When business and free speech collide

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on China's recent mandate requiring all new computers sold in the country to contain filters restricting citizens from viewing pornography and other online content it deems harmful.
China has long been notorious for its online censorship, using it to quash movements it opposes (like the freedom of Tibet) and obscure the darker parts of its history (like the Tienanmen Square massacre).
The New York Times wrote an article mentioning the impact this regulation will have on American computer companies including Dell, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard. While the story explains that companies are still examining the regulation, the anonymous industry executives it quotes seem more concerned with how it will set back production than how it will curtail the liberties of others. Says one executive on the regulation:

“The wording may be intentionally vague but the message is clear: we have no choice in the matter,”

This seems to be a popular view of many technology companies working in China. Yahoo helped Chinese Internet police arrest a dissident Internet journalist in 2007 and Google has helped China censor its searches for years now.
While business journalists have examined the moral implications of these companies' business decisions, it still feels that many are pulling punches. Cooperation with China's censorship flies directly in the face of many of these companies' purported goals and self-sculpted images. Journalists shouldn't hesitate to pounce on that hypocrisy.
As a whole, business journalists should call businesses on it when their products do harm to those they're supposed to serve. It not only helps the journalist and their readership, but the companies in bettering themselves.
Business journalism should never forget to emphasize what companies sometimes forget; in the end, there is always a choice.
View the article here.

What do you think about the current accountability of companies aiding in China's censorship? Comment and let us know.

GM retirees get the shorter end of the stick

A flood of stories on General Motors Corp. washed over the unsuspecting public this morning. As of 10:04 am MST, there were 52,479 stories on Google News about G.M. filing for bankruptcy.
While many stories covered the necessary basics of what happened, some went beyond to look at the more detailed picture of the company's financial collapse. Forbes' story "A Sickening Outcome For GM Retirees" is a good example of highlighting the personal and devastating in what could be the faceless falling of a company.
At a time when people are still waiting to see the full fallout of a company's chapter 11, it's important to remember the people at the heart of the company and the story.
View the story here.

Riding the wave

This week Google announced its new communication tool, Wave.

Due out sometime this year, the application imcorporates the elements of conversation and an electronic documents.

With Wave, people can communicate and collaborate with text, photos, videos, and maps in real-time.
Participants can also reply anywhere in a message feed, edit content and add participants to the process. 

The product idea, which originated from the success of email and instant messaging, has been in the works for more than two years.

From the post:

"It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave and see how it evolved," said Lars Rasmussen, Google's software engineering manager.

Google thought about buying a newspaper

In an interview with the Financial Times, Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer of Google said that the technology giant has considered purchasing a newspaper, www.ft.com reported today.
Schmidt elaborated that Google has since decided against an acquisition or charitable donation to avoid a conflict of interest.
From the article:

"'Clever ideas about sheltering newspapers in non-profit structures had been suggested to the Google.org foundation but they are unlikely to happen without some massive, massive set of corporate bankruptcies”, Mr Schmidt said.

View the full story here.

Google's Cheng to join Bloomberg

The Wall Street Journal reports that a director for product management at Google is leaving the company to join Bloomberg LP.
Ien Cheng will become the Bloomberg multimedia group's chief of staff, a role that will have him overseeing television, radio, Web and mobile properties.
From the story:

Mr. Cheng’s hire signals a continuation of a broader effort by Bloomberg to reduce its reliance on sales of the financial-data “terminals” that account for most of its revenue. The evaporation of thousands of financial-sector jobs in the past year has slowed terminal sales, prompting the company founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to focus on making money on the large newsgathering operation that supplies the terminals with news, say people familiar with the situation. Last fall the company hired former Sony BMG Chairman and NBC News President Andrew Lack to run its multimedia business.

Former Star-Ledger employees start news site

Last year, New Jersey's The Star-Ledger bought out nearly half of its 330 newsroom employees in an effort to avoid shutting down or exploring a sale if costs could not be cut.
According to Editor & Publisher, 40 of those former employees have now started up their own news site, NewJerseyNewsroom.com.

The site, which so far has only Google ads but virtually no overhead, claims about 10,000 page views per week. It is mixing original reporting about the Garden State -- ranging form statehouse issues to sports -- along with links to other sites, including the Star-Ledger. An arrangement with Voice of America also allows the site to use that outlet's content.

No one working for the site is being paid yet, since they each have several months worth of salary payments remaining from their buyouts. This helps the new site keep costs low while it tries to attract readers, advertising dollars and funding.
To read more, click here.