MediaReview

-----Original Message-----
From: Bracken, John
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 2:39 PM
To: Bracken, John
Subject: Yahoo's game of photo tag

CNET News.com (http://www.news.com/)
This story has been sent to you on behalf of jbracken@macfound.org (e-mail address not verified).

Yahoo's game of photo tag
By Stefanie Olsen

Flickr purchase points to radical--and largely untested--theory that could up-end Web search.

http://news.com.com/Yahoos+game+of+photo+tag/2100-1032_3-5630403.html?tag=sas.email

Read all technology news from this week:
http://www.news.com/thisweeksheadlines/

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# posted by John : 6:07 PM  0 comments

Slashdot: Games News for nerds, stuff that matters

Students Help Design Game Curriculum By Zonk on designers-of-tomorrow J writes "In contrast to current stories about publishers creating their own design courses comes news from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Their new "Video Game Design & Development" Concentration was the cover story of LaLouisiane, The University's magazine. This concentration resulted from a collaboration between the Computer Science faculty and members of the Student Video Game Alliance, a student group that had been tackling game development on their own time. The first Video Game Design and Development course began this Spring semester."

# posted by John : 2:15 PM  0 comments

This is her memo upon leaving Newsday, a Tribune company. (Garrett is the "only writer ever to have been awarded all three of the Big "Ps" of journalism: The Peabody, The Polk and The Pulitzer.")

I highlighted some comments germande to the media review.
as to causes for the drop in news quality she raises Wall Street, which came up in Cambridge last week, and an issue we haven't heard: the shift from working class to college-educated journalists.

Laurie Garrett's memo to Newsday colleagues
2/28/2005 11:47:08 AM

Dear Newsday Friends and Colleagues, On March 8th -- International Women's Day -- my leave of absence from Newsday ends. I will not be returning to the paper, largely because my work at the Council on Foreign Relations has proven to be the most exciting challenge of my life. But you have been through so much pain and difficulty over the last year, all of which I monitored closely and with considerable concern, that I don't want to disappear from the Newsday scene without saying a few words. Indulge me.

Ever since the Chandler Family plucked Mark Willes from General Foods, placing him at the helm of Times Mirror with a mandate to destroy the institutions in ways that would boost dividends, journalism has suffered at Newsday. The pain of the last year actually began a decade ago: the sad arc of greed has finally hit bottom. The leaders of Times Mirror and Tribune have proven to be mirrors of a general trend in the media world: They serve their stockholders first, Wall St. second and somewhere far down the list comes service to newspaper readerships. In 1996 I personally confronted Willes on that point, and he publicly confirmed that the new regime was one in which even the number of newspapers sold was irrelevant, so long as stock returns continued to rise.

The deterioration we experienced at Newsday was hardly unique. All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions. Long gone are the days of fast-talking, whiskey-swilling Murray Kempton peers eloquently filling columns with daily dish on government scandals, mobsters and police corruption. The sort of in-your-face challenge that the Fourth Estate once posed for politicians has been replaced by mud-slinging, lies and, where it ought not be, timidity. When I started out in journalism the newsrooms were still full of old guys with blue collar backgrounds who got genuinely indignant when the Governor lied or somebody turned off the heat on a poor person's apartment in mid-January. They cussed and yelled their ways through the day, took an occasional sly snort from a bottle in the bottom drawer of their desk and bit into news stories like packs of wild dogs, never letting go until they'd found and told the truth. If they hadn't been reporters most of those guys would have been cops or firefighters. It was just that way.

Now the blue collar has been fully replaced by white ones in America's newsrooms, everybody has college degrees. The "His Girl Friday" romance of the newshound is gone. All too many journalists seem to mistake scandal mongering for tenacious investigation, and far too many aspire to make themselves the story. When I think back to the old fellows who were retiring when I first arrived at Newsday - guys (almost all of them were guys) who had cop brothers and fathers working union jobs - I suspect most of them would be disgusted by what passes today for journalism. Theirs was not a perfect world --- too white, too male, seen through a haze of cigarette smoke and Scotch - but it was an honest one rooted in mid-20th Century American working class values.

