George Bernard Shaw died too early to enjoy the fruits of 24-hour TV news channels, but his famous condemnation of newspaper journalism would apply: "Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation." Tonight's election coverage is sure to provide plenty of fresh examples.
I wasn't going to comment on the McCain story, but my friend Howard Owens has pulled my chain by dismissing it as "nothing but gossip from either unnamed sources or pure speculation." He aims that charge at the lead, but implies that there isn't any substance to the story. There is.
I am as puzzled as anyone by the construction of the NYT story. The focus on the Iseman anecdote obscured the point for many people instead of illustrating it.
The nut graf is here:
I generally don't regard Alexa to be a reliable source of traffic data for local websites due to sampling methodology and size issues, but when applied to the presidential race, it may provide a fairly accurate indication of enthusiasm about the candidates. Here's a snapshot of the last month's traffic for the Obama, Clinton and McCain campaign websites. It certainly doesn't look good for Clinton.
Aaron Smith at Pew muses about the effect YouTube is having in the presidential primary race as Barack Obama's powerful Iowa caucuses speech is relayed around the Internet:
Tim Berners-Lee has this to say about net neutrality and why it's important:
"When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA. ...
Every time I dip a toe into the reality-distortion field that is Washington, DC, it make my head spin. I was just in Washington for an API seminar, and it happened again.
Washington has the world's largest collection of special-interest spinmeisters trying to warp the political agenda.
