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journalism

Things to read

We haven’t enjoyed the Things to Read section here in several days, which means I have a backlog of links for you to enjoy. This works well for content today, which has otherwise been spent almost entirely doing necessary but generally uninteresting things. I’ve got about two dozen more interesting items to share, promise.

(If you’re here for the sappy stuff, there first installment is next. There’s another great one at the end of the post.)

First, the Lauren Hill video package by Tom Rinaldi:

Here’s a great followup from yesterday: Mount St. Joseph basketball player Lauren Hill’s courageous layups inspire opponent Hiram College:

(T)hroughout the game, televised live by FoxSports Ohio, she never seemed to stop smiling. She had a noticeable glow and bounce in her step while on the court.
During an in-game interview on FoxSports, she quickly corrected a broadcaster who referred to the game as her last, saying it was her first college game. Hill told reporters after the game she hoped to be well enough to try to play again.

Hays and Koskinen said they found Hill genuinely inspiring and not a subject of pity.

“She is just the most upbeat person despite what she’s going through,” Koskinen said. “Her smile lights up a room. She wants to hug you every chance she gets. You can’t help but want to hug her back and smile. She’s someone I will truly admire the rest of my life.”
The teams dined together Saturday night at the Firehouse Grill in Cincinnati, and the Terriers were nervous about meeting Hill.

“What do we say to her?” Hiram players asked their coach.

Before long, the teams were laughing together, crying, and laughing some more.

Strong young woman.

This story is sure to stick with you for awhile, A father’s scars: For Va.’s Creigh Deeds, tragedy brings unending questions:

Breakfast, shower, shave, mirror. Almost a year. He is 56 now. He looks at the scars across his face, around his ear, along his upper chest and right arm. He gets dressed and goes outside to his truck, and there’s the fence that he somehow managed to climb even though he was bleeding, and there’s the field he staggered across to a rutted road where he was found.

This is how most days begin for Creigh Deeds, a father who had a son with mental illness, who struggled to understand him, tried to get help for him, and was ultimately left alone to deal with him, and who now looks over at the barn where he had so suddenly dropped the feed bucket.

“I lost a tooth over there somewhere, a gold tooth,” he says, shaking his head a little, and then he goes to work.

Perhaps I mentioned this somewhere earlier. In the interest of thoroughness, then, Armed guard on CDC elevator with Obama was not a convicted felon, as first reported:

An armed security guard who was on an elevator with President Obama had not been convicted of a felony, as previously reported, according to two people briefed on the incident.

The man, who worked for a private security contractor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was removed from the president’s elevator during his Sept. 16 visit to Atlanta. The man was questioned by Secret Service agents after he did not comply with a request from agents that he stop recording images of the president with a camera.

Agents became concerned that the private contractor might be a risk to the president because of his behavior; others who later ran a background check on the guard discovered some prior arrests in his history.

[…]

The guard was terminated the day of the presidential visit to the CDC — when his supervisor at the security contracting firm arrived to find agents questioning the guard, he told him to turn over his gun on the spot.

They used the word “setback,” U.S.-backed Syria rebels routed by fighters linked to al-Qaeda:

The Obama administration’s Syria strategy suffered a major setback Sunday after fighters linked to al-Qaeda routed U.S.-backed rebels from their main northern strongholds, capturing significant quantities of weaponry, triggering widespread defections and ending hopes that Washington will readily find Syrian partners in its war against the Islamic State.

Moderate rebels who had been armed and trained by the United States either surrendered or defected to the extremists as the Jabhat al-Nusra group, affiliated with al-Qaeda, swept through the towns and villages the moderates controlled in the northern province of Idlib, in what appeared to be a concerted push to vanquish the moderate Free Syrian Army, according to rebel commanders, activists and analysts.

Other moderate fighters were on the run, headed for the Turkish border as the extremists closed in, heralding a significant defeat for the rebel forces Washington had been counting on as a bulwark against the Islamic State.

Well, this must be awkward, Sources: Navy intel chief’s security clearance suspended, can’t view classified info:

The head of naval intelligence has not been able to view classified information for an entire year.

