EdCone.com

Yes!, the new Greensboro weekly, runs a comment from this blog in its letters column, which is cool, they say where it came from, and it's about a story they wrote, so that's all good and innovative and networked and stuff, but maybe they should call that column something like "Feedback" instead of Letters to Editor if they are going to run feedback that doesn't come as a letter to the editor.

Meanwhile, Patrick Eakes is proofreading the alt-weekly and not even charging them for his work. Maybe he should. Last week the new paper misspelled the name of JP's David Stonecipher several times (and did so in an article that showed limited understanding of what's actually going on at the company).

I'm told a website is on the way next month. In the meantime a blog would spice up the placeholder site they're running...

Final complaint: while this week's movie review of The Aviator is given some fresh relevance by the Oscar nominations, Yes! seems to be writing about movies in some kind of time warp. The Aviator opened a month ago in Greensboro and was getting national reviews in early December. Give us something timely, or a fresh take on familiar material.

I was interested in the story about Greensboro-based National Council on Bible Curriculum, although even that was mostly a recap of familiar news from Michigan and offered little info on the Council and its curriculum.

Am I being too picky?

As the N&R's Lorraine Ahearn continues her fine reporting on substandard housing in Greensboro, Lowana Currington writes at Barber Shop Blog about a local public housing project, Claremont Homes. "Who wants to come home knowing that your child can't even enjoy playing outside because of the drug dealers surrounding the neighborhood or the bullets flying pass your front door from gun fights?  Who wants to come home knowing that you really don't have any privacy in your own home because the maintenance man has the key to your apartment and can walk in at any time? Who wants to come home to an apartment that has walls that looks like a prison on the inside? I mean, who really wants to live like that? There are no carpets, no washers or dryers. The kitchens need improvement. The bathrooms need improvement..." (via Greensboro is Talking)

ACC Hoops: "Have you heard? Duke's 15-0."

More awards: The Broken Gates. Hmm. Have you ever seen Keith Holliday and Barry Bostwick in the same room?

Forget those Oscar nominations -- Eric Muller is up for a Koufax Award for his careful debunking of Michelle Malkin's book, In Defense of Internment.

N&R sports forums for area college programs.

One of the nicest things I can imagine saying about a person is that he was a good neighbor.

Jon Sims was a good neighbor. He died this morning at his home, next to which we moved a dozen years ago.

Jon was an ad man. He spent years at big agencies in New York before moving to North Carolina, where he worked for several firms, including Long Haymes Carr in Winston-Salem. He was an idea guy, someone who could relate to people but see the business angle too -- but despite the hours we spent in his driveway talking about our intertwined professions, that isn't really who Jon was to me.

He was a friend, a confidant, an advisor on grass-seed and a fixer of hot-water heaters and a lender of tools, a raconteur and voice of experience and encouraging counselor. Jon was 61 when he died, a half-generation older than I am; his youngest son, my friend Charlie, is a half-generation younger. Sometimes I felt like a bridge between them, and sometimes more like a middle child. Jon was a constant and reassuring presence for our own kids, who are incredulous that he is so quickly gone.

Jon was the husband of Pat, father of Andrew, Holly, and Charlie, a grandad and father-in-law and decent damn human being who deserved better than a wildfire bout with cancer and an early grave.

Good fences may make good neighbors, and certainly Jon respected the invisible line between his domain and ours, but it was a line we crossed frequently and with pleasure.

Rest in peace, my friend.

An article on the Rhino Times from blogger Mark Tapscott (via Greensboro101).

I've always thought the Rhino was clever to position itself as an editorial competitor to the N&R, while operating as a business in the free-weekly market. Willy is right that the N&R's blogs and town square give it a new editorial voice to compete with the Rhino, which I've cited here before as the most blog-like of print pubs, but where he sees validation for his paper I see danger. A sharp, personal N&R, and the online alt-media evolving from the cumulative output of local independent bloggers, diminish the Rhino's uniqueness.

Of course, a vibrant online community would also send a lot of traffic and attention the Rhino's way...if the Rhino had a web presence that didn't come straight out of an episode of VH1's I Love the '90s.

