No, You Can’t See That! – Internet Censorship in China and Around the World

On June 30, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

Internet censorship is control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet. (Wikipedia)

Attempts to censor Internet content have been around for years. In the good old days of the US Internet we had a lot of innovative censorship ideas including the Communications Decency Act of 1996 and the “clipper chip.” In recent years we’ve added additional utilities demanded free speech, john savageauby the Children’s Internet Protection Act and Online Predators Act.

It is not only the United States. Many countries around the world restrict Internet access for a variety of reasons, both political and to prevent access to “indecent” materials. Not surprising, governments which are the most repressive, such as Burma/Myanmar, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and China, have the harshest controls over who can access the Internet – and what they can or cannot view via the Internet. Most of these countries are concerned with free access to world news and opinion, with pornography a slightly lower censorship priority.

China recently took the requirement for censoring internet access to a new level by demanding PC manufacturers and computer vendors to install Internet filtering software on each device sold within China. The filtering software is called “Green Dam,” and is causing an uproar not only within the Internet community, but also among several governments.

“The aim of this internet filter, contrary to what Chinese authorities contend, is clearly to censor internet and limit freedom of expression,” the European Commission said in a Statement. (AFP)

“We therefore urge China to postpone the implementation of this mandate and request that a meeting is organized at technical level to better understand what is at stake.”

According to the Washington Post, the Green Dam software is designed to protect viewers from pornographic images and content. However it is also clear the software is also capable of providing additional filtering utilities for blocking politically sensitive content, including news. In addition, many in the Internet community believe the software is not only technically flawed – posing many access and security risks, but also designed to provide Chinese officials access to data stored within individual computers and networks.

This is disturbing, as our computers are now under frequent attack by a growing list of nefarious utilities such as adware, viruses, spyware, and other malicious code. State-sponsored spyware runs counter to the intent of the Internet, and puts those countries well into the list of “Enemies of the Internet,” as provided by the Open Net Initiative (a partnership among several universities with the objective to “investigate, expose and analyze filtering and surveillance practices in a credible and non-partisan fashion.”).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation/EFF believes that Internet users and content providers have a set of basic rights to free speech:

  • You Have the Right to Blog Anonymously
  • You Have the Right to Keep Sources Confidential
  • You Have the Right to Make Fair Use of Intellectual Property
  • You have the Right to Allow Reader’s Comments Without Fear
  • You Have the Right to Protect Your Server from Government Seizure
  • You Have the Right to Freely Blog about Elections
  • You Have the Right to Blog about Your Workplace
  • You Have the Right to Access as Media
  • Know Your Rights and Prepare to Defend Them

This set of rights rubs against the grain of US politicians, who have tried to limit the Internet’s desire for open communications and the basic rights of internet use through laws such as the Patriot Act, which the American Civil Liberties Union/ACLU believes gives government the right to “threaten your fundamental freedoms by giving the government the power to access to your medical records, tax records, information about the books you buy or borrow without probable cause, and the power to break into your home and conduct secret searches without telling you for weeks, months, or indefinitely.” This includes having access to your computer, your network and online profile, your access records, and your usage of Internet web sites.

Companies such as Yahoo and Google have frequently come under attack by not only Internet rights advocates, but also the US Government when their desire to do business within China resulted in both companies cooperating with Chinese authorities to not only install censoring software within their product, but also turn over user records. Yahoo allegedly turned over records of some Chinese dissidents, resulting in those persons being imprisoned.

Several organizations are developing software that allows citizen journalists in countries such as Iran to access the Internet, report anonymously, and beat the censors. The Global Internet Freedom Consortium offers their GIFC Anti-Censorship Tools Bundle to help citizen journalists not only transmit their stories, but also read news online which is being aggressively censored by the Iranian government.

Censorship is a very hot topic. While the US and other governments hop on the bandwagon to promote Internet freedom, at the same time they are enacting restrictive laws within their own countries. The good news for Internet freedom fighters is that news, like the Internet packet, will eventually find its way around blocks, censors, filters, and restrictions to the eyeballs and minds which crave a view to that which is not known.

Find out more about Internet censorship, form your own opinions – for or against censorship, and make a stand. You might fall somewhere in the middle of the issues, you might be teetering on the far edge of each issue, but the Internet is a global tool, and you have the right to make your voice heard.

