How much time are you wasting?

A lot, according to Nieman Journalism Lab and Clay Shirky. So if you think you'll never find the time to write that novel, take a minute to read about what you might cut out here.

FBI targets Anonymous over WikiLeaks attacks

The FBI has seized a computer at a Texas business that's suspected of being used in a massive denial of service attack on PayPal and other sites that "suspended or froze WikiLeaks's accounts," the Smoking Gun reports.

From the story:

The FBI investigation began earlier this month after PayPal officials contacted agents and “reported that an Internet activist group using the names ‘4chan’ and “Anonymous” appeared to be organizing a distributed denial of service (“DDoS”) attack against the company,” according to an FBI affidavit excerpted here.

The PayPal assault was part of “Operation Payback,” an organized effort to attack firms that suspended or froze WikiLeaks’s accounts in the wake of the group’s publication of thousands of sensitive Department of State cables. As noted by the FBI, other targets of this “Anonymous” effort included Visa, Mastercard, Sarah Palin’s web site, and the Swedish prosecutor pursuing sex assault charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder.

(found via Neon Tommy)

Another Tribune Co. exec bails out

Tribune Co. COO Gerry Spector announced he is leaving after three years on the job, the Chicago Tribune's Tower Ticker blog reports. Spector's departure appears to be part of the de-Zellification of Tribune, as part of a deal to dig the company out of bankruptcy.

From the Tower Ticker:

Spector's decision to leave at the end of the year was announced Tuesday by the four-man executive council  to whom he has been reporting since October's resignation of Randy Michaels as chief executive of the parent of the Chicago Tribune and other media properties.

 -snip-

Spector, 63, who first allied with [Sam] Zell as a 25-year-old accountant, held senior management roles in a number of Zell's ventures and played a critical role in building his property management company from scratch.  He first became an officer of Equity Financial and Management in 1973.

Like his boss, Spector is a motorcycle enthusiast who traveled the globe as a member of Zell's Angels. A graduate of Roosevelt University and Senn High School, Spector spurned suits and ties for a colorful collection of sweaters but generally maintained a much lower profile than either Zell or Michaels.

(found via FishbowlLA)

Patch, Patch, Patch

AOL's Patch network hit 750 today - that's 750 individual Patch sites now running across the country. It's up from 500 in early December and up from 30 at the start of the year. I'm told the rapid roll out earned some top managers their holiday bonuses, and that some Patchers worried quality could suffer in the furious effort to meet the goal.

At least AOL realized that the mini-plagiarism outbreak needed a response. A reliable source tells me Patch editors will get mandatory plagiarism-prevention training.

And since I've gotten into a one-way argument with the LA Weekly over all this, here's another thought:

While the Weekly likes to describe Patch as the WalMart of news, I think it risks becoming like a fast-food chain - each franchise operated locally but serving a narrow menu of nearly identical content and dictated to by national headquarters. Think of AOL as the McDonald's Corp. of information and each Patch site as a local joint. Different kids in the play yard, but every Happy Meal the same.

Now, AOL's stated goal is to let individual editors cater to their local communities using only a common platform. Editors are expected to tailor content to local readers, not follow a single AOL formula; and if AOL can resist top-down meddling, and encourage bottom-up innovation, then the network might avoid the fast-food stamp.

But AOL will inevitably count hits and ad dollars and wonder why some site are doing better than others. Being the conglomerate that it is, AOL will think conformity is the best prescription for uneven performance. When controversy strikes - lawsuits, boycotts, plagiarism, etc. - AOL will be tempted to craft one-size-fits-all edicts that will, over time, narrow the menu to the things that work best - i.e., draw the most traffic at the lowest cost.

Of course, news stories aren't Happy Meals and different cities will always have different issues to cover. The best editors at the best Patch sites will resist the mothership. But I haven't seen a newspaper chain yet that hasn't consolidated and embraced sameness as a way to cuts costs in tough times. If Patch can buck the trend, that would be something special.

Another black eye for Patch

A stringer for AOL's Patch site in Palo Alto got caught poaching a business report from the website VentureBeat. The Palo Alto Patch acknowledged what had happened in an apology to readers.

