Facebook's privacy violated

Facebook users throughout the world are crying out, feeling their privacy is being violated by Facebook's new advertising methods.

Even though there are changes being made to Beacon, "there is still, though, no global opt-out of the controversial marketing system in which the social network is seeking to link behavior and advertising more tightly," according to an article by Kara Swisher.

Her article also talks about how, ironically and coincidentally, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s personal information somehow ended up on 02138 magazine's Website. We're talking his Social Security number, girlfriend's full name and parents' address, along with "Zuckerberg’s testimony in a court case over whether he stole the idea for Facebook, a personal online journal and also financial documents from 2005 for Facebook."

To nobody's surprise, Facebook instantly "unleash[ed ...] a massive legal fury." The site has since taken down the documents.

However, according to Richard Bradley, executive editor of the magazine, this is exactly what the new Facebook ad movement is doing.

“We believe that we have a legal right to post them online and that you have a
legal right to read them. Meantime, spread the word that a company which plans
to collect and sell personal information about 50 million people doesn’t want
one magazine to do the same about Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg.”

Interesting. Very interesting.

As a Facebook user whose information is now probably floating somewhere on the World Wide Web due to the new money-makin' genius of Zuckerberg, I want to know his info. too.

From a media standpoint, it's only fair.

The new advertising practices Facebook is using are invading the privacy of its users. Publishing purchases and the like is not ok. Tracking cookies is somewhat acceptable - every other website uses cookies to understand its consumers and there is a way to protect yourself if you don't want them. It is possible to disable from Internet properties. You can't disable Facebook's new marketing tool; users are left victimized with their private lives exposed to the world.

Not ok.

Comics need editing too

"Hagar the Horrible" offends fundamentalists (in a headline writing assignment story.)

"Get Fuzzy" offends the Chicago mob (see previous post.)

The comics page needs to be edited for taste; that's easy to see.

However, an article in the Wall Street Journal suggests that, while editing the cartoons, editors should leave in some riskier ones.

"Look at your comics pages like a stock portfolio," advised Ms. Grimley, an assistant managing editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Diversify. You need to have some risky comics," for instance the slightly subversive observational strip "F Minus," and "some safe purchases like the old favorites." Such "safe purchases" would include blue chips like "Blondie," "Beetle Bailey," "Dennis the Menace" and "Hagar the Horrible."

The author acknowledges that changing the lineup in the paper will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers, as any change does, but that it's all for the good of the comic industry.

But much to the chagrin of young artists and writers eager to make their mark, a fair amount of the comic-page real estate is taken up by what they view as old, tired artists and writers -- in some instances, long departed ones. Charles Schulz, for example, died in 2000, but his progeny Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy continue to cavort through the funny pages, their antics billed as "Classic Peanuts." Detractors might say stale Peanuts.

I think that the younger artists and writers will be coming up with some good material, funny material - to me.

However, I feel that the classic funnies appeal more to the actual audience of newspapers. These appeal to the older Americans that read the paper every morning over coffee. These appeal to the newspaper's strongest readership.

Do newspapers change the comic pages and start drawing in the younger crowd and upset their faithful readers or do they forgo this opportunity and continue to cater to the people they know will read?

MySpace murder

13-year-old Megan Meier in St. Charles, Mo. hung herself Monday, Oct. 16.

Her story and suicide, under different circumstances, would have just became another tragic statistic. However, because of the reasons behind her death and the story told by one reporter, her death is rocking the media industry.

Two local adults, parents of a former friend of Megan, posed on MySpace as a teenage boy who first befriended Megan and then turned on her. She was so shamed by the adults' false postings--which she thought were made by the boy--that she killed herself. Despite telling the story at great length and in great detail, the local paper declined to identify the offenders "out of consideration for their teenage daughter." - David Crook's Letter to Romenesko

In a story as tragic, and horrific, as the one presented here, the question begs to be answered -- who deserves to remain anonymous. The adults who sent Meiers these terrible messages, posted the cruel bullietins, are not having charges filed against them, mainly due to the fact that there is no charge to fit the crime. Nevertheless, their names have been left out.

Do they really deserve to remain anonymous? Gelf magazine caught up with the reporter who wrote the original story to ask him why.

His answers were short.

Steve Pokin: ... My focus was on the story that appeared in my newspaper. I told that story the best way I could. As part of that—in consultation with my editors—we decided not to name the people behind it.

GM: Were there any other reasons you didn't name names besides your intent to protect the woman's daughter?

SP: That was the main reason.

GM: Were there any others?

SP: I don’t want to go into the other reasons

I want to know. What were the other reasons? I feel that the people behind the fictitious MySpace account are adults. They knew how cruel they were being. They are the reason this little girl is dead.

How did the reporter and his editors decide to leave these people's names out of the story?

And Brian called me "snarky."

