Sunshine Skyways

It's a long holiday weekend. In the photo above is Princess. She has taken off her watch and is waiting for a massage.

This morning on NPR, I heard a report that former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, had published documents showing the complicity of the British Government in the use of torture to extract information. The U.S. blog, Daily Kos, links to Murray's blog and the documents. According to Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, the Uzebistan government uses torture not just for the U.S. and its allies, but also against its own people.

I am a member of Boston Red Sox Nation. Being a Red Sox fan has meant experiencing the highs and lows of a team that, until 2004, seemed cursed because it had not won the World Series sice 1918. That the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 on the night of a total lunar eclipse while I was in New Orleans is memorable.

One of the biggest, if not the biggest, rivalry in major league baseball is the one between the Red Sox and the New York Yankees. That the Red Sox were down 3 games to none against the Yankees and came back and won 4 straight in the American League Championship Series in 2004 is nothing short of miraculous given the talent that the Yankees had. IT WAS A GREAT TIME TO BE A MEMBER OF RED SOX NATION!

That was then and, well, today is a different story. Red Sox management have dismantled the 2004 team that won it all. Among the players that are gone are Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, Johnny Damon, and Bill Mueller. It seems the curse has returned, which is a Red Sox management that alienates and gets rid of our best players. But, I guess the management doesn't care because it still will sell out Fenway Park night after night.

It's December 25th, which means for many in the U.S., Finland, Sweden, and elsewhere, it's Christmas, which is a day for celebrating with family and friends, which means we are with family and friends and this is a very short post.

One of my favorite television shows is The Sopranos on HBO. A fan site that I like is thesopranos.com. The various predictions for season 6 at that fan site are well thought out and intriguing. I ask myself why I enjoy the show so much, because I hate the misogyny of Tony, Silvio, and the other male characters. Perhaps, I enjoy the show because of the way it offers the viewer the opportunity to gaze into the private lives of underworld figures, who aren't usually seen. For Tony and his crew, it's all about doing whatever to get money, and lots of it, regardless of who they hurt and how they get it. Just like the movie The Godfather, The Sopranos shows that capitalism and crime go very well together.

According to the Seattle Community Network, a "community is not just a collection of individual human beings. It is a super-organism that belongs to and is part of culture, composed of interactions between people, everything that is learned" (my emphasis). That a community is equated to a superorganism is reminiscent of plant ecologist Frederick Clements' argument that a plant community is literally a superorganism (Hubbell). Whether a community is literally or figuratively a superorganism, such thinking contradicts the methodological individualists, who posit that society or community is nothing more than a collection of individual actors. Another metaphor, but from chemistry, is that two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen combine to create water, which is unlike its constituent elements, but, at the same time, is essentially H 2 O. Are communities more than the sum of their individual members? Do interrelationships within a community create things that would not result from individual actions without community?

This morning there were more birds than usual by and in the pond. Hooded mergansers were busy fishing in unison, and a little blue heron and what-looks-like a short billed dowitcher were always close by on shore. Out of the frame were mallards, an egret, and a wood stork.

Is a community simply a synonym for village, town, city, or other area in geographic space, such as Lanesville, where I grew up? Or is a community a group of people with something in common, such as the place where they live, religious beliefs or sexual orientation.

Does a community emerge whenever a group of people have something in common? For example, is a group of people who go to the same New Year's Eve party or concert a community? What distinquishes a community from a mob or ad hoc gathering? When does a group of people with something in common become a community?

As a child, through the choices and ethnic backgrounds of my parents, I became a member of the Lanesville community, the local Lutheran Church community, and the Finnish-American community, which, for me, were communities bounded in physical, personal, and social space, with their own different and shared histories. My home was in Lanesville; I went to school in Lanesville; I went to church in Lanesville; I visited relatives in Lanesville and adjoining Pigeon Cove; I played with friends in Lanesville; I bought things at stores in Lanesville; and I fished, swam, skated, and more in Lanesville. Lanesville was a very important place for my first-generation American father and mother because it rooted them in multiple overlapping and supporting communities. That reminds me of a poem that I read years ago, which was written by a Swedish or Finnish immigrant, and when translated into English is, "A Tree That Only Leafs." The poem describes a tree that produces leaves; however, it lacks roots, which is probably how many immigrants, like my Finnish grandparents, felt. They survived and seemed to thrive in their new place; however, they never felt rooted, rooted in community(ies).

