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Kos has admitted that his pet of choice is the ferret. He once owned two of them.

One of my childhood friends in West Virginia was a ferret fan, too. He and his father used them (illegally) while hunting rabbits to continue the chase when the dogs holed the rabbits. The ferrets sometimes emerged alone, after ear-piercing rabbit screams, covered in the blood of their prey.

Yep, definitely a fitting pet choice for a blogger like Kos. And yet another reason for him not to vote for Republican Rudy Giuliani for president.

Posted by Danny at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)

Buried in a newspaper report that covered everything from a local bridge project to his reading habits and musical interests, Think Progress uncovered this tidbit from Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.:

Asked if he supports a federal shield law for the press, he said he did. However, the problem is how to protect legitimate reporters when there are web logs, “blogs,” whose authors can defame and lie with impunity because they can be anonymous and don't have to worry about the facts.

“I would like to strengthen the legitimate news sources. I'm very concerned about blogs and even some radio. They can hide behind a shield law but they are not legitimate news sources,” the congressman said.

During his first of eight stops in town he spoke to the Laughlin Rotary Club and pointed out the danger of blogs.

Posted by Danny at 09:14 PM | Comments (1)

To hear Editor & Publisher tell it, Lesson No. 1 for newspapers to remember in the online era is that "blogs can backfire."

The journalism trade publication reached that conclusion in a piece about "online flops or failures" by newspapers as they gravitate toward the Web, with online and digital editors providing the evidence for the story. Self-describd Recovering Journalist Mark Potts, who co-founded washingtonpost.com, rightly noted that "every newspaper should be trying all of these things (and many more), over and over, until they get them right."

That's especially true of blogs. So a few newspapers goofed by thinking their readers would like a reality-television blog, a real-estate blog, or a series of poorly written citizen blogs and neglected staff-written blogs. That doesn't mean blogging itself is a risky venture for newspapers to embrace. It just means newspapers need to do a better job of picking their blog subjects and bloggers.

E&P admitted up front that some blogs have been successful. But then it tried to downplay that fact by highlighting a few that haven't been successful.

Let's hope a future issue of E&P recounts the newspaper blogs and other online journalism efforts that have worked. Smart newspapermen will look to them, rather than dwelling on flops and failures, if they want to survive in the inevitable digital future.

Take the advice of Potts who is fresh off a failure called Backfence.com but still high on the Internet as a news medium. "Stretch. Take chances. Don't fear failure," Potts wrote. "Don't be discouraged. Keep trying until you get it right. The future of the industry -- and your job -- depends on it."

Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media, himself an unsuccessful Web entrepreneur, had similar thoughts when Backfence failed 15 months after it bought his venture.

"Most startups fail. That is not a bad thing," Gillmor wrote. "It is a necessary thing because a tolerance for risk -- no, a need to embrace it -- is at the core of how good things eventually come from experimentation. It’s a vital part of how we learn, and improve"

Posted by Danny at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)

Jay Rosen has put to the lie the myth repeated this week by a colleague of his in journalism academia that bloggers do not produce journalism.

Journalism professor Michael Skube of Elon University in North Carolina made the charge in an anti-blog screed in the Los Angeles Times. The column prompted Rosen, a new media innovator and professor at New York University, to call Skube "an embarrassment to my profession" and urge his resignation.

But Rosen didn't stop there. He invited bloggers and his readers to help him compile a detailed response to Skube's piece for publication in the Times. That piece went online yesterday, and here's a timeline of the solid journalistic work by bloggers that Rosen highlighted (go to the Times for links and details):

-- 2003-present: Groklaw covers SCO vs. IBM
-- August 2004: Chris Allbritton goes to Najaf
-- September 2004: "Rather-gate"
-- August 2005: Unbossed.com does a series on toll roads
-- 2005-present: Citizens construct Katrina timeline
-- February 2006: EPluribusMedia series on post-traumatic stress
-- February 2006: Blogger's work spurs NASA resignation
-- August 2006: Porkbusters and others expose "secret hold"
-- December 2006: DallasFood.org investigates Noka Chocolate
-- December 2006-April 2007: TPM covers firings of U.S. attorneys
-- 2007-present: Blogger Michael Yon reports from Iraq
-- March 2007: Firedoglake at the Libby trial
-- June 2007: EdCone.com scoops paper on its own layoffs
-- June 2007: Pet-food scandal ignites blogosphere

And that list really only scratches the surface of what I dubbed "The Blog Journalism Movement" earlier this year. More recent developments are under way on "The New Campaign Media Frontier," and the next year or two seem certain to produce a steady stream of blog journalism.

I don't know Skube's work as a professor well enough to take a stand on whether he should resign from Elon. But any students there who want to get ahead in the new media world that Skube clearly mistrusts definitely should dismiss as uninformed any career advice from him -- and the Times should think twice about ever publishing his opinions about journalism again.

Posted by Danny at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)

As noted in Technology Daily this morning

The Chinese government has encouraged blog services to register users with their real names and contact information, AP reports.

