things to read « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

things to read

‘Oh, I remember that’

Had dinner with my mom tonight. She was in town and this was the first time she’s had the opportunity to see my part of campus. We ate Italian and almost closed that place down, and then she got the nickel tour of my office and the newsroom and our department.

She got to meet most of the editorial staff and watched them wrestle with the thorny issue of the day for a tiny bit.

I walked her around and showed her our Wall of Fame and the old newspapers framed in the classrooms. She remembers this and that — and she’s welcome for my not tipping off her age by historical allusion.

She didn’t remember anything from the 1925 paper, of course.

Sadly I remember most of the front pages we display, too. Our students would remember one, but even that only vaguely.

I sat in one of our classrooms and we watched the beginning of the Arab Spring streamed from the BBC. Hard to put a web stream in a frame, unfortunately.

Things to read … because you could print these out and frame them, I guess.

She was from a locally prominent newspaper family and an accomplished writer, Elise Ayers Sanguinetti dies at 90

Here’s something she wrote decades ago, Elise Sanguinetti’s ode to the Kilby House:

Perhaps houses are like people, after all. They are born, pass through their youngling years, stand in middle age, receive the patina of age, and when it is willed, die – in spite of words like “best” and “progress,” the latter so often ill-defined.

Yesterday we walked through the grounds of the Kilby house on Woodstock Avenue. It was drizzling and in the distance the fine old Georgian house stood before us, its dark green shutters closed, the red brick veiled in mist. And like a trick of the mind it was only as if someone were merely away for a while. Soon there would be returnings; it would all be as it was before–twenty years and more.

The past is a still-life, a moment caught in time: We are 10, perhaps nine, a speck in a fading day. The high-back wicker chairs are on the terrace front. The men are talking. They are talking rather excitedly, it seems to us a child, of the Scouts, the price of cotton, unfair freight rates, political frailties. When will the South recover? They ask. How? When will it EVER recover? And over the pines there is red in the sky and we, a shadow, vaguely listen, for time stretched out forever then, and this was only an afternoon, one late afternoon in a series of noons and afternoons and nights, sitting and listening and watching the sky grow red above the pines.

She had a way about writing about being in a room without being too much in the room. That’s a great compliment for a writer.

Nothing about this story surprises anymore. Shame, that. New data show long wait times remain at many VA hospitals:

More than 600,000 veterans — 10% of all the Veterans Affairs patients — continue to wait a month or more for appointments at VA hospitals and clinics, according to data obtained by USA TODAY.

The VA has made some progress in dealing with the backlog of cases that forced former secretary Eric Shinseki to retire early this year. For instance, the VA substantially cut the overall number of worst-case scenarios for veterans — those who had waited more than four months for an appointment. That figure dropped from 120,000 in May to 23,000 in October. Much of that improvement occurred because patients received care from private providers.

The wave of the present, Publishers Sell Sponsored Content Made for Instagram, Snapchat:

Campaigns like those from Wired, InStyle and Teen Vogue are attractive to advertisers looking for new ways to connect with audiences, said Mr. Shlachter at DigitasLBi. “To breakthrough in the media ecosystem today requires a myriad of tactics,” he added.

But there are also risks involved. A tin-eared brand showing up in a publishers’ social feed might turn off followers. That’s why, for instance, Wired tapped influencers for the Victorinox campaign and InStyle enlists its own staff to create Instagram and Snapchat content for advertisers. “Above all, no matter what you’re doing, be authentic and true to your brand as well as the audience,” Mr. Shlachter said.

It isn’t every day I link to PR Newswire, but, USA TODAY Introduces First-Ever Customized Campus News App:

USA TODAY announces the launch of The Buzz, a mobile app that delivers customized news to the digital-first generation of students across the country. A first-of-its kind, The Buzz reinvents campus news by offering college students access to targeted and relevant information, incorporating national, world and personalized campus news into one, easy-to-use mobile interface. Content will be specifically gathered from USA TODAY and USA TODAY College, as well as individual college papers. Future product integration will include content from Gannett’s U.S. Community Publishing newspapers and user-generated content.

