Howard Owens

UPDATED AT 1.10.05; 9:15 PM. With all that's going on in the world, a few inches of rain seems rather trivial, but with the rain hitting my home town, it grabbed my attention. Besides, I had the weekend off, and I have a digital camera and a digital mini-video camera.

Why not rain blog?

I started the day at the mouth of the Ventura River, along with a few hundred other people curious to see the brown, swollen estuary. I then headed over to the Santa Clara river, which also turned out to be a magnet for the curious.

This storm was all about straight down rain. No wind. No lightening. Just lots and lots of water pounding ground that was already saturated. The water could do only two things: gather in puddles or flow towards the Pacific.

I posted all of my still shots in a gallary on BuzzNet. Here's my video:

• Ventura River
• Santa Clara River at Harbor Blvd. 1
• Santa Clara River at Harbor Blvd. 2
• Stant Clara at 101

In Ventura County, rain has been blamed in the deaths of three people. There have also been deaths in other parts of Southern California. With rain expected to continue through Tuesday, Route 126 has been closed, the town of Piru is isolated, and floods and mudslides are being reported throughout the county. The local paper has video here and here.

UPDATE: (6:30 a.m.) The rain of previous days appears have been a prelude. Last night, the rain came down so hard at times, it felt like tiny tremblers all around. No wind, but distant thunder -- low and gurgling, like morters in ghostly trenches, not the sharp pounding booms I'm used to. This morning, sirens, too.

UPDATE 2: Just got a call. There's a tornado warning for Ventura County.

UPDATE (1.10.05; 9:15 PM): Well, no tornado today, but if you've followed the news at all today, you know there was a major mudslide that claimed at least two lives. There are related videos here and here.

After many hours of little rain, it is now raining again. It's a fairly heavy rain, but nothing like last night or what is predicted for the early morning hours. Eleven inches fell last night, and the coming storm is expected to drop rain at a rate of an inch an hour. Meanwhile, rescue workers risk their own lives at the site of the mudslide trying to dig out survivors trapped in their toppled homes. We should pray for them. Also, lots of local photos here.

Over the last couple of years that I've been making regular visits to Smoker's Castle, one issue has come up repeatedly: The shop is just too damn small. If we get a full crowd in there, there's no place to sit.

Vic's been promising the whole time that he'd expand.

Well, the work has finally begun. First up today, building a new storage room and humidor in the back of the shop. Next, knocking out the wall that separates the front from the back.

During today's work, I posed the "Question of the Day," Is America Stingy?

Turns out, I'm a blogging purist.

I've had a couple of people drop the phrase "the long tail" on me recently. One person asked specifically if I read the article in Wired and promised to send me the link. It's hard, sometimes, you know, to keep up with everything I SHOULD know about.

I never got the link, so I did a little catch up on my own today, starting with this Hit and Run post. The Long Tail blog can be found here.

The basic premise -- That dispersed and inexpensive media/production makes possible for every taste to match with every product ever produced -- strikes me as true. There's something out there for everybody, and for everything there's an everybody to buy it or download it. The reason I think this is true is purely anecdotal. We're a household that never goes in for the top 40,000 CDs on Amazon. We're usually digging much deeper than that.

I think purveyors of homegenized hit lists, be they radio (threatened by XM Radio), traditional record stores (Amazon, of course) or Columbia House, should be very, very worried. The tail is only going to get longer. Business models based on scarcity just aren't going to cut it.

The article that started the buzz here.

So this guy has started a blog about his online poker playing, which is an attempt to win enough money to pay off his credit card debts. His bankroll is comparable to mine. He's got a long way to go. I enjoyed this post about playing a family game and almost getting beat by a kid. I can't say I think much of the sites he plays.

In response to my post on "lede," an editor for Marriam-Webster sends this:

Your message has been forwarded to me for reply.

"Lede" would be a good candidate for inclusion in our unabridged Webster's Third New International Dictionary, and we thank you for offering your implicit suggestion that it gain entry somewhere.

It is a common term in the ink-stained world of newspapering (well, at least the end product is ink-stained), but in ordinary English usage, it's not very common. Thus I see no grave error in this word's absence from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, or from our other dictionaries, though, as I said, it could have good "legs" as an unabridged candidate.

I found an informative account of "lede" at this Random House page. If you haven't seen it, it may be of interest to you:

Link

Thanks again for writing.

Sincerely,

Thomas Pitoniak, Ph.D.

I counter that "lede" isn't just for journalists anymore. Examples here, here, here, here, here, ... heck, look at all these examples when searching for "bury the lede," ... or "second day lede" ... or "lede story."

