A classic example of headline editoralizing can be found from Fox News today.

In a story about the Senate passing the $410 billion bill, Fox News made no attempt to hide which way it fell on the issue.

The original headline, as you can see to the right, was:

Senate Passes Huge Spending Bill for Obama 
 

and this bit, which looks like it may have been pasted from a pre-vote story:

The Senate was scheduled to vote Tuesday and send the $140 billion bill chock full of lawmakers’ pet projects and significant increases in food aid for the poor, energy research and other programs to President Obama.

To the network’s credit, it updated the headline, rather quickly, to something resembling objectivity:

 Senate Passes Huge Spending Bill,

 Heads to Obama for Signature

And the new subheading reads:

The Senate approved the measure by voice after it cleared a key procedural hurdle by a 62-35 vote.

Sixty votes were required to shut down debate.

As the24-hour news networks and online operations continue to rush to publish (or in this case, republish), I can only suspect more bias will creep into headlines, but will then be… edited out.

The partnership has two distinct advantages.

First, local advertisers can target users based on their browsing history, which helps decide which ads are relevant to the reader.

“One is a new ad system from Yahoo, currently installed at about 100 newspapers, that allows them to sell graphical ads on their sites that are aimed at specific audiences, like car buyers or sports enthusiasts. The system puts users into those groups based on the pages they visit online, a technique known as behavioral targeting.”

The other advantage of the partnership is the ability to advertise products and businesses on a local level.

“Between its print and online editions, The Ventura County Star, for example, reached about 56 percent of its local audience. With the addition of the Yahoo pages, it now reaches 85 percent of Ventura residents, and it can also tell advertisers that they can reach Yahoo’s audience in the larger Los Angeles market.”

This is just a small piece of good news for the newspaper business, but it shows there are still successful solutions to be found by those willing to find them.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is your best choice if you follow many people or feel like you cannot seem to keep up with the constant flow. You can have up to ten columns to customize with options, such as: All Friends, Groups, Custom Searches and TwitScoop.

Caution: If you do use more than four (or five with the narrow option checked) columns, it can be somewhat annoying scrolling back-and-forth.

To anybody who may use multiple monitors, I would definitely recommend trying TweetDeck in full-screen on the additional screen.

TweetDeck may be light on features, but does a great job at its main objective: splitting your Twitter feed into something much easier to follow.

Twhirl

If you want something a little more simple, try Twhirl. 

Features include:

 - Notification windows (one of my favorite features)

 - Spell checking

 - Ability to post pictures to TwitPic

 - Multiple ways to shorten URLs

 - Ping.fm support (allows you to update Facebook, Myspace, etc., with your Twitter updates.)

Both TweetDeck and Twhirl both require Adobe Air, a free download from Adobe.

TweetGrid

TweetGrid allows you to create custom-sized grids to track any given topic on the fly and save them for sharing or future use.

TwitPicGrid, a recently released feature allows the same concept to be applied to pictures from TwitPic.

In a recent Q & A with Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, he talked about, among other things, the move towards a paid content system, yet again.

In the discussion, Keller talked about three possible ways for The Times to make money:

- A subscription model (but not Times Select)

“Times Select was not the answer, but it’s possible we just put the wrong stuff behind the wall.”

- A micro-payment model

“The idea is that readers may not pay a subscription fee for a new Web site, but they might pay a few pennies every time they click on a page, if it was simple and frictionless.”

- New reading devices – which currently are dominated by Kindle downloads and Times Reader users.

“So some people are paying for The Times online. Just not enough of them. So far.”

The South Bend Tribune wants its reporters to be more productive. And by productive, they mean keep a log of everything they do.

“We mean everything, from the most mundane county council advance to the beginning interview in the most ambitious investigation that may or may not see the light of day (or publication).”

Virginia Black, assistant managing editor/news, sent out a memo to the staff of the Tribune Thursday.

I understand trying to keep reporters on task, but this is taking it to an extreme.

[via guardian.co.uk]

In about a year, I will graduate and be in an overflowing job market. The problem may not be necessarily finding a (decent) job, but maintaining it. Newspapers around the country are laying off (talented) reporters and editors.

Prognostications are not great for the business of newspapers either. The saddest news come from the closures that are being threatened around the country.

Just take a glimpse:

1. The Baltimore Examiner will close February 15 (dead link).
2. The Tucson Citizen will look for a buyer until March 21.
3. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will look for a buyer until March 10, at which time, they will move to an online-only format.
4. The Rocky Mountain News has already passed its January 16 deadline to find a buyer.

Even many of those who have been able to keep their jobs have been subjected to a forced unpaid leave for a week, courtesy of Gannett and the MediaNews Group.