I'm on a listserv called grassroots radio conference. Why? I don't have a radio show, but I went to one of their conferences and I'm interested in the media. Truthfully I end up erasing most of the emails but one thread caught my attention. It was about the term "podcast" which was a mystery to the person who started the thread, Sandy, and to me. I've heard the term a lot. Some of my favorite radio shows talk about their podcasts. I gathered it's a way to download radio shows to some audio device so you can listen to it whenever you want. I also gathered that it sometimes costs money. So I followed the thread where people tried to explain the term to Sandy.
Paul said that if your portable audio gizmo was connected to the internet via your computer and you were subscribed to the podcast, then you could have the latest episode of the show to listen to wherever and whenever you wanted. It sounded to me like a recording of the radio show you subscribed to was transferred automatically and magically to your listening device or computer for every episode somehow.
Bryan explained that you didn't need iTunes to obtain podcasts. He said there were commercial and open source choices. He said podcasts are another great way to distribute and receive programming besides radio airwaves.
Paul said it's simple to try podcasting even if you don't understand how it works. He said you install iTunes, click the podcast button, find the show and click on that. He also said that a "podcast is transferred to your computer as a file." And that a file is a "disbursement of digital media."
Sandy weighed in again saying she still found the whole thing incomprehensible and a hassle and wouldn't sign up for podcasts even if she wanted to hear the shows. In response, Jan emailed saying that she thought podcasting was easy and important to people on the radio listserv because more and more people have iTunes on their computers and are using them to access podcasts. She said it doesn't matter whether people are listening on the airwaves or "in bits that travel mysteriously across the internet," they are listening. And Jan pointed out that you can take your audio device and listen to the broadcast anywhere. She prefers the hammock in her backyard. It beats sitting in front of her computer streaming whatever.
After reading this thread, I still felt confused about what podcasting is. Maybe you have to just do it and experience it I thought. I checked it out in Wikipedia to see if that would clear things up. I learned that a "podcast is a series of audio or digital-media files which is distributed over the internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers." The thing that makes podcasts different from streaming or direct downloading is that if you subscribe, a podcast can be downloaded automatically whenever there is new content. To me it sounded a little like when you have an RSS feed that brings blog entries automatically to your attention on your computer.
Wikipedia also informed me that the term comes from the words "iPod" and "broadcast." The Apple iPod was the type of portable media player that the first podcasting scripts were developed for. These "scripts allow podcasts to be automatically transferred from a personal computer to a mobile device after they are downloaded." Now that there are many other types of devices able to receive these podcasts than just the iPod, POD has come to be redefined as "Personal On Demand."
I also learned from Wikipedia that podcasts are being used more and more in education for teachers and students to share information, for absent students to catch up, and for teachers to share assignments and information with parents and the community. Museums, businesses and police departments are also using podcasts to distribute information.
I guess I'll have to grab a teenager at work to show me how to podcast. I wonder if I'll finally get to use that MP3 player on my cell phone.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Web sites doing investigative news
I get some of my news from the web- from blogs and websites that pull articles from newspapers and magazines all over the world. But I wasn't aware that there are web sites doing investigative reporting until I read a recent article in the New York Times. It actually made the front page! The article was in the November 18, 2008 paper and was titled: "Web Sites that Dig for News Rise as Community Watchdogs."
I've been worried about news reporting - the more I hear about newspaper staffs being slashed, the more sound bites and entertainment have been replacing news on television. That's why this article caught my eye.
These web site news organizations cost much less to run than newspapers for one thing. Right now, they are mostly non profits funded by wealthy individuals, grants, audience donations and, in some cases, advertising. They are springing up around the country and often cover local news that other media won't cover and then force that media to cover it. Many reporters for these sites come from the city newspapers that laid off reporters.
The article centers around VoiceofSanDeigo.org. It began with a disgruntled local businessman, Buzz Woolley, who watched fraud charges, criminal convictions, and a pension debacle going on in San Diego that were hardly covered by the local media. In 2004, he talked with a journalist Neil Morgan who had been fired by the Union Tribune. Together they hatched VoiceofSanDiego which has forced the news in San Diego, bringing to light conflicts of interest, hidden pay raises, misleading crime statistics, etc. Their reporting led to investigations, firings, and criminal charges - all with a staff of 11.
Similar investigative web sites exist now in other cities like New Haven, the Twin Cities, Seattle, and Chicago. This is a heartening development that might help counter the shrinking of investigative teams on city newspapers. This also may change the internet from being a sphere where people express their opinions, and where people read their newspapers on their websites, to a place where investigative reporters break their news stories directly on the web and not in any printed form. Hopeful news for us worried news junkies.
I've been worried about news reporting - the more I hear about newspaper staffs being slashed, the more sound bites and entertainment have been replacing news on television. That's why this article caught my eye.
These web site news organizations cost much less to run than newspapers for one thing. Right now, they are mostly non profits funded by wealthy individuals, grants, audience donations and, in some cases, advertising. They are springing up around the country and often cover local news that other media won't cover and then force that media to cover it. Many reporters for these sites come from the city newspapers that laid off reporters.
