Newspaper writers slow to pick up on links

I have spent lots of time since 1990 or so explaining how writing effectively with links is a different style of writing. I never thought to illustrate what I meant with examples. Good work by this writer. Editors Weblog- Analysis

Shooting Civilians in Iraq - (Video) |

Off main tech topic, but I think this kind of thing is right in the mainstream of reporting in the 21st century. Is this video real? If it is, this story--see the discussion of how the shooters are allegedly from private security firms--and what the government we elect and pay for is doing needs to be covered by responsible reporters. It is good that the ubiquity of technology and Internet at least makes it inevitable that this kind of reprehensible action works its way into the public eye. Will it get beyond blogs and will MSM companies send reporters to cover the story? Shooting Civilians in Iraq - (Video) | MediaChannel.org

Wifi in New Orleans

New Orleans to deploy municipal WiFi network: CommsUpdate : TeleGeography Research

Cyworld Expands Deep Into Realm of China--and it is going to be in the USA in 2006

The Korea Times : Cyworld Expands Deep Into Realm of China :

"more than 700,000 Chinese had subscribed to their services only five months after its debut in the world%u2019s most populous country."

I was just telling students this today...

Who on earth would make a statement like this? Broadcast educators and students should listen up when it is Jonathan Klein, president of CNN Anchor Roulette - Can You Pick the Next Big News Star?:

"There won't be anchors. There won't be people introducing the stories. Consumers won't have the time or the need for that. They'll just be getting the news they want, when they want it, in whatever form they want it."

Go Craig, Watch out MSM

InformationWeek > Online Media > Craigslist Founder Behind Online News Venture > November 28, 2005: "Our goal is to create a platform to organize the world's news using the best of technology, community, and editors. We seen an explosion of interest in and coverage of news from incredibly varied sources around the world and see a need around that.'"

How we can tell that MSM is still pretty clueless.

I came across this "web exclusive" on Newsweek's website. So, it looks like they take the comments (maybe from blogs?) and then they write about the comments that readers send to them. Would you bother to read a feature like this? What are they hiding from the original comments? Why not just use a blog style and let the comments occur in threads? What is the person who excerpted the snippets adding to the reading experience? Is taking out dirty words the function of this feature? Or is it to just put spin on whatever real people wrote to Newsweek about? There are many who read news online who will think it is for spin, I think, and whatever the purpose, the lack of transparency in presenting comments is a bad move. Online Mail Call - Letters & Live Talk - MSNBC.com

Journalists ditch pens in favour of mobile phones - 28 Nov 2005 - National News

How journalists are using their "mobiles." Note that one fellow was covering a protest in Denmark, and sent updates via mobile to his "webpage" which was likely a blog. Other journalists used that as a source. Journalists ditch pens in favour of mobile phones - 28 Nov 2005 - National News

Sex dysfunction in CyWorld

cyworld

Previously, the protesting artists held the same kind of online exhibition through popular blog Web site Cyworld. However, the exhibition was brought to an abrupt end in October by the Web site management who considered it illegal.

Reporting war

How should a war be covered? The inevitable comparisons of how Viet Nam was covered to how the Iraq war is being covered bring out important issues beyond just news. How is our republic being served?

A thought experiment with Open Source

With Christmas coming the model train analogy is timely. Take a minute to imagine, along the lines of his example with model trains, other systems you use that could be open source. As a teacher, I want to share examples of good news and bad news (I teach journalism) with students. Imagine a system where I could easily locate the content snippets, whether they were from free broadcast, cable, radio, Internet and then just be able to show them to my class so we could study them. Yes, once you start, it makes you wonder "why not?"openscource

Transparency breaks down "fortress newsroom" as a conversation begins.

Steven A. Smith of the Spokesman Review is the guest columnist for pressthink and writes about transparency in the newsroom. He contrasts the typical "fortress newsroom" mentality with an open, conversational newsroom where citizens participate. He has enough experience to provide a long view of newsroom attitudes toward readers. I think his point is that no matter what professional journalists think, the user/viewer consumer is in charge, so its not about whether to cede some control, but about how to do it effectively. [tagname]

A muckraking blogger HIRES journalists

another milestone for the blogging phenomenon." The New York Times has shrunk its staff 5% over the past year. Here's somebody who's tripling his staff," Mr. Copeland said. "That's a real shocking kind of inflection point."

