Uppity Wisconsin

Our favorite irascible media tyrant is in the news once again, and once again it’s time for me to bring you a story of doing one thing while wishing for another.

In a November 6th interview, Sky News Australia’s David Speers spent about 35 minutes with the CEO of NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch; the conversation covering topics as diverse as software piracy, world economics, the role of Fox News (and Fox NewsPinion©) in American politics, a strange defense of Glenn Beck, and, not very long afterwards, an even stranger defense of immigration.

We have heard a lot about the...how can I put this politely...challenges Murdoch seems to face associating factual reality with his reality, and we could have lots of fun going through his factual misstatements—but instead, I want to take on one specific issue today: Rupert Murdoch says he hates it when people steal his content from the Internet to draw readers to their sites...which is funny, if you think about it, because he has no problem at all stealing my content (and lots of yours, as well) for his sites.

It has been an amazing week in Iran, and you are no doubt seeing images that would have been unimaginable just a few weeks ago. For most of us, Iran has been a country about which we know very little…which, obviously, makes it tough to put the limited news we’re getting into a proper context.

The goal of today’s conversation is to give you a bit more of an “insider look” at today’s news; and to do that we’ll describe some of the risks Iranian bloggers face as they go about their business, we’ll meet a blogging Iranian cleric, we’ll address the issue of what tools the Iranians use for Internet censorship and the companies that could potentially be helping it along, and then we’ll examine Internet traffic patterns into and out of Iran.

Finally, a few words about, of all things, how certain computer games might be useful as tools of revolution.

The first task for today…let’s talk about blogging:

It turns out that bloggers in Iran risk running afoul of the Press Law of 1986, which, in addition to requiring the licensing of media outlets, reads in part:

Article 6: The print media are permitted to publish news items except in cases when they violate Islamic principles and codes and public rights as outlined in this chapter…

…5.

Many of you may have noticed the widget that has been displaying around this site for the last few weeks from RootsWire.org.  RootsWire is an exciting project that we've been working on in conjunction with many of the bloggers who are covering the Democratic Convention.  We are pulling together content from many of the best bloggers in the country in a single site, covering the convention from many angles, both in different parts of the planet and from different political viewpoints. This has been a great experience, and we're thrilled that so many well-known bloggers from around the world are participating. 

This has been (and continues to be) a lot of work, but it has also been a great experience.  We've been having weekly conference calls for the last few weeks and are getting to know each other, and share information (we're mostly still befuddled about what will happen once we get to Denver and are breathlessly awaiting more info from the Democratic Party).  

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The BBC reports that Olive Riley passed away at the age of 108 in New South Wales, Australia. Olive had posted more than 70 entries on her blog (which may not be working at this time) since 2007. On June 18th, he was moved into a nursing home with a bad cough. Regardless, she was still able to post her 73rd and 74th entries before she left this world Saturday, July 12, 2008.

For Olive's last posts, see a temporary blog that was created for Olive by a retired journalist and friend from Sydney: World's Oldest Blogger.

This is the first article in the Uppity Wisconsin Democratic Convention Coverage.

I'll be reporting from the Democratic Convention in Denver this August. I will be sending back reports, pictures, and video to Wisconsin. In return though, I'd like your help, dear readers. Help can take a lot of different forms:

We just received word out here at the farm that Uppity Wisconsin will be the credentialed blogging organization from Wisconsin at the National Democratic Convention in Denver. We're excited.

We'll have more news later about this, and information on what you can expect from Uppity Wisconsin in August. The list of state blogging credentials will be released later today.

Two recent decisions by the FEC have made it clear that bloggers are exempt from reporting regulations because we are media.

This clarifies several legal issues, and in the interests of bloggers and political web sites. The law suits in question suggested that bloggers need to be subject to FEC reporting regulations as if we were campaigners. The new FEC rulings make it clear that this is not the case, and the bloggers are exempt as are other forms of media.  See the link below. 

I attended the WisOpinion/AT&T sponsored Blog Summit II in Milwaukee on Saturday. Live blogging was difficult because most of us could not get on the wireless network in the room. The meeting was held in a pleasant room at the Marquette Law School. Personally I found it interesting to meet many of the bloggers with whom I only have email relationships.

The sessions in the conference have already been covered by much of the Cheddarsphere, so I am not going to belabor the topics of discussion other than to say that although the sessions were interesting, the most interesting session to me was the final one which was a group discussion about the future of blogging in Wisconsin, which allowed much more participation from the assembled bloggers.

You might also want to take a gander at Mike Plaisted's article about the blog summit, most of which I agree with completely.