Meanwhile, the areas where the Rhino does compete with the N&R for business are among those most vulnerable to competition from the web, including classified ads and real estate ads. The looming danger goes far beyond some aggregated blog media and the N&R. Craig's List is a disruptive agent that threatens local papers, large and small. When it gets to Greensboro, publications that haven't prepared for it in some way could be in a world of hurt.

I said yesterday that the Rhino business model might be safe for a while, but complacency is a killer. They may not need to start blogging tomorrow --  entertaining and beneficial to the local blogworld as that would be, it may not have a short-term business benefit -- but they ignore this stuff at their peril.

Tie Social Security benefits to gender and race? Perhaps this bad idea fits into some clever master strategy to sell Social Security reform to the public by making the eventual proposal look better by comparison.

Atrios: "blogging's great, but get over yourselves."

Related, from Pandagon: "How dumb do you have to be to declare that you're reporting something faster than the people you're getting reports from?"

Chris Nolan says Kos is a journalist when it suits him.

Maybe we need to broaden the definition of journalist. Things are getting complicated, and I'm not sure the old categories can hold. Say GSO councilman Tom Phillips goes to a national convention of City Council members, then reports on it at his weblog -- should he have worn a press pass that day?

N&R adds some public forums to its website. And then adds some more.

NYT on the growth of online advertising: "(N)ews and information sites, long thought to be dot-gone relics of 1999, are making a big comeback in 2005."

Media companies are buying web businesses "not just because of the growing online ad business but because, like Dow Jones, they are worried that their current Web sites will not be able to keep up with demand."

The article by Eric Dash quotes Larry S. Kramer, a founder and chief executive of the MarketWatch site just purchased by Dow Jones after a bidding war with three rivals: "The existing old-line media companies, which have a big stake in where people advertise, have to recognize this medium...it's not just revenue they are going to pick up. It's revenue they are going to lose."

Political Strategy is a blog co-authored by UNC Greensboro prof Bonnie Yarbrough that is "dedicated to providing political strategies, ideas and tactics for local progressive campaigns," and to "daily analysis, critique and exposure of current events."

Andrew Sullivan in the NYT book review, on the scandal and investigation of Abu Ghraib: "I confess to finding this transparency both comforting and chilling...Comforting because only a country that is still free would allow such airing of blood-soaked laundry. Chilling because the crimes committed strike so deeply at the core of what a free country is supposed to mean."

Read the whole thing.

The making of a sensationalistic subhed in the Times mag: blame the Internet!

For its cover article The Making of a Molester, the magazine asks if the Internet "allowed Roy to go from being a seemingly normal man to a man who could solicit sex from a 12-year-old?"

Um, no?

I read the article. I was duly horrified. But when I got to the part where Roy goes all pervy, there was nothing to suggest that the Internet had ANYTHING AT ALL to do with his sickness. 

Yes, he spied on his stepdaughter's IM conversations, and propositioned her online. But so what? This guy started getting his sick thoughts on the beach, or perhaps long before. He would have been listening to her phone calls and approaching her in the hallway if he wasn't wired. The Internet is a bogeyman trotted out to spice up the tale, but (in this case) without context.

Cheap shot, NYT.

Bob Cox: "(T)he Conference on Blogging, Journalism & Credibility went off better than many particpants - including this one - had any right to expect and was not the presumptious snobfest that critics had labeled it before the gathering had even convened."

His post, Faith Without Works, lists some action items that he'd like to see come out of the conference.

There was a huge contrast between what was projected onto BloJoCredCon and what it actually was. It was predicted to be a political rally for the left -- except by those who said it tilted to the right. It was foretold as an academic wankfest; a star chamber pronouncing ethics for the blogosphere; a sellout to corporate media; useless; devoid of "real" bloggers, etc.

Why the hostility? Some possible reasons: resentment over an invitation-only conference about a subject that is open to all; the absence of [your favorite blogger here]; the added elitism perceived in the location; the inability of some on both left and right to look at anything through a non-ideological lens.