At least 10 major Chinese blog providers have agreed to sign the "self-discipline pledge" issued by the Internet Society of China, according to Chinese news reports. The proposal is a step down from previous reports that China might seek to ban anonymous blogging.

According to AP, China has the world's second-biggest population of Internet users and 30 million registered bloggers.

Also in China, Reuters reports that police have issued warnings and arrested people for spreading rumors through text messages and the Internet.

Posted by Danny at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

My wife, Kimberly, has always been astounded by the fact that I'm a journalist, a writer, and yet I don't care much for books. It's good to know that I'm not alone, as a new poll reports that one in four people read no books last year.

While I don't fall into that category -- I'd say I read at least two or three books a year -- I am certainly not an avid book reader. Does that make me ill-informed? Not at all.

I read tens of thousands of words a day; I just prefer to get my information from other media outlets, primarily blogs, the Internet more broadly and newspapers -- and the pieces of books that have specific information I am seeking.

Blogger Ann Althouse has a great post up on this subject. Plenty of books are trash, she noted, and "the notion that everyone ought to read novels is quite ridiculous."

Kimberly and I have had that debate in our own home. Her definition of "books" is largely limited to fiction, a genre that has limited appeal for me. The only novels I recall reading in the past decade are "Cold Mountain" and "Prey." Both kept me engaged from start to finish, and I read them in just a few days. But given the choice between reading fiction books (like the "Harry Potter" or "Lord Of The Rings" stories that my mother loves) and waiting for the movies, I'll usually choose the latter.

That doesn't mean, as Kimberly likes to tell our friends, that I hate to read books. I love presidential biographies, which I read and collect, and I can read any book about blogs or journalism in a day or two. I also like historical fiction and even harbor dreams of publishing some of my own, including children's books like "George Washington Beaver And The Cherry Tree," which I self-published to the Internet.

I just have different reading preferences than bookworms like my wife -- who I think should read blogs more often.

Posted by Danny at 09:06 AM | Comments (1)

Add MTV to the list of citizen media innovators in the 2008 campaign. The music network that made "Choose or Lose" a part of the political vocabulary is recruiting young folks from every state and the District of Columbia to write stories, produce online videos and take photos on the campaign trail.

The effort is being underwritten in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. MTV won a $700,000 grant for the mobile youth journalists in the Knight News Challenge

Here are more details from an MTV press release (via techRepublican):

Ideal candidates will have their fingers on the pulse of issues that are important to young people in their states and be passionate about politics and the possibilities of new technology. Strong writing and reporting skills are a must. A distinctive voice and an authoritative point of view? Even better.

We'll load you up with some production gear and bring you to MTV's headquarters in New York City for orientation. In return, you will be expected to work in a paid, part-time capacity to file video, written or photographic stories weekly throughout the election year. Your pieces will be posted online and spread to mobile devices -- and the top stories will be broadcast on [MTV channels] each week.

MTV's team will focus on the campaign next year, with the citizen journalists working in their states from January to November, but similar efforts by old and new media already are under way.

In June, National Journal announced a partnership with NBC to hire "campaign embeds" for the primary season. The Huffington Post and journalism professor Jay Rosen of PressThink also are building a team of citizen journalists and professional mentors at a site called OffTheBus.

All of which makes this an exciting campaign cycle for people who want to report political news. Every journalism student with a passion for politics who is set to graduate in 2008 or 2009 should try to hitch their wagons to one of these innovation convoys. They may well be the best way to stake a claim on the new media frontier.

Posted by Danny at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)

The cows of the world should be grateful for this news flash, via Instapundit:

Norway is concerned that its national animal, the moose, is harming the climate by emitting an estimated 2,100 kilos of carbon dioxide a year through its belching and farting.

I'm picturing a whole new chain of Moose-Fil-A restaurants, with cows and chickens urging everyone to "Save The Planet, Eat More Moose." Bullwinkle will not be happy.

Posted by Danny at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)

I spend a fair amount of my time here coming to the defense of blogs when journalists attack. Today a little role reversal is in order thanks to James Lewis at American Thinker, who in a rant against the press penned this gem about "The Media Mob":

Like other unaccountable elites, they are monumentally fickle, self-indulgent, snobbish, vain, vulgar, entitled, incestuous, arrogant, ignorant, unprincipled, hysterical, and demagogic. They sound like a unified chorus for the same reasons that street mobs run as a group -- because by and large, they don't dare to stand alone.

Were a journalist to write something like that about blogs, the blogosphere would be up in rhetorical arms, and rightfully so. Journalists should be no less furious when bloggers engage in such unhinged, stereotypical blather. It is especially bizarre to hear Lewis, whether rightly or wrongly, bashing the media as a "mob" when bloggers pride themselves on their ability to "swarm." There's no difference between the two behaviors.

Two columns in The Washington Post precipitated Lewis' insulting invective, but he didn't limit his criticism to just two journalists. Instead, he tarred the entire media with the same broad brush. That's exactly what journalists do to bloggers, and it's unfair in either direction.

