Permanent link to MTA daily media news

What is Progressive Blogosphere 2.0?
Please join us for posting and discussion at The Mighty Corrente Building Thursday, July 3 [today] at 5PM [presumably, ET}, with Big Tent Democrat moderating and presiding, along with the usual suspects. We’ve got PB 2.0 Manifesto that we hope, with your help, to revise.

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The founders' rights stuff (by Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times)
This Fourth of July, celebrate by rereading the Declaration of Independence, created by more or less the same crowd who brought us the Constitution, 11 years and one war later. Remember it? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Wild stuff! To the founders, "all men" have "unalienable rights" -- not just U.S. citizens in the continental United States. (If the founding fathers were around today, Rush Limbaugh and Rudy Giuliani would pillory them as limp-wristed, latte-drinking, soft-on-terror liberals.)…

[T]he people who founded this nation risked war, prison and death for the sake of unalienable human rights. Their values guided us through good times and bad, through the Civil War, two world wars and the Cold War. But today, some Americans seem happy to discard those same precious values in the name of “security.” Sometimes I wonder: If the founders could have foreseen this, would they have bothered to fight the Revolutionary War?

Judge Rejects Bush’s View on Wiretaps (New York Times)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the “exclusive” means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law… Judge [Vaughn R.] Walker’s voice carries extra weight because all the lawsuits involving telephone companies that took part in the N.S.A. program have been consolidated and are being heard in his court… The ruling comes as the Senate is overhauling the foreign intelligence law. [Emphasis added.] The measure would reaffirm FISA as the exclusive means for the president to order wiretaps through court warrants, but it would also provide legal immunity to phone companies involved in the eavesdropping program. A vote could come Tuesday.

Obama’s Vote for Warrantless Wiretapping (by donpedro at Economists for Obama)
Obama’s failure to oppose the warrantless wiretapping bill … has given me some pause and made me think perhaps I should send my political contributions elsewhere. The immunity for lawbreaking telecoms is one of the events of the Bush years that has most angered me. The current FISA is perfectly capable of dealing with surveillance, and empowering the president to monitor my phone calls and e-mails is plainly a violation of the 4th Amendment… Why, after voting against the Protect [America] Act and saying he would support any filibuster of immunity for lawbreaking telecoms, is Obama now saying he will vote for the new law? I don’t understand.

Moving To The “Middle” On FISA (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
Ed Kilgore writes: “And those who accuse [Obama] of cynicism for expressing heretical thoughts on FISA . . . now are perhaps the real cynics, who somehow thought he didn’t really mean all his early talk about transpartisan politics or overcoming the stale debates of past decades.” The problem with this is that Obama is not being “heretical” on FISA, he is totally flip flopping on FISA. He said he would filibuster any FISA bill that included telecom immunity. Now he acts as if he never said that… Ed STILL does not understand that the fundamental reason John Kerry lost in 2004 was because the American People did not believe he would stand for something:

Obama advisor Greg Craig: Adding insult to injury (by Glenn Greenwald at No Quarter)
In today’s New York Times, James Risen … spoke with Obama adviser Greg Craig…: “Greg Craig, a Washington lawyer who advises the Obama campaign, said Tuesday in an interview that Mr. Obama had decided to support the compromise FISA legislation only after concluding it was the best deal possible. ‘…[H]e concluded that with FISA expiring, that it was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire.’” Craig’s statement is flat-out false. FISA — enacted in 1978 and amended many times to accommodate modern communications technology — has no expiration date. The Protect America Act, which Congress enacted last August to legalize warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, had a 6-month sunset provision and thus already expired back in February, restoring FISA as the governing law… It’s bad enough that Obama is supporting a new warrantless eavesdropping scheme. They should just candidly admit that he changed his position rather than feeding incoherent and insultingly false rationalizations to the public…

Blue America has created — and today unveils — a superb new tool for contacting key Senators to urge them to vote against the FISA bill and/or to vote for pending amendments to improve the bill (if any of those amendments pass, a key benefit will be that the bill then must return to the House or be reconciled, rather than going straight to the White House for signing).
Click here to access the tool.

