31 Aug 08 Tweet Digest for 2008-08-31

• Babington strikes again at Obama: http://tinyurl.com/5dlgmh #
• You know, I almost feel bad for the Republicans. And now, if they lose the election, they have an excuse. Gustav is their hanging chad. #
• Protesters say they are more energized than before: http://tinyurl.com/654g5q #
• @jongordon Courtesy of Bill Alkofer. in reply to jongordon #
• @couch Oberon is delicious! in reply to couch #
• Warning people the police are coming is not journalism, it’s advocacy: http://tinyurl.com/672bdn #
• Protesters in front of MPR building. The irony of the ticker is hilarious. http://tinyurl.com/6ruaab #
• I respect Amy Goodman, but her jumping the fence, making her the center of attention, is a little over the top. http://tinyurl.com/5pq6vy #
• Reading: MPR: McCain orders convention changes because of Gustav http://is.gd/25I6 #
• @juliaschrenkler Indeed. I’m going to try and Twitter in photos during the “festivities” tomorrow. in reply to juliaschrenkler #
• http://twitpic.com/9ryh - Testing Twitpic again for tomorrow’s RNC march. #
• Thinking that Bush not going to #RNC08 probably works in McCain’s favor: http://tinyurl.com/5wbl2n #
• Reading all of the different angles of the RNC raid stories. http://tinyurl.com/5n6cgx, http://tinyurl.com/5lqnkv, http://theuptake.org/ #

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30 Aug 08 Tweet Digest for 2008-08-30

• Kind of bummed I missed the #rnc08 media party, there’s a stack of invites in the office but I had to work. Oh well, duty calls. #
• According to @NewsHour, Jon Stewart was just seen down by the Irish pub near the Xcel. #
• @sandentotten They could have been using GTA4 for riot training. in reply to sandentotten #
• @sandentotten According to warrant it says “…iPods, X-Box gaming systems, cellular phones, PDAs…” in reply to sandentotten #
• Police found bombs, caltrops, buckets of urine, etc. Crazy! http://minnesota.publicradio.org/ #
• The craziness is already happening. Check out photos of contraband seized by St. Paul police: http://tinyurl.com/6jklee #
• I can’t believe people wait in such long lines for fried cheese. #
• Doing my duty and visiting the MN State Fair. #

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29 Aug 08 Tweet Digest for 2008-08-29

• First RNC road closures hit SP today. Can still get home in 5 minutes, sweeet! #
• @intheloop Nice ‘Week in Geek’ bit in reply to intheloop #
• Starting today and through Thursday we have security guards posted at our doors. Welcome to the RNC. #
• @jayrosen_nyu Listening. in reply to jayrosen_nyu #
• Palin? McCain just sealed his fate. #
• Firefox plug-in of the day, YouTube Comment Snob: http://tinyurl.com/5pd9yb #
• Wow, David Duchovny really is Hank Moody: http://tinyurl.com/5vxbuy #

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28 Aug 08 ABC News producer arrested in Denver (video)

You’ve probably already heard about this, but now there is video of the ABC News producer who was arrested in Denver.

The video doesn’t lie, these cops were aching to arrest someone. Pushing someone into the street and then telling them they are “blocking traffic” is just ridiculous. I am curious about what happened between the cut of cop pushing then suddenly the guy, identified as Asa Eslocker, is arrested.

Hmm, I wonder how much of this we’ll see in St. Paul next week.

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24 Aug 08 Jay Rosen on the political conventions

Via BigThink.

Just a note to BigThink, nix the ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ colors on the videos.

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23 Aug 08 Welcome home

My new apartment in St. Paul, Minn. I finally feel like I am home in my new city. Bring on the awesome!

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21 Aug 08 Overnight at the Sentinel

My friend, former colleague and Orlando Sentinel Web producer Matt Simantov recently (and may still be) spent many an hour working as Tropical Storm Fay passed over Florida. Simantov, he also of Control Freak fame, made this short, hip little music video that I thought I’d share.

Sure, it’s not news but it’s fun, lighten up people!

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20 Aug 08 AP, you’re on notice!

More and more newspapers are planning on canceling their AP subscriptions due to their new and pseudo a-la carté fee structure. Many of the papers say the AP’s proposed savings isn’t enough to let them keep staff.

I find it admirable that some papers are choosing to keep staff for local coverage over a $200,000+/yr AP account for national coverage. I still wonder what these papers will use for A-section fillers but that remains to be seen. Doug Fisher over at Common Sense Journalism weighs in as well.

Sue Cross, AP senior vice president/U.S. media markets responded this way:

“The last time we had a big rate structure change was in 1984, we had cancellations then,” Cross added, saying the news cooperative is not keeping count of those seeking to drop. “My impression is that it is a very low percentage. The positive feedback has outweighed the negative.”

Obviously this has a more detrimental effect on smaller papers whom a $200,000/yr immediate savings makes a large difference over millions in aggregate savings. This positive feedback most likely comes from the big dogs who can easily afford the rate changes and the negative ripple is not so severe.

I’m not sure how all of this will play out and honestly it’s not my territory, but it’s interesting to read the various reactions to what the AP meant to be a benign change.