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel. I come from cyberspace ... We are entering a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are based on matter, and there is no matter here... Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws ... that claim to own speech itself through the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish. A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, John Perry Barlow, February 8, 1996

Introduction:
As stated in my December 11th post, during a month in 1998, an independent online news operation, the Drudge Report, was in competition with and beat established media giants. Matt Drudge's one-man tablog beat newspapers and broadcast news outlets to three of the biggest stories of the 1990s in one week. The success of his Web site supported the hopes and dreams of those that believed the Internet would revolutionize societies by creating bottom-up political-economic structures, which would include legions of global citizen reporters.[1]

Advantages of Online News:
Drudge's scoops made it very clear that a Web site had many advantages over print and broadcast news sources. First, the speed with which he could publish and distribute a story in his Drudge Report was immediate and instantaneous. After a source gave him the information for a story, he was able to put the story out on the Web immediately and distribute it instantaneously through cyberspace. Second, Drudge could publish and distribute a story at any time of the day or week; his was a 24-hour production cycle, unlike newspapers that published once a day, news magazines that published once a week, or radio and television news broadcasts that occurred at prescheduled hours each day. Third, unlike the traditional news business, which had substantial barriers to entry, there were almost no barriers to entry into online news. All Drudge needed to create the Drudge Report was a computer, modem, Web publishing software, and online access. Fourth, he could link his story to other stories within his Web site or other Web sites, thereby adding details that newspaper, magazine, and broadcasting outlets could not. Fifth, Drudge's Web site could be interactive, inviting readers to comment on posts and supply new information, unlike newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasts, which limited reader and audience participation to "letters to the editor" and call-in talk shows. Sixth, the Drudge Report was available on demand, and he could email readers on his mailing list whenever a new story broke. Seventh, Drudge's Web site was a very inexpensive way to publish and distribute stories. Eight, and finally, stories in the Drudge Report were infotainment -- a mix of a few facts with a lot of attitude and gossip, which seemed to have entertainment value, and which was much cheaper to produce than news stories based on standard journalistic practices, which involved fact checking and investigative reporting.

The Internet as a source of news (or gossip) did not begin with the creation of the Drudge Report in 1995. Online news sites started in July 1980 when The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio offered an electronic edition via CompuServe (Carlson), and by 1982, the number grew to 11 newspapers with electronic editions online, also via CompuServe (ibid). By the end of the 1980s a "handful of [established] papers and broadcasters [had] started dial-up bulletin board systems" that were plain text and included classified advertisements, business and entertainment listings, and some news headlines; and most were affiliated with dial-up platforms, such as CompuServe (Palser). In 1992, the Tribune Company launched Chicago Online on AOL, and a year later Chicago Online began publishing the entire newspaper online (Palser, Carlson). In April 1993, there were only 12 North American dailies on line according to the Newspaper Association of America (Palser); however, after the release of the Web browsers Mosaic in 1993 and Netscape 1.0 in 1994, the numbers changed significantly to 20 in April 1994 and 60 in 1995 (ibid). In 1995 the Boston Globe and Raleigh, North Carolina's, News & Observer were among a group of newspapers that debuted their sites on the open Internet. Up until then newspapers' online editions were limited to people who used a particular dial-up service, such as AOL (ibid). In August 1995, CNN launched its news site, CNN.com, and in July 1996, MSNBC went online; and both quickly became the U.S.'s top online news sites (Palser, Carlson). By 1996, most of the national news organizations, print and broadcast, in the U.S. had gone online and established separate online newsrooms and business units (Palser). Online editors quickly realized and acted on the advantages of the 24-hour news cycle that the Internet made possible, which caused them to scoop their slower print and broadcast counterparts (Scott 2005). By the late 1990s, local newspapers and broadcasters had moved into cyberspace as well, so that by 2000, "there was scarely a newsroom in the [U.S.] that didn't have a Web presence" (Palser).