Word ‘Stimulus’ (by Taylor Marsh)

[T]he picture above [is] from Northern California recently… Interesting that McCain is in South America babbling about free trade agreements, while Barack Obama is talking about national service. Meanwhile, Starbucks announces the closing of 600 stores, gas prices skyrocket, and if you’ve traveled around your town or other towns recently you’ll see a lot of sales. Oh, and GM may be in chapter 11 soon… So why is Obama trying to see how many big Democratic presidential quotes he can jam into a speech, while John McCain is talking free trade? Are these guys that clueless? This election season is turning into quite a bizarre experience so far.

Obama opposes California same-sex marriage ban, which McCain supports
SAN FRANCISCO — Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has announced his opposition to a November ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage in California, a move that puts gay rights front and center in the 2008 presidential campaign… Obama is skating gingerly past his previous position on the issue. [Emphasis added.] The Illinois senator has said repeatedly that he believes marriage should only be between man and a woman.

Obama Got Discount on Home Loan (Washington Post)
Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a “super super jumbo.” Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.
Obama got a lot more help than that to buy that house.

Bloggers Who Think Dig Into Obama Mortgage Loan Story (by SusanUnPC at No Quarter)
Amid the chorus of “nothing to see here, move along” flock of bloggers writing ho-hum responses to today’s Washington Post story, there are a few who are thinking deeper:
• Our TexasDarlin pointed out the favorable treatment the Obamas received compared to the “neglected slums” of their impoverished neighbors in unimaginably horrific “public” housing that Obama helped privatize so that his rich longtime buddies — like Tony Rezko and Allison Davis — could scoop up tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money while the properties were left in such disrepair that many became uninhabitable.
• LisaB addressed the mysterious payments of property taxes for the Obamas.
• Now, Flopping Aces resurrects the mystery of Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi who helped an in-debt Tony Rezko (in exchange for what?) around the time Rezko somehow managed to help the Obamas buy their mansion.
Click through for links.

Obama Embraces Faith-Based Corruption (a Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford)
With George W. Bush as his mentor, Barack Obama shamelessly dives into the political sewer of “faith-based initiatives,” the Republican strategy to bribe the Black preaching class. Obama takes his cues from “W,” who early in his first term lured hustler/preachers by the thousands into GOP ranks by grabbing them by the greedy-bones. Rather than prepare to cast out this great corruption along with the Bush regime, Obama adopts it as his own – a shocking display of cynicism and amorality. Obama’s faith-based treachery will inevitably result in a weakening of the Black progressive tradition.

Evangelical activist changes mind on McCain; he ‘can’t take the chance’ on Obama (On Politics, USA Today)
David Brody at The Christian Broadcasting Network’s Brody File has a memo written by Phil Burress, who David describes as “one of the mover and shakers in the conservative Evangelical movement.” According to Brody, Burress tells his fellow believers that though he opposed John McCain in the past, he’s supporting him now in part because: “I can’t wait any longer and can’t take the chance that Obama will be our next president. … John McCain, unlike most politicians, will not be bullied, threatened, paid off or pressured into changing his position.”
Amazing, huh?  McCain has changed his positions at least as many times as Obama.

Matthew 25 Network PAC Hits Christian Radio with Pro-Obama Ad as Christian Conservative Leaders Decide to Support McCain (by GRL at InsightAnalytical)
In a story dated July 1 with the title “Barack Obama Radio Spot Hits Christian Radio,” [David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network] writes: “Now playing on Christian radio: Barack Obama! The Brody File has learned that the Matthew 25 Network which is a religious political action committee supporting Obama has put together a radio ad in which Obama’s faith is highlighted. And get this….they are airing it on Christian radio in Colorado Springs, the home to James Dobson and Focus on the Family.”

