Well, I've now found periodic WiFi at the locations I'm at in Europe. Unfortunately, they're looking for almost 20 Euro / day for 24 hours of access. Kind of ridiculous, frankly. If only I could get it to work in my hotel room.

Anywho, continued light blogging for a few more days as I'm still traveling. Hope to be back in action full time soon.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has made a pretty slick move recently, and one that should make those in the Internet/blogging world happy - they started a conversation. It's not anything earth shattering, and is actually quite simple. The paper's Editorial Page Editor, Mark Trahant, describes the move, which entails one addition to the P-I's website.

We've started an experiment. From now on, if you look at nearly all Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorials on the Web, you will also see a reader poll.

So easy, and yet so very interesting. The paper has shown that they are not only interested in what their readers are thinking when they read op-ed pieces, but they want readers to know what their fellow readers are thinking.

Posting may be a little bit sketchy for the next few days, as I'm traveling in Germany and my access to WiFi is less than perfect, it seems.

The Denver Post's Will Shanley describes an event that took place in the Colorado city on Thursday, where the topic of media consolidation was argued during a panel discussion. Both sides were well represented, with the Post's publisher joining a television station executive, a consumer advocate, a U.S. Senator and a university professor.

Mark Koldys snags a quality FOX News vidcap with Linda Vester doing what was presumably supposed to be an interview with Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth. It's not even necessary to describe - check it out here.

On Tuesday, the World Association of Newspapers issued a letter to the President of Yemen in response to the charges and subsequent jailing of a Yemeni journalist, Abdulkareem Al-Khaiwani. Al-Khaiwani has been held because of critical comments against the country's government - and is only one of a few journalists who have had similar run-ins in recent times with the Yemeni state.

[via Armies of Liberation]

Netjak has an article Thursday by Rick Healey that discusses the "birth of video game journalism." Interestingly enough, I find that those critiquing the subject have the same complaints as do both sides with regard to almost any other topic, from politics to mathematics. Those who are "in" any industry have always complained that the journalists covering them have no idea what they're writing about, and the journalists always defend themselves by saying that they know enough about the story to write it.

Which leads to today's world - in a place where everyone lots of people play journalist/commentator on the Internet, does the chicken come before the egg?

Via Steve Rubel, I've just heard about Susan Mernit's post about the Associated press (quietly) putting RSS feeds up on their website. I've got to say that not only am I really psyched about this, but I think it has a lot bigger of an impact than we're immediately thinking.

This comes shortly after Business Wire launched "customized" RSS feeds for their PressPass subscribers, and on the heels of Bloglines being purchased by Ask Jeeves. What does it mean? Well, it means the new distribution method has officially been named, more or less. Not that we had any doubts, but Dave Winer et al definitely get a round of whatever brew they want from me, next time they're in town.

When the Business Wire thing came about, my thought was that not only were they making their content more readily available to journalists, they were ensuring their survival for the time being. Obviously that topic didn't come up while speaking with the company, but that's what I was thinking nonetheless. Business Wire needed RSS in order to keep journalists up to speed with what their clients were saying and doing, and this was the only way to do so. Obviously the technosavvy are already all over RSS, but surely it's not too far away that the rest of the journo-population are doing similar things, right?

When I caught Jeff Jarvis' post on the subject, it furthered my already sneaking suspicions about the AP's move - it actually changes distribution of news - at least for bloggers. No longer are you "slave" to other news sources who may or may not have news feeds. You're effectively "on" the wire. While it's never going to be any story (okay, never say never), it's a significant portion of whatever stories the AP is delivering to its members. And. You. Now. Get. Them. All.

After quickly firing off an email to Jarvis, I bounced this around on IM a bit (thanks, Jason), and thought it was worthwhile to share. Here's a quick excerpt:

As those who are web savvy (bloggers excluded, for argument's sake) grow up to be journalists, they're going to know RSS as the way to go for everything - web surfing for a 15 year old right now is probably very different from what a fifteen year old in 1998 did. AP *is* the news source, and pleases not only us, the blog readers and writers (among others) with these feeds, but other news organizations as well - but they still distribute to members through their own channels - which perhaps have evolved into RSS. A wire service, which could be boiled down to information distribution for $600 or whatever, can't get the word out to same journalists, bloggers, and readers without keeping up with the Joneses - which RSS does. It's about survival for some, while "making it better" for others, as AP would be classified.

