When journalists get arrested, usually it's to protect an anonymous source or support the First Amendment. Video blogger Lindsay Campbell of MobLogic.tv chose jail in order to better understand the story she was covering.

At the end of the clip below, Campbell questions why reporters are supposed to avoid becoming part of the story. She asks why it's wrong to relate her feelings about a story along with the facts?

As a reporter, I was taught not to do these things. But watching Campbell's piece, I wonder if there aren't new ways to approach news coverage we should all think about? New technology, a new generation...

Many of the "military analysts" who explain wars and weapons programs to the public on CNN, NBC and other TV and radio networks are actually part of an Pentagon-orchestrated PR campaign, The New York Times tells us this weekend:

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

PRWeb is getting faster.

As part of a new set of features to be released starting today and rolled out over the next two weeks, the online press release distributor is now offering priority distribution -- which lets customers upload and distribute their press releases in just 1 hour.

While pricing wasn't finalized when PRWeb briefed me last week, they said it would be about $100 a release and could be used with any distribution. This is an important development, as the next-day and 2-day distributions available previously were simply insufficient when working with clients making last-minute changes.

Other new features include the ability to:

• Specify the time of day a release will be distributed
• Include a release in media digests emailed to reporters every morning (based both on speciality and region)

About 20% of Newsweek's staff took a recent job buyout offer, according to a Wall Street Journal story today. That's a pretty big number, but nothing all that new in the news business.

The real news IMHO is the fact that magazines publishing on a weekly basis still exist at all.

Think about it. TIME. Newsweek. BusinessWeek. Just about the only thing that differentiates them is their weekly schedule.

Now, once upon a time this was indeed a differentiator. But today, with both up-to-the-minute news and context/opinion available from myriad sources, what's the point of a "weekly?" The Journal story picked up on this point somewhat:

Reposted from the Farrell Kramer Digital Images blog.

I happened to find myself outside NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer's office this morning in Manhattan just before his resignation.

Fortunately, I had my Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens. I took some pictures of the media as they gathered, eagerly awaiting any sighting of the governor. I had to move on to a business meeting, but thought the scene was worth recording.

We've often discussed the value of podcasting, blogging and other web 2.0 media as a core ingredient of effective communications programs. For some, however, the implementation of these things on the IT side can be difficult.

So I thought I'd take the occasion of today's new release of Drupal (Drupal 6) to talk a bit about this.

Drupal is a content management system, or CMS, that powers websites. Our farrell kramer communications site, in fact, is powered by Drupal.

If you record it, they will come...

At least, if you're recording podcasts. A new study by eMarketer has found that the U.S. podcast audience rose to 18.5 million in 2007. It is expected to hit 28 million by the end of this year and 65 million by 2012.

Where the eyeballs -- or ears, in this case -- go, the dollars will follow. eMarketer sees podcast-related advertising in the U.S. more than doubling to $435 million by 2012.

A number of factors are driving the growth of the podcast-user base:

* Greater ease of consumption for podcast content
* Growing awareness of podcasting
* Terrestrial radio’s use and promotion of podcasting
* Increased penetration of portable players
* The evolution of smart phones and proliferation of affordable mobile data plans

And now, a story that practically tells itself...

The following ran in today's New York Times. It's the tale of a response from Target, the giant retailer, to blogger Amy Jussel of Shaping Youth, who had called to complain about a Target advertisement. You have to read it to believe it.

Target offered an e-mail response:

“Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets,” a public relations person wrote to ShapingYouth.

“This practice,” the public relations person added, “is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest,” as Target refers to its shoppers.

After years of writing, I am always amazed at the proofing process. A written piece can pass through multiple hands and head to the printer, only to return with a glaring error. It's easy to toss judgment and blame after the fact, but the bottom line is, just as everything else in life, anyone who has spent time communicating (that would pretty much mean everyone) has fallen prey to this head-banging reality and those pesky mistakes that seem to slip through no matter what.

While driving down the interstate one day, I saw a sign that said "No Pedestrains". Suddenly, I pictured a line of people holding each other by the waist, dancing a conga line across four lanes of traffic.

Not too long ago, I sat down in a restaurant and glanced at a full-color glossy poster for the "Decemember Band Lineup". I wondered if the lead singer stuttered.

OK, so maybe it's a bit silly to talk about what a blog is ... on a blog ... but in my experience lots of folks are still a bit perplexed by the blogosphere.

So, here's a cute video that spells it out. The only thing it doesn't talk about is RSS feeds, which are critical to understanding the unique value blogs bring to aggregating different new sources. To find out more about feeds, see this article on our help pages.