The New Sunday Express - News Items:

'Thanks to the web, newspapers could tailor their topics to a worldwide (web-wide) audience, plus put the reader in control. Rather than pick up a newspaper first, you pick a topic that interests you and find out what newspapers worldwide have to say about it. You can either search by topic say, 'India' or choose from topics our computers automatically list for you. "

I used to tell my students in an introductory course that they would be able to do this, and they thought I was kidding them (circa 1985.) I am just surprised it took so long to come about. Think "bathing suits."Wired News: 3-D Eyes Turn to Fashion World

Christie Todd Whitman, then head of EPA on Sept. 21, 2001 about Ground Zero area air and water quality said this :

"We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air quality and drinking water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances," Whitman said. "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breath and their water is safe to drink," she added.

Now the truth comes out, and Hillary Clinton is calling for a reckoning. EPA was told to lie about the environmental dangers by the Bush Administration. Workers and citizens were exposed to hazards without their knowledge and without any kind of education about the hazards. t r u t h o u t - Hillary Clinton: 'Now They Should Come To New York To Face Us' In this report from November 2001, the NIH cites possible toxic hazards and sets out a program to train and protect workers. I guess we just didn't have money for that program, or else the White House thought if people don't know, it won't hurt them. What a terrible course of action to take, even in the name of "security" and public safety. Report from Natl Institutes of Health (NIH) from Nov. 2001

Wired News: Today's Tech-Dependent Activists I found this via Smart Mob and I agree with Howard Rheingold that it should be "tech-enabled" not "tech-dependent." I have been working for several days on my new website phonecamnews but took a break to go to a Howard Dean rally. One of the things I found as I was putting together the website was a monthly meeting of bloggers. According to Meetup, there are over 5000 bloggers who will meet on Sept. 17th. Virtual communities....

This is a very accurate indictment of corporate news as it is produced in print and broadcast today. No real questions, jingoism and ethnocentrism. My Intro to Mass Media students heard from embedded and independent journalists and though news neophytes, they could discern how embedding would result in bias and could cause important stories to be missed by accident, or because the press' handlers would keep them away from stories. This is shameful, and this J teacher is going to develop a lesson plan to help students come up with ways of avoiding becoming puppets of corporations as they work for mass media outlets today which are increasingly owned and operated by and for corporations, not for real news. The perfect storm? The American media and Iraq Lance Bennett - openDemocracy

My own college gets a nice story in the New York Times. Maybe my students can do some news feeds over this network. A Television Network With a PC at Its Heart

MagInkHere is the link for the company that is making the electronic paper that they call "full color digital ink display." During the power blackout in NYC, the only billboard still working was the digital ink one....

Mail and Guardian Online :: Whassup with Wsis?WSIS a conference you may not know about, but it will have an impact on your life.

"The WSSD may be fading from memory, now get ready for the WSIS. It's another UN mega-gathering, this time designated as the World Summit on the Information Society.

Oh no, just when we thought it was safe to go into the hair salon...Whet Moser, Chicago Tribune, files this horrifying report from the fashion trenches. Not just a "fauxhawk" but the dread "mullet" is observed locally. Drain the pond, kill the fish....

Lanham also picked the Bowie cut as the new new thing in his neighborhood, one "derived from the David Bowie "Aladdin" album cover." It's a more radical variation of a trend that Lanham describes as the "urban mullet . . . business up front, party in the back." Could it be that Chicago has caught up to the hipper parts of Brooklyn erhaps not. Lanham disavows the Bowie mullet trend. "Hopefully the plague hasn't hit Chicago," he says.

View living, walking mullets

Digital shoplifting with camphones Copyright issues that seem to go beyond the scale of current laws.