Patch sites in West Hollywood and New Rochelle, New York have run into problems with stolen content as well, as FishbowlLA has reported.

The Patch network is largely decentralized, with individual editors running city sites under a regional editor. The model calls for the local editors (some of whom having journalism training, some of whom don't) to hire stringers (some of whom have journalism training, some of whom don't) to help produce content and keep the web pages filled. It's a system that invites people to cut corners.

As I just argued in the post below, Patch sites should not be graded on a curve - no excuses for plagiarism, no pats on the back for doing what they promised to do. But it only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the barrel. So AOL better get its shit together - it owes it to the Patch writers and editors who are doing a good job.

(found via FishbowlLA)

LA Weekly finds unremarkable Patch journalism remarkable

It should not be surprising that the Echo Park Patch did a solid story about a Christmas Day murder in Echo Park; the kind of thing many good cops reporters would do following a holiday shooting on their beat.

But the LA Weekly was surprised anyway because it had such low expectations. Here's part of the Weekly's blog post:

Here's one thing AOL Patch could be great for, and certainly was in Echo Park this Christmas: documenting the countless gang-related murders that fly under the radar of mainstream media while the homicides of white-collar (and just plain white) victims like celebrity publicist Ronni Chasen get all the airtime. We're often guilty of the same.

-snip-

Here's to you, WalMart of news, for a job well done. And on Christmas Day, no less.

First, why resurrect the wrongheaded "WalMart of news" name calling? AOL has planted Patch sites mostly in smaller, leafy communities that are either affluent or rapidly gentrifying. These are not the places WalMarts generally locate. WalMarts are hub stores that serve their sameness on a regional level, as many newspaper chains do.

(The Weekly does repeat a righteous criticism of AOL for its failure to launch Patch in poor communities - the ones that often need watchdogs the most.)

Second, newspapers sometimes have policies against publishing front-page stories about gang murders. The soundness of these policies is debatable (especially in the era of local blogs), but it's not always a matter of oversight.

Third, why treat Patch as if it were a loopy grandmother who miraculously remembered your name? The sites shouldn't be graded on a curve.

The point here is that local news matters to local readers and Patch, for all its faults, is filling a void left by consolidations at the Weekly, the LA Times, LANG and Freedom. Some sites in the Patch network will do a good job, some won't. The cheap model AOL has used almost guarantees patchy quality. Nevertheless, Patch editors earn more than most LANG reporters and all unemployed former Weekly and Times reporters, so there is a talent pool to tap into.

Also, we should not forget that another website, The Eastsider LA, written by former LA Times reporter Jesus Sanchez, has been keeping an eye on Echo Park and surrounding neighborhoods since 2008.

Daily News's Anderson leaves the county beat

Troy Anderson is leaving his job as county reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News and LANG chain. He plans to freelance for magazines. LA Observed has his note to staff here.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays

From the New York Sun (via the Newseum):

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Goodman brings the ruckus to Kaplan, WaPo*

The Huffington Post's Peter Goodman, a former national economics correspondent of the New York Times, writes that the Washington Post risks its hard earned reputation as a solid journalistic institution because of its dependence on the for-profit Kapalan Higher Education business. From HuffPo:

The Kaplan name has been doing no favors for the Washington Post's reputation or that of the Graham family. As HuffPost business reporter Chris Kirkham detailed this week in a hard-hitting piece drawing on former Kaplan insiders, management has employed deceptively aggressive marketing practices to recruit students, while enrolling many in classes without their knowledge, enabling the company to pocket a larger slice of the federal financial dollars that comprise upwards of 85 percent of their tuition revenues. 

Like many schools in the thriving for-profit college industry, Kaplan has churned out graduates with debts most cannot hope to repay, given the meager wages they will likely earn. Indeed, Kaplan's graduates have wound up defaulting on their federal student loans at roughly twice the rate of counterparts at non-profit university programs.

*Sorry, left out the story link. It's here.

