From David Carr comes welcome news to all of us who care about the magazine trade, long-form journalism, etc.: Esquire magazine is thriving.
Way to go, David Granger!
G.P.S. and Y-O-U
By Chris Daly
Phew!
The Supreme Court (finally) got one right today. Ruling in a critical case that involves (among other things) your freedom to control who knows what about you, the Court said the police do not have the right to sneak into (or under) your car to plant a secret GPS device so they can track your every move, for as long as they want. It was a unanimous ruling, no less, which is a rarity these days.
Here is the ruling.
Here, for the record, is the Fourth Amendment (always worth brushing up on), plus the Wiki page.
Filed under Uncategorized
Ban the NCAA (cont.)
Can this happen fast enough?
My only quarrel with Joe Nocera, who is doing some good reporting on this issue, is that I think he just wants to reform the NCAA, when the real answer is staring him in the face: Ban intercollegiate sports.
Here’s my question: What educational goal does the NCAA advance?
Answer: ______________?
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For the record
To read the full Supreme Court decision in the foreign-copyright case (Golan v. Holder), go here.
Be sure to read the dissent by Justice Breyer, which kicks in after page 41. He alone on the court seems to get that the Constitution recognized copyright as a mechanism to provide for the general benefit of society and not to create a property right for certain individuals.
May some future court come around to that understanding.
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A media roundup
By Chris Daly
–First, let’s pause a moment and let this sink in: Eastman Kodak has filed for bankruptcy protection.
This is the company that ruled photography in the 20th Century, the company that made photography a popular activity, and the company that really enabled photojournalism by making cheap portable cameras as well as flexible, lightweight film.
–Second, the chips are falling in the online piracy dispute. Regrettably, this issue appears to be turning into a shouting match. For all the advocates of “freedom,” the question remains: What about stealing the work of creative people? To be continued. . .
–Coincidentally, there was also a little-noticed SCOTUS ruling yesterday on copyright. Now, while I favor granting copyright to make sure that content-generators get paid for their work, I have to wonder how much sense it makes to impose new copyright restrictions on the work of dead foreigners. The purpose of the U.S. copyright law is to encourage creative output by giving Americans an economic incentive to write, compose, paint, etc. Putting new restrictions on “Peter and the Wolf” is not going to bring any new work out of Prokofiev (no matter how much his heirs may rake in). This, too, is not the answer.
–Who knew that Twitter had all these features? (I should have but didn’t.)
–Finally, the gift (to media reporters) that keeps on giving: The Murdoch Hacking Scandal. Jude Law is smiling today because he is among three dozen victims of phone hacking by Murdoch reporters who have extracted “settlements” (i.e., payoffs) from Murdoch’s News Intl. The “nut graf”:
The apparent admission of a cover-up seemed likely to add to the challenges facing Mr. Murdoch in Britain. News International, the British subsidiary of News Corporation said it would not immediately comment, Reuters reported.
Andrew Cowie/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Filed under business, First Amendment, Journalism, media, Supreme Court
Romney coverage
By Chris Daly
I am trying to resist the temptation to pile on Mitt Romney (Oh, all right: I am not trying very hard!).
When journalists assess his claims to be a job-creator through his work at Bain Capital, they need to dig a little. The important issue, of course, is whether Bain was a net job creator.
Take one case: Understandably, Romney is fond of citing his role in launching the office supply superstore chain Staples. His campaign boasts that Staples “created” 90,000 jobs (and sometimes 100,000 jobs). That may be true, although journalists should still check it. But even if true, it is not the whole story. Staples is what is sometimes called a “category killer.” That means that its success depends on — or at least results in — the elimination of a whole category of existing businesses. In the Staples case, the rise of all those superstores did not occur in a vacuum. Their growth came at the expense of many, many little mom&pop stationers that used to occupy storefronts in many downtown areas. Those independent small businesses are now almost completely gone from the American scene.
