Blogging the WTO summit

In the Guardian UK, Victor Keegan reports on the Guardian's experimental linking of editorial comment and the world of the blog during this month's WTO summit.

Thanks to Gary Price for the pointer.

Jon Stewart and the Emmys

The only good thing about last night's Emmy Awards show: Jon Stewart, who snagged two Emmys for his outstanding Daily Show.

Catch a clip of him on Lisa Rein's Radar.

An age of intimacy for media

FCC chairman Michael Powell in the NY Times Magazine: "We're moving to a world of incredible intimacy in mass media," he says. Thanks to TiVo, "I'm my own programmer, not NBC."

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

Transitioning to TypePad

OK, I've tracked down the source of my problems with MovableType. There may be a small warning in here for other MT users.

Over the weekend I received an email from my ISP, Dreamhost, warning me that I had exceeded my storage limit. This explained why my blog started behaving strangely last week (the right nav often disappeared, and then reappeared, ghostlike). And it explained why I could no longer receive email from my ISP yesterday afternoon.

I was taken aback by Dreamhost's claim that I was a storage glutton, because I have a relatively modest website (OK, 1,800-plus pages and many photos) and have only seven months' worth of blog entries (almost entirely text) on the Dreamhost servers. So I figured my 200 megabytes of storage should suffice.

As it turned out, one MovableType folder -- the archives folder -- contained 333 megabytes of data all by itself. This, despite the fact that when I exported all my 1,600 entries, it amounted to only 3 megabytes. So what's the deal? Anil Dash told me that MovableType's archive doesn't throw away anything. So every time you rebuild the site (and I index my entries by daily, monthly and individual entry), it adds to the data storage.

I just emptied the 333-meg archive folder and rebuilt, and it seems to have gone smoothly.

Saturday I signed up with TypePad, another blogging service from Ben and Mena Trott, and I like what I've seen so far. (My friend Ernie the Attorney turned me on to it originally.) It has additional funcitonality, some cool photo blog tools, and other streamlined features. It also lets readers copy and paste from my main page (something that MT has balked at). So I may hop over there. On the downside, I would have to change my blog's url for the second time this year. (I should have originally chosen blog.jdlasica.com, it seems, and not jdlasica.com/blog).

To import all my MT entries on this blog over to TypePad, I've had to change the comments function to keep them hidden instead of displaying the reader comments in the main blog area. Once I export my MT blog, I'll switch it back, both on this site and the TypePad site. Stay tuned.

Later: A reader notes that the inability to cut and paste is a template/CSS issue, not a MovableType issue. Perhaps, but it happens on a lot of MT blogs, I'm told, and no one has come forward with a fix. If you have one, I'd be glad to hear it, and if it works, I'll be happy to spread the news of your prowess. (I only recently discovered that virtually all stylesheets are publicly accessible.)

A blogger goes under the knife

Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing for Guardian Newspapers and the man who started the whole Hitler flap that the New York Times and Wired News picked up on, has a terrific blog. Today he reports that he had Lasik surgery on his eyes this morning.

I also had Lasik surgery done in February 2000, and my world changed markedly for the better. Went from 20-600 vision to 20-20 and 20-25. Went from severe astigmatism to none. Went from being entirely dependent on eyeglasses to wearing them for reading on occasion. It's not for everyone, but if you're a good candidate, take the plunge.

Later: Simon, do give us updates on how you're coming along. Everyone heals at different rates. The strangest part for me was wearing a blindfold for a full day after the procedure. But when I took it off -- what a sight to behold! I could see images clearly that were hundreds of feet away. It took between two and three months for my vision to stabilize (meantime, I had to resort to $5 drugstore glasses to focus on my computer screen). But things gradually calmed down, and I even went back for a followup zap.