I thought all along that what we had was a good chance for bloggers, including blogging journalists, and others involved in grassroots media to share some of what we've learned with big media folks and with academics who could help propagate this knowledge. Harvard was a draw that meant people like Jill Abramson and Rick Kaplan would attend. That's pretty much what we got, although the flow of information involved many cross-currents, not US lecturing THEM.

Was it perfect? Of course not. But it was pretty damn good.

I look at myself and see a horse's ass. You may agree with that statement already, but let me explain...there was much talk at BloJoCredCon about the divide between "pure" bloggers and pro journalists. As someone who finds it natural to be both a professional writer/reporter and a blogger, that tension seems odd to me. So I started thinking about centaurs, to them I guess it would feel normal to be hybrids, despite the strange looks they might get from both humans and horses, and that's when it struck me...

Michael Christopher, shortly after his father's funeral: "In his dresser the other day I found the composition I wrote for my Master's Thesis along with the recording of it which I completed over 30 years ago. This was so like him. He never told me how important that was to him, he just kept it close to himself for 30 years."

Jim Capo had an interesting conversation about blogs with Rhino Times publisher Willy Hammer.

Willy misses some key points about blogging, but I'm not sure his lack of understanding is a threat to his business at the conservative alt-weekly as much as it is a governor on its potential growth.

First, Willy has some facts wrong, and generalizes his way to inaccuracy. Contrary to what he says, there are many blogs with substantial numbers of readers, some that make their owners tidy incomes, and many that offer serious reporting and commentary. Willy falls into the I-don't-want-to-read-about-your-cat trap, dismissing a universe of millions of bloggers because some of them write personal journals.

Second -- and this is even more important, because undeniable empirical evidence will correct the misperceptions noted above -- part of the value of blogging lies in exactly the aspect he sees as its weakness: the blog as hub of a tiny community. But small communities are valuable, the people in them care deeply about the church or kids soccer team or, yes, the cats involved. To compare these communities to mass-market media is to miss the point. And to ignore the possible economic value of these tiny sites when aggregated is to write off an enormous potential market.

Small communities and individual perspectives can help mass media by providing them more information, more sources, more references and links, than they could possibly generate alone. At Harvard on Friday, MSNBC president Rick Kaplan said blogs help improve ratings for his programs, and New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson -- not undefensive, but not uncurious -- listened to the amen chorus singing. As Jay Rosen puts it, "the forces of denial are in retreat."

If you accept the proposition that more people will continue to get more of their news and information over the web -- and I think that's a safe bet -- then the economic models for local web advertising will surely develop. The smart local publishers will figure out ways to tap into this online market.

But given the nature of Willy's business, this online market isn't necessarily a direct threat to his revenue, at least for a long while.

As long as people want a free paper to read during lunch, and crave a sharp local perspective on the news, the Rhino will have an audience, and advertisers will pursue that market. When they build monitors into the tables of restaurants and it's safe to spill soy sauce on them, then he might be in trouble.

The Rhino is a family-owned business, and they have their hands full managing the expansion into Charlotte. They may be wise to go slowly on the web.

But looked at another way, Willy is confining the growth of his business if he ignores the web. Paper and printing and distribution cost a lot, and he's writing off a potential high-margin business that could build on what he's already accomplished. What's more, he's ignoring the voices of a community that could give the paper story ideas, publicity, eyes and ears everyhere.....

For the moment at least, Willy can get away with being proudly parochial and self-limiting. The paper that made it's name by being local and opinionated is saying it will ignore publications that are local and opinionated. How long can that last?

UPDATE: More from Chewie, Ben, Hoggard, and TheShu. Interesting -- no flames, no defensiveness, some agreement with Willy on certain points: the calm response of those (including me) who have fresh memories of learning the lessons Willy will soon learn, and who bear him not ill will but good wishes as the future undoes his conventional wisdom.

The Front Pew, a new News & Record blog about "faith, religion and matters of the spirit," is up and running. I think that church blogs and personal blogs about faith will be really fertile ground for local conversation -- we already have a handful. Writer Nancy McLaughlin should have no shortage of sites to link to and comment on.

