Svenska Dagbladet's editorial blog PJ Just Nu, is turning out to be a sandbox for liberal think-tank Timbro. Yesterday I mentioned the Timbro connections between PJ Anders Linder and the first three blogs he recommends. In today's paper Svenska Dagbladet comments on yesterday's succesful blog launch and quotes two people. Who? Timbro thinkers Dick Erixon and Johan Norberg of course.

On the blog today Linder "debunks" Morgan Spurlocks film Supersize me and gets support from Waldemar Ingdahl, president of Swedish think-tank Eudoxa. Ingdahl who by coincidence also has published a book at Timbro.

Both Eudoxa and Timbro are part of International Policy Network. IPN's main mission is to "support and help establish international, rightwing thinktanks, to organise conferences and campaigns, and to write articles promoting its agenda."

Also, read this review of Eudoxa's political connections by Michael H. Chung, Senior Fellow at Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, University of Washington.

According to an article dated Sept 1 (!) by CorpWatch, corporate donations to the Republican National Convention will reach $160 million this year, "making it the most expensive political convention in history. It will dwarf the record $95 million spent by Democrats on their 2004 convention."

The article describes in detail how corporate interests sponsor both parties' conventions in order to pave the ground for lobbying initiatives. Says AGA spokeswoman Peggy Laramie:

"We want to raise the visibility of natural gas issues in a fun atmosphere (!)."

David Neiwert wrote an interesting piece last week on Orcinus about astroturfing and the difference between the campaigns of John Kerry and George W. Bush.

Streaming video from the Olympics have been much debated. This FAQ from Swedish Television shows yet another example of IOC's goofy control policies:

According to IOC rules, in order to view video clips you must:

> You must have Windows 98 SE or a newer version.
> You must have Windows Media Player version 9 installed.
> Your computer must allow cookies.
> You must register with username and password of your own choice, and a valid email address. Then you must log in using this information when you want to watch the clips. Registration is only necessary the first time you want to watch a clip.
> Your bandwitdh must be faster than 100 kbps. A bandwidth test of your connection will be performed.
> Your computer must be located within the Eurovision-area. An IP-test and control of your system clock will be performed to establish your time zone.

Observ that your registration is personal! You cannot send video clips to another computer. Illegitimate use of video clips will result in us blocking your VPN, Proxy and IP-address for use of streaming without notice.

Ouch!

Need inspiration for a PR stunt? Check out Josh Kinberg's Bikes against Bush, a brilliant "one-of-a-kind, interactive protest/performance occurring simultaneously online and on the streets of NYC during the upcoming Republican National Convention. Using a Wireless Internet-enabled bicycle outfitted with a custom-designed printing device, the Bikes Against Bush bicycle can print text messages sent from web users directly onto the streets of Manhattan in water-soluble chalk"

His protest got even more attention when he was arrested and when his equipment was confiscated the whole thing suddenly became a possible violation of the first amendment sending the blogosphere into red alert. Kinberg also appeared on NBC's Hardball last night.

As I wrote last Wednesday, Sweden's second daily, Svenska Dagbladet today launched a blog, the first from an established Swedish media. The blog PJ Just nu (PJ Right now) bears the name of the paper's chief political editor PJ Anders Linder, although it is really a group blog. All the paper's political editors will contribute to the blog.

In today's paper, Linder writes:

"At SvD we feel that it is important that also established quality media - "mainstream" media as the bloggers like to put it - accepts the challenge and gets involved. We must find our own way of using the new tools and develop our own tone of voice. It would be devestating to isolate in hope that all this will blow away. We must participate; to learn, to influence, to live in the flow."

On the blog, Linder links to three other blogs: PR agency JKL and libertarian thinkers Dick Erixon and Johan Norberg. It is quite typical that he links to Erixon and Norberg. For all his claims of an open discussion and that bloggers in general are generous with links to both allies and opponents, it will be interesting to see if "PJ Just nu" will promote an open debate (the blog does not have a comments function) or be a forum for liberal thinking. The thing is that both Erixon and Norberg are part of the liberal think tank Timbro, which by coincidence Linder was head of between 1996 and 2000. Also, Fredrik Erixon, chief economist at Timbro has, "what you might call close ties with a senior editor at JKL Blog" and Anders Kempe of JKL was a member of Timbro's board (thanks to Per Gudmundsson for the link).