Some of these examples may come from journalists, but most of them don't, and when they do, the articles are usually written for a general audience.

Clearly, "lede" has passed into the common vernacular. I blame the Internet. The net, especially blogs, exposed a whole non-newspaper world to a very handy word. "Lede" communicates so much more clearly "the start of a story" than the "lead," which is too easily mispronounced as "led." Once exposed to the word, non-journalists seem to cling to it and its exclusion from common dictionaries denies people who may never have seen it before a chance to confirm its usage and meaning.

The next time you use your wireless phone or tap into a wi-fi network, besure to whisper a little thank you to Hedy Lamarr.

The other day I posted a suggestion that the tsunami is a big story in a large part because news consumers are driving the story, not elite East Coast editors (as in the old-fashioned days of news gather and dissimilation).

I'll take this USA Today column as further confirmation that my theory isn't unfounded.

This is one of those stories nobody quite understood in the first couple of days exactly what this was going to be," says ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff, reporting Monday from Colombo, Sri Lanka. "The White House didn't understand it, journalists didn't understand it, and aid organizations didn't understand it.

"Now, more and more reporters are wandering into the story. But everyone was slow to completely grasp the significance."

Peter Johnson doesn't address the issue at all, but I still maintain that if not for the Net, this story would have been just another day-or-two disaster story. In fairly recent years, there have been comparable tragic natural disasters that haven't gotten nearly the coverage or attention as this tsunami. I think the self-directed nature of Net news gathering, and the rise of lay journalism makes all the difference.

I've often wondered why the word "lede" isn't in any dictionary. The word is at least 50 years old and any writer worth his ink knows what the word means. Of course these days, in some ways, Google is better than old world dictionaries.

Here's a report on a citizen journalist who is making waves, and with some original reporting. He might be the Drugde of Colorado.

The Web site was started in late 2003 by Jeffco resident Mark Zinna, apparently in retaliation for what he felt was unfair treatment by the county government on a business deal. Zinna attends almost every Jeffco government public meeting, and his Web site has become a venue for county employees who want to leak information about government misconduct.

Earlier this year, somebody faxed Zinna libelous materials, apparently attempting to injure the reputation of some county employees, and perhaps also to undermine Jeffco Exposed by tricking it into printing false information and making it vulnerable to a libel suit. But Zinna didn't bite. (This puts him ahead of Dan Rather in journalistic acumen.) Instead, Zinna traced the faxes back to the stores from which they were sent. Zinna says the stores' surveillance tapes appear to show the tapes being sent by Jeffco Commissioner Rick Sheehan, his wife, and Assistant County Attorney Cynthia Beyer-Ulrich.

It's not blogging, but it again displays the egalitarian power of the Web.

This post from Jack Sparks (hat tip to Matt Welch ) reminds me of a little run-in I had with KSON-AM/FM in San Diego about 14 years ago.

First, I when I found out KSON had banned k.d. lang (this was just after Absolute Torch and Twang came out) from its playlist, I wrote a letter to the program director in which, among other things, I accused KSON of either not getting enough payola form lang's people, or homophobia, or just bad taste. The letter prompted not one but two letters from KSON executives who told me to go to hell. It's worth noting that at the time, lang's record was the hottest selling CD in San Diego County, according to my personal survey of local Tower Records. The KSON officials claimed KSON listeners didn't like lang's music.

A few months later I wrote a column for the east county's daily newspaper about KSON's lame music, which was (and still is) highly commercialized, over produced, vapid pop music that has as little to do with country music as Salvador Dali. I had some suggestions for KSON's playlist, such as Marty Stuart (who hadn't gone commercial yet), Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Marty Brown, the Waggoners , Steve Earle, Allison Krause (who wasn't a star yet) and, of course, lang. Needless to say, KSON didn't heed my advice. In fact, I figured nobody over there even read the column.

About a year later, I learned otherwise. A feature editor wanted me to write about a nighttime DJ, and since KSON was the most popular radio station among our readers, I called KSON first. The quick, short answer was -- No. Howard Owens would never step inside of a KSON office. They had read the column. It stung so much that they wouldn't have anything to do with me (what they didn't know was that my fiancee was editor of their newsletter and I had been to their offices many times -- guess the joke was on them!).

The way I figure it, the purveyors of bad country music know very well what they're doing, and they feel guilty as hell, which is why they react in defensive anger when you call them on it. They just can't stand being called out. If they had any self respect they would ignore their critics and just keep collecting those fat paychecks.

