Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Special Olympics 2007: Groundbreaking New Media Event
The Special Olympics 2007 (meant for athletes with intellectual limitations) starts Oct. 2 in Shanghai. The achievements of 7,500 athletes will be broadcast on a special site, Special Olympics Live. Each athlete will have his or her own page on the site, updated 24 hours per day. Nearly 300 university students … will work around the clock to capture footage of every single athlete and then immediately edit and upload content to the site. This way, supporters unable to attend the World Games can watch the athletes from their country compete.

Interactive Literary Journalism: Building New Tools (by Kim E. Pearson)
[P]rogress in video game technology and narrative theory suggests the possibility of tools that allow journalists to create immersive, multi-threaded non-fiction narratives. With such tools, a latter-day John Hersey could allow readers to wend their own ways through the stories of the protagonists of a complex tale such as Hiroshima amid a dynamic tableau of sites, sounds and contextual data about the city and the atomic bomb that felled it. I’m not talking about clicking through a Web site — I’m talking about fully realized stories, with character development and a clear, evocative narrative. Toward that end, I am collaborating with a computer scientist … to create just such a set of tools.

There is no safe harbor from change (by Jeff Jarvis)
Rather than trying to insulate ourselves from the marketplace with … subsidies, our challenge is instead to answer the question of whether the marketplace will support journalism and how it will do that. Does the public need and want journalism? I believe strongly that they do and they know it. So rather than trying to find money to support the old ways artificially, we need resources to invent the new ways, the ones we don’t know yet.

THE MESSAGE: Hip Hop Is The New Apple Pie
Unable to do anything useful about our catastrophe in Iraq, Congress moves on to a more manageable mortal threat — rap lyrics.

Reid On Senate Floor: Republicans Who Criticized MoveOn Must Condemn Rush ‘With Equal Fervor’
Last week, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh declared that soldiers who support American withdrawal from Iraq are “phony soldiers.” Today [Monday], Majority Leader Harry Reid gave a seven-minute speech on the floor of the Senate condemning Limbaugh and calling on his colleagues — both Democratic and Republican — to sign a letter of disapproval to the CEO of Clear Channel.
The Republicans’ response?  See below.  Democrats, you’re not going to win this game the way you’re playing it.  When will you get that, and start playing for keeps?

Rep. Kingston Introduces Resolution ‘Commending’ Rush Limbaugh
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) — who voted to criticize MoveOn.org — has decided to commend Limbaugh. Today at 3:16 PM, Kingston introduced a resolution “[c]ommending Rush Hudson Limbaugh III for his ongoing public support of American troops serving both here and abroad.”

Perino Dismisses Sy Hersh And ‘All His Anonymous Sources’ On Iran
Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker’s Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist, has a new article warning that there is “a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning” for war with Iran inside the Bush administration… In today’s press briefing, reporters questioned White House spokeswoman Dana Perino about Hersh’s article. Perino refused to address the substance of the piece, instead dismissing Hersh’s journalism and credibility.

Podhoretz: ‘I Believe Bush Is Going To Order Airstrikes On Iran Before He Leaves Office’
In a C-Span interview that aired this weekend, [Norman Podhoretz, widely reputed as the “godfather” of neoconservatism] states … : “I believe President Bush is going to order airstrikes [on Iran] before he leaves office. Because he has several times said — at least twice to my knowledge — that if we allow Iranians to acquire nuclear capabilities, 50 years from now, people will look back at us the way we look back at Munich and say ‘how could they have let this happen?’”
Click through to watch the video.

Report: State Dept., Blackwater cooperated to neutralize killings
WASHINGTON — State Department officials worked closely with the private security contractor Blackwater USA to play down incidents in which company operatives killed innocent Iraqis, according to Blackwater and State Department documents obtained by a congressional committee.

The Smear This Time (by Anita Hill)
In the portion of his book that addresses my role in the Senate hearings into his nomination, Justice [Clarence] Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears… A number of independent authors have shown those attacks to be baseless. What’s more, their reports draw on the experiences of others who were familiar with Mr. Thomas’s behavior, and who came forward after the hearings. It’s no longer my word against his.

