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No title Monday

I’m thinking of using that headline every Monday. I don’t know what it is about the day, but they never lend themselves to anything insightful, curiosity-inducing, oblique or funny. TDoesn’t matter if they are busy days or quiet days or anything. They all seem to exist in the category of “They just are.”

And if that is the extent of your Monday problems, well, just try to keep it together, would ya, bub?

I took the opportunity for a quick ride this afternoon. I was going to go farther, but I started too late in the day. I was going to try a new route, but it seemed wise to get home in the daylight rather than the twilight.

Besides, I was just trying to stretch my legs and clear my head.

Which had a soda cup tossed at it. So that was charming.

That’s never happened before. But the best part was that I almost caught up with the guy in the white pickup, license plate redacted to protect the owner in case the truck was stolen for a joy ride by a guy with a taste for Sonic, at the next stop sign.

I’d decided I’d stop right by his window and nicely say “How awkward for you.”

But he got through the intersection before I could catch him. So that’s a good reason to get faster.

Things to read … Robot Writers and the Digital Age:

The printing press put a generation of scribes out of a job, and the telegraph sent couriers scurrying to find new employment.

Could software robots do the same for reporters?

That’s one of many questions raised by the emergence of Narrative Science and Automated Insights, two startups that have developed sophisticated computer programs that analyze large amounts of data and automatically generate news stories.

Someone told me once, when I was first starting out, this could never happen. She no longer works in news, but for different reasons. That story does a nice job identifying a lot of the interesting work done in automated/robotic/AI reporting. In the short and middle distance we’ll see a place where programs do some really awesome augmenting and complimenting the work of human reporters. In the long term? Don’t bet against this stuff. Or someone might refer to you vaguely, as I did to start this paragraph.

Once again, this was all foreseen by Back to the Future II. Though they’ve yet to deliver on the hover boards.

I wonder if robot reporters would accept so many “anonymous sources” as their human counterparts are doing as of late. Anonymous sources are increasing in news stories, along with rather curious explanations:

“Frankly, this kind of sourcing is ridiculous,” says Alicia Shepard, a journalist and NPR’s former ombudsman. She adds: “I get it that [news organizations] are trying to be transparent, but it doesn’t enhance the believability of the anonymous quote. The only thing worthwhile about the convoluted sourcing explainers is how funny they are.”

In fact, such descriptions can do more harm than good, says Matt Carlson, an associate professor at St. Louis University and the author of “On Condition of Anonymity: Unnamed Sources and the Battle for Journalism,” published in 2011. Rather than enhancing a reader’s understanding, the descriptions used by reporters can be disingenuous and misleading about a source’s affiliation or motives, Carlson says.

Using anonymity in reporting has a venerable place in the craft, but it is becoming a crutch.

I read some wire copy today that five times (five!) referred to unnamed sources. How many reporters, branded or generic, do you trust that you’ll, as a reader, allow five references to anonymity and no names on the record?

By the way, that was a sports story.

Related only in that these are stories and they are about sports: perhaps you’ve seen the Together We Make Football promos on television? Well, the finalists include some incredible tales.

Here’s a quote: “It took me a while to realize I was still alive. I thought, ‘This is what it feels like to be dead.'”

Now go read the story.

This video is of mom recording her son receiving his acceptance letter to Samford. Fun stuff:

In a somewhat similar vein, this reporter covered a story and then got involved personally. Two years later and the Boston Globe’s Billy Baker is updating the tale on Twitter, where it was a huge hit today. Now it is a story in the traditional format. Two critically poor kids. VIetnamese parents. Dad killed himself. Kids struggle. Reporter comes along and gives them a nudge here and there. They scrape and save, these kids. They worked hard:

In the fall, Johnny left for his freshman year at UMass Amherst.

As college application time rolled around for George a few months later, we knew he was in a good position. His grades were outstanding. He had a compelling story. And so he aimed high. Very high.

These boys are the nearest I’ve come to that thing we call the American Dream. But when George texted me on Monday evening …

Well, just go read the thing.

Take a tissue with you.

journalism / links / Samford / things to read / Thursday / video — Comments Off
12
Dec 13

Loan me your 3D printer

The grades are in. The grades are done. Here’s to another hope that I got them all correct. You always have a slight concern about that sort of thing. The paperwork, should you find yourself in error, would surely be immense.

Paperwork being one of those evolving terms. I’m sure the entire process is all contained on one of the three or four web-based forms we use for most everything. And, yet, there is still plenty of paperwork. Some of it changes with the seasons. It could be that someone in an office somewhere has found a more efficient use for line 42 on form R-163. It is possible there is a legal justification for such regular changes. Maybe the person In Charge of Forms is in cahoots with the Xerox toner guy.