Four today

1. Aggressive conservative bloggers get Nina Totenberg's Christmas comment exactly backwards. But we all know what those NPR really people think, so why bother asking? WaPo

2. They call him Mr. Sunday? Amazon

3. Perhaps you've seen the cryptic commercials for RT.com and wondered what the hell it was, but were afraid to go to the website for fear of what might pop up. Well, it's a Russian news service, formerly known as Russia Today. Wikipedia

4. Facebook update of the day comes from Joe Mathews of the New America Foundation: "...believes it's the sixth-day weather story that separates the pros from the amateurs."

Ben Sherwood gets thumb in the eye from ABC News staffers

ABC News staffers really hate their new boss, Ben Sherwood. So much so that they edited a video of the speech he gave upon accepting the job of president of ABC News to advertise what an underwhelming talent he is. For example, they call him a liar and a failure. Gawker has the video here.

Whatever other faults he has, Sherwood definitely has a weak news background (unless you consider "Good Morning America" a strong news show). That fact alone explain why some news staffers are unhappy with his selection. Usually, when a mass media company brings in an interloper to run a news division it's because the higher ups want a fiddle around with staffing (i.e., lay people off or hire flashy but substance-less talent) and experiment with programming without having a respected news veteran stand in their way.

Four in the morning

1. Tribune Co. announces a modest profit-sharing plan with employees and better employee outreach. Romenesko

2. There are some leaks WikeLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot abide. Cutline

3. US population grows slowly, Census data show. California's population grew 10 percent, but for the first time in the state's history, it will not add another House seat. LAT

4. The FCC is poised to adopt net neutrality standards that no one seems to like. WaPo

Daily Breeze columnist has cancer

Long-time Daily Breeze columnist John Bogert is battling colon cancer. His daughter, Rachael, has stepped in to provide an update. DB

Patch getting noticed

James Rainey, media critic at the Los Angeles Times, takes note of the former Los Angeles Times reporters now working for AOL's fast-growing Patch network. LAT

The war that few people are talking about

Brian Stelter at the New York Times reports on a recent poll that finds only 4 percent of national news coverage in 2010 was devoted to the war in Afghanistan, despite the escalation in troops and troop deaths. This is down from 5 percent in 2009.

Burbank paper to sue city of Burbank

The city of Burbank apparently missed the memo about making public employee salary information public in the wake of the city of Bell pay scandal.

Prior to the Bell blow up, many cities sat tight on information about individual salaries, even for top managers, arguing that divulging hard numbers alongside names would embarrass hard-working employees and hurt morale, despite the fact that the law clearly states this is public information.

But the Bell stories convinced city attorneys to shift strategy out of fear they'd look like they were hiding fat bonuses or exorbitant pay. The city of Burbank, however, has decided to push back. Officials there have stalled a request from the Burbank Leader for salary information going back to 1999. Editor Dan Evans said the paper, which is owned by the LA Times, will sue:

...this action is illegal, and this paper will be enforcing its rights. First, though, a little background.

On Dec. 1, reporter Gretchen Meier sent a request to the city asking that it release information on who has received a bonus between 1999 and 2010, and how much each individual received. Prompting this request was a release of similar information by the city of Glendale, which posted the data on its website.

Instead of providing the name, title and amount of each public employee receiving payouts, Burbank officials instead decided to provide information only from the 2009-10 fiscal year, broken down solely by employee group. Even this limited data was fascinating: Employees received $1 million in completely discretionary pay that year, despite the fact that the city faced a multimillion-dollar budget gap.

Groupon envy turns minds mushy

Advertisers love stories that conflate what they do with journalism, and the Atlantic's Elizabeth Weingarten delivers in her column about the Groupon academy - where writers learn to produce compelling ad copy and then tell themselves they're doing "hybrid journalism-advertising". From the story:

"Groupon really functions like a newspaper," said [Groupon Editor Eddie] Schmid, who worked briefly at the Chicago Sun-Times. "And that's really invigorating. There are dedicated stages, and teams that are really focused on making sure things are factually accurate, transparent, and funny."

But unlike most newspapers, Groupon is expanding rapidly. This year, the site expects to bring in more than $500 million in revenue. It might be the fastest growing company in the history of the Web, sending a clear sign that there's a market for creative writers -- and the type of hybrid journalism-advertising prose Groupon has perfected.