Many of the same adjectives that Lewis hurled at journalists -- and plenty of others -- have been aimed at bloggers by journalists. This week's anti-blog screed in the Los Angeles Times is a perfect example. Here's a nugget from journalism professor Michael Skube that adopted a tone as derisive as Lewis' blog post:

One gets the uneasy sense that the blogosphere is a potpourri of opinion and little more. The opinions are occasionally informed, often tiresomely cranky and never in doubt. Skepticism, restraint, a willingness to suspect judgment and to put oneself in the background -- these would not seem to be a blogger's trademarks.

Skube's commentary undoubtedly is true of specific bloggers, but he clearly has contempt for the blogosphere as a whole. Ironically, Skube is now the legitimate subject of blogger scorn for engaging in shoddy journalism after admitting that he hadn't even read some of the specific blogs named in his piece.

Sometimes the outrage about both journalists and bloggers is warranted, and sometimes it's intentionally exaggerated to make a point. But too often, the criticisms cross the line into inexcusable bigotry. The critics become like the very people they revile.

It's just plain wrong to demean an entire segment of the media, whether old or new, based on the flaws of a few practioners within it. The modern media world would be a far better place if the converging interests would crank the cynicism and animosity down a notch or three.

Oh, how I wish Jay Rosen, a more enlightened journalism professor than Skube, had been right back in January 2005 when he said "Bloggers vs. Journalists Is Over." Alas, the rivalry is still going strong, and it has left both fighters with eyes swollen shut.

Posted by Danny at 11:18 AM | Comments (3)

As noted in Technology Daily yesterday afternoon

A liberal blogger has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against former Sen. Fred Thompson, the actor and unannounced Republican candidate for president, accusing him of violating election laws as he ponders his entry into the race.

AP reports that the blogger, Lane Hudson, submitted his complaint Monday, saying that Thompson has raised far more money than he needs to explore whether to run for president.

Federal law allows potential candidates to raise money to travel, conduct polls and pay for other expenses related to "testing the waters" for a political campaign but prohibits those doing so from hoarding the money for use during actual campaigns. As of last month, Thompson had raised nearly $3.5 million and had spent $625,000.

"We're following the law," a Thompson spokesman said. The FEC will give Thompson 15 days to respond to the complaint, which prompted coverage in The Washington Post. Hudson explains the reason for his complaint at News For The Left.

USA Today recapped the blogosphere's reactions, both pro and con, to the filing and noted Hudson's role in last year's online sex scandal involving former Rep. Tom Foley, R-Fla., and congressional pages. Other blog commentary is available at Blogs For Fred Thompson, Hot Air, Open Left, Outside The Beltway and Real Clear Politics.

The latest round of attention for Hudson prompted Colin Delany of techPresident to write, "Remind me to add 'file complaint against presidential candidate' to the list of tips for building blog traffic."

Posted by Danny at 10:03 AM | Comments (1)

[Cross-posted from Tech Daily Dose]

It's August. It's Friday. And I had some down time today. So I figured it might be fun to run a basic YouTube search on every top-tier presidential candidate just to see which videos about them would come up first.

Much was written during last year's elections about "Googlebombing" and manipulating the information that turns up in basic search queries for political candidates. I thought it would be a good exercise to see what would happen on YouTube when I punched in the top three Democrats and the top three Republicans in today's polls -- plus Fred Thompson, the steady-polling Republican "non-candidate."

As a general rule, the first videos, or group of videos, that come up for candidates on YouTube portray them negatively. Try it yourself. Search for Rudy Giuliani, and you'll find a video of him dressed in drag up top. Go fishing for Mitt Romney, and a video about his "flip-flopping" will be your first catch. If you're looking for John Edwards, you'll see him fixing his hair before you see him doing anything else.

Hillary Clinton's infamous spoof on "The Sopranos," which her campaign produced, leads her YouTube hit list. But it's immediately followed by the "Vote Different" spot produced by a Barack Obama supporter and a clip of her butchering the National Anthem. The first two Fred Thompson clips also are harmless. But they're right in front of video of him being angrily confronted by a group called Houston911Truth.

At first glance, it appears that John McCain gets better treatment on YouTube. His top video is a clip from his appearance on "Saturday Night Live," where he jokingly belted out a few Barbara Streisand tunes. But his second video documents contradictory statements he has made about the Iraq war and other issues. His fourth video shows him singing too -- but about bombing Iran.

There is one exception to the rule: Obama. Nearly every single video on the entire first page of an Obama search is one that he would be happy to have there. The very first video came straight from his campaign -- and spots made by his own team pretty much own the first few pages of an Obama search. On top of that, the independent videos that turn up are all, for the most part, glowing.

