Sweet justice! paidContent.org: Court To Agence France-Presse: Pics Aren’t Free Just Because They’re On Twitter

My Blogger Dashboard brought me this bit of good news about thirty minutes after it was first posted online at must-read paidContent.org.

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paid Content
http://paidcontent.org/
By Joe Mullin twitter @joemullin
Dec 29, 2010 8:08 PM ET

Agence France-Presse stunned the Twitter-sphere last month when the wire service defended itself against a copyright claim brought by Daniel Morel, a photographer who captured iconic images of the Haiti earthquake, by saying that the photos were essentially free for the taking because they’d been shared over Twitter and TwitPic. Tweeting photographers can rest easy, because now a court has ruled that AFP isn’t off the hook, and will have to answer for its unauthorized use of Morel’s images.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-court-to-afp-pics-arent-free-just-because-theyre-on-twitter/

See also:

http://twitter.com/photomorel

http://newsweek.tumblr.com/post/332342634/scenes-from-haiti

http://www.afp.com/afpcom/en/

Variation on a theme: All I Want for Christmas is You -and attention

BBC Radio 5 live's resident songsmith Dave Henson celebrates Christmas, with his take on the Mariah Carey classic

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Olivia Olson - All I Want for Christmas is You (from "Love Actually").avi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb8Ze0-A1OA

http://www.youtube.com/user/OliviaOlson

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Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You, with scenes from "Love Actually"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azcimpWgCT0

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iJUSTINE - ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq86oMh6v-M

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Though Love Actually is one of my favorite films of the past 15 years, and not just because the Prime Minister is named David -Hugh Grant- the original trailer, with so many cliched songs running through it, nearly scared me off the first few times I saw it months before the film came out. http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi362021145/

Fortunately, the great cast and the talented people behind the film -writer and director Richard Curtis, who'd written Four Weddings and a Funeral nine years earlier- had done work I loved, so despite the fact that it might well be one of the worst film trailers ever made for a very good movie, I've seen it about a dozen times, though it's too bad that USA Cable has to edit out some of the best dialogue of the film.
http://www.universalstudiosentertainment.com/love-actually/

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iJustine video from JD Lasica on Vimeo
Justine Ezarik, better known as iJustine, interviewed after first meeting of the Intel Insiders at Intel headquarters in San Jose, Calif., 2008

iJustine from http://vimeo.com/jdlasica

JD Lasica on http://vimeo.com/

http://vimeo.com/1298582

Surprising observation: That by now, given the technology revolution and the sorts of ambitious and attractive women who are forever being attracted to South Florida, South Florida would have actually have an iJustine-like personality all its own, someone well-known for her efforts and promotions, i.e. making lots of amusing videos in locations throughout the region, yet there isn't one.
Why do you suppose that is?

http://ijustine.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/ijustine

Once again, Alan Mutter at Reflections of a Newsosaur blog has it right about the American news media: ‘Objective’ journalism is over. Let’s move on.

Sometimes, with a news article, column or blog post that's particularly cogent, well-argued and well-written, there's little left for your humble blogger here in South Florida to say other than to encourage you to read it for yourself and become educated.

Well, today is one of those days, as Alan Mutter out in San Francisco has such a persuasive and common sense post today on his must-read media blog, Confessions of a Newsosaur, on the myth of a fair-and-balanced animal called "objective journalism" in the United States.

That legendary animal NEVER actually roamed this land, from sea-to-shining sea.
It was all merely a journalism industry construct that was passed down from one generation to another.

Alan has, by far, one of the most varied and successful journalism and venture capital backgrounds of anyone you could possibly meet in the U.S., literally, the nexus of both the legacy media as well as the new media. Even now, he's on the adjunct faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/

Which is why his opinion really counts for something.

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Reflections of a Newsosaur blog by Alan Mutter
Musings (and occasional urgent warnings) of a veteran media executive, who fears our news-gathering companies are stumbling to extinction
Thursday, December 02, 2010
‘Objective’ journalism is over. Let’s move on.

