Not to overlook the group weblog we are experimenting with at Columbia. To be able to have a website which can be editied and updated quickly, we are trying out a group weblog. Students just need to email and ask to be invited and then they can be contributors. Career counselors, teachers, and others can contribute this way too. Student Satellite CHC/SPJ Columbia College Chicago

Here is a spate (is it a "splog" if it refers to weblogs?) of interesting articles about weblogs & journalism & reporting & editing: You can listen or view this one, if you missed it when it was broadcast. Online NewsHour: Weblogging -- April 28, 2003

Vin Crosbie on the relationship of "editing" to Journalism and blogging No comments:

If you are interested in the Internet as a news source and resource, here is an interesting piece. Al Tompkins reflects on the anniversary of his "Morning Meeting" weblog. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=31490

I thought of this, but by the time I had just gotten a few of my Aces in the hole, this group trumped me with their U.S. Regime Change deck of cards. TRO - "55 Most Wanted" Playing Card Deck Aims for Regime Change in U.S.

Story of the Week--Judge makes ruling that indicates he understands Peer to Peer sharing. This is a "stunning" defeat for the recording industry. Read more.

Here is a great little item on "picturing phoning" and the ethical/legal problems it may present to news media.

Posted by Steve Outing 10:11:11 AM Picture-Phoning: Promise and Risk The development and growth in use of picture-phoning is something you'll want to watch, for it has some interesting potential implications for journalists, especially. The PicturePhoning.com weblog yesterday had an interesting pointer to a story from Wales, about a visitor to a courtroom who was arrested and fined for taking a photo-phone picture of a defendant. It's a criminal offense in Wales to take a photo during court proceedings. What this incident points out is how an army of amateur photographers who happen to carry photo-phones with them everywhere will get images of all sorts of news events where professional news photographers don't happen to be when the action occurs. And the photo-phone-carrying public will have the ability to immediately send important images to news organizations. I can easily imagine some ethical dilemmas popping up. Let's say someone takes an illegal courtroom photo of a really important trial and sends it to a news outlet, where the news value of the shot outweighs the risks of publishing. What do you do? This is going to get interesting.

Broadcasters, wake up.

Advertisers who typically buy a ton of television. McDonald’s, for instance, has announced that it intends to move money away from television and into digital media, especially the Web.

Read the whole storyOJR article: TV Stations May Finally Get the Point Advertisers who typically buy a ton of television. McDonald?s, for instance, has announced that it intends to move money away from television and into digital media, especially the Web.

This will tie in to our considerations about war reporting. A multimedia version of the story of the two Newday reporters, Moises Saman and Matt McAllester, who were held in Iraqi prison for 8 days.

J Students--where are you going to be working? Online earnings are up for Washington Post.

Posted by Steve Outing 2:32:05 PM New-Media Revenue Up at Washington Post Co. The Washington Post Co.'s long-time, serious investment in new media appears to be paying off. In its first-quarter 2003 earnings report, announced yesterday, the company says that online publishing activities (primarily WashingtonPost.com) increased 27% to $9.5 million, up from $7.5 million for Q1 2002. Local and national online advertising revenues grew 78% for the same period, according to a company spokesman. And revenue for the Jobs section of WashingtonPost.com increased 17% -- while the newspaper's overall classifieds revenue was down $2.3 million (due to a 17% volume decline). As for earnings, the newspaper division increased its operating income to $21.4 million from $17.5 million in 2002, "attributable to increases in print and online advertising revenue." (Here's the earnings press release.)

