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journalism

Feeling better about chasing ourselves

Our cat acts like a kitten.

We played for a long time today, until she finally chased me around the house at a walking pace a few times — you know, the game kids love but cats can’t figure out. I didn’t get the chance to change directions. And Allie didn’t realize that if she only stood still the green ribbon thing she loves would come back around from the other doorway in just a moment.

“You look like you feel better today,” The Yankee said.

And she was right.

The cat and I started playing because, as I was minding my own business, she started attacking a string she found on one of my socks.

After two or three strafing runs I decided to find a string I could tie to my toe. This would be great, I thought, because now she can scratch up my feet! So I looked around the house. There was not a string or thread or cable to be found. Everything has a use already, you see. Congratulations to us, two people who seem to have all of their long strandy things well accounted for.

I’m sure if I flipped over the sofa I’d find that Allie has stashed every loose string in the house there.

And so it was that we played with one of her long chase toys. It is a red stick with a red string that leads out to a green ribbon:

Feel like I’ve turned a corner today. Not quite a million bucks, but I’ve got titanium inside me and inflation is upon us, so who knows, but I could be like Lee Majors by the end of this update.

We went out for lunch today. I had a sandwich at Niffer’s Place and then settled back in for a day of reading and writing. Now here we are.

So, here. Have a look at some of the things I’ve been reading today, including Doug Mataconis walking through ABC’s poor reporting from the Colorado shooting:

First, soon after the Aurora police revealed the name of the man they had in custody, there was Ross himself on the air with a report claiming to link James Holmes the shooter with a man named Jim Holmes who happened to be listed on the website of a Colorado Tea Party group. That was later revealed to be untrue, and ABC News was later forced to issue an apology:

Editor’s Note: An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect. ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted.

Properly vetted? It strikes me that there was no vetting of the information at all. There’s really only two ways that Ross could have stumbled across this, either he went directly to a Tea Party site and looked to see if he could find a James Holmes listed. Or he did a Google search of something along the lines of ” “James Holmes” and “Aurora, CO” ” and looked to see what would come up. Neither one is really responsible journalism, and if it was the first one, if he just decided to go to a Tea Party site and look for Holmes’s name even though there was no evidence that anyone affiliated with the Tea Party was involved in this, then it wasn’t just irresponsible it was potentially malicious.

You could say worse. Many have.

Karol Sheinin immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union 34 years ago today:

It’s hard for Americans, even the ones who see America’s greatness and love this country for it, to understand the lack of opportunity that my family left. As Communism retreats into the rear-view mirror of history it’s easy to gloss over the everyday ways that Communism is meant to crush the individual and make everyone equal–equally poor, equally scared, equally hopeless.

Great essay, go read it all.

Surprising exactly no one, the Affordable Healthcare Act just got a lot more expensive:

“According to the updated estimates, the amount of deficit reduction from penalty payments and other effects on tax revenues under the ACA will be $5 billion more than previously estimated,” the CBO reported today. “That change primarily effects a $4 billion increase in collections from such payments by employers, a $1 billion increase in such payments by individuals, and an increase of less than $500 million in tax revenues stemming from a small reduction in employment-based coverage, which will lead to a larger share of total compensation taking the form of taxable wages and salaries and a smaller share taking the form of nontaxable health benefits.”

In short, CBO revised the Obamacare tax burden upward by $4 billion for businesses and $1 billion to $1.5 billion for individual workers.

While we’re on the subject, employers get ready to drop their health coverage:

Around one in 10 employers in the U.S. plans to drop health coverage for workers in the next few years as the bulk of the federal health-care law begins, and more indicated they may do so over time, according to a study to be released Tuesday by consulting company Deloitte.

Those employer numbers dropping health coverage is likely to continue in the coming years. And so we’ll go, chasing this shiny thing. And like the cat, we’ll go around and around, never realizing we could just turn around.

adventures / cycling / journalism / links / Thursday — Comments Off
5
Jul 12

Klink, thunk, ping

I’ve learned a few things today. Valuable, important things.

