Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the baby-stepping-to-on-demand-internet-tv dept.
Drinian writes "It seems that CNN is now offering its video FREE to the public. Apparently, this is a response to pressure from FOX News who has always offered free video. Is this another nail in the coffin of paid content on the internet?"
CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
daveschroeder
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· Score: 4, Interesting
...to win viewers/readers from FOX News. There's a Newsweek piece about it this week.
[CNN president Jonathan] Klein is making revolutionary changes at the cable network--scrapping signature broadcasts like "Crossfire" and "Inside Politics," shaking up his morning-show ensemble and his prime-time producing staff, and creating a new international news show at noon. These are only the first steps in a broad overhaul plan aimed at getting the pioneering and once dominant cable news network out of a seemingly perennial second-place finish, far behind Fox News.
And before anyone complains, you may be interested in at least considering:
Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABCs World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives. One of our measures found that the Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News Special Report is the most centrist.
and
Based on sentences as the level of observation (the results of which are listed in Table 8), the Drudge Report is the most centrist, Fox News Special Report is second, ABC World News Tonight is third, and CBS Evening is last.
Given that the conventional wisdom is that the Drudge Report and Fox News are conservative news outlets, this ordering might be surprising. Perhaps more surprising is the degree to which the mainstream press is liberal. The results of Table 8 show that the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, USA Today, and CBS Evening News are not only liberal, they are closer to the average Democrat in Congress (who has a score of 74.1) than they are to the median of the whole House (who has a score of 39.0). [...] the New York Times is twice as far from the center as Fox News Special Report, to gain a balanced perspective, one would need to spend twice as much time watching Special Report as he or she spends reading the New York Times. [...] Our results contrast strongly with the prior expectations of many others. It is easy to find quotes from prominent journalists and academics who claim that there is no systematic bias among media outlets in the U.S. [...] The main conclusion of our paper is that our results simply reject such claims.
Please note:
These findings refer strictly to the news stories of the outlets. That is, we omitted editorials, book reviews, and letters to the editor from our sample. (emphasis mine)
It makes me sad when people can't tell the difference between NEWS and OP-ED. Do people also have that same problem with the editorial page of the New York Times? Or just, say, Sean Hannity on FOX News? Is it acceptable to judge the news gathering and reporting capability of the Times by exclusively evaluating the content of its opinion page?
Further, one of the prime measures this report uses is the scoring for members of Congress by Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the self-described "nation's oldest liberal lobbying group".
Now, some might say that comparing news to members of Congress, be they Democrats or Republicans, isn't an effective measure (especially if you believe there is virtually no real difference between today's politicians). But at least take time to consider the report.
Various FOX News "watchdog" groups are a dizzying array of alleged inaccuracies in FOX News opinion and editorial shows, with almost nothing in actual N
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
Adult+film+producer
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Americans have such a twisted & skewed idea of what being 'liberal' means, or even 'leftist.' Your average democrat in congress supports big business, tax breaks for them as well (look at the voting record.) Big military (check the voting record again.) And will do whatever they can to stop any form socialized healthcare (think back to hillary's little action committee & the all the democrats that lambasted her for even suggesting health care be nationalized.)... That's your average american democrat.. and that's what you call a 'liberal'..
To me, it's all Very right, Right.. slightly right and then Kucinich.
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
aftk2
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· Score: 3, Insightful
One might assume that, if your network's name contains the word "News," you'd hold all your broadcasts accountable to the same level of accuracy and minimization of bias.
-- concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
geoffrobinson
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· Score: 3, Insightful
This isn't news to those who have actually watched the darn channel. Gretta Van whatever, Geraldo, Juan Williams, Gen. Wesley Clark appear on Fox News all the time. It's just that they are to the right of most liberal media outlets. And some far-out leftists view liberal media outlets conservative because they aren't socialists.
-- Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
harks
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· Score: 4, Insightful
So the media has a liberal bias because it is more liberal than the average member of Congress. Does anyone else see the problem with this basis for comparison?
