Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits A multilingual blogger produces news roundups of European news in English. Cool.

Poynter Online - Wednesday Edition: Kids' Home Internet UseInteresting research results that kinds who use Internet at home outperform those who don't in school. The Web for all its glamour is essentially text-based, and it turns out that kids who spend more time reading (even if it is online) become better readers. There appear to be no negative social impacts, either. As my kid heads off on his first "roadtrip" as an adult (he is now 18) to cyberathlete professional league summer 2003 championships in Dallas, TX. He will be one of the 1000 folks who "BYOC" or bring their own computer. He is an avid reader, a good writer, he got into college , has dates and a social life, but I wish he would spend more time outdoors.

Advice to avoid copyright litigation / Experts sharing tips to help defend against file-sharing lawsuits Boy, it sounds like a challenge for consumers to boycott all kinds of "legal" music, MTV, CDs, etc. that come from labels that are represented by the RIAA. If the RIAA wants to go after money, I'd sure think that a consumer boycott would be a logical response. I am only surprised I haven't heard of such an effort yet. College students, teenagers, parents of techno-geeks, college IT people, could you go without buying music or watching Televsion programs that are made by corporations that have affiliates represented by the RIAA for 2 weeks to show a sense of solidarity and clout?

Poynter Online - Writing with Your Nose Being an olfactory person, I like this "how to" article from Poynter. I remember riding my moped from the suburbs to the city, and being slammed by the shifting odors. I always imagined it would be a good exercise to write about the trip as if I were riding on the back of the moped with my eyes closed just describing the passing neighborhoods and zones based on smell. Here are a few I recall:

• Pulling away from my house the damp grass smell of a lawn that is dew-sprinkled and clean
• Passing the little woods in Evanston, cooler by degrees, and with the smell of air that hasn't sat behind idling engines for hours
• the sudden turn onto McCormick with its earthy sewage smell redolent of still water, muck, and dead fish
• accelerating past the dumpster of lard grease behind the Mexican restaurant, replaced by the sweeter but still cloying odor of the Greek's dumpster

Sit back, take a whiff, scratch and sniff. add some "sense" to your writing. Smell-O-Vision

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage This update about Jayson Blair's next writing assignment sounds like something out of a Thomas Pynchon novel, but unless Reuters got scammed, it is true. Having a fabricator review the movie about a fabricator? So "pomo" it drips irony like honey off baklava.

Applications: Blogging By The Numbers Notice they don't talk directly about the J curve distribution that Clay Shirky described also as power relations and argues is common in social phenomena (e.g. word use.)

Posted from Pratt, checking out Miroslaw Rogala's preparations for Siggraph this coming week. Poynter Journalists discover the MOBing phenomena as Rogala and I work it into our collaboration on collaboration.

OJR article: Are Online Search Tools Lulling Journalists Into Laziness? This is a good example of the kind of reporting he is talking about. I am off to NYC for a couple days--current buzz is "on assignment" until then.

Wired News: Spy Kids' Director Goes Digital It is film today, and news tomorrow... http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59682,00.html

"but in some sense he's been eclipsed by digital technology. With the right tools and techniques, amateurs can do equal or better work."

Photojournalists aren't the only ones who are having their fields transformed by technology, and in need of new models for how their work relates to the work of talented, tech saavy amateurs. This is the visual analogy to blogging in the world of print.

Acting on my own suggestion in the previous post, here is what a "news resourcer" might come up with to put some perspective around the report about G.I.s who have been "busted" for talking to reporters about morale in Iraq. This kind of background can be compiled easily, and while mine only includes Internet sources, can contain other links (both free and paid), and can complement a story that runs in any media that includes a web link.