With regard to the AP, the next question is, do bloggers altogether stop referencing news sources if they're going to be pulling significant information from RSS feeds - and do the news sites that previously got traffic from bloggers - hell, from Drudge - now get hurt by the lack of eyeballs viewing their advertisements? This is momentous, in a way.

Now I in no way meant to demean Business Wire, PR Newswire, or whoever else in that space - just trying to make a quick and dirty generalization for the sake of argument. Which brings us to the final point - is this the 'killer app' move that the AP has done to actually change how news is distributed? This can be simply articulated by using bloggers as "today's" example:

Old way: News came out on the wire, and various news sites / outlets picked it up. You, the reader, went to "News Station X" on the Internet, linked to the article, wrote your comments, followup, or whatever, and that was that. "News Station X" benefited (hopefully) from the readership of anyone cruising through your blog and going to read the full story you mentioned/linked to. "News Station X" can claim yz number of readers for the month, and can sell advertising as such.

New way: News came out on the wire, and various news sites / outlets picked it up. You, the blogger, have a subscription to the feed, and your reader automatically snags any article that has to do with a topic that you cover on your blog. You click on the link through the RSS feed, are directed to the AP.org website, and go from there. Blogger Y links to the AP.org website, therefore removing "News Station X" from the equation, readership declines for "News Station X" (as much as can be argued that bloggers deliver traffic), and advertising rates do not increase over time.

Now perhaps I'm being overly simplistic, but consider mass-trafficked blogs such as an Instapundit or a website like Drudge Report. I'm sure MyWay.com or Yahoo! News is more than happy to take the 1,000,000 visitors that Drudge sent them for the article about the three headed love child of some government official. But that might not be the case forever, if this continues as it seems like it could.

Just my two cents.

[update] Rafat Ali has more on the situation and my speculation (though not so wild, really). It looks like the AP's feeds will ultimately lead readers who click on the feeds to an AP member's site "closest" to wherever they are located through geotargeting. What's not clear if you'll be able to "choose" a member site which you prefer, much like you can through their site when you are looking for a local member now. I can't say for sure I would always choose the most local paper to wherever I was - and what about while traveling abroad? Just wondering. Long-term, I still think the AP is taking a bit off the top of what its member sites are doing - people are pulling feeds from the "source," which leads to less people going to the news sites on a whim to visit, whether or not those sites have feeds in the first place. But at the least, this is positive with regard to the concerns I expressed above.

Need a job?

Bloglines is hiring.

Towards the bottom of this column by the Village Voice's Jarrett Murphy is some skinny on The Week, which sounds a lot to me like a magazine that does what blogs manage to do for readers - do all the filtering so that the blog's readers don't have to spend a ton of time doing so. My whole problem with publications that are less than daily (and even that's a drag, to be honest) is that they just seem like oddities to me. If I want to read about newsworthy events, I'm never going to rely on the print version of a publication for reporting - editorial, sure, but not reporting. It's "old" to me if I get it at the end of the week or whatever. As I'm sure this isn't the case for most Americans - yet - I can see how such a pub would be helpful. But I still don't get it.

Also, make sure and check out the story about Jason Leopold, a writer who was called out for using unconfirmed information related to the Enron scandal in a 2002 item at Salon.com - and how he's looking to unleash his whole life and times drama in a new (maybe) book.

As discussed in mid-January, the Seattle Times is set to cut about 100 positions this month. On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported additional details, pointing out that 23 of the 99 jobs currently slated for the cut belong to newsroom staff.

Crain's has the story about a joint venture by The Deal and CNET News.com to start a new publication, Tech Confidential.

The St. Petersburg Times' Vladimir Kovalyev comments on the announcement that "independent" RTV International, a television news station currently available to Russians through satellite subscription service, will soon join the ranks of free television - through satellite - for citizens of the country. Kovalyev points out that their company line is "The Only News With No Censorship from the Kremlin," which should be a welcome relief, considering some other situations that have come up in recent times at Russian news outlets.