Web sites of national and local print and broadcast news organizations were not the only online news sites. Portals, such as Yahoo! and AOL, created news sites that collected and presented links to other organizations' stories. Also, Web-only, independent, for-profit news sources emerged, such as Salon.com in 1995, Cnet in 1995, Slate in 1996, and APB News in 1998. These Web-only news operations attracted many talented journalists away from the traditional media. Unfortunately, for these independent operations, "it was almost as expensive to produce high quality journalism online as it was in the [material] world -- except no was willing to pay for content on the Web", unless it was the "most exclusive" and could be sold to subscribers (Scott).

Dot Com Bust:
Generating online revenues was a BIG problem. Studies in 2000 showed that the percentage of Web users that were clicking on banner and button ads had fallen to 0.1 percent (Carlson). The lack of advertising and subscription revenues experienced by both established and independent for-profit news organizations led to many cuts in online news staffs during the dot com bust. In June 2000, APBNews, which had received awards for superior journalism, was $7 million in debt and had only $50,000 in the bank. All of its staff was cut, and the APBNews.com name, Web site, domain names, and other assets were sold in September of that year. Three months later, Salon.com cut 20 percent of its staff. Among the established media giants, in 2000, CBS cut almost 25 percent of its Internet staff in June; NBC Internet cut 20 percent of its staff in August, and the Tribune Company laid off 34 employees from its Interactive department in October, of which 20 of the employees were from LATimes.com. And in 2001, 130 employees of CNN's interactive operation were laid off in January, and that same month, the New York Times cut 17 percent of its Internet staff.

Not all online news sites were damaged by the dot com crash. In fact, during the crash, "most of the nonprofit sites, institutional zines, and blogs not only survived, but flourished," in part, because of their unique content, and also because of either volunteer labor or user support (Scott).

Emails, Blogs, and Other Online News Sources of News After September 11th
Just as stories in and about Drudge's tablog boosted the use of Internet news sites during coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, the attacks on September 11, 2001, also increased traffic on the Internet. Emails were a major communication tool after the planes hit the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. According to a study conducted by the UCLA Internet Project, 57.1 percent of email users -- more than 100 million Americans -- received or sent messages of emotional support, messages of concern, or questions about victims of the attacks. Although blogs and other Web sites were considered to be a minor source of news about the attacks, they were more useful in coordinating efforts after the attacks, and are and will be useful in analyzing that moment in history. The U.S. Library of Congress has a September 11, 2001, Web Archive. In the archive are Web sites produced by individuals/volunteers, public interest/advocacy groups, and others. For examples,some of the archived Web sites produced by an "individual/volunteer" are: How to Find Your Loved Ones, Shoulder to Shoulder, The City Stories Project, Alternative Asian Voices WTC Trajedy Page, Michael Moore, Kottke.org and Wrongwaygoback: World Trade Center Sequence of Events. And some of the archived Web sites produced by "public interest/advocacy groups" are: Amnesty International USA, Index on Censorship, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Blogs and Journalism:
One of the Web sites listed above, Kottke.org, is a well known blog created by Jason Kottke, and because of its success, Kottke is now a professional blogger. The posts from Kottke's site that are archived in the September 11, 2001, Web Archive are a mix of news and comments regarding the 9-11 attacks and other social events, combined with personal stories and observations. Kottke.org is both an informing and entertaining blog; however, one could argue that, although it is a fine example of personal publishing, it is not an example of internet journalism. According to Rebecca Blood, blogs and journalism are "fundamentally different." Blogs that link to and comment about news reported by journalists are examples of "participatory media," whereas journalism is "characterized by strict adherence to accepted practices and standards" (ibid).[2] Journalists speak directly to witnesses and use multiple sources to fact-check a story, whereas bloggers do not. Nonetheless, blogs, such as Kottke.org and Atrios' Eshaton, give us insights into how the various media report on and analyze events, and the blogs can add to the analysis.[3]

