Hhaing The Yu, 29, in rain falling on the ruins of his home, in a township outside Yangon, Myanmar.

This is not about politics; it is about saving people’s lives. There is absolutely no more time to lose.

— United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, pressing the military junta in Myanmar to accept international assistance as hundreds of thousands of its citizens reel from the effects of a devastating cyclone earlier this month; May 14.
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If our profits are taxed, that means we’ll have less capital to invest in new production.

— John Hofmeister, president of Shell U.S., to CNNMoney.com; May 6.

These companies are spending a very small amount of their operating cash flow on exploration. They are spending the majority of their funds buying back stock.

— Amy Myers Jaffe, a fellow in energy studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, discussing results of her just-finished a two-year study looking at oil companies and how they spend their money; May 6.
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Long ago, in the beginning, a newspaper developed a Web site. Hundreds followed that lead. Now, one newspaper has only a Web site. In the end, what will there be? And what will be the consequences for readers?

A Wisconsin daily newspaper, whose readers have been increasingly shedding it, has now shed a significant expense — newsprint. The Capital Times of Madison, whose circulation has fallen from more than 40,000 to 18,000, said “-30-” to its printing press. It has become an online information enterprise around the Madison.com portal.

The 90-year-old newspaper — one of two serving Madison under a joint operating agreement — will only publish a tabloid-sized edition twice per week carrying some news, opinion and a weekly arts, entertainment and culture section. It will be distributed in its home-delivered partner paper, the Wisconsin State Journal.

It’s a dicey move, but critics like me have said for years that the Web-only newspaper will see its day come (which does not mean we have argued that online-only is a good idea). So what does this end-of-print mean for Madison and beyond?
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Is the answer to the above question “No?”

Well, that’s part of the problem–millions of Americans are in the same boat, and they are equally unaware of the situation

The basic gist is this: On February 17, 2009, “over-the-air” (OTA) broadcast television stations that use analog signals (which you pick up through the familiar “rabbit-ear” antennae) are switching to digital signals, which means that unless you have a strong enough antenna set and a special set-top converter box, your television will not be able to pick up the new signals. The government’s official DTV site gives a concise description of the whole event.

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This is actually a boost to remind people that we can produce this kind of journalism at any time. We’re going to have a large enough newsroom to continue to produce this kind of quality journalism.

— Leonard Downie Jr., editor of The Washington Post, winner of six Pulitzer Prizes for 2008; The Post’s front-page story by media critic Howard Kurtz did not mention the paper has endured three rounds of staff cuts since 2003, but the AP’s story did; April 7; emphasis added.

I can only confirm that the route is dynamic.

— Nathan Ballard, a San Francisco city spokesman, as, said The New York Times, “The precise route remained in flux on Tuesday as the torch extravaganza threatened to become more civic migraine than celebration in the face of potential protests by those upset with China’s human rights record and recent crackdown in Tibet”; April 9.
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It’s the new conventional wisdom: The news biz is dying. Declining circulation. Abandonment by advertisers. Falling revenues. Cuts in staffing to reduce costs. The news biz needs a new business model, the critical harpies proclaim.

But what should a new business model for an industry whose principal product is journalism look like?

It would have to recognize several new — and old — realities.

• Any new business model must generate profit.

There’s no way around this. Journalism is best sustained within a for-profit frame. A company that engages in newspaper journalism as a product is not supported by government (unlike public television) nor should it be. The same holds for commercial broadcast journalism as well. To provide news, the company must make a profit to attract investors and secure the resources to collect, report and transmit that news. A non-profit model cannot immediately match the breadth and depth of news reporting that a healthy democracy of more than 300 million citizens requires.
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You probably haven’t heard of Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza and Justin Pritchard. But because of them, you may be thinking twice about the water you drink — especially if you live in Philadelphia.

Mr. Donn, Ms. Mendoza, and Mr. Pritchard wrote and reported the story that reveals “[a] vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.” (Elsewhere at S&R, my colleague Martin discusses what this all means.)

The three reporters did extensive work on this story:

Members of the AP National Investigative Team reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. They also surveyed the nation’s 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

Journalists broke this story. Not a government agency. Not a corporation. Not a whistleblower. Not a blogger. Well-trained, experienced journalists did — with the backing of a news organization willing to dedicate resources to do for the public what governments and corporations can’t, won’t or don’t.
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“The ‘Chechnya’ special operation has infected the whole country, which is becoming more and more beastly and idiotic. The value of human life was already very low in Russia, and now it has slipped to almost nothing. We have all reached the depths, like the unrescued Kursk [the sunken submarine]. And there’s no order for rescue.”
– “A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya” by Anna Politkovskaya (University of Chicago Press, 2003)

One hundred twenty-six journalists have been killed in Iraq, many of them native to the country. We don’t mean to slight them, but we’ve chosen one from elsewhere to represent all journalists whose lives are imperiled. Full Story »

If you haven’t already heard about it, Comcast doesn’t just block subscribers from using BitTorrent, it also blocks the public from even complaining about it in public:

Comcast’s spokespersons admitted it paid people to do the same for a hearing on the company’s actions regarding its interference with peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as BitTorrent. The placeholders not only held spots in line, but also crowded into the hearing itself, preventing more than 100 attendees — many of whom had come to speak against Comcast — from getting inside. Full Story »

I believe my current participation could be a distraction.