The article centers around VoiceofSanDeigo.org. It began with a disgruntled local businessman, Buzz Woolley, who watched fraud charges, criminal convictions, and a pension debacle going on in San Diego that were hardly covered by the local media. In 2004, he talked with a journalist Neil Morgan who had been fired by the Union Tribune. Together they hatched VoiceofSanDiego which has forced the news in San Diego, bringing to light conflicts of interest, hidden pay raises, misleading crime statistics, etc. Their reporting led to investigations, firings, and criminal charges - all with a staff of 11.
Similar investigative web sites exist now in other cities like New Haven, the Twin Cities, Seattle, and Chicago. This is a heartening development that might help counter the shrinking of investigative teams on city newspapers. This also may change the internet from being a sphere where people express their opinions, and where people read their newspapers on their websites, to a place where investigative reporters break their news stories directly on the web and not in any printed form. Hopeful news for us worried news junkies.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Computers and warrants
There's that mythical question that bounces around our library once in a while - if the FBI came and wanted to take a computer, would we ask for a warrant? This started with the Patriot Act. But for me it hit home when I happened to pick up a Connecticut newspaper on a ferry ride to Port Jefferson that had an article in it about a librarian in Connecticut who had to give information to the FBI and then had to follow a gag order and not say anything had ever happened. (I can't remember why he was then allowed to go public. I also don't remember why the FBI wanted information from this particular library.)
At a Massachusetts Library Association conference not that long after, I went to a panel where I was able to hear this librarian speak. One thing I remember that he said was how hard it was for him to keep quiet about what had happened in his library while John Ashcroft, US Attorney General, was going around the country promoting the Patriot Act and saying that there had never been an actual incident of a library having to give up information and why was everyone in such a snit about this anyway.
Recently I noticed an article in Library Journal, September 1, 2008, p 14 that brought that little niggling question up again. The article is titled "Maryland PL Gives Up Computers." Subtitle is: "Afterward, in anthrax case, FBI gets judge's permission for search."
The article reported that the library's usual response would be to request a court order. But in this case the director was persuaded by the FBI agent to give over two computers without a court order. A statement later said that the Frederick County Public Libraries do not have a policy about confidentiality of computer use. The FBI told the library director that they needed the computers in an investigation of Bruce Ivins, the anthrax scientist they suspected in the anthrax cases.
Later, after the fact, when the FBI agent petitioned for court warrants, the FBI said that agents watched Ivins for 90 minutes while he used two computers at the C. Burr Artz Public Library and this is why they wanted to look at the computers. Ivins had been checking email accounts and looking at a website about the anthrax investigation. Why the FBI waited a week to come and take the computers and another week before getting search warrants is not clear.
Another interesting part of the Frederick Country Public Libraries statement about this incident is this: "While several media reports have linked the interaction [between the FBI and the library] with the reported suicide of Bruce E. Ivins, FCPL has no information or indication of such a linkage."
Okay. I'm thinking I need to take another look at our computer policy with our director. Do we have any statement about confidentiality of computer use? Do we want to put that in if we don't? I'll also ask our director what he thinks about asking for a court order when facing a big, or maybe two big, FBI agents who don't have one. And another question is, what were the librarians thinking in that library when two FBI agents were watching Ivins for 90 minutes? I know in our small library, that would be pretty obvious. Or are those agents that good?
At a Massachusetts Library Association conference not that long after, I went to a panel where I was able to hear this librarian speak. One thing I remember that he said was how hard it was for him to keep quiet about what had happened in his library while John Ashcroft, US Attorney General, was going around the country promoting the Patriot Act and saying that there had never been an actual incident of a library having to give up information and why was everyone in such a snit about this anyway.
Recently I noticed an article in Library Journal, September 1, 2008, p 14 that brought that little niggling question up again. The article is titled "Maryland PL Gives Up Computers." Subtitle is: "Afterward, in anthrax case, FBI gets judge's permission for search."
The article reported that the library's usual response would be to request a court order. But in this case the director was persuaded by the FBI agent to give over two computers without a court order. A statement later said that the Frederick County Public Libraries do not have a policy about confidentiality of computer use. The FBI told the library director that they needed the computers in an investigation of Bruce Ivins, the anthrax scientist they suspected in the anthrax cases.
Later, after the fact, when the FBI agent petitioned for court warrants, the FBI said that agents watched Ivins for 90 minutes while he used two computers at the C. Burr Artz Public Library and this is why they wanted to look at the computers. Ivins had been checking email accounts and looking at a website about the anthrax investigation. Why the FBI waited a week to come and take the computers and another week before getting search warrants is not clear.
Another interesting part of the Frederick Country Public Libraries statement about this incident is this: "While several media reports have linked the interaction [between the FBI and the library] with the reported suicide of Bruce E. Ivins, FCPL has no information or indication of such a linkage."