It’s time to retire the difficult-to-achieve and impossible-to-defend conceit that journalists are now, or ever were, objective.

Let’s replace this threadbare notion with a realistic and credible standard of transparency that requires journalists to forthrightly declare their personal predilections, financial entanglements and political allegiances so the public can evaluate the quality of the information it is getting.

This not only will make life easier for scribes and the public. It also could do wonders for the sagging credibility of the press.

Read the rest of this post at:
http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2010/12/objective-journalism-is-over-lets-move.html

See also:

http://paidcontent.org/

http://www.mondaynote.com/

http://mediagazer.com/

http://www.beet.tv/

http://www.mediabistro.com/

http://www.mediabistro.com/webnewser/

http://www.jackshafer.com/slate_columns/slate_columns_index.php

http://www.jackshafer.com/

http://www2.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45 - Jim Romensko

http://www2.poynter.org/

http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/

http://journalism.indiana.edu/

How a video of Paramore in Stockholm & Razorlight in London proves the Miami Herald is too damn slow. Iceberg dead ahead!

Paramore -Misguided Ghosts, LIVE in Stockholm, acoustic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9OuNtlXiGA

How a video of Paramore in Stockholm and Razorlight at the Cuckoo Club, London proves the Miami Herald is moving too damn slow in its news coverage.
Iceberg dead ahead!

A number of months ago -I want to say it was mid-April- when I wanted to prove a few points about how poorly the Miami Herald was serving their increasingly smaller number of subscribers and readers -esp. the Sports Dept., led by their editor, Jorge Rojas- part of my grand plan was to run photos of what they ran in the newspaper on Saturday and compare that to what other East Coast newspapers ran that same day, since it's the same time zone.

The point, obviously, was to skewer the Herald once again thru some easily-understood and
rather self-evident anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that their conscious decision to send copies of the newspaper to next door Broward County where I live -in my case, right next to Aventura, only 14 miles due north of the newspaper's HQ on Biscayne Bay in Miami- which contained old news, lots of Wire stories and less local locally-written stories with important context, was only making their well-known problems MUCH WORSE

This is most easily demonstrated when you don't see complete sports stories and scores the next day -or timely election result updates on the website.

Some examples of this from this past year:

Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The Miami Herald's dismal Pony Express-style coverage of The World Series -compared to the New York Times- is a bad omen for readers
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/miami-heralds-dismal-pony-express-style.html

Thursday, September 2, 2010
Breaking: Miami Herald & sports editor Jorge Rojas already in mid-season form as they ignore BigTenNetwork's televised ballgames
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/breaking-miami-herald-sports-editor.html

Saturday, August 28, 2010
Miami Herald is channeling Pony Express in its reporting on Broward School Board elections from four days ago. But it's the year 2010!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/miami-herald-is-channeling-pony-express.html

Saturday, April 24, 2010
UCLA edges Sooners to win 2010 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship at Gainesville; Coverage of Women's Sports in the Miami Herald
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/ucla-edges-sooners-to-win-2010-ncaa.html

Monday, January 4, 2010
A TV program we can use more of over here: "Jag ska bli stjärna"; Girls sports in South Florida and the abysmal media coverage of it

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/tv-program-we-can-use-more-of-over-here.html

As you can see from above, in the interim, I've run a few pieces here and there demonstrating that central uncontested fact about the Herald's declining quality to a fair-thee-well, using both the coverage of the second NCAA D1 Womens Basketball Semifinal game, and Game Two of the 2010 World Series, Texas Rangers at San Francisco Giants, the latter of which started before 8:30 p.m. Eastern.

At the time, the other part of my plan was to show that despite all the technological innovations of the past 15 years that allow legacy media companies like McClatchy's Miami Herald, as well as bloggers like myself, to share and post information quickly, the Herald was "moving kinda slow" -like Uncle Joe in front of the Shady Rest Hotel in Petticoat Junction- to the absolute detriment of everyone concerned, most notably, news consumers.