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

Tagged with: • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Blogs and Trust – the Debate Continues

On June 29, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

Riding home on a train from New York City to Long Beach (NY) gives a creative mind a lot of time to think through a variety of topics, and form a variety of opinions on those topics. In the current wired world, there are many different methods of bringing those thoughts to both friends and others via tools available via the Internet.

“I find time (to write) in airplanes, taxis, and while riding the train. I will write myself articles on the Blackberry, email to myself, and publish (to a blog) when I get home” Hunter Newby

Blogs are becoming a very popular way of bringing your story to both your friends and the rest of the connected world. Friends who read your blogs (or email), tend to have fairly high confidence that what you write is based on some level of fact. Or they simply enjoy reading your accounts of events happening in your part of the world.

Corporate blogs, or blogs based on meeting the marketing objectives of a company, are generally not accepted with a high level of trust, or respect (according to a recent Forrester report). On the other hand, those companies promoting the work of individual bloggers with an identity that both supplements and transcends the corporation tend to attract a more loyal following of readers that may even continue after the blogger leaves a company.

Hunter Newby, CEO and Founder of Allied Fiber, and seasoned blog writer, has a large following of readers spread over several subject areas. Newby often uses blogs as a record of conversations and people he meets. “I come across people every single day with unique, interesting, and useful stories, knowledge and information” says Newby.

Those conversations and experiences should not be lost. To ensure the conversations retain their value to current and future readers, it is important for Newby to format his blogs and material in a way that is “not only useful for readers today, but also informative for people in the future.”

Blogging and reporting current events are different. While journalists provide expertise in evaluating specific events, good bloggers also bring a high level of tacit knowledge and experience to the blog.

If a writer like Newby discusses a topic such as Carrier Hotels or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), his opinions and views are based on many years as a professional in the industry.

When interviewing or recording conversations with other professionals in the field, he is able to apply that tacit knowledge with the new conversation, and draw conclusions and opinions not possible if the same conversation had been recorded by a journalist.

The main issue with reading those blogs is trust. The reader has to assume that either the blogger is an expert in his field, or the blogger’s work can easily be cross-referenced and fact-checked. Most good bloggers will be a mix of both, understanding that new readers and casual readers will initially look at blogs with a level of skepticism – until a level of trust in the credibility of a blogger is attained.

Newby also warns that blogging may be used in nefarious ways, including deception and intentional misrepresentation of fact. Giving the example of Orson Welles original broadcast of the “War of the Worlds,” he notes that people expect media outlets to record and represent the truth. Orson Welles was a real, card-carrying journalist, and nobody had any reason to doubt his word.

The result of this breach of trust is a matter of history – the people of America actually believed the country was being invaded by Martians, and it caused mass-hysteria around the country.

While blogs may appear in an expendable format (most blogs are a roll of new articles by date, and in many cases are placed in a database that may or may not be permanent), search engine utilities provided by companies such as Google are becoming much better at indexing blogs. Google also provides a very powerful search utility for blog topics, adding another level of “findability” to blog topics.

As print journalism continues to lose ground to online media and blogging, and the number of bloggers continues to grow (according to the blogHerald this number may exceed 50 million), we will need to add more filters to blogs, remain skeptical, and also embrace blogs as a new media of not only receiving news, but also learning more from people around the world with ideas and opinions of interest to us in our personal and professional lives.

So the prevailing opinion is that blogs are not a problem, and that blogs are in fact a great tool. As with all things, people bring value, or take value away from the media. Blog on, and bring value to your blog.  Be a citizen journalist, gather readers, and express yourself in a positive way. Base your message or stories on fact, or back it up with solid experience.

“I get emails from people all over the world responding to my articles. I’ve even had messages from soldiers on the front lines in Iraq asking me questions on how to call home using VoIP.” Hunter Newby

If your message brings value, then you will also, as Hunter Newby, be driven to educate people in mass. Now that is a personal characteristic we can respect, and thank the blog for helping bring it to us!

 

John Savageau, Long Beach (California)

Tagged with: • • • • • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Cloud Computing Discussion Matures at Structure 09 in San Francisco

On June 26, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

Structure 08 was only a year ago, but it seems like an entire generation of discussion has passed in those short 12 months. Prior to Structure 08, Cloud Computing was not an industry household word. Now it is not only a word, but a concept that is gaining recognition and debate faster than any other comparable technology or service.