Henry Copeland of blogads sees Josh Marshall's Talkingpoints.com as an indicator of a tipping point in journalism. Marshall investigates congressional corruption, like the current investigation of Abramoff and has been asking readers to donate to a muckraker fund so he can hire reporters to cover the details of scandals that are not getting any MSM scrutiny. New York Times cuts staff, blogger adds staff. Hmm, students of mine, think about THAT for a bit... blogs

Chicago Bloggers--come out wherever you are

If you can herd cats, you can organize bloggers, right? Actually, this is a first attempt to gather Chicago area bloggers to meet and talk about our interests as bloggers. There are at least 125 folks waiting for someone to organize a weblogger group in Chicago, so I reserved a room at Columbia, and here is a call for any interested parties to show up and see where we go from there. On either coast and even in the hinterlands, blogger organizations exist and provide social and professional kinds of help to bloggers. Chicago is writer's town, but so far, has had no "blogger central." I am looking for other people to help me organize a loosely coupled collective and web portal to connect Chicago Bloggers to other media, to training and workshops, and to other people. If you are a blogger, please consider coming out for this meeting. If you are not a blogger yourself, can you print/post this poster and get it out where bloggers might see it? There is no fee to attend the meetings, but as I am going to provide some refreshments, I will accept $2.00 donations from those who care to help out. MSM types, students, literati, digerati, podcasters, novices, vloggers -- anyone who is interested in blogging and is located around Chicago is invited. Here are the details and a link to RSVP if you decide to check it out: Chicago Bloggers Group Open to any interested bloggers (or potential bloggers) Initial meeting 12/21/05 7-8 p.m 33 E. Congress 2nd floor Room 219 (Journalism Dept. Columbia College Chicago) Details and RSVP at: http://blog.meetup.com/351/boards/view/viewthread?thread=1584572chicagoblogs

Gamers worry about the Rootkit and privacy. Do you?

GamesFirst! || I Like Watching You: Playing with Privacy in the Gaming Age

Why TV news is anti-democratic or "Bring back the Fairness Doctrine:

AlterNet: A Media Monster Is Eating the Dems: "CNN President Jonathan Klein explained that Democrats have a hard time getting booked because they don't get 'angry' enough to excite the viewers. He told Charlie Rose that liberals 'don't get too worked up about anything. And they're pretty morally relativistic. And so, you know, they allow for a lot of that stuff.'"

Video chat software turns users into live avatars

FaceCommunicator can make you into a an anime. Software mimics human faces to create an avatar on the go. Video chat software turns users into live avatars

outh Korea flaunts high tech wares. WiBro going to keep us connected.

When I visited South Korea, I was struck by how much more connected the average Korean was than even a kind of high-tech saavy person in the USA. WiBro looks like a tech on the rise. Correspondents Report - South Korea flaunts high tech wares "You can move from McDonalds to Starbucks, which is really far away, without closing your computer. Right now you have to just close it and log out and then turn the power off. But with using this WiBro you don%u2019t have to shut this computer off, you just have to carry this from one place to another. That means it has amazing mobility. So that's our technique."

Wired News: Tainted Sony CDs Used Open Source

Wired News: Tainted Sony CDs Used Open Source:

"'That's the flipside of open source: If you don't respect the open-source rules, the old regime of copy protection comes back in full force,' said Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm, an attorney and internet specialist at law firm SOLV in the Netherlands."

GPS can work as a two-way sword.

