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California: St. Helena newspaper holding city council to account on open meeting issues

donal brown May 19, 2011

The St. Helena Star is alleging that the St. Helena City Council has once again violated California’s open meeting law, the Brown Act, by not posting their discussion of compensation for former City Manager, Mary Neilan. The council held a closed door meeting to discuss Neilan’s no-cause firing and negotiated a severance package and confidentiality clause. The agenda for the meeting did not mention that compensation was under discussion. -db From the St. Helena Star,

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Small market newspapers tapping into online subscription revenue

donal brown May 17, 2011

A study from the University of Missouri shows that 46 percent of newspapers with circulations under 25,00o are charging for online news. The newspapers are using innovative packages to prevent readers from abandoning print subscriptions and to glean another source of revenue. The Columbian (Mo.) Daily  Tribune reported that ad revenues were up 25 percent over last year and that the revenue from online subscriptions was enough to pay the salaries of a few reporters.

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Uncertain outcome in fight over release of photos of the dead Osama bin Laden

donal brown May 17, 2011

In a fight over free press rights and national security, it is far from clear which side will prevail in the dispute over releasing photos of Osama bin Laden’s dead body. Reuters reporter Andrew Longstreth wrote that secrecy expert Steven Aftergood doesn’t think the courts will see a substantial  national security issue over the photos, but he also quotes free press attorney Floyd Abrams’ more skeptical opinion, “It [deciding for the release] requires a judge

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Techies strive to provide tools to circumvent Internet censorship

donal brown May 17, 2011

EFF’s Seth Schoen says that governments are constantly on the move to censor the web, recently forcing ISPs to censor sites from the DNS. They are counting on the users not realizing censorship is happening and that users will not know how to bypass the censors. Governments are also using the Internet to monitor the content of individual expression. The second edition of How to Bypass Internet Censorship, available online at no cost, provides tools

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Free speech: Flag-burning inspires violent reactions and inane statements

donal brown May 16, 2011

When a graduate student from Louisiana State University tried to burn an American flag to protest the arrest of another student for stealing and burning a flag from the war memorial, he was greeted with obscenities, thrown bottles and water balloons and needed a police escort to leave the area. The university administration choose to ignore the violence in their official statement, “This is what a flagship university, and Free Speech Alley, is all about

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