I had a four-and-a-half mile run this morning. I felt it through the first part of the afternoon. And by felt it I mean “Would you mind getting that for me so I don’t have to get up? Or even raise my arms?”

My office has been hot all week — spring almost shows up and they finally figure out the heat in our part of the building. That, combined with a base temperature that stayed around the “Oh yeah, we ran a lot this morning” range, I’ve tried not to move so as to not break into a sweat. This is considered a problem in my world. I’m pretty fortunate, I know. I’m starting to get into the running.

I do not know what is happening.

Had guest speakers in class this afternoon. Jeff Thompson is the executive editor and Madoline Markham is the managing editor of Starnes Publishing, a five community newspaper chain in the Birmingham metropolitan area. They talked about what Starnes does and what their careers held before their current stops. Somehow we got into a metaphor about how journalism is like heroin production. (It was a supply/demand example and turned out to be useful.)

We talked about all of the bad stuff. How hard it is to land the job. The hours you sometimes work. The frustrations that you sometimes encounter. I want the students to have a worts-and-all perspective. Give ’em everything, I always say.

I asked “Short answer, is it worth it?”

So you are listening to a guy who takes on the crusty, hard-bitten, cynical newsman role. You let him go on and on until you think he’s turned off the entire crowd, two classes worth of students, and then he gives a sheepish little grin.

“Yes. Winning is good. Every small victory is a big thing.”

I love talking to reporters.

Things to read … because I also love to read.

Innovating to create comprehension of big data and the Internet:

The amount of data collected on the Internet is overwhelming. Facebook alone collects 500 terabytes a day. As of 2013, there are 667 exabytes of data flowing over the Internet annually. And these numbers, as hard as they are to wrap our heads around, are only going to continue to increase — rapidly.

In the journalism sphere, massive data collection has produced data journalist roles. These writers and editors use data collected by third-party agencies to create some of the most viral images on the Web. Anytime The Atlantic publishes a map of the states with the highest poverty levels, they use big data. Anytime The New York Times publishes a quiz about where your accent comes from, they use big data.

These stories and photos get shared hundreds of thousands of times and are driving much needed traffic to publishers. This is about much more than an interesting listsicle. Data journalism is about taking big data concepts, visualizing them for the audience and showing readers who they are — or at least, who the data says they are.

This, as they say, changes a great deal about the active role of journalism. Read on to see how.

As the Web Turns 25, Its Creator Talks About Its Future:

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a software engineer, sat in his small office at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva and started work on a new system called the World Wide Web.

On Wednesday, that project, now simply called the web, will celebrate its 25th anniversary, and Mr. Berners-Lee is looking ahead at the next 25.

But this moment comes with a cloud. The creators of the web, including Mr. Berners-Lee, worry that companies and telecommunications outlets could destroy the open nature that made it flourish in their quest to make more money.

This is an important topic, so here’s another excerpt from the same story:

The idea behind net neutrality is simple: The web material we see on our laptops and smartphones, whether from Google or a nondescript blog, should flow freely through the Internet, regardless of its origin or creator. No one gets special treatment. But companies like Verizon hope some people will pay more to get preferential treatment and reach customers quicker.

“The web should be a neutral medium. The openness of the web is really, really important,” Mr. Berners-Lee said. “It’s important for the open markets, for the economy and for democracy.”

He worries that people online have no idea what could be at stake if large telecommunications companies took control of the web and the type of material we now have access to without any blockades or speed barriers.

Social, Search and Direct: Pathways to Digital News:

(U)sers coming to these news sites through a desktop or laptop computer, direct visitors spend, on average, 4 minutes and 36 seconds per visit. That is roughly three times as long as those who wind up on a news media website through a search engine (1 minute 42 seconds) or from Facebook (1 minute 41 seconds). Direct visitors also view roughly five times as many pages per month (24.8 on average) as those coming via Facebook referrals (4.2 pages) or through search engines (4.9 pages). And they visit a site three times as often (10.9) as Facebook and search visitors.

[…]

The data also suggest that converting social media or search eyeballs to dedicated readers is difficult to do.

I’m all for drones. We know this. But this little story seems a bit much: Drone Circles Building Explosion Taking Photos. Time and place and all that.

Local stories!

Former Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services official sentenced to probation in $339,314 agency theft: Punishment isn’t always overly harsh.

Alabama locksmith duo to star in TruTV series about cracking open abandoned, historical vaults:

Two Alabama men will travel the country opening lost and abandoned safes as part of a new TruTV series called “The Safecrackers”.

The show, which will center around locksmith Phil Crawford and his safe-cracking partner Blaze, will allow viewers to get a look at lost valuables from various eras as the duo tracks down and cracks a range of safes, including giant bank vaults, intricate antique safes, armored vehicles and more.

I hope this is, shall we say, less fake, than the warehouse storage shows.

Medal of Honor recipient Ola Lee Mize dies at 82. The story doesn’t offer an appropriate summary, so I’ll do it the old fashioned way. The son of a sharecropper, Mize would become a member of special forces, serve in Korea and VIetnam. It was in Korea, when he was about 22, that he took part in a fierce battle which would ultimately make him a recipient of the Medal of Honor. His face was supposedly so badly burned that, after the battle, his officers couldn’t even recognize him. He retired a colonel.

Here’s his citation:

M/Sgt. Mize, a member of Company K, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and outstanding courage above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. Company K was committed to the defense of “Outpost Harry”, a strategically valuable position, when the enemy launched a heavy attack. Learning that a comrade on a friendly listening post had been wounded he moved through the intense barrage, accompanied by a medical aid man, and rescued the wounded soldier. On returning to the main position he established an effective defense system and inflicted heavy casualties against attacks from determined enemy assault forces which had penetrated into trenches within the outpost area. During his fearless actions he was blown down by artillery and grenade blasts 3 times but each time he dauntlessly returned to his position, tenaciously fighting and successfully repelling hostile attacks. When enemy onslaughts ceased he took his few men and moved from bunker to bunker, firing through apertures and throwing grenades at the foe, neutralizing their positions. When an enemy soldier stepped out behind a comrade, prepared to fire, M/Sgt. Mize killed him, saving the life of his fellow soldier. After rejoining the platoon, moving from man to man, distributing ammunition, and shouting words of encouragement he observed a friendly machine gun position overrun. He immediately fought his way to the position, killing 10 of the enemy and dispersing the remainder. Fighting back to the command post, and finding several friendly wounded there, he took a position to protect them. Later, securing a radio, he directed friendly artillery fire upon the attacking enemy’s routes of approach. At dawn he helped regroup for a counterattack which successfully drove the enemy from the outpost. M/Sgt. Mize’s valorous conduct and unflinching courage reflect lasting glory upon himself and uphold the noble traditions of the military service.

He is believed to have killed as many as 65 members of the enemy in that one engagement. In his career, he earned five Purple Hearts:

“That terrible night in 1953 in Korea at Outpost Harry was one I would never want to repeat,” he wrote in a foreword to “Uncommon Valor,” a book about Medal of Honor recipients from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Too many good young men . . . gave their lives to take or hold that miserable piece of high ground.”

In conclusion, the embarrassing gentlewoman from Texas:

Serious question: Who's more dumb, Sheila Jackson Lee or the people who keep voting her into office?

— Matthew (@Matthops82) March 12, 2014

Good question.