As if it wasn't bad enough for Technorati when they had a few dissenters here and there and one or two big names calling them out. Now, Weblogs, Inc. boss Jason Calacanis has had it with the firm, calling the service "worthless" in his post title. How's that for Google Juice?

MediaBuyerPlanner points out a Radio World piece detailing the issues that HD Radio will need to take care of in order to become the next big thing that turns into the next everyday thing.

After the news came out that Diane Dimond was leaving Court TV, some were wondering why she wasn't staying around, at least through the end of the year, when she was expected to leave. The New York Times' Felicia Lee writes about the situation, wisely starting her piece by stating that Dimond was "just about the last person you would expect to go quietly." I can't help but agree.

Jeff Jarvis' "Give" post title pretty much sums it all up, and he's got a few links to places where donations can be made that will directly support those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

If you can help, one of those spots will surely be the place for you to do so.

If you're looking for a few websites this morning that aren't resolving, it might be because there's a nasty DDOS going on that is affecting a few popular blogs. I briefly chatted with Eric McErlain from Off Wing Opinion this morning, and he informed me of what was going on. I'm pretty sure that Outside the Beltway and a few others are on the same servers. Periodically, some these blogs are appearing in my browser, but there are still problems that are being worked on - so if you are able to reach those sites, you might notice some issues with the code.

If you're looking for the other side of the horrible tragedy that's taken place in New Orleans and other parts of the Southern U.S., then drop by A Small Victory, where Michele is compiling as much positive news as she can. Through all of what has happened, there are many stories of people helping other people - it's at least a small positive in what has been an utter disaster.

Over at BusinessWeekOnline, Steve Rosenbush is is covering the story that came out recently about TheKnot possibly being snagged by Target. While the core competencies of the companies don't necessarily look like they mesh at first, Target surely wants a bigger piece of the online retail pie, and taking a bite out of an area that a competitor might not have a slice of is an obvious choice to expand that kind of presence.

Rafat Ali has a few related links at PaidContent, as well.

Well folks, I'm happy to announce that I've now been formally announced as Director, New Media Strategies for MWW Group, a public relations firm based in East Rutherford, NJ. For the most part, my recent interviewing for a new day job is one of the reasons you might have noticed some difference in the timeliness of posting here at TMD and over at AdJab and the other Weblogs, Inc. sites I'm a contributor to. Going forward, I'll continue to blog at these places, as long as conflicts of interest don't arise - pretty much just as I did when I had a previous day job.

In this new position, I'll be working on blogging strategies, podcasting, wikis, mobile technologies, measurement of "you" media like blogs, etc., and other "new media" programs for both MWW Group as well as its client base. Many of the topics I've covered here and over at WIN are involved in my day-to-day duties, and being on top of what's new and exciting is part of the job description. I'm happy to say that not only writing these blogs, but reading so many of them, along with various forums (fora if that's your thing) and other new media sites were instrumental in my gaining this position - and it should be noted that signing up for LinkedIn was probably just as important, as MWW human resource staff found me via that networking tool.

Special thanks to those in the bloggerati who have contributed to what this world of permalinks, hyperlinks, and trackbacks has become - some props go out to Jeff Jarvis, Steve Rubel, Jason Calacanis, Debbie Galant, Matt Sheffield, and a slew of other people that I probably couldn't name without going into some Movable Type overflow. Plus, last night's MTV Video Music Awards had enough speechgiving. If I forgot ya, don't fret - ping me and I'll buy you a beer.

For those of you who might be contemplating any potential transparency issues with this role and how my coverage of "all things media" might overlap, be assured that I'll be clarifying any and all positions that our firm has with regard to something written here, when the situation comes about. Otherwise, keep up the great work and feel free to drop a line or comment here with any suggestions, concerns, or other ponderances you might have.

The Olympian's executive editor, Vickie Kilgore, explains to readers of the newspaper that even with the acquisition of that publication by Knight Ridder, readers will still be seeing the same old Olympian every morning on their doorstep - or online.

In Monday's edition of the Christian Science Monitor, Barbara Kelley writes about her surprise to how some of her journalism students at Santa Clara University reacted towards the need for truthfulness and constant ethical behavior in journalism and the level of difficulty it takes to be good at the job.

Dan Gillmor posts a call to action to those of us who are slammed with comment and trackback spam (mostly the latter) - I've got to say that since my hosts at Zubr Communications have installed James Seng's MT_TrackbackAntiSpam plugin I haven't received one trackback spam. Anyone else have luck with this solution?

