d to do is apply your [proprietary] "news map" and monitor those sources that rank highest. For example, you will note that I posted links to two stories in al Jazeera yesterday. One dealt with questions about the U.S. claim that 54 "insurgents" were killed in Iraq over the weekend. We note with some interest, and a scrawl on our news map, that same story, with some rewrite of course, appears this morning in a U.S. media outlet at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/02/IRAQ.TMP&type=printable. Also yesterday, we posted the al Jazeera link to the story about Microsoft Longhorn piracy (both links are below, by the way). This morning's NY Post covers the same story with the headline "Microsoft's Longhorn Pirated, 3 Years Early at http://www.nypost.com/business/12300.htm.

The news biz is a lot about playing "follow the leader." Many news directors and editors are simply not very creative. This has been something I've been meaning to mention to you for a while, as I've been working on finishing off the training manual for www.youarethereporter.com which I hope to turn into a citizen's news network - and that's what the Independence Journal is all about. Follow the leader is just one of the concepts in the course (40 pages, or so, is all it takes to understand news gathering and writing). But it's something I want you to start looking for. When you're out surfing, whether it's channels or web sites, notice how many times one source has a story first versus another, and then arrange your surfing adventures to hit the sites that get the highest proportion of original - and worthwhile - material. As a few items this morning indicate, al Jazeera is quickly establishing itself as a very credible source for stories that show up in U.S. media a day or two later.

Some Examples:

We read the al Jazeera story about the George Bush's signing of a bill yesterday that increases funding to develop new kinds of nuclear weapons: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A7730E30-62F5-45E8-9CA9-2CC65F82ABBA.htm and wonder if that will get much US coverage. It's more or less a "housekeeping" story - one of interest outside the U.S. but a yawner in St. Louis. Admittedly, some al Jazeera stories are not likely to be copied. For example, the piece on how oil has been the whole point of the Iraq occupation at http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E07D937C-456F-48C9-90FF-A2C87F2DB724.htm is not likely to get much coverage, although any sane person knows that without oil, we would never be out spreading "democracy" at gunpoint in Iraq. More likely to be picked up by "follow the leader" media will be AJ's piece about the emergent Pakistani boycotts of American-made products at http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/836E5BAE-274A-488F-A1E8-5781B6A64CA0.htm. This is a worthwhile story at least as a sidebar to the steel tariff story.

Speaking of steel - there's another case of massive jobjacking - the stealing of U.S. jobs by foreign countries. The NY Post figures 30,000 jobs will be lost due to tariff battling: http://www.nypost.com/business/12299.htm.

My point in all this is what? Al Jazeera, whether you like their take on things or not, has gone a long ways toward establishing in the Muslim world the same kind of credibility that the BBC enjoyed during World War Two. So when they publish a poll showing 69% of those casting votes believed the George Bush Thanksgiving trip to Iraq was purely a publicity stunt, a good news analyst just puts aside any personal feelings and says "hmmm...that's an interesting number." Take sides on something? No thanks...it's really more interesting to watch how two sides in any conflict usually both have pieces of the truth. That's a concept that applies in politics, covering courts, or in this case, sizing up international news.

Those are certain hallmarks of good news editors/directors in my book. They have a "map" that helps them understand the news topology and they scan a wide variety of sources and take data (like that AJ Bush poll) as elevation markers on that news topology map. Then they weight their scanning of sources to the "highest elevations." Some of our favorite higher elevations to scan? BBC, Times of India, al Jazeera, Washington Post, and on the web, Drudge.

http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------