Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Eric Boehlert in Salon on "Jeff Gannon": "Just how blatantly the White House press office looked the other way in regard to Guckert...comes into stark relief when examining his attempt to secure a similar press pass to cover Capitol Hill." "How did Guckert...manage to adopt the day-pass system as his own while sidestepping a thorough background check that might have detected his sordid past? That's the central question the White House refuses to address." Boehlert points toward Karl Rove. Developing. Or, not. 2:41:59 PM    comment []

Carolina Film & Video Festival, today through Saturday, UNCG. Rusty sez "Go." 2:33:21 PM    comment []

Behind the Times in New York: Mark A. Stein of the NYT's business section has "long been puzzled" as to why bloggers get so much attention. Just not puzzled enough to do any thoughtful analysis of the blogging world. Mr. Stein is most put out by "jumped up dunces with PCs," and opines that "most bloggers are...a bunch of barroom loudmouths with a big electronic megaphone."  (letter to Romenesko, 2/23/2005 12:51:52 PM) What a nuanced and well-informed point of view. Mr. Stein wrote in support of one of the least thoughtful articles on blogging I've read in a while, by Ted Rall. 2:25:24 PM    comment []

Why newspaper editors should write weblogs: posts like this and this. 2:05:11 PM    comment []

A beautiful new kind of byline: "contributing reader." The N&R's first published work by a contributing reader is here. Lex has the details on how to submit and where to read. 2:01:07 PM    comment []

Hoggard says Dell forgot a key thank-you... ...and he's pissed at Locke Clifford, too. 9:24:49 AM    comment []

Eric Gautschi responds to Anton's post about the need for Chapel Hill's j-school to pick up the slack on blogging: "The fact the UNC J-school doesn't blog isn't suprising at all. They have bigger problems...Blogs, you say? How about just catching up with the Web?...this is a JOURNALISM school and yet it offers not a single course in online journalism. It is school that defines 'electronic communication' as television and radio." We're not just complaining, though: I've accepted Eric's invitation to join the advisory board for the SouthNow blog. Related. 9:20:03 AM    comment []

NYT: "In an action likely to reopen a national debate over whether doctors should be able to help terminally ill patients end their lives, the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear the Bush administration's challenge to the only state law in the country that authorizes physician-assisted suicide." 9:01:36 AM    comment []

Harold Bloom in the WSJ (subs. only): "The Desert Island Question ('If just one book, which?') has no universal answer, but most readers with authentic judgment would choose among the Authorized English Bible, Shakespeare complete, and 'Don Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes." So much to argue about in that single supercilious sentence. "Authentic judgment." "Most." And of course, the books themselves, and all those not on this short list... 8:54:41 AM    comment []

BizJournal: Nido Qubein, Rock Star. It would be interesting to know the makeup of that $20 million he raised so fast -- how much is in bequests and planned gifts, how much HPU gets in the immediate future. 8:40:40 AM    comment []

The indispensable David Wharton visited the big Reedy Fork Ranch development abuilding northeast of GSO, and came away with mixed feelings. He found "an unremarkable housing development built on a formula that developers have been using and re-using for three or four decades...It seems like a good place for people who see their neighborhoods as a place to retreat from work, commerce, civic life, and even from other neighbors." Wouldn't you love to see this kind of in-depth journalism about development, architecture, and the way we live now in the newspaper, alongside the real estate ads? 8:36:15 AM    comment []

Dave Winer offers a clear explanation of Googe's insidious new toolbar function that allows readers to insert new links into web pages: "In 2005, adding links to a page is not different from adding to or changing the words on the page...it's impossible to know which links were added by the author and which were added by Google... "Any news organization or academic journal that publishes on the Web now has a serious integrity issue...All documents will have to contain a disclaimer that links contained within the page may not have been placed there by the author or organization whose copyright notice is on the page." 8:24:07 AM    comment []