Either way, the fact that SvD launches a blog is another sign that the two leading Swedish dailies approach the blogosphere quite differently. Dagens Nyheter is shying away from it, maybe partly because of the "attacks" by local media watchdogs like Stockholm Spectator. SvD on the other hand seems to embrace the blogosphere. They read blogs, they quote blogs in the paper and now they have their own blog. To me that sounds like a smarter approach if you want to stay tuned to developments in journalism.

Footnote: RSS feed here. No trackback or comments functions yet.

Update: Another thing, if you start fooling around with RSS feeds, change the URL once you go live otherwise everyone will see your old posts. SvD obviously started posting on July 15...



Update 2: "PJ Just nu" is not the first blog from a Swedish editorial writer. Håkan Jacobson, editorial writer at Upsala Nya Tidning has a blog, although it is a personal blog and not connected to the paper.

So the mea culpa from Dagens Nyheter regarding plagiarism finally came this week, although halfheartedly. In summary: It is wrong, but everyone does it and we are not going to take any measures to prevent it from happening again.

DN's "reader ombudsman" Lilian Öhrström writes that "plagiarism is a serious thing" but on the other hand she downplays its importance by saying that it is a common practice among journalists.

DN's editor in chief Jan Wifstrand uses the same method: "[plagiarism] is the most common ethical violation in journalism. We don't want to have that situation at Dagens Nyheter". On the other hand he says that "there is no need for investigations. You need to have open eyes and ears."

What strikes me as odd is that Lilian Öhrström is handed the duty to put the records straight. Media always point to the highest possible executive to take responsibility when they examine wrongdoings in companies. As Wifstrand doesn't step up and take his responsibility, it is clear that he doesn't take plagiarism accusations seriously. That kind of behaviour would never be tolerated by media.

You value information that is presented to you based on your trust for the sender. There's a huge difference if an opinion is presented by Greenpeace, or by a lobbying group sponsored by the oil industry.

Today's media consumer must be more critical to what he reads than any generation before. With so much noise, spin and counterspin, we must always ask ourselves, in whose interest is this information presented.

It cannot have escaped anyone that Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 is anti-Bush. It is also fairly obvious that such a controversial film would be met with some opposing attitudes, especially since Moore is deep into revealing lies of the people he dislikes. That in turn makes him an easy target for opponents who uses Moore's own tactics to portray him as a fake and a person who himself is very careless with the truth.

Since the film had its Swedish premiere yesterday, several different views about Moore and the film have been presented. Some positive, some negative. Either way, I thought it would be quite interesting to take a closer look at the arguments his opponents use.

Before you spam my mail box with angry comments, this is NOT an exercise to define Michael Moore's film as the truth or as a lie, I haven't even seen it. I am merely trying to put a light on hidden agendas and why certain types of information is being brought to your attention, so that you will be able to fully judge its value.

Recently, six individuals, out of at least four are involved in Muf, the youth organization of Swedish moderate party, started a campaign against Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11. They have started a network called Pro Veritas and its accompanying website Finn59fel cites 59 possible deceits in the film. They operate under a grassroots image and the notion that they have the truth, Moore is simply a liar. Well, are they just truth seekers or do they have a hidden agenda? Is it an astroturf campaign or is it legit? Maybe they have just been spun themselves by forces that they are unaware of.

The 59 deceits are entirely a translation from an essay by Dave Kopel, a political analyst at the Cato Institute.

The Cato Institute is one of the most influential think tanks in Washington D.C. with influential corporate sponsors like tobacco giants Philip Morris. The institue has close ties with media mogul Rupert Murdoch. It was also partly founded by and have received funding from oil and gas moguls David and Charles Koch, two of the richest individuals in the US. The Koch brothers contribute large sums to conservative and libertarian forces. As an example, President George W. Bush has received $109,000, and 19 out 20 top recipients of Koch campaign cash have been Republicans.

Writes the Center for Public Integrity:

In late 2000—as the Clinton Administration was preparing to leave office—Koch was hit with a 97-count indictment for covering up the discharge of more than 15 times the legal limit of benzene, a carcinogen, from a refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The company faced penalties of more than $350 million. Four Koch employees were also charged individually and faced up to 35 years in prison.