Floris, Va.: Lois: As someone who used to cover this sort of event, what is
your view of Hank Steuver's irreverent account of the White House dinner last
night? Any blowback from 1600 Pennsylvania yet? To me, it's just the kind of
snarky reportage we need for these stuffy -- and ultimately non -- events that
are manufactured and controlled by the party in power.

washingtonpost.com: All Fraternite for Sarkozy At a Cozy White House Fete (Post, Nov. 7)

Lois Romano: As irreverent social coverage goes, I think Hank was quite
restrained. Those events can be deadly -- and the media has no access. So
anything a reporter can do to breathe life into the coverage can only help the
reader. I don't think we'll be hearing from the White House on this one. The
have a lot more important fights to fight.

There you have it. There is an important part snarkiness can play within the journalism world.

Do anything to help the reader.

Story originally found on the Washington Post's Post Politics Hour.

Keep the copy editors!

As many journalism companies consider consolidating copy editors (or even doing away with them all together), Andy Bechtel, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication, pushes for the localization of them.

Bechtel, a former copy editor for The News and Observer, was part of his paper's localization of copy editors - and felt it was one of his best experiences.

• I was able to work side by side
with reporters whose prior interaction with copy editors consisted of phone
calls from the Raleigh newsroom. I handled all of the stories that came out of
the bureau, writing the headlines and rewriting them as needed between
editions.

• I became the face of copy editing to reporters and the
assigning editor. They congratulated me on a job well done, and on occasion,
questioned why I edited a story a certain way or wrote a headline the way I did.
They called me with a late update or correction to the stories rather than
trying to track down an anonymous editor in Raleigh.

• I became an
expert in local copy, knowing the names and places that popped up in stories
such as the country road that had a funny name.

• I was a fill-in
assignment editor in the evenings, letting the Raleigh office know of breaking
stories. This came in handy, for example, when a school board member abruptly
resigned in a resume-padding scandal. I was able to notify editors in Raleigh in
time to get the story on the front page for the edition that went to Chapel Hill
readers.

This is a prime example of the importance of copy editors, especially as papers become more localized in an effort to survive. This is also a prime example of how copy editors are fighting to survive; they are working overtime to prove their worth.

Bechtel definately accomplishes that here.

Oprah on YouTube!?!

Oprah on YouTube?!? That's right, ladies and gents. The talkshow guru has given the go-ahead to put an "Oprah cam" on YouTube, according to Information Week.

This is really exciting news for the Oprah lovers out there. Now they can access backstage highlights and behind-the-scenes video. In addition, selected episodes will air on YouTube and (gasp) Oprah herself will become a guest editor. This is all known as the Oprah channel. (Get excited!)

On a promo segment for the Oprah channel, Oprah said the channel will
feature video she has shot herself for YouTube as well as coverage of what
happens on her show during commercial breaks.

"We are excited to be working with YouTube to provide another platform
for people online to communicate with us and share in
some of the one-of-a-kind experiences that occur behind-the-scenes at 'The Oprah
Winfrey Show,'" Tim Bennett, president of Harpo Productions, said in a
statement.

For all you Oprah lovers out there, you can now enjoy her on a whole new level: online.

Facebook Pandemic

Stop the press! New headlining story: Facebook becomes a pandemic!

Well, maybe not.

This isn't referencing Facebook's widespread popularity; instead it is introducing Facebook's new advertising plan, according to Eric Eldon, writer for Venture Beat.

In a project code-named Pandemic, Facebook will remove the somewhat popular
“sponsored groups” that advertisers can buy on the site. Instead, it will
introduce pages that advertisers can buy, and which can include interactive
games or other applications of the advertisers’ choosing.

Pending the outcome of an internal debate within Facebook, these pages may
include a number of vertical categories, such as movies, music, restaurants,
travel, nonprofits, and others.

That's right everybody - Facebook may be joining the ranks of the cookie-tracking 2.0 Websites.

Facebook has already developed applications for these categories, that we
understand to compete directly with many successful third party applications on
Facebook already in these categories. Instead of using Flixster to rate movies
or iLike to play music games, you may soon find yourself playing Facebook’s
version of these applications — then finding yourself getting directed to
relevant advertisers’ pages.

Actions users take on these pages will appear within friends’ news
feeds — if the advertiser that purchases the page is willing to pay an extra
fee. These pages will also have their own URLs, such as
www.facebook.com/venturebeat, and will be searchable on the web.

Facebook, which started as a community-based Website specifically targeted toward college students, has undergone a lot of changes recently (i.e. the homepage and applications); many of which are criticitized for the way they have changed Facebook's original use.

Seriously Facebook, stop the madness! I realize this is a profitable move, but how many users will you lose from this?

I predict none (for now). It will definately be interesting to see just how much change the community of Facebook users will accept.