Month: August 2004

A colleague who knows a Canadian athlete writes to tell me that the athlete has been told there is no blogging once you're at the Olympics and staying in Olympic village. Apparently it's against the “media rules” there. Anyone have any more info on this? What are the rules? How are they enforced? What are the sanctions?

At the Federal Court of Canada, Canada's record industry failed miserably to convince a judge of its view of the world when it comes to sharing music files over the Internet. Privately, many lawyers who witnessed the proceedings said they were not surprised to see the judge hand the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) such a crushing legal defeat given the odd and under-prepared case CRIA presented to the court.
CRIA has appealed the Federal Court's decision to the Federal Court of Appeal.
Perhaps in an attempt to avoid a second legal rout on appeal, Canada's software publishers and movie and film distributors asked the Federal Court of Appeal if it could join in the proceedings and present its own arguments which, presumably, would support CRIA's case.
The Honourable Justice John Evans, however, said no, saying “the appelants [CRIA], respondents and intervener are well placed to argue [the merits of copyright law] and the proposed interveners are unlikely to bring a different perspective on them that will assist the Court.”
Obviously, Mr. Justice Evans didn't see CRIA in action in front of the Federal Court, where Justice Konrad von Finckenstein had to remind CRIA's lawyers that they could not stand in front of him and tell him what was going on; they were supposed to call witnesses and experts to explain the world to the court.

Patricia D'Souza, who edits This Magazine writes in with this clip from the Nunatsiaq News, which chronicles a worrisome development in Iqaluit:

August 6, 2004 – Nunatsiaq News
Nunavut Tourism fires web-logging staffer
Dismissal follows complaint from anonymous local resident
A Nunavut Tourism marketing officer was fired last month after a local resident complained about a web site she ran in her spare time.
Penny Cholmondeley, known on the Internet as “Polar Penny,” was surprised to learn on July 18 that she was being fired because of the online journal, or web log, she had kept since her arrival in Iqaluit in January.
The web log, or “blog,” was easily found by typing the words “Polar Penny”into a search engine, and often topped search engine lists generated by people looking up a local business in Iqaluit, or for photos of Frobisher Bay.
During the six months she lived in Iqaluit, Cholmondeley regularly updated the site with details about life in the North, including photographs, anecdotes, and what she thought were personal opinions, including food and restaurant reviews.
Cholmondeley was baffled when executive director Maureen Bundgaard said that she had received an anonymous complaint from someone in town, and that she had to let Cholmondeley go, just before the end of her six month probation period.
Without warning, and with no chance to amend or take down the site, Cholmondeley was fired from Nunavut Tourism at the height of Nunavut's tourist season.
When contacted this week, Bundgaard declined to comment on the dismissal.
Cholmondeley says she never intended to associate Nunavut Tourism with a web site she perceived as strictly personal. “I'm kind of stunned.”
But the problem was that the web site, all about Cholmondeley, clearly states the reason that Chomondeley came to the North – to work for Nunavut Tourism.
—snipped—
Cholmondeley started the web log years ago as a place where she could write about the events in her life. In fact, she used her blog as an example of her writing when she applied for the job with Nunavut Tourism, and had talked about the site at work.
The site was mainly intended as a diary for her friends and family, and to document “what it's like to move here from Edmonton or Vancouver,” where she lived before coming to Iqaluit.
“Ninety per cent of the hits to my site are from my mom,” she says.
But people who were looking on the Web for information about Iqaluit were also using Cholmondeley's site.
Cholmondeley voluntarily removed the site from the Internet at the request of her former employer, and is treating the experience as a lesson learned.
“I don't think people making web logs realize that they can get fired.”
On July 26, Cholmondeley caught a flight to Nanaimo, B.C. where she plans to look for a new job. In a few weeks, Polar Penny will become Pacific Penny.

[Read the full story]
Roland Tanglao has some comments on this item.