One of the ways that I was going to do that was to post a great video of Paramore performing in Stockholm late on a Friday night/early Saturday morning, that had been recorded and posted to YouTube, and which later in the early A.M., was sent to me by a friend in Stockholm who'd been at the concert, and was so wired that she literally couldn't immediately fall asleep.

Naturally, like millions of other people, unable to fall asleep, she promptly started checking her email and surfing the Web.

In her version of the story, after reading my humble blog here for the first time in a few days, and sending me a note about some things she liked and some constructive suggestions, intent on going to sleep but wanting to check one last time, she typed in Paramore on YouTube, assuming that it was unlikely that anyone at the concert had uploaded something yet.

But she was wrong.
Somebody had!

At the top of this blog post is a better quality version of the original video that I saw, but you still get the point nonetheless.
Technology and social media allow news, ideas and information to flow freely from all sorts of places.
So why is the Herald so laggard at doing the basics, like timely reporting?

Why are they consciously turning their back on covering local government in South Florida and losing what precious remaining credibility they maintain?

When I woke up that Saturday morning in April, the newspaper lacked what I and many other news junkies or sports fans would consider some basic information, yet my email inbox was ALREADY full of interesting news, including that hours-old video that was still PIPING FRESH!

Since I didn't post that back then when I was of a mind to, I'll do it now, and further buttress my point by posting here yet another video that proves the point.

Blogger extraordinaire Josefina Boston of AbsolutBoston blog fame, and Escada's London HQ, http://absolutboston.se/ shot some interesting video when she and her beautiful model pal Tess Montgomery went over to the Cuckoo Club in Mayfair.
That is, they did so after they and two other fashion-forward friends hit the opening of the new Dior store on Bond Street, where the champagne was really flowing.
http://absolutboston.se/dior-opening-party/

While there for the Cuckoo Club's second anniversary, Josefina filmed this performance by Razorlight from very close-up.



Razorlight playing LIVE at The Cuckoo Club, Mayfair, London
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCCWY_xL33w

Josefina blogs for the very popular Spotlife blogging platform, http://spotlife.se/ as does the lovely Tess Montgomery, who, in my opinion, looks like a taller, sexier Julie Delpy.
http://www.motmodel.com/models/detail.asp?model_id=3991

Not that there's anything wrong with the regular-sized one! http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000365/

Tess blogs from http://tessm.se/, where she has even more photos of Razorlight performing at http://tessm.se/cuckoo-club-2-ar/ as well as some photos of the Dior event at http://tessm.se/dior-event-pa-bond-street/
Bon Chic, Bon Genre!

Tess even has some good sound advice that's especially practical at this time of the year when she says at one point in her post, "Jag har nämligen som regel att aldrig blanda shopping och alkohol."
Which is to say that she's developed a rule about never mixing shopping with alcohol.

That's clearly a lesson that's yet to take hold of many area women, since I often see them over at the Aventura Mall around 6:30 p.m.or so, as they go straight from drinking with their gal pals to shopping, usually over at Nordstrom's.
http://about.nordstrom.com/MapPoint/MapResults.aspx?bizid=774

I can't help but think that Tess probably has a good story behind that rule, too, just like Jethro Gibbs of longtime Hallandale Beach Blog fave NCIS has for his rules.
http://ncis.wikia.com/wiki/Leroy_Jethro_Gibbs/Rules

So, getting back to the Herald, I know when I look at the Saturday newspaper tomorrow and it's ponderous website that is both too-busy and yet NOT full enough of legitimate news stories, I will see so-called "news" that's largely been pre-chewed or eaten with all the turkey leftovers on Friday, on what is traditionally one of the worst weekends for news stories because the varsity news team is away on vacation.

When specifically is Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg finally going to publicly share with Herald readers what his actual plan is to rescue the newspaper, and make it relevant to readers and news consumers, which it increasingly is NOT by any stretch of the imagination?

