One thing I find really annoying in my line of work:

Like it or not, most people now have home computers, smartphones, and access to the internet pretty much everywhere they go. (And if you're going to Outer Mongolia or some other place where you don't have it, leave an out of office message that says so.)

There is absolutely NO reason why a member of the press should not be able to contact someone immediately in response to a press release! NONE! Don't be a stooge! Read on:::

One time I received a press release with FIVE different phone numbers on them and NOT ONE SINGLE answer! Either ring-ring-ring-ring or a non-dated voicemail. (I can't tell you how many times people will call me back DAYS LATER after I have left a message!)

If you can't be right at the phone or have someone who will be, and you expect a successful press event to happen, for goddsakes PLEASE record a special message, something like: "Hi it's Phil on Tuesday, November 10, if you're calling about the press release leave your contact info and I will call you right back." THAT lets the person calling know that they have a better than 50% chance of speaking with a live person before DEADLINE... or leave an alternate, a cell number, an email address... if you want coverage!

I took a chance one time and went to a news conference without being able to verify the information that was presented in the press release. Guess who was the ONLY reporter at the event? ME! The other radio and TV stations passed because there were other events (maybe not as important) happening where they WERE able to make contact with a living soul!

In this modern "I want it NOW" world, reporter's deadlines have shrunk like crazy! If you email me your press release tonight, and I read it at 0800 tomorrow, you better have SOMEBODY manning the phones 0900 or before and you better be able to produce people I can interview by 1000! I'm sorry, but that's the way it is today!

Now, if you have a place where you can upload AUDIO and/or VIDEO tracks, you are way ahead of the game and making it eaasier for the press to cover your event! "Oh, you couldn't make it out to hear so-and-so speak about the issue? We have a soundbite on our website and a video of the presser on YouTube." You will be surprised how well that scenario plays out!

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and Dave Lucas are properly cited. Permission to reprint any comments below is granted only for those comments written by Dave Lucas and staff.

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China: Wi-Fi monitoring system in Beijing cafes and bars

China: Wi-Fi monitoring system in Beijing cafes and bars

According to Mingpao Daily, Beijing Police has issued a notice to all the cafes and bars which provide Wi-Fi access to their customers to install a RMB20,000 monitoring system. Upon installation, users have to register their ID in the counter before logging in the Wi-Fi network.
The notice was issued by the Beijing police around end of June, 2011 to cafe, bookstore, and bar which provide free Wi-Fi access to their customers. If they reject, they will no longer be allowed to provide free Wi-Fi service.

The system is called “non profit network security auditing system”, the installation fee varies from RMB 2 - 40,000 dollars. The system can monitor 100 customers at the same time and their browsing record would be kept in the system for 60 days. The “notice” states that for those which reject to install the system, they would be subject to a RMB15,000 fine. The police can also suspend their business license.

It is believed that the system would be adopted in other cities upon testing in Beijing. The Beijing East City District police told reporters that the system is to help the police to crack down criminal offense. However, Internet users find the monitoring system a violation of user privacy.

Words of Caution at New York Post

News Corp.'s legal department on Friday issued a notice to New York Post staff asking them to save any information related to phone hacking and bribery of government officials, as the company faces ongoing scrutiny in a reporting-tactics scandal stemming from its News of the World U.K. tabloid.

New York Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan told staff in a memo the measure was being taken in light of allegations of phone hacking and bribing of government officials by the News of the World, which News Corp. closed this month, "not because any recipient has done anything improper or unlawful."

The notice comes after a government official said last week the U.S. Justice Department was preparing subpoenas as part of early-stage investigations into the allegations related to foreign bribery and the hacking of voicemail of Sept. 11 victims.. MORE

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Asian Women with White Men Suck?

from chinaSMACK ::: blogger Christine H. Tan explores the intricacies of interracial relations: here's a snippet or two:::

Just think about that for a while — without being politically correct, what is your gut reaction to Asian women with white men? ... "We're not all rich old white men with young ferocious Asian wives... but they do exist." ... I keep a blog where I’ve occasionally touched upon my type of interracial relationship, particularly in two posts, The Asian Girlfriend Complex, and Ending Bias against White Male and Asian Female Couples?. I wrote these posts because I am very much aware of the negative associations...

