Message from Times-Picayune Managing Editor Peter Kovacs

"The Times-Picayune has lost contact with Leslie Williams, a reporter who was to cover the hurricane on the Mississippi Coast. Because our phones failed in New Orleans, we were unable to communicate with Leslie and he may not know that we are in Baton Rouge at LSU. If anyone ran across Leslie, please contact me at 225-578-9880. My cellphone is 504-352-5550 but it is still balky. My email is kovacs70003@yahoo.com. Leslie is experienced at covering hurricanes and is a native of the Mississippi coast. His mother still lives there and he sometimes stays with her."

[ed. note: Full text straight from Romenesko.]

Liberty Corp.

Liberty Corp has not only covered the hurricane, but they felt it personally, as they continued to bring the news to the people who need it.

"Ten Liberty staffers lost everything in the storm, including their homes, said Fritts, and yet they continued to come to work to get information out to the community, he said with obvious pride. Among Liberty’s stations is WLOX Biloxi, Miss., which was virtually ground zero for the hurricane’s fury."

Full Broadcast and Cable article.

Interactive Map

MSNBC.com has a pretty cool interactive map up. This kind of stuff is where I think web based news is going.

New Orleans Times-Picayune

New Orleans Times-Picayune produced an online only edition for today. This is due to multiple reasons: 1) No means of production. 2) No means of distribution.

WLOX Biloxi

WLOX, in Biloxi, is still broadcasting from their horribly damaged building. From their website,

While the station sustained heavy damage during the storm, they continued to broadcast and are continuing to broadcast at this time. They are also simulcasting through several radio stations in the market.

Many WLOX employees have lost homes or their homes have suffered heavy damage.

Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

The role of the journalist

I would like to start by saying that the amazing journalists, photographers, producers and other crew bringing us the news over the last number of days are true heros. The risks these people take to bring us the news is amazing. CNN's Gary Tuckman and Anderson Cooper are perfect examples of this. Both are at the point in their careers where they could easily stay in a New York studio and report from the warmth and comfort of Times Square, but instead they are risking their lives to bring us the news. Gary Tuckman and his crew's truck was totaled after it was hit by flying debris...while they were all in it. Another CNN photographer has been working for the last two days...shooting with a broken foot. These are just a few examples of what these people, these great journalists are doing to bring us the news.

As a self-proclaimed, media critic I pick on the media quite a bit. I pick on the journalists who front these networks and I question the legitimacy of everything they do. I constantly look for slant, bias and ulterior motives, but it is times like these, times of natural disasters, where I truly appreciate the role of the journalist in American society.

We can have blogs, citizen journalists, media explosion on top of media explosion, but when it comes down to it, when the cards are down and we want and need information, we will turn to these brave heros, risking their lives to bring us the news.

Word on the Street

So the word on the street is CNN is cutting "People in the News" and is going to be replacing it with more real documentaries. So hopefully that is true.

Hmmm....

I honestly don't know which is the worse fate...

Hi-Def Dave

Starting tonight, Letterman is broadcasting in Hi-Def. [Sidenote: Every morning I go into work, I pass the David Letterman plaque in the Ball Communication Building] According to Letterman, 1 in 500,000 have Hi-Def.

Video iPod???

Could it be Monday? Apple has said they will make a huge announcement next Monday. The invitation to the media reads as so:

"1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything,
Here we go again."

I must say I am really excited to find out what it is. I am actually to the point, that if it is just the video iPod I will be disappointed. As I have said before I am not really a big fan of the video iPod.

Here is a previous post of mine, which lays out my thoughts on the video iPod.

Also here is the full article about the Monday announcement.

Gen Y employees

Poynter has a very interesting centerpiece article today, entitled "Boomer Bosses, Meet Your New Employees". It is a fairly, well done article, that I tend to agree with, especially considering I am from Gen Y and I left the newsroom to go back to academia.

So far...

So far, as of yet, I guess I am just wrong. It doesn't seem that the cable networks are using citizen journalist as much as I thought they would. But we'll see there is still the aftermath and clean-up.

The President on The President

'President' Bartlett, or Martin Sheen, was protesting at Crawford on Saturday. Hell, what can I say I think I would have picked Bartlett over Gore or Kerry. Seriously. Anyway this is a fun little story.

Amazing

It is amazing how the coverage of this hurricane is different than any other one I have seen. I mean the cable news nets are not really using many journalists on the ground. I think everyone is really accepting that this coming to be pretty bad and they seem to be doing the responsible thing and pulling reporters out.

It is also amazing how many TV stations have been evacuated. Lost Remote has a fairly good list of stations that are evacuating.

Citizen Journalism

I think over the next number of hours we will see the largest movement of citizen journalism is the history of media. There will be, by my predictions, more pictures submitted by citizens and used by the major media, than by professional photojournalist. This hurricane, since it is almost a planned news event, will be an amazing model and case study for citizen journalism. Some of the questions we must look at are as follows:

1) Are the media using any discretion when purchasing the pictures? For example, if someone is putting themselves clearly in harms way are they still going to buy the pics?