Structure 09’s Theme was “Put Cloud Computing to Work.” Most of the keynote speakers and panelists set aside their marketing hats, and sunk their energy into reviewing the prior year’s advances in cloud technology, as well as looking into a future that recognizes the challenges and great opportunities of cloud computing.

“Last year cloud was something we talked about, now it is a strategy.” Om Malik, Founder, the GigaOM Network

Paul Sagan, CEO at Akamai (a very large global content delivery network/CDN) discussed topics related to metering cloud services, as well as hitting a strong note on the “green” qualities of cloud.

As cloud virtualizes servers and compute capacity, and makes individual compute resources “multi-tenant,” (multi-tenant refers to the concept of many applications from many different companies operating on a single, virtualized compute resource infrastructure), the requirement for power, cooling, and individual data cente3r construction is reduced, thereby reducing our “carbon footprint.”

Russ Daniels, CTO at HP, provided a great analogy on the evolution of computing .vs the evolution of the automobile.

In the early days of the assembly line, cars were all stamped out the same. Little or no difference existed between cars, with a world of automobiles where everything looked about the same.

“You were free to order any color of Model T you wanted, as long as the color you ordered was black.”

Computing went through a similar evolution, starting with time-sharing on mainframes, and moving on personal computers which were highly configurable. With cloud computing you get a standard infrastructure, which can handle an increasingly flexible number of applications. The main thing is that with cloud computing, you are able to gain much better economics from either your own enterprise infrastructure, or even better outsourcing into a public cloud service.

At some point everything will become a service.

“A world of information, opportunities, and experiences. From computing power to business processes, to interpersonal interactions. Delivered wherever, however, whenever you need it.” Russ Daniels, CTO HP

Another theme discussed during the conference was the idea that cloud computing, or the availability of cloud computing, allows us to think about problems, and solving problems differently. Clouds give problems solving resources that are not only scale independent, but also serve to user experiences from actual hardware functionality.

“Delegate things to people who are better than you. The average company has no business running their own servers.” Lew Moorman, Cloud and Strategy officer, Rackspace

One area of heated debates was the idea of specialty clouds, or community of interest clouds (COINs). Some panelists thought COINs were important, and allowed for better standards compliance (HIPAA, etc). Others thought that once you have created a COIN resource you can no longer refer to the infrastructure as a cloud infrastructure. Not resolved.

Other areas discussed at length included:

  • Cloud interoperability
  • Avoiding cloud applications and vendors who attempt to lock in users with proprietary applications and platforms
  • What, if any, is the opportunity for smaller cloud players
  • What happens when parts of a cloud fail – are there going to be SLAs?
  • What is the danger of “cloud washing,” or calling everything cloud to jump on the hype bandwagon

Mark Benioff, Chairman and CEO of SalesForce.Com gave a very powerful keynote speech on the topic of real-time systems. Citing examples such as Twitter, Benioff described a world where the actual data being sent could be anyplace in a distributed cloud. People on the streets of Iran, in natural or man-made disasters, anyplace where information needs immediate transfer to one or many people. Iran cannot block Twitter, because Iran does not know where to block Twitter.

Mark Mullenweg from WordPress discussed how a small idea was made very large, all without significant investment in any data center resources.

“The biggest mistake we made as a startup was buying servers

“All applications must be written with the intent of future residence on a multi-tenant cloud platform

“Don’t over-engineer with servers, as technology changes too fast and you will get stuck.” Matt Mullenweg, Founding developer, WordPress

This was another great conference, and I am sure the heated and healthy debates tabled during the conference will continue on until Structure 10 next year. Our industry needs the debate, and the outcome will be a better technology than we have today, in an industry that is here to stay.

Hats off to the GigaOM group

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

Tagged with: • •
 
1 Comments
Leave A Response

Don’t Give Up on Metro Rail Services

On June 23, 2009, In LA Life, By Administrator

My preferred route from downtown Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles is the LA Metro Rail Blue Line. I pay $1.25 for a one-way trip, $5 for a day pass, and an additional investment point-to-point of around 45 minutes. That actually returns an ROI of +25 minutes during the evening, as the commute via rail is nearly half the time as driving on the 710 or 110 freeways.

Most of the Blue Line riders are blue collar workers, with a few professionals – such as myself – peppering the platforms in the Long Beach area. The Blue Line route takes you through some of the more famous (or notorious) sections of Los Angeles, including Artesia, Compton, Watts, and So. Central LA.