Little Mermaid, Revisited

A look back at Disney's 1989 classic featuring the human-obsessed underwater princess, Ariel. 119

By WILLA PASKIN (nEW yORK mAGAZINE)

We have a FOLLOWER! Trojan asteroid tags along on Earth's orbit...

The asteroid in the Earth's orbit around the sun has been hiding from view, mostly overhead during daylight, study finds. This celestial disciple could be the next off-world destination for astronauts from earth!

Something else is inching skyward...

GARBAGE CITY: EGYPT -- AFTER REVOLUTION...

bellavidaletty posted: Stirrings

“I’m not trying to be sexy.

It’s just my way of expressing myself when I move around.”

Elvis Presley

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Norway: A Firsthand Account of the Massacre in Utøya

She's Come Out!

Nafissatou Diallo on US tv

HuffPo Outdoes Microsoft, Esquire in Shameless Use of Amy Winehouse's Death

Blogger: Singer's Death a 'Wake-Up Call for Small Business Owners'

Norway: A Firsthand Account of the Massacre in Utøya

Compiled from various sources includingSolana Larsen for Global Voices Online

The world is still in shock over the mass-murder of at least 85 people attending a political youth camp on the island Utøya in Norway on the evening of Friday, 22 July 2011. The killer, now identified as Anders Behring Breivik, masqueraded as a police officer before opening fire on everyone around him, and chasing those who fled to the water.

NORWAY KILLER CONFIRMS PM WAS PRIME TARGET...

Says he wanted to 'save Europe'...

Killer Warns of 'More Cells'...

Breivik is also the prime suspect behind a bombing in Oslo only few hours earlier that killed seven people and caused extensive damage to government buildings.

Thoma Roche of Techyumblog posted an analysis entitled ‘Inside the Mind of the Norwegian Terrorist'. The fact that the terrorist pinpointed Japan and South Korea as clear examples of countries that consistently and directly dismissed multiculturalism has drawn various responses in South Korea

The Utøya summer camp is an annual event of AUF (Arbejdernes Ungdomsfylking) the youth organization of the Norwegian Labour Party. Young people from across the country gather to discuss politics, listen to music, play sports and hear speeches by current and former politicians. Utøya is less than an hour's drive from central Oslo. Earlier in the day, before the gunman arrived, AUF's Twitter feed [no] and the#Utøya hashtag showed that approximately 700 participants were discussing the environment, women's rights, and Middle East politics. It was raining, but the mood was good. Later, the Twitter account went silent. More...

This post is also available in these languages:::

Español	· Noruega: Relato de primera mano de la masacre en Utøya
Nederlands	· Noorwegen: Ooggetuigenverslag van het bloedbad in Utøya
한국어	· 노르웨이: 우토야 섬 학살, 생존자의 생생한 증언
Italiano	· Norvegia: testimonianza diretta sulla strage di Utøya
Français	· Norvège : Témoignage d’une rescapée de la fusillade d’Utøya

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I was on hand for the festivities at Albany City Hall Saturday night into Sunday morning: New York is the sixth, and largest, state to legalize same-sex unions. Several other states are considering following suit.

Congrats to all of you couples! Scroll down to the bottom for my musical gift to you!

Six gay and lesbian couples from around the Capital Region were among the first in the state to legally wed under New York’s same-sex marriage law. Mayor Jerry Jennings and Judge Joseph Teresi officiated in Albany. This is what it looked outside City Hall around 11pm, an hour before things got underway...



Lights, cameras... ACTION!

When I first arrived at City Hall, I jokingly mentioned to Dori Marlin that it's been about three years since I last saw her out covering a story. "You're the third person who's told me that tonight," said she... No, she and Dan Levy weren't tying the knot... they were witnessing


Judge Teresi officiating the wedding of an African-American couple who had children with them. I wasn't able to find out who the kids were. Everyone was smiling most of the time, except during those "serious, solemn" moments! Here's the Times Union account of the evening... I mentioned in my radio report that gay rights and human rights activists hope the Empire State's same-sex marriage law will have nationwide impact - that it will impress lawmakers throughout the land, all the way to President Barack Obama. Gay marriage advocates now say they will push for Federal legislation that would require ALL states to recognize same-sex unions.

