NY Times Online Debates Charging Readers
March 12, 2010
The Raw Story
By AFP
With The New York Times and Rupert Murdoch poised to start charging for newspapers online, media heavyweights sparred on Thursday over whether readers will pay for news on the Web.
The Times plans to require payment for full access to NYTimes.com in early 2011 and Murdoch, who already charges for The Wall Street Journal online, has pledged to begin charging Web readers of his other News Corp. newspapers.
Keynote speakers and panelists at the Bloomberg BusinessWeek Media Summit here differed sharply on whether Internet users would be ready to shell out money for what they have become accustomed to getting for free.
New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger said the time is right for his newspaper to start charging for its website and the move will provide a “critical” new revenue stream to add to print and online advertising revenue.
“There is an opportunity, I think, for us to gain a great deal of revenue from this paid model going forward,” Times Co. president and chief executive Janet Robinson said.
Merrill Brown, chief strategist for Journalism Online, said more than 1,300 publications around the world have expressed interest in the services offered by the company founded last year to help news outlets make money on the Web.
“Everyone of them is contemplating a paid strategy of one kind or another,” Brown said.
Readers will not pay for “commoditized headlines,” he said, “but they will pay for very specialized news.
“They will pay for deep coverage of their favorite sports teams, they will pay for content which only local newspapers have in their communities,” Brown said. “If (publishers) market it smartly to their most engaged users they have a chance to add at least incremental revenue.”
Brown said that although the data is “inadequate,” studies suggest that in the United States, over 20 percent of regular visitors to a particular news website may be willing to pay.
“That would be a pretty good thing at any large publication in the country,” he said.
Andrew Keen, author of “The Cult of the Amateur,” a book which takes a critical look at the impact of the Internet on culture, said the newspaper industry “shot itself in the foot” by not charging on the Web in the first place but has every right to do so now.
“We do need to fight the culture of free, the culture which suggests that large media companies or for that matter small media companies don’t have the right to charge for their content,” he said.
“Media companies if they choose can give their stuff away for free but they shouldn’t be vilified if they choose to build pay walls around it and sell it,” Keen said.
Michael Wolff, founder of news aggregator website Newser and the author of a book on Murdoch, said any attempt to make readers pay online is doomed to fail.
“We’re in a moment of destruction, transformation beyond all imagination,” Wolff said.
“Newspapers are going out of business, every big city newspaper will be out of business or will be owned by a rich man hobbyist within the foreseeable future,” he said.
“It’s not going to happen that The New York Times is going to successfully charge or that anyone else is going to successfully charge,” Wolff said.
“You’re not going to pay for news because it’s something you already get, it’s everywhere,” he said. “If you’re connected in any way the news comes to you.”
Richard Gingras, chief executive of online arts and culture magazine Salon, said media companies “clearly have to look for alternate revenue streams and not just rely on advertising” but expressed skepticism readers would be willing to open their wallets to get news online.
“They won’t pay for local news content, not in sufficient numbers,” he said. “It’s very hard to convince anyone that the value is such that they should pay to get it.”
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Parents Better than TV at Teaching Babies to Speak
March 2, 2010
dailymail.co.uk
By Fiona Macrae
Parents who buy educational DVDs to give their toddlers a head start may be doing more harm than good.
A study of almost 100 boys and girls aged between one and two found that regularly watching a DVD from the Baby Einstein range did nothing to boost their vocabulary.
In fact, the younger the children were when they began to watch the programmes, the worse their word power.
Researchers tested the children over six weeks. Half were given a Baby Wordsworth DVD, which their parents were told to play 15 times over six weeks.
The 35-minute disc, costing around £18, is part of the Baby Einstein range – popular with parents keen to boost toddlers’ IQs before starting school.
It uses puppets and people to introduce 30 words for rooms and household appliances, including ‘fridge’ and ‘phone’.
The remaining children’s parents were told to ‘go about life as normal’.
