Media Nation

You can’t read Joseph Nocera’s column online unless you’re a TimesSelect subscriber. Today, at least, that’s just as well — wider distribution would only spread his misinformation.

The topic of Nocera’s column is a valid one. Apple, like most technology companies, sells many of its products for such a low profit margin that customer support isn’t worth the bother. Nocera’s complaint is that Apple treats iPods like disposable devices ($300 disposable devices), and expects its customers to do so as well. This results in anger and frustration when, say, your two-year-old iPod breaks and Apple evinces no willingness to repair it.

But Nocera soon gets himself in trouble, making two mistakes — one small (and perhaps more pernicious, since readers might actually believe it) and one whopping.

First the small one. Nocera writes:

You’re furious. But what choice do you have? You can’t turn to a competitor’s product, not if you want to keep using Apple’s proprietary iTunes software, where you’ve stored all the music you love, including songs purchased directly from the iTunes Music Store, which you’ll lose if you leave the iTunes environment. So you grit your teeth and buy a new iPod.

This is flat-out wrong, but I’ll call it a small mistake because the solution is — to use some fancy techno-jargon — a pain in the ass. There are two issues here, one concerning unprotected music, the other concerning copy protection.

First, unprotected files, which you generally obtain by copying your CDs into the iTunes software on your computer.

When you rip your CDs to iTunes, you have two main format choices: MP3 or AAC. MP3 is the lingua franca of music compression, and if you chose MP3, then you’re golden. You can move your music to any number of other players. But you probably chose AAC — which is unique to Apple — because it supposedly sounds better. So, yes, you’ll have to convert your AACs to MP3s. You can do it within iTunes, or you can simply burn your music to CDs, which will now hold your music as AIFF files, as the CD format is known; those files can be converted to anything you like. Of course, if you still have your CD collection, you can simply rip it all over again to whatever new system you decide to buy.

It’s trickier with music you buy from the iTunes Music Store, because copy protection has been added to the AAC files. However, it’s incredibly weak copy protection, and there are a number of ways around it. Perhaps the simplest, though the most time-consuming depending on the size of your collection, is to burn your music to CDs — which, again, will give you gloriously unprotected AIFF files. There are also programs available to remove copy protection from AAC files so that you can then covert them to MP3s. These programs are of dubious legality, but surely using them so that you can move your legally paid-for music to a different player is perfectly legitimate.

This is all simpler than it sounds, though I’ll concede that it’s not nearly as simple as buying a new iPod. Still, it can be done, even though Nocera has just told you that it can’t be.

Now for the whopper. Nocera also weighs in on Apple’s notorious battery problems and its even more notorious refusal early on to do anything about it. He writes:

Steven Williams, a lawyer who brought a class-action suit against Apple a few years ago over the failed battery problem, told me that he was amazed to discover, as the litigation began, that Apple seemed to feel, as he put it, “that everyone knew iPods were only good for a year or two.” Thanks in part to the lawsuit, the battery issue is one of the few Apple will now deal with: if your iPod dies because of the battery you can send it back and get a new one for a mere $65.95, plus tax. Of course, you then lose all your music.

Of course, you then lose all your music. What is Nocera babbling about? Nocera claims that his family owns six iPods and five Macs. If he only owned one of each, he would know — from the first day that he put them to use — that the contents of his iPod are nothing more than a mirror of what his iTunes software has stored on his computer’s hard drive. To say that his iPod would come back from the factory devoid of music is accurate, I suppose, but not even remotely true. Once he plugged it into his Mac, iTunes would quickly restore his music collection just the way it was before being sent to the factory. Nocera has to know this. Why did he write such a deceptive sentence?

I am no technical expert. Someone who writes about tech has to come very, very close to one of the two or three areas about which I know something before I can knowledgeably critique it. So this makes me wonder about the veracity of other things I read. What troubles me is that Nocera’s column seems to fit a pattern of breezy, “close enough” commentary that is typical when it comes to tech subjects in general-interest newspapers and magazines.

At a minimum, the Times should publish a correction. At a maximum, Times public editor Byron Calame might consider a column on the paper’s standards when it comes to covering consumer technology. It’s not about war and peace, but I suspect such articles are among the paper’s most well-read. There ought to be a commitment to get it right.

