Four Years and Almost 500 Blog Banners (Video)

Started in October of 2006, Chicago News Bench has become one of the most read conservative political blogs in Illinois, averaging over 10,000 readers monthly. We like to change our banner often, getting a bit artsy-fartsy now and then (it keeps the creative juices flowing, and it's fun). This video is a rapid-fire compilation of nearly 500 of our banners, set to a fun music track, created by blogmeister Tom Mannis. Enjoy.

Action Call to Conservative Bloggers! #tcot

THIS IS URGENT. Start saving ("caching") politicians' web pages NOW. ACORN and SEIU are scrubbing their web sites, deleting incriminating or embarassing information in an effort to cover their tracks. You can bet that plenty of elected officials are busy scrubbing their own websites to erase or modify what was written about their relationships with ACORN and/or SEIU. No matter where you live in the United States, the odds are good that at least some of your local elected officials have ties to ACORN and/or SEIU. Those ties may be direct, they may be indirect. Those officials - your congressman, US senator, governor, state legislator, county board members, mayor, alderman/city council member, school system president, and so on - most likely have web sites. NOW IS THE TIME TO CACHE/SAVE VITAL INFORMATION FROM THOSE OFFICIALS' SITES. Here's why... The American Spectator reported on April 22, 2009 that "ACORN did a strange thing today. It scrubbed its website of references to two of its key affiliates, Locals 100 and 880 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), an event reported by Kevin Mooney of the Washington Examiner." To "scrub" a website is to delete some or all material. It's akin to shredding documents. The difference, of course, is that we can access the politicians' web sites and copy virtually anything, saving it as an archived file (see tips for doing this below). This can be used later, if needed, to effectively prove they are lying if they deny what their own sites once said. Good friend John Ruberry (Marathon Pundit) addresses this in a brilliant post titled "Jan Schakowsky, ACORN, and no phone call." In that post, he wrote, "Let's get to work, conservative bloggers," he wrote this week, "before the libs scrub their sites." John and I live in Jan Schakowsky Land. He's in Skokie, I'm in a bunker on Chicago's north side. John has archived Schakowsky's web pages for years, and it bears fruit. John wrote about that, too. Another excerpt from John's post:

"I've compiled a greatest hits collection of ACORN and Schakowsky. I reserved two hours of my day for the congresscritter, below you will find the result of my labors. Each link comes from Schakowsky's congressional web site."

I know John won't mind me saying that we both urge YOU to archive web pages from your elected officials' web sites. As John did with Schakowsky, I have done with a Chicago city council member (see "Alderman Joe Moore, ACORN and SEIU "). Let's hold the SOB's to their words, including the ones they delete and later try to deny. Liberals love to revise history - let's not let them get away with it.

Tip 1: If you try to access web page but it seems to have disappeared, try clicking "Cached" in the search results.

Tip 2: Sometimes pages don't actually disappear, but are assigned new URL's. So, to quickly find a word or phrase on a website, use Google's advanced search, and go to "Search within a site or domain:" Enter the URL, without the "http://" or "www." For example, to search for "ACORN" on Jan Schakowsky's website (www.janschakowsky.org), you would only enter "janschakowsky.org" there. Click to see the results of that search.

Tip 3: Save the web page/s as an .mht file. In your web browser, click File, Save As, then choose Cool Hats & Shirts for Cool Conservatives Leave a Comment... Chicago News Bench RSS Feed We're on Twitter...

The New News Report, a Study of Chicago's New Media

A new document was released on June 17, 2009 by the Community Media Workshop in Chicago. "The New News - Journalism We Want And Need" is a survey of local media and an attempt to better understand the impact of online, digital journalism. Downloaded the pdf here.

The CMW says this about their report:

“Understanding how online information and communications are meeting, or not, the needs of the community is crucial to the Trust’s project supported by the Knight Foundation. To this end, the Trust commissioned the Community Media Workshop to produce The New News: Journalism We Want and Need. We believe this report is a first of its kind resource offering an inventory and assessment of local news coverage for the region by utilizing the interactive power of the internet. Essays in this report also provide insightful perspectives on the opportunities and challenges.”