For now, it seems that YouTube is a much safer place for Obama than it is for any other presidential candidate. One might be inclined to say that would change if he handles another debate question like the one he took so much flak for at the CNN/YouTube forum in July. But judging from how deep that clip is buried in his search query, it looks like it would take a whole lot more than a single debate gaffe to put a dent into Obama's YouTube popularity. -- Michael Martinez

Posted by Andrew Noyes at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)

I've noted before the mistrust that top military leaders have of bloggers within their ranks. As it turns out, the bloggers appear to be less of a threat to national security than the brass in charge of Defense Department Web sites.

Wired News reports that audits performed by a special Army Web unit, and released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act, found 1,813 violations of "operational security" policy on 878 official military sites. But the 10-man unit discovered at most 28 breaches on 594 individual blogs.

"It's clear that official Army Web sites are the real security problem, not blogs," Wired quoted EFF staff attorney Marcia Hofmann as saying. "Bloggers, on the whole, have been very careful and conscientious. It's a pretty major disparity."

An Army spokesman said: One "factor that contributes to fewer violations being found on blogs is that in general the blogger is conscientious about their duty to not provide information that could be considered an [operational security] violation. Often these bloggers are stationed in the combat areas, and they more than anyone understand the importance of security and the potential impact any OPSEC violations could have on themselves and their fellow soldiers, airmen and Marines."

Posted by Danny at 06:59 AM | Comments (1)

A year ago, the Republican National Committee launched a foolhardy attack against Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and his "hate-filled blog Daily Kos." I said then that "I simply don't understand why the RNC thinks it necessary to demonize a blogger whom most voters don't know and whose influence is greatly exaggerated."

Now it looks like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican who is up for re-election in Kentucky next year, needs a similar admonition. In a new fundraising letter, he has attacked Ditch Mitch KY, a blog of far lesser renown than Daily Kos but of arguably greater significance in Kentucky politics.

"Liberals on the Internet have already created a Web site called Ditch Mitch," McConnell wrote, "and 6,000 radicals from across the nation have already signed up."

For campaigns only looking at the financial bottom line, such attacks might make sense. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, for instance, apparently raised a bundle of money in June when his campaign sent fundraising letters that attacked the press for obsessing over how much he spends on haircuts. But there are political costs to such attacks, too.

In Edwards' case, he kept the haircut story alive another day -- and it was a story that already had prompted Kos to criticize him. In McConnell's case, he gave an opposition blog more fuel to fan the anti-McConnell flame. That's something he doesn't need when a prominent Democrat like Kentucy Attorney General Greg Stumbo is considering a run against McConnell.

So candidates, think twice before attacking bloggers in your fundraising letters. Before you do, remember that old saying about not picking fights with people who buy ink by the barrel. Then wake up to the fact that no one has to put ink to expensive newsprint anymore to fight back. And remember that the bloggers you attack will be far more willing and even eager than any journalist to strike back -- and swarm.

Posted by Danny at 07:34 PM | Comments (0)

While writing my post about BlogPac's just-announced netroots innovation awards, I found an interesting tidbit on BlogPac's "About" page: Blogger Mike Stark, the "activist director" and expert on "guerilla activism" for the group, is proud to have been "beaten up" by aides to former Sen. George Allen.

There's one big problem with that line in Stark's bio: It didn't happen. Allen's campaign aides did wrestle Stark to the ground during an in-your-face encounter that Stark initiated with the Virginia Republican on the campaign trail last fall. But no punches were thrown, and Stark's "assault" complaint against the men who intervened was rejected by a state prosecutor.

The prosecutor, in fact, said "the balance of evidence reflects that no one sought to hurt anyone." That's a far cry from "beaten up."

Saying you were beaten up might seem like a bizarre way to embellish a resume, but Stark is clearly proud to be a bully. Dubbed a "George Allen stalker" by The Hotline's Blogometer in March, Stark tried his guerilla tactics again with Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters while at the Conservative Political Action Committee. Morrissey wouldn't play along -- but no punches were thrown then, either.

Posted by Danny at 10:58 AM | Comments (2)

BlogPac, a liberal organization that began as a tool to raise money for candidates and then turned its attention to policy debates like Social Security reform, has had a new mission over the past year-plus: improving online activism.

To that end, the group today announced six grants to "progressive entrepreneurs." Here are short descriptions of the winning projects (more details at BlogPac's site):

1) A Democratic official in Washington state will map every precinct in his state and provide information on how the precincts voted in key elections.

2) CandidateSource.com will "transcribe and catalog political content [both Democratic and Republican] found on video-sharing sites like YouTube, including stump speeches, debates and interviews." It will help bloggers and others compare candidate stances.

3) Black Agenda Report will use the money to bolster its finances and add book reviews to its weekly magazine, which "turns a critical eye on African-American institutions."

4) Blue Jersey will increase the salary of blogger Jay Lassiter to cover state politics and the state legislature, as well as pay an intern.

5) The seed money to Blogs United will help with the costs to incorporate the site, which bills itself as an organizing tool for local- and regional-oriented blogs.

The nearly $21,000 tab for the grants virtually wiped out the $26,000 BlogPac had in the bank, so now the group is asking its supporters to fork over more cash for future investments. In return for regular donations of $10 a month or more, contributors will get a voice in deciding where part of the money goes in future contests.

