Jozef's blog

Historically, journalists have been charged with informing the democracy.

But their future will depend not on only how well they inform but how well they encourage and enable conversations with citizens. That is the challenge. Websites like Webdiary understand the importance of Dan Gillmor’s basic premise: "My readers know more than I do - and that's an opportunity." The ability of anyone to make the news has given new voice to people who used to feel voiceless—and whose words we need to hear. According to Dan, webdiarists and citizen journalists are "showing all of us—citizen, journalist, newsmaker—new ways of talking, of learning. In the end, they may help spark a renaissance of the notion, now threatened, of a truly informed citizenry
• We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People

Jay Rosen, Dan Gillmor, Jeff Jarvis with many others provide the dynamic platform for the robust debate about the relationship between journalists and bloggers.

The world has really, really changed and will keep changing and we in mainstream media may not like it but it’s a fact and we have to embrace it or we will die: And when will there be a museum of blogging?

Library Thing says it lets you create your own book catalog online (200 books free, or you can get a lifetime membership for $10 with unlimited catalog).

Sunday toast For who has some familiarity with the English, access to the InterNet and thinks about fichar its library. A small farm makes success that receives the heading from a book, searchs it in the Library of the Congress of the United States, captures its fiche and plays it in the archive of the customer. Librarything.com is called and was created by Tim Spalding, an American pc hacker with the feet in the classic culture. It is in the version Beta (with the risks that this means) and leaves favour for who wants to catalogue up to 200 books. For bigger libraries, it charges USS 10 for the limitless use of the instrument. In less of one month, librarything joined four a thousand users who ficharam 177 a thousand books. It gained news article in the "The Guardian" and the forecast of that somebody goes to gain money with this business. If it will not be Spalding, will be another person. The Library of the Congress is a colossus. Its catalogue has 28 book million in 470 languages. For example: 18 headings of Fernando Gabeira. (who to want to sapear, an acknowledgment: the instrument of not accepted search accents nor cedilhas.)

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi

Gary Sauer-Thompson knows well why we need more journalists and less reporters... 'What they [the senior Canberra Press Gallery] can perhaps be accused of is lack of leadership; along with other gallery veterans such as Michelle Grattan, they have let the Government get away with far too much over the years. It is true that Howard exercises a more totalitarian control over government information than any of his predecessors and that he has instituted something of a reign of terror in the public service, but that is no excuse for meekly accepting ridiculous strictures in the name of commercial-in-confidence, or privacy considerations, or the all-purpose national security. Kelly, Oakes and Grattan never would have copped it in the old days.'

Expanding on the issue of protection of journalists’ sources, Helen Ester looks at a range of factors affecting the Press Gallery’s role in public accountability
These include not only government pursuit of whistleblowers but also a weak freedom of information regime making journalists overly dependent on leaks, and a hollowing out of the press gallery, meaning many gallery journalists are relatively inexperienced ...

Irving Kristol once said something to the effect that there are no ethical problems that a Great Depression wouldn't cure...

Not many people are aware as much as Margo Kingston that taking a stand is not without its cost. But as Arundhati Roy has said: ‘A thing, once seen, cannot be unseen, and when you have seen a great moral crime, to remain silent is as much a political act as is to speak against it.’

"Libraries, if they are truly used, require the active participation of readers to inform themselves and others. A reader is the essential and equal partner to the library, which makes the current management trend of turning readers into customers such a menace. Customers merely consume and are powerless and dependent; readers read, an activity that is both productive and cooperative. And, with luck, the motivated library reader may also become the writer and so continue in the provision of free thought."

Margo Kingston today closed her Webdiary at Fairfax and hang her shingle up at a new site. Media is filled with many preachers and academics, but it is rare to find inspiring practitioners. Margo Kingston does as she says: Personal opening statement to Webdiarists

One of the most blogger protective website The Electronic Frontier Foundation is hoping to cause an avalanche with a bottom-up project. The grassroot initiative aims to expose printers which have embed trackable information on printed pages. Apparently, several companies embed tracking data in their printers to help prevent counterfeiting, which is a good thing. As the EFF notes, ‘manufacturers and the Secret Service claim that the marking technology was developed to deter counterfeiting activities using color machines. While they may actually use it for legitimate anticounterfeiting purposes, currently no law prevents them from exploiting the technology in ways that could infringe on the privacy and anonymity of Americans.’ In an age when governments want to track and prevent dissent, this is rather worrying situation Investigating Machine Identification Code Technology Color Laser Printers

Margo Kingston of Webdiary Fame was absolutely astounded this weekend when she read about a case in relation to an Australian blogger who set up a website called "Hunter Holden Sucks:"

'G'day. Here's a successful legal ploy you can expect more of by people with lots of money to use to close down criticism on the web by people with little money. What do you think?' Shutting down blogs: "sucks" and the tort of injurious falsehood