David Akin

Bloggers eat their own

Wow. The kids at Metafiler are really taking the piss out of BloggerCon.

Censorship and the Internet

Censorship of the Internet is commonplace in most regions of the world. It is clear that in most countries over the past two years there has been an acceleration of efforts to either close down or inhibit the Internet. In some countries, for example in China and Burma, the level of control is such that the Internet has relatively little value as a medium for organised free speech, and its used could well create additional dangers at a personal level for activists.

- From Silenced: Censorship and Control of the Internet, a publication of Privacy International

The report also notes that one growing trend is the rise of multinational corporate Internet censors.

RSS and e-mail

A terrific primer on RSS for the uninitiated -- press release distributors, please read it! -- with a common sense perspective on the relationship between e-mail and RSS. "E-mail is a two-way communication medium while RSS is only a distribution one.," writes author Robin Good. Here's the link for the full article: LLRX.com - The Future of RSS- Is E-Mail Publishing Dead

More on the Tampa Bay Trib

It seems the Tampa Bay Tribune did not force its journalists to take down some blogs. They were taken down voluntarily. Blogger/Trib journo Dave has this to say (posted in its entirety because, as he says, he may soon take this offline):

The people who sign my paychecks have informed me that they're not pleased with the Daily Dave. One of the complaints is that some of my posts on the Daily Dave compromise my objectivity and the newspaper's credibility. Since it's never been my objective to discredit myself or my employer, and because I don't know if any of my previous posts might be used to penalize me, I have decided to take down the Daily Dave, in its present form, in its entirety.
Who ever thought the random ramblings of a nice gay Jewish boy would cause such problems?
It would be a stretch to call this censorship, but it amounts to my voice being silenced nonetheless. If you'd like to blame someone for killing off the Daily Dave, you can blame me: I have made a conscious decision to take down the site because I'm not willing to sacrifice my career for my blog. And, quite frankly, I like receiving a paycheck every two weeks. I might feel differently about the whole matter if I were independently wealthy. (Are you listening, ye mighty Lotto gods?)
Although the current incarnation of the Daily Dave is disappearing, please keep an eye on dailydave.com. It won't be long before the Daily Dave 2.0 is up and running, with all the news that's (a) fit to print and (b) won't get me fired.
I will take down all of the Daily Dave content by the end of the weekend. Please enjoy one last look around before the wrecking ball comes through

Is what I'm doing wrong?

I'm a staff journalist and I'm blogging -- outside of the official imprimatur of my employers. Apparently more employer types are getting upset about this kind of thing. Dan Gillmor reports:

Tom Mangan reports that the Tampa Tribune has ordered three staffers with unauthorized blogs to stop. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Blogging and Journalism

The Nieman Foundation at Harvard has just published a comprehensive compendium on blogging and journalism.
Sheila Lennon, a journalist at the Providence (R.I.) Journal and contributor to that compendium, talks about the project, puts it in a bit of context and supplies the URL to download individual essays or a PDF of the whole thing in an entry on her own blog.

Diversity in media

"Canadian culture is squarely based on a democratic government which in turn needs diversity of voices to live up to its ideals. Diversity of voices can be achieved through diversity of media outlets, diversity of ownership, including ownership forms, and diversity of media products . . . An increase in the number of owners of media outlets can increase consumer choice, especially if the various owners have different objectives. ....
Many of the proposals suggested by other witnesses in these hearings may provide ways to promote diversity including liberalizing foreign ownership restrictions. In my role as an advocate of competition in Canada, I would encourage the Committee to consider these options. "
Statement by Gaston Jorré,
Acting Commissioner of Competition
Competition Bureau, Industry Canada
Remarks to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications Hearing on: the current state of the Canadian media industries; emerging trends and developments in those industries; the media's role, rights, and responsibilities in Canadian society; and, appropriate future policies relating thereto.
[Full text of Jorre's comments]