A new little project added to the Web site: Journalism Books. This is very much an incomplete project, and like Hearst Castle, it may never be completed.

What it represents so far is a portion of the journalism books my wife and I own. Maybe half. She has been entering them into a database for a couple of years now, a little at a time. Once she has entered all the books we own, I'm hoping she'll start going through bibliographies in some of these books and start entering books we don't own, so that eventually, we'll have a pretty complete list of every journalism book ever published. Or pretty damn close.

And by journalism, I mean print newspapers. We do have some broadcast-related books, but generally we despise all television "journalism" (scare quotes on purpose, cause TV "news" reporting is pretty scary, especially the network kind).

I know a lot of bloggers don't like newspaper registration schemes, but for reasons that will be obvious to some, I support them.

However, I have just run across the worst, most onerous registration scheme yet devised by any newspaper. I registered just to see how bad it was. It's at TheDay.com, which I guess is a small paper in Rhode Island. There are SEVEN screens of registration forms with every conceivable registration question. And then ... and then ... before you can open a link, you MUST confirm your registration by going through three more screens of forms and then clicking a link in an e-mail.

Standard practice is to have one registration screen and if e-mail confirmation is required, at least give the new registrant 30 days to respond.

I also find this wacky: Registration is only required for stories that are more than 48 hours old. In other words, the readers they should most care about registering, meaning their local readers who probably check the site daily, DON'T HAVE TO REGISTER? Only blogging schmucks like me, who are out of market and might look at the site only once in a lifetime, must register.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here. I'm only going off of what I saw.

This article by Dan Kennedy on podcasting is a good overview of the technology and the movement (via Instapundit).

Prescient observation from Mark Glaser:

Mark Glaser, a columnist for the Online Journalism Review, recently wrote a piece about podcasting in which he noted that four million iPods have been sold — but that 650 million cell phones would be purchased in 2004 alone. If the Internet were everywhere, and if every cell phone were equipped to tap into the ’Net, then, overnight, podcasts would have a vastly greater potential reach than they do today.

Last week Glaser, who’s based in San Francisco, told me that he thinks the next step is for manufacturers to equip MP3 players with built-in Internet access — "a no-brainer," as he put it, since it would eliminate the need for a computer to download shows. To Glaser, podcasting, like satellite radio, is drawing people away from traditional broadcast radio because it gives them choices they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Over the next five to ten years, the media landscape is going to change tremendously. The ubiquitous internet is going to evolve the world toward a fragmented media where personalized content is the norm. This is a tremendous challenge for media companies, but I think some media companies are going to see this as an opportunity, not a threat. Not all of this micro-media content will be created by digital pamphleteers. Some of it will be created by forward thinking media companies. I've always believed that quality is what sells. Quality content will raise to the top, regardless of its origin -- be it basement tape talk shows or big media news bytes -- in a democratized media world, listeners and viewers will pick and choose the shows (and formats) that best meet their needs.

Deadwood returns with re-runs Jan. 3. All new episodes March 6.

If you're interested in progressive Muslims on the Web, here's a good place to start. There's also a Muslim blog called City of Brass that is joining forces with Alt.Muslim to create Islamic blogosphere awards.

This afternoon, we watched Alfred Hitchcock's Rope.

It is a movie of interest primarily because of Hitchcock's use of what seems like one long camera shot, keeping the scenes seamlessly tied together, like one long rope, and the subtle homosexuality of the main characters (interesting discussion here), and the way it was rather loosely based on an infamous 1924 murder. The Leopold-Loeb crime and sentencing (the duo pled guilty) is covered well here (main trial page here -- and the fasinating home page for this site about famous trials can be found here.

There's plenty of intellectual meet in both the historical crime and the movie, touching as they do on the thinking of Frederick Nietzsche and his "super man" notions. Also, the ideas of determinism and the criminal made victim (as Clarence Darrow did in arguing that the teens should be spared the death penalty).

As a pieceo of entertainment, Rope gets maybe three stars. There is some fine acting, especially from Jimmy Stewart, but the plot moves slowly and lacks the same degree of tension of Hitchcock's best thrillers.

In my most recent post, I wrote about "Heartaches by the Number," a book by David Cantwell and Bill Friskics-Warren, which was a Christmas present from my wife. Having read more if it, I have more to say about it.

Specifically, this: Cantwell and Friskics-Warren, are capital "L" liberals, it seems to me, and pretty anti-capitalist. I'm not saying this mares the book, just noting it.

