Fotolog: Where Art Meets T&A

Wired News: An increasingly popular community blog devoted to photography is becoming a battleground. On one hand, serious photographers use Fotolog to display their work. On the other, Brazilian camgirls use it to show off their bodies.

FCC commissioners' $2.8 million tab

The Macomb Daily: Big Media Got FCC Rule Change Old-Fashioned Way. For a government agency that ensures Americans have an array of media voices from which to choose, the Federal Communications Commission sure has spent a lot of time listening to a small circle of pals, says columnist Chad Selweski.

Media giants spent $2.8 million wining and dining the FCC over the past eight years, paying for travel and luxury accommodations, and even chauffeurs.

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

For the literary-minded, Californiaauthors.com

Just recently came across a site for California writers called, appropriately enough, Californiaauthors.com.

Great stuff here. Marcos M. Villatoro, a poet and novelist, has a new anthology out this month, The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles. A chapter on Literary Radio begins:

Los Angeles, many told me, is the place where no one reads. This I learned in the first few days of moving here in 1998. No one reads books, not like they do in that other city ó you know. The Mecca of Publishing. The tabernacle of world lit. Here, we do movies. We read contracts, we write (or sign) deals. We spread ourselves across the broad screen. Youíre a writer? they said to me. Well son, youíve come to the wrong place.

In fact, Villatoro reminds us that Angelenos actually buy more books than New Yorkers do.

I'll be a regular visitor to this well-done site.

A media blog from Down Under

Greg Tingle, who publishes a media weblog out of Sydney, Australia, interviewed me on the subjects of journalism ethics, online news and what media companies still don't get.

My interview is here, and other interviews can be found here. I'm in some good company -- other interviewees include Rob Malda, founder of Slashdot, Doug McGill of the McGill Report and actor-producer-writer Harry Shearer.

Captives Deny Qaeda Worked With Baghdad

This shouldn't be news, but given the disinformation coming from Washington, we apparently need the reminder:

Two of the highest-ranking leaders of Al Qaeda in American custody have told the C.I.A. in separate interrogations that the terrorist organization did not work jointly with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, according to several intelligence officials.

Meantime, the Bush spin team is hard at work.