Two Iraqis' blogs, The Baghdad Blog and Baghdad Burning, and two embedded reporters' blogs, Baghdad Blog and Back to Iraq blur the line between mainstream reporting and blogging. All 4 bloggers describe their lives in Iraq during the war. If descriptions and analysis of one's personal experiences and observations of war or other social events are not journalism, then none of the blogs are examples of journalism. Nonetheless, they are sources of news and analysis that compete against and complement each other.[4]

Conclusion:
Over time the utopian hopes of the technological determinists have faded. The Internet has and will not eliminate the media giants, and, in fact, Scott argues that they are creating new business models to make their Web sites more lucrative, which include future subscription fees and more infotainment. Nonetheless, there will also be independent online news outlets, such as OnMyNews, and blogs that report local, regional, and national news stories that compete against and complement the established media.




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FOOTNOTES:
[1] A poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that the public turned to Internet sites in large numbes as a news source during the Clinton-Lewinksy scandal, and "online users gravitated to the major national news sites: MSNBC, CNN Interactive, USAToday Online, nytimes.com, and washingtonpost.com" (Lasica 2000).
[2] In the article, "Weblogs and Journalism in the Age of Participatory Media," which is linked to above, it seems Blood accepts a positivist's notion of journalism, that a journalist can report on an event that is value-free.
[3] Atrios is credited for being the first to analyze comments made by Senator Trent Lott and posted on ABCNews.com that alluded favorably to the Jim Crow south. Eventually, more damaging information came out and Lott resigned. The Lott resignation put another blogger into the national spotlight.
[4] In his blog, Allbritton describes himself as the "first fully reader-funded journalist-blogger."


**Subtitles added December 20, 2005

A few hours ago we watched on Link TV the independent news show Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. Tonight's show was about the State murder of Stanley Tookie Williams, who was executed in California. The mainstream press talks ABOUT him as an ex-gang member who never repented for murderous acts, while independent reporters, such as Goodman, talked WITH him to get his story, and what emerges from Goodman's interview is a thoughtful man, who regretted what he had done in his youth, who claimed that he did not commit the murder that gave him the death penalty, and who was, until he was executed, acting behind bars to stop kids from joining gangs.

World Exclusive!!!
This blog has just been informed that a second store in the Tampa Bay area was robbed by the Golden Hamster less than one hour ago! The newest victim to the robbing rodent is the Pets R Us store in Pinellas Beach. According to a source with a cousin who is a friend of the boyfriend of a witness to the crime, the Golden Hamster forced a store employee and a customer to lie on the floor before grabbing bags of hamster treats and pine wood chips and running out of the store. According to a second source who is familiar with the police investigation of the first robbery, Tampa Bay Police have no clues as to the identity and whereabouts of the Golden Hamster; however, a reward of $500-worth of various pet products have been offered to anyone who has information that will lead to the arrest of this thief. Below is the recently released artist's sketch of the suspect that was commissioned after the first robbery. An area scientist believes the 6-foot hamster is not a man in a hamster costume, but actually a mutated hamster that escaped from a secret DOD laboratory in New Mexico.

