The Los Angeles Times' Sallie Hofmeister reports on the number of complaints from the public this week to the FCC regarding Adelphia Communications' pending purchase by Time Warner and Comast.

Last weekend, we finally got the DirecTV HD programming and dish set up so we could fully utilize the television we have at home, and while the number of channels available is kind of disappointing (and I don't want to hear about cable this or that, I'm not changing), some of the programming is flat out staggering. That being said, I'm watching FOX's coverage of the Yankees-Angels game this afternoon from Yankee Stadium, and the images aren't really that pretty, whether over the dish or the over-the-air antenna I have. YES' game film seems much better, and as we keep getting in-game scores from the Chicago White Sox game, I've gotta say that this is crappy, compared to others I've seen. Now I know that FOX uses 720p, and while the progressive has its advantages over interlaced, the 1080i is so far superior it's not funny. That being said, what's up with the garbage coverage at Yankee Stadium today compared to other games?

The McKinney Courier-Gazette, along with other Hartman Newspapers, L.P. publications, have been acquired by American Community Newspapers.

Ohio's Chillicothe Gazette has announced that current managing editor Michael Throne will now take on the general manager duties of the newspaper as well.

When you're having a conversation with someone who isn't necessarily up on the local lingo as you are, it's usually helpful to bring them up to speed and put things in context for him or her. Likewise, it's helpful to actually define a certain term when it's an integral part of your news article. Unfortunately, Jay Cridlin didn't do that in an article in the St. Petersburg Times on Wednesday describing people getting "dooced," that is to say, getting fired for writing something on a weblog.

Surely, most people reading this article aren't going to have a clue why this is called "being dooced" and I can't say that the term has made it into the public lexicon just yet. If anything, stuff like this is the easiest part of being a journalist in some ways.

[via Steve Rubel]

On Wednesday, MediaPost's Gavin O'Malley covered BusinessWeek Online's new Innovation & Design section, recently added to the publication's website. It's a place where interactivity will reign, and readers will not be left out in the cold. Just as MSNBC.com and the New York Times have made multimedia an important part of their online presences, BusinessWeek is looking to do the same with this effort.

The Boston Globe's Bill Griffith has details on the end - at least at ESPN Radio - of the career of Chuck Wilson, 20 year veteran of the "Game Night" program heard every evening on stations broadcasting the ESPN shows, just as ESPN Radio enters the Boston market. I came across Wilson while doing some traveling a decade or so ago, when I tuned in ESPN Radio on my car's radio - something I'd never heard before, as WFAN (660 AM) out of New York was pretty much the only all-sports station I'd ever heard. You'd definitely recognize his distinct voice, which was all business and yet all fun at the same time.

Surely Wilson will be picked up by another station or network, as he is recognizable and brings a high level of experience and professionalism that a sports radio station would surely desire. Good luck, Chuck! Hope to hear from you soon!

In a move that might change the way that terrestrial radio has worked over the last few years, Sony's Epic label owned up to what is effectively payola, where deejays and station employees were given trips, sneakers and electronics to play particular songs on the air. The New York Times' Jeff Leeds and Louise Story cover the story, which included one method I'd never even heard of, which was the playing of songs on the air as "commercials," in a way adding spins to a song in a way that listeners wouldn't even know what was going on.

Let's not be naive here, most people these days realize that the 20 or 30 songs heard regularly on the radio aren't necessarily the "best" songs out there these days, and most deejays do nothing but talk and make jokes here and there. They're not all expected to be skilled at putting together a great mix of music for people to listen to - those days haven't been around for a long time now. But will this continue to be the same, going forward, as radio stations have eyes like those of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's closely watching?

Durango Herald managing editor Alice Klement provides an anecdote about her time working in the newspaper business to promote journalism as a profession, expressing her hope that today's newspapers can continue in the tradition of old-time journalism, irrelevant of whatever corporate ownership they may reside in.

Late last week, New York Times reported that assistant managing editor Jonathan Landman would take on the role of deputy ME for digital journalism as of August 23. Landman is an 18-year veteran of the Times, with previous experience at New York's Daily News and Newsday.

Chicago Defender executive editor Roland Martin publishes his 'call to action' for other black newspapers in the United States to prove the New York Times wrong that it can compete in the space - as the company announced it would do with a publication in Florida with the launch of the Gainesville Guardian.

Customer service is always big, no matter what industry you're in or how minor the Interaction may be. The Internet used to be somewhat poor, overall, at giving good customer service, but not any longer - or, I should say, the ability to give good service is no longer hard to grasp. Check out this post from the folks at Flickr if you need an example. It's tough to say that you're not doing what your customers might be looking for on a daily basis, and as you can tell, most people enjoy that.

The Associated Press reports Wednesday that the Los Angeles Times' editor, John Carroll, will retire by mid-August.

Last week, Boston Sports Media's David Scott came across the info that Boston University journalism professor Michael Gee had been fired for writing online about one of his students whom he apparently found attractive.

