Friday, September 19, 2008
mediagiraffe: St. Paul drops charges against GOP convention reporters after 60K letters delivered
Watch the press conference: http://free.convio.net/site/R?i=dCYuXmsTcGIKq-F4dvUcuQ..
http://www.freepress.net
"This is an important first step, but many questions remain," Free Press quoted Nancy Doyle Brown from Twin Cities Media Alliance, as saying, adding: "We still need answers about why and how journalists got swept up in these arrests in the first place. And more than anything else, we need to ensure that this never happens again. We'll never know how many important stories never got told because their authors were behind bars, not in the streets."
Nearly two dozen reporters were arrested during the four-day event, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and two of her producers, Associated Press reporters, student journalists, local TV photographers, among others. Other journalists were pepper-sprayed, and reporters with I-Witness were held at gunpoint during a "pre-emptive" police raid aimed at disrupting protesters.
Free Press cited a press release from St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman's office which noted that the city's attorney will use a "broad definition and verification to identify journalists who were caught up in mass arrests during the convention."
"We're pleased that the St. Paul authorities ultimately acted to uphold the rights of all journalists -- including those citizens using blogs, cheap cameras and cell phones to report news as it happens," said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, the national media reform organization. "Our task now is to ensure that our press remains free to report on the events, issues and stories that matter to our country, our communities and our democracy."
Less than three days after the initial arrests, more than 60,000 people across the country signed on to a letter from Free Press, demanding that Mayor Coleman and local authorities immediately "free all detained journalists and drop all charges against them." These letters were delivered to St. Paul City Hall the day after the convention following a press conference that included local citizens and many of the journalists who had been arrested earlier in the week.
"The news from St. Paul City Hall is certainly welcome regarding the decision to drop charges against journalists who were arrested and cited during the RNC," said Mike Bucsko, executive officer of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild Typographical Union, who spoke at a press conference. "However, it is essential the elected officials in St. Paul and Ramsey County examine the circumstances that led to the needless detention and harassment of journalists to ensure this type of indiscriminate behavior on the part of law enforcement does not happen again."
Local advocates and independent journalists from KFAI Community Radio, National Lawyers Guild, Twin Cities Daily Planet, Twin Cities IndyMedia, Twin Cities Media Alliance and The Uptake were joined bynational groups American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, The Newspaper Guild, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Without Borders, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Writers Guild of America, East, in condemning the unusually harsh treatment by city authorities.
Monday, August 27, 2007
NYTIMES: In Online World, Pocket Change Is Not Easily Spent
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/technology/27micro.html
Published: August 27, 2007
By DAN MITCHELL
The New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 26 -- The idea of micropayments -- charging Web users tiny amounts of money for single pieces of online content -- was essentially put to sleep toward the end of the dot-com boom. In December 2000, Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in New York University's interactive telecommunications program, wrote a manifesto that people still cite whenever someone suggests resurrecting the idea. Micropayments will never work, he wrote, mainly because "users hate them."
But wait. Amid the disdain, and without many people noticing, micropayments have arrived -- just not in the way they were originally envisioned. The 99 cents you pay for a song on iTunes is a micropayment. So are the tiny amounts that some operators of small Web sites earn whenever someone clicks on the ads on their pages. Some stock-photography companies sell pictures for as little as $1 each.
"Micropayments are here," said Benjamin M. Compaine, a consultant and lecturer at Northeastern University who specializes in media economics, "they just have not evolved in the way that everybody expected."
From the earliest days of the Web until around the time of Mr. Shirky's manifesto, the expectation was that a handful of companies would provide platforms -- or perhaps a single ubiquitous platform -- that would enable Web users to pay a penny, a dime or a dollar for a bit of content such as a newspaper article, a comic strip or a research report. Simply clicking a link would complete the transaction.
Sellers of content -- at the time, newspaper companies -- were among the most interested in the idea as they looked for revenue that did not depend on advertising. And the Web, rather than being a threat to their business, would allow them to expand their audience vastly.
But the problems proved insurmountable. Many micropayments companies have shut down, been acquired or changed their business models over the years. Among them: DigiCash, CyberCash, First Virtual Holdings and Peppercoin. They used various systems, but in general users paid into accounts with their credit cards and then drew from those accounts. In the mid- to late '90s, electronic cash had become such a popular concept that some politicians worried that it might threaten the stability of the nation's currency.
But the economic and technical challenges were enormous. Consumers were reluctant to pay even a tenth of a cent for something they believed should be free. "There is a certain amount of anxiety involved in any decision to buy, no matter how small," Mr. Shirky wrote in 2000.
It turns out, however, that consumers are more than willing to pay for certain types of content in certain situations. Consumers "expect to pay for music and movies, but not so much for the printed word," said George Peabody, an analyst with Mercator Advisory Group, which serves the payments industry.