The Charlotte Observer's Mark Washburn wrote in Wednesday's paper about an unnamed producer at WBTV who was fired this week after it turned out that two out of the three lines in a story read on-air were "copied verbatim" from a newspaper story from the day before.

IntelliTXT is rearing its head again, this time at a major newspaper - the New York Post. It's unclear when the Vibrant Media technology arrived on their site, but none of these ads were coming up for me earlier this week in the minimal time that Internet Explorer was in use - just the pop-unders that defy toolbar action.

Considering some of the reaction that the IntelliTXT ads have faced by bloggers, including here at TMD and at PaidContent, among others, it's surprising that a major publication has gone ahead with this service. Perhaps the click throughs really are that high of a rate and some of us are missing something, but I'm not likely to believe that. It's not normal, not contextual, and isn't something that positive comments have been thrown around about, at least from most Internet-savvy folks.

So, the question remains - should we be concerned? Is IntelliTXT really going to be a major factor in the world of advertising, or is this just another dry run from a publisher looking for some revenues?

As of the time of this article, the New York Post has not yet responded to a request for comment.

[ed: again, typically my browsing is done exclusively in Firefox, but there are certain locations where I am limited to IE for various purposes - so if this isn't "new" news, forgive me - but it's still worth discussing. Cross-posted at AdJab.]

[update 2/24] The New York Times' Nat Ives wrote about IntelliTXT on Thursday, and mentioned AdJab as being on the story about the Post first!]

Forbes carries The McKinsey Quarterly, which this time around focuses on newspaper format changes, specifically a flip from broadsheet to tabloid. They've weighed in on online media and other news sources have devoured a lot of the readership of our beloved dailies, and what can be done - quickly - to help the problems.

Well, it's offical. Jason Kottke has quit his job and is officially a full-time blogger. Check out his post for all the nitty-gritty. He's doing a three-week fund drive at the moment, which will hopefully get him to some sort of critical mass so he can get his creative on for the next however long this lasts.

Good luck to Jason as he jumps into this exciting, challenging situation. Should be a lot of fun - plus, for the selfish of us out here, it means more Kottke to read!

It'll be great when he files next year's tax returns, with "freelance - blogger" as his job description.

[update] Red Herring's Irina Slutsky follows up on the story, with comments from Steve Rubel and Anil Dash on Kottke's move.

Robert Feder reports in today's Chicago Sun-Times that if you're a program director, Chicago might be the place for you right now, as five (at least) radio stations in the area are looking for someone to fill that role.

The Chicago Sun-Times' Eric Herman details the Tribune Company's decision to slightly increase CEO Dennis FitzSimons' salary year-over-year but cut his bonus by more than three-quarters, from $1.2 million to $260,000, citing cashflow and the refunds to advertisers for circulation scandals at some of the company's newspaper properties.

Hiphop-Elements.com points out the story about a feud of sorts in Los Angeles, where some personalities at Emmis Communications-owned Power 106, a rap and hip-hop station, have allegedly stated that any music artist who records a promo for Power 106 competitor KDAY 93.5FM "will be immediately removed from Power 106 rotation." Hiphopdirectory.com has not released any further details on the story, and it has not been independently corroborated elsewhere.

Emmis Communications and Power 106 did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

I was saddened to hear last night about the death of "gonzo journalist" Hunter S. Thompson last night after returning home from a weekend out of town. Thompson, 67, apparently shot himself on Sunday at his home near Aspen, Colorado. Love him or hate him, you've probably read something he wrote - or at least you've seen "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which starred Johnny Depp.

While not necessarily agreeing with everything he had to say, he was always an interesting read to me. I was further exposed in recent years by Thompson's presence on ESPN's Page 2, where he had been a fixture since 2001. Page 2's front carries a message on Thompson today, "Goodbye, Good Doctor."

Interestingly, as I key this in, I'm thinking that he wouldn't want everyone to be hemming and hawing about the situation. He lived his life the way he wanted to, and would expect the rest of us to do the same. He left on his terms, so I'll just keep it short and say Goodbye and Thanks.

E&P details the upcoming Opinion Forum in Washington, D.C. on March 8, an event that will feature various panel discussions, including one with op-ed columnists discussing their trade and how they relate to the public-at-large.

