French Government subsidises online news websites.

The year of the paywall | The Economist.

Aber er begreift diese Diskussionen wohl auch als eine Art öffentliche Dienstleistung, als Bohren verdammt dicker Bretter vor den Köpfen mancher Menschen, die immer größere Schwierigkeiten haben, die sich progressiv virtualisierende Realität in ihre mentalen Interpretationsschemata zu pressen, so wie sie das beim Ausdrucken von Netzinhalten auf Din-A4-Seiten versuchen. Das Netz hat halt keine Seitenbegrenzungen.

Die Überwindung dieses konzeptionellen Grabens und die zumindest tendenzielle Beantwortung der wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Fragestellungen, die sich aus der Digitalisierung, dem Informationsparadoxon und der so immer schlechter funktionierenden “unsichtbaren Hand” des Marktes ergeben sind eine Generationenaufgabe, in der man Redundanz vermutlich vor allem als eine Art kognitives Stützrad ansehen muß. In der Wiederholung liegt zumindest ein Teil der Kraft, denn Ideen, die sich nur als Folge von Zeichen, nicht aber in Köpfen manifestieren, sind eigentlich keine. Die Annahme der Aufgabe, mit Redundanz mentale Überzeugungsarbeit zu leisten, ist daher auch ein Zeichen der Anerkenntnis von gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung.

Der Weinerlichkeit des Heidelberger Appels und der Hamburger Erklärung wird heute von einigen Journalisten und Bloggern eine Alternative entgegengesetzt, die Handlungs- und Gestaltungsfähigkeit annimmt, und nicht den Untergang des Abendlandes, sollte bei diesem Internet nicht bald mal jemand den Stecker ziehen. Steht nix Neues drin, klar, und Probleme werden darin auch nicht gelöst. Wie auch? So geht das eben nicht. Das ist ja gerade der problematische Punkt an der Sache.

Aber das Manifest ist – wie die Piratenpartei und wie der Kulturkampf um die Netzsperren in diesem Sommer – ein Zeichen für die in meiner Generation wachsende Erkenntnis, daß man sich nicht mehr unter Berufung auf vermeintliche oder tatsächliche superiore Sachkenntnis oder die nicht seltene Unterträglichkeit von institutionellen Auseinandersetzungen aus diesen heraushalten darf. Der Preis wäre zu hoch.

Und daher werde auch ich das an sich redundante Internet-Manifest mitzeichnen, sobald es die Möglichkeit dazu gibt.

Following the Script – Obama, McCain and ‘The West Wing’

Yesterday, he attended the the German television awards (“Deutscher Fernsehpreis”), where he was supposed to be honored for his livetime achievements. But then, on stage, he refused to accept the award because of (my translation) all the bollocks we have seen here today.”

The apparently shocked presenter, Thomas Gottschalk, offered Reich-Ranicki a programme in which he could talk to the heads of German broadcasters about the quality of their programmes, which seemed to placate the laureate and apparently led him to later accept the price out of politeness.

Stefan Niggemeier, a media journalist, has more about this (in German) and notices that Reich-Ranicki probably had a point that goes beyond the quality of television programmes – MRR will Fernsehquatschpreis nicht.

[t]he French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

Source: France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence | InfoWorld

Of course, those allegedly interested in midwifing the project, Bob and Harvey Weinstein as well as Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, aren’t just anyone. But since the only successful Hollywood remakes of a European films I can think of off the top of my head were “Nikita”, “True Lies”, and “Three men and a baby” – all of which weren’t exactly rooted in French culture, a remake of “The Life of Others”, seems like a natural candidate for a “lost in translation”-style disaster. I’m saying this inspite of my sympathy for every project exposing the danger of the eavesdropping culture that is slowly being established in the US as well as in Europe.

Maybe it was that what Steven Spielberg meant, when he, according to Donnersmarck’s own words, congratulated him after the ceremony by saying – “You’ll never get over this.”

“wie fast alle Verdächtigen kein Schuldbewußtsein gezeigt habe.”

Wenigstens ist die kommentierende Redakteurin, wenn auch vermutlich unabsichtlich, ehrlich. Die wenigsten werden so offen vorverurteilen. Aber es zeigt, wie sehr uns allen, aber vor allem den Medien, allgemein – aber insbesondere in Bezug auf Doping (im Radsport) – die rechtlichen und moralischen Kategorien verschwimmen.

Das ist ein Problem bei dem wohl auch ein später Unschuldsbeweis für Jan Ullrich nicht helfen würde.