Journalists, academics, media critics and, now, Industry Canada bureaucrats toss around this notion of "diversity of content" but I wonder what that really means. And I don't mean what it means from an academic or theoretical sense but what it might mean from a public policy sense or from a news consumer sense. In other words: What does the diversity debate mean to news gatherers, publishers, broadcasters, and consumers?
Does diversity simply mean more and if so, more of what? More owners? More journalists? More readers? More viewers? More ads?
Would we have a more diverse media environment if we had ten versions of This Magazine? A Toronto Star-style paper in every city? Five clones of Conrad Black all vying to build their own empire here?
Or maybe diversity means more things but more things that are different than what we already have.
If that's what we mean, do we mean we want more diverse political viewpoints? Do we want, as Jorré seems to suggest, more diverse types of owners, that is, some traditional press baron types a la Conrad Black or corporate ownership, a la BCE Inc. where no single shareholder holds a controlling stake? Do we want diversity in the nationality or residency of our owners? (It's always struck me as odd that those in Canada who appeal for more diversity are often dead set against improving the diversity of the nationality of those who would own media assets.)
Do we need more public sector and not-for-profit owners? If federal and provincial governments can run news operations, why not municipal governments or school boards or the local hydro utility for that matter? (I'm not being facetious here: In some smaller Cdn municipalities, local hydro utilities, run by independently elected boards, have plenty of cash and would certainly have some of the basic infrastructure and the cash to be local radio or TV broadcasters.)
Are we for diversity of form? Should we have more pseudo-news formats that are like the U.S. shows that feature Jon Stewart or Bill Maher in the U.S.? Do we need a national tabloid -- think of the honour being named a national Sunshine Boy or Girl! - when it comes to print news? What about diversity of presentation? Does the Naked News satisify those who prefer more choice when it comes to presenters of news? (OK, maybe I'm being facetious here, but not by much).
What about diverse of ethical standards? Globe and Mail business reporters are forbidden, for example, to trade on the news they report. Why not a business press that puts its money where its mouth is and lets reporters buy stocks in companies they report on?
Does diversity mean our news collectives such as Canadian Press and Canwest News Service should assign multiple reporters to the same events? Is it still OK in a "diverse" news environment for a single news agency like CP to even exist?
Does diversity mean that newsrooms ought to reflect their readership in terms of socioeconomic, gender, ethnic, and sexual preference characteristics?
Who shall decide on our diversity benchmarks? When will we know we have this much sought-after "diversity of voices"?

Canadians and their weather data

There's nothing that breaks the ice quicker between two Canadians than talking about, well, breaking the ice and other weather facts.
For example, Environment Canada has, after exhaustive study, determined that: "The sunniest city is Medicine Hat and the wettest is Prince Rupert. Whitehorse is the driest, Kamloops has the warmest summers, and the city for all seasons is Montreal."
These and other fascinating weather facts are culled from an Environment Canada press release.
For journalists, though, what may be more interesting is all the historical weather data Environment Canada is making available via The National Climate Data and Information Archive.
A description:

The National Climate Data and Information Archive, operated and maintained by Environment Canada, contains official climate and weather observations for Canada. Climate elements, such as temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, visibility, cloud types, cloud heights and amounts, soil temperature, evaporation, solar radiation and sunshine as well as occurrences of thunderstorms, hail, fog or other weather phenomena are warehoused in a digital database. Access to selected portions of this data, as well as related products such as CD-ROMs and climate normals and averages are available on this web site. Information regarding obtaining extremes, monthly summaries, microfilm, microfiche, paper documents and technical documents, is also available.

Blogs and editors

The New York Times today has neat story titled: The Role of the Delete Key in Blog
From that story:

Is a blog still a blog if someone else edits it? A recent policy change at The Sacramento Bee has raised questions about whether taking an editor's pen to a Web log before it is published detracts from very nature of Web logs, or "blogs,'' as the online diaries are called?"

I say yes, it's still a blog, but it just may not be as valuable a blog as it would be if it were unfiltered. Actually, I ought to re-phrase that. It would have a different value. But the form -- a diary of shortish entries presented in chronological order -- makes it a blog, if you ask me.
This blog, by the way, sees no editors before it hits the Web . . .