The first generation of Web journalism was bland, irrelevant, and generally clueless. Nobody paid much attention to it. Then came the Clinton scandal and Starr report, and everything changed. It was the first time that official Washington, journalism, and the Internet bumped into one another nose to nose. (Jon Katz, quoted in Lasica 2000)

With Clinton-Lewinsky all notions that one could make clear cut distinctions between serious and less serious news outlets, even between news and non-news genres had been effectively destroyed. Whether one started the day by listening to National Public Radio or Howard Stern, by watching Good Morning America or CNN, by reading The New York Times or The Star, the topic was the same. (Williams & Delli Carpini 2000)

In 1998, an Internet tabloid newspaper (or tablog) better known to those with a penchant for Hollywood gossip and tidbits about political scandals beat established newspapers, news magazines, and television broadcasters to one of the stories of that decade. In a series of posts that began on the evening of Saturday, January 17, 1998 (23:32 PST), the Drudge Report broke the story that a former White House intern had claimed to have had a sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton. Although it may have been tempting to dismiss the first post as just another example of Matt Drudge's tablog's unfounded stories, such as when it reported that an anonymous Republican claimed court records existed to show that Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal had committed violent acts against his wife, the post attracted the attention of mainstream journalists and others for two reasons. First, not all of the tablog's exclusives were false; it did have previous, although rare, firsts that held up to scrutiny, such as when it broke the news that Connie Chung was being fired as co-chair of CBS Evening News in May 1997, that Princess Diana had been killed in a fatal car accident in August 1997, and that Republican Bob Dole had selected Jack Kemp to be his vice-presidental running mate in 1996.[1] Second, and perhaps more importantly, unlike most of its original stories that were gossip supplied by anonymous tipsters and then spiced with innuendo, the January 17th post seemed to be based on information compiled by a mainstream journalist for an established news magazine. Part of that famous first post is repeated below:

The Drudge Report has learned that reporter Michael Isikoff developed the story of his career, only to have it spiked by top Newsweek suits hours before publication. A young woman, 23, sexually involved with the love of her life, the President of the United States, since she was a 21-year-old intern at the White House. She was a frequent visitor to a small study just off the Oval Office where she claims to have indulged the president's sexual preference. ... The Drudge Report has learned that tapes of intimate phone conversations exist.[2]

By early the next morning, the post was the topic of public-affairs forums of Usenet newsgroups, first, at alt.current-events.Clinton.whitewater and alt.impeach.clinton, then it moved on to "more mainstream political discussion groups" (BBC News). On ABC's Sunday morning program, This Week With Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts, neoconservative commentator William Kristol was the first to mention the topic of the post in the mainstream media. Kristol said the story in Washington that morning was that Newsweek had killed a big story based on taped-recorded conversations of a former White House intern; however, his comment was dismissed by former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos, who said the Drudge Report was a discredited gossip column, and its veracity questioned by Sam Donaldson, who argued that Newsweek may have delayed publishing the story until it had additional information (Brill 1998).

Drudge's post used innuendo to suggest that Newsweek editors' decision to pull Isikoff's story was motivated by their desire to protect the president, which played into the myth of a liberal press. According to Brill (1998), however, Newsweek chairman and editor in chief Richard Smith decided to delay publishing the story for 3 reasons: 1) Staff were unable to question Lewinsky directly, 2) Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr had asked the magazine to delay publishing the story because he and his staff planned to use Lewinsky by having her wear a wire to get more information; and 3) Newsweek staff were not satisfied with what was heard and not heard about Clinton adviser Vernon Jordan on the audiotapes.[3]

On Monday, January 19th, talk of Drudge's first post continued. The Washington Post reported "that 'commentators on ABC discussed reports that Newsweek killed a ... sensational story alleging a long-running tryst involving Clinton while he's been president'" (Kalb 1998). Later that evening the story that the president had had sex with a former intern was mentioned on the CNBC talk show Equal Time (Kalb 1998), and Ann Coulter, who was a pundit on the show, advised viewers to read the Drudge Report. Also, during that day the story was mentioned on the Christian Broadcasting Network's 700 Club (Boston Globe January 22, 1998). Furthermore, at the end of the evening (22:33 PST), Drudge scooped the established media again when he identified the former White House intern as Monica Lewinsky:

The Drudge Report has learned that former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, 23, has been subpoenaed to give a deposition in the Paula Jones case.

