Permanent link to MTA daily media news

The Heretik

The audacity of Barack Obama (by Greg Hinz, Crain’s Chicago Business)
Now, we will find out whether he can lead. The word that comes to my mind on this inaugural day is audacity, a word that Mr. Obama is inclined to use himself. It fits him… [Because just] over five years ago, Mr. Obama’s public career was one mistake from being over… Another “a” word comes to mind: ambiguity. Will Mr. Obama’s ambiguity, his ability to raise political squabbles into the civil ether without ever committing himself, help or hurt in dealing with a Congress that, sooner or later, will reclaim its perks? I don’t know, any more than Mr. Obama knows, the limits of audacity. Good luck, Mr. President. I fear you’ll need it.
It’s silly of me to ask, I know, but shouldn’t we have found out if he could lead BEFORE we put him in the White House?

Greater Than The Great Depression? (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
[A] friend … called me after Obama was sworn in. “So no coup or anything,” I said. Yeah, she said. “What if it’s so bad they didn’t even want to steal the election?” I blurted out. “I was thinking the same thing,” she said, not hesitating for a minute.
I think it’s a plan.  I think the Republicans wanted Obama to take over, and that they plan to blame all of Bush’s failures on him.  And they’ll have great fun digging into that thousand-page oppo research book that McCain never touched.

Take the inauguration test (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
President Obama said that programs will end because the very concept of government’s functionality is open to question. [Emphasis added.] An actual liberal (which Obama is not) would have … found the posing of that “question” ludicrous.

Shared responsibility (by Paul Krugman)
Barack Obama, 2009: “What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility…”
George W. Bush, 2000: “…[W]e must usher in an era of responsibility.”
Bill Clinton, 1993: “…Let us all take more responsibility.”

The mummy’s curse (by Michael J. Smith at Stop Me Before I Vote Again)
The smartest, hippest, coolest President ever, and one of the most arresting speakers ever to seek, much less win, that office, just gave the dullest, blandest, most platitudinous, colorless, and tedious inaugural address I can remember. (And I remember Eisenhower’s second.)… The Bush trope of a “war on terror” was fully embraced. People with longish memories may have been surprised to hear that American troops at Khe Sanh were, in some unspecified way, defending our liberties. And then, of course, the new man in the limousine talked a good deal about “hard choices”, a very ominous sign. We know already for whom all the choices are going to be hard.

Sacrifice (by digby)
“…Andrea Mitchell: [Obama]  wants to take on entitlement reform, there will be greater sacrifice required from a nation already suffering from economic crisis — to ask people to take a look at their health care and their other entitlements and realize that for the long term health and vitality of the country we’re going to have to give up something that we already enjoy.” Right. Old and sick people are going to have to give up something they “enjoy.” That’s assuming they “enjoy” being able to eat and go to a doctor. Of course, Andrea Mitchell won’t have to give up what she “enjoys.” She’s a multi-millionaire. It’s hard for me to believe that we are going to have this conversation while the government is giving hundreds of billions of dollars to bankers who see it as a handout to be used to enrich their stockholders and themselves. And I am as stunned as I always am that we are going to have this conversation while the government insists that the United States must spend more on its military than all the other countries in the world combined.

But I really can’t believe that we are having this conversation when social security is well funded for decades and yet the current problems are staring us right in the face… The forces that want to destroy the safety net are influential and well funded and they are selling entitlement “reform” in just the way that Andrea Mitchell describes — as something the American people must give up in order to set the country on the right course. They will not sit still while someone tries to sell it as anything other than necessary cuts in benefits or complete elimination of the programs. That’s the whole point.

And He Said It With a Straight Face… (by Stateofdisbelief at The Confluence)
“We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.” – Barack Obama. OH REAAAALLLY?? Do you mean like THIS?…

Or This?

And don’t tell me he wasn’t giving Hillary the finger here (click through to watch the video).  He made the same gesture at the same point in the speech, when talking about her, at two different rallies.  Oh, by the way, the “childish things” verbiage is attributed to that famous misogynist and gay hater Paul, aka Saul.