Honesty and tenacity (and for that matter, the working class) seem to have taken backseats to the sort of "snappy news", sensationalism, scandal-for-the-sake of scandal crap that sells. This is not a uniquely Tribune or even newspaper industry problem: this is true from the Atlanta mixing rooms of CNN to Sulzberger's offices in Times Square. Profits: that's what it's all about now. But you just can't realize annual profit returns of more than 30 percent by methodically laying out the truth in a dignified, accessible manner. And it's damned tough to find that truth every day with a mere skeleton crew of reporters and editors.

This is terrible for democracy. I have been in 47 states of the USA since 9/11, and I can attest to the horrible impact the deterioration of journalism has had on the national psyche. I have found America a place of great and confused fearfulness, in which cynically placed bits of misinformation (e.g. Cheney's, "If John Kerry had been President during the Cold War we would have had thermonuclear war.") fall on ears that absorb all, without filtration or fact-checking. Leading journalists have tried to defend their mission, pointing to the paucity of accurate, edited coverage found in blogs, internet sites, Fox-TV and talk radio. They argue that good old-fashioned newspaper editing is the key to providing America with credible information, forming the basis for wise voting and enlightened governance. But their claims have been undermined by Jayson Blair's blatant fabrications, /CONTINUED BELOW

Laurie Garrett's memo to Newsday colleagues/2
2/28/2005 11:41:02 AM

Judy Miller's bogus weapons of mass destruction coverage, the media's inaccurate and inappropriate convictions of Wen Ho Lee, Richard Jewell and Steven Hatfill, CBS' failure to smell a con job regarding Bush's Texas Air Guard career and, sadly, so on.

What does it mean when even journalists consider comedian John [sic] -- "This is a fake news show, People!" -- Stewart one of the most reliable sources of "news"?

It would be easy to descend into despair, not only about the state of journalism, but the future of American democracy. But giving up is not an option. There is too much at stake.

I would remind my Newsday colleagues that during the bleak period that commenced with the appointment of Willes, and persists today, some great journalism has been done at the paper. A tiny, dedicated team of foreign correspondents has literally risked their lives to bring readers fresh, often ground-breaking news from the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Newsday readers are on top of details about the sorry state of fiscal governance in Nassau County, scandals in Suffolk County, Bloomberg's plans for the west side of Manhattan, and the sad state of politics in Albany. We still have some of the best film and performing arts criticism in the country, an aggressive photo department, tough sports columnists, under-utilized specialty and investigative reporters and a savvy business section.

So what is to be done?

I have no idea what Tribune corporate leaders in Chicago have up their sleeves for Newsday, the LA Times, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune and the other media outlets under their control. Despite rumors that are rife in the newsrooms, you are also in the dark. And you should remember that. During times of hardship as extreme as those we have experienced at Newsday it is easy to become paralyzed by rumors, unable to think clearly about the work at hand. After all, people have lost their jobs, and some were removed from the building by armed guards, with only moments' notice. Every Newsday employee is justified in his or her concern about just how lean Chicago plans to make the newspaper machine.

But rumors only feed fear, and personal fear is rarely stimulus for good journalism. Now is the time to think in imaginative ways. Salon and Slate have both gone into the black; in nations like Ukraine and South Africa courageous new forms of journalism are arising; some of the blogs that clog the internet are actually quite good and manage to keep politicians on their toes. Opportunities for quality journalism are still there, though you may need to scratch new surfaces, open locked doors and nudge a few reticent editors to find them. On a fundamental level, your readers desperately need for you to try, over and over again, to tell the stories, dig the dirt and bring them the news.

