Spinning Frenzy: P.R.'s Bad Press
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The admission by Armstrong Williams that he was paid $240,000 to promote the administrationÂs education initiative has roiled the public relations industry.
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By TIM CUPRISIN  It's safe to say that commercial radio, like the rest of the commercial media, is in a state of flux.
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A Foolish roundup of new-issue hits, misses, and no-shows.
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Valleywag is mostly puff pieces. I guess they're writing about people who, for one reason or another, they don't want to offend. Typical of business press. Don't screw your sources or else they'll dry up. Don't speak ill of Steve Jobs or else no cover picture for you. So, it's reasonable to conclude -- if you read something unbelievably nice about someone in Valleywag, that person is a source. Thing is, they're reduced to attacking about five people. And the flow is miniscule. A pointer from VW is worth about 20 hits. In other words, hire a business reporter to do VW, and you get Infoworld, about 25 years too late.
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It seems even a crusty old newshound like me can get burned. My item last week about a couple naming their baby âYahooâ turns out to be a hoax cooked up by a (now-unemployed) Romanian tabloid reporter. Reporters making things up just for a laugh? I am shocked, simply shocked.Â
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According to this advisory on the FrSIRT website, users of the P-News package have two somethings to worry about - a file upload and remote information disclosure vulnerability.   Multiple vulnerabilities have been identified in P-News, which could be exploited by remote attackers to compromise a vulnerable server or disclose sensitive information.   The file upload issue has to do with the ability to upload an Avatar to the system that doesn't validate the file extension and the second is a design flaw for the location of the user information (a text file) inside the document root.   Unfortunately, so official patch has been supplied at this time, but a few quick edits to the code can make these issues go away.
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Rumors about another press release purveyor are flying off the presses.
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Having shown up at wired.com of all places just the other day, a story claiming that Paul's campaign staff or his supporters have been (email) spamming to get the message out. This is pure bullshit, and I'll explain why.
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The New RepublicÂs suspension of an editor for his conduct online is a cautionary tale about the mainstream mediaÂs engagement with the Web.
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Readers fire back in response to five outrageous market calls.
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Like it or not, ads are coming to RSS. Sending information only to those who want it might be a way to keep subscribers from rioting. Commentary by Adam L. Penenberg.
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Generally, Bad Language is against awards shows. The TelePrompTer puffery and please-buy/see-my-latest-CD/DVD appearances are nauseating at best. But it's our job to report on all things pop culture. So we watch. And we watch. And we fall asleep. Then we wake up and watch again.
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It is always slightly amusing when journalists compose self-righteous articles on the evils of cocaine abuse. To put it no higher, the media do not exactly comprise a drug-free zone.
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The Fool rounds up new-issue hits, misses, and no-shows.
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Newsnight editor Peter Barron has hit back at allegations of 'disastrous editorial misjudgment'. By John Plunkett
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There's been a mostly fantastic discussion about fair use in this neighborhood for the last few days.  It started when a photograph of Lane Hartwell's was used in a video spoof of the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire."  The first I heard of this was in a Twitter post of hers where she said she was turning off access to her entire Flickr collection because this picture was used without permission. A series of communications with the people who did the video resulted in the video being taken down. Later Mike Arrington, who is a lawyer, wrote a piece saying she didn't have right on her side, and that the video's use of her picture was probably fair use. I found Mike's piece compelling. Others took offense. It thought it was a useful part of the discussion. I understand Ms Hartwell's point of view. I hate it when people copy a whole post of mine and paste it into theirs. But then I grab bits of images and put them on my blog and people rarely complain. The blogosphere is built on being loose about copyright and fair use.  I'm doing a deal with a content company and all these issues are coming up. We haven't been able to write a contract that covers all the things they want covered and make it possible for me to do what I need to do, and they want my product to work. It's a real mess we're in. Bloggers are supposed to be radicals when it comes to fair use and copyright, but that generalization doesn't work with many creative people. Hartwell's position in some ways is like the RIAA or MPAA, who bloggers often dismiss as clueless. How can we have it both ways? How can some defend her position yet not defend the entertainment industry? There's a lot to discuss here, and a lot of the discussion on the blogs has been informative and respectful. Not all of it, but to an unusually high degree.  So, I am interested in doing an in person "flash conference" on the subject of fair use in a few weeks. I'd say next week if it weren't Christmas. Most conferences are so boring. I want to do a conf on a hot subject when it's still hot in the blogosphere. This may be a good subject for such a quickly organized conference. What do you think of the flash conference idea for this??
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Satish Kaushik is in the news. For the right and wrong reasons!