Have you considered how to deal with Blackouts at your college? I don't think we have. Here is a piece about how businesses are reacting to the recent blackout. Take note: 82% believe there will be another blackout within the next 12 months! Professional: U.S. Biz Lacked Blackout Plans

Interactive Narratives

Well, Poynter did not beat Iverson to the scoop this time. Check out my experiments in reporting from my phone cam at Scoops of life1 and Scoops of life2. Here is the Poynter story Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

Richard Notebaert, CEO of Qwest Communications phone company, is having technical issues. He isn't so sure about "portability" of phone numbers Chicago Tribune: New twist to phone number portability I have noted the trend to "cut the cord" and replace a landline phone with a cellphone. This makes sense for those 24-34s who move frequently, stay overnight frequently at a current love interest's home, and just aren't home much. But it is starting to sound good to business customers and others, especially if the phone numbers become portable. Mr. Notebaert and other telco-types who are tied to particular hardware systems in their thinking as much as in reality, can't imagine this coming. I expect that telcos, like news organizations, are going to either learn that they are in the information transfer (or information business), not the telephone wire/handset/hardware (or newsprint business) or they will go belly-up and be replaced by new companies that managed to hop on the Cluetrain. Think "common carrier" for telcos, and "content provider" for news organizations. Talking WIFI , Notebaert says "The challenge some of us have with Wi-Fi is to do it in a metropolitan area it's still hard for us to see the economic model. If customers want it, we'll do it." according to Staci Kramer in an article in Wired News . I think WiFi will be just part of the "carrier" that folks will pay for to be "connected". Its not about charging customers for each piece of electronic hardware or gear. Its about coming up with a charge for sending info around on the "highway" you provide. The user doesn't care or want to know, and I don't think will ultimately pay for wireless and for landlines, and for cell lines, and for whatever. The user wants to do what they want to do--they want to transfer their info, be it photos, their conversation, their spreadsheets, their money--when they want to, and they are looking for a seamless connection.

3 Women and 3 Paths, 10 Years Later

This is going to be a cataloguing of stories about PowerPoint. We have David Byrne in one corner, and one my personal idols, Edward Tufte in the other. Is PowerPoint an artistic step closer to our creator or is it the anti-christ? David Byrne does Art, including "recombinant phrenology" in this article. Wired 11.09: Learning to Love PowerPoint Edward Tufte condemns the rigidity and stupidity of PowerPoint Wired 11.09: PowerPoint is Evil

"When information is stacked in time, it is difficult to understand context and evaluate relationships. Visual reasoning usually works more effectively when relevant information is shown side by side. Often, the more intense the detail, the greater the clarity and understanding. This is especially so for statistical data, where the fundamental analytical act is to make comparisons."

Boston Globe Online: Print it!The imperialistic policy and ruthless disregard of human life goes on in Iraq as US troops continue to kill journalists with seeming impunity by saying it is part of a "justifiable response." What does the Army need to hide?

Students-- Now a sportswriter does a "Jayson Blair" and files a story that he claimed was live reporting, but he had simply watched the game on TV. Also, guilty of a "word crime" -- lifting quotes and not giving attribution. Be safe in your reporting, not sorry. Check out our e-learning module on avoiding plagiarism and other word crimes. Sports -- An apology to our readers from the Sac Bee

Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Wednesday, August 20, 2003 On Aug. 7, a story on the cover of the Sports section about the Giants game at Pacific Bell Park was filed by a Bee reporter who was not at the game. The reporter watched the game on television at a location away from the stadium. He filed his story without telling editors at The Bee his true location, leaving the impression he covered the game from the ballpark. In addition, it was discovered later that the story included quotes from other media outlets that were unattributed and old, made to reporters on a previous occasion before the day of the game. The story violated basic journalistic values and ethics as practiced by The Bee. The reporter involved, Jim Van Vliet, no longer works at the newspaper. The Bee regrets the situation and apologizes to its readers.

Armando Acuna Sports editor

The Bits Are Willing, but the Batteries Are WeakHere is a look at the darkside of digital. A reporter tracked down some Internet addicts during the New York blackout, to see how batteries and tempers where holding up. Bloggers were bedeviled as they rushed to post about their blackout experiences, only to find laptop batteries low, no DSL or dial-up available. It brings to my mind McLuhan's discussion of Figure and Ground. The fish never notices the water until its gone. The blogger doesn't notice the electricity behind the technology until it is unreliable....

