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Archive for May, 2008

Have You Read Helen Thomas Lately?

Published by William Beutler on May 29, 2008 in Journalism, Journalism History, Newspaper Columnists, Newspapers and William Beutler. 4 Comments

Helen Thomas via Baratunde on Flickr.Of course not. I certainly haven’t. I’m willing to put a good sum on the wager that no one I know has ever read one of her opinion columns. And I’d even bet that no more than two commenters will appear on this blog to claim they have read more than one column since she ceased being a UPI reporter in 2000 and started writing this Hearst column that you’ve never seen. (Yes, I’m hedging my bets. Anonymous commenters are liable to claim anything.)

Maybe this isn’t surprising: she’s famous for her longevity and cantankerousness more than any story she covered during her very, very long career in Washington. But in another way, it is surprising: after all, she is perhaps the most famous and most permanent White House correspondent. I don’t mean to pick on an old lady, but I think that her admirers and detractors can both agree that she makes news for what she says, not what she writes.

So, where would you even go to find her column? Good question!

The Hearst Corporation may have fallen in stature somewhat since Xanadu… er, I mean Hearst Castle played host to debaucherous parties involving nubile young starlets in the early days of Hollywood, but the company remains one of the biggest newspaper (and other media) holding companies in the United States (for whatever that’s worth).

In order to find Thomas’ column, I thought I’d visit some Hearst-owned newspaper websites. What I found wasn’t encouraging. On some of the smaller newspapers’ sites, the opinion/commentary sections may as well be abandoned. But at its three largest papers — the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News — there was no Thomas to be found. At smaller, still important newspapers such as the Albany Times-Union, there are numerous local columnists as well as nationally syndicated columnists such as Ellen Goodman and Kathleen Parker. But no Thomas.

To find Helen Thomas’ allegedly-syndicated column — which may well run in the print edition of some of these papers — you have to consult the Oracle of Mountain View. The top result is for TheBostonChannel.com, the website of WCBV-TV — a television station owned by subsidiary Hearst-Argyle. And if you go digging further, you can find her column at websites such as WBAL-TV in Baltimore and KCRA-TV in Sacramento.

So, if you care to read them, there they are. But as I said, I don’t mean to pick on an old lady. I think I’ll leave that to Jon Chait*.

P.S. With apologies to the Ford Motor Company.

* Or I would, except it seems the article has been removed from the web, and is not available on any public website that I can find. Hmm. If Blog P.I. disappears from the web, now you’ll know why.

Helen Thomas photograph via Baratunde on Flickr.

Let’s Just Admit Slatecard is the Republican ActBlue

Published by William Beutler on May 26, 2008 in Blog Consultants, Fundraising, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Online Campaigns, Online Fundraising, RedState, Republicans, Startups, Technology, White House '08 and William Beutler. 5 Comments

In the past week or so, two online GOP operatives (neither of whom is David All) have separately suggested to me that the competition among the three Republican Internet fundraising websites is effectively over. Even I doubted the separation would happen this quickly, but as of now even a late push by one of the two laggards would have a hard time catching on.

Evidence that Slatecard, bootstrapped project of Republican consultant David All (and web developer Sendhil Panchadsaram), is “the Republican ActBlue” can be found throughout mainstream political coverage over the past six months. Here are just a few:

Campaigns and Elections:

Then why the development of small donor online vehicles, including the Democratic ActBlue and Republican Slatecard, that aim to raise small donations on the congressional level? Both tools are growing substantially, and several candidates for Congress are highlighted on those sites.

USA Today:

“Your average online donor is an impulse buyer,” said David All, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant who last year founded Slatecard.com, which he hopes to be a Republican answer to ActBlue. So far, the site’s donors have raised more than $5,000 for GOP presidential candidates.

Wall Street Journal [$]:

Mr. All, the Republican consultant, started a rival site last October called SlateCard.com. It has raised just $300,000. “What I’m finding is a lot of Republican campaigns are just hiring college kids or using their son who has a Facebook account,” said the 28-year-old Mr. All. “They don’t understand what this is all about.”

Human Events:

Slatecard aims to raise money for Republican candidates in the same way that ActBlue has for Democrats. Slatecard lets users create profiles (“slatecards”) for candidates they support and then raise money by donating to that candidate and passing it on to friends, family members, co workers — anyone — through blogs, emails, and social networking groups.