NEWSEUM: WAR STORIES

Newseum War Stories: An Essay by Harry Evans

Poynter Online - War Correspondents: A Book Bibliography

BBC War Reporting Equipment 1944/5 - Into Action

Amazon.ca: Books: Ambushed: A War Reporter's Life on the Line

Reporters sans frontières - International

A Dreadful Masterpiece-Ernie Pyle

Listen to MP3s of Edward R. Murrow in WWII

The videophone-enabled war

War reporters push tech limits

Tom Brokaw: David Bloom, journalist of warriors

Should war correspondants save lives?

Discussion of embedded reporter

t r u t h o u t - Pentagon May Punish GIs who Spoke out on TV So, how do you make sense of this as a reporter. Think about the strategies you will need to employ to get at the truth. The direct interview strategy probably won't work. A clever reporter might be able to use e-mail to tease out some details. I think doing the story with context, as bit like here where they include the reminder about Douglas MacArthur are useful, but I'd like to see an interactive piece on war reporters and top brass to help those who weren't born during the Viet Nam War, much less the Korean War or WWII to develop an idea of the realities of working with the military as a reporter.

CBC News: Soldiers stealing weapons I wonder if this happens in the USA armed forces?

t r u t h o u t - Report: Tens of Thousands Will Lose College Aid I think it is short-sighted to cut costs on education which pays off later on. Less education, more folks going to prison. It is a pathetic form of compassionate anything that willing sacrifices the brain trust of the future for material gain of the richest in society. Shame on the Bush administration and on democrats who go along with this stupid method of balancing individual interests with the social good.

CBC News: Canadian reporter 'smeared' over Iraq coverage Let's talk about the the Fourth Estate and its rocky relationship with governments, in this case the USA government and the Bush administration. Being "outed" as a Canadian makes me think of the South Park song, "Blame Canada." That was a funny parody, but this story discloses a dangerous bent in the current administration toward xenophobia and homophobia.

Wired News: Blogging for Bucks Some day my own "current buzz" will be where Ali's PaidContent is, at least in my dreams and aspirations. For now, I have to try and convince skeptical journalism educators of a certain age that this is the future of journalism, at least for some of students. Note, he is working sans editor. That is one of the big issues that comes up over and over when blogging and journalism are discussed. What is the role of an editor? Do you need one? I tend to think that the copy editing function would be helpful, though like Ali notes, that would slow down his reporting. The gatekeeping and story budgeting function of editors is not clear online where the viewer/users might be helping with a story, defining what you report, and where space isn't really an issue. If you can demonstrate you are drawing the "eyeballs" the advertisers will come to you. Interesting, interesting, interesting.

Chicago Tribune: A whole lot of soul-searching and self-examination going on Don writes as an ombudsman, so his style is pedantic, but he brings up some good points. The re-examination of news management and newsroom problems is something that we academics need to track. I agree with his comment about the central and important role for an editor, however, I think media outlets must also be a lot more open to allowing viewer/users to access the raw information sources. Control is now in the viwer/user hands or more rightly, mind. The V/user will want to see what the Editor brings into the info pipeline, but will also want to triangulate on occasion and get the "raw feed."

Movies on the Run Though it is movies today, as broadband and wireless become ubiquitous, it will be news "on the run." Don't think about the place where you are reading this now (probably a desktop machine in your office, or at home) but envision where you would like to read it. On the train, while stopped on the highway (I don't personally endorse this one...), while waiting anywhere, at lunch, in a bar, just sitting somewhere in your house where the chair is comfy--any of these options are possible right now, and certainly will be customary within a few short years. Think content, not output device.

picturephoning.com: Students films teacher berating classmate Read about this episode. Read what the Singapore educators are saying. Think hard about this one. It means a disturbance in the newsroom, perhaps as disturbing as the journalist job that is being sold on eBay by Rupert Murdoch's organization. The winning bidder is going to paying to write, not getting paid. Add blogging and the phonecams into the mix and the world of the reporter circa 2010 may look like Spider Jerusalem's Transmetropolitan life story....

