Infomaniac: WeBlog

Overheard on the Web, and other Web links From The Herald's Research Editor

Baby names and bloggers in the news 

Here's something fun before we get to the unpleasant: The Baby Name Wizard shows you a graphical representation of name popularity over the decades. Hold cursor over lines to see names or type in a name. Interesting to see a name like 'Robert', near the top for several decades, now not very popular at all, contrasting with names like 'Emily', out of favor in the mid-20th c., now near the top.
(Via Morning Meeting.)

And back to the 'Jeff Gannon' story, about the man admitted to White House briefings as a 'correspondent' for conservative Web news sites, and discovered (by bloggers) to be working under an assumed name with no experience as a journalist: despite 'Gannon's' denials, the information that he seemed to be involved with military escort sex sites has been followed up and shown to be more serious than we thought: John at Americablog found evidence linking the man to what appears to be solicitation; don't look if you're offended by explicit photos; the nudity is blotted out but there are links to the originals. Despite accusations of a liberal 'witch hunt', this material, in face of the denials, seems pretty relevant. Also, on a lighter note, 'Gannon's' Press pass for sale on E-Bay.

On the other hand, conservative bloggers are claiming victory in the resignation of CNN chief Eason Jordan, whose comments at the economic conference at Davos were picked up and echoed by bloggers, although never reported in news stories. Jordan reportedly said troops in Iraq were 'targeting' journalists. As the story built in blogs and finally in some news stories, Eason resigned on Friday. The story isn't going away though; Several links to this story in Glenn Reynolds' blog at MSNBC, and elsewhere. Bloggers like Jeff Jarvis are unhappy with the coverage of this story in the mainstream media like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

posted by liz at 6:52 PM