What? No phone? Too bad, it has everything else...I love the hotsync zip and unzip file transfer feature. PR Newswire for Journalists :: All Releases

As I noted several weeks ago, Japan's researchers and business people are tying into mobile phone users. Here is how one of the major newspapers in Japan is hoping to build readership with the elusive younger reader....from Poynter.org

Posted by Norbert Specker 12:10:22 PM Mobile-Phone Lifeline Online Journalism Review's Japan Media Review offers an insightful story on Asahi Shimbun's remarkable success with its interactive division serving mobile-phone users. Some 1 million users at $1 apiece per month are the current numbers. Even more interesting are the strategic implications of the mainly sports- and entertainment-oriented content in the predominantly youth-oriented mobile market. Asahi is losing subscriptions and readership, as are almost all newspapers in the developed world, and the phones are a precarious lifeline to the youth age group. That's all the more important, as the Asahi website does not turn a profit and only reports yearly advertising revenues of $7 million. (With a print circulation of 12 million, this is clearly below its potential.)

Using the expression, "the tipping point" Robyn Greenspan reports on several studies about communications. In business, e-mail is now preferred over telephone calls, for one thing. She balances the report with information about faxing (down 50%) and some common e-mail bugaboos, such as viruses, and such.

Professionals Prefer Typing To Talking By Robyn Greenspan Hang up the phone and stop scheduling meetings -- 80 percent of businesspeople prefer e-mail communication, according to a survey by META Group, Inc. (http://www.metagroup.com) "These findings reveal a major tipping point in the evolution of communications," said Matt Cain, META Group senior vice president and an expert on e-mail and collaboration strategies. "While we had suspected that e-mail was becoming more popular than the phone, we were surprised by the magnitude of the ratio of those choosing e-mail over the phone. Clearly, e-mail best suits a changing business climate characterized by geographically distributed workgroups, extreme mobility, the need for rapid information dissemination, and a desire for reusable business records." Conducted online among 387 organizations, the survey also found that nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of respondents believe being without e-mail would present more of a hardship than being without phone service. Reasons For Preferring E-mail Over Phone for Business Response flexibility: 84% Can communicate with multiple parties easily: 83% Paper trail is created: 78% Can communicate more quickly: 40% More productive: 29% Easier for global communications: 25% Proper context: 24% More targeted, less socializing: 22% Other: 45% Source: META Group, Inc. Cain cites inbox overflow as a reason why some professionals still prefer phone calls to the written word. "Users are struggling to keep up with rising tide of message volume, with some users receiving over 200 messages per day and spending several hours daily managing their inbox. Clearly, something has to give," said Cain. Reasons For Preferring Phone Over E-mail for Business More personal: 81% Easier to respond while traveling: 76% Proper context: 62% Can communicate more quickly: 48% Tone of the message is clear: 48% Too much e-mail already: 29% No paper trail: 25% More productive: 20% Other: 63% Source: META Group, Inc. Despite the preference for typing over talking, the report revealed that more than half of all adults in the 35 largest U.S. markets have a cell phone. Additionally, META Group also found that the number of faxed pages has dropped 50 percent during the last five years, and over 90 percent of Global 2000 knowledge workers are expected to have instant messaging service by 2007. E-mail overload could likely hinder written business communications, as findings from a joint LEGATO Systems (http://www.legato.com/) and Osterman Research (http://www.OstermanResearch.com) report indicate a proliferation of external and internal e-mail. According to the survey, 38 percent of the North American respondents said they saw their e-mail volume increase by more than 50 percent since 2001; 30 percent saw e-mail growth of 26 to 50 percent; 32 percent saw e-mail volume increase by less than 25 percent. Interestingly, 52 percent of survey respondents indicated that their internal e-mail volume increased by more than 50 percent since 2001. E-mail research from LEGATO/Osterman also found that 79 percent of IT professionals use the communication app for mission-critical business operations such as recording approvals and transactions; 35 percent have lost e-mails due to a technical fault, virus or related problem; more than 50 percent of organizations have suffered monetary loss or business interruption due to e-mail downtime; and 24 percent have been involved in disputes with customers or suppliers over e-mail-based issues.

More on this survey at META Group, Inc.

