Bob Stepno's Media Weblog
Explorations of personal and community journalism online...
Updated: 4 min 48 sec ago
Journalism education group honors Tennessee & Elon profs.
The AEJMC Newspaper Division's spring and summer newsletters are now online, including plenty of news:
- National faculty awards for professors Dorothy Bowles at UT Knoxville and Janna Quitney Anderson at Elon University (see page 3 of that PDF newsletter)
- A
call for discussion of changing the Newspaper Division's name to
reflect changes in members' research and in the converged news industry
itself. (As I mentioned on the division home page, what was once the
International Newspaper Marketing Association, now uses the word
"Newsmedia" in its name, but other groups like the Newspaper
Association of America and American Society of Newspaper Editors still
emphasize their roots. The American Press Institute is still around, too, along with its Newspaper Next project.)
- Listings of conference paper presentations and forums at the annual AEJMC Convention, which will be in Chicago next month.
Copy editors, AP blog links, old-new media, Sarcasm and Red Wine
No time today for careful commentary or even an attempt to craft transitions between news items while suffering the flaky outages of my municipal wifi system... but just enough time for some aggregation and juxtaposition from The New York Times. Insert your own art or irony.
an Elegy for Copy Editors
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/opinion/16mon4.html
"As newspapers lose money and readers, they have been shedding great swaths of expensive expertise. They have been forced to shrink or eliminate the multiply redundant levels of editing that distinguish their kind of journalism from what you find on TV, radio and much of the Web. Copy editors are being bought out or forced out; they are dying and not being replaced.
"Webby doesn't necessarily mean sloppy, of course, and online news operations will shine with all the brilliance that the journalists who create them can bring. But in that world of the perpetual present tense -- post it now, fix it later, update constantly -- old-time, persnickety editing may be a luxury in which only a few large news operations will indulge. It will be an artisanal product, like monastery honey and wooden yachts."
The Associated Press to Set Guidelinesfor Using Its Articles in Blogs
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/business/media/16ap.html
Jeff Jarvis response:
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/06/16/ap-hole-dig/
Dave Winer:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/06/16/apObjectsToQuotingandlinki.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/business/media/05post.html
The Science of Sarcasm (Not That You Care)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/health/research/03sarc.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/health/research/04aging.html
A missing link in the history of linkage
"This will be the radiated library and the televised book."
-- Paul Otlet, quoted in an excerpt from the documentary film, "The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World."
-- Paul Otlet, quoted in an excerpt from the documentary film, "The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World."
From today's New York Times: The Mundaneum Museum Honors the First Concept of the World Wide Web,
The Web Time Forgot
"In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or 'electric telescopes,' as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a 'reseau,' which might be translated as 'network' [~] or arguably, 'web.'"
Back in the mid-1980s I read Howard Rheingold's Tools for Thought, and learned about Vannevar Bush's "memex" ideas for automating cross-reference links, and how Bush's "How We May Think" (1945) influenced a young radar operator, Doug Engelbart (who later gave us the mouse and the first great demo of the future of work on screen), and Ted Nelson (who gave us the word "hypertext"). I got excited about hypertext programs with names like "Guide," "Hypercard," "HyperTIES," "ZOG" and "BlackMagic" a few years before an English programmer in Switzerland opened a new research universe with his practical Internet version of linkage, HTML, HTTP and the Web.
Otlet, though, was off the radar. It's amazing to think that mostly monoglot Americans may have missed a page in the history of information technology -- one not written in English, or on this continent. As Times reporter Alex Wright puts it, complete with pronunciation guide,
"Historians typically trace the origins of the World Wide Web through a lineage of Anglo-American inventors like Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. But more than half a century before Tim Berners-Lee released the first Web browser in 1991, Otlet (pronounced ot-LAY) described a networked world where "anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation."
Like Bush, Otlet described analog devices linking chunks of information, but it sounds like "networking" was even more central to Otlet's thought than Bush's automated personal memory bank, the memex. I'm going to read more about this gentleman, starting with this essay, which also talks about issues in the work of biography itself, by W. Boyd Rayward, whose 197-page book about Otlet is also online at http://hdl.handle.net/1854/3989
Hmm. I wonder if Rheingold or Nelson or Berners-Lee has written about Otlet... or if I would have heard about him already if I'd gone after that M.L.S. degree instead of "settling" for an M.A.L.S. and a Ph.D.? Well, at least I've heard of him in time to work him into my syllabus for the Media History course I'll be teaching in the fall... and I can use this blog page to point out to students that there's never one "textbook" with all the answers.
Citizen journalism meets cartography -- a map reporter is born
Whose job is it to fix the world? While plotting routes to our new Radford University School of Communication home at 702-704 Fairfax St. with Google Maps, I've noticed a common local mapping error that tells visitors to turn down either of two wrong streets to get to us.
Google shows Fairfax as a through street from one side of campus to the other; it isn't.
The center third has been blocked for years with a clock tower and pedestrian area.
It also shows "Adams Street" as a through street intersecting Fairfax, but that's not true either. Most of Adams is now a pedestrian mall, although some buildings still carry addresses like "307 Adams St.," the Criminal Justice department.
View Larger Map
What's a poor navigator to do? Well, I've just noticed that if you follow links from Google Maps to the Navteq company, you can become a "Navteq Map Reporter" and offer corrections in its worldwide mapping database.
I wonder how many Radford visitors have been frustrated by maps that don't keep pace with campus construction at Radford University, where two major cross-streets no longer cross in the center of campus...
Perhaps someone has submitted official documents on the university's behalf, but I decided that one more voice can't hurt. I just offered this note to Navteq, along with a copy of the university's already out-of-date map.
Radford University several years ago absorbed most of Adams Street, blocking it with new construction, more of which is in progress. Adams is no longer a through-street from Tyler to East Main.
Jefferson Street is now the campus border, and the intersection of Tyler and Jefferson allows turns in all directions. Adams Street buildings still exist (e.g. 307 Adams St.), but the street is now a pedestrian mall from Waldron to Hurlburt Halls on the attached map, and a new art center is being built between East Main and Hurlburt.
The center of Fairfax Street is also blocked between Dalton and Heth Halls, so it is no longer a through street from East Main to Jefferson.
According to Navteq, I am now a "Map Reporter," and have been sent the following response to my change:
NAVTEQ releases navigation data up to four times a year to a wide range of navigation system manufacturers and vendors. Because of the time required to process the data, there is a lag between making an addition to the database and seeing that change reflected in a navigation system. Updated maps are offered for sale by your system manufacturer. We make every effort to ensure that our map data is fresh, accurate, and up-to-date by employing full-time staff in more than 130 offices around the world. We appreciate conscientious drivers such as yourself who take the time to tell us that we might need to make a change.
Google shows Fairfax as a through street from one side of campus to the other; it isn't.