BlogPac also granted money to a sixth project, Soap Blox, through the 50-State Blog Network program. "Almost all of the more than 40 local blogs in the network operate on SoapBlox, and at BlogPac we would be remiss if we did not work to make sure that these local blogs are safe from malicious, online server attacks," BlogPac treasurer Chris Bowers wrote in explaining that award.

Posted by Danny at 09:06 AM | Comments (0)

A handful of new blogs, the most noteworthy being the one written by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, are worth a shout out here.

Both Bluey Blog and Daily Kos mentioned Leavitt's blog yesterday, and there's an item in The Hill this morning, complete with the obligatory MSM poke at the "icky" blogosphere.

Last week while I was on vacation, Rob Bluey also called attention to a new congressional blog being written by freshman Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and his press office. Based on what I've seen so far, though, it's not worth reading.

Like most congressional blogs, it's being used as a forum to regurgitate columns, press releases and the like. Bluey held out hopes that Walberg might make his blog into something like The Gavel, the vibrant blog produced by the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. If that happens, Walberg's blog will be worthwhile but not until then.

On the campaign front, meanwhile, John Randall, the e-press secretary at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, pointed me to new blogs by the campaigns of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.

There's also a new issue-oriented blog called Family Fragments. It is a production of the Lighted Candle Society, a nonprofit focused on sharing information about pornography and other issues that it deems a threat to society.

Posted by Danny at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)

I returned from a computer-free, weeklong family vacation to Chattanooga, Tenn., on Saturday and spent much of the the next three days reading e-mails, skimming blogs and the like. Here's what caught my attention during my time on the road and once back in the office early this week:

-- Speaking of Tennessee: The non-campaign of presidential might-wannabe Fred Thompson, a former Volunteer State senator, has hired another blogger, Sean Hackbarth of The American Mind. He joins bloggers Bill Beutler, Jon Henke and Howard Mortman, who are working for Thompson via their consulting firm New Media Strategies. (Hat tip to Rob Bluey.)

-- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama held a session with bloggers, and Garance Franke-Ruta of Tapped thought it worth noting that only one female quasi-blogger (not Franke-Ruta) was in the mix. That followed the Obama campaign's decision not to send a representative to a convention of female bloggers a week earlier.

-- Republican presidential candidates (save Mitt Romney, who remains mum on the issue) will participate in a CNN/YouTube debate after all. The date has been bumped from Sept. 17 to Nov. 28. That puts it right after Thanksgiving and just before winter. Let's hope CNN doesn't see that as an invitation for another snowman question.

Like Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, I truly hope this second attempt at online innovation in presidential debates is remembered more for substance than silliness, as happened with the Democratic debate -- but CNN will have a lot to say about that.

-- YouTube, meanwhile, has another innovation on its presidential page: a breakdown of candidate videos by issue. Plus see Slate's take on Web videos by Republican presidential candidates.

-- Following CNN's admirable lead, ABC and NBC agreed to provide easy access to footage of the presidential debates they host. That will be a great boon to bloggers and others online who want to comment on select portions of the debates. A Pajamas Media blogger, meanwhile, thinks there should be fewer debates with fewer candidates.

-- North Carolina blogger Ed Cone snagged an interview with Elizabeth Edwards, and her candid comments about husband John not being able to benefit in the Democratic presidential race by being black (Obama) or female (Hillary Clinton) caused a bit of an online stir. Cone later tried to put the controversial quote in context.

-- Conservative California blogger Jon Fleischman of Flash Report has increased his online stature in recent weeks with his coverage of a budget standoff in the Golden State.

-- Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga reviles the moderate Democratic Leadership Council -- or at least he did before he went of "Meet The Press" on Sunday to debate DLC chief Harold Ford. Now Kos is sounding less hostile and more hopeful. The Ford-Kos encounter on the air also generated plenty of commentary on the right side of the blogosphere. Michelle Malkin has a roundup.

-- The group blog techPresident has been named as a finalist for an award in journalistic innovation.

-- Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society is looking for a media fellow to conduct research on the citizen media landscape. It pays $48,000 a year plus benefits.

-- Google News is experimenting with reader comments.

-- My first job in journalism was as the obituary writer for The Tampa Tribune in Florida, so I was interested to read the story about an honest obit about a boy's accidental death by drugs. The blogosphere is a great place for powerful, personal obits, which is why I briefly published a blog called the Carnival of Tribute dedicated to showcasing such writing. Alas, I just don't have time for it these days.

Posted by Danny at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)

As reported in yesterday's "People Column" in Technology Daily

A U.S. district judge late last month issued a ruling that fined online strategist and MyDD blog founder Jerome Armstrong nearly $30,000 for securities violations.

Armstrong agreed to the judgment without admitting or denying the allegations in the Securities and Exchange Commission complaint against Sierra Brokerage Services. The SEC complaint filed April 14, 2003, alleges that Armstrong touted the stock of BluePoint Linux Software by posting favorable buy recommendations on the Raging Bull Web site starting in March 2000.

