More stuff you should be reading instead of watching the Sunday talking heads.

• Via Boing Boing, artist Hugh MacLeod writes some pretty potent stuff on the topic of How to Be Creative. A lot of this is stuff I’ve thought about and talked about for years, but Hugh collects it and puts it in simple, direct, and powerful terms. A good read for any creative (or non-creative) person. (I’m especially thinking of a particular jazz-inspired original music artist I know.)
• News Hounds has an interesting take on the media’s self-flagellation over their convention coverage. Eleanor speculates that they’ll use that to justify more, and therefore uneven coverage of the Republican Convention. It’ll be interesting to see whether that prediction comes true.
• A related bit of speculation I’m turning over in my mind: if networks refuse to broadcast the convention because they claim ratings are low or the public isn’t interested, how else do they tailor the news to fit what they think we’ll be interested in? Shouldn’t news outlets at least claim to be free of public influence in deciding what to broadcast or print? Aren’t they supposed to be searching for the truth, telling us what’s important, what to pay attention to? Rather, Koppel, Jennings, Woodruff, Lehrer, et al… they’re supposed to be our leaders when it comes to watching and understanding politics. The Times has an article that turns over some of these questions and others. Though I think Alessandra Stanley’s lament for a network news anchor to be our pilot is a bit much, she does a nice job of surveying What We Missed In Boston.
• And more media analysis from perpetual media head-banger Brad DeLong.
• Why does anyone trust Microsoft? The company has brought out a new search engine intended to compete with Google, but amazingly, it gives preferential treatment to stories appearing on MSNBC, a Microsoft affiliate. So, you’re not getting more-or-less neutral search results, you’re getting pretty blatantly rigged search results. (via Slashdot)

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Sunday, August 1st, 2004 @ 12:47 pm Nothings
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