The center third has been blocked for years with a clock tower and pedestrian area.
It also shows "Adams Street" as a through street intersecting Fairfax, but that's not true either. Most of Adams is now a pedestrian mall, although some buildings still carry addresses like "307 Adams St.," the Criminal Justice department.
View Larger Map
What's a poor navigator to do? Well, I've just noticed that if you follow links from Google Maps to the Navteq company, you can become a "Navteq Map Reporter" and offer corrections in its worldwide mapping database.
I wonder how many Radford visitors have been frustrated by maps that don't keep pace with campus construction at Radford University, where two major cross-streets no longer cross in the center of campus...
Perhaps someone has submitted official documents on the university's behalf, but I decided that one more voice can't hurt. I just offered this note to Navteq, along with a copy of the university's already out-of-date map.
Radford University several years ago absorbed most of Adams Street, blocking it with new construction, more of which is in progress. Adams is no longer a through-street from Tyler to East Main.
Jefferson Street is now the campus border, and the intersection of Tyler and Jefferson allows turns in all directions. Adams Street buildings still exist (e.g. 307 Adams St.), but the street is now a pedestrian mall from Waldron to Hurlburt Halls on the attached map, and a new art center is being built between East Main and Hurlburt.
The center of Fairfax Street is also blocked between Dalton and Heth Halls, so it is no longer a through street from East Main to Jefferson.
According to Navteq, I am now a "Map Reporter," and have been sent the following response to my change:
NAVTEQ releases navigation data up to four times a year to a wide range of navigation system manufacturers and vendors. Because of the time required to process the data, there is a lag between making an addition to the database and seeing that change reflected in a navigation system. Updated maps are offered for sale by your system manufacturer. We make every effort to ensure that our map data is fresh, accurate, and up-to-date by employing full-time staff in more than 130 offices around the world. We appreciate conscientious drivers such as yourself who take the time to tell us that we might need to make a change.
NewsJunk offers one-stop shopping for politics addicts
Dave Winer and Nicco Mele have a new project: NewsJunk, for political news junkies.
It's a continually updated political news blog, but fast and brief -- about 100 items in the past 24 hours, none more than four lines long, linked to full stories on news sites and blogs.
A 6 ways to follow NewsJunk link -- it was "5 ways" last week -- offers versions for Web browsers, RSS readers, Twitter (as a feed called NewsJunkies), a mobile version for iPhone, Blackberry and more.
"I have never been so informed about political news as I am now that I am involved in NewsJunk," says Winer.
While the main page is strictly last-in/first-out order, there's also a Top-25 page.
Where is the best of this junk coming from? Yesterday's top-25 items were from these sites: Wonkette, Talking Points Memo, National Public Radio, Newsweek, Politico(2), The Hill, CBS News, Weekly Standard, CNN, Salon(2), MSNBC(3), ABC, Gallup, AP(2), The New York Times, Marc Ambinder, Craig Crawford, Patrick Ruffini, Reuters and Time.
Actually, Wonkette's item is a link to Metro UK newspaper, http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=168752
When I decided to list the sources for the other bloggers, I found all of NewsJunk's links of the form http://x.newsjunk.com/JS were offline. They worked yesterday. Either Dave is installing new software this morning or "the force" is telling me to do something else.
It's a continually updated political news blog, but fast and brief -- about 100 items in the past 24 hours, none more than four lines long, linked to full stories on news sites and blogs.
A 6 ways to follow NewsJunk link -- it was "5 ways" last week -- offers versions for Web browsers, RSS readers, Twitter (as a feed called NewsJunkies), a mobile version for iPhone, Blackberry and more.
"I have never been so informed about political news as I am now that I am involved in NewsJunk," says Winer.
While the main page is strictly last-in/first-out order, there's also a Top-25 page.
Where is the best of this junk coming from? Yesterday's top-25 items were from these sites: Wonkette, Talking Points Memo, National Public Radio, Newsweek, Politico(2), The Hill, CBS News, Weekly Standard, CNN, Salon(2), MSNBC(3), ABC, Gallup, AP(2), The New York Times, Marc Ambinder, Craig Crawford, Patrick Ruffini, Reuters and Time.
Actually, Wonkette's item is a link to Metro UK newspaper, http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=168752
When I decided to list the sources for the other bloggers, I found all of NewsJunk's links of the form http://x.newsjunk.com/JS were offline. They worked yesterday. Either Dave is installing new software this morning or "the force" is telling me to do something else.
Commencement speechs does the Web time-warp
Links fight misinformation onlineAs much as I enjoyed John Feinstein's commencement speech last month, I thought for a minute I'd missed something when I got today's Google e-mail alert set to find mentions of "Radford University"... It referred to something a bit more newsworthy than our entertaining talk by a sportswriter:
Senator Jim Webb's Commencement Address: Economic Fairness I have posted a video of Jim Webb introducing Obama to Virginia (June 5, 2008). It is followed by a transcript of Jim Webb's commencement speech: "Economic Fairness" (June 7, 2008).
It was just a one-digit typo -- Senator Webb spoke here in 2007, before I joined the Radford faculty. I really wish blogs and sites of all kinds would protect themselves from spreading such errors -- just use the basic Web feature of hypertext to link back to original sources. That provides corroboration and transparency, even if the blogger or journalist feels a need to copy the full text instead of only linking to it. (I'd much rather see a link and original additions to the conversation.)
Google to the rescue: The senator's own site has the original text, as do a few other places, including one with a commencement photo collection:
Those links may come in handy later this week, if a reporter calls to interview me on the subject of "Web disinformation." I don't claim to be an expert, but when Radford's news office called to ask whether I could help on that topic, I mentioned a research panel I was on at a national conference a couple of years ago and a modest 1995 course paper a grad school classmate and I wrote.
Case in point: I archived a copy of that 1995 Web disinformation paper, and Google still finds more than 100 links to it, but many of them point to a Web server named "Blake.unc.edu" that slipped off Paul Jones's desk more than 10 years ago! One prominent link even cites Paul as my co-author, in place of Bob Henshaw. (Paul was our professor at UNC for one of his pioneer courses on important issues related to that new thing, the World Wide Web.)
Senator Jim Webb's Commencement Address: Economic Fairness I have posted a video of Jim Webb introducing Obama to Virginia (June 5, 2008). It is followed by a transcript of Jim Webb's commencement speech: "Economic Fairness" (June 7, 2008).
It was just a one-digit typo -- Senator Webb spoke here in 2007, before I joined the Radford faculty. I really wish blogs and sites of all kinds would protect themselves from spreading such errors -- just use the basic Web feature of hypertext to link back to original sources. That provides corroboration and transparency, even if the blogger or journalist feels a need to copy the full text instead of only linking to it. (I'd much rather see a link and original additions to the conversation.)