Obama’s Work Claim (FactCheck.org)
Obama’s new ad, “Dignity,” … begins with the announcer telling us that Obama “worked his way through college and Harvard Law.” Actually, Obama took out loans to get himself through college, as we heard in a 60-second ad his campaign began running last month. We don’t know how much assistance his family provided… As in his last ad, this one touts three bills that Obama “passed,” and once again we’re not told whether the bills were products of the Illinois Senate or the U.S. Senate. We’ll fill you in: In this ad, all three pieces of legislation mentioned were passed in the Illinois Senate.

What have you done for me lately? (by Pagan Power at No Quarter)
Barack Obama has put out a new ad touting his legislative achievements. A good thing it is one of those 30 second ads. Otherwise he would have to fill it with lies like he did his first…. So we get to the meat of this ad and lo and behold what do we learn? The troubling fact that of all of the legislative accomplishments he claims, not a single one of them has occurred since he became a US Senator. Get that? He hasn’t accomplished a single thing of note since becoming a US Senator. Not. A. Single. Thing.

No peace for Obama on Israel (by Gregory Levey, Salon)
He’s facing nervous Jewish voters in Florida, attacks by Joe Lieberman and smear tactics in a political war that threatens his campaign.

WHAT DO “PROGRESSIVES” BELIEVE? (pdf) (by Jessica Trounstine, Princeton University)
Our team found:
Support for the term “progressive” has increased over time.
Self-identified progressives are more supportive of government intervention in the economy, both in terms of regulating business and redistributing income, than the general public.
Progressives are protective of civil liberties.
When asked to choose between equality and freedom a majority of progressives say that equality is more important.
Progressive tend to support government efforts to safeguard the environment.
Progressives are less religious on average than other ideological groups.
Progressives tend to be unwilling to tolerate government regulation of morality.
Progressives tend to have positive views of immigrants.
Progressives are committed to diplomacy as the cornerstone of foreign policy.
Progressives tend to be better educated and to earn more money than the average respondent.
Progressive identification is most popular with respondents under the age of 50 and men.
Progressives pay a great deal of attention to politics.
Actually, I disagree with one or two of these points, but I definitely qualify as a progressive.  Obama does not.

Freedom Rider: So Long Suckers (by Margaret Kimberley at the Black Agenda Report)
“The Obama campaign slogan ought to be ‘Never give a sucker an even break.’” The Democratic nominee-to-be has made “chumps” out of progressives at every turn, yet they still fawn over Obama as if he is one of their own. But do these “hapless” supporters deserve pity – or condemnation. Regarding the group, Progressives for Obama, “they are accomplices to” the candidate’s “wrong doing.” Something is clearly wrong in the “progressive” American political culture.. “Because progressives never fought the good fight amongst themselves, they still don’t know what their agenda ought to be, or worse yet, they don’t even know they should have one.”

Cynthia McKinney Deserves Your Support, Obama Does Not (by Glen Ford at the Black Agenda Report)
Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who seems poised to capture the Green Party presidential nomination, in Chicago, this month, “is at this juncture in history the only vehicle through which progressives can both register their outrage at Barack Obama and begin the process of rebuilding a mass, Black-led movement for real social change. Meanwhile, the frequency of Obama’s Right turns seem to increase in direct proportion to the nearness of the general election. “Surely no one with a brain any longer believes that Obama is a closet progressive, or even a genuine liberal.” The question is, How many progressives will put their votes and resources to honorable use?

You Down With O.P.P.? (by myiq2xu at The Confluence)
How long has the Democratic party been coming by, sweet talking and schmoozing you, taking your money and votes, and then going back home to their real love?  How long have they been promising you the sun, the moon and the stars, but delivering nada planada?  Too long.  Way too too long. Right now this country is controlled by an elite ruling class.  This class consists of life-time and charter members.  The life-time members are the wealthy, the rich and shameless.  They own or control the corporations and most of the wealth…  The charter members are the politicians and media.