Example #1: Under the entry for "Life's Little Ups and Down," recorded by Charlie Rich and written by Charlie's wife Margaret Ann Rich, Cantwell writes, "her similie effectively nails the inevitability of life's highs and lows, not to mention the way a market economy can keep smacking you down right back where you started, love and hard work be damned."

Example #2: In the entry for "A Satisfied Mind" by Porter Wagoner, Cantwell writes, "'A Satisfied Mind' expresses one of country music's defining sentiments -- money can't buy happiness, and, at any rate, 'I'm richer by far with a satisified mind.' While people at every rung of the American class ladder give lip service to this sentiment, it lies particularly close to the heart of the largely working class country music audience -- a community that resides in a worldwheree great material wealth is denied them by the same society that treats it as a reason for being."

Example #3: Now we get around to the entry for "Folsom Prison Blues," by Johnny Cash. Friskics-Warren writes that the prisoner in the song is being twice oppressed, first by prison walls and second by his position in society, where the wealth of those rich folks in the dining car smoking fine cigars has always been denied him. "It's the unfairness of it all," Friskics-Warren writes, "and especially the way those fat cats ride on the backs of people like him, that stick's in Johnny's craw. Even more than the stone walls and steel bars that hold him, it's the injustice that makes him hang his head and cry."

I can't speak to the author's interpretations of examples one and two, because I haven't heard those songs in many years. But "Folsom Prison Blues" is practically part of my soul. And Friskics-Warren couldn't possibly be more wrong in his reading of this lyric. If there is any politics in the song at all, it is the politics of accepting responsibility, a very conservative notion. Remember, the prisoner admits he did wrong, stating matter-of-factly that he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. He doesn't equivocate. He doesn't strike the pose of a socio-economic victim. He doesn't blame the other guy or somebody else. He says he did it. That's it. He's in prison because he did it, and he knows he deserves to be in prison. There's nothing that will make a man weep more intensely that the realization he has nobody to blame but himself.

The prisoner doesn't envy or begrudge the rich man and his cigar. He wants it for himself. The folks on that train symbolize freedom -- a freedom that is moving past and away from Folsom Prison every day, and that's where the singer wants to be -- as far from Folsom Prison and he can get. That metaphorical freedom gathers intensity from the symbolism of the fancy dining car and those cigars. These are symbols of economic freedom, to be sure, but no doubt, the prisoner would like that kind of freedom, too. In fact, he states flatly that not only does he want to ride that train, he wants to own it.

But you can't achieve economic freedom doing life in prison.

Further, remember also that Cash calls these passengers "folk," which is a friendly, not apejorativee term. There isn't an ounce of resentment toward these folks in either Cash's language or tone.

A free man in our society has the same chance as Sam Walton or Ray Kroc to become rich and powerful. Our protagonist in Folsom Prison seems to acknowledge this fact by the plain way he states his predicament. He did wrong. He's in prison. He know's he'll never be free. And that train whistle reminds him of what could have been if only he'd listened to his mama.

All I'm saying is that if you're going to dress your music criticism up in political swag, at least get your story straight.

XM Radio was developed by people who love music. It is programed by music lovers of the first order. Music fans should love XM Radio.

I now know this about XM Radio because I got my wife XM for Christmas.

Fortunately, we're both music lovers and XM hits the spot.

We got an ear full of XM driving to and from San Diego. We listened XM 12 (XCountry), XM 13 (Hank's Place), XM 40 (Deep Tracks), XM 43 (XM U, or "what's next"), XM 44 (Fred, which strikes me mostly as the new wave/punk of my late teens and early twenties), XM 53 (Fungus, and is mostly the brand of punk I enjoy), and all of the decades channels (there isn't a decade of music that both my wife and I don't find something we enjoy -- in fact, since XM only goes back to the 40s, it doesn't go back far enough for us. We'll take the 20s and 30s, too.) We also made stops at every other spot on the XM dial, even doing a little Larry Elder, CNN, MSNBC and Los Angeles traffic.

What I like most about XM is that the people programming these stations know there music. They haven't just stuck a bunch of CDs in a multi-disk changer and hit shuffle (which seems to be how the digital stations on DirecTV are programmed). There are real people picking quality songs, and not just the hits, but songs you haven't heard in years or maybe never heard. And for hard core music fans like me and my wife, finding an Ernest Tubb or Wynn Stewart song we haven't heard is an accomplishment.

Interesting example (interesting to me at least) driving home this evening, I heard for the first time Jan Howard's "Evil on Your Mind," which is a song I had just been reading about. It's a woman's take on cheating, but before the man had actually done the cheating. And I thought, it might be interesting to write a song from a man's perspective before the cheating had been consummated.