On Tuesday, January 20th, the Manchester, New Hampshire, Union Leader, known as a "staunchly conservative" newspaper, featured the story in an editorial entitled, "Bimbo Eruption," which cited the Drudge Report for its "reliable sources in the Washington media" (Kalb 1998; Boston Globe January 22, 1998; alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater). But it just wasn't "staunchly conservative" newspapers that were paying attention to the alleged scandal. According to Kalb (1998) and Brill (1998), there now seemed to be a race among established news sources to get their versions of the sex scandal out in cyberspace, print, and on the airwaves as soon as possible. That morning both The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times published stories of a sex scandal on their Web sites, and later that day ABC News put the story on its Web site (Kalb 1998).

The next day, January 21st, both The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times made the sex scandal their feature stories of their printed editions. Both newspapers seemed to follow Matt Drudge's journalistic practice of using shadowy tipsters to make titilating accusations. First, the Post's story with the headline,"Clinton Accused of Urging Aide to Lie," used anonymous sources to suggest that there was unquestionable evidence that Clinton urged a witness to lie under oath:

Sources said [Linda] Tripp provided Starr with audiotapes of more than 10 conversations she had with Lewinsky over recent months in which Lewinsky graphically recounted details of a year-and-a-half-long affair she said she had with Clinton. In some of the conversations -- including one in recent days -- Lewinsky described Clinton and Jordan directing her to testify falsely in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against the president, according to sources.

Second, the Los Angeles Times' story, "Starr Examines Clinton Link to Female Intern," relied on vaguely identified sources to report its grand allegation:

A panel of federal judges has authorized the Whitewater independent counsel to examine whether President Clinton encouraged a woman to testify falsely regarding the nature of their relationship, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. ... Sources told the Washington Post that the associate [of Lewinsky's who was familiar with her during her tenure at the White House] provided Starr with audiotapes of more than 10 conversations she had with Lewinsky over recent months in which Lewinsky graphically recounted details of a 1.5 year-year affair she said she had with Clinton.

Not to be outdone, ABC Radio and ABC's Good Morning America reported the allegation of a sexual affair between the president and Lewinsky and cited "a source with a witness familiar in the matter," who alleged that "Lewinsky could be heard on tape claiming the president told her to deny an affair and that Vernon Jordan 'instructed her to lie'" (Project for Excellence in Journalism).

The first news reports on the scandal by The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and ABC were representative of the established media's early coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky story. Rumor, third-hand reports, and wild speculation were used to spin sensational stories more traditionally found in tabloid journalism, such as the Drudge Report (Lasica). However, there were some bright moments for the media, such as Michael Isikoff's January 21st article for Newsweek Interactive on AOL. Isikoff identified his sources as Kenneth "Starr's deputies" and Linda Tripp; furthermore, his report contradicted any story that suggested there was hard evidence that the president or Vernon Jordan had instructed Lewinsky to lie.

The Drudge Report continued to contribute to an evolving media frenzy, and on January 21, 1998, it scored its third scoop. That day it reported that there may exist physical evidence of a Clinton-Lewinsky sexual affair:

investigators have become convinced that there may be a DNA trail that could confirm President Clinton's sexual involvement with Lewinsky, a relationship that was captured in Lewinsky's own voice on an audiotape. Tripp has shared with investigators a conversation where Lewinsky allegedly confided that she kept a garment with Clinton's dried semen on it -- a garment she said she would never wash?

The same day, January 21st, a Newsweek special online report mentioned that Monica Lewinsky was heard to say on tape that the president had given her a dress. Newsweek's statement that the president gave Lewinsky a dress was mundane in comparison to Matt Drudge's story that there was presidential semen on an intern's dress. Drudge's story was an example of sensational journalism, and it got the attention of the established media so much so that in the days and weeks that followed, the established media was talking about and to Drudge as it produced a Clinton-Lewinsky blitzkrieg and made Drudge a celebrity and a new media power.[5]



