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:

• The Burney Collection of 17th and 18th Century Newspapers – free online | British Library – The largest single online collection of English news media from the 17th and 18th centuries – the Burney Collection – is now available free of charge for the first time to Higher and Further Education institutions and Research Councils across the UK.

  The Burney Collection offers unique insights into two centuries of history through access to over 1,270 newsbooks, newspapers, pamphlets and a variety of other news materials published in England, Ireland and Scotland, plus papers from British colonies in the Americas and Asia.

• Winners and losers in Gaza: A Palestinian perspective | Jerusalem Post – Al Arabiya pan-Arab station won the respect of many even if it wasn't the number one watched Arab station (that ranking continues to go to Al Jazeera Arabic). Al Arabiya succeeded by giving much more serious analysis, much better field reporting (with serious human interest stories) and was not afraid or worried about showing Palestinians saying that they were scared. Al Arabiya also didn't fall prey to repeating ad nauseam images that should never have been shown on any TV station without warning to the viewers. It did more to humanize Palestinians than any other media outlet, showing children express fear and concern rather than restrict TV appearances only to bravado statements of courage and fearlessness.
• I/V: Mohamed Nanabhay, Head Of New Media, Al Jazeera: Winning Over The Skeptics Online | paidContent.org – Al Jazeera began using Twitter almost two years ago for breaking news alerts and, later, the U.S. election, but “the important breakthrough” was the use of a dedicated ajgaza feed during Israel’s recent assault: “We were providing breaking news through the feed. Journalists were writing messages and sending them out, which is very different from just taking an RSS feed and sending it out through Twitter. We peaked at around 5,000 followers. There was tremendous growth as the war went on.” Nanabhay said news had evolved beyond newspapers’ 24-hour cycle and even conventional online reporting: “Now people expect a blow-by-blow story.”
• TV news has been a Darwinian evolution | The Independent – News does not usually break cleanly. Details emerge in dribs and drabs, in bits of information from many sources and are often conflicting. Before Sky, news providers were reluctant to share information until they had what they considered to be the whole story. Sky believes in taking the audience into its confidence and sharing facts as soon as possible.

  The recent book about 24-hour news, No Time To Think, by Howard Rosenberg and Charles S Feldman, dredges up the joke that Sky's slogan should be 'Never wrong for long'. This completely misses the point. When a big news story is unfolding, Sky reports new information, clearly attributed to its source.

  A shift took place after the London bombings on 7 July 2005. While the authorities were insisting that the explosions on the Tube were caused by a power surge, Sky News reported the facts as they emerged, pieced them together and reached the conclusion that London was under attack.

• Living In Public Doesn’t Have To Be Destructive | Fred Wilson – I reject the idea that you give up your humanity when you choose to put your life online. I've been doing it for over five years and I've not experienced that very much. But I think you need to have some rules. Here are some I've developed.

  1) Keep your family out of it until they want to be in it
  2) Be nice.
  3) Demand that others are nice back.
  4) Encourage the community to police the comments. Early on Jackson was my "bouncer" and now Kid Mercury has assumed that role.
  5) Take the nasty comments lightly and use humor to defuse them.
  6) Do not delete comments unless they are hateful to others, porn, or spam.
  7) Ignore the trolls even though it kills you
  8) Be careful with photos. They greatest lesson I got was when I posted a photo of me on vacation looking smug. Bad move that I learned a lot from.
  9) Give more than you take.
  10) Enjoy yourself. Talking, discussing, and debating is fun. Keep it that way.

• THE FINTAG NEWSLETTER @ 30 January 2009 – [W]hen I hear bad news about the UK compared to other countries, I have to take it with a pinch of salt. I mean do you really believe the statistics that Russia or China produce?

  Statistics are notoriously difficult. But accounting and publishing Financial Statements is even worse. US GAAP, UK GAAP, IFRS, to name but 3 popular accounting standards. I heard Jamie Dimon speaking yesterday that the European banks were more levered than the US banks – that is because the US banks chuck their borrowings offshore (I used to work in the US and often traded with these arms length vehicles).