It seems a natural that you'd equip Television remote trucks with GPS. It could enhance news coverage and make sure everybody gets to the scene of the crime as fast as they can. But does it also mean that employees would be under detailed company surveillance? Ask the cabbies in New York and the guy who got fired for goofing off. And there was the driver who was caught speeding by the GPS and got canned. Does your phone have GPS? I have used mine when I travel, along with the google locator to find nearby restaurants or sights to see. I haven't been considering who is watching me. Technology is not neutral, though it is almost always disruptive. I wonder what the legal minds will make of this one, and how GPS will play out in the workplace. Wired News: Queer Eye for the News Guys

Where academe and the news biz ought to meet, but don't

This is a good short read about the gap between academics who study the media and the reporters out there doing journalism. Why isn't the theory ever used by practitioners? Here's one scholar's thoughts on the matter.

One Web site quotes a scholar’s description of phronesis as “a sound practical instinct for the course of events, an almost indefinable hunch that anticipates the future by remembering the past and thus judges the present correctly.” Start showing us how to get some of that, and I guarantee that folks will stand around the newsroom, debating your endnotes.

Inside Higher Ed :: Meet the Press

Knight Ridder--dressed up for the party, but nobody wants to dance...

The attempted sale of Knight Ridder and the skittish buyers signals problems in the MSM news industries, but is the end or only the beginning of a new business era? Everyone is wondering, but it seems no one knows so far.Editors Weblog- Analysis

Poynter Online - As Blogs and Citizen Journalism Grow, Where's the News?

Some of this was obvious to anyone who has been online for a bit, but I guess some MSMers work on a pre-Internet time frame (takes years for them to catch on to things.) If you blog, you know it isn't a medium itself, but a way into a variety of media. It is just an easy interface with many handy features. The content is still king, in my opinion. Thus, good news, well-presented will find eyeballs. And curious people won't want to limit what they see/hear/read/interact with to content produced by any one source. If you are so convinced, as many MSMers are that you have a corner on intelligence or the ability to observe, then you are just now discovering that, gasp, citizen journalists and bloggers can produce good content. If you have been using the Internet for some time, then you know about the "conversation" taking place worldwide and that it isn't a dominated discourse based on who owns the means of production of the media in which the discourse takes place. Poynter Online - As Blogs and Citizen Journalism Grow,
Where's the News?

The News business, Internet and major professional sports?

Change is afoot. Paper readership continues to slip, while eyeballs to Internet news sites are up. Fuller hits it on the head in my opinion. Sports will be the breakthrough (because sex and porn probably can't be in our current moral climate.) The new name of the media game | Perspectives | CNET News.com

If Gates is worried, I guess MSM isn't just running scared.

All the real concern as well as angst from MSM about declining readership in print and the threat of news aggregators is probably right on target. Read how Bill Gates is warning Microsoft, and also reorganizing it, to be up to the challenge of what I think isn't coming from companies, but from new communications paradigms that arise from digital connective technologies. Gates memo warns of 'disruptive' changes | Tech News on ZDNet

Doesn't this make good sense? Forget the drugs.

Any thoughtful person who is into running, biking, or has dieted, has probably used some kind of behavior conditioning on themselves. Our crude personal efforts can be effective. Once I taught my dog Johnny, a huge black shepard, to jump through my arms when I held them like a hoop. In fact, he got so good, I could have 4 or 5 people stand in line with their arms held in hoops, and Johnny would jump them all. How did I do it? Behavioral conditioning--using food rewards (for a dog, the best kind) to shape his behavior over two years, from first just walking through my arms, then working up to the dramatic big jump. So here is a cybergame company that has created games that can monitor "focus" and "stress" by tracking a player's performance in a couple of video games. So what? If your kid has an attention disorder, playing the game and getting good at it, will accomplish the behavior modifications that most adults who have some kind of Attention disorder but are successful have mastered on their own. The game includes a helmet that measures brainwaves and thus feeds user response data into the game controller. One mother who tried it, found her son improved his concentration. Game companies are not flocking there yet, but if I had to choose between psychactive drugs for my kid, or a game that would enable the kid to internalize the kind of controls needed to live sucessfully with AD, I would go for games. Attention deficit disorder? Try video games | CNET News.com

A project that is going to change the world

This MIT effort has help from Allan Kay, Negroponte and other big names from the days of the invention of the PC. They have been working on this without a lot of press, but fixedly for several years. While a robust physical machine with a screen that isn't going to be an energy hog are important technological milestones, to me, the use of Linux and OS is an economic paradigm shift. Imagine a world of kids with computers they can use and when they think of something new for the computer to do, they can just figure out how to program that--no paying a middleman or being beholden to the rich capitalist from another country. News from PC Magazine: A Computer for Every Kid

Now I know what my new phone, er, device will be...