“HISTORY can be kinder to presidents than journalists and voters are. Like Truman, Johnson and Nixon before him, George Bush has seen his approval ratings wither under the burden of an unpopular war. But all three of those presidents look better now than they did when they were in power.…” (American politics | Saving the Bush presidency | Economist.com, behind subscription wall)

I think The Economist has far too many “natural Republican” readers in the US to maintain any kind of journalistic credibility in this respect. They should simply stop reporting the issue, but instead they keep writing and wet themselves whenever they put the name George W. Bush on the cover… that’s also quite some pattern.

Think about it for a moment, Rumsfeld fired, Cheney on the verge of being impeached by GQ magazine, President Bush can’t make up his mind about dropping some bombs on Iran, and now this: Reuters reports that the FCC (the organization regulating American tv) is considering to regulate the depiction of violence on the screen.

The Federal Communications Commission is considering a report to Congress claiming that the agency can regulate TV violence the same way it regulates indecency if lawmakers give it the authority, sources said Thursday.

What’s next? No public uproar in the case of another Janet Jackson bra-accident? Or a general display of decency on tv? No more Britney Spears jokes? (link to a youtube.com video of CBS’ Craig Ferguson’s already famous recent monologue about helping, not exploiting someone who needs help).

Will the rest of the world have to reconsider their mental image of America for the second time in five years?

“In the March issue of GQ, Wil S. Hylton argues that Vice President Richard Cheney should be impeached for committing “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Now I suppse there was a small chance for this to appear in Hustler magazine, although Larry Flynt is better known for being sued that for suing. But GQ? I’m confused. Maybe they just want to give everyone an good alibi, you know… I’m just reading Playboy for the interviews…. and I’m just reading GQ for the impeachment proceeedings…

Naja, besser spät als nie. Sollte sich jemand von dort hier her verirren – ein paar einleitende Worte zu Blogs und der journalistischen Ausbildung finden sich hier.

This is a must read, of course, not least because their treatment on blogging and journalism in the fall of 2003 was the first serious take on the issue and that, hailing from Mainz like Gutenberg himself, I can’t exactly agree with the title…

Interestingly, they have also renounced to a pdf-version of the current report, while all back issues are available as such.

Update

(27/01/2007) Of course, Jon Stewart did not let this go through without commenting. Check the videos on thedailyshow.com.

Supposedly, CNN stands for cable NEWS network. That of course is not just a slight euphemism in the case of the video linked to below, which Edward Hugh just sent to the afoe mailing list: Wolf Blitzer manages to spend almost 9 minutes with US vice president Dick Cheney without getting *any* answer. I think by now we can all agree that Cheney is a phenomenon – he may have stopped just doing the Rove thing, you know, creating a reality for everyone else to believe in. He may have actually started to live in his own world. On the other hand, he may just know very well that he can shoot a man in the face without any consequence, so shooting down a lonely Wolf doesn’t seem too big a deal.

But the Wold tried to bite back: Mary, Cheney’s lesbian daughter is apparently pregnant, and I think that Cheney managed to largely keep her out of politics and the “family values” faction of his constituency off his back throughout Bush’s presidency, throughout all the “gay marriage” shebang, is remarkable from a communications point of view, and likely one of the few things he could be congratulated for. So when Wolf Blitzer called Cheney on his “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy by asking him to comment on a “familiy values” group’s statement regarding the upbringing of children out of heterosexual wedlock, he lost his cool – but only a little.

It’s an interesting document to watch though, not least because we learn that Iranian Uranium isn’t just a complicated foreign policy issue: Try to say it fast, it’s not that easy – “Iranian Uranium Iranian Uranium Iranian Uranium Iranian Uranium Iranian Uranium…”

“Sie lesen eigentlich keine Blogs. Blogs finden sie Scheiße. Mit Blogs verdient man kein Geld. Im Internet ist 99 Prozent Dreck. …”

Mal sehen, wie lange diese Einstellung sich noch hält – denn einer von denen, bei denen die zukünftige schreibende Elite vermutlich gerne arbeiten würde (ja, auch ein Praktikum wäre toll…), Bernd Kundrun, seines Zeichens Vorstandsvorsitzender der Gruner + Jahr AG, dürfte, zumindest offiziell, nicht mehr so begeistert sein von solchen Ansichten. Laut Branchenblog turi2.de sagte Kundrun am vergangenen Donnerstag der Werbe- und PR-Fachzeitschrift W&V -

“Es wird notwendig sein, in den nächsten zehn Jahren das Berufsbild des Journalisten schrittweise neu zu definieren. Die bisherige Vorgehensweise ‘Ich besitze den Content und Du konsumierst ihn’ wird sich ändern in Richtung “Ich lenke, strukturiere und produziere, aber Du bist eingeladen, mir dabei behilflich zu sein.”

