The future is here

ND Batra
The Statesman, 28 November

The recent breakthrough in stem cell research carried out independently in Japan and the USA, by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and James A Thomson with his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, shows another path to human rejuvenation, including a cure for many incurable diseases.

By reprogramming a human skin cell, the researchers have been able to bring it back to its original pure embryonic stage, a pluripotent stage from where the cell could be coaxed to become any of the 220 specialised human cells, for example, heart, lungs, brain, muscle cells, which could be used for customised therapeutic healing. A brain-injured person could live a full, healthy life again. That is the future, perhaps.
The awesome beauty of this discovery is that the process of reversion of a skin cell to its de novo embryonic stage does not involve the destruction of embryos, which many pro-life people from President George W Bush to the late Pope John Paul II condemned as immoral. President Bush has steadfastly denied the use of federal funds “to promote science that destroys life to save life,” despite the fact that most Americans have never been with him on this issue.

Dr Bill Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon by training, who was Senate majority leader (2003-2007), for example, spoke for most Americans, when he said: “I am pro-life, I believe human life begins at conception. I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported.” Former First Lady Nancy Reagan said: “Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to alleviate so much suffering. Surely, by working together we can harness its life-giving potential.” Her husband, President Ronald Reagan, spent the last years of his life in Alzheimer’s limbo.

President Bush, nonetheless, repeatedly said, "my way or the highway". You see the power of presidential leadership; and also its limitations because he could not stop the private funding of embryonic stem cell research by states, biotechnology companies, and private universities who have been pursuing the research regardless of the opposition. For example, in 2004 California voters approved a $3-billion bond to promote research in the state.

Since last year, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute has been doing research using the Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer process to create specific cell lines from cloned human embryos, which again raised hopes for millions of people suffering from incurable diseases. Harvard research is said to be diseases specific; for example, the nucleus of a skin cell of a diabetic patient is inserted into an unfertilised donor egg, from which the nucleus has been removed. The newly engineered composite egg is nurtured in a Petri dish to develop into an early embryo from which embryonic stem cell lines is developed and guided into becoming healthy insulin producing pancreatic islet cells to replace the diseased ones, for example, in a child suffering from juvenile diabetes.

It is painful to imagine how much a child with juvenile diabetes suffers; or how much the family members endure as they see the wasting away of their loved one with the knowledge that one day if the stem cell research continued there might be hope for a most emaciating human illness. Anytime an older person forgets the name of his own children, you wonder if this could be the beginning of a slow end.

In the USA, people look to science and medicine for salvation. They know embryonic stem cells could be the beginning of a new life for persons suffering from fatal ailments. Stem cells that are derived from aborted and discarded embryos could be potentially directed to grow into any kind of specialised cells to repair damaged human parts and trigger a self-regenerative process in the human body. It is an example of how killing life can save lives. Choosing life over potential life is practical ethics at its best, it has been argued.

Though many people favour embryonic stem cell research, pro-lifers argue that research in regenerative and therapeutic medicine and technology should not be left to the marketplace because somewhere in the process life begins. The late pope John Paul II urged that a “free and virtuous society, which the USA aspires to be, must reject practices that devalue and violate human life at any stage from conception until natural death.”

The Pope was afflicted with Parkinson’s, one of the millions of sufferers of the debilitating disease but he never wavered, and warned “how a tragic coarsening of consciences accompanies the assault on innocent human life in the womb, leading to accommodation and acquiescence in the face of other related evils such as euthanasia, infanticide…”

That’s why many Americans could not ignore the late Pope’s warning that the destruction of embryos to extract stem cells, even when the purpose is to fight diseases and reduce human suffering, would dehumanise us. Stem cell revolution is as momentous as was the smashing of an atom; therefore, it needs safeguards to harness its benefits without the coarsening of our conscience.

The recent development of reprogramming skin cells into embryonic stages offers scientists an equally fertile method of developing cell therapy, which will make destruction of embryos unnecessary. Science has solved its own ethical dilemmas.

The discovery also illustrates the concept of “equifinality” in general systems theory, according to which a dynamic system, if challenged, could reach the same goal by other means. There is always an alternative. And thereby hangs another question: Is human body nothing but an information system that could be reprogrammed cell by cell? We will talk about human soul some other time.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. The author of Digital Freedom, he is working on a new book, This is the American Way.)

FUNDS FOR A WIDER RANGE OF VOICES - How to pay for a free press

In a media world with one eye on the bottom line and the other on the official line, it's getting harder to publish or broadcast anything that doesn't promise huge sales and attendant profits, and that doesn't say or show what is approved. But it's still possible

André Schiffrin
Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2007

Mindful of the immense influence that television coverage had
on the creation of opposition to the Vietnam war, the Bush
administration wanted to establish a system of
self-censorship in the coverage of the Iraq war and
occupation, a system that worked perfectly during the crucial
first two years, when much of the press went along with the
US government's lies. (Condoleezza Rice had long since - at
least before the war in Afghanistan - summoned the heads of
US networks to tell them that the government did not want to
see wounded civilians on screen.)

