Month: December 2012

The decision by the Russian Duma (or parliament) supported by President Putin to ban the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents has incited outrage around the world. This legislation  is a kind of tit-for-tat action by Moscow, a political snake-pit which is set out in the accompanying Euronews video on the right. The decision seems particularly inhumane for more than 40 American couples who are currently in the process of the long and expensive task of choosing a child and getting approvals. On the left, is a picture of the Thomas family of Minnesota. Their son is 7-year-old Jack, who was adopted as an infant from a Russian orphanage. He and is mother and father were expecting to bring Jack’s brother, Nikoly, to join him. Now, their hopes are thrown into chaos and uncertainty. It is said that some 750,000 children are living in Russian orphanages and that U.S. families alone have adopted more than 60,000 in recent years. As you will see in the video, there is also strong objection to this ban on the streets of Russia.

Can this sign save the Globe?

The Globe and Mail has a lot at stake in its recent effort to get people to pay for reading the newspaper online. The desperate measure of showing readers an image asking them to pay, rather than showing the story, has become known in the industry as the paywall.  Today the Globe is thumping the paywall  tub again starting off with a brave little conceit that Apocalyptic Mayans didn’t see the end of the world, but they are seeing the end of news for free online. Then there ‘s U.S. commentator Dana Blankenhorn who says investors should short the New York  Times because its paywall — and paywalls everywhere — haven’t got a chance. Blankenhorn says paywalls are only a temporary fix. He quotes Matt Ingram of GigaOm as saying that the Times is only maintaining with its paywalls, not prospering. “The paywall acts like sandbags against the flood. They keep the floodwaters out but they don’t stop the rising water. In the case of newspapers, this flood is an unsustainable business model. As Clay Shirky noted, in the debate over the Washington Post adding a paywall, sites like Homicide Watch cover every killing in the area, with a staff of two, while the Post newsroom has dozens of reporters but just covers a handful of cases a year. As Shirky wrote at his own blog last year a newspaper is a bundle, but the nature of the online world is to tear such bundles apart. The easy part of a paywall is getting money from 2% of your audience, he adds. The harder part is replacing 98% of your advertising business.”