Armstrong allegedly posted 80 unsubstantiated recommendations during the first three weeks that BluePoint stock was publicly traded. The SEC contends that BluePoint promoters were secretly transferring stock in three other companies to Armstrong at prices below market value and that he made $20,000 when he sold that stock.

The complaint says Armstrong did not disclose he was being paid when he made the stock recommendations.

Posted by Danny at 07:42 AM | Comments (2)

Reprinted from the Aug. 6 PM Edition of Technology Daily

Some labor advocates say the blogosphere deserves entry into organized labor, as e-writers increasingly face the same workforce issues as freelance writers in the print world.

Jonathan Tasini, executive director of the Labor Research Association and a former president of the National Writers Union, said on Monday that bloggers "could in fact" join the writers union."

Organizing writers is really no different than organizing bloggers," said Tasini, who was invited to speak about a union for bloggers at the YearlyKos Convention late last week. "It should be easy to organize this group at one level because you can reach people in a relatively low-cost way; you can design a survey and post it on a variety of Web sites."

He suggested that bloggers from every genre get together -- "and I mean that metaphorically" -- and create an online survey containing the points raised at the YearlyKos Convention and circulate it through the blogosphere. The topics broached at the panel ranged from professional support -- such as obtaining credentials to cover Congress -- to economic concerns, like getting paid, and legal issues surrounding digital rights.

In Tasini v. The New York Times, the writers' union successfully sued The New York Times Company, Newsday, Time, Lexis/Nexis, and University Microfilms, for copyright violation regarding the electronic re-use of work produced and sold on a freelance basis. "That's an example of something that a collection of people might face that they couldn't confront alone," Tasini said.

"My personal opinion is that any blogger should be part of this union," Tasini added. With access to health insurance and getting paid, "there is no difference between someone who blogs on gardening versus someone who blogs on the presidential election."

Tasini noted a lot of enthusiasm among the 25 or so attendees of last Thursday's session at the YearlyKos Convention. "Now, the question is, is that core going to follow through?"

Panel speaker John Erhardt, managing editor of the Colorado political blog Squarestate.net, said in an interview that when a class of workers has "no benefits and gets paid nothing or slightly more than that for work they so obviously excel at ... how can we not form an organization to change the standards of living for the very vital work?"

Thursday's session was meant to figure out the best structure for organizing bloggers nationally and locally, he said, adding, "I don't know which would work better, directly joining the NWU, setting up something similar but specialized, or forming an organization that is not affiliated with a traditional labor union."

Erhardt likened unionizing to the practice of blogging. "[It] must be done in a manner that's productive," he said. "If we just keep talking, we've done nothing. That's the point about blogging. It's just one tool in an activist's arsenal for political change. It works well, but only when combined with traditional organizing, block-walking, fundraising and other general community efforts."

However, Erhardt would prefer the organization not set blogger standards, as "there's no place for me to say how a blogger should write his piece."

Posted by Danny at 12:07 PM | Comments (0)

Reprinted from last week's "State Roundup" in Technology Daily

Republican lawmakers in Michigan took heat this week over their decision to block state Senate computers from a liberal blog.

State Senate Republican leaders moved to restrict access to Blogging for Michigan, a liberal blog where their Democratic colleagues recently began contributing in a series of guest posts on a variety of issues. Access to the blog was restored after Democrats accused their rivals of limiting free speech.

In a statement, GOP State Senate Majority Leader Michael Bishop said that even though he agreed to no longer filter the blog, he still feels it is inappropriate for Senate employees to read it on public computers. He has called for a full review into the state Senate's acceptable use policies for the Internet.

"These blogs are of questionable content and employees who are paid to conduct the business of the people of Michigan should not be interacting with them during business hours," he said. "Senate Democrats seem intent on making this a debate on censorship and their right to view questionable political content during business hours."

State Senate Democratic leader Mark Schauer earlier in the week accused Bishop and his colleagues of trying to silence Blogging for Michigan. In a letter to Bishop, Schauer said that blogging is a legitimate way for lawmakers to interact with constituents and that the content on Blogging for Michigan was wholly appropriate for Senate employees to read on the job.

"Unfortunately, the seemingly evolving explanation from your staff as to the reasons for the censorship and the insinuation that further blogs may be targeted -- particularly ones that 'say bad things about you' as reported in one news story -- is cause for grave concern," he wrote.

Christine Barry, who runs Blogging for Michigan, also accused Republicans of pursuing bad public policy with respect to blogging. In a Wednesday post, she wrote that blogging is an innovative tool that helps lawmakers to communicate with their constituents.

"We need to get away from this idea that blogging is a waste of taxpayer time," she wrote "Sure, if you blog about your cat, that's probably not relevant to a senator's job. But [Blogging for Michigan] is not a blog about cats. It's a blog about Michigan policy and politics. That's what a senator's job is about."