2) Are they buying the pics at all or are they just letting people volunteer them up for free?

3) At what point does citizen journalism stop and journalism start? Will they, the nets, use text, video and photos from CJ's or are they just going to accept pics?

4) Can CJ coverage be used outside of tradgic events?

5) How do we prevent a national paparazzi or a citizen journalist mob mentality?

There are tons of other questions that must be asked and we must look at, but those are some of the ones we must look at right now. Citizen Journalism is something we, as the media (or I guess I am really just a media critic now), are going to have to deal with over the next number of years. We are going to have to find out how citizen's response to news and citizen's content can be meshed with our current media structure.

The public's information and thoughts are going to be used more and more as we go forward in this media explosion. Blogs, photos, video, first-hand accounts...all are going to have their place, but we have to figure out what that place is. The public is not held to the stringent standards in which the journalist is bound, so we must understand question 3. There must be a solid, clear dividing line between man-on-the-street content and the content of trained journalists.

WBAL New Site

So WBAL, in Baltimore, got a new website and I think I like it. It uses video well and has all the essential things right out front. You can the news, the TV schedule, a little weather thing and video choices all on the front page. Check it out. See what you think, but I think it is a step in the right direction.

Lost Remote

If you don't check out Lost Remote you should start. As they have for the last couple months, today they again use biting sarcasm to critize the media's coverage of the Halloway story. Here's the headline:

"Natalee: extended for fall season"

Good stuff.

CNN today

It is amazing. If you've been watching CNN today you have seen an unprecedented call for viewer submissions. I think it is interesting, they are openly and constantly saying things like, "We want to see your hurricane Katrina pictures and video. Send them to us." Is this the form 'citizen journalism' is going to end up taking? Something to think about.

So good, yet so bad....

This is the e-mail I just recieved from my roommate, a journalism grad student.

AP NEWS ALERT... Muncie, Indiana... The bees have made a major move on the Apt. 31 front. Early this morning, they were found slowly and casually entering the interior of the famous home of the new G5 PowerMac.

Only a few bees were spotted on the inside, General Adam Maksl said. However, after careful surveillance of the exterior of the window, General Maksl said more bees were coming from a small hole in the bottom-left corner of the window frame.

"Those bees are pretty sneaky," Maksl said. "We block one major point of entry and they find another."

Those in Apt. 31 have a plan. Maksl said he ordered the Apartment Office to send the 158th Tactical Extermination Unit to find and eliminate the bees.

"We will fight and we will win. We have not lost our resolve."

Man is that good...well except for the fact that bees are overrunning my apartment. That, on the other hand, is bad.

ICom 690

So I picked up a class, ICom 690. It is a directed study class and we are looking at storytelling for alternative distribution platforms. This includes various different media, but it looks like we are going to be focusing on DVD, podcasting, and cell casting video stories. We are trying to do this in connection with some new Microsoft software, should be pretty cool.

The other thing I found very interesting about this class was I was the only American student in the class. I found this mind boggling, considering I'm in Muncie, Indiana. Hell, they put the mid in MidWest. Anyway, the class is composed of two men, one German and then me, and three women, one from France, one New Zealand and one from the United Arab Emirates.

One week into a two-year program, I am already amazingly impressed by this university and the education, be it classroom or cultural I'll will receive.

The Daily Nightly

There is an interesting article in today's NYT about "The Daily Nightly," Brian William's blog. I honestly hadn't been checking his blog, but it sounds interesting. Here is a sample from the Times article:

"On June 23 at 4:09 p.m., for example, under the heading "Debating the Rundown," Mr. Williams wrote: "During our editorial meeting (which I will politely call a boisterous and vigorous exchange of views between colleagues) we debated the competing merits of our two lead story candidates: the changing administration position on the insurgency in Iraq, and today's Supreme Court decision on private property.

"Mr. Williams then identified particular colleagues by name, and the positions they staked out. The reader was left with a cliffhanger, the matter unresolved. Only at 6:23 p.m., seven minutes before he went on the air, did Mr. Williams take to his blog to write, 'And the lead is ... the Supreme Court decision.'"

It sounds interesting. I might start checking it out. I do have some issues with a main anchor running a blog, but by what the Times says he is careful not to cross the line. Full Article.

Boo GoogleTalk

So Google did release GoogleTalk this morning. You can get to it by going to the gmail frontpage, then going to the 'New Features' section. Two problems: 1) You have to have a Gmail account. I don't mind that, but some people don't want gmail. 2) They haven't released a mac version yet. That is just silly. Come on Google.

Hunter's goodbye party

There is an interesting article by Jon Friedman, on MarketWatch, talking about Hunter S. Thompson extravagant memorial last weekend. He basically says that it was overly grandiose and over covered by the media. Here's a line:

"It's hard to equate the grotesque farewell to Thompson -- a media spectacle so grandiose, scripted and bloated that could match any political convention -- to the best of his writing in Rolling Stone."

