The most significant bias in the mainstream media is not the liberal or conservative views propagated to divide, distract, confuse and create apathy among the populace; the ultimate bias is in what is missing from the coverage...

As of Thursday afternoon, Google has blocked our new report "The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society" from their search results.

When you read the headlines about "pay czar crackdowns" and "clawbacks" and "reining in pay," you should know that this whole Wall Street psychological operation is being run by the same man who sold us the Iraq war!

Here's the follow-up to our Wall Street Economic Death Squad video. The US middle class has been hit by an economic deathblow...

The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Goldman Sachs, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such a magnitude entails is left out of the mainstream media, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.

This week a new nail was driven into the coffin of the notion of journalistic objectivity. The culprit? The Washington Post’s leaked social media policy.

The public's assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows.

iPhone users angry over AT&T's pricing policy for the new iPhone 3G S have taken their campaign to Twitter, where more than 4,400 have added their names to an instant petition.

Fox News insinuated that "Papi" Berlusconi hooked up with Obama at a Middle Eastern slumber party. The NY Times will tell ya all about it tomorrow.

Congress soon might mute screaming TV-ad announcers -- if broadcasters don't beat the lawmakers to the volume button.

The internet is among a record 237 individuals and organisations nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. The number of nominations surpasses last year's record of 205 nominations. The internet's nomination has been championed by the Italian version of Wired magazine for helping advance "dialogue, debate and consensus". The director of the Nobel Institute, Geir Lundestad, told BBC News that the organisation had received "thousands of nominations" for the coveted prize. " Tags: no_tag Posted by: ampedstatus

At a time when many social media conferences are struggling with issues of diversity and inclusion among their speakers and attendees, the Blogging While Brown Conference continues to provide one of the largest lineups of Black social media experts and serves as one of the largest gatherings of Black bloggers each year. Since its launch in 2008 Blogging While Brown has grown to become the premier blogging conference dedicated to collaboration, education, and innovation among bloggers of color. Blogging While Brown 2010 will be held in Washington, DC, June 18-19, 2010 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Despite challenging economic times the conference has grown exponentially and this year's conference promises to be the largest ever. " Tags: Blogging racism Posted by: ampedstatus

It seems that Twitter is becoming more of news feed than a social network. As of December 2009, only 21% of Twitter account holders were defined as "true users," meaning someone who has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people and has tweeted at least 10 times. That indicates that most Twitter users "came online to follow their favorite celebrities, not to interact with their buddies the way they would on Facebook or MySpace," said Judge. Tags: Twitter Social Media Posted by: ampedstatus

Want to lose yourself in the truckloads of paperwork the YouTube-Viacom case has generated? You’re going to get your wish in the near future. That’s the upshot of a federal judge’s ruling ordering both sides in the slow-moving copyright fight to unseal many of the documents in the case. I’ve embedded the document below so you can parse it yourself. But the important part is that U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton has told both sides to work together over the next few days and weeks to figure out which of the files the public can see. A good chunk of them should be available within the next 10 days. Tags: Google copyright You Tube Posted by: ampedstatus

Facebook users will be able to track where their friends are at any given time, while a new Twitter feature will plot tweets on a Google Map, according to reports. At Facebook's yearly developer conference next month, dubbed f8, the social networking site plans to unveil a new feature allowing its 400 million users to share their current location with friends, The New York Times reported. The company has previously foreshadowed the feature, recently updating its privacy policy to clarify that should a location sharing feature be implemented, users will have a choice over whether they participate." Tags: Facebook Social Media privacy Twitter Posted by: ampedstatus

A Belgian daily newspaper offered its readers a new perspective on the world Tuesday with a 3D edition complete with special glasses. All the photos and adverts in La Derniere Heure's special edition were treated to give them the three-dimensional effect when viewed through the different lenses of the kind well-known to 3D filmgoers. "The goal was to make the whole paper 3D," said the French-language paper's chief editor Hubert Leclercq, who said it took two months to prepare the special edition, which had a higher than normal print run of 115,000 copies, for the newstands. Tags: Newspapers 3D Posted by: ampedstatus

Often books about the state of media focus on how to tweak the economic model to save media we have. Two recently published books, however, look at ways to create media that is focused not on making journalism profitable again, but rather, on making journalism the valuable civic tool that is required for a functioning democracy. Robert McChesney and John Nichols in The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again make the case for significant public intervention in the industry, which they argue can sustain wide-ranging, editorially independent outlets focused on producing quality journalism, not on making a profit. Meanwhile, Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke, in Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics through Networked Progressive Media, focus on sustaining and improving upon what has been a rare media bright spot in recent years: The rise of a community of progressive media outlets that have shown a remarkable ability at bringing like-minded activists and writers together to make change. While each book has a different focus, both offer bold ideas as to how media can thrive. " Tags: Journalism Books Posted by: ampedstatus

