There’s an open thread at Bearing Drift concerning media bias in this year’s election.  Please feel free to head on over and share your thoughts.

Vivian Paige takes The Virginian Pilot to task for excusing their long march into irrelevance and taking a few swipes at the blogs while they’re at it.

What Gen X was bashed for, Gen Y is praised for, and X isn’t going to take it anymore:

One need look no further than the local newsstand to see the favoritism the Millennials have received. Whereas Generation X was routinely denigrated by the press, the Millennials have been compared to World War II’s Greatest Generation. In Robert Strauss and Neil Howe‘s Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, the authors state authoritatively that “over the next decade, the Millennial Generation will entirely recast the image of youth from downbeat and alienated to upbeat and engaged.”

Sure, Generation X survived AIDS, Reagan, the Cold War, Tipper Gore, and A Flock of Seagulls, but those adversities, suggest Strauss and Howe, pale in comparison to what Millennials face today. Consider the stress of having to juggle a 30-hour work week while simultaneously maintaining Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr accounts. It’s enough to make your head spin! And maybe the Millennials never faced Hitler’s forces on the beaches of Normandy, but had they been around in 1944 (and had the technology existed), you can bet they would have blogged about it.

Hilarious article with great one-liners such as:

The only thing preventing us from flushing America’s future down the toilet was our lack of initiative. We were too slack to flush.

But also with some good points.

Having been born in 1979 I’m on the edge: a late to the party Gen Xer who grew up playing with some of Gen Y’s toys. But it’s hard not to see the similarities between the two generations and the differences in how they’re perceived. By and large, Generation Y gets it pretty easy and is getting an awful lot of praise and for what? Doing what Generation X did but with Twitter?

F.T. Rea on Waiting For Macaca.

Disney’s Michael Eisner says the writer’s strike may be over this weekend.

News Corp. might be looking to merge with Yahoo! too.

Earlier this week Microsoft announced an aggressive buyout bid of Yahoo! valued at $44 billion.  CNet News has put the two companies Web 2.0 properties side by side to see which products might win out in a merger.

Style Weekly has an article up on Landmark’s decision to explore their sale:

Style Weekly Editor Jason Roop says the alt-weekly isn’t going anywhere: “Although I was disappointed to hear the Battens were exploring a sale, our readers will continue to get the best of in-depth, local reporting on news, arts and culture.”

The Times Dispatch is reporting that Landmark Communications is looking to sell Style Weekly among other properties:

The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, The Roanoke Times and Richmond’s Style Weekly could be for sale, the dailies’ Web sites reported late last night.

The Web sites said the Batten family has hired advisers to sell its Norfolk-based Landmark Communications Inc.

An announcement about the decision is scheduled to be made today. The company could be sold in pieces, the sites said.

The privately-held media company also owns The Weather Channel, plus television stations in Nashville, Tenn., and Las Vegas.

Landmark employs about 12,000. The Web sites said 2006 sales were $1.75 billion.

The Weather Channel is also on the market:

Landmark said it had not held talks with any potential buyers, but confirmed it had hired JPMorgan and Lehman Brothers to look at its alternatives.

“At this early stage, we cannot speculate on where this process will lead,” Landmark Chief Executive Frank Batten Jr. said in a statement.

Landmark’s newspapers include The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, The News & Record of Greensboro, North Carolina, The Roanoke (Virginia) Times and nearly 50 community newspapers.

“There’s always somebody around who wants to own them for some reason. Media properties rarely don’t get sold,” said Benchmark Co analyst Ed Atorino.

The Weather Channel would be the most prized asset in a sale because cable networks are more valuable than newspapers, which have been losing advertisers and readers to the Internet and cable networks.

What this means for Style Weekly is up in the air right now, but hopefully it won’t hurt their publishing.

The Roanoke Times has more here (and it’s the same article The Virginian-Pilot has).

David Hazinski calls on traditional media to regulate it’s “citizen journalism” content:

Having just anyone produce widely distributed stories without control can have the reverse effect from what advocates intend. It’s just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere.

Journalism organizations should head that off. Citizen reports can be a valuable addition to news and information flow with some protections:

• Major news organizations must create standards to substantiate citizen-contributed information and video, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity.

• They should clarify and reinforce their own standards and work through trade organizations to enforce national standards so they have real meaning.

• Journalism schools such as mine at the University of Georgia should create mini-courses to certify citizen journalists in proper ethics and procedures, much as volunteer teachers, paramedics and sheriff’s auxiliaries are trained and certified.

The first point should be a given.  That traditional media would run with a random story fed to it by a “citizen journalist” without trying to back it up is reckless and completely erodes any confidence the public should have in that outlet.

The second point is a bit tricky as media continues to be market driven in that it’s a for-profit enterprise that relies on sucking in consumers.  To do this many outlets may find themselves going out on a limb on things, using and adage that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission and correcting themselves should they screw up.  Aside from that, most traditional media outlets would already assert that follow and enforce standards for their content.  Having them do so yet again won’t solve anything.

The third point, while interesting and worthwhile, is another unenforceable tactic that simply attempts to turn “citizen journalists” into “journalists”.  Yet courses would most appeal to those citizen journalists who are already trying to be ethical in their work and understand that there is a responsibility that comes with journalism.  The splash-and-trash elements that still dominate some areas of citizen journalism would continue to do business as usual.  It’s the same flaw with trying to create or enforce any Code of Ethics among bloggers: only those who are already trying to follow such a code will sign on, those who do not won’t.

Josh Wolf has more over at CNET News.

12:25pm Update: Style Weekly editor Jason Roop responds in the comments and clears some things up.

