Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Our Little Shop of Horrors (by Pat Racimora at No Quarter)
For all of our sakes, all I can say is “Let’s wish him luck.”

On Sunday, Obama told George Stephanopoulos that closing Gitmo would be difficult; yesterday two anonymous advisers told the AP that an order to close the base will be signed soon after he takes office.
Advisers say Obama preparing to close Gitmo (AP)
WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to issue an executive order his first week in office — and perhaps his first day — to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to two presidential transition team advisers.
But as J-SOM at Liberal Rapture points out, “Of course, we’ll see. I suspect that the ‘order’ is the point - and actually closing Gitmo will never quite occur… If Gitmo IS closed in short order I’ll post a complimentary retraction of this post. Until then PEBO has earned our suspicion.”

Last week, Obama unveiled a stimulus plan that included a controversial tax cut for business; yesterday a “senior advisor” on his team told the Washington Post that he’d be willing to forego that tax cut.
Obama Expected to Drop Business Tax Credit (The Trail, Washington Post)
President-elect Barack Obama will address Senate Democrats at their weekly luncheon [Tuesday] and will field questions about the economic stimulus package and the financial rescue program, among other topics… On the stimulus, as a show of good faith as negotiations unfold, Obama is expected to drop his least popular proposal, a $3,000 tax credit for companies to create new jobs. Many Democrats have criticized the incentive, touted by Obama on the campaign trail, as ripe for abuse and of dubious merit. ”We’ve always said we’re open to other ideas. This was never set in stone,” said a senior Obama adviser of the tax proposal and Obama’s stimulus proposals in general.

Last month, Obama announced that an anti-women’s rights, anti-gay preacher would deliver the invocation for his inaugural, and a firestorm ensued; yesterday the Obama team announced that an openly gay Episcopal priest will give the invocation at the first inaugural function, a concert at the Lincoln Memorial.
Openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson to deliver invocation at inaugural concert. (Think Progress)
The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church in New Hampshire and the first openly gay priest ordained by a major Christian denomination, has accepted the Obama team’s invitation to deliver the invocation at the inauguration concert held at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. The event is the first that Obama will attend that weekend. Robinson shared the disappointment of many progressives at Obama’s choice of Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the swearing-in ceremony, saying that the right-wing pastor deserved “to be at the table” but not in such a prominent way.
I’ve never heard of an invocation at a concert, but hey, it’s a gesture.

A couple of weeks ago, Obama said the Senate shouldn’t seat Governor Blagojevich’s appointee to fill his seat; recently he seems to have reversed his objection.  A good idea, since the appointment was perfectly legal.
Senate Democrats to swear in Burris this week (AP)
“He is now the senator-designate from Illinois and, as such, will be accorded all the rights and privileges of a senator-elect,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said in a joint statement after Senate lawyers determined that Burris’ paperwork met Senate requirements to be seated.

Maybe the four examples above are a start on showing us that Obama can change his mind and change course when pressured.  We can certainly HOPE so.  But it also means that we need to keep the pressure on.  “Make him do it,” can be our mantra.

Inaugural buzz builds (McClatchy)
For such a solemn occasion - a vow to faithfully execute the office and to defend the Constitution of the United States — an American presidential swearing-in can be a heck of a party.
Not to mention a heckuvan opportunity to cash in.

Obama Bonanza as Media Milks Inauguration (Advertising Age)
MTV, QVC, BET, Time Among Those Hunting for a Few More Barack Bucks

Obama Inauguration to Air in Theaters (Hollywood Reporter)
President-elect Barack Obama is on his way to the big screen, thanks to a deal between MSNBC and Screenvision that will put the news channel’s inaugural coverage in 27 theaters around the country. Free tickets are being handed out via MSNBC.com.

TV News Goes All Out Online, Too (AP)
In all their planning to cover Barack Obama’s inauguration as the nation’s 44th president, television networks have paid particular attention to people who must spend their day in front of a computer. Still, it doesn’t mean the networks are shortchanging their television plans.

I’ll trade you six Obamas for one Hillary
Topps Trading Cards

Obama Water for Sale at Hollywood Corner Store (Daily FishbowlLA)
We went into Whitley Market on the corner of Highland and Franklin on Saturday to buy some over-priced breath mints and there across from the Marilyn Monroe wine and the Elvis lighters was Obama Water. The water could go nicely with the George Bush toilet paper our cousin sent us for Christmas. Which besides the fact that it’s just screaming ‘health care-less rash’ - was a very thoughtful gift. Anyway, this is not exactly a political town - but we do like to capitalize on images of stars. Clearly.

Obama And Spiderman Amusing Comic Book (One India)
The Barack Obama rage has now taken the comic world by storm. Reportedly the president will feature along with the superhero ‘Spiderman’. The fact that the US-president elect was a Spidey collector as a kid, has inspired the Marvel Comics to feature the ‘icon’ for the children’s book… The new edition of the comic will hit the stands with Obama and Spiderman on the cover. The story is about the mild mannered photographer Peter Parker, who spots two Obamas on inauguration day, as reported by news.com.au. He later transforms into the superhero and rescues the real Obama.

