Sunday, January 30, 2005

This is the banner headline at the NYT site, very large type at the top of the page, linking to this article: Iraqi Voters Turn out in High Numbers Despite Attacks Intended to Deter Them The AP says, "The Arab world is anything but indifferent to Sunday's polling in Iraq, which has dual implications for the restive region. It will almost certainly bring to power Iraq's long-suppressed Shiite Muslims, boosting the sect's influence in this Sunni Muslim-dominated area. It also will mean Washington has succeeded in bringing democracy to Iraq by force -- at least for the moment -- a precedent that could shake up the autocratic Arab world." UPDATE: The Times adds a front-page photo of a woman holding up an ink-stained finger, the triumphant signal of an Iraqi voter. 3:14:36 PM    comment []

I don't usually bother with Ann Coulter, because, well, what's the point, but this really is funny... 12:45:35 PM    comment []

I'm no expert at reading radio ratings...but these numbers make it look like Brad and Britt at WZTK are kicking butt, and that at least some of their market share may be coming from traditional talk biggie WSJS and from the morning shows on rock stations WVBZ and WKRR...I do enjoy the local Chris and Chris show, but anything that diminishes the world of John Boy & Billy is a positive... 11:31:49 AM    comment []

John Robinson: "One of the problems about traditional newspaper folk discussing blogging is that they misunderstand it... I understand where the traditional journalists are coming from. I was in that place a year ago." 11:19:29 AM    comment []

Iraq election coverage from BBC. Early reports look quite good. Bush's braintrust should be working a drive-thru window somewhere instead of running the occupation, but that doesn't change the fact that a successful election would be a good thing for Iraq, the US, and the world. 10:24:01 AM    comment []

High Point Enterprise editor Tom Blount boldly asserts that blogs won't kill newspapers. Yawn. A dispatch from the Jack Shafer school of strawmanicide. Dude spends much of his column regurgitating some prefab definition of blogging, and none of it actually looking at the use of blogs in the real world. And then...he punts. "I certainly won't say the High Point Enterprise will never have blogs. In a world that changes seemingly minute by minute, that would be foolhardy. Just don't expect any in the next few months." He might want to read Jon Lowder, and think about the fact that the N&R is a lot closer to him than it is to Winston-Salem. Meanwhile, readers are already weighing in...(thanks for the link, John). 10:12:18 AM    comment []

In the final book of "The Chronicles of Narnia," there is a description of a building that is bigger inside than it is outside. That's how I see traditional journalism in the age of the Internet. My newspaper column this morning is about using the web to enlarge and improve the flow of information into traditional media, as well as out of it. The BloJoCred conference helped me understand how profound the changes at work really are. "Alex Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who is now a lecturer at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, asked me if The New York Times could possibly emulate the News & Record. That's a question last posed, well, never." One thing discussed at the conference that I should have included in the column is the fact that MSNBC posted thousands of tsunami videos by amateurs at its website. Even when I try to enumerate the changes going on, I miss some. Read the whole thing. 8:32:08 AM    comment []