even supported him as President an idiot, and you also ignore the power of the people around him, who are not idiots. It's a rather idiotic strategy, for it turns off the people you are hoping to win over.
That is the same problem I have with all the Swifties' spittle-sputtering I can so conveniently follow in daily detail over at Instaphnom. As I said in a comment below when I dared mention the conservakerfluffle here, I'm looking at this as a voter and as a voter, I do not care about this nonstory -- just as I did not care about the nonstory of Bush's alleged military vacation -- and the more you screech about it, the more I turn off as a voter. I know I am not alone.
I actually have two problems with this:
First, it drags the political debate and campaign into the septic tank. Weren't we supposed to be better than that in this new medium? Weren't we supposed to be smart and talk about issues and what mattered in voters' lives and avoid the shallow, useless, mean-spirited example of attack journalism. Weren't we, huh?
Second, this all distracts from the real debate that should be occurring -- over health care, troop pullouts, Iraq, homeland security, the economy....
I'm equal-opportunity on this. I dismissed the attacks on Bush and the National Guard. I dismissed and attacked Michael Moore for his hatchet job on Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11. And I dismiss these attacks-for-attacks'-sake on Kerry. Shut up already. Stop wasting my time. Stop sputtering. Stop yelling at me to care about something I don't care about. Stop treating me like I'm some sort of lying pondscum if I consider voting for one of the two candidates for President -- either of them. I'm a voter, not an accomplice.
So now see how Lithwick goes after liberals in a liberal newspaper for the way they are going after conservative Bush: It cannot have escaped anyone's notice that much of the current Bush-bashing aims to infantilize him. The most devastating segment in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," for instance, features the president - just after he learned of the second attack on the World Trade Center - perched on a chair in a Florida classroom, looking glazed and confused as he listens to a reading of "The Pet Goat." Mr. Bush's aide might well have whispered the news to one of the assembled students to greater effect, and the implication is inescapable: for seven long minutes, the president was Not a Man....
What's wrong with continuing efforts to characterize Mr. Bush as a not-particularly-smart third grader? For one thing, it plays to every stereotype of liberals as snotty know-it-alls who think everyone in a red state is anti-intellectual or simple-minded. It answers name-calling from the right with name-calling from the left.
These assertions also insult anyone who voted for Mr. Bush in 2000. Rather than offering an argument for Mr. Kerry, they merely disparage swing voters, who may be tempted to defect to the Democrats over the war or the economy, by sneering that they voted for a kid - and a dumb kid at that.
One of the most enduring memories from the Bush-Gore debates in 2000 was Al Gore, all sighs and eye-rolls, trapped in what must have felt like the middle-school playground fight from hell instead of a presidential debate. Everything about Mr. Gore's demeanor signaled that he felt he was giving a punk kid a much-needed scolding. Which missed the point: a lot of very smart people voted for Mr. Bush in 2000 because to them, he represented a return to honesty and morality. Dismissing him as a stupid child, and these voters as stupid-children-by-association, is no way to win them back.
Furthermore, the campaign to cast Mr. Bush as a bumbling child ignores the very grown-up machine that stands behind him. Infantilizing the president shifts the focus away from the Cheneys, Rumsfelds, Ashcrofts and Wolfowitzes.... Read the rest, please.
. . .
August 19, 2004
Is this blog on the final?
: The New York Times writes about blogs in the classroom and a pioneer in the field, New Jersey's own Will Richardson, gets some well-deserved attention.
. . .
Blog bday
: The Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn has been blogging for a year and he writes a column reflecting on this change in life.
He asked me to blather in email. Always a mistake. Click more if you want to see what I sent him. I'm being quite repetitive with things I've said here already; that's how one hunts for the perfect sound bite....
MORE...
. . .
Over the line
: Rafat Ali alerts us to a new blog advertising option that, unfortunately, gets it wrong.
Blogversations wants marketers to sponsor blogs. So far, so good. The wise marketer, as Chris Locke said in Gonzo Marketing, will see that by underwriting a blogger who shares the same passion, marketers will tell that blogger's auidience that they, too, share the passion; we're all in this together.
Blogversations, however, gets it backward. It wants marketers to actively tell a blogger what to discuss and then they will sponsor that discussion. Oh, I'm sure they'll say they won't tell the blogger what to say, only the topic. But in my judgment, this goes over the line: It calls into question the blogger's credibility (would she be talking about this if she weren't paid to talk about this?). And it is contrary to the essence and appeal of blogs: I talk about what I want to talk about. Love it or leave it, read it or not, sponsor it or not, that's what we bloggers do.