WISN-TV out of Milwaukee has the story about the passing of Milwaukee journalist Mattiebelle Woods, 102, who died Thursday evening.

At the beginning of the year, word came out that Orbit, the satellite service in the Middle East, Northern Africa and parts of Europe, had dropped CBS News programming from its schedule in favor of shows from the FOX News channel. At the time, users on Orbitforum.net were up in arms at the displacement of the CBS News programs, and there was no real word from the company as to where things were going.

This week, I've been informed that the Orbit News channel has now removed FOX News from its schedule, and have replaced the bulk of the slots with MSNBC, NBC, and ABC programs. No further details are available at this time, although the 'TBA' slots on this weekend's planned programming should yield results soon.

The Vanderbilt Hustler has a story by Meredith Casey on Friday about a visit to the school by CNN political producer Sam Feist earlier this week. Feist was on hand to talk about media bias and how political media works. Casey reports that Feist "sees the media as a check or watchdog for the government as a whole," which is an interesting thought, and not one I'd disagree with - but as the "new" media evolves nowadays, we will begin to find patterns of coverage and behavior as administrations change - which probably explains the massive attention that media bias has garnered in recent years.

[ed: Oh, and the article's last sentence made me laugh, just a bit.]

On Thursday, San Francisco-based Business Wire quietly launched two new features in their online service, both related to RSS feeds. PressPass users now have the opportunity to receive the latest stories in "My PressPass" via an RSS feed, which is available after logging into the system and scrolling to the bottom of the page - each individual's RSS feed will be different, based on their subscriptions to Industry and Subject selections.

Additionally, an RSS feed is now available under the "Photos & Multimedia" heading, at the bottom of the "Smart News Releases" section. This feed is exclusively made up of releases that contain images or audio and video.

Business Wire's closest competitor, PR Newswire, has had an RSS feed for about a year now, but it appears to be limited to "Today's News," not any subscriptions that a user may have. In September of 2004, MarketWatch.com columnist Frank Barnako wrote that "BusinessWire [sic] doesn't get it" on his weblog, which he was probably right about - then. At the time, PR Newswire was indeed the only one of the two sites to have a feed. And yes, it appears that the individual at Business Wire that he traded e-mails with did not know what an RSS feed was. Fortunately, they quickly caught on, publishing five industry-specific feeds in November, and progressing to the point they are at today. As of today, Business Wire does get it - the only question remaining is whether they're moving at the pace that today's media needs to receive information. Early reports would say yes. So, as they say on the playground - "Tag, you're it!"

Laura Sturaitis, Business Wire Vice President, New Media Development explains the strategy behind the further adoption of RSS, stating, "Business Wire is committed to using the best technology tools for the job in our effort to serve the media and get them our members' news in the fastest and easiest way they can use it on deadline, so naturally we wanted to make RSS part of that mix.

Business Wire's strategy towards making RSS a part of their business was to get it right the first time, hence the aforementioned launch of five industry feeds in November and the evolution into what exists today. Those five (Automotive, Entertainment, Health, Sports Business and Travel) are set to grow into the eighteen individual industry categories that are available to PressPass users under the "News by Industry" option - Communications, Construction & Property, Consumer, Education, Energy, Government, Manufacturing, Natural Resources, Philanthropy, Professional Services, Retail, Technology and Transport.

Also included in this week's launch are RSS feeds for "Hot Topics," which are located at the top of the left-side menu bar. These are determined based on "what's going on" in the news at the time, such as "Politics" during election season. Currently, feeds exist for Tsunami and Nanotechnology topics.

Sturaitis also informed TMD that the "Smart News Releases" feed was created in response to journalists' requests for an quick and easy way to find news releases that contain photos, graphics, logos, slideshows, or A/V content. She confirmed that Businss Wire is committed to help PressPass subscribers successfully manage the news and information in a manner they are not only accustomed to (through e-mail and the website) but also through this new transmission method, on their customers' terms - RSS.

