Journalism

Mike Masnick: Newspapers Have Become Souvenirs

The morning after Election Day, I had to make four stops before I found a store that still had a copy of the New York Times, beating a spry older woman by seconds. She was not happy, but her plaintive "I was going to buy that" fell on deaf ears. The unifying spirit of the moment did not mean I was handing over the last copy of the paper of record. Hit the bricks, grandma! Like some newspaper editors I saw quoted in the media, I took heart in the mad dash for papers taking place all over the ... (read more)

2008/11/12

Ron Paul Absent from Financial Crisis Coverage

I found myself wondering today why Ron Paul has been completely absent from media coverage of the Merrill Lynch sale and Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. Paul, more than any other candidate for president this year, made an issue of the government's management of the economy and how he believes we're being led off a cliff. He would no doubt have a lot to say, given his remarks in May against proposed House bills to bail out mortgage lenders: It is neither morally right nor fiscally wise to socialize ... (read more)

2008/09/16

ABC News Can't Be Bothered with Iraq

Here's a nice example of the thimble-deep thinking that passes for political journalism in the mainstream media these days. On ABC News, journalists Jake Tapper and Matt Jaffe mock Joe Biden for giving a substantive answer to a reporter's question about whether he still supports a tripartite solution to divide Iraq into separate Kurd, Shia and Sunni areas. Tapper and Jaffe count the time he took to answer the reporter -- "13 minutes, 20 seconds" -- but they don't offer a single word of ... (read more)

2008/09/10

Deployment Details Put Sarah Palin's Son in Jeopardy

Back in February, the British press ripped Matt Drudge for revealing a secret they'd been keeping: Prince Harry was stationed in Afghanistan, deployed with the British Army in Helmand Province. The secret had gotten out in an obscure Australian magazine and German's Bild newspaper, and Drudge passed the news along to his audience of millions. Brits were so outraged that they mistakenly started sending me a flood of hate mail. Given this, it's worth noting that the British press is now putting ... (read more)

2008/09/04

AP Settles Dispute with Drudge Retort

Late Thursday night, AP issued the following statement after a day-long discussion of the DMCA takedowns issued to the Drudge Retort that reached all the way up to the company's top management: In response to questions about the use of Associated Press content on the Drudge Retort web site, the AP was able to provide additional information to the operator of the site, Rogers Cadenhead, on Thursday. That information was aimed at enabling Mr. Cadenhead to bring the contributed content on his site ... (read more)

2008/06/20

How Digg Handles DMCA Takedowns

Jay Adelson, the chief executive of Digg, told Saul Hansell of the New York Times how the social news site responds to DMCA takedowns: From time to time, Digg has received a request, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to take down a post, or a comment, that contains copyrighted material. Mr. Adelson said the company complies without complaint. But he said that often isn't necessary. ... But many of the items on the front page used headlines and descriptions lifted directly from the site ... (read more)

2008/06/19

How the Media Bloggers Association Got Involved

As I spend the morning reading stories about myself, a highly pleasurable activity that makes Rogers Cadenhead want to start referring to Rogers Cadenhead in the third person like Bob Dole, I have one question: Why is the Media Bloggers Association getting its ass kicked all over the Internet for attempting to have a dialogue with AP about the Drudge Retort's DMCA takedown dispute? On Daily Kos yesterday, Markos Moulitsas wrote about the association with his typical subdued restraint: The ... (read more)

2008/06/18

AP Rethinking Policy After Drudge Retort DMCA Takedowns

I'm gratified by the ginormous amount of support coming in from around the blogosphere after the Associated Press issued DMCA takedowns last week to Drudge Retort bloggers for excerpting short snippets of its articles. AP is rethinking its policy towards bloggers in the wake of this disagreement, according to a story by Saul Hansell in today's New York Times: Last week, The AP took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to ... (read more)

2008/06/16

AP Files 7 DMCA Takedowns Against Drudge Retort

I'm currently engaged in a legal disagreement with the Associated Press, which claims that Drudge Retort users linking to its stories are violating its copyright and committing "'hot news' misappropriation under New York state law." An AP attorney filed six Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment. The Retort is a community site comparable in function to Digg, Reddit and Mixx. The 8,500 users of the site ... (read more)

2008/06/12

Any Reason Why These Two Should Not Be Wed?

Today's New York Times has an amazing sequence of photos taken by a wedding photographer in Bailu, China, during the May 12 earthquake. Five impeccably dressed Chinese couples were getting their photos taken at an abandoned French missionary church as the disaster struck. There are more photos on a Chinese-language media site. Photographer Wang Qiang's caption for one photo, which he posted on his blog: "What is happiness, happiness is safe and sound. Having gone through a life-and-death test, ... (read more)

2008/05/23

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