May 13, 2003
The president's long, strange day on 9/11
Here's the most comprehensive account I've seen of the timeline of President Bush's movements and actions on 9/11, pieced together from media accounts and public records by the Center for Cooperative Research, an apparent advocacy group -- which doesn't discount its reportage.
Here's journalist Ryan Pitts' take on this.
Q&A with Neil Budde
@newyork.com has a Q&A with Neil Budde, former publisher of WSJ.com. An excerpt of Budde on the blogging phenomenon:
If you look at what people said about Blogs, it sounds like what they said about the Web sites in general a few years back. They are going to disintermediate the media, put the power in the hands of everybody, that big media names won't matter that much anymore. The difference between saying that then and now, is that it's a lot easier to be the publisher everyone said they would be.But I don't know if blogs have fundamentally changed the dynamics of the media business. There are great tools available that have taken personal Web pages into a new area, but it's not exactly a new phenomenon. It's just that some people are doing it quite well, and becoming experts at looking at what's going on in the world. What's amusing to me, is that most of the Weblogs I use are for business purposes. I end up signing up for their e-mail as well, so now I'm reading an e-mail newsletter instead of a blog.
I think the blogging movement is important and interesting. But I also think it's not necessarily going to change the world the way we think. In some ways, it's actually going back to the traditional notion of using an intermediary who's helping you sort out what you need to know without being overwhelmed with what's on the Web.
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Celebs beware: 'Smoking Gun' coming to TV
Reuters: The Smoking Gun, a Web site devoted to digging up court documents in the skeletons of celebrity closets, is coming to television in August with a new show debuting on the Court TV cable.
Hillary vs. Bill
The NY Post reports that CBS is skittish about a possible 60 Minutes interview with Hillary Clinton about her new book because Bill Clinton is under contract to appear on the show.
Here's an idea: 60 Minutes should dump the cadaverous and intellectually vacuous GOP apologist Bill Dole and launch a new slugfest: Hillary vs. Bill. Now, that would be television worth watching.
rusty said:
I've been disappointed by the Clinton/Dole segments on 60 Minutes, even taking into account the low expectations I had going into it. The format is hideously awkward, with both of them facing the camera straight-on like it's a campaign ad, and neither of them doing anything but talking about "your Republicans" and "your Democrats." I have no idea what either of them actually thinks about anything, and now I care less than I ever did. I'm embarrased for 60 Minutes every time they let those two on the air.
(I guess by posting this a I'm coming out of the closet and admitting that my TV demographic is "Golden Ager," but hey, I watch Fear Factor too)
A survey of bloggers and blog readers
Those who regularly read weblogs are invited to participate in a 15-minute online survey by clicking through a series of questions. It's legit -- researchers at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale are behind it.
Thinking global, Google News goes local
Looking to serve more of a global audience, Google said it is adding more regional categories to its news service.The Mountain View, Calif. based search engine company unveiled five new country-specific global news service sites that are based on its main Google News offering.
"Today we have Google Canada, U.K., New Zealand, Australia, and India," said Krishna Bharat, principal scientist with Google. "It is all part of our plan to be an unbiased global news provider that also serves local tastes."
