Media
While Harvey Leonard was only calling for 6-10 inches on Wednesday in tonight's forecast, Pete Bouchard was telling us could get up to 15 inches: "Wow! We're going to get hit pretty hard on the South Shore!" he said - adding Boston is also in that big band.
Harv did get points, however, for mentioning the Blizzard of '78, although he was referring to the Washington storm the other day. Pete, meanwhile, was pooh-poohing the 6,000-person snowball fight in DC: "You won't see us calling it 'Snowmageddon,' he said.
Justin Silverman discusses the legal banhammer Channel 7 is using to try to remove every last copy of the infamous Pete Bouchard measurement video - the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act:
... Under the DMCA's safe harbor provisions, websites are protected from copyright liability for hosting videos posted by users so long as they promptly remove the infringing material when notified by the copyright holder. WHDH didn't want its weatherman creating a storm, so as the copyright owner of the news program it could request that YouTube pull the video from its site.
The DMCA's notice-and-takedown mechanism puts the onus on the individual who posted the material to send a counter-notice asking that the material be put back up and usually raising some defense to copyright infringement, such as fair use. In this case there's a fairly strong argument that the 27-second clip of Bouchard is fair. The amount of the original broadcast used is very small, the purpose of the clip is to spur public discussion, and there is arguably no effect on WHDH's news market. It's likely WHDH either didn't consider fair use before ordering the clip's takedown, or it simply didn't care.
He notes there's currently a YouTube fair-use case in federal court.
Ah, what would we do without the Metro? Yesterday, they alerted West Roxbury to the new French pizzerie on Centre Street near LaGrange Street: Denois. Today, Dan Seitz reports they accompanied a short item about Tim Murray with a photo of Therese Murray.
Go to wbur.org, then click on your browser View button, then on View Source. Maybe tilt your head a little to the right.
Boston magazine has a long article on the public-radio war between WBUR and WGBH that I'm sure is just absolutely fascinating, but which I'm having trouble reading because it's just so full of mistakes, starting with the very first paragraph: Read more
John Carroll wonders why the Globe, the Herald and the Times all did "air-kissy" obituaries of Howard Zinn, "a legendarily divisive figure."
Does Boston Metro know about Boston MetroGuide, which is seeking to hire writers who will get paid only if they also sell ads to go with their "articles"?
... This is your chance to be the official blogger/commentator/voice of Boston on a new Metro Guide Website that is quickly growing in popularity. ...
The Outraged Liberal notes a Washington Bureau preview of Obama's state-of-the-union address buys into the national-press mantra that the recent Senate election was all about health care when the Globe's homies in Boston are busy writing there were other issues involved:
... Maybe they should get out of Washington and come home a little more often. Or at least read their own paper. ...
But maybe that's still better than the Herald's obsession with Brown's treasure trail.
Not a clue what Channel 25 and Commonwealth Magazine will be saying about some city affordable housing program, but here's the BRA's retort. OK, looks like the BRA is responding to teaser tweets from a Channel 25 reporter questioning whether city workers get an unfair advantage in a housing lottery.
California Fire News tries to get a rise out of Our Pete with this message on Twitter:
Boston weatherman Pete Bouchard we wish you well in your new endeavors at WalMart
Pete refuses to swallow the bait:
Stick to the flooding and fires folks.
Earlier:
In case you missed it.
This missed connection ad on Craigslist reads like a modern day love poem. Bearded men of Boston...pull your faces out of the PBR pitcher, it looks like someone has their eye on you...
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/mis/1567745744.html
Especially not by, gasp, a blog. The local paper of record writes today (actually, for the second time) about the Obama-hating Congressional candidate who had to retract the Scott Brown endorsement, you know, the one he didn't actually get.
The brouhaha began Thursday, when Brown denied he had made an endorsement. That came as several political blogs cited news reports from the 2008 presidential campaign, when Hudak erected a poster on his lawn in Boxford that depicted Barack Obama as Osama Bin Laden.
Actually, as I bet the Globe knows, it was one single blog that broke the story (and continues to advance it). So what's the Globe have against Dan Kennedy? And if the story cites "several political blogs," would it have killed them to link to those blogs?
The Herald catches up with Channel 7's general manager, who says what appeared to be a Magnum moment was actually Bouchard getting tripped up by a technical glitch:
... "It clearly wasn't intended the way people are portraying it," Wayland said. ...
State House News Service reports the guy behind KennedySeat.com is Conor Yunits, "the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce communications director, former state rep candidate, and scion of a prominent Brockton political family."
UPDATE: YouTube has taken down the clip because of a "copyright claim" from Channel 7. Fail Blog still has it up, link in the comments, but in case it disappears from there, it's a capture of Bouchard talking about snow totals on Jan. 18. He points to a listing for Princeton and says "the biggest amount that I could find, almost as big as me, about nine inches." And then he glances off to the side, as if he's expecting a giant hook to come pull him off the set.
Pete Bouchard puts together a pretty impressive weather package: Read more
The Phoenix catches boston.com putting up an interactive map showing Coakley has won the election several hours before the polls closed.
Now anybody who's ever worked in a newsroom knows somebody was just doing this to test the map out, not because he or she is part of a zombie army munching its way through the Commonwealth. Anybody who's ever worked with Web sites, however, knows NOT TO FRICKIN' DO THAT ON A LIVE SYSTEM. That's why God gave us test servers behind the firewall, guys.
Greg Reibman, publisher of GateHouse New England's Boston-area papers, explains how the chain is trying to prevent a recurrence of last week's Cambridge Chronicle front page. He says it was strictly unintentional, but that he's looking at just banning certain types of sticky-note ads, including those from liquor stores.
The Boston Business Journal digs up the numbers for Steven Ainsley, who retired on Dec. 31. They include stock and options doled out to managers two months before the Corporate Overlords threatened to shut the Globe last year.
The Herald confirms a report by Boston Radio Watch that Clear Channel, the owner of WXKS-AM, wants to turn 1200 into a "news/talk" station, in part by figuring out how to get out of its contract with WRKO and get Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck over to the right side of the dial.
Then you probably remember Marjorie Arons-Barron (how could you forget a name like that?). She's blogging now. In addition to politics and media, she's writing about theater and movies.
Via Richard Howe.
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