From Muckrakers To Buckrakers

Three decades after their reporting led to President Nixon's resignation, the pair have sold their notebooks and other materials from the Watergate years to the University of Texas at Austin. They asked for -- and received -- five-million bucks for the sale. And so they have added to one of journalism's finest moments a new and sleazy chapter.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for journalists making money. But there's something about this particular transaction that doesn't sit right, and I wish that "Woodstein" hadn't done it.
· Watergate [Tompaine]

Born to Party Ecstasy accused ran corporate parties

Two of the four men charged over Australia's biggest ecstasy seizure yesterday are executives of a public relations company that organises corporate parties where they take care of everything.
· Taglia [SMH]

Media Snob Journalism

We in the news business have many problems: a declining appetite for news among the young; a breakdown between news and entertainment values; public mistrust over our power and objectivity. But now we have a new problem or, rather, a new nuisance: Lee Bollinger.
Bollinger's vision amounts to snob journalism: journalism by an elite for an elite. He believes that most journalists should be credentialed by universities -- a graduate process he suggests should be lengthened from one to two years. Journalism, he says, should be seen (and should see itself) as a profession' -- presumably like law, medicine, accounting or architecture. These are bad ideas that, if adopted, would reduce journalism's relevance and raise public mistrust. They might also worsen journalism's central problem: loss of audience.
· Snobs [WashingtonPost ]

Velvet President

Like Bill Clinton, Václav Havel is a product of the ’60s. Unlike Clinton, he inhaled. And his aversion to cant has made him the Orwell of our age...
· Why Vaclav Havel is our era’s George Orwell and more [Reason]

eBooks The 10,000th eBook at Fictionwise

Congratulation to Fictionwise for its ever growing ebooks collection
· NonFiction [FictionWise]

Internet Queensland Government's eBooks

eBook is Half Price than the Printed Book
Read them on your computer, or a pocket PC. Try this exciting new technology for yourself. We now have seven of our own titles in eBook format, as well as several from other publishers. eBooks are generally cheaper than the paper version - ours are half the price (Awesome pricing strategy!)- so now you can buy twice as many titles, and there's no freight to pay.
· Creative Queensland [DPI]

NOT IN MY BACK YARD
· Assylumn [OD ]

Journalism Dayparting More Popular on Newspaper Sites

If you visit azcentral.com after 6 p.m. MST, you'll find a racier, more entertainment-driven home page, with hard news corralled into a small holding pen. It's part of The Arizona Republic's rollout of azcentral@night, a far funkier version of the paper's daytime Web site. The goal of the Republic, and a growing number of other newspapers, is to boost their audiences at night, when their Web servers get pretty lonely.
· Drawing Nocturnal Visitors With Focus on Fun [EditorPublisher ]

Testing

Films Reality Film (AKADocumentaries) Making Comeback

Filmmaker Michael Moore's huge success with "Bowling for Columbine" has "energized nonfiction filmmakers and piqued moviegoers' curiosity about fare drawn from real life, and encouraged distributors to put more documentaries into theaters. But this doesn't mean his style of documentary - sar- donic, polemical, and propelled as much by his own ego as the cause he's fighting for - will now dominate the field.
· Donic [CSMonitor]

I'm a strong believer that all your lows are also your highs ... that the things that happen to you which are most awful are often the things you learn most from.
--Hugo Weaving

Obituaries CNN

APRIL 16--While all news organizations prepare obituaries in advance of the deaths of famous individuals, the folks at CNN inadvertently gave the Internet-surfing public a chance to preview how the network's web site would note the demise of Vice President Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan, and a few other prominent figures.
· Fame [SmokinGun ]

Exiled Journalists Gather in London

In a recent seminar offered by the UK RAM Project
Refugees, Asylum-Seekers, and Mass Media, 35 exiled journalists compared notes on how to continue their work from abroad. Not surprisingly, the Internet is a key tool for these journalists -- but it's not always affordable for journalists who mustflee their native lands with few resources. See this article from journalism.co.uk. It's a wake-up call for journalists who take free speech for granted.

Diary Of Work With Ex-Prisoners

Nearly two years ago, Gara LaMarche, OSI vice president and director of U.S. Programs, spent a four-month sabbatical volunteering at the Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC), a community-based organization located just a few blocks away from his home in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. LaMarche focused on FAC's Developing Justice Program—a project supported by OSI that provides assistance to people recently released from jail, helping them reintegrate into their communities.
· Sabbatical [Philanthropy ]