A new LA media blog

Here's a new LA media blog: L.A. Observed, by Kevin Roderick. The lead item today concerns a memo by L.A. Times editor John Carroll on liberal bias. I'll be adding it to my blogroll in the coming days.

News sites' standards get loose

Steve Outing in E&P: Newspapers' Taste Standards Get Loose Online. Some Web Sites Push the Envelope. It opens with my backyard paper:

When the "Bay to Breakers" community road race in San Francisco was covered this year, SFGate.com, the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle, ran a photo of nude male runners -- showing their bare backsides -- prominently on the home page. The print edition of the Chronicle took a more conservative approach, publishing photos of runners wearing underwear and fake fig leaves. This newspaper Web site and others apply far different taste standards online than in print -- even though the sites are operated by the same newspaper companies. It's part of an effort by publishers to attract younger audiences.

NYT drops its free news tracker

Oh, no. The NY Times is following the lead of the LA Times and ending its free news tracker service. Just got this notice from the Times:

As of June 13, 2003, Times News Tracker will be available to paying subscribers only and the original free service will be suspended. ...

The fee for the enhanced service is $19.95 per year.

I liked the old service just fine, thank you. But gotta keep those shareholders happy!

Apple pulls plug on Rendezvous

Interesting development with Apple and its iTunes Music Store. Today's NY Times carries a story about Apple's decision to pull the plug on Rendezvous:

... [I]t would not be an online success story without a complicating twist. That complication came this week when the specter of the music industry, which has been publicly supportive of iTunes, began to loom over Apple. The success of iTunes, after all, depends on cooperation from the music business, which controls the songs that iTunes wants in its collection. Apparently trying to stay in the record industry's good graces, iTunes removed a service it had previously offered customers. Called Rendezvous, the service enabled listeners and their friends to access one another's music and listen to it ó but not download it ó from any computers. Hackers, however, had figured out how to download the music as well, creating programs with names like iLeach and iSlurp. So on Tuesday Apple sent out an update for its iTunes software, disabling Rendezvous and limiting music access to a user's local network at home or at work.

In a statement released yesterday, Apple said Rendezvous had been "used by some in ways that have surprised and disappointed us."

"We designed it to allow friends and family to easily stream (not copy) their music between computers at home or in a small group setting, and it does this well," the statement said. "But some people are taking advantage of it to stream music over the Internet to people they do not even know. This was never the intent." A spokesman for Apple, Chris Bell, said the company made the decision by itself.

FCC decision: cutting off debate

Washington Post: In recent days, the FCC -- about to make a decision about the easing of media ownership rules -- has been inundated with hundreds of thousands of e-mails and e-petitions urging the agency to put off a decision. Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

Why does Blair fascinate us?

LA Times: Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass have the attention of columnists, magazine covers and bloggers -- because "we have a fascination with people who break the rules." Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

The saddest bloggers in the land

The saddest bloggers in the land must be the four newspaper bloggers at the Albuquerque Journal who reside behind a paid registration wall, meaning that their blogs are visible only to the hundreds or few thousand souls who ponied up for a subscription to the ABQjournal. (To spot 'em, scroll 2/3rds of the way down the right nav.) This is speculation, but a blogger who's cut off from the blogosphere has got to feel a bit unspecial.