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.
Related LinksTags: journalism, video
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.
Related LinksTags: journalism, video
14 Jun 08 NCMR 2008
This is AdBusters’s video from the NCMR 2008 in Minneapolis. I am so upset that I missed this. I left Minnesota the week before this conference began. Hopefully they’ll bring it back to the city next year.
Related LinksTags: media reform, new media, video
23 Apr 08 ‘New Media Bytes’ is ridiculously informative
All right, that’s it, I’m packing it up. No need for me to be yammering away about online journalism stuff when people like Shawn Smith have everything covered over at New Media Bytes. Smith is a senior news producer at MLive.com, the online arm of Booth Newspapers in Michigan.
Honestly, his blog is the most comprehensive site I’ve seen covering topics such as, but are not limited to, Twitter and journalists, new media metrics and how to coerce your newsroom into accepting the online world. Some notable posts:
- Ultimate guide to Twitter tools for Journalists
- Best newspaper blogs for comments, community and readability
- Blogging basics for journalists
- 6 minimal-effort ways to jumpstart your newspaper staff’s excitement about the web
I’m kidding of course about packing it up, but good grief, Shawn has done a terrific job. Kudos to you sir!
Related LinksTags: journalism, links, new media
22 Apr 08 Randi Rhodes resigns from Air America; the Internet strikes again!
Randi Rhodes, progressive radio talk show host for Air America, has resigned due to comments she made about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She apparently called Hillary a f**king whore and it was all caught on tape and put up on the great equalizer, YouTube (Warning! Some foul language).
Mark Green, president of Air America Media, told FOXNews.com that Rhodes terminated her contract Wednesday after she refused to apologize on air for her remarks.
“We sought an apology, because of what she had said…like Imus, like David Shuster,” Green said. “She refused and instead last night informed us she was terminating her contract with Air America, which she has the option to do.”
He said she was not forced out — “She exercised her option.”
The Internet takes down yet another radio personality. The reason this is somewhat justifiable is that the radio station was sponsoring the event, so Rhodes was held accountable for her comments. Again, though I am all about the First Amendment, we are representatives of our media organizations and must be conscious of our words.
This raises that questions though, when a radio station hires a polarizing figure for a public position, should they be punished for being offensive and/or polarizing? (i.e. Howard Stern, Will Kristol, Imus, Limbaugh).
Related LinksTags: First Amendment, journalism, radio
22 Apr 08 Tuesday morning reading
Yeah, yeah, more readings.
- Mark Glaser over at Media Shift talks about Loyalty Index over page views. (More on this topic later)
- Jonathan Bailey at The Blog Herald gives some blogging lessons for, and from, journalists.
- Rupert Murdoch is reviving the old school, knock down, drag out newspaper war. “Bring it the bloody on Sulzberger!”
- The Raleigh Chronicle, an upstart competitor to the Raleigh News and Observer, is changing ownership. Here’s the catch, the Raleigh Chronicle is entirely online.
- NY Times: Online advertising is a lagging indicator of a recession.
- Cameras for the Mojo, Part II: The point-and-shoot edition.
- Former FOX anchor and Bush press secretary Tony Snow to join CNN just days after NY Times revealed how White House controlled pundit generals. In other news, universe to collapse under the weight of its own irony, film at 11.
Tags: journalism, links, technology
21 Apr 08 What is ‘Passive-Aggressive Newsgathering’?
Paul Bradshaw over at the Online Journalism Blog has written an excruciatingly long, yet incredibly informative, post about RSS, social media and what he calls ‘Passive-Agressive Newsgathering.’ In it, he breaks down RSS (syndicated content) and compares and contrasts it to its social networking equivalent. He even broke it down into a diagram:
He breaks down each element and what they mean for a journalist. The post is full of links, both outside OJB and within, and is a good primer for those not yet familiar with how all of these new tools can help a journalist. It is also a good read for the seasoned online journo as a refresher course.