In 5 years riding the Blue Line I have never seen an incident of misconduct, other than the occasional over-zealous sheriff deputy asserting himself as a combat-ready ticket checker, ensuring no miscreant traveler has dared climb the train platform without having paid their fare.

All-in-all the LA Metro Blue Line is convenient, low-cost transportation serving the needs of Long Beach and South Los Angeles Country workers and commuters.

Each day LA Metro rail services carry around 300,000 riders, with very little drama compared to other large city transit systems. If you add Metro Bus Services, that number bounces up to around 1.6 million riders each day, making it the third largest public transportation system in the United States.

About once a year you have an accident involving a bus or rail car which results in a serious injury or death. Thus, if you believe in averages, one person in around 584 million passengers will be in danger of death or serious injury using Los Angeles County public transportation.

Compare this to the road and freeway system, where the California Highway Patrol site lists an average of around 60 serious traffic accidents (injuries) each day in the LA County area. To the credit of Los Angeles, the police do enforce strict jay-walking laws, limiting the number of pedestrian accidents in busy intersections.

The recent tragic accidents on the Washington DC Metro highlights the scale and violence of a train collision. Nine people died, and many more seriously injured. Tragic. And since the collision was head-on, it likely had human error as the cause. Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty described the Monday evening collision as “the deadliest in the subway system’s 33-year history.” (AFP)

Even with this globally viewed event, and the violent images displayed, metro rail and bus transit is a good thing. Metro moves a tremendous number of people, for a very reasonable cost, with very good frequency. Metro is environmentally sound, using electricity and CNG (compressed natural gas) for fuel. Metro rail is good for the people of Los Angeles, the city, and our precious So Cal environment.

Let’s not use Washington DC’s tragic event to influence or sway our confidence in the LA Metro. Rather let’s continue to concentrate our efforts to encourage development, construction, and use of public mass transit systems. We will develop safer, more efficient, and more attractive trains and buses, even in a city with a traditional love affair with the automobile.

Ride the Metro, and send comments with your impressions and experiences!

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

Tagged with: • • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

The Dangers of Citizen Journalism

On June 21, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

The current events in Iran have clearly shown us citizen journalism may bring us news and snapshots of activities denied to traditional reporters. The CNN “iReport” shows events on the streets of Tehran denied to the professional cameras and interpretation of CNN’s seasoned staff. However, to bring us those iReports, citizen journalists take on risks normally avoided by citizens. It that risk too high? The dangers too great?

On June 20th a citizen journalist submitted a video showing the brutal death (“Youtube Please don’t delete. This is happening in streets of my country World should know.”) of a young Iranian woman protester on streets of Tehran. The motivation for taking the video was to ensure the rest of the world would be exposed to the horrific cost of the demonstrations in the streets, and the struggle would not be suppressed or forgotten. The individual taking the video clearly put himself in great danger, making a decision the cost of recording this event was too import to be lost to history.

Fox News recently teamed with MySpace to encourage citizen journalists to submit their stories via the “uReport” upload utility. The Weather Channel asks viewers to submit their videos of hurricanes and tornados, and local stations such as CBS 4 in Denver which made national news when a 6 year old girl uploaded images and video of a tornado cloud forming with a cheap child’s toy camera.

In a previous article discussing wild fires in Santa Barbara, California, students using Twitter made news by taking on the role of both emergency services and new media. The students not only kept the news media informed of real-time events and status of the wild fire, but also acted as a first line of notification to the local community by sending out warnings to evacuate as the fire rapidly moved into residential communities.

The desire for people to gain their 15 minutes of fame may compel them to take a more active citizen journalist role. KTLA (CW), a local broadcast station in Los Angeles tries to get their professional reporters into the best proximity of any breaking story, including the wild fires frequently affecting Southern California.

KTLA goes to great effort explaining to their viewers each of their reporters goes through extensive training with CalFire (the state’s main fire agency) to ensure they are able to not only get as close as possible to the fires, but also are aware of the best way to protect themselves from fire. They are also most often embedded with fire teams that are also well-protected in the event a fire changes and puts the team in danger.

Citizen journalists usually do not have the training to understand either the dangers of recording disasters or dangerous events, and may take unreasonable risks in their attempt to record the event.

As news services and media continue to suffer the effects of an economy or changing media environment, we will continue to see more requests and encouragement for citizen journalists to supplement traditional journalism. This is good, as it greatly increases the potential sources of images, video, and on-the-scene information. It also increases the potential for fraud and possible misrepresentation of “fact,” which would normally pass through the checks and balances of editors and publishers.