The truth is that any marketer can probably find just the discussions they want to sponsor without having to artificially inseminate the body blog.
I have the same problem every night when I hear on NPR that so-and-so foundation underwrote not the news on NPR in NPR's own independent judgment but instead underwrote some specific area of coverage. Would NPR have chosen to cover that area, in its best judgment, if it weren't being paid to cover it? This puts NPR's judgment in question. I'm not saying NPR necessarily did anything wrong or anything differently from how it would operate normally; the issue now is that we don't know.
I'm all for sponsorship and underwriting of blogs. I simply counsel that we have to be careful to maintain our blog integrity, our own voices and views, for that is the real value of this new medium: It's by real people about real people.
. . .
Weirder and weirder
: The McGreevey story is, of course, getting weirder and weirder; these stories always do. Earlier this week, there were rumors of a New Jersey professor who would come out as alleged gubernatorial misterstress Golan Cipel's gay lover, wrecking his claim that he's straight. Then, today, the Daily News printed a story about this professor. But it is riddled with so many clues that the guy's missing a few coffee beans in the grinder that it's more scandalous that the News printed the story at all. For example: In a manic, disjointed interview, Miller said that Cipel had made a pillow-talk confession: He still carries a torch for McGreevey....
Miller also claimed to reporters that he is a CIA operative who takes pills doled out by the intelligence agency to make his skin darker so he can infiltrate unnamed groups....
Miller - who insisted on speaking Spanish because, he said, he hates the United States...
"Despite his problems, I'm going to go visit him," said Miller, shirtless and wearing purple shorts....
The doctor said he was a happily married man with two children, when, at age 38, he acknowledged he was gay.
"One hundred thousand dollars worth of therapy later and I still don't understand," Miller said. And from the Post:Last night, with his house surrounded by reporters, Miller spoke to the throng in only blue shorts and white socks, his hair disheveled.
At times cursing and erratic, he alternatively told scribes he would talk to them in Hungarian, Spanish or Hebrew.
"He's a little scattered," a relative member said. But I guess he's news.
. . .
Is there a Republican Kos?
: A reporter well-known to all of us asked whether there is a Republican Kos that is "creating his own targeted House and Senate races and getting money" them with Kos-like visitiblity. Can you name any?
. . .
Janet Jackson in Abu Ghraib
: The Independent does quite a pundit's two-step to tie Janet Jackson's nipple to Iraq: It has been impossible to ponder the issue of public morality in America these past few months without wondering whether we aren't living in weird parallel universes. In the first, 2004 has been the year in which the United States was caught torturing prisoners in Iraq, was accused of lying about weapons of mass destruction, and was deemed to be violating the US constitution and international law by holding so-called "enemy combatants" indefinitely without trial.
In the second universe, none of these matters one jot: not as moral issues, anyway. In this universe - the province of cable television, talk radio and the strangely hermetic corridors of power in Washington - there has been only one noteworthy moral outrage in 2004, one thing to offend the consciences of decent citizens and make them despair of the nation's moral fibre.
We are talking, of course, of Janet Jackson's prime-time breast exposure... Wow, what a stretch.
. . .
Caf competition
: Went to lunch with a friend of a friend yesterday at the Time Inc. cafeteria. Hadn't been back there for a dozen years, since storming out of the place. Hasn't changed in all that time -- which means it's looking pretty ratty these days. You'd think our Conde caf would have caused a little competition. Come on, Time Inc., time to update. The rest of the company moves uptown to a damned palace and you're still stuck in the '90s.
. . .
Not so swift
: I don't give a hoot about the Swift thing but I will be curious to see today whether all the Swifties out there link to this.
. . .
Archives:
08/04 ...
07/04 ...
06/04 ...
05/04 ...
04/04 ...
03/04 ...
02/04 ...
01/04 ...
12/03 ...
11/03 ...
10/03 ...
09/03 ...
08/03 ...
07/03 ...
06/03 ...
05/03 ...
04/03 ...
03/03 ...
02/03 ...
01/03 ...
12/02 ...
11/02 ...
10/02 ...
09/02 ...
08/02 ...
07/02 ...
06/02 ...
05/02 ...
04/02 ...
03/02/a ...