It's getting kind of late in the voyage with Landsberg at the helm, and while I'm no expert on icebergs, I can see with my own eyes that the known and unknown icebergs keep getting closer and closer to the Herald's bow as it steers into unchartered waters without a compass or, seemingly, a legitimate plan to get to its destination.

And like you all, I know with absolute certainty that most of an iceberg is unseen -and below the surface.
Just like the Herald's myriad problems.
But some problems are too big to hide.

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Paramore: Sweden Photoshoot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbKIFZY3q9M

Paramore - New Music - More Music Videos

Paramore - Decode, Ulalume Festival
http://www.mtv.com/videos/?id=1623823

More Paramore interviews and goodies at
http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/paramore/artist.jhtml

Paramore's official website: http://www.paramore.net/


See also: http://stureplan.se/bloggar

The Miami Herald's dismal Pony Express-style coverage of The World Series -compared to the New York Times- is a bad omen for readers

The Miami Herald's dismal Pony Express-style coverage of The World Series -compared to the New York Times- is a bad omen for readers, or, Breaking News at the Miami Herald STILL isn't the same as Breaking News elsewhere in the country.

Today's latest installment of "That's why they're the Herald"... which I've been meaning to discuss for ten days.

According to the Miami Herald, two of the headlines I've copied below were also Breaking News at 8 p.m. Friday night.

Breaking News
* Teen slashed with machete at North Lauderdale street brawl

* Democrat donor files suit against GOP congressional candidate David Rivera *

* NBA commissioner: Miami Heat is a global sports obsession

They are stories which had also been Breaking News all Friday afternoon in the same exact spot as they were, more or less, when I sent out an email to a few folks I know in the sports world and newspaper industry, at 3:47 p.m. on Saturday, October 30th, following the latest lethargic and embarrassing loss in the Randy Shannon era of U-M football.
(To UVA up in beautiful Charlottesville.)

One of which -shocker- was a puff piece to the NBA on the day of the Miami Heat's NBA home opener against the Orlando Magic, and a national telecast on ESPN.

To quote myself, "Guess it's been a slow news day at the Herald, huh? I hear there's an election coming up soon..."

Friday's edition of the New York Times for the South Florida market was printed in Deerfield Beach, about 25 miles or so north of me.

On 60% of the front page of the Times' Sports section were stories and columns about Game 2 of the World Series, reflecting that the Giants had won and were half-way to winning their first title in San Francisco.


The next page was entirely about the second game, also reflecting the final score.


Friday's Broward version of the Miami Herald, located exactly 14 miles away, simply had the words Late Game near the top of the sports section next to Game 2.
They had no information about the second game.
Really.

See for yourself.


It's low-hanging fruit I know, but why make it complicated to show how the Herald continues to sink deeper into the abyss, as it takes its remaining readers for granted?

Before the playoffs started, my prediction was Giants-Rangers, with the Giants winning in 6 games.

By the way, if you hadn't noticed it, the Herald now considers Broward County and it's readers so far away from the center of their strange upside-down News Universe, that in the recent past, they've now re-classified Broward County, and now place us in the distant outpost category of The Keys, as you can see just below the masthead and the headline about Meek.


Above, "Broward & Keys Final"

Speaking of San Francisco as I was -which I last visited in January of 2000, when I walked around the Giants new stadium on the Bay before it opened later that spring- I commend to you an illuminating blog post from last Tuesday by Alan D. Mutter at his excellent and noteworthy blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur, subtitled Musings (and occasional urgent warnings) of a veteran media executive, who fears our news-gathering companies are stumbling to extinction, http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/

Alan's post is about a Bay Area ice cream shop called Humphry Slocombe besting the San Francisco Chronicle, Ice cream shop out-‘fans’ S.F. Chronicle
http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2010/10/ice-cream-shop-out-fans-sf-chronicle.html#comments

As usual, Alan's post was informative and amusing, and holds lots of lessons for people at all levels of the news and media world, whether print or digital.

