Now professional journalists have to survive not only competition among themselves, but also from that with ordinary netizens. The only way to compete now is through the quality of their articles. That means that the age of competing through the name card "I am a New York Times reporter" has gone. When a New York Times reporter writes an article and an ordinary citizen -- whether he is a professor or a neighbor -- writes an article criticizing it splendidly, then the citizen becomes the winner.

Good interview with the creator of OhmyNews

Japan Media Review -- OhmyNews Makes Every Citizen a Reporter

] This is the current cover of the New Yorker... a great
] expression of the RIAA's litigious persecution of the
] young folk. (Note: I don't actually have the money or the
] time to subscribe to the New Yorker... but one can
] borrow. Please don't sue!)

found via Lisa Rein's blog.. http://onlisareinsradar.com/

New Yorker p2p Cover [26 Sep 2003; 14:00]

] But planning for 2016 in today's media world is proving
] to be an impossible task. Why, notes one of the great and
] the good, what about this Napster business? With people
] copying music and television and film and distributing
] them among themselves for free, the whole business model
] on which commercial broadcasting depends could be
] undermined by 2016. It could...
]
] He pauses.
]
] "Wait a minute. Why do we care about them sharing our
] programmes?"
]
] It's a scene of revelation that has, quietly but
] steadily, recurred across the corporation for the past
] two years. And in the last few months, fuelled by
] transatlantic visits from net advocates such as Stanford
] professor Lawrence Lessig and the Library of Congress's
] internet archivist, Brewster Kahle, the observation has
] been nudged into a full-scale mission for the BBC: a
] mission whose first fruit was announced last Sunday by
] the corporation's director-general, Greg Dyke.

More on the recent good news from the BBC.

Guardian Unlimited | Auntie's digital revelation

] The Webcaster Alliance alleges that this and an earlier
] agreement with Yahoo! "had the intent and effect of
] restraining competition in the market for domestically
] recorded sound recordings and in the market for the
] Internet distribution for such sound recordings."

This much is true, as the Library of Congress has found, and as Yahoo testified in Congress. There is probably enough meat here for a case. This is not "a publicity stunt." This is THE fundamental arguement that years of RIAA drama centers around. Will the future of music be determined by large, centralized interests, by a distributed network of independent entities, or by a combination of both. The RIAA would prefer that the second and third options be illegal.

The Register: 198 small webcasters sue the RIAA for illegal practices in the CARP negotiation

] Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced
] plans to give the public full access to all the corporation's
] programme archives.

] "I believe that we are about to move into a second phase
] of the digital revolution, a phase which will be more
] about public than private value; about free, not pay,
] services; about inclusivity, not exclusion.

BBC to Open Archives

] The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to
] overturn controversial rules adopted by the Federal
] Communications Commission that would greatly increase
] the number of television stations a single company is
] allowed to own.
]
] The FCC last month voted to ease ownership restrictions,
] lifting the national broadcast "cap" -- or reach of any
] single company -- to 45 percent of the national market
] from 35 percent and letting TV, radio and newspaper
] companies buy each other more freely.
]
] But by a vote of 400 to 21 the House rejected those
] changes.

Thank GOD!!! Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it, Clear Channel.

US House of Representatives nixes FCC rules expanding ownership

] Moving with unusual speed, the Senate began today the
] legislative process of reversing the recent decision by
] the Federal Communications Commission to loosen media
] ownership rules and enable the nation's largest newspaper
] and broadcasting conglomerates to grow larger.
]
] A broadly bipartisan group of the Senate Commerce
] Committee approved legislation by voice vote to restore
] the previous lower limits on the number of television
] stations a single company can own and to reimpose most of
] the restrictions that prevent a company from owning both
] a newspaper and a radio or television station in the same
] city. The vote was a stinging rebuke of the F.C.C.'s
] chairman, Michael K. Powell, the architect of the
] deregulation.

Senate Begins Process to Reverse New F.C.C. Rules on Media

E2 wrote:
] Right on Rattle, I think this might be a hint at something:
]
] ] ] And creeps gossiping about celebrities in
] ] ] the crudest of ways.
]
] Perhaps ol' billy dosn't like people talking when he can't
] interrupt them/change the subject/commercial break/ etc.

The man is a master of crafting a skewed argument.. Take this snippit for a few examples:

] In truth, The Chronicle's story [is] small stuff compared
] to other Internet sins. The child molestation people have
] now figured out a way to chat about their crimes without
] being charged with obscenity. And the Supreme Court
] actually helped these people by ruling that virtual child
] porn, computerized images of kids being raped, are legal,
] an extension of free speech.