Not surprisingly, older children picked up more new words than younger ones, the California University team found.
However, those who watched the DVD did no better than the others, and in fact appeared to learn little or nothing, their parents told Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, an American journal.
Researchers also asked parents if they had used the DVDs before and found the younger a child was on starting to watch Baby Einstein, the worse their word ability was.
This may be because parents are more likely to use them as aids if children are struggling to learn to speak, said researcher Rebekah Richert.
It is also possible that watching TV means youngsters miss out on playing with their parents, other children and toys. In addition, some experts say the flashing lights and quick scene changes in the Baby Einstein programmes over-simulate the developing brain.
Dr Richert said: ‘Given that infantdirected media are nearly ubiquitous aspects of many infants’ lives, research should continue to examine whether and how parents can use the DVDs effectively.’
Last night, no one at Disney was available for comment.
The Baby Einstein DVDs avoid any suggestion they will make children brainier, and merely claim the series is a must for parents who simply want the best for their children.
‘Our products provide fun and stimulating ways for parents and carers to interact with their children,’ the blurb on the DVD says.
A previous study found children between seven and 16 months who watched the DVDs knew fewer words than their peers. Each hour they watched per day equated to six fewer words in their vocabulary.
Following threatened legal action last year, Disney offered refunds to dissatisfied parents – but only in North America.
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 2-24-10
Today, Kevin explains who really controls the mainstream media outlets and gives you detailed proof that they are deceiving the public, especially with his court proceedings. Plus, find out how high fructose corn syrup is like crack cocaine!
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Kevin Trudeau’s Fight For Freedom
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 2-17-10
Today, Kevin explains why he is in court today and the real reason he didn’t get fair coverage from the mainstream media. Plus, more predictions! You won’t want to miss this vital information!!
Foreclosures Reach 315,000 in January
Corporations Have No Interest In Your Safety
Updates to Mental Health Disorders Manual
Speaking of New Made-Up Disorders…
Anti-Depressant Drugs No More Effective Than Placebos
Household Cleaners May Cause Breast Cancer
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 2-16-10
Today, Kevin explains why the government and media are tuning in specifically for this broadcast!
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Online Junk Food Ads Preying on Teens
February 15, 2010
Natural News
By David Gurierrez
Teenagers are strongly affected by Internet marketing in a way that has yet to be addressed by scientific research or government regulation, a group of scientists has warned in a review published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
“As the media marketplace continues its rapid transformation, becoming a ubiquitous presence in young people’s lives, further academic research is needed to understand fully the nature, scope, and extent of interactive advertising’s impact on youth,” the researchers wrote.
According to the paper, the United States still regulates advertising to children and teenagers based on studies conducted in the 1970s on how television influences young minds. The authors said that the Internet is a fundamentally different medium than television, however.
“In the Internet era, children and teens are not passive viewers; they are active participants and content creators in an interactive digital environment that pervades their personal and social lives,” they wrote.
Advertisers have specifically targeted teenagers for Internet marketing, particularly of food and drink. Teenagers are significantly more impulsive in their purchasing than younger children or older adults, and spend an average of $46 online each month. They are significantly more likely to participate in online marketing campaigns than other age groups.
Self-imposed regulations by junk food and other manufacturers fall far short of what is needed, researchers said. They criticized these initiatives, in part, for being “narrowly focused” on children younger than 12.
“Although this model may have been appropriate when television was the primary advertising medium, it has limited utility for addressing the changing media and marketing landscape. Nor does it provide guidance for understanding the role of adolescents in the digital marketplace,” the scientists wrote.
The federal government recently made moves to address junk food marketing to teenagers when it created the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children. The mandate of this group includes all children through the age of 17.
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You truly are an American Hero & a living example for us all…
February 8, 2010 by Brandy
Filed under Testimonials
Kevin,
I have listened to every one of your radio shows since it started and have enjoyed each and every episode. The most important part of the show is your “no nonsense” approach to giving real news and practical information. Not only is the show entertaining, but I love how you expose the corruption and the deception of the government, the media, and the corporations. This is what people need to hear and how they need to hear it. You make it clear that it is time for everyone to wake up.