Okay. I'm thinking I need to take another look at our computer policy with our director. Do we have any statement about confidentiality of computer use? Do we want to put that in if we don't? I'll also ask our director what he thinks about asking for a court order when facing a big, or maybe two big, FBI agents who don't have one. And another question is, what were the librarians thinking in that library when two FBI agents were watching Ivins for 90 minutes? I know in our small library, that would be pretty obvious. Or are those agents that good?
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Electronic Voting Machines
The election is just two days away and I've been following the use of electronic voting machines since the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed in 2002. I'm getting more and more nervous about these machines.
Here in Northampton we use optical scanning machines, which at least have a paper ballot that the voter fills out and then is read by the machine. So if there were regular audits required (which I don't think there are but should be), at least the machine results could be checked against the paper ballots filled out by voters to keep tabs on their accuracy. I believe now the paper ballots are only hand counted in close elections or when requested and paid for by someone or some group.
But the DRE's - the electronic voting machines where the voter touches the screen - usually have no paper trail. It amazes me that one can go to the ATM machine and come out with a paper receipt if one wishes. But with most of these voting machines, the voter does not have that option. I think the voting system we have now is even less reliable than what we had before HAVA and more easily manipulated. I think people need to have the option of paper ballots available at their polling sites. And not just provisional ballots, because I have read that in 2004, many of these were thrown out and never counted. There are lawsuits still in the courts about this issue and others voting issues from 2000, 2004 and 2006.
Besides the difficulty in auditing these machines, there's also the issue of who owns these machines and who has access to the source codes. Private companies own the machines and the public does not have access to the source codes. In this technology class, I've learned a little about what proprietary means - enough to be nervous that private companies are the only ones to have access to the code. Mark Crispin Miller, the author of Fooled Again and a professor who was on Bill Moyers show recently, has said that it is crucial that the software be open and publicly available for anyone's scrutiny. He believes that no private companies should be involved in counting our votes.
Now I'm reading and hearing about vote flipping happening in some of the early voting states that have touch screen machines - in W Virginia and Tennessee specifically. Patricia Earnhardt in Davidson County, Tennessee saw her vote flip from D to R before her eyes on the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen system. Voters in Putnam and Jackson counties in W Virginia using the same kind of machine reported vote flipping also. These are just a small sampling of the problems being reported by BradBlog (Brad Friedman) and other bloggers, newspapers, etc. (Besides ES&S already mentioned, the companies making electronic voting machines that I hear about the most are Sequoia Voting Systems, and Premier Election Solutions, which used to be Diebold Election Sytems - this information from Wikipedia.)
I'm all for returning to paper ballots and hand counting like they do in Canada and other countries until we can get all these problems with computerized voting ironed out. Voting is too important. I believe it should be in the public's hands, not privately owned with secret source codes and software. I want to see the public have the ability for recount, accountability, and be able to trust that every vote will count. We're just not getting this now.
Here in Northampton we use optical scanning machines, which at least have a paper ballot that the voter fills out and then is read by the machine. So if there were regular audits required (which I don't think there are but should be), at least the machine results could be checked against the paper ballots filled out by voters to keep tabs on their accuracy. I believe now the paper ballots are only hand counted in close elections or when requested and paid for by someone or some group.
But the DRE's - the electronic voting machines where the voter touches the screen - usually have no paper trail. It amazes me that one can go to the ATM machine and come out with a paper receipt if one wishes. But with most of these voting machines, the voter does not have that option. I think the voting system we have now is even less reliable than what we had before HAVA and more easily manipulated. I think people need to have the option of paper ballots available at their polling sites. And not just provisional ballots, because I have read that in 2004, many of these were thrown out and never counted. There are lawsuits still in the courts about this issue and others voting issues from 2000, 2004 and 2006.
Besides the difficulty in auditing these machines, there's also the issue of who owns these machines and who has access to the source codes. Private companies own the machines and the public does not have access to the source codes. In this technology class, I've learned a little about what proprietary means - enough to be nervous that private companies are the only ones to have access to the code. Mark Crispin Miller, the author of Fooled Again and a professor who was on Bill Moyers show recently, has said that it is crucial that the software be open and publicly available for anyone's scrutiny. He believes that no private companies should be involved in counting our votes.
Now I'm reading and hearing about vote flipping happening in some of the early voting states that have touch screen machines - in W Virginia and Tennessee specifically. Patricia Earnhardt in Davidson County, Tennessee saw her vote flip from D to R before her eyes on the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen system. Voters in Putnam and Jackson counties in W Virginia using the same kind of machine reported vote flipping also. These are just a small sampling of the problems being reported by BradBlog (Brad Friedman) and other bloggers, newspapers, etc. (Besides ES&S already mentioned, the companies making electronic voting machines that I hear about the most are Sequoia Voting Systems, and Premier Election Solutions, which used to be Diebold Election Sytems - this information from Wikipedia.)
I'm all for returning to paper ballots and hand counting like they do in Canada and other countries until we can get all these problems with computerized voting ironed out. Voting is too important. I believe it should be in the public's hands, not privately owned with secret source codes and software. I want to see the public have the ability for recount, accountability, and be able to trust that every vote will count. We're just not getting this now.
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