This collaboration was not only in mass media but in
publishing. None of the houses owned by the large groups (the
top five of which control 80% of general interest books)
published a single critical book about the Iraq war and
Bush's foreign policy. The many books that did all came from
small, independent firms. It is clear that the conglomerates
decided their policy on political rather than commercial
grounds, since there was a huge anti-Bush audience (Al Gore
had won many more votes than Bush). When the small firm Seven
Stories rushed out a little book by Noam Chomsky after 9/11,
it sold an unprecedented 300,000 copies in a few weeks (1).
As the political situation deteriorated, major US newspapers
and large publishers finally began to publish many critical
books that then jostled on the bestseller lists.

The importance of independent publishers and magazines is
evident, yet the way to set them up and keep them alive is
less obvious. Their number has grown impressively in the US
and in Europe. In France, dozens of small alternative
publishers of literature and poetry, and some political
houses, met recently. They all now play an important role
taking on authors and subjects that large houses dare not
risk. Among them, Agone in Marseille, and Arenes and
Amsterdam in Paris, have been crucial. Another house,
Demopolis, launches this autumn. These independent publishers
have brought out such authors as Chomsky, the US historian
Howard Zinn (Agone) and cultural critics such as Judith
Butler and Stuart Hall (Amsterdam)

It says much about French publishing that important books
used to have to be published in Belgium. Readers of Le Monde
diplomatique are familiar with the saga of Eric Hobsbawm's
history of the 20th century, The Age of Extremes, which I
published in the US in l990 and which was then translated
into dozens of foreign languages, but not French. The major
French publishers were all persuaded that there was no room
in the bookstores for the work of a former communist. It was
only after the intervention of this journal that a Belgian
editor, Complexe, took on the book, which went into the
French bestseller lists. Something similar happened with a
collection of Chomsky's lectures, Understanding Power. In
spite of having sold nearly l00,000 copies in the US, we were
not able to find a French publisher until a small independent
Belgian firm, Aden, took it on.

Bright new ventures

Two of the houses mentioned are venturing into magazines this
autumn. Amsterdam will launch La Revue Internationale des
Livres et des Idées, a French equivalent of the New York
Review of Books. Arene is preparing a book length journal
that will feature reporting by writers whose own papers no
longer give space to lengthy, analytical articles. Patrick de
Saint- Exupéry is taking leave from Le Figaro to direct this.
These journals will face the same difficulties of
distribution and financing as small publishers, but their
great advantage is that they do not need to be capital
intensive. Large conglomerates may well have access to
millions if not billions, but a good list can be built with
thousands. A small edition can be done with only a couple of
thousand euros, which with luck can be earned back quite
quickly. For centuries, publishing was artisanal and can
still succeed as such.

The same can be true of newspapers. Oslo boasts l4 papers,
major titles plus small offset papers published by different
political groups. Most of New York's papers are small outfits
for Asian immigrants. After the liberation of Paris, the city
had about 36 papers, although since there were acute
newsprint shortages all were limited to two pages.

Most small publishers underpay their staff (Agone's workers
are on the minimum wage) or don't pay their publisher or
chief editor. This is not an ideal situation and it can't
last forever. But it also means that an independent publisher
needs only modest support.

Bourdieu's example

Various models been tried around the world. The most famous
is Raisons d'Agir, which Pierre Bourdieu started after his
studies of publishing proved that the larger houses had
severely restrained their political and intellectual content.
Bourdieu started his firm in his office in the College de
France and he and his assistant were its staff. Many books he
published did extremely well, some selling hundreds of
thousands. A university space (and a professor's salary) have
been misused elsewhere with excellent results. A primary
publisher of European fiction in the US is Dalkey Archive,
based at the State University of Illinois, which has granted
a professor part time employment to run the press. When we
started The New Press we were offered free offices in a
dilapidated building at the City University of New York,
which saved hundreds of thousands in rent. There is no reason
why other universities could not share space in this way.
Small towns have handed over old school buildings to
publishers, a way in which progressive municipalities could
help even if national governments are unwilling.

Another interesting model was tried by Ordfront in Stockholm.
This group has built a reader cooperative of 30,000 members
paying a modest EUR
20 a year for a subscription to one of the best magazines in
Sweden, which also allows the publication of a limited number
of books a year. If only 10% of members opt for a book, its
costs are covered. This experiment has been far more
successful than authors' cooperatives in Sweden and in
Germany, which failed to overcome rivalry and jealousy.

The US and Britain have a range of university presses (over
100 in the US, though they account for a mere 1% of books
sold). In theory, these could be a vibrant alternative to
commercial presses, but they have too often reflected the
conservatism of their faculties. They are also under
profit-making pressures because universities have followed
the capitalist model.