None more important than this: riding your bike through a hail storm can be painful and hysterical. A big chunk of ice cut my right thumb, right in that crinkly part of the joint. I could hear the hail pinging off my top tube and grinding away under my tires.

This was on an abbreviated ride this afternoon. There were things to do and there were storms. Don’t judge. This was one of those days that featured a storm that defied conventional forecasting and radar. I headed north, saw the clouds gathering and heard the foreshadowing of far off thunder. So I turned south, calculating my time and distance and trying to figure out just how much I could get in for the day.

At just 16 miles it was time to go home, so I made the big turn and noticed the soaked clouds had followed me. Now I’m gliding under them despite all of my previous twists and turns. Big drops start to fall, but this is nice because it cools me down. For the first time ever, I’d managed to forget my phone, so I can enjoy the rain without worrying about ruining electronics.

Before long this turns into movie rain. There was sideways rain and stinging rain and even some that came up from the ground. I’m riding through puddles that reach my feet in the pedals. The temperature drops by what feels like 20 degrees. I’m counting lightning and thunder reports like lifeguards. I’m this close to finding someone’s porch to hide under.

That’s when the hail started. At first they were tiny little bits that were so unremarkable you wouldn’t notice. Is that … hail? Now I’m riding with wet socks and watching ice bounce off the asphalt. I hear it striking my bike, trying to notice the difference between an aluminum and a carbon fiber impact.

The hail is getting larger. Marble sized, in fact. I find myself in a weird position of needing to get home, but dreading going any harder because hail hurts. Now I can hear it thunking and plunking off the shell of my helmet. I’m in the neighborhood, but riding faster means more hail, somehow. I put my hands right over the stem and hope my back is up to the challenge. I’ve got a half mile to go.

A minivan pulls up and offers to give me a lift. “It is getting nasty out,” the stranger says.

Yes, it is. But I’m almost home. The nice thing about riding in the rain is that wet socks make my feet heavier, and that means the pedals turn faster. I don’t even remember the last hill onto our road. I think I top it better than ever before, but the hail still looks like it is growing when I make it to the porch. I’m drenched, laughing and cold. I open the door and ask my lovely bride to bring me a towel. But there is no towel to be had. She is not home.

She’s out looking for me because there’s a bad storm coming, apparently, and I didn’t have my phone for the first time ever. She tells me I’m in trouble. We laugh about this while I dry my bike. Riding in the rain is great. Riding in the hail might mean something entirely different.

Other things I learned on this ride:

Honey Stinger’s packaging keeps their product dry even in a blinding rainstorm. I had one in my pocket for the drenching and figured I should try and eat it as I got cleaned up. If I’m soggy, I figured, I wouldn’t feel too bad about eating something that was also full of rain water. But the waffle held up, and that’s comforting.

Putting balled up pieces of paper in your shoes dries them out.

Your standard cycling kit, which is designed to wick away moisture as you ride, can get so wet in the rain that it takes hours to dry. It takes only about 20 minutes when you pull it out of the washer, though. There was a lot of rain.

Turns out trees were downed. The high school nearby had a fence ripped up in the wind. In one of those weird dynamics of storms I didn’t get any of the wind.

We drove through another small storm cell this evening to have dinner in Prattville. Picked up Brian, who’s going on a beach trip with us this weekend. We had barbecue at Jim ‘N’ Nicks. Haven’t been to one in ages. Miss the place. We more than made up for it in peppermints, though.

And since we are traveling tomorrow, I must pack tonight. So here are some links to bide your time.

More than 1,000 shots recorded by Birmingham’s ShotSpotter during July 4th holiday. I find this difficult to believe, somehow. Bullets are expensive, after all.

Federal judge: Websites must comply with Americans With Disabilities Act. This will be huge.

Forget politics, here are 10 things that really divide Americans. Number one is “Dogs.” You can stop reading after that. And probably ignore everything else the site ever publishes on anything. They didn’t even include the Continental Divide.

5 things the public wouldn’t know without FOIA. FOIA is your friend.

