Media protection held up by energy bill

Proponents of the media shield law will have to wait a little longer to realize national protection against having to divulge their sources. While not defeating the bi-partisan measure, they failed to act on it and it therefore might appear during the fall session. Supposedly they failed to act because they wanted to focus on the energy bill. Hmm. We'll see if anything gets done with that either.

The more probable scenario is it will be reintroduced after the election, since the Bush administration has posted numerous letters from congressional personnel objecting to the bill on its Department of Justice Office Of Public Affairs site. Of course, everything is in the interest of national security.

There seems to be some agreement on a substitute version to make it easier for intelligence officers to prosecute leaks of classified information and narrow the definition of journalist.

The version that people are agreeing on, but not voting on, would define journalist to cover only those who gather information with the intention of publishing it-supposedly distinguishing bloggers and freelance journalists who are legitimate from those who aren't. But I'm not sure it wouldn't cover bloggers and freelance journalists. Here are some definitions in the bill:

(2) COVERED PERSON- The term `covered person'--

(A) means a person who is engaged in journalism;

(B) includes a supervisor, employer, parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate of a person described in subparagraph (A); and ...to complete the whole section would be too long, so I'll just shorten it to say it does not cover terrorists or foreign agents,etc.)


(5) JOURNALISM- The term `journalism' means the regular gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.

Bloggers and freelancers can most certainly qualify under these definitions.

Regardless, federal action should be taken to provide uniform protections and constraints against the press through such a law. Right now, it's up to each state and each judge in each courtroom. That's hard to manage without a Supreme Court ruling. There are too many interpretations, journalists aren't sure which state or local law they could be held under.

Well, here's a clash of old and new media rules. Product placement on the news. We've seen bits and pieces of product placement in the past on entertainment shows such as American Idol showing coke and Numbers depicting Dannon yogurt (I think that's what it was). But we haven't before seen product placement on the news. What's next? TV news desk people wearing clothes with big logos on them? Will television sets begin to look like race cars with a gazillion ads on them? Are newscasters now walking advertisers? Are the backdrops on the sets going to be electronic advertising boards?

This blurs that line between objectivity and sponsorship. Granted, McDonald's has to advertise (well, maybe not) and the only way news media can make money is to sell advertising space because they can't produce the news for free.

But what happens when the news has to report a discrimination case against McDonald's or a hot coffee lawsuit or a you served me trans fat products and now I'm fat lawsuit? Credibility will be at stake. What's to keep a regular viewer from saying, they're not telling us everything because the advertising revenue would suffer if they told a story damaging to an advertiser. The news media might say they would still broadcast the story regardless, but the perception, and it's all about perception isn't it, will be otherwise.

Will journalism go the way of the newspaper?

Three media conglomerates reported huge drops in net revenue for the first quarter of 2008, with Lee Enterprises, Inc. as the loss leader with an 84-percent drop in net income. Lee, McClatchy and E.W. Scripps are all reporting cost-cutting strategies: staff cuts, cutting newsprint consumption and reducing other expenses. They all blame declining ad revenue and the economy and predict no improvements to their bottom lines until the overall economy improves.

Leading the way in cost reductions, as usual, is staff cuts. Most notably cuts will probably be made in newsrooms, resulting in less original content. A new survey showed almost 70 percent of small newspapers cut staff by between 1 and 20 percent, with 49 percent of the papers cutting between 10-19 percent of staff. Staff cuts at 76 percent of big papers were between 1-20 percent with most (54 percent) of papers cutting 10-19 percent of staff.

Despite the cuts, editors continue to say strong journalism and a good business model are the keys to survival: “Excellent journalism, strong investment to stay on the cutting edge of technology and aggressive marketing of the product,” said Gage, special projects editor at Journal-World.

Reporters will be expected now to take up the slack. They are expected to write content for print, web, special web sites, television stations the paper might own or be affiliated with, web television and instant news services, packages of brief news stories for Internet subscribers through the day. This in addition to taking her own pictures or video and recording sound, editing pictures and content, posting and uploading for dissemination, fact checking and maybe even page layout.