First off, The Chronicle is the newspaper with the largest readership in Northern California.. Yet, this article is an attack on the Internet. This is clearly because the damage to Bill did not come from the Chronicle article, but rather the discussion about the Chronicle article on the net. "So which is the bigger threat to America? The big companies or the criminals at the computer? Interesting question." Indeed. Discussion can be dangerous. But in the context of that quote, I think its Bill's America that is threatened, not mine. Anyway, onward.

Next, he ties in child molesters, and later in the article, NAMBLA. Everyone hates child molesters. He makes it related, not because its particulary relevant, but because it creates an emotion reaction in the reader/listner/watcher which brings them closer to O'Reilly.

And then with the virtual child pron thing, he again breezes over any free speech implications. The Supreme Cout did not help child pornographers, they protected free speech. That court case would have been a very dangerous precident. Bill is an educated man, he likely sees this. But he also sees his large soccer-mom viewership, and in order to keep them glued to the TV, he needs that emotional reaction. Its in his best interest to be closer to that viewership then to the truth. He wants angry people behind him. If you watch his show enough, it becomes very clear that he panders to his viewship, while keeping them angry at all times about some topic where he can easily keep up the appearence of having the moral high ground. It appears to be his "forumla"..

This all supports the assumption that the root of the problem is an issue with control of the discussion forum. You see, its easy to air feedback when you can pick and choose. You get to narrow it down to the dominate viewpoints, and pick the ones that are small enough to read in 10 seconds and display on the TV.. You can keep it simple, and never address any of the hard parts of the topic.. You can keep it emotional. You can put the comments in an order where they address each other in a way that supports your views. Its funny.. Somehow, the comments that oppose Bill's views always seem to be badly written, and easy to confront. It seems to be Bill's style to pick at least one every day that says "You will never air this".. He likes to appear to be an open forum, yet he spews un-American dribble like this, and manages to do it in a creative enough mannor to get his audience to buy it lock, stock, and barrel..

I say again, this man is really dangerous.

RE: FOXNews.com | Bill O'Reilly still an idiot

] The reason these net people get away with all kinds of
] stuff is that they work for no one. They put stuff up
] with no restraints. This, of course, is dangerous, but
] it symbolizes what the Internet is becoming.

Becoming? I guess Bill thinks the free press (free expression?) is a dangerous thing..

] So all over the country, we have people posting the most
] vile stuff imaginable, hiding behind high tech
] capabilities. Sometimes the violators are punished, but
] most are not. We have now have teenagers ruining the
] reputations of their peers in schools on the Internet.
] Ideologues accusing public officials of the worst things
] imaginable. And creeps gossiping about celebrities in
] the crudest of ways.

How is this the fault of the Internet? Would Bill have us start to place limits on speech on the net?

Bill is angry about "word of mouth". "Word of mouth" pre-dates the Internet by thousands years. Its just grown more powerful and attained further reach due to the recent advances of information technology. Much in the same way it did because of the telephone, mail service, etc.. If this is a bad thing, then our human ability to communicate is a bad thing..

Do we need to return to the old arguments about "right to reply" and "equal time"? Europe seems happy to do so.. A mistake we made in the US for awhile, before we came to the conclusion that the entire concept was flawed..

] The Internet has become a sewer of slander and libel,
] an unpatrolled polluted waterway, where just about
] anything goes. For example, the guy who raped and
] murdered a 10-year old in Massachusetts says he got
] the idea from the NAMBLA Web site that he accessed from
] the Boston public library. The ACLU's defending NAMBLA
] in that civil lawsuit.

Is NAMBLA the problem? Or the web? Oh! Its the web! Thanks for clearing that up Bill!

Oh yeah, and the ACLU is also bad.. Couldn't have one of his rants without shit talking the association who's mission it is to protect our civil liberties..

See a common thread here? A gross mis-understanding of what freedom of speech means? Its not freedom of speech if only the people you think should be allowed to talk, can talk.

] So which is the bigger threat to America? The big
] companies or the criminals at the computer?
] Interesting question.

Take note, what brought this on was someone saying something about Bill that Bill didn't like. As the story goes.. The San Francisco Chronicle posts a story with an error, blogs link to story, Bill gets pissed at blogs. Now we have this Talking Point's memo, where he is pretty much suggesting that speech on the net should have limits. This is bullshit of the highest order.

Bill seems to think that the only speaking should be done from the top of the ivory tower.. An opinion that seems to be common in the big media circles..

This guy is really dangerous.

FOXNews.com | Bill O'Reilly still an idiot

Breakdown of media outlets owned by Viacom, AOL/TW, News Corp, Disney, and Clear Channel.

InfoFlow | Big Media Breakdown