Sunday, February 13, 2005



Thank you one and all for making me this week #440 on the Blogstreet and some high profile journos acknowledging my links at Technorati Blogs are like bras, a good one never lets you down!
Jay Rosen said it in Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over: "A blog, you see, is a little First Amendment machine."

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Absence of Malice
It is not hard to feel sympathetic toward Superior Court judge Ernest Murphy ...

The US Supreme Court, in its landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, raised the bar to an extraordinarily high level for any such person to sue for libel successfully. The court ruled that a public official must prove "actual malice" — a legal term that means Murphy must convince the 12-member jury that the Herald and its lead reporter, Dave Wedge, went to press with articles that they knew were false, or that they acted with "reckless disregard" for whether those articles were true or false. Such a standard, Justice William Brennan wrote in the Times decision, is necessary to ensure that "debate on public issues" remains "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open," even to the point of including "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."


• The Boston Phoenix explains the difference between a newspaper being wrong about a public figure and being libelous [Remembrances of Arthur Miller ; Add Your Name to the Tribute to Doug Engelbart ]
• · Scoop: Access to Public Records; Is there a legacy of which CNN's Eason Jordan and his counterparts should be proud?
• · · Salam Pax takes to the streets of war-ravaged Iraq Baghdad blogger switches to the camera
; How insane. It’s a world where, on the one hand, we drownourselves in tears of regret about a meaningless destruction of human communities (tsunami) while remaining a party to the deliberate destruction of others (Iraq War) Phillip Adams in the Magazine 12-13 February
• · · · A newspaper editor has become the third person to admit lying to the NSW watchdog's inquiry into corruption at Strathfield council. Surprise, surprise ...Editor lied over bribe tape he didn't think was a story ; A former media adviser to federal Liberal MP Barry Haase is seeking restraining orders against the member for Kalgoorlie and his wife. Mr Haase and his wife, Dallas, have been summonsed to appear in the Perth Magistrates Court on Monday to respond to applications for misconduct restraining orders lodged by Natasha Mutch Too Much Attention
• · · · · There is an element of irony when a so-called 'homeless hacker' is sentenced to home detention Doing time for cyber crime ; Rather than bringing users closer together, the increasing array of telecommunications available today may have made it harder to "get in touch Dating and dumping via email
• · · · · · Going into the 2004 election cycle, just about everyone said the Internet was going to change politics. But no one was sure how. Now we know Blogosphere politics; In a lengthy, wide-ranging interview with E&P today, former White House reporter Jeff Gannon, whose real name is James D. Guckert, revealed that, contrary to many media reports, he has not been subpoenaed in the Valerie Plame/CIA case. I haven't been this psyched since the sequel to Political Assassination on the Sussex Street