Google to the rescue: The senator's own site has the original text, as do a few other places, including one with a commencement photo collection:
- http://webb.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=273702
- http://www.bornfighting.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=4
- http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8359
Those links may come in handy later this week, if a reporter calls to interview me on the subject of "Web disinformation." I don't claim to be an expert, but when Radford's news office called to ask whether I could help on that topic, I mentioned a research panel I was on at a national conference a couple of years ago and a modest 1995 course paper a grad school classmate and I wrote.
Case in point: I archived a copy of that 1995 Web disinformation paper, and Google still finds more than 100 links to it, but many of them point to a Web server named "Blake.unc.edu" that slipped off Paul Jones's desk more than 10 years ago! One prominent link even cites Paul as my co-author, in place of Bob Henshaw. (Paul was our professor at UNC for one of his pioneer courses on important issues related to that new thing, the World Wide Web.)
Sometimes you do need a weatherman...
What Newspapers Still Don't Understand About The Web "Why is Google making more money everyday while newspapers are making
less? I'm going to pick on The Washington Post again only because it's
my local paper and this is a local example."
[INSERT CALL LETTERS OF A LOCAL TV STATION HERE].com
Otherwise all those stations are wasting lots of bucks on websites, PSAs and billboards showing the smiling faces of their staff meteorologists and their "our radar is better than your radar" promotions.
I wonder how many newspapers actually employ a meteorologist for purposes of online up-to-the-minute weather reports? I suspect some partner with local TV stations.
Scott Karp offers a well-illustrated review and extensive discussion of issues like keeping newspaper's Web sites more up to the minute than their last morning edition... and is informed about registering to get "local" versus "world" versions of the home page.
But for anyone living outside the beltway, the answer to "Where do you go for a local storm story" wouldn't be one of the nation's top newspapers... I think to most folks, the answer would be obvious:[INSERT CALL LETTERS OF A LOCAL TV STATION HERE].com
Otherwise all those stations are wasting lots of bucks on websites, PSAs and billboards showing the smiling faces of their staff meteorologists and their "our radar is better than your radar" promotions.
I wonder how many newspapers actually employ a meteorologist for purposes of online up-to-the-minute weather reports? I suspect some partner with local TV stations.
Journalists finding time for Twitter... or not...
My world-travelling Australian friend Stephen Quinn is blogging from London about new reporting tools, including the short-message bloglike service, Twitter. Here's his collection of links: Twitter for newsgathering. I'll add a few, in case he's watchng...
I've been keeping up on Twitter developments peripherally for more than a year, mostly thanks to Dave Winer, who had a great metaphor for Twitter as a coral reef technology... one that new things could attach to and grow. Dave now has more than 10,000 people "following" his own Twitter feed.
For background, here's Twitter's CEO: It all started with my mother (and a bike-messenger bag, messengers, CB radios...).
As for the coral-reefing in the journalism community, CNet was on the story in April, with a list of users and non-users in technology journalism:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-9912520-60.html
Red55 had a list in February and attracted a bunch of "me too!" posts in the comments:
http://red66.com/2008/02/a-list-of-news-organizations-using-twitter/
Some of my old friends in North Carolina got together in person last month to, uh, Tweet:
http://triangletweetup.pbwiki.com/
NewMediaBytes has been spreading the word among working journalists, too:
http://www.newmediabytes.com/2008/01/18/best-twitter-tools-resources-and-clients-guide/
http://www.newmediabytes.com/2008/04/15/twitter-guide-for-automatic-update/
And if Twitter is all new to you, this short video tells the basic story:
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ddO9idmax0o&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ddO9idmax0o&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
For me...alas... I'm afraid Twitter is going to stay on my "just don't have time for this..." list for a few more weeks...
Another thing I didn't have time for recently was a conference right around the corner from my house... a less technological attempt by some folks to build a political coral reef. Tim Jackson filled me in a bit... but the Google alert I subscribe to for mentions of Radford University startled me today with another story about the conference -- from Michael Moore's blog: http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/blog/2008/06/speech-delivered-at-radford-university.html
I've been keeping up on Twitter developments peripherally for more than a year, mostly thanks to Dave Winer, who had a great metaphor for Twitter as a coral reef technology... one that new things could attach to and grow. Dave now has more than 10,000 people "following" his own Twitter feed.
For background, here's Twitter's CEO: It all started with my mother (and a bike-messenger bag, messengers, CB radios...).
As for the coral-reefing in the journalism community, CNet was on the story in April, with a list of users and non-users in technology journalism:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-9912520-60.html
Red55 had a list in February and attracted a bunch of "me too!" posts in the comments:
http://red66.com/2008/02/a-list-of-news-organizations-using-twitter/
Some of my old friends in North Carolina got together in person last month to, uh, Tweet:
http://triangletweetup.pbwiki.com/
NewMediaBytes has been spreading the word among working journalists, too:
http://www.newmediabytes.com/2008/01/18/best-twitter-tools-resources-and-clients-guide/
http://www.newmediabytes.com/2008/04/15/twitter-guide-for-automatic-update/
And if Twitter is all new to you, this short video tells the basic story:
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ddO9idmax0o&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ddO9idmax0o&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
For me...alas... I'm afraid Twitter is going to stay on my "just don't have time for this..." list for a few more weeks...
Another thing I didn't have time for recently was a conference right around the corner from my house... a less technological attempt by some folks to build a political coral reef. Tim Jackson filled me in a bit... but the Google alert I subscribe to for mentions of Radford University startled me today with another story about the conference -- from Michael Moore's blog: http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/blog/2008/06/speech-delivered-at-radford-university.html
Blending blogging and journalism in Raleigh & Chapel Hill
...with some historical context
The Web helped pay my way through the University of North Carolina grad school in 1994, with a part-time job at a now-retired news site created by the Raleigh News & Observer... It's good to see both of those institutions sharing new online ideas.
Here's Leroy Towns at a Talk Politics blog hosted by the J-school, interviewing Ryan Teague Beckwith, a government and politics blogger at the N&O:
(Perhaps some folks thought they only went back to Jesse Helms? In fact, the original N&O arrest story already has some legs in the blogosphere.)
Hmm... There's an interesting "webification of newspapers" issue: Today, May 31, should the archived May 24/25 story have a link to today's "charges dropped" story?
Oh wait -- it does have a link! It's in an oddly titled "More Crime & Safety" sidebar list. I assume software, not a human, builds that list, and that it will be different tomorrow.
Idea: Put sharp, eager journalism interns on the case as "link editors" to weave a more complete web of news with more bidirectional links between today's stories and historical context -- and between archived stories and the latest developments. (A compromise approach for major issues: the Times Topics pages at http://nyt.com)
As the recently departed Utah Phillips was fond of saying, "The past didn't go anywhere." Play the "Bridges" audio clip on this page to hear that line in context, along with his observation that writers neglect rich historical context. His example was someone dismissing his songs about political activism with the phrase "that sixties stuff."
