links for 2009-07-20

 by Martin Belam, 20 July 2009
  • "There is no doubt Twitter has had an impact too [on blogging]. It’s just easier – I can stay logged in on the same programme. I could retweet and comment on ten different items in the same time it would take me to write a blog post on one of them. When writing a blog post, I feel a pressure to source multiple opinions, defend my own, refer back to previous posts and put some multimedia in there. With Twitter, I can’t, but ironically this allows me to communicate more".
  • Great story about how in the hot metal days, The Guardian's moon landing front page went to press without one of the most famous quotes of the 20th century
  • This story interested me for two reasons. Firstly, we visited Trencin, where it happened, on our Eastern European travels. Secondly, NME really need a story-level 'off switch' for their related ticket sales widget, which is trying to sell tickets for one of the bands who were due to play at the festival, prompting the first user comment to be "wht [sic] pendulum got to do with this"
  • This story appears to be about a 2 year old girl feeding the ducks in the rain. Clause iv) of section 6 of the PCC code says "Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publishing details of a child’s private life". If anyone of you can work out the public interest justification for publishing this story, can you send the answers on a postcard to Paul Dacre please? You can use his Daily Mail or his PCC address I suppose...
    (tags: dailymail pcc)

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