It took Jeff Jarvis longer to get home to Jersey by train that it took me to get home by air via a significant percentage of the USAirways route map...I don't know where Dan Gillmor ended up...

"President Bush talks about an ownership society. Social Security is a proven means of ensuring that every American has an irrevocable share in that society."

My newspaper column is about fixing Social Security without breaking it in the process.

The Social Security system is not in crisis, but the Bush administration wants you to think it is so you will be open to the idea of reforming it, and even though it's not in crisis the idea of fixing it before it breaks is a good one, although the fixes likely to be proposed by the Bush administration are not necessarily the right fixes to make.

Got that? It may be the simplest sentence you read on the subject this year. But bear with me, this is important stuff, so let's get out our John Madden telestrator and go through it in slo-mo.

Read the whole thing after the jump.

Home. I cut out a little early to beat the snow, USAirways routed me through DC, over which we circled in thick clouds for a hellish eternity before being told that National was closed and we were off to Pittsburgh to refuel; there I deplaned and got on another flight to GSO, a tiny prop plane that bounced around a bit but got me here and I must say that USAirways people were friendly and helpful and watching the news it looks like I was pretty lucky on a sorry travel day along the east coast.

Interesting day in a room full of smart people. More tk. Time for a drink and some dinner...

...but first, I posted some email about the conference. I didn't identify the writer, but now he has outed himself as Hugh Hewitt. And he's mad that I posted his email without asking him.

But I said it was for publication in my original query, and in the follow-up (which is included in the post) I make it clear that I'm asking as a blogger and journalist.

So I am a little confused. In general, when someone sends you a query asking for public comment and you don't want your reply to be public, you should say so.

I certainly didn't mean to betray a confidence, or disrespect a private communication, which I would never knowingly do to anyone -- source, colleague, friend or stranger. I apologize to Hugh for the misunderstanding. And if he wants me to delete the post, I will.

If it makes Hugh feel any better, they were giving out copies of his book at the conference today.

UPDATE: Hugh graciously accepts my apology for the misunderstanding, and says the matter is closed.

Frigid temps in Boston. Single digits. Fortunately this conference is right across the street from my hotel. Yesterday was not bad, though, I had a nice walk through snowy Harvard Yard and a mildly excessive evening involving oysters and martinis with my old Haverford buddy Rob, who is apparently some sort of digital marketing muckety-muck by day but still his old self at other times.

The BizJournal continues to own the story of the meltdown at Bostic Construction. Big company, big names, big problems. But not of interest to other local media, apparently.

Sam Hieb covers last night's Guilford County commissioners meeting. So does the N&R s Matt Williams. Hard to believe they were in the same room -- two interesting reports, on very different things. Combined, the newspaper and the weblog provide a lot more info than either one alone.

Hieb follows the work of Rhino Times reporter Scott Yost, who is digging into the legality of the termination agreement between the Board of Health and former County Health Director Ramesh Krishnaraj, who began his term by getting arrested for DWI and ended it with a deal that Yost says was at best inadequately vetted. (Unfortunately the Rhino doesn't post its articles until Monday.)

Yost: "(T)he money is being paid out based on a contract that was never voted on by the Board of Health...some -- and probably all -- of the members of the current Board of Health didn't even know the agreement existed until it was reported in The Rhino."

One very well-known conservative blogger (not Glenn Reynolds, who as a friend of this page might be a prime suspect) emails in response to my request for comment on BloJoCred Con: "It is a hopelessly biased group of center-left academics/journalists who are once again getting overwhelmed by the marketplace."

I emailed back: "What a curious response."

He said: "Curious?  I don't think any serious academic would mail in an univited paper/statement, or invite debate over his or her position when he or she wasn't in attendance.  I have done a lot of conferences in my day, and have never heard of such a thing.  The group is a non-representative collection of academics/journalists talking about a new media dominated by the center-right.  I think it is curious that you would find my response curious."