The Buzz is the mobile extension of USA TODAY’s celebrated Collegiate Readership Program — which originated at Penn State in 1997 and is now present at over 350 campuses — combining USA TODAY’s rich tradition of delivering news and information on the national and local level with the inclusion of a robust digital product. Designed and tailored specifically for each individual school, The Buzz app lets readers search their national, regional, and campus news – most of which is student written, tapping into more than 3,000 USA TODAY College contributors – by topic areas such as news, sports, tech and opinion.

And, finally, Getting a job in journalism code is a good Q&A from recent grads. That could be juxtaposed with What journalism students need to learn now. It is a sophisticated world out there.

New update to the Glomerata section below. More tomorrow.

food / Friday / links / things to read / video — Comments Off
14
Nov 14

Comet: Avoid green beans, eat doughnuts

Back to that comet for 90 seconds. USA Today offers us the chance to hear the spooky-beautiful “sound” the thing makes.

Sure, those are clicks and pops in the magnetic field, amplified for the human ear’s range. But why is it, Mr. Smart Space Guy, that science fiction always has a similar sound to the creatures who are chasing the protagonists?

Isn’t that neat? You just listened to a comet. The 21st century is a pretty amazing place. I’m happy to be here in it with you.

Today’s post is brief because there was class — we discussed aggregation and curation — and then reading a bunch of paper that had to do with a news story and then a flurry of emails about it, the last weighing in at something like 1,500 words, with three footnotes. (Pro tip: When you go back to revise and shorten the email and it just keeps growing, press send and walk away.)

Got home just in time for dinner, so we went out with our friend Sally Ann and had a wonderful Pie Day.

The vegetable of the day was green beans. I mention this because, even if you are a huge supporter of the vegetable of the day concept, there’s no way you can stand by green beans as being worth a mention.

I like green beans, but they hardly win any given day. But if you have a recipe to jazz them up, I’m ready to hear about it.

Adding almond slivers does not constitute jazzing up green beans.

I plan on being asleep before it gets late, so you can see why I’ve so quickly come to the green bean portion of the festivities.

I did not have green beans.

Things to read … because you have to provide nutrition for the brain, too.

This is a fine, worthwhile essay about events taking place at the high school level. There are a few issues on some college campuses, but nowhere near as many and, thankfully, not on ours. At the high school level is where you see the pernicious influence. Still, ever vigilant, First Amendment: In land of the free, why are schools afraid of freedom?:

In one community, for example, school officials ban coverage of student religious clubs while permitting coverage of all other student clubs. But in a very different community, administrators instruct students not to report on LGBT issues because a few parents once complained about a profile of a gay student in the school paper.

Under current law, school officials may review what goes into school publications (though they aren’t required by any law to do so). But they may not turn “prior review” into “prior restraint” with overly broad and vague restrictions on what student reporters may cover.

Unfortunately, many public school administrators are either unfamiliar with the First Amendment or simply ignore it.

It must be serious, the AP is writing about it, Facebook’s privacy update: 5 things to know:

Facebook doesn’t just track what you do on its site. It also collects information about your activities when you’re off Facebook. For example, if you use Facebook to log in to outside websites and mobile apps, the company will receive data about those. It also gets information about your activity on other businesses it owns, such as WhatsApp and Instagram, in accordance with those services’ privacy policies.

[…]

Everything is fair game. Facebook explains it best: “We collect the content and other information you provide when you use our Services, including when you sign up for an account, create or share, and message or communicate with others.” Plus, Facebook says it also collects information about how you use Facebook, “such as the types of content you view or engage with or the frequency and duration of your activities.”

This defies excerpting, but it confirms a lot of what you might have read soon after the recent fence jumper, Secret Service Blunders Eased White House Intruder’s Way, Review Says.

I’m trying to imagine my grandparents doing this. Go ahead, give it a shot, Adults Apparently Wanted Underoos So Badly, They’re Already Sold Out.

No?

Last week I was talking with a student and somehow we came to discover the Krispy Kreme Challenge. He’s a sprinter, but now I’m trying to talk him into doing this race — 2.5 miles, a dozen doughnuts and then 2.5 more miles. I’m going to do it in my neighborhood I said, just to see. I found the 2014 times of the race. If I can finish it, I at least won’t be last.