Plug-in to an outlet, and voila, broadband. If it works, it will be a break through technology.... Chicago Tribune | New outlets power high-speed home access

No economic fallout from speaking her mind...Dixie Chicks Tix Sales brisk

You may need to register. The stories here combine photo journalist's work with the audio journals of several of the NY Times correspondents. This is a thoughtful way to recap stories which have moved from the front page. The New York Times: Multimedia/Photos

I am putting an article from Rueters in here verbatim (link at the end) because it talks about WIFI and how it will transform schools. At my urging, we got a WIFI node and a class set of laptops we can use with Journalism students in any classroom. We are eagerly awaiting the library's wifi so we can send the students out on reporting missions to the library and around the city, with their trusty wifi laptop as part of their "backpack."

Mon April 21, 2003 01:52 PM ET By Yukari Iwatani CHICAGO (Reuters) - Sarah Wille didn't get sick when she dissected a fetal pig in science class, because she'd seen its innards before. The 12-year-old had studied the diagrams ahead of time on the Internet over a wireless laptop computer. "Lots of kids were nervous about what the pigs were going to look like and pretty confused because we'd never looked at the inside of anything. It was much easier when we knew what to expect," Sarah said. On Mondays, she uses the same laptop to work on math quizzes structured for her ability level on a Web site. Sarah is a student at Winston Campus in the Chicago suburb of Palatine, which is part of a growing number of schools that are incorporating laptop computers and wireless Internet technology into their buildings and classrooms. Most U.S. public schools are equipped with desktop computers and computer labs, but the relatively new wireless Internet technology called WiFi gives pupils instant access to the Internet to help with any subject in any classroom. WiFi is already available in many universities, which generally have more vast resources, but now the technology is trickling down into lower-level schools. It is one of the fastest-growing budget items for technology. LEARNING WHEREVER AND WHENEVER WiFi, or 802.11b, is an ultra high-speed wireless Internet connection usually available within a radius of a few hundred feet. By setting up multiple access points or "hot spots," schools can make wireless Internet access available throughout their campuses. "A big part of what wireless makes possible is the flexible reconfiguration of classrooms, so students can take with them whatever tools they need and use them wherever they happen to be," said Chris Dede, a professor specializing in learning technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. WiFi technology is already used in many businesses and homes, and wireless operator T-Mobile TMOG.UL DTEGn.DE offers the service in Starbucks 2712.OJ cafes, Borders bookstores and airports. At Independence High School in San Jose, California, where sophomores were assigned laptops to use for the school year, Principal Cari Vaeth said she sees students with their laptops open at picnic tables outside during lunch time. "It really has expanded the amount of time they really can be learning," said Vaeth. "The work they're doing is in greater depth and has involved more critical thinking and research." Such technology can level the playing field among students of different abilities ranging from learning-disabled to advanced, said Drex Maggio, a librarian at Winston Campus. "You can have Web sites that are a little easier and some that are more challenging, so you individualize the class ability-wise," Maggio said. "NEXT-GENERATION AT A LOWER COST" Over 90 percent of students attend the 110,000 public schools throughout the United States from kindergarten through 12th grade. These schools combined spend about $6.2 billion a year on technology needs, including hardware, software, networking equipment and staff development, according to EduVentures, the leading U.S. educational consulting firm. Of that, about $500 million was spent on wireless technologies in the 2001-2002 school year, but that is expected to double in 2002-2003 and quadruple the following year. Companies such as IBM IBM.N have honed in on the potential of this niche market, establishing teams that specifically help schools like Winston and Independence. Gearmakers such as Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO.O and Symbol Technologies Inc. SBL.N also stand to gain. "I'm spending more time, energy and resources in this area," said Norm Korey, vice president of wireless services at IBM. Korey said schools find wireless networks to be significantly cheaper to install than wired connections, which is limited to areas with power outlets and other necessary equipment. Even schools with fewer resources in rural or urban areas managed to find funding for it through government measures such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was reauthorized in 2001 to close the achievement gap between the so-called "haves" and "have-nots." TREMENDOUS CULTURAL SHIFT While installing WiFi connections appears to be a no-brainer for schools, EduVentures analyst Matt Stein said the technology also raises a whole set of new issues. "It takes a tremendous cultural shift for (teachers) to start thinking of giving students this power in their hands," Stein said, adding schools might also be overwhelmed by the complexity of the technology and its rapid pace of change. Some teachers have also complained about greater student distraction as they use their laptops to play games or surf the Web during class. Others simply object to seeing a sea of laptops with faces down instead of looking at them. Even students themselves have admitted to their grades suffering as a result of too much e-mailing or instant messaging during class. For that reason, the more cutting-edge schools are turning to personal digital assistants, which they prefer because they are smaller, cheaper and less disruptive. At Wake Forest University in North Carolina teachers "beam" a question to students' PDAs during class, so they can get immediate feedback on their comprehension level, Stein said. Stein believes schools might eventually move toward slate-like tablet PCs that allow users to write directly onto the screen with a pen-like device. "People within schools are continually feeling that pressure to prepare students for what they're going to face after high school and college and wireless technology is certainly becoming a bigger piece," he said.