Thoughts?

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17 Aug 08 New models for print journalism are popping up all over, so stop whining

If you follow the world of journalism, or even read the newspaper, you know that the industry is in “turmoil,” or so they say. It is chic right now to talk about the death of the newspaper industry, the end of journalism as we know it and a half-dozen other clichéd statements being trotted out on the increasing number of journalism blogs these days.

The tidal wave of buyouts and layoffs industry wide, plus the machinations of Sam Zell & Co., have given both journalists and ex-journalists alike a lot of ammo and fingers to point at the current state of the print journalism world. A lot of this outcry is due to journalists seeing an industry which they love and have studied crumbling and changing before their eyes, a valid concern.

The problem I have with a lot of this is that all of the venom-spitting in the world isn’t going to change the way things have turned out. Sam Zell, Randy Michaels and Lee Abrams have a plan for Tribune and no amount of TellZell whining is going to change that. Blog all you want, it’s not going to change the ad structure and revenue models of your standard newspaper that are in steady decline. Trust me, I hate it too and wish much of it wasn’t happening, but the reality is that it is happening.

Our industry, not just print journalism but journalism in general, is changing and evolving. This is a good thing. The problem seems that many journalists aren’t willing to go through the birthing pains of changing the face of journalism, even young journalists. In my experience there are still kids coming out of journalism school that have that delusion of being the fedora-wearing, beat journalist who just hits the streets with a notepad and their wits. While that’s all well and good, it’s not enough and it’s the old model.

Nothing I’m saying here is new and many others have said it better. My point is, the cure for the death of print journalism is already out there, staring us in the face, all anyone has to do is step up and be willing to take a risk because they truly love journalism. Here are a few examples of what I am talking about:

MinnPost.com
Started by a group of ex-journalists, including former Star-Tribune publisher Joel Kramer, MinnPost was their answer to what they felt was the decline of high-quality journalism in the Twin Cities. MinnPost is a non-profit journalism outfit that uses an online and a print-on-demand model. They focus on investigative journalism with a focus on politics, government, science, health and culture. Last I read they were one of the few news organizations in the black.

SportingNews
Now the Sporting News is not a new organization, they’ve been around since 1886. However, there is obviously a reason they’ve survived so long, they innovate. News designer Charles Apple recently joined the Sporting News to help launch their new e-newsletter. Though the paper is supposed to continue print publication as a bi-weekly later this month, this e-newsletter format is something that more organizations should be willing to try. People still want the portability of a paper so why not give it to them while at the same time saving the organization on printing costs. We’ll have to see how this is working out in six months but I think it is a great idea.

Spot.us
Spot.us is an experiment in non-profit, crowdfunded journalism that is scheduled to launch this fall. The project was started by journalist David Cohn after he won the Knight News Challenge. According to the site:

“Spot Us” is a nonprofit that allows an individual or group to take control of news in their community by sharing the cost (crowdfunding) to commission freelance journalists to write important, or uncovered news stories.

Will it work? Who knows, but its boldness and Cohn’s willingness to try something innovative is more than admirable, it’s what the industry needs.

ProPublica
You may have heard of ProPublica already, the independent, non-profit newsroom that squarely focuses on investigative journalism. Investigative journalism is one of the fastest casualties of the slimmed down newsroom. Less journalists equals less time and resources to dig into those real meaty stories that newspapers are supposed to be known for. According to their site, they are “…the largest, best-led and best-funded investigative journalism operation in the United States.” Whether you agree or not, ProPublica looks poised to pick up where traditional news organizations are losing out.

TheUptake
A citizen-journalism Web site, The Uptake has garnered recent attention for a member-submitted story about the protests in Beijing, China. Their motto: “Will journalism be done by you or to you?” Many trained, educated journalists take issue with the citizen-journalism movement but there is merit to having eyes and ears on every corner. News organizations can’t hope to cover every angle of a story and that is where sites like TheUptake pick up the slack. I’m not sure of the history of the site and couldn’t find anything on it, maybe someone from the site can shed some light.

These are just a few examples of bold new steps for journalism and I’m sure there are more. My point here is that the solution to this supposed destruction of modern journalism is not going to come from new owners, publishers or executives. No, it’s going to have to come from the true journalists that love this business, this life and love getting the news to the people that want to read it, listen to it or see it.

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14 Aug 08 InternetGuru, not a TweetSpammer

Courtesy of Sean Bonner:

Nice.

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12 Aug 08 Wanted: One slacking blogger

Found him!

Yeah, yeah, like everyone else I’ve been busy, though that is no excuse. New job, lots of training, trying to find a place to live and exploring a new city take up a lot of time. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to scan the old RSS feed and make snarky comments at all of the whiny, angry and venomous curmudgeons talking about the news business.

Oh, and there’s also a little thing called the Republican National Convention happening right up the street. Kind of a big deal and I’m looking forward to being on the media (cyber) front lines.

That being said, I’m going to try and start writing here a lot more. With so many changes in the industry, both online and off, there’s a lot to talk about. Not to mention the Olympics, one of the best events to do unique multimedia coverage of.

Until then, go see what I’ve been taking pictures of.

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