On Friday, Forbes.com announced that David Andelman, most recently the business editor for the New York Daily News, would be taking the position of executive editor of the website. Andelman has more than 30 years of experience in the media, including 22 years working for the New York Times, seven at CBS News, and two years for CNBC.

Has anyone successfully installed and used ESPN's new ESPN360 software and gotten it to work properly? Mine is crashing ridiculously on two machines running two different Windows OS packages.

The Chicago Tribune is looking to keep its readers "in the know" about lifestyle and entertainment events with new sections appearing Thursday and Friday along with a daily Metromix Planner feature. Thursdays will offer At Play starting next week on May 5, and will offer shopping tips and information, the aforementioned Metromix Planner, consolidated dining tidbits, and Go! - ideas for weekend getaways, etc. Friday's On The Town will become the new "Friday" section, incorporating theater, music, and other arts news and schedules.

Metromix Planner will be seen on weekdays in the Tempo section, in Weekend on Saturdays, and in Arts & Entertainment on Sundays.

Yet another newspaper has been stung with a reporting scandal. This time, it's the Tampa Tribune, where staffer Brad Smith resigned this week after admitting to making up a portion of a story in Wednesday's paper.

The Dallas Morning News' Terry Maxon has details on the decision by Comcast to depart the Dallas market. Their current customers will be shifted over to Time Warner, who will take over the system in that area. This move is all a part of the two providers' decision to purchase the bankrupt Adelphia Communications.

MosNews.com reports on a scary situation in Russia, where the Federal Security Service (FSB) is looking into "developing new rules for internet providers that would prevent the spread of extremist ideas on the Internet, register internet activity."

Oh really?

It appears that Putin's administration is becoming overly concerned with the possibility that "the people" could use the Internet as a tool to "form public opinion" on their own. What's that mean - without propaganda from the state? Of course, this is laid out under the guise of going after directions to make explosives and the like. But in reality, it's no less than the need to have control over what people are saying, reading, and doing. There are good reasons to come up with rules and regulations over hacking, distribution of illegal material, and other Internet activities - but that's not what is happening here.

[via TechnoFlak]

Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported on the passing of Howard Benedict, who spent 37 years working for the news bureau. The focus of much of his career was on the NASA space program, and he was reponsible for much of the important coverage of space missions in this country. Benedict died early Monday at his home, just two days after his birthday.

David Raclin of the Press-Enterprise out of Riverside, California, writes about New York Times executive editor Bill Keller's visit to that area on behalf of the local World Affairs Council. During a speaking engagement, Keller stressed that while media has changed in recent times, that traditional media outlets still hold an important role in society.

Betty Brighton, former editor of the Portsmouth Herald, died on Sunday at 81. Brighton served as editor for 35 years, from 1944 until 1979, when she moved on to the Burlington Free Press in Vermont. The Herald's Shir Haberman has more on Brighton's life and career.

The Saginaw News' Joe Snapper informs about an anthrax threat that was found to be a hoax at Michigan's Midland Daily News offices on Tuesday.

FindLaw's Julie Hilden says that bloggers should receive the same protections that traditional journalists do.

A study by the Missouri School of Journalism's Center for Advanced Social Research turned up some tidbits about how people perceive the media as a whole. Specific feedback on credibility, bias, and general "nosiness" are all part of the study.

Funny: Am I the only one who hasn't heard the Ft. Worth Star Telegram called the "Startlegram?"

Anyway, check out the Dallas Observer's Jim Schutze taking a look at the latest fun and excitement at Belo's Dallas Morning News after the publisher was hit with a subpoena to look into fraud charges.

The more I hear about "crackdowns" on media indecency, the more I believe we are headed to a very scary place as Americans. What pushed me over the edge on a personal level in this issue was last Fall's Saving Private Ryan debacle wherein a stack of ABC affiliates refused to run the film "because of fears that the FCC might rule certain swear words in the film to be indecent," as the AP's Frazier Moore reports. While no complaints turned into fines, the scare tactics are already there.

When looking further into the issue last November, I was informed, not surprisingly, that the FCC would never make a statement in advance of a program to be aired, as it would be seen as de facto censorship - my words, not theirs. But isn't that what's already happening? It's clear that broadcasters are in the funny position of having their cake, eating it (sometimes) too, but wanting to have a little bit of idea on whether the cake is going to make them gain weight or not, but not wanting to ask a "does this make me look fat?" question?