Smartphones hardly used for calls. Great chart to ponder there. Jeff Jarvis writes:

Mobile = local = around me now. Mobile is my personal bubble. It is enhanced convenience, putting the device and the world in my hand. But next imagine no device: Cue the war between Siri and Google Glass to eliminate the last mediator, the thing.

I see companies assuming that mobile requires maps and geography or apps and closed worlds. But I think what we now mistakenly call mobile will instead be about getting each of us to what we want with fewer barriers and less effort because the service has gathered so many signals about us: who we are, where we are, what we like, whom we know, what we know, what we want to know, what we buy…. The power of what we now call mobile, I believe, is in signal generation and the extreme targeting and convenience that enables.

What we call “mobile” is disruptive in ways we can’t yet figure out. We call it “mobile” but we should call it “what’s next.”

Finally, News Cat gifs.

Auburn / cycling / Friday / iPhone / journalism / links / photo / things to read — Comments Off
29
Jun 12

We’ve got this heat wave on

The tense line of truth in the race of truth. This is the line that is the starting point for the local cycling club runs their Tuesday evening time trials:

We walked over and watched them race a few weeks ago. I tried the route soon after. After a second attempt I realized my first try was going to be the early standard. I dropped more than a minute the second time. Did it again today, a little anxious at the beginning and then working hard on the first half. I turned and struggled on the back portion of the out-and-back. With heavy legs and empty lungs and squinted eyes I made it back across that line again, happy to be able to breathe again after six miles of complete effort.

The local club posts the officially recorded trial times on their website. My time is slower than everyone they’ve ever listed.

To make this sound a little more impressive for myself than I should: the heat index was something like 103 degrees when I did it this evening. Have you heard it has been hot?

I did 20 miles this evening, would have aimed for a few more, but the sun outran me.

We had our weekly breakfast at Barbecue House this morning. There was an offensive lineman and a cornerback from the university team there. The one looked like he was 320 pounds, but the other did not look like he was 6-foot-2, as he is listed in the official roster. Nice to know, though, that we’re eating with top-flight athletes. We’ve had breakfast there over the years with lots of football players, including more than a few national champions, swimmers, World Series champion baseball players and so on.

The secret is Mr. Price’s biscuits. I’m sure of it.

That was the only other thing that was worth enduring the heat wave, honestly. We’re sweating inside the house with the air on. We live in the South, perhaps you’ve heard of it:

I contend that purple on a weather map is never a good thing.

So there was reading and writing today. Here are some things you might find interesting, as I did:

The Chicago Tribune has a new web design. It is an interesting design philosophy, though they could do without the autoplay.

And now an essay on the evolving news industry, titled Leaving Alabama Behind:

On Nov. 11, 1918, as my dad used to tell me, a reporter named George Flournoy, who went by Gummy, stood in the window of the local daily paper, The Mobile Register, shouting the news of the armistice that ended World War I.

In 1929, after The Register announced it would accelerate updates on the World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Athletics to ensure that “followers of the national game in this city shall not be many seconds behind each bit of action recorded,” Gummy relayed each play “by megaphone as rapidly as it is received over direct wires of The Associated Press.”

Gummy, I am sure, would have been impressed by the ease, access and greater reach he’d have today. And he’d be able to go home with his voice intact after the story.

These are the concerns of a man who admits farther down in the column that he likes to compose in pen. He’s pretty cynical about the changes coming to journalism in Alabama but that is also part of the reason he’s one of those scribes who have, unfortunately, been downsized. We agree, wholeheartedly, on this:

Of this I’m sure, though: Whether it’s through a commitment to public Wi-Fi service in every town, or giving tax deductions for family computers and online services, or offering free classes on how to operate what for many are still newfangled gadgets, attention must be paid.

Thirty months ago 62 percent of Alabamians had Internet access. That number is low, but growing. If this is the right Census report, “respondents were not asked any questions about computer access or ownership” since 2007. So the number could be higher. And I don’t see whether libraries were included in connectivity. Either way, the point being, a significant portion of the state’s population, 2.9 million of us, according to the 2010 data, are online. The number is growing.