Check it out, get comfortable and be ready to feel like you haven’t been using all of the pieces of your toolbox. Nice work Paul.
Related Links
Tags: journalism, media, social networking
21 Apr 08 E & P: Top 30 Newspaper Sites for March
From Editor & Publisher:
NYTimes.com — 18,869 –30%
USATODAY.com — 10,709 — (-2%)
washingtonpost.com — 8,929 — 13%
Wall Street Journal Online — 6,850 — 99%
LA Times — 5,729 — 22%New York Post — 4,677 — 31%
Boston.com — 4,184 — (-1%)
Chicago Tribune — 3,825 — 31%
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle — 3,793 — (-10%)
Daily News Online Edition — 3,314 — 54%Newsday — 3,240 — 44%
Village Voice Media — 2,814 — 139%
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News — 2,727 — 96%
The Houston Chronicle — 2,690 — (-26%)
International Herald Tribune — 2,587 — 33%Atlanta Journal-Constitution — 2,384 — 28%
Chicago Sun-Times — 2,206 — 8%
The Politico — 2,095 — 58%
Azcentral.com — 2,016 — (-4%)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer — 1,967 — (-8%)tampabay.com — 1,908 — 6%
Star Tribune — 1,763 — 18%
MercuryNews.com — 1,662 — 36%
Orlando Sentinel — 1,642 — (-31%)
Philly.com — 1,554 — (-12%)Sun-Sentinel — 1,524 — (-9%)
Detroit Free Press — 1,484 — 38%
Cleveland.com — 1,460 — 89%
MiamiHerald.com — 1,451 — (-17%)
The San Diego Union-Tribune — 1,432 — (-19%)
W00t!
Related LinksTags: journalism, new media
17 Apr 08 ‘Post’ Staffer Fired After profane-laden postings
In a story pseudo-related to what I was talking about earlier, a staffer from the Washington Post was fired after some profanity-laced statements he made on sports blog. The problem, however, wasn’t so much what the staffer, identified as Michael Tunison, said, but that he associated himself with the ‘Post’ when he did it.
Michael Tunison, who blogged under the name “Christmas Ape” at the “Kissing Suzy Kolber” site, wrote on Wednesday that he had been fired for “bringing discredit to the paper.”
Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. confirmed that Tunison no longer worked at the paper and had left his job on Wednesday, but would not specify if he resigned or was fired. “We don’t discuss personnel matters, but we have standards for people’s outside work,” Downie told E&P. “You need to clear it with your editors here before and it should not be a conflict of interest.”
I am inclined to side with the Washington Post on this incident. Even though Tunison was only an editorial aide, any postings he made while associating himself with the paper hurts the integrity of the paper as a whole.
Does this mean that journalists shouldn’t be able to blog in their off time? Certainly not, but there is some personal responsibility you have to take when it comes to what you post on the Internet. I go with the Golden Rule when it comes to posting.
If you put it on the Internet, it will be seen. If you don’t want someone to see it, don’t hit ‘publish.’ In addition, if you are going to post something possibly inflammatory or negative about your employer, don’t identify yourself as an employee of said place. If you do, you are just asking for it.
I also, on this blog and those I have had in the past, always include a personal disclaimer that states that what I post here is my opinion and mine alone and in no way reflects the opinions or thoughts of my employer.
So to use the tired, and albeit edited cliché, blogger beware.
Related LinksTags: blogs, journalism, new media
16 Apr 08 Online Feature round up: Virginia Tech Edition
One year ago Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded many more at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. Today news outlets are remembering the fallen students and presenting features related to the massacre and what can be done to perhaps prevent something like this from happening again. Here’s a quick round up of some of the online features that I saw and that stood out.
- One Year Later (Roanoke Times) - Though I commend them for making good use of a simple blog format, the inconsistency of the embedded video players and some other elements make it seem a little disjointed. I do like the navigation tabs, however when I tried to click on the ‘Interactives‘ tab, I got a Drupal error. It works now, but there are only two items promoted with only text links. Their memorials map is great looking: large, easy to navigate and contains pictures. Why not play it up more with a large thumbnail? Likewise with the video portraits feature. For the time spent on those they are criminally under-promoted.