First off, newspapers could stand to learn how to be more funny and transparent (and, in some cases, accurate).

That said, just because the two enterprises use the written word as their means of communication and try to be accurate does not mean they have a hybrid relationship. Police reports also use written words and try to be accurate, but that doesn't make what I do hybrid journalism-law enforcement work.

Comings and goings

San Gabriel Valley Tribune reporter Maritza Velazquez is leaving the paper to return to school. She will be studying journalism at Cal State Fullerton.

Four in the morning

1. A welcome respite from the Larry King love fest: "As refreshing as it has been that King generally checked his politics at the door, it also happens that he sometimes left his brain there too." LAT (via LA Observed)

2. The deal that gave the Tribune Co. to Sam Zell, and landed the company in bankruptcy, also made many executive rich(er). The Chicago Reader got a list - and points out that the bankruptcy court might claw back some or all of it. Chicago Reader

3. The whitewashed wall at MOCA that the LA Downtown News first reported on is finally starting to get the attention it deserves. fishbowlLA

4. The Rolling Stone website is no longer a complete mess. fishbowlLA

The Assange conundrum

The U.S. Department of Justice is tangled in knots - that's a good thing, and let's hope it stays that way.

Frustrated at the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks, an impotent federal government desperately wants to punish Julian Assange and teach a scary lesson to all other would-be whistle blowers and leakers of sensitive information. The problems are the First Amendment and the fact that what Assange did, from all that's been reported, falls outside definitions of criminal behavior. Indeed, to criminalize Assange's actions would be to criminalize investigative journalism, which has a glorious tradition of convincing unhappy insiders to leak secret, sensitive and confidential information for publication.

The arguments that WikiLeaks has no editorial oversight or Assange has a non-journalistic agenda are interesting in the context of what makes good journalism, but have no bearing on the legality of what WikiLeaks did - the press doesn't have to be good to be free.

That said, it is undoubtedly true that professional journalists enjoy extra protection from prosecution because they can point to their editorial standards and oversight. Courts do not operate outside the realm of public pressure and politics. Indeed, prosecutors would be much more abusive of journalists if news institutions didn't have the resources to hire good lawyers to push back, or didn't have the leverage to convince legislators to pass shield laws, or a soap box to call out the abuse. But the WikiLeaks situation will demand the courts deal with fundamental questions about press freedom.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon has summarized what some media observers are saying about the potential for a government case against Assange, including the questionable treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is suspected of being the source of the cable leaks and others.

At least it's something*

Employees at the Hartford Courant, owned by the bankrkupt Tribune Co., received $15 gift cards to a local cafe, Romenesko reports. Staffer at the Greensboro News & Record got cards worth $50.

Better than nothing, right?

Since I've never received a bonus check, my view of these things might be skewed.

*Update: Employees at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, which got a lot of attention for its coverage of the BP oil spill and the resurgent Saints football team, got holiday bonuses roughly equivalent to the amount lost because of this year's unpaid furloughs. However, two weeks of forced furlough time is scheduled for next year.

Johnston sings the praises of beats, beats on press

David Cay Johnston, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting at the New York Times, has penned an homage to the beat - and has encased it in a criticism of the way newspapers practice journalism. Here's a snippet:

Beats are fundamental to journalism, but our foundation is crumbling. Whole huge agencies of the federal government and, for many news organizations, the entirety of state government go uncovered. There are school boards and city councils and planning commissions that have not seen a reporter in years. The outrageous salaries that were paid to Bell, California city officials—close to $800,000 to the city manager, for example—would not have happened if just one competent reporter had been covering that city hall in Southern California. But no one was, and it took an accidental set of circumstances for two reporters from the Los Angeles Times to reveal this scandal.

The full article is here.

Managing editor of the Press-Enterprise set to leave

John Gryka, managing editor of the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, sent a memo to employees to say next week will be his last at the newspaper. Gryka has worked at the Press-Enterprise for 23 years and took over as managing editor in 2004.