Says Utah, "That packaging of time (into decades) is a journalistic convenience that they use to trivialize and to dismiss important events and important ideas. I defy that. Time is an enormous long river... I'm standing in it, and you're standing in it."
And, these days, even Utah Phillips is YouTubing on this digital river of news we call the Web.
Speaking of history and "linking back": Our 1994 News & Observer Web spinoff, the Nando Times, did a lot of aggregating of wire service stories, stacking them up in reverse chronological order like cordwood -- or like today's blog posts -- and kept collections around for days as a big story developed, linking each new story to the list page. Sometimes the linkage provided context; other times, I'm afraid it was just overwhelming.
One rather extreme example survives from 11 years ago, although the stories behind the headlines have long expired from the archive.
(Web design and Media & Society students take notice: The corner graphic for the group of pages always looked awfully like "packaging" to me, even before I learned the word "commodification" in grad school.)
The Web helped pay my way through the University of North Carolina grad school in 1994, with a part-time job at a now-retired news site created by the Raleigh News & Observer... It's good to see both of those institutions sharing new online ideas.
Here's Leroy Towns at a Talk Politics blog hosted by the J-school, interviewing Ryan Teague Beckwith, a government and politics blogger at the N&O:
Q. "Where do you believe this blending of blogging and journalism is headed? Will journalistic norms be reshaped?"
A. "As a paid blogger for an MSM paper, I think
convergence is already happening. (As William Gibson famously said, the
future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.) Over time, I
think papers will learn to be more immediate, more chatty and more
transparent, while bloggers will learn to be more rigorously sourced,
more fair and more objective."
(Perhaps some folks thought they only went back to Jesse Helms? In fact, the original N&O arrest story already has some legs in the blogosphere.)
Hmm... There's an interesting "webification of newspapers" issue: Today, May 31, should the archived May 24/25 story have a link to today's "charges dropped" story?
Oh wait -- it does have a link! It's in an oddly titled "More Crime & Safety" sidebar list. I assume software, not a human, builds that list, and that it will be different tomorrow.
Idea: Put sharp, eager journalism interns on the case as "link editors" to weave a more complete web of news with more bidirectional links between today's stories and historical context -- and between archived stories and the latest developments. (A compromise approach for major issues: the Times Topics pages at http://nyt.com)
As the recently departed Utah Phillips was fond of saying, "The past didn't go anywhere." Play the "Bridges" audio clip on this page to hear that line in context, along with his observation that writers neglect rich historical context. His example was someone dismissing his songs about political activism with the phrase "that sixties stuff."
Says Utah, "That packaging of time (into decades) is a journalistic convenience that they use to trivialize and to dismiss important events and important ideas. I defy that. Time is an enormous long river... I'm standing in it, and you're standing in it."
And, these days, even Utah Phillips is YouTubing on this digital river of news we call the Web.
Speaking of history and "linking back": Our 1994 News & Observer Web spinoff, the Nando Times, did a lot of aggregating of wire service stories, stacking them up in reverse chronological order like cordwood -- or like today's blog posts -- and kept collections around for days as a big story developed, linking each new story to the list page. Sometimes the linkage provided context; other times, I'm afraid it was just overwhelming.
One rather extreme example survives from 11 years ago, although the stories behind the headlines have long expired from the archive.
(Web design and Media & Society students take notice: The corner graphic for the group of pages always looked awfully like "packaging" to me, even before I learned the word "commodification" in grad school.)
Being there for the big story -- from tears to pandas
National Public Radio has some very international coverage of the China earthquake, both on the air and in its Chengdu Diary blog, the result of a tragic serendipity:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu
As noted in an alert I just received through Facebook, NPR reporters Melissa Block and Robert Siegel and several producers were already on the scene, preparing for an All Things Considered project.
"The blog journals their experiences there, before, during and after the quake, and has links to some of the radio stories they've filed from around Chengdu as well. They've managed to capture some of the most poignant, heartbreaking stories you will ever experience."
Here's one example, Melissa Block on a couple's search for their loved ones. Her microphone, less intrusive than any "stand up" TV reporters and bulky cameras, is enough... especially with a full 10 minutes to tell the story. Her voiceover bears witness, adds evocative description, never falls into the journalistic traps of being too detached or sensational... at least that's the reaction of most listeners who have added comments to the blog's story page. On it Block tells more about the family and the NPR team they permitted to so eloquently share their grief.
If you don't like radio's power to get you emotionally involved in a story, you can still browse the blog and see how well NPR is applying a multimedia approach to its China storytelling -- not all of which is disaster and horror. See this photo feature on ancient seismic instruments decorating a hotel lobby, or this blog item -- with video -- a sidebar on pandas. Radio? Photos? Video? With all this Web convergence, the listener-oriented descriptive writing is still there, accompanying the video clip:
"We found one of the adult female pandas, 9-year-old Qi Zhen, relaxing in a pool of water in her outdoor enclosure. She was sitting up, slumped over her paunchy belly, looking like a lazy matron dozing off in the tub. Then, as we watched, she started lifting her feet out of the water, rotating them in small splashy circles, in what could pass for panda water aerobics."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu
As noted in an alert I just received through Facebook, NPR reporters Melissa Block and Robert Siegel and several producers were already on the scene, preparing for an All Things Considered project.
"The blog journals their experiences there, before, during and after the quake, and has links to some of the radio stories they've filed from around Chengdu as well. They've managed to capture some of the most poignant, heartbreaking stories you will ever experience."
Here's one example, Melissa Block on a couple's search for their loved ones. Her microphone, less intrusive than any "stand up" TV reporters and bulky cameras, is enough... especially with a full 10 minutes to tell the story. Her voiceover bears witness, adds evocative description, never falls into the journalistic traps of being too detached or sensational... at least that's the reaction of most listeners who have added comments to the blog's story page. On it Block tells more about the family and the NPR team they permitted to so eloquently share their grief.
If you don't like radio's power to get you emotionally involved in a story, you can still browse the blog and see how well NPR is applying a multimedia approach to its China storytelling -- not all of which is disaster and horror. See this photo feature on ancient seismic instruments decorating a hotel lobby, or this blog item -- with video -- a sidebar on pandas. Radio? Photos? Video? With all this Web convergence, the listener-oriented descriptive writing is still there, accompanying the video clip:
"We found one of the adult female pandas, 9-year-old Qi Zhen, relaxing in a pool of water in her outdoor enclosure. She was sitting up, slumped over her paunchy belly, looking like a lazy matron dozing off in the tub. Then, as we watched, she started lifting her feet out of the water, rotating them in small splashy circles, in what could pass for panda water aerobics."
