Just when I thought Fox news could not be any more far right, they “steal” Glen Beck from Headline News to give him his own show. And he is so far right of the far right, I’m not sure what to call him.

I really think Fox News should “steal” another celebrity from another network. Ellen Degeneres would be a great choice to sit across from Glen Beck.

After all, they both cry a lot on television. A match made in heaven. Although Ellen Degeneres would likely make Glen Beck cry even more than he already does. She’s more macho than he is.

Seriously, Glen Beck accused Obama of trying to enact Sharia Law from the Koran here in the US. He comes up with the most off-the-wall conspiracy theories I’ve ever heard.

With Glen Beck, Fox News takes a step so far to the right they may never be able come back closer to the middle where most people in this country are.

Glen Beck’s shows on Fox News are so predictable, another blogger, has created a Glen Beck Show Generator using multiple choice format.


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March
3
2009
6:11 pm
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AssistantForRealEstate is a virtual assistant with excellent online marketing skills, including article marketing, blogging, and other content services.

For more great information about AssistantForRealEstate, visit the ForSale Blog and learn about her virtual assistant services for sale. To learn more about what AssistantForRealEstate can do for you visit the Mortgage and Real Estate Blog. And for real estate virtual assistant tools, AssistantForRealEstate has some great offerings as well.

It seems that AssistantForRealEstate is popping up everywhere. I’m sure there’s a good reason for that.


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March
2
2009
8:54 pm
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AssistantForRealEstate, a virtual assistant company in Michigan, offers a free download teaching small businesses how to blog. The free e-book is titled “10 Minutes To Great Real Estate Blogging”.

If you are a real estate agent or broker, or you have a real estate business, then I’d recommending heading over to AssistantForRealEstate and signing up for your free copy of this e-book.

Why AssistantForRealEstate?

Kandra Hamric is more than your run-of-the-mill real estate assistant. She’s a podcaster, a blogger, and spends extra time training other assistants for real estate. Kandra has a corporate background and can handle just about any real estate need in the world. Kandra does virtual assistant work for some of the best real estate agents on the planet and her blog provides daily useful tips for agents, brokers, and other real estate professionals. There is a lot you can learn about real estate blogging and other powerful media tips from Kandra Hamric, AssistantForRealEstate.


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February
28
2009
2:43 pm
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A must see for anyone interested in corporate media in the United States. Don’t buy the propaganda.


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February
20
2009
4:46 am
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December
20
2008
2:41 pm
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I rarely read The Huffington Post. I’m not a subscriber to any of its feeds and I only read it when a headline somewhere else catches my interest and I click the headline to read the story. Usually, it’s because a story somewhere else references The Huffington Post and credits it with a link.

Something else you should know about me is that I’m a former newspaper editor, an award-winning one. Three of my many awards are consecutive Stephen Philbin Awards for Excellence In Legal Journalism awarded by the Dallas Bar Association. I’m not just some idiot with access to a keyboard. Not that any of that really matters.

The issue here is: What is fair payment for a story copied from a source online to be used for another source online? I’m asking because The Huffington Post is itself making the news with allegations of content theft.

As a writer and publisher of content myself, I’m well aware of the issues surrounding content theft and am very sensitive to them. Here are the facts as I know them about this situation:

  • The Huffington Post copied a 146-word story verbatim and in full from Chicago Reader
  • The Huffington Post changed its headline from Chicago Reader’s original
  • The new headline was linked to Chicago Reader’s story
  • The Chicago Reader page carrying the story is a PageRank 0
  • The Huffington Post page carrying the story is a PageRank 4
  • If you copy and paste the first sentence of the story - not the headline - and paste it into the Google search box you’ll find The Huffington Post’s story at the No. 1 position; the Chicago Reader story isn’t even on Page 1
  • Copy and paste the first sentence in Yahoo!s search box and you’ll find The Huffington Post at No. 1 and Chicago Reader at No. 3

In my opinion, Chicago Reader journalists are blowing smoke in the wrong direction. They should be on the backs of the search engines about their issue, not The Huffington Post. Google has a duplicate content policy that allegedly maintains the original story will be the one indexed, not the copied or duplicate one. In that case then, Google isn’t following its own policy. Yahoo! has a similar policy. While Yahoo! may not be treating Chicago Reader perfectly fair in this instance, it is at least doing a better job than Google.

But there’s more to this than meets the eye, obviously. In search engine terms, a link is payment. Whenever one website links to another website, that’s a vote of confidence. At least, that’s the way the search engines see it. In other words, the hyperlinked headline from The Huffington Post’s page to Chicago Reader’s page is a form of payment for the former’s use of the content. While linking to a story from a headline is a little bit slick and less noticeable to a reader than a link at the end of an article, it’s still a link. It still counts the same in terms of search engine benefits.

But is that enough of a payment? We’d have to ask ourselves whether there would be any form of compensation had the same instance happened offline, in print. If the two online publications were both print publications and The Huffington Post “borrowed” an entire story from Chicago Reader, would there be any associated benefit assuming all the other facts were the same? And the answer to that question, of course, is no. That would be a clear instance of plagiarism.

Online, the rules are different. Plagiarism occurs when a source attempts to take credit for a story. The Huffington Post clearly isn’t doing that as evidenced by the linked headline. That doesn’t mean the editors of The Huffington Post are absolved of any guilt whatsoever. They could have done two things differently:

  • Only used part of the Chicago Reader story rather than all of it
  • Linked to the original story at the end of the borrowed content

If The Huffington Post had done both of those things, would Chicago Reader journalists be as concerned? I don’t know; maybe. But what they should really be concerned about is search engine listings. They should write to both the Google and Yahoo! teams and point out that their publication is the originator of that story and would appreciate being listed at the top of the search results for any content found within the article. If the search engines don’t know there’s a problem, they can’t fix it.

If you go to this story in The Huffington Post, you’ll find that they’ve already made the proper adjustments. You can see Chicago Reader’s original story here.

Whet Moser, a Chicago Reader editor, obviously doesn’t understand search engine optimization. If he did, he wouldn’t be accusing The Huffington Post of being a scammer. Here’s what he should have done instead of writing his silly impetuous editorial:

  • Written The Huffington Post editors and requested that only a part of his story be used instead of all of it
  • Sent a letter to both Google and Yahoo! asking for a higher position in the search rankings for key terms within the article

That’s it. Simple. Administrative action usually is all that is required in most cases like this, but it seems that Moser would rather have had bucked up to a perceive bully. This, to me, looks like a case of a writer who is too married to his cheap and worthless words.


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December
19
2008
5:46 pm
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For more than three decades, a man known only as Deep Throat to the public held a certain mystery in the media. He was a source of information for journalists working on the Richard Nixon-Watergate Scandal in the early 1970s and because of his secretive meetings with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the reporters were able to crack the case that led the Nixon’s resignation. Woodward and Bernstein became instant heroes. Deep Throat became an enigma.

His real name is W. Mark Felt and he died yesterday at the age of 95. No anonymous news source has ever held so much fame as the man who was named after the most popular porn film of the time. To many, W. Mark Felt aka Deep Throat is an American hero. He was a news media hero. He was a defender of public information, freedom and democracy, and all that was good. He will be remembered and his place in history has been secured. God bless W. Mark Felt and his family. If anyone will miss him, it will be the thousands of news reporters who established their careers in his honor.


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Today’s hot news is President Bush was victimized by an Iraqi journalist while visiting the country to give his farewell address. The journalist himself was a victim of the war on terror when he was kidnapped a couple of years ago. Now he evidently feels resentment toward President Bush for starting the war in Iraq. But Iraqi authorities were quick to point out that the Iraqi journalist’s feelings aren’t shared by everyone. Well, that may be true, but they are shared by me and about 80% of President Bush’s own country. But none of us have thrown our shoes at him. Not that it would do any good. He doesn’t seem to get the hint.


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December
12
2008
5:25 pm
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The last few days have been hit some huge news stories from every quarter. Here is a sampling of some of the biggest news of the day:

So what does all of this mean for the news? It’s hot man, damn hot!


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December
10
2008
3:26 pm
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The Chicago Tribune has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to protect itself from piling debt. In other words, they owe too much money and don’t want to pay it. I’m not surprised.

Newspapers all across the country have seen declining revenues due to the competition of Internet news sources. In a word, print newspapers can’t compete. They have higher operating costs, a declining readership, and fewer advertisers than before.

More and more people are migrating online to read the news and leaving their newspapers on the stand. So there’s little wonder why Sam Zell found himself in a hole. My suspicion is we’ll see more newspapers seeing a similar fate.


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