journalism « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

journalism

There are no free potatoes, either

Another free commercial on the basis of a photo, a story and nostalgia. I should get a free meal for this, I think.

The sign, it seems, is getting a makeover. The old neon has been stripped out. And pulling the gas-holding-gas has just shown the smear of age and wear and rain and paint. I love that sign. There’s just something about that pig face, blissfully unaware what is happening to his real life counterparts inside, grinning stupidly despite the messages often on display on the marquee just below. Hopefully they aren’t replacing the whole thing.

The Yankee and I had our first meal there — Friday was Pie Day, I said, and she said yes. I used to eat there frequently when I was still broadcasting. It wasn’t far from the station. I’ve dined there with a lot of friends. I ate there with my book tonight. I’d swam a mile and a big baked potato sounded right.

It was just the thing after only a brunch. The editorial staff at the Crimson dined with the media relations folks late this morning. I took some leftovers to have fruit for lunch, but I’d swam a mile, you see, and I can look at a body of water and get hungry. Real and hearty food was what was required tonight, and there was no Italian to be had with friends. So I had a baked potato with a book.

Things to read … becausing reading always brings around friends. Just get comfy with something great, and someone will come along to interrupt.

Learning How to Score a Job Using Social Media, for Beginners is a free email-based class, if you’re interested.

A friend sent this. I hated telling him he’s going to have to find someone else to see it with. A 15,000ft descent, sheer drops and 300 deaths a year: Welcome to Bolivia’s Death Road, the terrifying route tourists love to cycle

Ukraine: Russian forces in major rebel cities:

A Ukrainian official said Tuesday that Russian forces have been spotted in both of the major rebel-held cities in eastern Ukraine.

The claim by Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s national security council, came as the country’s defense minister said Ukraine’s armed forces are expanding their strategy from just fighting separatist rebels to facing the Russian army in a war that could cost “tens of thousands” of lives.

Lost in America: Visa Program Struggles to Track Missing Foreign Students:

The Department of Homeland Security has lost track of more than 6,000 foreign nationals who entered the United States on student visas, overstayed their welcome, and essentially vanished — exploiting a security gap that was supposed to be fixed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

“My greatest concern is that they could be doing anything,” said Peter Edge, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who oversees investigations into visa violators. “Some of them could be here to do us harm.”

Yet another of the core competencies that DHS was created for … and it is less than a sterling success.

3 free iOS apps for visual storytelling:

(J)ournalists do not necessarily need a big budget, banks of editing software or even a desktop computer to create appealing visual stories.

These three apps for iPhone and iPad all allow you to create beautiful visual stories on the move without any special gear.

Even better, each are easy to use – and free.

When you said free, you had my attention. Shame that meal wasn’t also free.

cycling / I do not know what is happening. / journalism / links / Monday / things to read — Comments Off
1
Sep 14

Labor Day

Last night we ordered Chinese takeout. I offered to go pick it up after The Yankee called it in. The lady on the other end of the phone knows who we are based on one of our habitual orders. You tell the soups and the egg rolls and the entrees and she says “Oh, hi Missus Smith.”

Then I went to pick up during halftime of the Tennessee game tonight and she started asking things about work. The nice lady at the Chinese restaurant, who has people going in and out constantly, knows where I work.

We might be eating too much Chinese.

Tonight we had Italian potluck with friends, and that was awesome. In between I did some work, building a lecture and tinkering with notes for other things and so on. I labored on Labor Day, but there was no grief to it. I sat in a chair at home and typed things. And when I was done, I took a 22 mile spin around town. My cycling app says my ride gave me the best times on four local segments.

This is surely a calculating error, a timing mistake. More likely, none of the fast people in town use this app.

Things to read … because everyone in town should read.

This is a former student, a Fulbright scholar now embarking on a year in Tajikistan. He’s a bright guy, and this will be an amazing adventure. Read along: House of leaves.

Security for journalists, part one

Boomers. When did we get so old?

I prefer the Vyclone app, which lets my collaboration be with my friends, rather than everyone, but this has some uses too: Snapchat lets you watch and create group videos of live events with ‘Our Story’.

7 interesting things about Lee County agriculture

The UK has big, big problems. This is simply a terrible symptom. Scandal hit Rotherham ‘deleted abuse files’:

Top ranking staff ordered raids to delete and remove case files and evidence detailing the scale of Rotherham’s child exploitation scandal, sources have revealed.

More than 10 years before the damning independent inquiry revealed sexual exploitation of 1,400 children in Rotherham a raid was carried out on the orders of senior staff to destroy evidence, it has been claimed.

In 2002 high profile personnel at Rotherham Council ordered a raid on Risky Business, Rotherham council’s specialist youth service, which offered one-to-one help and support to vulnerable teenage girls, ahead of the findings of a draft report, according to the Times.

The raid was to remove case files and wipe computer records detailing the scale and severity of the town’s sex-grooming crisis, sources told The Times.