You are one of the few celebrities who actually do what you suggest other people should do and you have the results to prove it works. Since you really believe in what you are doing, it gets the listeners to believe, as well. I love the fact that the show not only presents the real issues, it also provides solutions. You always remind the listeners that there is nothing to fear and to take control and focus on what you want. You get people to use good old fashioned common sense. You have nicely managed to stay relatable to the listeners, despite your extensive life experience. This is especially reflected in the way you handle the callers. You also have a talent for telling true stories with respect to the given topic, which makes the topic more interesting.
I really enjoy the diversity of topics, such as, health and wellness, economics, politics, government, the laws, new books, special products, business opportunities, travel, and more. This gives the listeners a broader perspective of how the world really works and how to make it better by making better choices. The guests are all phenomenal. They always give in-depth information about the benefits of what they are promoting. This also demonstrates what kind of connections you have, which brings the show to higher level.
The interactive resources that support the show are excellent, such as, the website with all the news stories, links to the sponsors, the archived shows, the email club, and the book club. I know this only functions with a highly qualified staff. I commend them on a job well done. The fact that you are demonstrating tremendous courage every time you put on a show is inspiring. You really are fearless, which adds a unique quality to the show! This is the only talk show I have ever consistently followed because the quality of information allows me to make better decisions for myself and my family. I am very grateful that you made the decision to expose this kind of information, even though you do it at tremendous personal risk. You truly are an American Hero and a living example for us all. Please keep up the fight for freedom. I am looking forward to meeting you in person.
Mark DiNino
Rockland, MA
The Guardian Discovers What ClimateGate Really Was
February 3, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
February3, 2010
Heraldsun
By Andrew Bolt
The only real things that’s changed now is the media’s willingness to see the fraud and fiddling that was always part of the great global warming scam. To finally see the fraud and fiddling that bloggers have written about for years.
Example? Well, take the Guardian.
For nearly three years, mathematician Douglas Keenan has campaigned to get the University of East Anglia, the University of Albany, the IPCC and the media to accept that a key piece of evidence behind the IPCC’s claims that the world was warming was based on a study that was wrong, if not outright fraudulent. Keenan described not just the tricking up of results to hide the urban heat island effect, but the disgraceful efforts by climate scientists and University of Albany administrators to hush up the scandal.
When Climategate broke last year (again, through the blogs), I discovered and noted that one Climategate scientist, Australian Tom Wigley, was so shocked by this particular scandal that he had written scathing (private) emails to the head of the now discredited Climatic Research Unit, Phil Jones, damning what had been done.
I also summarised the scandal, which had also been well-covered by other blogs:
One of the biggest problems with calculating temperature trends over the past century is how much to allow for the fact that measurements in our fast-growing concrete jungles will suffer from the “urban heat island” effect of all those extra machines and concrete. How much of the warming until 2001 must be discounted as a result?..
The IPCC’s 2007 report made an allowance that drew heavily on a 1990 paper by Phil Jones that dismissed the UHI effect as largely trivial. That in turn drew heavily on a paper by Professor Wang Wei-Chyung of Albany, State University of New York, which presented data from China which both Wang and Jones claimed came from stations that had “few, if any, changes in instrumentation, location or observation times”, and so could be relied upon.
Mathematician Doug Keenan and others obtained the original Wang data and used it to track down the Chinese weather stations. They found that 49 of the 84 stations used actually had no records of station location, eight had inconsistent histories, 18 had been moved a considerable distance, and only seven were known not to have been relocated. One station had five different locations in 30 years as far as 41 km apart.
Wang seemed to have lied. His data was essentially worthless, and Jones’ (and the IPCC’s) claim that the Urban Heat Island effect was trivial now seemed unsupported by solid evidence.