It's a good read.

Run Tim Run.

There has been various rumors over the last couple of months about Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), from Youngstown, making a run for US Senate against the incumbent Senator Mike Dewine (R-OH) in '06. I just wanted to let it known now that Media Dork would be a big supporter of the Ryan for Senate campaign. I only wish I was going to be in Ohio more over the next two years, so I could directly help the campaign.

I will admit Ryan does have flaws, he has many, but I believe he is a positive person who is willing to look at opposing viewpoints and question his own beliefs. He is a person who believes in and benefits from the great debate. He also has, over his few years in Congress, involved himself with many very beneficial and positive bills and committees. In short, Media Dork will be supporting the inevitable Senate run of Tim Ryan. Be it in '06 or '08, I am sure Tim will eventually run.

YSU Strikes

Two unions, the faculty and services unions, are both currently striking at Youngstown State University, my undergrad institution. WYTV.com story.

GoogleTalk

GoogleTalk is coming. According to a LA Times article, Google will be launching instant messaging software as soon as Wednesday. Google is taking over the world. Watch Epic 2015.

A few things to start you morning

First, I took the shuttle over to campus this morning, which gave me the perfect opportunity to try out a Podcast. I have subscribed to "On The Media" for maybe two months now and this is the first time I have been in a situation where I said to myself, "Self, you could use to listen to some talk radio." So I guess, as much as I've been saying Podcasting isn't going to last, I also find myself trying it out. But to me it is still just talk radio.

But here are some other things to enjoy this morning:

HappyNews.com - maybe it is not journalisticly ethical or anything like that, but it is: Real News. Compelling Stories. Always Positive. (This site was mentioned on "On The Media")

Also for any Ball State Student or anyone who likes thinks that are fun, here is the new Ball State Fight Song video. This was created by recent Ball State grad and Oscar award winning director Jaron Henrie-McCrea. It is good fun and it was shot all HD, so it is technically impressive too.

Insanity in the name of security

"Somewhere along the way, in the process of trying to develop a foolproof system of protecting itself against genuine threats, the US has lost the ability to distinguish between friend and foe. The price this powerful country is paying for living in fear is the price of its civil liberties."

The above is a line from an amazingly interesting article in the London Guardian. The article is the first hand experience of Elena Lappin as she tried to enter America as a journalist.

New Yorker-Target pt. 2

MarketWatch has a commentary piece today, in which Jon Friedman defends and even praises the New Yorker for their August 22nd issue, which Target was the sole-sponsor.

WP blog article

There is just a fun little article in today's Washington Post about the addictive nature of blogging and just the blog culture. It is a light, fun read.

Hunter may rest in peace

On Saturday, the ashes of the famous gonzo-journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, were shot out of a huge cannon in Woody Creek, Colorado. I would comment more, being that I am a huge Thompson fan, but instead I am going to go to sleep. Here is the full CNN story.

Must see

Any person who is at all interested in news or more specifically the current state of news needs to see this week's Dilbert. It is great.

Citizen "Journalists"

Broadcast and Cable has pretty good article highlighting the current happenings in the citizen journalist movement. Keep checking back sometime this week I am going to posting my feelings on citizen journalists and video journalists.

Update

For those of you who are playing the Nick Geidner home edition here is a school update. I start classes on Monday...yes, this Monday the 22nd and I finally finished my schedule today. Here is what I have this semester:

ICom 601 - Foundations of Digital Storytelling 1
ICom 610 - Approaches to Creativity
Journ 623 - Visual Storytelling
Comm 602 - Quantitative Research in Communications

12 masters level semester hours and my assistantship hours at NewsLink Indiana...it should be an interesting four months.

Craziness

The Knoxville News Sentinel, according to Donata Communications, is using 300 dollar Sony Cybershot DSC-P93 digital still cameras for streaming video on their website. Here is the full article at Donata and then here is a direct link to one of the stories the Sentinel did with the still camera.

The anchorman

NewsDay.com has an interesting article defending the status and longevity of the standard single-anchor format. I personally agree with this approach. I think the American viewing public needs the single-anchor. In times on national tragedy of country wants to turn to someone they trust. Like Peter Jennings during 9/11 or Walter Cronkite during the Kennedy Assassination, the anchor has become an American institution during confusing and chaotic times and I for one do not want to see that institution disappear.

Yet, I do understand we have to change and get more up-to-date. I think the nets should use their anchors as air traffic controllers of sorts. They should sit in the New York studio and be the face of the network, but nearly everything should be pitched to a correspondent, who is live somewhere. The anchor should just be transitioning form one correspondent to another...From one county to another...Keeping the news going quick in literally and figuratively covering a lot of area. Don't get me wrong I understand this isn't a very original idea, the nets are moving this way I am just saying they should keep going that way.