Meanwhile, closer to home … In Maryland, a Soviet-Style Punishment for a Novelist:

A 23-year-old teacher at a Cambridge, Maryland, middle school has been placed on leave and—in the words of a local news report—”taken in for an emergency medical evaluation” for publishing, under a pseudonym, a novel about a school shooting. The novelist, Patrick McLaw, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher at the Mace’s Lane Middle School, was placed on leave by the Dorchester County Board of Education, and is being investigated by the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, according to news reports from Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The novel, by the way, is set 900 years in the future.

There’s a lot about this story that doesn’t yet make sense. Hopefully the next draft has some insight, otherwise, it would be particularly troubling.

(Three days later update: There is a lot going on in that story. And local media interviewed the teacher. It would seem there is still a good deal going on in that story.)

football / journalism / links / running / Samford / things to read / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
27
Aug 14

First down

Started my morning with a run. I got in a nice 5K before a series of meetings — fortunately, there were no meetings about meetings. My workday also ended with meetings about social media. In between, I gave a lecture on the “changing concepts of news.” I started around the muckrackers at McClure’s and worked up to the modern moment. In 2015, remember, Back to the Future II showed us flying robot reporters working for USA Today.

We talked a bit about the Oculus Rift work. I showed them the latest androids being developed in Japan:

Think about all of the changes that have taken place in journalism and storytelling in the last 40 years, I said. Imagine what it will look like toward the end of your career, in another 40 years.

That android, that so many of them thought to be odd or creepy today, will be positively old fashioned by then.

Things to read … because reading will never go out of style.

(We hope.)

How the news upstarts covered ISIS:

The rallying cry for those bemoaning the demise of newspapers was, “Without The New York Times, who would cover Iraq?” Well, quite a few places, it turns out.

As traditional media companies have scaled back their foreign bureaus, newer news organizations like Vice and BuzzFeed have expanded their mandate to fill the void. (Not included in this review is Global Post, the online startup that James Foley worked for, since it started with the express purpose of covering foreign news.) But can a bunch of relatively small upstarts cover the world’s hot spots? ISIS, one of the year’s biggest stories, is as good a test case as any to see how five have been doing it.

Here’s more pessimism for print advertising:

For newspapers, continued print advertising declines will mean more pressure on circulation (print subscribers and paywalls) or new revenue (digital marketing services, events) to make up the difference. Most likely, they won’t, and we’ll see more cuts.

If the rate of print ad decline does slow in 2015 (from 8.9 percent down to 6.2 percent down), that would be…semi-good news, I guess, after several years of drops in the high single digits? But there’s nothing here to predict a leveling off, much less a return to growth.

The ‘guiding principles’ of Quartz redesign

The Miami Herald’s new publisher is moving the paper a bit closer towards irrelevancy

VA ‘Oscar the Grouch’ training angers vets:

The beleaguered Department of Veterans Affairs depicted dissatisfied veterans as Oscar the Grouch in a recent internal training guide, and some vets and VA staffers said Tuesday that they feel trashed.

The cranky Sesame Street character who lives in a garbage can was used in reference to veterans who will attend town-hall events Wednesday in Philadelphia.

“There is no time or place to make light of the current crisis that the VA is in,” said Joe Davis, a national spokesman for the VFW. “And especially to insult the VA’s primary customer.”

These people will apparently not get it. And its a delightful little series of events to which we can all look forward.

The first college football game of the year was tonight. This guy was the referee:

I hadn’t realized that Boyd Crowder had taken on a side job:

Justified should be back around January. But football is here now. Hooray football.

history / journalism / links / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
26
Aug 14

Just a few quick things on history, and today

As I worked, I had this playing in the background. A movie you’ve seen a few dozen times is good for noise. And it was kind of fitting. I’ll talk about some World War II examples in class tomorrow.

I wonder what Patton would be like if they made that movie today.

And as I wondered that, I found this evening’s most interesting story, Longtime Opelika resident Bennie Adkins to receive Medal of Honor:

Retired Command Sgt. Major Bennie G. Adkins was recently named the latest recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest military honor in the United States. He will be awarded by President Barack Obama Sept. 15 in Washington D.C.

“Mr. Adkins is a true American hero who served his country in Vietnam,” Congressman Mike Rogers said in a written statement. “His acts of heroism during his tour of duty earned him our nation’s highest honor, which he has long deserved. I congratulate Mr. Adkins on this honor and thank him for his bravery, sacrifice and service to our nation.”

He was in the Special Forces in Vietnam. After he retired he received three degrees from Troy, taught at Southern Union and Auburn University, ran an accounting firm for two decades and, with his wife, raised five children.

The three-day battle for which he is justly being honored is a rich read of heroism, pain and the best attitude we could ask for from service members.

During 38 hours of close-combat fighting he was frequently in and under enemy fire and manning a mortar position. That was when he wasn’t continually exposing himself to the enemy to treat and save wounded men and retrieve the bodies of the fallen. When the mortar was spent, he changed weapons. When he had exhausted his ammunition, he sought out more, again under fire. Ultimately, when he’d fired every weapon they had at Camp A Shau, he led the survivors out with just an M-16. They’d fought for a day-and-a-half. He would led men through another two days of evasion before they were picked up by the good guys.