Editors surveyed said they were already paying the price for the new way of producing news. “I read the stories (in my own paper) today and I see more holes, questions I want answered that are not,” lamented one editor. “I see more stories…that aren’t as well sourced as I prefer.”

So, is this the journalism we prefer? Is this acceptable? Will strong journalism be sacrificed to immediate 24/7 news that might not be true and/or probably doesn’t probe into the nuances that would make the story more clear? I’m afraid so. I’m hoping someone can provide glimmers of hope for the lowly journalist.

Something stinks in bloggerland

I didn't get invited to the Netroots Nation conference. I guess I'm not influential enough: I haven't raised any money for any politician on my blogging site. Nor have I endorsed any particular candidate for any office. It seems to me there is something rather incestuous about political campaigners wooing bloggers and bloggers making themselves available to be wooed by them. Obviously, bloggers have proven they can accomplish serious online fundraising and that makes them a target, which is why campaigners (Democrat and Republican and any other party for that matter) are seeking them out.

However, if political bloggers claim they should be given the same status as mainstream press and allowed access to meetings and other events just like the mainstream press and they want to have the same legal protections in the courts of law, then partisan politics and fundraising doesn't help their cause, it doesn't make them look like impartial media. They claim they are just giving another side of the news, political or other news, than the mainstream press that otherwise would not get out there. That's all well and good, and probably true. However, if the blogging nation wants to be seen as rising above politics and being known, like the press, as watchdogs over the government realm, then this kind of elbow rubbing is the wrong way to do it. Bloggers are seeking both to be considered as the press but not be tied by the same restrictions as the press. They can't have it both ways.

A true press is not affiliated with a party or politician and doesn't purport to take a position on any issue. Mainstream press plays a mediator of or funnel through which information flows for the public. If bloggers think they can do a better job, then hobnobbing with politicians certainly gives an opposite perception. Raising funds for politicians seems to not be what a press is all about, not even an alternative press.

At the Netroots Nation conference, a democratic contender for the Kentucky Senate provided a "Something Stinks in Washington" air freshener for conference goodie bags. It seems something stinks in bloggerland as well.

Microsoft doth protest too much

It seems to be so easy to talk out of two sides of your mouth when you're making billions of dollars. There is something just slightly disengenous about Microsoft's complaints at the hearings on a proposed advertising hook up between Yahoo and Google. For Microsoft to say on Tuesday that the Yahoo/Google combo as "anti-competitive" when they have done so much to crush competition and create as much of a monopoly as they can is outrageous. Then on Wednesday they are meeting with AOL/Time Warner in an effort to ward off Carl Icahn by making another big monopoly. And they have the nerve to call Carl Icahn (whom I totally hate for what he did to the airline industry) an agitator. This is all such maneuvering, it's impossible to fathom.

Who does Microsft think it is fooling? Just be honest and quit crying anti competitive when you practically wrote the book on it.

Opt in or out for web tracking organizations

Well, I am relieved someone is looking out for those of us on the web. According to WSJ, Rep. Edward Markey (D., Mass.) is saying we need to allow customers to consent to have our online activities on the tracked. I agree with him. I'd like some say in whether or not I want to be a part of someone's data collection. We already have the mechanisms in place for opting in for telephone and cable hook ups. It's time we stop giving away all our information and stop having Big Brother advertisers watching us all the time.

Fighting fire with information

What's happening with the California fires is horrible, but there is a wonderful story out of Big Sur. Here's a good way the digital world is having an immediate impact to make lives better. It's prophetic, I think of the way we will communicate on a community level when some major disaster occurs.
While what this site is doing is very altruistic and community minded, what the web site's very existence raises, however, is a question of the digital divide. What about those who can't afford to have access to a computer, Blackberry, telephone or other digital device? Does this kind of communicating still give power to the few who have the tools?
What do we do about making today's technology available to everyone? Should access to the Internet be a right?

Privacy? What privacy?

I don’t understand a lot about technology, with terms like IP addresses and cookies and what all is included in them. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out a federal judge has misapplied the privacy laws in requiring Google to hand over its database of YouTube users.

