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Looking for Gentlemen CallersLooking for Gentlemen CallersLooking for Gentlemen Callers 03/14/2005 04:39 PM Orgasm ringtones should be made, not bought, according to Darla Mack. But why does she finish by saying "bring me the blood of O.J. Simpson"? This is a GrokNews Entry: (what is grok?)Looking for Gentlemen CallersGrok Headline matches for Looking for Gentlemen CallersCalling All CallersCalling All Callers 02/15/2004 02:37 PM For the next three Sundays I'll be doing an extra hour on my KFI radio show from 3-4p. We're taping calls for later airing, so if you've had trouble getting in before, try between 3 and 4p for the next... Gentlemen, timeGentlemen, time 04/23/2004 08:39 PM USA Today Apr 24 2004 0:10AM GMT Are telephone callers journalists?Are telephone callers journalists? 03/14/2005 05:45 PM Despite its having been on the table for at least six years now, this question of whether bloggers are journalists won't seem to rest, and now that the courts are getting involved, we don't have much choice but to revisit it, as Slashdot, among many others, has done today. Dan Fost's San Francisco Chronicle story provides a good summary of the issue, as Apple Computer pursues its suit to get some bloggers to reveal the sources of anonymous information they published. But the article misses the most basic distinction at work here. A blogger is someone who uses a certain kind of tool to publish a certain kind of Web site. The label tells us nothing about how the tool is used or what is published. We went through this discussion a decade ago, when people first started asking whether Web sites were journalism. To understand this, just take the question, "Are bloggers journalists?" and reframe it in terms of previous generations of tools. "Are telephone callers journalists?" "Are typewriter users journalists?" "Are mimeograph operators journalists?" Or, most simply, "Are writers journalists?" Well, duh, sometimes! But sometimes not. That is the only answer to the "Are bloggers journalists?" question that makes any sense. Bloggers sometimes engage in journalism, just as they sometimes engage in diary-writing, art-making, essayizing and many other forms of communication. This answer is inconvenient, as we face the question of whether bloggers should receive the same legal protection as more conventionally defined journalists; it doesn't provide a clearcut legal rule. But, let's face it, legal protections for journalists have always involved a certain fuzziness. Since, thankfully, the U.S. government doesn't legally charter journalists -- that would be difficult to square with the First Amendment -- everyone is free to apply the label to themselves. You don't need a journalism degree, either. (I've been a journalist for three decades and I don't have one.) You can try to define journalists by applying the filter of professionalism, by seeing whether people are actually earning a living through their journalistic work -- but then you rule out the vast population of low-paid or non-paid freelance workers, and those who are not currently making money in their writing but hope to someday. Apparently most of the existing shield laws use some version of the "you are where your paycheck comes from" definition of journalist (see Declan McCullagh over at CNET for more). That's one good reason for thinking that they might need some revision. There's a good definition of "journalist" sitting right at the top of Jim Romenesko's journalism blog today (is pioneering blogger Romenesko a journalist?), where CNN/U.S. president Jonathan Klein says: "I define a journalist as someone who asks questions, finds out answers and communicates them to an audience." By that standard, a hefty proportion of today's bloggers qualify. Does this vast expansion of the journalism population mean that the courts and legislatures are going to have second thoughts about protecting the confidentiality of journalists' sources? Perhaps -- and maybe those shield laws need tweaking or amendment, given the transformations underway. But any attempt to draw a narrow line around the journalism profession in order to preserve those laws is doomed to fail. There is no way to draw that line -- income level? circulation? corporate size? forget it! -- that is not ridiculous on its face. So we're left with the pathetic spectacle of beloved Apple Computer chasing down some bloggers to find out which of its employees leaked some early peeks at product information. Apple may win, and the laws may contort themselves to exclude the vast new throngs of online journalists from the protected club. But is there any doubt that, in the long run, it's Apple's dam-building effort that's doomed? Whether protected by law or not, the teeming network of the blogosphere is not going to shut down, any more than online music file sharing could be ended by the legal campaign against Napster. In this sense, the whole "journalists or not?" debate is an irrelevant, backward-looking theological dispute. [I wrote this post this morning but the computer that I run Radio
on died for some reason, so it's going up late, and with some
revisions...] Vonage hangs up on some callersVonage hangs up on some callers 08/12/2004 02:40 PM VoIP company suffers "delays," the second glitch in two weeks. Those affected are told to reboot their adaptors. Mobile 999 callers 'pinpointed'Mobile 999 callers 'pinpointed' 02/13/2004 10:42 AM Ambulances in London use new technology to pinpoint the location of mobile phone callers. "Gentlemen, start your gyros!""Gentlemen, start your gyros!" 09/05/2004 09:38 AM Direct and Related Links for '“Gentlemen, start your gyros!”' “It’s “all systems go” for one of the most ambitious physics experiments ever attempted. On August 27th, after four months in orbit, NASA’s Gravity Probe B satellite began its year-long hunt for signs of a subtle space-time vortex around Earth predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity. The search isn’t going to be easy, but for scientists involved, one of the hardest parts is already over: months of delicately starting up and checking out the satellite,…Ladies and Gentlemen, Beatle Bob!Ladies and Gentlemen, Beatle Bob! 09/19/2004 07:14 PM L adies and Gentlemen, Beatle Bob! With today being the last day of the Austin City Limits Music Festival, I thought it might be a good time to shine the spotlight on rock and roll gadfly "Beatle" Bob Matonis, who, as per his habit, made the scene like sex machine, shaking his vintage-clad booty back stage (and on stage) at numerous sets this weekend. Though he's actually from St. Louis, Beatle Bob makes it to gigs all across the country, and seems particularly fond of South by Southwest, where his presence can pretty much guarantee you picked the right showcase to attend. Over the years, I've seen Beatle Bob on literally dozens of occasions. Have you had the chance to catch this oddball rock mascot in your town? Ladies & Gentlemen! Brood X!Ladies & Gentlemen! Brood X! 05/07/2004 12:02 PM The Brood is Back. No, not that Brood< /a>. This brood. Gentlemen, Start Your PhotocopiersGentlemen, Start Your Photocopiers 06/30/2004 10:57 PM As things get clearer, it seems that Apple's Dashboard is copied from Microsoft's Active Desktop. Active Desktop something Microsoft "innovated" from the days of the great Browser War I. That makes more sense. No matter how hard I try, I fail to see how Dashboard has evolved from the idea of Desktop Accessories. More from those fine gentlemen at
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