"Closed loop" systems like iTunes are the most successful, Mr. Peabody said. That's where consumers have a continuing relationship with the merchant and usually pay with their credit cards. "Open loop" systems, where the consumer pays many merchants through a single payments processor -- the way micropayments were originally envisioned -- are much less successful. "To date, the market has said there is insufficient demand for these services," concluded a research report Mercator published in April.
There is another problem with closed-loop systems: cost. The fees for every transaction are too high to make tiny payments worthwhile for many online content sellers -- sometimes those fees exceed the price of the content being sold. For most merchants, according to the report, purchases of less than $1.50 aren't worth it.
One solution is to aggregate purchases, or group purchases over a period of time, and then process the payments in a single transaction. That's how iTunes works. But credit card networks like Visa and MasterCard, which charge fees for transactions, "aren't really happy with that idea," said Mr. Peabody, because it means less money for them.
Visa and MasterCard prohibit most merchants from aggregating payments directly. The networks have recently promoted their efforts to serve the "small payments" market -- encouraging consumers to use cards for parking meters, for example. But so far, they have stopped short of widely supporting aggregated-payment systems. There are "operational challenges," said Pam Zuercher, Visa's vice president for product innovation. Visa is evaluating such systems, she added, because "there is an undeniable trend -- users want to use their cards for very small purchases."
Merchants can aggregate payments through another company, but that adds to costs and "implementation has been tough," Mr. Peabody said. For sellers of the lowest-priced content -- anything under 75 cents -- micropayments have been made irrelevant by the easy availability of online advertising, Mr. Peabody said. Programs like AdSense from Google, which allows even the smallest Web publishers to have relevant ads placed on their sites, make micropayments unnecessary. The program pays Web publishers what are often very small amounts each time a reader clicks on an ad.
Looked at another way, though, AdSense is based on micropayments. "All the criteria are there," said Mr. Compaine, the Northeastern University lecturer, "but the money isn't coming from the end user; it's coming from the advertisers."
Bill Densmore, a founder of the payments firm Clickshare, a former newspaper publisher and now a consultant and a director of a citizens' media project at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, has been promoting micropayments from the beginning. He envisions Web publishers joining with one another and with producers of other content to create huge networks, sharing users and, in effect, revenue.
For example, he said, a large newspaper could sell subscriptions that would allow its readers to download music from iTunes or Rhapsody, read articles from regional papers, and watch movies and TV shows from YouTube or Comedy Central. Some material would be sold for a fee -- with the payments managed internally by the network. Mr. Densmore acknowledged that this is all pie-in-the-sky at this point. But, he said, for newspapers in particular, the status quo is not good enough. In that business, he said, there are "enough people feeling enough pain that they need to be open to asking what models might work."
----------------------------------------------------------------
The article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not havespecifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is madeavailable in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic,democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justiceissues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided bySection 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profitto those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the includedinformation for research and educational purposes. If you wish to usecopyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you mustobtain permission from the copyright owner.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Retiring Cleveland editor says readers must pay for news on the web
The work of newspapers, in whatever form, is vital
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Doug Clifton
Plain Dealer Columnist
When I got into this business almost 38 years ago, most cities had two
newspapers, nearly everyone read one of them and Walter Cronkite - the
even-tempered, erudite, gentle Walter Cronkite - personified broadcast
news.
Now, as I prepare to leave, most cities are lucky if they have one
newspaper and luckier still if even half the population reads it. And
you'll search almost in vain to find a TV anchor even remotely
even-tempered, erudite or gentle.
But change even more fundamental than that unfolded in those 38 years.
Cable TV morphed from a novelty to a 150-channel universal presence.
Entertainment programming like Studio One or Omnibus became "Beavis and
Butthead" or "Desperate Housewives." The three network news programs that
offered sober reflection on the day's most significant events became
promotion-filled, self-aggrandizing, collections of tidbits dressed up to
look like news - accompanied by thumping music and flashing lights.
And the Internet - the medium that just a decade ago was a concept beyond
the comprehension of most Americans - now threatens to bury us in www
addresses.
The sum of all that change, some say, poses a grave threat to newspapers
and the work they do.
To some - perhaps even to many - newspapers' demise would be no loss. To
them, the press is an intrusive, sensational, often malevolent, purveyor
of negativism. Worse, many newspapers rake in double-digit profits. The
mainstream media, or MSM, as they call it, has become the slur of choice
for the critics.
Perhaps the excesses of the few in this business have tainted the
reputation of the many. And perhaps the many have, at times, given critics
reason to be distrustful.
But an evenhanded review of the work of newspapers over the last 100 years
tells another story. No other institution in a democratic society performs
their function.
Go to the archives of any newspaper in America and leaf through their
pages. It won't be long before you find a significant piece of journalism
that exposes a social ill, a failed institution, an abuse of power, a
misdeed by a trusted official.
