this is mikel.org

launches! This is the project led by Lawrence Lessig and others in an effort to bring some sanity to the wonderful world of intellectual property. Congratulations on the launch, and I hope for great things.

is one of relatively few technology journalists who really lives up to the name. He seems to cover his subject relatively honestly, at least, unlike many of his colleagues. Anyhow, he weighs in on the subject of weblogs this week (Will the Blogs Kill Old Media?) and notwithstanding the backhanded compliment to Dave Winer, it’s an OK article. There’s an important hiccup though. Levy wrote, regarding how bloggers get and stay good at it, that it: “…sounds a lot like the formula to succeed as a journalist inside the Big Media leviathan. With the difference that traditional journalists uh, get paid.”

He could equally say that traditional journalists get bought – and many (most?) of them do, without much comment from their unbought colleagues (like Levy, f’rinstance). For the most part, journalists just shrug it off. “What do you expect? It’s just cars, or entertainment, or whatever, that gets bought.” Or, “Of course they’re bought off – that’s how it works, and has to if we want to sell product.”