The Washington Post's Ariana Eunjung Cha writes about the citizens' journalism effort surging across the U.S. (and other places across the globe) right now. Amusingly enough, at the center of the item is "Your Mom," an entity put on by the Iowa-based Quad-City Times.

The Rocky Mountain News picks up a Hollywood Reporter article by Paul Gough and Chris Marlowe about how cellphone photography and video has turned everyday people into citizen journalists, just as many blogs have been perceived to have done the same.

In what has to be the best thing I've seen all week, the last half hour of my life has been spent watching a few episodes of This Spartan Life, a talk show done via the world of Halo 2 - yep, the video game. And this isn't some "record the game then voice over it later," either - it's a live-recording of people playing a video game while doing interviews, blowing people up, and having a good old time.

For those that aren't familiar, the concept is called machinima, as in machine + cinema, if you will. MTV2 runs a program here and there that calls them "Mods," or video game characters engineered to look like they are performing in a music video - this is like that, but to a whole new level.

Thanks to Rex for pointing this out to me.

On Wednesday, we should expect to see ABC, CBS and NBC all covering NASA's launch of the space shuttle Discovery live, with their anchors at their desks in New York. Hollywood Reporter's Paul Gough has much more detail on who will be on-air for each network, and for how long.

Mississippi newspaper The Democrat has named Melissa Turner as news editor, and Muffet Lee McPhail as editor.

The Cincinnati Post's Rick Bird reports on an contest held by First Broadcasting, owner of two radio stations who have gone to a new format that is very similar to Infinity's "Jack" format, to name a couple of their stations. Listeners can go to nameusandwin.com and enter to win $10,000 if their new name / slogan is chosen to be used.

This format is most familiar as one that throws the playlist out the window, and would be like putting 1,000 CDs on shuffle and walking away.

For those of you who think the whole Judith Miller situation wherein she is being punished for not revealing her government source for the leaking of a CIA agent's name is a good thing, then perhaps you'll be pleased about the fact that the Cleveland Plain Dealer is "holding back" two stories that the publication believes are very important because of fears of government reprisal for printing a story about the leaked information.

Fortunately, the most other editors and journalists don't agree with the move, reports the New York Times' David Cay Johnston.

The Associated Press has a story Monday about a battle between three small-town newspapers, the River Cities Beacon, Dayton Dispatch News and River Cities Star in Dayton, Kentucky.

Is it just me, or does the concept of David Lee Roth, among other deejays, replacing Howard Stern not bode well for Infinity's programming schedule?

The Memphis Business Journal informs that the Commercial Appeal, Memphis' daily newspaper, will lose its president and publisher at month's end.

I have to note that I'm very impressed with ESPN's 6 p.m. "SportsCenter" tonight, which started off with a three minute report from ABC reporter Stephanie Sy from London, covering today's bombings. The show continued after that with further discussions about security, including that of sporting events in London later this week and American events going forward. All in all, the show went about 10 minutes before cutting to commercial and discussing any scores or other sports information.

On Thursday, PR Newswire notified its members via email that it would be opening up its US1 and UK newslines to entities "whose operations or personnel have been directly affected" by the bombings in London, England. In other words, companies who wanted to announce certain things about their businesses, missing staff, found staff, or anything else related could do so at no charge.

Snagged this from Roxanne, thought it would be a good idea after reading this post from Pegasus News. Feel free to snag it yourself and use it on your own site.

About half an hour ago, I was greeted by the voice of British PM Tony Blair addressing the world about multiple bombings across the London transit system that are apparent terror attacks. It is unclear how many deaths have happened, as some sources state two fatalities, but MSNBC is carrying coverage from ITN stating up to 20 deaths. I've been trying to determine the specific time this happened, as I keep a radio on all night, and the reports are coming in that it happened during the morning rush, which would have been, say, from 2-4 a.m. Eastern time.

Flipping to WCBS-AM brought the opportunity to hear Sky News radio, which was much more insightful than the news stations based in the U.S. If anyone was wondering about what would happen when foreign bureaus were closed at news organizations, this would probably be an example of how coverage changes. Thankfully, today's technology allows for the easy re-broadcast of foreign television and radio stations across the airwaves here - which is probably better off, in some cases.

The bombings appear to be in retribution for the start of the G8 meeting, although one has to think that an attack coinciding with London winning the 2012 Olympics could be part of it.

[update] Matthew Sheffield has a great rundown of information and blogs also following the story, as he was awake at the time news broke, around 5:30 a.m. Eastern. Blogger Jeff Jarvis points to Command Post, which is all over the situation. Over at hiphopmusic.com, Jay Smooth has a collection of links to London bloggers and Flickr feeds.

[update 10:26 a.m.] Fortune reporter Nelson Schwartz shares his account of being on a bus behind the one blown up in London today.

This afternoon, New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. released a statement about the decision made by staffer Judith Miller to not reveal her source to a grand jury and go to prison. Sulzberger reflects on the point when shield laws were created by many states, and hopes that Congress will create a similar situation on a federal level.