[editor's note: this post was updated Friday, 2/18 to include comments and additional information from Business Wire's Laura Sturaitis]

The New York Times Company announced in press release Thursday afternoon that it is set to purchase About.com from Primedia, Inc. for $410 million - in cash. This move creates a significant online footprint for the NYTCo, and expands the eyeball grab of the company, with an additional 22 million unique visitors per month - more than the entire current network that the Company is receiving, on average.

Primedia president and CEO Kelly Conlin seems to be pleased with the move, saying "The sale of About.com is a material deleveraging transaction that significantly strengthens Primedia's balance sheet." At the same time, current About CEO Peter Horan followed up by saying that "About.com will grow even stronger by being affiliated with such a strong, innovative media company." Does this mean Primedia wasn't innovative enough?

Rafat Ali has more here and some commentary here. The full press release can be found here via BusinessWire. Check here for the Times' coverage.

I'm in Ali's camp on this one - search visitors to About have to be legion, and the Times could probably work some wonders around that, and it could be just the boon to advertisers as the world of print media continues to decline. The newsgathering will continue as it is, but circulation will drop - it's only a matter of time. This keeps the "blood flowing" in the company, for the time being. On your toes, people, on your toes.

[Thanks, Joe!]

The New York Times Company announced on Thursday that their website traffic for January was a record, with 553 million page views -- 2 million more than the previous record, November of 2004, during the Presidential election. Specifically mentioned were 4.5 million pageviews originating from the Times' RSS feeds and a 23% hop in unique visitors, to 16.4 million, from the previous year. The 'multimedia' sections of the site, which include slide shows and A/V, experienced a screaming 671% surge from the same period in 2004. (BW)

A Knoxville News-Sentinel staffer found himself in an odd position on Wednesday when a bomb squad detonated a newspaper coin box after it was reported as "suspicious" because of wires that were exposed. Robert Wilson reports that the newspaper coin box was located in a place where it was not "normally installed," leading to concerns that the device was potentially dangerous. After assessing the situation and being informed that copy editor Keith Harville believed it may only have been a coin box, the device was destroyed for precautionary reasons.

Lalit Jha writes in Thursday's Grand Forks Herald about a $250,000 donation made by former student and longtime journalist / editor Charles Johnson that, in Jha's words, is "expected to assist in re-establishing accreditation" for the University of North Dakota's journalism school.

SPORTSbyBROOKS has a story up about ESPN College Gameday guy Lee Corso's appearance on a Dallas area radio program recently, only to have it end in a very strange fashion. During the show, one of the hosts, Dan McDowell, said something about Corso posing nude for a magazine, making a quip about Corso's college roommate, Burt Reynolds, who really did pose nude for a magazine way back when. As the story goes, Corso quickly became aghast, and walked off the show - but the hosts state that he gave them the "thumbs up" later on in passing. So is Corso just kooky (gee, surprise!) or was he really ticked off?

City Pages' G.R. Anderson, Jr. gives Clear Channel Communications a thorough runthru in this article on Wednesday, from how the company showed up in Minneapolis just a few years ago and has grown into a huge part of the entertainment industry in the area.

"No single business has had a larger cultural impact on the Twin Cities, ever--let alone in less than 10 years.

That's not to say that everyone is pleased with the company's presence - but it shows that as "bad" as many people believe Clear Channel to be, they have had positive financial impacts in some places. But it leads to a question - when is competition not really competition?

Last night, I had an opportunity to correspond via email with the author of the Radio Free Nepal blog. What I received was some more information about the situation going on in the country, especially regarding the media. Questions and answers below. [Note: any adjustments made in editing the responses are in "[]" brackets]

TMD: To start, can you explain a little bit about how you've been corresponding over the Internet for the last weeks? I know there are times when outbound communications are shut down, and I would expect that dial up Internet access creates for frustrating situations when trying to get information out there. Are you being monitored while on the Internet at all, or are there certain times when you are able to be online, uncensored?

RFN: At exactly 10:00am on Feb 1, the King's address to the nation was broadcasted by the state-run radio and television. And, by the time, the half-an-hour speech ended, all the inbound and outbound calls were closed. Later I heard that army personnel went to each ISPs and shut down the servers and told them not to run it until further orders.

The telephone was open for a few minutes everyday at random time but with out international calls but no internet. The internet and phone started running as usual after a week and since then working fine without any problem. I don't know if its being monitored or not but my query to the ISP was answered in negative.