Lessons they'd be foolish to ignore.

Aaron Sorkin re misogyny in 'The Social Network': "These aren't the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80's..."

Above, cover of New York Observer of October 11th, 2010, "Good Nerd, Bad Nerd" illustration by Viktor Koen.

Aaron Sorkin on misogyny concerns in David Fincher's new critically acclaimed film 'The Social Network' that Sorkin wrote.

"These aren't the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80's. They're very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback..."

Yeah, I know, I know.
I'm about a week behind in posting about this excellent piece from Sharon Waxman's TheWrap.com.
And second of all, no, I haven't seen the film myself yet, but will likely get to it later this week.

As you read Jeff Sneider's article, be sure to read the informed and opinionated reader comments that area as good as the points that Sorkin makes and refutes.

One thing is clear, no matter how successful you are as a writer, and regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, there are few that have been as consistently successful over the past 20 years as Sorkin, there's always someone you've never heard of who wants to tell you what your real "problem" as a writer is.
LOL!
But first, a nice coincidental introduction to the theme under discussion in the article courtesy of BBC Radio's 5 live film critic Mark Kermode.

BBC Radio 5 live:Kermode reviews Social Network



TheWrap
Aaron Sorkin Addresses Claims of Misogyny in 'Social Network',
The screenwriter himself defends David Fincher's film in a post on Ken Levine's blog
By Jeff Sneider,
Published: October 11, 2010 @ 6:33 pm

Many people who have seen Sony's "The Social Network" have taken the filmmakers to task for the movie's "misogynistic" portrayal of women.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin responded to one such attack from a commenter named Tarazza on Ken Levine's blog, Sorkin's publicist has confirmed to TheWrap.

Read the rest of the fabulous piece here: http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/aaron-sorkin-addresses-claims-misogyny-social-network-21628

Continuing with this theme on The Social Network, my new issue of The New York Observer arrived in the mail later than usual last week, but as I was so busy catching up on some things, including some overdue posts here at the blog, it would hardly have mattered if it'd been on time, which is usually Tuesday without fail. http://www.observer.com/
Yesterday, after the Dolphins surprising victory over the Packers, while waiting to meet a friend at a local haunt of mine, I finally cracked it open.
I was immediately reminded why I love it so much.

One of those reasons would have to be sheer prescient puckishness, as evidence by a delicious and fictitious 'as-written-by' Mark Zuckerberg piece on page 2 by Christian Lorentzen.


Then I read the three-page cover story, which under the illustration had the following:
"In the new Facebook movie, Mark Zuckerberg is a backstabbing, money-grubbing misfit. It works for Hollywood. But the geek stereotype may not apply in New York, where tech excecutives have perfected their own kind of cool." By Leon Neyfakh.
Deftly put!

Here's the problem: these two articles are not available online and may only be seen by subscribers, like myself, or by well-informed customers choosing to buyg a copy, so get yourselves to a large Barnes & Noble superstore ASAP, like the one on Biscayne Blvd. in the Loehmann's Fashion Island down in Aventura.
18711 N.E. Biscayne Blvd, Aventura, FL 33180
(305) 935-9770

Here's their online store locator:
http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/storelocator/stores.aspx?x=y&
You won't regret it.

See the past New York Observer stories on Mark Zuckerberg here:
http://www.observer.com/site-search?keys=Mark+Zuckerberg&x=14&y=0

Past NYO articles by Leon Neyfakh, many of which are tech-related, are here:
http://www.observer.com/site-search?keys=%22Leon+Neyfakh%22&x=34&y=16

Past NYO articles by Christian Lorentzen are here:
http://www.observer.com/site-search?keys=%22Christian+Lorentzen%22&sa.x=6&sa.y=3&sa=Submit
11:45 p.m.
To see a glimpse of some scenes from the trailer of the film -with some Swedish V.O. tossed in- you can see it here on Teresa Tingbrand's report for Aftonbladet TV:


http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/article7869353.ab

http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/

re Topix, Sun-Sentinel's reader comments site; Venture Beat: Online news gatherer Topix aims for election-ad dollars

Some of you are already quite familiar with the downside of using the Topix reader comment boards affiliated with newspaper websites.