The day after spending nearly 12 hours listening to a lot of smart people try and situate blogging into some sort of journalism tradition, it was a refreshing to read a post today from Tyler Cowen, one half of the economist duo that write the blog Marginal Revolution. Cowen writes in praise of a new book by Adam Sisman which chronicles James Boswell's writing of the life of Samuel Johnson.
Cowen suggests — and I agree — that in describing Boswell, Sisman is describing the prototype of a form of writer which would not appear for another 200 years — the blogger.
Here is Sisman on Boswell, as quoted by Cowen:

Boswell's plain, direct prose was easy to read, and appealed to twentieth-century readers as [Samuel] Johnson's mannered, classical style never could. Moreover, Boswell's interest in himself, which seemed so peculiar to his contemporaries, was very much more acceptable two centuries later. Indeed, Boswell seemed to offer a unique combination: a writer who poured the contents of his mind freely into his journal, without either embarrassment or knowingness…

Later Sisman says Boswell, “also set new scholarly standards; his verification of every possible detail, which seemed so eccentric to his contemporaries, would become the norm. In doing what he did, he relied mainly on instinct, his sense of what would serve his purpose best.”
To which Cowen comments: “And like many bloggers, Boswell often got in trouble for writing up his private conversations with others.”

I've been moderating a conference all day that looks at participatory journalism, blogs, new media, and the relationship of news consumers to news producers — a big grab bag of too much stuff to cram in to a six-hour session. Conference participants — I'd say there's about 100 or so from around North America — are in various break-out groups right now, giving the moderator a chance to jot down some notes and provide some links.
The conference is organized by Leonard Witt and the Public Journalism Network, with financial help from the Canadian Newspaper Association.
Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News gave a quick tour of new publishing tools, new gadgets for collecting, receiving and transmitting information, and some new ways for news to get produced and consumed. Speaking about RFIDs, Dan said: “Not only will every person have a story, but every object will have a story.”
Len Witt spoke about the “ethical transformation” gripping Big Media.
Warren Kinsella said he believes that blogs may soon be swallowed, legitimized and neutered by Big Media in the same way that punk rock (about which he's writing a book) was subsumed by pop culture. Jay Rosen disagreed and gave us a neat blow-by-blow of his days blogging the Democratic National Convention.
Jan Schaffer, the director of the J-Lab at the University of Maryland said participatory journalism is more than just blogging. In fact, she said she's not a big fan of blogs. She spoke about building entry points — digital or otherwise — for a journalism organization. That idea seems to be close to the newspaper page designer's idea of 'entry points' on a page, i.e. give a reader several opportunities on each page of the paper to stop and get into it. That's why a page has photos, briefs, long stories and short stories — several points for a reader to stop a minute and read something. Jan says those entry points are the key to participatory journalism.
Jeff Jarvis raced through his presentation and spoke about the idea that the next generation of j-school grads can be enterpreneurs? But I say do we really want journalist-entrepreneurs? I like the idea that, in my newsrooms, there is a division of labour. It lets me focus on the journalism part of my business and not tech support or sales or the other stuff that lets me tell stories.
Neil Heinen, who runs a TV station in Madison Wisconsin, says public journalism is still town hall meetings and face-to-face stuff. “We're still out there dragging the candidates to the citizens”.
Mary Lou Fulton gave us a rundown on The Northwest Voice, a community paper in Bakersfield, Calif. for which the online component is a vital and central component, not an adjunct to the print version.
Others here blogged the day so far. Some pointers to them:

• Joey DeVilla
• Jeff Jarvis
• Leonard Witt
• Warren Kinsella
• David Janes
• Hossein Derakhshan (Hodder)

Back to work today after a couple of weeks of remaining relatively unwired. Our family spent some time at a couple of Ontario's provincial parks. Nice time. Back to a very full inbox with some items that look worth a blog entry, including updates on the legal jockeying in the Canadian Recording Industry Association's fight against Internet file swappers; a new Canadian supercomputer; VC financing for Canada's broadband fixed wireless stuff and more.
Today, I'll be busy moderating a conference which explores journalism and blogging. Looks like a terrific attendees list.