Pro Bloggers to get Journalist Shield.
Last week, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would shield journalists (including bloggers) from revealing their sources . However, the bill includes several exceptions regarding terrorism, national security, imminent death, and trade secret leaks. More ominously, it was amended to define “journalist” as someone who receives “financial gain or livelihood” from their work. That would exclude an awful lot of citizen journalists.

News Nets To Allow Use of Presidential Debate Footage
ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN and NPR have all agreed to make their presidential debate footage available for relatively unrestricted use on the Web and elsewhere. Only Fox News still declines to do so. CBS has not yet carried a debate.

News Corp. Plans to Sell Ottaway Newspapers
Rupert Murdoch said today that he plans to sell the Ottaway newspaper group he’ll acquire with the purchase of Dow Jones. That’s probably good news for James Ottaway, who was amongst the most vocal critics of the DJ sale.

Freakonomics To Appear Under the Banner of the New York Times.
The New York Times has announced that they will be hosting the Freakonomics blog. Recall that the authors of Freakonomics had postulated in their book of the same title, that the drop in crime in the 1990’s was due to the availability of abortions post Roe v Wade. In other words, had the women who had those abortions not done so, their children would have grown up to be criminals.

AP Editor Touts Accountability Journalism.
The Associated Press’ Online Political Editor, Ron Fournier, wrote a memo to his colleagues advocating what he calls “Accountability Journalism”, but what I call simply “Journalism.” Nonetheless, it is a welcome philosophical shift if the AP lives up to it. Here’s a choice cut:

“Don’t give equal weight to spin. Just because a public official says it doesn’t mean you need to put it in your story or give his claim equal billing to what you know to be true.”

China Sentences Former Food And Drugs Chief To Death.
Zheng Xiaoyu was found guilty of accepting $852,000 (US) worth of bribes from pharmaceutical companies to expedite the approval of new drugs. How many American lawmakers and lobbyists would be on death row if this policy were in effect here?

Why The L.A. Times Called For Iraq Pullout.
Greg Mitchell at Editor and Publisher has an interesting column on how the L.A. Times went from “reluctantly” endorsing Bush’s escalation in Iraq just last month, to calling for troops to be brought home. Jim Newton, the editorial page editor at the Times, seemed surprised that, “the response from readers has been about 75% positive.” Why that would be surprising is a mystery considering that the war is opposed by about the same percentage of the city’s (and the country’s) residents.

FBI Seeking To Re-create Total Information Awareness.
The massive and intrusive data mining project that was scrapped under fire two years ago is getting a makeover by the FBI. The same FBI that was just found to be unlawfully gathering private information about citizens from Telecom, and other consumer companies.

Jolie Doesn’t Want Fox At Premiere.
Angelina Jolie requested that Fox News not be allowed to attend the premiere of her new movie, “A Mighty Heart.” Fox, upset at not being invited to the party, responds with a long diatribe against Jolie’s past tumultuous relationship with the press. The article kind of justifies her reluctance to accommodate the Fox network in particular and the press in general.

News Corpse is undergoing a bit of internal enhancement, i.e. a software upgrade. Posting has been curtailed during this operation, but should resume shortly. Thanks for your patience and here are a few news nuggets to get you by.

New York Times Bows Out of White House Correspondents Dinner
After last weekend’s correspondents’ dinner, The Times decided to end its participation in such events. But even were the dinner to vanish altogether, it remains but a yearly televised snapshot of the overall syndrome. The current White House, weakened as it is, can still establish story lines as fake as ‘Mission Accomplished’ and get a free pass.

Six of the Top 25 American Newspapers Lose Subs
Of the top 10, the Los Angeles Times is the biggest loser with a decline of 4.25%.

John Stossel and Glenn Beck As Global Warming Deniars
This week will see programs by Glenn Beck on CNN Headline News and John Stossel on ABC’s 20/20, that seek to present global warming as either a myth or inconsequential. I’m sure their advertisers at GE and Exxon will be pleased.

Stephanie Miller Begins 3 Day Tryout on MSNBC
Be sure to watch. Then let MSNBC know that you would like to see her in that slot full-time: Letters to MSNBC TV.

Inhofe blocking Gore’s ‘Live Earth’ concert.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is vowing to stall Gore’s hotly anticipated Capitol concert to draw attention to global warming.

Berkeley Woman’s Iraq Quest.
Jane Stillwater is a 64-year-old Berkeley woman who left for Kuwait on Wednesday, hoping to embed with the U.S. military there and in Iraq as a blogger.

The Wisdom of Crowds.
The Huffington Post announces a new citizen journalism project that will recruit the public to cover the presidential campaign.

Musicians Campaign for Free Internet.
Rock the Net has been formed by indie musicians and labels to advocate on behalf of Network Neutrality.

Drudge and the Politico — poisonously joined at the hip.
Glenn Greenwald reveals that Politico is a wholly owned subsidiary of Drudge.