“I need to sell 16 more units. Isn’t that form you printed 7,000 copies of last week outmoded?”

Of course forms aren’t printed like that. Almost every office in the country uses their computer and a printer as a small-scale analog of the PDQ distribution method.

Bet you never thought of your machine as Amazon, marketing 1s and 0s. I think of it as a site like Cafepress or Zazzle. You want that shirt or custom mug? Print. (Now run out and buy yourself a 3D printer and go wild.)

I thought of Cafepress because that’s where I order our ornaments from every year. We do custom pieces, photos from places we’ve been that year. This year’s shots include a scene from the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, London and after the Iron Bowl.

We have so many of the ornaments now that the project has outgrown the tabletop tree. Next year we’ll need another option. (Can I borrow your 3D printer?)

Things to read … First, two updates from yesterday. You remember the sign language story, no doubt. Here’s the latest. The story involves angels and perhaps some psychotic delusions.

The boy in Denver that was suspended for giving his girlfriend a peck on the cheek? The “educators” couldn’t back peddle fast enough. This story does have something from the point of view of the little girl’s mother, which is probably where this should have started and stopped anyway.

Now two cute kid stories. First, go ahead and time yourself on how long you can keep the “Awww” to yourself here:

And when you read this story you’ll want to hug everyone in it:

Over Thanksgiving weekend 2012, Slade, then 6-years-old, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma.

Doctors knew his young body was making too many immature white blood cells and would need chemotherapy immediately.

Without a minute to waste, an ambulance transported Slade and Emily over to St. Jude where he remained for eight steady weeks.

But that is just the beginning of a wonderful story. Go ahead and read it. We’ll be here when you get back.

Branded Video Sharing Almost 50 Times Higher Than 5 Years Ago:

According to The Unruly Viral Spiral, the sharing of video ads has increased almost 50 times over the last eight years. Unruly’s latest interactive infographic visualizes the explosive growth of video sharing since 2006, charting the extent to which many advertisers are using social video to amplify their brand.

[…]

According to the data, the top three ads in 2013 have so far attracted 11.6 million shares — 47.5 times more than the top three ads managed in 2006 (244,395 shares combined).

Video, stand-out video, is where we all need to be headed. And make sure you are thinking about mobile devices when you set out on that journey.

Aren’t you glad I mentioned Videolicious yesterday?

cycling / friends / journalism / links / running / things to read / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
10
Dec 13

I was wisely edited out of the final video below

I went for a run last night. It was cold and I was about two miles from home when it was dark enough, and simultaneously light enough, that I could see my breath. Then I car would come, and those headlights are far off in the distance in the night time when you’re on foot and only doing a tiny part of the job of closing the gap. Then suddenly there are all these headlights, and yet you’re in the dark. And by the time you figure that out, the curious behavior of directional photons and the physical features of the earth and what not, the headlights are now upon you, blindingly so.

You run a little farther off the road, farther away then you already were. Because it is dark in December and cold and no motorist has a reasonable expectation of finding you there. In my 5.32 miles I met four walkers, five cyclists, two joggers and a couple walking their dog. Hope we all got home safe.

This evening I took my bike for a quick 20-mile spin. I was pressed for space by three separate pickup trucks. One which lingered long enough to allow me to make jokes about his license plate. Another which clearly belonged to a man who’d just received word that his baby was about to be born and, with it, the luckiest lottery ticket of all time, but it could only be cashed if he showed up 15 minutes ago, having bent space and time to learn how to deliver the child himself and could do so with the ease of years of practice. And so he must pass every living thing like it were a dead thing and proceed with great haste to the special baby extraction unit. Or to his late appointment at the accountant’s office. Whatever was going on in the guy’s life.

How I didn’t roll up on the accident he must have surely caused later can only be explained by the idea that it happened on a different road than my route.

And so, I have a theory: pickup trucks are the most dangerous vehicles to cyclists, and perhaps everyone else.

Otherwise, grading and some grading. The grades are due this week, and so they will be done this week. I’ve made good headway and will, tomorrow or so, input the final numbers into the Excel formula. I will watch the averages move up and down and spot check a third of a class roster’s score with good old fashioned math to make sure I’ve built the spread sheet correctly. It is the least I can do. I usually build them correctly, but there’s always that concern, right?

Met Adam for dinner. We visited Cheeburger, where we had large cheeseburgers and I had a milkshake. All the while I complained about always being hungry. I was hungry when we left the place, in fact. Exercise will do that to you, it turns out.

Things to read … If you take away toy guns from toy monkeys then only toy monkey criminals will have guns. Our society is a little out of control just now, with the exertion of so much control, just now. Funny how that works. TSA Seizes Tiny Toy Gun From Stuffed Monkey, Threatens to Call Cops:

“She said ‘this is a gun,'” said May. “I said no, it’s not a gun it’s a prop for my monkey.”