Four in the morning

1. The Caltech men's basketball team looks to break an epic streak before hitting 300. NYT

2. Still more AOL Patch sites launch. LA Observed

3. The NY Times rolls out its census map just in time for the new census data. NYT

4. Writing ad copy for Oswald's coffin. Pasadena Star-News

Reuters America created, Tribune Co. interested*

Thomson Reuters has launched a wire service, called Reuters America, to compete with the Associated Press. The content comes more cheaply and that caught the attention of the still-bankrupt Tribune Co., which signed up to be RA's first client. According to fishbowlLA, the contract could save Tribune, which owns the Los Angeles Times, up to $4.5 million a year - any effect on quality is yet to be determined.

*Noted: For those who worry Thomson Reuters might do its work on the cheap... Remember when head of Thomson Reuters said this about foreign coverage?: "Why does The New York Times need to have 600-700 journalists? Why not 30 journalists with 30 apprentices?"

A cloud passes over Sunnyvale

Yahoo plans to layoff between 650 and 700 employees today. Most of the affected workers are in the companies product division, according to All Things Digital. Those who receive pink slips will be forced to leave the premises, whereupon they can begin to contemplate what happens next this shitty Christmas season.

Four in the morning

1. The MOCA whitewash story is waiting to break nationally. fishbowlLA

2. The battle over the Hollywood farmer's market. Which Way, LA?

3. AOL's Patch opens another shop in Long Beach. LA Observed

4. Huffington Post says it will turn a profit. Bloomberg

York heads to the Los Angeles Times*, **

Capitol Weekly editor Anthony York will join the Los Angeles Times as a state government staff writer, according to Gorkana. York, who also edited the Daily Roundup in Sacramento, had been writing for the Times' "California Politics" blog under an agreement announced earlier this year. The announcement does not say what will happen to the Capitol Weekly or the Daily Roundup.

*Also from Gorkana: Peter Wallsten is leaving his job as national political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal to cover the White House for the Washington Post. Wallsten left the Los Angeles Times for the Journal in October 2009.

**Updated: Matthew Fleischer at fishbowlLA did the work I didn't and has learned that John Howard, managing editor at the Capitol Weekly, will take over as executive editor when York leaves. He expects to announce a few new hires, as well.

The anti-social court house network

The Los Angeles Superior Court has a Facebook page, but Facebook and other social media sites - Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube - are blocked on the court house's public WiFi, according to fishbowlLA blogger Pandora Young, who spent the day trying to surf the web as she did her jury service:

Stuck at jury duty in downtown Los Angeles, this fishie is tapped into the web via the courthouse wi-fi. Infuriatingly, they block access to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and a number of other worthwhile websites. ... To the courthouse’s credit, they do not block access to Wikileaks.

Fox News and the impartial partisans

Want to see what happens when a news operation drops impartiality as the framework for gathering and disseminating information? Look at how Fox News decided to frame the health care debate. Howard Kurtz has the report at the Daily Beast - the piece starts with Republican pollster Frank Luntz coaching Fox host Sean Hannity on the right words to use:

“If you call it a public option, the American people are split,” [Luntz] explained. “If you call it the government option, the public is overwhelmingly against it."

“A great point,” Hannity declared. “And from now on, I'm going to call it the government option, because that's what it is.”

On Oct. 27, the day after Senate Democrats introduced a bill with a public insurance option from which states could opt out, Bill Sammon, a Fox News vice president and Washington managing editor, sent the staff a memo. Sammon is a former Washington Times reporter.

“Please use the term ‘government-run health insurance,’ or, when brevity is a concern, ‘government option,’ whenever possible,” the memo said.

Sammon acknowledged that the phrase "public option" was “firmly ensconced in the nation’s lexicon,” so when it was necessary to use it, he wrote, add the qualifier “so-called,” as in “the so-called public option.” And “here’s another way to phrase it: ‘The public option, which is the government-run plan.’”

Advocacy organizations like Fox News deny their partisan framing all the while claiming to be impartial, and blaming all the media that isn't conservative-leaning of having a liberal bias. In this case, "public option" is also a partisan framing preferred by supporters of the plan. Had Fox health care reporters come up with a way to describe the plan based on their own reporting, they might have called it "government-run." Instead, they borrowed the phrase most favorable to the Republican position. That's what happens when journalists claim the mantle of impartiality without actually practicing impartiality.