Schools Look to Wireless to Boost Learning

Collaboration for a range of social and political reasons is coming. The politicians who "get it" will benefit. ABCNEWS.com : Candidates' Supporters Connect Online

Interesting changes in navigation for NYTImes, and the discussion of this article is revealing as well. Most users go for the Back button (as I observed for years) and they drill to particular articles, rather than browsing through the online publications. Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

I cancelled my cingular service today, and I am shopping for a new provider. SMS plus video phone and e-mail too are going into my new purhasing equation. Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

How to make money online....Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

About video game sales and war....Poynter Online - Wednesday Edition: Video Game Sales Soar

Scholars who play online games have just completed a study of who those online gamers are. Seems lots of them are 40 somethings, and not geeky at all. Some folks just don't watch TV, they play Everquest instead....BBC NEWS | UK | England | Nottinghamshire | Fantasy games 'not for geeks'

So, its not just the USA viewers who look for news from overseas. Brits up the viewing figures for CNN.com....from Poynter OnlinePoynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

More on Wi-Fi ubiquitous networks. Will they be free and part of the "information commons" or will they be commercialized? One way or the other, seems like they are coming...

"But like T-Mobile, some of Cometa's stiffest competition comes from the free networks popping up like daisies after a spring rain. Public Wi-Fi experiments in cities from Barcelona to Long Beach have shown that it can cost just a few thousand dollars to set up a free network."

Wired 11.05 UNWIRED: 20,000 Nodes or Bust!

You may need to register to read this, but if you are in the news business, it will be worth it. Cable news has gained 300% in viewership, while the network news have had drop-offs in viewership that one industry analyst calls "unpredecented." Nightly News Feels Pinch of 24-Hour News

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Help Me With 'Making the News'

I am taking my buzz to University of Cincinnati with my kid, who is taking placement tests. No new buzz until Sunday.

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits New Phone-Cameras May Change Journalists' Roles Japanese mobile company DoCoMo is ready to launch several new phones from Fujitsu, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson (as reported by digi.no). All are capable of taking megapixel digital pictures -- or four times better than today's standard. This is an important upgrade, as pictures of this quality could now be used for Web pages and even some print jobs. In the long run this may hold the potential for some fundamental change for journalists. Technological change is often the bearer of changing job descriptions. Ignoring new technology is not the right approach; just ask a few (former) typographers. I may have to take some punches to the jaw for this, but as every journalist has a mobile camera-phone in the back pocket, it would be hard to insist that it was impossible to snap a few simple portraits or document events unfolding. I'm certain that photographers are a lot better at taking pictures than most journalists, but is it possible to prevent something this obvious?