Speaking on MSNBC's The Abrams Report this evening, Dan Abrams says "In this world, if we keep having a lot of [Special Prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgeralds out here, we're going to have the press reporting on press releases for companies and the government."

He follows that up by stating that "discretion" is the key, and that most good reporters will have to know when to use the anonymous source protection and not to just throw it around.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Seattle Times was correct in its assertions that would be able to use costs it was hit with while newspapers staffers were on strike as part of a way to prove its way out of the joint operating agreement it has with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The folks over at Radar Online are wondering whether or not Arnold Schwarzenegger's involvement with American Media may have clouded his policy decisions.

Here's something I hadn't seen before. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel runs a weekly chat session called "Ask the Editors," running a transcript a little later on for all to read. This week, the paper had a chat with the paper's photo editor, Sherman Williams. Looks like a good feature to keep an eye on, much like the regular chats that the Washington Post does on various topics with different staffers.

Daily Pundit's Bill Quick suggested Tuesday that today's media is only worried about the attack on sourcekeeping because it believes it is above the law, somewhat. While he's right that the media as a whole has had some serious ethical issues of late, I don't see how the media as a whole would begin to keep itself going, reporting on things that the government or other organizations are doing, things that someone felt not to keep secure - it'd be almost impossible, were sources regularly yanked out from journalists' background information.

What's curious here is that the CIA operative's name is public, and the grand jury appears to be fishing someone to find out who the sources are - why aren't they just ask Bob Novak, who actually named the CIA operative in the first place?

Clearly, the headline of the day is BusinessWeek Online's "What Makes Suicide Bombers Tick" in an article by Stan Crock.

Think the agate-filled newspaper page is on the way out? You're probably getting more and more right every day. The Boston Globe announced Wednesday that it was cutting the specific columns within stock listings, removed particular tables like those for T-Bills and New York bonds, and decreased how many stocks would be shown on a daily basis.

The Associated Press details the success that America Online had in webcasting the Live 8 concerts last weekend, and how the world of online video broadcasts have become more and more successful over the last few years.

In mid-June, the Baltimore Sun opened a new section in their "Nation/World > Iraq" area, entitled "Maryland's Fallen," to share information about service men and women from the state of Maryland who died during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The credits for the subsite reference The Sun, Tribune's other publications, and the Associated Press.

FishbowlDC's Garrett Graff points out that the NYT's Judith Miller will be sent to jail for not revealing her source in the Plame case, while TIME's Matthew Cooper has been "freed from his confidentiality promise."

The cablers are covering a press conference about Miller's choice, one that is called a "brave and principled choice" by the Times' executive editor Bill Keller. Her attorney, Floyd Abrams, commended her for this decision, one that she made with "no personal benefit" to herself.

The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel carries a story about the closing of the Hagerstown Herald newspaper after a broken sale.

Have you seen K. Paul Mallasch's Muncie Free Press yet? Mallasch has gone on his own to launch a citizens' journalism site to encompass the area of Muncie, Indiana - and looking to start fresh from the world of big media. You can learn more by reading his "Declaration of Independence," posted on July 4.

Doug Fisher makes an interesting comment, wondering if the "Declaration" is a dig at the local Gannett property, the Star Press.

The Berkeley Daily Planet's Matthew Artz writes about how NewspaperDirect, a Canadian company, is selling print editions of hundreds of newspapers to Bay Area residents - for a decent chunk of change. While the concept is great, and most people who enjoy foreign newspapers don't have to wait to get a copy this way, the article pretty much ignores the existence of the Internet as a way for these same people to get a copy of the newspaper.

Sure, we can argue the "holding the newsprint" side of the situation here, but if all we're talking about is getting the news and sports scores, etc., then the Internet as a means to the end is the solution. I can't see a company having this as their bread and butter surviving forever in today's world, as Internet usage becomes easier and easier for late adopters like those who might be purchasing these papers for $3 per day.

Accuracy In Media's Sherrie Gossett is pleased about how Newsday staffers were able to stay "on the story" of the Tribune newspaper's circulation fraud over the last year, as opposed to a similar situation at the Dallas Morning News, whose readers weren't exactly kept in the know.

It looks like another instance of "Jack" striking at a radio station has gotten some people up in arms. The Chicago Sun-Times' Robert Feder places the responses of readers to Infinity Radio's Joel Hollander in his column on Tuesday. Let's just say that most people weren't pleased by the station's format change nor Hollander's reasoning for the move.

On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that journalist Dick Schaap, known for his work covering sports for ABC and ESPN, actually died of negligent medical care by his surgeon during hip replacement surgery in 2001. I remember that he had passed away by what was originally reported as complications, but hadn't heard anything about a pending lawsuit.

The doctor, Neil L. Coplan, is now responsible for a $1.95 million jury award to Schaap's family.

Westport Now has the story about the death of William Brink, who worked as New York Daily News managing editor until 1981. For those looking for a historical perspective on him, he was responsible for the hed of "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD," describing how then-President Gerald Ford had chosen to handle some financial difficulties that New York City was in the middle of.