When Pantheon Books in New York, which I directed for 30
years, was faced with the profit demands of new conglomerate
ownership, I decided that a not-for-profit publishing house
was the only way to continue with a list of uncompromising
intellectual quality. We started a university press without a
university, which meant we could address non-academic
readers. The New Press this year celebrates its l5th
anniversary, with 80 titles a year, though many had predicted
it could not succeed. But we had the exceptional support of
most of my authors over the years and substantial help from
many of the more enlightened foundations in the US, which had
long ago realised that cultural activity, music, dance,
theatre and even intelligent television could not survive in
a capitalist context and were willing to see if we could
extend their logic to publishing.

This was more possible in the US than in many other
countries. But this framework already supports many of
Europe's best newspapers. In Britain The Guardian and its
companion Sunday newspaper, The Observer, have long belonged
to a non-profit-making foundation, the Scott Trust. The
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung belongs to a foundation, as do
most of Denmark's newspapers.

Not for profit

Newspapers and book publishers that belong to independent,
not-for-profit foundations or cooperatives may be the best
way to preserve political and cultural autonomy. This
solution might have saved such major publishers as Le Seuil
and Einaudi from being sold to conglomerates whose primary
objective is profitability. For centuries publishing averaged
an annual profit of 3-4%; the conglomerates want at least
l0%, if not l5%, which changes the nature of what can be
published.

The German philosopher Jurgen Habermas recently put the case
for extending the not-for-profit idea to more newspapers (2).
Since Germany's most important left of centre paper, the
Süddeutsche Zeitung (Bavarian, but among the top three
dailies) might be sold to a conglomerate, he argued for a
government-supported foundation to take it over. His idea has
not been widely accepted in Germany, which has unhappy
memories of government control. But there have been the
successful examples of Arte and France Culture as ways of
establishing government support for the media. In France, the
film industry and many cinemas have for years enjoyed
widespread subsidies without censorship (as far as we know).

Throughout the West, radio and television were initially seen
as having an intellectual and cultural role. In the US even
the conservative Herbert Hoover decided that all radio
stations should be based in universities to avoid commercial
control. The BBC was given the benefit of an annual licence
fee, directly connected to the sale and use of all radio (and
later television) sets, that went directly to the
corporation, bypassing governmental control, and is now
around £135.50 per household. There is no reason why this
could not support independent newspapers and book publishers.
A tax on advertising revenue or other sources could assure
the economic stability of media free of advertising.

Habermas eloquently argues that a vital democratic debate
depends on governmental intervention to guarantee a plurality
of views to the public. Sarkozy's France won't have this, but
there is no reason why the left should not begin to prepare
alternatives and new ideas for elections to come. We have
seen in the US that such issues can mobilise mass support;
over 3m letters, led by NGOs of the left and right, were sent
to Congress to protest against Bush's plans for entrenching
conglomerate control.

Many small publishers and magazines are struggling bravely
against difficult economic situations, and may in the end
lose. There is no reason why their limited resources should
not be helped by legislative action. The French state helps
new enterprises by supporting up to half their start-up
loans, but this support does not extend to cooperatives or
foundations. Most publishers could thrive happily under such
not-for-profit ownership and there could be alternatives to
the decisions that were taken by the owners of Le Seuil or
will be taken by the shareholders of the Süddeutsche (both
are family owned enterprises as is common in publishing).
Conglomerate control has dangerous political and intellectual
consequences for media. There is still time to control and
reverse this global threat.
________________________________________________________

(1) Noam Chomsky, Power and Terror: Post 9/11 Talks and
Interviews (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2003).

(2) Translated in Le Monde, Paris, 22 May 2007

André Schiffrin is director of the not-for-profit publishers
The New Press, New York, and author of A Political Education
(Melville House Pub, Hoboken, NJ, 2007

TV channels evading billions

Blitz, Dhaka

Leading private television channels in Bangladesh such as Channel-I, ATN-Bangla, Channel One, NTV, RTV, Ekushey Television [ETV] etc., are continuing to evade billions of Taka VAT each year. As per rule, these channels are required to pay fifteen per cent VAT on the total amount of revenue earnings, while, none of the channels are even paying a fraction of the payable VAT thus depriving the nation of huge amount of revenue earnings each year. Such trend although continues for past several years, none of the officials in the National Board of Revenue [NBR] or in the Ministry of Finance dares to say anything as all of these channels have already established a kind of unseen influence by using the tool of electronic media.

Our reporters have conducted a comprehensive investigation into the issue of evasion of value added tax by the existing private television channels in Bangladesh. It was revealed that, each of the private television channels in Bangladesh are collecting advertisement charges from the advertisers mostly for chunks. With each of the channels, cost for 30 minutes chunk ranges between TK. 70 thousand to 1 hundred thousand. During special events like Eid etc., the charges are increased even three or four times. In this way, the private television channels are getting TK. 6-7 hundred thousand each day from advertisements. As per existing rule, the channels are required to pay 15% [fifteen percent] VAT on the net amount they receive. In this case, each of the television channels in Bangladesh [especially those big ones like Channel-I, ATN-Bangla, NTV etc] should pay at least TK. 90,000 each day to National Board of Revenue as VAT.

