Therapeutic blogging: According to a new study, nearly 50% of bloggers see blogging as a form of therapy.

Observation: I agree. I view it as therapy to help me cope with my addiction to blogging.

Surreal in-flight programming: For a couple of hours tonight, I sat and watched on three different cable news networks as a Jet Blue airliner flew in circles preparing for an emergency landing. Remarkably, the passengers on the flight were also able to watch at least two of the cable news broadcasts I was viewing.

I applaud the decision (or perhaps indecisiveness) of whoever was responsible for not pulling the plug on the satellite feed and to continue allowing the passengers to have the option to watch what was going on. This was an especially good decision in this case as the experts being interviewed on all of the channels were very reassuring when expressing their confidence that the plane would be landed safely. (It was.)

However, I can’t imagine a more surreal experience than to be on that plane watching the live coverage. Especially since much of the time, the coverage was split-screen with other stories, or, in the case of Fox News, an interview between Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump. If I had been forced to watch those two, I think I’d have been asking for a parachute.

Remarkably, three of the passengers were employees of NBC-Universal and were in contact via Blackberry with MSNBC producers. Within moments of touching down, two of them were being interviewed by cell phone on MSNBC. Talk about your participatory journalism. According to them, some of the passengers stayed glued to the TV coverage while others ripped off their headphones after a while.

If I were a passenger, I would have been watching, I guarantee it. However, I would also have been flipping over to ESPN Sports Center. And screw the FAA cell-phone rules, I would have been blogging it with my Treo.

Update: Let me clarify something. Scratch the blogging. I’d be talking with my family. After landing, I’d blog. However, I’d probably still be flipping back and forth to Sports Center.

Nostalgia: I was just transferring some photos from my camera to computer and saw this one I made on August 29 at 10 a.m., the morning of Katrina. I figured I’d want to remember later what gasoline was costing in Nashville that day.

Rafat gets credit: Deservedly so.

Quote:

“It took the better part of a day but the Wall Street Journal has issued a correction and amended the story that made it seem as though the paper, not (PaidContent.org), broke the news that Viacom may be on the verge of acquiring iFilm.”

For those with a WSJ subscription, the story is here.

A Sally Field moment: Perhaps it was my volunteering to sponsor the pizza at the next Nashville blogger meet-up that did the trick, but Mr. Roboto says some really nice things about me on his blog today. Thank you, Mr. R. You’re too kind.

Shameless gloating: I’ve never been a “team owner” before, but today I’m having a Bud Adams moment after a team from Hammock Publishing came away champions last night from the 12th Annual Nashville Corporate Spelling Bee, a fundraiser for the Nashville Adult Literacy Council. (The readers of this weblog will understand why I was not invited to be on the team.) The winning word was racanteur* but a special rexblog shout-out needs to go to the rexblog commenter “Hudge” who spelled “psittacosis.” (Later, I’ll be linking to a Hammorati weblog post about the event and to other coverage of the Bee. However, now I’m at an editorial mini-camp with some of those spelling aces and others.)

*which, as Mr. R. points out was actually spelled correctly, raconteur, by the winners, proving why I wasn’t invited to participate.

Rafat is mad as hell: (about unattributed story pilfering by Wall Street Journal reporters) and he’s not going to take it anymore.