Wired:

“If you read the statute, the result is not surprising,” said Don McGahn, an attorney who advises Slatecard, the Republicans’ answer to ActBlue. “However, when they passed the statute, there wasn’t even the internet … what it really shows is that the way to fix this is to pass legislation to update the Matching Payment Act .”

While Slatecard is more elegant, interactive and transparent than its counterparts, it seems that All’s sometimes controversial self-promotion has made the lion’s share of difference, especially as he has succeeded in persuading local congressional campaigns to use his site, sometimes making it their exclusive online fundraising platform.

RedState, former backer of Big Red Tent, now supports SlatecardBut if you need further evidence that Slatecard is the take-all (no pun intended) winner of the online GOP fundraising tool primary, consider the image at right, taken from the sidebar of leading Republican activist site RedState. It’s a Slatecard widget encouraging contributions to the McCain camapign.

It’s noteworthy not just for being there but for what it replaces: Nearly a year ago, RedState announced it was backing one of the future also-rans, Big Red Tent:

Patrick Ruffini has said more than once that the right needs to stop building what the left already has and instead build the next big thing. As part of heading in that direction, please let me introduce you to the Big Red Tent. We didn’t build it, but we’re actively supporting it.

There is more irony here: Ruffini is chiefly responsible for the other runner-up, Rightroots, and RedState’s Erick Erickson was party to a minor internecine fight with All during the Republican primary season. To back All’s Slatecard over Big Red Tent may have been a difficult choice, but considering how the other two have languished, it may have been no choice at all.

Update: David writes to say that 48 candidates now have used Slatecard exclusively for online fundraising, though some have already lost their primary or special elections. That’s impressive, especially for a site not yet nine months old.

Newsweek Buries Isikoff Scoop to Benefit Obama?

Published by William Beutler on May 26, 2008 in Barack Obama, Conspiracy Theories, E-mail, Journalism, Lobbying, Memeorandum, White House '08 and William Beutler. 19 Comments

I’m no fan of oversimplifying the decision-making process that guides news coverage or promotion thereof, let alone promulgating conspiracy theories, but I have to ask about this:

Michael Isikoff’s story, not promoted by Newsweek

Why wasn’t Michael Isikoff’s investigative piece outlining the lobbying connections of Barack Obama’s lead strategist, David Axelrod, promoted in Newsweek’s Sunday e-mail to subscribers?

Below right, I’ve cropped the article descriptions from this list for purposes of formatting this post, but I have not removed any of the articles. Although Isikoff’s report appears in the same June 2 issue of Newsweek as the stories, it is nowhere to be found here. Isikoff’s stories not among Newsweek’s promoted articlesAnd it should be, especially considering that the first four articles listed are all generally pro-Obama in their tilt and three are explicitly framed as advice for candidate Obama. The other four articles cover minor issues such as Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and John McCain.

What happened? One slim possibility is that the article is online-only and thus not eligible for inclusion in a round-up of magazine stories. But this seems not to be the case, as the screen capture indicates, both types of stories are included.

Another may be that Isikoff’s story was put to bed late, and not yet finalized when the feature-heavy e-mail was compiled. Possible, but if so not an adequate defense. Like last November, when WashingtonPost.com erroneously reported positive developments in the condition of Redskins safety Sean Taylor after he was already deceased, there is no excuse for not making e-mail alerts as timely as possible.

One more reason could be that Isikoff’s article is short, perhaps taken from the front of book section that is also home to Perspectives and the up-down-sideways Periscope arrows (if you can’t guess, this week Obama is up, Hillary is down and McCain is sideways). But that doesn’t make any sense, either. As the e-mail alert says,

Dear NEWSWEEK Subscriber,

Welcome to another edition of Political Perspectives, the subscriber-only e-mail newsletter previewing and highlighting NEWSWEEK’s coverage of the political world, in print and online. This week, Evan Thomas writes what an Obama adviser might say to the candidate about how to address the issue of race on the campaign trail. Elsewhere, Holly Bailey pores through John McCain’s just-released health records and Jonathan Alter looks at the lessons we can learn from Hamilton Jordan and Ted Kennedy.