Bill and Hillary Clinton, like Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, are not part of the corporatist aristocracy.  In fact, they are hated by those malefactors of great wealth.  Bill Clinton was elected on a promise to provide comprehensive health care reform.  He tried to keep that promise.  He appointed Hillary to lead the effort, and she did her best.  They were defeated, not by the Republican party, but by traitors in the Democratic party that sided with the corporatists. These treasonous Democrats in Congress and the media have been posing as liberals and progressives for decades, but they are owned body and soul by the corporatists.  They  say they love us, but they are just screwing us.  They undermined Hillary’s health care reform, and forced Bill to settle for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” instead of lifting the ban on gays in the military. But they miscalculated…. They didn’t expect PUMA
Those very same so-called Democrats who stopped every progressive initiative of the Clinton administration, who helped the right wing haters impeach our president over a private matter, are charter members of the Obama campaign.

Health care defeatist of the day (by DCblogger at Corrente)
Our biggest obstacle in the struggle for single payer are the members of our coalition who are willing to give up before they even try. Booman[:] “Another way of putting this is that Barack Obama would prefer a single-payer system but that it is politically impossible to get it done at the moment and he isn’t going to let people go without health insurance just because health coverage is a theoretically better solution.” Right now today, John Conyers has a piece of legislation that has 90 cosponsors. We just have to find an additional 128 supporters in the House of Representatives and we can pass this. It has been endorsed by dozens of organizations from every region of the country and every sector of society.

NO DEAL: Current DNC “Brain Trust” a “Lost Cause” (video) (Come a Long Way)
If you don’t think there was collusion by Richardson, Edwards, and Obama to “game” the Iowa Caucus against Clinton, take a look at the picture at frame 01:06

PUMA vs. HOUND: The Acronym War (by Pat Racimora at No Quarter)

[Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania:] “While the PUMA [Party Unity My Ass] may be more swift and athletic, the HOUND [Hillary Obama United Not Divided] is smarter and more perceptive.” Governor Rendell would have been wise to do a little more research on hounds before embracing the acronym. Hounds are actually the least intelligent of dogs, ranking at the very bottom. I can attest to this first hand. My Russian Wolfhound (Borzoi) was a lovely creature, but dumb as a pumpkin. And dogs, after all, are bred to follow the top dog’s orders. Big cats, on the other hand, are not only swift and athletic. They are self-reliant, independent, resourceful, and answer to no one. Even domestic cats are crafty and show a strong will. So, despite the acronym and image challenges, if the idea behind HOUND is to put a very intelligent dog up against a puma, Rendell’s group would be much better off with POODLE.

Why Obama Represents Bush’s Third Term (by Rosemary Regello at The City Edition)
John McCain’s top economic policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, recently said in a PBS interview that Sen. Barack Obama, if elected, would guarantee a Bush third term. “It is Barack Obama’s budget plan, not Senator McCain’s, that resembles Bush’s policies,” Holtz-Eakin told Judy Woodruff… [H]ere, my friends, is the proof:
1. Obama’s presidential campaign is supported in large part by investment banks tied to the market speculation driving oil prices through the ionosphere.
2. Obama’s economic advisers come from the University of Chicago, where the Milton Friedman/Alan Greenspan model of free markets run amuck is paving the way for an age of neo-feudalism.
3. Obama has interviewed two Republicans to serve as secretary of defense and secretary of state in his administration, and has himself been linked to war profiteering in Iraq.
4. Obama has promised to expand Bush’s controversial “faith-based initiative”, which funnels millions of tax dollars each year to religious organizations, many which oppose some civil rights.
5. Obama supports warrantless surveillance, including the FISA bill.
Click through to read the details, including links.  The Wall Street Journal editorial board apparently agrees with Rosemary.