And I replied: "I was thinking as a blogger and a journalist, not an academic, of which I am not one.

"I see this as a conference at Harvard, not an academic confab, and I see it
as a chance for a handful of bloggers who get journalism and journos who get blogging (not a definitive list, just a few of us) to explain this real slow
to the journos who don't get it yet.

"I think Dan Gillmor, Jay Rosen, and Jeff Jarvis understand and represent the confluence of blogging and journalism pretty well. Dave Winer gets it. I
think I get it, and I've got a perspective (local blogging in NC) that will
be news to many in this crowd.

"In terms of the politics of those on the conference list, the lefties are
screaming that there's no Kos, Atrios, Marshall et al. I don't know that
politics is the lens through which I'd focus this conversation -- although
some here might. Not sure I agree that the new media is 'dominated' by the center-right.

"I guess I'll know more tomorrow."

Which is now today.

John Robinson sends some thoughts on BloJoCredCon:

It befuddles me to some extent. Part of me wants to say: All the debate that is going on in the blogosphere about this conference is off base.

As far as this editor of a small daily can tell, the discussion of whether to blog or not blog, whether to adopt open source journalism or to maintain a gatekeeper role is moot. The gates have been breached and no amount of workers are going to rebuild them. The only viable option for a news organization that values its readers time and tendencies is to go online, solicit and encourage citizen journalism, and enable the process in which citizens get the information they need to govern themselves, to paraphrase Bill Kovach.

How? Tell the truth, be independent, be transparent, tell the truth, put your readers needs first, be proportional, tell the truth, and monitor the powerful. I didn't make that up, of course. It's common journalistic parlance that I think Kovach and Rosenstiel articulated. (I don't have the book by my side here.) Do bloggers do that? My observation is that some do and some don't, just like some traditional newspaper journalists do and don't. (Don't get me started on broadcast journalists.)

So, where does that leave us. You open the doors and talk to readers. They, in fact, know more than we do. I listen to the conversations around me when I'm outside of the newsroom. Do they talk about the inauguration? Hell, no. They talk about their children being transferred from Aycock to Lincoln Middle School. Do they talk about cancer now edging out heart attacks as the No. 1 killer? For God's sakes, no. They talk about their daughter's soccer game, the new coffee shop downtown, the best pizza in town (uh, I stole that from your wife). Imagine if they talked with the newspaper -- and by newspaper, I mean all of the platforms we use -- about that. Think of the value of a newspaper that talks to readers, listens to readers, lets readers in the door to tell other readers that, dammit, the best pizza is at Vito's and, by the way, did you know that Terry Grier is interviewing in Dallas? That here's is this interesting plan to develop the north end of downtown? That here's the story of an American GI from Greensboro who was almost killed in Iraq, in his own words.

News is a conversation, not a lecture. My readers know more than I do. Journalism is a function; blogging is a form.

Look, we're going to continue to pay staff members to "cover the community," to monitor the powerful, to give voice to the voiceless, to shine light in dark place, to do all those things that people like me got into the business to do. That's journalism. That's giving citizens the information they need to self-govern. Readers are smart enough to believe us. If we're good, if we blog wisely, if we let readers in the door and help us, if we tell their stories and let them tell their stories, they will trust us. It's all good.

Everything else is BS.

Chris Nolan sends some thoughts on BloJoCredCon:

There's certainly a great deal of irony - intentional or not - in Ed Cone's so graciously asking me to comment for this conference on credibility and journalism. And, as I hinted in my long web site post on this issue, given what The New York Times would undoubtedly be tempted to call  "a career both colorful and controversial" I write with no small sense of trepidation.

See, my professional credibility within the business has never been very secure. As far as establishment journalism is concerned, I've done a pretty good job racking up the demerits.

As a "gossip columnist" during Silicon Valley's bubble, there was a lot of silly blather about how I did my job, the main allegation being that I relied on eavesdropping at parties to get my stories. Oh, that it were that easy! Getting into what can charitably be called a knock-down, drag-out fight with my former employer didn't help burnish my image. Nor did an affiliation with the much-maligned but thoroughly read New York Post. There have been few more painful interchanges than the one I had with a national business editor who told me that hiring me would be "like stepping on a rake." Or another who said that his big East Coast paper probably wouldn't welcome "the kind of reporting you like to do."