Auch wenn das eigentlich eine Debatte ist, die zumindest theoretisch schon mal Mitte der neunziger Jahre abgehandelt wurde (“daily me”, irgendwer?), erscheint die Aussage angesichts der erkennbaren Resistenz dysfunktionaler Rationalitätsmythen irgendwie revolutionär.

Glücklicherweise ist das Erkenntnisziel gar nicht so schwer erreichbar – wie Wolfgang Harrer mit seinem Kommentar beweist.

“Die Trennlinie ist also nicht Old Media vs. New Media oder gar Blogger vs. Journalist. Die Trennlinie ist Qualität vs. Schrott; und diese Trennlinie hat erstaunlich wenig damit zu tun, ob ein Autor für seine Arbeit bezahlt wird oder nicht.”

Und was fehlt noch an dieser Stelle? Ganz klar – der Link zum Qualitätsblog. Und der schücherne Hinweis auf die Tatsache, daß der Tausendkontaktpreis dort gerade mal ein sechzigstel dessen beträgt, was bei Spiegel Online International zu zahlen ist…

The SEO Blog: Google News Credibility Foiled By 15-Year Old

“Reading through SEO focused blog entries, Vandetta found an article that explained how to fool Google’s news system by writing fake press releases. Sensing an opportunity to experiment and play a joke on his friends, the self-described “Google fanboy” decided to see what would happen if he submitted a fake Google press release claiming the 15-year old New Jersey student was Google’s youngest employee.

The press release was issued through the free service I-Newswire and contained a number of spelling mistakes. Short and to the point, the release, which appeared to have been sent by a Google spokesperson Sonya Johnson (who’s actually existence is unconfirmed and is assumed to be imaginary), read:

“(I-Newswire) – 15 year old student, Tom Vendetta has been hired by search engine giant Google Inc. The student will receive a lowered salary, which will be placed into a bank account for future education, said Google CEO Larry Page. When asked what role Vendetta will play at the Tech Giant’s offices, Page said he wouldnt have a role at the Main Offices. Instead he would work from his home in the New Jersey suburbs. Vendetta will be incharge of working with recent security flaw’s in Google’s beta e-mail service, “Gmail”. Google said they first found out about him when they discovered the student’s blog, at http://tomvendetta.be. The media giant said they looked forward to working with Vendetta’s expertise in JavaScript and AJAX.”

A few hours after posting the fake press release, Vandetta logged into the news search tool Digg after receiving an automated email from MAKEBot (Digg’s Spider), to find his practical joke had become a credible international tech story. Google was even displaying reference to the press release in Google News and at in the news results placed above search results relating to Google employment or hiring.

The Fernsehgarten is a show that has been running for 19 years, essentially without any format changes, and it is thus one of the very few programmes to weather the effect of audience fragmentation. They still show it all: In today’s show there was the latest German Idol, Dante Thomas (Miss California), Luka, a Brazilian singer who had a surprise hit single last year, and whose manager and I somehow thought we attended the same party on New Year’s Eve 1999, as well as Kristina Bach, a German Schlager singer, Riverdance, and an army big band. Maybe that is all just fine – given that Sunday morning may well be the only time that families are having a relaxed breakfast together. Therefore, on any given Sunday between May and September about two million people switch the telly on to watch Andrea Kiewel announce a line up very similar to the one above.

The key to understanding today’s show’s theme was the current major sports event on this continent, Le Tour de France. Given the now epic struggle between Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich for the Maillot Jaune, the show’s producers deemed it appropriate to organise a tribute by having their very own “Tour de Fernsehgarten”.

As usual with these things, the casting process was a bit more more random than anyone would imagine, and so it came that I wound up as part of the “Team Ullrich” in this Sunday’s show.

Maybe it bodes well for Mr Ullrich that we beat the team Armstrong by a margin of 300m over a distance of almost 55km. So, courtesy of the ZDF web site, I present you with a few photos of my Sunday morning effort…

Sad as this is, I think it is important to realize that the word in-human is actually an oxymoron when it comes to malice – for every human beauty there is a human beast, for every Dr. Jekyll, a Mr Hyde lurks behind the corner.

But however much a realistic view of humanity can help deal with the usually sad reality – how on earth could CNN classify a report about the seemingly serious attempt by an evidently as ill-natured as stupid German couple to sell the woman’s eight year old daughter as a ‘technology’ story simply because the man put a photograph of the child on ebay?