The ‘mushy middle’ hard to win for Obama, McCain
They’re the most fickle voters, and potentially the most powerful. An AP-Yahoo! News poll finds that 15 percent of the electorate call themselves moderates and aren’t solidly supporting McCain or Obama.
But that’s who the Democrats think they have to go after, defeat after defeat after defeat.  And Obama’s headed down that same, damn road.

McCain Orders Shake-Up of His Campaign (New York Times)
Responding to Republican concerns, John McCain placed a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 re-election in charge of day-to-day operations… The move … is the latest sign of increasing influence of veterans of Mr. Rove’s shop in the McCain operation.

Seeing The Enemy (by Steve Soto at the Left Coaster)
We’re about to see how well Team Obama can adjust to a scorched earth campaign from some very seasoned practitioners. Karl Rove and Steve Schmidt now run the McCain effort, and there is no reason why Team Obama should be unprepared for the challenge. The Kerry effort from 2004 is a textbook case of what not to do. As I said years ago, to beat Rove, you need to hit him first and attack an area of perceived strength as well as weakness. This needs to be done every day, ruthlessly and relentlessly by way of a Truth Squad/quick response effort that follows McCain around the country to get a counter-narrative rebutting his message in the same news cycle; and a Tier One/Tier Two effort against McCain every day through scripted surrogates to keep him against the wall on defense while Obama takes the high road and talks positively about the future. Obama needs to attack McCain’s perceived strengths and turn them into at least a net zero if not a liability. For guidance, see what Rove did to Kerry with the Swifties and then envision what Obama should do to McCain on national security and terrorism.
Is Steve recommending that Obama should lie about McCain, as did the Swiftboat guys about Kerry?  What kind of party are the Democrats now? It’s certainly what Obama did to Clinton, so we’ll see whether he also does it to McCain.

Playing The Fear Card (by Dan Kennedy, The Guardian, U.K.)
For Republicans, fear is a cudgel with which they’ve bludgeoned their way to victory since the Reagan era, and it’s acquired an extra emotional wallop since 9/11. Will it work again?

FBI to descend on Denver for Dem event
“Hundreds” of FBI agents will be in Denver during the Democratic National Convention, according to James Davis, the FBI special agent in charge of the Denver field division that oversees Colorado and Wyoming. The FBI is “responsible for gathering intelligence on, primarily terrorist activity, any possible terrorist activity with regard to the convention, and make sure we get that intelligence to our partner agencies so they can be prepared,” according to a “Colorado Matters” interview… Davis also said that, “We don’t have any information right now about any credible threat to the convention on a terrorist level.”

Late-Period Limbaugh (by Zev Chafets, New York Times Magazine)
I was back in New York, listening to the radio, when I heard Limbaugh say: “Ladies and gentlemen, I had a conversation with a friend Wednesday afternoon after the program, and he said, ‘Nobody’s criticizing Obama. How are you going to do this? How are you going to handle criticizing the first black American to run for president?’ I said: ‘I’m going to do it the way I always do it. First, at the top of the list, I’m going to do it fearlessly. I’m not going to bow to political correctness… I have, just this morning, named a new position here on the staff that is the Official Obama Criticizer. The E.I.B. Network now has an Official Obama Criticizer. He is Bo Snerdly.”

Snerdly introduced himself as an “African-American-in-good-standing-and-certified-black-enough-to-criticize-Obama guy,” and declared that he was speaking, “on behalf of our E.I.B. brothers and sisters in the hood.” The bit was typical Limbaugh — confrontational, deliberately insensitive and funny. It was also a declaration of independence. Whatever special courtesies John McCain might plan to extend to Barack Obama, Limbaugh is going to conduct his air war, as he always has, by his own rules of engagement.
It’s a very long piece, but interesting. Remember that Republicans go after a candidate’s strength (which is, of course, what Obama did to Clinton).  Obama thinks he can’t be attacked on racial issues, but he hasn’t met the right wing yet.  The time will come.  Unlike many liberals, they don’t care if you call them racists.  And by the way, Limbaugh just received a new $400 million eight-year deal.