I don't mean to make light of this serious issue, but it's kind of a funny thing. ABC stations were in a position where choosing not to run the movie was safe, because they didn't know if they would be fined or not. They didn't know if they would be fined or not because the latest "rules" on indecent content are a bit vague, more or less because some outlets have been hit with fines when others have not, even if the content discussed was in the same context or level of detail. If a governing body is put in a position where they can, effectively, willy-nilly lay down the law whenever they choose to, sitting behind the guise of "we rely on most recent case law," then what does the reasonable man standard say in this situation? If we live in a world where the complaints of a few may be able to form the doctrine over the many, then what about if the many were to file counter-complaints about the original complaints, claiming that in a "reasonable" sense, they were not offended in the first place, henceforth deeming the content unobjectionable?

Yes, it's confusing, and it's meant to be. Why? Because it explains the situation that each and every television and radio broadcaster operates in today. We're living in a time where whomever screams loudest has been having the biggest effect on policy. Do "the people" really want to live in a country where what they can and cannot listen to over paid services such as cable and satellite television or radio should be censored? Is that serving the public good, or the beliefs of some (who may be many, this is by no means meant to shuffle off their importance) over the rest, under the guise of "what is right?"

The coddling and handholding has gotten far beyond criticism of your kids not being able to play dodgeball in gym class. Today's society is relying more and more on government of some sort to dictate can and should, rather than doing what works best for them.

I, for one, do not welcome these wannabe masters of my media and communication world.

Sue me, bash me, whatever me, but I officially believe that folks who vote for American Idol winners have exactly ZERO sense about music and what an artist should be like. The fact that Constantine Maroulis has just been voted off while Scott Savol and Anthony Fedorov continue to suck it up week after week is absolutely mind-boggling. No wonder today's radio is a horrid as it is.

Sorry, folks, but this is just ridiculous. If Constantine has a contract by tomorrow morning I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

Just read over at Droxy that XM has scored before injury time with their exclusive coverage of next year's FIFA World Cup in Germany.

Rebecca MacKinnon is looking for thoughts, suggestions, and comments on her upcoming session on Global Voices at the BlogNashville event, coming up May 5-7 in Nashville, TN. Let's help Rebecca out with some ideas on things we'd like to have be part of the discussion, points you'd like to her to expand upon, or things that you believe you could share with the group.

Starting next Wednesday, May 3, visitors to the New York Post website will "launch" registration to view its content. It's unclear whether all content will require registration to be seen.

[via PaidContent]

Talker Laura Ingraham, who learned just last Friday that she had breast cancer, had an operation on Tuesday to treat the disease.

TMD wishes Ms. Ingraham all the best for a full recovery.

When is bad news not considered good news just because it's news at all? Probably when you're a major software and hardware player and the producer of one of the hotter technological "toys" to hit the market in recent years - like Apple.

The San Jose Mercury News's Dawn Chmielewski reports Friday that Apple stores have taken books published by John Wiley & Sons off of their shelves because someone is a bit peeved about what a soon-to-be-released bio about Apple boss Steve Jobs.

Has anyone else who's been privy to Gmail Clips noticed the "advertisements" for Spam-related recipes in the Clip-bar at the top of the screen? They all seem to go to Recipe-Source.com, like the one in the screenshot below for Savory Spam Crescents.

Talk about comical.

FeedBurner says that they'll be all over the provision of Google AdSense via RSS feeds once "the trial expands beyond the initial pilot group of publishers."

Tres bien.

[Thanks, David]

MTV recently went live with its Overdrive broadband-only channel to run advertising-supported programming like music, movie trailers, and more. It's obviously targeted at young people who actually like to see music, something you don't get a lot of unless you have MTV2. Additionally, it's an opportunity for the network to kick up their broadcasting of movie trailers and other entertainment, such as the first ten minutes of the new XXX: State of the Union movie, starring Ice Cube.

So imagine my surprise tonight when I went to the site and found that I wouldn't be able to visit the site due to my browser choice, Mozilla.

"Detecting Browser...
WE'RE SORRY!

PC Users with Netscape, Mozilla or Firefox: you need to run Internet Explorer to use MTV Overdrive.