From the battle narrative:

“Approximately 200 of the camp defenders were killed in action, with 100 wounded. The enemy suffered an estimated 500 to 800 casualties. It is estimated that Adkins killed between 135 and 175 of the enemy, while suffering 18 different wounds.”

You wonder why it took so long.

Things to read … And these won’t take too long.

Turner Broadcasting to offer voluntary buyouts, layoffs also expected

Here’s a rapidly evoloving topic. Why public relations and media relations don’t mean the same thing anymore

Harassment Charges for Student Who… Told Joke [Gasp!]

Student Activists Keep Pressure On Campus Sexual Assault

And that, I think, will do for one night.

errands / Friday / iPhone / journalism / links / photo / Pie Day / things to read / video — Comments Off
22
Aug 14

The barber, the check writer and the pie maker

I made the mistake of getting a haircut today. Going to my barber on a Friday afternoon is like going to most people’s DMV, or my local post office.

He’s a nice fellow, good, easy small talker. There are nice family photos to study as he cuts your hair. He does a fine enough job of it and he’s the cheapest guy in town — those his prices are going up, and we’ll have to talk about that.

Everyone in town has figured this out, I guess, and everyone goes there. And so you wait and wait, but it is a break from other things, one supposes, and the television is on an endless loop of some sporting thing or another. He’s the kind of guy that’s on a first name basis with people and sometimes he remembers me, but my strategy is to cut short and ride on that haircut for as long as possible. So I could be easy to forget in the blur of faces he sees every month.

We talked about the VA and pensions and the Bulge and Iraq today. Once, when his shop was slower and he remembered who I was, he picked my brain about various shenanigans going on in the journalism industry. Another time he almost carved a junk out of my ear and sent me on my way home bleeding and, I think, with the haircut incomplete. Scared him. It bled so well it scared me too.

Today he nicked my neck a little just below the hairline and applied some demon-infused, artisanally crafted pain juice on it, smeared a white powder on top of that and then smacked my neck. He was a combat medic. He knows what he’s doing, I told myself.

After that I visited various book stores about town, with this weird white caking powder on my neck. No one said anything about it.

We went out for dinner. It is Friday. Friday is Pie Day:

“Clinkies!” as we used to say while trying to not stab each other with forks.

The server gave us fist bumps for ordering pie. Surely he was thinking “I didn’t even have to upsell these people!” And then he let us choose the color of pen used to sign the receipt. I went with the hunter green.

Things to read … and, sadly, none of these are written in a hunter green font.

Security for journalists, part one: The basics:

Just as you can take steps to reduce the physical or legal risks of journalism, it’s possible to protect yourself in the digital realm. This two-part post will cover the basics of digital security for journalists. It’s impossible to learn everything you need to know from a couple of articles, but my hope is to give you enough of the basics that you understand what to study next.

Even if you’re not working on a sensitive story yourself, you need to understand digital security because an attacker can harm other people by going through you. This post contains generic security advice that everyone in journalism should heed, with specific advice about simple things you can do right now to improve your security.

Govt-blacklisted journalists and the growing info grip:

David Sirota reports on “How Government Blacklists Journalists From Accessing the Truth” stating that “The public is being systematically divorced from public policy, which is exactly what too many elected officials want.”

[…]

“In recent years, there have been signs that the federal government is reducing the flow of public information,” Sirota writes, agreeing with a growing consensus from many Washington D.C. journalists.

Sadly, there’s no surprise there.

This thoughtful essay from a student-journalist, I will not be returning to Ferguson:

There are now hundreds of journalists from all over the world coming to Ferguson to film what has become a spectacle. I get the sense that many feel this is their career-maker. In the early days of all this, I was warmly greeted and approached by Ferguson residents. They were glad that journalists were there. The past two days, they do not even look at me and blatantly ignore me. I recognize that I am now just another journalist to them, and their frustration with us is clear. In the beginning there was a recognizable need for media presence, but this is the other extreme. They need time to work through this as a community, without the cameras.

Gov. Bentley announces creation of Alabama Drone Task Force

I read aloud a bit of Willie Morris tonight. I’ve been searching for examples of excellent writing to share with students, so I had to raid one of the bookshelves in our library. This won’t be the one of Morris’ that I share, but it is worth a read. This is when he was writing from Oxford, Mississippi and remembering his time and a love on Long Island, New York. The complete essay isn’t online, so a brief excerpt:

She would say, “You’re not too old and I’m not too young.” But she was the marrying age, and she wanted a baby. The love we had was never destroyed; it was merely the dwindling of circumstance. How does one give up Annie? Only through loneliness and fear, fear of old loves lost and of love renewed – only those things, that’s all. The last departure came on a windswept October noon of the kind we had known. We stood on the porch of my house and embraced. “Oh — you!” she said. She lingered for the briefest moment. Then she was gone, a Tennessee girl with snow in her hair again. She married a local boy and now has two little daughters, I hear on good authority from Long Island. The years are passing, and don’t think I haven’t thought about it.

The man could write. But he was perhaps never better than when he’s writing about home (which is why whichever Willie Morris piece I hand out in class will have at least two references to jonquils). Happens to a lot of us, I suspect.

Do you ever get the feeling Patrick Stewart is just cooler at everything?

I do.