Gareth Porter

Generals’ Admissions Deflate Cheney Cabal’s Assertions

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_09_17_porter.mp3]

Historian and reporter Gareth Porter discusses the lack of evidence for the Cheney regime’s accusations about Iran engaging in a “proxy war” against the U.S. in Iraq, Centcom commander Admiral Fallon’s distaste for the “chickensh*t” General Petraeus and opposition to war with Iran, Badr-Sadr and the Maliki government, Rice’s capitulation to Cheney and the lack of any real organized opposition to the next war.

MP3 here. (54:43)

Gareth Porter is an independent historian and foreign policy analyst. He is also a Foreign Policy In Focus scholar. His book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, is published in May 2005 by University of California Press.

Carolyn Eisenberg

The Antiwar Movement, the Congress and the Realignment

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_09_17_eisenberg2.mp3]

Carolyn Eisenberg of Historians Against the War and United for Peace and Justice discusses the state of the current American antiwar movement and how best to pressure the Congress.

MP3 here. (38:24)

Carolyn Eisenberg is a professor of history at Hofstra University and a visiting professor at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany.

New York Times Figures Out the Web: It’s Free!

The New York Times has announced that, effective midnight tonight, they will stop charging for access to various portions of their Website.

Two years ago the Times made what turned out to be a stupid decision: they decided to start charging for their top columnists, 20-year archives, and various special features. The result was that influential columnists like Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, and Maureen Dowd were marginalized, with far fewer people reading their articles.

The Times owners did not get the Web. They didn’t understand the effect of search engines and broad distribution on advertising and other “passive” revenue sources.

The Times article explains that they didn’t misunderstand, but it was the Web that changed:

What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others.”

The Los Angeles Times tried a similar model in 2005, charging for access to its arts section, but quickly dropped it after experiencing a sharp decline in Web traffic. We can expect to see newspapers using this example to continue to move into the world of free information.