Open Spectrum conference

Cory, who'll also be speaking at SXSW this coming weekend, attended and blogged Larry Lessig's Spectrum Policy: Property or Commons? conference at Stanford this past weekend.

Vitally important subject. Some of the best passages are here, and scroll down from there. And here's Doc's take.

Ethics guidelines for digital imaging

DigitalCustom Group on Thursday announced the publication of Release Version 2.0 of the "DigitalCustom Model Ethics Guidelines to Protect the Integrity of Journalistic Photographs in Digital Editing."

DigitalCustom's President, Jeff Makoff said, "The power to edit a historical image brings with it the ability to manipulate history. Archivists and digital artists should discuss, and ultimately agree on, what is appropriate -- especially because the digital artist and the person responsible for historical preservation often are different people."

A copy of Release Version 2.0 of the model journalism ethics guidelines is available here.

Here's the interesting section:

News/Editorial Images (Impermissible Procedures)

The following digital image editing procedures generally are not permitted for news/editorial purposes:

3.0.1 Adding, removing or moving objects in such a way that the context of the event is altered.

3.0.2 Age progression or regression (e.g. adding gray to hair).

3.0.3 Changing a subject's facial expression, gestures, clothing, body parts or personal accessories.

3.0.4 Retouching that enhances or reduces the apparent quality or desirability of an item, or the aesthetics of a place.

3.0.5 Using "motion" to create a misleading impression that the subject is moving at a different speed than he/she/it was moving during the events.

3.0.6 Using effects or color changes in such a manner that it is unclear whether the effects or color changes were applied through digital editing or were part of the original event that was being covered.

3.0.7 Using any other digital editing procedure in a way that creates a misleading impression of the events, participants or context.

3.0.8 In nature photographs, special care should be taken to represent animal and plant life in its actual environment, habitat and context (e.g. do not lighten a background to make it appear that a nocturnal animal is diurnal or place an animal in fabricated geographical settings).

3.0.9 It is impermissible to manipulate a nature photo so as to create a false appearance that animals were associating with other animals (including humans), to group animals together in a manner that did not naturally occur or to increase the number of animals in a group.

3.0.10 The enhancement of nature images for the purpose of investigation or viewability is permissible, provided the manipulation is incidental, obvious or specifically disclosed to the viewer.

3.0.11 It is impermissible to represent a fabricated phenomenon as natural (e.g. adding a shooting star or rainbow).

3.0.12 These procedures are impermissible whether accomplished through digital editing or physical editing ("mortising") of images.

IWantMedia: Media consolidation

With the issue on the front burner at the FCC, IWantMedia has created a special section looking at articles and resources on the topic of media consolidation.

On Altmuslim.com

Here's a site I just came across, created last year by an engineer who lives two towns from me, in Danville, Calif.: Altmuslim.com, a news and discussion forum for the Muslim community. Helps balance out -- a little -- the anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, foam-at-the-mouth warblogs out there.

A petition to the Security Council

If you oppose war with Iraq, take 30 seconds to fill out this online petition to the UN Security Council. MoveOn.org will deliver the list of signers and your comments to the 15 member states of the Security Council this Thursday.

Google's Popularity Makes it a Media Target

Mark Glaser in OJR: Google's Popularity Makes it a Media Target.

Reverse Cowgirl TV

This week the Reverse Cowgirl is traveling to New York City as part of her unstoppable attempt to turn her blog into a TV show.

You are what you queue

NY Times: At Netflix, you are what you queue.

Copyright vs. innovation

Guess Amy Harmon was at the Berkeley DRM conference last weekend. Here's her account in the NY Times: Pondering Value of Copyright vs. Innovation.

The first advertising blog?

The marketing geniuses at Dr Pepper have come up with what may be the first advertising blog. MSNBC has the story of Raging Cow, which tells the fictional backstory of the drink, which rolls out in April in flavors like Chocolate Insanity and Pina Colada Chaos.

My guess? That cow won't fly. Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

Bloggers steal web limelight

Reuters: Blog Publishers Stealing Web Limelight

Visitors to Daypop, an index of personal journalism sites known as Weblogs, were treated on Wednesday to a new feature called "word bursts," an automated attempt to identify the hottest words at the moment.

"They are indicators of what Webloggers are writing about right now," boasts the site, at http://www.daypop.com/burst/.

The "word burst" concept was borrowed from a New Scientist magazine article about a Cornell mathematician who came up with the idea. It has taken on a life of its own, making the featured words popular if only because the Daypop site said so and major Web sites were all pointing to the site for the latest buzz.

It's just the latest example of the power of Weblogs to shape perception among a growing audience of online readers.