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
Uruk
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Some people say that the "conservative" party members in European politics would have no chance in American politics, because they would be considered lunatic leftists with a fringe agenda that no American would dare back. In other words, the conservative European politicians are to the left of the American democrats.
That's just the difference between third-way european quasi-socialism and American quasi-capitalism. One of the underlying differences in cultural assumption is that Americans tend to think of the government as primarily something that's there to preserve their personal freedom and economic freedom, while Europeans might feel that the government is primarily something to look out for the welfare of the people. These are goals that are sometimes contradictory, such as when you ask the question, "should health care be open for competition, with maximum options for the patient, or should it be a state-provided service guaranteeing full access to everyone?"
I'm not sure there's a better solution here, but there's no denying the major differences between the two systems.
-- --
Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
uradu
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· Score: 3, Insightful
When the news headline reads "Two weeks till President Bush is reelected", they fail to be a news channel. Out with the pom-poms and kick those legs!
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
stonedown
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· Score: 5, Informative
That study is flawed. Their methodology determined that the ACLU is a right-leaning organization! (WTF?!)
Here is a long detailed article debunking the Tim Groseclose study, which has apparently never been peer-reviewed, yet another reason to ignore it.
The methodology used by the authors for assessing media ideology is completely untenable. There are three principal reasons for this:
(a) The approach G-M use establishes media ideology indirectly, by using the media's think-tank citations and comparing those to think-tank citations by legislators in order to find the legislator whose citations are the closest match. Thus, if a legislator is liberal and the media's think-tank citations match that of the liberal legislator, they would declare the media to be liberal. Momentarily setting aside the fact that this definition of media bias is itself incorrect, their claim would make sense only if it can be independently proven that the think-tanks cited by the liberal legislator are actually liberal. Their study does not prove this at all, considering that their methodology to establish think-tank ideology is itself deficient. Thus, at a fundamental level, their entire conclusion on media bias breaks down. (NOTE: It is not at all implausible that left-leaning legislators may cite more centrist think-tanks in public than progressive/liberal ones, especially considering how the liberal advocacy groups and think-tanks are tarred negatively by the GOP in the illiberal conservative media).
(b) The use of weighted-average ADA scores (for the House and the Senate) is slightly more meaningful than the Median (which they used in the original version of their paper), but even this is completely deficient and incorrect because the ideological center is set not using an independent, objective measure of ideology but based on the (political) positions of the people in Congress at a given point in time. Thus, their model simultaneously assumes that ADA scores can provide an absolute picture of a legislator's ideology but that media and think-tank ideology should be determined not using the same absolute reference but a relative, moving reference that is highly dependent on who's the majority in Congress and how they think or vote. This is not an acceptable model, for, if the minority party becomes the majority party in the next election, the derived ideology of think-tanks or the media could change significantly even though their actual positions underwent ZERO change.
Put another way, if the Republican majority suddenly decides to become 100% conservative, guess what happens. The weighted-mean ADA score would drop, even if the Democrats in Congress DID NOT change at all, and even if the media outlets that are considered "liberal", by the G-M definition, remain STATIC (i.e., no change in their think-tank citation ratios and that of the corresponding "liberals" in Congress). In this case, even though the media's ideology has NOT changed at all, it's adjusted ADA score(s) will artificially look more liberal compared to the lower weighted-mean ADA score. (BONUS FOR LEFTIES: This is right in line with one of the long-time Republican strategies of declaring the media (and Democrats) to be too "liberal" by moving the country to the Right). This is not a partisan issue though. The opposite could occur when we are talking about media outlets that are considered "conservative" because they match the citations of conservative Republicans and if the Democrats decide to become 100% liberal.