It goes on like that, but there’s no mention of Isikoff or Axelrod. As the e-mail announces, it is not merely a list of their top features but the magazine’s “coverage of the political world, in print and online.” How does Isikoff’s reporting not fall into that category?

Surely there’s an explanation I haven’t ridiculed, and surely that will be their justification. I’m not the first to suggest that Newsweek specifically is in the tank for Obama, but I think I am the first to suggest that Newsweek is burying scoops that are problematic for him.

No matter, the Isikoff story still made it into the blogosphere. But as far as I can tell, only conservative blogs mentioned it. Even TalkLeft, which remains Clinton supporter central, hasn’t picked it up. One wonders how much further it might have traveled if the magazine had deployed its considerable PR assets on the story’s behalf.

All the Rage #9: The Asterisk Edition

Published by William Beutler on May 26, 2008 in Entertainment, Environment, Literature, Metapost, WikiRage, Wikipedia and William Beutler. 1 Comment

For the record, this page will not be covering Flavor of Love (season 3), Deaths in 2008, 2008 UEFA Champions League Final or a handful of other articles that may have made the top-edited list but for the fact that I’m not entirely sure whether I copied the list of top articles for the week or just for Sunday.

I’m only a human and WikiRage is only a program which as yet does not allow one to look at charts in the past. But in the interests of Wikipedia trivia, let’s keep this feature moving forward. And in the interests of posterity, all apologies to Indiana Jones, who may have been the rightful owner of the top slot this week.

  1. Eurovision competition on Flickr courtesy Banlon1964.Article: Eurovision Song Contest 2009
    Why: The Eurovision Song Contest is something like the Olympics for pop groups of various European nations, held annually. I’d wager most Americans have never heard of it, but it’s actually entering its 53rd year.
    Detail: It’s not easy to see where all those edits went in this first week. The page is not very long, and only a few participants are yet confirmed. The best explanation is that new pages being prepared to expand greatly according to pre-established rules are the locus of numerous tiny edits and adjustments. Glancing over the meticulous, country by country, week by week charting on the article for 2008’s installment, I expect the 2009 page will make this list in subsequent weeks.

  2. Article: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
    Why: This is no time for Wikipedia, Dr. Jones! The fourth installment in the Lucas/Spielberg/Ford series is the biggest movie in the world at the moment.
    Detail: Through no real particular linking effort, this article is the third non-news listing on Wikipedia when the title is used as a search term. If your search term is “Indy 4″ it’s the second result. And in terms of length and citations, this page resembles nothing so much as two chart-topping articles from the past few weeks: 2008 Sichuan earthquake and Cyclone Nargis.

  3. Indiana Jones lego figure courtesy Dunechaser on Flickr.Article: Stanley Cup
    Why: Yes, the NHL championship is under way now, but the article about the trophy itself was the Featured Article on May 25.
    Detail: Is it surprising that Canada’s national sport a target of relentless Wikipedia vandals? Perhaps not when you consider how frequently recent “South Park” episodes make this list.

  4. Article: Dima Bilan
    Why: The Russian pop artist won the 2008 Eurovision song contest.
    Detail: Apparently the beginning of the new season brings the trolls out, as they make a recent, unscheduled appearance on the Talk page. But the attention also brought out the copyright hounds, who noted there was no rationale cited for the fair use image of Bilan in the article, and removed it.

  5. Article: Eurovision Song Contest
    Why: The flagship article for the aforementioned annual European diva-off.
    Detail: I kind of hope I did grab the wrong list of articles, becuase I’m not sure if I get interested enough in the contest to cover it week in and out.

  6. Article: UFC 84
    Why: This weekend the MGM Grand in Las Vegas hosted the latest battle royale between the leading practitioners of what has apparently come to be known as “mixed martial arts.”
    Detail: The title makes it sound like this event has been going for 84 years, but in fact UFC 83 was only in April, and UFC 85 will be in June. The only other thing I can say is that the Brazilians do exceptionally well.

  7. Article: Union of South American Nations
    Why: You know the unification of North America raised by conspiracy theorists obsessed with the “NAFTA superhighway”? Yeah, well they did it South America.
    Detail: I’m kidding, sort of. The newly created union aims to create a single market not unlike the European Union, but it’s not quite a reimagination of borders as drastic as the Organization of North American Nations from “Infinite Jest”, even if the name sort of implies it.

