AP makes

Selwyn Duke at American Thinker points out that a revived Fairness Doctrine only punished communicators who are honest about their beliefs. After all, who’s to label the various sides of the debate if not the participants themselves? If you don’t label yourself as biased, you need no antidote.

The dirty little secret behind the Fairness Doctrine is that it punishes the honest. Think about it: Radio hosts are the talkers; they wear their banners openly as they proclaim who and what they are. Sure, they may be brash and hyperbolic, loud and oft-sardonic, but there is no pretense, little guile, and you know what they want you to believe. You know what they’re sellin’ and if you’re buyin’.

The mainstream media, however, is a shill. Oh, not shills working with talk radio, of course, as their talkers are entities such as MoveOn.org and Media Matters, but they are shills nonetheless. They masquerade as impartial purveyors of information, almost-automatons who, like Joe Friday, are just interested in the facts, ma’am. They flutter their eyes and read their Teleprompters, and we are to believe God graced them with a singular ability to render facts uncolored by personal perspective.

Hugh Hewitt defends the journalistic legitimacy of blogs against a young skeptic from the Wall Street Journal, who had tried to dismiss the blogosphere as foolish and irrelevant.

As weblogs begin to move into video and site like YouTube gain large audiences, the EU wants to apply broadcast censorship standards to the web.

Viviane Reding, the Media Commissioner, argues that the purpose is simply to set minimum standards on areas such as advertising, hate speech and the protection of children.

But Shaun Woodward, the Broadcasting Minister, described the draft proposal as catastrophic. He said: “Supposing you set up a website for your amateur rugby club, uploaded some images and added a link advertising your local sports shop. You would then be a supplier of moving images and need to be licensed and comply with the regulations.”

The proposal is called Television Without Frontiers.

Try Television Without Competition.

Democrats often complain about Republicans’ advantage in alternative media (meaning talk radio and blogs) and are making efforts to compete. Bill Clinton says one reason for the left’s unpreparedness has been its dependency on old-media outlets to promote their agenda for them, something conservatives would say they’ve never enjoyed.

[Clinton] said Democrats of his generation tend to be naive about new media realities. There is an expectation among Democrats that establishment old media organizations are de facto allies — and will rebut political accusations and serve as referees on new-media excesses.”We’re all that way, and I think a part of it is we grew up in the ’60s and the press led us against the war and the press led us on civil rights and the press led us on Watergate,” Clinton said. “Those of us of a certain age grew up with this almost unrealistic set of expectations.”Few conservatives would make a similar miscalculation. Many of the first generation of new media platforms, including Limbaugh’s show and Drudge’s Web site, first flourished because of a conviction among conservatives that old media were unfair.All this has given Republicans a comfort and skill at using new media to political advantage that most Democrats have not matched.

The editor of the Washington Post says blogs and online readers are driving a new audience to his paper and his reporters benefit from the criticism and fact checking that bloggers provide.

Reporters love newsroom blogs, said Downie, because they put writers in better touch with their readers: “Everyone in our newsroom wants to be a blogger.”

And the blogs that pick apart every article that the Post produces are a good thing, said Downie, because they “keep the paper honest” and, even if their commentary isn’t positive, bring people to the site.

“Blogs are not competitors and not problems,” he said. “Instead we have a very interesting symbiotic relationship. Our largest driver of traffic is Matt Drudge.”

Another sign of the changing balance between old and new media as ABC decides to brand ABC sports with the ESPN logo.

In the early stages of another big-media fakery scandal, Ed Driscoll provides a fine comentary on how the power of ideas rather than authority is giving the blogs a more believable voice than the MSM. He includes this commentary from Glen Reynolds from 2004:

While arguments from authority are hard on the Internet, substantiating arguments is easy, thanks to the miracle of hyperlinks. And, where things aren’t linkable, you can post actual images. You can spell out your thinking, and you can back it up with lots of facts, which people then (thanks to Google, et al.) find it easy to check. And the links mean that you can do that without cluttering up your narrative too much, usually, something that’s impossible on TV and nearly so in a newspaper.

Disney adds sports from ABC and ESPN to its iTunes video catalog.

Nielsen, the leading television rating company, will start tracking DVR use and adding it to its ratings reports, which will now come in three forms.

Responding to the requests of clients who wanted to know how DVR use affected viewing, Nielsen will now offer three ratings per program and network: Live, Live/Same Day (which includes same-day playback via DVR) and Live 7 Day Ratings (live along with time-shifted viewing up to 168 hours after
airing).

