May 08, 2003
Journalist may sue to get his blog back
New in OJR: Mark Glaser asks, Will Denis Horgan Blog Again? Glaser reports that the Hartford Courant's travel editor is pursuing legal remedies to get his personal weblog back. Writes Glaser:
Now, the longtime columnist is talking to a lawyer about legal action, and hopes that the threat of a lawsuit will get the paper to back off and allow him to blog again. "I think I'm going to win this," he told me. "Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, and the law will prevail. I have no demands. I want no apologies. I just want to be left alone, so I can come into my family room and type away at my keyboard every night." ...The 61-year-old veteran journalist had his son set up the weblog for him, and is now a serious believer in the technology. He sees an inevitability in the power of journalist weblogs. "This wave of technology is irresistable for professional journalists," he says. "And when newspaper people really start doing it, watch out. Their efforts will dwarf the various weblogs started for other reasons."
As for the big reaction in journalism circles to the blog's demise, Horgan could see that one coming. "There's a big irony factor in a newspaper that defends the rights of the Ku Klux Klan to speak their vile thoughts, and then turning on one of their own. I knew it would resonate." But the global reaction was more of a surprise, and Horgan has received emails from Brazil, Sweden, France, Spain and Ireland.
As I've written before, I think the Courant overstepped its bounds in muzzling the personal writings of an editorial staffer, and I hope they reconsider their decision.
Bush, Blair nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Bad joke of the day. Unfortunately, it's true:
Reuters via Yahoo: Blair and Bush nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.
Where are they, Mr. President?
A column on the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction by noted lefty Patrick J. Buchanan.
Japan's little online daily
New in Japan Media Review, the sister publication of the Online Journalism Review:
JanJan: Japan's Little Online Daily with Big Dreams
Frustrated with the complacent reporting offered up by Japan's daily papers, journalist and former mayor Ken Takeuchi launched Japan's first serious alternative online daily. He hopes to follow in the footsteps of OhmyNews, Korea's wildly successful online publication.
It's all free!
New in the current Time mag: It's all free! Music! Movies! TV shows! Millions of people download them every day. Is digital piracy killing the entertainment industry?
The long arm of Longhorn
In other Microsoft news today, Wired News looks at the OS successor to Windows XP:
Content producers probably will love it -- digital rights management will be built right in. Hardware developers remain unsure: The OS boasts tons of spiffy new entertainment features that could encourage consumers to upgrade, but will users be spooked by all that rights management stuff?
DVD Release Tests Format by Microsoft
From Circuits in today's NYT:
Yet another video release of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991) would not seem notable, even on DVD. But for Microsoft, the new version amounts to the first test of a concept.The two-disc set, to be released in June by Artisan Home Entertainment as "T2: Extreme DVD," will have a list price of $29.98. One disc will include a digitally remastered high-definition version of the film, with enhanced 5.1-channel surround sound, using a new Microsoft format called Windows Media 9. It promises almost three and a half times the resolution of a traditional DVD.
But there is a catch: it will play only on a computer using Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. And to appreciate the effects, users will have to download the free Windows Media 9 player software.
Resizing my blog's text size
For the past couple of years I've been aiming my slingshot at weblogs and websites that use a fixed pixel size, rather than a relative size, for its main body text. Two days ago I posted a slight jab at ReadMe and Poynter.org for their failings on this score. (I'm not alone; it's also a personal beef of the wise web usability expert Jakob Nielsen.)
Steve Bryant, managing editor of ReadMe, generously says they'll be going back to their web developer to address the issue.
And Kynn Bartlett posts a comment below that says MovableType's templates should be changed so that main body type is set to medium rather than small.
I just took up Kynn's suggestion and changed my Cascading Style Sheet so that it's now set to medium for this body type. I suspect it's a bit more readable on some machines, but let me know your view (or post it here).
Kynn also suggested that I publish my templates. I don't see why not, so I'll do so below. One question to you coding wizards out there: My blog is coming out pretty screwy on the Safari browser, which I suspect is due to the following formatting, which was not a part of the MT default template, but was suggested by a MT power user:
#content
width: 520px;
w\idth: 65%;
#links
width:200px;
w\idth: 25%;
In IE and Netscape, it looks fine, but in Safari, the calendar and blogroll overlap the main box in the middle of the blog by an inch or so, and other times they appear about 20 inches down the page at the bottom right.
Any suggestions on how to fix it?