Did CNN Live Snub Twitter in Favor of Facebook? (Mashable)
CNN and Facebook are partnering to bring you live Inauguration coverage intermixed with Facebook status updates from your friends. It’s a neat idea that we happen to love, but with Twitter becoming the standard source for live updates in many people’s eyes, it begs the question: why did CNN choose to partner with Facebook over Twitter?

President Bush Wants TV Farewell (Variety)
President George Bush wants a final 15 minutes from the Big Four networks on Thursday. The White House has asked ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC for 10-15 minutes of primetime airtime for a live farewell address to the nation. It would be Bush’s last public appearance before the inauguration on Tuesday.

Despite Anger, Release of $350 Billion More for Bailout Gains Favor (New York Times)
Republican and Democratic Senate leaders signaled on Monday that they would support the release of the second half of the Treasury’s $700 billion financial system bailout fund, despite anger among many rank-and-file lawmakers over the Bush administration’s management of the program. As Congress prepared to act, regulators directed thousands of banks to provide more information about how they have used the money received through the bailout program, responding to concern that financial institutions were hoarding the cash rather than lending it to businesses and consumers.

President-elect Barack Obama said on Monday that like Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, his administration would demand substantially greater oversight of the program.
Lambert asks, “if transparency and tracking are such good ideas, why didn’t Obama get them into the original bailout bill? I can’t think of a single solitary soul who had more leverage he did at the time. and all we got was NOW NOW NOW.”

Memo to Obama: Think Bigger (by Robert Kuttner)
There are three serious dangers in the debate about the stimulus package. The first is that President Obama will think too small. The second is that he will think too bipartisan. The third is that the public will be swayed by myths, such as the claim that infrastructure spending just takes too long to gear up, or that the deficit is the paramount problem… The reality is that we need additional spending of at least a trillion dollars a year for at least two years. The only encouraging sign is that more and more mainstream economists and Democratic politicians are starting to say that the greater risk is that we will aim too low rather than too high.
Click through to read Kuttner’s ideas on how to spend a trillion dollars in ways “that can take effect instantly, and another trillion that can take effect over the course of eighteen months.”

Back on Tracks (by Phillip Longman, The Washington Monthly)
By all rights, America’s dilapidated rail lines ought to be a prime candidate for some of that spending. All over the country there are opportunities like the I-81/Crescent Corridor deal, in which relatively modest amounts of capital could unclog massive traffic bottlenecks, revving up the economy while saving energy and lives. Many of these projects have already begun, like Virginia’s, or are sitting on planners’ shelves and could be up and running quickly.

And if we’re willing to think bigger and more long term—and we should be—the potential of a twenty-first-century rail system is truly astonishing. In a study recently presented to the National Academy of Engineering, the Millennium Institute, a nonprofit known for its expertise in energy and environmental modeling, calculated the likely benefits of an expenditure of $250 billion to $500 billion on improved rail infrastructure. It found that such an investment would get 85 percent of all long-haul trucks off the nation’s highways by 2030, while also delivering ample capacity for high-speed passenger rail. If high-traffic rail lines were also electrified and powered in part by renewable energy sources, that investment would reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emission by 38 percent and oil consumption by 22 percent. By moderating the growing cost of logistics, it would also leave the nation’s economy 13 percent larger by 2030 than it would otherwise be.

Yet despite this astounding potential, virtually no one in Washington is talking about investing any of that $1 trillion in freight rail capacity. 

Fiscal Therapy (by David Cay Johnston, Mother Jones, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
Getting the economy back on its feet, giving taxpayers a break, saving your retirement fund and your kid’s college tuition? Done. And it won’t cost you a penny.”
Click through for some very smart ideas on how to set the country back on track economically.

Hillary on the Hot Seat (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has been preparing for weeks for her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee [Tuesday] morning. She’s been briefed on matters that literally span the globe and with her team of close aides and confidantes, and rotating members of the Obama Transition Team, has been holding mock-confirmation hearings, where she’s confronted all sorts of questions ranging from issue-oriented inquiries to hostile ones about past Clinton controversies to uncomfortable quotes from the foreign policy fights she and her soon-to-be-boss, President-elect Barack Obama, had during the Democratic primaries.