On Thursday, June 19, 2003 I put up a post about "MOBs" which I was thinking referred only to the group of unorganized fun-seekers, but clearly the "MOB" in moblog means mobile, as well as a bunch of folks. Now there is even an international conference about it....International Moblogging Conference

International Moblogging Conference Well, I told you about moblogging (the cute prank at Macy's with the "Love Rug" but now moblogging already has an international conference...better get my phonecam working....

More good stuff from Newsplex today: Moving the new roles into practice. How does change take place?

Specific courses
Curricula
Student Media
• Make sure that these are converged so they can cover the stories they are interested in expressively in the student media.

What will we take back as chance agents? Mistakes to avoid-- don't just throw bcast and print together, don't just lard onto old classes, at some point you need to bring in new curricula, syllabii that are built around the new roles. Not everybody can be trained as a multiskill journalist--it is better to teach basics to all, and then specialize in one of the concentrations. What barriers will we encounter? 1. Student resistance. "Want to be an anchor" this attitude will change as the projects go on and become routine. 2. Prof environment studies show that throw print & bcast together you need to settle the vocab issues, # of sources, etc--same as we discussed either. 3. Make sure the first work that goes out is good. For sure, copy edit postings before going online (as a big bad example) 4. By using the new roles, then you can make changes in curriculum and "save time" or make room in the curricula.

One of the sessions I have been waiting for: Research in the Converged Newsroom Ran Wei, Prof of Advertising Inform us about research themes and methodologies today. Flashlight evaluation tool. Flashlight from University of Danger of convergence with too much corporate: same story on all media outlets. I notice the journalist and newsroom managers confine their descriptions of convergence to what they are going to do or for audiences--they haven't considered how the user/audience is going to come into the news process. Will convergence actually create larger audiences? Or will it foster targeted niche audiences? How do different output media contribute to appealing stories? Does convergence lead to more factual errors because of rush in workplace? Research the perceptions of the players--managers, TV News directors, journalists, users, etc.-- is valuable research right now. Good territory for survey research right now. Where to share research with aim to publish: Conferences: AEJMC ICAespecially the Digital Divide division BEA

Continued posting.

• Univ of Kansas has the Lawrence World as its model for the world or work, and that is a critical influence on the j school curricula. Why is the Lawrence World better than Tampa -- smaller operation which is figuring it out on a real budget, not like Tampa where they had lots of $$ to underwrite their efforts.
• smaller markets are using canned web programs, like the Knight-Ridder or Media General, so students web expy with more creative tools will be constrained because students will have to cut and paste their stories into the canned template kind of interface.
• The faculty who want to converge may need to work harder, because some of the faculty may not do anything. It takes extra work on the part of the interested people. Should be able to backlog stuff as we go, so we can start to re-use material after the hectic start-up time.
• We don't know how things will work out. The "formula" of the print newspaper and the tv news are just that-- formula-- and that can change easily. No more newscasts, for example, instead, periodic updates.
• What have they learned? 1. Start early in their education e.g. web pages in Intro classes 2. Pair up faculty to facilitate the intro of multimedia into different existing classes 3. Get over the fear that the students will know more than I do as a faculty 4. Each fac work from their own vision of what the future of the newsroom will be in 10 years -- the kids will be the managers.

Good morning from Newsplex, on the last day. Discussion of how they are bringing convergence into the curriculum at USC.

