Online news players big and small are tripping over themselves to build Facebook applications.

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The editor of Novotya Gazeta, the newspaper that employed slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, said the identity of her killer is known, but not that of whoever might have ordered her murder.

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Staff at Newsday got a start when they saw three of the paper's Pulitzer prize medals listed on eBay (if you want to buy some as an alternative to earning them, they were going for US$15,500).

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From the NYT:

Newsvine looks nothing like the usual news Web site. On a given day, the site can hold dozens of user comments about a British newspaper analysis of trans-Atlantic relations; a first-person essay by an American soldier titled “What My Life in Iraq Is Like” and a link to a new music video by Avril Lavigne.

As a social news source, Newsvine directly reflects the interests of its audience by encouraging users to write articles, comment on other articles and post links to relevant sites. And now it is getting a corporate parent: MSNBC Interactive News is expected to announce its acquisition of the company today, in a move that accentuates the increasing importance of community features on news Web sites.

The deal represents the first acquisition in the 11-year history of MSNBC.com and one of the first times that a leading news Web site has purchased a social news source. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Here's the Newsvine seed on this very topic. And here's some others:

• MSNBC acquires Newsvine
• The future of Newsvine and what it means to you
• Newsvine hits the Bigtime - Where does that leave you and me?

The Iraqi government thinks last month's shooting spree by Blackwater USA security personnel was unprovoked, is tanamount to murder and should be punished as such. The question now becomes, now what?

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Some are trying to lobby to save the tattered, historic little honky-tonk. (h/t to blamblog)

See this earlier post for details.

From The Shotgun (W-S's blog), some parting words by publisher Ezra Levant:

To my deep regret, the Western Standard has decided to stop publishing our print edition.

It's a purely financial decision. Even though our advertising revenues were stronger than ever, with marquee brands like GM, Mazda, BMW and Air Canada filling our pages, and even though we had the most loyal subscribers in the business, with an unheard-of 80% renewal rate, we just weren't close enough to profit.

I offer my thanks to our amazing staff, our loyal investors, and our enthusiastic subscribers, all of whom showed great faith in our project. Our online presence will continue for now in the form of this blog at least; when I spoke recently with our senior columnist, Mark Steyn, about our financial difficulties, he suggested ramping the website up into a Canadian version of Townhall or a conservative version of the Huffington Post. It's an idea worth considering.

We were unable to generate a financial rate of return, but we had an enormous moral rate of return. ...

Make your own joke here.

All snideness aside, putting out a magazine is tough work. Kudos to the Standard staff and management for taking the risk and trying to make the thing fly.

(h/t to MyBlahg)

From the BBC:

It is perhaps the most reproduced, recycled and ripped off image of the 20th Century.

Che Guevara, his eyes framed by heavy brows, a single-starred beret pulled over his unruly hair, stares out of the shot with glowering intensity.

It's now 40 years since the Argentine-born rebel was shot dead, so any young radicals who cheered on his revolutionary struggles in Cuba and Bolivia are well into middle age.

But the image has been infinitely repeated - emblazoned on T-shirts and sprayed on to walls, transformed into pop art and used to wrap ice-creams and sell cigarettes - and its appeal has not faded.

"There is no other image like it. What other image has been sustained in this way?" asks Trisha Ziff, the curator of a touring exhibition on the iconography of Che.

"Che Guevara has become a brand. And the brand's logo is the image, which represents change. It has becomes the icon of the outside thinker, at whatever level - whether it is anti-war, pro-green or anti-globalisation," she says.

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I forgot to post this last week. The Toronto Parking Authority expropriated The Matador at Dovercourt and College to make room for a 20-car parking lot, outraging musicians and heritage-lovers alike.

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I wrote a backgrounder on Pakistan's election and Musharraf's troubles.

Ontario NDP Leader Howard Hampton roasted the reporters today with this:

During a speech in Hamilton, Hampton claimed the real issues affecting Ontarians, such as adequate care for seniors and child poverty, are being ignored by the media.

"All I've heard from the media is you want to talk about faith-based schools. There are real issues out there," Hampton shouted at reporters on Thursday.

"We've become the child poverty capital of Canada. Don't any of you people care? Don't you care about that? Don't you care that there are seniors living in soiled diapers?"

I thought it packed a lot of heat for early October. And what's this I hear about a smog warning for Friday?

From CBC.ca:

Global Television is cutting 200 jobs across Canada as it develops new "state of the art" broadcast centres in four cities, CanWest announced on Thursday.

The company said the centres, to be located in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto, will use the latest in broadcast technology. It will also mean local news programs can immediately begin the transition to high definition, CanWest MediaWorks Inc. said. 

Although CanWest is adding 50 positions as part of the process, it will lose 250 jobs, meaning a net loss of 200.

From TheStar.com:

Canada's most-read daily newspaper is hoping a daring advertising strategy will give it a leg up on the competition.

The Toronto Star is planning a revamped approach to selling newspaper advertising, including a switch to modular ads and sectional pricing, starting Jan. 1, 2008. Sectional advertising means advertisers will be charged a different rate depending on which section their ads appear in.

The changes are expected to provide advertisers with the standardized sizes and targeting opportunities being offered by online media, television and radio.

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From the BBC:

Pioneering research into a "gay bomb" that makes enemy troops "sexually irresistible" to each other has scooped one of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes.

Other winners included work on treating hamster jetlag with impotency drugs, extracting vanilla from cow dung, and the side-effects of sword swallowing.

The awards, founded in 1991, mark achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think".

The prize ceremony took place at Harvard University, US.

Genuine Nobel Laureates handed out the much-coveted awards to the winners, who took away no cash, but instead received a handmade prize, a certificate, and, of course, the glory of such an illustrious win.

Here's the home page of Improbable Research, the magazine that sponsors the awards.

I found myself up at Lawrence West and Dufferin today. As I headed towards the Lawrence subway station on the Dufferin bus, I saw a rather disturbing t-shirt dedicated to the theme of no snitching as I passed by the Lawrence Square Mall (Lawrence Heights, the infamous "Jungle," sits just to the north).

"Warning: Snitch at own risk," read the shirt in one area, worn by a guy who, frankly, didn't look that hardcore to me. There was a hand holding a handgun in the background. There was also a stop sign graphic on the shirt with the word "snitching" on the sign.

I know these shirts have been around for a while. According to this Wikipedia article,  they first surfaced in 1999. I know some wear them more to provoke than anything.

However, one reason I find them problematic is because of conversations like this, overheard on a Bathurst St. streetcar last night:

Teenage girl: You'll never guess who got shot yesterday!

Friends: Who?

TG: (Gives name). He's the nicest guy around, and he gets shot.

I find it sad that kids can have such a conversation with such a blasé tone.

A question I can't answer is whether those kids know who shot their friend. If they do and they don't tell the cops, are they part of the problem? Remember Amon Beckles, shot to death at the funeral of a friend in 2005? He knew who shot his buddy, but wouldn't talk to the cops. "Too bad. Maybe if he did, he'd still be alive," I remember The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente writing at the time.  

If such people chose to live the gangsta life and they die as a result, then too bad for them. Unfortunately, these guys tend to take people like Jane Creba, Shaquan Cadougan or Tamara Carter, the young girl wounded in 2004 on the Jane Street bus, with them. Carter got caught in the crossfire after some "gangstas" shot a guy who had asked them to pipe down on the bus. Here's a version of his story and what he has to say about those who say what happened and chose to say nothing:

What bothers me most about the shooting is the lack of witnesses stepping forward. I don't expect the witnesses to care about me beyond a "Thank God I'm alive" feeling, but the fact they didn't say anything means they don't care about themselves. Making a choice to not come forward is taking the armour off and ignorantly thinking, "They're not gonna shoot me." But look what happens with stray bullets.

If two gangstas want to shoot each other in a duel and the other gangstas want to keep their mouths shut about it, I suppose that's their business.

If some chickenshit gangstas shoot an unarmed person on a bus, or wherever, and other people don't to step forward and help the cops remove these violent, nihilistic thugs from the streets, then they're contributing to the problem. They really should show some courage and snitch.

No End In Sight, a documentary by rookie filmmaker Charles Ferguson about the botching of the Iraq occupation, is a decent, well-meaning film for the most part (it screened at the Bloor tonight as part of the Doc Soup series). It will open in theatres on Friday.

The film has come in for considerable critical acclaim, even winning the special documentary jury prize at Sundance earlier this year.

But what Americans likely need, IMO, is a cogent look at why their country went to war in Iraq in the first place, not whether the occupation was botched or not (the answer to that question is a pretty obvious 'yes').

Overthrowing a vicious tyrant who allegedly had what turned out to be phantom weapons of mass destruction can only be seen as a pretext for the military action launched in March 2003.

Would the U.S. really launch a war that could eventually cost more than US$1.8 trillion to bring "freedom" to a country if said country didn't sit above the world's second-largest conventional crude oil reserves? Personally, I suspect not.

For an example, see this post: It's about the oil, stupid. I find it amusing the Bushies can't bring themselves to use the words "Iraq" and "oil" in the same sentence.

Ferguson said he shied away from addressing the motives issue because he didn't want to make an ideological film. An understandable call, but a bad one just the same.

Oil is likely to become more scarce in the coming decades. An economic replacement doesn't appear to be on the near horizon. If the world -- the United States in particular -- doesn't come to grips with its oil addiction, then I would say the possibility of further U.S.-led wars to bring "freedom" to countries that have significant supplies will remain exceedingly high.

If Americans want to fool themselves that it will be okay to do so, provided that they conduct kinder and gentler invasions and occupations, I'm afraid the world has a problem.

Why yes it is a catchy little promo for the NYT's blog page.

Home Depot wants to open an outlet at Portland and Queen W. as many long-time small businesses in the area die from a combination of rising rents and a changing business climate.

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A partial transcript of a chat with a Symantec representative. I found out the hard way that the newest versions of Norton Internet Security don't work with Win2000:

Imran(Tue Oct 2 10:34:29 EST 2007)>Great! In this case shall i help you to renew the subscription or you will do it from www.Symantecstore.com/Renewal  ?

Mr._William M._Doskoch(Tue Oct 2 13:34:14 EST 2007)>If you could help, that would be great.

Imran(Tue Oct 2 10:35:00 EST 2007)>Because Only 2 versions  2005 and 2006 version softwares are compatible with windows 2000.

Mr._William M._Doskoch(Tue Oct 2 13:34:30 EST 2007)>I guess I should update to the 2006 version.

Imran(Tue Oct 2 10:35:20 EST 2007)>Excellant! Not a problem ,  Anything for you , Just i want you to be happy

From globeandmail.com:

Sun Media has turned to a veteran of the Toronto newspaper wars to run the newsroom of its flagship paper, The Toronto Sun.

Lou Clancy, a former Sun editor who has also served in senior roles at the Toronto Star, has been named editor-in-chief of the tabloid daily.

Here's what Clancy had to say in the Toronto Sun story:

"Content is our No. 1 job," he said. "The Toronto Sun will be the first place for people to go to for local news, whether it is in the paper or the Internet."

Oddly enough, the Star didn't report on this momentous event. :)

Globeandmail.com -- which made a great leap forward in 2006 when it allowed people to comment directly on individual stories -- has added a 'most recommended' feature, allowing people to vote on whether they would recommend a given article to others.

The site's most popular page already had lists of most read and e-mailed. There is also a list of most-commented-upon stories that shows up on the home page.

Right now, however, the most-recommended results don't show up on the home page (yet?). Nor is there a prominent way to vote on recommending a story (see USA Today for a comparison; here's my reaction to its Web 2.0-ification). At globeandmail.com, you have to read the individual story all the way to the bottom (and who does that?) to see the link.

TheStar.com has most read, e-mailed and searched.

CBCNews.ca has most popular, e-mailed and blogged. CBC.ca and TheStar.com both display that information more prominently than globeandmail.com does.

CTV.ca has a short list on its home page of the site's five most popular news stories.

Canada.com appears to be bereft of such Web 2.0 bells and whistles.

From the NYT:

When does a television show become an event worth covering on the evening news? Lately, the answer seems to be every week — at least when the show has high ratings expectations and runs on the same network as the newscast.

On WPIX, the New York affiliate of the CW network, the last two Wednesday nights have been full of heavily promoted segments about “Gossip Girl,” the network’s drama about privileged Upper East Side teenagers. Since “CW11 News at Ten” is broadcast minutes after “Gossip Girl” ends, viewers who wanted to continue savoring the soap opera need to wait only a few minutes.

On Sept. 19 on the “CW11 News at Ten,” the co-anchor Kaity Tong promised a “behind the scenes look at the boys of ‘Gossip Girl.’” The segment was promoted three times before co-anchor Jim Watkins jokingly introduced Allison Kaden as “our ‘Gossip Girl’ correspondent.”

That concept is currently in operation at the foundation-owned St. Petersburg Times in Florida, and it's sparking discussion in an industry where the overwhelming pressure to preserve high profit margins is leading to a gutting of the journalistic mission.

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Yes, newspaper circulation is falling, but major U.S. newspapers aren't trying to reach everyone anymore. If the audience isn't of value to advertisers, then too bad, so sad for them.

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