(found via LA Observed)

The objectivity canard (updated)

Alan Mutter is a smart man and I agree with much of what he writes. But in a recent blog post, which can be read here, he concedes an argument at the expense of a form of traditional journalism that needs defending (and explaining).

Here's the key line:

It’s time to retire the difficult-to-achieve and impossible-to-defend conceit that journalists are now, or ever were, objective.

The problem here is that "objective journalism" is a straw man that's almost always propped up to be attacked by those who want to do away with a much more defensible practice. (Mutter's ultimate conclusion in the blog post is that journalists should be more transparent, which I sort of agree with, but its an argument that should be made separate from the "objectivity" debate, and not offered as a concession.)

So, let me first agree with two things: Journalists are not objective and objectivity is an unattainable goal. The "objective journalist" is an oversimplified symbol championed by greedy publishers that's supposed to represent the practice of impartial journalism. So let's kill the oversimplified symbol and actually defend the practice.

News reporters who know what they're doing are not striving for the personal perfection of being "objective" - which is chasing rainbows. Instead, they are using techniques and editorial oversight to create an impartial framework that gives one as broad a view of a potential story as possible. It's a practice aimed at avoiding the advocate's framework, which offers a more limited view of what constitutes a story precisely because it wants to accomplish a specific goal.

Impartial journalism is a discipline that, when done right, enables journalists to gather information from a wide variety of perspectives and sources. By avoiding advocacy, a journalist gains access to different sides of a debate, and often to people who are affected by issues who aren't advocating anything. Sources are more likely to speak about their goals rather than waste time trying to convince the interviewer. The reporter is able to hear facts that stray outside one's experience and preconceptions, and so can find stories that don't conform to ready-made agendas. 

It's a process that tries to strip out opinions that obscure or color facts, which, in turn, rob readers of the ability to draw reasonable conclusions. It's a process designed to work against our natural impulse to develop a point of view. This is artifice, which is why it is sometimes hard to defend to people who don't practice journalism. But it's a discipline that a reporter learns through practice; the guidance of editors; the reactions of readers and sources; successes, and mistakes.

It's not a faith-based profession: believe in "objectivity" and it will come.

The impartial framework is designed to keep reporters from adopting the framework of partisans and advocates. It's why partisans and advocates are so dismissive of impartiality, and why they welcome advocacy journalism in place of "objectivity" - they have plenty of points of view ready-made for journalists to adopt or get in a debate over.

 There are limits to impartial journalism, of course. Plenty of reporters mistake it as some form of balancing doctrine - that all sides get equal representation. Plenty of reporters also use the cloak of impartiality to avoid asking tough questions or to be downright lazy. Bad journalism is bad journalism.

Also, a defense of impartial journalism should not be construed as a rejection of advocacy journalism. In fact, the advocates could be doing a better job right now - where are the Hunter Thompsons? But our need for sober, cynical, skeptical voices does not mean we should not shout down the impartial ones - we should figure out how better to use impartial reporters and defend their usefulness. We need reporters who remain open to stories outside their realm of belief, who search for facts and sources that fall outside of their agenda bubbles and emotional attachments. We need to let the narrative unfold through observation, rather than through our personal context or connection. One can still draw conclusions, call out bullshit, challenge authority and avoid manipulation while practicing impartial journalism.

Here's a little more from Mutter:

Unsettling as the punditization of the news may be to old-school journalists, there is a powerful cultural reason why Fox, Jon Stewart and other news-with-a-view productions have caught on: Consumers are so overloaded with information that they want someone to tell them what it means.

Fox, Jon Stewart and others do give consumers a point of view that helps them feel they can make sense of the world. But these outlets also depend on impartial journalism so that they can form their commentary and opinions. And impartial journalists will push back against the comforting idea that our point of view is the right one, or that complicated and frightening world events can be made digestible before bedtime. Indeed, impartial journalists are not competing with Jon Stewart or Fox (though their employers probably are), and we should all be thankful that they're willing to be unsettling.

Basically, I say defend impartial journalism, not as the only form, but as a necessary one. And stop asking what the extinction of the unicorn means.