Vice Adm. Ted Branch, the director of naval intelligence, had his security clearance suspended in November 2013 after being investigated for possible misconduct. In the year since, no charges have been filed and there is no sense of when they might be, leaving the Navy in an untenable situation.

If classified information is being discussed at a meeting, the director of naval intelligence has to leave the room.

If Branch drops by a subordinate’s office, the space must be sanitized of any secrets before he enters.

I had students read this story last week. The headline should be enough to make anyone give it a look, Starting over meant erasing his face tattoos the hard way.

CNN, covering the pressing Internet “news,” Internet lusts after new mugshot guy. If we get to a point where we call this news, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Better than calling content like that “culture.” Already it is filed under “living,” which should always be noted with something just above derision.

Since you’re following the returns tonight, Understand today’s election with these 5 awesome interactive tools:

It’s Election Day in America. What with candidates vying for control and issues that need deciding, voters may find themselves confused about where they stand. Thankfully, some very savvy media designers have come up with delightful tools for understanding the election and its outcomes.

I love campaign tic tocks. This is the first one I’ve found from the midterms, there are some very interesting presidential critiques in there as well, the sort of thing you don’t often see about a sitting president. Battle for the Senate: How the GOP did it defies excerpting, but check it out if you’re interested in campaign news.

Which is as decent a transition as any toward the more media-based material. This video is titled College journalist disarms police confrontation and is worth watching:

Some quick links:

Entirely unacceptable — LU Student Reporters Detained

AP Exclusive: Ferguson no-fly zone aimed at media

The ACLU’s letter on the above link — Ferguson’s No-Media Zone Extended to the Skies

Police union files injunction to halt Sun-Times, Tribune FOIA requests

The New York Times’ financials show the transition to digital accelerating

Inside The New York Times’ video strategy

Sky News boss admits they have ‘ripped the costs’ out of broadcasting

Ads Are Coming to the Comments Section of Publisher Sites

This would seem to be a big deal, Free online AP courses debut on edX Web site:

Rice University launched a free Advanced Placement biology course Monday on a Web site overseen by two other elite schools, a potentially significant milestone for a movement that aims to bring college-level courses to high school students.

[…]

Sometimes students pay to take AP classes from online providers. Advertised tuition for such classes ranges from $75 to more than $500.

“Our program you can take for free,” said Reid Whitaker, executive director of the Center for Digital Learning and Scholarship at Rice. “This is a comprehensive program. Free resources. That’s a game changer.”

You’d think that has to impact the AP business model.

Here’s a piece with plenty of generational observations. It prompted an entertaining conversation on Twitter with a colleague last night, particularly the last paragraph. Stampede Of Teens: What YouTube’s Convention Taught Me About Its Culture Of Superfans:

YouTube’s challenge is to replicate this fandom offline, beyond the teens and tweens who roved the halls of VidCon. The site is already rolling out billboard and video advertising campaigns to expand their stars’ reach, and to make them more than just Internet famous.

When I wandered just a few steps outside and spoke to food vendors or hotel employees, I found no one had heard of stars like Meghan Tonjes or Tyler Oakley—the kind who drew crowds inside the convention center.

For VidCon attendees who grew up with YouTube, the distinction between “YouTube famous” and “famous famous” may be meaningless.

No one ever said “Ed Sullivan famous.” The modifier is merely a diminishing agent. Ultimately you don’t see that person at the airport and say “Oh, she’s only YouTube famous never mind.” You know of her or don’t. You can see that entire thread here.

You have multiple audiences. You need multiple approaches and a unifying narrative. A variety of alumni means a variety of tactics for social media inclusion:

Wondering why you’re not finding great success with your alumni social media marketing? Well, wonder no more because we’ve done some digging, and figured out just how you can revamp your social media behavior for the betterment of all. In this blog, we’ve broken down your alumni into three groups based on age and interest because a variety of alumni means a variety of tactics for social media inclusion. The results may not be what you would expect (and if they are, Bravo!). Take what we have to show you today and stop wasting your time. Start creating impactful relationships with your alumni via social media.