- Remembering Virgina Tech (CNN) - CNN basically pulled together all of their stories and video regarding the incident into one story gallery. Since CNN has the resources naturally they have more multimedia than you can shake a stick at. I do, however, really like the gun legislation Flash map. I do think that news organizations need to stop being reluctant to promote outbound links to local media sites. I’m sure local media in each of those states had a story or two about the legislation or about guns CNN could have linked to in order to add some context. Why not do it?
- Virginia Tech, Still Healing (Washington Post) - Similar to the CNN feature, though I think they have a lot more content. The problem, it’s a bit buried. If you go to the story linked on the front page, it takes you to today’s story. If you weren’t curious enough, or paying attention, you might miss their entire package. You have to click the ‘Full Coverage’ link to get to the interactive features, victim profiles and multimedia. They should have made their main package link a little more obvious. Bonus to WaPo for including some UGC content. Oh, and WaPo still hides behind a registration wall, use BugMeNot to get by.
- Virginia Tech Shootings (Richmond Times-Dispatch) - A good example of how not to do an online feature. First, they have no overall title or headline, just ‘Virginia Tech Shootings.’ This doesn’t instill confidence in me that they put a lot of effort into it. Second, they constrained themselves to the size limits of their ad space. They limited themselves to the 665px content block in the middle. Not only that, they contained story links in a confusing and floating scrolling box next to the video. The entire thing looks very rushed. Moving down the page there is a block of links that, due to their design, look like Google ads. Their interactive memorial is nice, but is so small and under promoted that some readers might miss it.
- Virginia Tech Multimedia Gallery (Virginia-Pilot) - Again, more of a multimedia gallery than a full feature. The vertical navigation, going from slideshows to audio to video and then finally the interactive feature, is a bad idea. Like the whole ‘above the fold’ thing, people get bored scrolling. I know they want their newest content up top, but they could have done two columns or something. The interactive map should be a lot higher. The Pilot also linked to the Associated Press’ ‘Virginia Tech: One Year Later‘ feature. Of course the AP made a good showing. Audio slideshow, timeline and victim stories, all housed in a single, self-contained interactive feature. Most impressive.
- Va. Tech more secure a year after massacre (USA Today) - The McPaper also didn’t package everything together into one feature, but linked to their coverage on today’s story. This is fine, my only problem with this, however, is that the links to their photos, videos and interactive features are more than halfway down the page. Also, their ‘Remembering and moving forward’ video feature is a big, about 300px box, but the link is actually just the tiny, 20×20 ‘GO’ button. People might miss it and mistake it for a mere memorial ad or something, which would be a shame because the video feature is good.
Naturally, those aren’t all of the V-Tech features out there today. These are just the ones I saw. See any others that stand out? Send a link.
Related LinksTags: features, news, online journalism
15 Apr 08 Entry-level cameras for the online journalist or mojo
Gizmodo has an excellent review of four, entry-level DSLR cameras that are hitting the market soon. The four models are from Sony, Canon, Nikon and Olympus, the current digital camera heavyweights. Having at least a modicum of camera skills is essential for an online journalist, so these sub-$1000 cameras are a great addition to any arsenal.
I currently use a Canon Digital Rebel-XT, which is about as entry level as it gets, though I do need to upgrade my lens. If I ever get to the point where I need go bigger I’ll probably go with one of the upper-level Canon EOS cameras or one in the Nikon D-series. Regardless, none of that matters if you don’t know what you’re doing looking through the viewfinder.
Also recommended, the Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1000 for quick, high-quality video. They recently started issuing these to the reporters at the Orlando Sentinel and it has worked out well. The cameras are easy to use, have a long battery life, start up very quickly and shoot very good quality video.