A Big Step Forward (by Ruth Marcus)
WASHINGTON — During the heat of the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton had no more fervent supporter than my younger daughter. But Julia, then 10, needed no prompting to grasp the importance of Barack Obama’s candidacy. “Mom, it would be really great to have a woman president,” she said. “But it would be a bigger deal to have an African-American president.”
Yep, women always have to take a back seat to the men, including African American men.  We learn it as children, like Ruth Marcus’ daughter, born long after the women’s movement supposedly broke women free from the chains of the past..

Inauguration Day – Other Bits and Pieces (by LisaB at No Quarter)
Bob Herbert now says Lyndon Johnson is a worthy civil rights figure. Herbert imagines a gathering of past civil rights leaders to see BO inaugurated… Remember when even the mention of Johnson’s role in civil rights legislation was racist? Well, I guess it’s only racist if spoken of by a Clinton… [A]t the time, Herbert characterized Clinton’s reminder of Johnson’s role [in passing civil rights legislation] as a “cheap shot” at MLK. “And there was Mrs. Clinton telling the country we don’t need ‘false hopes,’ and taking cheap shots at, of all people, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” Nice, Bob Herbert. Still a tool. I guess only you get to mention Johnson’s role in this.

Roberts stumbles slightly over presidential oath (AP)
Chief Justice John Roberts stumbled slightly over the 35-word constitutionally prescribed oath of office as he swore in Barack Obama as the 44th president on Tuesday, sending the new chief executive into a verbal detour of his own.

Experts Say Obama Should Retake Oath (Political Wire)
Several constitutional lawyers said President Obama “should, just to be safe, retake the oath of office that was flubbed by Chief Justice John Roberts,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Two previous presidents, Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur, retook their oaths of office under similar circumstances.
But he’s Barack Obama.  He doesn’t have to do a damn thing that he doesn’t want to.  He doesn’t have to show us a real birth certificate or his college records or the papers from his time in the Illinois legislature.  Because he’s Barack.

Inaugural ticketholders meet with disappointment (AP)
Inauguration Day turned out to be a disappointment for at least 1,000 people who held tickets to the swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol but couldn’t get in
It was a lot more than 1,000, according to some purple ticket holders.

US Stocks Slide in Dow Average’s Worst Inauguration Day Drop (Bloomberg)
U.S. stocks sank, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst Inauguration Day decline, as speculation banks must raise more capital sent financial shares to an almost 14-year low.

Happy Hour: Breaking the Spell of Power (by Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque)
[Tuesday] morning Britons (and assorted exiles and expats) picked up their Guardians to find this splashed under banner headlines on the front page: “Today a magic spell will be performed. A man who 12 weeks ago was a mere political candidate will be transformed with the incantation of a few words, before a vast crowd and a television audience in the hundreds of millions if not billions, into the head of state, even the embodiment, of the most powerful nation on earth.” This was written by an honest-to-god adult person, the ever-savvy, hardnosed international journalist Jonathan Freedman. Would it be a stretch to say that it is precisely this kind of thinking — the awed and tingly verklemptitude toward those who have clawed and gnawed their way into the bowels of power — that has led us into so many murderous disasters and criminal actions down through the many, many years? 

What would happen if we simply treated all of these greasy pole climbers as ordinary human beings … and hold them accountable for their actions in the real world?… [S]ince we’re all bullshitters, why do we buy their bullshit?
The answer to your last question, Chris, is that as I discovered recently, most of the people WANT TO BE FOOLED most of the time.

