These are some of the things that have caught my attention lately. It’s a more eclectic mix than just the news business, but then so’s life:

• A Story of Self-Induced Starvation | TIME – "I quit one job after another during those four years in Baltimore, moving from bouncing and bartending to investment banking and financial publishing. It's not that I couldn't do the work… I was a good employee. In fact, I hardly ever quit until I got a promotion. The last thing I wanted was a job that called for nice clothes, a respectable car, and a decent apartment. Journalism, I figured, was my last resort."
• Responsible Tweeting: Mumbai Provides Teachable Moment | Amy Gahran – "If you think this news is so time-sensitive and possibly crucial that it must be shared immediately, take care to say that it's an unconfirmed report.

  This is even more important if you're a news organization reporting what you just heard on Twitter. The BBC update timeline on the Mumbai attacks included this entry: "1108 [GMT] Indian government asks for live Twitter updates from Mumbai to cease immediately. 'ALL LIVE UPDATES – PLEASE STOP TWEETING about #Mumbai police and military operations,' a tweet says."

  …So far, BBC has not clarified or elaborated this point — perhaps leaving the impression that this is reliable information."

• Media in dock | FT.com – "The parliamentary probe into the banking crisis will consider whether journalists should be gagged during an emergency to preserve financial stability, writes James Mackintosh .

  The inquiry by the Treasury select committee will consider "the role of the media in financial stability and whether financial journalists should operate under any form of reporting restrictions during banking crises".

• Social Media & Citizen Journalism in the 11/26 Mumbai Terror Attacks: A Case Study | Gauravonomics Blog – "Most live-bloggers are merely posting news and (often premature) opinion based on the mainstream media news coverage.

  There’s value in reposting news, and there’s a good time to offer opinion, but I think that the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack was a time for first-hand original reporting, and the Indian blogosphere didn’t quite rise to the task.

  On the other hand, micro-blogging service Twitter quickly became the best source for real time (citizen) news on the Mumbai terror attack, and the hashtag #Mumbai quickly rose up in Twitter trending topics. But the search volume for #Mumbai quickly became too high to handle, so some people first shifted to geo-tagged tweets from people living close to Mumbai, and then to such tweets containing links."

• Two Month Young Newscast Comes On Strong – mediabistro.com: TVNewser – "Just eight weeks into its run, the new nightly news program Worldfocus is coming on strong, beating its nearest head-to-head competitor BBC World News last night…
  Last night, in all markets, Worldfocus drew 328,892 viewers, up 16% from its lifetime average of 283,749. BBC World News drew 312,310, down 15% from its 8-week average of 365,592.

  The New York-based internationally-focused news program performed even better in the top 30 markets, topping the BBC program on both Monday and Tuesday of this week.

• The Fintag Newsletter @ 28 November 2008 – "Taking out debt is still just too easy. Saving money is near impossible.

  Northern Rock opened up some new accounts yesterday and my PA went to open up a deposit account. She took two large carrier bags of information that she thought they would need but of course forgot the most important one. A copy of her tax return. So she failed in her quest.

  I told her to put GBP10,000 onto her Oyster card instead. Who needs banks eh? The rates of return are so low you might as well not bother. Low interest rates are not good for economies in the long run."

• China Financially Supports Public Service Newspapers | FollowTheMedia – "China is dividing its newspapers into two categories – those that are public service oriented and those that are profit oriented, and the government says it will financially support the public service ones.
  The government says it will financially support those newspapers that are key government and Party publications, those that spread Marxist and Party philosophy, newspapers aimed at ethnic minorities and farmers, government and Party bulletins, and newspapers targeted at foreigners."
• Time Europe’s London staff suffer savage cuts | Roy Greenslade – "In effect, the weekly news magazine that has covered the globe for the past 85 years is retreating to its American heartland. It is only maintaining a skeleton staff elsewhere.

  As one insider told me: "It is a remarkable watershed moment because one of the greatest and wealthiest news organisations in the world is saying that it no longer has the money to do its job."