For all this time, the Guardian kept up its alarmist campaign on global warming, and ignored this particular scandal.
But today I read that the Guardian has a “scoop” thanks to its “investigation” and “today reveals” what it last year wouldn’t:
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.
A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
And Wigley and his emails are “revealed”, too:
Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones’s collaborator, Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had “screwed up”.
The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang’s work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. “Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?” he asked Jones. He continued: “Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?”
This example actually suggests how complicit the media has been in keeping the global warming scare alive by failing to report what was actually under its nose.
But now there’s a great change. There is now a race on to uncover the next big IPCC scandal, and I doubt the great climate change scare can survive. The papers will, of course, take the credit.
Iran Hangs 2 for Allegedly Aiming to Topple State
January 28th, 2010
apnews.myway.com
By Nasser Karimi
Iran on Thursday executed two men accused of involvement in an armed anti-government group, as the public prosecutor announced that new death sentences have been issued against opposition activists involved in protests over June’s disputed presidential election.
The two men, who were hanged before dawn Tuesday, did not appear to be connected to the postelection protests – at least one of them was arrested before the election, according to his lawyer.
But state media depicted the two as part of the protest movement, a sign of how the government has lumped together many of its enemies with the political opposition amid its postelection crackdown. The media’s depiction of the executions may aim to intimidate the opposition ahead of new street demonstrations expected in February
In a further move likely aimed at cowing protesters, Tehran’s prosecutor announced that five people have been sentenced to death for involvement in the most recent major demonstrations, on Dec. 27. That day saw the worst violence of postelection crackdown, with at least eight people killed in clashes between police and protesters and hundreds arrested.
The new verdicts raise to nine the number of people sentenced to death for involvement in protests, said the prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi.
The two men who were executed, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, were convicted by a Revolutionary Court of belonging to “counterrevolutionary and monarchist groups,” plotting to overthrow “the Islamic establishment” and planning assassinations and bombings, Dowlatabadi told state TV.
He said the two confessed during the trial and that an appeals court upheld their death sentences. He made no mention of the postelection protests in connection to the case.
Rahmanipour’s lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, told the Associated Press Thursday that the 20-year-old Rahmanipour was arrested in April on the charge of membership in an armed opposition group, the Royal Association of Iran.
She said his trial and verdict were “unfair and illegal,” saying his lawyer was not allowed to participate in the court sessions and he was forced to confess. She said she and Rahmanipour’s relatives had not been notified of any appeal’s court ruling upholding the death sentences.
Iran’s English language channel, Press TV, said that among the charges against the two was that they had a role in the 2008 bombing of a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz.
Still, state TV portrayed the executions as part of the postelection crackdown. In a report aired on the channel and reported on its Web site, it said Rahmanipour and Zamani were among those sentenced to death “in the wake of the rioting and counterrevolutionary and antiestablishment acts of recent months.”
The opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the June presidential election through fraud. Hundreds of thousands have poured into the streets in Iran since then on various occasions to support Ahmadinejad’s main challenger, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Dozens of protesters were killed in the unrest and hundreds detained since June.
Iran has put on trial more then 100 political activists and figures since August. The defendants have included not only those directly involved in protests but also opposition politicians and writers – a sign that the leadership has used the turmoil as an opportunity to cast a wide net in pursuing its various opponents. More than 80 of those on trial have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years.
Previously, authorities had said five of those on trial had been sentenced to death. The five more announced by Dowlatabadi should raise the total to 10, but he spoke only of nine. There was no explanation for the discrepancy, but it appeared to be a sign of how others – like Rahmanipour and Zamani – have been lumped in with the protest movement.
The charge of membership of armed groups opposed to the Tehran ruling establishment is widely taken to be a reference the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization, or MEK, and groups loyal to the Western-backed monarchy that was toppled by the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Iran has accused both groups of involvement in the assassination this month of an Iranian physicist.
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