Posts under ‘News’

Samuel Freedman: On The Difference Between The Amateur And The Pro. Instead of providing the ultimate marketplace of ideas, however, cable TV and the Internet have become the ultimate amen corner, where nobody ever need encounter an opinion, much less a fact, that runs counter to what he or she already believes. To treat an […]

Findory collects April Fools Day online gags.

No kidding. See this. Then look at this parody — a remix of an ad for the Tahoe gas-guzzling truck — on YouTube. Hilarious.

Washington Post: Internet Firms Want FCC to Enforce Net Neutrality. Internet companies yesterday criticized legislation that would give the Federal Communications Commission only limited ability to stop phone and cable companies from blocking access to Web sites, saying the proposal would endanger the open nature of the Web. The bill, championed by House Commerce Committee […]

NY Times: On Web, Error Is Uncovered Through Relentless Pursuit. Starting Tuesday afternoon and working through the night, a group of bloggers dissected a photo and a caption on the Web site of a Republican Congressional candidate in California, Howard Kaloogian, and declared it a fraud. Within hours, Mr. Kaloogian withdrew the picture, blamed an […]

In “Think Tanks for Sale,” Slate’s Timothy Noah exclaims: Among the many revelations of the scandal surrounding the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff is the remarkable degree to which the capital’s think tank “scholars” can be bought. It’s absolutely true. The sleaze Noah documents so well in this posting is well worth a look (and, I […]

The U.S. State Department has posted ‘Media Emerging’, a look at how conversational media forms are changing the nature of news and communications. I contributed a short piece on blogging.

Rebecca MacKinnon: Yahoo! Abomination.: Yahoo! executives keep framing this issue as black and white: Either you’re in there and do everything the Chinese authorities tell you without question, or you can’t do business in China at all. That is false. Companies can and do make choices. You can engage in China and choose not to […]

Mercury News: Bidding begins in McClatchy sale of 12 KR newspapers. Los Angeles investment firm Yucaipa Cos. and a group of Philadelphia investors made offers Tuesday for all or some of the 12 Knight Ridder newspapers McClatchy is selling. A spokesman for Yucaipa, which is allied with the Newspaper Guild, confirmed it had made a […]

The SF Chronicle reports that Current TV, the cable channel that’s doing some innovative bottom-up work to inspire citizen-generated content, will be getting carriage on Comcast’s cable networks. This is a milestone for Current and, maybe, for the genre. deal to make the San Francisco company’s programs available to more Comcast subscribers.