• bring broadcast and print classes together to do stories. This is like what is happening at Media General in the world of work.
• What is convergence? Answering this question is key to teaching. There is not agreement on this, and it needs to be answered for the particular faculty.
• How are faculty members in bcast taking to the introduction of convergence? Currently, they do a newscast like Newsbeat, but daily as the capstone--modeled on local TV. Faculty ask--why bother as they don't see the local workplaces doing this. Question may involve are you a tech school or are you academe? Are you training the students or educating them for the future? The "evidence" is that students are increasingly getting jobs because they are well-versed in one of the concentrations, but have expy with the other media. Might not be necessary in first job, but will help them succeed in second or third job.
• USC is adding convergent components into the already existing classes, as in adding webpages to Intro classes. Or having the print and bcast students work together during the semester. Often focus on "awareness" that there are various ways to tell the story, not necessarily on tech mastery or excellence in the multi-skill media.
• Design of newsplex like lab--must have a TV area, must have a newsroom, must have a classroom or teaching facility, too.
• Define it for your institution, and then how will you teach it at the facility you have. A "fixed" definition of convergence is not useful. Keep it flexible because the tech and its implementations are changing so quickly. Future projection--what will job be like in 10 years? Each teacher needs to think abou this and teach this. Vision of big news agencies 'shedding' staff and re-hiring them as freelancers. Also, looking toward robot writer to process news releases and documents and an editor to look at the copy. The robotic writer could let a reporter be out in the field. Though this is a dilemma as the corporate mentality might replace the reporter with the robot and sacrifice quality in news wiriting.
• Is student news media converging? Paper has website. Radio station is webcasting. They have a little TV network with an hour or two of bcasting per week. They are not working together now. J dept students provide the news for the radio station. They report that their connection with their student media is tenuous--they have a faculty advisor, but they don't get involved with them in production things.
• Freelance camera crews to go and do TV packages that will sold to stations--it is happpening on the national level and will filter down to midscale markets. This is a bit like news services. There might be a market for reporters to go and out cover stories they think are important and then market them to audience without corporate or editorial layer.
What will students be a part of?
• could do it in capstone classes to do convergence
• Must work the skills in gradually and over time, so that when the students get a story idea they will have the awareness and basic skills to carry out the story. "Open gym" nights--have the convergence facility open for drop-ins to let students experiment. The big newsplex "unfreezes" the habits, but the ongoing use and practice can take place in any lab. Want to bring down the friction betw print and bcast students before a single capstone course. Need to get students past the idea they being a journalist means doing one single thing e.g. I want to be a on-air talent, etc. Once you start doing the convergence projects, the resistance falls back. The combination of classes that write for one medium in a class, and then submit the stories to another class (e.g. writing for bcast sends scripts to copy-editing class) for editing, this improves everyone's work. In some cases, putting things in print for bcasters transforms their thinking, as will putting a print student up on a stand-up or online.

Good morning from Newsplex, day 4. Extremely interesing site about "cybergeography" which is mapping of information in visual typographic forms. Web shells. Microsites--a story on a subject goes into a microsite which stays live while there is interest. Then it gets archived. This is counter to newspaper thinking because in typical news media a section or feature is created and then stays for years. Here is where the Internet assumptions will conflict with news biz, as Internet would put info out and maintain links over time, not just feature that is transient. Photogalleries are most attractive feature on the web according to stats.

Keith Kenney on photography. On phone cameras and their coming ubiquity by the year 2005.

XML for journalists This is very cool. The session is heating up now--the tech is getting everybody excited. Northrup says there is software themescape that does a textual analysis and then produces a topo map -- IRONY, the software isn't on the market anymore. Capshare by HP--obsolete technology that was a hand scanner to .pdf that had corrected the problems of hand held scanners. Showed us this--whoa, not enough bought by consumers, and they never thought to market the thing to media outlets. Control Tower software from one of Ifra's European partners. Very cool dynamic pages asp database to keep track of all the info about stories that are going to be covered in a multimedia way. DAT recorders--small portable, can swap the smart cards in the newsroom for convergence uses, and also to post online. Recommends this to replace casette players. Lots of the DATs use voice recognition software, like Dragon. The ones with smart cards are the most effective because they keep the content separate from the recording device. See the ojr.org site for a journalist in a suitcase equipment overview that includes some DAT devices. Hey, and if you look at the article "Behind the Gear", there's a piece on Ifra and Kerry Northrup Sony Mavica that records to CD-ROM and will do audio. ARCOS multimedia jukebox--digital microphone, MP3 player, records the audio as an MP3, also includes a small webcam attachment--MPeg4 video, or still photos. Has a 20MB memory, LCD for review of files.