We talk about this stuff a lot at work, as you might imagine … This Will Be the Top Business Skill of the Next 5 Years:

Every few minutes, a new buzzword rips through the business world, skids, gets a few quick books written on it, and ends up in a pile of tired terms next to “synergy.” Today, one of the biggest corporate buzzwords is “storytelling.” Marketers are obsessed with storytelling, and conference panels on the subject lately have fewer empty seats than a Bieber concert.

[…]

Good stories surprise us. They have compelling characters. They make us think, make us feel. They stick in our minds and help us remember ideas and concepts in a way that numbers and text on a slide with a bar graph don’t.

Here’s one now … This is storytelling:

I saw this elderly gentleman dining by himself, with an old picture of a lady in front of him. I though maybe I could brighten his day by talking to him.

As I had assumed, she was his wife. But I didn’t expect such an interesting story. They met when they were both 17. They dated briefly, then lost contact when he went to war and her family moved. But he said he thought about her the entire war. After his return, he decided to look for her. He searched for her for 10 years and never dated anyone. People told him he was crazy, to which he replied “I am. Crazy in love”. On a trip to California, he went to a barber shop. He told the barber how he had been searching for a girl for ten years. The barber went to his phone and called his daughter in. It was her! She had also been searching for him and never dated either.

Read the rest.

journalism / Monday / photo / Samford — Comments Off
3
Nov 14

What happens below didn’t actually happen

New rule: When you see the Pig on the move, it is going to be a good day:

And so it was a good day, even though I didn’t see an actual Piggly Wiggly. (The amount of sleep I had this weekend might have something to do with the former.) I think I could only drive to one or two strictly by memory any more. How many Piggly Wiggly stores remain? Pigapedia says there are more than 600 stores in 17 states, with a distribution center still in Alabama. There are apparently 103 here, many in small towns most people have never heard of. Some in small towns I’ve barely heard of.

I remember the last time I was in a Piggly Wiggly, mostly because the opportunity was so rare as to be memorable. Nothing else about the place was. The mascot is great, and the store has a place in history, but otherwise they just feel undersized — compared to most suburban America grocery store experiences.

There’s something we don’t think about a lot, I’d bet. In fact, that exact phrase has never been crawled by a Google spider before.

One day, somebody will be at a Piggly Wiggly with their parents or grandparents and Google something about the place and this post might show up.

(Hi kid, check out the cereal selection on aisle 4. Some of it was probably shipped on that truck above.)

Today in class the chief of the Public Safety department came to give the students a faux-press conference. He was even kind enough to put on his badge, which I don’t always notice him wearing.

Every year or so the Public Safety crew and local emergency teams run an on-campus emergency situation. When I asked the director to visit my class he simply recycled this scenario. It was great. He walked in and tells the students there’s been an explosion. They have four phone calls reporting a suspicious person. The campus is on lockdown. There are injuries. These and those people are responding. “Are there any questions?”

The students ask some questions and he answers them and then he thanks them for coming and promises them another briefing. He goes outside and the students and I talk about what just happened. What did we learn and what is still confusing? What questions did we like and not like?

He comes back in and there’s an update to this part of the story and that. More questions. He leaves again. I give them a little primer on this aspect of the process, some “Have you thought about that?” business. He comes back in and does another briefing and takes more questions.

This goes on through about four or five press conference sessions and the faux-news (because this is all hypothetical, no need to worry) is real grim. There’s a chlorine leak. They found another explosive. Dozens of people injured, a bunch of people killed. The shooter is dead. If this scenario had played out in reality with these details, you’d have something similar to the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.

Some of the students start sweating. I’m not sure if that’s the details or the rapid fire nature of what the director is telling them. That’s a lot to write down and they’ll have to do a story on it. They did a fine job in the press conference, though. I started a list of questions that should have been asked and by the end they’d gotten answers to most of those. It was a good experience then, I hope, and it was because of the guy with the badge. He certainly made it a memorable day, and that makes it a good one.

He’s definitely going to be called upon again to do that in my classes in the future.

history / iPhone / journalism / links / Samford / things to read / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
29
Oct 14

What are they doing to the salt?

Crimson folks doing Crimson things:

Those are three members of the editorial staff at their budget meeting tonight. Some others are outside of the shot, but they’re there and they’re a good group. They’ve been getting a lot of compliments, and they deserve them.