Target-New Yorker

Well as most of you have probably heard a while ago Target and The New Yorker worked out a deal, so for the Aug. 22 issue Target would be the exclusive sponsor. A single sponsor magazine...a bold idea, but did it work? According to Sun Times columnist Lewis Lazare the actual results are, "A 90-page publication where it is almost impossible to discern any line of demarcation between Target's advertising and the New Yorker editorial product." The ads are all very classy illustrations that match perfectly with the editorial style of America's "most prestigious" magazine. It is sad to see this kind of development coming out of The New Yorker. Read the full Sun Times article.

NHL missing next season too

No, it won't be misssing. It will be there, just might be a little hard to find. The NHL is nearly finished working out a deal with OLN. The three-year deal, worth around 200 million dollars, would put most of the regular season and many postseason games exclusively on the cable channel. This deal came after long-time NHL carrier ESPN decided not to match the OLN offer. The only problem is OLN has considerably less reach...they are currently only in about 65 million homes. You can read the full story here.

NewsLink Indiana

NewsLink Indiana, the converged news program in which I am working as a graduate assistant, will re-launch its 52-week a year operation starting on September 6th, the Tuesday after Labor Day. You can see Newslink Indiana produced products on WIPB and at NewsLinkIndiana.com.

Podcasting

Again I find myself talking about podcasting. I have only been operating this blog since the 1st of August, yet I have already talked about podcasting two or three times. There was a short, little blurb on the NYT site on Monday talking about recent estimates of how many people will be using podcasts in 2010. The first study, done by Marc Freedman at The Diffusion Group, estimates that 56.8 million people will be using podcasts in 2010. The second, by Ted Schadler of Forrester Research, estimates that 12.3 million households, or appox. 30 million people, will be using podcasts by 2010.

I think I am going to choose to disagree with both of them. I just don't believe they are going to last or, at least, they are not going to be in the same form that is currently being used. The thing, in my opinion, is just this simple: People don't like talk radio and podcasting is just glorified, portable talk radio. What I mean here is this: Yeah, there are some people that love talk radio and it does serve a great purpose, I just don't see podcasting in the long run causing a talk radio renaissance.

NYT bio

The New York Times has a nice bio today of Mike Santangelo, the news writer for the Fox ticker outside there studios in New York. Fun little article.

Real-time tracking of online news consumption

Akamai Technologies will start offering today a real-time web traffic report for the different news sites that they host content for, these include MSNBC, CNN, Reuters, BBC and others. Here is an except, from a Boston Globe article, describing in brief what it will do :

"...the new Akamai Net Usage Index for News will track the aggregate number of viewers per minute by geography, identify the times of day when news viewing peaks in different parts of the world, and measure how much above or below the average news viewing is at any given moment."

This could be amazingly useful for the various design and content viewing questions web designers always have. It could also to a point let us see what people are using the net for, for example are people turning to the net when a big verdict is coming down, are they turning to the net when there is breaking news. In short, I think this could be an amazingly useful research tool.

Donate Here

Donate Here. Donate Often.

Gov. Taft to be charged

According to this CNN article Ohio govenor, Bob Taft, will be charged with four misdemeanors.

Disappointment

So after running this blog for over sixteen days I find myself very disappointed that I did not make Feedster's Top 500 List. I kid. But seriously one of my favorite blogs, Lost Remote, did make the list. They slid in at #471. Congrats.

Amazing use of technology

Well as those who keep up with this blog know, I have been blogging some of the issues and problems I have had as I have made my move to Muncie, Indiana. Well I found, with my roommates help, one of the coolest uses of technology ever. BSU Wash Alert System. Basically I can check the status of each washer and dryer from my living room. The applet, or whatever, in realtime shows you how much time is left, if the washer/dryer is open, or if there are clothes left in the washer/dryer.

That is a great, amazing and very useful. Below are a couple screenshots of Wash Alert in action.


No laundry in the above washers

The blue line is the time remaining on the clothes in the above laundry

2 new tapeless stations

Who would have thought Oregon and amazing technology would be in the same sentence? KATU and KVAL, in Portland and Eugene respectively, have gone to a Panasonic tapeless system. They ordered 29 Panasonic AJ-SPX800 P2 cameras and all the matching equipment, decks and the like. The Panasonic P2 line records to memory card as opposed to tape, which makes it very easy, timesaving when it comes to ingestion. You can find the full article at Broadcast and Cable.

Cheap iBooks equal:

"One woman went so far [as] to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line."

These were 4-year-old, used iBook laptops that were being sold for 50 bucks by the Henrico County school system. Over 1,000 people showed up and it turned it to a stampede. The whole story is on CNN.

Natalee Holloway

Lost Remote is continuing their "coverage" of the Holloway case and as always Steve Safran, managing editor of Lost Remote, is coming through with some amazingly relevant and sarcastic commentary on the subject. Here is an excerpt from the article:

"Obviously, there are safer places to vacation than Aruba. Go to Slovenia, Tunisia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia or Qatar and you're golden. Go to Canada, and you're as safe as you could be. Of course, it's colder than Aruba, but the murder rate is tiny. And it's much less likely your family will be pestered by Nancy Grace. She's from the south. She hates the cold."