Wednesday: You’re perfect, they love you, now Change! (by riverdaughter)
Here are the things I would like Obama to do, TODAY, to show us in good faith what a Change™ agent is all about. He cleared the field of all of the non-Change agents for our own good, so let’s get to work!  These are things that George W. Bush either changed (*he* was a change agent too, apparently) or perpetuated as a holdover from the Republican Movement Conservatives:

1. Restore habeas corpus.
2. Rescind “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
3. Rescind the Bush Conscience Rule.
4. Rescind the Reagan Gag Rule on family planning organizations.
5. Reconstruct the wall between church and state by eliminating the Office of Faith Based Initiatives.
6. Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security.

That’s just my list for today.  Like I said, the economic stuff can wait until Friday when we should expect the stimulus package that would dwarf FDR’s plan, because that is what it’s going to take to save us from catastrophe or a very, VERY long recovery.

Unlike media, Obama knows he’s no wizard (by John Kass, Chicago Tribune)
Is Tuesday’s inauguration special? Of course. The son of an African immigrant [became] president of a country where, just a few years ago, people with black skin were denied basic civil rights. That can’t ever be understated, or truly understood, by white America. But Obama is too smart to believe in sorcery, even as the scribes of the left (and even the right) gather about him, offering advice, preening for attention, inviting him to dinners where they touch the hem of his garment without invitation. Unlike some who raise expectations to manic heights, Obama has an extremely clear head. He’s a rational man. He’s not on Hopium. He’s from Chicago… [H]e realizes that after Tuesday’s rhetoric and symbolism, it will be his actions, not words, that shape his future, and ours.
Maybe you’re right, John.  Maybe Obama doesn’t adore himself the way others adore him.  But he’s perfectly willing to use their idolatry to promote himself.  And as a member of the reality-based community, I hold that against him.

My Problem with the Inauguration Frenzy and a Prescription Going Forward (by Ani at No Quarter)
In this inaugural festival, in the interest of huddling together to stay warm, we are now, however unintentionally, giving President Obama a pass on the entire last year. I am sorry, but I cannot. Last year, women got kicked in the teeth by the media and the Democratic party, as well as certain male candidates. I feel like an abused wife who was slapped around every day and everybody else saw it and now a lot of people out there are pretending it didn’t happen, for the good of the country. I am not a fan of revisionist history, nor do I believe the ends justify the means…

If we are not going to insist upon FEC investigations for President Obama’s questionable internet contributions, if over 2,000 instances of caucus fraud, egregious about-faces on critical policy positions such as FISA, along with sexism, and mixed messages to the gay community are now to be given a pass — well, forgive me, we can hold hands all we want but that will not improve our current lot as a nation. We are setting the stage for yet another President who suffers no consequences for his actions… I wish I could pretend President Obama is starting with a clean slate. But after two years of campaign promises which seem to be very elastic, to say the least, he is going to have to PROVE himself out from behind the eight ball. Not the other way around.

Going forward (by J -SOM at Liberal Rapture)
In this little corner of the Internets the watchword is WATCH. Closely. As I’ve said already, I have no faith or hope in the man who is now President and this is a good thing. My expectations can be easily met, and, I suspect, will be. Some already have been met. That inauguration thingy was too pricey but did seem nice. The speech was okay. If Obama turns out to be a truly transformative leader I benefit, you benefit, we all do. Win/Win. Along the way, those of us who refused to “get on the Obama bus” now have the obligation to see as clearly as possible, to own what we already know. The man did not emerge from the ether yesterday. He got where he is with brutal tactics and calculating deceits…

He’s failed the trust test 1000 times over the past year. At every single moment when integrity was called for Obama chose duplicity… I won’t be shaking the etch-a-sketch simply because he was sworn in. Real liberals don’t do blind allegiance… [Emphasis added.] The bar is so high for me, and my expectations so low, precisely because I watched closely all year. So far, all he brings to the party are slogans, speeches about unity, and, since winning, a congenital compulsion to split the difference in all fights. Oh, and a lot of very powerful folks behind the scenes who do have expectations. Investments are like that. One expects a return.