“She said ‘If I held it up to your neck, you wouldn’t know if it was real or not,’ and I said ‘really?'” said May.

The TSA agent told May she would have to confiscate the tiny gun and was supposed to call the police.

The terrorist monkeys have won, basically.

But wait! It gets even more sublimely stupid! Snowball Fight at Univ. of Oregon Could Lead to Criminal Charges

Is there video? There is video:

So, yes, college students are doing silly college student things. And the retired professor decided to get out of his car, where he was safe behind his high-tech, ultra-dense, futuristic anti-snow polymer shielding. If it feels to you like there’s more to this story, it is probably because there is more to that story.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, leave your quiver-filled imagination at home. Or get suspended. Truly these are dangerous times in education.

How about a few nicer stories. Building a library: Donation of books to low-income first-graders in Birmingham underscores importance of early reading:

Zion was among 80 first-graders at the school to receive a bag of five books to take home. Other books were “Charlotte’s Web,” “Amelia Bedelia,” “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” and “Where the Wild Things Are.”

“These kids don’t have a lot so this is an opportunity for them to really build their own personal libraries,” said Theris Johnson, student achievement coach at Minor Elementary School. “They’re starting a lifelong interest in reading.”

There was nothing, and still is nothing, quite like a book that could take you away from the struggles of your day.

Though someone should tell educators there is an axe in Charlotte’s Web, Amelia uses scissors and Peter Rabbit is drugged by his mother. I’m sure there was something subversive and dangerous to school principals in Where the Wild Things Are, as well.

So the boss gave you a nearly unlimited budget to do a bit of viral marketing. Well done:

The selfie. Someone making contortions to explain it away: context matters.

So does decorum. When you land on a site called Selfies at Funerals, you have little of it.

Someone commented there, “One of the most important pictures of our time.” And that may be right. Another person, elsewhere, recalled Barbara Tuchman:

“So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens – four dowager and three regnant – and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.”

Granted, The Guns of August may be a bit of an overreach for a vacuous photograph. At least we all hope so, at any rate.

Finally, this incredible video has been making the rounds. A design professor friend asked why I didn’t make an appearance. I assured him my only trick was balance, and even then only on occasion:

That is very much the kind of video you need to watch from the beginning to the end. It only gets more impressive as it goes. Amazing stuff. And, much like the rest of life, stick around to the end to see the (painful) bloopers.

Auburn / football / Friday / iPhone / journalism / links / photo / things to read / video — Comments Off
6
Dec 13

Who ratted out that dog?

The SEC championship game is in Atlanta tomorrow. Auburn will be there, facing Missouri. There are a lot of signs like this around town just now.

We’ll be there too. Auburn and Mizzou each received 16,000 tickets. Auburn makes theirs ridiculously difficult to acquire. Missouri was kind enough to simply sell them online, so a lot of Auburn folks bought their tickets from Missouri. Given the proximity, and the weather out their way, it should be something of a home game for the team in blue and orange.

It is hard to believe, and easy to get caught up in. Another conference championship is a possibility, just four years removed from the last one and one trip around the sun from last year’s unfortunate season and we’re going to watch a championship game tomorrow. Hard to believe.

Things to read … This has been making the rounds. A Stanford student wrote this about the Iron Bowl:

Stanford beat Notre Dame, but all we can talk about is the SEC and its raucous finale of Auburn-Alabama. And for once, I have no problem with that.

Even as a West Coast man, I cannot tear my eyes away from the Southland drama that exploded into being on Saturday night. It was the single most unlikely play in football unfolding at the absolute perfect moment. It remains wondrous and unknowable, some quantum shiver in nature slowly solidifying in our minds. As I write, the eyes of a thousand sportswriters still flicker desperately across the ghostly pages of history, searching for some apt comparison or even just something to describe what happened — even just words.

Now, more than ever, there are no words.

That guy is pretty good. Meanwhile, I turned my Iron Bowl post into a larger story with bigger pictures. Slightly new text, much more interesting format. You can read it again here.

Speaking of photos, When White House Photos Are ‘Visual Press Releases’.

Also speaking of photos, here is a photographer being tackled by security for trying to do his job and photograph a protest. Little by little, we’ll chill journalists.

This dog is a cat burglar:

That’ll be the day’s cutest video. This one, a time lapse from the space station, will be the most awesome:

And, now, the most truthful headline you’ll ever read. A pair of shoes for Christmas: ‘It’s a small thing, but it makes a huge difference’:

At an elementary school in Huntsville on Thursday, a boy about 8 years old went to his little brother’s pre-K classroom and approached the teacher. He said his little brother didn’t have shoes that fit, and asked if it would be OK if they went to the on-campus HEALS clinic. He’d heard the HEALS staff gave out shoes.