Editors' survey reflects growing agnosticism about news platforms
The World Editors Forum has begun posting its 2008 Newsroom Barometer -- the results of a survey of more than 700 newspaper editors on the future of news -- including predictions about integrated print-Web newsrooms and the rise of multimedia and multi-skilled journalists.
Meanwhile, the forum's weblog is running a series of interviews with, as its name might suggest, some of the world's top editors. It's fascinating to compare the responses to the question "How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?" Hint: Almost all say they've considered themselves "news" or "information" organizations for some time, "newspaper" being just a "distribution channel."
Even true-believers in journalism seem to be turning to what one calls an "almost platform-agnostic" integrated newsroom. (That link goes to a preview of New York Times digital news editor Jim Roberts' presentation to the forum's conference in Sweden next month.)
Here's the list of interviewees, including already-posted transcripts and publications expected to participate:
- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times - Dan Bogler (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)
Thanks to Mich Sineath's AEJMC Members Forum for pointing out this discussion.
Meanwhile, the forum's weblog is running a series of interviews with, as its name might suggest, some of the world's top editors. It's fascinating to compare the responses to the question "How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?" Hint: Almost all say they've considered themselves "news" or "information" organizations for some time, "newspaper" being just a "distribution channel."
Even true-believers in journalism seem to be turning to what one calls an "almost platform-agnostic" integrated newsroom. (That link goes to a preview of New York Times digital news editor Jim Roberts' presentation to the forum's conference in Sweden next month.)
Here's the list of interviewees, including already-posted transcripts and publications expected to participate:
- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times - Dan Bogler (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)
Thanks to Mich Sineath's AEJMC Members Forum for pointing out this discussion.
The Web video express train don't stop here...
School's out and my summer blogging will be limited or obsessively compulsive... I haven't decided yet.
But here's some "other journalism" that just flew in the e-mail window from a reader who noticed the blog's title -- a visitor from www.LiveNewsCameras.com
"Imagine what will happen when every mobile can stream live video[sigma] We are working with such a phone right now. Every major news story could be shown live from a dozen different points of view."
He says the site's informal motto is "'Veritas odit moras,' from line 850 of Seneca[base ']s version of Oedipus. It means 'Truth hates delay.'"
That reminds me of another old proverb, sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, but old enough to have been quoted this way by an English preacher in 1855:
"If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, 'A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.'"
For online journalism, I wonder if there's a connection to "re-booting" the computer when all that video locks it up?
But here's some "other journalism" that just flew in the e-mail window from a reader who noticed the blog's title -- a visitor from www.LiveNewsCameras.com
"The concept is simple, let people watch news as it happens anywhere
in the world[sigma]raw, unedited on your computer at work or home," says the e-mail from Andrew Finlayson at FoxTV.com
"It
officially was made public on Super Tuesday (although we had been tinkering
with how to do it for months) with just a couple of feeds focusing on the
Republican and Democratic candidates," he says.
Now the site has 150 streams, according to Finlayson, predicting it will double soon.
I can't get any of them to work on my iBook and http://radnetva.com municipal WiFi here at home. The connection just grinds to a stuttering stop when the page loads, attempting to automatically stream some video and chat onto my screen at the same time without giving me a choice in the matter.
I'll try it again from the office, just to see how it works with the university's broadband connection, and how the originators keep all that video from being videobabel.
Here's more from Finlayson's mail:
"Imagine what will happen when every mobile can stream live video[sigma] We are working with such a phone right now. Every major news story could be shown live from a dozen different points of view."
He says the site's informal motto is "'Veritas odit moras,' from line 850 of Seneca[base ']s version of Oedipus. It means 'Truth hates delay.'"
That reminds me of another old proverb, sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, but old enough to have been quoted this way by an English preacher in 1855:
"If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, 'A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.'"
For online journalism, I wonder if there's a connection to "re-booting" the computer when all that video locks it up?
Summer reading aggregator
This is where I'm posting links to things I plan to read and/or write about once I'm through with end-of-semester grading and sorting-out... Expect this list to get longer...
- Degrees in the Past. "Ultimately, to change the media industries, we've got to change our universities," says my old friend Vin Crosbie, without giving away all the secrets of what should change. "Although the youngest professors are for change," he says, "so are a great many
of the oldest. It's those aged in between who are most obstructive,
those who worked in the media industries during the 1990s before
entering academia."
Since I just arrived here at Radford by a circuitous career route, I'm one of the oldest and newest... and in a new School of Communication, so change is in the air. I'll know by July 1 how many of my older (in service to the university) colleagues are interested in the university's recent offer of a "workforce transition" early retirement option.
- A Primer on how to read your online newspaper after the paper stops using paper.
What it takes to work at NYTimes.com
Khoi Vinh, design director of NYTimes.com, has been answering questions from readers for the past week. One of those readers, Omar Yacoubi, offered the question our Web design students are most likely to ask:
Q. What course of study would you recommend at the graduate or undergraduate level
for someone looking to work in your field? Or, failing that, what practical experience do
you think most prepared you for your current job?
The design director answered in terms of what he looks for when hiring, not in terms of a literal "course of study" -- but he went beyond design and technology to a couple of "skills" that make me glad Radford's Web design curriculum and the journalism curriculum are in the same school. One is "sound news judgment based on a deep understanding of current affairs"; the other is an ability to give "plainspoken explanations" of the tasks at hand.
Here's the full text of his answer to that question... I've added italics to indicate the whole block is a quote, and I've broken part of it into bullet points and highlighted a couple of things.
But don't miss the full Q&A column, which runs to nine pages if "printed" as a PDF file.
Khoi Vinh:
"It's actually quite a complex mix of varied skills: an ideal applicant would have
"So obviously I look for people who can combine as many of these skills as possible. I'm not sure it would be fair to say that any one skill is more important than the other because they're all vital, but I can say that having a particularly weak foundation in traditional graphic design -- lacking an understanding of typography, color, composition and visual storytelling -- more or less disqualifies one immediately.
"There are a few other intangible qualities that I look for, too. The ability to effectively articulate one's ideas about design is a big plus; translating design's subjective nuances into plainspoken explanations is a critical requirement for this job. Agile problem-solving skills are also an imperative; being able to think about a design problem in a larger context than one's own role as a designer only makes it easier to pull off ambitious solutions. And maybe most important of all is enthusiasm for the work; there's no substitute for a designer who feels truly invested in the work."
Here's that link to the full article again.
Related links:
Q. What course of study would you recommend at the graduate or undergraduate level
for someone looking to work in your field? Or, failing that, what practical experience do
you think most prepared you for your current job?
The design director answered in terms of what he looks for when hiring, not in terms of a literal "course of study" -- but he went beyond design and technology to a couple of "skills" that make me glad Radford's Web design curriculum and the journalism curriculum are in the same school. One is "sound news judgment based on a deep understanding of current affairs"; the other is an ability to give "plainspoken explanations" of the tasks at hand.