Journalism, I would argue, provides the lubricant that keeps the wheels of
democracy spinning. It is the ultimate check in our system of checks and
balances. It evens the contest between the haves and the have-nots. Even
with its countless flaws, its frequent excesses, its sometimes mindless
pursuit of the trivial, journalism ensures balance in society's balance of
power.
Since the birth of the republic, newspapers have been providing that
service. But today, because of the radically changed media landscape,
their ability to provide that service is being compromised.
Newspapers operate on a very simple model. They carry content people want
to read. Advertisers want to reach that audience of readers, so they pay
for the privilege of having their messages accompany the news. The
resulting revenue covers most of the costs of producing a newspaper.
The formula worked to society's advantage for decades. But the Internet
began to change all that.
Content that once appeared only on paper began appearing on the Net,
thanks to newspapers' own Web sites and aggregators such as Google. These
Web sites offered content free to anyone with a computer.
Advertising also appeared on the sites, but not in the same volume as in
the paper version.
You may have heard or read some of the dire forecasts about the future of
newspapers.
Newspapers are a dying medium, some say, and their death is being hastened
by the Internet. The once-healthy profits are fading fast.
I hear this at least once a day: "I don't need the newspaper; I get my
news from the Internet."
Of course, that's not true. People who prefer the Internet do get their
news from the newspaper. The Internet doesn't produce the content, it
merely distributes it.
If you go to Google News or Yahoo News you will find news, but it will
have been provided by AP, Reuters, the Washington Post, The Plain Dealer
and countless other newspapers.
In other words, the newspaper, which at great expense employs reporters to
find, evaluate, analyze and present news, gives it away free on the
Internet. This can't go on forever. Eventually, something must give.
If readers abandon conventional newspapers and go to the Internet,
advertisers will be forced to look for other media - the Internet included
- to present their messages.
Newspapers will survive if readers pay them for their Web content or if
advertisers flock to newspaper Web sites in sufficient numbers to offset
the revenue lost to the ink-on-paper enterprise. One or both of those
options is likely to happen.
If they don't, newspapers - and the journalism they produce - could die.
And why will that be worth your tears? Because without journalism,
democracy and civil society will falter.
Clifton is retiring as the editor of The Plain Dealer. His last day at the
paper will be Tuesday.
dclifton@plaind.com, 216-999-4123
Previous columns online:
cleveland.com/columns
© 2007 The Plain Dealer
© 2007 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
STRATEGIC: Tribune's Jack Fuller says "time to pay the piper"
Nov.14, 03
By Staci D.Kramer in Evanston, Ill.
Trib's Jack Fuller -- Time to Pay the Piper (by Staci Kramer, guest
blogging the ONA conference from Evanston, Ill): No surprises but a smooth
look at online economic reality from Tribune president Jack Fuller, who
opened ONA's 4th annual conference with a warning about giving content
away. He should know -- Fuller estimates that he has signed off on
online-related expenses netting out to $600 million. "Eventually someone
will have to pay the piper," said Fuller, predicting that news sites will
move to a model at least paid in part by the subscriber. (The Trib's
LATimes.com is already charging for access to some coverage.) Offering
free content from the start "may have been our biggest mistake... We all
did it." Compounding the problem: much of that "free" content is expensive
to produce. He said free online content may not be siphoning readers away
from newspapers completely but that online is cannabilizing print in terms
of frequncy of use. Instead of reading the paper seven days a week people
are picking up the print edition less and going online in between.
http://www.journalists.org/2003conference/news/000036.html
Keynote speech
Tribune's Fuller: Future is paid content
By Kelly O'Brien
November 14, 2003
EVANSTON, Ill. -- The president of Tribune Publishing said Friday that the
future of online journalism will likely include paid content.
.We got everybody used to the idea that things that cost a lot of money to
make ought to be available for absolutely nothing,. said Jack Fuller,
describing the earliest days of online news publishing.
But, he said, out of necessity, .I think everyone will move, at least in
part, to a model paid by the reader..
Addressing the Online News Association.s fourth annual conference in
Chicago, Fuller conceded, "Nobody wants to go first. If you go first, you
lose."
Fuller, the keynote speaker, pointed out another lesson that must be
learned if the online media are going to thrive: adaptability.
"People get upset when newspapers change," said Fuller, but they also get
upset when online media don't.
The trick is knowing how to change, he said.
"What we need to do in confronting changes," he said, "is experiment,
assess the results and adapt over and over and over again."
In essence, Fuller said, journalists would be "experimenting our way to
the future."
Since the advent of online journalism, Fuller said that a great deal of
information has been gained on what young people, in particular, expect
from their news coverage.
He was encouraged that "we can reach young people with what we like to
think of as news," he said, "so long as we don.t make the news reports too
demanding, too long, or too difficult."