Mayor Jenning's longtime friends ("Super Secret Couple") Dale Getto and Barbara Laven were married by hizzoner. After the City Hall proceedings, they jumped in a stretch limo and headed up to Saratoga for celebration at Vapor! Congratulations, ladies!


Old chum Dan Levy from NewsChannel 13 takes a seat to jot down a few notes...

Albany City Councilman Anton Konev was on the scene to "witness history." This fellow attends more local events than Brian Scavo!


I love people! Comrades-in-arms Fox23 reporter and cameraman mugged for my smartphone as the crowd began leaving City Hall. Good job, guys!

And here's a musical gift for you Gay Couples! Ronnette's Ronnie Spector with substitute 'nettes Belinda Carlisle (Go-Gos) and Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane) with the late great Clarence Clemmons on sax!



Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and Dave Lucas are properly cited. Photographs are the property of Dave Lucas and may not be used without permission. Permission to reprint any comments below is granted only for those comments written by Dave Lucas and staff.

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The Technium

McLuhan at 100 - It's Marshall McLuhan's 100th birthday. What would McLuhan have done? A flash crowd meetup? Or republish an old interview from Playboy in 1969? You may be amazed by The Technium article. If you don't read anything else today...

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Haitian President Joseph Martelly met in Port-au-Prince on Thursday (July 21) to discuss reconstruction efforts and visit a housing expo. A year and a half after the massive 7.0 earthquake decimated the capital city and killed hundreds of thousands of people, 635,000 of the country's poorest residents are still living in tent camps. Clinton, who as Co-Chairman of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission has devoted much of his efforts into alleviating poverty in the Western hemisphere's poorest nation, lauded the efforts of Martelly, who took office earlier this year. (Watch the Video via NTN24)

Spat of the Day: Google+ Removes Business Profiles via the Wall Street Journal (blog) Yesterday Google axed pages set up by Sesame Street and Ford Motor Company as well as the blogs Mashable and Search Engine Land. The reason, Google manager Christian Oestlien later explained in a post and a YouTube video, was that the “platform at the ...

TechCrunch

Long Before Google+, Google Declared War On Facebook With OpenSocial - Google and Facebook are at war. We've known this for a while. Of course, neither side will admit to it, but they are. Winner takes the Internet.
Blogging Is Hard – With A Capital H! That's the word from Marya, posting on FamousBloggers!

Marya is a passionate writer, blogger and a thinker. When she is not writing online , she is often found mimicking the properties of a bookworm, or enjoying delicious food - cooked by capable restaurant people. Catch more of her posts at Writing happiness. Follow her @WritingH.

Scoop: Oracle scrubs site of embarrassing Java blog

via CNET- Jul 22, 2011 by Jay Greene The beginning of Sun's Jonathan Schwartz's 2007 blog post praising Google's use of Java in Android. In the midst of its nasty legal battle with Google, Oracle seems to have resorted to a bit of Web site scrubbing. ...

chinaSMACK

The Great Pretenders: China’s “Unfire-able” English Teachers - The majority of China’s private ESL institutions are considerably less legitimate.These schools hire English teachers with one, basic requirement: a white ...

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Top Viruses
1.	WORM_NYXEM.E
2.	HTML_NETSKY.P
3.	WORM_NETSKY.DAM
4.	PAK_GENERIC.001

One of China's most promising young gymnasts, Zhang Shangwu seemed destined for Olympic glory before his career ended in injury. He has been found begging on the streets of Beijing, prompting criticism of the country's Soviet-style sports system.

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.