Bush, Republicans turn to talk shows for help.
“American radio talk-show hosts have become frontline warriors in a drive by President George W. Bush and his Republicans to pull off a surprise and maintain control of Congress in November 7 elections.” They “have become” frontline warriors? What does Reuters think they been doing for the last 20 years?

Fox Will Broadcast First Presidential Debate of 2008.
“FOX News and the South Carolina Republican Party have jointly announced that they will present the first 2008 presidential debate on May 15, 2007. The debate, which is expected to attract the top Republican contenders for President, will be shown live on FOX News Channel (FNC) and FOX News Radio.” Republicans staying in their comfort zone?

Cobain tops list of richest dead celebs.
“Cobain, who raked in an estimated $50 million between October 2005 and October of this year, has edged Elvis Presley from the No. 1 spot on Forbes.com’s list of ‘Top-Earning Dead Celebrities.'” I just had to include this to affirm the stupity and insensitivity of John McLaughlin, who, in the days following Cobain’s death, said…

“Kurt Cobain will not be remembered as the John Lennon of his generation. He will be remembered as the Sid Vicious of his generation- a loser.”

Digg in acquisition talks with News Corp.
“San Francisco-based startup Digg has been in recent acquisition discussions with a number of companies, including News Corp., according to multiple sources close to the negotiations.” God forbid!

YouTube Shared User Data With Studio Lawyers.
Lawyers for Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures convinced a federal judge in San Francisco to issue a subpoena requiring YouTube to turn over details about a user who uploaded dialog from the movie studio’s “Twin Towers.” YouTube promptly handed over the data to Paramount, which on June 16 sued the creator of the 12-minute clip.

The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting.
The introduction of Fox News had a small but statistically significant effect on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000.

Boy Scouts Get MPAA-approved Copyright Patch.
The MPAA partnered with the Los Angeles Area Boy Scouts to develop the “Respect Copyrights” patch, a merit badge that Scouts can earn after reading some propaganda information on what you are not supposed to do with copyrighted works.

Google Flexing Political Muscle.
Google is trying to boost its influence in Congress with the first campaign contributions from its new political action committee. The initial round of $1,000 donations…[went] to three Republicans, including two of the most endangered GOP House members.

Papers Reach Iraq Boiling Point
Many of the nation’s newspaper editorialists have roused themselves from seeming acceptance of the continuing slaughter in Iraq to voice outright condemnation of the war.

The Russert Watch
During his ‘Meet the Press’ appearance, RNC chair Ken Mehlman was allowed to distort, twist, manipulate and obfuscate his way through every stop on the disinformation highway.

‘USA Today’ Defends Lack of Coverage for Downing Street Memo
In a report on President Bush’s joint press conference late yesterday afternoon with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, USA Today for the first time mentioned the so-called Downing Street Memo, first reported in London’s Sunday Times on May 1.

A State Run News Service?
After years of trying to destroy public broadcasting from without, right-wing Republicans are now trying to do so from within, by planting aggressive conservatives on the board and staff.

Front-Runner for Public Broadcast Agency Job Is Former GOP Chair
Patricia de Stacy Harrison, a high-ranking official at the State Department, is one of two candidates for the top job at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is the favored candidate of the CPB’s chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson.

Remixing the blogosphere
Bloggers may have sparked a media revolution by democratising journalism, but there are early signs that a new breed of website will take the idea further. Online independent media hubs are letting people collaborate in new ways.

Media companies look for ownership resolution
Merger activity among U.S. media companies is likely to remain on “pause” while federal regulators and courts try to resolve a long-running debate on the industry’s ownership rules.

ABC plans new ‘Nightline’ tribute to U.S. war dead
As he did last year, “Nightline” host Ted Koppel will recite the names of more than 900 American servicemen and women killed in Iraq or Afghanistan during the past year as a photograph of each one is shown on the screen.

FCC Panelist Wants Probe Of Product ‘Payola’
A member of the Federal Communications Commission called yesterday for an investigation of experts who tout products on television without disclosing payments from the manufacturers.

Mad Ave.’s Rush to Podcasts
A new medium means only one thing to advertisers: A new opportunity to sell

Podcasts catch on at NBC, ABC news divisions
ABC News and NBC News announced plans Tuesday to offer podcasts, the rapidly growing mobile technology.

Rupert Murdoch First Inductee in The Big Media Hall Of Shame

A Charge of Media Bias, From the Left This Time
The American media has drifted toward tabloid journalism and has been cowtailed by the Bush administration over its coverage of events such as the war in Iraq

The Tillman Scandal: ‘Newsweek’ Error Bad, Pentagon Lying OK?
Where, in the week after the Great Newsweek Error, is the comparable outrage in the press, in the blogosphere, and at the White House over the military’s outright lying in the coverup of the death of former NFL star Pat Tillman?