Bumping again for relevance. 11/16/2016
Originally posted 2008-02-07 06:29:02 -- given the current state of the media, well worth bumping -- cho

You guys are just covering — what do they call it — the scream of the peacock, and you’re missing the whole fox hunt. -- Stephen King [Interview in Time Magazine]

In support of the public interest, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rebuffed an attempt by the FCC to weaken media ownership rules. From freepress:

PHILADELPHIA – On Thursday , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued its long-awaited verdict on the Federal Communications Commission’s disputed media ownership rules. The court threw out FCC rules that would have allowed one company to own a newspaper and broadcast stations in the same market and upheld the FCC’s decision to retain its other local broadcast ownership restrictions. The court also instructed the FCC to better consider how its rules will affect and can promote ownership by women and people of color.

...Read more...

Score one more small victory for the people.

And speaking of The People, please feel free to use this as an Open Thread.

From CNN:

(CNN) -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday warned 14 absent lawmakers trying to stall his controversial budget bill to return to the state Capitol immediately to vote on the measure, or layoff notices will be sent to 1,500 public employees before the weekend.
"Unfortunately, if we don't have action by tomorrow we have a legal and moral obligation to start forewarning people," Walker said a Thursday night press conference.
The layoffs would take effect April 1, the governor said.
Walker's threat to start laying off workers capped the third week of a high-stakes drama playing out in Wisconsin.

Looks to me that there'd be 1500 more people with incentive to protest, come Monday.

And that's not counting their family, friends and pets.

In other news (also via CNN),

New Delhi, India (CNN) -- Workers, angry at being fired, burned alive a senior executive of a steel factory in eastern India, police said Friday.
The attack on R.S. Roy, a deputy general manager at the Graphite India Limited's steel unit in Orissa state, took place Thursday after he signed termination letters for about a dozen workers, police said.
The angry workers stopped Roy's car and attacked him -- before setting him and the car on fire, said police superintendent Ajay Kumar Sarangi.

Ouch. Good thing the folks in WI are peaceful.

What's the latest news from your neck of the woods? Tell us what's happening in the comments, and remember: this is an Open Thread.

Re-Posted from Dailykos with permission from StrandedWind

I don't even recall who it was, but someone tweeted about the Knight Foundation News Challenge, and I favorited it for later inspection.

I finally got around to looking at it a few days before it ended and I was kicking myself - last year they gave grants between $75,000 and $400,000 for people who had ideas. Good ideas, mind you, but just ideas ... and we've actually got Progressive Congress News up and running.

So ... step over the fold and help me drag home a great big score for the Progressive community.

Sometimes, someone says what needs to be said -- there's more to the truth than the objective idealism of "fair and balanced" which Fox News has turned into a catch-phrase for "partisanship" and propaganda.

In the Special Comment delivered on 15 November 2010, Keith Olbermann talks about the News Media and it's abhorrent record.

Give it a listen.

Comments are open, and welcome.

The sorry-ass state of shareholder value-captured media, just perhaps!?

From yesterday's OpEdNews

Imagine the look of contempt on Karl Rove's face this past Sunday as he swaggered toward his star turn on CBS's Face the Nation only to be served with our subpoena sanctioned by the Secretary of the State of Ohio.
The federal subpoena orders Rove to testify in deposition. Our attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, intends to ask Mr. Rove about his role in the theft if the 2004 election, and to discuss his orchestration of tens of millions of corporate/billionaire dollars in the one coming up on November 2, 2010.

Does anybody out there remember what television was like in the 1970s?

Back in the 1970s we had TV shows like Welcome back Kotter, Barney Miller, Chico and the Man, M*A*S*H*, All in the Family. WKRP in Cincinnati, the ABC After school special and Fat Albert.

The main thing that binds all of these TV shows together was that all of these shows had a social message. They taught important lessons. They taught about the importance of trying to resolve problems without violence, the stupidity of racism, the ugliness of war, the importance of social justice, the importance of getting a good education, the importance of accepting of people who are different than you are, the importance of staying off of drugs and other social messages as well.

We also had Schoolhouse rock which helped to educate America's children.

That was then. This is now.

Interesting case study of a profitable community newspaper.  The paper is free and the profits come from "targeted ad sales". 

hmmm ....

Print ain’t dead: How an ad-man-turned publisher is building a local news empire profitably in Texas

John P. Garrett says he worries he sounds like someone from the early 1990s who predicted there would never be a computer in every home. Garrett’s the Texas publisher of seven neighborhood editions of a monthly newspaper called Community Impact Newspaper. And he’s not looking online to grow his business. The difference between him and the Luddite computer naysayer is that, so far at least, he’s been right. His business is profitable, and he’s expanding. 

Thoughts?

Hiya, folks. As you may have noticed, ePluribus Media is doing some updates. These updates are both internal and external -- some you'll see, others will happen behind the scenes.

As with all such efforts, your feedback and contributions are always appreciated; please feel free to sprinkle a few in the comments.