We who use the internet should know that nothing we do is private while on it. However, there are privacy laws that restrict who can get at that information. For the judge to rule that Google has to turn over to Viacom every YouTube user, user name and IP address with every video clip he/she ever viewed in order for Viacom to prove a point is an invasion of privacy and further erodes our privacy in our homes.

The Supreme Court, many years ago, ruled a person can view porn in the privacy of one’s own home, so should anyone be allowed to view magazines, internet, television, newspapers or any medium in the privacy of one’s home. It’s nobody’s business what I do in my own home, what I subscribe to or who I listen to. It’s like telling the New York Times to hand over its subscriber database to the Detroit Free Press. (I don’t think they’re owned by the same company, but I’m not sure about that.) Anyone who believes Viacom is going to use the information “exclusively for the purpose of proving our case…” well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. If I want the competitor to know I’m shopping around for another provider, I’ll let them know.

Chinese bloggers score victory

Well, it worked. The worldwide publicity generated by the Chinese bloggers forced the sacking of an official for "severe malfeasance." While the party line is that the local officials screwed up, the blogging world really made it happen. That the officer will probably get replaced by someone either more inept or more controlling and oppressive remains to be seen.

Granted, this kind of story needs to be vetted to find out who really did what, to see if the accusations of the bloggers are real or if the bloggers are playing vigilante. But when there's an oppressive regime, the benefit of the doubt will always go to the oppressed, at least for me.

While I applaud the persistence of those rebelling against the regime, in general, this kind of wide open world could be dangerous for anyone who does something in public. Context is taken out of the whole situation. Actions might speak louder than words, but it's like being a referee in a basketball or soccer or most other sports. It is usually an action in retaliation to a provocation that gets caught by referees. The one punished usually didn't start it.

Just so with the world wide web and media technology. We don't know the whole story most of the time. We don't know both sides.

The whole world is watching

For those of us who remember the riots of the 1960s, we also remember the chant "The whole world is watching" reminding American politicians and administrations they couldn't hide police brutality towards rioting students. There was some citizen reporting that complemented media reporting, but without the instant technology we now have.

Here's what's good about the new media tools: They keep that chant relevant. The whole world is watching China while China fights to bolster its image for the Olympics. No matter how they try, the Chinese government can't keep their own brutality from being seen by the world. Bloggers are learning how to get around the government censors by blogging backwards, upside down, and any other way to get the story out.

It's not only wonderful there are people willing to risk detention and possibly their lives to get stories of oppressive government to the rest of the world, it's also great that mainstream media picks it up and broadcasts it.

When all voice are heard, more democratic ideals can be implemented. Maybe, just maybe, peace can be spread.

Gotcha!

The Gatorade Ball girl is just one of the problems I have with this new media. The Wall Street Journal is telling us it's a hoax, made up by an ad agency that didn't make the cut. Somehow it got onto blogging sites and it's become a sensation. If it is true, that it is a hoax, it's a sad day for new media and points to how easily anything can be manipulated and yet be a shot heard round the world and perceived as true within an instant.

Why do we let ourselves be fooled by things like this? If I had seen that on a picture in the newspaper or on television, I would have believed it. We've gotten so good at tricking the audience, we don't know what the truth is anymore.

Sad.

Google puts on goggles

With Google's announcement they are getting into the web counting business for advertisers, our privacy is being invaded yet again. The worst part is they won't be charging the advertisers for this service. Maybe we should be used to having every stroke on our keyboard being measured and recorded. But I'm not. I'm glad people are already deleting their cookies but that is hard to remember to do after each site visit.

The move is a deeper intrusion into not only our buying habits, our grazing habits and our personal information such as age, gender and income. Advertisers should be wary of someone who you are spending your money with telling you how and where to spend it. Google is moving to the adviser role and that could be dangerous for monopolistic reasons.

It also ignores the web site visitor. Pass the savings onto the consumers at the site. Give incentives to consumers for visiting a site! Problem is, then advertisers wouldn't trust the data they were getting because they wouldn't know whether the visitor came for their company or for Google.