A couple of hours later over on XCountry, the DJ cued up Todd Snider's "Trouble," with its chorus of "A woman like you walks in a place like this/You can almost hear the promises break," and I knew for a fact what I already suspected -- the song had already been written.

Speaking of DJs -- another cool aspect of XM are the DJs. DJs's on XM? Doesn't that get in the way of the music? Well, a good DJ does a couple of things -- first, he doesn't get in the way of the music. In fact, he sometimes adds a little context or enlightenment. Second, somebody talkin' at ya helps break the music up. Believe it or not, an endless stream of music can get a little monotonous. It's nice to know there's a real person picking out the songs. But the nice touch from XM is that all of the DJs are station appropriate. On the '60s channel, for example, you'll be reminded of the fast-talkin' boss-DJs of AM's salad days.

The current line up for XM means that just about every taste in music is represented. I wish there were a rockabilly station, and maybe jump blues, and something that is strictly swing would be nice. But at this stage of my XM listening, my needs are satisfied, and I know my wife's will be, too. In fact, I'm so impressed with XM that next month, or the next, I'll get XM for myself.

My one quibble with XM really has more to do with our set up for XM than a failing of the service itself.

Originally, XM was supposed to come with my wife's Toyota Scion. The dealership ASSURED us repeatedly when we bought the car that all we needed to do to get XM was the buy the service for $10 per month. I didn't do it right away for various reasons, and when I went to give it a try, I learned (with great difficulty and poor customer service from Ventura Toyota) that we had to sink an additional $300 into the Scion to get XM. I wasn't about to pay $300 for XM, so while Ventura Toyota lost a customer, my wife was without XM.

What I bought for Billie was an XM car kit for $119, which included the receiver, a cassette adaptor and an FM modulator. Since neither of our cars have cassette decks, we were counting on the FM modulator.

The modulator is easy enough to use. You just have to find a free frequency and then flick a switch or two to tune the modulator to that frequency. It's finding a open frequency (even with eight to choose from) that is the pain in the ass, especially while driving through metropolitan areas like Los Angeles or San Diego. It's hard to go as much as 20 miles without starting a new quest for an open frequency. And for a large portion of our trip though LA, we couldn't find an completely open frequency and had to settle for a bit of static.

Otherwise, the XM signal is just as crisp and clear as XM advertises. When tuned right, XM is better than CD quality.

I also bought Billie the home adaptor kit. It works on the office stereo, which is fine, but on the living room stereo we get a deep, rumbling hum. I'm guessing it's a ground problem, but supposedly my fancy tuner/receiver shouldn't need to be grounded, so I'm not sure what to do. I'm open to suggestions if you have any.

One additional benefit of XM: It's the radio network that DOESN'T HAVE Howard Stern on it.

Would you believe that the greatest country music single of all time is "Help Me Make It Through the Night," as recorded by Sammi Smith?

Before reading "Heartaches by the Numbers," by David Cantwell and Bill Friskies-Warren, I would have reacted violently to the suggestion, but now, I'm not so cocksure. I need to hear the Smith version again (which I haven't listened to in years). Cantwell and Friskies-Warren lay out a compelling premise in the introduction for why such a crossover bit of pop pap should be considered and then layout an intelligent argument in the book's first entry for the song itself.

After reading "Heartaches," I'm ready to reconsider my entire country music purism and elitist sneering at crossover commercialism. The authors "don't fence me in" policy toward great records encourages a whole new way of listening to country music.

Besides, "don't fence me in" is the only policy that would allow "Train Kept A-rollin'" and "Dixie Fried" and "One Hand Loose" to make such a list, and any list that includes great but obscure rockabilly is going to get my respect.

I only got this book because Billie gave it to me for Christmas, and I'm glad she did.

Cantwell and Friskies-Warren have impressive writing credits (No Depression, Journal of Country Music, Oxford American), but even without the bio on the back of the book, a quick skim through its contents tells you all you need to know about the authors - here are two men who have immersed themselves over a lifetime in country music. They have read about it, thought about it, argued about it and taken seriously every country record they have ever heard (and I wouldn't be surprised if they've heard them all).

In most of these "greatest all-time" lists, there is ample room to argue with the list makers conclusions, and Cantwell and Friskies-Warren want you to pick apart their choices, but there is so much love put into this book, it's hard to spit and cuss even as you disagree.

