Archive for January, 2006
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Regulating the News
I read this several times with great disbelief but no, it seems that Columbia’s Journalism School Dean is longing for more government regulations of the news :
“The better way to insure good results, in any realm of society, is to set up a structure that encourages them; we can’t rely on heroes coming along to rescue journalism. The structure that encouraged Murrow, uncomfortable as it may be to admit, was federal regulation of broadcasting. CBS, in Murrow’s heyday, felt that its prosperity, even its survival, depended on demonstrating to Washington its deep commitment to public affairs. The price of not doing so could be regulation, breakup, the loss of a part of the spectrum, or license revocation. Those dire possibilities would cause a corporation to err on the side of too much “See It Now” and “CBS Reports.” In parts of the speech which aren’t in the movie, Murrow made it clear that the main pressure on broadcasting to do what he considered the right thing came from the F.C.C. The idea that, in taking on McCarthy, Murrow was “standing up to government” greatly oversimplifies the issue. He was able to stand up to a Senate committee chairman because a federal regulatory agency had pushed CBS and other broadcasters to organize themselves so that Murrow’s doing so was possible.”
And it becomes even worse:
“It isn’t possible anymore—not because timid people have risen to power in journalism but because the government, in steady increments over the past generation, has deregulated broadcasting. The Fairness Doctrine no longer exists. Regulation, license revocation, or reallocation of the spectrum are no longer meaningful possibilities. The advent of cable television brought a new round of debates over government-mandated public-affairs programming, with the result that private companies were granted valuable monopoly franchises in local markets; in return, they were required only to provide channels for public affairs, not to create programming. That’s why cable is home to super-low-cost varieties of broadcast news, such as C-SPAN, local publicaccess channels, and national cable-news shout-fests, rather than to reincarnations of the elaborately reported Murrow shows from the fifties. The rise of public broadcasting has freed the networks to be even more commercial.
On network television, no news star would openly disavow Murrow’s legacy. The standard today is to have smart, competent, physically magnetic people who do straight news gravely and celebrity interviews empathetically, and who occasionally, strategically, display moral passion and then retreat, as Anderson Cooper, of CNN, did during Hurricane Katrina. Everyone suspects them of being lightweights when they first ascend, and then, when they retire, wonders if we’ll ever see their like again. If being in the Murrow mold entails occasionally editorializing on the air, and letting it be known that you aren’t getting along very well with your superiors, there are only a very few Murrow legatees—Ted Koppel and Bill Moyers come to mind, and they’ve left network television.”
Loosing audience didn’t make the old gourd of the media to real soul search instead they are ready to give up any value they swore to protect in order to save their status. They should be a shame!
(Via Jeff Jarvis )
Google’s Rumors
It seems like a force of nature that before any Google public announcement we are going to be flooded with rumors. Some of them are pretty funny. Today’s crop brought us: the Google – Napster rumor , The Google P2P rumor and we cannot without the Google OS rumor .
What we got in the end was the Google Miss reality .
US Internet Companies Snub Congerssional Hearing
People, who read my blog, knows that I hate Google’s decision to provide censored search results, turn on private information and be partner in oppressing the Chinese citizens. However I’m supporting the technology companies to snub the congressional hearing. This is simple case of some elected member trying to score chip popularity point and have, yet another, area where they extend the government involvement.
This issue is going to be resolved by public pressure of consumers trying to convince companies to change their immoral, although completely legal. If the congress is so worry about human rights they should not have voted to extend the patriot act.
Link: US Internet companies snub Congressional hearing
Microsoft and Cisco Systems have refused to attend the event, while Google and Yahoo are non-committal, officials said.
The firms were asked to attend the February 1 briefing by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus following uproar caused by search giant Google’s decision last week to censor websites and content banned by China’s propaganda chiefs.
Hacking Google China
Sometimes I just admire the human spirit…
It was obvious that Google didn’t re-write their search algorithm but added some filters, and it didn’t take long for people to find the work-around. It will be interesting to see how hard Google will work to close this.
(Source - Digg )
Warner Bros. to start German File-Sharing System
I have to admit that I am somewhat confused with the latest report on WB selling movies through P2P network in Germany. It should be embraced that finally someone in Hollywood realized that instead of fighting technology and the entire public they are going to modify their business models. However why should someone want to pay for P2P?
The P2P as a network is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist if the files are for sale. These networks are always slower than direct download and are target to fake files and viruses. For paid service we deserve the full capacity of the bandwidth.
Link: Warner Bros. to start German file-sharing service
“LONDON (Reuters) - Warner Bros. said on Monday it would soon begin selling movies and television shows in Germany, Austria and Switzerland using a peer-to-peer network, embracing the very technology that has rattled the entertainment industry.”
All the Facts you must know about Chuck Norris
This post is a public service: all the facts that you must know about Chuck Norris . And as a special bonus to our readers we also have this…
(Via Israeli Blog )
iRepress
This is a very good cartoon about the role American companies taking in helping the Chinese regime to oppress the Chinese people. (via Isreali blog )
Open Letter to Google
It will be interesting to see if public opinion will effect Google’s Decision to censor search results. The following blog has one page only: an open letter to Google, requesting them to back from the censoring decision. The blog’s owner intends to send the letter as soon as enough comments will be collected.
I added a short comment, and I would follow up looking to see if public opinion will convince Google to change its mind.
“This blog is an "Open Letter to Google" consisting of one post only. As soon as we have an impressing number of comments, we will send the letter to Google. If you agree with the content of the post, please add your comment. If you agree that this is an important issue, please tell your friends about it. The more comments we can collect, the better it is. What do you think, will the blogosphere succeed to collect 10′000 comments which we can send to Google? Thanks a lot for participating.”
Google’s Shameful Explanation
Google gave yesterday an explanation , on its official blog, for its decision to agree for censorship search results in order to have local present in china. After reading this explanation I’m not sure if it wasn’t better for Google not to explain at all.
Maybe it was grid, maybe the hubris - that affected the pure results we seeing lately from Google, but the long post is an intellectual insult. How can they expect us to believe that censored search is better than the poor quality service they are proving in China currently?
From the company that came up with the slogan “do not do evil” we have higher expectations. And when the explanation to bend over for the dictators and provide service is:
“We ultimately reached our decision by asking ourselves which course would most effectively further Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally useful and accessible. Or, put simply: how can we provide the greatest access to information to the greatest number of people?”
how can we ever trust them?
The Guys who runs Google are very bright; do they really think that blocking the information and images, like the ones on this post, about the horrible regime in Peking from the Chinese people can be consider “provide the greatest access to information to the greatest number of people”?Do they really beleive that the public is going to "buy" this explanation? God I hope not.