Iran Bloggers Face Death?

H/t to Andrew C for this video.

O'Reilly says he doesn't make up his own facts.

Oh really?

Political editing at "public television"

Intimidation from politicians + lack of insulated funding = embarrassing timidity at so-called "public television" . . . as evidenced by PBS surgically removing Tina Fey's swipes at Republican hero Sarah Palin from a recent broadcast.

Oddest pitch in history?

From "Seinfeld": George proposes to Jerry a unique approach to pitching a new TV comedy series to NBC. George melts down just before pitch meeting. After the pitch meeting that George screwed up by saying he wouldn't compromise his "artistic integrity, Jerry explodes.

Don't Get In This Bind: After quitting a job in anger and without a plan of any kind, George ponders career options.

Why don't we have public TV like this in U.S.?

Weeks before the Iraq invasion, Jeremy Paxman of BBC's "Newsnight" and skeptical British citizens literally cross-examined Prime Minister Tony Blair about evidence/reasons/legality behind the invasion. This interview with Blair resurfaced this year during Britain's official Iraq inquiry. Here's another tough Paxman interview of Blair having nothing to do with Iraq.

Digital Divide -- Many in U.S. Lack Hi-Speed Internet

My middle-class daughters are NetNerds, having grown up with computers in the home and fast Internet. In poor rural areas and inner cities, such tools for learning and commerce are often out of reach. Here are videos of rural Southerners asking the government to step in and help folks get broadband.

What's with the language in indy media?

Adam P and Rebeca C posted this "WTF Has Indy Media Done So Far?" slide show.

Kellan D posted this (literally FY) response from a Gizmodo editor to a commenter's claim of bias.

Fast,Open Internet in US?

U.S. falling backward on broadband penetration and Internet speed.

Big Internet providers such as Verizon, Comcast, AT&T didn't even apply for any of the billions in stimulus grants for building out broadband infrastructure, according to the Wall St. Journal, because recipients of our tax money had to agree to respect Net Neutrality.

It wasn't just Fox News...

...and other TV networks that conveyed Andrew Breitbart and BigGovernment.com's false impressions about ACORN, leading to that group's demise. The NY Times "Public Editor" laughably tried to defend an aspect of that paper's bogus coverage.

Victim of video distortion by blogger (and later, MSM)

US Dept of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod was fired by the Obama White House after BigGovernment.com posted a 1-minute, 40-second video excerpt purporting to show that, during a speech to the NAACP, Sherrod boasted about discriminating against a white farmer while she was a federal employee during the Obama administration. Actually, she was describing events in the 1980s when she was Georgia field director for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, a private group working primarily with Black farmers that had grown out of the civil rights movement; she was not a federal employee at the time. More importantly, a fuller version showed that Sherrod told the story to illustrate how she had overcome her racial hostility toward whites and ultimately helped the white farmer save his farm.

Debtors again going to jail in the USA?

Remember how the first labor weeklies advocated against jail time for those who owed money? Those brave indy journalists won that battle 170 years ago, right? I guess some social problems have to be addressed and re-addressed through the generations, as these two reporters have done for the Minneapolis daily.

It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found.

Watch out for "Drudge Exclusives"

Perhaps Matt Drudge should stick to aggregating content from elsewhere (with revved-up headlines) rather than "report" -- as demonstrated by this 1999 "world exclusive." And by his 2007 "exclusive" in which he accused CNN reporter Michael Ware of "heckling" Republican senators during a news conference in Iraq and "laughing and mocking their comments." Drudge's evidence-free charge -- based on an anonymous "official" -- was picked up by rightwing blogs and the Washington Times.

Selectively-edited tapes...

....distributed by Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, played repeatedly on Fox News and elsewhere, helped kill the anti-poverty group ACORN. Rachel Maddow dissects the distorted presentation.

Campaign Donations from Mainstream Media

Mayhill Fowler of HuffPost "Off the Bus" let folks know she was an Obama symp. Readers/viewers should know about journalists' and media companies sympathies/donations, but usually don't. Mainstream media owners donate millions -- mostly to conservative campaigns -- and it's rarely news. Working reporters, editors, magazine writers, TV hosts donate thousands; sometimes it becomes news. And huge news, as I'm blogging this, in the case of Keith Olbermann, who is now suspended.

A new WikiLeaks?

Several former WikiLeaks personnel may be starting their own group. A potentially important development.