An interesting dynamic from Newsplex session this morning. The students, who are all university faculty & I think by their action of registering, early adopters, have been confronted with an instructional style that is pedestrian, pedantic, and too much talking. We teachers have been talking about this, as the session is very costly, and then we have begun to try and get the instructor(s) to respond to us as "live audience" rather than passive receptacles. The response by "trainers" has been less than spectacular. Instead of trying to pitch the message to the client or teach the individuals in front of him, the poor trainer has become defensive. In trying to teach "subject matter" and stay on the subject, he has lost touch with teaching people. I hope we can resolve this, but now there is lots of angst and emotion that is clouding any postive learning process. For me, the emotional human storyline always overrides any "message" someone is trying to get across. We will see what happens later....

Newsplex con't. from Columbia S.C. Washington Post discussion of its web spinning and what it calls the dept. of continuous work. Discussion of the fact that "not everyone who is a journalist today will be able to be a journalist in the future." Kerry Northrup has written about this. He says that the problem Gil Phelen finds at Tampa in the converged newsroom are not "old fogies" but "young fogies" who come into the job but don't want to work across media. Whew, haven't we all had students like that. SWOT in lieu of SWAT where assets is replaced by opportunities. The change from assets to oppty's is an interesting twist on this old strategic planning approach. In a moment of inattention, I found this very cool wireless story--polar bear cam and beyond.

Good morning from Columbia S.C. in the Newsplex. Fine weather again. Sessions begin. Newsroom "virtual newsroom" or network as newsroom. The "there is no there, there" newsroom: Kuala Lampur example. Northrup says that they may be going too far in the virtual direction.

Geoff LoCicero, on News Resourcer The News resourcer is a description of things that have to be done, but not necessarily is one person, or one job. The idea is that a variety of roles will adopt the processes and integrated into the newsroom. Some of this is of course, triangulation, and setting up processes to make sure that triangulation stays. Northrup describing how news resourcing means capturing experiential knowledge collected during a story-- this is very like Roger Shank's cognitive science ideas Newsroom's Chief Info Officer--

• First and foremost, a journalist--good at sources, searching. Other areas of expertise like library info skills to newsroom, tech leader in multimedia, facilitator (btween librarians, techs, news), familar w/multimedia formats, files. "Like a page designer" in print
• Knows how news operation works, has news judgement, be proactive & drive the story, reporting/writing/editing, trad sources
Skill details:
• Catalog, index, archive, preservation, research & retrieval, pay dbases, archives, authoritative web sites & "invisible" web
• Info management makes collab and teamwork more productive. Can do advanced, effective searches (boolean, advanced google) & teaches the j's to do this
• Info sci strengths that are needed: info architecture, intranets, create/manage knowledgebase, understand/leverage tech, do training
• This person leads the change from "lone wolf" to "team" by working to unify the info tracking, dbase, operations processes.
• Benefits: digitizing info creates knowledgebase and saves time. Document repetitive procedures and add to database.
News Resourcer in action Story breaks: searches archives/web for content across media; feed content to other reporters or to audience; edit or pull content from one format to another (with storybuilder); finding "links" to new story ideas or angles. In news operations, there is not enough time and thought given to professional development and training. This brings morale down.

I had to take a publishing break. This is a continuation of the previous posting. The four points of the convergence compass-- print, video, online & mobile New roles in Newsrooms-- the jobs/titles Newsflow coordination

Newsflow editor

News editor

Multimedia editor. Different meanings, e.g. Chicago Trib vs. Tampa Trib. In Tampa, they expected this job to be temporary and the job would migrate to everyone, but this is not happening in practice.

Convergence editor

Multiskilled journalist. Knows characteristics of media to use content and formats for most effective use to tell story. Understands tech to enable newsgathering, distrib via print, video, online & mobile

Story builder. An evolved copy/sub-editor is a lynchpin of the multimedia storybuilding process, fashioning stories across media bundaries and packaging stories for multimedia. Not just putting liner text in line, is building story elements--probably you would only do this for 5 or 6 stories per edition. Copy editor now acts like quality control--brought in at last step. Story builder moves this job to front-end to add quality to build story, create story, not just making sure the final thing is readable.