OJR article: L.A. Times Hoping Time Is Right in Move to Monetize Niche ContentI think this a model dreamed up by people who don't really use or understand the Internet. I could see getting an itemized statement each month a listing of charges for info I browsed, and providing items were billed via micropayments, paying for content like we pay for phone calls. Time will tell. I used to get the NYTimes updates, but since they started charging about $20 per year for them, I use google's free alerts or just take the time to search and find by myself. They had 500,000 users when it was free. Now they have 20,000 in the paid model.

Well, my advice as a "doctor" is "get a Mac..."Story: My trip to Windows hell...and back - ZDNet

So what does this have to do with reporting and news? The content of the movie is unimportant as far as this item's "news technology" value. However, here is a solidly funded, artistically important, government supported media organization which is moving a major part of the work of advertising a product (an independent film) to the Internet. This speaks to the acceptance and importance of broadband as a mainstream media output medium. It illustrates the principle that media organizations are in the content business, not the TV or film or radio or newsprint business. It demonstrates why students and faculty need to be comfortable across media. What will stop breaking stories from migrating to Internet from Television? How many more audience members are near a computer or other wired device during business hours, than near a television? How did you get your news about the recent blackout on the East Coast?

Aug 14, 2003 World's first ever 'e-premiere' to be available with audio description and subtitles London, August 14/PRNewswire/ -- - New UK feature film "This is not a Love Song" gets globally ground-breaking premiere on Friday 5 September In a globally groundbreaking move, on Friday 5 September new UK feature film This is not a Love Song, written by Simon Beaufoy of The Full Monty fame and directed by Bille Eltringham (The Darkest Light) will receive the first-ever 'e' premiere in the world, when it is made available for streaming and download on the web and simultaneously streamed and digitally projected in selected cinemas across the UK. The film will be available for streaming and download in various size files with audio description and subtitling options available for the disabled. http://www.thisisnotalovesong.com/ This is not a Love Song, written by Beaufoy in under two weeks and shot in just 12 days on DV cameras (similar to the technology used on US smash hit 28 Days Later), is a tightly wound cat and mouse thriller set on desolate moors. After an accidental killing on a remote farm, the local police remain distanced as a group of farm vigilantes set out in search of two ex-cons who flee the scene in horror. Notes to editors: The UK Film Council is the key strategic body for advancing the film industry and film culture in the UK and receives £55 million from the Government through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund has £15 million over three years to invest in films that illustrate unique ideas and innovative approaches. It has an especially strong commitment to supporting work from the nations and regions and from black, Asian and other ethnic minorities. The fund also encourages digital technology in the production, distribution and exhibition of films. To date the New Cinema Fund has co-funded The Magdalene Sisters (winner Golden Lion - Venice Film Festival), Bloody Sunday (winner Golden Bear - Berlin Film Festival, winner Sundance Audience Award, Audience Award - Rio Film Festival), Revengers Tragedy, Anita & Me, Bille Eltringham's digital feature This is not a Love Song, written by Simon Beaufoy, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, Tomorrow La Scala! (Un Certain Regard - Cannes Film Festival), Hoover Street Revival, Bodysong, and upcoming projects including Kevin Macdonald's Touching the Void, Sarah Gavron's This Little Llife, Don Letts's One Love, John Downer's Live Forever, John Crowley's Intermission, Dagur K?ri's Noi the Albino, Duncan Roy's A.K.A, Chris Cooke's One for the Road, John Furse's Blind Flight, Emily Young's Kiss of Life and Rory Bresnihan's comedy animation Ape. New Cinema Fund short film schemes include a partnership with FilmFour Lab investing £250,000 a year into four major schemes encouraging directors, producers and other creative talent. The New Cinema Fund together with 11 appointed regional partners invests £1 million into digital short films and most recently partnered with France's CNC on the Short Channel/Manche Court (including Alicia Duffy's The Most Beautiful Man in the World officially selected for Cannes 2003). Source: UK Film Council

m-pulse / a cooltown magazine / Blogging Goes MobileHere is a piece about "phlogs" which are blogs that allow you to upload images from your camera phones. This one will be every reporter's "pocket knife" in a few years. Watch how quickly reporters gain "thumb proficiency" so they can file from their cell phones. By the way, the Nokia 3650 has a camera and gets good user ratings for its interface and keys. Here is my new "phlog."

