Last year, the Guardian Unlimited hosted the first British blog awards. The awards created a stir among bloggers – many wondered if awards were appropriate for the new medium. Nevertheless, hundreds entered the contest and a winner was chosen.

This year, the Guardian split the award into five categories: Best Design, Best Specialist (which applies to any blog about a single topic), Best Under 18, Best Use of Photography and Best Written. The contest will not award an overall winner, but each category winner receives a £500 check. There are also more judges this year.

I think it is entirely appropriate to award bloggers. Blog awards create excitement, controversy and competition in the blogging community. Because there are awards now, bloggers may improve their linking, change their style and write better.

It's clear the Guardian Unlimited is fascinated with blogs. It sponsors a blog advocating the elimination of agriculture subsidies. It even has blogs of its own, focusing on news, technology and, recently, on the United States. The new blog, U.S. Vote 2004, reports on the U.S. 2004 presidential race.

The Guardian is looking for blogs that cover the presidential race to put on its blogroll. I strongly encourage anyone blogging about the race to submit your blog. The Guardian Unlimited is a prestigious online newspaper, and your blog would definitely receive more traffic.

Although American bloggers can’t enter the British blog awards, we can still have a say in its U.S. Vote 2004 blog.

UPDATE: To submit your presidential-race blog to the Guardian's blogroll, email the Guardian with the subject line "U.S .Vote."
# posted by Kristen @ 4:46 PM ::

Last week, Fox News commentator and best-selling author Bill O'Reilly went on National Public Radio to speak to talk show host Terry Gross. The purpose of the interview was to promote O'Reilly’s latest book, Who's Looking Out For You, which hit stores only a few weeks ago and has sold hundreds of thousands of copies already.

But instead of talking about O'Reilly book, Gross continually asked questions about Al Franken's latest book, which said O'Reilly is a liar. Everybody knows Franken is a redical left-wing mud-slinger who has made it his life's work to discredit O'Reilly and other conservatives. He had an interview with Gross two weeks ago in which he talked extensively about his book. O'Reilly should have been given the same privilege.

NPR Ombudsman Jeffery Dvorkin agrees. He said the interview was biased and unfair.

“I agree with the listeners who complained about the tone of the interview,” Dvorkin said. “Her questions were pointed from the beginning. She went after O'Reilly using critical quotes from the Franken book and a New York Times book review.”

O'Reilly finally walked out on the interview when Gross was about to read a criticism of his book from People magazine, but Gross read the quote anyway without O'Reilly being there to respond.

“I believe the listeners were not well served by this interview,” Dvorkin said. “It may have illustrated the 'cultural wars' that seem to be flaring in the country. Unfortunately, the interview only served to confirm the belief, held by some, in NPR's liberal media bias.”

NPR's own ombudsman said the interview confirmed a liberal bias. Anyone who heard the interview, except extreme partisans, must feel the same way. And that's the big issue.

If a network wants to be biased that's fine. There is plenty of competition in the media. People who don't like the bias won't listen, and those who do will be entertained.

All Americans should not have to pay for NPR's bias though. Our tax dollars don't go to help Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, but they do for biased programs like Gross's.

Al Gore and other liberals always complain about not having a liberal radio channel. They should buy NPR. They could continue the bias that already exists at that network and we would no longer have to pay for it.
# posted by Joe @ 12:46 PM ::

If you want to get the scoop on the latest research and scientific breakthroughs, you’d better have thousands of dollars to spend on journal subscriptions. Until now.

A new online science journal is attempting to break down one of scientists’ elitist barriers by making study results available online free-of-charge.

With a commitment to open access, the Public Library of Science released their first issue online and in print this week. The open-access license “allows anyone, anywhere, with a connection to the Internet to read, download, print, copy, and redistribute any published article or to use its contents in derivative works, such as databases, textbooks, or other teaching materials,” according to PLoS.

Instead of charging readers to access the study results, the peer-reviewed journal is charging researchers $1,500 to publish to their research.

Critics hailed the effort as unrealistic and idealistic, but online readers visited the site by the thousands in the immediate hours following the first issue release. After one of the main research papers was downloaded 80,000 times, the paper became temporarily inaccessible for viewing.

Traditionally, science journals are the first and only source of detailed research study breakthroughs. While mainstream media summarizes highlights, details are only available to paying readers.

But paying readers aren’t paying pocket change – the most prestigious science journals, including Nature and Science, can cost up to $11,000 a year. Libraries pay 85% of this cost for access.

“Public Library of Science founders and other open-access advocates argue that research paid for with $57 billion in federal funding each year should be made available for free to everyone, since taxpayers have already paid for it,” according to the Associated Press.