Four in five adults believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right -- with those feelings particularly strong in South Korea and China -- and half believe it should never be regulated, according to a global survey. A poll of 27,000 adults in 26 countries for the BBC World Service showed 78 percent of Internet users believed the Web gave them greater freedom, while nine in 10 said it was a good place to learn. Respondents in the United States were above the average in believing the Internet was a source for greater freedom and they were also more confident than most in expressing their opinions online. Tags: Broadband Posted by: ampedstatus

Did the New York Times just discover the Internet? The answer is obviously no — even a cursory glance at their excellent website is proof they are head and shoulders above all other mainstream publications when it comes to an online presence. But still. It’s hard to read Clark Hoyt’s fisking of last month’s Zachary Kouwe’s plagiarism debacle (of “pretty banal stuff”) and not be struck by the utter lack of understanding Internet media culture. Namely, linking! It is not brain surgery." Tags: Journalism Blogging Posted by: ampedstatus

Walt Disney Co., which blocked some viewers from the first 13 minutes of the Oscars last night amid a dispute with Cablevision Systems Corp., may be about to do it again with bigger cable operators, analysts said. Disney didn’t restore the WABC-TV signal until after the Academy Awards show began airing at 8:30 p.m. New York time last night. Disney may repeat the maneuver if it can’t reach a deal with Time Warner Cable Inc. once their agreement ends in August, according to Wunderlich Securities LLC analyst Matthew Harrigan. “Disney may have been using Cablevision as a test case for its negotiations with Time Warner Cable and Comcast, where much larger dollars are concerned,” said Harrigan, who is based in Denver. “The timing will be hard to replicate, though -- the Oscars is one of the most watched programs other than the Super Bowl.” Tags: TV Posted by: ampedstatus

Sony will begin selling 3D TVs in Japan on June 10 and worldwide at about the same time, it said Tuesday. A firmware upgrade to its PlayStation 3 console that adds 3D support and other 3D-compatible home electronics products will also be available to coincide with the television launch. Sony's first two sets, which are 40- and 46-inch models, will come bundled with two pairs of 3D glasses and will cost ¥290,000 (US$3,215) and ¥350,000 respectively. In July it will launch six further sets: 52- and 60-inch models that come with 3D glasses and four "3D-ready" models that have 3D circuitry inside the set but require the purchase of glasses and an infrared transmitter." Tags: 3D Sony TV Posted by: ampedstatus

The long-predicted tipping point has arrived, with total U.S. digital advertising and marketing revenues set to surpass print revenues in 2010, according to a new study from Outsell, a consulting and research group serving the information industry. This prediction, based on Outsell's annual survey of over 1,000 U.S. advertisers and marketers in December 2009, heralds one of the most important symbolic milestones in the history of online advertising. Altogether, U.S. advertisers and marketers plan to spend $368 billion in 2010, Outsell found -- up 1.2% from about $364 billion in 2009. Within the 2010 figure, 32.5% ($119.6 billion) will go to digital, versus 30.3% ($111.5 billion) for print. Tags: advertising Newspapers Posted by: ampedstatus

On March 2, the Obama administration issued a sanitized version of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), releasing portions that discussed intrusion detection systems on federal networks. The announcement was made by former Microsoft executive Howard A. Schmidt, appointed cybersecurity coordinator by President Obama in December. The partial unveiling came during the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, an annual industry conference for security professionals. CNCI’s 2008 launch was shrouded in secrecy by the Bush administration. Authority for the program is derived from a classified order issued by President Bush. However, the contents of National Security Presidential Directive 54, also known as Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD 54/HSPD 23) have never been released for public scrutiny." Tags: NSA Cyberwar Posted by: ampedstatus

Seeking to exploit the Internet’s potential for prying open closed societies, the Obama administration will permit technology companies to export online services like instant messaging, chat and photo sharing to Iran, Cuba and Sudan, a senior administration official said Sunday. On Monday, he said, the Treasury Department will issue a general license for the export of free personal Internet services and software geared toward the populations in all three countries, allowing Microsoft, Yahoo and other providers to get around strict export restrictions. The companies had resisted offering such services for fear of violating existing sanctions. But there have been growing calls in Congress and elsewhere to lift the restrictions, particularly after the postelection protests in Iran illustrated the power of Internet-based services like Facebook and Twitter. Tags: Censorship Social Media Posted by: ampedstatus