If you live in Arkansas - or even if you don't - and you're looking for a Web-related opportunity with a media outlet, then check out the job posting for a Web Producer position at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It's a part-time gig, but might be a solid opportunity for someone looking to get this kind of experience.

Like the DJs quoted in this article, I don't expect this to become some sort of overnight sensation - but as the Cincinnati Enquirer's Lauren Bishop reports, acting as your own deejay at a wedding or other social event isn't totally unheard of. Bishop's story includes details about a couple who have "invested" in a new iPod, and are creating a playlist for the reception, which is relatively small - but that's not the point.

Has the "new media" trend of MP3 players becoming so mainstream changed life in such a way where your wedding won't have a tuxedoed guy making jokes and dancing with your cute cousin - or is it all just hokey?

MarketingVOX posts details about MTV's plan to show all the post-Video Music Awards video content on the music network's Overdrive Internet component. Unfortunately, you still have to have Internet Explorer to run it - Firefox, Opera, and other browser-preferring users aren't able to use the video playing tool, which uses Microsoft technology.

Make sure and place your votes in BusinessWeekOnline's survey of the "Best of the Web" - including blogs, travel sites, podcasts, and much, much more.

Over at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) weblog, Eric McErlain published some information about an effort by ABC News to get access to various Test, Research & Training nuclear reactor locations in the United States this summer, apparently for an upcoming segment on "20/20" on September 9. Sounds innocent enough, right? Wrong. As it turns out, ABC News is believed to have sent multiple interns to go on public tours through the reactors, all the while never stating that they were there on behalf of - or as part of - ABC News.

If you access the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Adams Database, you are able to view the documents McErlain points out. Look for documents numbered ML052100432 (original letter to NRC) and ML052100387 (response from NRC). While the various documents state that those suspected of being ABC News interns "on the job" were given a similar tour to that which would have been offered to the press if they had been announced as such, it is only normal to think that the media would be "watched" while on the tour in a different manner than members of the general public who were cleared to tour the facilities. Additionally, the possibility that the interns took photographic, audio, or video records of their visit without the security personnel or reactor staff being aware of it, for use in a television program is a bit out of line, most would say.

More information may appear within this forum on Yahoo! Groups. Additionally, the NEI informs that they made an attempt to contact ABC News on Tuesday, and TMD has sent an e-mail request to a public relations contact for the "20/20" program this afternoon, with no response as of yet. More details as they become available.

In what has to be the prime example for dumb luck, I'm happy (sort of) to report that my traffic today is, well, a multiple - higher than two - more than it usually would be - all because I happened to use the name of Google's new IM/Voice chat client in the title of a post written about three weeks ago. Somehow or other, I managed to be the first result for this search through Google, hence the increased traffic.

It's been pretty apparent in recent years that the staggering amount of material online is ripe for the picking for those who would love to plagiarize other works. At the same time, institutions of higher learning and other groups have found it just as easy to search out source material for papers, articles, and other items even by putting in a few key phrases through a search engine or two. Now comes word that LexisNexis is working on an additional feature to its services wherein documents will be "checked" against the over six billion documents the company says it has in its own queue.

On Tuesday, Ziff Davis Media made public the decision to name John McCormick editor-in-chief and Anna Maria Virzi as executive editor of Baseline magazine, one of Z-D's that focuses on IT solution measurement to help companies make strategic decisions about their overall infrastructure.

This one's a few weeks old, but I would be remiss if I hadn't posted it for TMD readers. Over at the 92nd St. Y blog, they've posted an interview with Seth Mnookin, former Newsweek writer and author of a recent book about troubles inside the New York Times newsroom. Based on the few questions in which he's mentioned, let's just say that former NYT editor Howell Raines probably won't be a big fan of Mnookin's book.

Ever wonder what it's like to move a printing press in and out of a newspaper's buildings? Well, the Hagerstown, Maryland-based Herald-Mail recently did just that, and the paper's Erin Cunningham shared a few details of what went into getting that done earlier this week.

The Morning News brings word of the purchase of two newspapers previously held by Community Publishers Inc. by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. This ends a relationship between the two publishers, who had been working together through what the Morning News's Ron Wood describes as a joint venture to run a few local publications.

One of the major comments heard by critics of the blogosphere in late 2004 was that without a presidential election coming up within about a year or so, that political blogs would lose their luster in a national sense. While it's probably clear to everyone that the every single American reader isn't drooling over politics 24 hours a day on blogs these days, that doesn't mean that the market for content, discussion, and information has disappeared.