Before reading "Heartaches," my list of greatest country singles probably would have lead off with "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," or maybe "Crazy," or "I Walk the Line," or "He Stopped Loving Her Today," now I'm thinking - does the actual order really matter? All that matters are that those songs are acknowledged for their greatness, and from there, what other songs should be admitted to that pantheon?

Having been through the whole book once (not reading every entry, as tempting as that is - and something I will eventually do), I'm hard pressed to think of a song that should be included and isn't. Last night Billie and I bounced song titles off of each other … "There Stands the Glass," yup, it's in there. "Lovesick Blues," of course (interestingly, by Tony Bennett, not Hank). "Walking After Midnight," sure 'nough. "Make the World Go Away," yes, but by Ray Price, not Eddy Arnold (my preference).

I have yet been able to trip up the authors (Though, under the terms of the book, I think I could make an argument for The Blasters "Marie, Marie" or X's "Fourth of July," but that may have more to do with my own predilections and prejudices … but then, if Lone Justice and Los Lobos can make it, why not The Blasters? "Marie, Marie" is one of the greatest songs of any genre, and it is rockabilly and it was a single.)

"Heartaches" is also deep into country music, including songs by such lesser known pioneers of hillbilly tunes as Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Charlie Poole, DeFord Bailey, and the Coon Creek Girls.

Nor does the book concentrate on monster hits. It's the quality of the record that matters, not the chart success, which is why you'll find James Talley here along with Billy Joe Shaver and Lucinda Williams' original "Passionate Kisses," not the wooden and ultimately unsatisfying hit version by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Only authors who have spent a lifetime preparing to write such a book could produce something that gets beyond mere parlor room bickering and goes deep into why a record is good and worth thoughtful consideration. Each song is accompanied by an essay that skips empty rhetoric and includes history, production notes and context. Such research makes any disagreement with a choice more of a quibble than a red-faced rejection of some idiot's two-cent opinion.

For readers who love country music, and don't just merely listen to it, "Heartaches" will provide intellectual fodder as well as a desire to dig deeper into the music.

My only regret now is that I don't know all of these songs. Now I have a new project - start acquiring and cataloging them. I think this will require an iPod!

If there's any romance about Los Angeles at all, it was largely created by Raymond Chandler.

No wonder -- he lived all over -- 30 different homes and appartments in 30 years.

This is a tour just waiting to happen.

Associated Press is solidifying its policy on anonymous sources:

One of the lengthiest parts of the new guidelines relates to anonymous sources, stating they can only be used if the material is informational, not opinion or speculation; with approval of a news manager; and if the manager knows the source's identity.

The policy also would require that such sources be identified as specifically as possible, not simply as "a source," and may not be cited elsewhere in the story as someone who declined comment. All anonymously sourced stories must also carry a byline, according to the policy.

The new ethics code also defines "on the record" as information used with no restrictions and quoting the source by name; "off the record" as information not used for publication; and "background" as information that can be published with specific conditions set by both parties.

This is great for AP. Now if only the NYT, WaPo, etc. would get their acts together and craft a policy equally as strict, if not more stringent.

The most important clarification is that AP will restrict (if they following their own guidelines) to informational material. One of my pet peeves, as longtime readers know, is anonymous sources used for speculation and conjecture.

Steve Outing has a lengthy column on what the MSM can learn from bloggers.

I have my own thoughts on this subject. I think there are three important lessons:

1. Publish frequently.
2. Find a niche and hit it hard.
3. Write crisply and with personality.

The most popular blogs do that. The exceptions are rare.

This formula breeds loyalty.

Of course, a loyal audience is an audience that wants to participate in the conversation. Outing has some thoughts, mainly from Jeff Jarvis, on reader participation in the news.

What will TVIP mean?

Maybe my vision of TVIP is a bit different than what the telcos are talking about now, but I also think my vision is inevitable. Once you have a settop box that is fully IP-enabled, everything you can do on the Web, you will be able to do on your TV. The only potential glitch is if the broadband providers restrict this functionality. But I just can't see that happening.

Here are some thoughts.