Les Payne has often correctly pointed out that Newsday's problems have never been rooted in the institution's journalism: Rather, they have been business issues. We have never been accused of fostering a Jayson Blair, a bozo who accepted $250,000 from the Bush Administration to write flattering stories, an investigative reporting team that relied on a single source for a series that smeared the life of an innocent man, acted as a conduit for the Department of Defense for weapons of mass destruction disinformation, or any of the other ghastly violations of the public trust that have recently transpired. Newsday's honor has, by its own accounts, been besmirched by a series of lies committed on the business/advertising/circulation side of the company. (And few news organizations have covered on its pages their own shortcomings as closely as has Newsday.) All of us have been forced to pay a price for those grievous actions. But nobody has charged that Newsday's journalistic enterprise has failed to abide by the highest ethical standards.

Newsday has always had more talent than it knew how to use. So go ahead, Talent: Show them your stuff. I'll be reading. (March 8th may be my last day as a Newsday employee, but it won't mark the end of my readership.)

I thank each and every one of you who have been my friends and colleagues since I joined Newsday in 1988. I hope that we will stay in touch over coming years. Make me regret leaving, Guys: Turn Newsday into a kick ass paper that I will be begging to return to.

Bye for now,
Laurie Garrett

# posted by John : 3:54 PM  0 comments

Because they're only a click away from countless distractions, Web users are, at least in theory, incredibly mobile. But they're also creatures of habit; they settle in quickly and become comfortable, whether online or off. Once you take the time to set yourself up on a site, change can be difficult - you have to notify your address book, copy your stock portfolio into a new table, reload your travel destinations. This pain-in-the-ass factor saved Yahoo! from disaster....

A comScore Media Metrix study puts it even more bluntly. In the second half of 2004, Yahoo! increased its share of the search market from 27 percent to 32 percent, while Google dropped from 37 percent to 35 percent - putting the two companies in a virtual dead heat. These findings, along with the fundamentally different approaches to business, would seem to point to an epic clash between Yahoo! and Google.

Yahoo! is going Hollywood. Late last year, the company announced the opening of a new entertainment division, run by former ABC television exec Lloyd Braun. The division, based in Santa Monica, California, incorporates the company's movies and music services along with games, news, sports, and finance.

What does Yahoo! have to offer Hollywood? It's a new distribution channel. Semel imagines Yahoo! delivering rich content to any Web-enabled device at any time, a vision that could make Yahoo! the obvious next step in Hollywood's Internet strategy. "I can easily see using my credit card to pay Yahoo! to watch a first-run movie on my computer in five years," says UBS Warburg analyst Ben Schachter.

Semel doesn't just want to deliver movies. He's intent on making Yahoo! more personal. Customizing the site down to the neighborhood level will make it more appealing to users and indispensable to advertisers. "If you are looking for a plumber or a pizza parlor, you don't want one 3,000 miles away," Semel says. "You want your search to be customized just for you."

As a 10-year-old Yahoo! looks to the decade ahead, there are powerful forces driving the business. Technological change and further customization will be constants. But there's another factor that excites cofounder Jerry Yang enough to keep him coming into the office every day: the network effect. "All those things we talked about in the early days of the Internet are just now starting to come true," he says. "Access isn't sufficient. It's not enough to search. You also have to find - and then share with others. That's where this company is going and I want to be there to see it."

But what motivation can Semel, the mastermind behind Yahoo!'s turnaround, find to keep making that 700-mile commute every week? Simple. If he can keep Yahoo! rolling on its present course, he'll go down as the studio-exec-gone-tech who built the long-imagined bridge between Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

# posted by John : 3:07 PM  0 comments

One dividing question seemed to be-- do we give the audience what they want or what (we think) they need, with the jists pushing the latter, new media the former.
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

# posted by John : 7:04 PM  0 comments

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/11049112.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Posted on Fri, Mar. 04, 2005

Apple 1, bloggers 0
JUDGE SAYS WEB SITES CAN BE FORCED TO REVEAL SOURCES
By Dawn C. Chmielewski
Mercury News

In a case with implications for the freedom to blog, a San Jose judge tentatively ruled Thursday that Apple Computer can force three online publishers to surrender the names of confidential sources who disclosed information about the company's upcoming products.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg refused to extend to the Web sites a protection that shields journalists from revealing the names of unidentified sources or turning over unpublished material.