Bill Clinton 2008 Diatribe

Mayhill Fowler says she didn't hide that she was recording ex-President Clinton's angry words about a Vanity Fair reporter, while he greeted voters in PUBLIC as he campaigned for his wife in June 2008. BUT Clinton obviously did not know Fowler was a HuffPost "citizen journalist." Should she have ID'd herself? (She clearly got a more honest take from Clinton than if he'd known she was a journalist.)

Shouldn't public figures know nowadays that anything said -- especially rants (or racism) -- in public will be recorded and on record forever: Example A, example B.

Mayhill Fowler's earlier reporting scoop that launched "Bittergate" uproar.

Blogger Takes Ethical Action

Here's an apparent example of a blogger acting quite professionally and ethically as per SPJ Code of Ethics. Blogger Ken Krayeske -- who gained fame by questioning University of Connecticut's basketball coach about his huge taxpayer-paid salary -- announced in Oct. 2009 that he wouldn't be covering Hartford City Hall because his girlfriend had a job there.

Why is there bolder commentary/questioning...

...on network TV comedies or dramas than on network TV news? Adam P raises these questions in an interesting blog post focused on 30 Rock. Somehow comedy/drama ruffles less feathers among the powers-that-be than straight news. Also, TV writers/actors/directors may feel more daring partly because they have stronger unions than do TV journalists.

Wash. Post worries about reporter/reader dialogue

Washington Post management sent a memo to its reporters regarding social media/twitter, saying (if I can understand the memo) they should "embrace social media [to] increase audience engagement with Post content" without answering reader criticism in any way it might go public. (Mashable.com published the memo in an article -- with interesting reader comments.)

Sports blogosphere ruining sports journalism?

Screechy 2008 debate between traditional sports newspaper journalist Buzz Bissinger and editor Will Leitch of the popular, sometimes raunchy sports blog/website: Deadspin.com. (H/t to Mead L.) I just went on Deadspin and saw this at the top of homepage: "Watch The Giants' Championship Parade...Watch it here, but beware of Commies, pinkos, gays, dopeheads and Brian Wilsons." How edgy.

Is "Gasland" a country we live in...

...yet rarely see reflected in US corporate media? Oilman T. Boone Pickens gives big bucks to TV networks & stations to run his energy ads, which include advocacy for transition away from oil . . . to gas.

Big Bucks to YouTube Stars

What the Buck? Good question. Could Michael Buckley really have earned over $100k in a year from YouTube videos. . .and then gets a development deal from HBO?

YouTube star Lisa Donovan or "LisaNova" has real talent IMHO. Like Tina Fey, she's made a career out of playing Sarah Palin, including in the famous McCain/Palin rap. I wonder who she's hoping will run for prez in 2012.

Cory Williams and his smpFilms hit the bigtime with "Hey Little Sparta" (better known as "The Mean Kitty Song", nearly 40 million views!). He told the NYT in 2008 that he was earning over $200k per year, partly from (ugh!) product placements within his videos.

PhillyD is my 13-year-old daughter's favorite YouTube star, offering his take on current events, tech and celeb news. That's where my girl gets her news. Shouldn't I be monitoring her better?

Become a YouTube Star and appear in a hugely popular music video with Weezer or the earlier one from Barenaked Ladies.

"Where the hell is Matt?" became so popular, the guy has long had his travels paid by corporate sponsors.

Malcolm Gladwell: "Stop going to journalism programs."

Top journalist Malcolm Galdwell ("Tipping Point," "Blink," "Outliers")gave this advice to young journalists in an Oct.'09 Time interview:

The issue is not writing. It's what you write about. One of my favorite columnists is Jonathan Weil, who writes for Bloomberg. He broke the Enron story, and he broke it because he's one of the very few mainstream journalists in America who really knows how to read a balance sheet. That means Jonathan Weil will always have a job, and will always be read, and will always have something interesting to say. He's unique. Most accountants don't write articles, and most journalists don't know anything about accounting. Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs and go to some other kind of grad school. If I was studying today, I would go get a master's in statistics, and maybe do a bunch of accounting courses and then write from that perspective. I think that's the way to survive. The role of the generalist is diminishing. Journalism has to get smarter.

IC grad wins Online News Award

IC grad Kate Sheppard and colleagues at Mother Jones just won an award from the Online News Association for "Online Topical Reporting/Blogging" about the BP oil spill.

Media Corporations Unite!

To prevent their corporate tax breaks from being repealed by California ballot Proposition 24 (in a state facing huge budget deficits), companies are donating big to the 'No on Prop 24' campaign. Of the nine biggest donors, six are media corporations, reports Brian Stelter in the NYT.