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journalism

Read this! Quick!

A day in a chair. There was Olympics. There was sunshine. There was reading and, best of all, the fine company of a lovely lady. It was a day with not too much, but a day you’d do again.

There was this:

If I did business with Liberty Mutual I would strongly consider altering the transaction. I don’t know if anyone at the ad agency has ever been in life-changing environments, but the insurance agency has people that have been there. Everyone understands the urge to compare the Olympics with Your Product, whatever Your Product is. But letting a goal slip by against the Russians is hardly like losing everything in a house fire, is it? Missing the landing on your vault isn’t so traumatic as finding the place where you live and play and love so devastated by the weather that you can’t recognize landmarks, because there aren’t any anymore.

When I was in college this happened in the next little town from where I grew up. A huge tornado roared through in the darkness. When the sun rose everything was unrecognizable. The fire department had to go around spraying house numbers on shards of wood and jamming them into the sodden earth, as you would a mailbox, so they’d have a frame of reference in their life saving work.

Hardly a Kerri Strug moment.

And yet I feel for Kerri Strug and the Miracle on Ice guys, because they, of course, couldn’t know what would become of their legacy: a bad insurance commercial. I’d feel bad for Herb Brooks, but he’s dead. I don’t feel bad for Bela Karolyi. He should never have put Strug there. Also, there’s charming reading in the Bela Karolyi controversy section of Wikipedia.

Speaking of the Olympics. NBC gets a lot right. Visually they’ve really shown their A-game. But my word, do they get a lot of easy things wrong.

Other fine sports notes: I mentioned Tim Alexander here late last year. He’s got a rich and compelling tale, the kind of guy you can’t help pulling for. Well. He’s showing up again today. His UAB football team was running stadiums today. And then the new strength and conditioning coach decided Alexander, who is in a wheelchair, needs to be with his team. So he hoisted him on his shoulders and carried him. And then the team joined in.

The story does not mention how many walls they ran through after that.

The image folks from Westboro are after Michael Sam. Mizzou students solved the problem. That is a terrific school and was an inspired addition to the SEC, but I’m just starting to like them more and more now.

The World Press Photo of the Year. The picture is terrific. The reporting — the caption — is what makes it.

African migrants on the shore of Djibouti city at night, raising their phones in an attempt to capture an inexpensive signal from neighboring Somalia—a tenuous link to relatives abroad. Djibouti is a common stop-off point for migrants in transit from such countries as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, seeking a better life in Europe and the Middle East.

Things to read … because this hasn’t yet been enough.

I do not think you could make this up. And, previously, I would have not thought there would be someone foolish enough to try to actually do it. NYPD denies FOIA request for department FOIA guide:

Public records request service MuckRock asked for the document in late December. Last week a lieutenant in the department’s records unit denied the request, calling the guide “privileged as an attorney-client communication.”

Muckrock gets all the good and stupid ones.

Remington is coming to Alabama, reportedly bringing about 2,000 jobs. The official announcement is tomorrow. The disbelief is today:

Huntsville may be welcoming a major Remington Outdoors Co. gun manufacturing and development plant and possibly 2,000 jobs, AL.com reported today.

But would the city really welcome it?

It seems so, judging from an abundance of positive, pro-gun comments posted to the AL.com story this morning.

The author of that piece is from Atlanta. She attended school in Alabama. And she is surprised by the pro-gun, pro-job stance of her neighbors. This perplexes me entirely.

So now I have to read every story on the subject, just to see what other disbelief we can work into this story. Because gun factories are scary, I guess.

Lastly, this piece defies excerpting, but is wholly worth reading. It is titled Pastor offers 15 tips for raising kids: ‘Give them a chance to know God’ but a better title would be “A grandfather reflects on how he would raise a child.”

I’m not raising children today. I’m part of the “support troops.” I’m in the capital funding division. But if I were, I would be giving my children every chance to know about God.

If I were raising children today…I would be having fewer frantic activities and make more careful and deliberate choices. I wouldn’t buy them whatever they ask for—that’s for grandparents to do. I would be more present when they’re trying to talk to me.