Kleinberg offered no explanation for the preliminary ruling. He will hear arguments today from Apple's attorneys and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco digital rights group representing two of the three Web sites Apple subpoenaed -- Apple Insider and PowerPage.

The case raises issues about whether those who write for online publications are entitled to the same constitutional protections as their counterparts in more traditional print and broadcast news organizations.

Apple sought subpoenas in December against two online news sites that focus exclusively on its products: PowerPage (www.power page.org) and Apple Insider (www.appleinsider.com). The company filed a separate suit against Think Secret (www.thinksecret.com) on Jan. 4.

Apple's argument

Apple maintains that disclosures about an unreleased product, code-named ``Asteroid,'' constituted a trade secret violation. The company asked the court to force the Web sites to identify the source of the leaks.

In its court filings, Apple argued that neither the free speech protections of the United States Constitution nor the California Shield Law, which protects journalists from revealing their sources, applies to the Web sites. The company said such protections apply only to ``legitimate members of the press.''

Subpoena fight

The court earlier authorized Apple to serve subpoenas on the Web sites, seeking all documents related to Asteroid and information about anyone with knowledge of the postings about the product.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation fought the subpoenas, arguing the online publishers, like their print and broadcast counterparts, frequently rely on confidential sources to report on issues in the public interest.

``Compelled disclosure of journalists' sources would have a devastating effect on the free flow of information,'' said Kurt Opsahl, an EFF attorney. ``It's the lifeblood of a functioning democracy. Therefore the courts have to understand the vital connection between the confidentiality of sources and the freedom of the press.''

An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the case.

Adding support

Thomas Goldstein, a former dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism who worked as a reporter for the New York Times, filed a brief in support of the Web sites.

``Just because Apple does not want these publications to report on its activities does not mean that they are not news publications,'' Goldstein wrote.

# posted by John : 11:42 AM  0 comments

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.hyperorg.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/2886

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'The news from NYTimes.com' from Joho the Blog.
Coming soon - the New NYTimes.com
Excerpt: David WeinbergerThe news from NYTimes.com The NY Times famously moves stories from their original links to new ones in the for-pay archive after a week. As a result, important stories exit the public sphere, and the newspaper of record becomes...
Weblog: Joi Ito's Web
Tracked: March 3, 2005 12:30 AM NY Times to open archives?
Excerpt: David Weinberger has the scoop that the NY Times.com will begin to open up their archives by publishing "topic pages"...
Weblog: Gen Kanai weblog
Tracked: March 3, 2005 02:36 AM

# posted by John : 10:06 AM  0 comments

--------------------
Film Download, Search Firms to Link Services
--------------------

The Movielink-Blinkx tie-up, enabling Web surfers to buy or rent movies and TV shows, could be a preview of coming attractions.

By Chris Gaither
Times Staff Writer

February 28 2005

SAN FRANCISCO — A deal between two little-known California technology companies is the first step, some experts say, in what could be the next big thing on the Web: search engines that let you find movies and TV episodes — and then buy or rent them.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-blinkx28feb28,0,3058333.story?coll=la-home-headlines

# posted by John : 2:32 PM  0 comments

for our interests, the must carry proposal is interesting

Stevens Supports Cable-Indecency Law

By Ted Hearn
Multichannel News
3/1/2005 11:56 AM      

Senate Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said Tuesday that he will support legislation that applies broadcast-indecency rules to cable and requires cable to carry multiple digital-broadcast signals if the extra channels are public-service-related.

Stevens said cable content is riddled with filth and there is no reason why Congress can't include cable within the indecency rules.

"I'm going to meet with the cable people early next month, and I intend to tell them that," said Stevens, who wants to include cable-indecency provisions in a digital-TV-transition bill or in a much broader bill rewriting telecommunications statutes.