Change.gov Shifts To Whitehouse.gov (Paid Content)
President Obama’s transition site Change.gov now points readers to the revamped Whitehouse.gov. The AP notes that the site has retained some of the historical info and navigation features from former President Bush’s era, but there are major upgrades, including a blog and pages outlining the Obama administration’s goals and policies. In the first blog post, Macon Phillips, the White House’s director of new media explains some of the ways the administration will use the site to communicate, noting that video and photos from the inauguration, and Obama’s first days in office will be posted soon.

The First Presidential Blog (Political Wire)
The new official White House web site went live just after noon [on Tuesday]. The first presidential blog is part of the Obama administration’s new media efforts which will center around communication, transparency and participation.

Obama’s success hinges on more than race (AP)
WASHINGTON – History surely will remember President Barack Obama as the first black to sit in the White House. But success in his term will depend on his accomplishments rather than on the color of his skin.

Holding Out in Hillaryland (Powering Up, Newsweek)
Will Bower, 36, walked around the Mall with millions of other Americans this morning. But unlike nearly everyone else in the crowd, Bower wasn’t cheering. He wore a Hillary Clinton T  shirt (adorned with a HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT sticker) to show his support for the woman he feels the Democratic Party and a sexist media stole the election from… “I don’t want [Obama] to fail; that would be bad for the country. I plan on being critical of him though. He’s already dropped the ball. He campaigned on the fact that he would lift the Bush ban [on stem cells and] now is saying, “Leave it to Congress” … The pledges [he made] were political in nature. There was very little conviction behind them and it surprises me how few Democrats see that. I’m going to do my best to get Democrats and liberals to hold him accountable.”

Make Him Accountable:
Tracking Obama’s Promises (Pro Publica, thanks to herb the verb at Corrente)
While some candidates on the presidential campaign trail treat paint promises in glittering generalities, President Obama was often quite specific about what policies he’d implement as president, with exhaustive lists of promised policy plans on his much-ballyhooed website. As part of our ongoing “Promises Clock” feature, we’ve chosen five of these promises to keep an eye on. We’re building our list off of the exhaustive work done by Politifact’s Obameter. (500-plus promises, and counting!) The five we’ve chosen to highlight are all doable by presidential order, meaning the new administration can’t hide behind the workings of Congress. We’re starting each clock on January 20, 2009 at 12 noon, the date and time of Obama’s inauguration.

Our top five:
End no-bid contracts above $25,000
End the “Stop-Loss” program of forcing troops to stay in service beyond their expected commitments
End the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy
Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center
Create a public “Contracts and Influence” database

What other Obama promises would you like us to start the clock on? Drop us a line. Please include a link detailing the promise. The ones we’re looking for a specific, substantive, and achievable. (Specific tax cut pledges would qualify. “Achieving world peace” wouldn’t.)

New President’s Health Care Site—Hmmm (by masslib at Alegre’s Corner)
Here’s what [Obama] has to say about health care: “On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes – government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. President Obama and Vice President Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong…” Excuse me but I don’t recall every being offered the extreme choice of Medicare. Is Medicare extreme? Gee, all the old folks don’t seem to think so. Is the compulsory government administered health care paid for through taxes our elderly enjoy wrong?  Why would any Democrat every use this right wing framing of health care when for the first time in our lives Medicare for every American is actually a possiblity?

New White House site on health care: Is that all there is? (by lambert at Corrente)
What, already they’re backing off the weasel words of “universal” to “affordable?”

Obama’s Bold Civil Rights Agenda (by masslib at Alegre’s Corner)
Boy, this is going to make ole Ricky Warren’s toes curl.  Whitehouse.gov reveals Obama’s civil rights agenda and it’s good.  Now the question is when will he act?  He’s setting the stage for some very good proposals, I’d like to know when we can expect him to deliver them to Congress. The highlights include:

On drug laws: Eliminate Sentencing Disparities…. [G]ive first-time, non-violent offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior.

On LGBT rights: Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples… Repeal Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell…

On AIDS: Promote AIDS Prevention… Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS [by accelerating] the development of products … that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.