I wouldn’t lecture as much and I would listen a little more. I wouldn’t worry so much about being their friend and more about keeping their respect as well as their love. I think I would listen for signs of God in their life and, like trying to start a fire, do everything I could to blow on it, but not too hard.

I would make sure they were around all ages of people, not just peers. I would pray for them with all my heart, and take most of my criticisms there. I would provide consistent discipline and accept that they will not always like me and know that the world won’t end if they’re mad.

It goes on and on, a suggested instruction manual from someone who thought, perhaps, about what they did right and did wrong. To do it all again, and this time from the cheaper seats, what an interesting idea from which to learn.

cycling / I do not know what is happening. / journalism / links / photo / running / swimming / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
11
Feb 14

I’d really rather not talk about the weather

Another day closer to the weather and we’re coming to the realization that it’ll hit us but good.

There are some things we have to keep in mind about winter in the South. First, it is hard to forecast. This is a dynamic region and the one-two punch we’re getting this week has major elements coming from the west, down from the north and up from the Gulf of Mexico. The forecast models change almost by the hour.

Meteorologists are more than happy to share those long-range models and, I’m half-convinced, they just confuse people who really shouldn’t be confused about winter weather.

Also, it isn’t the snow that’s the problem. Except when it is. Our snow is usually wet. And what often happens is the snow melts, the temperature drops and then we have great sheets of ice over everything. You drive on that.

You drive on that, because I’m staying inside.

And all of that may happen again this week. Most of the worst of it, right now, seems to be aiming for Georgia and the Carolinas. But we’ll have plenty, thanks.

Already the weather has canceled the student newspaper this week. It is due out tomorrow, but the printer is to our north, and they are expecting to get walloped. So on and on the fun goes.

To take our minds off that fun, here’s a shot of Allie, The Black Cat, sunbathing on Sunday:

That afternoon we decided, hey, it is a beautiful day, let’s run a sprint triathlon.

So we went to the pool. I had my new goggles and we swam our 650 yards. I started out too fast, which was a paradoxical decision as I am slow in the pool. And so I suffered with that for a while. I figured I would redeem myself on the bicycle, where I thought I would be able to hammer it a bit. So down the big hill and up the smaller, other side. Around part of the bypass, up another hill through campus. I got stopped at a red light, turned around and there was The Yankee. I was sure she would be nowhere to be found, but she was having a great ride.

Up through an old neighborhood, hang a left and then a right. I took a road I don’t think I’ve ever pedaled on before, but a road where we once looked at two houses. I finished the 14-mile route just a minute or two before she did, but she also caught a light I did not.

So I guess I’ll have to win in the run. We ran the first half of our 5K together, because it wasn’t a race. It was a beautiful, glorious, day for an hour and change outside, in shorts and t-shirts, in the sunshine.

We ran a sprint triathlon on a whim, making us those people. Last summer I did three of them, suffering and struggling and dreading them and only enjoying them after they were over — enjoying the knowledge that I’d completed them. (For this I get to thank Bud Frankenthaler, who two years ago I watched finishing a triathlon at the age of 79. If he could do it, the rest of us don’t have a lot of excuses, right? Thanks Mr. Frankenthaler. He will probably outpace me somewhere this year, too.) Today there were no bib numbers, no massage table, no timing chips. We did it for fun. Had a great time, too. I want to do it again. Let’s go next weekend.

I do not know what is happening.

Tomorrow we’ll have snow.

Things to read … because links will keep us all warm.

These are just the links, enjoy clicking through the ones that interest you.

Writing headlines that get clicks

IndyStar staffers read your mean comments

Drone use highlights questions for journalists

First Listen: St. Paul And The Broken Bones, ‘Half The City’ — This is a good band, a local group, that’s about to make it big. Some of the musicians are from Samford, too.

And now I’m going to go buy things on the Internet. Who delivers milk and bread?

I do not know what is happening. / journalism / links / Monday / running / Samford / things to read / video — Comments Off
10
Feb 14

Run and tell that

We talked about critiquing news articles and television packages in class today. There are many great examples of quality work. There are also a staggeringly large amount of poor examples. They are all useful, but the one is often more fun than the other.