Here are my CSS and main index templates: [Later: I had to remove this coding because it was messing up my archive template.]
Todd G. said:
Hi - I'm the other main party complicit in ReadMe's fixed-pixel effrontery. I have to admit I'm split on the issue. While utmost user-malleability is ideally great, I still like some control - even if it is deemed by some/many anathema to the original glorious pursuit of hypertext.
It also would seem the party truely responsible for crushing the poor user in this case is (unsurprisingly) Microsoft. Pretty much ever other browser out there lets you override font settings. I suppose they qualify as the huge faceless corporation deaf to user cries though. I guess a monopoly gets you that.
So I'm definitely going to try and work in the relative sizing, but I did note one site you judiciously left out of the (admittedly brief) list -- those look like fixed-pixel sizes in "http://ojr.org/ojr/style/site_IE.css" to me! And why am I getting an IE sheet while using Safari on a Mac?
Ah the less-than-perfect (far from it) world of HTML/CSS and web development.
Thanks for the input, and general good stuff you have here.
Todd Grimason
NYU J Web Admin person
Todd G. said:
OK I got too anxious. I missed the qualification on the relative sizing: "for its main body text.", which OJR does.
I think that's a good compromise - I just had my usual whiplash response to people rallying for absolute purity and adherence to ideals.
I'm going to try to implement it that way - see I learned something!
-Todd G.
JD said:
Yeah, I don't mind side links being small -- but reading long grafs of body text at tiny font sizes, especially late at night, is almost impossible.
I've mentioned the issue a couple of times before :~) ...
http://jd.manilasites.com/2001/06/18#CSS
http://jd.manilasites.com/2001/06/19
http://jd.manilasites.com/2001/06/21
http://jd.manilasites.com/2002/06/26#content
And here.
Thanks for your reasonable response.
High school confidential, online
Here's a NY Times story abouit students flocking to Web-based bulletin boards where they can read comments about peers or teachers, then add or respond anonymously to what they see. Sites include BeniciaNews.com, RateMyTeachers.com and SchoolScandals.com (the LA Times carried a story about the latter a few weeks ago).
Kynn said:
John and Ken on KFI radio (Clear Channel!) have been ranting about SchoolScandals.com for several weeks now. They're shocked by kids anonymously posting supposed scandals about each other having sex, etc, ruining someone's reputation in the process.
Thing is, though, John and Ken have no moral high ground to stand on. They and others of their ilk (working for the same media conglomerate, mostly) have routinely dragged peoples' private lives through the dirt.
From Bill Clinton to Gary Condit to Scott Peterson, right-wing talk radio has shown no restraint in making public scandals out of little more than anonymous rumors, usually about sex. Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge are both on KFI, as well as the abominable Dr. Laura.
So who are John and Ken to complain about kids dishing the dirt on each other? Their kind of hate radio has declared such attacks legitimate for political debate, even at the highest levels of elected office. Kids learn from the adults.
If it's okay to attack the President of the United States with trumped up sex charges -- why not that freshman girl who wouldn't go out with you?
After all, if John and Ken can do it...
--Kynn
JD said:
And the laws of libel still apply both in the online and radio worlds.
Still, some of these kids need a good sit-down with their parents to discuss the ramifications of dishing dirt on their fellow students with the rest of the world.
Michael Hussey said:
What an awfully foolish piece of journalism. Linking a site of value such as RateMyTeachers in with a piece of trash (schoolscandals) makes me wonder if the author has alterior motives in grouping the two sites together in an article - this is standard NY Times fare.
Should news outfits rein in their staffers?
Here's a commentary in the Boston Globe about the flap over sportswriter Bob Ryan's suspension. Some interesting issues to consider regarding how far news organizations should go in allowing or prohibiting their staffers from appearing in other media.
Thanks to Hylton for the pointer.
Free wi-fi access spreads
Katie Hafner in the NY Times: Internet Access for the Cost of a Cup of Coffee.
The latest on electronic newspapers
Ryan Pitts in the Dead Parrot Society blog:
The newspaper industry has been looking forward to this for a long time: A company called E Ink has developed a microthin, flexible screen that dynamically displays information when charged through a static hookup. The display remains clear at almost any angle, resolution is better than that of a computer monitor, and the screen retains image quality even when rolled up. Wireless capability is on the way, and improvements in speed may allow the screens to show video. ...
I think we're still about five years away from seeing this roll out as a commercial product in a major way, but when it does it's going to be very, very cool.
