Classes started back today. This is one of my favorite days, the syllabus day. I can just prattle on and on … but you have to find the right mix of that on the first day.
You have, precisely, a six-and-a-half minute margin of error there.
But things went smoothly. There was only one question after class, and just a few during. That means that everything has been explained perfectly in a triumphant victory for reason and straightforwardness. Or you’ve been tuned out. You can never tell.
One of my jokes didn’t get laughed at. But the rest got good giggles, so if you factor in the questions to chuckles ratio the day worked out well.
There were also two meetings. Important information was imparted. Tasks were distributed. Notes were taken. They were good meetings.
At dinner I stepped out of my comfort zone. I went to Jason’s Deli, which is perfectly normal. But! I read the menu, and with the nice lady who always sees me and makes small talk like we’re old friends waiting patiently, I ordered something else.
I’ve probably been going to one Jason’s Deli or another for five or six yeas. This is only the second time that I’ve deviated from my usual.
Usually when I go somewhere new I go with the menu item named after the place. That dish can’t be bad, right? So tonight I extended that idea a bit because Jason’s has a sandwich named after the founder’s dad. Pure winner, right?
Great sandwich. I may go back again tomorrow.
Things to read: Inside Advance’s Post-Standard newspaper as it transforms this week to digital first:
There hasn’t been the same level of outcry in Syracuse, but Rogers acknowledges that the cutbacks will take a toll. “There has not been outrage,” he said. “There’s been disappointment. There’s sadness. It’s the hardest for people who are not [digitally] connected. There are a lot of people … who are really going to miss the seven-day newspaper. I’m going to miss it.”
But while the dramatic reorganization may seem like a gamble, it’s the prospect of not doing anything that genuinely worries him. “To do nothing, that’s suicide,” he said, citing the industry trends. “Is this a risk? The risk is to not do anything. Have we found the right solution? I think we have. Time will tell. But I know that by doing what we’re doing, we’re going to be so much better off than if we hadn’t done anything.”
His optimism isn’t shared by everyone involved with the paper.
The three Newhouse papers in Alabama made the switch last fall, you might recall. They are growing into the new model right about on pace. There have been stumbles. There are critics, but there are a lot of positives.
Anytime you see a newspaper in the middle of a transformation you see quotes like this:
The new model doesn’t have a place for columnist Dick Case, 77, a Syracuse fixture for over 53 years who received word that his services would no longer be needed at the paper. “I think that all of us understood that the nature of the newspaper was going to change,” he said, “but I don’t think anybody had any idea of when that would happen. And it happened sooner rather than later.”
I love the idea of staffers who’ve worked at newspapers for decades. They have so much institutional history and community memory. They’re a gem to talk to and learn from. They are often vital and funny and crusty people with a lot to tell us all. But this quote just makes no since. Sooner rather than later? After all of these years, after your sister papers made this move, this caught you by surprise?
(Update: Case’s last column is here. He’s been doing this my entire life. He’s talented and will be missed by many. He’s going to volunteer at the historical society. And if you need to, you can reach him at his wife’s email. That’ explains that.)
CEOs Using social media: Statistics, facts and figures:
Four out of five employees (81 percent) believe that CEOs who engage on social media are better equipped to lead companies in the modern world, and 82 percent of customers are more likely to trust a company whose CEO and leadership team are active on these channels.
There’s one of those famously long Internet infographics there, too.
Now recording: Knight funds an app for collecting oral histories:
Knight News Challenge winner TKOH wants to create a solution for oral storytelling that would work for kids, grandparents, audiophiles — or, yes, journalists. As envisioned, it would be a lightweight app for mobile devices that makes the setup and recording of stories simpler. TKOH, a design studio based in New York, plans to use its $330,000 award from Knight Foundation to build out its prototype of the app and begin testing it in rural communities in New Mexico.
“It’s a need we all have,” Kacie Kinzer, of TKOH, tells me. “There’s someone we know, a friend, a family member, who has incredible stories that must be kept in some way.
[…]
The app, tentatively called Thread, would be a kind of all-in one app, pairing audio and video, giving the user a choice of how they want to record a story. Once the story is captured, the file would be archived in a non-proprietary format and made available on the web. With the money from Knight, the team at TKOH will complete the prototype of the app and build a web platform that would act as a repository for stories and enable sharing on other networks, Kinzer told me.
One more method never hurts.
What it feels like to be photographed in a moment of grief:
“I sat there in a moment of devastation with my hands in prayer pose asking for peace and healing in the hearts of men,” she recalls. “I was having such a strong moment and my heart was open, and I started to cry.”
Her mood changed abruptly, she says, when “all of a sudden I hear ‘clickclickclickclickclick’ all over the place. And there are people in the bushes, all around me, and they are photographing me, and now I’m pissed. I felt like a zoo animal.”
What particularly troubles her, she says, is “no one came up to me and said ‘Hi, I’m from this paper and I took your photograph.’ No one introduced themselves. I felt violated. And yes, it was a lovely photograph, but there is a sense of privacy in a moment like that, and they didn’t ask.”
Every journo should read pieces like that about every year or so. There’s a lot to learn in circumstances like this, too.