Three months after the Bush administration took office—and just before the lawsuit went to trial—the Justice Department abruptly settled the case. Koch agreed to pay $20 million and plead guilty to a single count of concealment of information. In return, the Justice Department dropped all criminal charges against Koch and the four employees.

Writers Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado claim that the Cato Institute "played a key role in forming the ideas and policies of the new Republican majority in Congress." Clearly the Cato Institue is supported by pro-Bush forces and by supplying arguments why Michael Moore is a potential liar and the anti-Bush movie is full of deceits, Republican-friendly interests can help Bush get re-elected. Now their argumentation have reached all the way to Swedish movie theatres.

Whether you choose to believe in Michael Moore or not, when you meet Pro Veritas campaigners outside movie theatres, now you know who is behind their arguments. Be critical.

Full disclosure: This article was published yesterday by Anton Andreasson and goes pretty much in the same lines as what I have written above. However, I hadn't read it before I wrote my post, so I have not copied Andreassons work.

Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet is reportedly launching a blog, which would be the first of its kind in Sweden. Stockholm Spectator has revealed that PJ Anders Linder, the paper’s chief political editor, will launch a blog shortly.

Here's the link to the blog dummy which includes RSS feeds, but no comment function.

SvD has proven before that they are tuned in to the blogosphere, by quoting PR agency JKL's blog. More surprising is that PJ Anders Linder actually links to JKL blog (one of three links) under the headline "Blogs that PJ like". Can a PR agency get a better recognition from a journalist than that?

On a related matter, SvD now offers 12 different RSS feeds.

(Hat tip to Norton Tierra)

Updated: The dummy has now been taken down.

ChangeThis has posted some semi-new innovative thoughts from people who are a lot smarter than you and I, like Robert Scoble and Seth Godin.

If you're into this kind of jargon be sure to check out Tom Peters latest thinking (seriously, you should). pdf.

More from the Olympic brand police. Olympic gold medalist Gary Hall Jr. has been fined $5,000 by the swimming federation for not wearing the team uniform to the starting blocks before his 50 meter freestyle race in Athens. The team uniform is a Speedo sponsored robe, but Hall wore his own, sponsored by boxing gear manufacturer Everlast.

Sponsors must be able to protect themselves against ambush marketing, even if fining a gold medalist rarely will win your brand any sympathy. In the case of Hall, this doesn't just seem to be about rebellion, but also about revenge. Apparently he lost a lucrative sponsor deal with Speedo after testing positive for marijuana a few years after the 1996 Olympics.

Astroturfing - faking grassroots movements - is not a new phenomenon. PR flacks and spin doctors have been using it for years. But with increasing transparency from blogs and media watchdogs, these campaigns can now be more easily discovered than before. This week Daily Kos revealed an astroturf initiative from the George W Bush campaign, which has found its way into at least 60 newspapers.

(Link via Poynter Online.)

On the other side of the pond, journalists who plagiarise get sacked. In Sweden, not so much. Reports the Media Drop:

Over the weekend, the Seattle Times announced the resignation of an associate editor and columnist after claims of multiple plagiarism allegations came to light. The Times' executive editor, Michael Fancher, informed the newspaper's readers with a front page item on Sunday about the departure of longtime columnist Stephen Dunphy.

Although the Dagens Nyheter plagiarism story has suddenly started to take off here in Sweden, little has actually happened. Michael Moynihan published an editorial in Expressen on Friday (not available online). The story was also covered in Dagens Media, Journalisten, Mymarkup, Dagens PS, Världen Idag and again on Stockholm Spectator.

But Jan Wifstrand, chief editor at Dagens Nyheter, said that "it is not relevant to apologize to readers six months after the mistake was made".

Michael Fancher, Seattle Times executive editor, had a different opinion. A story by Dunphy that was published in 1997, contained seven paragraphs originally published in the Journal of Commerce in 1996. Another instance happened in April 2000 when Dunphy borrowed paragraphs from the book "About This Life" by Barry Lopez.

"We felt we needed to set the record straight about the 1997 Asia airport story. Last Sunday we published a correction crediting the Journal of Commerce for the seven paragraphs."

