Trends in the news

A Defense Department official set up a private network of spies in Afghanistan and Pakistan who gathered intelligence on insurgents, according to officials.

Manny Pacquiao won his latest fight, but the prospect of a bigger one against Floyd Mayweather Jr. hovers over his plans to run for a seat in the Philippine Congress.

Hundreds of South Asian woman allege abuse by in-laws http://bit.ly/dihxSv Hundreds of women who come to Britain from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to marry, say they have been abused by their in-laws, the BBC has learned. Link - Trackbacks

AP - Kristie McNealy blogs from her suburban Denver home about raising four children and health issues. Her husband, Rob, a floor installer, runs another Web site offering product reviews and advice on hardwood floors.

How to do PR in New Media http://dlvr.it/CYZc via @ConversationAge Just a few short years ago, reaching out to the media to discuss a new product or service announcement used to be a fairly straight forward deal. Media people, journalists, trade reporters, and radio personalities used to stay put in one job, with one station or news organization and write a certain kind of story/subject matter. You would either research or look up media contacts in directories and lists. This alone has changed a great deal. As the profit deriving from subscription and advertising continues to erode, news organizations keep shaving staff, augmenting the need to fill so many paper column inches and magazine pages with free lancers. Advertising dollars have been moving online, with the result that magazines' content has gotten even thinner, while newspapers have become thicker with coupons and circulars. Not much information there at all. From content galore Advertisers paid for it. Do you remember how thick an issue of Fast Company magazine used to be? So thick, in fact, that I could hardly read it cover to cover before the month was over. At one point we looked into advertising there, and I recall that issues filled up really fast. There was buzz around the themes and discoveries of the new economy in print circa 1995-2000. That great content did not go away completely. At first, it migrated to the publication's web site, where staff writers and senior editors packaged it in feature stories backed by in depth research and commentary. Then it got produced... Link - Trackbacks