Well. Turns out there’s a Krispy Kreme Challenge in Huntsville, too. The 2-time Krispy Kreme Challenge champion explains how one prepares for 12 doughnuts and 4 miles in 1 hour:

“It’s mostly being in general good shape. There’s two components–running and eating. You can do one or the other, but the skill is to do both. This kind of race is hard to train for.”

This could be a mistake, but I think I might be that kind of guy. This could be a further, more grievous mistake, but next weekend I have a date with the track and a dozen glazed.

history / iPhone / journalism / links / photo / Samford / things to read / Thursday — Comments Off
13
Nov 14

History, the leaves of the present, and the news of the future

A little cool, out, and yet bright and sunny. From the parking lot to the office I get to pass under and by a few bright trees, here are some maples I picked up in Talbird Circle — named in honor of the antebellum president of the university.

He accepted a captain’s commission in the 11th Alabama, stepping down after three months in 1861. The 11th Alabama fought in Virginia, but Talbird, older and not in the proper condition, mustered out before the shooting began.

He returned to Marion, to the school, and then took a colonel’s commission in the 41st Alabama infantry in May of 1862. The 41st marched and skirmished and fought in Tennessee, Mississippi and, briefly, in Virginia, but Talbird wasn’t around for all of that. He served for only a year, primarily at a prison camp, and then perhaps went with the regiment where they fought at Murfreesboro, before leaving the 41st because of a disability.

After the war, Talbird did not return to the university, but went back to the pulpit.

James E. Sulzby, Jr., a Samford grad and lay historian, wrote of Talbird:

It may be said that during the presidency of President Talbird, the college enjoyed its greatest prosperity until that time, yet experienced discouragements and disasters. President Talbird worked diligently on the endowment funds in an attempt to relieve the college of any indebtedness and to guarantee its future success. President Talbird, by his consisten Christian spirit, his fine administrative qualities, and his devotion to the Confederate cause, won in the estimation of all who him a position of wide influence.

Sulzby quotes an 1857 clipping from the Marion Commonwealth where a student wrote “There are not three students in the College by whom President Talbird is not dearly loved.”

And, hey, if only two people don’t love you, that isn’t so bad.

The modern campus has the cul-de-sac named after him. And there are pretty trees, with pretty leaves. I am sharing five of them with you here, having picked them up and carried them into my photo studio. There is more to read, after these:

Things to read … because sometimes words are worth a thousand words.

I hope we’re pleased with ourselves, Rural hospitals in critical condition

Since the beginning of 2010, 43 rural hospitals — with a total of more than 1,500 beds — have closed, according to data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. The pace of closures has quickened: from 3 in 2010 to 13 in 2013, and 12 already this year. Georgia alone has lost five rural hospitals since 2012, and at least six more are teetering on the brink of collapse. Each of the state’s closed hospitals served about 10,000 people — a lot for remaining area hospitals to absorb.

The Affordable Care Act was designed to improve access to health care for all Americans and will give them another chance at getting health insurance during open enrollment starting this Saturday. But critics say the ACA is also accelerating the demise of rural outposts that cater to many of society’s most vulnerable. These hospitals treat some of the sickest and poorest patients — those least aware of how to stay healthy. Hospital officials contend that the law’s penalties for having to re-admit patients soon after they’re released are impossible to avoid and create a crushing burden.

So this sounds bad, Hearing aids stolen from 88-year-old retired naval pilot, but the update suggests one of two happy endings. Company to replace hearing aids reported stolen from 88-year-old veteran plus, the end of the story says the hearing aids were miraculously found. I thought, in reading the first story, that that would ultimately be the case. Funny how calling the police and finding the news media is calling the office can make that happen.

This is one of those shame-it-happened-but-the-timing-was-good kind of stories, Alabama team doctors help save life of LSU policeman struck by car after game:

Alabama team doctors Lyle Cain, Norman Waldrop and Benton Emblom climbed into a motorcade leaving Tiger Stadium on Saturday night, expecting to chat about the Crimson Tide’s thrilling 20-13 overtime win over LSU on their way to the airport.