ATN-Bangla has already completed more than eleven years in transmission while Channel-I has crossed eight years. Musaddek Ali Falu’s NTV has also completed five years. As per rule, only Channel-I should have paid more than TK. 25 crore in past eight years. But, as per record available with the department concerned, this channel pays only a fraction of the actual payable amount of VAT to the national exchequer.

Commenting on this, a highly placed source in Finance Ministry told our correspondents that, as per realities, each of the private television channels are earning huge amount of money every month, while they are reluctant in paying the exact amount of tax to the government. The source said, these private channels should have paid minimum TK. 2-3 million every month as VAT and taxes, while, as per record, they are not even paying one fourth of the actually accrued amount to the government. “They all are champion tax evaders”, said the source.

Another source to Weekly Blitz that, members of country’s revenue department are rather reluctant in taking initiatives in collecting exact amount of VAT and taxes from the private television channels as in most of the cases, such channels maintain close relations with government high ups. Once the taxation matter in pursued, management of the private television channels starts campaign against the officer concerned or even goes into strong lobbying with influential members in the government.

It may be mentioned here that, the private channels are not only alleged for tax evasion but few years back, owners of Channel-I were related to criminal network when one of the notorious criminals named Kala Faruk was attempting to leave Bangladesh with the identity of being an employee of the channel. Later, it was revealed that Channel-I management were involved in helping this notorious criminal in leaving Bangladesh under the cover of one of their reporters. Although the government started investigation into the matter, the case was later sent to cold storage under instruction from the supreme command in the government.

There is also allegations against the private television channels of smuggling huge amount of money every year for payment of satellite transponder rentals. Each of the private television channels in Bangladesh are using foreign satellite transponders for the transmission of their signals via satellite. In each cases, the satellite owners charge US$ 30-40 thousand per month as rental. A source in the department concerned in Bangladesh Bank told Weekly Blitz that the private television channels were required to obtain permission from the Central bank for remitting such money abroad. But, none of the private television channels did ever obtain any permission from the Bangladesh Bank for remittance of such huge amount of foreign currency each year. It is easily understood that the private television channels are regularly smuggling out the money, which falls under the Money laundering Law of the land.

Meanwhile, there is allegation on evasion of VAT by most of the music companies in Bangladesh such as Sangeeta, Soundtek, CMV, Ganchil, Laser Vision, Ektar, Sonali Products, Beauty Corner etc. There are also allegation of evasion of VAT by English medium schools in the country.

According to information, the government is being deprived of huge revenue income from thousands of unregistered English medium schools, which are collecting additional fees from students under VAT (value added tax) imposed in this fiscal year.

According to the education ministry, there are around 18,000 English medium schools across the country with more to be launched. But only 625 such institutions have been registered under seven secondary and higher secondary education boards, Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE), and Directorate of Primary Education (DPE).

Taking the opportunity of authorities' apparent indifference and lack of specific rules, three types of English medium schools - kindergartens or nurseries, junior Cambridge, and Cambridge or senior Cambridge - are rapidly growing in urban areas throughout the country. The industry is mushrooming especially in the capital.

The government has several times tasked the school authorities to get registered, but most of them did not pay any heed to it. Many schools even did not bother to apply for registration.

However, no schools have ever been handed down any kinds of penalty.

Pijush Kanti Nath, first VAT secretary of National Board of Revenue (NBR), said it will be easy for them to collect VAT from English medium schools if the ministry and other authorities concerned send them a list of such institutions.

The education ministry, seven education boards, DSHE and DPE, however, are yet to prepare a list as a large number of schools did not register willingly to avoid different types of restrictions.

"Most of the schools don't want to register even after receiving letters to that end several times.

The authorities did not register willingly in a bid to avoid registration fees and newly imposed VAT," said M Abbas Uddin, senior assistant secretary of the education ministry.

Ataur Rahman Khan, school inspector of Dhaka Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board, said only 66 English medium schools are approved and registered with Dhaka Education Board. The registration process of another 34 institutions is pending, he added.

According to the condition of application form for registration, an English medium school has to pay TK 5,000 as registration fees and TK 7,000 as renewal of registration in every five years.

Directorate of Primary Education supervises the kindergarten and nursery preparatory schools from standard I to V. Regional education offices of DSHE monitors the junior Cambridge schools from standard VI to VIII. Secondary and higher secondary education boards supervise Cambridge and senior Cambridge schools for O and A levels.

All kinds of educational institutions are to be registered under the Education Control Act, 1962. But English medium schools do not fall into the Act, as there were no such institutions in 1962.

Later, the Act has been amended several times but no specific rules for English medium schools were included in the Act.