‘Who’s in charge’ question looms over Clinton hearing (McClatchy)
If Obama, Clinton and their teams see eye to eye, they could aggressively remake U.S. relations: repairing frayed ties with European allies, channeling tensions that have built up with Russia, and opening a more cordial relationship with the Islamic world. But if the lines of authority are not clear, the result could be internecine conflict between the White House and the State Department of the sort that plagued both Democratic and Republican administrations of the past, according to current and former U.S. officials. The question, “who’s in charge,” will be in the background when the former New York senator appears Tuesday for what’s expected to be a friendly reception from her colleagues and a rapid confirmation in the new post. But it will be central to her success or failure as secretary of state.
Nonsense.  Hillary has always been a team player.  She has always won the respect of people who actually met her, and especially those who worked with her.  And that includes some of the most hateful right wingers.

Obama Picks Genachowski To Head FCC (Paid Content)
Looks like Kevin Martin will be followed by Obama-Biden tech advisor Julius Genachowski as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. A source close to the transition team told the Wall Street Journal President-elect Barack Obama has picked Genachowski for the FCC job; observers also had him on the short list for the new chief technology officer post Obama plans, but Genachowski’s experience as chief counsel to Clinton era FCC Chairman Reed Hundt seems to have tilted the choice in that direction. Genachowski also has significant media and start-up experience: the Harvard Law classmate of Obama worked for Barry Diller as a senior IAC executive before founding LaunchBox Digital. He’s a cofounder and managing director of Rock Creek Ventures. His resume also includes stints as a law clerk for two U.S. Supreme Court justices.

Another Obama Nominee Seems to Run Afoul of Anti-Lobbyist Campaign Rhetoric (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
William Corr, whose name Mr. Obama put forward this morning to be deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, was until September 2008 a federal lobbyist with the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, lobbying Congress unsuccessfully to require the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. The group also supports higher cigarette taxes, smoke-free workplaces, and other initiatives opposed by the tobacco industry. Mr. Corr’s activism may align perfectly with Mr. Obama’s views, but Mr. Obama’s campaign pledge did not differentiate between lobbying for causes he approved of, and one he didn’t.

Paterson Continues Interviews for Senate Seat (Political Wire)
In an interview with the New York Daily News, New York Gov. David Paterson (D) said he has interviewed 15 people for the appointment to fill Sen. Hillary Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat, including Caroline Kennedy, whom he met with over the weekend. “Paterson will not identify all the people in the running and won’t release the blank questionnaire he sent to each of them looking for background information. He also won’t turn over the candidate’s completed forms.”

Lawmakers Mull Ways To Overturn Last-Minute Bush Regulations (American Constitution Society)
Lawmakers in Congress are contemplating ways to nullify some of the last-minute regulations of the Bush administration. Lawmakers, such as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), are looking specifically at Bush administration regulations loosening environmental standards, ones allowing firearms to be carried in federal parks and one allowing scores of health care providers to cite their religious beliefs for refusing to dispense medications and participate in medical procedures, such as abortions, The New York Times reports… Late last week, ACS hosted a discussion on ways a new administration could alter course from the previous one. Video of the event, “The Mechanics of Quick Change,” is available here.

Congress launches official channels on YouTube (On Politics, USA Today)
“We’re coming to YouTube,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says in a new video on … YouTube. Yup, Congress is joining the video revolution. Senators and representatives will be able to create their own channels at House and Senate “hubs,” complete with Google maps and other cool stuff. The not-so-subtle message: Get involved! Okay, so there was a non-working link in the introductory e-mail. We still managed to find everything we needed. Here’s the link to the House hub, here’s the link to the Senate hub.

Obama, Like His Predecessors, Will Face a Press Corps Lacking in Minorities (by Howard Kurtz, Washington Post)
Eight days before Barack Obama is sworn in, the relative paucity of black journalists at the White House is striking. The advent of the Obama administration seems to underscore that racial progress has been uneven in a business that chronicles that very subject.

NYT reporter already mapping out Obama’s failure (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Reports Politico: “If his stimulus plan ‘doesn’t work out, he may very well be a one-term president,’ said [the Times'] Jeff Zeleny, who covered Obama’s campaign. ‘It’s hard to imagine that he could be reelected if the economy’s in the exact same position four years from now.’” Funny, we don’t recall any Times reporters suggesting Bush would be a one-term president days before his inauguration. But of course we do remember lots of reporters and pundits announcing that Bill Clinton had failed in his first month in office.

There is No Plausible Scenario in Which Social Security Can Not Be Sustained Over the Long Run (by Dean Baker)
The NYT is doing some serious fear-mongering when it tells readers that Social Security is a program that along with Medicare “threaten to grow so large as to be unsustainable in the long run.” Because are children and grand-children are projected to live longer lives than us, the costs of Social Security are projected to outrun its revenue in 40 years, but the projected shortfalls are relatively modest. They can be easily addressed by sorts of changes to the program (tax increases and or spending cuts) that we had in the decades of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. There is no realistic sense in which Social Security can be termed unsustainable unless we take the view that unlike in prior decades, the program can never be changed.