This week, a new site was formed with the idea of getting the word out to people interested in progressive - or the left side - of politics. Visitors to LeftyBlogs.com can find a regularly indexed list (about every ten minutes) of posts from blogs "registered" as being progressive, even down to the state-by-state level. Obviously, meta-like websites such as this have had major success as they garner the attention of people who realize that the information glut on blogs is out of control - will it work for political blogs?

Man, if this isn't a huge plug for a company like FeedBurner, then nothing is. In my eyes, I would have to say that a message like this shows that many people who use technologies like RSS - even those that know what they're doing - have become frustrated with the various flowcharts needed to use something that should be very simple.

The Princeton Packet's Rachel Silverman details a summer journalism program at Princeton University that teaches high school-aged students about the ins and outs of journalism - but in this case, the participants are "from underprivileged backgrounds." This is what one of the professors, Richard Just, calls "a very small step" towards increasing diversity in the newsroom.

Earlier this week, Mediaweek's John Consoli covered the announcement about College Sports Television (CSTV) placing a four-hour program on the new face of PAX television, to be called "i." This expands the reach of CSTV from viewers who might only see its shows by subscribing through a cable or satellite provider to a much wider audience - while perhaps promoting demand for CSTV to be picked up by more providers, or at least exposing potential customers to the programming they hadn't been privy to before.

The Associated Press is reporting that the September issue of National Geographic will carry no photograph on the cover.

As far as censorship goes, distributed tools are always more successful than centralized, but they're not always as easy to get set up and working properly. Unfortunately, the very popular blogrolling.com has been bit by the powers that be in Iran, informs Search Engine Journal's Loren Baker, and is now set to become inaccessible by anyone on an ISP within that country.

[update 8/28] Mamacita makes fun of this in a cartoon sorta way.

E&P's Jennifer Saba reports that the dollars spent on newspaper ads along with dollars spent by readers on newsprint are still increasing, but are doing so at a lesser amount than in years past.

Over at OpinionEditorials.com, Robin Mullins Boyd posts a harsh criticism of the media, focusing on the lack of positive news coming out of Iraq on a regular basis. Boyd claims many positive tidbits of information are freely available, and that if she can find it, then "big media" should be able to do the same.

Over the weekend, the NYT's Katharine Seelye writes about the departure of Washington Post associate editor Steve Coll, who is taking on a role at the New Yorker.

Sorry for the lack of posting here at TMD over the last few days and slowness the previous two weeks - been handling a lot of side projects and quite a bit of interviewing for full-time gigs, and it's been taking a lot of time. Needless to say, I'm back in action and all caught up, well, except for my email box.

Thanks for your patience and continued stopping by. Now, back to work!

In a column set to run in this week's New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Bob Norman continues the skewering of the Miami Herald regarding the firing of columnist Jim DeFede after he admitted recording a phone call where the person on the other end - a former local government official who would shortly afterward shoot himself in the Herald's lobby - didn't know about the tape being turned on. Norman's piece, like quite a few others hitting the streets these days, are laying the blame squarely on Knight Ridder management, not on the Herald's Tom Fielder.

In an item surely set to cause a stir with some Americans, some editors of the Oregon Daily Emerald detail the "ban" put in place by the Russian government against ABC after they interviewed a Chechen leader wanted in Russia. It seems that since the news network did something that Russia didn't like, it will now not have access to the Russian government for their newsgathering.

At first glance, this news makes you twist your face with a "tough luck, interviews are interviews" look - but after the comments that are made in the last graf regarding Osama bin Laden, I wonder how many people would feel the same way.

A few days ago, FOXSports.com's Kevin Hench wrote an item about scoring rules that as a viewer, seem somewhat off-base for the sport of baseball. It's not the article that I have such issues with, though - it's more about how he introduces the piece in his subhed.

He credits the line, "If you're scoring at home, or even if you're alone" to Keith Olbermann, now an MSNBC news and commentary anchor, and former ESPN SportsCenter host. Perhaps that's where the line had become more mainstream, but that certainly isn't the place I originally heard the term - the origination, at least as far back as I go, is with WFAN radio host Steve Somers. Somers used to, especially while working the overnight show, listening to caller after caller explain how happy they were to speak to their own "Captain Midnight," call out the identification letter and number combinations for each of the live copy commercials with that same phrase - "That's LV5829 for those of you scoring at home, or if you're alone." To the untrained or unfamiliar listener, one might have thought that this was some sort of weird contest the station was running, where you had to keep track of these codes for some odd reason - but that wasn't the case. It was just something Somers did - and still does, here and there - but it most certainly didn't originate with Olbermann.

