Communicating... 1-2-3...

AP thinks if Britney pumps gas, that's news, and Americans want to know about it!

What do you reckon is important when you consider "national news"? Here in the USA, an internal memo from the Los Angeles Associated Press (AP) assistant bureau chief says “everything involving Britney Spears” is a “big deal” ... Fresh Arbitron ratings for New York City show the number-one station in the morning is all-news AM 1010 WINS , according to the New York Daily News.

Michelle Malkin recommends we read “The Race for the American Mind” by Selywn Duke. She describes it as "a manifesto for the conservative blogosphere," and she posted a peek at the intro:

With no Internet and little talk radio, mainstream journalists had a monopoly over the hearts and minds of America. And they knew best. The little people didn’t have to worry their pretty little heads about actions that would forever alter the face of the nation.
This is why the old media fears the new one. The latter watches the watchers, polices the police. It has cut into the Rathersphere’s market, causing a diminution of circulation, viewership and - this is what really gets their collars up — power. They can no longer propagandize with Tass-like impunity, for the e-hills have eyes.
Yet this is no time for a victory dance. The new media is under attack, as the left aims to silence dissent before it grows strong enough to block the thought police’s coup de grace. This is the race for the American mind.

Let me add a bit more from the piece:

"It doesn't take the prescience of Nostradamus to project into the future. If political correctness continues to capture minds and hearts, the pressure - both governmental and social - to call truth "hate speech" and censor it will continue to grow. What happens when search engines not only purge traditionalist dissent from their news services, but also their search results? What about when sites won't publish such content for fear of being swept away in the ideological cleansing? These entities will fold like a laptop.

It could reach a point where ISPs won't service you if you send the "wrong" kinds of emails and will block "hateful" sites. Don't forget that "access forbidden" prompt. At the end of the day - and it may be the end of days - hosting companies may just decide that such sites' business is no longer welcome, and registrars may even freeze their domains (a hosting company provides a site's "edifice"; a domain is its "address"). They may be consigned to Internet oblivion.

Over at the Center for Citizen Media Blog, Ryan McGrady presents the 8th in a series of excellent postings concerning citizen media business issues, this time all about AdSpace, a very good look at what's out there for serious bloggers. (See the series introduction piece here.) I think that every blogger who finds they are either attracting a great deal of traffic OR they are blogging everyday and reaching a core audience should use monetizing options. If you look on my blog you see just a bar with Google AdSense ads on top. I'm an Amazon affiliate and you may encounter Amazon links in text here and there. Besides that I have a cellphone ad and that's it for right now. I'm planning on re-evaluating the merits of the cellphone ad and may replace it with something else.

‘Mobile WebTV Live Broadcast' is promoting a free workshop. “Here you are the producer, the videomaker and the star! Participate! Be part of this story”, says the project's blog [pt]. See the project's manifest in English.