They are fun, too. It is easy to get sidetracked with them, but the diversions are worth it. Tonight we discussed the movie Face / Off — and you should see the photos from that conversation. Three or four of us know the movie and we tried to explain it to the others. This is not an easy movie to describe to people. “And then John Travolta, played by Nic Cage, who is now a bad guy … ”

So you start throwing in other actors, who weren’t even in that film, to really make it fun.

“And then Sean Connery says … ”

I saw this tonight while standing at the counter and waiting for my burger. First thought?

Seasoned with what?

The more you think about it, the You know what my salt needs? Some flavoring. But what would go well with salt just now?

And what does Nic Cage think about that? The good Nic Cage, I mean, who is really John Travolta. What if one of those guys wants unseasoned salt? What do you do when the other one says he wants salted salt? Why is my burger taking so long?

Things to read … because that never takes too long.

Great question! As journalism and documentary film converge in digital, what lessons can they share? You might see more mini-docs to address the issue of time, more partnerships from unexpected places and, at last, what I think could be the coolest job in the industry: a historist. The historian journalist, or journalist historian, is a wholly unappreciated idea.

In reality, you’ll probably see a lot more interaction. Virtual Reality will be a part of this, among other things.

Mobile payment has already hit a a security/trust issue, Apple Pay rival CurrentC just got hacked:

On Wednesday, those taking part in the CurrentC pilot program received a warning from the consortium of anti-credit-card retailers called MCX, or Merchant Consumer Exchange: The program was hacked in the last 36 hours, and criminals managed to grab the email addresses of anyone who signed up for the program.

MCX confirmed the hack, adding what’s become a go-to line for any company that loses your data: “We take the security of our users’ information extremely seriously.”

Protecting it is another thing, however.

State agency to investors: Prepare for Ebola-related scams

‘Unusual’ Russian flights concern NATO:

An “unusual” uptick in the size and scale of Russian aircraft flying throughout European airspace in recent days has raised alarm bells for NATO officials that come amid other provocations already rattling the West.

Multiple groups of Russian military bomber and tanker aircraft, flying under the guise of military maneuvers, were detected and monitored over sections of the Baltic Sea, North Sea and Black Sea on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Those flights represented an “unusual level of air activity over European airspace,” according to a press release from NATO.

Adding to the concern — none of the Russian aircraft filed customary flight plans or maintained radio contact with civilian aviation authorities or used any of their onboard transponders.

These surely are interesting times.

It is about time this story is being told on film. MY Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes:

Would you risk your life to save a stranger? And never talk about it? MY ITALIAN SECRET tells the story of Tour de France cycling champion Gino Bartali and other Italians who saved lives during WWII.

Or if you prefer the 30 for 30 method: What if I told you a man saved 800 lives in between three Giro d’Italia wins and two Tour de France titles?

This is not that film, but it does summarize the story a tiny bit:

Bartali apparently rarely even brought it up, which brings us to this quote from the man himself: “Good is something you do, not something you talk about. Some medals are pinned to your soul, not to your jacket.”

Pretty profound for a guy that just moved his feet around in small circles.

journalism / links / photo / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
28
Oct 14

Faster in fall

“Right then, fall showed up.”

The days are shorter. The nights are cooler. The leaves are cluttering the ground. The last tiny bits of summer are hanging on for another round or two, but they’ll be on the ropes soon enough. All the signs are there. But give autumn this, it is a season of wondrous light.

If only it lasted longer.

Things to read … because everything goes so fast.

And as we get philosophical, we near the end of this round of Ebola coverage, Ebola And Mandatory Quarantines: A Delicate Balance Between Personal Liberty And Public Safety:

The U.S. Government responded to the debate by implementing a program that will screen arrivals for initials signs of a fever at each of the five airports that they will be routed to, but many people have called for something more. Most recently, that “something more” has consisted of mandatory quarantines of people arriving from that area who are deemed “high risk,” a policy that has been adopted in New York and New Jersey, Illinois, Minnesota, and Florida to date. Yesterday, New Jersey and New York modified their policy to allow for in-home detention but are insisting on keeping the program mandatory, which C.D.C. and other officials insisting that a less draconian voluntary program would be sufficient and would not have the unintended consequences of dissuading health care workers from volunteering to go help fight Ebola where it needs to be defeated.