Glocal journalism

"Glocal Journalismî in the United States: an interview with Doug McGill and Raman Narayanan on Wisconsin Public Radio (an audio version is also available). I've never liked the term glocal journalism -- why make up terms when you don't have to? -- but the moderator explains it here:

A growing movement in American journalism is trying to do just that, to illuminate the connections between our local community and the international world. Itís called glocalizing the news and its being practiced by dozens or more small- and mid-sized newspapers.

Dealtime Relaunches as Shopping.com

Chris Sherman in Searchenginewatch.com: Dealtime Relaunches as Shopping.com. I also hadn't heard that Dealtime acquired the consumer product review site Epinions in May 2003.

Blogging vs. journalism: Another casualty

Dan Gillmor reports that Chinese blogger Chi-Chu Tschang says he was fired by the Bloomberg news agency because of his blog. I don't see anything remotely objectionable in his weblog, so we'll have to wait for more details.

'Free the Bee blogger!'

Kevin R. in LA Observed asks: Has Sacramento Bee political blogger Daniel Weintraub been reined in? The Bee's ombudsman reported yesterday that Weintraub's blog will now be subjected to the editing filter, after complaints from the Legislature's Latino Caucus.

I worked at the Bee for 11 years (I left in '97, before Weintraub got there) and I'm in agreement with Kevin's bottom line:

He's their opinion columnist, and his blog -- by design -- is more analysis and personality than it is factual reporting. Some readers may accept his insights as truth, but many don't. It's informative anyway. The point of a blog is personal insights, and as Kaus points out, if the Bee wants to broaden the spectrum of takes, it can add more bloggers. ...

I'm pro editor and have yet to meet the journalist, myself included, who wouldn't benefit from a good collaborative editor. Even so, I think the Bee erred. Spontaneity may be overrated in some bloggers hands -- I prefer thought-out posts -- but quickness to break or react to news is part of why Weintraub and the Bee have drawn so much positive attention.

I also tend to side with Mickey Kaus on this:

Even if the Bee's move is just for show--to placate the Latino caucus with a procedural reform--and even if the editors involved have privately assured Weintraub they won't change a thing, it will have an inevitable degrading effect on Weintraub's blog. The whole point of blogging is that you get someone's take right now, when it can make a difference. What if Weintraub has a good idea at 7:30 P.M. and the editors have gone home? By the time they come back in the next day to "review" his idea, history may have moved on--the idea will be stale, even if it might have actually made a difference if it had been posted in time. ... But I actually doubt the editorial approval process will be completely benign. Read the ombudsman's pompous report ("no newspaper should publish an analysis without an editor's review") and you can see an edge-dulling, anti-controversialist mindset at work that is inimical to sound and well-established blogging practices. ... As long as nobody's libeled, why not publish analyses without an editor's review? ... If Weintraub's too much of an anti-liberal blogger, add a liberal blogger! Don't supress them both under a smothering blanket of bureaucratic timidity!

Over at Condor Blog, David Jensen had a lot on this yesterday. Instapundit, Hewitt (who had it first), Simon and Matt Welch are among those who have also weighed in.

As for me, I blogged about the overall topic last winter: Should newspaper bloggers be subjected to the editing filter? Short answer: After-the-fact copy editing and reviewing content for libel is fine, but this kind of pre-publication editing review tamps down the very thing that makes blogging special.

More on email interviews

Regarding last week's blogosphere discussion about posting emails and scooping email interviewers (Are emails private?), Matt Welch and Sheila Lennon add their two cents on Jeff Jarvis's blog. But a more enlightening posting, in my view, comes from Kevin Roderick over at LA Observed. Writes Kevin in part:

It's discouraging because email interviews are a great tool that should be encouraged. They are fast, accurate, often convenient for both parties, no transcription needed, no long distance charges. They foster more accurate and improved journalism, and afterward both interviewer and subject have a permanent record they can use for whatever. But there are many legit reasons a journalist might not want the world to know what he's working on weeks or months before a story (or book or "60 Minutes" segment) is completed.

