Category: Media & Journalism

SvD editorial blog a sandbox for free market think-tank Timbro

Svenska Dagbladet’s editorial blog PJ Just Nu, is turning out to be a sandbox for liberal think-tank Timbro. Yesterday I mentioned the Timbro connections between PJ Anders Linder and the first three blogs he recommends. In today’s paper Svenska Dagbladet comments on yesterday’s succesful blog launch and quotes two people. Who? Timbro thinkers Dick Erixon and Johan Norberg of course.

On the blog today Linder “debunks” Morgan Spurlocks film Supersize me and gets support from Waldemar Ingdahl, president of Swedish think-tank Eudoxa. Ingdahl who by coincidence also has published a book at Timbro.

Both Eudoxa and Timbro are part of International Policy Network. IPN’s main mission is to “support and help establish international, rightwing thinktanks, to organise conferences and campaigns, and to write articles promoting its agenda.”

Also, read this review of Eudoxa’s political connections by Michael H. Chung, Senior Fellow at Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, University of Washington.

IOC video clip policy

Streaming video from the Olympics have been much debated. This FAQ from Swedish Television shows yet another example of IOC’s goofy control policies:

According to IOC rules, in order to view video clips you must:

> You must have Windows 98 SE or a newer version.

> You must have Windows Media Player version 9 installed.

> Your computer must allow cookies.

> You must register with username and password of your own choice, and a valid email address. Then you must log in using this information when you want to watch the clips. Registration is only necessary the first time you want to watch a clip.

> Your bandwitdh must be faster than 100 kbps. A bandwidth test of your connection will be performed.

> Your computer must be located within the Eurovision-area. An IP-test and control of your system clock will be performed to establish your time zone.

Observ that your registration is personal! You cannot send video clips to another computer. Illegitimate use of video clips will result in us blocking your VPN, Proxy and IP-address for use of streaming without notice.

Ouch!

Journalist wants press releases via RSS instead of email

Dan Gillmor of San Jose Mercury News compares emails from PR people to spam. He now asks to get press releases via RSS feeds instead of email to get rid of untargeted pitches:

“I think the press release page of a company’s site should have its own RSS feed. PR people will have a better shot at having journalists like me read their headlines if they do this.”

“The beauty of RSS is that nobody can force an RSS feed down your throat,” says Gillmor. “If there is somebody putting garbage into your feed — you can just delete it. RSS is totally opt-in — you have to want it to get it,” he explains. “I use it to keep track of many blogs and new sites, and a few smart companies such as Cisco and Microsoft are increasingly employing RSS to make PR materials available.”

Micro Persuasion has the details.

As I have mentioned before, there are only a few companies in Sweden that have started using RSS feeds for press releases. IBM and Karolinska Institutet are among the pioneers.

Accusations of plagiarism at Dagens Nyheter

I mentioned earlier an article in Axess about blogs as media watchdogs. Here is a brilliant example, maybe the most ambitious of its kind in Sweden so far. Since it is in English I thought I would share the link.

Stockholm Spectator accuses Dagens Nyheter of plagiarism and claim that a reporter have copied at least four articles from the New York Times without giving the original author or the paper any credit. The full story here is quite interesting and contains correspondence between The Spectator and the editor of DN Kultur (DN Culture). The story is now spreading across the blogosphere and it doesn’t seem that DN are willing to do a media culpa, which leads me to believe that we haven’t heard the end of it yet. To be continued.

Link via Erik Stattin.

Nordic media blog coverage slow in June

Nordic media wrote most articles about blogs in January (76) and March (78), about twice the amount of the other months. June had the lowest number of articles so far this year (31).

Disclaimer: search is for articles in the respective language which means that articles in Swedish published by Finnish papers (like Hufvudstadsbladet) is counted in the stats for Sweden.

Newsweek about participatory journalism

MSNBC Newsweek writes about Korean Ohmynews.com and participatory journalism as the future of journalism. Ohmynews employs 25 trained reporters who cover the major news stories of the day, and 33,000 “citizen journalists” who posts stories on the site.

Newsweek writes that founder Oh Yeon Ho’s belief that ‘every citizen is a reporter’ has changed journalism in South Korea—and now he’s aiming for the world.

Oh Yeon Ho says about participatory journalism: “Technology itself cannot change society. Korean citizens were ready to participate. Only prepared people, who can use the merits of technology, can make a difference.”

Link via Donata.