Overriding the policy debate, though, is a debate about the legality and morality of mandatory quarantines that goes back long before we even knew Ebola existed.

Even if you can’t get care, at least you have coverage! Some doctors wary of taking insurance exchange patients:

Now that many people finally have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchanges, some are running into a new problem: They can’t find a doctor who will take them as patients.

Because these exchange plans often have lower reimbursement rates, some doctors are limiting how many new patients they take with these policies, physician groups and other experts say.

“The exchanges have become very much like Medicaid,” says Andrew Kleinman, a plastic surgeon and president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. “Physicians who are in solo practices have to be careful to not take too many patients reimbursed at lower rates or they’re not going to be in business very long.”

Media stories:

Virtual Reality Storytelling Is Trending in Hollywood

The Feds Want to Redefine TV, and That Has Cable Giants Nervous

Why publishers are flocking to explainer videos

Half of YouTube’s views now come from phones and tablets

Did you see the terrible news in Seattle? Here’s a nice gesture that followed, Rival offers division title to Pilchuck:

The Oak Harbor Wildcats, who were scheduled to host Marysville Pilchuck High on Friday night for the Wesco 3A North division title in Washington, have offered to instead accept second place following Friday’s fatal shooting at Pilchuck, a Seattle-area school.

Oak Harbor coach Jay Turner and Marysville superintendent Becky Berg confirmed the offer, according to The Herald of Everett, Washington, and The Seattle Times.

The gesture came just hours after a student recently crowned freshman class homecoming prince walked into the Marysville Pilchuck cafeteria and opened fire, killing one person and shooting several others in the head before turning the gun on himself, officials and witnesses said.

High quality.

journalism / links / Monday / photo / things to read — 1 Comment
27
Oct 14

The boats may be sentient by the end of this post

These are Chaparral Boats. They must be coming out of Florida or beyond. There’s no dealer in Alabama between here and there. I think, after some surfing, they are something from the Sunesta class.

If it is a Sunesta, there’s a seat facing aft, with only two handrails to keep you on the vessel. There’s a ladder that slips into the hull. And there’s room for 14, the site says. The specs boast 320 horsepower, but don’t tell us a speed. You spend time in the next portion of your drive wondering what those cost. The low end of that model will only set you back about $75,000. If you spring for all of the high end accessories you’re looking at least $105,000. That’s before you get into the trailer, rigging, registration, shipping fees and so on.

Truck drivers routinely haul a great deal of valuable merchandise, but that guy might have a payload of something close to $250,000 on board and it is shiny and obvious.

Things to read … because it is obvious (to me) that I’ve got nothing else for the day.

Happy news! Referenced this in class today. The resolution was much more boring than the owners had originally feared, Service dog reunited with Cullman County owner after 5 days without food or water.

I mentioned that in class to point out that they have a Pulitzer Prize winner writing that stuff.

This does not say which schools, but you can be assured the comments get quickly political, Apple to give $100 million to schools, five in Alabama, CEO Tim Cook says:

Apple is awarding $100 million to schools in poor communities including five Alabama schools, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said Monday in Montgomery.

On the same day Cook was being inducted to the Alabama Academy of Honor alongside his co-inductees Nick Saban, Judy Bonner, John Croyle, James Hudson Jr., Margaret Porter, Jeff Sessions and Edgar Welden.

A fine honor for a real gentleman and his lovely wife. Auburn legend, Samford coach Pat Sullivan to have field house renamed in his honor:

Samford University will rename its football field house the Sullivan-Cooney Family Field House to honor current Samford head coach Pat Sullivan and his wife, Jean, the school announced Friday.

The field house was originally named for Birmingham business executive and 1974 Samford graduate Gary Cooney and his family. Cooney, a long-time friend of Sullivan, gave the lead gift that made the building possible.