We watched a fire package several times. We closely considered the standard pre-winter weather milk and bread story. We read about a BASE jumper who died, and a restaurant owner shooting at his customers.

And, of course, the package that launched a thousand Antoine Dodsons:

On the one hand, that’s now four years old and I’m impressed by how many students are aware of it. On the other hand, I’m amused that there are people who don’t know it.

The Internet is a magical, large place. It makes you wonder what you’re missing, almost every day.

…

I just read Dodson’s Wikipedia page, and his website, and some link that the Internet gave me where he’s selling customized phone messages. He has had a few songs, and a clothing line, and another random thing here or there.

That guy sure was able to capitalize on the alleged sexual assault of his sister. Turned his family’s lifestyle around, at least for a time. To my knowledge no suspect was ever named. The culture surely has turned, hasn’t it?

The original remix won a handful of video of the year awards and tons of covers and parodies itself, the meta-parody writ large. And then college marching bands took a run at the tune:

I wonder how I can work this back into the class on Wednesday.

Ran a brisk 5K tonight. Felt good, being now about 12 or 15 miles into the new shoes. I’m now in a 4 mm drop running shoe, which doesn’t mean much to me. The old shoes were no longer capable of running. And I’ve had to transition into these. The heel-toe angle is different, and that takes an adjustment.

Also they are incredibly vibrant colors, which I guess might help make me visible on the side of the road, but they are never anything I’d choose for myself. They were on sale and there aren’t many options in my size. So my feet are fancy, and they still move slow.

I do not know what is happening.

Things to read … because there’s so much to learn about.

In a post-Dodson world, why not? Illinois using The Onion to reach young uninsured:

Trying to sell young adults on the idea of health insurance before an upcoming deadline, Illinois officials announced Monday they are launching an ad campaign with the satirical online newspaper The Onion.

Banner ads on The Onion website will depict a toy action figure with the words: “Man without health insurance is forced to sell action figures to pay medical bills.” The ads say: “Get Covered. Don’t sell your action figures.”

Oy.

Professor Reynolds knows not enough people care that they are being spied on. He makes good points here, but they won’t spur anyone to action, either. NSA spying undermines separation of powers: Column:

Most of the worry about the National Security Agency’s bulk interception of telephone calls, e-mail and the like has centered around threats to privacy. And, in fact, the evidence suggests that if you’ve got a particularly steamy phone- or Skype-sex session going on, it just might wind up being shared by voyeuristic NSA analysts.

But most Americans figure, probably rightly, that the NSA isn’t likely to be interested in their stuff. (Anyone who hacks my e-mail is automatically punished, by having to read it.) There is, however, a class of people who can’t take that disinterest for granted: members of Congress and the judiciary. What they have to say is likely to be pretty interesting to anyone with a political ax to grind. And the ability of the executive branch to snoop on the phone calls of people in the other branches isn’t just a threat to privacy, but a threat to the separation of powers and the Constitution.

How much does your school spend on snow removal? Good question. I know Samford spread 35,000 pounds of sand and 4,000 pounds of ice melt. Staff spent 506 hours clearing roads and sidewalks and dozens and dozens of staff members worked for three and four days, straight.

But at least the bookstore sold 428 pieces of clothing — a lot of sweatpants — on that day the campus was closed two weeks ago.

The campus closed early on Friday, last week, as well. And there is more weather coming this week. This is a strange winter for Alabama. The cost of lost time in the classroom has likely been the biggest toll. I’m still trying to get a class caught up. Maybe on Wednesday, if winter allows the class to meet.

iPhone / journalism / links / photo / Samford / things to read / Wednesday — Comments Off
5
Feb 14

Field tripping

I took a class on a field trip today. This is the class that takes three or four each term, which is one of my favorite classes, mostly, I think, because of the field trips.

So here we are in the conference room at Intermark Group in downtown Birmingham, where the students learned a bit about the day in a life of PR practitioners, advertising reps and creatives.