McCain adopts a ‘losing’ strategy
John McCain believes he is the underdog this election, and by calling attention to being down, McCain sets himself up to go, well, up.

McCain criticizes Obama’s high court favorites
INDIANAPOLIS – Republican John McCain said Tuesday that his Democratic rival’s Supreme Court nominees would produce more decisions like the child rapist ruling that both presidential candidates have criticized.

McCain denies roughing up Sandinista (AP)
John McCain denied a Republican colleague’s claim that he roughed up an associate of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on a diplomatic mission in 1987, saying the allegation was “simply not true.” Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., told a Mississippi newspaper that he saw McCain, during a trip to Nicaragua led by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., grab an Ortega associate by his shirt collar and lift him out of his chair.

The Hidden History of U.S. Broadcasting (by Bruce Dixon at the Black Agenda Report)
The US broadcast media regime, in which greedy, amoral corporations enjoy completely free monopoly licenses to run their highly profitable businesses upon the scarce public property that is the broadcast spectrum is usually presented to us as the only “natural” and sensible media order. It is, we’ve all been told, the benign and logical outcome of democratic give and take and rigorous competition in a free marketplace. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Thank God for Media Exposure Dept.: Polygamist sect launches children’s clothes range (by Guy Adams, The Independent, U.K.)

Members of the polygamist sect leave court
in traditional dress in May

They call it the prairie look: big hair, long dresses, and any colour you like, so long as it’s pastel. Now the women of a Texas polygamist sect are cashing in on their recent infamy by launching a children’s fashion label… Bestsellers in the range, which was inspired by America’s 19th-century pioneers, are expected to include a “baby dress with bloomers,” denim dungarees, and a modest long-sleeved dress for teenage girls. All are being hand-stitched to traditional standards in a factory set up by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).

USA Today Only Talks to Ignorant Economists (Dean Baker)
We know this because it told readers today that, “the credit crisis also has stuck around much longer than expected.” This is not true. Economists who understand the economy knew that the credit crisis was far from over back in March, when many ill-informed analysts proclaimed the end of the crisis. It was easy to see that the crisis was not over because the fundamental problem was the collapse of the housing bubble which was and is leading to record foreclosure rates on mortgages. With hundreds of billions of dollars of losses on mortgages, it was inevitable that there would be serious problems for those holding mortgages and mortgage backed securities and their derivatives.

Media Matters for America headlines

• Fox’s Henneberg did not challenge Swift Boat member Bud Day’s false claim that Clark served in Vietnam for only one month

• Andrea Mitchell falsely suggested that MoveOn.org/AFSCME ad attacked McCain’s military service

• Wash. Post’s Shear falsely claimed “McCain rarely talks about his time as a POW”

• NBC’s Mitchell misrepresented sequence of Clark’s remarks, suggesting Clark only “subsequently … honored” McCain’s service

• Purporting to read Clark quote, The Hill’s Stoddard omitted major parts of Face the Nation exchange

• NPR’s Liasson cited McCain’s work with Kennedy on immigration reform as a “source of his maverick reputation,” didn’t note flip-flop

• On Fox News, Bolling repeats offshore drilling falsehoods

• “[L]ive from an oil rig”: NBC, MSNBC aired multiple reports on offshore drilling without explaining “environmental concerns” or disclosing GE’s drilling connection

• Wash. Post baselessly suggested preferential treatment in home loan interest rate Obama received

• Ignoring Clark’s praise, LA Times uncritically reported McCain camp’s assertion that Clark “didn’t pay proper homage” to his POW service

Jordan charges Dutch politician with blasphemy
AMMAN (Reuters) – A Jordanian prosecutor on Tuesday charged Dutch politician Geert Wilders with blasphemy and contempt of Muslims for making an anti-Koran film and ordered him to stand trial in the kingdom, judicial sources said. In Riyadh, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a league of 56 Muslim nations, said it was “deeply annoyed” after Dutch prosecutors said on Monday they would not take action against Wilders as he was protected by the right to free speech.