There's no period of limitation for saying "we made a mistake".

What did the Seattle Times do to assure its readers that they take plagiarism incidents seriously?

> They published a correction, and then an open letter from the executive director.
> They made their own investigation and examined 25 stories written since 2000.
> A reporter made a further investigation on his own.
> They forced the plagiarist to resign.
> They engaged an independent outsider to to counsel staff and to work with "the Committee on Ethics and Standards in developing new procedures, policies and training about issues of attribution. The committee will develop new checks and balances to provide independent safeguards against plagiarism".
> They are continuing to examine signs of plagiarism and promised to inform the readers of the results.

While most organizations are adapting to a world where transparency is the cathword, the IOC is moving in the opposite direction. With an attitude worthy a dictatorship, the IOC tries to control every communicative aspect of the Olympic games in Athens.

First we learned that spectators are banned from the arenas if they bring in products of the wrong brand. Then we all laughed at the moronic linking policy of Athens 2004.

Now USA Today reports that Olympic athletes are largely barred from posting online diaries such as blogs.

"The IOC's rationale for the restrictions is that athletes and their coaches should not serve as journalists — and that the interests of broadcast rightsholders and accredited media come first."

"The Olympic guidelines threaten to yank credentials from athletes who are in violation as well as to impose other sanctions or take legal action for any monetary damages."

The US army tried a control/command approach in Iraq but failed miserably. Why would the IOC succeed in controlling the debate, and for what reason? Today, media consumers are also producers and anyone equipped with a digital camera or an internet connection can scoop big media. Trying to stop people from expressing what they see is a violation of freedom of speech.

In the end, it is we as consumers who pay for this spectacle by bying products from the sponsors, by watching the ads that finance media, by visiting the arenas and so on. We should demand a diversity of voices and not accept propaganda style reporting.

(Link via Micro Persuasion)

Since June media has been hammering the same message over and over again - oil has never been as expensive as now. True, and false. It is true that the different statistics that go back to 1983 or 1988 show that the oil price has not been higher during the period from the mid 80s up til now. False, because they only look on the actual dollar per barrel price, not adjusted for inflation, and the prices in 1980 were much higher, and the period before 1983 is excluded.

Stats that don't take inflation into consideration are just fluff, it doesn't mean anything. If your salary today was slightly higher in dollars than it was in 1980, you wouldn't jump up and down with joy, because your money are worth less now.

In the US, Spinsanity has touched on the topic and how the oil price has been used on the political arena.

A more critical approach from media would be healthy, like when Dagens Industri (reg. required) for example last week noted that if adjusted for inflation, the price in 1980 was more than twice what it is today. But these examples are very rare.

Check my previous post, and below, for stats and graphs for inflation adjusted oil prices.



Chart from Inflationdata.com. Full size chart here.

The people who dreamed up the Athens 2004 linking policy have become the laughing stock of the entire internet, to the extent that the topic is no 3 at Daypop's Top 40 list of the most popular (or in this case ridiculed) topics on the net.

As an example: In order to place a link embedded in copy interested parties should:

a) Use the term ATHENS 2004 only, and no other term as the text referent

b) Not associate the link with any image, esp. the ATHENS 2004 Emblem (see paragraph below)

c) Send a request letter to the Internet Department stating:
-Short description of site
-Reason for linking
-Unique URL containing the link (if no unique URL than just the main URL)
-Publishing period
Contact point (e-mail address)

The control/command attitude of the Olympic organization does not work in a blog-enabled world and the whole idea of controlling how people link to your site is just counterproductive and bad PR. Rick E. Bruner summarizes:

Apparently the folks behind Athens 2004, the offical site for the current Olympics, still use AOL or have only read about the Internet in airline magazines.