Newsroom Editor. The cross-media manager orchestrates the multiple media newsroom process and assigns multimedia stories from desk.

News resourcer. The informatic journalist wields all of the tools of the information landscape by accessing info thru dbases, computer-assisted reporting, story contextualization and deep researching, and functions as the newsroom's chief info officer.

New Roles in the Full-Media Newsroom

This multiple media convergence is much more complex than just an additive model, and it demands collaboration and coordination that were not necessary previously.
• Newsflow coordination. 1. Directing news coverage across all appropriate content formats and all required delivery services. 2. Ensuring service to variety of news consumer profiles in the marketplace 3. Integrating multiple products to generate a unified editorial brand
• Story building (no longer story telling) Provides content at a bunch of different levels of coverage and kinds of content for users to customize and get at the particular level they want. Local news is where he sees this thing being the value added. Increasingly the info must be deliverable by mobile.
• News resourcing. Spectrum of activities that this kind of person will engage in. The person is rooted in journalism, but with expertise in graphics, database, etc. Like the idea of a "CIO" to capture and use information.
• Multiskilled journalism. This can be a bone of contention in some union contexts. It really means the idea of a writer who has ideas for photos, rather than actually shooting the photos. I personally see that pressures of ubiquitous and cheap tech and cost of labor make the multiskilled person very desireable, and increasingly the multiskill will replace the monoskill. There may be issues with quality, such as using photos from phonecams taken by writers or bcasters, not photogs.
Mindsets that need to change
• Current training to be a "lone wolf" who has his/her own news sources and can't work in a team, or leave sources for others to use must be altered. Young J's need to learn to work as a team, and view resources as belonging to the team, not to an individual.
• Story budget or agenda is often created in Word and cut & pasted. There are better software tools for group collaboration and idea sharing to make news production work better--leverage the intell of all the people in the newsroom instead of just a few folks. This is more the case in bcast than in print because there are fewer reporters, and they have to share info more effectively.
• Service biz now, not in production biz. Must change mindset of privacy of newsroom, even making it hard to find newsroom numbers, to "call me, I am at your service" The client/news org relationship will become more like a personal relationship--e.g. personalization of info both in geography, etc. rather than a product relationship.
• The source sharing is a big issue for the print folks--"poisoning a source" fears promote the secrecy, but Northrup argues that a reporter who won't share, wouldn't be hired in his newsroom. This appears to generational as well as be diff for bcast vs. print. I think online will be more like bcast. "you're on the same team" mentality

Kerry Northrup, the director of the Newsplex is one of our main speakers today. Note to Barb: get a copy of the video about the Newsroom of the future and the New roles in the newsroom where newsroom is shown as a "system." Ifra-world association for media publishing

• 2000 members, 70 countries, 350 USA members
• Centre for Adv. News Operations-resource for innovation in editorial strategy and news tech. Problems in the industry is not a national thing, but global. They run a program called "Leaders" for CEOs and management folks who come into news biz without background in journalism, because this is the challenge of corporate conglomeration. Specialization of news outlets (eg TV stations optimized for just TV, newspaper just optimized for print) means they need help and new paradigms for organizing for multiple media news operations. Tampa is the example of a new place that is attracting so many visitors they must limit them. Newsplex focus is on doing news, but not for a single output medium.
• Most news managers know the newsroom must change, but are asking "what are our options?" and the Newsplex is the proto or demo of the combos of new options. I was interested to hear him put "mobile" in with video, print, etc. as one of the big growth and change agents in news biz. Wireless and mobile will be the bigger than many expect.
Strategic issues for news organization
• News and info marketplace has radically changed. Now going niche, and becoming a service-based, info-based industry that aggregates small audiences, instead of a production industry for a mass audience. Northrup claims the FCC dereg would foster this move from mass media to aggregator.
• Convergent journalism reaches more people and is more powerful than single medium stories.
• Northrup says that Gil Thelen (Tampa Trib) attributes a 2% increase in ad revenues because they operate in a multiple media operation intead of mono-media operation.
• Newsrooms must change and be different than they have been. Print orgs must realize they need to do video--mindset needs to change.
• Diversity index in FCC decision--helps decide whether a station can own a newspaper, etc. Based on H and H index from Trade that is used to check for monopolies.