Less than a mile from the stadium, however, they found their skills needed to save a life, as a car had struck an LSU campus police officer who was escorting the motorcade on a motorcycle.

“Our first thought goes from, ‘Wow, we just won a huge game,’ to ‘Wow, we need to try to save this person’s life,'” Waldrop said.

You don’t say … Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program:

The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.

The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program.

Is it just me, or have you noticed fewer “But if you aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about” replies to news like that these days? Seems like you get a lot more “Meh,” instead.

An idea whose time has come, StoryTracker is a new tool to track how news homepages change:

Hopefully you know about PastPages, the tool built by L.A. Times data journalist Ben Welsh to record what some of the web’s most important news sites have on their homepage — hour by hour, every single day. Want to see what The Guardian’s homepage looked like Tuesday night? Here you go. Want to see how that Ebola patient first appeared on DallasNews.com in September? Try the small item here. It’s a valuable service, particularly for future researchers who will want to study how stories moved through new media. (For print media, we have physical archives; for digital news, work even a few years old has an alarming tendency to disappear.)

I wish there was the same sort of thing for old broadcasts. When you invent your time machine, take something like this back with you and just scoop the radio and television signals out of the air, would you?

journalism / links / things to read / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
12
Nov 14

A comet, y’all

We landed on a comet today. Sure, you and I didn’t have anything to do with it — well, I, at least, didn’t have anything to do it it — but that’s OK. Sure, it was the European Space Agency and not the Americans, but we landed on a comet. Humanity did that. We did that.

We launched something into space 10 years ago, shot it around the earth a few times, Mars and then set it off on a course to catch up to this comet, this leftover from the universe’s creation.

And then our little science experiment, having made and matched the comet’s trajectory, dropped a clothes dryer full of equipment onto it and are talking with an appliance on a comet. I wonder if GE made it.

Oh, and has anyone seen Bruce Willis or Ben Affleck lately? They could be up there, ya know.

There’s a YouTube video titled “Everything Wrong With Armageddon In 14 Minutes Or Less.”

It is more than 16 minutes long.

And, someday, an alien culture will watch Armageddon. Just think on the stuff we’ve been beaming into outer space as our earliest socio-cultural first impressions.

Things to read … because reading always leaves a good impression.

I like the modifier here. As if to suggest that no other manager, nowhere, wants his employees to represent the company in a positive way, Salty Chick-fil-A manager makes list of forbidden words:

A Chick-fil-A manager is so irritated at his staff’s use of slang that he compiled a list of terms the employees are forbidden to use. The missive has gone viral in social media.

[…]

“You will speak properly when you walk through these doors,” he wrote. “You are a professional so speak professionally.”

I’m guessing … heavy print stock and laminate? What Pizza Hut’s Radical New Menu Actually Tastes Like:

On Nov. 19, Pizza Hut will essentially relaunch its entire brand, changing the food it serves, the way its ordered and even the company logo. There are 11 new signature pizzas, six new sauces, 10 new crust flavors and four drizzles — enough options to allow for 2 billion unique pizza combinations. For the company known for trencherman staples like Stuffed Crust, Meat Lover’s and Supreme, the new menu is the fast-food equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.

“It’s a fear of irrelevance,” says Darren Tristano, a food industry analyst at Technomic. “But the potential to negatively influence their current customer base is certainly there.”

It’s a risk Pizza Hut is willing to take, though they’re hedging bets by keeping those old favorites on the menu. Sales at the nation’s largest pizza chain have been dropping for two years, as Domino’s, Little Caesars and Papa John’s—the No. 2, 3 and 4 chains, respectively—have cut into Pizza Hut’s business.

As I tell my students on a regular basis, the “why” is almost always the most interesting part of any story: FSU postpones Jameis Winston hearing until Dec. 1.

This is big. In a tumultous period of advertising and what it means to newsrooms and media outlets, this is big: Half Of Automotive Advertising To Shift To Digital.

New rules for mobile journalism:

Although mobile publishing is quickly changing the rules of journalism, newspapers have been dangerously slow to adapt.

