Thursday, March 20, 2003

The Total Information War? Another Washington Post article describes this war as such.  Filter creates a composite of stories of technology and its impact on the conduct and reporting of the war. comment [] 2:51:47 PM

War meets its medium? Washington Post story describes how traditional media outlets have invested much into preparing to use the internet to report the war.  NYT and Post are now talking about being 24 hour news operations. "This is going to be an extraordinary demonstration of real-time coverage that no other medium can match," said Merrill Brown, senior vice president for programming at RealNetworks, an Internet video service that includes news from ABC and CNN. "It's an enormous opportunity for the medium to show why it is so valuable." So, we have bloggers in bagdad, journalists blogging going to Bagdad, and the rest of the traditional media trying to figure out how to take advantage of this ubiquitous tool called the internet.  The conclusion of the story provides some exciting prospects: It remains to be seen how many people want to play such a lively role in consuming news, but it's a good bet that many who do explore the Internet news experiments will wind up hooked. Every major news story in the past has led to bigger online news audiences. Still, fewer than two-thirds of the Internet users in the United States visited a news site last month -- about 59 percent of the 131 million Americans who went online, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. That was up only slightly from 57 percent a year earlier. But before this conflict is over, it's a good bet that 10 million to 20 million more Americans could turn into online news junkies. So, I'll repeat my earlier question - will the internet be the 4-wire story of this war? comment [] 2:43:09 PM

Blogs "embedded" with traditional journalism From Dan Gillmor: Warblogs are springing up to meet a crucial need: filtering some of this avalanche of data so the rest of us can find the most important material. My own organization, Knight Ridder, has created this page of news and links. (If you have a contribution to make to this, please e-mail it to warblog@knightridder.com. Jeff Jarvis got this ball rolling among traditional journalism companies with this blog, which is being syndicated across the various sites of Avance.net. Some of the folks in my blogroll, on the right-hand side of this page, have been warblogging for a long time. I cite Glenn Reynolds as a prime example. (When does he sleep?) MSNBC's Weblog central is also valuable. Is this blog from Baghdad authentic? Sure looks like it. More to come... comment [] 2:20:17 PM

Ok, He is Blogging from Bagdad Winer says so: Paul Boutin, who we trust, fact-checked the Iraqi blogger, and concludes that he probably is reporting from Baghdad. [Scripting News] And so does Reynolds at Instapundit: SALAM PAX UPDATE: Will Femia has a fairly lengthy piece on Salam and his weblog, saying that Peter Arnett, etc., are being scooped, and out-written. Meanwhile, Paul Boutin thinks that he's "probably" for real, and has done some digging. Jason Kottke has more, too. These are very interesting posts, but the question isn't so much is Salam real, or in Baghdad. It's whether he's really an ordinary Iraqi as he claims, or something else (conceivably, on either side). And that's much harder to know. That's the issue with intelligence -- facts are easier to figure out than motivations, but motivations usually matter as much as discernable facts. posted at 01:01 PM by Glenn Reynolds comment [] 1:58:04 PM

Is the net a largely conservative experience? Doc raises an interesting question concerning the seeming absence of liberalism in the blogging world.  I concur with his opinion that the conservatives have mastered the "clues" and are using the net better than their ideological counterparts -- although the peace movement has grabbed the net as a tool for organizing events.  But, the conservatives are using the net to drive their message through the grassroots and then back into the mainstream media thus reinforcing the message being driven by the organization -- and this application, this reinforcement is where liberalism is failing to grasp the true usefulness of the net.   comment [] 10:43:06 AM

What if the Blog from Bagdad isn't? A weblog in Baghdad? David Appell has doubts [Scripting News] You know, if the blog is a fake -- is that any different than the TV news showing us tapes of missile launches without telling us they come from file footage? comment [] 10:37:05 AM

Blogging in Bagdad. Wonder if this will be the "4-wire" tech story of this war? From Scripting News: Tim Rutten: "Cable news came of age during the first Gulf War. Online commentary -- or blogging, as it is known -- may have found its moment in this second campaign against Saddam Hussein."  From Where is Raed? Thursday, March 20, 2003 :: Now that was really unexpected. When the sirens went on we thought we will get bombs by the tom load dropped on us but nothing happened, at least in the part of the city where I lived. Air-craft guns could be heard for a while but they stopped too after a while and then the all clear siren came. Today in the morning I went with my father for a ride around Baghdad and there was nothing different from yesterday. There is no curfew and cars can be seen speeding to places here and there. Shops are closed. Only some bakeries are open and of course the Ba’ath Party Centers. There are more Ba’ath people in the streets and they have more weapons. No army in the streets. We obviously still have electricity, phones are still working and we got to phone calls from abroad so the international lines are still working. water is still runing. the english speaking radio station on FM is now replaced by the arabic languge state radio program broadcasting on the same wave length. i just say thet because last night just as the BBC was broadcasting from baghdad (yes we have put up the sat dish again) their news ticker (or whatever you call that red band down there) said that the Iraqi state radio has been taken over by US broadcast. We watched saddam’s speech this morning, he’s got verse in it!! :: salam 1:23 PM [+] :: ... there is still nothing happening im baghdad we can only hear distant expolsions and there still is no all clear siren. someone in the BBC said that the state radio has been overtaken by US broadcast, that didn't happen the 3 state broadcasters still operate. :: salam 6:40 AM [+] :: [Where is Raed?] comment [] 6:41:23 AM

Online Opinion Doc Searl's highlights LA Times piece on blogs and online opinion. Sixth Column. In today's LA Times (read it before it scrolls to oblivion): Tim Rutten's Online commentators are siezing the moment. Starring Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus, Josh Marshall and Glenn Reynolds. Sez Tim: ...the uncertain character of these past few months has seemed tailor-made for a medium that puts a premium on opinion, debate and the digestion of provocative information from more sources than anyone with a day job has waking moments to handle. [The Doc Searls Weblog] comment [] 6:33:59 AM