If you're in South Florida like me, it's pretty likely you're familiar with it from having seen the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's, where scurrilous, hateful and racist comments were/are routinely posted there just for the hell of it, and people could literally post things things there that were/are NOT factually true, with no fear of it being deleted, despite what the newspaper lamely claims.

Want to accuse someone you don't even know of being drunk at 9 a.m. and causing a traffic accident? Welcome aboard!
This is from today about the Channel 10 news van accident in Fort Lauderdale:
3 hurt in accident involving WPLG Ch. 10 live truck in Fort Lauderdale
http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/soflanews/fl-van-overturn-20101015/10

I saw things there repeatedly about someone I knew that were NOT at all true, but it hardly mattered that it wasn't true, because there it stayed, day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month.
(For the record, it was from West Hollywood Dissident.)

If you wanted to publicly say that your ex-girlfriend/ex-husband or ex-roommate was a vampire, a deadbeat, a drug user, a fleeing felon or a Justin Bieber-lover, that was the place for you to vent your wrath!
And it shows!

Well, this Oct. 13th article from Venture Beat informs us about the TOPIX geniuses' newest strategy to get more political advertising $$$.

But fortunately, some smart readers chime-in and share even more personal horror stories and ruin the TOPIX party.
Sweet!

I found the article today after I received an email in my inbox from Topix this morning telling me -deceptively- implying that someone had a new message, presumably responding to something I'd written at some point in the past.

That seemed odd, since I haven't used it in a while since their site was such a mess.

Such a mess, in fact, that I'd written an email to the Sun-Sentinel's management many, many weeks ago.
Official response? ZERO!

Way to be accountable, legacy media!

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Hi Hallandale Beach Blog,

CitizenTopix sent you a message on Topix.

To see the message, click this link:
(I deleted this for obvious reason to post it here on the blog.)

Topix

-----------

But rather than seeing a link I'd click to see the new comment -and my own original comment, since they didn't say what the subject was- as with the DISQUS comment system, http://disqus.com/, which I use when commenting on material at TheWrap and the various mediabsitro.com industry websites, it was essentially a sales pitch from TOPIX's new effort, Citizen TOPIX.

-----------------

CitizenTopix

“Sounding off for the citizens”

A Governor, Sheriff, and Dog Catcher walk into a bar...

Topix Election 2010: Citizen Sound-Off is the place to discuss the November 2nd Midterm elections that matter to you. From big-name governor races all the way down to hotly contested county commissioner seats, you can share and debate your opinions with folks from down the street or across the state.

Get started right now: http://www.topix.com/pr/election2010

Are we missing a race for your town? We could use your local expertise!
Just head over to this form and fill in the blanks:
http://bit.ly/topixelections

Vote early. Comment often.

See you at the polls!

Citizen Topix

------

As you might imagine, they were NOT persuasive.

------

Venture Beat

Online news gatherer Topix aims for election-ad dollars

October 13, 2010 Riley McDermid

With its launch of Election 2010: Citizen Sound-Off today, online news aggregator Topix is now the only website to couple localized voter information with a platform for open participation. But can it channel this big election into even bigger ad dollars?

Read the rest of the post at:
http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/13/online-news-gatherer-topix-aims-for-election-ad-dollars/

-----

See also:

"Entertainment Industry Analysis, Breaking Hollywood News" in TheWrap http://www.thewrap.com/

http://www.mediabistro.com/

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/

http://www.mediabistro.com/webnewser/

http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/

http://www.mediabistro.com/sportsnewser/

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/

While savvy Channel 4 News (U.K.) gets even better, lazy U.S. TV network & cable newscasts AND shallow South Florida TV newscasts race to the bottom

Jon Snow guides us through what is new on the Channel 4 news website.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mkfeCqBuy4

While savvy Channel 4 News (U.K.) gets even better, lazy U.S. TV network & cable newscasts AND shallow South Florida TV newscasts race to the bottom.