Everyone on my mother’s side of the family eventually loses some of his or her hearing. I’m not quite 50, but it’s already happening to me. Add to that the fact that I played bass guitar in a band when I was a teenager, and have listened to a lot of loud music over the years (still do), and there you have it: partial hearing loss caused by genes and knowingly questionable behavior on my part. (I say “questionable” rather than “stupid” because I’d probably make the same trade again.)

Enter one John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana, who is suing Apple because he can turn his iPod up wicked loud. Reports the Associated Press:

Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that’s beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.

“He’s bought a product which is not safe to use as currently sold on the market,” Berman said. “He’s paying for a product that’s defective, and the law is pretty clear that if someone sold you a defective product they have a duty to repair it.”

Normally I think of the phrase “tort reform” as nothing more than a cynical slogan wielded by lawyer-bashing politicians. But this is ludicrous. Didn’t Patterson ever listen to what his mother told him?

Nothing to add to today’s Boston Globe story about John Kerry’s blog at the Daily Kos. Except this: The Kos has a reputation for being fairly hard left. That’s fine for a Massachusetts senator. But is this where a man who still wants to be president ought to be hanging out?

… but not for thee. (With apologies to Nat Hentoff.)

I’m probably late to the party, but if you haven’t heard about this, you’ve got to check out the unblinking, unapologetic double-standard voiced by U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla.

Young’s wife, Beverly Young, as you may have heard, was removed from the Capitol press gallery the night of President Bush’s State of the Union speech because she was wearing a political T-shirt that read, “Support the Troops.” That same evening, antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan was also removed — and arrested — for wearing a T-shirt that said, “2,245 Dead. How Many More?” Capitol police have apologized, the charge against Sheehan has been dropped, and there are red faces and indignation all around.

Anyway, here are the immortal words of Congressman Young, as reported in today’s Washington Post:

“When your wife is insulted and embarrassed, you do tend to get a little offended,” Young said yesterday, explaining his upbraiding of Gainer that night and his fervent speech on the House floor yesterday morning, when he waved the shirt and bellowed about his wife’s ejection: “Shame! Shame!”

Young said he wouldn’t be so mad if it were just Sheehan. “I totally disagree with everything she stands for,” he said. But by removing his wife, Gainer’s officers clearly “acted precipitously,” Young said.

You can’t even call him a hypocrite — he’s too up-front for that. (Thanks to Media Nation reader Michael Goldman.)

Good thing the Web site set up by the Boston Globe so that you can determine whether your credit-card number has been ripped off doesn’t require you to enter, you know, your credit-card number. Fool me twice and all that.

Anyway, here’s the cheery message I received when I entered my phone number and zip code:

Yes, we have located your name on the list of impacted accounts. We have tried to recover as much of the data as possible from our retailers and branches, but we recommend that you monitor your bills and report any unauthorized transactions to your bank or credit card company immediately. As a further precaution, we also recommend that you place a fraud alert on your credit file. If you have further questions, please contact The Globe hotline at 1-888-665-2644.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this incident may cause.

Good grief. In protest, Media Nation is linking only to the Boston Herald’s account of this idiotic screw-up.

And, unfortunately, I will have to consider turning off comments if things don’t change. I’m not looking for the dialogue on Media Nation to be all that elevated. But insults along the lines of calling people transsexuals (for the record, Media Nation is a transsexual-friendly zone) and “so’s your wife”-type attacks reflect badly not just on the person making them but on the proprietor of this blog.

Some of the best blogs out there don’t allow comments — Talking Points Memo, Altercation, InstaPundit and Andrew Sullivan among them. So I’m really not all that reluctant to go with no comments, and instead to post an occasional e-mail that I think is worthy of putting out there.

I’m sorry to say this right after having been called a “pansy.” Believe me, that had nothing to do with this, except as further evidence of how badly the comments here are deteriorating. (For the record, Media Nation is also a pansy-friendly zone.)

Enough said.

ABC News reporter Martha Raddatz last night complained about an article in the New York Times that suggested “World News Tonight” co-anchor Bob Woodruff was in Iraq for the purpose of bolstering the newscast’s ratings. In an interview with NECN’s Chet Curtis, Raddatz said her network would never do any such thing.

Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were badly injured on Sunday. They are said to be in serious condition, but recovering.

Raddatz’s comments are not yet available on NECN’s Web site, so I won’t attempt to quote her directly. But she raises an important issue: How much risk is acceptable for journalists covering the war in Iraq? And where is the line between legitimate newsgathering and ratings-mongering?

For starters, Raddatz would seem to be referring to this article in yesterday’s Times, by Richard Oppel and Jacques Steinberg. Here are the sections to which Raddatz apparently was objecting:

For years now, “World News Tonight” has been lagging in the ratings, and ABC has much money and prestige riding on its new co-anchor format, which was intended to stand out from its competitors by having Mr. Woodruff and his partner, Elizabeth Vargas, take turns reporting from the field while the other stays in New York….

Since his first night as co-anchor, on Jan. 3, Mr. Woodruff has crisscrossed the globe, from Tehran to Jerusalem to northern California, and back again to Jerusalem, in an effort to imbue the program with an on-the-scene immediacy and vitality that ABC executives hoped could improve the program’s ratings against its main competitors, NBC and CBS.

For the moment, the standings remain much as they had in recent years, when the broadcasts had been presided over by the so-called Big 3 anchors. NBC, led since Tom Brokaw’s retirement in December 2004 by Brian Williams, is comfortably in first place; ABC remains a solid second; and CBS, with Bob Schieffer serving as anchor until a permanent successor to Dan Rather is appointed, is trailing in third.

At least in the short run, Mr. Woodruff’s recovery figures to focus even more attention on the three broadcasts, particularly if he makes a quick return, but an extended leave could also upend ABC News, at a moment when Katie Couric of NBC’s dominant “Today” show is mulling whether to further shake up the evening news race by jumping to the “CBS Evening News.”

All three evening news broadcasts have been losing viewers for years, as people’s workdays push past 6:30 p.m. — when the evening news typically begins — and the Internet is increasingly sought out as a news source.

This is pretty mild stuff, all of it obviously true — but inappropriate under the circumstances. I’m quoting from the article at length to show how much analysis of the troubled television news business Oppel and Steinberg offered in an article that was supposed to be about two journalists who’d been injured in the line of duty.

In one sense, Raddatz is wrong. It is transparently obvious that ABC News executives have decided to fly Woodruff and Vargas around the country and the world, reporting and anchoring at the scene of major stories, in an effort to stand out from NBC and CBS — and thus to bolster the network’s ratings.

But in perhaps a deeper sense, Raddatz is right. The tone of the Times article is respectful, but its focus on the game of TV news suggests that there was something not quite serious about Woodruff’s presence in Iraq.

Let’s look at this logically. As a major news organization, ABC News has an obligation to cover the war in Iraq. If it hadn’t sent Woodruff — a gifted reporter as well as someone whom the network is trying to transform into a household name — then it would have sent someone else. If sending someone who’s not an anchor isn’t a ratings stunt, then it’s not a ratings stunt to send Woodruff, either. (Is the presence of John Burns in Iraq a Times circulation stunt?)

As for risk, Woodruff and Vogt do not appear to have been foolhardy. But covering Iraq is incredibly dangerous. According to Reporters Without Borders, 73 journalists have died since the war began — a number that includes local journalists such as the Boston Globe’s Elizabeth Neuffer and the Atlantic Monthly’s Michael Kelly. The horrifying ordeal of Christian Science Monitor freelancer Jill Carroll represents another kind of risk.

That doesn’t mean ABC’s ratings don’t enter into the calculation of whether to send a co-anchor into such a dangerous environment. Of course they do. They always do. It does mean that Woodruff and Vogt were in Iraq on a legitimate journalistic assignment.

Not that the Times article said otherwise. But devoting so much space to ratings and competition at a moment when Woodruff’s and Vogt’s lives were hanging in the balance suggests a certain tone-deafness on the part of the Times.

I realize this doesn’t exactly qualify as a news flash. But White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s performance yesterday, which I caught on television last night, struck me as yet another example of a certain type of political rhetoric that is so phony it ought to be held up and ridiculed on every occasion.

And though I’m not prepared to quantify it, it seems to me that it’s the sort of thing engaged in far more often by Republicans — or at least those Republicans whose reason for being is to promote the fortunes of George W. Bush — than it is by Democrats.