Analysis: U.S. military to patrol Internet
The U.S. military is looking for a contractor to patrol cyberspace, watching for signs of forthcoming terrorist attacks or other hostile activity on the web… In a solicitation posted on the Web last week, the command said it was looking for a contractor to provide “Internet awareness services” to support “force protection” — the term of art for the security of U.S. military installations and personnel.

Response to Outing: On Demise of ‘Hyperlocal’ Backfence (by Mark Potts, Editor & Publisher)
I’m concerned that Steve Outing’s latest E&P column about hyperlocal sites paints an inaccurate picture of why Backfence failed, and more importantly, might discourage badly needed experimentation in new models for hyperlocal coverage, especially user-generated hyperlocal content.

Save the Press (by Timothy Egan, New York Times)
And here’s the great paradox of the newspaper industy’s struggles: all of this bad news is coming at a time when the audience and reach of many newspapers has never been greater. The Internet may kill the daily newspaper as we know it, but it’s allowed some papers to increase their readership by tenfold.

LATimes to cut 250 jobs, including 150 news jobs
The Los Angeles Times plans to cut 250 positions, including 150 jobs in the print and online news departments, amid a continuing industrywide slump in ad sales, the paper’s editor said Wednesday. The paper will undergo a makeover by the fall that will cut pages by 15 percent per week, eliminate some sections and trim story length.

Tolkien’s Children Fight for Lord of the Rings Gold
The Lord of the Rings, which grossed $2.96 billion worldwide at the box office and $3 billion or so more in DVD and ancillary markets, has not made any money for the heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the famous books. There are only two Tolkien children still living — Christopher, age 83, and Priscilla, age 79 — and the lawsuit filed on their behalf is not scheduled to be heard until October 2009.

EMI Unveils Major European Online Music Push (Paid Content)
EMI Group has signed deals with 20 digital music distributors to sell its music on the Internet, in the most wide-ranging online push by a major music company in Europe…[C]onsumers will be able to make permanent copies of songs and transfer them to recordable CDs, portable music players and their computer hard drives. Consumers can also purchase singles online once they hit radio airwaves.

Apple To Sell Individual Songs in Its Music Service (Paid Content)
Which is a kick start for the micropayments industry, long plagued by poor adoption by consumers as well as media companies. Apple’s new service will feature songs from all five major record labels, link with its iTunes music software and allow for easy downloading to the iPod, Apples popular digital music player, people familiar with the matter said. Apple’s service may also be available in a Windows version as well in coming months.

News Networks See Growth
Second-quarter Nielsen numbers include something for all the cable news nets and broadcast network news divisions to crow about — except CBS.

CBS Evening News Wins Murrow for Best Evening Newscast
The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric won the Edward R. Murrow award for Best Newscast. CBS News won four awards in total, bested by ABC News which won six, including one for Overall Excellence. NBC News won one. CBS News also took home an award for best Web site, while ABC News won for spot news coverage of the Minneapolis bridge collapse.

Producers Adding Up Costs of Potential SAG Strike
The AMPTP’s main Web page features a banner showing the financial damage a SAG strike could cause to other SAG members and to California. The AMPTP estimates a SAG strike could cost California $266 a second, while the cost borne by a SAG member would be $29 per second. SAG is reviewing the 43-page deal and said it is committed to continuing its negotiations with the AMPTP.

Writers set slate for Strike.tv
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – An online network formed by professional TV and film scribes during the Hollywood writers’ strike earlier this year unveiled a slate Wednesday featuring contributions from the minds behind the likes of “The Office” and “Die Hard.”