Look, Linux, wireless over the faster standard, and the phone is Voip so it won't cost like they do now.

he gizmo has a 4-inch horizontal touch screen with zoom and an on-screen keyboard. It can be connected to the Net either from a hot spot or using Bluetooth via a compatible mobile phone, Nokia said.

Touchscrren, bluetooth and USB. This baby is hot, hot, hot. What do I want for Christmas? Now you know. Nokia's Linux-based Net device on sale | CNET News.com

Zigbee and SK Telecomm to bring "DreamHall" tech to homes.

Digital Media Asia: News - SK Telecom to roll out 'digital smart home' services

Acorns now in stores...but these didn't fall from trees

Cyworld is selling the currency used within the world of "minihompys" to spruce up your avatar or get new music for your virtual place. Acorns, called "dotari" in Korean are worth about ten cents.Terra Nova: Korea: Synthetic Currency Now Sold in Stores

Local perspective on "hyperlocal"

No digital hook in this story but if you want to understand community, there is much to be learned or at least contemplated in this overview of small (400-1600 circulation) local papers in Northern Minnesota. People are people. You can write for 400 people who are dispersed over the globe, but making them into a community or supplying them with the kind of news that binds and builds community is not much different in a digital world than it is in the real world. Well, maybe you get to drink more coffee in diners if you are working in the Real World. The Free Press, Mankato, MN--Local, local! Read all about it

Transparency in citizen journalism publications.

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits Technorati tags: citJ

Internet revives the video star | CNET News.com

Internet revives the video star | CNET News.com Technorati tags: disruptivetech

Live video news online? Think flying dinosaurs | Perspectives | CNET News.com

I can't figure out why the MSM people with the money don't get this. In my teaching, I find the same mental roadblocks hold back our efforts to get an online news thing going. The TV teachers must lead the online charge. Why?

As it now stands, none of the big four American broadcast networks stream their news programs live. ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC each excerpt newscast and magazine video for their Web sites. They do produce various podcasts and video specifically for their Web sites. Why isn't broadcast network news live online? Why aren't the cable news channels live online?

Live video news online? Think flying dinosaurs | Perspectives | CNET News.com Technorati tags: convergence

Remember Kevin Mitnick?

If you don't know who "Captain Crunch" is and how he used a cheap whistle to call 'round the world, then maybe you don't remember Kevin. He sure looks better now than he did as a teen. I guess it was better for him he got busted and had to get a life....Mitnick: It's a new breed of hackers | Tech News on ZDNet Technorati tags: hackers

From something to fool around with to "Lifestyle brand"

MSM is beleagured these days. I am getting worried emails from friends about what will happen to Knight-Ridder when it is cast off from its corporate harbor. Myspace, a social networking software popular among 20 somethings, especially those who like music, is now signing bands. This is a textbook example of how the Internet is disrupting established structures by eliminating the need for a middleman. How much of current MSM thinking is about being the middleman--gathering stories and putting them together for the viewer/user? McLuhan saw this clearly when he noted "It is quite predictable, then, that any new means of moving information will alter any power structure whatever." For another view of how this will play out, see Terry Heaton's "Remarkable Opportunities of Unbundled Media" an excellent story from Ohmynews.com.

Documentaries going to Web

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits Technorati tags: interactivenarratives

Ruby on Rails chases simplicity in programming | Tech News on ZDNet

Ruby on Rails chases simplicity in programming | Tech News on ZDNet

TV News now online

My question is, what took them so long?FULL 'NBC NIGHTLY NEWS' TO RUN ONLINE