(c) The final, and perhaps most serious, problem with their analysis is their attempt to derive a conclusion of media bias using this study - because their definition of media bias, is in itself, completely flawed. Their confident conclusion that they have demonstrated "liberal" media bias is wrong because the study
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
pthisis
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· Score: 3, Interesting
And before anyone complains, you may be interested in at least considering:
Of course, this study has deep methodological problems that have been discussed to death in the statistical reporting community (See, e.g., Measuring Media Bias, Michael Cardwell, George Mason University, March 1, 2005). The consensus seems to be that the studied media outlets trail their consumer's tendencies in this area--that is, consumers do not, in fact, demand objective coverage, but rather demand coverage skewed to match their views, and media outlets tailor their product to consumer demands. And that changes in consumer bias precede (and drive) changes in media bias.
One of the major findings is that the American people are by and large more liberal than the members of Congress (in large part because conservatives tend to vote more than liberals, possibly because of age correlations), so comparisons to members of Congress don't tell you whether the media is skewed relative to the general population--and, in fact, it appears that it is not.
The second upshot is that, since the general population's conservative/liberal leanings are farther to the left than a study of members of Congress would show, it turns out that not only is the media on the whole in line with the public's stance, but that the New York Times is far closer in line with the public's beliefs than is Fox News.
Note that none of this is meant as a vindication of any journalistic integrity or objectivity; on the contrary, it seems to be basically a result of the media outlets following the dollar and trying to present the news as people want to hear it.
-- rage, rage against the dying of the light
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
tm2b
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· Score: 4, Insightful
All of the news outlets except Fox News Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress.
Ummm... Duh!
The average member of Congress is on the right. Of course a centrist position will be to their left. When the Democrats controlled Congress, the average member was to the left and the news tended to be to the right of the average member.
What a crock.
-- "It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
smooth+wombat
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· Score: 4, Informative
Just yesterday they replayed the speech of the final ultimatum to Saddam and it did NOT focus on WMDs. It stated that his days of tyranny and murder were over and they had 48 hours to leave Iraq.\
That's because Bush knew there were no weapons there. Bush changed the reasoning for invading and now occupying Iraq several times. First was the link to 9/11 but when that didn't pan out it was the weapons. Then it was blocking inspections (which Saddam wasn't. The inspectors left because of Bushs march to war). Then it was because of the things Saddam had done in the past (with a wink and nod from the U.S.). Then it was to free the Iraqi people and now we're at 'to spread freedom and democracy'.
Liberals also conveniently forget that the entire world was behind a resolution to his regime and they all thought there were WMDs.
False. The whole world was not behind the resolution nor did they all think there were wmds. In fact, even when the UN inspectors who were on the ground asked for the 'evidence' that the White House had of supposed wmds, every single piece proved to be false. There were no weapons or evidence of weapons at any site the White House pointed to.
Further, Scott Ritter and others, people who were directly involved with the inspections, stated that there were no wmds and were immediately singled out for the propoganda machine to try and discredit them.
The fact that you keep using the word liberal shows your bias. There are many of us true conservatives who didn't believe Bush and certainly do not approve of his policies. You aren't by chance a shill for Fox are you? After all, their people, commentators and reporters alike, like to throw out the word liberal as a means of denigration but which only goes to show how biased they are.
-- We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
shaka999
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I do.
Most people would agree we have a conservative congress in place. If so then an unbiased news outlet should be to the left of the average member of congress.
-- One should not theorize before one has data.
-Sherlock Holmes-
Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...
by
Retric
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· Score: 3, Insightful
The left right debate in this country is silly.
When was the last time someone said "Spending more on our military than the rest of the world put together seems extreme." it's all about "let's protect us from them" without a clear definition of who they are and how and why they are going to hurt us.
On the other hand when was the last time someone suggested reducing the insane subsidies to farmers in the US?
Sure people talk about the abortion issue but most Republicans would not vote for a constitutional amendment to change that unless they knew it would not pass.
Look at all the people going from government jobs to the private sector and guess how many "dirty deals" are really going on.