However, he added that young readers want editors to acknowledge that they
know "what the difference is between what.s important in the world and
what's just entertaining."
Fuller's comments to about 250 ONA members kicked off the two-day
conference, which will also address media convergence, coverage of the
Iraqi war and the increasing popularity of Weblogs. The winners of the 4th
Annual Online Journalism Awards will be announced Saturday night.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
STRATEGIC: Big payoff for inventor of "software metering"?
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-7784_3-5418184.html
EXCERPT:
Dan Griffith, software asset manager at Motorola's Freescale Semiconductor
subsidiary, said there's big business awaiting whoever comes up with the
software equivalent of an electricity meter. "As the utility model moves
forward, somebody needs to make a meter the customer accepts and the
vendor accepts," he said.
October 19, 2004
Pay-as-you-go software licensing going slow
David Becker, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Pay-as-you-go software might sound like a fine idea
in principle, but it's a bear to put into practice.
That was the gist of conversation at the SoftSummit conference, as
software executives discussed the promise and reality of utility computing
and subscription pricing.
Utility computing, a tech buzzword, essentially promises that a company
will have to pay for only the computing resources it actually uses,
dramatically cutting costs and improving efficiency.
Sounds good on paper, but both software makers and customers have been
slow and inconsistent in committing to the model, for reasons ranging from
economics to privacy.
For the software industry, utility pricing poses a threat to the bottom
line, said Jason Maynard, an analyst at Merrill Lynch. It's hard to
precisely predict software needs, and under standard perpetual license
models, that usually results in drastic overbuying.
"We have an industry that's still addicted to the crack of perpetual
licensing," Maynard said. That's why utility pricing, to date, has largely
been restricted to upstarts like Salesforce.com, where the whole business
model is built around alternative pricing, he said.
"I don't think you're going to see the big vendors change out of
inspiration," Maynard said. "This is going to be a slow transition that
happens as customers demand this."
Also, usage-based pricing is new and thus inspires all sorts of novel
legal issues, said Erik Larson, director of product management for
software maker Macromedia. That means lengthy contracts that are expensive
for software makers to hash out, making them reluctant to apply utility
pricing to all but their biggest accounts.
"People don't think much about the end-user agreement that comes with a
perpetual license, even though it's a big legal contract, because the
terms are pretty familiar, at this point," he said. "With utility pricing,
by its nature, everything's different. Those contracts are 200 pages and
take a whole team of lawyers to work out."
One of the biggest areas for potential dispute is what gets measured and
how. Software usage can be volatile and hard to predict, and coming up
with a metering scheme fair to all is a fine balancing act, said David
Rowley, vice president of business development for copy protection
specialist Macrovision.
"When you go in and lease a car, the contract says so many cents per mile,
and people have a pretty good idea of how much they're going to drive in a
year," Rowley said. "Software isn't necessarily like that."
Customers may also have issues with how much information the software
maker gets to collect. Usage patterns for key applications can provide
valuable information on a company's business plans, making companies
reluctant to share such data, even with the folks who made the
application, said Rowley, likening the situation to telling Sprint, "you
can keep track of my minutes but not whom I'm calling."
Dan Griffith, software asset manager at Motorola's Freescale Semiconductor
subsidiary, said there's big business awaiting whoever comes up with the
software equivalent of an electricity meter. "As the utility model moves
forward, somebody needs to make a meter the customer accepts and the
vendor accepts," he said.
STRATEGIC: Napster venture capitalist on "self-expression" payments
invested in the original Napster before it got shut down by lawsuits. He
is interviewed on the future of digital media at a blogging website called
Courante.
Barry was CEO of Napster and previously was a partner with Wilson Sonsini
Goodrich & Rosati, where he led the firm's interactive new media practice.
Hank holds a B.A. degree in economics with highest distinction from the
University of Michigan and a J.D. degree from Stanford Law School, where
he was managing editor of the Stanford Law Review.
The link is here:
http://www.corante.com/vision/digitalmedia/hank_barry.php
Here are excerpts:
"[W]e are in the early days of payments systems other than
advertising in what you might call the "self expression market." That is
changing, as we get into payment structures for RSS (subscriptions),
digital object marketplaces like Bitpass, etc. But there is no eBay for
digital objects, where an individual can choose to, say, offer one work on
a Creative Commons license and another for many dollars. That will
happen."
" . . . If you are looking at it economically, I can see a time when the
sum of all the individual information commerce has economics that look
like that of "traditional content producers," but it will be a long while.
And I am not certain that independent (i.e., small or individual)
producers will necessarily benefit. As I said, the tools for creating that
work are ahead of the channels for distribution (and the tools for
search). That is changing, as we get into new payment structures, etc."