The study looks at local digital news outlets ("blogs," if you will) and their impact on local news coverage. It ponders how journalism and newspapers arrived at the crucial moment they are now in, and wonders whether they can survive. Overall, the document is fascinating and informative. Does it provide answers or remedies? No, of course not. It is, however, a very interesting and thought-provoking piece that should be read by anybody interested in the subjects of journalism, newspapers, media, advertising, web sites and the blogosphere.

By now, most people are probably aware of the financial crunch that many newspapers are suffering nationwide. The current recession has made things even more difficult, but the problem started for newspapers long before the current economic turmoil. Web sites that report news and current events information, as well as entertainment, have been cutting into the readership of newspapers for more than 10 years. Like dinosaurs looking at a monster comet bearing down on them, the newspaper publishers saw the disaster coming but did not comprehend its significance. Not until, that is, it was too late. Even then, once they realized that disaster was upon them, most still seem incapable of adapting to the new climate in which Journalism finds itself.

Like the dinosaurs 65 million years ago that floundered and died in the aftermath of the comet strike, newspapers are today floundering about in the rubble, not fully comprehending what just happened to them, and not able to figure out a new survival strategy. The Christian Science Monitor has gone completely digital, publishing only online and no longer killing trees for a paper edition. Only a handful of other major dailies have made that bold transition, however.

There have been numerous studies and reports about this, big and small, from newspaper groups, independent think tanks, journalism colleges, and others. Nobody has come up with a model for that would ensure the survival of newspapers. My guess is that nobody will, frankly, and that individual newspapers will have to find their own best paths. There is talk of the Government stepping in to “save” newspapers. God help us all if that happens. Do we really want government officials pulling the financial strings of the very media that we trust (or hope) will keep those bums honest? I hope and pray that few of us do.

Phil Rosenthal doesn't get it

Needless to say, the CMW’s report has its critics. Those critics, however, are likely to be some of the very dinosaurs I refer to above. Incapable of fully comprehending the stark reality around them, unable to choose a survival path quickly enough, and not nimble enough to outrun the more versatile and swifter rodents around them, the dinosaurs look at the study and comment on it derisively.

One such dinosaur is Phil Rosenthal, a kunbarrasaurus of a man still mired in the Cretaceous swamp of Old Media. Rosenthal writes primarily about the endangered species in the media world, specializing in articles about television and other mainstream news and entertainment outlets. He writes about them for one of the biggest and most recently bankrupt dinosaurs around, the endangered Chicago Tribune.

On June 10, a full week before the release of CMW’s "The New News" document, Rosenthal wrote a column titled "Study measures Chicago's non-traditional online news sources." An excerpt:

A new report due out Wednesday [June 17] from the Community Media Workshop, commissioned by the Chicago Community Trust with $25,000 of a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, attempts to look at alternative news sources. In recognition of the economic pressures wreaking havoc on traditional news outlets such as this one, "The New News: Journalism We Want and Need" offers an inventory and assessment of area online news sites.

"We decided we should do an environmental scan to see who was doing some of the work that we were thinking about doing ourselves," said Ngoan Le, vice president of programs for the Community Trust.

It's earnest but hit-or-miss.

“Hit or miss?” The report itself acknowledges that it is not a blueprint for action, nor a prescription for any cure. The CMW’s report surveys a number of local media outlets (which includes blogs such as this one), but does not include all blogs or web sites. It simply can’t, and to attempt to do so would be foolish. For one thing, there are thousands of blogs in the Chicago area, and more than 70 million worldwide. It would be a silly effort to include them all, not only for time and space consideration, but also because most are insignificant. Rosenthal’s dismissal of the report smells of bitterness and fear.

Rosenthal himself acknowledges that CMW makes no pretense of perfection, as illustrated by this quote in his June 10 column:

"It's the first kind of study like this, and now we know why. It's really hard," said Gordon Mayer, vice president of the Community Media Workshop. "One of the things that we said to people while we were doing this is that trying to take a snapshot of what's going on with online news in Chicago right now is sort of like trying to take a picture of a speeding train from a moving car. We don't think this is a definitive study."