Full Lost Remote article

Grad conference

So I am at the first day of the two-day Graduate development Conference, an elitist way of saying orientation, and it is going well. On my break I was looking at some things and I found this article linked on Romenesko. It is from the Bloomington Pantagraph, in central Illinois and it talks about how there shouldn't a federal shield law. I just find it interesting that any editorial board would take a stand such as that. Why would you not want as much protection as possible for your reporters. I do understand some of their points and reasoning, but I disagree with it. Basically their reasoning is that reporting isn't as credible now-a-days and reporters use anonymous sources to insert their own opinion. And I agree that it is horribly wrong to use background and anonymous sources like that, but above all we must protect the people that are using them correctly to uncover and expose wrong-doings and corruption in our government and public entities.

So I got some issues

As everyone who follows this blog knows, I just moved out to Muncie, Indiana. Like any move, my move to Ball State has many effects and repercussions. One of the major changes I am having problems dealing with is the different cable system. I have two major issues with my new cable system. First, I don't have Bravo, which means I will not be able to fulfill my fix for West Wing, which during the average week last year I watch maybe 4 episodes a week. What can I say I really like the West Wing?

My second issue with the cable system is this. Ball State University has a huge communications school, with a huge telecommunications department and a huge journalism department, yet we still only have one* cable news network on our cable system. That is just weird. I should have at least CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews, instead I have just CNN. Well actually I also have CNN Headline News, but that is just CNN really quick.

Podcasting the networks

As we have seen the networks are trying to jump on to the podcasting bandwagon and in some case they’'re being successful, such as NBC'’s podcast of Meet the Press. In other cases, the nets are failing miserably, such as Fox TV's podcast of Family Guy. According to this article at Wired.com, the podcast involves, no snappy retorts, no punch lines, no audio clips at all, just a description of the show read by an announcer. The nets need to come up with some better way to do it or not do it at all, because that version of Family guy sounds terrible.

New Canadian Press guide

The new Canadian Press Caps and Spelling Guide, released today, has added a word in between FTP and Fudgsicle. That's right, fuck has finally got it self enough public acceptance to be included in the 40th edition of the Canadian standard grammar guide.

The guide says "in short: avoid it for the most part. And if it must be used because it adds a valuable news element to a story, spell it out. No f and three asterisks. No "eff word.'' No freakings, friggings or firkings either, for that matter," according to a Canadian Press article. Strangely enough fuck did not once appear in that article.

Here's the scoop

To keep everyone up-to-date I moved to Muncie, Indiana yesterday to start my graduate studies at Ball State University. The move went fairly well, except for the fact that we had to pull over four or five times due to my car overheating (more than likely caused by the insane heat and all the extra weight from carrying all of my worldly possessions). Either way, my entourage, consisting of me, my mother, and her boyfriend eventually arrived in Muncie.

I am living in University Apartments, which has its ups and downs. I am not paying much at all, but there is a reason I am not paying much at all. But overall it is not bad.

I went out and bought a futon. It took much longer to put together than expected.

I'm in Muncie

Finally.

Thank you Youngstown!! Goodnight.

After a very enjoyable evening out with some of my good friends, I am going to sleep. Then I am waking up and leaving for Muncie and Ball State.

To everyone in Youngstown I would like to say thank you. From YSU to WYTV from YoungstownScene.com to all the other things I have been involved with, none of them would have been nearly as fun or rewarding if it weren't for the people I have met and became friends with over the years. I will always love and cherish the friends I have made and for that I will always be grateful that I got stuck in Youngstown for nearly 25 years.

Some things

Well as mentioned below I have been light on my blogging due the whole preparing-to-move thing. And also mentioned, is that I am moving to attend grad school at Ball State University. With that in mind, I saw this article the other day somewhere and thought it was perfect. I am starting a new, exciting part of my education, so I figure everyone should try to learn a little something. Here is a list of some important media figures favorite media-related books.

Also they keep changing my favorite morning show, "American Morning." The new move is moving it in from the studio with the windows to a regular studio. Apparently, this is to "differentiate" it from other morning shows. I always thought that them doing news differentiate it from the other morning show, but I guess that wasn't enough. Here is the story about the move.

Greta van Sustern is on Leno talking about the Holloway case. At one point she was explaining how she went straight from the Jackson trial to the Holloway story. What a 'journalist'.

The mouse ain't keeping me down

As of 5:00 this afternoon, my employment at WYTV, the local ABC affiliate, is officially over. I am now unemployed for the next nine days. I then start my employment as a grad assistant for Newslink Indiana at Ball State University.

Thanks again to all the people at WYTV for putting up with me for the last two years and for giving me the opportunities I've been given. I will always remember fondly my years at 33.