Well, the kind of reporting I like to do includes a regular delivery of hard news scoops, ranging from Conde Nast's purchase of Wired magazine to the heavy lifting that led to banker Frank Quattrone's indictment for obstruction of justice. If you know my work, you know I am credible.

That's why I see conferences like the one being held at Harvard as somewhat beside the point. Look, the newsroom has left the building. Fact gathering - which leads to fact-checking - can now be an individual undertaking. So can news judgment. Readers can judge us - please forgive my use of the plural - the way we judge ourselves. Only better.

Never shy about public self-reflection, Big Media seems to be searching for ways to reassure themselves that "those people" on the web aren't gaining on them. But they are, of course. Why else would so many popular bloggers feel they could skip this conference? Because they already have credibility. And they have it where it counts. With their readers. They earn it every day, with every post. Site meters - not editors - tell us how well we're doing.

In this new world, it doesn't matter where you work. It matters what you say and how you say it. That's why I call what I do "stand alone journalism." Those of us who chose to use the inexpensive tools available to us on the World Wide Web will live or die by our professional skills, our judgment and our readers' often harsh opinions of what we're doing and how we're doing it. They evaluate our work on its merits, not on our affiliations and as tough and brutal as this sounds, there will be more and more of us every day.

If WZTK did start running Air America, where would they put the show(s)?

I like Brad and Britt, it's great to have a local program on the air. After that it's a mixed bag at best.

The ones I'd can immediately are Clark Howard, an audio dishrag, and Jim Cramer, who brays like a donkey and makes me change the station even if he's about to tell me something I want to hear. Maybe their shows are full of useful info, I'm not listening to find out.

I can listen to small doses of Boortz, although his sneering tone grates quickly, because he's a talented radio guy and I like to disagree with the radio sometimes. Savage is a freak show and a self-parody, not even worth reacting to most of the time. 

Mitch Albom is like the light jazz they play on the weekends -- hard to get worked up about, impossible to defend -- and Alan Colmes, well, bless his heart.

So there you go, lots of places to run something different like AA.

Please?

Glenn Reynolds: "Not many people, forced to choose between SpongeBob Squarepants and James Dobson, are going to pick Dobson."

Ya think?

James Wolcott agrees.

I asked Oliver Willis about blogging, journalism, and credibility. O-dub, currently making sure that a Fox News moment gets the Ashlee Simpson/Jon Stewart treatment on the Web, said this: "In an ideal world, truth would win out and credibility would be the stock we all trade in in the information universe. That is sadly not the case. Journalism is broken and blogging at least keeps some sort  of checks and balances in place, but neither venue is a bastion of credibility."

Michael Christopher: "He was a blessing to many loved by most but to me he was simply my Dad. I miss him already."

Blog swarming, the next thing in citizens' media?

Also in the Wall Street Journal, three letters on the Kos/MyDD/Dean flap, under the headline "Bloggers Wander Into Ethics Swamp" -- where, presumably, the bloggers meet the nice folks from the Wall Street Journal.

The first letter lauds the Journal for reporting this "scandal," the second (from Corinne A. Marasco of Alexandria, VA) explains clearly why this episode is different from the Armstrong Williams case, and the third (from Peter M. Bennett of Louisville) mocks Zephyr Teachout for trying to teach ethics to bloggers, concluding, "she should start with the racists, Holocaust deniers and child pornographers, and leave our political free speakers alone."

Wall Street Journal: "Radio's Bush-Bashing Air America is Back in Fighting Form" (subscription only).

WSJ reports that Air America is on the air in 45 markets, including DC, and should soon be back in LA -- on a Clear Channel station, no less.

"It's a remarkable feat for a network that was nearly give up for dead," says the Journal.

Ratings won't be out til later in January. "But local research and anecdotal evidence indicate that the network is gaining traction." It's the fourth most-popular Webcast, too.

