Be The Media

99.8% of all FCC indecency complaints from just one organization

From MSNBC.com:

"FCC Chair Michael Powell insists that his conversion from a free-speech advocate to a harsh censor is based on public outcry.  Most of us have swallowed that excuse.  Well, this Mediaweek article demonstrates what nonsense Powell is spouting, whether he knows it or not.  It turns out that Powell’s FCC is shutting down free-speech on broadcast TV and radio entirely at the bidding of one lousy little conservative organization, which –all by itself—has generated, count ‘em—99.8 percent of the complaints about obscenity."

Why there's no escaping the blog

From Fortune, by David Kirkpatrick and Daniel Roth:

"Early in the evening of Dec. 1, Microsoft revealed that it planned to take over the world of blogs—the five-million-plus web journals that have exploded on the Internet in the past few years. The company's weapon would be a new service called MSN Spaces, online software that allows people to easily create and maintain blogs. It didn't take long for the blogging world to do what it does best: swarm around a new piece of information; push, prod, and poke at it; and leave it either stronger or a bloody mess. The next day, at the widely read Boing Boing blog, co-editor Xeni Jardin opted to do the latter.

She titled her critique of MSN Spaces "7 Dirty Blogs" and hilariously sent up the fickle censoring filters Microsoft appeared to have built in. MSN Spaces prohibited her from starting a blog called Pornography and the Law or another entitled Corporate Whore Chronicles; yet World of Poop passed, as did the educational Smoking Crack: A How-To Guide for Teens. Within the first hour of Jardin's post, five blogs had linked to it, including the site of widely read San Jose Mercury News columnist Dan Gillmor. By the end of the day there were dozens of blogs pointing readers to "7 Dirty Blogs," a proliferation of links that over the next few weeks topped 300. There were Italian blogs and Chinese blogs and blogs in Greek, German, and Portuguese. There were blogs with names like Tie-Dyed Brain Waves, Stubborn Like a Mule, and LibertyBlog. Each added its own tweak. "Ooooh, that's what I want: a blog that doesn't allow me to speak my mind," wrote a blogger called Kung Pow Pig. The conversation had clearly gotten out of Microsoft's hands."

New York Times: Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul

From the New York Times by James Dao, Ford Fessenden & Tom Zeller Jr.:

"From seven-hour lines that drove voters away to malfunctioning machines to poorly trained poll workers who directed people to the wrong polling places to uneven policies about the use of provisional ballots, Ohio has become this year's example for every ailment in the United States' electoral process.

"Congressional passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 - which mandated the provisional ballot as a failsafe and provided states money to update voting technology - was considered a landmark overhaul that would help prevent another Florida. "

"But an array of voting rights groups contend that Ohio has underscored shortcomings in the law, including one of its centerpieces, the provisional ballot. Now those groups are pushing for a re-examination not only of the law, but also of other voting issues, including the role of partisan secretaries of state in overseeing elections, electronic voting and the elimination of the Electoral College."

"Another area of contention is the large number of ballots - 96,000 by recent counts - that registered no vote for president. Known as "residual" or "lost" votes, they involve cases where no candidate for president appeared to have been selected or where multiple candidates were chosen, rendering the ballot invalid for that race."

Bloomsbury to Buy Walker Publishing

Dinitia Smith wrote:

"At a time when publishers are cutting corners, Bloomsbury Publishing P.L.C., the British publisher of the Harry Potter books, said yesterday that it was buying Walker Publishing Company, a small New York independent, to broaden its American presence with the addition of Walker's well-regarded nonfiction list.

The purchase price will be $6.5 million, said Nigel Newton, founder and chief executive of Bloomsbury. He said Walker would remain a separate division of Bloomsbury U.S.A. under its current publisher, George Gibson. "

Kerry to Enter Ohio Recount Fray

From Truthout.org:

"2004 Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry will file today, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, papers in support of the Green Party/Libertarian Party recount effort. Specifically, Kerry will be filing a request for expedited discovery regarding Triad Systems voting machines, as well as a motion for a preservation order to protect any and all discovery and preserve any evidence on this matter."

Bush Unveils New Pro-Logging National Forest Policy

From Democracynow.org:

"On Thursday, the Bush administration announced a new set of rules to govern the management of the country's 192 million acres of forest that will open up the public forests to more logging as well as gas and oil development. The new rules give economic activity equal priority with preserving the ecological health of the forests in making management decisions.

The plan was quickly attacked by environmentalists and former public officials including Jim Lyons, who oversaw the Forest Service as Agriculture undersecretary during the Clinton administration. Lyons said, "This is the most dramatic change in national forest management policy since passage of the [1976] National Forest Management Act. It is really a clandestine effort in my mind to subvert much of what the national forests stand for."

According to the Los Angeles Times, the new plan contains two major revisions to forest planning regulations.

The first drops the 25-year-old requirement that managers prepare environmental impact statements when they develop or revise management plans for individual national forests.

The second change drops what is widely considered to be the Forest Services' most important wildlife protection - it is a mandate to preserve the natural fish and wildlife habitat in national forests. Mike Anderson of the Wilderness Society said, "I'm very fearful that we've just lost the foundation for the protection of old-growth forests and wildlife that has protected the national forests for the last 20 years."

It Will All Be Over Soon

From Truthout.org:

...try to rectify the fact that a new Washington Post poll has 70% of Americans believing the cost in flesh and treasure of the Iraq war has been "unacceptable," and yet somehow enough of those people thought the whole thing acceptable enough to vote for its continuation less than two months ago. "

What about the journalists?

From Columbia Journalism Review, by Judith Matloff:

"Weekends spent alone at home, drinking to the point of unconsciousness. Romances that always seem to crumble after a couple of months. Feeling too paranoid to go to a movie or too agitated to sleep. This is a story about the invisible wounds that journalists often suffer when covering war. Anyone who has covered violence is aware of the psychic damage it can wreak — the guilt, the sense of being a parasite, the unbearable pettiness of daily life. The tribe of war correspondents is notoriously macho, and to even admit the damage — let alone surrender to it — has always been considered a sign of weakness. We are dispassionate chroniclers, after all, protected by the talisman of the notebook and the camera. The standard practice has been to go forth with a bottle of Scotch, absorb the pain and fear, and never tell your editors."

Al Neuharth, in Christmas column, calls for bringing troops home from Iraq

From Editor & Publisher:

"Neuharth, 80, a World War II vet, said he would happily volunteer for that kind of "highly moral duty again." But he would avoid serving in Iraq, likening it to the Vietnam war, which "many of the polticially connected" managed to escape.

He concluded that "support our troops" is a wonderful slogan but "the best way to support our troops thrust by unwise commanders- in-chief into ill-advised adventures like Vietnam and Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later. That should be our New Year's resolution."

Watch out for "a scruffy guy in a baseball cap"

From The Guardian (UK), by Gary Younge:

"He doesn't do undercover. And he is not someone who easily melts into the background. But when an industry thinks it is about to become the latest target of filmmaker Michael Moore, precautions have to be taken.

According to the Los Angeles Times, at least six of America's largest pharmaceutical firms have issued internal notices to their workforces warning them to be on the lookout for "a scruffy guy in a baseball cap" who asks too many questions. Rotund and amiable he may seem, but this could be Moore, digging for dirt for his new movie, provisionally titled "Sicko."