In my book, that in itself is so strange it warrants a report.

When I went to meet him and some other bloggers I had never seen or even heard of before, I was not too sure what to expect beyond a pint of wheat beer. But what developed were indeed very intristing debates about the future -as we develop it.

No doubt about it, blogs, or personal publishing, is quickly changing some parts of the communicational transactional infrastructure of the societies we live in. But what exactly is going to happen – no one has really figured that out yet.

It is great to be among people who are fascinated by what they do, people who firmly believe that they are true revolutionaries, tearing down the old walls of informational constraints and top-down control. Ideas really are a powerful motivator.

Yet just like love can make us blind with regard to things we do not want to see or know about our loved ones, enthusiasm tends to blind us with respect to the nasty little details. I am mentioning the German technological adventure “Toll Collect” only for the fun of it.

On Monday, Loic LeMeur was asked about the future of printed newspapers and magazines by one of the attending non-bloggers. His reaction could not have been faster – it’s dead, he said, and I am sure, he firmly believes this.

However, I am not so certain about the future of printed paper. The medium has certain qualities that are not yet easily replicated by electronic media – most doctors’ waiting rooms still feature papers and not free W-Lan. And while this may even change sooner than I imagine, there will a market for printed information and commentary, and if only because the higher cost will serve as a signalling mechanism for quality – in whichever changed format this may be the case – the “RSS-Times -once a week, the stuff that is actually worth reading”

Ross Mayfield apparently also starts to think that blogs are different, and therefore a medium with a very specific set of core competences: Broad coverage, he writes today, is not one of them. He’s (mostly) right – coverage of important events involved an infrastructure and professionalism that (most) blogs simply cannot and do not possess.

Things are different in situations, where no infrastructure is present. I remember the advantages of neighbourhood bloggers over the established media last year when half of California burnt down. But when it comes to attending press-conferences and filtering official information like, say, following the Madrid attacks, it becomes obvious that journalists and bloggers are still operating in largely distinct, though complimentary market segments.

Op-Ed journalists should be far more afraid of all the opinion that is now out there.

Well, actually, today’s birthday kid, the Apple MacIntosh has been holding up pretty well despite having seen some stormy weather.

Age wise, people are far more likely to suffer from malign geriatric symptoms. I guess that’s why it’s probably a good thing that most of the “Friends” will finally move out the Central Perk an get on with their lives. Now their fans will finally have time to think of their own future on Tursday evenings. Well, maybe…

The last episode was shot on Friday under heightenend security to avoid plot leaks. But guess what – as CNN reports naively, entirely disregarding the incentives of strategic PR – “if Washington can leak, so can Hollywood.”

So what’s it all about? In the end, it seems like it’s Ross and Rachel, and twins for Chandler and Monica, no word about Phoebe but Joey will get his shot to become the friends’ “Frasier”. His spin-off “Joey” will initially get the Friends slot on NBC next autumn. I’m not sure about Joey “How you doin’” Tribbiani’s ability to carry an entire show, especially since his roel in friends was far more prominent than Frasier’s in “Cheers”. But then again, what else could Matt LeBlanc ever play again???

Oh wait, he could play Joey in the next part of “Charlie’s Angels”

“Bush-hatred is now something that civilised people wear as a badge of honour…”

Who would have thought that the day would come where a common adversary would make the Economist write talking points for Michael Moore. Maybe unusual times do require unusual measures – I wonder if anyone from the Economist helped topple the W effigy on Trafalgar Square today…

That’s good news, I suppose, as it implies that even the Republican spokesperson at the NYTimes (if only by accident) acknowledges that “seriousness” is something worth mentioning when President Bush is speaking…

He’s also explaining that, apparently, a rethoric Europeanization is going on in the White House speechwriting offices, one that is, unfortunately, so subtle it has to be explained even to the readers of the NY Times… – “He chose “influential” rather than “powerful” to stress our democratic example.”

But he’s right about one thing: Instead of reading summaries, including his own, one should proceed to reading the real thing. Well, where he’s right, he’s right.

Yesterday, she apparently was on the cover page of USA toda. And now someone has even set up a domain featuring a very likely fake picture of her. She writes in her blog: “As I see it, if people are talking about me, that’s better than not saying anything.” She’s right, it would certainly do more harm than good to go after the person who has set up georgyrussell.net/org -

Der Spiegel’s cover this week, headline: “Powerless Superpower. Appearance and Reality of the USA.” The story is not available for free, unfortunately. For an American perspective of the same subject, check this Atlantic special “The Real State Of The Union”.