People talk about strengthening the US economy but when was the last time someone built a major road in the US? Congestion in the US has gotten worse over the last 10 years everywhere but nobody will talk about it. Things are going down hill fast but hey let's "leave no child behind" and "fight terror" which means what? O yea smoke and mirrors my friend some and mirrors.
Of course it's not the death of paid content. There will always be a low-quality feed for free, but for a few bucks a month you will always be able to upgrade to a higher-quality feed. It's the way of the internet, and it's not going away any time soon.
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Pressure from Fox?
by
TPIRman
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I think the OP is correct that other sites' offering of free video likely played somewhat into the decision to go free on CNN.com, but I doubt that was the primary motivation. More compelling is the theory that CNN saw an improving Web ad market and decided that the balance sheet finally worked out in their favor again. (I say "again" because cnn.com video was free once before, way back in the day.) Indeed, a big part of this story is that CNN was able to line up major sponsors for the free-video launch.
As for pressure from Fox, CNN has been losing in the TV ratings for some time, but the people at CNN (I worked there for a while) take great pride in the fact that the website has held its own and remains one of the most-visited news sources on the Internet. Foxnews.com, while definitely drawing a large audience, isn't even close to CNN.com, so the "pressure" on that front would be more of a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses deal for CNN.com than anything else.
MSNBC.com, however, is hardly a slouch when it comes to site traffic, and their free-video service has become very popular. If any significant pressure is being placed on CNN.com in the online space, it's from MSNBC rather than Fox.
Pressure from Competition? Where is the evidence?
by
ranson
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"Apparently, this is a response to pressure from FOX News who has always offered free video. Is this another nail in the coffin of paid content on the internet?"
Apparently Drinian thinks he knows the inner-workings of CNN? I see no evidence anywhere (press release or otherwise) to support the idea that this was done to alleviate pressure from competing networks. Perhaps CNN struck some advertising deals that would yeild them more money? Perhaps they realized their subscriber base is so small that maintaining subscriptions was more costly than the revenues from them. There are lots of reasons why the video is free now and i don't think a slashdot headline is an appropriate medium to express the submitter's baseless presumption as to why it happened. With that said, lets all be happy that we have more free news:)
Now I can see round the clock coverage of the latest missing girl / boy and who won the latest Fox reality TV show. Seriously, how come they don't report NEWS anymore? All their front page head lines are just BS.
Wasn't it "free" before?
by
DJ+Rubbie
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· Score: 4, Insightful
If I recall correctly, a while ago (3 years ago or so) CNN offered videos for free to the public before they added in a paid to view pass system.
-- Please direct all bug reports to/dev/null
Mod parent +5 funny :-)
by
tekiegreg
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Is this another nail in the coffin of paid content?
HAH! I subscribe to 3 paid sites. Granted I'm a part-time investor, I find thestreet.com and wsj online to be quite handy. Also consumerreports.org for a small fee keeps me tuned to what is good out there and what is a scam.
Sure I can try and pirate the content out there, but that would require some searching and a guilty feeling for making/saving money at others expense and all these paid sites are very good in and of themselves. So paid content isn't going away any time soon.
Would I pay for CNN though? Something that I can easily find on TV? Probably not, but again by that logic, how many people watch CNN (a PAID cable channel) and still go out and pay the $0.35 for the Los Angeles Times? People will pay for what they perceive as good content, online or wherever.