You can download the latest version of Internet Explorer for free by clicking HERE."

Or, not. There's no way I believe that MTV couldn't make their Overdrive systems work properly through Mozilla at the very least - if they wanted to. I'm not even going to step into Opera at the moment. Sure, they're using whatever features for encoding and high quality that Windows Media Player 9 offers, but that doesn't mean it works for everyone. It's about the user experience, isn't it?

It truly amazes me that a company who thinks they are on top of what is hot or not these days could be shortsighted enough to think that people are just going to download IE or use it as their main browser to view content like this. MTV, your first mistake was believing that what the masses "wanted" was all-entertainment and a few hours of music along with a "top 10" show that no one could really vote on because they never got to see any videos in the first place. Don't make the underestimation of the loss of a whole lot of users who could make a whole lot of money for you through the ability to sell advertising at a higher rate be your next mistake.

Costa Tsiokos calls NBC's move to get the Sunday Night Football package starting in 2006 "pathetic" as it reflects on television network competition. As in, look what they had to do just to get in the game against what ABC was putting up to the plate with Desperate Housewives and "Extreme Makeover Home Edition."

Just a heads up, trackbacks are now back up and enabled properly on TMD - no more server errors.

Thanks, Alex!

[ed: next stop, comment streamlining...]

The New York Times recently published a visually stunning audio/video package about the current situation in Phuket, Sri Lanka and The Maldives. The piece shows how resorts are looking these days and some of rebuilding that has taken place since a tsunami hit the area a few months ago. It was produced by Alice DuBois, with Seth Mydans, Amelia Gentleman and Jon Bowermaster providing audio commentary.

PaidContent's Rafat Ali reports that CNET has purchased TVTome, and will incorporate it into its network of sites.

Editor & Publisher reports that two Kalamazoo Gazette reporters were fired from the newspaper after it came out that they had had a few beers while covering a story about the drinking habits of young people.

[Thanks, Ken!]

Bob Sassone, who writes over at TV Squad, is expected to be on MSNBC at 5p.m. today to debate the folks pushing TV Turnoff week. Look for him in the second segment of the program.

The Philadelphila Inquirer's Gail Shister says that CBS has gotten some "credibility" from having Bob Schieffer around, but should keep in mind that he's only here until late February of 2007 - when he's set to retire.

Which begs us to ask the question: If Schieffer is named the "full time" anchor on the CBS Evening News, is it a good thing, since we all know he'll be walking a little less than two years from now?

The San Francisco Chronicle runs an interesting set of responses in "Two Cents" on Sunday, with folks answering the question: "Would you be sad if TV news disappeared?"

The Associated Press reports Saturday that AP Television cameraman Saleh Ibrahim was killed by gunfire and photographer Mohamed Ibrahim was injured from shrapnel today while covering the scene of an explosion in Mosul.

Space.com features an adAstra column by Greg Little about how stories rate in today's newspaper world. His qualm is centered around how a story about singer Kid Rock getting arrested was on the front page of a Nashville paper while another story about the serious possibility of life on Mars was "on about page A9." We know it's all about selling papers, but whether that's right or wrong or even a new happening isn't the big issue here. It's Little's suggestion that "it will take people who have actually practiced what we call "community journalism" to take over these media outlets to begin telling the important stories on page one, as well as restoring credibility to our profession."

So, those who would want to be considered "community journalists," are you ready to stand up and be counted?

Monday evening, the Society of Professional Journalists will hold an open session entitled "Ethics and Entertainment Journalism" at the Los Angeles Central Library.

Panelists will include: Peggy Jo Abraham, news director, "E! News Live" on E! Entertainment Television; Tina Dirmann, former staff reporter for US Weekly; John Horn, staff writer, Los Angeles Times; Heidi Parker, West Coast editor, Playboy; Cynthia Wang, associate bureau chief of the L.A. office, People magazine; Tom Clanin, journalism professor at California State University - Fullerton

The panel will begin at 7p.m. in the library's auditorium on the first floor. The library is at 630 W. Fifth Street. More information here at the SPJ's Los Angeles website.

Editor & Publisher's Mark Fitzgerald details the results of a recent effort by the Carnegie Corporation to look into the newsconsuming habits of young people - defined as 18-to-34 year olds - that showed more than double as many respondents had visited a news site on daily basis than had read a newspaper.