STRATEGIC: European publisher says Google stealing content; free can't continue
European Publishers Group Says Online Content Cannot Remain Free
By HELENA SPONGENBERG, Associated Press Writer
Published: December 06, 2005 2:25 PM ET
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) European publishers warned Tuesday that they cannot keep
allowing Internet search engines such as Google Inc. to make money from their
content.
"The new models of Google and others reverse the traditional permission-based
copyright model of content trading that we have built up over the years," said
Francisco Pinto Balsemao, the head of the European Publishers Council, in
prepared remarks for a speech at a Brussels conference.
His stance backs French news agency AFP which is suing Google for pulling
together photos and story excerpts from thousands of news Web sites.
"It is fascinating to see how these companies 'help themselves' to
copyright-protected material, build up their own business models around what
they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the back
of other people's content," he said.
"This is unlikely to be sustainable for publishers in the longer term."
Consumers were drawn online by free content but this needed to change, he said.
"The value of content must be understood by consumers so that new business
models can evolve. Industry must have legal certainty and the confidence that
their intellectual property will be protected.
Balsemao said that good quality content produced by professionals would be the
"gold content" for new media.
Last March, Agence France-Presse claimed the "Google News" service infringed on
AFP's copyrights by reproducing information from the Web sites of subscribers
of the Paris-based news wholesaler.
It is seeking at least US$17.5 million (euro14.85 million) in damages. AFP says
Google is breaking rules on the "fair use" of copyright material because its
news site looks similar to AFP subscribers.
The Google News service, which debuted in 2002, scans some 4,500 news outlets
and highlights the top stories under common categories such as world and
sports.
Many stories carry a small image, or thumbnail, along with the headline and the
first sentence or two. Visitors can click on the headline to read the full
story at the source Web site.
Yahoo Inc. has a similar service, though it uses human editors and pays some
news sources, including AFP and The Associated Press, for rights.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HELENA SPONGENBERG, Associated Press Writer (letters@editorandpublisher.com)
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Berkshire Eagle: Middle cities are struggling
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/business/ci_5200210
HEADLINE: Middle cities are struggling
PUBLISHED: Saturday, February 10
By Hillary Chabot, Berkshire Eagle Boston Bureau
Middle cities often have empty storefronts dotting their once-vibrant
downtowns. The cities sprouted and grew into leaders during the industrial
era, but lost their purpose and are now struggling to reinvent themselves.
Pittsfield and 13 other middle cities have populations of more than 40,000
who dwell outside the Greater Boston area. The cities are trying to boost
their local economy while often facing fiscal instability and
higher-than-average crime and dropout rates.
Study to boost economic vitality
The Pioneer Institute, an independent think tank, studied the 14 cities
and investigated how to bring back economic vitality into urban middle
cities. Lowell, Springfield, Lawrence and Chicopee were all included in
the study.
Although Pittsfield is doing better than most middle cities, its residents
fall well below the state average per-capita income at roughly $20,000,
and only a little more than half of its students score "advanced" or
"proficient" on the math portion of the MCAS tests.
Middle cities continue to perform poorly despite the almost $1.5 billion
in state aid they received last year, James Stergios, director of the
institute, said.
"There are huge expenditures going to middle cities, and I'm wondering if
there is a way to use the money more effectively," he said.
Further state funds needed
Pittsfield, along with other midsize cities, can stimulate its local
economy further if additional state funds are promised for tangible
results, he explained.
"You offer them a carrot, but you tell localities what you think they need
to do," Stergios said. The state would invest more in the communities as
they make improvements in children's test scores, reducing crime and
managing their local finances.
A safe environment in which people can work and play is vital to economic
development, along with encouraging businesses created by the large
immigrant populations that are already present.
Although he may not have the answer to bringing back Pittsfield's former
bustling downtown, Stergios believes that asking the questions is an
important start.
"The goal is not to assume these measures are the right ones, but we think
this might be a good start for the discussion," he said.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Consumer groups say privacy still elusive for Internet users
ORIGINAL URL:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/personal_technology/15770608.htm
Posted on Mon, Oct. 16, 2006
Internet privacy options are few
CONSUMERS HAVE LITTLE SAY ON USE OF THEIR PERSONAL DATA
By Anick Jesdanun
Associated Press
NEW YORK - If you don't like what your favorite Internet search engine or e-commerce site does with information it collects about you, your options are limited to living with it or logging off.
Major search engines, for instance, all keep records of your searches for eeks, months or even years, often tied to your computer's Internet address or more. Retailers, meanwhile, generally presume the right to send marketing e-mails. Although online companies have become better at disclosing data practices, privacy advocates say the services' stated policies generally don't give consumers real choice.
``None of them have gotten to the point of giving a lot of controls in users' hands,'' said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the technology watchdog group Center for Democracy and Technology. Privacy policies ``are about notice . . . not about control.''