Here's the full text of his answer to that question... I've added italics to indicate the whole block is a quote, and I've broken part of it into bullet points and highlighted a couple of things.
But don't miss the full Q&A column, which runs to nine pages if "printed" as a PDF file.
Khoi Vinh:
"It's actually quite a complex mix of varied skills: an ideal applicant would have
- very strong traditional graphic design skills;
- in-depth training in usability and interaction design;
- practical experience coding XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and Flash;
- a commercially viable comfort level with database and application programming;
- and last but not least sound news judgment based on a deep understanding of current affairs.
"So obviously I look for people who can combine as many of these skills as possible. I'm not sure it would be fair to say that any one skill is more important than the other because they're all vital, but I can say that having a particularly weak foundation in traditional graphic design -- lacking an understanding of typography, color, composition and visual storytelling -- more or less disqualifies one immediately.
"There are a few other intangible qualities that I look for, too. The ability to effectively articulate one's ideas about design is a big plus; translating design's subjective nuances into plainspoken explanations is a critical requirement for this job. Agile problem-solving skills are also an imperative; being able to think about a design problem in a larger context than one's own role as a designer only makes it easier to pull off ambitious solutions. And maybe most important of all is enthusiasm for the work; there's no substitute for a designer who feels truly invested in the work."
Here's that link to the full article again.
Related links:
- Khoi Vinh's personal site Subtraction 7.0 currently discussing his own problems keeping up with online news
- November '07 Q&A with Web newsroom editor Fiona Spruill
- June '07 Q&A with digital news editor Jim Roberts
Redefining 'newspaper,' local 'alt' goes online-only
New River Voice, started last year as a biweekly print publication with a Web site, is making the transition to Web-only publication.
The Web site image of the last print issue's lovely cover of a growing, green Earth, has this ironic note at the bottom:
Editor & Publisher Tim W. Jackson, an adjunct journalism prof at Radford, announced the change in the latest issue, along with a note saying the print edition had about 15,000 readers, but not enough advertisers and "essentially no advertising sales
representatives" to change that.
He said he plans to keep offering "progressive news and views and the best reviews that the NRV has to offer" at http://newrivervoice.com and would like to resume print publication someday... meanwhile advising readers to grab the last print issue as a collector's item "and sell it on eBay in 10 years and make lots of money."
That's probably not something you will ever be able to do with a Web site. (If so, this link to my old Web news employer might be worth a bundle: http://nando.net)The Web site image of the last print issue's lovely cover of a growing, green Earth, has this ironic note at the bottom:
Happy Earth Day, New River Valley!
Read this issue's From the Editor to find out
how the New River Voice is going to save paper.
Radford 2008 grads will 'walk' and hear from 'A good walk...' expert
Just as we prepare for the fall launch of our new School of Communication, a nationally known journalist will be this year's commencement speaker here at Radford University -- John Feinstein of NPR, of The Washington Post, and of many bookstore shelves and New York Times bestseller lists.
Among other things, he's probably Radford's first commencement speaker to have been called both "a pimp" and "a whore" by a major figure in the world of sports.
"I wish he'd make up his mind," Feinstein said of coach Bob Knight's comments, "so I'd know how to dress in the morning."
More to the point, Feinstein said Knight's complaints were that his reporting was too accurate -- particularly his reporting of Knight's locker room language (a phrase I mean both literally and figuratively).
I'm not much of a sports fan, but I'm a fan of good storytelling and accurate, detailed reporting, and a journalism cares about underdogs and human drama. I think Radford's grads are in for a treat...
As Radford President Penelope Kyle says in the school's press release about graduation, "John Feinstein's lucid writing and commentary on American culture and sports mark him as a natural for a university commencement. We're delighted and honored to have him." (I wish she'd added something like "... especially in a year when we are recharging our commitment to teaching journalism, communication and media studies with a new School of Communication," but that might be seen as padding the press release.)
For those who aren't graduating yet, or who just want more preview of Feinstein's personal storytelling style, the Library of Congress has a video of the half-hour Feinstein speech in which I found that anecdote about Knight. Given at a National Book Fair a few years ago, it also includes Feinstein's frank critique of athletes' attitudes toward writers, as opposed to ESPN interviewers.
For more of his humor, frankness and love of sports, a few of his books are
His recent columns from the Post, and a collection of older basketball columns.
Among other things, he's probably Radford's first commencement speaker to have been called both "a pimp" and "a whore" by a major figure in the world of sports.
"I wish he'd make up his mind," Feinstein said of coach Bob Knight's comments, "so I'd know how to dress in the morning."
More to the point, Feinstein said Knight's complaints were that his reporting was too accurate -- particularly his reporting of Knight's locker room language (a phrase I mean both literally and figuratively).
I'm not much of a sports fan, but I'm a fan of good storytelling and accurate, detailed reporting, and a journalism cares about underdogs and human drama. I think Radford's grads are in for a treat...
As Radford President Penelope Kyle says in the school's press release about graduation, "John Feinstein's lucid writing and commentary on American culture and sports mark him as a natural for a university commencement. We're delighted and honored to have him." (I wish she'd added something like "... especially in a year when we are recharging our commitment to teaching journalism, communication and media studies with a new School of Communication," but that might be seen as padding the press release.)
For those who aren't graduating yet, or who just want more preview of Feinstein's personal storytelling style, the Library of Congress has a video of the half-hour Feinstein speech in which I found that anecdote about Knight. Given at a National Book Fair a few years ago, it also includes Feinstein's frank critique of athletes' attitudes toward writers, as opposed to ESPN interviewers.
For more of his humor, frankness and love of sports, a few of his books are
- The Last Amateurs: Play for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball,
- Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers,
- Civil War, Army vs. Navy: A Year Inside College Football's Purest Rivalry,
- The First Coming: Tiger Woods: Master or Martyr and
- A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour
- The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail.
His recent columns from the Post, and a collection of older basketball columns.
Tartan Day Came and Went
Play the pipes lowly. We missed it.
National Tartan Day slipped by over the weekend when we weren't looking. Well, I wasn't, anyhow, despite being both a Montgomery and a "Robert Bruce" thanks to my Glasgowegian grandmother. I just lost track.
And this was the U.S. National Tartan Day's tenth anniversary, too! Alas, even its "national events" Web page only lists 2007 events.
So much for commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, "which asserted Scotland's sovereignty over English territorial claims, and which was an influence on the American Declaration of Independence," according to the Tartan Day Web site. Could be there's just a Lott less enthusiasm for the event since the departure of Sen Trent Lott? He proposed the original Tartan Day resolution in 1997 and presided over the giving of awards to the likes of Sean Connery in past years.