Stories involving Sweden from last week:

> Sweden could be a talent magnet
> The sentence for pastor Åke Green's hate speech against homosexuals is still a hot topic. It even sparked the Libertarian Alliance to demand that Sweden should be suspended from the EU (!). Interestingly, the Libertarian Alliance has some loose connections to the Swedish PR agency K-Street. The Libertarian Alliance is associated with Libertarian International, whose Swedish arm is Frihetsfronten, whose editor is Erik Lakomaa, founder of K-Street. Not that there's anything wrong with it...
> Sweden threaten walk-out unless pair are banned: Kenteris and Thanou again.
> PlayStation banned from Swedish prisons: This one is fun. It was a story from Sydsvenska Dagbladet that I translated and did a short post on, which got picked up by the blog we-make-money-not-art, which in turn was picked up by Engadget and then the story spread across the net. What bummed me a bit was that most blogs linked to we-make-money-not-art instead of to me.

Cyberjournalist.net reports on two US athletes who blogs from the Olympics in Athens. Scott Goldblatt is on the U.S. swim team and is blogging for nj.com. What is more interesting is that U.S. officials told Goldblatt he can blog, "as long as I do not move into the territory of journalism" And Goldblatt says that Canada is not allowing its athletes to blog. Why a special blog gag order? Can they update their regular web pages? There's nothing you can say in a blog that you can't say on any other web page so to forbid blogging doesn't serve any purpose.

While we are on the Olympic theme, today we got photos and video coverage from Kostas Kenteris in a hospital in Greece. This must be the worst crisis management case in years. Why is this guy still wearing his shoes in bed and why can't we see the faces of the people working in the hospital? Even if Kenteris and Thanou are innocent, does anybody believe that the motorcycle accident and the hospital visit are not fake?

Consider for one moment that Kenteris and Thanou have not been using illegal substances and that they were not informed of the doping test that would take place in Athens. And that the motorcycle accident actually happened. Anyone who have spent two weeks in PR would recommend that they:

1. Show what you got: The entire world thinks you're a cheat and everyone is trying to hunt you down, so you don't hide in a hospital for two days sending out suspicious video footage wearing sneakers in bed. If you're hurt, show it to the public. Take a photograph of the bike, it must be a wreck, right? Send out a press release with the exact time and location where the accident happened. And do your best to find the mystery man who drove you to the hospital.
2. Volunteer to take a doping test. You're innocent, so you might as well step up to the plate and let them examine you.
3. Talk to the press: Unless you're in a coma, you can talk to the press. Hiding isn't making journalists go away, to the contrary they will dig deeper and assume that you are guilty.

Instead, Kenteris and Thanou are caught up in what looks like lies and half-truths. Either they are guilty or they have a very bad manager.

Michael Moynihan of Stockholm Spectator Media Watch has been disappointed that his revelations of plagiarism in Dagens Nyheter hasn't been causing any debate in Swedish media. Some blogs have noticed and commented on the story, but no traditional media have touched the topic, until today when competing daily Svenska Dagbladet ran a piece on plagiarism titled "It's hard work to do your own thinking", by editorial writer Moa Eriksson.

About a week ago, Stockholm got praise in the Washington Post. This week it is the International Herald Tribune who raves about Sweden.

"If all the world were like Sweden, there would be little news to report."

I guess that's a compliment (?). The article also predicts that Sweden will attract talented workers (no signs of reversed brain drain yet though - this week an article in Dagens Industri noticed that many more people moved to Ireland to work, than to Sweden).

"...a new study by Professor Richard Florida, of Carnegie Mellon University, which measures the kind of creativity most useful to business - talent, technology and tolerance - puts Sweden at No. 1 in Europe and ahead of the United States. In the future, Florida argues, this means that Sweden will become a "talent magnet" for the world's most purposeful workers."

The writer also reflects on the Swedish psyche and turns to filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (sigh!) and his view of "the Swedish soul - its solitariness, its obsessiveness and its melancholia". Are we really this dull? Let this guy attend a concert with the Hives and he will have a different view of Swedes.

Some corporations are taking steps to guard their brands and trademarks from copyright infringements online. A Digital Brand Asset Management company called Nameprotect "engages in crawling activity in search of a wide range of brand and other intellectual property violations that may be of interest to our clients".

Word to bloggers, your blog may be crawled by a webcrawler seeking for illegal uses of trademarks, just like Josh's World was (no, he hadn't done anything illegal, probably just mentioned a brand name in one of his posts). Now, I guess that blogs aren't the primary target for these webcrawlers, and Nameprotect says they are honoring robots.txt files so that any site owner can block out crawlers, but I can't help but wonder what other webcrawler applications the future will have in store, ones that aren't working by the same ethical standards as Nameprotect.