If you don't think you would use Wifi, read this article and you may think again. Sometimes new technologies don't make sense until we get a chance to use them in context of something we need to do. Wired 11.05 UNWIRED: The Way We Work

What happens when you criticize the Iraq war at the Oscars? For Micheal Moore, your movie grosses rise, your book sales go up, you get bankrolled, etc. Moore points out that the Dixie Chicks aren't suffering either. This is a thoughtful read, and it is good news that Moore will have a TV show again... Michael Moore.com

Here is a sample. teach

Avid is a dinosaur. With 60% market share in DV and DVD editing, Final Cut Pro and Shake, and thus Mac becomes the dominant force in the moving picture focus of news and entertainment. Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Back to the news on WIFI. Imagine a public place, like Paddington Station, where travelers have a choice of WIFI networks. New York parks have it, travel spots in Europe, when will we get it in the library at Columbia? How about in every building in Columbia so that students have flexibility in where they work? And speaking of $$$, isn't WIFI cheaper than landlines? Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

You may have written off "Ender's Game" as simple science fiction. Then Army hasn't. They continue to have their psychologists and their programs studying what happens when they prepare for war via interactive video simulations and multi-player games. College teachers, are you ready to redesign your teaching for the multi-player, interactive world? Better give it a thought...More Than Just a Game, but How Close to Reality?

Weblogging has been boosted because it presents an immediate way to report and respond to news, as the War in Iraq has demonstrated. The temptation to go for the easy post, as in posting without proper attribution is always there. Sean-Paul Kelley whose blog "The Agonist" got lots of publicity recently for his war coverage. Too bad for him, that his coverage was from a research and commercial intelligence company, Stratfor. The story will become a classic in the annuls of plagiarism as far as I can tell. Wired News: Noted War Blogger Cops to Copying

Relates to the issue of independence of USA media, and are they any more fair than Al Jezeera? If these networks were not all owned by large conglomerates, and there was independence in ownership, would things be different? Al Jazeera - It's just as fair as CNN. By Chris Suellentrop

Independence, free press? How are the USA media outlets, at least broadcasting outlets, doing? Maybe not as well as we assume...Poynter Online - Gauging Independence

Very helpful regarding "Storytelling" across several media. The Photojournalism awards now include work that is still images, audio (soundtracks), narrative audio, video and animation. This is quite an expansion of what used to be in the purview of reporter. New medium mean that journalism students need new skills with visual literacy, audio dimensions, and how words and pictures are planned and executed...Poynter Online - The Design Desk

NY Times (you might need to register to view the whole story) brings out an editorial conundrum. When are pictures of war too bloody or violent? Is the sanitizing of war imagery a form of editorializing? Susan Sontag's thoughtful "Regarding he Pain of Others" considers how our media and culture think about images of war and disaster. If the reporter's work is to show the truth, then how can filtering images of the actual war fields and of the results of the actions of the soldiers be justified? When does substituting photos of young, fit soldiers for those of the dead become editorializing, and when does it slip into jingoistic propaganda? If the horrors are done in our name, aren't we responsible for confronting them? Here's what they say in the NY Times:

During an era when popular culture is filled with depictions of violence and death, and the combination of technology and battlefield access for reporters has put the public in the middle of a shooting war, the images that many Americans are seeing are remarkably bloodless. The heroic narrative is shaped in part by what editors and producers view as a need to maintain standards and not offend their audience. But some cultural critics say that the relatively softened imagery has more to do with a political need to celebrate victory without dwelling on its price. If this is war, they ask, where is the gore?

Telling War's Deadly Story at Just Enough Distance

Interesting information on who will benefit from the re-builing of Iraq. Capital Eye - Postwar Profits

Wireless all over Manhattan for free, in the parks. Will Chicago get up to speed with this? More Wireless Internet Access Set for Lower Manhattan Parks

Limiting the use of picture phones across the globe--and we in the USA are hardly using them yet...BBC NEWS | Technology | Furtive phone photography spurs ban

A possible breakthrough on what the recording industry can charge webcasters & Internet radio...Webcasters, Music Industry Reach Royalty Deal