  8. Article: Rob Knox
    Why: Article about an 18-year-old British actor killed by stabbing outside a bar in suburban London.
    Detail: Wait a few days, and you may miss it. The article has been nominated for deletion, although early indications from the Talk page are that it will stay.

  9. Article: Lion
    Why: Featured Article for May 24, 2008.
    Detail: Lions are not greater targets for vandalism than Canadian hockey trophies, but as charismatic megafauna, they’re still a target.

  10. Lion photo from Flickr courtesy Heaven’s Gate (John).Article: Manuel Marulanda
    Why: Not Bill Frist’s former counsel but a leader of the FARC terrorist group reported to have died this week of a heart attack.
    Detail: A fair point from a newbie, not yet taken up: “Im kinda new here. Is it good to have the Video section have a link to a site selling a video?You cannot watch it free. Seems a bit too commercial.”

    11. Holdovers this week: You know, let’s just pretend Deaths in 2008 made the list. In the second week of this feature, we honored Herb Peterson, inventor of the Egg McMuffin, so it would be wrong now if we did not reflect briefly on the life of J.R. Simplot, the man behind the McDonald’s french fry.

    Falling off the list: Everything from last week.

    Recurring themes: Weekly-elimination musical competitions, televised non-Olympic fighting events, long articles about current events with 100-plus citations.

    Honorable mention: American Idol. It’s #11 for the week as of Monday, and may have been on the list as of last night. I suppose we’ll never know. But considering that the American TV series has concluded just as it has helped Fox become the #1 network in the United States for the first full season ever, I’ll throw it a bone.

Images courtesy Banlon1964, Dunechaser and Heaven’s Gate (John) on Flickr.

The Battle of the Bills: Blog P.I. Does Bloggingheads.tv

Published by William Beutler on May 24, 2008 in Barack Obama, Bloggingheads.tv, Blogs vs. MSM, Debates, Hotline, John McCain, Journalism, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Lobbying, Metapost, Mickey Kaus, Netroots, New Media Strategies, Oregon, Web video, White House '08 and William Beutler. 2 Comments

This past week I spent about an hour talking through a tiny iPhone bluetooth headset on Skype and staring at the built-in iSight of a MacBook Pro while talking to Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis. I did so at the invitation of Conn Carroll, who usually holds down the righthand slot on Bloggingheads.tv, while he was celebrating his fifth wedding anniversary (congrats, by the way). Bill was an upbeat, friendly debate partner, and so far it looks like the loyal Bloggingheads commentariat doesn’t want to kill me.

The show plays like a funky, freewheeling, not-ready-for-cable TV “Crossfire” with less point-scoring, featuring a recurring cast of quirky political bloggers and policy wonks. I’ve been a constant viewer/listener back to when it was just Bob and Mickey figuring it out as they went along.

I should warn, around the middle there are audio-video sync problems, so this might be a good time to subscribe to the audio-only Bloggingheads podcast in iTunes.

The Lieberman-Hagel Pact

Published by William Beutler on May 21, 2008 in Lamont v. Lieberman, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Memeorandum, White House '08 and William Beutler. 3 Comments

Lieberman and Hagel, mirror oppositesA little over a year ago, I raised the possibility that Chuck Hagel could be primaried by the right in 2008 the same as the left did to Joe Lieberman in 2006. We’ll never know for sure how that would have played, because Hagel opted to retire and not stand for re-election. But the two senators’ fates appear tied nonetheless, as the top of Memeorandum at noon today indicates (see below left, image is also clickable).

Lieberman has already endorsed McCain, and in fact did so long before it was apparent that McCain would land the GOP nomination. In the Wall Street Journal article featured, Lieberman continues to make the case for his longtime colleague. Hagel has not yet endorsed Barack Obama, but it seems increasingly likely, as the Huffington Post article by Sam Stein just below suggests.

Lieberman and Hagel atop MemeorandumOne more thing: Out of the blogs listed as following the two stories, a non-trivial majority are liberal or non-partisan reporter blogs. And there’s another imbalance: I see conservative bloggers supporting the Lieberman op-ed, and liberal bloggers criticizing it. Meanwhile, there are plenty of liberal bloggers supporting the article about Hagel, but no right-leaning bloggers weighing in on the same. I’ll grant that this is a very small sample, but I mention it because it’s a pattern I recognize: the leftosphere is more active than the rightosphere in contesting the opposing side’s storylines.

