Expect Resistance & Library Autonomous Zone

Washington > Campaign 2004 > A Rule to Avert Balloting Woes Adds to Them” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/06/politics/campaign/06vote.html?hp”>The New York Times > Washington >A Rule to Avert Balloting Woes Adds to Them (Free registration required).

Provisional voting, the centerpiece of the Help America Vote Act that Congress passed in 2002, will be put into effect across the nation in the coming presidential election in an effort to ensure that more votes are counted…

…In the primary in Chicago, one in 90 ballots was provisionally cast. The majority of the 93 percent that were thrown out were disqualified because of technical errors caused by election workers; these included more than 1,200 ballots filed in the wrong precinct. Some 2,400 were discounted because affidavits were incompletely or incorrectly filled out. Only 416 provisional votes were ultimately counted.

This is crazy. The Help America Vote Act put into affect a good rule, then ends up disenfranchising MORE voters?!

“My beef with big media” by Ted Turner. Washington Monthly July/August, 2004.

To get a flavor of how consolidated the industry has become, consider this: In 1990, the major broadcast networks–ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox–fully or partially owned just 12.5 percent of the new series they aired. By 2000, it was 56.3 percent. Just two years later, it had surged to 77.5 percent.

This is interesting seeing that Turner’s one of the big media players. Perhaps he’s just mad because AOL Time Warner forced him to resign as Vice Chairman last January, 2003.

[Thanks Nancy!]

To Fix or Not to Fix: Online Corrections Policies Vary Widely
by Mark Thompson,
Posted: 2004-07-28, Online Journalism Review.

What happens to the online version of a newspaper when the newspaper corrects an error? Does it change the story? Leave the story, but append a correction? Leave the error?
Policies are changing and this article examines what is happening and discusses the issues including those for libraries.

More newspapers are choosing to correct errors in their online archives and Web sites by editing stories rather than simply attaching corrections. But should archived content be tinkered with?