Upcoming on ePluribus Media in terms of content is a review of Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen-Engaged Press, edited by Jack Rosenberry and Burton St. John III. Our own Aaron Barlow contributed to it (he wrote Chapter 5), and I was fortunate enough to be quoted. The topic is both relevant and timely, coming shortly on the heels of news regarding how Susie Dow's Iraq, Contingency Contracting and the Defense Base Act started a series of events that culminated in the Department of Labor finally recognizing the benefits claim of the Kirk von Ackermann's family -- six long years after Kirk disappeared in Iraq, in what the Army CID determined was a clear-cut case of abduction and murder. Kudos again, Susie, and our thanks for your dogged pursuit of justice.

I'll be posting my review of Public Journalism 2.0 in the next day or two. Keep an eye out for it.

Other things are happening -- some still in the planning stages but moving forward. More on all this later. In the meantime, have a great weekend.

The Thanksgiving holiday in the US has now ended; if you celebrated it with family, friends or in solo form, let us know how it went. (We live vicariously through the experiences of others.)

In terms of interesting news that occurred over the holidays, apparently Dubai World is in danger of defaulting on a $60 billion in loan repayments (hat-tip Jimdotz @ DailyKos):

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Just a year after the global downturn derailed Dubai's explosive growth, the city is now so swamped in debt that it's asking for a six-month reprieve on paying its bills — causing a drop on world markets Thursday and raising questions about Dubai's reputation as a magnet for international investment.

The fallout came swiftly and was felt globally after Wednesday's statement that Dubai's main development engine, Dubai World, would ask creditors for a "standstill" on paying back its $60 billion debt until at least May.

This, of course, is not something the financial sector would give thanks for, as it gives the term "Black Friday" a more ominous shade of meaning (hat-tip Moby for the analogy).

[Update: For more information and a useful update about why this isn't a reason to panic, go here.]

In other news,

• In Space (where no one can hear you scream1, 2), China readies a second lunar mission and may be ready for a manned mission by 2017, while NASA finds new evidence for life on Mars
• Sustainably speaking, living buildings could help clean up the atmosphere according to Dr Rachel Armstrong of UC Barkley in London
• For computer enthusiasts, DRAM prices have fallen -- now might be a good time to increase memory in your computers if they aren't already maxed out, and a Japanese firm has launched a new product -- a dual-screen notebook that weighs in at 1.84 Kg and has about 4.5 hrs o battery life
• On the home front, a man shot four relatives at a Florida holiday party and a manhunt is underway way, while on the foreign affairs front Iran has been censured by the UN's nuclear watchdog agency for being less than forthcoming with more information about their nuclear program.

That's it for now. What's eating you?

A couple of things are stuck in my craw at the moment:

Doesn't Track...

Dunno about anyone else, but the alleged message from Osama Bin Laden this past June doesn't track for me:

__________

In his latest message in June, bin Laden said U.S. President Barack Obama had planted the seeds of "revenge and hatred" toward the United States in the Muslim world.
__________

That seems too...Cheney-esque, as if in response to a Bush message.

Anybody else finding that to be a bit "weird"? Kinda wingnutty-flavored, imo...

Feeding the Hungry

__________

Food stamp list soars past 35 million: USDA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 35 million Americans received food stamps in June, up 22 percent from June 2008 and a new record as the country continued to grapple with the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
__________

Yes, another gift that keeps on giving -- the fruitful bounty of a collapsed economy, courtesy of 8 years of Republican "compassionate conservative" 'leadership' and fiscal goodness.

Thanks, folks. We appreciate how strongly you like to drive home the point that you're only "in it to win it" and don't give an actual damn about the nation or our people, so -- while we're thinking about it -- could you now kindly shut the hell up and stop messing with the healthcare debate?

I know quite a few people who are in dire need of a strong public option, and you sidewinders are lying, cheating and fomenting violence & discord simply to prevent a viable reform from happening.Get the hell out of the way -- your ideas have damaging our nation for too long. You lost the election by a wide margin, and the rest of America gave the incoming party a new mandate: Pay attention and take care of the nation and her people, or we'll kick you to the curb like your predecessors.

That's the extemely short Extreme Short List. There's waaaay to much to simply start listing them out.

Happy Saturday, folks. (ed. -- heh, oops. Friday. -- GH)

Here's an early-evening sweep of some basic news items circulating the internets at this time, courtesy of a jaunt through Google News:

News from China about Stateside salmonella outbreaks:

Salmonella outbreak sickens at least nine in two US states -- Xinhuanet

Financial and Political news:

US Bank Failures Rise to 72 With Collapses in Florida, Oregon -- Bloomberg

US Cuts Less Jobs Than Forecast -- NY Times

Clinton and South African Discuss Somalia and Sudan -- NY Times

GOP's Martinez says he'll leave Senate early -- Boston Globe

Black Hole:

Particle Collider: Black Hole or Crucial Machine? -- ABC News

These are for the birds:

Of rooks and rocks: Birds live up to their fabled reputation -- LA Times

and

Clever rooks repeat ancient fable -- BBC News

On the Global Climate Change side,

Glacier melt accelerating, federal report concludes -- Los Angeles Times

And that's the news.