They give us a quick walking tour, offices, cubicles, a server room, some of their edit bays — they have a full service production studio in their building — and the famous camper:

They bought it online, restored it, had it installed and now all of their clients try to have their meetings in there. One of the dozens of neat touches you’ll find in a shop full of out-of-the-box thinkers.

Things to read … because sometimes you have to stay in your box.

Here are three quick ones to frighten you:

Retailers warn Congress that more cyberattacks are looming

Bankers want retailers to bear the costs of data breaches

Cyberattacks are on the rise. And health-care data is the biggest target

Who wants to go back to stamps and checks?

What can make audio go viral? NPR experiments with building earworms for social media:

So why doesn’t audio go viral? It’s not because shareable audio doesn’t exist — it does. If you’re an audio listener, you’ve probably heard something amazing, surprising, or funny that you really wanted to share. But in many cases, there are boundaries that prevent shareable audio clips from spreading.

When we started experimenting around audio and social, we identified three hurdles.

It is a shame, really, because audio can work as such a focusing agent, or an atmospheric agent, or a telling agent. There’s something inherently compelling about really good audio — recognizing and capturing it is an art unto itself — but if you’re discussing the nebulous “go viral” as a goal then you are talking about online. And, usually, if you can record audio you can record video. And, of course, in video sometimes the audio is lowered, or removed, or just overwhelmed by what the eyeballs see.

Take note of this, it will be huge. Amazon Lays Foundation for Giant Video Advertising Business:

Amazon is shedding a little more light on where it hopes to take its ad business. It is announcing that it has inked a deal with video ad company FreeWheel to provide the technology for Amazon to build out its video advertising business.

FreeWheel is essentially responsible for putting the right video ads in front of the right Amazon customers.

In short: Get ready for a lot more video ads on Amazon video content.

Get ready to buy in pre-roll, buying from more directions in Kindle and buying, buying, buying everywhere.

Still don’t think your packages are being delivered by drones, despite 60 Minutes’ breathless efforts.

The first thing you have to know about this one is that the headline and the story don’t play well together. The US will build regional ‘hubs’ to combat the impacts of climate change

The Obama administration is pushing ahead with its vow to mitigate the effects of climate change. Today, the US government announced plans to create seven “climate hubs” that will offer information and resources to communities in rural regions across the country.

Specific details on the hubs are slim for now, but each one will be tailored to a specific region’s climate-related challenges — such as water shortages, forest fires, pests, or floods. The hubs, which will be overseen by the US Department of Agriculture, are largely zeroing in on farming and ranching. In a statement, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack noted that the hubs will help ensure that “agricultural leaders have the modern technologies and tools they need to adapt and succeed in the face of a changing climate.”

The first question I have: Why not just use the existing Extension infrastructure? They are in place. They have a wide array of experts. They are already networked into the local farming and ranching communities and so on. The answer to that question would be telling.

Just enjoy the comments. NBC News’ Richard Engel: My Computers, Cellphone Were Hacked ‘Almost Immediately’ In Sochi. Also, there are plenty of things about this that don’t make sense yet, but do enjoy the comments.

Two posts on the multimedia blog today:

I did not know half of these Google Doc tips

GoPro moves you, moves themselves

And I think that will be enough for a cold Wednesday. Here’s to a warm weekend coming your way.

journalism / links / Samford / things to read / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
4
Feb 14

The most frightening Muppets

One of the most frightening Muppets, to me, was Grouch. Doesn’t ask me why. I think it was his appearance, home and his voice, which vaguely reminded me of one of my uncles. That’s what I’m going with. I bring this up because the other one that disturbed me is at the bottom of the post.

At lunch today I dropped a plate, basically right in the lap of a young lady who’d made the unfortunate decision to sit between my Point A and Point B. The plate was, thankfully, empty. And it did not break. But this is mortifying. There are eight young women sitting there talking about their studies or their sorority or boys or who knows, and then I happen.

Some distance away I could hear the slow clap starting. That hasn’t happened since high school. My innocent victim noted, as she picked up my plate and I apologized profusely, that at least her table didn’t chime in, an observation I’d already made, and a decision for which I was grateful. But no one else did, either, and the slow clap quickly died. It was probably only three people.