The Ministry of Education in August 2004 decided that unregistered English medium schools would be asked to register under the Registration of Private School (Amendment) Act, 1989, and the Non-Government School (English Medium) Registration Regulations, 1999.

Top officers of seven education boards said English medium schools should be brought under proper accountability for containing "mismanagement" and "irregularities" of the authorities.

"Formulation of strict guidelines for the English medium schools is very much needed, but the school mismanagement should also be given certain freedom," said Prof Abdul Wadud, examination controller of Dhaka Education Board.

The government is going to establish a regulatory rule to oversee the activities of these schools but the process is advancing slowly due to bureaucratic tangles, sources in the education ministry said.

"A draft on guidelines for English medium schools is now in the law ministry. We hope it will help remove the irregularities of the institutions," said Abbas Uddin, senior assistant secretary of the education ministry.

Posted on 04 Oct 2007 by Root

Web being carved up into info plantations

Nicholas Carr

It seems to be following the pattern that has always characterised popular media.

SEARCH AT Google.com on evolution or Iraq or AIDS, and the same site will appear at the top of the list of results: Wikipedia. Alter your search into one for John Keats or Muhammad Ali or Christianity or platypus or loneliness, and the same thing will happen. Pacific Ocean? Wikipedia. Catherine de Medici? Wikipedia. Human brain? Wikipedia.

In fact, if you Google any person, place or thing today, you're almost guaranteed to find Wikipedia at or near the top of the list of recommended pages. Despite its flaws, the amateur-written encyclopaedia has become the world's all-purpose information source. It's our new Delphic oracle.

The hegemony of Wikipedia is only the most striking manifestation of a broad and unexpected phenomenon: The world wide web is shrinking. I don't mean there are fewer sites than there used to be. On that measure, the web is bigger than ever. I mean that more and more of our time online is being spent at an ever-smaller number of megasites. The wilds of the Internet are being carved up among a handful of vast information plantations.

Web statistics tell the tale. The blogger Richard MacManus recently examined trends in online traffic over the past five years. He found that between the end of 2001 and the end of last year, the number of Internet domains expanded by more than 75 per cent, from 2.9 million to 5.1 million. At the same time, however, the dominance of the most popular domains grew substantially. At the end of 2001, the top 10 websites accounted for 31 per cent of all the pages viewed on the Net. By the end of last year, the top 10 accounted for fully 40 per cent of page views.

Much of the increase in traffic consolidation can, as Mr. MacManus points out, be attributed to the growth of social networks such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. In 2001, MySpace didn't even exist. Now, it is the most visited on the Net, accounting for a whopping 16 per cent of all page views.

The concentration is happening in other areas as well. Take search engines. According to Hitwise, Google now handles 65 per cent of all web searches, up from 58 per cent just a year ago. Despite aggressive attempts by Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Ask to boost their own shares of the search market, Google continues to widen its lead.

If Google is an example of the shrinking of the Net, it's also one of the causes. Because the search engine determines a site's relevance based on its popularity, as measured by, among other things, the number of other sites that link to it, it has had the effect of turning the web into a giant feedback loop. The more popular a site becomes, the more it comes to dominate search results, which ends up funnelling ever more links and traffic to it.

On the Internet, the big get bigger. It wasn't supposed to be like that. When the web arrived in the early 1990s, it was heralded as a liberating force that would free us from the confines of gated communities like AOL and Compuserve. The Internet was supposed to be an open, democratic medium, an information bazaar putting individuals on the same footing as big companies.

In the end, though, the Internet seems to be following the same pattern that has always characterised popular media. A few huge outlets come to dominate readership and viewership and smaller, more specialised ones are consigned to the periphery. Most of the largest sites are now in the midst of acquisition sprees or expansion programmes intended to extend their dominion. Just last week, MySpace announced it would buy Photobucket, the largest photo-sharing site; Facebook said it would expand into the classified advertising business; and Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said that his company has been acquiring small companies at the rate of one a week to build out its portfolio.

It may be that Internet users will revolt against the dominance of the mega-sites. But I wouldn't bet on it. All the signs point to a continuing concentration of traffic within the fences of the new information plantations. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

(Nicholas Carr's next book is called The Big Switch. He blogs at roughtype.com)

An impossible mission, rewarding, exhilarating

K. Narayanan
The Hindu, 30 April

The key element in a daily newspaper is speed — speed in every facet of its operations, be it writing, editing or deciding the choice and display of news. The mechanical aspects such as putting together the paper, printing, and distribution also involve speed, but these are not, I would think, as stressful as the cerebral part of the newspaper industry.

The production team might disagree with me, because of the experience on Tamil New Year's day, and the days following, when parts of Chennai city went without The Hindu, because of some settling-in problems in the new printing unit that started functioning at Maraimalai Nagar, on the outskirts of the city. The Readers' Editor's office was flooded with phone calls throughout the day; I can very well imagine what the marketing staff went through.