Singleton hires muscle to enforce intellectual property rights

Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group has hired a Las Vegas firm to file legal challenges against what the newspaper company defines as copyright infringement. Wired magazine reports:

Las Vegas–based Righthaven was formed this spring for the sole purpose of acquiring copyrights and suing to financially benefit from allegedly misappropriated intellectual property. It has filed more than 180 suits on behalf of Stephens Media’s Las Vegas Review-Journal, and has now begun suing on behalf of Denver-based MediaNews Group, which owns the San Jose Mercury News, the Denver Post and about two dozen other outlets.

Righthaven’s initial lawsuit on behalf of the Denver Post, first reported by the Las Vegas Sun, came three weeks after the paper published online a “notice to readers about Denver Post copyright protections.” The five-paragraph notice said the newspaper’s work “is illegally reproduced everyday on websites across the country.” The company wrote it was acceptable for blogs to “reproduce no more than a headline and up to a couple of paragraphs or summary of the story.”

The crackdown promises to get more aggressive as MediaNews prepares to build paywalls around its newspaper sites.

AOL Patch continues to hire

The AOL Patch network of city blogs continues to expand in Southern California.

Redmond Carolipio, formerly night editor at the San Bernardino Sun, will take over as assistant regional editor for San Gabriel Valley Patch sites.

Melanie Johnson, who got laid off from the Press-Enterprise in Riverside and was a former Sun reporter, will edit the city of Walnut and City of Industry patch sites - expect a good deal of news about Ed Roski Jr.'s planned football stadium project.

Gina Tenorio, who worked at the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, will become editor of the Loma Linda Patch.

Apparently, AOL wants these two Patch sites up and running by Dec. 13.

Jack Kyser dead at 76

Jack Kyser, the guru of Southern California economic analysis and go-to expert for media here and around the world, died Monday. He was 76. Marc Lacter at LA Biz Observed has a short look at his career.

Furloughs and a vacation freeze for LANG papers

Employees in the Los Angeles Newspaper Group's nine papers learned today that they will be once again lose vacation time and be forced to take unpaid furloughs days as part of an effort to cut costs.

Fred Hamilton, CEO and publisher of LANG, sent a memo today outlining the details. The vacation freeze starts today and will last until March 2011. For employees who earn two weeks of vacation a year, the freeze will cost them 3 days of vacation. It's 6 days for those earning four weeks per year.

The furloughs begin in January. Employees will be forced to take ten days off by mid March. Furlough days are unpaid unless employees choose to use up vacation time - a tough choice considering the freeze.

Hamilton blames lower than expected advertising revenues for the cuts. The memo does not mention layoffs, although Hamilton said some vacancies will remain unfilled and he alluded to consolidations, which could refer to a recent decision to merge the business departments of LANG and its sister chain in the north, the Bay Area News Group - some say the merger could result in the loss of 40 jobs. Hamilton ends the memo by saying said he regrets taking these actions, but warns of more drastic cuts if ad sales do not improve.

Dexter Filkins, NYT war correspondent, moving to New Yorker

The Observer reports that Dexter Filkins, author of the "The Forever War," a gripping account of combat in Iraq, and one of the New York Times's top correspondents in Afghanistan/Pakistan, will leave the paper to work for the New Yorker. He won't be covering the war for the magazine.

LANG likes Facebook, readers not so sure (updated)

Back in October, San Bernardino Sun editor Frank Pine sent around a memo saying the nine papers that make up the Los Angeles Newspaper Group chain would be dropping their Topix commenting system for one that interfaces with Facebook accounts. One of the primary reasons for the change was to chase off trolls, who, shielded by anonymity, often veered in racist invective and personal attack - even when stories had nothing to do with race or a particular person.

The new system requires readers to be logged into Facebook and comments are by default linked to the person's page. This transparency (Facebook's privacy critics might laugh at the word) is supposed to create an environment where comments follow a socially correct etiquette, the argument goes.

The changeover happened on Friday, Dec. 3, with all nine papers publishing an online story describing the system and soliciting feedback. So far, most of the responses have been negative, with readers decrying the loss of anonymity, which they say allows for more honest viewpoints, and criticizing the papers for putting "civility" ahead of free and open debate.