• It's an on-demand world. Forget channels. Forget networks. Programming will be what matters. New programming will become popular that no existing media company will touch. Some independent producer will create a show that will do for TVIP what The Simpsons did for Fox.
• It's a personalized world. The days of 70 percent of Americans tuning into Ed Sullivan at the same time have been gone for decades. Within five years, you won't even have .7 percent of Americans watching the same show at the same time, and even by the end of the week, it will be a rare show that even seven percent of the television audience will have seen the show. There will be more choices, and every conceivable interest and taste will be served.
• There will be new stars, but they won't be as big. People that in today's media world haven't a chance of getting even 15 minutes, will find audiences in the hundreds of thousands.
• Blogs will survive, but videopunditry will be just as big, or bigger. And in the same way the blogs serve both hyperlocal news needs, and niche interests and hobbies, so will homemade video on demand. The Web has been a great tool for the democracy of news and information. TVIP will take such egalitarian impulses to a whole new level.
• TV will become as interactive as the Web. You will leave video comments on your favorite video blogs. You'll bid on Survivor gear during the final episode. You will be able to talk back to Dr. Phil in real time. If Tucker Carlson irritates you: Tell him. Now. Or at least everybody who is watching him while you are.
• All kinds of media companies that currently don't do broadcast will start doing video and doing it well. It's do it and survive, or not, and die. Multimedia will have to be part of the mix. Audiences/readers/users will demand it and expect it, and so will advertisers.
• Content will be evenly divided between pay-per-view/download and advertising-supported, but the advertising will be accepted and expected because it fits the programming and audience interests/needs.
• Advertising will often be interactive.
• All kinds of small businesses will produce video advertising and infommercials.
• TVIP will be the most profound change to the Internet since the launch of Mosaic.
• TVIP devices will be as easy to use as TiVo.

At least, that's what I think.

Michael Kinsley: Advantage blogosphere!

Summary: Kinsley wrote a column on privatizing social security. An army of bloggers responded. So Kinlsey writes:

A few days later, most of the big shots haven't replied. But overnight, I had dozens of responses from the blogosphere. They're still pouring in. And that's just direct e-mail to me. Within hours, there were discussions going on in a dozen blogs, all hyperlinking to one another like rabbits.

Just so I don't sound too naive: I am familiar with the blog phenomenon, and I worked at a website for eight years. Some of my best friends are bloggers. Still, it's different when you purposely drop an idea into this bubbling caldron and watch the reaction. What floored me was not just the volume and speed of the feedback, but its seriousness and sophistication. Sure, there were some simpletons and some name-calling nasties echoing rote-learned propaganda. But we get those in letters to The Times editorial page. What we don't get, nearly as much, is smart and sincere intellectual engagement — mostly from people who are not intellectuals by profession — with obscure and tedious, but important, issues.

Why the difference? Lots of space, for one. I'll be hard-put, next week, even to summarize my own argument, let alone discuss those of others, in the space available to a columnist. Letters get even less space, if they are published at all. Certainty that what you write will get posted is surely another factor. It's nice to know you're not wasting your time. Ease is important, too. You can send your views electronically to a blog in less time than it takes to find a stamp, let alone type a letter.

Only idiots dismiss blogs as drivel produced by pajama-clad eccentric egoists. Smart people recognize that while there are many blogs produced by just such hacks, there are quite enough being produced by writers of experience, education and intelligence who more often than not know what they're talking about, or only stick to topics of some expertise. These blogs are resources, even for journalists and professional pundits, and smart people in the media have known this for a long time.

Of course, Kinsley couldn't close out a column without some smugness. In counter, I think there is always some talking past each other in all communities, but the best bloggers and blog readers rarely do that. And hence, the tone is civil discourse is elevated. I think.

Where in the world could you go to watch six sporting events on one TV screen, while listening to fellow fans of your favorite team cheer it on, and placing bets on those same events? All in the comfort of your own home.

Try England. That's where BSkyB is forging ahead with innovative personalized, interactive television.

Nothing like it has been seen in America yet. But it's coming. BSkyB is owned by News Corp. And News Corp. owns DirecTV.

This is one more way that our digital world is evolving toward greater user control over the information and entertainment we allow into our lives. The Web gives us control. Apple's iPods gives us control. Satallite radio gives us more choices. People, especially in Europe and Japan, see their wireless phones as expressions of individuality and expect them to be customizable in every feature.

Not only is mass marketing is dead, mass living is dead. In technology, each man is an island.

And my question is -- are media companies ready for the transition.

We're moving into an on-demand, my-wants-my-way world. We're already past the point where most consumers might wonder what it might be like to float free of the masses. Most people, especially young people, just expect it. If you can't give it to them, you're dead.

In a world where you can customize M&Ms, there is no longer just one way to deliver news, or one type of news to feed the public. We in the MSM are already falling behind.

The media world is really going to be rocked when TVIP arrives. TVIP will, I predict, make news and entertainment even more diversified and customized. People will download a wide variety of TV shows and showettes that reflect individual tastes and interests in ways Ed Sullivan never could have imagined. And if you think bloggers have shaken up the media world, wait until the pajama army starts producing television shows.