“Frat boys,” one of the students said.

I’m pretty sure they started clapping reflexively, but then stopped when they realized this was an old guy. Maybe one of them was a student of mine. Maybe it just isn’t funny if it isn’t your peers.

For example, the state troopers now say there were more than 700 snow and ice-related car crashes last week, not counting whatever the locals worked. That’s unfortunate for those people, to be sure. Nine people died in crashes. And in this vein some people are making their wacky “Haha, Southerners can’t drive in snow” jokes.

But, hey, we opened our windows and sat around in shorts last weekend.

Here’s another video, a short film featuring Ms. Alice Herz-Sommer. She is believed to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor, and, perhaps, the world’s oldest piano player:

Things to read … because your parents warned you about watching all of those videos.

I saw this story today and wondered what the reaction would be and how long it would take. CBO nearly triples estimate of working hours lost by 2021 due to Affordable Care Act:

A historically high number of people will be locked out of the workforce by 2021, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.

President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law will contribute to this phenomenon, the CBO said, citing new estimates that the Affordable Care Act will cause a larger-than-expected reduction in working hours—eliminating the equivalent of about 2.3 million workers in 2021.

The answers were not long, and bad enough that they should have taken a few more minutes to think up something not so insulting.

Health Care Law Projected to Cut the Labor Force

With the expansion of insurance coverage, the budget office predicted, more people will choose not to work, and others will choose to work fewer hours than they might have otherwise to obtain employer-provided insurance. The cumulative reduction of hours is large: the equivalent of 2.5 million fewer full-time positions by 2024, the budget office said.

The report “rightfully says that people shouldn’t have job lock,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader. “We live in a country where we should be free agents. People can do what they want.”

“Now you won’t have to work!” doesn’t sound like an especially compelling argument, really, Senator. But have at it.

Assault on California Power Station Raises Alarm on Potential for Terrorism

The attack began just before 1 a.m. on April 16 last year, when someone slipped into an underground vault not far from a busy freeway and cut telephone cables.

Within half an hour, snipers opened fire on a nearby electrical substation. Shooting for 19 minutes, they surgically knocked out 17 giant transformers that funnel power to Silicon Valley. A minute before a police car arrived, the shooters disappeared into the night.

[…]

The attack was “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the U.S., said Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time.

[…]

To some, the Metcalf incident has lifted the discussion of serious U.S. grid attacks beyond the theoretical. “The breadth and depth of the attack was unprecedented” in the U.S., said Rich Lordan, senior technical executive for the Electric Power Research Institute. The motivation, he said, “appears to be preparation for an act of war.”

Have 24-hour TV news channels had their day?

The past two decades have seen a revolution in every aspect of the media industry – technological change has enabled consumers to develop sophisticated and subtle patterns of behaviour, constantly being updated from a variety of sources. Cable news established the 24-hour news habit, but today social media and mobile phones fulfill the instant news needs of consumers better than any TV channel can.

Yet around the world hundreds of millions of dollars continue to be invested each year in news networks. Is this money well spent? Or has the time come to rethink the TV news business? Were live channels simply the product of the satellite age which is now all but over?

[…]

News channels prize being first – a race that they can’t win, and nobody else cares about. “Did we beat CNN?” is a phrase often heard in a newsroom. But in the digital age social media will always win the race to be first (if not always the race to be right). And who, other than the inhabitants of newsrooms, is watching enough news channels simultaneously to know who was first anyway? Those 30 seconds might be important for commodity traders – but for news audiences?

In today’s media environment any broadcaster is first for minutes at most – by which time Twitter or the competition will have caught up. Being first – the primary criterion for 24-hour news channels – is increasingly the least interesting and effective value they offer.

What wasn’t included, but should be: The Weather Channel.

Making Failure Acceptable: Entrepreneurship in Journalism

Sochi facilities still a work in progress

From the multimedia blog:

Viral content, relevant news aimed at audience who offers excuses to news

Journalism trends? Let’s have some fries and talk about it

This will take two minutes

And, finally, the game is a-fruit!

The Count always scared me. But that’s a conversation for a different day.