Girl with gadgets? No, it's a reporter and her gear. The story considers whether the abiliity to go live and be current with every nuance of a press conference or news event is good for news. Just because you can report something doesn't mean your story will be a prize-winner. Proust recorded the details of the quotidien, but that was literature, not the news.

A deadline every minute, once the preserve of the wire services, is now the motto for most of the press corps, from print reporters with newspaper Web sites to still photographers, cable producers and bloggers. The news cycle has condensed into one endless loop, and with it has come a endless stream of technology to accommodate it, or fuel it, since it is hard to say which came first.

I think audience habits and needs will begin to winnow the news. There will be a niche for the 24/7 newscrawl kind of coverage for viewers who must be up-to-the-minute, but are comfortable skating the surface. There will be folks on the street with a phonecam who will scoop the press corps, like Zapruder did in Dallas. But I believe there will still be an audience for news that has been analyzed and put into context, making up for currency with making sense. It is especially those in the election cycle who are caught in the vortex of more instant news, more news tech gear. "To Web-crazed gadget geeks, these items are yesterday's news. But for many reporters, such supersonic portable gear simply isn't necessary. Only when they get into the competition of the campaign bubble do they realize what they have been missing. " Access is critical in campaigns, and WiFi (search current buzz archives for more on Wi-fi) mean that the value of the campaign filing area is changed. While reporters liked the peace and quiet and time to think as they filed a story, campaigns would manipulate access to the filing areas and with wireless, reporters determine access. Being always on and connected reduces gossiping between candidates and reporters, but it is a way of life on the campaign trail in our gadget-laden world today.

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits Are your news organization's photographers carrying photo phones yet? I have been using my camphone for about 6 months. I have talked about it in a workshop for IRE at Medill, and in my classes. It has features of a PDA in addition to its camera. And I can check my email or news on the net from anywhere there is phone service. More at phonecamnews.com

Here is a great question about Online Publishing and Production's new project In_the_Loop from one of my colleagues. I liked the description I sent him, so I decided to include it here. On Jan 27, 2004, at 7:09 PM, hschlossberg wrote:

Barb: Interesting. One question: Who's maintaining the site around the clock? Is your next class going to be supplying the content? Interesting project. --HS.

Here is my response, and the In_the_Loop concept at this time:

Dear Howard, Thanks for asking. In_the_loop is not a "newspaper" so it doesn't need to update round the clock. As long as our server is working, In_the_Loop ( http://nexus.colum.edu/class/online ) will work. Next semester we add new major stories twice during the semester. Interactive stuff will update more frequently. Think "comic book" in the sense of something you read and return to. Like a comic book series, there will the old favorite stories you re-read, as well as material that is updated on an ongoing basis. Not a daily, but a periodical. As we increase the number of "interactive" features like blogs that readers can respond to, it will encourage viewer/users to come back to visit. Like the Poynter blogs, these will be about specific subjects (would love a sports enthusiast to take the course and run a blog for sports fans...) Each semester the class will supply some content themselves. We will solicit content from the "public" too. Students will cull and edit the freelance work to fit with each update's theme. There is one class that will be doing political reporting, and we will be creating a special section for their work that highlights voting and politics. We will ask your sports reporters for stories as long as they are of importance to the 60000 students in the loop. It will be a great opportunity for students. We finally have the lab, equipment, and homework lab to support a real online publication. The closest existing thing that I can refer you to (and our model in some ways) is spark-online . Our photos aren't so "arty" but they are very good, don't you think? They are in the gallery. barbara i

Many-to-Many: Is Social Software Bad for the Dean Campaign? Can you use social software to organize people for action? That is the larger question behind what Shirky discusses in the context of the Dean experience in Iowa. During the five years I was doing faculty development and working with pairs of classes ("content producers" and "tech creators") I discovered that the online social organization was good for many aspects of collective work, however, it did not necessarily translate into action in the real world. My research indicates that you still need the human touch to translate many intentions into actions. For my part, this means using social software in teaching to make the work more interesting, create more effective "homework", and let everyone better manage their time and efforts made in the educational setting. But the F2F (face to face) aspect of the classroom was essential for any production to come about. To make the virtual community "real" it has to be grounded somewhere in human interaction. Getting back to the political experience, young people and anyone else that has never voted needs to be brought along from the "I would vote" stage to the "I am voting stage" in the real world. The Deaniacs needed to have more of an organization on the ground in Iowa that did more than ask for support--they needed to be like the ward heelers and go and bring the voters to the polls. Many 2 Many a group weblog about social software has more on this topic.

Here is a helpful article about getting your RSS feed out to syndicators. Its what I am doing, so that is why I posted it.How to Set Up an RSS Feed to Syndicate Your Headlines

Here is a compendium of the blogs that are covering the campaign as news. Poynter Online - Monitoring Politics Sometimes a simple explanation is the best. Here the complex matter of the federal budget is explained simply.TrueMajority The "Fog of War" still has me thinking today. The piece McNamara has now written about the USA involvement in Iraq is chilling, given that the the current administration seems to be basing their actions on ideology without regard to facts or reality. NPR reported today that not only were the Arms Inspector s and Allies tricked about WMD in Iraq, but apparently so was Saddam. It turns out scientists came to realize that they could get money out of the Saddam govt. by saying they were developing weapons programs, but then diverting the money. So Saddam thought he had the weapons, our intelligence thought he had the weapons, but there were no weapons. This story is airing now, so I can't link it yet.

Just came home from seeing Errol Morris' Fog of War, so this piece on McNamara and the war in Iraq was pretty timely. t r u t h o u t - Robert McNamara: 'It's Just Wrong What We're Doing'

Steve and I are both trying to move RSS use by journalists from "geek" to "everyday" and now Yahoo has a sampler for beta testing by journalists.Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

This is a blantantly political satire. I love it. Watch it at your own risk. But remember, "don't be an asshole in 04"Bushmovie

AmphetaDesk 0.93.1

Blogging and political operatives, or how blogs are working to link smart mobs.Web forum shapes political thinking / Dean consultant in Berkeley builds 'blog' into influential tool

Here is an ingenious use of the Internet.Bush in 30 Seconds

This is very interesting. Plot out literature rather than reading it. I would like to do both....Studying Literature by the Numbers

In Mindanao some journalists are taking their work into politics, as they run for the council. 3 De Oro media people joining elections

I wonder just like Coursey about VoIP....ZDNet AnchorDesk: Why VoIP is going to be a big deal this year

Dick Tracy, eat your heart out...Reporters think about writing news that is going to read on a watch. Better get good with the 125 character message...State of the Art: Microsoft%u2019s Latest, Strapped to a Wrist