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Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Saturday, August 17, 2002
The Day the Music Died (Part 94)
Who the hell is Gail Appleson? Why is she working for Reuters? This wire story, which bears her byline but might as well have been written by the Recording Industry Association of America, is one of the worst excuses for journalism I've seen in my life (and believe me, I've seen some pretty bad excuses for journalism). It's about a suit that the usual RIAA suspects -- yes, the same folks that brought Napster to its knees -- brought against the companies who provide the backbone of the Internet. The suit says (to use the three words that Appleson uses at the beginning of each bleedin' paragraph) that people like AT&T, UUNet and Cable & Wireless are responsible for letting us unsuspecting Netizens view a site called Listen4ever.com, based out of China. Why is the RIAA so worried about Listen4ever? You guessed it -- because it offers free music. Since they can't go after a Chinese website, the big labels decided to sue, in effect, the whole goddamned Internet itself.
It's one of the most ludicrous tilting-at-windmills of our times. How can the backbone of the network be held responsible for what we see on it? Should UUNet be sued because neo-Nazi websites exist? Is AT&T a purveyor of child porn? No, I say, and no again. We, the creators and readers of the Internet, are the only ones responsible for its content under law. The backbone is just this big dumb thing we use to get our stuff over. It has no moral culpability. If a mobster orders a murder using a cellphone, we don't sue the cellphone provider. If a wife stabs her husband with a kitchen knife, we don't haul the cutlery company into court.
The music industry is getting desperate to stop the free movement of MP3s. It is running out of ideas. The scene in the boardrooms of Sony, Vivendi et al must be starting to look like the last days of Hitler's bunker, with increasingly insane demands for fantastical counterattacks being issued: "I've got it! Let's sue the Internet!"
But will you get even the slightest scintilla of a hint of a suggestion that this lawsuit might possibly be frivolous from Appleson's reporting? No, you will not. Did she bother to call a single human being to talk about the story? No again. Did she, in fact, do anything but paraphrase the lawsuit and mangle the English language ("The labels have blamed file-sharing on weak sales and lower profits" -- sorry, dear, it's the other way around)? No thrice. I sincerely hope Ms. Appleson is a summer intern who got her big break late one Friday afternoon when no one else was left in the office. If she's actually an employee of Reuters, I fear for the future of that once-noble wire service. If this is what passes for journalism these days, God help my industry.
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