It’s the same process you see with Home Depot. As they grow, there go the little, local hardware stores that used to be everywhere. Same with WalMart and other “category killers.”
So, the question that journalists should pursue about Romney is: how many jobs were left after Staples wiped out the category known as the independent stationer?
Particularly in a party that venerates small businesses, that is a question that should have some political salience.
The sorcerer’s apprentice?
By Chris Daly
I don’t usually take frankly partisan positions in this blog, and I will try not to do that here, even in the midst of the Iowa caucus-ing.
What struck me in the last few days was the lament of Newt Gingrich about the flamethrower approach of the Romney camp, which has bombarded Gingrich with negative TV ads. For a Republican to complain about unrestricted negative campaigning is more than a bit rich. It’s like Dr. Frankenstein complaining about his monster.
Questions for the media to keep in mind:
1. Who elevated the dark art of negative campaigning to its highest level?
[Hint: Lee Atwater, Karl Rove. . .]
2. Who thought is was a good idea to allow unrestricted spending on political ads?
[Hint: Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy.]
In other words, the answer to both questions is REPUBLICANS. To the best of my knowledge, no mainstream media accounts of this election have mentioned this factual matter of background. I would say that reporters and editors should give this some thought. How will the media address this reality? Will journalists explain the factual history of the issue? Will they try to find a way to neutralize or offset it? Will television station owners in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and elsewhere reject those ads? Will the media interpret non-partisanship to mean that they must look the other way?
To be continued. . .
[Illustration of the Goethe figure the Sorcerer’s Apprentice by S. Barth, via Wikimedia]
Filed under broadcasting, First Amendment, Journalism, Politics
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.
Filed under Uncategorized
Terror or fear?
By Chris Daly
Is Tarek Mehanna a miserable loser who does not appreciate the blessings of America?
Maybe.
Is Tarek Mehanna a terrorist?
Almost certainly not.
Today, a federal jury in Boston found otherwise. But no matter how hard I try in looking at the reports of the prosecution’s case, I could not find convincing evidence of any actions taken by Mehanna that come close to terrorism.
I certainly don’t find anything he did that should prompt the rest of us to set aside the Constitution and say this man is so dangerous that we need to suspend our precious rights of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.
Mehanna had a first-rate defense, provided by attorney Jay Carney, whom I have covered in other high-profile cases and whom I admire. The problem here is not that Mehanna couldn’t find a good lawyer. The problem is that a dozen of our neighbors appear to have chosen some definition of safety over almost any definition of freedom.
This feels like a bad day for the Constitution.
[Apologies: I would normally post a photo here, and I would make a decent effort to caption and credit it. But I am writing this post on the desktop in my BU office, which is owned by the university. The i.t. folks at BU have apparently put some filter on here that makes it impossible to upload jpeg files. And, of course, they don’t tell us that they have done so, or why. Arrgghh.]
Filed under First Amendment
Ban the header (cont.)
By Chris Daly
Today’s Times carries in the print edition an incremental piece about the cranial dangers of heading the ball in soccer.
The upshot:
The researchers found, according to data they presented at aRadiological Society of North America meeting last month, that the players who had headed the ball more than about 1,100 times in the previous 12 months showed significant loss of white matter in parts of their brains involved with memory, attention and the processing of visual information, compared with players who had headed the ball fewer times. (White matter is the brain’s communication wiring, the axons and other structures that relay messages between neurons.)
Next, I’d like to see a study that teases apart the difference between heading a ball that has traveled 60-70 yards versus one that has just popped up from a nearby kick or missed trap.
At the end of a piece is a paragraph that I would nominate for keeping, just so we can look back it years from now and shake our heads (gently, of course):
“No one is suggesting that heading should be outlawed,” she concludes. But science and common sense both indicate that “it’s almost certainly not a good idea to practice heading over and over and over.”
No one is suggesting that heading should be outlawed? Not true. I am.
[As so often happens, I found this image online and cannot figure out who deserves the photo credit. If you took it, let me know.]
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