The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and the Press-Register, the three Alabama papers being radically reshaped this fall, have a combined daily circulation of 320,521 papers. (The top dozen papers in the state, combined, have just under 500,000 in daily circulation.)

At the beginning of the year comScore reported that al.com — those papers’ collective website (Disclosure: where I worked for four-plus years) — averaged more 3.4 million unique monthly visitors. In 2008, they were collecting more than 55 million page views a month. (Not sure why that number is so dated on their media kit.)

The future is right there. There’s a lot of work to be done, but you have to point in the right direction first. The dead tree newspaper edition will play a big role in their future, but that’s no longer their first step, nor should it be.

Quick links:

News has been changed forever by the iPhone:

Through incidents like the plane landing in the Hudson, the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, the “Arab Spring” revolutions in Egypt and others, it has gradually become obvious that the iPhone hasn’t just changed the way a lot of people consume the news — it has also fundamentally altered the way that the news and journalism itself is created, now that everyone has the tools to create and publish text, photos and video wherever they are.

I’ve been talking about that in my journalism classes that for … four years now?

Meanwhile, I love this piece: 5 ways journalism educators can teach students to use multimedia in breaking news coverage:

Journalism schools across the country are embroiled in important but lengthy discussions about reforming curricula, updating courses and funding technology. Meanwhile, new forms of journalism roll on, and our students can get left behind.

While I stay involved in the larger structural debates, I look for small and immediate ways to incorporate digital reporting tools and publishing into my classes. Breaking news events like the Colorado wildfires provide an ideal moment to stick with notebook reporting and text stories and also round out coverage with multimedia.

So, naturally, we need analytics for mobile. Oh wait, that’s here now.

And, finally, from Mashable: Why ‘Twittercycle’ Trumps the Traditional News Cycle:

Still, social media’s permanence is up for debate among media professionals — IJNet‘s readers included–despite the growing population of news consumers who rely on Twitter’s aggregating capabilities for information.

[…]

It needs to be used with caution, (Rem Rieder, editor and senior vice president of American Journalism Review) said, given that it comes with new challenges in accuracy and verification. But when it’s used properly, it’s “truly potent.” And the same can be said for Facebook, which is used less for breaking news but is still a valuable tool for journalists. “Growth rates may well slow down, but both seem to be embedding themselves deeply into the culture.”

Greg Linch, special projects and news application producer at the Washington Post, said social networking sites will continue to serve as dominant news sources as long as they remain part of the public’s daily routine. “As they become more ingrained in how we lead our lives, the distinction between social and other media will growingly fade,” he said.

There’s a lot to think about in there for a weekend, no?

Have a great weekend thinking about it!

adventures / Auburn / cycling / friends / iPhone / journalism / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
21
Jun 12

It was a pretty full day

Had the big anniversary dinner last night, which also means the anniversary self-portrait, traditionally taken right about on this spot, the “Oh, yes, we should take a picture” spot.

We had reservations at the marvelous Warehouse Bistro — a local five-star restaurant that is hidden in the oldest industrial park in neighboring Opelika. All the big signatures are on the wall. You get the impression that a lot of powerful deals are made there.

We now have an “our usual table,” even though we go there once a year. It is a bit out of our normal price range. But the food is so good.

Here’s the New Zealand rack of lamb:

Try the … well, try everything. It is a five-star restaurant.

Rode a quick 19 miles today. Had dinner with our friend Jeremy. Did some research and planning — turns out the Harvey Updyke trial, which was set to get underway this week, was continued once again. That got scrapped this morning when the judge, concerned over this guy’s inability to stop telling members of the media he poisoned the fabled trees at Toomer’s Corner, media exposure and jury fairness, delayed the trial again.

The guy has talked to ESPN, Finebaum, Finebaum again and been featured in a thin television documentary that had a theatrical release. People have heard of him. This has all been an indecipherably, convoluted defense strategy, I’m almost convinced of it. (Finebaum, because he knows it is good for his business, has decided that Updyke has been punished enough. Last one out turn out the lights.)