Recent developments -- from companies losing laptops containing sensitive data to Time Warner's AOL releasing customers' search terms -- have again turned the spotlight on Internet privacy. But the push for stronger federal protections is countered by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' desire to require Internet providers to preserve customer records to help prosecutors fight child pornography. Officials have released few details, though they say any proposal would keep the data in company hands until the government seeks a subpoena or other lawful process.
Federal law already limits how personal financial and health care data may be used, but U.S. privacy laws are generally considered weak compared with Europe and Canada. Industry groups have stepped in with guidelines that go beyond legal requirements. One group, Truste, requires member companies such as AOL and Yahoo to give consumers a way to decline sharing personally identifiable information with outside parties. Companies also must disclose any use of tracking technology and specify personal information collected and how it is used.
``The fact that we don't license every person on the Internet gives consumers (the ability) to shop around,'' said John Tomaszewski, Truste's vice president for legal, policy and compliance. ``We've got folks out there engaging in a higher standard than what is normally required.''
Some companies go even further. E-Loan customers worried about safeguards when data gets outsourced to India can choose to have loan applications processed domestically, though loans in such cases would take two additional days to close. Mark Lefanowicz, E-Loan's president, said about 80 percent of customers have agreed to outsourcing, and he said choice pre-empted any backlash.``They have the right to deal with us under their terms,'' he said. ``If we just disclosed we used an overseas provider, for a lot of customers it's irritating to them.''
Comcast, meanwhile, gives customers a range of options on how long its servers keep e-mail, while a small search engine called Ixquick promises to purge data within 48 hours. In other cases, companies have responded to backlash from customers. When Facebook recently allowed easier tracking of changes their friends make to personal profile pages, users threatened boycotts and forced the company to apologize and offer more privacy controls.
But such cases are rare. Consumers generally haven't demanded better privacy options the way they shop around for better prices or ease of use, said Carl Malamud, senior fellow at Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. ``As a consumer I don't choose based on practices for privacy,'' he said. ``I choose based on, and many consumers do the same.''
So Google remains the leading search engine, even as it won't say how long it keeps data on what people search. Like other companies, Google says such information is helpful in improving services and fighting computer attacks and fraud. Tom Lenard of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a technology think tank that shuns government regulation, added that data retention lets credit card companies identify unusual activities and gives car dealers the ability to offer instant loans. Limiting what companies can do would hurt consumers, Lenard said.
Many companies already restrict data sharing on their own but stop short of a total purge.``There is such a mantra built around the information economy and how valuable the information is of the user that companies don't want to give that up,'' said Schwartz, the Center for Democracy and Technology official.
Jason Catlett, founder of the privacy group Junkbusters, said individuals ought to have more opportunity to see, edit and delete records companies have on them. In many cases, he said, customers couldn't easily purge credit card numbers or their accounts entirely once they register with personal information, often a requirement just to make a single online purchase. ``There's still a lot of diversity in information practices,'' he said, ``but there has been a convergence to what the average person would consider too low a standard.''
----------------------------------------------------------------
The article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Bloggers have forced media to become more transparent, Powers says
Bill Powers, media critic for National Journal, talks about how much more
"transparent" the news industry has become in the age of blogging. And he
says that is probably a good thing.
ORIGINAL URL:
http://www.prweek.com/us/news/open/free/blogs/589577
From PRWeek Online . . . .
Interview: Bill Powers
Journalist Q&A
PR Week USA Aug 28 2006 15:38
Bill Powers got his start in journalism as a researcher for Bob Woodward.
From there, he moved on to a writing career at The Washington Post and The
New Republic. Nine years ago, he landed at the National Journal. Powers
spoke to PRWeek about the masses of media critics chasing thin-skinned
reporters.
PRWeek: Why did you get into journalism in the first place?
William Powers: I hadn't thought about that one in a while. I was working
on Capitol Hill in the Senate, right out of college, and I guess I just
realized I really didn't have it in me to be a lawyer or a politician. And
I had always liked to write, and I had this job offer really come out of
the blue to work for Bob Woodward at the Post as kind of his researcher,
and it was too good to pass up. And I was very lucky to start there. I
helped him write one of his books. That took about three years until that
was done and the Post kind of gave me a tryout as a reporter. And I made
it, and they hired me and I stayed there for quite a number of years and
had all kinds of beats before I became a critic/columnist.
PRWeek: And why did you kind of move over to the media critic side?
Powers: I was edging that way anyway at the Post by inclination. That was
really where my interests were. And what happened was there was a magazine
column at the Post, called the "Magazine Reader," that had been around
forever; in fact, the original columnist, I'm told, was Katherine Graham.
And it had always been done for years as a kind of summary of what was in
the magazines this week. And the fellow who was doing it. took a new
assignment, and it was just unoccupied. So although I was a reporter in
the business section at the time, I went to the style section, and said,
"Hey, I read a lot of magazines, I'm interested in that column, could I
give it a try?" and they said "Sure, do a few columns and we'll see if we
like them." And I did a few columns, and I did them in a slightly
different way. I set a lot of critical eye to the thing, because that was
my natural bent.