AA president Jon Swinton says the net is "expects" to be profitable.

Wouldn't it be great to hear some of it on WZTK, which runs some pretty sorry stuff beyond Brad and Britt?

Trot, trot to Boston...see you there.

"What the generals don't know." In the New Yorker, Dan Baum writes about the new model US military emerging in Iraq. Gen X officers who grew up with the Internet are changing the game.

"Platoon and company commanders were exercising their initiative to the point of occasional genius. Whatever else the Iraq war is doing to American power and prestige, it is producing the creative and flexible junior officers that the Armyís training could not."

More: "The younger officers...grew up with the Internet, and have created for themselves, in their spare time, a means of sharing with one another, online, information that the Army does not control. The 'slackers' in the junior-officer corps are turning out to be just what the Army needs in the chaos of Iraq. Instead of looking up to the Army for instructions, they are teaching themselves how to fight the war. The Army, to its credit, stays out of their way."

A fascinating story, clear-eyed about the realities of this war but also about American initiative and the technology that is helping to enable it.

Read the whole thing.

Elon names architects for its new law school in downtown GSO. I hope the demolition work mentioned in the release preserves the modern facade and the wonderful atrium and staircase of the old library building designed by Greensboro's own Ed Lowenstein.

UNC Greensboro announces a new research institute at its school of music. Very interesting. But I can't find a word about it at the UNCG website.

Scott Rosenberg continues the conversation about links with a reply to Atrios: "Different bloggers will do different things here, and their choices will affect their credibility. Those choices will also, to be sure, affect how widely they're read. There's a reason Matt Drudge has such an unmatched record for high page views and low trust!"

More from Atrios here.

Jon BonnÈ: "Journalism is a function; blogging is a form."

Kos unveils a subscription plan. Same content, just no ads.

Ali, the former Iraq the Model blogger quoted in Sarah Boxer's NYT article, responds at his new site: "The article was, despite Ms Boxer's kindness, a bad piece of journalism. I had around 45 minutes long phone call with the reporter about my journey with Iraq the Model, my new site, the elections, the general situation here in Baghdad but she (or the paper) seems to have a certain agenda and managed to change the whole issue into a very silly gossip (going as far as quoting trolls!) that is way beneath any respectable paper and certainly beneath me so I won't give it more attention but lesson learned and I won't make the mistake of talking to anyone from the NY times again."

(Thanks to Michael in SC for the tip.)

Kevin Drum: "School districts are free to stop teaching science if they want, but if they do teach it, they have to teach Darwinism just as much as they have to teach Newtonian mechanics, Boyle's law, and the theory of relativity."

Instapundit agrees.

Poynter's Bill Mitchell interviews John Robinson about the N&R's online initiative.

JR says he learned from local bloggers -- pay attention, that's a pro admitting he can learn from bloggers -- and that "Eventually, I think every reporter on staff will have a blog."

More JR: "(W)hen you can say 'Yes' to readers, then, by all means, open up the gate!"

And: "Business plan? We don't need no stinkin' business plan! We're a bunch of journalists doing this, and we're approaching it that way."

Mitchell: "What's different about the News & Record approach is the extent to which the paper is discussing its plans before any conclusions have been reached, exposing its internal decision-making to competitors and customers alike."

Read the whole thing.

Part Deux of my podcast interview at Audio Activism.

Part one is here.

I had an interesting conversation about weblogs this morning with some folks from Moses Cone Health System. Companies and other organizations are recognizing the power of distributed publishing on the web.

The big healthcare system is just considering blogs, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them move ahead and learn by doing on chosen initiatives. The folks I met with all got it. Doug Allred does public relations, Dawn Martin does internal communications, and Tommye Morrison does website development. Lightbulbs were lighting over heads, including mine, as we talked about internal and external uses of blogs at the 7,400-employee system. Newsletters. Media relations. Patient education. Departmental hubs. And so on.

These folks are pros, they grasped the potential problems quickly, too.

Blogging is contagious, and it's breaking out all over Greensboro.