“Solidifying” the Finances of Social Security is an Obsession of the Post, not a “Fundamental Fiscal Issue” Facing the nation (by Dean Baker)
The mis-identification of Social Security’s financial state appears in a front page article [Monday]. According to the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office, the program can pay all benefits through the year 2049 with no changes whatsoever. Even after that date, it would always be able to pay beneficiaries a far higher benefit than what current retirees receive… This article relies exclusively on economists who missed the housing bubble and were surprised by the current crisis. It would be helpful if the Post could find a broader range of economists for its sources.

The Washington Post, Which Said the Economy Was Just Fine, Says That We Can’t Fix Health Care (by Dean Baker)
The Washington Post, which is widely known as the paper that printed a column in mid-September saying the economy was just fine, has a column [Friday] telling readers that there is nothing we can do about health care costs. Remarkably, this lengthy column never once notes the fact that the United States pays more than twice as much per person for health care than the average of the other wealthy countries, all of whom enjoy longer life expectancies. This is a hard to overlook piece of evidence suggesting that the United States could do a great deal to lower its health care costs… Unfortunately, the villains in this story have enormous political power (because of their huge rents), which makes it very difficult to change the system, but that is not an excuse for the Post not to point out the underlying factors that drive up health care costs.

If we cannot change the U.S. health care system, one alternative is to allow people to buy into the health care system of other countries. However, the Post is far too protectionist to even allow the possibility of freer trade in health care to be discussed in its pages.
Or Medicare.  Let those who want to buy into Medicare.  The insurance companies will scream that they can’t compete, which is exactly the point.  Publicification of some functions is more efficient than privatization.

More Hysteria on Selective Protectionism (a.k.a. “free trade”) at the WSJ (by Dean Baker)
The WSJ is once again using its news section to try to alarm readers about restrictions on trade in manufactured goods, even though it has almost never discusses the costs and distortions associated with restrictions on trade in professional services. It also never discusses the cost associated with patent and copyright protection, which have been increased as part of recent “free trade” agreements. There are much greater economic costs associated with the forms of protectionism that the WSJ ignores than the ones that it wants its readers to be alarmed over.

What 60 Minutes Missed on Oil Speculation (by Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture, thanks to Economist’s View)
[Sunday] night’s 60 Minutes had a story on Oil Speculation. Its not that they said anything that was factually wrong per se, its more that they told 10% of the story of the rise and fall of energy prices. The entire report was surprisingly thin, and avoided discussing all of the many other factors that had been impacting energy prices during the 7 year rise and subsequent collapse (60 Minutes video here). Very often, major bull market moves begin on fundamentals, but shift towards the end of its life into a speculative frenzy. These always end in a price surge (i.e., a blowoff top), which is followed by a collapse. But note that it is in the end game where speculation dominates, not the first 7 or 8 innings. That was true as much for Housing in 2005-06 as it was for dot com stocks in 1999-2000. Hot markets always attract hot money.

But merely claiming that the run up in Oil prices was due to unprecedented speculation misses the big picture of what actually occurred. And, it reflects a lack of understanding of how markets work, and the psychology of booms, bubbles and busts.
Click through for Ritholtz’ list of reasons for the oil price runup that weren’t covered to his satisfaction in the 60 Minutes piece.

Even Sarah Palin can spot awful Politico headlines (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
We’ve noted them many times in recent months; headlines that often have little connection to the content of the article… In a statement following her recent interview with John Ziegler in which she addressed her own press coverage during the campaign, Palin singled out a recent Politico headline as being unfair: “Palin: Media Goes Easy on Kennedy.”… [But in the interview, as the Politico article makes clear,] Palin was clearly looking forward and wondering whether the press “will” handle Kennedy with kid gloves if she gets appointed to fill Hillary Clinton’s senate seat. (Future tense.) Politico though, just fudged the facts and reported something more pleasing.

Scarborough: ‘That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard’ that torture doesn’t work. (Think Progress)
[Monday] on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough waged an ardent, six-minute defense of torture, arguing with the Financial Times’ Krystia Freeland that torture is always effective — and that waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and stress positions aren’t torture anyway. He mocked Freeland’s objections as “sophomoric” and declared that torture has saved American lives… Scarborough condescendingly asked Freeland, “Should we just bring them a birthday cake and ask them what soccer match they’d like to see?” In fact, the interrogator who successfully brought down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — and who has written and spoken publicly about how torture doesn’t work — told Laura Ingraham last month he broke one insurgent after he gave him a copy of Harry Potter.

Quinn calls Pelosi “Bolshevik Bitch with a Mallet” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Smerconish to Matthews on Gitmo: “Three individuals have been waterboarded. That’s it.” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Is the Influence of ‘Deep Throat’ Overstated? (by Julia Ioffe, The New Republic)
Mark Felt was not nearly as important to Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting as we have come to believe. He was useful, yes, but the Washington Post staffers who midwifed the Watergate story readily admit that he was just one of many, many sources, some of whom are still anonymous.

