Netvibes was first mentioned on these pages almost a year ago. Since then it has tended to lose the battle against Bloglines as my prime information “portal”, but some months ago a colleague tipped me of a very useful role for Netvibes: It’s great for scanning frequently updated news sites and hyperactive bloggers. There’s no way to keep up with those in a tool like Bloglines, where they become noise very quickly. Netvibes only shows the most recent headlines, and does not encourage the storing of unread items which can stress you in Bloglines. And according to an Economist profile, Netvibes is doing well and hey, it’s a European company!
Archive for February, 2007
Useful Netvibes
Saturday, February 3rd, 2007Systemic arrogance
Saturday, February 3rd, 2007The story of Jacques Chirac’s interviews with journalists from the New York Times, the IHT and Nouvel Observateur this week highlights in an almost painful way some of the worst aspects of continental European journalism. As told by the Times reporters, Chirac and his staff called the reporters back to a second interview, retracting the crucial, controversial statements about Iran, the atomic bomb and Israel from the first interview. Note the details: The 19-page “transcript” of the first interview with the controversial parts deleted and even a statement added that Chirac didn’t utter. As the Times notes at the end of the article:
The attempt by Élysée Palace to change the president’ls remarks in a formal text is not unusual. It is a long-held tradition in French journalism for interview subjects – from the president to business and cultural figures – to be given the opportunity to edit the texts of question-and-answer interviews before publication.
The same tradition exists in Germany, probably also in many other countries. In an episode a few years ago, then German foreign minister Joschka Fischer had a lengthy conversation with a group of Nordic correspondents. On leaving his office, Fischer’s staff told the journalists that they weren’t allowed to quote a single sentence of what he’d said! And they were told in clear terms that no rebellion would be expected or tolerated.
Could “globalisation” kill this embarrassing tradition? Prospect Magazine’s French election blog ponders the Chirac case and notes that the ridiculous attempt by the Elysee palace to spin the story as “anti-French US journalists attack France” failed miserably.