To some extent, it's hard to imagine what the world will be like in just a couple of years when mass entertainment and mass news has been completely killed off.

A couple of nice welcome backs ... Steve Smith, Arnold Williams, Richard Bennett, Tony Pierce ... Nelson Ascher, who is more concerned with the whereabouts of Steven Den Beste, but has still managed to refer a ton of traffic to this site.

And, of course, Glenn Reynolds.

Also, a couple of nice e-mails.

Thanks to all.

Interesting new Web video search engine.

It's still rather limited. Well, it's very limited. It's not by any means the Google of video search, but it's a start ... we hope.

Here's something for Padres fans to celebrate -- The Big Unit leaves not only the NL West, but the entire National League. Also, the Dodgers are a little bit weakened ... if you believe Shawn Green is a plus as a hitter. Then again, losing Green may improve the Dodgers.

Here's a graph in need of a correction:

Major league executives, whose teams were often torn apart by drug use, had the least power to act. Ballard Smith was president of the San Diego Padres when they advanced to the 1984 World Series. Two key players on the team, Alan Wiggins and Eric Show, developed addictions. They were let go and later died as a result of their drug abuse.

The cases of Alan Wiggins and Eric Show are completely different.

Wiggins had a drug problem that first became public in April 1995, when he failed to make the starting line up for a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers (assertion based on personal memory). In June of that year, he was traded to Baltimore. Within a year or two, he was out of baseball. He died at age 32, but not from drug abuse. Wiggins had contracted AIDS.

Eric Show, who was a friend, didn't start using drugs until several years later. Show's addiction started with a team doctor's pain killer perscription when he was with the Oakland A's. He didn't start abusing illicit drugs until he was out of baseball (or so it was reported at the time of his death; I've been unable to find a confirming link).

So, Lee Jenkins has made a few mistakes here. First, he implies that Wiggins and Show developed addictions while they were on the team. Probably true for Wiggins, but not for Show. Second and third, he seems to be saying that both Wiggins and Show were released because of drug addiction. Wiggins was traded (not released, or "let go") in 1995, but Show was with the Padres for another six seasons before going to Oakland for one season. Fourth, Wiggins died from complications related to AIDS, not drugs. In Show's case, sadly, it was drugs. Show had been out of baseball for three seasons at the time of his death.

As I was writing this post, I noticed that this story originally appeared in the New York "Never Let the Facts Get in the Way of A Good Story" Times, so I shouldn't be surprised that so much here is so wrong.
UPDATE: Here is the response from the NYT to this post.

Dear Mr. Owens:

Thank you for your email, which was forwarded to me by the public editor's
office. I certainly don't want to quibble over the circumstances of
anyone's death or their use of drugs, and we don't want to be wrong about
it either.

As I'm sure you understand, the paragraph that you pointed out truncates
history to get to the larger point of the story. But, despite the
inferences you drew, I don't share your belief that the paragraph is
inaccurate.

After double-checking record books and Internet sites, it seems to me that
it's fair to say that both Wiggins and Show were "let go" in the sense that
Show was let go as a free agent (and then signed with the A's for a
substantial pay cut) and Wiggins was traded for a minor-leaguer at a time
when he had one of the biggest contracts in baseball.

Wiggins did die from complications related to AIDS, but it was contracted
through the use of drug needles.

That leaves the question of when Show was caught in the grip of drug
addiction. Frankly, I'm not sure how to prove it one way or another and if
we can find evidence that we were in error, we would publish a correction.
But we can't publish a correction without certainty that we were wrong and
I haven't been able to find it.

I've attached a link below that gives the best synopsis I've seen of their
troubles.

Best regards,
Tom Jolly
Sports editor
The New York Times

I think with the Times' resources, resources I don't have, they could access the archives of the Union-Tribune and maybe even the San Diego Reader to the coverage of Show's death. Also, Show's family could clarify the record. Finally, I don't buy the concision argument. I know journalists do it. I know I used to do it. But it's never an excuse. Even in concision, you have an obligation to be accurate. The Times may not want to face reality, but the paragraph as written creates a record that leaves a false impression. As somebody who considered Show a friend, I'm particularly offend at the implication that he had a drug problem earlier than has ever been reported before, especially since by the Times' own admission, they can't substantiate it. Note: I've chosen to leave out the links Tom sent along because they are both easy to find and really don't add anything to the discussion -- the information provided is just the same kind of concision the Times is justifying.