Then again, the left has had no small amount of practice going after Lieberman, while the right has ignored Hagel for awhile. Which may itself be part of the problem, and something to correct sooner rather than later.

What’s So Difficult About a Hat Tip?

Published by William Beutler on May 21, 2008 in Asymmetrical Media, Entertainment, Journalism, MSM, MSM vs. Blogs, Mickey Kaus, Newspapers, Publishing, Scandal, Stephen Colbert, Television and William Beutler. 3 Comments

A movie news and reviews website named Latino Review has a pretty interesting lead article on the front page right now, titled “Why both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter TOTALLY SUCK!” Here’s an extended excerpt, although there is much more in the full piece:

A little over a week ago, on May 14, 2008 we exclusively broke the news that Jason Reitman, the director of Juno was adapting the book UP IN THE AIR which you can read HERE. Later on that afternoon, Jason Reitman’s publicist Bebe Lerner of ID PR called me personally and asked me to update our story. Our scoop forced her to go into spin mode. Bebe wanted us to say that Reitman’s directing deal for UP IN THE AIR was not yet in place. We kindly obliged. In return, the only thing we asked Ms. Lerner to do was to tell the Hollywood trades to either mention or credit us with breaking the story. She agreed. As a precaution, when we broke the story we even emailed Borys Kit over at The Hollywood Reporter and a reporter at Variety. …

Later that night at Midnight (EDT), Variety posted the story on their site which you can read here. Guess what? We weren’t mentioned. We emailed Tatiana Siegel and Michael Fleming (Variety) and kindly requested that their story recognize our contribution and properly credit us. We were ignored.

An hour later at 1A.M., The Hollywood Reporter ran their story without crediting us over here. We were heartbroken.

Later that morning on May 15, 2008, we again emailed Ms. Siegel and Mr. Fleming at Variety and once again we we’re ignored. At least Borys Kit from The Hollywood Reporter was kind enough to email us back, apologize, and explain the situation.

That apology is bittersweet though because Borys Kit and Variety did it to us again today with the news of Jake Gyllenhaal being cast as the lead in Prince of Perisa which we first broke HERE ABOUT A MONTH AND HALF AGO ON APRIL 8TH. This not only happens to us but to all movie websites and bloggers that break exclusive news.

I’d never heard of the site before and unless you’re a serious upcoming movie junkie (once upon a time when I subscribed to Entertainment Weekly, I was) you may not have, either. But here’s one I bet you have: Ain’t It Cool News. According to Latino Review, AICN has been mentioned by Variety and THR “a grand total of 7 times.” That sounds awfully low, but it also doesn’t sound impossible.

Indeed, this not only happens to movie bloggers but all bloggers that break exclusive news or develop new stories. Blog P.I. has noted this phenomenon more than once:

Mickey Kaus, who left the MSM of his own volition for the relative freedom (”no money, no editors”) of the blogosphere, complained about this earlier in the week:

There’s an implicit model underneath [Newsweek's Jonathan] Alter’s comments–blogs as the minor leagues, Off Off-Broadway, trying out storylines and scoops that may or may not make it to the Big Show. I have to admit I’ve embraced this model myself, as “Model Two.” I think blogs are (for the moment***) particularly suited to functioning as a sort of intermediate tryout area for burgeoning scandals (”undernews”). …

Alter makes big bucks because he’s called on to write about the story of the day at the precise moment it breaks out into the mainstream–and not a moment too soor! If the US bombs a Syrian nuclear reactor, the public wants to know about it right then–and Alter more or less has write about it or have a pretty damn good excuse why not. Newsweek’s editors, in effect, can make Alter jump. He’s very good at it. I’m not.

The problem with the “minor league” model of the blogosphere, is that it’s simply an extension of this “just in time” model of journalism–blogs are a conveyor belt, if you will, delivering news. ideas and angles to the MSM on a precise production schedule.