Only 14% of respondents called the newspaper their "most important" source of news. Local TV newscasts were called the most important source for news by 31% of the young adults, while another 25% cited the Internet.

While the Internet as a source lags a bit behind television for news (television is still fairly ubiquitous, being on in the local deli, pizza shop, whatever, plus it has lots of moving pictures for those whose attention span can't fulfill a scrollbar's trek down a page), this clearly shows that the newspaper as a distribution channel is not dying off slowly, it's sitting in the OR and the crash cart just got thrown out the window. Speed is the key here, and the paper just doesn't have it.

Hell, even the Chicago Tribune's efforts with the young reader-focused RedEye are viewed as disappointing - by the target audience. That item at J-Log has contributor RandallS calling shenanigans on whoever pulled the wool over Fitzgerald's eyes just a few days ago. Sure, surveys are surveys, and you never know what you're going to get - but take your own by casually asking people you know in the 18-34 age range what they do to get news. You shouldn't be surprised.

As an ex-one-to-two hour commuter via train into New York City, I can say that having a newspaper was handy for the ride back and forth. That was until I started cramming my Handspring device with everything from restaurant reviews to news stories before leaving home or the office. After that, my reasonably large amount of bandwidth per month on my cellphone had me checking sports scores and reading the news on there. Now, if I'm not listening to a book or one of a few thousand songs on my iPod when traveling from point to point, I'm getting SMS alerts of things that are important to me. Holding a newspaper that was printed ten hours ago isn't relevant anymore when my cellphone just told me who the qualifiers were for this weekend's Nextel Cup race or whatever.

It's not that young people can't handle the volume of news - or volume of words in the news - it's that the method of distribution via print is outdated and unnecessary for many people. Maybe the crossword puzzle is still nice to do with an actual pencil while eating breakfast, but trying to show people these days how the jump pages in the city tabloids work from the back to the middle for the sports sections isn't going to be necessary much longer. Not when we've got people getting huge throughput while in traffic in the Holland Tunnel or if the possibility of hooking up your whole crew with WiFi while on a road trip or riding the train is as simple as a little hack.

Print is dead to the (young) world. News, however, is not. And you can quote me on that, if you choose to do so.

[update] Matthew Sheffield properly chides me for declaring print dead as a whole. While I did truly only mean for the newspaperish publications, it's definitely not clear from what was written above. Great points, Matthew!

The Boston Globe's Mark Jurkowitz covers the latest in the layoff situation at the Boston Herald, including the news that the Newspaper Guild is currently telling workers to accept the contract the paper has put forth, which includes details on how staffers can be chosen for dismissal.

The New York Times will be doubling the cultural listings in the Weekend Arts section, starting with tomorrow's paper. Additionally, the Sunday edition will feature briefs on more upcoming cultural events in a new section called "The Week Ahead."

With the launch of Inside TV this week, there's a new full-size entertainment mag on the block. It's brought to you by the folks behind TV Guide, and is aimed at young women.

Gawker sez that the TV Guide-ers have "got to get up earlier than that to bring down the House that Jarvis Built, people," referring to Entertainment Weekly, natch.

On Thursday, the Atlanta Press Club announced that NBC News anchor Brian Williams will be present at next week's Annual Gala. Williams will be the keynote speaker that evening, which is expected to attract around 500 guests.

When: April 28, 2005, 6:30-10p.m.
Where: Westin Buckhead, Grand Ballroom
Who: Members $75, Non-Members $120

The New York Times' Anne Field writes about today's magazine industry, which is chock full of new publications. Even with the seemingly low success rate of magazines launched by big publishing houses, people are still interested in putting out new mags. The reason? Niche markets. The same way that many a blog has done very well for themselves in the last few years by having realistic goals on readership and the content that would be put in them, today's publishers are doing the same.

With the launch of Inside TV this week, there's a new full-size entertainment mag on the block. It's brought to you by the folks behind TV Guide, and is aimed at young women.

Gawker sez that the TV Guide-ers have "got to get up earlier than that to bring down the House that Jarvis Built, people," referring to Entertainment Weekly, natch.