This has got to be fixed, because digital natives like BuzzFeed, Circa, Mic, Upworthy, Vice, Vocative and Vox are competing for – and in many cases winning over – the youthful readers coveted by publishers and advertisers.

As discussed previously here, nearly half of the digital page views at many newspapers are occurring on mobile devices. But editors and publishers have been slow to recognize that mobile publishing is as different from print-to-web publishing as television is from cave drawings.

Constrained screen real estate – like the new 1.5-inch Apple Watch – isn’t the only factor influencing the development of content for mobile devices. An even bigger issue is the limited amount of time that publishers can engage with readers.

And this may be bigger. As I also like to say, the only thing that has demonstrated a growth faster that web proliferation is the mobile penetration.

I bet Philae is up on that comet right now, just waiting on something to download to its iPad.

family / I do not know what is happening. / iPhone / journalism / links / memories / photo / running / things to read / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
11
Nov 14

Veterans Day, the last warm day

Winter is coming, and months early. But we were warned. Our friendly neighborhood meteorologists and our bombastic national media chicken littles have been trying to get our attention about it for days. I haven’t doubted the forecasts, but it would be hard to believe based simply on your observation.

It was beautiful today. Chamber of commerce weather doesn’t do it justice. Someone struck a Faustian deal for the conditions we enjoyed today and at least one end of that ill-considered deal was upheld. This might be the end of our peak fall.

(It usually lasts about three days to a week.)

Knowing that it would be the last pleasant day for a while — there are models that suggest we won’t be warm again the rest of the month — I went out for a run this evening. I’ve never been on the trail across the street from campus, but I figured out a way to do a little extra and make it a 10K.

I finished up in darkness, on a part of the path where I couldn’t see my feet. Fortunately no ankles were twisted. But I did run through sections where it was remarkably cooler here than it was there. This wasn’t just my perception, I had to run through it twice. It was like being in a canyon where the temperature drops 10 degrees simply based on the terrain. Only I wasn’t in a canyon. More like a tunnel. An office building sealed off the big road artery, woods were on the opposite side and there was a strong tree canopy overhead.

But it was a fine run. I even did some intervals.

Intervals at the end of a six-mile jog. I do not know what is happening.

Things to read … so you’ll know what is happening.

Happy Veterans Day, indeed, and thank you to my many family members and friends who have served or continue to do so. All four of my grandmother’s brothers served. That whole family is full of camo, olive drab and a sprinkling of Air Force blue. I have had the good fortune to be friends with Marine reservists, Army veterans and active duty personnel and I read a lot. All of that tells me only this, the sacrifice others make through hardship, deprivation and loss are things that the rest of us will have difficulty ever knowing. And we’re definitely blessed in what we don’t know; but perhaps we shortchange all of those between us and that by not having a better understanding.

My great-grandfather would have been 95 today. He served as a combat medic in the Battle of the Bulge.

I had the great privilege of seeing these Marines graduate a few years ago:

A friend shared this link today and it is a reminder that it isn’t just the serviceman or servicewoman who is given a sacrifice: A Marine’s Parents’ Story

And, as I said on Twitter this evening, every war is different, indeed every person’s war is different. But if you read nothing else after the story above, I encourage you to read Ernie Pyle’s A long thin line of personal anguish:

Here in a jumbled row for mile on mile are soldiers’ packs. Here are socks and shoe polish, sewing kits, diaries, Bibles and hand grenades. Here are the latest letters from home, with the address on each one neatly razored out – one of the security precautions enforced before the boys embarked.

Here are toothbrushes and razors, and snapshots of families back home staring up at you from the sand. Here are pocketbooks, metal mirrors, extra trousers, and bloody, abandoned shoes. Here are broken-handled shovels, and portable radios smashed almost beyond recognition, and mine detectors twisted and ruined.

Here are torn pistol belts and canvas water buckets, first-aid kits and jumbled heaps of lifebelts. I picked up a pocket Bible with a soldier’s name in it, and put it in my jacket. I carried it half a mile or so and then put it back down on the beach. I don’t know why I picked it up, or why I put it back down.