During the time, the only way to communicate to outer world was the satellite phones which very less people own. And embassies and UN offices let journalists (I don't know about others) to use internet using their V-SAT.

TMD: Also regarding the Internet, are you able to read most websites, but not have access to self-publishing tools such as blogs and whatnot?

RFN: Internet is working fine. I can do anything on the internet, there [are] no restrictions besides in some websites which were banned before the coup like www.cpnm.org which is of the Maoists.

TMD: How about telecommunications - are outbound and inbound telephonecalls up and running at all times in Nepal at this time? Are there restrictions placed on these, as well?

RFN: Telecommunications are running well. There are no restrictions [on] inbound and outbound calls.

However, cellular mobile services have been closed downed and landline telephone service of private telephone company, United Telecom, has been down.

TMD: Is there any information about yourself (yourselves?) that you might be able to share? Based on the writings on the Radio Free Nepal blog, I thought perhaps you were involved in journalism or some form of writing. Without obviously giving away too much information, can you confirm this? Are you currently working at the job that you had before all of this happened with the sacking of the PM and last cabinet? If so, what has changed? If not, what are you planning to do, or are you doing?

RFN: About me, I am a professional journalist associated with a reputed media in the country. I currently hold my job but many of my friends have already lost their jobs and are in situation to lose it. There have been talks about lay-offs but we don't know as yet how many will lose the job. Most of the publishers are in 'wait-and-see' strategy for two-or-three months before finally making the decision but they have already made it clear that there will be lay-off if situation doesn't improve.

TMD: Can you share any more about the public-at-large? Are they all fully aware of what has happened and what the rest of the world knows, which seems to be different from what was originally reported in the news in the days after the "bloodless coup," as some are calling it? How is general morale in the country?

RFN: People in Nepal are largely unknown of the consequences of the takeover. As most of us are uneducated and poor, we have less to do with the politics. And, besides, the ongoing Maoists war and the political instability during democracy have frustrated many. Just after the takeover, many believed that there were no alternatives for Nepal. Now with the information isolation and all they are starting doubting the King's intention.

And, to add here, King Gyanendra is not a popular king. Many Nepalese believe he had hands in the Royal Massacre that saw all but Gyanendra's family killed. King Birendra who was killed in the incident was very popular king. And the current crown prince Paras is more known for his antics – fighting in casinos and reckless driving.

The people are still confused about the whole thing. They know democracy is gone. And, they believe they have no choice either – they believe democracy is good but that failed to their test in last 14 years. They know the King is not doing well, but don't have any other principle to hold on to protest the move. Besides, the King is trying to be popular with price slash in LP Gas and kerosene.

TMD: I've been posting this week about stories saying that over 1,000 journalists are probably going to lose their jobs, if they haven't already. Is that looked at as permanent? Do these news organizations plan to tow the party line or are they planning to just dissolve?

RFN: Since all FM Radio stations who used to give news a top priority have been ordered only to broadcast music, the job of the journalists working there are in danger. I haven't heard anyone being fired but everybody is concerned and are taking their job as gone one despite their employers are using same 'wait and see' strategy. It looks like the King is not in the mood to let them broadcast news anytime in future as the state-owned daily carried a news title, 'No fm station in the world broadcast news' a few days ago. If that happen their jobs will go for forever.

FM Stations, I have heard a dozen or so among 56 operating have been not broadcasting.

TMD:Do you have any idea how many journalists have been arrested for speaking out at this time? Reports are spotty in this country as to what has actually happened. Do you know anyone who has been arrested or censored by the government, or stopped by soldiers for whatever they were doing?

RFN: I have no idea how many journalists have been arrested because news are very hard to come by. The general secretary of Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) Bishnu Nisthuri have been arrested and the FNJ are planning a peaceful rally against media censorship and the arrest. The president of FNJ Taranath Dahal is said to have been inside UN (which may be true because his interview appeared in the newsmagazine yesterday). What I can confirm now is no one from mainstream dailies has been arrested so far.

I know a lot of people who actually faced the censorship. They told me that the army were not harsh instead were polite but nevertheless did their work sincerely.