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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Despite the Drudge Report's questionable record of presenting the news, it was considered, nonetheless, "something of a must-read" for many in the Washington press corps (Lasica 2000).
[2] Steven Brill is among many of those who suspect that it was Lucianne Goldberg who leaked the story to Matt Drudge.
[3] At that time there was a rumor that Vernon Jordan and/or President Clinton had asked Monica Lewinsky to lie to Kenneth Starr and his investigating team.
[4] According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism' s report, The Clinton/Lewinsky Story: How Accurate? How Fair?, Kenneth Starr was accused of using reporters to shape public opinion in the Lewinsky case by leaking prejudicial grand jury material. "The judge in charge of the Starr grand jury gave credence to those accusations by ordering Starr to show cause why he should not be held in contempt of court for leaks" (p. 6). By leaking information to the reporters, the media became actors in the stories they were reporting.
[5] The business departments of established media took notice. Drudge's style of reporting -- which used few facts, a lot of gossip, attitude, and innuendo -- was cheaper than traditional journalistic practices, such as investigative reporting and fact checking. Plus, his site regularly got a large number of hits, which suggested his style was entertaining as well. As corporate news departments have fallen to the pressures of the bottom line, there has been a tremendous rise in news as infotainment (Scott).

World Exclusive!

A source has just told this blog that a golden hamster robbed a Tampa area pet store at gun point this morning. After forcing the store manager and another employee to lie face down on the floor, the hamster tied the two with duct tape, then escaped with 15 to 20 pounds of aromatic wood chips. Both witnesses identified the hamster as a male, about 6 feet tail with golden brown hair. Both employees agreed that he was one of the largest and cutest golden hamsters that they have ever seen. "I just wanted to take him home and watch him run on the spinning wheel," said the store manager. A detective on the scene suspects the robbery was the work of the famous thief, the Golden Hamster, who is suspected to be a man in a beautifully custom-made golden hamster costume. The Tampa Bay police are asking for anyone who may have information about this robbery to call its tip line.

As someone who is lactose intolerant and prefers a vegetarian diet, I'm always looking for vegan recipes. A few months ago I found and tried the recipe at www.veganchef.com called Almond-Berry-licious Pie. The pie was easy to make, and it tasted great.

Here's a photo of Beau, one of our three cats. Beau, like the other two, is FIV-positive. Before we got Buddy, Beau, and Princess, we had a wonderful cat named Tater, who was FIV-positive. Tater lived to be about 14 years of age despite his FIV. In honor of him, we adopted our current cats.

The winter months in the Tampa Bay area provide an opportunity to see migratory birds that are found in areas as far north as Canada during other seasons of the year, such as mergansers. Every morning for the past 2 weeks five or six hooded mergansers have been appearing in the pond in back of our house to fish.

For you serious and not-so-serious bird watchers, I strongly recommend that you check out the Great Florida Birding Trail, which is scheduled to officially open on January 14, 2006. The Great Florida Birding Trail is a 2000-mile highway trail which unifies existing and new birding sites throughout Florida.

Today was a beautiful Saturday in December in the Tampa Bay area, so we decided to hike half of the 6-mile trail at the Little Manatee River State Park. The park is a great place to see native plants. Close to the trail we saw two large and distinctive spiders, which we believe are golden silk spiders, and which are shown in two of the photos. The first photo above that shows a spider includes a quarter ($0.25) so you can get some perspective of how large they are. It was our first time seeing these spiders and they really are beautiful. The local weather is supposed to be equally good tomorrow, so we will probably hit a local golf course, such as the Mangrove Bay Golf Course, which is a beautiful city course in St. Petersburg. The sunny days and warm temperatures in December and throughout the winter months are just part of what's great about living in the Tampa Bay area. We certainly don't miss the chilling temperatures, snow, or freezing rain that we experienced living up north.

Yesterday when I was walking along the shore of Tampa Bay, I thought I saw a Gulf sturgeon, which is a rare thing. Its head certainly made me think it was a sturgeon, but the body didn't seem as angled as shown in the photo on the National Marine Fisheries Service website.

Here's Buddy. I had the cabinet door open only for a few seconds, turned my back, and he dove in.