Lazy competitors is number one. Or you might need to conduct initial research under the radar to see if there even is a story, or to get the story, especially an investigative story. A project can also involve considerable expense and time, and put a writer's reputation at stake, so why should it get out half-assed and incomplete? It's akin to publishing a partially written, unedited story, only worse since the questions that a given subject sees may reflect only a small piece of the larger puzzle. The story itself could shift dramatically based on what you learn. Not all stories cycle in hours like on the Web, nor should they. Journalists who take time to research are a good thing, not something to be disparaged.

So writers beware -- know the trustworthiness of your subject before you reveal too much to them in email. I try to be open and forthcoming in email introductions, figuring it's only right since I'll be asking them to reveal themselves. I'll be more guarded and cagier in email now, especially with bloggers -- who seem to be the main,if not the only, adherents to this cause. I'll get a commitment of confidentiality, and if in doubt I'll try to use the phone or go in person, or if it's sensitive I'll try to interview somebody more honorable. So in a way everybody loses.

For the record, my general principle is "you talk to me, not my blog."

Hear, hear. If I want to talk to your blog, I'll say so.

Matt responds at LA Observed as well. And the comments attached to the posting are pretty interesting. I'm with David P.:

If someone interviews me about a subject that I have not written about and I scoop that person by writing about it before their piece comes out, I am an asshole. Period. It has nothing to do with blogging vs. old media or Alexis ratings (a statistical joke, btw) or ownership of an interview. It has to do with, as Cathy wrote, common courtesy.

Millions of workers to lose overtime

Today's Daily Mis-Lead:

President Bush's Department of Labor announced in March a dramatic overhaul to the nation's overtime laws that will cause millions of workers to lose access to overtime pay. The administration claims that 644,000 workers will lose overtime eligibility, but it's really at least 2.5 million and possibly up to 8 million workers who will lose their overtime. ...

The Match Your Candidate game

Not sure which California recall candidate is your favorite? Can't figure out what Arnold really stands for? Wish you could tell Gray Davis and Cruz Bustamante apart? Arianna Huffington's web crew has come up with an animated interactive Match Your Candidate game.

Says the Arianna camp: "If you're tired of the media's obsession with personalities, scandals, glamour and glitz and want to know what the candidates actually believe, here's your chance. Find out where the candidates stand on the issues."

Sure, it's politically skewed, but the game (in the tradition of The Dating Game) is also pretty amusing.

Taking the VoIP plunge with Packet8

I'll be busy making phone calls over the next three weeks for a report on online newspaper registration practices I'm writing for the Newspaper Association of America.

So, a minute ago I took the plunge and ordered a Voice Over IP service. I followed the advice of my friends Buzz and Dan (who wrote about it here) and ordered a $19.95/month monthly service from 8x8's Packet8. Since I've got a cable modem, it allows me to call anyone in the United States or Canada for essentially free, even if they don't have Packet8.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Playground hell ahead for Heaven?

Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander missed the first quarter of yesterday's game to be by his wife's side as she gave birth to their first child. Shaun and Valerie named their daughter Heaven. Sorry, kid, but your parents are asking for trouble.

Please stay tuned

We're continuing to experience technical difficulties on this blog. (The right-hand nav has disappeared again tonight.) I may be moving from MovableType to TypePad by mid-week, so please stay tuned, I'll keep you apprised.

Clintons anoint Gen. Clark

Interesting William Safire column in Monday's Times, speculating on the reasons for the Clintons to back Gen. Wesley Clark's candidacy against Howard Dean. He's certainly right about the "fickle media":

As expected, fickle media that had been entranced with Dean (Dr. Lose-the-War) dropped the cranky Vermonter like a cold couch potato and are lionizing Clinton's fellow Arkansan and fellow Rhodes Scholar. ...

We'll see if the Democratic rank and file follow in lockstep with the punditocracy. Could be, but I doubt it.