Getting ready to move

So everything is set in stone, I move to Muncie, Indiana on Saturday and I am very excited for the change of scenery. But the move has also made me very busy over the last couple of days and will probably keep me busy until Saturday or Sunday. I appreciate all the initial support Media Dork has received and please keep checking back. I will probably start regularly running and updating this blog next Monday, but I try to keep throwing up tidbits as I can.

Tidbits o' the day

Everybody is still talking about how Google is not talking to CNET - SF Gate | CNN

The Situation Room - I haven't seen it. I am not home when it is on, but it is getting press for doing things different. Apparently, according to Lost Remote, The Situation Room aired a live interview over Mac iChat AV webcam software. [Update] Lost Remote is again praising Blitzer's new show.

Slate Magazine's Daniel Gross is talking about the future of the network newscast in this article from Tuesday.

Peter Jennings 1938-2005

Our industry today has lost a great example of class, integrity and journalism excellence. Peter Jennings has sadly lost his battle with lung cancer. He was 67.

ABC News
Washington Post obit
CNN article
AP article via NY Times

Message Board - viewer messages

Dateline folo

As I mentioned in an earlier post Dateline NBC on Friday tried to look at the news coverage of kidnapped white women and girls and how it compared to the coverage of men and women of the various minorities. I must admit I missed the big show but, they did put up a full story on MSNBC.com and I can only conclude that there story was fluff and was crap. I mean it looks like they had some interesting statistics, but it doesn't conquer the why or the how at all. And the interview with Neal Shapiro, NBC News president, seems like a complete joke.

As I said above, I missed the show, so I am only basing my opinion on a two page online article, but it looks like fluff. I still think the bigger question is why are these kidnapped people national stories at all. Seriously, people get kidnapped all the time. It is an inevitability. We are a nation of 300 million people and kidnappings happen. It sucks and I truly feel for the families of these people, but they are not national stories. The kidnapping of a pregnant woman, being white, black, Mexican or from any other ethnic or racial background, should not be getting 941 minutes of combined nation network news coverage, as Laci Peterson received (according the Dateline story). In the months previous, as we are finding out now, the national media should of been using their time to bring to light stories, such as the famine in Niger, but no we received over 15 hours of Laci Peterson. I feel for Laci's family, but I also feel for the families of the hundreds of thousands of children that are going to die in Niger.

BSU coming through

I must update a previous post. On Friday, I posted a message saying I was disappointed that BSU cancelled my Digital Production class. But apparently I was mistaken, sort of. The did cancel my section of the class just to replace it for another section for scheduling reasons. So all that I need to do was drop the old section, add the new section and zammo I am back in the class. Perfect. I just didn't receive the e-mail telling me about the change. Anyway all's well that ends well.

Minorities and video games

So apparently the talk of the town today is gaming. CNN.com Tech section has a very interesting AP article on the representation of minorities in video games as they're lead tech story. In the article Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association, states "we're seeing, to a large extent, that the games that are being designed unconsciously include the biases, opinions and reflections of their creators." I found this to be a very interesting quote being that more than 80% of programmers are white. Overall an interesting article and a good read.

Then CNN on air was also pushing a week old AP article entitled "Programmers: Video games need a woman's touch." It was actually just about the same article as above, just replace minorities with woman.

Stumbled across this

WYTV's own former morning meteorologist, Demetrius Ivory, is getting some press in the big city. Good luck D.

MSNBC movie trailers

So I saw a headline on MSNBC.com asking, "Is Evan Rachel Wood the next great actress?" And I thought to myself, "I'd like to know the answer to that," so I followed the link. There was a story about her upcoming movie, "Pretty Persuasion," and there was a link to see the trailer. I wanted to see the trailer, so I again followed the link. My wireless network isn't the fastest in the world, so I waited for a while as it buffered. Then it finally started playing...but what did it play? A fifteen second ad for...yeah you guess it...a Microsoft product, Microsoft Office Live Meeting to be precise.

I do not mind advertising in video content, because we in the television industry are going to have to start doing something like that if we are going to survive. But to make me watch ad before I watch an ad, that is craziness. Seriously, it's not like Microsoft spent money producing that content or something and hell, I wonder if they are even hosting it. Either way I know Apple doesn't make me watch a commercial to watch their trailers.

Disappointment

So Ball State finally proved to me that they are not quite perfect. Don't get me wrong, so far it looks like an amazing program and I am very excited to be going there...but they just cancelled the class I was most looking forward to, Digital Production. So I am going to have to look into picking up a class, but as of right now I am taking Digital Storytelling I, Approaches to Creativity, and Visual Storytelling. The first two are in the icom department and the third is in the journalism department. I am a little nervous about the journalism one, but by the description it sounds like it is going to deal with a lot of different media and is not going to concentrate on newspaper design.

Anyways only a week until the big move. As of yet, I have no bed.