Moving away from this digression and getting back to the speed and stress of the editorial department: Post-production reviews can reveal the flaws in what was done and throw up ideas on how a more polished effort could have been made. Self-criticism and constructive criticism by peers can spur the urge to do better. But that I feel is an ideal and is seldom practised.

Readers who pick out the real and perceived flaws are seldom aware of the causative factors — mainly the speed at which the work is done. Many are quick to point out errors in printing, syntax, and of course facts. Some go deeper as does Devraj Sambasivan, a part-time teacher of English in Alappuzha (Kerala). He has sent me some published reports in

The Hindu, re-edited by his students as a class exercise, effecting a 10 per cent reduction in wordage. It is a good effort, but as I pointed out to Mr. Devraj, such polishing and chiselling is possible when your eye is not on the clock.

* * *

A more serious point he raises is about contributions to readers' mail. "News items on regional pages seem to find their way unobstructed from the reporter's scribble pad to the broadsheet. But the staff seem to be hyperactive with regard to readers' mail which undergo insensitive and unimaginative and sometimes atrocious manipulation," he says. Rather strong words, but a comparison of the original and the published versions of Mr. Devraj's contribution shows there is some justification for the comments. It is in this context that Mr. Devraj asks me whether "your observations and suggestions [on editing] are considered in-house. More than on the factual errors which you more often than not promptly acknowledge and rectify, I focus on the standard and quality of the edited content that finds its way to print."

In these columns, I comment on quality and standards. There it ends — these are my views, not edicts. If someone benefits, that will be a matter for satisfaction. I receive feedback from readers, next to nothing from the staff. What I do is meant to "enable corrective action to be taken," as the Editor-in-Chief said. What action is taken, I am not aware of.

That seems to be the experience of newspaper ombudsmen elsewhere too. Some of them have given expression to this.

Israel Rosenblatt, who was ombudsman of Maariv of Tel Aviv from 1991 until he retired three years ago, describes ombudsmen as "the last idealists in a too commercialised, overpacked-with-prejudices journalism. Or to use a poetic metaphor ... the legendary Dutch boy, trying to block the flood in the dam with his finger ... To succeed as an ombudsman, you have to be not only right, but also very wise. A mission sometimes impossible."

* * *

Marcela Beraba, who served Folha de Sao Paulo, Brazil as ombudsman for three years wrote in a farewell piece on April 1, 2007: "I leave the job without the leap in quality which I hoped and desired being accomplished ... Pressures by readers are here to stay and that is good ... The impression I have in these years of observation is that companies have their complete focus on the business side and the discussion about content in the newspaper stopped being a priority with the weakening of news rooms."


* * *
Her job as readers' representative at the San Diego Union-Tribune for nearly 15 years was satisfying and frustrating, said Gina Lubrano (she took voluntary retirement in December 2006 as part of the downsizing of the editorial department — a trend seen in U.S. newspapers). Satisfying because she was able to correct and sometimes make amends with people who felt hurt or offended. Frustrating when the paper was wrong and when it needlessly offended readers. Ms. Lubrano continues to work as executive secretary of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen.


* * *
But Ian Mayes, whom I consider a role model for newspaper ombudsmen, finds his 10-year stint at The Guardian (which ended on March 31, 2007 — he has moved on to write the history of the paper) "rewarding and sometimes even exhilarating." "The Guardian has set high standards and then opened a door to let the world watch its struggles to live up to them ... It is perhaps lamentable that The Guardian has been unable to prevent the repetition of petty but irritating mistakes particularly those which seem to indicate a lack of care or attention to the language. It is folly not to have an interactive relationship between newspapers and readers."

That, I think, should answer Mr. Devraj's doubts on what ombudsmen can and cannot do.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

The changing face of publishing

Helen Jones

E-paper, instant magazine downloads, social publishing, web 2.0 and the end of the newspaper as we know it — a brave new world, or is this all just pie in the sky?

IT WON'T be long before buying a copy of Heat or The Economist at your local newsagent could become as niche an activity as buying a vinyl LP. Instead of leisurely flicking through a magazine on the sofa with a cup of tea, you will read it on the web, download it on to a piece of e-paper or simply publish it yourself.

According to David Renard, author of The Last Magazine, in the next 25 years, only 10 per cent of the European and American paper-based magazine industry will remain, kept alive by "connoisseurs, aficionados and ageing Luddites." The rest of us will embrace the publishing revolution. Instead of nipping to the newsagent, you will download the day's news, sport or City pages from a vending machine and read it on a piece of e-paper. And when you finish, you'll put the e-paper in your briefcase and update the content the next day.

E-paper is already available: Sony introduced its e-book device last year, but Japanese company Fujitsu will launch what it claims is the first colour e-paper in 2008. According to Mike Nelson, Fujitsu's European general manager, e-paper is "exceptionally useful." "It looks like colour newsprint, it is tough, flexible, very thin and you could change the image on it every two seconds for a year using a triple-A battery," he says.