Citizen journalism is here to stay. Multimedia-enabled mobile phones, Twitter, email, and other social networking media make recording events and transmitting those images and reports around the world a simple and immediate process. Like any other source of unverified information, we need to be vigilant in our skepticism of those events.

Recording history is essential to our ability to understand how we have arrived at this snapshot in time. A student in Tehran taking extreme personal risk to record events happening in the streets will produce an image that will last forever in Iran’s history. Future generations will benefit from that commitment to citizen journalism.

However, we must also ensure we do not encourage 6 year old girls to spend a lot of time recording tornados. History will be full of images of tornados, and will be grateful for those who took the time to record those images. History will not be kind to those who encourage children and amateurs to take great risks. Citizen journalism will need to strike a balance.

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

Tagged with: •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Citizen Journalists Take On Iran's Government

On June 19, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

Citizen journalism (also known as “public”, “participatory”, “democratic” or “street journalism”) is the concept of members of the public “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information.” Wikipedia

On Wednesday, CNN frequently showed amateur videos, with a graphic that labeled them “unverified material.” It showed a YouTube video of the aftermath of an apparent raid at Tehran University. The video showed rooms that appeared to have been burned extensively.  New York Times

Citizen Journalism took on a very clear role this week as the Iranian government continued to deport journalists admitted with temporary visas (to cover the Iranian elections).  As western journalists were told reporting on the demonstrations and protests against perceived election fraud was illegal (“We warn those who propagate riots and spread rumors that our legal action against them will cost them dearly,” a statement from the military force said), the burden of reporting fell on the shoulders of Iranian citizens participating in the demonstrations.

Most of the reporting comes in the form of videos uploaded to YouTube, email, and updates to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  The reporting is generally a recording of events, which is then commented upon by western news media.

During the 1993 Russian Constitutional Crisis citizen journalists used email and Usenet newsgroups to transmit near real-time updates on activities as the Army moved to occupy the White House, and many Russian citizens were killed or injured.  This supplemented the very limited news media, which was not officially allowed near the events.  Perhaps one of the first examples of the “Internet Age of Journalism.”

Even in the United States, visual accounts of events involving police brutality become instantly available to the rest of the world.  This was clearly demonstrated when Oscar Grant was shot on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train platform News Years night.  Dozens of citizens recorded the incident on their mobile phones, uploading the images to YouTube and social networking sites directly from the platform within seconds of the event.

Now as mobile phone and computerized video files continue to flow from Iran to the rest of the world, keeping people up to date with events in Iran, we can reflect on changes taking place in the Internet age of information.  CNN reporters, who have been with us providing news since the 1980s, are now barred from providing real time views of Tehran.  They are taking “iReports” provided by Iranian citizens, and providing commentary on videos that cannot be independently verified.  We need to assume that video being used is an accurate record of events – perhaps a big assumption in a world also well known for use of media deception and propaganda.

However one message is very clear.  Regardless of the validity of visual and citizen provided accounts of events, it will be very difficult for governments to contain or suppress news in the future. The Internet has provided a means to instantly globalize information and news.  Governments will forever be held accountable for their actions in the court of world opinion.

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

Tagged with: • • • • • •
 
2 Comments
Leave A Response

The Unpaid Citizen Journalist – What Value?

On June 16, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

“If you put out a product, and nobody wants to pay for it, you don’t have a product.”  David Simon

A debate is heating up on the topic of unpaid, or “Citizen Journalists.”  This issue is whether or not citizen journalists are qualified to represent news to the public, and if the news they distribute has any inherent value.

Traditional newspapers such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Christian Science Monitor have gone to online-only editions.  Most existing print newspapers also have online editions, and those online editions are gradually opening up to include blogs, including non-paid blogs opened to citizen journalists with little or no experience and formal training in journalism.

Citizen journalism is not limited to online newspapers.  Broadcast media and cable media such as CNN solicit citizen journalism through their “iReports,” which encourage non-journalists to record events and submit them online for distribution without pay.  The citizen journalist gives up the copyright to their contribution, and newsreaders or other journalists add further comment.

Leonard Brody, CEO of NowPublic, states that “Our job is to provide an army of people who are eyes and ears that journalists can build around.”  NowPublic describes their business as a group the “collects, organizes, and distributes news from unconventional sources.”