A few readers warned that trolls would simply create fake Facebook accounts and return with the same aggressive madness. Some readers worried about their own privacy, saying they didn't like that comments were automatically posted to their Facebook pages. A few readers said they liked the new system and hoped it would make for more civil discussions.

Change always comes hard in the daily newspaper world. Take away a comic strip and you're likely to swamp every department with cranky phone calls - the kind of reaction news editors would love to come in response to, say, actual news. Still, there are interesting questions surrounding anonymous posts and the question of when an opinion become unacceptable as well as the thought of newspapers aligning themselves with Facebook's private profit machine to promote a kind of civility.

Below, I've rounded up a few of the comments that came in over the weekend.

From an unhappy reader in the Whittier Daily News:

I feel the lack of anonymity restricts the truth, people are more inclined to say what they think when they're not being monitored by a moderator. Sure most of the remarks were rude and bigoted, but some stated hardcore facts and relevance to the post.

A dubious Pasadena Star-News reader:

The anonymous comments were the best part of this paper. 

Compared to the Glendale News Press which requires comments to be approved, Star News had a lively conversation.

1. Why do conversations about the news need to be "civil?"

2. Thanks for defining civility for us all.

Good luck with this.

 An aggressive rejection in the LA Daily News:

I will never participate in your comments again. "Civil" means repression in this context and I will stop reading your FUCKING SWILL. 

 The San Bernardino Sun had a few positive comments, like this one:

I think the new Facebook-based comment feature for The Sun, Daily Facts, and Daily Bulletin is great. The public comment feature on too many online news outlets have been overrun by immature, offensive, and asinine comments from users protected by anonymity.

One Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reader sees a conspiracy:

The Daily Bulletin sold out! This is just a move to protect corrupt politicians and their Shady developer Godfathers. Nothing is worse than when they steal from the tax payers, name libraries after themselves and then have to hear the negative comments of the victimized public. Although alot of mud slinging whent on in the old style of posting, at least it was an open public forum that people could use to express their true sentiments and beliefes , good or bad. This new method of traceable commenting and a lack of true public input will only mean that the cancer of corruption will choke up the wheels of justice and crush the common citizen. Good luck to us all.

Wikileaks blocked by Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has blocked access to Wikileaks from its computers, Talking Points Memo reports. The U.S. government, miffed over CableGate, has put pressure on a number of private companies to chase Wikileaks off their servers, forcing the site to retreat to Switzerland.

The origins of spam*

The Internet security company Kaspersky Lab has a report on the origins of spam and finds that, in 2010, Russia became the leading source of spam, followed by India and Ukraine. Not surprisingly, the United States was the leading recipient of malicious software, followed by Germany and China. The full report is here.

(found via Gawker)

*Update: A notorious and prolific Russian spammer, 23-year-old Oleg Nikolaenko, was arrested in Las Vegas last month and charged with violated U.S. spam laws. We'll see if that ratchets down the Russian numbers.

Political consultant Joe Cerrell dead at 75

Longtime Democratic political consultant Joe Cerrell, a former adviser to President Kennedy and fixture in California politics, has died. He was 75.

Here's the press release from Hal Dash, CEO of Cerrell Associates:

“We are deeply saddened to announce that our company co-founder, mentor, political legend and friend Joe Cerrell passed away this morning in Camarillo following a brief bout with pneumonia.  His family was at his side to say goodbye.

Joe was a larger-than-life figure in California politics and public affairs for the past half century, beginning as a USC college Democrat and building a career in which he was an advisor to presidents, governors and political figures at all levels.  His legacy as a counselor, confidant, and close friend to thousands of people in politics, the business community, as well as in the public relations and non-profit arenas, especially the Italian-American community in Los Angeles, will not be forgotten.

Along with his beloved wife Lee, Joe built Cerrell Associates into one of the most respected and successful public affairs and political consulting firms in the nation.

Today, we celebrate this great icon of California and national politics, his life and many accomplishments, even as we mourn his passing.

 Rick Orlov at the LA Daily News has an obit here.