Yemen Protests 2011

via Global Voices : 18 July 2011 20:40 GMT

This post also available in:

Español	· Protestas en Yemen - 2011
اردو	·

Young supporter for Yemen protests, Washington DC, USA. Flickr: Messay Shoakena (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Table of Contents

• Latest Global Voices Posts About Yemen
• Featured Global Voices Posts - Yemen Protests 2011
• Resources:
  • Twitter - Including live feed

State of NoVa | Va. aims to become Hollywood East

Washington Post (blog)- Jul 18, 2011- Sure, there are a lot of blogs and a lot of blah-blah-blah out there. But here at The State of NoVa, we've culled through a few hundred or so, and bring you our list of the Top 31 fun and fascinating blogs...

TechCrunch

Inbox Overload Begone: Taskforce Exits Beta, Goes Pro With Paid Version - Email is an essential part of our daily communication, but it can also be a real pain in the ass.

QUOTE OF THE DAY ::: This comes from the 'comments' section in a post appearing on Lisa Irby's blog ::: "On Google you can connect with people who are actively looking to solve their problem. But people don’t go to Facebook to solve problems. They probably go there more to avoid their problems."

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Breaking News for one and all: the bigger they are, the harder they fall!

Rebekah Brooks has been arrested in connection with the phone-hacking scandal ::: LIVEBLOG events TIMELINE

The week that ended Brooks's career!





Tags: Rebekah Brooks, Rebekah Brooks



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To All You 'Aggregator Haters' Out There

Splitting hairs regarding journalistic ethics aside, readers familiar with HuffPo and many other blogs (including mine) have come to expect that they will encounter active aggregating every now and then. I've had brushes with those who would accuse me of "over-aggregating" - and I've had to address the issue - even though regular readers have come to recognize it is something I do (in some instances just to save a lot of time, not at all for 'SEO').

Aggregating, when done properly (see Global Voices) provides a valuable collective portal of information. LAweekly comes to the defense of suspended HuffPo blogger Amy Lee, taking aggregation by its horns and showing it for what it is: "...a staple in blogland. Love it or hate it. Let's debate it by saying it's a prominent model and we all do it..." The following has been "aggregated" from New York Magazine:

Earlier this week Simon Dumenco published a column in Advertising Age griping that, for all Arianna's promises that she drives traffic to outside sites, the Huffington Post actually takes ideas and hands out few page views in exchange. His example was a column of his own, which was liberally quoted and minimally linked by HuffPo. In the end, the massive "traffic-driver" sent only 57 page views his way. It was an egregious but not uncommon example of the site's aggregation philosophy, on the far end of a sliding scale that often tries and succeeds in proper attribution. (Some of our posts get big bumps from a HuffPo link. Others don't.) In response to Dumenco's column, HuffPo's executive business editor, Peter Goodman, profusely apologized and suspended the young blogger who had "over-aggregated." (Read the complete NYmag article)

TechMeme founder Gabe Rivera is irked that the term “aggregator” is being misapplied ::: he argues that the Huffington Post is not an aggregator --- What irked me was the reminder that “aggregator” is a rather broad-brush term that paints systematic news-rewriters like the Huffington Post (who bury links) as cousins to snippet-quoting sites like Techmeme and Mediagazer (which link prominently). Dumenco’s piece, whose subtitle begins with “The Blog Queen Defends HerAggregation Practices” also cites Bill Keller’s famous column from earlier this year, entitled “All the Aggregation That’s Fit toAggregate“, which goes as far as coyly utilizing the term “aggregate” repeatedly as a euphemism for “steal”.

You may also enjoy:::

Successful aggregation

and here's a snippet of a "post from the past" :::

To All You 'Aggregator Haters' Out There

A bit of misplaced criticism has come to my attention: a statement that this humble weblog "publishes pages and pages of information that may be found elsewhere on the world-wide web but provides no added value to it." Here's another: "You ape what others write and publish through your unstoppable cut and paste routine."

To those above allegations from windbag Windy, I answer:

My blogging work includes, but is not limited to, reporting and editing in the traditional way, as well as aggregating information from a variety of sources, sorting and presenting the data to make it understandable.

Those who would criticize me for "cut and paste" would do well to look at their own blogs and tweets to search for occurrences of fleeting instances of originality.