Brody believes journalism is still in the responsibility of professional journalists, however those journalists do not always have the depth of resources available to build credible stories, and citizen journalists fill the role of collecting information that can be interpreted by journalists.

Brody continues “telling someone they are going to be a citizen journalist is like telling them they are going to be a citizen dentist; it requires training and the average person just can’t do it.”

On the other hand, SF Weekly criticizes the San Francisco Chronicle’s use of citizen journalists stating “By now, aficionados of San Francisco Web journalism have probably noticed the San Francisco Chronicle’s new “City Brights” online feature; a group of “luminaries” who, essentially, blog about whatever they see fit. We’re ostensibly supposed to be compelled to read it.”

Mark Watson, a freelance journalism activist in the UK believes that “such a working culture has become prevalent in media jobs because employers know they can get away with using unpaid workers in this way.”  “People either do not realize they should be paid, or feel unable to claim. As a result employers can tap in to a steady stream of unpaid workers – and so do.”

Newspapers have always had a reader’s page, or opinion page, allowing readers to put their opinions in print.  Those opinions are not checked for facts, and are clearly identified by the paper as opinions expressed by the reader, and do not reflect the opinion of the newspaper.

Citizen journalism now takes a further step towards replacing some of the activities previously performed only by professionals. 

In a recent speech titled “The Incredible Shrinking Newsroom: How can fewer reporters meet increasing demands for coverage?” at the University of Oregon, Marty Baron, editor of the Boston Globe acknowledged:

“In many ways, we are headed for a thrilling new world of media. Technology allows journalists today to tell stories in ways that were never possible before, to reach audiences larger than ever, and to build a tight and more intimate bond with the public. For young journalists, there can be remarkable opportunity as old media models crumble and as an entrepreneurial culture takes hold in a field that has long been dominated by overbearing media behemoths. There is a lot to be excited about, and a lot that is healthy.”

Rick Daysog of the Honolulu Advertiser agrees, reinforcing the need for news media to embrace “new models of communications and media distribution.”  The Honolulu Advertiser does have nearly 50 bloggers posting topics from surfing to high school sports available online, with most of those being posted by unpaid citizen journalists.

How can an unpaid citizen journalist dedicate the time to develop and uncover facts in a story, when the journalist needs to focus the majority of their effort on their primary salaried job?  Can you really drill into a local environmental issue if your efforts are primarily in recording what you see on the surface of an issue?   Is it possible journalism will fall into a snapshot looking at the façade of a story, which may be a deception?

Of course seasoned journalists such as David Simon (producer of the HBO serial “The Wire” and former Baltimore Sun crime reporter) will tell you that unless you work the “beat,” you will never learn the real story.  He also sees reporting as a profession.  You go to work every day, earning money to pay your “mortgage, car payments, and living expenses.” 

If you are not earning a living from journalism, you are probably “not producing a product that has any real value.”

Marty Baron continues to voice additional risks in the new media and the potential of big business to further corrupt the quality of news.  Brody says “there also are risks for the practice of journalism. There are risks that journalism will turn cynically to the quick, the easy, and the cheap – that a story’s greatest accomplishment will be to get a million page views, rather than to correct an injustice, or unearth wrongdoing, or give voice to people who would not otherwise be heard.”

Part 4 of this series will explore the future of advertising in media.
John Savageau, Long Beach

Tagged with: • • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Journalists and Bloggers – Conflict or the Future of Media?

On June 12, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

Can an enthusiast blogger generate the level of experience and credibility of a card-carrying journalist?

In part 2 of our series on journalism, newspapers, and the new media, we look at a comparison of bloggers and professional journalists.  The question, recently voiced with strong emotion by David Simon (film producer and former reporter for the Baltimore Sun), asks whether or not bloggers can adequately research and write on topics traditionally reported on by professional journalists.

In a powerful speech given to the National Press Corps in Washington DC, Simon expressed concern that the art of reporting, performed by professional journalists, is being lost.  This is partly the result of local newspapers being shut down, or with local news being replaced by wire service content. 

Professional journalists and reporters spend years developing their skills, personal networks and sources, and are able to dig into stories at a level not possible by a casual or enthusiast blogger.  In addition, the reporter has editors and the media institution behind him, providing not only support, but also a professional team to ensure facts are straight and good form is maintained.