Of course, we also know that some of the brightest lights in the mainstream media both fear and loathe the blogosphere, simultaneously viewing them as competitors and parasites. To their mind, both are reasons to deny bloggers credit for the work they contribute in this asymmetrical media landscape.

The best defense they can offer, which Latino Review addresses in its rant, is the claim that blogger scoops are unverified gossip, while their reports are confirmed and fact-checked. They can say this without being effectively challenged because a) many bloggers, Kaus notoriously so, will write about unconfirmed stories that rise only to the level of gossip, and b) newspapers and magazines have multiple-source standards and established procedures for confirming their reporters’ work.

But it’s also true that sometimes blogs break legitimate news the MSM initially won’t touch or simply miss, and that sometimes the established news-gathering and -publishing processes break down. But never mind that — mainstream outlets hog the credit and spread the blame.

A blogger’s best hope is to be called up to the big leagues like Justin Rood, who went from TPMmuckraker to ABC News, or Brian Stelter, who went from TV Newser to the New York Times.

But we’re starting to get off track here, so let’s return to Latino Review’s narrow point: what to do when mainstream news organizations won’t acknolwedge true reports that originate in the blogosphere? In the short term, all anyone can do is raise the issue when it happens. Plagiarism is a serious issue in journalism, and eventually, some newspaper will be embarrassed enough that a visionary editor will require its reporters to acknowledge when a story they’re covering started online. Not only will this give credit where it’s due, but it will help news consumers look into the matter for themselves.

And when will this actually happen? My guess is about the same time the Pulitzer committee starts handing out awards for online journalism. In other words, I hope you’re very, very patient.

All the Rage #8: Cycle of the Series

Published by William Beutler on May 18, 2008 in Entertainment, Foreign Policy, Television, Twitter, WikiRage, Wikipedia and William Beutler. 1 Comment

Another week, another look at the most-edited articles on the English-language Wikipedia for the past seven days. Big thanks to statistical tool WikiRage and creator Craig Wood for making this even possible. The tenor of my round-up is decidedly American, but as any frequent Wikipedia reader knows, we Yankees have no monopoly on Wikipedia, despite our great numbers. This week belongs to the Brits:

  1. Article: The Unicorn and the Wasp
    Why: The what? The seventh episode of the current season (they say “series”) of Doctor Who, which aired this weekend.
    Detail: The second episode made the list a few weeks back, and as we saw during South Park’s recent half-season run, popular TV shows often show up in the most-edited articles.

  2. Sichuan earthquake, courtesy Divine Rapier on Flickr.Article: 2008 Sichuan earthquake
    Why: Only this week’s worst natural disaster.

    Detail: Did I call it or what? Last week, when the most recent natural disaster was Cyclone Nargis in Burma and the earthquake in China was moving across the news wires (and Twitter feeds), I predicted the resulting page would be on this list. Like the Nargis page, the Sichuan earthquake page is thousands of words long and meticulously sourced — which is relatively easy to do when an event gets this much coverage. And it’s the second major event in China to make this list since we started a couple months back; the first of course was the unrest in and around Tibet. On the other hand… this article was less active than the one about the latest episode of Doctor Who?

  3. Article: Portsmouth F.C.
    Why: Congratulations to our friends across the pond for taking both the first and third slots this week.
    Detail: It’s football season (and by that I mean “soccer”) in England, and Portsmouth is the big winner in the FA Cup after a 0-1 victory (that’s what it says) over Cardiff City at Wembley Stadium. Close readers of this feature may woner if “FA” refers to “Featured Article,” the reason so many obscure articles make this most-edited list. Thanks for paying attention, but I must report it is actually the Football Association Challenge Cup. Why not FAC Cup? I’d like to know that myself.

  4. Avenue of the Giants, courtesy pete4ducks on Flickr.Article: Ted Kennedy
    Why: The so-called liberal lion of the Senate was admitted to a Boston hospital on Saturday after reportedly suffering a seizure.
    Detail: Although the story dominated cable news this weekend, there ultimately were not many details released, and the incident appears to be less serious than it first seemed. To some extent that’s it — many people came through with unverified information which had to be removed — but it also spurred a closer look at the page, including updates to the section on Chappaquiddick.