Another favorite topic of mine is the RIAA and developments in file sharing and ownership. Here is an update on how the RIAA is suing college students over music sharing...Wired News: RIAA Sues College File Traders

This is an analysis of how webloggers correct or do not correct errors in stories that they link to. It is quite useful in a discussion of the difference between breaking news, truth and where the line between them lies. Waxy.org: Daily Log: Bias Affects Story Updates on Political Weblogs

How quaintly American to create a sort of quiz-show like display and present war information as counts, so beloved by the concrete mind...IRAQ-O-METER

I have noted many of the blogs that Cynthia Webb lists in her "Filter" column, which she describes as a place for newsjunkies. She had time and gets paid to put the blogs into categories (including some blogs from families of soldiers) and includes the latest updates on "Where's Raed" and some of the soldier blogs, such as Lt. Smash. So, this is a good index of the range of war blogs as blogging becomes a mature tool for information gathering, rather than a hobbyist toy. Blogging the War: A Guide (TechNews.com)

Educators need to remember that their job is to stimulate thinking and critical analysis, not to engender particular opinions...you may need to register to see this article, as it is from the NYTimes. Professors Protest as Students Debate

Sleep deprivation, the excitement of being on location whatever it was, a photojournalist who altered an image and then submitted it to his paper is disgraced and fired. This includes discussion from other photojournalists about why someone might do this, and emphasizes the negative effects this kind of ethical lapse by one reporter can have on the whole world of photojournalism....Poynter Online - L.A. Times Photographer Fired Over Altered Image

I've been out of town, and out of the blogosphere. Upon my return, I got this interesting update (thanks Mary Eileen) about Bill Moyer's upcoming show:

From: "Public Affairs" Date: Thu Apr 3, 2003 4:23:59 PM America/Chicago To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: This week on NOW with Bill Moyers Reply-To: "Public Affairs Television "@webmail.thirteen.org NOW with Bill Moyers Friday, April 4, 2003 at 9pm on PBS (Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html) ============================================================= This week on NOW: * Will truth in journalism be another casualty of war? Bill Moyers interviews Greg Mitchell about the media's coverage of the war. * NOW looks at big media and the future of free press in BIG MEDIA. * Bill Moyers interviews writer Susan Sontag, one of America's most celebrated public intellectuals, on image vs. reality and her new book REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS. ============================================================= GREG MITCHELL The war you see may depend upon which channel you're watching. In his 30 year writing career, Greg Mitchell has edited several national magazines and written eight nonfiction books for major publishers. Currently, he serves as editor of EDITOR & PUBLISHER, weekly magazine covering the newspaper industry in North America. Bill Moyers talks to Mitchell about how the war in Iraq is being covered by the media. ============================================================= BIG MEDIA As the FCC considers further deregulating corporate media ownership rules this spring, big media may get even bigger. NOW goes inside the debate over relaxing restrictions that could result in multi-billion dollar media conglomerates gaining more control over the nation's radio and television airwaves. Opponents of media consolidation fear that giving these giants a free pass to let the marketplace rule could severely affect the ability of journalists to be independent. If deregulation does take place, can democracy survive without the diversity of ideas presented by a truly free press? ============================================================= SUSAN SONTAG Bill Moyers interviews writer Susan Sontag, about the gap between the images and the realities of war. The author of several novels, including the National Book Award-winning IN AMERICA, and many works of non-fiction including AGAINST INTERPRETATION, ON PHOTOGRAPHY AND ILLNESS AS METAPHOR, her books are translated into 32 languages. Susan Sontag's new book, REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS, could not have come at a more opportune moment. In it, Sontag explores how we can have compassion for others we do not know, the power of images, of photographs and memory, and the persistence of war. ============================================================= NOW WITH BILL MOYERS continues online at PBS.org (www.pbs.org/now). Log on to the site to view a timeline of media regulation; read a primer on the media ownership rules under debate; see timeline of Susan Sontag's writings; find more about assessing media coverage of the war in Iraq; and more