Rosenthal’s bitterness bubbled through the brackish swamp water with this:

"Outlets such as chicagotribune.com and suntimes.com were left out "because it would just blow everyone else out of the water," Mayer said. Yet the Tribune's Daywatch e-mail is at No. 27 and Lynn Sweet's Sun-Times blog is No. 28. Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s Chicago magazine's Web site clocks in at No. 47." [Emphasis mine]

Chicago News Bench comes in at No. 32. The Chicago Reader is No. 36. YoChicago is No. 38. But so what? The numbers are not as important as what the study attempts to accomplish, which is to show the current state of the media and an attempt to discern the alternate futures that lie ahead for it. Rosenthal, winds up his June 10 column by further mocking CMW’s effort by quoting Mayer again:

"This is a report that everyone will find something to hate about," Mayer said. "It's not a flashlight. It's a candle, or a match, in a dark room."

“A $25,000 match,” notes Rosenthal. Smell the bile rising up? Rosenthal’s obsession with the irrelevant cost of the study (modest when compared to just about any government sponsored study) ends up blinding him to the significance of the report.

As I noted previously, the study is not perfect, it is not all-inclusive, and as Rosenthal himself highlights, CMW itself admits this. What Rosenthal misses is not only the comet bearing down on him and his fellow Archosauria, but an honest attempt to find an escape route to safer ground.

Either he cannot see it or chooses to dismiss it. A "match," he called it, but it's really a comet. It's as bright a sun, but he's closed his eyes.

Some of the dinosaurs learned to fly and became birds by the end of the Cretaceous period 146 million years ago. They adapted and thrived. There are writers and journalists today who are flexing their primitive wings and learning to survive in a brutal new world. The featherless Rosenthalsauri will perish, but the lineage will continue in a smaller and swifter form long after the comet strike.

UPDATED X2: Chicago Reader's Rogers Park Issue

I was upset with the Chicago Reader yesterday. Since then, I've had some civil exchanges by phone and email with them. Before I continue, I'll repeat what I said to Mick Dumke, staff writer at the Reader, when he interviewed me a couple of weeks ago in preparation for their current "Rogers Park and West Ridge Issue." I told him that the Reader seems to be making great improvements in recent months. Those of us who have been reading the weekly publication since the late 1970's know that they used to do hard-hitting, often ground-breaking journalism. Then they got fat and lazy, and had none of their legendary mojo through most of the 80's, all of the 90's, and most of the current decade. The Chicago Reader, once great, sucked for about 25 years. It was common to hear people say that it was worth picking up a free copy of the Reader only for the classifieds and entertainment listings. But things are changing for the better. Over the past year, there seems to have been a sincere effort to put writing at the forefront again. Great writers like Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke, to name only two, have been crucial to that effort. Joravsky, for example, has earned himself a reputation as an expert on all things TIF and wasteful government spending. Dumke is one of the best interviewers on the scene and has put together many a fine feature, both political and nonpolitical. Both Dumke and Joravsky carry the Reader's "Clout City" column, which has become a go-to source for many writers at other newspapers, as well as political bloggers such as yours truly. This brings us to my spat with the Chicago Reader yesterday. I'd written a post on Wednesday evening, in which I said nice things about the current issue and urged people to go out and pick up a copy the next day, when it would be hitting the newsstands. The next morning, I added links (the issue did not go online until after midnight, 12:01 a.m. on Thursday). In doing so, I added a photo from Joravsky's article about Ald. Joe Moore. The photo, of Moore and Mayor Daley in front of a fire truck, was taken at the recent opening of a fire station on N. Clark Street in Rogers Park. The photo was taken by Mick Dumke, and I set it up so that it was linked directly to Joravsky's article. In other words, I was directing traffic, at no charge, to the Reader's own website. In effect, they had a free ad on this blog. An editor at the Reader, however, didn't like what I did, and she sent a chilly email to me. That set off the spat. Here's the deal. It is common practice for websites to use photos from other websites. There is a right way and a wrong way to do that. It's an unwritten etiquette, if you will, and I adhere to it strictly. That etiquette calls for attribution and a link to the source, whenever possible. In the case of my using the Dumke photo of Moore and Daley, I did just that. Nothing was "stolen." The Reader lost nothing by my action. If anything, they picked up a few more eyeballs for their website. Again, the editor didn't like that. I publicly complained yesterday that some things I said to writer Mick Dumke were off the record, and that something else was a misquote. I had a pleasant conversation with Mick this morning. He's a real gentleman and a pleasure to talk with. He apologized to me for using anything that may have been off the record. To be fair to Mick, I now apologize to him. Lord knows I have misquoted and misunderstood in the past. I've always corrected or retracted when I know that is the case, and having been in Mick's shoes, so to speak, I will give him the benefit of the doubt. I may not have emphasized that something I said was off the record, or it may have been an honest misunderstanding on his part. The bottom line is that Mick Dumke's article about bloggers in Rogers Park was balanced, well written, and captured the essence of what I said to him when he interviewed. I remain an fan and admirer of Mick Dumke. He and I have differing views on many subjects, but I know him to be fair and highly ethical. Back to that photo. Now and then, someone will use one of my photographs or graphics. I don't mind that as long as they link back to me, or at least give proper attribution. I lose nothing by that, and know that it could result in an increase in readership for my website/blog. On the rare occasion that I find one of my photos or graphics used without attribution, I let the offending website know that they should add an attribution and, preferably, a link as well. But I would never demand that they remove my work, for to do so would be the same as removing an ad for my work. The Reader does not seem to understand this basic principal of the electronic media. It is ironic that the Reader's current issue lists an article in Time Magazine with the title "How To Save Your Newspaper." Here's an excerpt:

Currently a few newspapers, most notably the Wall Street Journal, charge for their online editions by requiring a monthly subscription. When Rupert Murdoch acquired the Journal, he ruminated publicly about dropping the fee. But Murdoch is, above all, a smart businessman. He took a look at the economics and decided it was lunacy to forgo the revenue — and that was even before the online ad market began contracting. Now his move looks really smart. Paid subscriptions for the Journal's website were up more than 7% in a very gloomy 2008.

Note: I did not ask Time for permission to use that excerpt. Even if Time becomes aware of it, I seriously doubt that they would (a) care, or (b) send me a terse note demanding that I remove it. Why? Because they would probably understand that it (a) is not a loss to them, (b) is linking to their website and providing full attribution to them, and (c) does not violate the fair usage part of copyright law. I hope that the folks at Chicago Reader read that Time article several times. I hope they get it. I hope that, after reading it carefully, they understand that they need to jump into the 1990's and accept that we are now in the Age of the Internet. The Reader's website is not a subcription-only website. It's free. Anybody can view it at no charge, just as anybody can grab a print copy of the Reader at no cost. The Reader makes money by selling advertising. Advertising rates are based on readership. Links to the Reader on blogs such as this one increase their readership. The editor who sent me a note demanding the removal of that linked photo should kiss my derrier and thank me for the free plug, then beg me to reinsert it with full permission. She should further grant me, and every other blog and website that she's pissed off, future permission to do the same. Her advertisers would appreciate it. The newspapers and magazines and websites that Matt Drudge links to on his Drudge Report website understand this well. Drudge's site is mainly links to stories, but he frequently uses photographs and graphics that he did not create. He often publishes links to embargoed stories. However, the publishers he links to not only don't mind his fair usage, they hope to God for a link on Drudge because his site can literally drive hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of hits to a linked source. If your newpaper's story is linked on Drudge, you can bet that it will be seen by far more people than if not. Imagine Drudge posting that Reader photo of Daley and Moore, with a link to the associated story, and a Reader editor sending a terse note to Matt Drudge demanding that he remove it. Chicago News Bench, of course, is a speck of dust compared to the Drudge Report. While CNB can only dream of being able to drive a few hundred thousand readers anywhere, we do get anywhere between 500 and 1500 direct hits every day. "Pass along" readership applies to electronic media, too; CNB is heavily linked on other websites and is part of several blog networks. One link to one of our posts on another website could, potentially, indirectly send thousands of readers to another site (such as chicagoreader.com). That's something to be desired. Nevertheless, the Reader's editors seem to think that free links, free publicity, free traffic to their monetized website is a bad, bad thing that must be controlled. That's stupid. For the editor to demand that I remove their photo is also a waste of her time. With the way that their website is currently set up, she can't possibly control all of the bloggers and websites out there who might crib one of their photos. Furthermore, it's interesting (and hypocritical) that the Reader editor who chastised me for using a photo "without permission" voiced no objection to excerpting some of their text, another common practice that is acceptable if full attribution is made. Many websites do try to prevent copying of