Open source journalism

Dan is writing a book about We Media -- the reconceptualized role of journalism in an age when the former audience becomes participants in the news process.

It's an important work, given the roadblocks this line of thinking still faces in most traditional newsrooms. Dan showed me his first chapter a few months ago, and it's well written and right on the money.

As in any good open-source concept, Dan is inviting his weblog readers to participate in the process. Check it out.

AOL's personalized war coverage

Jonathan Dube of CyberJournalist.net has some kind things to say about AOL's coverage of the war in Iraq.

Itís a shame AOL content is only accessible to AOL members, because the company is doing some interesting things with its war coverage. ...

ACLU loses digital copyright battle

Not surprisingly, but still terribly disappointing, a federal judge has again upheld some of the DMCA's most draconian provisions. Declan in News.com:

The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday lost its first attempt to challenge a controversial 1998 copyright law.

In a strongly worded decision, a federal judge in Boston dismissed a lawsuit aimed at defanging part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The ACLU's suit, filed against filtering-software company N2H2 last July, claims the law unconstitutionally interferes with researchers' ability to investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of Internet filtering software.

"There is no plausibly protected constitutional interest that ... outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted property from an invasive and destructive trespass," U.S. District Judge Richard Sterns wrote.

It was also a setback for Ben Edelman, a student fellow at Harvard Law's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Carry on the good fight, Ben & Co.

News Corp. buying DirecTV

Here's terrible news: The News Corp. has reached a deal to buy control of Hughes Electronics and DirecTV. From the NY Times:

Completing the final piece in Rupert Murdoch's global satellite empire, the News Corporation agreed today to buy control of Hughes Electronics and its DirecTV satellite operation from General Motors in a deal valued at $6.6 billion.

The deal is likely to bring a fundamental shift to the balance of power in the television industry, making Mr. Murdoch an even more powerful figure in determining what programming is beamed to television sets around the United States and how much consumers pay for it.

With the addition of DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite operator with 11 million subscribers, the News Corporation will become one of the largest media companies, along with AOL Time Warner Inc., that both creates television programming and distributes it. The News Corporation owns the Fox Network and dozens of local affiliates as well as the increasingly powerful Fox News Channel ...

Journalist-blogger in Iraq loses foot

Hylton Jolliffe points me to a powerful and moving blog from Iraq I had missed: a BBC producer who started blogging at the beginning of the warÖ and then just lost his foot to a landmine. As Hylton says: "another example of how bloggingís letting people get a fuller picture of a story."

Here's Stuart Hughes' weblog. And a BBC News Online article on him.

Here's today's entry by Stuart:

In the early hours of this morning the strength that had kept me going for the past week evaporated.

Until now, the sheer fact of being home, alive, kept my morale high and my spirit strong. Now, for the first time, Iím faltering.

Last night as I slept I dreamed everyday dreams ñ I canít even remember now what they were. But in all of them I was walking around with my full complement of limbs. When I woke up it was the reality of my situation ñ in hospital, drips in each arm, with a plaster cast around the stump that used to be my right foot, that seemed more dream like.

As dawn broke, so did the realisation that the road to full recovery will be long and tough, starting with two months in a wheelchair. I wonít be going back to work on crutches in a week and Iíll be reliant on those around me for a long time to come. And, as far as Iím aware, feet arenít like tree branches. They donít grow back.

GuruNet, the 1-click fact-finder

Later today I'm going to download GuruNet, a clever little piece of reference software from Atomica, an Israeli company. Walter Mossberg wrote a glowing review last month, explaining how GuruNet goes beyond what Google and other search engines have to offer, and I've heard other good things over the years.

Now comes word about today's release of GuruNet 4.1 for Windows, which calls itself "the 1-click fact-finder software." Says CEO Robert S. Rosenschein:

We've compiled the ultimate reference library on-demand: encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesaurus, War-in-Iraq terms, definitions, stats, people, business info and many other premium sources, all in one convenient place.

GuruNet enhances your search by delivering the concise answers you're actually looking for, on demand. You can be working in any Windows program and look up any term on the screen in one simple click, without interrupting your work. GuruNet saves you time and frustration.

They're offering a free two-week trial; the full product costs $35, but there's a scaled-down version that remains free if you don't want to pay.

Cops use ID info that was secretly collected

Penn State Digital Collegian:

Scanning a driver's license at the local liquor store can reveal more than just age.

When a patron's ID is scanned to ensure authenticity at a liquor store, the person's purchase and identification information is added to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's (PLCB) electronic database in Harrisburg ...

Apparently, constitutional rights don't apply in Pennsylvania, especially if you're a young person.

Tech says: We get pirated, too

Speaking of digital piracy, the software industry is saying, Hey, what about us?

Katie Dean, the talented tech reporter for Wired News, has a new article up that explores this wrinkle: In the heated discussion over Internet piracy, the software industry feels a bit ignored. Show biz gets all the attention, it alleges. Meanwhile, open-source advocates say the real problem isn't piracy at all, but the way software is developed and licensed.

'Hail to the Online Thieves'

Jimmy Guterman in Business 2.0: Hail to the Online Thieves. Bands can't prevent bootlegging, but they can control it more than they have so far.

Libraries protect patrons from feds

Newark Star-Ledger: Libraries learn how to protect patrons from the excesses of the Patriot Act. Seminar urges deleting Internet histories and shredding sign-up sheets. Excerpt:

Five members of Congress -- two Republicans, two Democrats and one independent, have introduced a bill that would exclude libraries from the Patriot Act.

"If I take out a biography of Osama bin Laden, or if I buy a book on terrorism, is there somebody going to be checking this out and wondering if I'm a terrorist?" asked Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who sponsored the bill. "In a nation that prides itself on being a free nation, which prides itself on making sure you can read anything you want to read, this is a very, very bad step."

Blogger won't be socked with bandwidth bill

Wired News: My bud, blogger-journalist Glenn Fleishman, won't be charged a penny for giving away free copies of Adobe Go Live online, an experiment that initially cost him $10,000 in ISP bandwidth charges. Great news. Glenn shouldn't be financially punished for an act of P2P selflessness.

Here's Glenn's latest fiasco update.

Have we turned the corner in Iraq?

Thank God it looks as if the U.S. military campaign has turned the corner in Iraq, with little of the feared urban combat leading to massive civilian casualties (although, tragically, hundreds of civilians apparently have been killed in the past week). It's wonderful to see Iraqis celebrating in the streets, as almost everyone suspected would happen, even if this war was undertaken for the wrong reasons.

But the NY Times' Thomas Friedman, in Iraq, says hold your applause.

Webby Award nominees announced

The 7th annual Webby Award nominees were announced late Tuesday. Here's the list of nominees. You can vote in the People's Choice Awards through May 23. Lots of good, obscure sites here.

The ceremony -- which has lost much of its luster since the dotcom implosion -- will be held June 5, 2003 in San Francisco.

Nominees in the News category are allAfrica.com, BBC News Online, Google News, MSNBC and Romenesko (which they've misspelled as Romeneskco, even though Jim has won this thing before).

One quibble: Not to begrudge Google News its nomination -- I'm a fan of the news aggregation site -- but does it really make sense to include Google News in this crowd , given that they (a) have no news reporters; (b) no news editors; (c) no news anchors; (d) no original news content? At least news aggregation site Yahoo News has a small team of editors. I suppose Google News makes it by dint of best news robot. But then, where's Ananova?

More pirate than plagiarist

Sheila's take on the Agonist mini-scandal: piracy, not plagiarism. She's right.