Bloggers should (apart from follow the law of course) start to learn about how robots crawl their sites and what to do about it. I can't see why for example owners of copyrighted photos can't crawl blogs to find illegal uses of their material.

In the light of the recent jailbreaks in Sweden, perhaps it is understandable that a certain amount of paranoia has struck the Swedish Prison and Probation Service. Now, no prisoners are allowed to have Sony Playstations in their cells because "they can be manipulated for making wireless communication".

In the 90s, computer games were allowed in Swedish prisons, but due to the technical development of the games, prison managers fear that they will be used to send SMS and email, with the purpose of planning an escape or to smuggle drugs etc.

I guess prison blogs are out of the question then...?

I found a new PR blogger today, Guillaume du Gardier of the French PR agency PR Planet. Unfortunately I don't speak French, but there's always Babel Fish...

The cult book The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams is being filmed and the launch of the movie is supported by a blog. I think it is a brilliant idea to use blogs to create a buzz for this movie. The book has cult status and an affectionate fan base, including myself and I guess many bloggers will spread the word about the movie blog even without examining it first. But the blog just doesn't cut it yet. Why?

• No comments function
• No RSS feed
• No permalinks, although some longer posts have unique URLs
• Only 7 posts since its launch in May
• A photo gallery was launched in June with only 2 photos so far

Content is everything, and this blog doesn't have any. Is it even a blog? I would say no. The site even made my computer crash so I had to write this post twice.

Link via Micro Persuasion.

In the wake of the events in the USA the last few years, not even the CIA can avoid using PR anymore. The secretive agency has launched a public relations offensive in recent weeks to protect its turf.

"... reporters are more frequently invited to CIA headquarters, in Langley, Va., a short drive from Washington, for news conferences and background interviews with senior agency officials..."

Someone in Greece has been out in the sun too long, because this is simply too dumb. Spectators at the upcoming Olympics in Athens run the risk of being barred from the games if they bring products with the wrong brand into the arena. The "clean venue policy" has been dreamed up by the Greeks and the IOC to protect sponsors from ambush marketing.

"Sweltering sports fans who seek refuge from the soaring temperatures with a soft drink other than one made by Coca-Cola will be told to leave the banned refreshment at the gates or be shut out."

"Fans will be allowed into the Olympic complex if they are drinking Avra, a Greek mineral water owned by Coca-Cola, which paid $60 million US for the privilege of being one of the main sponsors. Officials are under orders not to let in rival brands' bottles unless the labels are removed."

How are consumers/audience supposed to react to this? They are going to be out in the sun, 40º, all day to watch the event of their life time and think it would be somewhat intelligent to bring a can of Pepsi or whatever. But when entering the stadium they are told to throw it away, because Coke says so. I'm sorry, but my soft drink preferences would start to lean slightly away from the word's #1 brand. This is just not good PR.

Among all the silly ideas, I think this one is my "favourite":

Staff will also be on the lookout for T-shirts, hats and bags displaying the unwelcome logos of non-sponsors. Stewards have been trained to detect people who may be wearing merchandise from the sponsors' rivals in the hope of catching the eyes of television audiences. Those arousing suspicion will be required to wear their T-shirts inside out.

I absolutely sympathize with the IOC wanting to protect sponsors who pay proposterous amounts for the exclusive rights to show their brands, and ambush marketing is a method which raises ethical questions.

"Ambush marketing is not clever marketing — it is cheating. And who wants to be a cheat?"
— Michael Payne, IOC Marketing Director

Sponsors make an event like the Olympics possible. Piggybacking of non-sponsoring companies can be, but doesn't have to be, unethical. But to let sponsors decide what the spectators can eat, drink and wear is a few steps too far.

Footnotes:
The Greeks have used "clean venue policites" previously, for example at the Athens 2003 Regatta (pdf).
"Today the Olympic Games is the only major event in the world to hold such a policy" (pdf).
IOC rule 61 and the enforcement of "clean venue policy" (pdf)
Link via Adrants.

The Guardian has an article about "blog busters". Blogs have become so powerful that corporates have to pay attention to what is being said about their brand online.