any kind. I won't bore you with the technical aspects of how, but it's a simple matter to add a bit of code that would curb or prevent copying. On some websites, photos cannot be saved by the common practice of right clicking on them. Other embed a watermark in their photos. Still others set their sites up so that you can't even copy text by highlighting. Even those methods, however, cannot prevent somebody from making a screenshot of a photo, then using it without attribution, and anybody could simply type the text from an article instead of using copy-and-paste. As I said, the Chicago Reader needs to accept this new reality, jump into the 1990's, and be happy that people like their material enough to make reasonable use of it. They should certainly monitor outright theft, such as when no attribution is given or when the full text of an is used, but otherwise they should be happy that nutjobs like me are willing to direct more traffic their way at no charge. Chicago Reader's website, it must be said, is beautiful and organized very nicely. It is easy to navigate, has a clean layout and beautiful graphics. The staff there is relatively young and hip. These facts only make it more mysterious that they don't understand the etiquette of the Web, and that they don't recognize the advantages of attributed fair use of their content. Will the Reader editor also send an email blast to all of the Reader's subscribers admonishing them to not save any of their website content to their hard drives without permission? Of course not, but there's an irony there. When somebody saves a photo or article to their computer, it does not drive traffic to the Reader's website, nor does it encourage people to go out and pick up a print copy. When bloggers like me post the Reader's content with full attribution, however, it does. I humbly recommend that the editors of the Reader come to terms with that, and stop their self-defeating policy of pissing off bloggers.

Uptown Update's Million Hits

CONGRATULATIONS to our good friends at Uptown Update ("UU"), a hot blog in Chicago's "most Chicago" neighborhood. Any day now, their web site's hit counter will hit 1,000,000 (that's "one million" for those of you in Rogers Park, which a really, really big number). Why, it's like 9.5 years of an alderman's salary! Or, like a thousand times a thousand! Bigger still, one million is like having a hundred $10,000 bills in your wallet! Or better yet, like having one hundred million pennies in your pocket! How cool would that be? Uptown Update is a team of talented troublemakers who keep the folks of Uptown both informed and entertained. Like many of us north side bloggers, Uptown Update often breaks stories that the Big Local Media either miss or come into late. "UU" is a gem and a resource, with clever graphics and sharp reporting, and great links to community events. They aren't shy about voicing their opinion about local politics, either. UU staff identities are Ultra Top Super Secret! Like Batman, in a way. A team of Batmen, actually, but they don't have utility belts or conspiratorial butlers. I know their secret identities, but I am sworn to secrecy. If I ever ratted them out, they could easily gang up on me and beat me senseless. Or, at least, that's what they hinted would happen. I prefer to think they were joking about beating me senseless, but I prefer not to risk it. Now, mind you, when the Uptown Update counter strikes "1,000,000" it won't mean that a million people have visited the site. It means that their web site has been clicked that many times, but very often by repeat offenders. I mean, visitors. But that's still a very good thing. In the world of advertising, repeat visitors are desirable, whether to a newspaper or a web site. Did somebody say "advertising?" Note to Uptown Update: Why the heck haven't you guys monetized that beautiful web site? Subscribe to Chicago News Bench