Additionally, I asked whether there was anything else this blogger wanted to get out there or that we, the community, could do to help. I received one sentence in reply: "What you can do for Nepal is spread words about need [for] democracy in Nepal because USA's view will make a lot of differences."

The Miami Herald's Christina Hoag writes Tuesday about the format flip that went on in the area in the last few days, with Clear Channel moving its 94.9 WZTA to a Hispanic format. This was quickly followed by a switch yesterday on Cox's Party 93.1 from dance to rock music.

The Chicago Tribune announced on Tuesday that Jim Kirk would take on the role of associate managing editor of business news. Kirk has been working as business editor since October of 2004, and a staffer of the Tribune since 1997, when he joined as a marketing and advertising writer. [PRN]

This morning, I came across a blog*spot site that appears to be a blog written by someone in Nepal who has "liveblogged" what has amounted to a bloodless coup in that country earlier this month. You can read it at freenepal.blogspot.com. There are a few posts up now, starting from February 1, which was about the time that outside Internet access and mass communication was blocked to all citizens and the media. I have read that there are various "openings" for Internet access and outside communication, and would presume that this was posted sometime during those opportunities.

More background on the situation here, here, here and here.

Jason Clarke, editor of Moorelies.com and fellow Media Bloggers Association member has launched a new blog this week, Network Landscape. It's pretty slick, if I do say so myself, and I'm looking forward to Jason's expansion from all things Michael Moore into "citizen’s media, emerging technologies, entertainment, and content," as he describes it.

Plus, you get an extra special bonus interview with yours truly, all about the launch of AdJab, the latest addition to the Weblogs, Inc. family.

Congrats on the new blog, Jason, and good luck!

Just catching this now as I read up on what I've missed today. FOX News Radio's Tony Snow has come out to say that he has colon cancer. More here at the Tony Snow Show website.

Thanks, James, for pointing this out. Well wishes go out to Snow and his family from me as well.

On a side note, what's up with this? One article, and it's not even the hed?

[update 3/27/2007] If you're looking for new news on this story, you can go here.

The Journalists Network informs about the accidental death of Diana Seale, an editor for the English edition of Kathimerini, a paper from Athens, Greece. Seale, 31, was mountain climbing in a group when they were caught in an avalanche.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram reader advocate David House offered some insight on Sunday into what goes on "behind the scenes" at a newspaper to get any and all information and newsworthy items into the paper on any given day. In this case, the example is about readers who complained about the newspaper's coverage of the Iraqi elections on January 30, specifically with the use of the word "trickled" when describing the voting public's entrance to the polls. At the time the newspaper was being written up (think 10-11:30 p.m. in Forth Worth), it was still early morning in Iraq. The wire service stories, at that time, appear to be accurate. But because a reader gets his newspaper (typically) sometime around 6-9 a.m., this might not be the case anymore, as they could see plain as day on the morning news. Unfortunately, it's been another 6-9 hours or so since the original stories were written. Newspapers aren't written on speculation when reporting fact (okay, stop with the gnashing, you know what I mean) - so even though many of us knew that there would be a huge turnout to the elections, it hadn't happened just yet, hence the "trickled." I'd say the same could be said for many voting districts in the U.S., in the 6-7 a.m. timeframe, so this shouldn't be seen as overly biased or, as one reader told the Star-Telegram, "worthy of al Jazeera."

If you don't agree, that's fine, but keep in mind that just because you're reading the newspaper with your coffee and donuts in the morning doesn't mean it was created fifteen minutes ago. That's not to say that it is "old news," but in a way, things can change significantly from the point you see the paper and when it was printed. This is one of those cases.

Unfortunately, this is one of the things that bloggers need to be more careful of - indicting publications and the media on things that are uncontrollable, before checking their facts. It's way too easy to start a storm these days, and if those citizen journalists want to keep any credibility, they need to do a little due diligence first, not jump the gun every single time. We're about to end up in a place where people start tearing up every single line of every single news item just looking for any sense of something that that person doesn't agree with or sees as biased, whether it is present or not - and it's very frustrating to see everything boil down to. Bloggers who are surprised when "mainstream" media is quick to condemn should look at this as a reason why.