"[Ford] has recently started to use a blogsearching service because, as its executive director of public affairs, Tim Holmes, reveals, the manufacturer realised that no modern brand can afford not to listen to what people are saying about it online."

Link via PR meets WWW.

Online media have surrendered to speed. I found this interesting disclaimer at the website of CBS, Denver, Colorado.

"In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors."

Speed has become so vital for online media that they want readers to prepare to find flaws and sloppy spelling. Their message is that we are in such a hurry to inform you about the results of this friendly basketball game between Sweden and China that we don't have time to proof read properly. You readers deal with it.

I don't think that we need to accept that. Media consumers today already know that time is essential in breaking news and that it sometimes leads to mistakes, but we would at least want to believe that they are trying to deliver a product without glitches. Nick Denton of Gawker et al once said that for blogs "immedeacy is more important than accuracy". The same is increasingly true for online media.

It is Monday and time for a quick check on what has been written about Sweden during last week. Here are the topics that were among the most frequently covered by international blogs and media (linked posts are just examples):

• Pastor sentenced for hate speech against homosexuals - old news, still being debated
• Saddam 'hopes for Swedish jail' - hilarious claim especially when considering the two successful escapes from Swedish jails the last weeks
• Sweden has a mobile phone penetration rate of 100.1% - it fascinates people that Sweden now has more cell phones than people
• Elegant Stockholm full of surprises - "Stockholm is one of the most underrated destinations in Europe. Views across the waterways of the stately baroque and renaissance buildings easily rival those of Paris or Prague." Now that's good PR. (From last week's article in Washington Post, free reg. required)
• Tokyo Style, Japanese design showcased in Stockholm
• Tennis: Molik claims Nordic Light Open title
• and of course, the new IKEA catalouge is out - news doesn't get any bigger than this, right?

Pew Internet & American Life Project has performed a phone survey (pdf) which shows that millions of Americans go online to get alternatives to big media about for example the war in Iraq. One quarter of the respondents in the survey searched for news and images online that could not be found in traditional media. But seeing the images that traditional media choose not to publish, leaves surfers with mixed feelings.

"...millions of Internet users want to be able to view the graphic war images and they see the Internet as an alternative source of news and information from traditional media. But many who do venture outside the traditional and familiar standards of the mainstream news organizations to look at the images online end up feeling very uncomfortable."

33 per cent wished they hadn't seen the pictures. Sometimes we should be thankful that media serves as a filter. (I just noticed this report was a month old, but it's still interesting.)

Traditional brands are still on top of Interbrand/Business Week's list (pdf) of the world's most valueable brands 2004. Coca-Cola is still #1 and no new brands have entered the top 20. Thirteen of the top 20 brands have increased their brand value.

Finnish Nokia slips down two positions to #8, but is still the highest ranked non-US brand. The highest ranked Swedish brand is IKEA at #40, with a 4% increase in brand value.

Competition in the technology sector troubles some, but creates wealth for others. Both winners and losers are IT brands or affected by the development in new technology. Big winners are Apple, Amazon.com, Yahoo! and Samsung, losers are Kodak, Nintendo, Nokia and AOL. Also glad to see that my former employer Accenture slowly has climbed into the top 50, which is quite good for a brand that was launched only 3 and a half years ago.

The ten most valueable brands 2004 are:

1. Coca-Cola
2. Microsoft
3. IBM
4. GE
5. Intel
6. Disney
7. McDonald's
8. Nokia
9. Toyota
10. Marlboro

The Knutby murder has resulted in media coverage of gargantuan proportions, as I have written about before. Swedish media has written 7425 articles about the murder to this date, which even surpasses the amount written about Mijajlo Mijailovic, the person who murdered Sweden's foreign minister Anna Lindh.

Apart from the sheer volume, Swedish media now also gets critized for the way they have covered the story. Jan Guillou, successful writer and former President of Publicistklubben, an association of people in the publishing industry, on Tuesday wrote an article in Dagens Nyheter where he critizes media for possibly influencing the outcome of the trials by taking sides. When media pass their judgement, the pressure is high on courts to go against the public picture and this is a real problem. Guillou urges owners of media to strive for tighter ethical rules, or he predicts politicians will be provoced to limit the freedom of speech.