03/02/b ...
02/02 ...
01/02 ...
12/01 ...
11/01 ...
10/01 ...
09/01 ...
Current Home
|
: HOME ... : Email me ...
: RSS/XML ... : About me: Rules of engagement
Archives:
08/04 ...
07/04 ...
06/04 ...
05/04 ...
04/04 ...
03/04 ...
02/04 ...
01/04 ...
12/03 ...
11/03 ...
10/03 ...
09/03 ...
08/03 ...
07/03 ...
06/03 ...
05/03 ...
04/03 ...
03/03 ...
02/03 ...
01/03 ...
12/02 ...
11/02 ...
10/02 ...
09/02 ...
08/02 ...
07/02 ...
06/02 ...
05/02 ...
04/02 ...
03/02/a ...
03/02/b ...
02/02 ...
01/02 ...
12/01 ...
11/01 ...
10/01 ...
09/01 ...
Current Home
9.11: My story
: My audio narrative of Sept. 11
: My story of Sept. 11
Recent posts of note
: My 9/11 Memorial
: Pro-American
: Online News Assn. notes
: Non-blogroll
: Free content
: Citizens' media industry
: Stupid Starbucks tricks
: Public affairs bore public
: The me in media
: We won't have to explain when...
: Super-duper reporting machine
: Weblogs and big media
: A new Iraqi blogger
: Link to a story on hyperlocal blogs
: Interview with a dinosaur
: Fisking Andy Rooney
: Blogs as buzzmachines
: Jay Rosen, Part I
: Jay Rosen, Part II
: The post-Internet newspaper
: 9.11 registry
: Online News Association
: 9.11 2003 morning ... afternoon
: PBSification of 9.11 ... NY Post column
: Free content
Stuff
: Hyperlocal blog on Bernards NJ
: Confess
ions of a warblogger
Video weblogs:
: Vlogs - video weblogs:
State of the art.
: The start of
vlogs
: Watch vlogs
: VLOG showcase
B-Roll: Hourly
: Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit
: Cory Doctorow: BoingBoing
: Gawker
B-Roll: Daily
: Glenn Reynolds.com on MSNBC.com
: James Lileks
: Jay Rosen's PressThink
: Elizabeth Spiers/NY Mag's Kicker
: A Small Victory
: Nick Denton
: Dan Gillmor
: Josh Marshall
: Atrios
: Matt Welch
: Dave Winer
: Doc Searls
: Richard Bennett
: Metafilter
: MSNBC Weblog Central
B-Roll: New
: Jay Rosen's PressThink
: Zeyad's Healing Iraq
: Om Malik
: Prof. Bainbridge
: The Revealer
: Daniel Drezner
: Winds of Change
: Dead Parrots Society
: Fred Wilson's A VC
: Jason Calacanis
: Calacanis' Weblogs Inc.
: Adam Curry
: Everything in Moderation
: Venture Blog
: Ed Sim's Beyond VC
: Pejman
: AKMA Adam
: Halley's Comment
: Au Currant
: Begging to Differ
: Ben Hammersley
: Chuck Olsen's Blogumentary
: John Scalzi on AOL
: Scalzi off AOL
: Daily Kos
: Dean Esmay
: Greg Allen
: Harry Hatchett et al
: Marketing Wonk
: Joi Ito
: Michael Totten
: Donald Sensing
: Outside the Beltway
: Radio Free Blogistan
: Scobelizer
: Kaye Trammell
: Norman Geras
: Dong Resin
B-Roll: Presidential
: Howard Dean
: Wesley Clark
: Unofficial Clark
: John Edwards
: Bush
: DNC's Kicking Ass
B-Roll: Middle East
: Zeyad's Healing Iraq
: Hoder's Editor: Myself
: Hoder's photo blog
: Hoder: Persian
: Iran Filter
: The Eyeranian
: IranVaJahan - news
: View From Iran
: Iran 4 Dummies
: Blue Bird Escape
: Persian Version
: Salam Pax
: The Mesopotamian
: Iraq at a Glance
: Iranian.com
: Iranian Girl
: Astigma
: Steppenwolf
: Kaveh
: Me and Sassan
: Kandahar Chronicles
: Baghdad Burning
: Tehran Avenue
: Baghdad Bulletin
B-Roll: Frequently
: Command Post
: Steven Johnson
: Textism
: Aaron Bailey's 601AM
: Quarlo photos
: Howard Sherman
: Misanthropyst
: Joi Ito
: Reason's Hit & Run
: Paul Frankenstein