— major league baseball pitcher and accused steroids and HGH cheat Roger Clemens, in withdrawing from a scheduled appearance at an “event, which takes place largely at Disney Hollywood Studios, and lets fans interact with athletes and ESPN personalities and watch live ESPN programming”; Feb. 20.

I’m very excited about watching this game. I do want to thank your coaches. Thanks for coaching. Thanks for teaching people the importance of teamwork. I like baseball a lot, so thanks for teaching them how to play baseball, too.

— from President Bush’s remarks at a “tee ball” game between the Little Dragons and the Little Saints at Ghana International School in Accra, Ghana; Feb. 20.
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Edward Wasserman, writing in the Feb. 18 Miami Herald, makes an obvious but still unsettling point about the news business:

The nearly two-century-old marriage between consumer advertising and journalism is on the rocks.

Prof. Wasserman, the Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, recounts that two hundred years from the penny press to the difficulties that “new media” have with a business model that presumes people will pay for news — and therefore advertisers will pay to park themselves in front of those eyeballs. But, says Prof. Wasserman:

That era is now ending, not because the public no longer needs news or because people mistrust news any more than they always have — but because new technologies are churning out better ways to reach customers who are shopping for cars, jobs or homes.

For two centuries, advertising has supported journalism. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press — but does not guarantee profitability. That news organizations must achieve without government support.
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An Associated Press story about a leaked internal study that accuses the Marine Corps of delays in providing mine-resistant vehicles to its forces in Iraq provides ample reason why good journalism is a social and political must, government whistleblowers ought to be fully protected from retribution, and journalists should not be compelled to identify anonymous sources.

First, the news:

Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes. Full Story »

I live in Washington, D.C. For those who don’t know, that means I have no Senator or official Representative to speak for me in Congress. I have a shadow delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who does an admirable job of fighting for our rights, but she has no vote. I’ve supported and fought hard for the right of the citizens of the nation’s capitol to have a voice in deciding legislation that affects us as it would a resident of any other state.

Today, however, after seeing a travesty such as this, I am glad that I don’t have a Senator to speak for me, for that means I’d be spared the morbid embarrassment of someone I voted for doing their part to eradicate the fundamental right to privacy and justify egregious corporate lawbreaking.

The battle now shifts to the House, and it looks like (contrary to my earlier concerns) the will to fight is much greater. At the risk of being dramatic, this is where we draw the line in the sand–where we stand up and say “No more abuses of power. No more spying. No more breaking the law. No More.”

We’ve lost a major battle, but the greater struggle is still ahead. And we can win it.

Earlier today, Sam asked a very important question: When it comes to convincing the public that it’s somehow justifiable to give a pass to corporations that illegally spied on Americans without a warrant, how stupid do you think we are?

Well, the answer is that the so-called “Democratic” Congress doesn’t give a damn what we think, as they’ve voted down virtually all amendments to the FISA reauthorization bill that would have granted oversight and accountability–including blocking immunity for telecoms. As Glenn Greenwald eloquently notes, this day we’ve seen a so-called “bipartisan” Congress justify lawbreaking and illegality on a level that even the previous Republican majority couldn’t pull off.

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The Clinton camp, Emily’s List and seemingly all of Left Blogistan are up in arms about an offhand comment MSNBC’s David Shuster made in discussing Chelsea Clinton’s role in her mother’s campaign. The furor led, this afternoon, to Shuster’s suspension by the network.

Here’s the clip in question:

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Every generation of secrecy-minded bureaucrats needs a breeding ground, a dark, dank place where they can perfect the ability to hide their machinations behind closed doors and retaliate against those who believe sunlight should trump darkness.

One such place, it seems, is the student government association at Montclair State University. Last week, it froze the funding it provides to The Montclarion because the student newspaper had the temerity to hire a lawyer to help it force the association to stop regularly holding closed meetings, a possible violation of New Jersey’s open-meetings law.

Karl de Vries, editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper, said that the student government association also demanded that, according to the Associated Press, the paper “turn over correspondence between the newspaper and a lawyer The Montclarion had previously retained to challenge the student government’s practice of closing meetings to the public.”

Wednesday, amid a furor of criticism including statements from the nation’s principal professional associations of journalists, the student government association relented and temporarily restored the paper’s funding for 30 days.

The association should never have denied the paper its funding in the first place.
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Devraj Kori set off a firestorm near our nation’s seat of gross incompetence last Thursday when he called a Fairfax County, Virginia public schools’ administrator, Dean Tistadt, to complain about not getting a snow day off. We don’t know exactly what Kori said in his message, but we do know what Tistadt’s wife, Candy had to say in her voice reply, because Kori published it on YouTube.

It wasn’t pretty. Candy kinda lost it, reading Kori the riot act in a voice that could strip paint (you really have to listen to this voice to believe it) while explaining that her husband hadn’t retured Kori’s previous calls to his office because he had been out almost every night that week in meetings for “snotty-nosed little brats.” Candy then told Kori, who says he has a 3.977 GPA, to “get an education.” Full Story »