It is 9:03 and we are back at work in the Newsplex....

From the Newsplex in So. Carolina at a seminar on convergence. NewsPlex web site Basic newswriting--transformed by convergence--Tim Brown from USC 60% of J students nationwide are female.

Writing is the foundation of all the news reporting. Writing for bcast shows how well your presentation will go. Soundbyte over time: 70s--45 sec. 80s-30 secs. 2000s--10 sec.

The whole point of bcast is to take the v/user (viewer/user) to the place and time. He used the same clip of the Hindenburg that I use in Intro to Mass Media to make the point about the urgency, immediacy that bcast should convey. Bcast stories must be linear because they are auditory or story-based. Thus use conversational writing--write the way we speak or should speak. Grammar & diction counts. Use the perspective taking idea--how would we like to hear the story--talk in regular words. Keep it simple--SVO (subject,verb,object) and keep it active. Use radio as the introductory medium in bcast writing class. Most listeners are driving and using medium (radio) as background noise, so you need to break thru to them. Soundbite for radio--changes voice of the story from the reporter saying something, to the story of the people in the story e.g. the story is about the people. It is not the reporter's story. Sounds add authenticity, humanization, adds something the reporter can't. Method of soundbite in radio: "log" your tapes, what tells the story, what grabs attention, what is most audible? Write the script by putting sounds in order, then craft story after that and set the scene. "Outcue" in script is the last few words to soundbite. It tells the anchor when they start talking again. The anchor sets up the quote, but doesn't cite the quote verbatim. Experience, insight, emotion--that is what should be in a quote. Natural sound in news must be authentic to put the listener in the context. Reporter can know in advance what and when the sounds in a story will occur--the sounds don't have to be unanticipated. However, not okay to ask someone to do something to make a sound.

More from Ifra Newsplex -- live and in realtime (my writing, not your reading...)

• video conferencing is one of the tools that goes with the videowall. Thus you can do 4 remote links to the news deck.
• Big issue is the ubiquity of video cameras and how the tech will allow people to go around the established media upload and download structures. We are going to spend more time discussing this.
• Back to the news deck design: floors have 'trenches' that can hold cables and then be covered up, so even cables are needed they can be hidden.
• "scrim" system makes a grid of cables on top of room. Eventually all the physical media will have RF tags for identification--like the RF dogtags I researched two years ago.
After lunch: discussion of targeting information (advertising messages & more) The tech from the net via cookies can do this now, as in doing a search and then having ad correlated with one's search terms. This tech could provide personalized news, but the econ/biz models don't support its implementation yet. If news content is piggy-backed onto the advertising, is it ethical to put health ads up for somebody who is browsing health sites? Basic tech
• digital tech: Possibility of perfect copies and perfect copies of copies. The tech of SCMS serial copy managment systems is one attempt to fight this. Fritz Hollins leader of this movement.
• manipulation of digital data brings up issues of creation and protection of algorithms; storage, searching & backups. This will call for the incorporation of librarians into news operations.
• encryption--WEP,https:shtml, VPN
• networking technologies--ethernet, wireless, broadband or challenge of video. In home bband, cable modem, wireless, etc. In home not bband: ethernet, hpna (thru phones), wireless, homeplug (thru electricity)
• Computing technology: Moore's law, laptop growth, flat panel display, embedded computers
Consumer tech
• laptops replacing desktops, notebooks coming in, PDAs
• telephones morphing into network tools
• television--DVR, HDTV, flat panel
• Audio--MP3, digital radio
Digital Telephony
• info on demand in all media
• combo of digital "broadcast" of data storage capability of mobile phones.
Enterprise tech--this tech is out in the world, but there isn't a system for news operations that puts it all together at this point in time. The demand is not there yet from the newsrooms--they use kludges now. FCC rules may speed this up.
• data clusters, web services (XML, SOAP,J2EE,MOS)
• Intelligent agents
• Relational databases
Today's Newspapers
• Readership aging, read less, know the old talking heads not the new, they still want to be informed, but how will they get the info?
Today's Television
• TV still primary news source, local news 3 hours or more per day but the 22 min. "newshole" is still a limit
Today's Internet
• Adjunct to other media, econ model is key variable, no limitations on newshole
• Jan Schafer? check her out--J-Lab
New Media tech
• Internet, Wireless journalism, digital television bandwidth, wireless consumer tech, electronic paper, Internet++

