Podcasting pioneer Dave Winer is taking TechCrunch to task over a linkbait article on the Fort Hood tragedy.

TechCrunch’s Paul Carr argues that the Fort Hood tragedy shows that citizen journalism is worthless:

For all the sound and fury, citizen journalism once again did nothing but spread misinformation at a time when thousands people with family at the base would have been freaking out already, and breach the privacy of those who had been killed or wounded. We learned not a single new fact, nor was a single life saved.

Winer responds:

This is how TechCrunch works. They write something stupid, then people write rebuttals explaining how it’s stupid, building flow and page rank.

Winer goes on to point out the obvious – that you can’t make broad conclusions based on one extreme incident like this and that it’s sleazy to do so:

This is Logic 101 and Carr failed it. And since he’s bright, assume he failed it on purpose.

He’s using people’s pain not just for his own self-glorification but also to build flow to attract more ads and money. It’s two levels of disgusting.

It’s wrong, too, for Carr to act like everybody that has a cell phone is a “citizen journalist”.

Most people Tweeting and posting photos to the web aren’t doing anything that they would consider “citizen journalism” or doing anything that anyone else would reasonably consider citizen journalism.

For Carr to trash the idea of citizen journalism based on one person’s tweets is no different than the uninformed generalization that blogging is nothing but people in their basement ranting about what they ate for lunch – or that podcasting is a bunch of self-centered people talking about themselves.

Random tweets aren’t citizen journalism – but then, neither is using Carr trying to reduce a national tragedy to linkbait.

Update: Suw Charman-Anderson has some interesting commentary on this, too.

Apple is warning that you should update your Apple TV asap to avoid losing your media:

There is an issue with Apple TV software version 3.0 that can possibly cause your content to disappear after a period of time. All customers running Apple TV software version 3.0 should immediately restart their Apple TV and then upgrade to Apple TV software version 3.0.1.

For either symptom, do the following:

1. Restart your Apple TV by unplugging the power cord and plugging it back in.
2. Select Settings > General from the main menu.
3. Select Update Software.
4. Select Download and Install when prompted.

Note: Your Apple TV will restart; this is followed by the Apple logo and a status bar.

According to Apple, the symptom of this problem is “You are using Apple TV software version 3.0 and all of your movies, TV shows, and songs appear to be missing,”

via Tuaw

Orb Networks today announced the availability of Orb for Macintosh, a free application that lets you stream your iTunes library over the Internet.

Orb lets anything from iTunes be accessed on any internet-connected device, without downloading titles beforehand or uploading anything to the cloud.

The free Orb application and service enable the streaming of any media type from computers running Windows or the Mac OS to any other internet-connected device including laptops, mobile phones, and even TVs connected to a game console. Users can enjoy all their music, photos, video and webcams anywhere, anytime, without first having to download content before they leave the house, or upload anything to the cloud. All media stays on the computer and is streamed directly to the remote device.

“Orb users are a wildly passionate bunch. They let us know – how do I say this gently – ‘frequently’ about their desire for what they described as the best media application running on the best media computer,” said Joe Costello, CEO of Orb Networks.

Download here.

A 23-year old Minnesota teacher has announced plans to stream the birth of her first child over the Internet to anyone that wants to watch.

“We wanted to share this experience,” Lynsee said about the decision she made with her husband Anders. “If I were in a classroom, I’d be teaching about development. It was a way for me to teach… A way for me to use myself as a textbook.”

When she gives birth, a cameraman will be in the hospital room with Lynsee, her husband, her mother and her midwife. A second camera will be mounted in the corner. There will not be any graphic shots from the midwife’s perspective.

She also plans to live chat with members of the site momslikeme during her delivery.

People are videoing and sharing everything nowadays – but the idea of turning childbirth into a social networking opportunity seems a bit much to me.

What do you think? Do your Facebook “friends” belong in the delivery room?

Google asked 50 random people of different ages and backgrounds in Times Square in New York a simple question: “What is a browser?”

The results are pathetic and scary – but they make clear why you shouldn’t assume that people have a clue about how to subscribe to your podcast, how to watch your video blog, how to follow you on Twitter or the difference between a browser and a hole in the ground.

MediaMemo reports today that Apple is allegedly talking to the TV networks to round up support fr a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via iTunes:

Apple (AAPL) isn’t tying the proposed service to a specific piece of hardware, like its underwhelming Apple TV box or its long-rumored tablet/slate device. Instead, the company is presenting the offer as an extension of its iTunes software and store, which already has 100 million customers.

A so-called “over the top” service could theoretically rival the ones most consumers already buy from cable TV operators–if Apple is able to get enough buy-in from broadcast and cable TV programmers.

While this an interesting rumor – it appears that there’s little more to it than that.

If Apple want to compete with your local cable provider, the way it’s going to have to do it is by opening up Apple TV as a home entertainment platform.

The networks don’t have a lot of incentive to alienate cable providers – so the way forward is to route around the networks and make delivering content to iTunes or Apple TV as easy as changing channels on your television – something it, arguably, has done with the App Store.

2 Chicks, 1 Halloween – Justine & Karen take you on an interactive Halloween adventure.

Nonprofit storytelling organization The Moth has a simple little podcast story for Halloween that, while not in the slightest bit explicitly violent or gory, manages to be scary. Scary in that way that makes the little hairs on the back of the neck stand up, you know?

Writer and performer Joan Juliet Buck tells the story of the days as an American in Paris, and her beautiful — and creepily haunted — apartment in the Rue Jacob. She conjures no graphic images, just uses her narrative to conjure up the suggestion that, perhaps, some unseen malevolent force is lurking. The episode is brief, and a little unsettling. Definitely worth a listen.

“The Ghost of the Rue Jacob” episode is one of a podcast series of performances put on by The Moth, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the art of storytelling. The group has eight different kinds of programs, but many follow the example of their mainstage program, in which five or six storytellers who tell a ten-minute story. The stories are true stories from the storytellers’ lives and they must be told live, without notes.

The feed for the full podcast series is here.

Apple today introduced new Apple TV 3.0 software, featuring a redesigned main menu, support for iTunes Extras and iTunes LP, as well as support for listening to Genius Mixes and Internet radio.

While it’s great to see Apple finally update Apple TV, anyone looking for the platform to open up, add an app store or just add support for Hulu, will be disappointed.

After giving the update a quick spin, the main benefits are slightly faster navigation and the Internet radio support.

The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners.

WordPress has announced that WordPress for iPhone 2 is now available in the App Store.

Here’s what’s new:

• A new, more efficient user interface that makes it faster to switch between comments, posts, and pages.
• Various user interface refinements and bug fixes
• New Comments interface, with Gravatars and the author URL shown in the comment list
• Passwords are now stored in the keychain
• Posts are now automatically saved and restored if network connection is lost during publishing
• Added persistence, so the app re-opens in the blog you last used
• Added an interface for manually entering the XMLRPC endpoint for non-standard setups
• Fixed rotation-related visual glitches
• Fixed errors where malformed XML prevented access to XMLRPC endpoint
• Fixed edge case where local drafts were sometimes not saved
• Fixed the order of photos so that they’re displayed in the order they’re uploaded

WordPress for iPhone 2 is a new app, and the previous version won’t automatically update to 2, so after you install it, you’ll wan to delete the old version.

It’s a free download.