According to the Denver Post, Southwest Airlines in the next nine months hopes to begin a prototype of some type of technology that will provide Internet access and “potential entertainment services.” I don’t know what the CEO Gary Kelly means when he says “entertainment services,” but if they would provide the Wi-fi service, I could entertain myself. I’m just guessing, but perhaps “entertainment services” means a TV and pay-per-view programming available in a chair-back video monitor (ala JetBlue) that includes the ability to access the Internet. That’s not “wifi” as I would define it, but hey, I’ll take it.

I’m pleading guilty to inciting a rant. When I saw this Financial Times article in which the reporter, Joshua Chaffin, hung his story’s premise on statistics he chose to make up rather than look up, I knew I could do one of two things: repeat my typical rant about reporter math or just forward a link to the galaxy’s leading authority on the statistics the reporter dreamed up. And whoop, there it is. As Professor Husni is chairman of the journalism department at Ole Miss, I’m hoping his students are being inspired by his skills with a calculator.

–Marsha Bergmeier, president of Mohr Family Farms in Fairmount, Ill., explaining to the New York Times what she did that led to the discovery that the Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of people have been disclosed for years in a publicly available database maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Really, has a quote ever captured the zeitgeist of an era so succinctly?

Look at that image on the left. To me, it seems like a two-page-spread magazine advertisement designed to make me have nightmares every time I think of NBC News.

Dan Gilmor explains it precisely: The decision to add a logo to the horrific images from Cho was a “catastrophic marketing blunder.”

I’m not questioning here whether or not NBC was correct in airing the material. I’m questioning the judgment to “brand” it.

While I can understand the knee-jerk desire by NBC reporters to take credit for an exclusive scoop that a deranged murderer dropped into their laps when he decided they would be his conduit for broadcasting his insanity, I have not been able to comprehend why the grown-ups at NBC (apparently, from the previously linked-to NY Times article) didn’t have the better judgment to step in and say, “Guys, this is not an NFL football game where we purchased the rights to this stuff and we want credit. It’s not like we sent our crew out and shot this stuff. It’s not like a reporter went out and developed sources for this material. The guy didn’t even get our address right. This isn’t our property, rather it is evidence in a murder. But most importantly, people, do we want an entire generation of 18-24 year olds who have been traumatized by this event to associate NBC News with this psychotic mass-murderer for the next half-century?”

As Dan says:

“One aspect that clearly irritated many of NBC’s competitors was the impression of the logo ‘NBC News,’ which the network burned into every image from the material.” They should be quietly overjoyed, not angry.”

While I don’t think they should be overjoyed. I think they should be glad Cho sent it to NBC and not them.

Thanks to Hudge, who emailed me today’s Dilbert strip to suggest the name iRex for the product. For the record, there already is an iRex.

• ITerating: Wiki-Based Software Guide
  Directory and reviews of open source and commercial software.
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• Media purchased sponsored ads to promote Virginia Tech shooting coverage | AP
  One potential problem for news organizations is that keyword ads “can also leave you looking crass — that you’re tapping in for a business purpose on a tragedy,” said Danny Sullivan.
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