-- ...in bed
How to play CNN video on Linux
by
thisisauniqueid
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· Score: 4, Informative
It's a bit convoluted, but here's how to play these videos on Linux without having to delve into HTML and JS, and without having to use an embedded video plugin (lots of which seem to lock up and crash frequently):
- Install the GreaseMonkey extension to Firefox: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/ - Install the Unembed script for GreaseMonkey: http://dunck.us/collab/GreaseMonkeyUserScripts - Install xine and the Windows codecs: http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/ - Go to http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html in Firefox (the links on each story don't work, they check to see if WMP9 is installed, and then they fail) - Click on the story you want. - Right-click on the title above the embedded video (it's the name of the video in blue text, and it's in the same frame as the embedded video). Select "This Frame->Show only this frame" from the context menu. - There should now be a link next to the video that says "[download]". - Shift-click on the "[download]" link to open it in a new tab (right-click doesn't work, so you can't copy the link destination). - Switch to the new tab, and press Ctrl-L Ctrl-C to copy the URL. - Open a terminal, and type "xine " then Ctrl-Shift-V to paste the URL. Press enter and the movie should play!
Phew!
If this is the end...
by
aslate
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· Score: 3, Informative
According to the summary:
Is this another nail in the coffin of paid content on the internet?
Funny, i've been getting free news broadcasts off BBC News for ages, and it's decent news programming at that! No "free registration", random cookies and adverts either.
Re:Your research study is CRAP
by
jadavis
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The selection of facts, and the prominence of those facts can indicate bias.
If you keep saying that Abu Ghraib (sp?) and Gitmo are important national issues that should occupy our minds on a daily basis, that's a perspective that I disagree with. They matter, I'm not saying we shouldn't avoid abuses, but I just don't care much about a few non-citizens locked up in a prison someplace. If abuses are happening, correct them (investigate, fire people, whatever) and shut up.
Wouldn't it be bias if some news source only reported horrible crimes by illegal aliens? Every time an illegal alien did something wrong, you could make it a front-page article. I bet you could skew your readers' perspective about immigration policy if you do that for long enough (they might even... *gasp* advocate enforcing the laws that we already have).
Objective is when you look at something without perspective, which is pretty much impossible. People generally consider it to be more objective if a prominent view in favor and a prominent view against are both presented, but often times there are many viewpoints. And also you can sort of set up one side to look stupid by picking a stupid advocate.
To me, the worst kind of bias is when you inject opinion into news in creative ways. Consider the following hypothetical "news" story: "Senator A introduced bill B today. The bill does C, but critics say D, E, F, G, H...". How many times do you see that pattern to a story? They introduce something they are against, and then to argue against it they say "critics say...". It's pretty obvious to me that they are the critics, and they just want to editorialize on the front page.
Anonymous sources get kind of rediculous also. In 2008, I fully expect to see as a headline somewhere "Candidate X is a poopy-head, sources say.".
-- Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Re:Your research study is CRAP
by
gstoddart
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
If you keep saying that Abu Ghraib (sp?) and Gitmo are important national issues that should occupy our minds on a daily basis, that's a perspective that I disagree with. They matter, I'm not saying we shouldn't avoid abuses, but I just don't care much about a few non-citizens locked up in a prison someplace. If abuses are happening, correct them (investigate, fire people, whatever) and shut up.
Because, when you try to use moral authority to justify 'spreading democracy and freedom' to the rest of the world, and then proceed to spread lies and torture, you have no moral authority left.
And very quickly everyone else in the world will say but I just don't care much about a few Americans locked up in a prison someplace.
Saying you don't care makes you an idiot, not enlightened.
Slashdot Mirror
...to win viewers/readers from FOX News. There's a Newsweek piece about it this week.
[CNN president Jonathan] Klein is making revolutionary changes at the cable network--scrapping signature broadcasts like "Crossfire" and "Inside Politics," shaking up his morning-show ensemble and his prime-time producing staff, and creating a new international news show at noon. These are only the first steps in a broad overhaul plan aimed at getting the pioneering and once dominant cable news network out of a seemingly perennial second-place finish, far behind Fox News.
And before anyone complains, you may be interested in at least considering:
http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/groseclose/Med ia.Bias.8.htm
which finds, in part
Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABCs World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives. One of our measures found that the Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News Special Report is the most centrist.
and
Based on sentences as the level of observation (the results of which are listed in Table 8), the Drudge Report is the most centrist, Fox News Special Report is second, ABC World News Tonight is third, and CBS Evening is last.
