Good for Pajamas Media. They have decided to give up the bland, already claimed moniker "open source media" and return to being Pajamas Media. Pajamas Media has personality and a history, or at least a story behind it. OSM seemed like a corporation rather than a creative syndicate.

The other thing Pajamas could use is a hand-rolled newsfeed. It looks like they paid big bucks to some corporate outfit to create their newsfeed, and it seems to me to be an automated, overly-inclusive, non-specific feed that doesn't inform on any topics bloggers would be interested in.

For a lot less money they could have hired one person to create a unique feed using uncomplicated software that would automatically update throughout the day.

25 years ago, on December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment building on the upper West Side of New York. Newsweek takes a long look back, particularly at the effect of his death on Yoko and his former wife Cynthia, and their respective sons with John, Sean and Julian. It's a sad article. This comment by Yoko struck me most:

"You know, this is like a Shakespearean drama almost," says Ono. "Each person has something to be totally miserable about because of the way they were put into this play.

John Lennon's death has a special meaning for me, one I was able, through fortuitious circumstances, to turn into something positive. I wrote about it here on the anniversary of his death in 2003.

Saturday's LA Times has an excellent commentary on Woodward, connecting him to the Bush Administration's unprecedented manipulation of the media and, by extension, the rest of us.

Two things have distinguished this Bush administration's efforts at press manipulation from those that have gone before. One is their sweep and consistency. There has been bribery — as in the egregious case of the wretched Williams. There has been deception — as in the planting of phony news videos. There have been alleged violations of federal laws and regulations — as in Tomlinson's and Rove's efforts to subvert public television. There has been stealth — as in the whispering campaign to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Someone within the Washington Post has leaked the contents of an internal message board with comments by the paper's reporters about Bob Woodward's revelation he was told about Valerie Plame Wilson by a Bush Administration official.

Within an hour of one of the postings, Jonathan Yardley's comments had been leaked to Katherine Seelye of the New York Times, who over his objection, has printed it.

That's one of the problems with internal message boards and list-servs. It's happened at almost all of the criminal defense boards I used to participate in - and one of the reasons I weaned myself off them. These types of forums are fairly hack-proof -- the only way the contents would get out is by someone with access cutting and pasting it into an another document and either faxing or e-mailing it.

I hope the Post discovers the leaker and fires his or her a**. [Via Atrios.]

by TChris

Update: Mother Jones reports on proposals to protect CPB from political influence.

....

Original post:

It’s old news that Kenneth Tomlinson, the former chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, violated federal law as he pursued his mission to rescue public radio and television from the “leftist” slant that he and other extremists on the right perceived. As TalkLeft reported here, CPB’s board of directors forced Tomlinson’s resignation after reviewing the confidential findings prepared by CPB’s inspector general. Now the “scathing” report has been finalized and it’s no longer confidential. (The IG's lengthy report, in pdf format, is here.)

[T]he report said that Mr. Tomlinson violated federal law by being heavily involved in getting more than $4 million in money for a program featuring the conservative editorial writers of The Wall Street Journal. The board is prohibited from getting involved in programming decisions, but the investigators found that Mr. Tomlinson had pushed hard for the program, "The Journal Editorial Report," even as some staff officials at the corporation raised concerns over its cost.

Pajamas Media, the new blog-news-opinion collaboration, is having a big roll-out in New York tomorrow. They also will be announcing their new name. With $3.5 million in private financing on board, they are going top drawer.

While most of the participating blogs lean right, they did secure David Corn and Marc Cooper and I suspect more will join as it becomes better known and should it become successful.

CNN is continuing to feature bloggers via webcam on its new show, On the Story.

Tonight at 7pm ET, Matt Stoller will be on discussing political campaigns and the blogosphere. Matt has been involved in many internet campaigns, most recently, that of successful N.J. Senate candidate Jon Corzine.

He'll be on towards the end of the show and it repeats tomorrow.

Columnist Robert Scheer has been fired from the LA Times after 30 years. He doesn't know why.

The publisher, Jeff Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Beginning Wednesday, his column will appear at Huffington Post.

Update: Armando at Daily Kos reports that Jonah Goldberg will be a colunist at the LA Times. What a waste. If this is a sign of where the LA Times is headed, I doubt I'll be checking them as frequently.

Watch Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld as they turn to rap to recruit soldiers.

[hat tip to Debbie.]

I just got my copy of Scott Turow's new book, Ordinary Heroes. It looks like the perfect read for Veteran's Day and one of the reviewers cautions to start it on a Friday night because you may not be able to put it down. From a Washington Post review on Amazon:

The story opens in 2003, when Stewart Dubinsky, a 55-year-old crime reporter, happens upon a bundle of letters that allude to his recently deceased father's court-martial during the last days of World War II. Stewart is knocked flat by the thought that his "tirelessly proper" father should have such a scandalous past. An insurance company lawyer and devoted family man, David had always claimed that his wartime service as an assistant judge advocate in Europe was unexceptional. Stewart decides to investigate whether he is "the son of a convict who'd betrayed his country and slipped away on some technicality, or, perhaps, the child of a man who'd endured a primitive injustice which he'd left entombed in the past."

by TChris

Those who want to protect us from vulgar discussions on the radio -- as if we can’t protect ourselves by turning the dial -- continue pressuring the FCC and Congress to do more to police the public airwaves. This article suggests that the FCC (no matter who has headed the agency) has been ineffective in its efforts to impose and collect fines, often cutting deals with broadcasters that prevent “indecency” findings from being used against the broadcaster when the FCC considers renewal of the broadcaster’s license.

The current FCC chair, Kevin Martin, has promised to clean up the backlog of indecency investigations. The larger question is whether the FCC should bother.

[T]he guiding 1978 indecency statute is increasingly irrelevant in an era of 200 unpoliced cable and satellite channels that do not fall under the law. Some groups say the government should no longer monitor the nation's airwaves because technology -- such as the V-chip and cable and satellite blocking systems -- allows parents to determine what their children watch.

I'm already wearying of all the Judith Miller news and commentary, but here are two pieces I found interesting and recommend.

• Lynn Duke of The Washington Post spent three hours interviewing Judith Miller last week. Her article is long, and filled with quotes from Miller.

• Gabriel Sherman at the New York Observer writes about the negotiations between Miller and the Times.

• Journalism Prof Jay Rosen writes After Miller, Let There Be Light.