The Denver Business Journal's Amy Bryer is critical towards the way that the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News are citing their combined circulation to advertisers. The method, while legal by the rules of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, could be viewed as violating "the spirit" of the guidelines regarding circulation count. Bryer states that the newspapers include "bulk" copies delivered to places like hotels and restaurants as their overall circulation, even though the end-reader may pay as little as $0.00 for a copy. While most newspapers also include these same figures in their own circulation counts, Bryer believes that the fact that the bulk distributions of these papers is making up more than 10% of their total circ (actually around 13%), that something is out of whack.

As the average consumer slowly and surely drops their newspaper subscription and low-paid or unpaid circ such as those described above probably stays static, will the ABC be forced to make changes to their guidlines in this area?

On Sunday, there was a lot of speculation about ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings being "close to death" - speculation that unfortunately came to fruition late last night when Jennings succumbed to lung cancer, which he announced that he had been stricken with last April. And the manner through which I found out about Jennings' passing was almost completely indicative of how today's new media has changed the way people get news and information, and how the ability of the anchor position to grab hold of monstrous parts of the country's television viewers is so different in today's world. I had returned home last night after spending the day at Monmouth Park at their annual million dollar meet, The Haskell, and promptly fired up my TiVo to catch Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in Indianapolis, after spending time avoiding any and all NASCAR-related information on the way home. The race ran about three hours or so (sans most of the commercials), putting me somewhere in the 11 o'clock hour. At that point, I watched a bit of Sunday's X Games coverage from ESPN on the DVR, finally heading off to bed after midnight sometime. Flipping through the various ESPN channels to find something enlightening to watch before going to sleep, I caught an item on the bar on the bottom of the screen that looked curious, where it usually says things like "NL," "AL," "AUTO," and other sports-specific denotations - this one said "NEWS." Waiting about 10 seconds for it to reach that point, I was totally shocked to see that it held the details of Jennings' passing - and amazed that having not flipped open my laptop before going to bed or passing through a news network on my channel surfing had left me out of the loop for awhile - something I'm not so used to because of all the amazing technological toys I have. In a way, it kind of made me feel like most people would had they not been privy to the nightly news on a regular basis - out of touch.

What struck me most about Jennings' death was more that while he outlasted Brokaw and Rather on the airwaves, he was never given the opportunity to leave on his own terms. As I read many accounts of his life and people's experiences watching him do the news, I can't help but think that many people felt the same way. As I recount seeing that broadcast from April, I remember thinking that Jennings sounded pretty bad, but at least we finally learned why he had missed a few newsworthy events, such as the Pope's passing earlier in the year. As I re-viewed the footage a few times this morning, I can't say that the pain isn't clearly drawn on his face as he fought through the newscast. Sure, it's Monday-morning quarterbacking, but it is so amazing how things like this happen and it makes you feel a bit different about a situation, based on the facts you know now.

As a kid, I always seemed to have an affinity for ABC in general, with the local WABC channel spending a lot of time on the television in my house. In high school, I always had the ABC channel set to turn on as my alarm clock (neat TV feature, huh?), as their early morning news was full of factoids as the commercial breaks began and ended. In the evenings, I typically watched Jennings' newscast much more than the other two - something that at the time I probably couldn't have explained why, but it just worked out that way. As I begin to think about today's nightly newscasts, I realize that there are probably significant portions of Americans who have almost no "feelings" towards the anchors making their careers in the chair these days.

So while I can't say I've been tuned in every day to ABC's nightly newscast for the last few years, I'll definitely agree with many others that Jennings will be missed - and that a point in our relatively short history of television news has been reached, way too quickly for my own feelings - and we might not be able to ever go back.

Additionally, the BBC has published a bunch of comments and tributes to Jennings, in a way proving how today's world of media has gone from local to global, almost with the snap of fingers.

Over at Slashdot, an item posted this morning informs about a note in an article about Google, focused on the company's apparent need for in-house chefs, that states that the company has now implemented a policy of not speaking with any reporters from the CNET organization until sometime in 2006. This is in apparent retribution for another piece that site previously written - one that seems strangely hypocritical or at least a little silly.

I can understand situations where many companies don't want to do business with a publication or media outlet because of something reported incorrectly or when quotes are mangled from an executive - but here, CNET is guilty of using Google itself to find out information about the company's CEO, Eric Schmidt, and using it as part of the above-mentioned article. Again, perhaps something should be said in the "just because you can do xyz.." vein, but it is in a way, comical, IMHO.

