Posts under ‘News’

Manchester (NH) Union Leader: Gingrich raises alarm at event honoring those who stand up for freedom of speech. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism. Gingrich is voicing what all too many Americans believe, that free speech […]

UPDATED Long Island Business News runs an op-ed column under former U.S. Sen. Al D’Amato’s byline entitled, “Newsday’s new day: Murdoch or consortium?” It’s basically a suggestion that Tribune Co. sell its Newsday newspaper to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Two things to consider. First, as the New York Daily News’ Ben Smith notes, “D’Amato is […]

San Jose Mercury News: YouTube, Verizon announce video deal. YouTube plans to announce a deal with Verizon Wireless today to bring user-submitted videos from the Web to mobile phone customers nationwide, marking the biggest marriage yet between a video Web service and mobile phone carrier. This makes some sense, but it also tells you where […]

(This is a column I wrote for PR Week.) The VNR mini-scandal took a sadly predictable turn earlier this month. Two media and marketing watchdog groups issued a new report showing that the use of unlabeled VNRs by local TV “news” programs was continuing even in the face of heightened scrutiny. The report, from Free […]

Here’s the latest way to annoy people online — hotlinks to words in articles that go to advertisements. The pictured item (click on it or here for a full-sized image) is a from a PC Magazine column by John Dvorak. The word “computer” is highlighted in green, and underlined. Put the mouse over the word […]

NY Times: ‘Ill-considered’ book, interview called off after fierce criticism. Bowing to intense pressure both outside and inside the company, the News Corp. on Monday canceled its plans to publish a book and broadcast an interview with O.J. Simpson in which he was to give a hypothetical account of how he might have murdered his […]

UPDATED SF Chronicle: ISP not responsible for online libel, state’s top court rules. People who claim they were libeled on line can’t sue the Internet service providers that carried the messages, the California Supreme Court ruled today. The unanimous ruling reversed an October 2003 decision by a state appellate court in San Francisco that would […]

A company just emailed me this pitch (in part): The 2006 Elections are now over, but the excitement continues. With newly elected Members and a change of party control in the House, it is now time for a flurry of changes to leadership positions, committee leadership, committee and subcommittee membership, and staff. All of the […]

It’s called The Lede, and I’m still not quite sure what the mission is despite this description: In the news business, the opening sentences of a story are referred to as its “lede” — spelled that way, journalism lore has it, to avoid confusion with the lead typesetting that once dominated newspaper printing presses. Although […]

Lawyers for YouTube apparently sent lawyers after Techcrunch for an copyright offense that doesn’t sound offensive. Bozo behavior ascendant.