But will it replace traditional printed products? "Well you can't fold it," Mr. Nelson admits. "But we're not looking at tabloid or broadsheet size we're looking at something smaller. I think it will offer an alternative to newspapers. People already read newspapers and magazines online but it's not very convenient when you're on the move, so you can download what you want on to e-paper, take it with you and update it when you want."

Fujitsu also believes that e-paper offers advertisers greater flexibility. "Instead of sending a man up a ladder with a bucket of paste to stick up a poster, you can change an advertising message electronically." The company, like other electronics firms, is also investing heavily in steganography. This involves embedding data in a photograph which can then be decoded using a camera phone.

The technology is already being used in Japan where members of a music club get flyers containing reviews, he adds: "If you're interested in the review then you use your phone to click on the embedded data and a music clip is then played on your mobile." Mr. Nelson claims it will also help advertisers identify if a campaign is working. If people aren't clicking on your ad with their mobiles then you can simply change the campaign.

Impact on content

New technology will not only have an impact on distribution, but also on content, according to Ian Eckert, director of digital development at CMPi, part of United Business Media. "Publishers have to accept that the world has changed," he says. "Web 2.0 isn't about pushing out information to your audience — it's participatory and inclusive like MySpace or YouTube. The audience and the content is blurred and that's a real challenge. In the past, participation meant a letters page or a feedback slot, but that's essentially one-way traffic. Now, it's two-way traffic where people can gather around a brand 365 days a year."

VNU is another publisher attempting to get closer to its audience. It now runs live online, interactive video seminars so that audiences can take part in industry events without leaving their desks.

But for some audiences, it's not just about taking part, it's about taking over. "Traditional publishing is already co-existing with the revolutionary phenomenon of social publishing, where people cluster together to create their own content," says Tamar Kasriel, head of knowledge venturing at forecasting company the Henley Centre.

The role of publishers will change, Mr. Eckert adds. "I don't think we will get rid of journalists, but there will be less pontification from on high and more conversation," he says.

Dominic Williams, managing director of digital publishing technology company, System 7, goes further: social publishing, he says, will be huge. "It addresses all niches out there: professional, hobby, social and political," he says. "I think it's very likely that social publishing will replace trade publishing altogether. For example, if you are a tax consultant, you can create content and a guide to tax. If people like it they can vote for it and it will get noticed out there."

Mr. Williams agrees social publishing will pose threats but believes it is also an opportunity for traditional publishers. "It allows audience and content publishers to meet each other to share and talk. It's a big opportunity if you're building a brand and can get an audience to seed that publication." He cites Imagine FX, an online fantasy art magazine that System 7 helped to develop. By opening an online gallery and inviting people to post their own work, the site and the magazine gained three million page impressions in three weeks.

"If publishers have a deeper relationship with the community they are serving, they will get more traffic and more advertising revenue," says Mr. Williams. Publishers engaging with social publishing can also look forward to a different model when it comes to remunerating the creators of their content.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007

Protecting Internet Democracy

NYT, january 3

One of the big winners in the last election may turn out to be the principle, known as net neutrality, that Internet service providers should not be able to favor some content over others. Democrats who are moving into the majority in Congress — led by Ron Wyden in the Senate and Edward Markey in the House — say they plan to fight hard to pass a net neutrality bill, and we hope that they do. It is vital to preserve the Internet’s role in promoting entrepreneurship and free expression.

Internet users now get access to any Web site on an equal basis. Foreign and domestic sites, big corporate home pages and little-guy blogs all show up on a user’s screen in the same way when their addresses are typed into a browser. Anyone who puts up a Web page can broadcast it to the world.

Cable and telephone companies are talking, however, about creating a two-tiered Internet with a fast lane and a slow lane. Companies that pay hefty fees would have their Web pages delivered to Internet users in the current speedy fashion. Companies and individuals that do not would be relegated to the slow lane.

Creating these sorts of tiers would destroy the democratic quality of the Internet. Big, wealthy voices would start to overpower the smaller, poorer ones. Innovation would be threatened if start-ups and small companies could not afford the new fees. The next eBay or Google might never be born.

A net neutrality law would require cable and telephone companies to continue to provide Web sites to Internet users on an equal basis. Mr. Markey, of Massachusetts, will be taking over a key subcommittee that handles Internet issues. He has promised to hold hearings to educate Congress and the public, and to reintroduce his strong net neutrality bill. Mr. Wyden, of Oregon, plans to reintroduce an equally solid bill in the Senate.

Passing the legislation will not be easy. The cable and telephone companies have fought net neutrality with a lavishly financed and misleading lobbying campaign, because they stand to gain an enormous windfall. But there is growing support from individuals and groups across the political spectrum, from MoveOn.org to the Gun Owners of America, who worry about what will happen to their free speech if Internet service providers are allowed to pick and choose the traffic they carry.