A blogger, in general, does not need to walk a beat, develop a core of informants and news resources, and in most cases will post their blog without any 3rd party or professional editing.  Fact checking and topical accuracy are not as important as blogging frequency and search engine optimization.

Rick Daysog, reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser is not as pessimistic as Simon.   While he agrees good journalism requires a lot of “gumshoeing,” he also believes there is a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge within the blogging community.  Daysog also believes there are many people who are “very good writers, but do not fall into an institutional framework.” 

This could be based on prior experience, or they have specialized skills in niches that a typical journalist might not be able to comprehend or effectively present in print.  Reviewing the Honolulu Advertiser website, there are no less than 50 featured blogs where professional and registered local bloggers discuss topics ranging from sports, to entertainment, to business news, to lifestyles.

As blogging and immediate access to news and web pages further evolves, we will need to accept the reality that blogging does come with some compromise.  We will see spelling errors, grammatical errors, and style errors.  We will need to assume anything we read cannot be consumed with 100% confidence, as there is no fact checking, forcing non-institutional blog consumers to assume a credibility margin of error.

Bloggers reporting on events, such as a school board meeting, may be able to record the event as a binary image.  Recording events forces you to believe in everything you see, and accept that as a reality.

In the Army, deception is nearly as important as reality.  You want to present a strength, weakness, or condition to a potential enemy, while masking the real information behind a façade.  Directly recording an event presents a similar danger.  While a non-professional recorder can make a tape, snap a picture, and transcribe the event into a blog, and professional reporter will probably approach the same event differently.

The professional reporter will develop resources, ask many “why?”  questions, play dumb to get the actors to open up and go into teaching mode, or simply drill into the facts to audit accuracy.  Then he will match information developed with the event he recorded, and the result will be a new story.  All with the advantage of professional editing and compliance with style.

As a police investigator may believe that crime witnesses are not credible, as they lack professional observation skills, the blogger may be considered a recorder of events and commit similar errors.

So the burden is on us – the blog reader, to determine if what we are reading is meeting our information needs.

In the next segment of this series we will explore the idea of paid .vs unpaid journalism, and the value of information.

John Savageau, Long Beach

Tagged with: • • • • • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

The Death and Life of Newspapers and Journalism

On June 11, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

The Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Tribune Company (owner of LA Times and KTLA) are all recent examples of traditional media on the brink of closure. 

Circulation is down more than 30% at the Boston Globe since 2000, which is only representative of a trend hitting the print media market – people avoid buying newspapers if the news they need is online.

The online world of journalism and blogging is generally free, forcing media companies to deal with two sticky issues:

1. How to make money online
2. How to live in a world where everybody on the internet can become a blogging journalist

David Simon, former Baltimore Sun reporter and current producer of mini-dramas such as “The Wire,” believes: 

“…the only hope for major news outlets to find a way to collaboratively impose charges for reading online, and to demand fees from aggregators such as Google News, which profit from their journalism. “

Simon goes on to make the analogy that in the past, all television was put up for free.  Most television revenues were produced by advertising in commercial spots scattered throughout normal broadcasting in the form of frequent commercials.

While free television is still around for local broadcast channels, a majority of Americans pay monthly fees to cable companies which not only give many more options to viewers, but also provide much more in-depth specialized reporting such as cable news, financial news, government news, and other non-broadcast channels.  Simon continues:

“If you don’t have a product that you’re charging for, you don’t have a product,” he says. “If you think that free is going to produce something that’s as much of a cost centre as good journalism – because it costs money to do good journalism – you’re out of your mind.” (The Guardian)

As local and regional newspapers fall to the attraction or need of selling out to large conglomerates such as Gannet, NewsCorp, and the Tribune Company, more changes are implemented which have a huge impact on local news. After acquisition, many newspapers are forced to reduce staff, offering packages to reporters – often reporters with the most experience.

Local articles and journalism also begins being gradually replaced by news service content (such as Associated  Press and Reuters).  All content of course that is already available online – and for free. 

While the local newspapers may take a stab at producing an online version of their news, this is difficult, as mashup sites like Yahoo and Google carry the same content, as well as many other value-added services for readers.  This may even include a newsfeed directly from the local newspaper, further diluting the value of the newspaper’s print and online versions.

Once local content becomes part of a mashup, the local online edition will lose whatever advertising revenue may have been on the home site, accelerating potential financial crisis for the local company.