I am sitting in Columbia So. Carolina at the IfraNewsplex in a "state of the art micro newsroom." Right now we are getting the overview of the whole facility.

• newsflow deck--all tech is wireless. Furniture is mobile and can be re-configured in a second. The desks roll around, the equipment is all portable. The space is acoustically designed to promote small conversations and keep ambient noise down. The light is mostly natural--natural sunlight penetrates the inner structure so that the interiour workspace doesn't have lots of glare. They call the material for the light "soft egg crates."
• entry area has "touchdown stations" that are stand up computers to check email or Internet. Have all platforms.
• they have 9 cellphones (we are going to get them soon. Thus, they consider the phone part of the newsroom, but the phones are mobile and have bluetooth.
• newsflow deck description: main work area, collaborative display wall, workers can work on multiple media simultaneously, newswall-set of dispaly screens, with area split to show TV feeds, web pages, etc. LDC cubes in center and plasma screens on periphery. The rationale is to develp group-think and leverage combined newroom expertise.

I am going to publish this and will continue to update it as the day goes on.

Interesting article

Forget F-Stops: These Cameras Have Area CodesWell, I got my photo phone today, so I guess my blog will go photo blog. I will be at the Newsplex next week, and if possible, I will be posting photos of the News emporium of the future.

As I cogitate about collaboration and begin a new project on collaboration and teaching, I found this new piece by Clay Shirky about the group and how it contains the seeds of its own distraction, if not destruction. Group software and group dynamics do revolve around people, and that means the social cannot be ignored.

I posted an item last year about these "WiFi WarDrivers" but the whole WiFi thing has expanded so much I need to do it again. The idea in brief, is that once one sets up the WiFi, as I did for example, to allow me to sit on my backporch and work on Internet things, one needs to address WEP or other kinds of security and encryption. I was shocked to find that my next door neighbor had a WiFi network as well as I did. And guess what? When mine isn't on, I can use his, as he doesn't have any encryption. The war chalking thing is to locate nodes and use symbols on buildings, as in "M..." where

One beggar pretends to trip, and slaps a M in chalk on Beckert's back, as he stands in front of a fruit stand, using the knife he kills children with, to cut an orange for another potential victim.

The mark alerts the cognescenti to the kind of encryption and port that is available. My Auntie Hildur's mother believed in giving hungry men sandwiches during the Depression, and her house was "hobo chalked" to indicate "no dog, sandwiches." That is one of the connections that caught me about the warchalking/wardriving idea. Don't leave file sharing on, use WEP encryption, those are a couple of pointers. Good luck, and try WiFi--it is worth taking a few precautions for.

Here is an interesting new tool from Poynter, the Convergence Catalog which is an interactive way to explore how convergence is playing out in media partnerships around the USA. I think they are making a big mistake in still thinking "USA" and not going global, but it is a start. Good browsing for future reporters who are trying to figure out what they need to know to land that first job.