At the same time, one should take to heart that this means Google realizes that it doesn't really need CNET in order to get in the news or have good things written about the company. Between other media outlets, blogs, and word of mouth, no one media player can seriously claim itself as a necessity, no matter what anyone tells you.

[edit: For those of you who've landed here and are looking for information about Google's new "Google Talk" software, you can find a review and commentaries that are on topic here at Download Squad. If you're looking to download the software, you can do so here. As for why you've landed here, it appears that I happened to use the term 'Googletalk' in the title of this post, completely unbeknownst to me that the company was naming their new IM/Voice chat client by the same name. Sorry for the delay in getting you what you were looking for!]

Crain's is reporting Wednesday afternoon that Knight Ridder has gotten out of the Detroit Free Press, with Gannett jumping in just as they sell the Detroit News to the MediaNews Group.

Earlier today, The Media Center announced that it would be holding an event later on this year at the headquarters of the Associated Press in NYC - an event called "We Media: Behold the Power of Us." It's going to be an all-day event on October 5, featuring speakers and panelists from a variety of media areas, including Wonkette's Ana Marie Cox, Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis, Jason Calacanis of Weblogs, Inc., Steve Rubel from CooperKatz and Micro Persuasion, among others.

Lots more information available here, including agenda and registration details.

On Monday, the Trenton Times' Rose Colon details the closing of a longtime New Jersey community newspaper, the Hightstown Gazette.

Lexington, Kentucky's WKYT Channel 27 reports this week that the Winchester Sun has been sold to Schurz Communications, based out of Indiana.

Last week, I first heard about the suicide of a former Miami city executive, Arthur Teele, while reading Liz Donovan's Infomaniac blog. According to a story in that paper on Thursday, Teele walked into the Miami Herald's offices on Wednesday, and asked to speak to staffer Jim DeFede. After being connected to the columnist, he spoke for a while and then proceeded to kill himself by firing two bullets into his head.

Wednesday night, DeFede was fired for making a recording of the telephone conversation with Teele - which he did without telling Teele it was being done. In Florida, as it is in a few other states, it is illegal to make a telephone recording without the parties involved knowing that it is happening. Also on Thursday, the Herald's Christina Hoag wrote about the paper's decision to terminate DeFede, a decision that it believes wasn't made quite so hastily, even though it came that same day.

Obviously, the publication wanted to avoid any legal troubles that might come about when a staffer violated Florida law, including potential prosecution of DeFede by the state.

Additionally, speculation has arisen by some that a highly critical article that went live that Wednesday on newsstands and online at the Miami New Times, the city's alt-weekly, could have pushed Teele over the edge. However, E&P's Joe Strupp reports, both the writer of that article, Francisco Alvarado, and the Herald's editor Tom Fiedler, disagree.

One question remains, however - is whether a recording of this type by a journalist something that should be not only legal, but ethically proper? In Tuesday's USA Today, J-prof Philip Meyer penned a fantastic op-ed on the topic, asking whether it really makes sense for recording of phone conversations to be illegal or, at the least, immoral for journalists. The primary focus of Meyer's defense is that of note-taking. For instance, if DeFede had merely started jotting down what Teele said to him on the telephone, it would be considered the truth by most, but a recording is always considered the most sure bet. He says that "It is none of those things [ed: "those things," meaning 'an invasion of privacy, act of deception, eavesdropping, or entrapment' - taken from Thomas Glasser's commentary cited by Meyer in his piece.] if the person being interviewed knows he is talking to a reporter, as the suicidal former councilman did."

So what do we think about this - if someone is voluntarily talking to a member of the press, and the telephone conversation is recorded - something that might have happened for sure had the conversation taken place in person - is it a fire-able, moral or illegal offense?

[update] Liz Donovan has written much more on this topic over at the Herald-located Infomaniac blog. Entries here, here, here, here and here.

The AP's Ken Ritter has details on the move to push the Las Vegas Sun into the Las Vegas Review-Journal, including how the paper's staff has suffered significant losses since this plan began in May.

The Advocate, produced by Louisiana's WBRZ Channel 2, carries a story about an employee of that station, weatherman Pat Shingleton, was snagged earlier this year for participating in Nielsen ratings for the local market after putting in a diary of shows watched in his household.

Joplin Globe editor Edgar Simpson writes about what he believes all newspapers should keep in mind when trying to figure out their place in society - that the paper represents a place for community news and information to not only be disseminated, but for that same community to have a voice.