More Popular Than Andrew Greeley

We don't like to brag, but for the selfless purpose of informing the public, Chicago News Bench (CNB) is more popular than Andrew Greeley's Web Site. That's according to Alexa, a top ranking service of web sites worldwide. Alexa compiles detail traffic stats on web sites. One of the many things they also do is break down popularity by region. CNB is a Chicago based web site, and Alexa ranks CNB as the second most popular in Chicago. In Alexa's category of "Top Sites in Personal Pages" for "Chicago/Society and Culture/Personal Pages," we are number two after a blog called "Whatever," which is ranked number one. Greeley's site is number three. Greeley is a best-selling author. RELATED: Andrew Greeley's Biography Page Subscribe to Chicago News Bench

Helping Small Minds Understand the News

"Uncle Jay" should have his own prime time televsion show. He looks at the big news stories of the day and turns them into... well, he mocks them in song and phrase, enlightening while entertaining. An Uncle Jay show on network television could easily be a hit, but in the meantime we can all enjoy his great web site and also on YouTube, where he regularly posts hysterical videos. He is a sarcastic curmudgeon, and you can't help but like the guy. Uncle Jay describes himself thusly: Uncle Jay thinks it’s really, really important for today’s news to be understood by today’s innocent, ignorant and immature minds. Also children. Yes, the children. You adults out there will probably get more out of "Uncle Jay Explains" than kids can, especially if you're already news-savvy. Uncle Jay touches on news headlines, but never really goes into lengthy explanations. If you already have a grasp of current events, you'll find yourself laughing hysterically through every video and each episode of Uncle Jay Explains. He's not a half-bad singer, either, as he demonstrates in his "Year-End!" episode, in which he sings the entire news roundup. It's a must-see. The self-description continues: “Uncle Jay Explains the News” began in 1995 on a local TV station. It even won an Emmy. Today, Uncle Jay continues his mission on the internet. Tell all your friends about Uncle Jay so that you can all learn more about the world and figure out what it all means. Then you can explain it to grownups, because they … maybe you noticed … haven’t. Okay, Uncle Jay, as your newest fan, I'm telling all my friends. Subscribe to Chicago News Bench

Yahoo (Exclamation Mark Not Included).

It could be the beginning of the end of the world as Yahoo! has known it. The comments to Hackosphere's post are very interesting, too. How Yahoo Lost Its Exclamation Mark Poor Yahoo.. After reading this TechCrunch post, I feel really bad for its founders and employees. I think Jerry Yang would be longing for those early days when the company was controlled by him and not external entities and shareholders. Looks like they have a tough decision to make today. "Should we sell our souls and succumb to Microsoft or partner with Google for search advertising which may also be shot down by DOJ?". Either way, it's not good for the employees because there will be massive layoffs. FULL POST...

Traitors, Spies Lose Web Site

A web site called wikileaks.org was just shut down by a California court. According to a report in USA Today: A federal judge in San Francisco has shut down a Web site that posted more than a million government and corporate documents from whistleblowers and others alleging criminal acts worldwide. The BBC says tonight that "The site was founded in 2006 by dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa. It so far claims to have published more than 1.2 million documents." One of the documents they leaked was one that purported to detail the daily activities at Guantanamo. Back in the good old days, the Americans involved with this would have been shot for treason and/or imprisoned for acts of sedition. I truly miss those days, and truly wish that these folks could legally be shot for, well, treason. I'm not sure what else to call it. Look up the terms "treason" and "sedition," and tell me how they are not guilty: Treason, sedition mean disloyalty or treachery to one's country or its government. Treason is any attempt to overthrow the government or impair the well-being of a state to which one owes allegiance; the crime of giving aid or comfort to the enemies of one's government. Sedition is any act, writing, speech, etc., directed unlawfully against state authority, the government, or constitution, or calculated to bring it into contempt or to incite others to hostility, ill will or disaffection; it does not amount to treason and therefore is not a capital offense. (Source)