I used one recently to shoot a post-game press conference at UCF. The only problem is MPEG4-only format and the $700 price tag. If, however, you want to be the next Kevin Sites (one of my personal idols), having something like this is also an essential.
What’s in your bag?
Related LinksTags: journalism, media, technology
14 Apr 08 Quote of the Day: Christopher Hitchens
In response to the Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit the United States:
If Ratzinger is not asked at every stop he makes, and in level yet firm tones, why he and the Vatican continue to shelter Cardinal Law, our profession will have shamed and disgraced itself. We already know that the Pope is a Roman Catholic. What we need to hear is his reason for giving sinecure and asylum to the man who organized and excused the rape and torture of tens of thousands of American children. And then, when he has given his first answer, we need to hear how he answers all the supplementary questions.
This is from the Washington Post’s ongoing “interactive” feature about the state Catholicism, On Faith. Personally, I think they should have gone with a jazzier title, ‘Catholicism WOW!’ (tip: Dogma), or perhaps something more politically oriented, ‘Pope Watch 2008′.
The reason I put the word interactive in quotes is because, though touted as such, there isn’t much interaction beyond a normal story gallery. Right now it is mostly just print stories dressed up with graphics and a powder blue color scheme and a single video. I assume they are going to add more during the Pope’s visit, but they should have started it off with a bang. Perhaps an audio slideshow of Benedict’s history or even of Catholicism.
The Washington Post has the resources to do a lot more (and win Pulitzer’s). We’ll have to see how they play this out.
Related LinksTags: Interactive, journalism, quotes, religion
14 Apr 08 Rupert Murdoch and Sam Zell named to AP Board
Everything I just said, I take it back. We’re all doomed.*
Other reads for today:
- How to use RSS feeds and social media for news gathering
- Citizen Journalists Get Syndie Show: YouNewsTV
- Sun-Sentinel’s Tom Jicha on MTV’s ‘The Paper’ - Yes, reality TV coming to journalism. *Cough*, sound that doom bell again.
- Geneva Overholser to lead USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism - Annenberg is THE place for online journalism (so I hear). Overholser has a wealth of experience and will no doubt bring a lot to the school. She also inspires us online j-tech heads with this quote:
“Ensuring that the essential values of journalism are carried forward into the unsettling but enormously promising new world of media is a challenge that all of us in the craft, the journalism academy and the concerned public share. USC Annenberg is blessed with extraordinary resources, from its setting in Los Angeles, to its exceptional faculty and students, to the innovative leadership of Dean Wilson. I can’t wait to begin.”
*I’m only half joking, half.
Related LinksTags: journalism, media, news
13 Apr 08 NPAA Best of Photojournalism 2008 Web winners
The National Press Photographers Association has announced its winners for the Best of Photojournalism contest. The winners in the online categories were quite impressive this year. Steve Myers over at Poynter weighs in on some of the notables and trends.
Here are some that I liked a lot:
- Soul of Athens - First Place, Best Use of Web and Best Multimedia Package, The Athens News
- One School’s Struggle: Fixing D.C.’s Schools - First Place, Best Audio Slideshow, The Washington Post
- Hotel Poverty - First Place, Best Feature Slideshow (INDE), Shane Bauer
- Firsts and Goals - First Place, Best Sports Slideshow (UNDE), Palm Beach Post
- Our Hidden Poor - Second Place, Feature Audio Slideshow, The Chicago Tribune
- Getting the Boot - First Place, Best Feature Video, Lexington-Herald Leader
I really liked the video on this last one so I included it. It’s short and simple, but it easily gets the point across. Along with a story, talking about the video system, cost, etc., this makes a nice complete little feature package. As an aside, that system would not go over well at the University of Central Florida. Cars would be getting towed left and right.
Check out all of the winners at the NPAA site.
Related LinksTags: journalism, media, online journalism
13 Apr 08 News reporting can be dangerous stuff
Time for a little levity, though painful levity.
Extras
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