Dateline tonight

One of my biggest media gripes, as of late, has been the over-exaggerated coverage missing white woman/teens get. Lacie Peterson, Natalee Holloway, "the Runaway Bride" and all the other missing persons stories that clutter column inches and literally hours of cable news coverage are not national news stories. They are tragedies. They truly are tragedies and I have the greatest sympathies for any of the families involved in these stories. But people disappear all the time. Yeah it sucks, but its not national news.

With that said, "Dateline" on NBC tonight is airing a special report looking at the news coverage of white women who disappear in comparison to how stories of missing minorities get covered by the national media. Who knows if NBC will do this story well or if it will just be fluff, but I think it is a good first step. Next the national media will need to realize they can't cover every little kidnapping/disappearance, so they shouldn't cover any of them.

NY Times blog editorial

Today's New York Times online has an interesting, yet short and uneventful, editorial about blogs and the blogosphere. The editorial discusses a recent report by Technorati on the State of the Blogosphere. Basically the report does have some very staggering and impressive numbers, such as "A new blog is created about every second, there are over 80,000 created daily," which the New York Times notes. The editorial also states that blogs are important because "media outlets are creating blogs - or bloglike manifestations - of their own." unfortunately that is where the editorial stops. It doesn't at all try to deal with the implications blogs will have on the future of news. It just sort of says, yeah they're important and people like 'em. This might as well have been news content buried in the tech section, instead of an editorial. Anyways it is an interesting read just for the numbers.

Discovery coming home

"After unprecedented repair work, state-of-the-art imaging and extensive engineering analysis, mission managers have cleared Discovery for re-entry.

Commander Eileen Collins and her STS-114 crewmates, who have been testing safety procedures and servicing the International Space Station, are set to land at NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 4:46 a.m. EDT Monday." -NASA.gov

4:46am. I think they could have planned that a little bit better. I'm just saying, I think the rocket scientists over at NASA need to stop worrying so much about gravitational pull and the rotation of the earth on its axis when planning landings and worry more about the marketing.

iPod Video thoughts and ideas

Throughout the day and over the last couple of months, I have seen many people talking about the future of the iPod and everybody is saying iPod video. So today I got to thinking about that product and the possible implications it will have on the media market. Here is what I came up with:

Short Term: (first version) None. I don’t believe it will go past a fad product in its first incarnation. This is for multiple reasons. First, the screen is just too small. I think that flaw is always going to be one of the major limitations of any product such as this. There is too much detail in video and I just don’t think TV or Film can be adjusted to something that size. Secondly, I think there are going to be file size issues. I mean a three or four-minute music video is one thing, but I am sure, if it works at all, the news networks are going to jump on the video bandwagon. Then when you’re talking about content like that, people are going to want longer programming. People are going to want something they can watch for the whole commute. This is where I see the file size issues. I also think one of the big things with the whole iPod music craze is people can do other things while they’re listening to the newest music, podcast, etc. You can’t do that with video. Well you can, but then what’s the point of having video.

Long Term: I think the iPod video, or similar such products, will be one of the pieces of the new media puzzle. You need to give it WiFi, VOD (through the iPod, not the computer), a larger screen (maybe flip the screen on its side and make it as wide as the current iPod is high), and of course more storage. Or the storage question could be answered if we could only come up with a better video compression algorithm (but that is neither here nor there).

I think the product I hypothesize here would be useful, but I think the iPod is going to need to do more to become a standard in the fashion I believe they want. I think it is going to need to pretty much combined with the current set of PDA’s. Apple has tried the PDA before…remember the Newton. I say they need to try it again. They need to try a converged iPod/PDA. Now that would be revolutionary. The WiFi and the VOD that will all come in due time, but a functional iPod/PDA that could be done now. So I say we stop pushing for an iPod video and start pushing for an iPoDa (iPod or iPda), as I am terming it.

This blog is meant to inspire comment and debate, so feel free to tell me I’m wrong and what your better idea is. You can also feel free to tell me I am right and that I’m the greatest person ever.

iPod Video and its implications

A bunch of people seem to be talking about the possibility of an iPod video and the addition of videos to the iTunes store. I am trying to think of how that could be useful and what implications this will have. I am going to try to write something on this later tonight, so come back later. For now here is what other people are saying:

Engadget
CNET

Robert Novak

So looks like the pressure is getting to Robert Novak. Earlier today, on CNN's Inside Politics, Novak said "this is bullshit," pulled off his mic and walked off the set. The video clip and comments on the whole situation are all over the place.


Wonkette Coverage Good use of the phase Douchbag Diva here
Atrios Coverage
The Clip @ TV Eyes
The Clip @ Media Matters I would try TV Eyes first I had problems with the Media Matters clip.

[UPDATE] CNN has asked Robert Novak to take some time off Fishbowl DC article

Steven Vincent

"He watched the World Trade Center burn and collapse, he saw people jumping to their death from the north tower, and he wanted to do something to help the war on terror," says Ms. Ramaci-Vincent, his wife of 13 years. "He was too old to enlist. He thought he could go to the war zone and try to open people's eyes to what was happening."