It's okay, you're among friends.
You don't have to be shy about venting your frustration about how embarrassingly banal the American network TV newscasts have become of late, of the utterly predictable never-ending dog-chasing-its-tail quality of the U.S. cable newscasts, or the brain-dead nadir that local South Florida TV newscasts reached over this past summer, where you thought they couldn't go any lower and get any more insipid -but then they do.

And you are dumb-struck once again.
And you are reminded all over again what part of America you live in.
The part of America where they can't support a News Radio format.

For instance, recently, the 11 o'clock newscast of one Miami TV station really DID spend more time talking about who might be featured on a prospective Miami-based "Housewives" reality show than they did on what had happened that day at the Broward County Commission's FY 2011 Budget meeting in Fort Lauderdale, and what some of the programs slated to be cut might be and their impact on citizens.

And to compound this, they also DIDN'T mention which Broward commissioners voted for or against the 2011 budget, nor display the names or tally on-screen.

Yes, actual votes by elected officials, that boring civics stuff, especially when compared to talking about dopey Miami wannabe celebs, whom we just know in our hearts will be loathed across the country like they already are among their small circle of friends in the 305 or 954.

And if you're thinking globally not locally, the antidote for all that shallowness, banality and low-quality journalism is closer at hand than you might otherwise think.

And no, I'm not talking about the new and highly-popular Breaking News Twitter feeds, http://twitter.com/BREAKINGNEWS, though for some people, though not me personally, that may actually be a nice addition to their handy news toolbox.

I've written often here over the past year or so about how much I've integrated the Channel 4 News (U.K.) and BBC Radio 5 live diet of news and information into my busy schedule to make more sense of the world.

Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/#two
Listen LIVE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_five_live

Especially since I no longer get the hard copies of all the international relations and foreign policy journals I subscribed to when I was living up in the Washington, D.C. area, and actually could use what I already knew and had read at events at embassies, the IMF, the World Bank, SAIS and myriad think tanks, plus the great schedule of Russian-related events they had over at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center, under Blair Ruble, back when it was inside of the Smithsonian's castle on The Mall.
http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm
http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1424&fuseaction=topics.profile&person_id=4997

The very informative post-Noon Channel 4 email news updates I receive like clockwork before 1 p.m., the so-called Snowmail, named after veteran news presenter Jon Snow, and authored by him and other Channel 4 correspondents, gives me a real insightful head's up for what to expect later in the day on that night's newscast at 1900 G.M.T., but which I watch much later.

The fabulous Catch Up service on their website allows me to look back at anything that I may have missed within the past 7 days, which tends to happen a lot in the middle of the week due to evening local government meetings I attend.

As I've stated here previously, I often find myself watching the missed news segments on Saturday mornings before I get around to watching the Premier League matches on Fox Soccer Channel, or something on The BigTenChannel.

Plus, the Channel 4 broadcasts are broken down into news segments that are embeddable, thus making them perfect for blogs and websites, as I've used plenty here over the past year to great effect.

Well, at the end of September I received this new video from London that's p at the top of this post, and I think it gives you a pretty good appreciation for what is now available to you if you want to know what's going on in the real world outside of the rather shallow intellectual confines of the Sunshine State.

Such a deeply distressing story on so many levels...

Aid worker may have been killed by US grenade in Afghanistan

Jonathan Rugman reports aid worker Linda Norgrove may have been killed by US grenade in Afghanistan.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid601325122001?bctid=631900533001


Channel 4 News homepage: http://www.channel4.com/news/

Channel 4 News Catch Up Service: http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/

Channel 4 Blogs homepage: http://blogs.channel4.com/news/