The Jersey Journal's Alexandra Fenwick has details on a plagiarism allegation directed towards the publisher of the Kearny Observer, Lisa Tortoreti Pezzolla. Fenwick informs that an ex-Observer staff member pointed out the plagiarism to a publication whose material was lifted and run in Pezzolla's "A Word With the Publisher" column. The unnamed source states that this is not necessarily the first time this has happened.

Gawker reports this morning that the New York Observer's Joe Hagan is leaving that publication and becoming a media reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Hagan will be expanding his coverage from mainly television to media in general, with more of a focus towards print.

For more on the paid model of news and information online, we need not look further than VodkaFish, where David Singer points out the way that ESPN.com is currently pushing its "insider" service, meaning content behind a paid wall for premium customers. It's usually more in depth analysis, trade rumors, and just stuff with bigger teeth. That doesn't mean it should be for everything, but there is a value to content - it's just that figuring out how to quantify that content, and which content to do that with, that is the problem.

For the last 24 hours, much has been ado about the Associated Press' announcement that they would soon be changing the way in which member publications gain access to content for online publishing - though not in a distribution sense - more like a financial one. Doug Fisher is spot on when he says that "The gorilla's been feeding in the background folks and is ready to exert its muscle." As in, no one should be surprised about this.

Perhaps an editor or two or maybe someone's budget just went bonkers, because at this point the financial contribution that AP member pubs were dropping was probably "factored" as print-only, and the online distribution was just a bonus. While it's not easy to say whether the total readership of a particular publication is higher these days, it's easy to take people from the print bucket and shift them to the online one when looking at circulation/readership declines, for the most part. What'd be interesting to find out is if overall readership is up at these newspapers, et al, showing that more people are getting news and information these days than before, percentage-wise.

It'll be one of those "sucks for the moment" kind of situations where the print side will be forced to continue picking up AP content while the online side pays for it as well, but we know a significant shift will ultimately come. The print side will pay a bit less, while the online side will bear the brunt of what was originally all on the print-only side.

I, for one, welcome our distribution chain overlords. As per my points in February about how the AP's move to add RSS feeds directly to end-users would be a big step in how news reached you and I, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that the AP could end up just feeding us all, if we chose to utilize their resources directly instead of "subscribing" to a local entity - which was the resolution to my original concerns about damaging traffic to local papers. That said, if the bulk of what I'm reading in the daily newspaper is coming from the AP wire anyway, why do I need the local distributor to get my non-local news? Can't the AP just serve it up, ads and all, to my desktop? There's no reason that can't happen. And yes, I know there is a cost situation that would have to be defrayed somewhere. But what a lot of people are truly not factoring in when they devalue these changes is that most online news sites are moving, at the very least, towards free user registration in order to add value to their media kit for advertisers. If it's not going to be a paid model, then it'll be somewhere in the middle.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Brian Stelter has been saying since early this morning that NBC's Tom Touchet, executive producer of the "Today" show, would lose his job any time now. Tonight, the AP's David Bauder reports that Touchet has indeed been fired, with his replacement expected tomorrow.

Cracked Entertainment, owner of the soon-to-be-relaunched CRACKED magazine, said that former President of Universal Pictures and Hollywood producer Thom Mount has been added to the company's Board of Directors. Mount heads up Mount Film Company, and is most notably known for his work as executive producer for Natural Born Killers and producer on Tequila Sunrise and Bull Durham.

This further reflects on Cracked Entertainment's efforts to expand the company's portfolio from print-only to television, film, and Internet content.

More here and here.

BusinessWeek Online has launched a website containing free educational courses on home office design, entrepreneurship, business plan development, and more. The instructor-led classes will be available through bwcourses.com, and are currently being sponsored by Microsoft.

Right now, the site is featuring the following opportunities:

• The Wireless Mobile Office, instructed by technology writer James Gaskin


• Designing and Equipping Your Home Office, taught by writer Robin Allen


• Start-Up Basics for the First-Time Entrepreneur, led by designer Tim Ziegler

The site was developed by Powered.com, who has put together other successful interactive learning portals such as HP's Learning Center and CNET's Help.com. BusinessWeek now has the opportunity to leverage their site's "stickiness" with advertisers and site sponsors, as it will have more specific data about site visitors and course users - this is an excellent segue for a print publication's continued shift