A similar controversy erupted last year in Kentucky, when state employees were blocked from the liberal blog BluegrassReport. The author of that blog, who managed the 2003 gubernatorial campaign of now-Rep. Ben Chandler, a Democrat, accused the administration of GOP Gov. Ernie Fletcher of censoring the blogger for political reasons. He sued Fletcher's office in federal court and his lawsuit, which has been supported by the watchdog group Public Citizen, is still pending.

Posted by Danny at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

Want to know how divided Washington is? Look no further than the back-and-forth accusations of Democratic-imposed chaos and "martial law" and Republican "obstructionism."

Sounds to me like everyone needs a nice long break. I know I do. I'm taking a much-needed, computer-free break and don't expect to post again here for 10 days or so.

Posted by Danny at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

The Daily Kos community is reveling in the political and media spotlight in Chicago for the next few days, but for folks who couldn't make it, Beltway Blogroll is the next best place to be -- for today anyway. I start vacation tomorrow, so you'll have to get your weekend dose of YearlyKos from somewhere else.

Here's plenty of news and commentary about the event to keep you busy for now, though:
-- Netroots Event Becomes Democrats' Other National Convention (The Washington Post)
-- YearlyKos Forum A Magnet For Bloggers, Pols (The Chicago Tribune)
-- 1,500 Bloggers Flex Here (Chicago Sun-Times)
-- Cyberactivists Are A Must-See For Candidates (U.S. News & World Report)
-- Political Pariahs (Time)

-- Blog Convention Hails A Political Revolution (Denver Post)
-- Netroots Activists Carry Political Weight (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
-- The Vast Left-Wing Establishment (National Review)
-- The New Bosses Congregate At YearlyKos (MoJo Blog, plus more on the Democrats' ground game for 2008 and the Democratic message)
-- YearlyKos Draws Democratic Leaders (The Huffington Post, plus more about the blogosphere's coming of age)

-- Kos Revels In The Limelight (CongressBlog)
-- Kos: 'We Are The Center' (Pajamas Media)
-- Howard Dean Wows The Crowd At Kos (techPresident, plus more here and here)
-- Clinton And The Bloggers (The Caucus, plus more at Americablog and by Marc Ambinder)
-- YearlyKos Does Foreign Policy (The Washington Note)
-- YearlyKos Day 1.5 (TalkLeft)
-- The Press Lives Off Politics, Kossacks Live For It (PressThink)

Posted by Danny at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

Sen. Christopher Dodd and Fox News talk-show host Bill O'Reilly clashed on the air last night about whether the liberal blog Daily Kos, the subject of a celebration in Chicago this weekend, is a "hate site." O'Reilly said yes; Dodd countered that O'Reilly is unfairly tarnishing a huge online community by highlighting the random misdeeds of a few users.

The video of the encounter is going viral through the blogosphere as I write. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and his friends said Dodd crushed O'Reilly; conservative blogger Michelle Malkin said O'Reilly "shredded" Dodd. Dodd's campaign also claimed victory.

It's the blogosphere's equivalent of the spin room after a presidential debate!

Watch the video (below), read the account in The Hartford Courant, and decide for yourself. As Fox News' motto says, "We report. You decide."

Posted by Danny at 09:10 AM | Comments (1)

The media have converged on Chicago for the second annual YearlyKos Convention that began today, and tens of thousands of words are bound to be written about the event before everyone leaves town after the weekend.

But where were all the journalists a week ago when the BlogHer conference was held in the same locale? That's what Jennifer Pozner, the founder and executive director of Women in Media and News, wants to know. She thinks America's great female bloggers deserve as much attention as the "blustering A-list boys of the 'netroots.'"

"If many believe that blogging is a primarily male sport, it is partially because old-school gender disparities in resource allocation, power and popularity long entrenched in traditional news media are replicating themselves online," Pozner wrote in an article for the Women's Media Center.

"In the blogosphere, young men -- mostly white and mostly economically comfortable -- link to, write about, promote and fund their buddies' blogs; and corporate media play star-makers, quoting, profiling and featuring the punditry of this New Boys Network."

Posted by Danny at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)

An excerpt from the remarks that Open Left blogger Chris Bowers delivered this morning at the YearlyKos convention in Chicago:

Another way campaigns, organizations and political committees can fund the blogosphere is to actually hire bloggers to conduct netroots and blogosphere outreach on their behalf. While this can be somewhat more high-risk, and familiarizing yourself with the blogger's writing is probably a good idea before making any hires, it is another useful way to directly provide funding to progressive bloggers.

As I can tell you from my experience as a netroots and blogosphere consultant for both campaigns and advocacy organizations alike, this would not even be charity. Many organizations and campaigns are unsure of how to connect to the blogosphere and the netroots, and who knows this emerging field better than bloggers themselves?

Posted by Danny at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)

As noted in Technology Daily this morning

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved a bill designed to shield journalists, including bloggers, from federal prosecution for protecting confidential sources.

CongressDaily and News.com report that the bill was approved by voice vote, despite numerous complaints that its definition of who is a journalist and exactly what protections would be available still need work.