Yesterday John Sarvay noted that Style Weekly has changed their content management set up to where he can’t find Style’s stories a day before the issue hits the stands. To do this, Style hired Copeland Casati Media to do the technical grunt work. (Copeland guys, what’s the point in the “splash” page that is all puny but doesn’t really tell anyone anything about your site other than “humor”? Do ya really need it?)

Now I can’t fault Style Weekly for wanting to keep people from getting a sneak peek at their super top secret content. Who wants prior discussion of issues that creates hype and an interest in content and maybe makes people who otherwise wouldn’t care pick up an issue of Style Weekly? And I’m certainly not about to fault Copeland for taking pride in their work. Good job locking web surfers out. Kudos.

So is it really necessary to go and then harass a blogger for loving Richmond and wanting to highlight Style Weekly’s take? Tossing around accusations of stealing when all that’s happening is a quoting and linking to content freely available on the web is pretty gutsy. But it also shows just a wee lack of understanding about the way the web works. Which isn’t good for a company that specializes in, oh, web media and presentation. Maybe Copeland’s enthusiasm for their work and their clients is a selling point, but this is the type of thing that really could rub any number of readers and potential clients the wrong way.

Oh, boy, is there a throwdown happening at Ben Tribbett’s blog Not Larry Sabato! Ben Tribbett started it by having the balls to attempt to call out Washington Post’s Tim Craig for supposedly failing to cite a blog source:

Lowell had a great scoop earlier that Mark Warner’s primary challenger has a criminal record. I’m not even mentioning the guy by name- I don’t think he will make the ballot, and isn’t even worth a mention.

Anyway, right away Tim Craigs teals Lowell’s scoop and runs an item on the new WaPo blog.

Did Tim Craig not attend journalism school? Does he not have a ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY to site the published sources???? What a bunch of crap.

First, Ben Tribbett makes the huge assumption that Tim Craig found this via Raising Kaine. Someone signing their name as Tim Craig responded in the comments:

I did not get it from Raising Kaine. I got a clip of the Roanoke Times article emailed to me this afternoon from a Democratic source. I then had our Washington Post researchers independently verify the article through a search of court records After that, I called the gentleman in question to speak to him. I did scan Raising Kaine at one point this afternoon and never saw a headline about this matter.

As for you assertion, it is laughable for you to lecture me or any member of the Richmond press corps on journalistic ethics.

Oh SNAP!  Ben Tribbett then continues to whine that Tim Craig has never cited a Virginia blog on his blog posts.  Which leads to Ben’s second assumption and one that happens throughout the blogosphere.

While it is considered the polite and proper thing to do, bloggers are under no real obligation to cite their sources for their posts.  None at all.  And while this gray area might get a bit blurry when media outlets enter the blogosphere, they aren’t under any greater obligation than anyone else.  Especially if they end up doing the grunt work of verifying the tip, whether that tip came from a concerned reader, a blogger, or the man in the moon.

If someone finds something on my site and shares through theirs, do they owe me credit or a finder’s fee?  I guess if I had a ego that needed a bit of a stroke I could get upset about it, but with the way blogs work and the viral method of the spreading of information, it’s really hard to hold people on citations.  If I find something interesting on another blog that they found on another site that they found on yet another site, where do I give the credit?  To the place I found it?  To the real source?  And what’s to say I didn’t find it through some other means?

This is especially hard to hold people to when it comes to political blogging and the mainstream media.  The mainstream media may find something out the same time as or even before a blog, but because of their own guidelines and ethics, they have to do a bit of research to verify information.  Blogs by and large fail to do that, so if they get what looks to be an amazing scoop it’s up right away, truth and fact-checking be damned.  Hell, the majority of the time blogs fail to correct their own errors (something Ben Tribbett has NEVER done).

So folks need to hold up a bit before tossing ethical hand grenades (especially Ben Tribbett).  If you feel that a citation was missed or a blog has provided an insight that someone has missed, there are usually comment sections where you can add your own words.  Of you have your own blog where you can write and link around and do whatever corrections to the record you feel you need to do.

But if you’re going to go out on a limb and try and call someone out on ethical blogging you may want to first make sure you have some ground to stand on, whether that’s by checking your facts before making the accusation or just making sure you have any room to speak on ethics in blogging.

Do bloggers ask better questions than reporters?  Christopher Beam uses dueling Mike Huckabee conference calls to make a case for bloggers asking more substantive questions on issues rathern than reporters asking more about the horserace.

Pete Hume reflects on his departure from Brick Weekly a month ago.

Am I bitter? Not really. I’m disappointed. But not by my sudden lack of employment or the eerie feeling that the paper has gone on without me. I’m disappointed by the lost opportunities. I’m disappointed that my time inside the corporate belly of Media General left me feeling like “The Office” and “Office Space” work much better as documentaries. I’m disappointed that things worked out exactly the way the cynical pessimist inside me thought they would turn out.

Douglas McGill has been teaching a basic journalism community education classes in Minneapolis for three years.  He’s ended up learning a few things himself :

1. Citizens are an untapped source of expertise and positive civic energy that journalists can help unlock.

2. There is no substitute for a strong, independent, institutional journalism.

3. Citizens can help journalists reconnect to the wellsprings of their craft.

4. Journalists need to learn citizenship skills, as much as citizens need to learn journalism.

5. A good citizen journalism class, like a great newspaper, allows for all types of expression – artistic, poetic, literary, photographic, musical, comical and fun.

6. Citizens create vital community consciousness through the discipline of writing journalistically.

7. I’m the one who needs to change.

He goes into more detail with each point at the link.