And they liked it, and I turned it into a basically critical look, rather
than a digest. It was like, "Here's what's in magazines lately, and here's
what I think about it." And people seemed to read it. That worked for
quite a while, people seemed to like it. I did that for a few years, and
then I had a nice offer from Mike Kelly, who was then editing the New
Republic, to go there and start their first media column. So I did that,
and then was hired by National Journal, just a year later, to basically do
the same thing for them-- to have a media column. So I have been there for
a long time now, almost 9 years.
PRWeek: Any pluses or minuses to doing the press column at a political
type of magazine?
Powers: No, it's kind of a nice plus, because as far as the National
Journal goes, generally speaking, I've got the beat to myself in a way. I
mean, people do stories about the media, but I'm sort of the media person
and for our readers it's a little bit of a change of pace. And I think,
thanks to the web exposure- my column is one of the features in the
magazine where you don't have to have a password to get in there - so
thanks to that web exposure, it also kind of keeps the National Journal
brand out there, maybe in places where people wouldn't be reading it as
much because they are not as political as Washington. Our readership tends
to be focused in Washington, but thanks to Romenesko, when I have a column
up there we might have some readers plugging in from all over the place.
PRWeek: With the Web, now almost anybody can be a media critic. Do you
think the quality of media criticism is still there?
Bill Powers: Suddenly, there are about 10 million more media critics than
there were 10 years ago. I find that exciting. It's funny, there are all
these bloggers and all these people who are instant media critics, and yet
there are a lot of traditional news outlets that still don't have anyone
doing media criticism... My philosophy is, the more, the merrier.
And I actually think there are a lot of bloggers who are so good at it
that I sort of wish they would be picked up by mainstream outlets and do
both. Because I just think it's a topic that's really inexhaustible. I do
this weekly column and I never have a shortage of ideas. There is always
so much happening. And I do find that people really are engaged by this
subject and talk about it. I think the conventional wisdom in journalism
is that media criticism is an inside-the-business topic and it's really
just going to be read by other journalists. And I don't think that's true
anymore. I think there is a broader interest. Everybody sort of becomes a
media critic, and people follow the stuff. I just did a public appearance
last night jointly with Dan Okrent, the former New York Times ombudsman.
It was a charity thing for a public library, and they had us in a
congregational church in a town up where I live. All these hundreds of
people showed up! It was great. They were all interested, and they asked
incredibly intelligent questions, it was just fascinating. It wasn't
journalists, it was people from the public who really follow this stuff
and care about journalism.
PRWeek: So you are not of the opinion that to be a media critic, you have
to come up through the ranks of journalism for years and years?
Powers: Well, I think it helps a lot to have experience as a reporter.
When Dan Okrent went to the Times, there was some internal grumbling
because he had never been a newspaper reporter. But he had been a reporter
- he had all this magazine experience, and a lot of editing experience.
And I think it's hard, if you have never been a journalist, to understand
how the business works. I think there are people who can do it. Obviously
there are great movie critics who have never written a movie; most of
them, obviously. But I do think that the folkways and values and just the
inside knowledge of how journalism works is a bit arcane and hard to
acquire from the outside, and so it is trickier if you're an outsider. But
I read some of these blogs, and these people are really good and astute.
And they are coming at it as a consumer, which is a very valuable point of
view. You really want to know what a smart reader thinks even if they have
never been a journalist. So I think there is room in there. I would never
count anybody out just because they have never done it.
PRWeek: Do you think the rise of media criticism is tied at all to the
decline of media credibility?
Powers: I do think one of the reasons things look so bad is that the
business has become, in a very short period of time, extremely
transparent. It was not very transparent just 15 years ago. And suddenly,
because of technology and competition among all these media outlets,
institutions like The New York Times and CBS News have sort of had to take
the shades off the windows. They've had to show the public how they do
things, and how they work, and how mistakes are made.
PRWeek: What do you think of the future of the newspaper industry?
Powers: I feel that is above my pay grade to say. I don't get into the
business side of stuff very often, and so I frankly don't understand how
the ad business and the cost of newsprint and all these factors play into
it, so I would be really hesitant, I feel like I'm not on solid ground to
predict. But I was asked this question [recently], "Are newspapers about
to die?" I think that while we are in this period of structural change
that feels very chaotic and threatening to journalism. I do think that
part of the reason it feels so threatening is that it is structural, and
that all these ways of presenting journalism that we have grown used to in
the last 100 years, particularly newspapers, are losing their firm
footing. But that doesn't mean that if newspapers shrink or go away they
are not going to be replaced by something else. The crucial thing, in my
mind, is "Is there a market for, and a popular hunger for, truth?" And I
just think that is a constant of society and it's not going to go away.