  5. Article: Redwood National and State Parks
    Why: The Featured Article for May 17.
    Detail: From the discussion page: “[P]lease refrain from tree-hugging, which this article drips of tree resin. Happy highways, everyone, thanks for putting it up on the front page. Off to gold panning American River, kudos”

  6. Article: Walter Gropius
    Why: Founder of Bauhaus — the German school of design, not the English rock band.
    Detail: A Featured Article? One might think, but in fact the page was linked by Google on May 18, what would have been his 125th birthday. And you know what? Though this may not be surprising, the visitors from Google are worse vandals than the Wikipedia regulars. This article was locked down briefly to keep new and unregistered contributors from weighing in; other editors had applied for the same protection to the Kennedy page, but that protection was not granted, and this one was. Sorry, Googlers.

  7. Article: Coeliac disease
    Why: An an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine that occurs in genetically predisposed people of all ages from middle infancy.
    Detail: Did you really want to know that? Wikipedia thinks you might, because it was the Featured Article on May 18.

  8. Article: America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 10
    Why: Tyra Banks’ reality TV show enters its fourth season and… tenth cycle?
    Detail: I guess it’s not so different from South Park, which airs in two separate half seasons. I assume that both are meant to distribute programming throughout the year in order to increase viewership. This also probably increases editorship of such articles.

  9. Article: Deaths in 2008
    Why: Except for the unusual week when this page was not listed in the top ten at all, this is the lowest appearance on the list for this article yet.
    Detail:
    An American winemaker, the 1955 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, the oldest Swede ever, some guy who was in Barbarella, the Polish female Oskar Schindler and an American pop artist.

  10. Pro wrestling in Portland, Oregon, courtesy static on Flickr.Article: List of current World Wrestling Entertainment employees
    Why: I’m not really sure, but I suspect vandalism.
    Detail: I don’t necessarily want to reinforce stereotypes about pro wrestling fans, but I can’t resist quoting this comment from the Talk page: “austin hasent made a apperiance in iver 6 months it should just say public relations cuz be fair its missleading someone reads this page and think oh ausin is gonna make a guest apperance but he dont and its been like that for 6 months if he makes another apperance then put it back down but we could put rock there as makeing apperances cuz he made one last year and this year around wrestlmania so either add rock or take apperance bit off of steve austin” The response? “yea good point ill do it”

    11. Holdovers this week: Deaths in 2008

    Falling off the list: Everything from last week.

    Recurring themes: Natural disasters, and reality shows reaching the end of their current season — maybe I should say “unnatural disasters”?

    Honorable mention: Last week Burma was the second-most edited article, in part because it was the focus of a heated debate over whether the main article about the country should instead be Myanmar, the chosen name of the ruling military junta. Good news for fans of freedom — although this is not always the same thing as being a fan of Wikipedia site policies — no consensus emerged from the debate, and for now, Burma it will remain.

Images courtesy Divine Rapier, pete4ducks and static on Flickr.

Automatic For the Tweeters

Published by William Beutler on May 18, 2008 in Twitter, Web 2.0 and William Beutler. 9 Comments

Two of the first blogs I started reading were Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, but thanks to changing schedules and subject matter, my readership of each has waned and waxed a few times over. Seven years and counting is a long while to read any one blogger; I can only imagine what it’s like to be writing the same blog for such a period of time.

Now in the past couple weeks, twinned discoveries have made it easier for me to follow what each writes. As you may have already guessed, the answer was Twitter feeds (click through for the Twitter accounts themselves):

Instapundit on Twitter

And:

Andrew Sullivan on Twitter

Both are straight-up repurposing of each blog’s RSS feed routed through Twitterfeed.com. I contacted both to find out if they had personally created them; Reynolds responded that he hadn’t. The brevity of his response led me to believe that it didn’t seem to bother him, and that he if he did tweet, he’d have characters to spare.

In the time since, I’ve been looking around for other examples of popular blogs with automated Twitter feeds. The list was not a long one — I found @dailykos, @thinkprogress, @newsbusters and @crooksandliars. (Feel free to list more in the comments.)

