Obama Open To Helping Newspapers, To Avoid Reporting Becoming 'All Blogosphere'

from the oh-really? dept

Mathew Ingram points us to the news that President Obama has indicated that he's at least open to hearing bills that would help bailout the newspaper industry because he's afraid of reporting becoming "all blogosphere":

"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding."

That seems like an odd way to characterize things. First, it seems odd to lump the medium in with a certain type of reporting. There are plenty of "real reporters" who do plenty of "serious fact-checking" within the blog world too. Blogs are just a publishing medium. Yes, because there's a lower barrier to entry, you do end up with a much larger absolute number of bloggers, many of whom are just giving opinion. But the idea that there aren't blogging reporters is pure folly. In fact, I'd argue that the serious blogs on certain subjects to a lot more to "put stories in context" than your average newspaper reporter, who writes up a quick take and moves on to the next big thing. Topic-specific blogs are often much more accurate, much more detailed, and much more willing to focus on context than newspaper reporting. So why rescue one bunch of reporters, just because they happen to print on paper?

56 Comments | Leave a Comment..

How Difficult Is It To Post A Bill On The White House Website For Five Days?

from the come-on... dept

It seemed like a pretty straightforward campaign promise by President Obama: all non-critical bills that were passed by Congress would be placed on the White House website for five days for people to review before the President would sign or veto. It was a mostly symbolic gesture, since, once passed, there's not much that would likely happen to change the bill, but it could allow some to make the case, one way or another, for how President Obama should respond to the legislation. We were disappointed when, at the first opportunity, Obama totally ignored this promise and signed a bill just a day after Congress passed it.

Since then? It hasn't gotten any better. The NY Times is reporting that Obama has ignored this rather simple promise on nearly every bill put before him. That's not the "transparency" we were told to expect. Even worse, the White House has now "changed the terms" of the promise (which sure sounds like "breaking the promise"), saying they'll put draft bills on the website earlier and start the "five day" clock ticking then -- even though legislation may change before Congress votes on it.

And then... there's the bizarre claim that the White House couldn't fulfill the promise due to "unexpected technical hurdles." Really? Putting up the details of a law? And waiting five days? What kind of technical hurdles are we talking about. I recognize that there are campaign promises that get broken, but there are usually at least decent reasons why. In this case, it seems to be because no one in the administration actually cares. And that's disappointing.

39 Comments | Leave a Comment..

New Presidential Science And Tech Advisory Council Includes Patent Reformer

from the it's-a-start dept

While plenty of us have been quite concerned about President Obama's decision to appoint a bunch of copyright maximalists to the Justice Department (and the likely appointment of a maximalist to the IP Czar position), there's still the question of where the administration might come down on patent reform. While most of the press reports about President Obama's new Science And Tech Advisory Council have focused on names like Google's Eric Schmidt or Microsoft's Craig Mundie, one interesting appointment is Richard Levin, the President of Yale, and an economist with a long-term interest in patents.

While Levin is in the camp of folks who seem to believe the system can be fixed with some tweaks, he definitely recognizes many of the problems with the system, and his earlier research has noted (like similar research) that for new technology markets, patents can often get in the way -- especially in situations (like high tech) where innovation is "cumulative." Levin has pushed hard for increasing the obviousness bar, and making sure that patents actually are new and non-obvious -- something that would significantly help. He also was among the team that wrote A Patent System for the 21st Century. While there's plenty that I disagree with in both the assumptions and conclusions of the book, on the whole, it does show a rather thoughtful analysis. It's nice to see at least someone talking to the President recognizes that "more" isn't always "better" when it comes to intellectual monopolies. Separately, as others have noted, the really big deal here isn't necessarily who's on the board, but how much the new administration is willing to invest in funding for science and tech initiatives...

42 Comments | Leave a Comment..