Tag Archives: Washington Post

Will paywalls save the newspaper business

Faced with sharply declining advertising revenue for both print and online newspapers, papers are trying to entice free readers to pay up for the news. It works partially: old people will pay anything to keep their news habit but young readers have already left the barn.

Charlottetown Guardian erects paywall for digital readers – will it be enough (Guardian photo)

From Rupert Murdoch to the 25 local newspapers in the Quebec based Transcontinental chain, newspapers are struggling to survive the double whammy of the digital world and young readers who don’t give a flying fig about reading a paper.

Paywalls, charging for online access, is a temporary fix for the huge decline in newspaper subscription and advertising revenue.

The long-term survival of newspapers is in doubt. Continue reading →

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Mumbai The Plot Unfolds Lashkar Strikes and Investigators Scramble

Part Two of in-depth report on the attack on Mumbai, India

Mumbai attack on Taj Mahal Hotel image, Israpundit

by Sebastian Rotella, ProPublica

This is the second part of ProPublica’s investigation into the plot behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Read the first part . Both were co-published with the Washington Post.

David Coleman Headley seemed like a gregarious, high-rolling American businessman when he set up shop in Mumbai in September 2006.

He opened the office of an immigration consulting firm. He partied at swank locales such as the ornate Taj Mahal Hotel, a 1903 landmark favored by Westerners and the Indian elite. He joined an upscale gym, where he befriended a Bollywood actor. He roamed the booming, squalid city taking photos and shooting video.

But it was all a front. The tall, fast-talking Pakistani American with the slicked-back hair was a fierce extremist, a former drug dealer, a onetime Drug Enforcement Administration informant who became a double agent. He had spent three years refining his clandestine skills in the terrorist training camps of the Lashkar-i-Taiba militant group. As Headley confessed in a guilty plea in U.S. federal court this year, he was in Mumbai to begin undercover reconnaissance for a sophisticated attack that would take two years to plan. Continue reading →

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MSNBC host suspended indefinitely for political donations

Keith Olbermann suspended indefinitely for donations to Democratic candidates

MSNBC host Olberman breached journalistic ethics guidelines (photo Washington Post)

The Washington Post reported this statement from Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC:

“I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.”

MSNBC has a strict policy of no political donations for journalists reporting on politics.

Policies vary by news organizations. Time, Fox, US News and World Report allow it.

US News and World Report is reviewing its policy for potential conflicts of interest.

Reuters allows donations but not for political journalists.

Newsweek, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and the New York Times forbid political donations from their journalists.

With stories from The Washington Post and MSNBC.

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Nearly two dozen congressional fundraisers held at D.C. Springsteen shows last year

Rock and Roll and political fund raising on the Boss’s time

Bruce Springsteen at the Verizon Centre

By Marcus Stern and Sebastian Jones ProPublica Reporters published in The Washington Post

As Bruce Springsteen belted out working-class anthems on the floor of Verizon Center last May, Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), chairman of the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee, was raising money in the privacy of a luxury suite overlooking the stage.

Ten other members of Congress were also asking for cash that night. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was there, too, holding a fundraiser featuring Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee. It was the ultimate in multitasking for the politicians: three hours of the Boss for free while raising cash for their campaigns and political action committees.

DeFazio’s aerie came with 18 tickets, a wet bar and a private bathroom. His campaign rented it for $2,220 from the American Trucking Associations, whose legislative agenda focuses heavily on highway matters that pass before DeFazio’s subcommittee. DeFazio then “sold” individual box seats to donors for $2,500 a ticket. ATA’s PAC snapped up one seat, which meant DeFazio effectively got the suite for free. Continue reading →

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NJN on your iPhone

The results are surprisingly good

NJN Network on iPhone

Update – December 2013 – NJN Mobile has been retired. The new NJN Network site fits Apple, Android and Windows mobile devices without an app. This is the future.

Please give NJN Mobile a try to tell us what is working for you and what is not. There is nothing special you need to do – just bookmark our site in your mobile browser and check it out.

When I first got an iPhone using it for web access was horribly slow. Pages were taking 1-2 minutes to appear. Moving to the next page was painful.

As the demand for smart phone access has increased, new software has improved smart phone access.

Two weeks ago we installed a widget that translates web pages into smart phone pages. Since then we’ve tweaked the software and think it’s working very well.

On 3G service, our main page loads in 6-10 seconds which isn’t that slower than on a computer. Instead of a picture thumbnail, we show the date and headline. The front page loads faster and you can see the newest stories for the day. Update – with faster speeds using thumbnails is possible.

The pages are sized to fit the iPhone and the text is readable.

YouTube videos play but Flash videos don’t. That’s an Apple limitation. Video on smart phone is painfully slow. You are at the mercy of bad connections and too much data.

Benchmarking NJN Network against other news sites, CBC takes about 15-30 seconds from the front page and then 10-20 seconds for the next pages.

Continue reading →

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Sharks like swimming near the shore

This might creep you out about swimming more than Jaws

A white shark tagged with both acoustic (front) and pop-up satellite (rear) tags. The acoustic tag is detected when the shark swims within 250 m of a listening station, while the pop-up satellite tag records information about location, temperature and depth -- and relays it to the laboratory when the tag releases itself from the shark. (Scot Anderson )

From Washington Post

For years, humans have thought of great white sharks wandering the sea at random, only occasionally venturing close to shore.

We were wrong.

Pacific white sharks spend months near the northern and central California coast between August and February foraging among elephant seals, sea lions and other prey, according to a new study published online Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. The team of 10 California-based researchers determined that these sharks probably pass close to populated beaches and have been spotted as far inland as the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, east of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Read the story.

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Three cheers for anonymous unmoderated comments

washington post Three cheers for anonymous unmoderated comments photo By Doug Feaver, Washington Post, Thursday, April 9, 2009

I am writing in defense of the anonymous, unmoderated, often appallingly inaccurate, sometimes profane, frequently off point and occasionally racist reader comments that washingtonpost.com allows to be published at the end of articles and blogs. Aside from the fact that the newspaper business model is evaporating, there are few subjects more vexing for journalists and many readers of my generation than what to do about those comments. We don’t let this happen in letters to the editor. Where are the standards?
Continue reading →

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