Lafayette Square a 'hot spot' for wireless Internet - 2003-08-13 - Business First of BuffaloWireless comes to Buffalo. Increasingly, when you travel, you can just carry your WiFi device and turn it on and use it pubically. I will begin a map of places I can vouch for, but so far, Columbia SC airport, Columbia College Chicago library...and Buffalo. More to come.

washingtonpost.com: A Private Windfall For Public PropertyA wrinkle in the future of WiFi, thanks to the FCC.

OJR article: CBSNews.com Trying to Win as Tortoise in Online News Race:

"One of the conscious decisions we made a couple years ago was to produce interactive boxes that could be used on a variety of subjects -- whether it's about West Nile, or AIDS, or transplants, or the war, or whatever. We build them fairly non-dated, so when something breaks, we have instant assets to put into a story. We publish every five minutes so we call ourselves 'all-news radio meets Time magazine.'

CBS news online has technology designed for them, and has adopted an approach that shows they understand that online is part of the presentation tools that any news organization needs and uses.

Scientific American: E-mail Study Corroborates Six Degrees of Separation

The Village Voice: Nation: Press Clips: Truth and Consequences by Cynthia CottsNikki Finke claims she was fired because she wrote a series of stories critical of Disney, which complained to her employer (owned by Murdoch.) Here is a quote from the Village Voice about the matter. This can form the basis of a good case study on Media ethics in the coming year. It provides a concrete example of why conglomerate ownership of news outlets can be problematic.

In February 2002, Walt Disney Company president Robert Iger wrote a letter to New York Post editor Col Allan alleging errors in the work of media and entertainment reporter Nikki Finke. Allan fired Finke without ever investigating the alleged errors, and a Post spokesperson later trashed the writer to the Voice, saying, "We had a number of problems with the accuracy of her reporting." Then, when Finke sued Disney and the Post for libel, both companies countersued, guaranteeing that the case would drag out in court.

t r u t h o u t - Techies, Politics Now ClickInteresting summary of various groups which have begun to mobilize via Internet around a variety of political/social issues.

IEEE 802This new standard will be out in the form of adapters for existing TVs and PCs and will be a standard feature of new equipment come next year. Called "WiMedia" it represents what is called an "ad hoc" network because it negotiates what bandwidth it operates on as it plays. Radio or news from around the world streamed through your computer to your television...Get ready for Max Headroom....on a screen near you soon.

Wired News: Streaming Video, Cheap and Easy Now, stream movies from the Internet to your TV. This is the easy bridge where you can get the application "served" via your PC and network, but sit on the couch and watch it .

OJR article: Personal Broadcasting Opens Yet Another Front for Journalists Well, I can see what my next project is going to revolve around. Online from Columbia college, coming this fall.....

Poynter Online - Converging to Fix the Commute This is the future of news in my view, and according to the folks at Newsplex and elsewhere. Several news organizations combined resources to produce a project that allows viewers to get involved with something that everybody thinks about -- traffic. The tie-in to what the transportation agencies are doing and what legislators are doing about traffic is very forward thinking and represents community journalism at its most innovative. By allowing readers to see how much different improvements will cost, and then letting voters talk back to the pols about which ones they are willing to vote to pay, the media organizations are breaking new ground. I heard the developer of the previous project, Waterfront Renaissance speak and was shocked at how many of the older newspeople in the audience discounted what he said because he told them he didn't read newspapers. He meant newsprint versions of the news. The audience just couldn't fathom that there is lots of news on the Web. The young man contended he didn't trust the mass news corps and would rather be his own gatekeeper, and evaluate some stories by reading about them in several different forms. I think that is the way things are going. Television news has just overtaken news in print as the main way Americans get their news, but with the demassifcation of broadcast, the Internet and wireless will be grabbing bigger shares of the news consumers. Interactive features like the "Fix the Commute" that are local, provide meaningful interaction and will have an impact on the real world will draw viewers who are as used to clicking as they are to couch potatoing.