And this morning I suddenly realize that Guillou was on to something. The last few months, the newspaper placards announcing the news for the Swedish tabloids, and their front pages, have increased their font sizes to the extreme that it is often just one word, like "Gripen" (arrested, about the capture of four fugitives) and "Slutet" ("the end"). This morning as I walked to the office I finally saw what they might have been aiming for. Aftonbladet had just one word on their placard, "Wanted" (yes, wanted, in English) and photos of three other convicts that escaped from prison yesterday. All in the same style as the posters the sheriff put up on the saloon in the western movies. Would be interesting to hear Guillou comment on the fact that there might be a new sheriff in town - media.

Media Culpa has just passed 100 posts, and maybe it is appropriate to look back at the first few months of blogging. I started out in February and once I figured out about this RSS stuff (thanks Constantin), things developed pretty rapidly and I got several good contacts from around the globe. I started measuring the traffic in April and the site has since then had about 5700 visitors, approximately 20 a day.

Top referrers are:

1. PR Opinions
   
2. Technorati
3. Blogger (that's me, previewing the site etc)
4. Micro Persuasion
5. Media Guerilla
6. Adland
7. Bloglines
8. Weblogs.se
9. Sweblogs
10. Online PR
    

A number of bloggers got credentials to cover the Democratic National Convention in Boston and pushed the boundaries of this new medium, sitting side by side (or at least in the same room) with representatives of established media outlets. CNN teamed up with Technorati to create a convention blog and the blogosphere is bubbling with analyses of why this could be a landmark in the development of blogs and how it affects journalism (also see InternetWeek and New York Times, free reg. required). To perform a bit of Google journalism: a search for the term "convention blog" gives us 13,000 hits, so obviously this topic is the talk of the town at the moment.

Some Swedish bloggers have mentioned it briefly, but it baffles me that no Swedish media has written about it. Why? Not a single article has to my knowledge even touched on the topic. Are Swedish journalists in general not interested in writing about the development of their own profession, or shall we just blame the holiday season?

If there are any Swedish journalists reading this, here is a tip. Start by reading the excellent white paper by Daniel W. Drezner and Henry Farrell called "The Power of Politics and Blogs" (pdf), then read through the free (!) new book We the media by Dan Gillmor.

If you think the advertising market is in a slump, maybe this will cheer you up.

• The commercial tv channel TV3 increased its sales with 15 per cent (reg. required) during the first six months 2004.
• The four Swedish telecom operators Telia, Tele 2, Vodaphone and "3" spent roughly 65 million euro on advertising the first half of 2004 (in gross spending), an increase with 65 per cent, reports Svenska Dagbladet. Competition is fierce and "3" tripled their spending compared to the same period last year, due to the launch of its 3G service.

I recently wrote about accusations of plagiarism at Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. And now new accusations are made, this time in Norway. Blogger and media critic Lars Ruben Hirsch accuses (in Norwegian) Aftenposten of copying an article from Newsweek without properly crediting the source. Hirsch lays out 12 arguments for his case and sent an email to Aftenposten's editor Per Kristian Haugen asking for a response, but he didn't get any. Not until Dagbladet.no looked into the story. Still, Aftenposten does not want to admit to plagiarism.

Presently there is a debate going on in traditional media (here and in Dagens Naeringliv) and in blogs (here and here in English) in Norway about plagiarism and whether this is a common practice among journalists. The same debate would have been healthy to see here in Sweden regarding the Dagens Nyheter case, but instead silence prevails.

It's quite interesting to see what stories gets picked up abroad about your own country. A few weeks back, some of the most covered topics about Sweden was about an elk that stole a bike and about the Swedish king wanting a photo of princess Madeleine's chest removed from a website. Not exactly the most important incidents, but apparently this is what gets people going.

During the last week, these topics regarding Sweden were among the most frequently covered by blogs and international media:

• Swedish pastor gets life for text murder messages
• Swedish fugitives caught
• Swedes Dominate Counter-Strike Championship
• Football: The Homeless World Cup 2004 in Sweden
• Golf: Britain's Donald wins Scandinavian Masters in Sweden
• Hockey: Forsberg ready to go '100 percent' in World Cup