Obama Whitehouse Website Mum on Unions (by masslib at Alegre’s Corner)
Now we all remember that Hillary’s primary opponents were not going to be afraid to use the word “union” in the WH, unlike apparently Hillary, who is of course Bill Clinton’s rib and would never venture off his White House rhetoric. Well, I have searched and searched, and I will be damned if the word “union” as it relates to organized labor, not Lincoln, is anywhere on Whitehouse.gov. This is odd because one of the most pressing pieces of legislation before Congress is the Employee Free Choice Act, but I can’t find it anywhere in Obama’s agenda. Correct me if I am wrong, but I could have sworn he ran on supporting that bill.

It’s his baby, now.
ThinkFast: January 21, 2009 (Think Progress)

Obama orders Guantanamo prosecutor to seek trial delays (McClatchy)
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — President Barack Obama late Tuesday sought a 120-day freeze in the war crimes trial of prisoners held here to give the new administration time to study ongoing war-on-terror prosecutions.

Texas senator blocks Clinton’s state confirmation (AP)
The confirmation of Hillary Rodham Clinton to besecretary of state will be held up for at least a day due to the objection of a single senator. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he wanted “a full and open debate and an up-or-down vote on Sen. Clinton’s nomination.” He said important questions remain unanswered concerning the foundation headed by former President Bill Clinton ”and its acceptance of donations from foreign entities. Transparency transcends partisan politics and the American people deserve to know more.”… Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that if a voice vote is blocked there will be a roll call vote Wednesday.

Questions, but few answers, about Geithner’s finances (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — As President Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, prepares to explain at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday why he failed to pay self-employment taxes for four years, little is known publicly about his finances.

Dean Baquet, The New York Times’ Man in Washington (New York Observer)
Barack Obama’s press team has been proud of its tight management of powerful media players like the Times, but bureau chief Dean Baquet does not intend his bureau to be managed. “I’m not throwing the gauntlet at him, but I’m just suggesting that it would be wise for him to talk to us,” he said.

What’s Next for Post-Bush Daily Show? (Variety)
With George Bush back in Crawford, Texas, and Barack Obama in the White House trying to deal with the nation’s woes, will The Daily Show With Jon Stewart still have enough satirical fodder for its four-nights-per week/161-episodes-per-year broadcast?

Washington Post Misrepresents CBO Projections (by Dean Baker)
The Washington Post told readers that the Congressional Budget Office projected that most of the spending on the discretionary projects included in President Obama’s stimulus package “would come too late to lift the nation out of recession.” Actually, projections showing that spending will not occur until after October 1, 2010 (the cutoff referred to in the article) will still provide a much needed boost to the economy according to CBO. In its baseline scenario the unemployment rate is still projected to be close to 9 percent by the end of 2010. This would mean that any boost to the economy from a stimulus package could still have a useful impact in lowering unemployment.

Bank Problems Were Only Bigger Than Incompetent Analysts Had Expected (by Dean Baker)
A front page article in the Washington Post told readers that the analysts it relies upon as sources had not expected the large losses being reported by banks for the 4th quarter. It is hard to understand how professional economic and financial analysts could still be surprised by the size of bank losses… The Post might try to rely more on experts who are not repeatedly surprised by events that they should have expected.

Roubini Predicts U.S. Losses May Reach $3.6 Trillion (Bloomberg)
U.S. financial losses from the credit crisis may reach $3.6 trillion, suggesting the banking system is “effectively insolvent,” said New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who predicted last year’s economic crisis. “I’ve found that credit losses could peak at a level of $3.6 trillion for U.S. institutions, half of them by banks and broker dealers,” Roubini said at a conference in Dubai today. “If that’s true, it means the U.S. banking system is effectively insolvent because it starts with a capital of $1.4 trillion. This is a systemic banking crisis.” Losses and writedowns at financial companies worldwide have risen to more than $1 trillion since the U.S. subprime mortgage market collapsed in 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bush, his approval rating in tatters, flies home to Texas (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — As former President George W. Bush’s helicopter whisked him from the Capitol over the 2 million people on the National Mall to Andrews Air Force Base, parts of the crowd burst into a riff of “Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye,” a song usually reserved for losing sports teams.