IO2 Technology Revolutionary Interactive Heliospace Free-Space Display Look ma, no screen. Projection into thin air. Who hasn't seen holograms? Johnny Mnemonic and Tom Cruise in Minority Report use screenless projection, but who realized we would have that technology in our own lives?

O2 Technology today announced that it has completed a working prototype of the Heliodisplay(TM) display, which can project TV, video and computer images into free space -- thin air. You can walk around, or even through, the floating image; something possible only in science fiction until now. The unit, now about the size of a bread box, currently projects images as large as 27 inches (diagonal) with a capability to expand to 150 inches.

When we envision the future of news, good reporting and the ability to write a clear story are the foundations, but the output medium will change how news is produced and will cause it to have a different impact on its audience, or viewer/user, than the flat, stationary screens we have now. To think that the technology isn't part of journalism is to completely mistake what "the medium is the message" gets at. When your newscaster is in your living room and you can reach out and not only touch, but manipulate their "presence" (a hologramatic image will seem less image than presence) its going to be a new kind of news.

I have been talking about .Dave Matthews

Poynter Online - Convergence Chaser Research presented at AEJMC confirms that writing skills are number one in what news managers look for in hiring, followed by "multimedia production." One the other side of the desk, reporters put "technology, CAR (computer-assisted writing) and visual production" on their skill wish lists. I see a way for Columbia's J Dept. to help its faculty, help reporters and bring in some much needed revenue-- Workshops on CAR and Visual production and Journalist Multimedia Skillset. Look for formal proposals for workshops based on "what I learned at Newsplex" plus what I have been teaching. We can link up with other departments to add some high end tech tips. Got to go cogitate and propose....

IHT: Flash mobs: summer silliness spread worldwide The MOBS which I first was thinking had to do with "mobs" as in disoderly crowds, is probably more a tongue in cheek punning of mob and mobile because they are one of Rheingolds' Smart Mobs. I liked this comment from the article

Howard Rheingold, who has published a book entitled "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution," thinks flash mobs are part of a larger trend. "Right now, it's just people wanting to do something silly and it's not hurting anybody, so what's the harm?" he says on smartmobs.com, a Web site that is dedicated to his book. "But it shouldn't come as a surprise when this becomes a major outlet of political activism soon as well," he says, perhaps hopefully.

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits A camera phone saves a kid and helps nab a bad actor. This is the good side of ubiquitous surveillance or whatever we would call our new world where we will all be connected with "eyes' and "ears" and "mouths" and "text" at least. This is one of a series of stories I have been following lately. See July 16th entry, for example. That is the one where the teacher was "phonecamed" tearing up a student's paper.

Wired News: One ISP Refuses to Yield I did not envision the day that I would be supporting my telephone company, especially as I am old enough to remember "Ma Bell", best depicted for all of you Gen Xers in The President's Analyst as the terrible power that is working to take over America. But now we find SBC as the first ISP to say "hold on" to the RIAA and the recording industry with its onslaught against all of our civil rights in the form of thousands of possibly illegal subpeonas to get copies of individual's Internet activity. Music downloading or file-sharing is supposed to be the problem. Actually, there may be more of a problem with the corporate structure of the music business, and the incredible economic structure which provides small reward to most artists, and over-charges the consumer. The RIAA for the recording industry has been riding roughshod over everyone's civil rights and getting the courts to just smile and say, "ok." So thank goodness for my TPC, the SBC, who say

The action taken by SBC Internet Services is intended to protect the privacy of our customers," said an SBC spokesman. "Misapplication of DMCA subpoena power raises serious constitutional questions that need to be decided by the courts, not by private companies which operate without duty of due diligence or judicial oversight."