However, if you missed April 6 and want to sip a non-partisan single malt or tilt your kilt in honor of Scottish culture, it's still Tartan Week -- at least in New York City. Or maybe you have some use for the "Scottish Theme Wedding" page's collection of Tartan Day lore. (Yes, it opens with a picture of a Tartan Day ceremony at the Alamo.)
Closer to home, Arthur Herman, associate professor of history at George Mason and author of How the Scots Invented the Modern World, was among the speakers at an RSVP event in Washington on Friday at the Heritage Foundation.
Maybe The Tartan (http://thetartan.com), Radford University's student newspaper, should give him a call and look into doing something about Tartan Day, Tartan Week and Tartan whatnot next April, Radford being "The home of the Highlanders" and all.
A search of the paper's archives online doesn't show any references to "Tartan Day," but then neither does a search of its kindred publication http://TheTartan.org at Carnegie Mellon University. You'd think a college newspaper with a national holiday named after its namesake, would get inspired by the idea.
National Tartan Day slipped by over the weekend when we weren't looking. Well, I wasn't, anyhow, despite being both a Montgomery and a "Robert Bruce" thanks to my Glasgowegian grandmother. I just lost track.
And this was the U.S. National Tartan Day's tenth anniversary, too! Alas, even its "national events" Web page only lists 2007 events.
So much for commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, "which asserted Scotland's sovereignty over English territorial claims, and which was an influence on the American Declaration of Independence," according to the Tartan Day Web site. Could be there's just a Lott less enthusiasm for the event since the departure of Sen Trent Lott? He proposed the original Tartan Day resolution in 1997 and presided over the giving of awards to the likes of Sean Connery in past years.
However, if you missed April 6 and want to sip a non-partisan single malt or tilt your kilt in honor of Scottish culture, it's still Tartan Week -- at least in New York City. Or maybe you have some use for the "Scottish Theme Wedding" page's collection of Tartan Day lore. (Yes, it opens with a picture of a Tartan Day ceremony at the Alamo.)
Closer to home, Arthur Herman, associate professor of history at George Mason and author of How the Scots Invented the Modern World, was among the speakers at an RSVP event in Washington on Friday at the Heritage Foundation.
Maybe The Tartan (http://thetartan.com), Radford University's student newspaper, should give him a call and look into doing something about Tartan Day, Tartan Week and Tartan whatnot next April, Radford being "The home of the Highlanders" and all.
A search of the paper's archives online doesn't show any references to "Tartan Day," but then neither does a search of its kindred publication http://TheTartan.org at Carnegie Mellon University. You'd think a college newspaper with a national holiday named after its namesake, would get inspired by the idea.
Post Pulitzers -- local tragedy, shoeleather reporting, and a fiddler at the Metro
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2008 include six for The Washington Post, among them the "breaking news" prize for coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings a year ago next week. The paper also won the meritorious public service medal for exposing mistreatment of veterans at Walter
Reed Hospital, a series that led to improvement of conditions there.
The Pulitzer Web site hadn't yet posted the winning stories when my broadcast-news-veteran colleague Joe Staniunas reminded me it was Pulitzer announcement day, but the Post's own story archive about Virginia Tech has been online all year, including texts, photographs, video, multimedia and discussions. (Today it added a page of all its Pulitzer submissions.)
Joe also mentioned that Roanoke station WSLS won a Peabody Award last week for its coverage of the shootings, a story I'd missed, what with the entertainment-oriented and Iraq war news Peabody winners taking most of the headlines. Buried down among the 35 awards in the press release, the WSLS citation praises the local broadcasters for "two intense days of live, exhaustive and remarkably calm coverage." Joe and I both expected to see The Roanoke Times as a Pulitzer finalist in the breaking news category for more excellent work last April. (The paper has been a finalist a few times before.)
If you enjoy good writing, but haven't used the Pulitzer.org website, take a look. The page for each award includes a "Works" tab with inks to the stories, photos, cartoons or other media that won the prize -- not just for this year, but all the winning stories for a dozen years that Web versions of newspaper stories have been available.
On the Post's website today, Howard Kurtz refers to the six awards as the largest haul in the paper's history, and Joel Achenbach reflects on all of the award stories being original reporting, "probably our best gimmick." They were, he says, "full of shoe-leather journalism, from the coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy to Steve Pearlstein's reporting-driven columns in the biz section."
Achenbach gives a special nod to a story that won the feature writing award for his colleague Gene Weingarten, a story that ran with the catchy but not terribly informative headline Pearls Before Breakfast. I'm so glad he pointed it out. The sub-head is "Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out." Here's its lead:
Of course the Post wasn't the only Pulitzer winner. The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune won investigative reporting Pulitzers for uncovering toxic imports and hazardous children's products, respectively. The Times' Amy Harmon won an "explanatory reporting" prize for finding human stories to illustrate the ethical issues in DNA testing. A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story about county corruption won the "local reporting" prize. All are, or will be, readable at http://pulitzer.org
The Post's other prize categories included national reporting (about Dick Cheney), international reporting (private security firms in Iraq) and commentary (by Steven Pearlstein).
While the story about Joshua Bell in the D.C. subway was a pleasant surprise, the Pulitzer board had another musical prize I didn't expect: A "Special Citation," down there beneath the other non-journalism awards in arts and letters, to Bob Dylan: for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
That gives me an idea for a story... If you happen to wander through a Metro station and hear this weathered old guy with a harmonica, a guitar and a nasal voice, stop and listen.
The Pulitzer Web site hadn't yet posted the winning stories when my broadcast-news-veteran colleague Joe Staniunas reminded me it was Pulitzer announcement day, but the Post's own story archive about Virginia Tech has been online all year, including texts, photographs, video, multimedia and discussions. (Today it added a page of all its Pulitzer submissions.)
Joe also mentioned that Roanoke station WSLS won a Peabody Award last week for its coverage of the shootings, a story I'd missed, what with the entertainment-oriented and Iraq war news Peabody winners taking most of the headlines. Buried down among the 35 awards in the press release, the WSLS citation praises the local broadcasters for "two intense days of live, exhaustive and remarkably calm coverage." Joe and I both expected to see The Roanoke Times as a Pulitzer finalist in the breaking news category for more excellent work last April. (The paper has been a finalist a few times before.)
If you enjoy good writing, but haven't used the Pulitzer.org website, take a look. The page for each award includes a "Works" tab with inks to the stories, photos, cartoons or other media that won the prize -- not just for this year, but all the winning stories for a dozen years that Web versions of newspaper stories have been available.
On the Post's website today, Howard Kurtz refers to the six awards as the largest haul in the paper's history, and Joel Achenbach reflects on all of the award stories being original reporting, "probably our best gimmick." They were, he says, "full of shoe-leather journalism, from the coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy to Steve Pearlstein's reporting-driven columns in the biz section."
