Library Stuff

“Churnalism US is a new web tool and browser extension that allows anyone to compare the news you read against existing content to uncover possible instances of plagiarism. It is a joint project with the Media Standards Trust. Simply feed in a link or block of text to the Churnalism site or let the browser extension run in the background to notify you of any matches of text from Churnalism’s cache of documents.” (via Sunlight Foundation Blog)

NYT – “Among regular Internet users in the United States, 48 percent said in the survey, conducted in October, that they would pay to read news online, including on mobile devices. That result tied with Britain for the lowest figure among nine countries where Boston Consulting commissioned surveys. In several Western European countries, more than 60 percent said they would pay.”

Phil Bradley – “While a lot of news is negative, and there often appears to be more interest in bad stories rather than good, it’s helpful to balance things out now and then. So, if you’re tired of miserable news, try…”

Reuters – “Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.”

From The Turkish Daily News:

"A real estate agent, Salih Çelik, who was caught by the coast guard while he went fishing with his new boat without a fishing license was sentenced to two-and-a-half years imprisonment. However, the However, the judge has changed Çelik’s punishment to compulsory social service for 5 months in a library"

Sounds like a good idea to me, as long as the offenses had nothing to do with kids, Myspace, etc.