How big are the right-roots? And how do they stack up against the net-roots? I've been asking that question of various people lately, and also looking at some of the metrics available, as both sides of the American political spectrum continue to grow and flex their online muscles in this turbulent season. Here's some relevant data regarding their respective online donor bases. On a PdF Network call yesterday with Rob Willington, director of RebuildtheParty.com and the new media director for Scott Brown's upstart victory in the Massachusetts Senate race in January, I asked whether the 100,000 or so donors to the Brown campaign--which raised a whopping $12 million in a matter of weeks--were a good measure of the right-roots base? Willington tended to agree, after noting the some proportion of that money came from inside Massachusetts. That's a very impressive number, though it's important to note that there's no one place where that list of 100,000 resides (other than Brown's campaign finance database) where it can be tapped for other causes. Tags: Progressives Tea Party Posted by: ampedstatus

#wanttospinWHreporters? If you're PressSec - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs' username on Twitter - you join the powerful social media platform and push your message across the Internet, 140 characters at a time. Blending behind-the-scenes nuggets with a defense of President Barack Obama's record, White House and administration officials increasingly are communicating through Twitter. Tags: Twitter Social Media Posted by: ampedstatus

The following series of stories detail some of what happened in 2003 and 2004 after then Harvard-sophomore Mark Zuckerberg launched a site called theFacebook.com. This site, of course, quickly grew into the dominant global site known as Facebook, which is now used by some 400 million people a month. The stories are based on a long investigation into the origins of Facebook that included interviews with more than a dozen sources familiar with aspects of what happened, as well as what we believe to be relevant IMs and emails from the period. Much of the information has never been reported. Tags: Facebook Social Media Student Posted by: ampedstatus

Channel 7 has returned to Cablevision's 3.1 million subscribers Sunday night. The station was restored to Cablevision just as the Academy Awards began on Sunday night. Below is the statement issued by WABC-TV: "ABC7 and Cablevision have made significant progress and have reached an agreement in principle that recognizes the fair value of ABC7, with deal points that we expect to finalize with Cablevision. Given this movement, we're pleased to announce that ABC7 will return to Cablevision households while we work to complete our negotiations." Tags: TV Posted by: ampedstatus

The real fight to watch isn’t on television—Conan vs. Leno, Olbermann vs. O’Reilly. Rather, it’s about television, and the future of online video—a fight that pits cable and content companies against consumers. Instead of being glued to our favorite shows, we’d be wise to pay attention to the various battles, mergers and backroom deals happening between big media corporations who are trying desperately to cling to a sinking broadcast media model—and pull the public down with them. Cable and broadcast companies see the writing on the wall, and it no longer spells “media empire.” Although a majority of Americans are still watching television—clocking in an average of five hours of viewing a day (Nielsen Wire, 5/20/09)—people are increasingly switching off the tube and using their computers and laptops to watch their favorite shows, as well as to find alternative programming. Options like TiVo and DVR have given us the blessed ability to skip over advertisements. And advertising companies are jumping ship, heading over to the Internet or simply not placing ads in a market that can no longer guarantee as many eyeballs. Tags: Web Video Media Mergers TV Posted by: ampedstatus

Is the printed book on its way to extinction? Will the e-book win the day? Will writers be able to make a living? Will publishers? Will booksellers? Will there be any readers? Is there life after the Age of Print? The new order is fast upon us, the ground shifts beneath our feet, and as the old sage put it, all that is solid melts into air. What will the future bring? The only thing we can know for certain, of course, is the past—and even the past is notoriously elusive and discloses its truths in fragments whose meanings provide fodder for endless speculation and debate. The present is a vexing blur, its many parts moving too swiftly to be described with consensual accuracy. As for its significance, or what it portends, only the future can render a credible verdict. The future is, famously, an undiscovered—and unknowable—country. When it comes to the history of publishing and its future, it is especially helpful to have a salutary sense of humility and skepticism. Technology and its uses are changing so rapidly that arguments which at first appear fundamental quickly date. Prediction is fraught. Technological changes wash over the information landscape too rapidly for anyone to know what it will be like 10 years from now. Indeed, it would be foolhardy to predict what is likely even 10 months from now. Tags: Books Posted by: ampedstatus