Rick Daysog of the Honolulu Advertiser believes that newspapers must change to both understand and embrace new media.  People are online, and they want to take advantage of all opportunities to be informed. 

Hawaii may be a special case, as there are two competing newspapers (The Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star Bulletin).

“The local news is very complex,” say Daysog.  As a reporter you “have to compete in the local market, and that competition is in reporting the local news.”

Readers in Hawaii look to online wire services for national and global stories, and buy one of the local newspapers “because people in Hawaii are interested in what is happening at home.”

The Long Beach Press-Telegram follows a similar model.  While the LA Times produces a global news product with LA and California features, the Long Beach Press-Telegram is focused on delivering news highlighting Long Beach and surrounding communities.  National and international news is limited to a couple pages, and some  news in the sports section.

For the same reasons, the Long Beach press-Telegram continues to survive because they know their readers, and provide a product relevant to residents and those interested in the community.

Once a newspaper falls under the umbrella of a large media company, the chance of losing that local touch declines, as veteran reporters move on to other careers.  David Simon explains you are left with a model “such as USA Today, which boils down local news to one or two paragraphs.”

Daysog remains optimistic about the future of journalism and local news.  He is positive about technology, and lays the burden of change on the media companies. 

He cites the example of society pages in the old newspapers.  “Long gone, but I frequently read through the society pages in Honolulu newspapers from the 20s and 30s, and see how much change has occurred in past 30 years.  In the 20s, people were actually interested in what clothes a local debutant might wear.  Today’s readers have a very different requirement.”

The Internet is not going away, and the news industry simply needs to creatively apply themselves to using the tools a global Internet-enabled provides, and develop news models of using that technology to build sustainable value to the news industry.

Next in this series – the conflict and roles of journalists -vs- bloggers.

John Savageau, Long Beach

Rick Daysog is a staff writer with the Honolulu Advertiser.  Interview for this article conducted via telephone on 9 June 2009.

Tagged with: • • •
 
1 Comments
Leave A Response

Designing the Perfect Landing Page with Larry Marine in San Diego

On June 10, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” Lewis Carroll

The San Diego Software Industry Council (SDSIC) continues to bring valuable seminars and training to the community. Tuesday night the topic was “Landing Page Design: Beyond the Landing Page” with Larry Marine, owner of the new media consulting company “Intuitive Design.”

The SDSIC splits its focus to provide both training to members on a variety of business skills related to technology, as well as bring a professional networking venue to help create business and individual career opportunities. The SDIC has a very robust schedule of weekly meetings, with an uncanny ability to attract high quality speakers and professional instructors. The topics are broken down into several different Business Interest Groups (BIGs), with the objective to bring professionals together in an environment that will hopefully stimulate new relationships. The SDSIC is very similar to OCTANe (serving Orange County), representing a very positive community-supported effort to help develop business and people.

Larry Marine walked through the process of building great landing pages. A landing page is designed to support a single marketing campaign or event topic, with several specific characteristics, including:

  • Focus on a single event or marketing offer
  • A call to action
  • A means to capture visitor contact information
  • Consistent look and feel with main web site
  • Limited navigation outside of the landing page

Larry focused on developing landing pages which would serve a single purpose, an emphasis on expanding existing markets. Key to this purpose is the process of creating a very strong user experience. To accomplish this task you will need to have very good information on your expected or target demographic.

One interesting point made during the presentation is the idea that we should focus on the role a person plays, not their title. Roles can also be thought of as different hats an individual may wear depending on their current objectives. The role a person is engaged with at any time will determine their motivation for connecting to a landing page or other resource. An effective landing page will engage that person, providing some value for the person in the form of a downloadable white paper or other desired information.

Other topics such as the user “sense of progress” through the landing page and sub-pages, sense of gaining value from their time on the site, collecting contact and lead information from the landing page visitor, and developing a relationship of trust with the visitor gave even the most seasoned web designers in attendance with some new ideas and reason to question their own approach to landing pages.

Larry uses the above quote from Lewis Carroll as a recurring theme in his presentations and web site. You need to know where you are going. Else you are likely to spend a lot of time and resources getting nowhere.

Read more of Larry’s thoughts and wisdom at his blog. Larry has more than 20 years in user experience design, a degree in Cognitive Sciences (from UC San Diego), and 15 years experience working as a computer systems specialist.

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

Tagged with: • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response
« Previous Entries

Article Archive 

 
Go To Top »
PageLines Themes