Video by iPod gains momentum.

Advertisers have long been suspicious of TiVo for the option it gives views to zap out commercial breaks from network programming.

Now TiVo has announced that it’s turning the embedded advertising model on its head by letting TiVo customers search for ads by topic.

this new feature will work in much the same way TiVo subscribers create “WishLists” to find programs. But instead of Jimmy Stewart movies or TV shows about baseball, TiVo users would register a profile with the company based on their interests. Then, in a section of the TiVo menu system, they will find ads — short- and longform — based on their interests.

Someone in the market for a new car would find ads for cars that someone who isn’t would never see, for instance.

“What we’ve learned is, TiVo customers want to know about new products and services but on their own time,” TiVo vp national advertising sales Davina Kent said.

Hollywood, ever cautious and cool to new technologies, is not liking what it sees with the Disney/ABC agreement to sell its shows for $1.99 on iTunes.

It seems they think the $1.99 is too low.

Media executives, however, said it costs very little for networks to repackage shows for downloading in what amounts to test marketing because the consumer appetite, costs and profits of those programs already have been realized in other arenas.

The networks can afford to experiment, but independent film and TV production companies, which the networks rely on to dream up shows, want hard facts before investing dollars in new
programming.

In a long-predicted move, Apple announced it has added video to iPod, and is starting by partnering with Disney to offer its TV products online.

As part of that collaboration, commercial free episodes of two of U.S. television’s highest rated shows — ABC’s “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” — will be available for download from Apple’s iTunes online music store a day after their network broadcast. Last season’s episodes will be available for download immediately.

Viewers will then be able to watch the shows at their leisure on the new video playing iPods and newly upgraded iMac computers unveiled by Apple on Wednesday.

In addition to “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives,” iTunes will also offer downloads of ABC’s new drama “Night Stalker” and Disney Channel’s two most popular cable TV shows, “That’s So Raven” and “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.”

The downloads will be priced at $1.99 per episode, the same as iTunes will charge for music videos. The service sells songs for 99 cents each.

Iger said he sees the portability of the TV-viewing experience offered by iPod and similar devices “as the future as far as we are concerned.”

Here’s a good example of how a citizen with camera and a blog can correct a misleading and biased MSM message.

Hat tip: Powerline

The EU thinks it needs to control the Internet, and doesn’t trust the United States and the private sector to do a job they’re sure bureaucrats could do better.

The EU and the UN are pressing to have Internet control pass from the US to the UN.

At issue is who would have ultimate authority over the Internet’s master directories, which tell Web browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic. That role has historically gone to the United States, which created the Internet as a Pentagon project and funded much of its early development. The U.S. Commerce Department has delegated much of that responsibility to a U.S.-based private organization with international board members, but Commerce ultimately retains veto power.

Movie and television studios are looking to direct-to-video DVDs to generate new income from old audiences.

DTV movie sequels capitalize on the brand name of the original, and video producers are attempting to expand existing lines onto DVDs.

“Franchising always has been important, but it’s more important now,” Lions Gate Entertainment president Steve Beeks said. “The market is softening, the consumer is a little more discerning, and unless you have some brand recognition, some franchise power, it’s going to be hard to break through the clutter.”

Similarly, Disney’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment has expanded its “Baby Einstein” line of edutainment DVDs for infants with a “Little Einstein” series targeting preschoolers.

Reuters profiles a new used DVD trading company that threatens to undermine even the booming DVD rental sites.

With DVD sales expected to reach
$21 billion next year, it may be comforting for consumers to know used discs now have a second life as tradable currency on a year-old Web site called Peerflix.

And at 99 cents a pop, the new commodities may threaten to erode demand for DVD rental services down the road.

Reuters reports that bloggers are providing an important alternative to traditional media coverage of the disaster.

More and more, bloggers, who frequently post short messages on Internet Web Sites, are becoming an information source, particularly for fast developing stories in remote areas. Blogs gained prominence during the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, when conservative and liberal writers became regulars on the campaign trail.

The audience for the narratives is growing. According to comScore Media Metrix, more than 1.7 million online searches were conducted on August 29 containing the words “Hurricane” and/or “Katrina,” a more-than-tenfold increase over the daily average during the five days ending August 26.

“Bloggers outside the area are doing their best to amplify the first-hand accounts,” said Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Blockbuster share prices have dropped on fears that the company may default on some debt payments and close some stores in the next 12 months.

The rapid growth of DVDs and the large inventory and cheap distribution offered by Netflix have shown the video giant to be a little slow to respond.