Another six months, another new editor. I’ve heard a second-hand report that’s the story, again, for Honolulu Weekly. I’ve got an e-mail out to a former Hawaii resident rumored to be coming back to take the job. It was just six months ago that I wrote almost the same thing about the hiring of Mindy Pennebacker. I’ve been writing every week since and hadn’t gotten to meet Mindy. I’m having trouble keeping up.
Despite its struggles, it would be a loss for the community if Gannett’s relentless pressure, the weak economy, and its own internal foibles bring Honolulu Weekly down.
Former congressman Ed Case is beating on the Con Con drum. The Case Campaign Committee sent out another e-mail over the weekend arguing that the question of cost is a red herring. He also is promoting the web site, www.hawaiiconcon.org, and his message contains several links to the site.
I clicked through to hawaiiconcon.org, but noticed a funny flicker before the site loaded. So I examined the embedded link more carefully. Instead of a straight forward link, here’s what I found:
maildogmanager.com/link.html?
url=156&client=casegov&campaign=188&
email=ian@ilind.net
Aha. It seems that Case’s e-mail is filled with links designed to track and report on any use of the links by recipients. Is this a privacy issue?
Down at the bottom of the Case message is a link to the privacy policy of Maildogmanager.com, which Case uses to create his campaign messages. Here’s what they say about the embedded links.
Mail Dog embeds HTML and link detectors in all email transmissions to allow clients to assess the effectiveness of their email campaigns. The detectors track recipients’ capability of receiving HTML messages and the aggregate number of HTML messages opened. The detectors also track the links that recipients click on within the email.
I probably should have noticed this before, although I wouldn’t have necessarily concluded from that disclosure that it was tracking anything other than aggregate data, rather than tracking and reporting back each click that I make.
“I’ll huff, and I’ll puff….”
KITV reporter Darryl Huff unloaded on Hawaii Reporter’s Malia Zimmerman several days ago in an entry on his “In a Huff” blog, taking on the relationship between conservative Republican Sam Slom, Zimmerman, Hawaii Reporter, and Slom’s Small Business Hawaii.
The way it works is like an echo chamber. The politician who can’t sell his point of view in the mainstream media finds an ally who sets up a blog that looks like a real news organization. That blog endorses the politician’s opinions and friends and attacks anyone who disagrees. Organizations affiliated with the politician praise the blog for its courage and journalistic enterprise. The politician uses the blog to affirm his arguments. And so on.
The post has drawn several reactions, including one from Sen. Slom. Interesting issues.
Here’s the highlight of the morning–a few more of our canine friends. Just click on Ms. Alice Brown’s photo for the whole batch.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Andy Parx // May 13, 2008 at 10:59 am
I’ve been trying for years to ascertain that Sam and Malia are, as rumored, for all intent and purpose essentially a “married” couple. I’m glad Sam has now stated as much publicly. Normally people’s private relationships are their business but because of the support Malia gives Sam it is very germane and should be part fully disclosed.
I love Huff’s claim of objectivity. Why do journalist make believe they are unbiased observers? They aren’t human beings by their definition. I’ve known hundreds if not thousands and never found one that didn’t have biases and opinions, usually a lot stronger than the average bear.
At least when I read Malia’s news site I know what I’m getting and so I can judge validity of the facts she presents- and how she presents them- in that light. The problem is people like Huff who think they are better journalists because they are dishonest. It’s no wonder Ch 4 is the low budget last place news.
2 peterkay // May 13, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Aloha Ian,
Thanks for the mention of hawaiiconcon.org and we hope you’ll join!
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