Even if newspapers disappear, there will be a lot of people who can make a
living digging up the truth because there will be a market for that.
PRWeek: How well do you think the press has covered the Bush
administration so far?
Powers: It's a very mixed record at best. Obviously, the pre-war argument
regarding weapons of mass destruction was a huge failure by the media
establishment... But I do not agree with those who feel that journalists
have been completely flattened by these people - that we as a profession
have lost our desire to get behind the curtain and get good stories about
the White House. I just think that they're hard to get.
PRWeek: How open do you find media organizations to be in terms of being
the subject of coverage themselves?
Powers: There is a lot of thin skin out there in journalism. It's very
funny how these people cover others all day long, but when they receive a
phone call from somebody like me, they become so uncomfortable and
prickly... And it's kind of funny because they're journalists. They're
supposed to be the people who believe in openness.
PRWeek: I always think that might be because journalists have seen how
easy it is to mess a story up.
Powers: That's part of it. Other journalists know how it works and they
know easy it is to stitch together a story, sometimes just on a couple
facts. And how often stories don't hang together behind the curtain as
well as they might, and so they are worried that is going to happen to
them. Frankly that's why I think media criticism is all the more important
today, because we want to get more people doing this who are good at it
and who acquire a reputation for basically getting it right, or for being
trustworthy, so journalists will return their calls.
PRWeek: Any advice that you would like to give to PR people?
Powers: I hear a lot of complaints from journalists about PR people who
kind of don't get what we do as journalists. My impression is that a lot
of people go into the PR profession believing that as media consumers,
they automatically know how the news business works. And a lot of them
don't.
PRWeek: That seems to be the most common complaint
Powers: That is the main issue. But then, once in a while you run into one
of these people - frankly they're either people who are either really,
really big media omnivores, who have been fans of journalism for years, or
they are people who have worked in journalism themselves - and they
completely get it, A to Z. And they don't waste anybody's time, they know
exactly what you need and how to help you, and they know how not to get in
your way. And those people are great. They're a treasure. I don't know if
they're appreciated by the people they work for, but journalists sure
appreciate them.
Name: William Powers
Outlet: National Journal
Title: Media columnist
Preferred contact method: bpowers@nationaljournal.com
Web site: www.nationaljournal.com/powers.htm
Garrison, five current journalists earn 2006 Yankee Quill honors
By The Associated Press
Published August 29 2006
BOSTON -- Five New England journalists, including the crusading anti-slavery editor William Lloyd Garrison, are the recipients of the 2006 Yankee Quill Award for their contributions to improving journalism in the region.
The award is presented annually by the Academy of New England Journalists through the auspices of the New England Society of Newspaper Editors and the New England Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. It is considered the highest individual honor awarded by fellow journalists in the region.
This year's honorees include a special posthumous award to Garrison, a native of Newburyport, and editor of the Liberator, a weekly abolitionist newspaper in Boston. Garrison was considered the most impassioned voice in America for ending slavery and was invited by President Lincoln to help raise the nation's flag again at Fort Sumter, S.C., at the close of the
Civil War.
Other recipients include:
- Gary Lapierre, managing editor of WBZ Radio in Boston;
- David Offer, executive editor of Central Maine Newspapers in Augusta;
- Chris Powell, managing editor and vice president for news of the Journal Inquirer, of Manchester, Conn.;
- Walter Robinson, assistant managing editor/Spotlight Team, The Boston Globe.
They will receive the Yankee Quill award on Thursday, Nov. 16, at the 51th anniversary convention of the New England Society of Newspaper Editors at
the Omni Parker House in Boston.
Lapierre, who is retiring this December after a 46-year career in New England broadcasting, will be honored for his "intelligent and thoughtful delivery of the news" and practice of "service journalism."
Offer will be recognized for a 41-year career that includes serving as the top editor at the Newport Daily News in Rhode Island and the Central Maine Newspapers' Kennebec Journal in Augusta and Morning Sentinel in Waterville. He is also a former investigative reporter at the Hartford Courant, and played a key role in the development of the national Investigative Reporters and Editors organization.
Powell, whose entire journalism career has been at the Journal Inquirer, has been one of the state's leading advocates for access to government. He has spent hours testifying at legislative hearings, writes numerous columns on the issue and files more freedom of information requests on behalf of the public than anyone in the state. His paper is known for breaking investigative stories and was the first to report on the scandal involving Gov. John Rowland.
Robinson has held 15 assignments during 34 years with The Boston Globe - from reporter, chief of bureaus at Boston City Hall, Massachusetts State House and the Middle East to city editor and assistant managing editor for local news. His latest assignment was directing the investigative Spotlight Team, whose work on the clergy sexual abuse scandal earned the Globe the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. Robinson, who is retiring this summer, will teach journalism at Northeastern University, his alma mater.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
