On The Turning Away

Courtesy of FT.

die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden

Fresh from watching England defeating Trinidad 2-0 - a lackluster game nonetheless - at lunch today, we turn our attention to the factoids of World Cup.

Franklin Foer, of The New Republic, poses an interesting question: If you were to start a revolution, with the intent of installing a World-Cup winning government, would you go with fascism, communism, a military junta, or social democracy? Relying on empirical data and political theory, Foer finds that fascism did well in the 1930s where it was the most ferocious force on the planet. The ensuing communism never advacned beyond quarterfinals because football is part and parcel a game where individuality and risk-taking thrive, elements non grata in the rigidity of Marxism. On the whole, social democracy triumphs over all other ideologies because, Foer argues, “social democracy celebrates individualism, while relentlessly patting itself on the back for its sense of solidarity–a coherent team with room for stars. ”
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To Continue the thread on digital vs MSM news -

Old media, or MSM, seem to be at an inflection point. Entrepreneurs are experimenting with new ways of creating and distributing the news. Web 2.0 technology expedites the transformation of news distribution while user generated content or citizen journalism provides a new channel for news creation that has proved to be impactful. Take blogs, for example, in news-breaking and news-making. Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish was the driving force behind Trent Lott’s demise.
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John Ridding, the new CEO of Financial Times and ft.com, rallied his troops this week, “We must dominate our space in the evolving digital era as we do in print.” To dispel the gloom and doom that have inflicted the old media types, Mr Ridding said, “We have plenty of cards to play - demand for quality business news and analysis continues to grow, and we have the best journalists, editors and commentators to meet that demand.” He vowed to “make sure that the FT brand retains the respect it has earned as we extend into new channels and new markets.”
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AOL-Netscape today unveiled the beta version, in an extreme makeover of a Web portal to an aggregator of news, modeled on Digg, a popular technology news site.

Digg, like Google, doesn’t use a human editor. Instead of employing computer algorithms to filter news, Digg let users generate content and vote on them. The most popular ones are displayed on Digg.com. Next week, the NYT reports, Digg will introduce a redesign that will allow it to cover a broader range of topics, including world affairs and business.
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