House Repubicans Extend Olive Branch (Political Wire)
“House Republicans have invited President-elect Barack Obama to speak before the entire GOP conference, hoping to set a different tone to the partisan wars of the last two years in which congressional Democrats battled President Bush,” the Washington Post reports. Obama is expected to attend the House Democratic retreat in early February.
Color me skeptical.  I can’t help but think they’re going to pounce hard after the inauguration.

Specter Knocks Leahy For Predicting Holder Confirmation Despite His Own Similar Conduct On Ashcroft (Think Progress)
This morning, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) took to right-wing talk radio to continue his politically-motivated crusade against President-elect Obama’s Attorney General designate Eric Holder. Appearing on Bill Bennett’s Morning In America, Specter complained that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) had declared his support for Holder’s appointment before the confirmation hearings had even begun. Additionally, Specter took issue with Leahy’s recent prediction that Holder would be confirmed… Specter’s dismay at Leahy’s prediction is ironic, considering his past statements. On December 24, 2000, two days after then President-elect Bush announced that he had selected John Ashcroft for Attorney General and three weeks before Ashcroft’s confirmation hearings, Specter went on Face the Nation and confidently predicted that Ashcroft would be confirmed by the Senate.

Belief, Whether True or False, Can Have Beneficial Effects (by Gavin Kennedy, Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy, thanks to Economist’s View)
The point should be made that the belief in the after-life, in so far as it encourages suitable behaviour in this life, may well be of great benefit to society (on preventing it ‘crumbling to atoms’), but it is the belief that it is so, not necessarily that it is true that it is so. The one can be quite separate from the other; punishment in an ‘after [life]’ does not need to be true for its beneficial effects from such a belief to be realized in this life.
My comment:  Belief in heaven and hell, (reward and punishment), is not necessary for guiding moral behavior. That it is, is a right-wing trope geared toward turning people into automatons. A mature human being tries his or her best to do the right thing because that is the way to live a fulfilled life, not because of the promise some potential reward, or the threat of potential punishment.

To my mind, blind belief has done so much harm in the world that it should be approached with caution.

Faith Groups Join the Fight Against Big Coal (by By Janet L. Parker, Ph.D., Center for American Progress)
Faith-based and environmental groups across Virginia have been joining forces to promote clean energy and stop new coal-fired power plants.
If more religious people got involved in movements like this, I’d bee less critical of organized religion.

Media Matters for America headlines

• Wash. Post reports without challenging Bush claim that military deficit spending post-9-11 was unavoidable

• Notwithstanding his retraction of similar comments, Hume falsely claimed George H.W. Bush “refrain[s] from comment on other political figures”

• Like other Fox News hosts, Hannity falsely claimed Obama’s economic recovery plan gives money to people who “don’t pay any taxes”

• On Geraldo, Coulter still lying in defense of Swift Boat Vets

• Media Matters: Conservative media peddle a raw deal

• WSJ editorial ignores effect of Ledbetterdecision on people who were unaware of discrimination

• Reuters did not note energy group criticizing Obama reportedly “funded by the oil industry”

• In discussion of EFCA, Wash. Post downplayed alleged intimidation and harassment by employers in current system, calling it “unfair pressure”

• Buchanan spouts familiar myths in attack on Obama stimulus plan

Few in U.S. See Jazeera’s Coverage of Gaza War
The Qatar-based network Al Jazeera has virtually unlimited access in a war zone where many American journalists are denied entry.

Quasi-Monopolies and Wary Governments Curb Web Freedoms (by Harry Lewis, Chronicle of Higher Education)
The Internet is, for the most part, privately owned. So is the publishing business, where the free market has always worked. If a publisher doesn’t want my book, I can’t cry censorship. We wouldn’t want government regulation of book publishers — is the Internet any different?

China closes 91 websites in crackdown
China has shut down 91 websites for pornographic and other “vulgar” content, as well as a political blog portal, since announcing its latest bid to ensure Internet morality, state media said on Monday.

High school paper in Minnesota goes online to avoid censorship
The Faribault High School student newspaper was shut down last month after editors refused to let the superintendent see an article before publication about an investigation into a middle-school teacher. The student journalists now plan to publish independently online.

Judge Says Video Games “Not a Defense” for Parents’ Murder
Halo 3 addiction doesn’t explain or excuse Daniel Petric’s shooting both his parents, says an Ohio judge. More specifically, video game addiction, which was never medically established during the trial, did not make Petric any less responsible for murdering his mother and wounding his father, according to the judge.
Maybe he ate Twinkies, too!  Wouldn’t that count?

After Police Relent, Bloggers Get NYC Press Credentials
Three bloggers who had sued New York City after the Police Department denied them press credentials because they work for online or nontraditional news outlets were issued credentials Friday. The men filed a lawsuit in November asserting that they were denied credentials “with little explanation or opportunity for appeal.”

Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press (by Jay Rosen at PressThink)
In the age of mass media, the press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because the people on the receiving end were atomized — connected “up” to Big Media but not across to each other. But now that authority is eroding.

Religion Writer Who Copied Work Draws Support of Readers
Many fans of Neale Donald Walsch, the author of the best-selling series “Conversations With God,” rallied around him and begged him not to quit blogging.

Is It Right To Use The Horror To Convey The Truth? (by Ross Lydall, The Scotsman)
Three tiny children lie dead beside each other on a hospital floor, victims of the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. Their father collapses in grief. As an image of war, it is as shocking as they come. But should it be published?

An iTunes for News? (by David Carr, New York Times)
Those of us who are in the newspaper business could not be blamed for hoping that someone like Apple’s Steve Jobs can convince the millions of interested readers who get their news every day free on newspapers sites that it’s time to pay up.

Penny for his thoughts (by Jeff Jarvis)
Too bad David Carr didn’t walk down the hall at the Times to ask someone to remind him of the disaster that was TimesSelect before he penned today’s column wishing for, praying for, fantasizing about an iTunes for news content that finally gets them—those damned readers—to pay for our words again. TimesSelect tried that and it didn’t work when the paper learned that—notwithstanding what Carr’s echo-chamber expert tells him—free is a business model (and charging money costs money). Music isn’t ad-supported, news is.

But the real fallacy in Carr’s delusion is that a news story or an opinion, like a song, is unique—that you can’t get it somewhere else and so you have to buy the original. If I can’t get Allentown, the original, I’m not likely to settle for a cover. But if I can’t get Carr’s column about wishing for micropayments, believe me, I can go elsewhere and find plenty more columns and blog posts just like it. And even if Carr had a unique idea here, the essence of it—without guitar accompaniment—can spread without having to hear him sing the tune. Information isn’t art. Neither are opinions.
Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America asks, “Am I the only one who notes the irony in that back during the Napster craze an awful lot of print journalists spent an awful lot of time lecturing the music industry about how it should stop fighting technology and should start embracing the Internet, even if that meant giving its product away. Today, lots of those print outlets are going out of business, or in danger of going under, thanks to the Internet.”

Yet,
‘iTunes for Newspapers’ Should Be Better Than Kindle (by Jack Shafer, Slate)
Before the Kindle has a chance to become the universal reader, newspaper publishers should take measures to make certain that they don’t get Appled by Amazon. I’d have them create paid electronic versions under their control and leapfrog the scuzzy Kindle.

And,
New Media Venture Turns Bloggers Into Print Journalists
As old media races to figure out how to successfully monetize print content online, one publication is taking a drastically different approach: web to print. The Printed Blog, a startup, is launching a twice-daily free print newspaper in cities across the country aggregating localized blog posts.

NYT Letter Calls Controversial Atlantic Article ‘Uninformed’
The Atlantic’s recent article that speculated about the demise of The New York Times drew a harsh rebuttal from Times senior vice president of corporate communications, Catherine Mathis. In a letter, Mathis declared that the piece “leaves a lot to be desired from the standpoint of … well, journalism.”

HuffPo Can’t Replace NYT (by Steven Waldman at the Huffington Post)
The idea that the Huffington Post, or the explosion of news or blogging sites, can replace journalistic institutions like the New York Times truly misunderstands the Web, newspapers, journalism, and the serious threat posed to democracy if the news gathering institutions fail.

Are Layoffs Really the Right Move (by Rebecca McPheters, MIN)
Layoffs have become an almost knee-jerk reaction to the bad economy and other ills plaguing the magazine industry. But is it the right reaction? And, if layoffs are required, is it necessary that they be of the magnitude that we have become accustomed to reading about?
I’ve often wondered about this choice, and not only for media companies.  No one ever thinks about coming up with ways to increase sales when the economy is down—only how to reduce costs.  Then when the economy rebounds, they have to hire and train new people.  How much does THAT cost over the long haul?  And why don’t companies put at least some money in the bank during good times, rather than spend it wildly on expansion, to help tide them over the bad times?  The expansion and contraction in response to business cycles has to be costly, not to mention unsettling for employees.

The Gig Economy (by Tina Brown at The Daily Beast)
No one I know has a job anymore. They’ve got Gigs. To people I know in the bottom income brackets, the Gig Economy has been old news for years. What’s new is the way it’s hit the demographic that used to assume that a college degree from an elite school was the passport to job security.

New Site Tracking The Demise Of Traditional Media (Editors Weblog)
Canadian web marketing agency Dialect has created a website billed as “an online memorial to the traditional media industry.” Traditional Publishing, RIP aggregates headlines which document “the sad decline of traditional publishing.”

Media Execs Plan to Complete Acquisitions in ‘09
Overall media M&A is projected to be lower in 2009 than in 2008. Despite this, 63 percent of respondents in AdMedia Partners’ annual Prospects for Media Mergers and Acquisitions survey said they expect to complete an acquisition this year due to the number of attractive buying opportunities.