: David Galbraith
: Clay Shirky
: Fimoculous
: Howard Rheingold
: Henry Copeland
: Shifted Librarian"
: The Presurfer
: Ross Mayfield
: Jimmy Guterman
: Sebastian Paquet
: City Cynic
: Chris Pirillo
: Justin Katz
: Dean Allen: Textism
: Elizabeth Spiers
: Rossi Rant
: Lawrence Lessig
: Ken Layne
: Mickey Kaus
: David Weinberger
: Solly Ezekiel
: Meg Hourihan
: Jason Kottke
: Tony Pierce
: Dan Hon
: Karl Martino
: Law Meme
: Matt Webb
: Matthew Yglesias
: Morning News
: Scott Rosenberg
: Saltire
: Matt Haughey
: Evan Williams
: Little Green
Footballs
: Patio Pundit
: Oliver Willis
: Tim Blair
: Andrea Harris
: John Ellis
: Moxie
: Phil Wolff
: Marc Weisblott
: Truth Laid Bear
: Patrick Nielsen Hayden:
Electrolite
: The Fat Guy
: Shiloh Bucher
: Bjørn Stærk
: Emmanuelle Richard
: Reductio ad Absurdum
: Kevin Whited
: Rantburg
: Eugene Volokh et al
: Photodude
: ReadJacobs
: Amy Langfield
: Relapsed Catholic
: Holy Weblog
: Moira Breen
: Tom Coates
: Blogs of War
: Natalie Solent
: Kathy Kinsley
: Greg Beato
: Fritz Schranck
: Justin Slotman
: Libertarian Samizdata
: Follow Me Here
: Hypergene
: Ken Goldstein
: Rand Simberg
: William Quick
: Damian Penny
: Brian Linse
: Jay Zilber
: Sgt. Stryker
: Ted Barlow
: Megan McArdle
: Charles Dodgson
: Amygdala
: Dane Carlson
: Tom Tomorrow
: Stephen Green Vodkapundit
: Daniel Taylor
: Asparagirl
: Jim Treacher
: Frederik Norman
: Oxblog
: Anil Dash
: Woods Lot
: Virginia Postrel
B-Roll: Media/Tech
: Jim Romenesko
: I Want Media
: New Media Tidbits
: Corante
: Ad Rants
: Guardian Online Blog
: Lost Remote
: Marketing Fix
: Olivier Travers
: JD Lasica
: Rick Bruner I
: Marketing Wonk
: Tim Porter
: Always On nonblog
: Fast Company
: JD on MX
: Mike Wendland
: Kevin Werbach's Werblog
: Ed Cone
: Media Life
: WSJ Marketing & Media
: Media Guardian
: Chris Gulker
B-Roll: Blogs
: Movable Type's Six Apart
: Blogroots
: Corante on Blogging
: My Social
Network explorer
: My Technorati Link Cosmos
B-Roll: Deutsch
: Schockwellenreiter
: Thomas Burg's Randgaenge
: Industrial Technology &
Witchcraft
: David Kaspar's Medienkritik
: Ein Blog
: Heiko Hebig>
: Haiko Hebig>
: Papa Scott
: World Wide Klein
: Now Europe
: Martin Roell
: Monoklon
: Stefan Smalla
: Blog Haus
: Generation NeXt
: Tzwaen's Brain
: Le Sofa Blogger
: Kunstspaziergänge
: Meine Kleine Stadt (photos)
: eDings
: Netzeitung (web-only paper auf Deutsch)
: A ja!
: Sofia Sideshow (OK, it's Bulgarian)
: Netzeitung on
this blog
Family
: My son's!
: My sister
JEFF JARVIS is former TV critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday Editor of the NY Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner. He is now president & creative director of Advance.net. This is a personal site.
Powered by Movable Type
Rules of Engagement
: Any email sent to me can be quoted on the blog
: No personal attacks, hate speech, bigotry, or seven dirty words in the comments or comments will be killed along with commenters
COPYRIGHT NOTICE:
It's mine, I tell you, mine! All mine! You can't have it because it's mine! You can read it (please); you can quote it (thanks); but I still own it because it's mine! I own it and you don't. Nya-nya-nya. So there.
COPYRIGHT 2001-2003-20?? by Jeff Jarvis
. . .
|