The 4-year-old brother was wearing a pair of worn-out shoes that were four sizes too big, and a too-big pair of athletic socks that were dirty and full of holes.

“The little brother was so upset and embarrassed by the whole situation that he started crying,” said Pam Clasgens, development director with HEALS, a local nonprofit organization that provides school-based medical and dental care for children.

If you’re looking for a charity, this one will make a lot of kids very happy.

Alabama / Auburn / football / journalism / links / things to read / Thursday / video — Comments Off
5
Dec 13

Links, and we find a corner of the Internet that can retire

I’ve been busy with work, so there are just the regular things to read feature. It happens.

The story starts like this:

Missouri is willing to offer Boeing as much as $1.7 billion in incentives over the next two decades in an effort to land production facilities for the 777X. The proposal is the latest in a series of offers from states trying to woo the jet assembly plant and the thousands of jobs it could bring.

Huntsville is one of several locations competing to be the new home for the Boeing production facility after union members in Washington state rejected their latest contract. Other locations reported to be in the running include Missouri, South Carolina, Texas and Utah, and Washington state has maintained efforts to keep the facility there.

The headline is States offer billions to land Boeing facility; Alabama faces Dec. 10 deadline to craft its deal. At least some of the Boeing program is coming here, which is, of course, good news.

Hate this already: ‘Star Wars’ launches official Instagram account with Darth Vader selfie. Darth Vader does not take selfies. He is not a preening, angry teenager. He’s the scariest guy in a galaxy. He’s supposed to be terrifying with the simplest of gesture, intimidating with the slightest whim of his mercurial personality, not a laughable guy in a suit with a good data plan.

Also, the picture makes no sense. Fans spent a lot of time in the comments trying to figure it out.

I can’t embed this video, apparently, but it is perhaps the craziest thing you’ll see today. Nigerian man rescued from sunken boat after three days trapped at bottom of Atlantic.

Like stop motion? Here’s how you move a 400-foot vessel, on land, in tight quarters. Pretty neat stuff out of Mobile.

Still more video, you might remember the best videotaped phone call from the Georgia game two weeks ago. everyone wants to hang out with Nana and Angela now.

Here’s a nice story out of Birmingham, James O. Walker Sr. — a 1957 Auburn graduate who’s father has the pharmacy building named in his honor — gave a couple of Iron Bowl tickets to a young fan. That young man stopped by to thank him for his generosity and ABC 33/40 was there:

I don’t have the opportunity to mention the Crimson White, the student-produced newspaper at the University of Alabama, here a lot, but it is a good publication. Here are their front and back pages today. Inside was this cartoon, which will take some explaining, I’m sure … And here it is:

Post by The Crimson White.

On Dec. 5, The Crimson White opinion page published a cartoon depicting two football players, one from the Alabama Crimson Tide and one of the Auburn Tigers. Above the depiction was type that read, “This is what happens in Obama’s America.” The cartoon was meant as satire, but unfortunately it has been perceived by many readers as having racist intentions. We sincerely regret this, and apologize to anyone who was offended by it.

The cartoon, in fact, was intended as a lighthearted look at some of the more absurd explanations given for Alabama’s collapse at the end of the Iron Bowl game against Auburn last Saturday. Many fans across the state took to social media and personal platforms to place blame for the team’s loss. To The Crimson White, and much of the student body, the blame was based on ridiculous and unfounded reasons.

They caught a lot of flack, which is unsurprising. And the reaction is probably a bit more knee jerk than necessary. Editor Mazie Bryant continues:

We are taking actions now to correct this mistake, and we are instituting a change in the way we address editorial cartoons. Cartoons, just like the rest of the content on our opinion page, is personal thought. However, cartoons have the ability to reach a wider audience by their pictorial nature, and therefore, we must be vigilant to place a more critical eye on the greater implications and perceptions a cartoon might carry. From this point on, we will be approving cartoons before they are published with a panel consisting of our editorial board. We will judge cartoons based on their power and meaning and decipher which areas need to be revised and expanded upon.

All of it has started good conversation (and probably a few overheated reactions).

It makes me think of the issue of quality. If a cartoon’s purpose isn’t readily apparent to a basic, standard audience then it has little quality of value or merit as commentary. If it fails there it doesn’t give the paper anything.

The secondary art that is to be learned, then, is learning to answer that challenge. If a newspaper cartoon illustrator has to, later, explain his or her meaning so that the audience can reach the desired conclusion and have the correct reaction the cartoon needs work before it is published. As one young reporter said to me today, “It lacks clarity where clarity is definitely needed.”

Elsewhere, The Week in Schadenfreude finds “This may be remembered as our Gettysburg.” The sports section of the Internet can retire now.