Vivendi Writes Down Half of Its NBCU Stake
NBC Universal is the latest media company to get hit with a writedown on the value of its assets. Vivendi, the French conglomerate that owns 20 percent of NBCU, said yesterday that it is still assessing the value of its stake but anticipates a decline in worth of less than $3 billion.

Seattle P-I’s Days Are Numbered: 60
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s parent company, The Hearst Corp., said Friday that it has put the paper up for sale and will stop publishing unless someone buys it in 60 days. If no buyer emerges, the paper would either become a Web-only publication or cease all operations.

‘Wash Times’ Shake-Up Moves Editorial Page Editor to News 
Richard Amberg, associate publisher and general manager, said 12 editorial page employees were informed last week that their old jobs will be technically eliminated, but new positions will be created and open for applicants. Amberg has taken the position of interim editorial page editor until a new person can be named.

‘E&P,’ Siblings to Share Headlines with paidContent
CHICAGO Nielsen Business Media, publisher of Editor & Publisher, and ContentNext Media announced a syndication agreement that includes the sharing of online headlines between its Web sites and paidContent.org.

Throw a few subs on the barbie (by Jeff Jarvis)
The Telegraph of London is outsourcing production of some of its sections to Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. At my New Business Models for News Summit, Telegraph digital head Edward Roussel rephrased my admonition and told the room to do what you do best and outsource the rest. Guess they mean it. The work will go to Pagemasters, a company owned by the Australian Associated Press (co-owned by Fairfax and Murdoch’s News Corp), which said it has received inquiries from publishers around the world

Court asked to set aside Black’s fraud conviction
WASHINGTON - Conrad Black is asking the Supreme Court to overturn his convictions for fraud and obstruction of justice.

Single-Copy Mag Sales Trending Downward
At a time when consumers are cutting back on discretionary spending, single-copy magazine sales declined 8 percent to 244 million in the third quarter from 266 million in the year-ago quarter. Magazines’ dollar sales of $1.2 billion were down less so (2 percent) from the year-ago period.

Country Weekly Drops Subscriptions for Newsstand Sales Only
American Media’s Unusual Move Includes Reinstating Weekly Schedule

Plenty Magazine Folds
Plenty, the cash-strapped consumer magazine about the modern environmental movement, is shutting down. Despite a last-ditch effort to save its Web site, both the print and online editions of the magazine are being discontinued, the magazine’s publisher, Mark Spellun, said Monday.

Move could cut Cuban interference.
East Coast AM stations have dealt with 25 years of interference from Cuba in retaliation for the U.S. government’s Radio Marti broadcasts. But there’s a growing call for President-elect Obama to silence Radio Marti, which could help convince the Castro government to stop stepping on U.S. stations.

Hollywood Finds Headaches in Its Big Bet on 3-D
Studios have aggressively embraced the technology, but mass market 3-D releases are not tenable without expensive upgrades to projection equipment at the multiplex.

Lloyd-Webber Tries Gaming; Singalong With Evita, Phantom (Paid Content)
Ever fancied a part in Jesus Christ Superstar or Phantom Of The Opera? Your big moment may soon be coming: Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Really Useful Group is developing a range of video games based on the theater impresario’s musical stage shows, paidContent:UK has learned. The group, founded in 1977 to run Lloyd-Webber’s stage, TV, music and other interests, has been speaking with half-a-dozen international game publishers, believed to include EA, aiming to develop titles over several years across consoles, PCs and mobile, as part of its multimedia expansion.

Major Networks Keep Anchors Home For Gaza Story
ABC, CBS and NBC haven’t sent their top news anchors to the Middle East to cover Israel’s conflict with Hamas, even though each network did so in 2006 when Israel fought a war with Hezbollah.

ABC Cuts Back In Iraq, Relies More On BBC
BBC News is reducing its full-time presence in Iraq, and will rely more on the BBC for day-to-day reports from inside the country.

Mad Men, 30 Rock Score at Golden Globes
During an evening that otherwise belonged entirely to HBO, Mad Men and 30 Rock continued a storybook year that has practically seen each series amass more awards than viewers by accepting top honors at Sunday’s Golden Globes.

Golden Globes Telecast Gets Smallest Audience in Years
The Golden Globes award ceremony reeled in the big stars, but not much of a television audience, viewership figures on Monday showed. Sunday’s awards ceremony on the NBC network averaged 14.6 million viewers, the second-lowest TV audience since 1995, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Idol, Fox Chase CBS in Race to Remain TV’s ‘Most-Watched’
Ratings champ American Idol and News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting have a steeper climb to catch CBS in the second half of the television season and remain the most-watched network for another year. At the midpoint, Fox’s total audience is down 9.6 percent from a year earlier.