Alone Among Networks, Fox News Gives Bush Homecoming Cheer (Show Tracker, Los Angeles Times)
Late Tuesday afternoon, Fox News was the only major national TV outlet that carried a live telecast of former President Bush’s homecoming speech to cheering supporters in Texas. The rest of the networks, however, did not see the Bush address as news fit to broadcast.

George W. Is No Martyr (by Thomas Frank at The Tilting Yard, Opinion Journal)
Comparisons [of George W. Bush to Harry Truman] are nonsense. Not only do they depend on the hollowest, most superficial sort of resemblance, but they are easy to refute. Faced with the Communist invasion of South Korea, for one thing, Truman did not make his stand against some uninvolved country, as Mr. Bush did with Iraq after 9/11. What’s more, Truman fought Joe McCarthy and the other demagogues of his day; McCarthy’s spiritual descendants, meanwhile, made up part of Mr. Bush’s base. But let us take the one thing Truman was known for before he became Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president: rooting out waste and fraud in defense contracting as World War II got under way.

Under the Bush administration, on the other hand, contracting waste was apparently so robust, so spectacular, that we might well think of it as an official element of administration policy: waste in New Orleans, waste in Iraq, waste in Homeland Security. And I say “apparently” because we will probably never know the extent of the problem. That quaint Trumanesque notion of accountability will almost certainly not be applied to the now departed Bush & Co.

The point of all the Truman comparisons, though, is not actually to compare anyone to Truman. It is to problematize the obvious verdict on the disastrous Bush administration and clear the way for a more flattering counter narrative.

Wrapped in the Flag

Thai academic charged with insulting the king
BANGKOK, Thailand – Police charged a prominent Thai political commentator Tuesday with insulting Thailand’s revered king in a 2007 book — a day after an Australian writer was jailed for three years for a similar offense.

China blocks 244 new websites in porn crackdown
BEIJING (Reuters) – China has blocked 244 new pornographic websites over the last week, the official Xinhua news agency said, bringing the total number of sites shut down in a campaign against “vulgar” content to over 700.

EXCLUSIVE: Top 30 Global News Sites 
Most of the global news sites tracked by Nielsen grew their year-over-year audience in December. Among the gainers: New York’s Daily News, Freedom Interactive, Fox News Digital Network, and The Huffington Post, which continues to attract new readers despite the end of election season.

The Economics of Great Journalism (by Mitch Ratcliffe at ZDNet)
The fully loaded cost of a great reporter doing great work falls somewhere in the $180,000 range: $130,000 salary and benefits, $4,800 a year in subscriptions and other information sources, $2,500 a month in travel, $1,250 a month in legal and insurance coverage.

Special Inauguration Editions Hit the Streets 
Following this afternoon’s inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, many newspapers published special or extra editions to commemorate the occasion.
And, uh, to make money, of course.

‘Newsday’ Editor Returns After Dispute With Cablevision 
Editor John Mancini was missing from the office for several days due to a dispute with new owner Cablevision Systems Corp. over editorial content. He returned to the newspaper’s Melville, Long Island, offices, with the matter “resolved,” his paper reported.

Russian Tycoon Buys U.K.’s Evening Standard Newspaper
Daily Maily & General Trust has sold a controlling stake in the Evening Standard, London’s main afternoon newspaper, to Russian billionaire (and former KGB agent) Alexander Lebedev. Lebedev is also the major shareholder, with former President Mikhail Gorbachev, in Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Burkle Joins Push for Higher Mag Fees
Ron Burkle’s magazine distribution company Source Interlink Cos. is joining Anderson News in demanding publishers pay an additional 7 cents for each copy of a magazine that it delivers to retailers, regardless of the actual number of copies sold. “It is a crisis,” said one source.