Tags: aggregator, Huffington Post



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"This story is available only in print" - the Albany Times Union

Without Anthony Weiner to poke (fun at)and with the Casey Anthony trial "resolved," the Sunday news is a little tamer this weekend: the sensational stories (except maybe for what's happening with Rupert Murdoch) take a back seat today.

It's great when a newspaper takes an original story and keeps readers "in the loop." There's nothing worse than wondering "what happened" - the Albany Times Union has done a marvelous job following the life and times of "Poppy" - and the timing here was just right for a page-one follow-up to the transient's seemingly never-ending story! Poppy has settled for now in Ravena. (For those wishing to read the storyonline, don't fret - the "print exclusives" eventually show up at the TU's website.)

Right below the Poppy article there's a story very timely for seafood lovers: a warning that imported fish containing banned chemicals are being sold in the U.S.

"Death Arrives in the Neighborhood" is a story out of Lake George with a very unhappy ending, like so many stories of "relationship violence" turn out. Just as I wonder about suicides, I wonder how bad life has to be, how low one must sink, how severe heartbreak must be, for things like these to happen. Your prayers for all of the people involved in this and the Massachusetts story that follows below are needed!

THE BOSTON GLOBE has the bigger story (a sensational one in the Greater Boston area)::: that of Nathaniel Fujita, the son of Berklee College of Music assistant prof. Tomohisa Fujita, charged with the July 3rd murder of Lauren Astley.
Back to "LOCAL" ::: Way deep in the "Capital Region" section on pp D10-11, there's a news article/obit for New York State Assembly director Sisa Moyo... the 47-year old found dead in her apartment the other day. I'm glad I don't live alone. If you live alone, you die alone. Across the page there's a story about the army amputee who fell to his death from a roller coaster just outside Buffalo. That's gotta be as sad as the poor chap who fell to his death trying to catch a baseball for his 6-year old son at a major league game.

Deep inside the Sunday Times Union there's an ad where Hannaford vs. Price Chopper over the cost of cereal. REALLY? Hannaford, why the kid gloves? Why not go after them on the cost of MEAT. I'll give you an example. Roughly a pound of hamburger at the Delmar Hannaford cost me $3 and change on Saturday. The same day, roughly a pound of hamburger at the Madison Avenue Price Chopper ran around $7. I picked up a steak at HFD for $2.14. A nice steak, big enough for three (four with samller portions). I couldn't find a steak at the Madison PC for less than $8.

Now, Price Chopper may be advertsing lower prices for meat, but everytime I've gone to the meat section I CANNOT FIND a single package steak or hamburger being sold for less than $4 or $5, where at Hannaford, I can ALWAYS find a $2.50 steak and a $2.89 package of hamburger - and if it expires that day they'll even have a markdown slip on it anywhere from 75c to $1.50 off!

THE SARATOGIAN is running stories about economic uncertainty and the decline of fine arts possibly threatening the New York City Ballet's future with SPAC and the preponderance of "invasive species" making Saratoga Lake a "travel destination."

THE NY POST homepage showcases Derek jeter's 3000th hit. And so it goes. Another newspaper Sunday is in the books.


Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and Dave Lucas are properly cited. Permission to reprint any comments below is granted only for those comments written by Dave Lucas and staff.

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Get Invited!

By selectively shutting netizens out, Google has generated much more buzz for its warrior to go up against Facebook. But it's tough to get "invited"...

A handful of media companies have begun to pitch their tents inside Google+. Among them::: Mashable (an Edelman client) and The Next Web.

If you are in China - FORGET ABOUT Google+



Tags: google+, facebook killer



Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and Dave Lucas are properly cited. Permission to reprint any comments below is granted only for those comments written by Dave Lucas and staff.

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Did you know that a nuclear power plant in the United States is in danger of a meltdown?

"In every country where there have been nuclear incidents, the industry has constantly lied about the nature and severity of the problem, until they can’t lie anymore."

This evening on twitter:

ABSCBNNews ABS-CBN News

Japan issues tsunami alert following strong

quakehttp://bit.ly/kRj3NK #world #news

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