Media Matters for America headlines

Limbaugh’s AFN audience has heard only misrepresentations of his “phony soldiers” comment on his show

ABC’s Greenburg cast Anita Hill’s allegations as charge that Thomas simply “pressured her to date him”

LA Times falsely suggested inconsistency in Clinton denunciation of Swift Boat ads and vote on MoveOn legislation

Gregory again suggested inconsistency in Dem candidates’ statements on Iraq withdrawal

Double standard? Media provided extensive coverage of MoveOn ad, but largely ignore Limbaugh’s “phony soldiers” controversy

Citing Investor’s Business Daily, Hannity repeated Soros funding falsehoods

Gibson aired edited Limbaugh clip to “prove” Media Matters had edited Limbaugh clip

Radio host John DePetro: White people go to Harlem for “either” drugs or prostitutes

If Bill O’Reilly Was A Rapper
The first single from Bill O’Reilly’s new album “Made You Watch.”
Click through to watch the video.

Taibbi: Political Absurdity Hits the Iowa Primaries
The media following the presidential campaigns in Iowa depict voters as gravely caring about meaningless issues like “likeability” and “electability.”

Susan Collins campaign staffer works for FOX News (by John Aravosis )
Just a bit of a conflict. Then again, we’ve always known that Susan is a FOX News Republican, so we should be glad she’s finally confirmed it.

Six Inconvenient Logical Fallacies
So Michael Medved, semi-famous movie reviewer and radio host, who has of late morphed into a weird “Hollywood vs. America” right-wing concern troll, has published an op-ed at Townhall that says that slavery in America just wasn’t as bad as all that. No, seriously.
Click through to read the six main points, or for the link to the entire opinion piece, if you truly want to punish yourself.

The High Dollar: The Real Cause of the Weak Dollar (by Dean Baker)
The NYT is upset again that the dollar is falling and once again it is blaming President Bush’s budget deficits… The dollar is declining for a simple reason — it was over-valued. The United States had a trade deficit that exceeded 6 percent of GDP at its peak. This was not sustainable, as just about all economists recognized. There are two ways to reduce a trade deficit: a recession or a fall in the dollar. Unless the NYT prefers a prolonged recession, it should applaud the fall in the dollar as part of a necessary adjustment process.

Boeing fires employee for talking to Post-Intelligencer
The fired worker talked to the newspaper for a story revealing that Boeing had failed to prove that it could protect its computer systems against manipulation, theft and fraud. “There’s no way in the world that I expected to lose my job when all I am trying to do is save the company,” he tells the P-I.

AP and Other Media Sue for Mine Collapse Records
A coalition of media organizations, including The Associated Press, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Monday seeking to halt a federal investigation into the Crandall Canyon mine disaster until a judge can decide whether the proceedings should be public.

Newspapers curtail traditional methods of winning customers
They’ve cut back on advertising, cold-calling people and offering promotional discounts. “It’s a rational business decision of newspapers focusing on quality circulation rather than quantity, shedding the subscribers who cost more and generate less revenue,” says Colby Atwood, head of media research firm Borrell Associates.

Guilds Ask Screenwriters for Strike Authorization
Hollywood could see its first industrywide walkout since 1988 if unions representing 12,000 screenwriters vote to strike after their contract expires at the end of this month.
There’s less and less work for them with all these unscripted reality shows.

CBSNews.com Chief to Lead a News and Blogs Site
Betsy Morgan will leave CBSNews.com to join the Huffington Post, a news Web site, as its new chief executive.

What’s Your Facebook Strategy?
Third-Party Applications Can Help You Tap Its Massive Audience

And what’s your social TV guide strategy? “TIOTI’s Social TV Guide Officially Launched”

And your social SHOPPING strategy???!!! “Microsoft Acquires Social Shopping Network Jellyfish”

Online videos may be conduits for viruses
ATLANTA – Online videos aren’t just for bloopers and rants — some might also be conduits for malicious code that can infect your computer.

Music download trial starts Tuesday
MINNEAPOLIS – A group of record companies says Jammie Thomas illegally shared everything from Enya to Swedish death metal online. Tuesday, she will become the first of 26,000 people sued by the recording industry to take the case to trial.

Google’s Crumbling Answer to Privacy Groups: Break It Up.
During an address to the Senate regarding its pending acquisition of advertising company DoubleClick, Google has proposed a “crumbled cookies” approach to the retention of personal data. This means that information gathered from an individual computer will be broken into pieces and saved in separate places, in order to preserve the privacy of users.

AT&T Silences Criticism in New Terms of Service (thanks to Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars)
“AT&T’s new Terms of Service give AT&T the right to suspend your account and all service “for conduct that AT&T believes”…”(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.” After cooperating with the government’s violations of privacy and liberties, I guess AT&T wants their fair share. AT&T users may want to think twice about commenting if they value their internet service.”