Given that the conventional wisdom is that the Drudge Report and Fox News are conservative news outlets, this ordering might be surprising. Perhaps more surprising is the degree to which the mainstream press is liberal. The results of Table 8 show that the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, USA Today, and CBS Evening News are not only liberal, they are closer to the average Democrat in Congress (who has a score of 74.1) than they are to the median of the whole House (who has a score of 39.0). [...] the New York Times is twice as far from the center as Fox News Special Report, to gain a balanced perspective, one would need to spend twice as much time watching Special Report as he or she spends reading the New York Times. [...] Our results contrast strongly with the prior expectations of many others. It is easy to find quotes from prominent journalists and academics who claim that there is no systematic bias among media outlets in the U.S. [...] The main conclusion of our paper is that our results simply reject such claims.
Please note:
These findings refer strictly to the news stories of the outlets. That is, we omitted editorials, book reviews, and letters to the editor from our sample. (emphasis mine)
It makes me sad when people can't tell the difference between NEWS and OP-ED. Do people also have that same problem with the editorial page of the New York Times? Or just, say, Sean Hannity on FOX News? Is it acceptable to judge the news gathering and reporting capability of the Times by exclusively evaluating the content of its opinion page?
Further, one of the prime measures this report uses is the scoring for members of Congress by Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the self-described "nation's oldest liberal lobbying group".
Now, some might say that comparing news to members of Congress, be they Democrats or Republicans, isn't an effective measure (especially if you believe there is virtually no real difference between today's politicians). But at least take time to consider the report.
Various FOX News "watchdog" groups are a dizzying array of alleged inaccuracies in FOX News opinion and editorial shows, with almost nothing in actual N
Of course it's not the death of paid content. There will always be a low-quality feed for free, but for a few bucks a month you will always be able to upgrade to a higher-quality feed. It's the way of the internet, and it's not going away any time soon.
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I think the OP is correct that other sites' offering of free video likely played somewhat into the decision to go free on CNN.com, but I doubt that was the primary motivation. More compelling is the theory that CNN saw an improving Web ad market and decided that the balance sheet finally worked out in their favor again. (I say "again" because cnn.com video was free once before, way back in the day.) Indeed, a big part of this story is that CNN was able to line up major sponsors for the free-video launch.
As for pressure from Fox, CNN has been losing in the TV ratings for some time, but the people at CNN (I worked there for a while) take great pride in the fact that the website has held its own and remains one of the most-visited news sources on the Internet. Foxnews.com, while definitely drawing a large audience, isn't even close to CNN.com, so the "pressure" on that front would be more of a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses deal for CNN.com than anything else.
MSNBC.com, however, is hardly a slouch when it comes to site traffic, and their free-video service has become very popular. If any significant pressure is being placed on CNN.com in the online space, it's from MSNBC rather than Fox.
"Apparently, this is a response to pressure from FOX News who has always offered free video. Is this another nail in the coffin of paid content on the internet?"
:)
Apparently Drinian thinks he knows the inner-workings of CNN? I see no evidence anywhere (press release or otherwise) to support the idea that this was done to alleviate pressure from competing networks. Perhaps CNN struck some advertising deals that would yeild them more money? Perhaps they realized their subscriber base is so small that maintaining subscriptions was more costly than the revenues from them. There are lots of reasons why the video is free now and i don't think a slashdot headline is an appropriate medium to express the submitter's baseless presumption as to why it happened. With that said, lets all be happy that we have more free news
Now I can see round the clock coverage of the latest missing girl / boy and who won the latest Fox reality TV show. Seriously, how come they don't report NEWS anymore? All their front page head lines are just BS.
If I recall correctly, a while ago (3 years ago or so) CNN offered videos for free to the public before they added in a paid to view pass system.
Please direct all bug reports to
Is this another nail in the coffin of paid content?