The bill states that federal prosecutors may not compel testimony from journalists unless a crime has been committed, to prevent terrorism or or protect national security, or if prosecutors prove that the "public interest" in disclosure is greater than in disseminating news."

Posted by Danny at 09:28 AM | Comments (0)

More than 1,000 economists opposed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act when it was enacted in 1930 because they feared the economic impact. The economists of that era didn't have blogs, so their gripes were heard only through a petition that ran in The New York Times.

Now a new generation of economists (1,028 of them, the same as in 1930) is worried about U.S. protectionist chatter aimed at China. Today, led by The Club For Growth, they voiced their concerns in a petition that was published it in The Wall Street Journal. But the economists also have blogs and they're not afraid to use them.

Club blogger Andy Roth has been tracking their commentary all day. Click these links to see what following economists have to say about the issue: Daniel Drezner; Arnold Kling; Larry Kudlow; Don Luskin; and Greg Mankiw, a former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors;

The prominently placed petition, and perhaps the blogging as well, already have had an impact. At last count, Roth put the number of economists who support the petition at 146.

Max Sawicky of the Economic Policy Institute, on the other hand, has been knocking names off the list. And Brad DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said "this Club For Growth petition is bad juju."

Plus the people with votes in Congress don't appear to be listening to the petitioning economists any more today than they did in 1930. CongressDaily reported this afternoon that the Senate Banking Committee voted 17-4 to give the administration more tools to pressure China to let its yuan rise in value.

Posted by Danny at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

The federal bureaucracy isn't known for consistency in anything, and that includes its approach to the blogosphere. Hence the mixed messages about blogs as media being sent by agencies like the CIA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The CIA took the view that bloggers are journalists, too, when it recently decided to waive the fees for Freedom of Information Act requests filed by bloggers. Professional journalists have long been exempt from the printing costs associated with fulfilling FOIA requests, but citizen journalists pose a conundrum for a system that charges citizens and not journalists.

GovExec.com reported earlier this month that the CIA decided to err on the side of inclusiveness when adopting new FOIA fee rules. It embraced a broad defininition of "news media" drafted by the White House in 1987 in an attempt to encompass emerging technologies like blogs.

ABC's The Blotter noted that the CIA's move may not change much in practice because the bulk of its information is classified.

But Stop The ACLU offered this thought: "What I like is not that much that the CIA has extended its FOIA privileges to bloggers but that it sets a precedent for other governmental agencies, organizations and institutions."

Recent news involving the ATF, on the other hand, shows that some bureaucrats are hostile to the idea of citizen journalism. The agency has been investigating Red's Trading Post in Twin Falls, Idaho, for firearms violations, and the manager of the shop, Ryan Horsley, has been blogging about the investigation. On a recent ATF visit, a supporter of Horsley's took some photographs of the ATF in action.

That didn't sit well with the agency, so it complained about the episodes in a filing with the U.S. district court in Idaho. ATF said the person at Red's taking photos with a digital camera "did not have any affiliation with any newspaper or news agency" and argued that "instantaneous entries on Mr. Horsley's blog created a safety concern for the inspectors."

The ATF quoted a "recent posting" -- an anonymous comment, actually, and Horsley removed it -- that said ATF agents are "a band of jack-booted, counterdicting, lying, lowlife criminals that should be hung from the nearest tree and left there until their flesh rotts [sic] off."

Blogs that are critical of ATF defended Horsley and the rights of other bloggers to document ATF activities.

"I repeat my call for a rapid-response team of 'minuteman' volunteers to make themselves available via a phone tree to go to gun stores being audited, and audit/document/photograph the auditors," David Codrea wrote at The War On Guns. "Don't let creatures of the shadows hide there -- expose them to the light and make them live there -- or cravenly slink back under the baseboards where they belong."

Posted by Danny at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

Malaysia's ruling government isn't too keen on opposition bloggers speaking their mind in the blogosphere and recently started a crackdown against allegedly false and malicious rumors online. Critics of the policy think it should apply to government leaders, too, and one has put that theory to the test.

The International Herald Tribune reports that government opponent Ronnie Liu has filed a complaint against Malaysian Prime Minister Ahmad Badawi over a two-year-old Internet article. Liu said the article is seditious because it contains racially inflammatory comments -- the standard the government is using to attack bloggers.

"There shouldn't be double standards," Liu told AP. "... I'm not interested to see the prime minister charged. It's just very unfair and unreasonable to take action against [bloggers]" like political writer Raja Petra Kamarudin and Nathaniel Tan, webmaster for the opposition People's Action Party.

Posted by Danny at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)

George Washington University law professor and blawger Daniel Solove has been keeping a census of colleagues who blog. His latest count puts the number at 365, up from 306 in October.

Solove said he has decided to provide updates only once a year going forward, rather than twice a year as in the past, because "the law professor blogosphere has stabilized sufficiently."

The survey has details about growth, gender of the blawgers, the schools where they work, and links to their bios and blogs. It's a great resource.

Posted by Danny at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)