An excerpt from a well written article in today's Christian Science Monitor online edition.

Chalk me up as impressed again

I must say I was very disappointed to find out that the Youngstown/Warren area, where I am moving out of next week, was ranked the forth best golf city in the country in a recent article in Golf Digest. I mean don't get me wrong, I have always thought that we had good golfing here, such our 36-hole Donald Ross masterpiece at Mill Creek Park. But I really expected there to be better golf cities out there. Cities with tons of nice golf course. I guess I was wrong. For note: The Youngstown/Warren region was the highest ranked city north of the Mason-Dixon line and out ranked golf meccas, such as Myrtle Beach and all of California.

Censorship and Self-Censorship

There is an interesting article in today's New York Times online edition. It deals with the censorship of images of war. It compares the withholding of image of Hiroshima by the government back in the forties with the current censorship and self-censorship involved in the Iraqi War. The examples cited are all things I am sure most people have heard about, such as how the pentagon is not allowing images of the caskets of American servicemen or how the images of the charred remains of four American contractors hanging from a bridge were self-censored by many editors. Either way it is good to see that the New York Times has a story about this blatant censorship.

Current TV

Being that I don't get Current, Al Gore's new cable station, on my local cable I'm not going to really comment on it. All that I do know is their website really doesn't pull me in. The online content that I did see was interesting, but as far as I can see there are only nine video clips/stories. I really expected a lot more out of the Current website. Anyways, since I can't watch Current I can only trust the review/criticism over at LostRemote.

Well chalk me up as impressed

"Ball State University established a new record in 2004-05 when it received $25.7 million in external grants to fund faculty education and research projects." Full Story

And they are shooting for $30 million this coming year. Not bad for a little state school in Muncie. More importantly, part of that funding will be paying for my assistantship and education. Way to go Cardinals.

Steven Vincent

Steven Vincent, an American freelance journalist, was found dead outside of Basra, Iraq. He and his interpreter were abducted at about 12:30a Wednesday morning and were later both shot multiple times. Vincent was fatally shot, while his interpreter, Nuriya Tiays, is being treated at a local hospital.

Vincent was in Iraq researching for a book on the history of the city of Basra. This would have been his second book on Iraq. The first was "In the Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq," which was published in 2004. He has also been published in various places, including The Wall Street Journal, Harper's, The Christian Science Monitor, Art and Auction, and National Review Online. Vincent was also keeping a blog.

For more info:
Washington Post
CNN article
MSNBC Article

ABC banned

This very interesting, but I don't have time to read it right now. This is the CNN.com article. The banning was caused by the ABC news interview of a Chechen Guerrilla Leader. The online story can be found here.

London hate crimes

BBC.com, UK edition, has an interesting front page article about religious hate crimes in London, since the bombings. It is staggering to see numbers like these:

"...in the first three days after suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured 700 more, there were 68 "faith hate" crimes in London. During the same three days in 2004 there were none."

I was just amazed by that number. Sixty-eight hate crimes in one city in three days. Now given a lot of them were simple verbal assault, but still it was obviously offensive enough to warrant a report being filed. Maybe I am blocking it out or American media blocked it out, but I don't remember those kinds of numbers coming out of New York after September 11th.

But I could be wrong.

The DVD and non-linear storytelling

I am currently reading Janet Murray's "Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyperspace" and it has inspired to me to think about filmmaking/dramatic narrative and how it can be mixed with the different types of new media. This has lead me to wonder about the DVD and how it can be used to make a fully converge entertainment experience.

For example, what if a DVD was programmed, so it was choose-your-own adventure style? One of the things people love about DVD's is when movies have an alternate ending. With a choose-your-own adventure style you could have completely different movies, shaped in part by the viewer.

Another option would be to have the movie tied into real things. For example, what if the DVD was for computer use only and at different points it gave the viewer options for getting background information on things cited in the movie. Then when you clicked for more information it opened up your web browser and took you to a relevant article on CNN.com. Would this make the movie viewing experience more real? Or would it disrupt the viewing session and break the submerisive trance.

Just a few ideas to think about.

Here we go again...

So this is my second attempt at starting and regularly updating a blog. I tried about nine months ago. I kept up with it for about a month, then I got lazy and quit updating. I now find myself about a week and half from moving to Muncie, Indiana and about two and a half weeks from starting my graduate studies at Ball State University. I will be attending BSU as part of the third cohort of the Digital Storytelling Masters Program and I will be working as a graduate assistant for NewsLink Indiana.

I will start regularly updating this blog after I move to Muncie on August 13th. In the meantime, I might just put up some little tidbits that I find interesting. Here are two:

1. Steve Safran, managing editor of Lost Remote, lays down one of the most sarcastic and on point editorials about the overcoverage of the Natalee Halloway disappearance.

2. The Toledo Blade has one of the more powerful editorials I have read. It is in regards to the light sentence two former aids of the Governor received after pleaing to one count of ethics violations.

Well that is it for now.