In the last week, there was a limited but important victory for net neutrality. As a condition of approving the AT&T-BellSouth merger, the Federal Communications Commission required AT&T to guarantee net neutrality on its broadband service for the next two years. The commission was right to extract this concession, but it should not be necessary to negotiate separate deals like this one. On the information superhighway, net neutrality should be a basic rule of the road.

Layoffs Imminent at Philadelphia Inquirer

KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

NYT, January 3

The Philadelphia Inquirer is expected to announce today that it will lay off 68 to 71 employees, or about 17 percent of the newsroom staff, just seven months after a group of local businessmen took over the newspaper and its sister publication, The Daily News.

The Daily News is exempt from this round of cuts.

The announcements began last night as editors called employees at home. The news will become official today when top editors begin a series of meetings with each department. With The Inquirer’s advertising revenue and circulation down, employees have known for months that layoffs were coming and have been finding their place on the seniority list so that they could try to make plans.

“The guillotine has finally fallen,” said Dawn Fallik, 36, a medical reporter for The Inquirer who has been at the paper for four years and will be laid off. “In a way, it’s kind of a relief.”

The Newspaper Guild, which represents newsroom and other employees at the two papers, just concluded bitter contract negotiations that nearly led to a strike. Editors and reporters had been told that if they did not make economic concessions, up to 150 people could be laid off.

“This number is significantly less than the numbers that had been discussed earlier,” said Jay Devine, a spokesman for Brian P. Tierney, the publisher of the papers and one of the new owners.

Still, the layoffs will continue a contraction of The Inquirer, which in its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s had a staff of more than 500, with about 15 national and foreign bureaus. Today, the staff numbers about 400, with one foreign bureau. It lost more than 75 people in buyouts a year ago. The Daily News cut 25, leaving its newsroom with about 109.

Among those who received calls last night and was told he was losing his job was Jeff Shields, a reporter who covers gambling, a young and growing industry in Pennsylvania.

“These last two weeks, knowing this was coming, have really been Kafkaesque,” said Mr. Shields, 41, who has been at the paper for almost four years. He said he hoped to parlay his knowledge of the gambling industry into a job at a paying Web site or doing research.

A subject he would like to write about is the effect of casinos on their hometowns — “the kind of story you might pitch to an editor but in this day and age would never get approved,” he said, alluding to declining ambitions at many daily newspapers.

His editor, Eugene Kiely, 47, who made the call to Mr. Shields, is also leaving The Inquirer, although voluntarily, and will take a job at USA Today. He said he wanted to continue his newspaper career at a place he thought would be “stable.”

The Philadelphia papers were sold in March by Knight Ridder to the McClatchy newspaper group, which in turn sold them to a group of businessmen, led by Mr. Tierney, an advertising and public relations executive.

Mr. Tierney hailed his entry into the newspaper business as a turning point, both for the Philadelphia papers and the industry, as he took the reins from a distant corporate owner and began a closely watched experiment in local private ownership without having to answer to Wall Street.

But things changed in the summer as advertising revenue for papers across the country plummeted and circulation continued its years of decline. At The Inquirer, the consolidation of department stores and telecommunications companies has meant fewer ads, with revenue falling 10 percent in September 2006, from September 2005. Daily circulation fell 7.6 percent, to 330,000, in the last year. Sunday circulation was down 4.5 percent, to 682,000, in the same period.

The newsroom was initially cautious but hopeful when Mr. Tierney took over. Since the contract settlement, however, the mood has shifted to resignation.

“If it’s a new day for local journalism, it’s a sour day,” said Stu Bykofsky, a columnist at The Daily News. At least with Knight Ridder, he said, there were buyouts, not layoffs.

A few years ago, The Inquirer hired more than 40 young reporters as part of a major expansion into the suburbs. Now, many of those jobs are being eliminated.

In the recent contract negotiations, the company won the right to exempt certain reporting beats from seniority rules so it could keep some of the younger reporters, depending on how much time they had spent on a beat. Diane Mastrull, 46, a reporter and Guild negotiator for the newsroom, said this winnowing process could set reporters against each other as they add up time spent on various beats.

“We’ll now watch a really ugly process,” she said. “And despite all of that sacrifice at the negotiating table, we’re still going to watch 70 people involuntarily walk out the door.”

Mr. Devine, the spokesman for Mr. Tierney, said that the contract settlement with the Guild and nine other unions at the papers were an important milestone in saving money at the paper.

Circulation at The Inquirer is already nudging up because of new marketing campaigns and a focus on the suburbs, he said, calling it “the first step in getting advertisers interested.” Mr. Devine said that investments in new production technology would bolster the appeal to advertisers.

Mr. Tierney, he said, “remains buoyant” about the future of the newspapers.

But some of those out of a job have a different view.

“I loved being a reporter, and I hope to continue writing,” Ms. Fallik said, “but I’m open to something completely different.”

Mr. Shields said: “Newspapers have not shown a whole lot of economic promise, so for me this is a chance to look around and maybe become part of a more dynamic business model. This could be the best thing that ever happened to me.”