Here's a batch 'o' links for your viewing pleasure.

• World Cup soccer your thing? Here's the TV sked for the blokes here in the States. via kottke's remainders


• Thanks. No.. Props to Amanda & RB for having some fun with a nifty new "service" out there. And, props to Chris for reminding me to watch on this pre-holiday weekend Friday. I mean, c'mon, anything that has Natty Light is worth watching. Too bad there was no Natty Ice.


• Sure, everyone's not doing it, but subscribers numbers for wireless television are better than you'd expect, points out Lost Remote.


• Chris Thilk and I absolutely, positively, need to be careful what we IM one another, because we're posting those threads on blogs left and right. Today's excerpt. In a related vein, something amusing will be spewing forth from this particular topic that I think you'll all enjoy.
Posted by Tom at 1:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

In case you happen to be looking for me later on this evening, I'll be participating in a panel discussion called "The Power of Blogs" given by BrandTrainers. The event is taking place at The Support Center, 305 7th Avenue at 27th Street in NYC. It looks like you can still register online, where it's $35, or $50 at the door.

The moderator for the event is B.L. Ochman, and Jason Calacanis, Stonyfield Farms' Christine Halvorson and IBM's Sher Taton will also be there. Expect to see a great variety of responses, as the backgrounds of the panelists are very different. I'm psyched to be participating, and hope to see you there!

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.

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.

Because voting for who you think should be the next Pope wasn't enough, now you can place your mouseclick where your mind is, and vote for who you think should be the next British Prime Minister.

Just go to may5election.com and choose from chef Jamie Oliver, singer/dancer Kylie Minogue, or football player (yeah, yeah, soccer) Wayne Rooney. You don't even have to live in the U.K. to vote!

Reuters has announced that it would host a debate next Tuesday, April 5 where the topic of discussion will be "the impact of blogs in journalism and the media."

Details as follows:

When: 6.00 pm - 8.30 pm, Tuesday, April 5th, 2005

Where: The Reuters Building, (42ND Street and 7th Avenue), 3 Times Square, 30th Floor, New York NY 10036

Panel convenes at 6.15pm, followed by open audience discussion and a cocktail reception.

Scheduled to participate:

Paul Holmes: Global Editor, General & Political News, Reuters

Stephen Baker: Senior Writer, IT Group, BusinessWeek

Jay Rosen: Author, Pressthink.org, & Associate Professor, NYU Dept. of Journalism

Halley Suitt: Author, Halley's Comment; Writer

Bryan Keefer: Assistant Managing Editor, Columbia Journalism Review Daily

Garrett Graff: FishbowlDC.com, 1st White House Accredited Blogger

Dave Winer: Editor, Scripting News

John Fund: Columnist, OpinionJournal.com

Most importantly, the topics of discussion:

Are bloggers journalists? Should they be afforded the same rights as journalists?

With blogs central to the recent resignations of top journalists, is anyone holding the bloggers to account?

Do blogs have a vital role in the national debate?

Are they seeking the truth and exposing poor journalism? Or are they being used as campaigning tools to advance particular causes or points of view?

RSVP: Mediafolk wishing to attend should reach out to Sophie Brendel at +1 646 223 4331 or sophie.brendel (at) reuters (dot) com.

[update] Halley Suitt has been named as a replacement for Jay Rosen at the event. Rosen will not be attending due to a schedule conflict.

The transcript from Tuesday's "The Impact of the New Media" session at the Brookings Institution can be found online here, in PDF format.

On Tuesday, March 22, the Brookings Institution will be running a live event entitled "The Impact of the New Media" in Washington, D.C. from 10a.m. - 12p.m.

The event, which will be webcast, will feature Jodie Allen of the Pew Research Center, Ana Marie Cox from Wonkette, White House Correspondent Ellen Ratner, Slate's Jack Shafer, and Andrew Sullivan. Additionally, a few bloggers are already "scheduled" to be covering the event live, and their commentary will be fed into the session and webcast.

Find out more about the event - or register - here.

If you're in Chicago, you might want to drop into this journalism event next week.

Journalistic Ethics in a Changing Media Environment

Hosted by: The Association for Women Journalists

When: Wednesday, March 16, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Where: Columbia College Chicago, 1104 S. Wabash Avenue

Cost: FREE to member of AWJ and to students. Non-memberjournalists and the public are welcome at a cost of $10 per person.

The panel leading this conversation includes:

- Leah Hope, ABC-7
- Adrienne Drell, Medill School of Journalism
- Mary Galligan, freelance journalist
- Mark Hinojosa of Chicago Tribune Interactive
- Michele Weldon, journalist, author and Medill professor to moderate

If you're interested in attending, you can contact Kelly Kleiman, AWJ programs chair, at (773) 728-7238 or KellyNFP@uron.cc.

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.

I've got a stack 'o' Gmail invites for the taking. Drop me a note if you're interested at themediadrop _at_ gmail _dot_ com.

On Monday, Mediabuddies.com announced the results of their Lifestyle study, completed in November of 2004. The survey was offered to members of the service, most specifically members of print, broadcast, or online media.

Some highlights:

• 83% rated themselves 'hard working'
• 25% rated themselves 'hard drinking'
• 24% confessed to having had an affair with an office colleague,
• 20% met their partner at work and 29% knew someone know who was having an affair at work
• 79% said they believed in what they wrote and promoted but agreed some compromise was necessary.
• 26% of the respondents working in TV & radio and the press said they were not upset at all by intruding into other people's private lives and were just doing their job; 23% said they were upset but needed to do the job and 21% said they would be upset and avoided such work.
• 25% would have chosen another career if they had their lives over again

And the kicker:

• Only 2% would want their children to follow them into a media career.