This also gave me an idea: Why not create such Twitter accounts for a few political blogs that myself and others might want to follow? So I have; all are brand new and as of this writing none have updated. I may have the feed configured incorrectly, but then it’s also Sunday evening. If it still isn’t updating correctly tomorrow, I’ll get in and fix them. If you’re from one of the blogs below and you’d prefer this account not exist or you’d prefer to take control of it yourself, just let me know. In the meantime, click through the screen shots below to see (and follow) the accounts for yourself:

Power Line:

Power Line on Twitter

ABC News Political Radar:

Political Radar on Twitter

Hot Air:

Hot Air on Twitter

TPM Muckraker:

TPM Muckraker on Twitter

Update: Yep, they’re all working.

All the Rage #7: Iron Mom

Published by William Beutler on May 12, 2008 in Entertainment, WikiRage, Wikipedia and William Beutler. 1 Comment

We’ll keep it short this week, as I’m under the weather and already filing this late. But here’s what Wikipedians cared about last week, courtesy the Wikipedia-monitoring tool WikiRage:

  1. Article: Cyclone Nargis
    Why: Nargis is the name of the tropical storm that hit burma this past week, killing between 60,000 to 100,000 or more.
    Detail: This is Wikipedia at its best: when a major news story, such as the 2004 Indian ocean earthquake and tsunami, breaks and then continues to develop, Wikipedia can become an important news source. Although the page was created barely a week ago, it has been edited nearly 1,000 times and registered nearly 300,00 page views. Abd I’ll predict now that the earthquake near Chengdu will be in this slot next week.

  2. Article: Burma
    Why: See above.
    Detail: The page carries this warning at the top: “The current title of this article, Burma, is disputed. An alternate proposed title is Myanmar.” Not a big surprise to anyone who knows about the debate, but the tragedy seems to have fixed a spotlight on the issue. Since May 9, Wikipedians have expended more than 23,000 words debating it. Right now, I’d say the consensus is leaning back toward Myanmar.

  3. Article: Iron Man (film)
    Why: The number one movie in America, two weeks running.
    Detail: If Cyclone Nargis is Wikipedia at its best, this is Wikipedia at its most fanboyish. And that’s not a criticism, it’s just the fact: Wikipedia brings free information to the masses, but it can’t make them any more interested in weighty subjects than they might have been before.

  4. Article: Deaths in 2008
    Why: The most consistent page on this list, and probably will be as long as people keep dying.
    Detail: Although the list of those passing this week includes an astronaut and a country singer, you probably haven’t heard of them.

  5. Article: David Archuleta
    Why: This 17-year-old pop singer is the odds-on favorite to win this season’s “American Idol.”
    Detail: How do you think 26-year-old American kickboxer David Archuleta feels about this? Until February 14, his page resided at /David_Archuleta. Now it’s /David_Archuleta_(kickboxer)

  6. Article: American Idol
    Why: The flagship article of the popular TV show.
    Detail: With two more weeks to go, these two pages and possibly others will definitely stay active.

  7. Article: Mother’s Day (United States)
    Why: What could really be said about Mother’s Day? The page isn’t even very long.
    Detail: Oh, there’s plenty to vandalize. I coudn’t seem to find it, but apparently at one time there was a whole section devoted to NASCAR.

  8. Article: American Idol (season 7)
    Why: The page specific to the current season.
    Detail: I can’t quite figure out why this page doesn’t rank higher than the main page for the show, since there is in fact plenty more information about Season 7 here. My guess is that most American Idol fans are not Wikipedia experts, and don’t bother to drill down far enough — though it’s not exactly far — to find this page.

  9. Article: 2008 unrest in Lebanon
    Why: Another current event.
    Detail: What’s that, more violence in the Middle East? I’ll confess to not having followed this one closely, and probably this is true of many. It would almost be more noteworthy if Lebanon was not in crisis. In fact, the so-called Cedar Revolution in 2005 drew more attention than this.

  10. Article: Iron Man
    Why: The page for the superhero featured in the movie discussed above.
    Detail: Is there more more to say? Not really: most of the activity appears to be vandalism and the reverting of said vandalism.

    11. Holdovers this week: Deaths in 2008 is the lone page still on the list from 2 weeks ago.

    Falling off the list: Everything else.

    Recurring themes: You know, kind of… nothing, really.

    Honorable mention: How about one that didn’t recur? This time, to my surprise, none of the pages listed in the top-edited for the week were Featured Articles on the home page of the English-language Wikipedia. This certainly comes as a surprise, and I don’t expect it to be the case next week.