Warner Bros. to cut 800 jobs as Hollywood downsizes
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Warner Bros. Entertainment on plans to cut 800 jobs, or 10 percent of its worldwide staff, as Hollywood outsources and downsizes under the weight of the current recession.

Clear Channel Rethinks Operations.
Radio’s biggest group did more than lay-off 1,850 employees. Its $350 million in cost savings strategy was the result of months of studying strategies for dealing with new economic realities. The sales department bears the brunt of cuts. The “realignment” will also mean new selling strategies.

No “nationalization” of formats.
Concerns Clear Channel would “nationalize” formats to run on all stations appear to be unnecessary. A spokeswoman says no single approach will be taken, as decisions are left to local managers. CEO Mark Mays tells the Financial Times “We’re not as focused on where programming originates from.”

Like never before, inauguration experienced online
NEW YORK – In an inauguration defined by a sense of change, the experience of watching Barack Obama take office was fittingly revolutionary.

HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Digg (Mashable)
Since its launch in 2004, Digg has attracted more than 30 million unique visitors and 327 million page views per month. Its social bookmarking features allow users to submit their favorite pictures, videos, and articles to be voted on by their peers. The most popular and relevant of which, based on Digg’s algorithm, are promoted to the front page for all visitors to see. Digg, along with its algorithm, is constantly evolving; adding new features like the recommendation engine and more recently, suggested submissions based on related keywords. Here’s a quick guide for users of all levels to help you get the most out of Digg.

AdWords Can’t Save Newspapers; Google Kills Print Ads (Mashable)
If newspapers were hoping that Google would be their savior, it looks like they will need to find another white knight. The company has announced that they are discontinuing their print ads product – which allowed advertisers to place ads in newspapers via AdWords – at the end of next month.

The problem does not appear to be a lack of interest from the newspapers; in a blog post, Google notes that more than 800 newspapers in the US signed up for the program. Instead, it’s a lack of demand from advertisers… Google still wants to be involved in the newspaper business, writing “We will continue to devote a team of people to look at how we can help newspaper companies.” But for now, it looks like AdWords isn’t the be-all and end-all in advertising that Google hoped it would be. It makes us wonder of what the future of Google’s other offline ad efforts – like radio and TV – might be.

Obama texts warn of parking, train problems
President Barack Obama’s aides sent text messages to tens of thousands of people about crowd control, public transportation and even the weather Tuesday as he took the oath of office and immediately started building another massive technology-based list of supporters.

Cell Phones in D.C. Jammed by Inauguration Traffic
The history-making inauguration of President Barack Obama also was a cell-phone test. Wireless networks braced for an onslaught of photos, text messages, video and voice communications from the millions of people attending the inauguration.

Top Kitchen Toy? The Cellphone
Mobile phones have become high-tech cooking tools, transforming the kitchen lives of many Americans.

Sprint’s Boost Mobile Will Offer $50 Unlimited Plan
Boost Mobile, a subsidiary of Sprint Nextel, will introduce next week a phone and data plan for $50 a month. The plan includes unlimited anytime calling, text messaging, wireless Web, and walkie-talkie services anywhere in the U.S.

Android Advances as T-Mobile Takes G1 To Europe
With the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona coming up next month, new developments around the Android open-source mobile platform are beginning to build expectations.

Microsoft Dumps Comcast Investment (Paid Content)
Microsoft has decided to sell its 7.3 percent stake in Comcast, according to an SEC filing (via Tech Trader Daily). Microsoft had owned 150,935,575 Class A common stock in cable operator. The decision appears to reflects the bad economy to a small extent. But mostly, it signifies Microsoft’s disinterest in the cable business.

FCC probes Comcast’s phone practices
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Comcast Corp., the nation’s biggest cable TV operator, is being investigated by the Federal Communications Commission over concerns that it is giving preferential treatment to its phone service at the expense of similar services from competitors.