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Pretty Outside, Broken Inside

You may have noticed that this site is now on a bona-fide blog platform…about a dozen-plus years late to the party, but hey, it finally happened. However, the transition has been a trainwreck behind the scenes. While things are clean-looking, (somewhat) searchable, and dialogue-enabled, the design, configuration, and content-migration did not go remotely as I’d hoped.

For one thing, most internal links within posts are broken, which requires hand-code fixes. Not only just for links to other site-content, but also to links to locally-hosted media files (audio/video/pictures). With 1,000+ posts over 17+ years, it’s a mind-numbing task, but I hope to have it complete within the next week or two. (As of today, all posts from 2006-present have been fixed). Read More

Just in Time for the Holidays…

…I decided to remove the store-section of this web site. For years I have affiliated with alternative or independent retailers of books and music, but nobody really bit, partially because e-commerce on this site is somewhat antithetical to its nature; it’s really a labor of love. (Even so, many thanks to those who do occasionally throw a buck or few my way via the donate button).

Apologies to those who had linked to my book reviews; perhaps those will be resurrected in the future. Read More

Not-Quite-Hiatus Ahoy

It’s that time of the semester when my teaching duties kick into high-gear. This fall, I’ve got 33 students in an introduction to the political economy of the media class (which is right up my alley, and I had loads of fun teaching it last spring). Each of them are now busy researching and writing 10-page papers on a media policy issue of their choice. I’m spending long days in the office doing paper-counseling sessions as well as the necessary work for class-prep itself. In addition, I’ve got some deadlines looming to submit paper-abstracts for a communication research conference.

As a result, I’ll be shortly suspending multi-weekly news-updates to concentrate on getting the legacy projects of the site back up to currency. In the meantime, outside of the instances when I simply can’t help myself from bloviating, I strongly suggest that (if you aren’t already) you supplement your info-diet with a subscription to either the Benton Foundation’s Communications-Related Headlines newsletter or Free Press’ Media Reform Daily. Both are free; they’re also required reading for my students.

Miscellaneous Follow-Upage

After months of frustration, the hosting provider for DIYmedia.net has saved my day by stepping in and graciously providing me with independent, unrestricted e-mail capability. I’ll never have to rely on Comcast again for that application (provided Comcast’s general broadband network uptime remains reliable, which is a questionable proposition).

You know you’ve got a systemic problem when the first prompt a customer encounters at your 1-800 number is, “For trouble with your service….” Read More