For Idol, More Hope and Less Humiliation
On the new season of American Idol, humiliation is out, aspiration is in. Along with a new, fourth judge, more semifinalists and a “wild-card” round, commercials promoting the new season have shown fewer of the bizarre and obviously untalented contestants than in previous years.

NBC Says Advertisers Still Buying $3M Super Bowl Spots
Despite record prices, a grinding recession and the absence of two big advertisers this year, NBC says it’s having no problem filling spots for Super Bowl XLIII. The network has sold about 90% of its 67 spots for the championship game scheduled for Feb. 1 in Tampa, Fla.

ABC Weighs Return of Millionaire
If current discussions pan out, ABC this summer will mount a primetime revival of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, the groundbreaking game show that — along with Survivor – ushered in the modern era of unscripted television.

Showtime Gives Tara Big Online Launch
In what it calls “one of the largest content distribution campaigns ever done to launch a new original series,” CBS-owned Showtime will make The United States of Tara available for free streaming on more than 100 Web sites, including TV.com, Yahoo, YouTube, MSN, Fancast, Veoh, and EW.com.

CBS Expands Verizon FiOS Deal; VOD For TV, Full Episodes For VCast (Paid Content)
CBS is broadening its deal with Verizon to include VOD rights for programs in both standard and high-def formats, 60 Minutes, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Survivor (pictured). The pact is in addition to an earlier arrangement with CBS shows on Verizon FiOS TV, its all-digital fiber-optic TV service, which is available in parts of 14 states.

Yahoo!’s Next Frontier: Internet TV
In the mid-1990s, Yahoo broke ground in crawling the disparate information strewn across the young World Wide Web and organizing it neatly for consumers. Now Yahoo hopes to blaze new trails again, this time in bringing Internet content to TV.

Politicker Closes Three Sites; Shutters Network
The Politicker Network — part of Jared Kushner’s Observer Media Group — shuttered 12 sites last month and is now closing three more. These latest closings effectively end the network. Kushner said that the company was focusing on a “regional platform,” concentrated in the northeast.

Us Trendy Brings Possible Fashion Fame to Everyone (Mashable)
If you’re a fashion designer or model who balks at the idea of being mortified on Project Runway for showcasing yesterday’s trends or too thick hips, then you’re in luck. Now you can say “You’re out” to Heidi and friends and head online for fame and fortune. Though it may not be quite that simple, new online fashion company Us Trendy is aiming to be the go to fashion site for aspiring designers, models, and fashion fanatics alike… Wannabe designers upload their creations to the site, users vote on the designs they like, and Us Trendy produces and sells the most popular designs in their online store. The same formula works for models too; models upload their best shots, users vote on each photo, and the highest rated models are given the keys to the catwalk for Us Trendy fashion shows.

TweetSuite: Complete Twitter Integration With WordPress (Mashable)
Dan Zarrella, who introduced us to Tweetbacks last week, has released a new WordPress plugin that takes the concept to the next level. Dubbed TweetSuite, the plugin builds on TweetBacks utility of displaying all of the tweets that link back to a blog post by throwing a few extra goodies in the mix. TweetSuite adds a server side fully-featured TweetBacks service, complete with a Digg-style “Tweet This” button at the top of each post, a “Retweet This” button for each TweetBack, widgets for your sidebar, and the ability to automatically update Twitter with your latest blog entries.

Monetize Your YouTube Videos With Product Placement and Tadcast (Mashable)
Product placements – common in TV and film – have had a limited run in online video, the most notable example perhaps being Neutrogena’s placement of an “employee” in the LonelyGirl15 series. Tadcast, a startup from a couple of Harvard Business School students, wants to create an online marketplace for product placements, matching video producers with brands looking for placements.

To kick things off, the startup is having a contest where users incorporate one of three advertisers’ products into their videos. The top prize of $5,000 goes to the user that generates the most views on YouTube for all of their videos. This is just the kick-off of a broader plan “to prove that product placement with unknown online videommakers is safe,” at which point the founders tell us they plan to launch an automated marketplace for the ad format - think AdSense for product placements.

NBC Taps Leading Women to Offer Advice to Marketers
The principals of the latest marketing agency: Maria Bartiromo, Meredith Vieira, Tori Spelling, and Susan Lyne. They, along with 22 other estimable names, aren’t forming an agency in the traditional sense, but will be part of a “panel” offering advice to NBC Universal and its clients on how to reach women.
“Leading” women don’t speak for me.  Why couldn’t they find some ordinary women for this?

Networks Hold Firm on Ad Deals
Many Refuse to Negotiate Upfront Terms, Fearing Marketers Will Pull Back

State-Owned TV Goes Commercial-Free in France
With Outlook Gloomy for Private Channels, Where Will Ad Dollars Go?

How To Protect, Fix Your Online Reputation
An expert explained the dangers of negative Web postings about you, how to avoid them, and how they can be fixed.