Providing the public with free access to science information may become a new Internet-friendly trend.

Also this week, the food and agriculture organization of the United Nations passed an initiative to allow “students, researchers and scientists from developing countries gain free and low cost access to scientific literature.”

More recent coverage of open-access publishing

• The Minnesota Daily: Proposed bill would make federally funded science research results free
• Scientific American: Public Not Welcome: Libraries cut off access to the scientific literature
• Nature: Who will pay for open access?
• The Guardian: Publishing progress
• The Los Angeles Times: Journal is giving science back to the people

# posted by Michelle @ 10:37 PM ::

(disclaimer: certain links may contain spoilers I have chosen not to include in my post. These links are marked with an asterisk)

October 17 is a big weekend at the box office; three major biopics (Sylvia, Wonderland and Veronica Guerin), a heavily promoted horror remake (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)), a Katie Holmes Sundance comedy (Pieces of April) and a crime drama based on a John Grisham novel (Runaway Jury) will simultaneously make their big screen debuts at theaters everywhere. With all the cinema offerings, why should you see Veronica Guerin? More importantly, who is Veronica Guerin?

The heart of this story * begins in the mid-1990s. Guerin, an Irish crime beat reporter, wrote an expose on Dublin's drug lords, which subsequently put her life in danger. Ireland rallied around their newfound heroine as Guerin continued to elude assassination by the drug lords. Legend became reality as the men who had doggedly pursued Guerin were eventually captured.

Why Guerin's story is relevant to journalists today:

Guerin chose to seek the truth * for her readers at the expense of putting her life in danger. This movie could bring other journalists' stories back into the limelight; Daniel Pearl was executed in Pakistan in 2002 for seeking the truth for readers on the topic of possible "connections between Muslim militants and the September 11 attacks."

This movie serves as a living monument to journalists who risk their lives or make the ultimate sacrifice to seek truth for their audiences. Check out the gallery at the movie's official site and the trailer at IMDB.

Update: As of today (17 Oct.) Veronica Guerin is playing locally.
# posted by Alison @ 1:31 PM ::

As most people know by now, Arnold Schwarzenegger will be the new governor of California.

As absurd as that may seem to some people, it isn't too surprising, considering how the media has dealt with the whole election.

Sadly, the media fed into the circus that was the California recall election, especially when it came to dealing with Ah-nold.

Yes, there was a bit of mud-slinging at Schwarzenegger, especially towards the end, that the media tried to clarify. But where were the important questions? Didn't anyone notice that he didn't have a strong platform or that any time someone asked him how he'd lead California out of its deficit, he'd say something like, "I will erase the deficit and I'll talk to my people on how to accomplish this."

Moreover, this man is hypocritical! He drives a Hummer and claims to be a friend of the environment.

And by the way, making big-budget movies does not mean that one knows how to handle fiscal responsibilities.

Schwarzenegger won because the media ballooned his celebrity, not because he sold a lot of people on how he'll reform California. He won this race because of style and not because people think he'll make a better governor than Davis.

This is a man who knows how to use the media, how to play to their side. I mean, he announced his candidacy on The Tonight Show!
# posted by Lauren @ 11:00 AM ::

At BloggerCon 2003 at Harvard, Chris Lydon was able to sit down to interview Jay Rosen. Rosen is the chair of the journalism program at New York University.

Rosen on the Blog Effect:
"Blogs are undoing the system for generating authority and therefore credibility of news providers that's been accumulating for well over 100 years. And the reason is that the mass audience is slowly, slowly disappearing ... And so people who have a better description of the world are picking up the tools of journalism and doing it. It's small. Its significance is not clear. But it's a potentially transforming development ... "
:: Rosen in interview with Lyon

Dave Winer noted that Rosen was the "star in the grandstands" & a "visionary speaker". He is right. Take a few minutes to listen to this great interview [mp3 download].
# posted by kaye @ 8:25 AM ::

At BloggerCon at Harvard, the organizers made it clear that the conference will not be a forum for arguing whether or not blogs are journalism. Even so, this question resurfaces.

Ed Cone said weblogs that practice journalism should have all of the protection that the constitution provides journalists. Glenn Reynolds added that such protection is less than one would think.

But should they? Does the town crier have these protections? Does the crazy man in the middle of the street on a soap box have these protections? I’m not a legal mind. I don’t know. But to me, blogs are an electronic evolution of these functions.

I feel strongly that blogging is not journalism …even if journalists can blog.

On another note, if you're interested in what is happening in Cambridge in regards to blogging today then watch the webcast or visit the combined blog of the attendees.
# posted by kaye @ 10:10 AM ::