For more, click below (no subscription required) . . .

http://email.multichannel.com/cgi-bin2/DM/y/ek640Kc3CC0ONy0CQkZ0AM



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# posted by John : 11:07 AM  0 comments

-----Original Message-----
From: John [mailto:johnsbracken@gmail.com]
Sent: Mon 2/28/2005 8:46 AM
To: Bracken, John
Cc:
Subject: [IP Notes] Lessig interview
[http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/27/0457219]

Via /., an interview with Lessig.

tres3 writes "In an interview with the O'Reilly Network Mr. Lessig discusses many current issues that may have future legal implications. He starts with MGM's request for Certiorari in the Grokster case . His conclusion is that ReplayTV was forced out of business by a legal challenge, not a legal victory. Lessig continues on to discuss, among other things, The Creative Commons and their new Sampling License and how it may affect the way that some movies and music, that contain samples from other sources, are made in the future. From the article: 'So the same act of creativity in some sense, you know, taking, creating, mixing out of what other people do, is legal in the text world and illegal in the digital media world.'"

--
Posted by John to IP Notes at 2/28/2005 06:42:00 AM

# posted by John : 3:42 PM  0 comments

for our interests, the must carry proposal is interesting

Stevens Supports Cable-Indecency Law

By Ted Hearn
Multichannel News
3/1/2005 11:56 AM      

Senate Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said Tuesday that he will support legislation that applies broadcast-indecency rules to cable and requires cable to carry multiple digital-broadcast signals if the extra channels are public-service-related.

Stevens said cable content is riddled with filth and there is no reason why Congress can't include cable within the indecency rules.

"I'm going to meet with the cable people early next month, and I intend to tell them that," said Stevens, who wants to include cable-indecency provisions in a digital-TV-transition bill or in a much broader bill rewriting telecommunications statutes.

For more, click below (no subscription required) . . .

http://email.multichannel.com/cgi-bin2/DM/y/ek640Kc3CC0ONy0CQkZ0AM



==================================================
CONTACT INFO:

Editorial:
David Cohen (mailto:dcohen@reedbusiness.com)
or call 646-746-6585

Advertising:
Larry Dunn (mailto:ldunn@reedbusiness.com)
or call 646-746-6572

Customer Service:
PHONE:     818-487-4556
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# posted by John : 12:57 PM  0 comments

they reveal some thoughts about ps3

CNET News.com (http://www.news.com/)
This story has been sent to you on behalf of jbracken@macfound.org (e-mail address not verified).

FAQ: The next video game consoles?
By David Becker

Manufacturers won't spill details on upcoming game consoles, but News.com got some, anyway. Images: Consoles of tomorrow?

http://news.com.com/FAQ+The+next+video+game+consoles/2100-1043_3-5593290.html?tag=sas.email

# posted by John : 11:32 AM  0 comments

IN HUNT FOR ONLINE ADVERTISING, YAHOO MAKES BIG BET ON MEDIA
Under the leadership of Terry Semel, a former movie executive, Yahoo is
taking its cue from the entertainment industry. It believes its future
largely lies in building the equivalent of online theme parks featuring
fantasy sports leagues, music, sites for new TV shows such as "The
Apprentice" and other branded content and services. Yahoo wants users to
come often and stay a long time so it can put more and more ads on their
screens. Google devotes its energies primarily to thriving on the Web's
vast sprawl rather than trying to occupy one corner of it. Half of Google's
advertising revenue, for example, comes from simple text ads that appear on
other people's Web sites. The other half comes mainly from ads that
accompany Google's own search results. Google produces virtually no content
of its own, fearing that would tarnish the impartiality of its search
service. "Yahoo sees itself as a media company," says Shelby Bonnie,
chairman and CEO of technology Web publisher CNET. "Google views itself as
a technology company."
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Kevin J. Delaney kevin.delaney@wsj.com]
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110963221790466352,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
(requires subscription)

# posted by John : 9:19 AM  0 comments