The full details are available by visiting the Mediabuddies website and clicking on "News room"

Mediabuddies, a networking site for those in the world of media, has announced its efforts towards tsunami relief in south Asia and the Indian Ocean countries. The site has "decided with immediate effect to donate 100% of new members’ fees to the UN appeal for funds during the whole of 2005."

Existing members can also help immediately by:

-Firstly, re-joining Mediabuddies, remembering to use a slightly different name. Mediabuddies is not a registered charity and therefore is unable to collect money directly so donating fees is the only way we can support this appeal.
-Secondly, telling a friend about the Mediabuddies appeal. Just use the Tell A Friend link on the Home Page to give us your name and your friend's email address and we will send them a special message.

Membership in the site is currently 5 or 10 GBP, depending on which level you choose.

Well, I'm off for a few days, heading down South to Charlotte from good old New Jersey for the New Year. Updates will probably not resume until late Saturday or Sunday morning.

Enjoy the holiday, and thanks for reading. It's been a great first 11 months and 8 days for TMD, and it's exciting to look forward to what 2005 may bring!

Cheers!

Over at the Wireless Weblog, Mike Outmesguine details the tsunami relief effort he is involved in, as part of the Southern California Wireless Users Group (SOCALWUG), to bring "wireless equipment and expertise to damaged areas to help reconnect the people."

If you're interested in helping out this cause, you can reach Mike at "mo at wifi-toys.com" or voice: +1-818-889-9445 ext. 102.

Some bloggers have put together a wealth of tsunami-related information if you're looking for updated details:

• Jeff Jarvis has a stack of news coverage of Sunday's tsunami and its aftereffects in southern Asia, India, and the surrounding region.
• Over at Command Post, Michele Catalano is doing yeoman's work of putting together all sorts of information, from the latest news down to how to help.
• Brian Stelter has notes about the coverage seen so far on the nets and cablers.
• Doc chimes in, and points out the ever important Technorati for events such as this.
• For a sense of scale (disclaimer, I don't have a way to test the absolute validity of this), check out this animation of the wave formation and distribution, via Nick Denton.
• And finally, Kevin at Wizbang! leads us to a story and accompanying amateur video of the tsunami hitting the beach in Thailand.
Posted by Tom at 5:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

If you're interested in a Gmail account, be one of the first ten commenters on this post, and I'll send you an invite.

[6 left]

Editor & Publisher has details on a memorial fund for Beverly Kees, the journalist struck and killed by a truck on a San Francisco street last Friday. The fund will be used to support journalism programs Kees took an interest in.

Just a few amusing items I'm sure you'll all appreciate, based on things I've experienced this week so far:

-When reaching out via email to other bloggers, whose day-job expertise you would like to glean from, make sure you check out their blog first, because they may have already written about the topic you're interested in. Plus, then it looks like you were paying attention. [ed: Oops, my bad.]

-If other bloggers are writing in a competing space, it is helpful to realize that many of them have exactly the same Google News Alerts that you do. The blogosphere being what it is, checking to see if anyone else linked to an article with tools like Technorati is usually helpful, especially if you have let the alert sit for a few hours. [ed: Oops, my bad.]

-If you are a PR professional hoping to get some pub for your client through bloggers, it is usually helpful to actually make sure that said bloggers cover (if they are focused, of course) the product or service your client offers. Not doing so makes you (and your client) look kind of silly, and seems like you are just picking names off of some super-secret blogger email pitch list.

If you've got a thing for soap operas, then you might be interested in checking out this auction at eBay. It's for a gift bag full of all kinds of goodies, and is identical to the one given to almost 100 soap stars at a recent fundraising event for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The bag is valued at about $1,000, and is currently going for $305 in the bidding - with two days left. It was put together by Stephanie Jo Klein of Klein Creative, and all the proceeds will benefit St. Jude's.

Oh, and keep in mind that the big ticket item in the bag is a two-day stay at an Arizona resort - worth about $500 on its own. Not a bad idea to think about as the winter weather comes about.

You can read more about the October 8 fundraiser here at the St. Jude website.

Over at J-Log, Bill Stoller contributes some great advice that's helpful for bloggers, readers and publicists alike - how to get reporters to check out your e-mails.

Last week, Steve Rubel posted about an interesting email signature he received from a contact of his.

While I can't expect that the rest of the world would adopt something like this, I can see bloggers doing it to assist one another in figuring out what is post-able and what isn't. Plus, it can cut down on the "Hey, can I write about that?" emails, too.

It's as simple as adding:

this email is: [ ] bloggable [x] ask first [ ] private

to your email signature, and making sure to put an "x" or whatever in the brackets that confirm what you're trying to say. It's not a perfect science, and I'm sure that people will forget quite a bit, but hey, not everything starts off perfectly.

This is the first post I'm putting up in the "FYIs" category. This will serve as a batch of short items that I'm not necessarily going to post edit to, but think are of interest to you, the reader. So enjoy!

FX network will offer the initial episode of Nip/Tuck with no breaks courtesy of XM @ Broadcasting & Cable

Meet the Press Will Be Syndicated To Radio From Noon-1pm on Sundays @ MediaWeek.com

Editors' Salaries On the Rise? @ Folio: