From the May 6 NYT story:

... While short, multiepisode cellphone series are growing in popularity, the lucrative advertising dollars prevalent in other entertainment segments — and which studios rely on for profit — have been slow to migrate to the supersmall screen. ...

In the two years since Fox Mobile and MTV Networks pioneered the market for cellphone programming, almost every major film and television studio is developing projects. But, for now, advertisers are reluctant to abandon traditional formats.

In 2006, $421 million was spent on mobile phone advertising, said a study by the market research firm eMarketer. By contrast, broadcast television advertising was estimated at $48 billion last year, according to the Universal McCann media agency.

“If you think about what the market could be from an advertising perspective, it is a dream,” said Linda Barrabee, an analyst for wireless mobile communications at the Yankee Group, a research firm in Boston.

“That’s why you see a lot of companies playing with different concepts and ideas,” she said, but added that “it’s hard to target advertising in a meaningful way. From a brand perspective, they haven’t figured it out.”

If you want to see one pissed-off bus driver, go to this CTV.ca story and launch the video.

Update

The company says calls that came in Tuesday were mainly in support of the driver.

The Washington Post's Pamela Constable looks at the pressures on Afghanistan's news media from both the Taliban and the government.

From the Beeb:

The BBC journalist kidnapped in Gaza, Alan Johnston, has now been missing for eight weeks.

The 44-year-old has not been seen since he was seized at gunpoint on his way home in Gaza City on 12 March.

Since then no public demands have been made by his kidnappers or information released on his whereabouts.

From the NYT:

In an unusual step for the news media, three journalists whose private phone records were scrutinized by investigators working for Hewlett-Packard intend to sue the company for invasion of privacy.

The dispute stems from an investigation of Hewlett-Packard’s directors initiated under the company’s former chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn. To try to uncover leaks from board members, private investigators examined the phone records of nine journalists who covered the company, as well as the records of some of their relatives.

While the dispute revolves around the issue of how the journalists’ careers may have been damaged by having their phone records examined, the threat to sue also raises the question whether it is proper for a news organization or its reporters to sue a company they cover. It is certainly not common.

From the NYT:

While most newspapers are trying to stake bigger claims online, one new publication is pulling material off the Internet to be printed in ink.

John Wilpers, editor in chief of BostonNow, a free weekday daily introduced last month, said he wanted to fill the paper with items that local bloggers submitted to the BostonNow Web site.

The NYT looks at the politically sensitive act of public kissing and two of its highest profile practitioners -- Richard Gere and ... Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?!?!

Byron Calame is at the end of his two-year posting as the public editor of the New York Times. "How The Times deals with two major strategic challenges -- lagging advertising revenue and the transition to the Web-- will determine the quality of the news readers get in the years ahead," he writes.

On Thursday night, the 10 Republican presidential hopefuls were asked if they believed in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Three said they did not. Question: Does rejecting Darwinism also mean that some core conservative beliefs also have to be rejected?

Perth, Australia sits on the edge of a desert. Will it become the world's first ghost metropolis, abandoned because it has no water? Probably not, but the water wastage and green lawns might have to go.

BBC reporter Rachel Reid on being allowed to swim at an international hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

A catch-up post: Democracy Now! talked to two people, including one journalist, who were on the receiving end of some rough justice by the Los Angeles Police Dept. during a May 1 immigrants' rights march.

The Globe and Mail's Liam Lacey didn't much like it:

Without any real sense of a coherent agenda behind the obsessive themes of doubling, velvet-curtained entertainments and pervasive decay, Inland Empire is less self-indulgent than self-parody, a bucket of Lynchian leftovers, stirred slightly and left to ferment in the dark.

Back in December, the NYT's Manohla Dargis liked it a lot:

... The extraordinary, savagely uncompromised “Inland Empire,” his first feature in five years, his first shot in video and one of the few films I’ve seen this year that deserves to be called art. Dark as pitch, as noir, as hate, by turns beautiful and ugly, funny and horrifying, the film is also as cracked as Mad magazine, though generally more difficult to parse.

And I like what the Toronto Star's Geoff Pevere had to say:

As it drifts narcotically between various scenarios, states of mind and rooms furnished in vintage Lynchian mustiness, Inland Empire keeps daring you to regard it as a puzzle (like the similarly Hollywood-set mind scrambler Mulholland Drive) that holds somewhere in its dark corridors – and around its multiple dark corners – a solution. And you can certainly look at it this way, but therein surely lies madness – a kind of shortcut to precisely the state of shattered mind to which Dern seems doomed.

At least on first glance.

Having only seen Inland Empire once – and therefore woefully unqualified to judge whether it might all snap together like a Rubik's cube after subsequent encounters – my advice is to simply surrender to its irrational allure. If you can achieve a state of trancelike submission that synchs with the protagonists' own, you're far less likely to let the movie – an amazing and unshakeable experience – drive you nuts.

I suspect if I went back through his previous reviews of Lynch movies, I would find that Mr. Lacey doesn't much like Mr. Lynch.

If I did the same thing with Ms. Dargis and Mr. Pevere, I'd find much the same pattern -- they liked him before, and they like him now.

And so it will be with you. If you're already a fan of Lynch, then take in Inland Empire (playing at the Royal on College St.). If you're not a Lynch fan, or if you require a highly logical, linear narrative, this might not be your cup of tea.

Personally, I am a big fan of Mr. Lynch (with the exception of Wild at Heart). While I wouldn't call Inland Empire perfect, I would gladly play money -- my own, if necessary -- to see it a second time in a theatre.

There's been a flurry of activity with respects to media companies in this past week. News Corp wants Dow Jones, Thomson Corp. wants Reuters and, for a time, it seems Microsoft and Yahoo wanted each other.

From the May 2 BBC story:

PRESS FREEDOM 2007 Best: Finland, Iceland Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. Worst: Burma, Cuba, Libya, Turkmenistan, North Korea (Russia 164/195) (Source: Freedom House) Read the findings Global press freedom 2007: selected data [256KB]

Generally, Russian officials react extremely badly to suggestions that their country ranks alongside Burma, Cuba and North Korea, for media freedom. They insist that there is a genuine pluralism of opinion - in the printed media, at least.

However, television remains the predominant source of information for the majority of Russians. And it does not allow opposition voices to be heard.

Many Russia-watchers have followed the change of tone and content of state television over recent years.

Increasingly, hard-hitting investigative journalism has been replaced by Soviet-style "razoblacheniya" - or exposes. They often look crude and carry unsubstantiated allegations.

In addition, any form of satire aimed at the president or his closest associates seems to be totally forbidden.

Equally, there is an obvious shift in favour of "positive" news, presenting an optimistic picture of Russian life, especially when compared to events in the neighbouring countries, which are often portrayed as unstable.

From the BBC:

A US survey of battlefield ethics among troops in Iraq has found widespread tolerance for torture in certain circumstances and problems with morale.

The survey, by an army mental health advisory team, sampled more than 1,700 soldiers and marines between August and October 2006.

It examined their views towards torture and the Iraqi civilian population.

A Pentagon official said the survey had looked under every rock and what was found was not always easy to look at.

The Pentagon survey found that less than half the troops in Iraq thought Iraqi civilians should be treated with dignity and respect.

More than a third believed that torture was acceptable if it helped save the life of a fellow soldier or if it helped get information about the insurgents.

About 10% of those surveyed said they had actually mistreated Iraqi civilians by hitting or kicking them, or had damaged their property when it was not necessary to do so.

Masud Alam of the BBC's Urdu service explores the way freedom manifests itself in Pakistan, and how if you're the right person in the right job, you have almost unimaginable "freedoms."

From the BBC:

Two journalists in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan have been jailed after publishing an article that some Muslims said insulted Islam.

Samir Sadaqatoglu and Rafiq Tagi, from Sanat newspaper, were sentenced to four and three years in prison respectively, for inciting religious hatred.

It is the latest in a series of jail sentences for journalists in energy-rich Azerbaijan. ...

The article, published in a small-circulation newspaper, compared European Christian values to those of Islam and some Muslims believe it insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

Jail is too lenient in the eyes of some offended Muslims. They called for the deaths of the two men. However, we can all take comfort in this:

Seven journalists are now in prison in the country, but authorities say there are no problems with free speech in Azerbaijan as long as journalists obey the law.

The Beeb's Richard Black explains why it's still up to governments to act on the IPCC's findings about the how-tos and costs of mitigating climate change -- and they might well try to weasel on that.

The actual IPPC summary for policy makers can be found here.

BBC: Climate change 'can be tackled'

Washington Post: Scientists put price on global warming effort

NYT: Climate panel reaches consensus on the need to reduce harmful emissions

Guardian: World 'must act to avoid devastating global warming'

Times Online: We have the technology to tackle global warming, scientists say

The Telegraph: World agrees it can afford to tackle climate change

Overheard in Kensington Market:

We went to the zoo at Christmas. Nobody was there. Not even the fuckin' animals.

From the NYT:

The New York Times yesterday named its next public editor, Clark Hoyt, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor who oversaw the Knight Ridder newspaper chain’s coverage that questioned the Bush administration’s case for the Iraq war.

Mr. Hoyt, 64, was the Washington editor at Knight Ridder from 1999 until the company was sold last year. His responsibilities included overseeing the Washington news bureau, the chain’s foreign bureaus and the news service that the company ran jointly with the Tribune Company.

Before that, he served as Knight Ridder’s Washington bureau chief, and then as vice president for news, with responsibility for hiring and promoting top editors at the company’s newspapers, which included The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The San Jose Mercury-News and The Detroit Free Press.

In the prelude to the Iraq war and the early days of the war, Knight Ridder stood apart from most of the mainstream news media in raising some doubts about the Bush administration’s claims, later discredited, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said that record contributed to his selection of Mr. Hoyt.

“There was a lot of work Knight Ridder did that was prescient, that wasn’t easy to do,” Mr. Keller said. “It’s always hard to go against conventional wisdom. I think it probably brings him a measure of credibility that helps in getting started on a job like that — that he’s been associated with a brave and aggressive reporting exercise like that.”

The one odd thing about the story is how little it says about current public editor Byron Calame. I think he did an excellent job (as did the first public editor, Daniel Okrent).

The Royal Theatre screened a trilogy of Bruce McDonald films Thursday night - Road Kill, Highway 61 and Hard Core Logo as part of the launch of filmcan.ca, a new website about Canadian film.

I saw the latter, a 1996 mockumentary about the reunion tour of a legendary Vancouver punk rock band.

Early on in the film, the character Bucky Haight is introduced, a seminal figure in punk rock left a double amputee by some shotgun-wielding psycho, leading to the reuniting of Hard Core Logo for a benefit concert and subsequent Prairie tour.

There is some concert footage of Haight labeled "Smilin' Buddha Cabaret 1982."

I'm glad the film acknowledged the Smilin' Buddha, which was the CBGB of Vancouver in its day (it was closed by the time the film was shot).

However, I've always wondered why McDonald didn't use the club's neon sign in the film. Here it is; you tell me if it's cinematic! :)

McDonald explained in the Q-and-A after the screening that the Vancouver band 54/40 (who named an album after the club; they played their first gig there in 1980) had possession of the sign by that time. They would have liked to use it, but nobody seemed to know where the sign was when they were shooting (the movie was filmed in Vancouver over an 18-day period, but the sign may have been in Toronto at the time).

There is currently a Smiling Buddha bar near Dovercourt and College, but they had never even heard of the Vancouver club. An important part of our country's cultural heritage has been lost to future generations! :)

If you still doubt that the Smilin' Buddha sign is a special piece of neon, there is a segment on it in the 1997 film Glowing in the Dark. Members of 54/40 talk about how they saved and restored the sign.

Update

More on the Smilin' Buddha from TrekLens:

... Anyway, this image is really here in honour of the Smilin’ Buddha, a legendary club once located at 109 East Hastings Street in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, now sadly gone. It was also a small Buddha, a tiny place that couldn’t hold more than about a hundred people, but its reputation was mighty.

Early in its history it had hosted Jimi Hendrix, amongst others, but by the early 1980s it had become the home to local punk bands. It was here, for instance, that I saw the infamous D.O.A., as well as Pointed Sticks. When the Smilin' Buddha finally gave up and closed its doors, the band 54-40 -- who had debuted there in 1980 -- bought its famous (and very beautiful) neon sign (manufactured by Walburn Neon, circa 1950), on which Buddha’s tummy “jiggled” as he laughed. In 1994, 54-40 released an album called Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret (the club’s full name) and took the sign on tour with them. At one time there was also a large wooden Buddha that sat outside as well… I wonder who got that?

From a Cannabis Culture discussion:

P.P.S.: My wife got high with Tommy and Cheech millions of years ago when they used to play the Smilin Buddha Cabaret in Vancouver.

There is a 1979 Ubyssey article available here on the club (it's a .pdf, scroll down to page 8). The lede:

The Smilin' Buddha Cabaret is presenting some of Vancouver's most exciting rock groups in the seediest, dirtiest, most depressing strip of the city.

The 2005 compilation CD Vancouver Complication collects some of the music of Vancouver's punk heyday (more here).

Here's a gig poster for the Subhumans.

Finally, YVR photog Bev Davies took punk rock pikturs back in the day. She had some collected and published a selection of them in a 2007 calendar supplemented by interviews with Nardwuar the Human Serviette.

The BBC  reports that the 'i's are dotted and the 't's are crossed for the policy makers summary report on fighting climate change. The report will be delivered in Bangkok, Thailand.

Went fishing at the Toronto Islands late this afternoon. Caught three pike, including a seven-pounder, which is a decent fish!

The smallest pike of the three recently had a brush with death, judging from the bite marks near its tail.

At one point, two swans came abnormally close, presumably to see if I had any handouts for them. I did not. When this became clear to the swans, they left. Before they did, and I don't know whether the bird was trying to make a statement or not, one of them took a dump in the water right in front of me.

Early-season swan guano is latte-coloured, if you're wondering. If your'e really curious, the offal formed a starburst-like pattern, sort of like fecal fireworks.

Back in early January, NATO admitted that it had killed too many civilians in 2006.

What a lack of difference four months makes. Observe this BBC story about the deaths of at least 50 Afghan civilians this week as a result of NATO military operations:

In Kabul, President Hamid Karzai met foreign military commanders to express his displeasure.

"The president told Nato and coalition commanders that the patience of the Afghan people is wearing thin with the continued killing of innocent civilians," a statement from his office said.

"Civilian deaths and arbitrary decisions to search people's houses have reached an unacceptable level and Afghans cannot put up with it any longer.

Mr Karzai told journalists that civilian deaths would bring "bad consequences".

"It is becoming a heavy burden and we are not happy about it.

"I hope the international community will find with us, with our relevant ministries, a mechanism that will bring an end to collateral damage, to damage to civilians."

Update

NATO promises to do better.

Here's a feature I did for CTV.ca looking ahead to Friday's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about what must be done to keep dangerous climate change from occurring.

And here's a related BBC news story from the conference in Bangkok that also ties to the George Monbiot column I posted about on Tuesday.

Much has been made of trying to hold the warming of the Earth's climate to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial Revolution levels. Mark Lynas, British author of Six Degrees: Life On A Hotter Planet, tries to sketch out what that might practically mean.

From the Guardian column by Rory Stewart on World Press Freedom Day:

Originally proclaimed by the United Nations' General Assembly in 1993, the occasion has also been marked since 1997 by the awarding of the annual UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize to a deserving person, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence and promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world - especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger. Significantly, the prize is named in honor of Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who in 1986 was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper, El Espectador, in Bogota, for denouncing the activities of powerful drug barons in his country.

Twenty years later, journalists like Cano are still dying, simply for doing their job. In fact, last year saw a record number of journalists and media workers killed or thrown in prison around the world, with dozens dead in Iraq alone.

With reporters being killed or held hostage by groups in conflict, with governments jailing, threatening and censoring journalists and cyber dissidents for promoting democracy or political debate, and with drug traffickers, corrupt local politicians and other criminals getting rid of reporters, members of the media are literally risking their lives just to get the story. Every year it seems there are more and more dangers to be overcome. And, more and more, journalists are paying the ultimate price - losing their lives - simply to protect our right to know.

Find the transcript here.

And here's a preview post.

George Monbiot, Guardian columnist and author of Heat: How To Stop The Planet From Burning, thinks they might very well be. Here's the unnuanced headline:

A trip down memory lane:

Expat Yank Greg Palast on what he sees as the flagging investigative will of the U.S. news media.