“I have always felt through athletics it is the relationships that will last for a lifetime,” Sullivan said. “My friendship with Gary Cooney began when we were teammates at John Carroll High School. Gary’s generosity and the generosity of others enabled us to build this beautiful football facility.

And some good news down at the Gulf Coast, Museum dedicated to forestry and agriculture to open at the fairgrounds:

A new Agriculture and Forestry Museum will open at the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds Saturday, displaying exhibits on a number of plants and animals key to the state’s farm economy.

[…]

Lucas said the museum will be open to the public when there are major events at the fairgrounds.

And here’s some dumb news, but even the resolution to the overreaction has a happy ending, LAX flight delayed after WiFi hotspot name prompts concerns.

We just might have to start a “Good News Monday” feature.

When Jay Rosen is aggravated, it is always a good read, Facebook’s phony claim that “you’re in charge”:

It’s not us exercising judgment, it’s you. We’re not the editors, you are. If this is what Facebook is saying — and I think it’s a fair summary of Marra’s comments to the New York Times — the statement is a lie.

I say a lie, not just an untruth, because anyone who works day-to-day on the code for News Feed knows how much judgment goes into it. It simply isn’t true that an algorithmic filter can be designed to remove the designers from the equation. It’s an assertion that melts on contact. No one smart enough to work at Facebook could believe it. And I’m not sure why it’s sitting there unchallenged in a New York Times story. For that doesn’t even rise to the level of “he said, she said.” It’s just: he said, poof!

Now, if Greg Marra and his team want to make the point that in perfecting their algorithm they’re not trying to pick the day’s most important stories and feature them in the News Feed, the way an old fashioned front page or home page editor would, and so in that sense they are not really “editors” and don’t think in journalistic terms, fine, okay, that’s a defensible point. But don’t try to suggest that the power has thereby shifted to the users, and the designers are just channeling your choices. (If I’m the editor of my News Feed, where are my controls?)

Programmers refer to the phenomenon as GIGO. You could change the noun, it doesn’t have to be Garbage, but you’re still getting the high dose of Facebook’s choice. Because you don’t have control.

But, then, we knew that. We’ve long since known that. We’re ceding control, aren’t we? Only now we’re starting to realize what that means when the control isn’t to our liking. But that’s beside the point, Professor Rosen is discussing the journalism involved rather than just Facebook.

Also, “Friend, Like, Comment, Unfollow, Hide” aren’t controls. They’re feeders. They’re sensitivity meters to the algorithm, feeders. But that’s all they are. Someone else has the control point: Facebook, specifically the programmers.

The algorithm dictates what you see, which changes what it is to be a tech company, which is now a publisher. And what becomes of a publisher? Perhaps they turn into a speech engine?

Which is as good a point as any to bring this piece in, How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition:

Information technology is revolutionizing products. Once composed solely of mechanical and electrical parts, products have become complex systems that combine hardware, sensors, data storage, microprocessors, software, and connectivity in myriad ways. These “smart, connected products”—made possible by vast improvements in processing power and device miniaturization and by the network benefits of ubiquitous wireless connectivity—have unleashed a new era of competition.

Smart, connected products offer exponentially expanding opportunities for new functionality, far greater reliability, much higher product utilization, and capabilities that cut across and transcend traditional product boundaries. The changing nature of products is also disrupting value chains, forcing companies to rethink and retool nearly everything they do internally.

These new types of products alter industry structure and the nature of competition, exposing companies to new competitive opportunities and threats. They are reshaping industry boundaries and creating entirely new industries. In many companies, smart, connected products will force the fundamental question, “What business am I in?”

Multiple businesses, of course.

(Oh, you thought this was random?)

As my friend, Professor Chris Arnold, suggested with that link, you’ll see systems of systems built on interdependent and emergent behaviors. And, I think, re-dedicated and repurposed systems and behaviors as well.

You see this all the time. That’s not just a ski boat up there. That’s a 14-person party platform. And now you can custom-select the dash.

So it won’t be much longer, then, before that boat can select your provisions based on your previous activities, or the new dash in its replacement craft. When your pleasure boat has you figured out … well, that’s going to be a pretty good Monday. Especially if the boat can also call in sick for you. Why would you go to work if you had a vessel like that?