Movie trailers find big audiences online
It’s been a so-so year for movies, but it’s shaping up to be an excellent year for trailers.

Microsoft Seeks Partners For a New Run at Yahoo
Microsoft Corp., positioning itself for a new run for Yahoo Inc.’s search business, has approached other media companies in recent days about joining it in a deal that would effectively lead to Yahoo’s breakup, say people familiar with the discussions. Microsoft has held discussions with Time Warner Inc. and News Corp., among others, say people involved in the talks.

Justice Looks Further at Google-Yahoo Deal
The Justice Department’s antitrust division has begun issuing subpoenas as it probes further into whether a planned Google-Yahoo partnership in search advertising is anticompetitive.

Sports Content Revenue Soars (Paid Content)
A collaborative report from Screen Digest and ArkSports Limited indicates that there will be more than 113 million sports broadband users globally by the end of 2005–surging to more than 309 million by the end of 2008–and resulting in $6.4 billion in revenue by the end of 2008. The U.S., China, Japan, Germany and South Korea are expected to lead the sports broadband services market to over $344 million by the end of 2002.

Conde Nast’s Big Titles Aren’t Generating Ad Pages
Conde Nast Publications, which last year managed to soar above the general industry malaise by posting a 5.41 percent jump in ad pages, is slumping in the first half of 2008. The three big titles — Vogue, Glamour, and Vanity Fair — are all flat to down in the first half, according to Media Industry Newsletter, and the outlook is dim for a second half recovery to bail them out.

Spongecell Ads Turn Banners into Bookmark Buttons (Mashable)
Event planning and marketing tool Spongecell is delving into the advertising market with a new product called Spongecell Rich Media Ads… Spongecell is hoping to offer a way for brands to present more permanent connections with consumers, so these ads are essentially widgets that let consumers add the advertised event to a calendar or their social network. There are also options to send information to their mobile phone or home page. Ben Kartzman, the CEO of Spongecell says to “think of it as a bookmark for an online campaign.” A shareable bookmark at that.

Will Advertisers Pay for User Subscriptions? (by Rafat Ali at Paid Content)
Pico-Pay [is] an Australian micropayments company I wrote about first here. One [detail] I am a bit troubled by: Advertisers can access the Internet Protocol (IP) address of each consumer, when their advertisements are viewed.

TokBox Brings Video to Facebook IM Chat (Mashable)
Recently funded, web-based video chat tool TokBox has just anted up its Facebook application by making it available directly in chat. TokBox’s web-based platform is a Flash-enabled browser plugin that simplifies the video chat process by offering a service that doesn’t require downloads or any cumbersome setup process, granted you already have a working webcam or computer microphone.

NetFlix’s New Plan: This Could Change Things (by Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins at Mashable)
The word is now that Roku is going to start supporting other services aside from NetFlix on the set-top box.  The common consencus seems to be that YouTube is going to be the next service to deploy to the Roku’s device… This is being described elsewhere as a “trojan horse” to get Internet-only content into folks’ living rooms, and if Roku watches their step and executes properly, we might see this transition take place before our very eyes

Watching the Web in HDTV
Michael Patrick Brady: There’s a wealth of video content on the Web, but who wants to crowd around a puny computer monitor when there’s a perfectly good big-screen, high-definition television across the room? Getting your HDTV hooked up to the Web makes perfect sense.

Study says many dial-up users don’t want broadband
NEW YORK (AP) – A new study suggests that attitude rather than availability may be the key reason why more Americans don’t have high-speed Internet access. The findings from the Pew Internet and American Life Project challenge the argument that broadband providers need to more aggressively roll out supply to meet demand… Thirty-five percent say they’re still on dial-up because broadband prices are too high, while another 19 percent say nothing would persuade them to upgrade.

More choosing fiber-optic Internet service worldwide over cable
For the first time, more people around the world are signing up for fiber-optic broadband service than for cable Internet service, according to a British research firm.