links for 2009-06-16

Claire Enders: "Blogs are personal statements ... less than four percent of news ever originates on a blog, blogs are commentaries on what’s going on, they don't originate stories ... you don't see bloggers doing hard work ... I have a lot of respect for everyone who's out there in Bloggerland, but this is not a substitute."

Rick takes the bait... "The fact that for those of us that do work at this online living have already proved that our professionally delivered and packaged content has its own syndication value has clearly passed Ms Enders by; I've sold my content into the Telegraph sports desk…It's why the Washington Post bolted on TechCrunch to their online offering; does no-one on TechCrunch work hard?"

"All broadcasters should be invited to bid for funds to provide public service programming. Competition should start in news and current affairs, where standards of BBC journalism have fallen woefully. If this model does not work, the politicians should look afresh at other ways of funding broadcast excellence, whether through advertising or subscription. The first task, though, must be to tame the crushing ego of the BBC."

"As someone who works for a paid-for London newspaper rather than a freesheet, I declare a personal interest in the debate. Yet it is also worth pointing out that in the internet age, newspapers can only survive if they give the reader something extra, eg exclusives, that the competition do not possess. The BBC News website often acts as a free wire service and papers shouldn't really have anything to worry about that."

"But while the Telegraph's MPs' expenses coverage is a victory for transparency in politics, critics, such as the freedom of information specialist Heather Brooke and WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange, have claimed the paper has been less than transparent about its own processes and data. The newspaper, they say, has published very little of the data in a form that is useable for other individuals and journalists". Great piece by Judith Townend.

A-ha, it appears I spoke too soon about the Idlewild appeal for no piracy

"A column by Charles Arthur recently was the first example I've seen of Datastore being used for, well, more ordinary data - the sort of information journalists deal with every week"

"A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight's planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran)."