An interesting twist in the privacy debate

This opinion piece in the New York Times reveals an interesting twist in the privacy debate: That the Internet often supersedes the laws made by certain governments to protect their people.

Basically, what happened is that a couple German men were convicted of murder but let out under parole under a law that said German media organizations couldn't reveal their identity, in an attempt to help these men start new, normal lives. Since Germany is a democracy, we can assume that this law is some form of voted-by-the-people-for-the-people system. The catch is that, with the Internet, people outside of Germany can still know who these men are, and when they write about the men, English-speaking Germans can know, too. Thus, the law is circumvented by Internet freedom.

I'm all for people's free speech on the Internet, but this issue is one that will surely come up again as the world becomes more of a globally entwined system and less of a country-by-country place. While sometimes the Internet can be a great voice for reason, to go around the restrictions of a government that doesn't mean well (think Iran), in this case it appears the Internet is just harming a government that is looking to protect its citizens.

What will be interesting is how this debate plays out in the future, with so much information out there amid the wide range of governments and freedoms they allow.

France, and freedom of speech

Anyone who thinks Americans politicians have it too easy should check out this piece by the New York Times, which reports that French politicans are essentially able to keep French citizens from saying critical things about them.

The Times reports that not only can French leaders fine people for "public insult toward a member of the ministry," they can also infringe on people's privacy by preying into their Internet comments and tracking down the people who post them.

"The Internet is a danger for democracy," one leader says, which I guess means that people being able to speak their minds is a danger to the politicans who connive their way into office.

It's one thing to make rude and unnecessary comments about politicians and leaders, but it's another when those politicans, who seem to think they're a member of some elite class that puts them above criticism, act in hideous ways then lash out at those who expose them. (If you're elite, act elite.)

The real problem with this whole case, however, is not that people can't speak their minds. Europe actually has very lax rules about covering politicians, as the Times reports:

"The French news media, like others in Europe, have long granted the political elite a number of journalistic accommodations, including the right to make prepublication revisions to interviews."

For all the cries of partisan reporting in the United States, as least the American press doesn't do that. Even if coverage sometimes gets slanted, American journalists report what people say and don't coddle political leaders. Of all people who could be granted "journalistic accommodations," politicans should be the last, due to their seat of power and overall sleaziness.

Stilted accountability is better than somewhat totalitarianism, and God bless America.

News sources had Internet woes from the beginning

Don't think news sources didn't try to take advantage of the Internet in the beginning, this Poynter article says, just realize that early Internet technology was so bad that some news leaders didn't think it would take off, and if it did, that it would be too difficult to use (for, say, the legions of bloggers and news aggregate sites, all for free).


When the Internet picked up and other people found easier, better ways to use it, the news sources who were ahead were stuck with outdated technology. And like good, Depression-era journalists, they tried to squeeze the juice out of their old stuff like they would with an old press. But technology improves exponentially, and news sources were soon behind the game.

You know the rest of the story from here.

NYT subscribers, not advertisers, are funding the show

As the New York Times publishes its quarterly profits report, it looks like the Gray Lady is making more from circulation (suscribers, newsstand readers) than advertising.

This means two obvious things: (1) Advertising is nose-diving, and fast. (2) Charging as much for the Sunday Times as it costs to drive across the state of Massachusetts was apparently worth it.

While newspapers as a whole are having trouble figuring out how to remain profitable, the Times has an interesting angle to work: it has a loyal, high-end, well-educated readership. Traditionally, this meant it could count on advertising dollars. But now it also means that the paper may be transitioning into that era that has been theorized in journalism classrooms but hasn't seen daylight thus far: readers being willing to pay more for a specialty publication.

It's no longer mass media time, with the Times reaching out to the world and expecting a wide swath of readers to peruse its pages and pull in its advertisers. The Times' readership has become a distinct group, and many have been clear that they're willing to pay the outrageous subscription prices to keep getting the top-notch newspaper.

(If you think jacking up prices is a mistake, I would say you're right for most papers. But the Times is a unique product. Think about how much more people pay for a specialty periodical than their typical off-the-rack Time or People magazine...around 150-175%. So, the Times can get away with it because it's going for that up-scale slice.)

(But also remember that if this transition does happen, the Times still may lose readers in the process as it separates the wheat from the chaff.)

Could it be that this is what the Times missed all along? That the way to fund its paper was to, in fact, charge the people who really wanted it?

Whether the Times comes out as a smudgy broadsheet, an Internet edition, an online TimesReader edition, or in comprehensive reports published by the best reporters in the world, it will have readers. To stay afloat and fund this content and reporting, now all the Times has to do, apparently, is charge them more.

The Phoenix foreshadows the Globe's inner woes

While the situation between the Boston Globe and its remaining union, Boston's Newspaper Guild, continues to drag on and be increasingly frustrating, I have pulled a column run by the Boston Phoenix on April 30, the day before the feverish murmurings began (both by the Globe and the parasitic Boston Herald).

This column provides insight that few in the business were having on the fateful day but that, after the climatic weekend, more people are beginning to realize. The column foretold union leadership problems and also had a juicy paragraph about how the Guild handed out surveys to its members to get suggestions about how the members would suggest cutting costs — but the Guild went ahead with its own cost-cutting measures before the surveys could even be tabulated.

The most interesting part of the column, however, was its details on the "Save the Globe" rally. On the surface, such a rally seems like a great idea, but examples of how the Globe and its employees went about calling to save the newspaper are suspect and ultimately saddening for journalists, for they show that many within the industry are clueless about what is really at stake, and thus they will probably miss the boat and kill what's left of journalism.

At the rally, there were insinuations that the Globe's suffering was a First Amendment issue, which is dead wrong; the Globe is going out of business because the common man has stopped paying advertising dollars, not because the government has done anything. Another employee talked about not liking the Internet; one testimonial was about how a guy didn't think he could find another job.

Basically, the presentation given by the Globe showed it was out of touch with the real issue at hand — preserving real journalism and finding a way to make it viable for generations. Journalism needs to survive on the Internet and with new business models, and that's what Globe supporters are not realizing through all this. They are fretting over details to try to save the paper today, but they're still clueless as to how to keep the paper running for years to come. Hint: it's not by employing a lot of people to make a great product people are loath to buy. And it's not about mislabeling the problem or playing the victim, whether the oppressor is the Web, the job market or the New York Times.

One last note: It's easy to hate the New York Times for giving this ultimatum, but kudos to the Times for thinking ahead. They know serious changes need to be made, and they're making bold moves, even if it's not easy. Let's hope they cut some of their own fat in the next round of progress, but until then, all journalists are in this together. Save the ship for the future, not just for today.

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