Achenbach gives a special nod to a story that won the feature writing award for his colleague Gene Weingarten, a story that ran with the catchy but not terribly informative headline Pearls Before Breakfast. I'm so glad he pointed it out. The sub-head is "Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out." Here's its lead:
He emerged from the Metro at the L'Enfant Plaza station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
The story has everything -- great detail, humor, sadness, beauty, suspense, surprise, a naked Greta Scacchi.... and more than one punchline. It's a Sunday magazine-length piece, more than 7,000 words, but I hope students who love writing will take time to read. Don't rush through to the end any more than you would skip to the last phrase on a CD of Joshua Bell playing his $3.5 million Stradivarius.Of course the Post wasn't the only Pulitzer winner. The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune won investigative reporting Pulitzers for uncovering toxic imports and hazardous children's products, respectively. The Times' Amy Harmon won an "explanatory reporting" prize for finding human stories to illustrate the ethical issues in DNA testing. A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story about county corruption won the "local reporting" prize. All are, or will be, readable at http://pulitzer.org
The Post's other prize categories included national reporting (about Dick Cheney), international reporting (private security firms in Iraq) and commentary (by Steven Pearlstein).
While the story about Joshua Bell in the D.C. subway was a pleasant surprise, the Pulitzer board had another musical prize I didn't expect: A "Special Citation," down there beneath the other non-journalism awards in arts and letters, to Bob Dylan: for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
That gives me an idea for a story... If you happen to wander through a Metro station and hear this weathered old guy with a harmonica, a guitar and a nasal voice, stop and listen.
This is a test -- April fool software glitch?
Hmm... There I go tempting fate. I edited yesterday's post this morning, adding an updated story link about the "blog-comments versus peer-review" topic before our panel discussion.
After the panel, I realized I'd missed an opportunity to add something amusing to the page, accusing myself of "changing history" -- especially ironic since I had "changed the past" by editing something with an April 1 date on it the day after Google's April Fool item about sending back-dated e-mail.
So of course I added more to the page... and hit the "publish" button.
But for the first time I can remember -- and I've used this program for years -- the new content isn't "upstreaming" properly from my computer to the Web server. I went looking at Radio Userland's help page and discovered I'm not the only one with the problem. That's OK, I can wait...
But I was surprised to see who else was standing in line at the virtual counter: Former MTV dude, A-list blogger and podcasting entrepreneur Adam Curry... or some April-fooling with his name... I figured he had moved on to fancier software than Radio Userland a couple of years ago -- although he was one of the company's star customers for quite a while.
http://radio.userland.com/discuss/msgReader$39154#39158
Otherwise, this note is just a test to see if the server is back accepting new material. And it's an excuse to embed a few links about April Fool's Day in preparation for a class discussion of fake newspaper stories, hoaxes and manipulations of reality, including some by my favorite tabloid.
After the panel, I realized I'd missed an opportunity to add something amusing to the page, accusing myself of "changing history" -- especially ironic since I had "changed the past" by editing something with an April 1 date on it the day after Google's April Fool item about sending back-dated e-mail.
So of course I added more to the page... and hit the "publish" button.
But for the first time I can remember -- and I've used this program for years -- the new content isn't "upstreaming" properly from my computer to the Web server. I went looking at Radio Userland's help page and discovered I'm not the only one with the problem. That's OK, I can wait...
But I was surprised to see who else was standing in line at the virtual counter: Former MTV dude, A-list blogger and podcasting entrepreneur Adam Curry... or some April-fooling with his name... I figured he had moved on to fancier software than Radio Userland a couple of years ago -- although he was one of the company's star customers for quite a while.
http://radio.userland.com/discuss/msgReader$39154#39158
Otherwise, this note is just a test to see if the server is back accepting new material. And it's an excuse to embed a few links about April Fool's Day in preparation for a class discussion of fake newspaper stories, hoaxes and manipulations of reality, including some by my favorite tabloid.
Sharing my information overload
Exploring Publishing Possibilities: A McConnell Library Symposium
The fine print at that address mentions that I'm on a panel Wednesday, discussing "online publishing" with blogs, wikis and Web sites (the kind of work I've been doing for years), and its relationship to the kind of "publishing" that gets people tenure (the kind I seem to avoid compulsively).
It dawns on me that I may be on this panel to serve as a bad example! In any case, it should be entertaining.
If you can't make the event in person, here are a few relevant links for my general stream of clicks-or-consciousness on the themes of our discussion -- academic publishing issues today, including "open access" publishing, examples of online interactivity behaving something like peer review, and some online examples of research data being presented to new audiences in new ways.
I may or may not get around to annotating this list on my blog after the panel, but the compulsive clickers among you will quickly see where the collection is headed.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/28/open
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5538/2187a
http://tinyurl.com/2dxa6w
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/16362.ctl
http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature04997.html
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/
http://wethemedia.oreilly.com/
http://codev2.cc/
http://www.instapundit.com/archives/028317.php
http://www.cluetrain.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/books/12publ.html
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WEBSUC.html
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=521835
http://www.danah.org/
http://www.danah.org/papers/
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/02/06/openaccess_is_t.html
http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/wesch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/3ao3rm
http://everyblock.com
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/140
http://gapminder.org/
OK, so your main conclusion may be that I'm developing an unrequiteable crush on danah boyd... or at least on her research productivity. Perhaps giving up uppercase letters on one's name helps...
The fine print at that address mentions that I'm on a panel Wednesday, discussing "online publishing" with blogs, wikis and Web sites (the kind of work I've been doing for years), and its relationship to the kind of "publishing" that gets people tenure (the kind I seem to avoid compulsively).
It dawns on me that I may be on this panel to serve as a bad example! In any case, it should be entertaining.
If you can't make the event in person, here are a few relevant links for my general stream of clicks-or-consciousness on the themes of our discussion -- academic publishing issues today, including "open access" publishing, examples of online interactivity behaving something like peer review, and some online examples of research data being presented to new audiences in new ways.
I may or may not get around to annotating this list on my blog after the panel, but the compulsive clickers among you will quickly see where the collection is headed.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/28/open
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5538/2187a
http://tinyurl.com/2dxa6w
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/16362.ctl
http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature04997.html
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/
http://wethemedia.oreilly.com/
http://codev2.cc/
http://www.instapundit.com/archives/028317.php
http://www.cluetrain.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/books/12publ.html
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WEBSUC.html
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=521835
http://www.danah.org/
http://www.danah.org/papers/
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/02/06/openaccess_is_t.html
http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/wesch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/3ao3rm
http://everyblock.com
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/140
http://gapminder.org/
OK, so your main conclusion may be that I'm developing an unrequiteable crush on danah boyd... or at least on her research productivity. Perhaps giving up uppercase letters on one's name helps...