HAH! I subscribe to 3 paid sites. Granted I'm a part-time investor, I find thestreet.com and wsj online to be quite handy. Also consumerreports.org for a small fee keeps me tuned to what is good out there and what is a scam.
Sure I can try and pirate the content out there, but that would require some searching and a guilty feeling for making/saving money at others expense and all these paid sites are very good in and of themselves. So paid content isn't going away any time soon.
Would I pay for CNN though? Something that I can easily find on TV? Probably not, but again by that logic, how many people watch CNN (a PAID cable channel) and still go out and pay the $0.35 for the Los Angeles Times? People will pay for what they perceive as good content, online or wherever.
...in bed
It's a bit convoluted, but here's how to play these videos on Linux without having to delve into HTML and JS, and without having to use an embedded video plugin (lots of which seem to lock up and crash frequently):
- Install the GreaseMonkey extension to Firefox: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
- Install the Unembed script for GreaseMonkey: http://dunck.us/collab/GreaseMonkeyUserScripts
- Install xine and the Windows codecs: http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/
- Go to http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html in Firefox (the links on each story don't work, they check to see if WMP9 is installed, and then they fail)
- Click on the story you want.
- Right-click on the title above the embedded video (it's the name of the video in blue text, and it's in the same frame as the embedded video). Select "This Frame->Show only this frame" from the context menu.
- There should now be a link next to the video that says "[download]".
- Shift-click on the "[download]" link to open it in a new tab (right-click doesn't work, so you can't copy the link destination).
- Switch to the new tab, and press Ctrl-L Ctrl-C to copy the URL.
- Open a terminal, and type "xine " then Ctrl-Shift-V to paste the URL. Press enter and the movie should play!
Phew!
According to the summary:
Is this another nail in the coffin of paid content on the internet?
Funny, i've been getting free news broadcasts off BBC News for ages, and it's decent news programming at that! No "free registration", random cookies and adverts either.
The selection of facts, and the prominence of those facts can indicate bias.
...". How many times do you see that pattern to a story? They introduce something they are against, and then to argue against it they say "critics say...". It's pretty obvious to me that they are the critics, and they just want to editorialize on the front page.
If you keep saying that Abu Ghraib (sp?) and Gitmo are important national issues that should occupy our minds on a daily basis, that's a perspective that I disagree with. They matter, I'm not saying we shouldn't avoid abuses, but I just don't care much about a few non-citizens locked up in a prison someplace. If abuses are happening, correct them (investigate, fire people, whatever) and shut up.
Wouldn't it be bias if some news source only reported horrible crimes by illegal aliens? Every time an illegal alien did something wrong, you could make it a front-page article. I bet you could skew your readers' perspective about immigration policy if you do that for long enough (they might even... *gasp* advocate enforcing the laws that we already have).
Objective is when you look at something without perspective, which is pretty much impossible. People generally consider it to be more objective if a prominent view in favor and a prominent view against are both presented, but often times there are many viewpoints. And also you can sort of set up one side to look stupid by picking a stupid advocate.
To me, the worst kind of bias is when you inject opinion into news in creative ways. Consider the following hypothetical "news" story: "Senator A introduced bill B today. The bill does C, but critics say D, E, F, G, H
Anonymous sources get kind of rediculous also. In 2008, I fully expect to see as a headline somewhere "Candidate X is a poopy-head, sources say.".
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Because, when you try to use moral authority to justify 'spreading democracy and freedom' to the rest of the world, and then proceed to spread lies and torture, you have no moral authority left.
And very quickly everyone else in the world will say but I just don't care much about a few Americans locked up in a prison someplace.
Saying you don't care makes you an idiot, not enlightened.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Why do you hate freedom?
Research shows that the BBC is to the left of even the two most liberal senators in the US Senate. This makes it unsafe to watch. Also, it's funded by obligatory public subscription, which is un-American and almost socialistical.
Watch Fox news instead, where honest men and women tell it like they were told it is.