(Incidentally, good on The Plainsman’s reporter for striking up the conversation that led to the story linked above. Word is that Updyke told the reporter he did it without being asked. The reporter was supposed to be working on something similar to a sympathy piece, but realized his story changed right in front of him. Of course he wrote it. The Plainsman called it a confession, and treated it like this was news. It was not. Updyke has been saying this since February of 2011. Also they missed on the age of the trees by 60 years. Facts are important, tricky things. But it was nice hustle nonetheless. Now the young student-journalist has been subpoenaed in this case. Nice start to a journalism career, that.)

The timing of this scheduled appearance had been fortuitous, though, because we’d fashioned a little project around it. But the decision today scrapped that plan. Worked out well, though. Our new plan fleshed out as a much better idea.

Incidentally, we’re 16 months out from his arrest, and still nothing more than an arraignment and depositions in bizarro-Updyke land.

Did a little packing tonight. Put the brand new bike rack on the car. Read every direction in the booklet. This is important. There are cars behind us that would like our bikes to stay on our new bike rack. And we’d really rather not trash our bike.

Tomorrow we’ll be on the road again.

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19
Jun 12

I wrote at the library today

I am to the point in this little section of a paper I’m writing that I’m now rewriting it over and over. This is a fine part of the process, but it can be overdone. The trick is knowing when to take the meat off the grill, he said in a metaphor that makes no sense. But I’ve been through these two pages … oh … several times. It doesn’t always seem like progress. But it isn’t exactly treading water, either.

And so the writing goes on.

Some anonymous person from The Birmingham News wrote a nice little obituary for some of those colleagues who recently learned they were losing their jobs. No one wants to see people out of work. Only the misguided would revel in the diminished stature of newspapers. (I think the future is bright for journalism online, but I value what newspapers bring to the civic conversation as well.)

Journalists, of course, take this recent news a bit more personally, because it is a lot closer to home. People in our line of work passionately believe in what they do and the importance it carries. And in addition to that zeal there are the other real concerns about paying the bills. These notions transcend industry, though. Newspapers, unfortunately, never cover job closings well enough — there’s always the perfunctory facts and the obligatory quote about the sad decision and then a few other facts before wrapping up, but there are dozens, or hundreds of stories among all of those people now out of work — but they at least try when it has to do with their own.

Here’s a nod over at Weld to some of those hard-working people in the news business. There are a lot of smart and canny people at those papers. I hope they all land on their feet soon.

Harvey Updyke, alleged Toomer’s Corner tree poisoner, is finally getting his day in court. Today was the beginning of the jury selection. And, during a lunch break, a writer from The Auburn Plainsman approached him:

Before his trial began and before his jury was even selected, Updyke convicted himself by admitting to poisoning one of Auburn’s most iconic landmarks.

Updyke also said his lawyer, Everett Wess, would probably drop him if he found out he was speaking about the case.

Why he decided to admit his guilt may remain unknown. However, Updyke had seemingly already resigned himself his fate.

“They’re going to find me guilty… it’s a done deal,” Updyke said. “I don’t think I’m going to get a fair trial.”

He didn’t convict himself. Judges and juries do that sort of thing. And he’s been saying much the same thing on the air and to reporters for the better part of 18 months. But it does demonstrate a bit of scattered thought at play. Why would you do this, Harvey, just outside the courtroom?

Also, the story misses on the age of the trees by about 60 years. Facts are tricky things, a statement I’ll now say over and over until it becomes annoying. But it is an interesting read. Good for the student-journalist who struck up the conversation. Wonder why none of the rest of the reporters did.

I’ve read elsewhere that after he spoke Updyke asked the reporter to not publish his comments, but of course he did. He did the right thing there.

We walked under the trees Friday night. Sadly they don’t look well at all.

We walked down the street today to watch the local bike club’s time trial. Met a nice older gentleman who does his riding at 3:15 in the morning. Met one of The Yankee’s grad students. Watched all the riders push through the finish line.

This is a route I ride regularly. So I guess we know what we’ll be doing soon.

Something new today on Tumblr and on the almost dead LOMO blog. (I should probably kill that one off. Also, check out the happenings on Twitter.