The subject: U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s announcement that he’ll try to lead a filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Rick Klein captures it in today’s Boston Globe:

Seizing on the fact that Kerry demanded a filibuster from the economic summit — held in Switzerland’s posh Steigenberger Hotel Belvedere — the Republican National Committee press release labeled Kerry and Kennedy the “Davos Dems.” One Capitol Hill wag tagged their Quixotic move “the Swiss Miss.”

Asked at the White House about the filibuster threat, White House press secretary Scott McClellan chuckled. ”I think even for a senator, it takes some pretty serious yodeling to call for a filibuster from a five-star ski resort in the Swiss Alps,” he quipped.

Got that? Kerry is working at the world economic conference, doing whatever it is a senator might do at such a gathering. And the spokesman for Bush — who is known for occasionally attending such events himself, as of course he should — immediately mocks Kerry as though he had merely gone on an expensive ski trip. The “rich, elitist, out-of-touch liberal” trope rides again!

Now, if people want to mock Kerry for launching a filibuster that will likely be futile, that’s fine. I laughed along with everyone else at David Kirkpatrick’s piece in yesterday’s New York Times, in which he wrote, “Democrats cringed and Republicans jeered at the awkwardness of his gesture, which almost no one in the Senate expects to succeed.” (Not exactly a model of objectivity, though.)

But McClellan’s putdown is so contemptible because it is inherently dishonest. The media have got to stop going along with this stuff.

The Lowell Sun has a great story today on U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Lowell, whose staff edited his bio in Wikipedia to remove a long-since-broken promise to step down after four terms, as well as the size of his campaign account.

Check out Meehan’s Wikipedia entry now, and it ends with this: “Meehan’s staff members have been accused of editing out references to his campaign money and term-limit promises on Wikipedia.” Yes, indeed.

Even better — or worse, if you’re Meehan — the congressional vandalism made the humor site Fark.com, along with some pretty vicious comments.

Now that Hamas has taken over the Palestinian parliament, we can expect a renewal of the debate over whether the news media should label the organization as “terrorist.” Here is some background.

More than two years ago, then-Boston Globe ombudsman Christine Chinlund offered an expansive explanation for why the media shouldn’t use the T-word to describe Hamas, and why they should use the term to describe “specific acts.” An excerpt:

What possible reason is there for not unflinchingly applying the word terrorist to any organization or person who targets civilians? It may seem like hair-splitting, but there’s a reason to reserve the terrorist label for specific acts of violence, and not apply it broadly to groups.

To tag Hamas, for example, as a terrorist organization is to ignore its far more complex role in the Middle East drama. The word reflects not only a simplification, but a bias that runs counter to good journalism. To label any group in the Middle East as terrorist is to take sides, or at least appear to, and that is not acceptable. The same holds true in covering other far-flung conflicts. One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter; it’s not for journalists to judge.

That said, journalists can not, and should not, be blind to reality. When we see terrorism, we should say so. A suicide bombing on a crowded bus is clearly an act of terrorism and should be so labeled. And it should also be described in all its painful detail. Such reporting is more powerful in its specificity than any broad label.

This approach — call the act terrorist, but not the organization — is used in many newsrooms, including the Globe’s. It allows for variations: The terrorist label can appear in a quote or when detailing Washington’s official list of terrorist groups. But not in the reporter’s own voice.

That appears to be the policy followed by the New York Times, too. (Or as the New Republic Online once caustically put it (sub. req.), “close examination of the Times suggests a policy of referring to attacks against civilians as terrorism except when the victims happen to be Jewish.”) So it was interesting today to see the split between the news pages and the editorial page. The lead news article, by Steven Erlanger, referred to Hamas as a “radical Islamic party,” and noted carefully that the organization is “considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union.”

The lead editorial throws such caution to the wind, calling Hamas “an organization that revels in terrorism.” Of course, the editorial page is supposed to be opinionated — and perhaps there really isn’t any discrepancy, since the editorial might be said to refer to “specific acts” Hamas engages in rather than the organization itself.

Obviously Hamas uses terrorism to advance its cause of destroying Israel. Does that make it a “terrorist organization”? You would think so. Expect to see this debated extensively — and heatedly — in the days and weeks to come.