That line, for a reason I have never been able to explain, punches me, hard, every time. That entire column, like so much of Pyle’s war work, gets right to the heart of what it is to be in a hard time.

Plenty of wonderful stuff here, Pulitzer Winning Photographer David Turnley’s Advice to a Class of Photojournalism Students:

David Turnley had so much to say on the matter of street shooting and his experiences of so many decades of work, and I was so overloaded with joy and the relevant information he brought to the table based on real experience from a career as a humanitarian and war photographer, that it was hard to capture everything he was saying, but some important things he shared with us did manage to stick with me.

I love this stuff, programs, projects and efforts like these provide some amazing results, “No Local Radio History Is Too Small”:

The task force says radio is “perpetually declared to be a dying medium” but nevertheless attracts dedicated listeners and commercial and public support. The organizers believe radio’s history is a chronicle of our country’s culture and a potential trove for historical researchers, but that much of it is “untapped” because of radio’s live nature and problems of accessibility to content.

Almost every day there’s something in the bygone ether that I wish I could find online. We’ve become great archivists as amateurs, but if you think about the decades of important work that might have disappeared …

We’ll be talking about this in class soon … UGC Use In Local News Is Growing:

TV stations will one day get a large percentage of their breaking news video from viewers, predicted Rebecca Campbell, president and CEO of the Disney ABC Television Station group.

Speaking Friday in a keynote interview at LiveTV:LA, Campbell said producing local TV news is an increasingly interactive affair, with producers using social media to alert followers to breaking news, and viewers shooting video and sending it to newsrooms.

ABC stations are promoting the trend, Campbell added. “Many of our stations brand themselves as ‘Eyewitness News’ and they’ve begun encouraging viewers to become an eyewitness and send in video when they see news,” she said.

This is the fourth such story I’ve seen recently. We’ll be at critical conversation mass soon, Police Use Department Wish List When Deciding Which Assets to Seize:

The seminars offered police officers some useful tips on seizing property from suspected criminals. Don’t bother with jewelry (too hard to dispose of) and computers (“everybody’s got one already”), the experts counseled. Do go after flat screen TVs, cash and cars. Especially nice cars.

In one seminar, captured on video in September, Harry S. Connelly Jr., the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., called them “little goodies.” And then Mr. Connelly described how officers in his jurisdiction could not wait to seize one man’s “exotic vehicle” outside a local bar.

“A guy drives up in a 2008 Mercedes, brand new,” he explained. “Just so beautiful, I mean, the cops were undercover and they were just like ‘Ahhhh.’ And he gets out and he’s just reeking of alcohol. And it’s like, ‘Oh, my goodness, we can hardly wait.’ ”

Carole Hinders at her modest, cash-only Mexican restaurant in Arnolds Park, Iowa. Last year tax agents seized her funds.Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime RequiredOCT. 25, 2014

Mr. Connelly was talking about a practice known as civil asset forfeiture, which allows the government, without ever securing a conviction or even filing a criminal charge, to seize property suspected of having ties to crime.

And one of “those” stories. $40G per bird? California cormorants refuse to budge from bridge being demolished:

Now that a crucial section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has been replaced by a new $6.4 billion span, nobody needs it anymore — nobody except about 800 birds who call the decrepit, 78-year-old segment home.

The double-crested cormorants – protected, though not endangered – have nested along the bridge for decades, and have so far shown no interest in relocating to the shiny new section that replaced the eastern section of the famed bridge. Officials have tried pricey decoys, bird recordings and even specially-made nests installed underneath the new span to lure them roughly 100 feet next door. The effort to demolish the old section, damaged 25 years ago in the massive Loma Prieta earthquake, is being held up by the birds’ unwillingness to move, and critics, who say the delays could cost taxpayers $33 million, are crying fowl.

The first two comments I see on that story?:

Gee I wonder how some moonshiners from Alabama would handle this technical problem? LOL

I guarantee you that Alabama moonshiners would handle it with a lot more logic and common sense than the Californians are handling the problem. By the way, I am not from Alabama so here is no bias on my part.

A few scare shells would probably do the job. Just like the ultimate removal of their preferred structure.

Hey, they’ve already built the birds a replacement home.