Wednesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Wednesday

“I’m not that interesting”

And if you go outside in the right time of the evening, you’ll see a scene like that. Life is good.

Did a lot of writing today, finishing a project that needed finishing. A lot of rewriting had gone into it, none of it especially inspiring, so it just dragged on and on. The next time that project comes up, though, it will be much better.

Alan Mutter has a read on an important new Pew report on a disconnect between younger and older consumers in perceived newspaper value.

When asked by researchers to identify their preferred source for crime news, 44% of those in the 40-plus category named newspapers, as compared with just 23% for the younger cohort.

[…]

In what may be a sign of the desperation of the population in this time of high unemployment, the only area where young and old alike turned with equal frequency to newspapers is hunting for information about jobs. Even there, only 17% of each age group considered newspapers the first place to look.

Pew also found this sobering statistic: Fully 69% of respondents said it would not “have a major impact” on their ability to keep up with news about their community if their local paper no longer existed.

That last one is more of a perception than anything and, I suspect, a misplaced one. Yes, more news now stems from personal networks, word of mouth and social media than every before, but there is still a significant amount of that information that originates in traditional newsrooms. That indirect impact, I believe, often goes undetected.

A federal judge upholds most of Alabama’s controversial immigration law:

Section 11 (a), which makes it unlawful for a person who is an unauthorized alien to knowingly apply for work, solicit work in a public or private place, or perform work as an employee or independent contractor in this state.

Section 13, which prohibits concealing, harboring, transporting, etc., of unlawfully-present aliens.

Section 16, which concerns the taking of a state tax deduction for wages paid to an unauthorized alien employee.

Section 17, which creates a state “discrimination” cause of action based on the retention or hiring of an unauthorized alien.

I posted a little something about both of these stories on the journalism tip blog I write. I invite you to read it if you find these sorts of things mildly interesting.

Still here? Good. I also changed the URL of that blog, and fixed the links on this site. Speaking of the site: I haven’t mentioned it, but I added a rotating piece of code to the top and bottom images on the blog. Hit reload a bunch. Fancy, huh?

Speaking of journalism, check out the Crimson’s site for the latest news from campus. Included is this cute little profile of the famous Ms. Dot.

I saw her at lunch today, just another face in her long line of a day.

I read about you in the paper!

“You did?”

Yes. It was very good! I think you should be in the paper every week!

“I don’t. I’m not that interesting.”

I think there should be a little According to Ms. Dot section in each issue of the paper. Just a little box with some wise saying.

Need a scarf? The original Toomer’s Corner tradition is now a fine accessory. It only costs $17.16 for the neckwear which is made of “scarf like” material. Not sure what that is. As for the price:

I guess they thought $28.27 was over the natural scarf price point.

Ahh, football season jokes.

journalism / links / things to read / Wednesday — Comments Off
21
Sep 11

Things to read

Jeff Sonderman finds too many apps behaving as modern day shovelware. And that should not be. Apps should solve a problem.

News organizations whose mobile apps only provide users with their articles or videos are missing a big opportunity.

An application, by definition, should be applied to perform a task, to solve a problem. Most news doesn’t do that.

Rather than just feed readers recent stories you wrote about their problems, apps can provide tools and data that enable users to actually solve their problems. When you solve problems, you get more loyal users and a chance to make more money.

I love this because it will become one of those points that is so obvious we’ll wonder why we overlooked it. Consider your favorite, most frequently used apps.

Flipping through my phone I clearly have many problems to solve as Sonderman puts it. There’s:

an alarm clock to wake me up;
weather apps (I have many radars) to keep me informed;
camera to document things;
photo/video editing apps which process what I record;
a QR reader, for when those things finally get popular here;
voice recorders, vital for interviews;
my indispensable RSS reader educates and entertains me;
social media apps to listen and talk;
reference apps like Wikipedia and Dictionary to help me learn;
What Was There gives me a sense of history in a specific place;
audio and video apps make sure I’m never bored;
food apps give me reviews and ideas;
shopping apps to buy things and
local apps to keep me in the know.

The things I use the most are apps that serve a function, beyond just saying “Here you go.”

No app should work without a social media component, and it should be more than “Tweet that you’re using this app” or “I’m here” or “I’m listening to…” all of which are appropriately pointless.

Apps should dream up ways to allow someone to upload something to contribute, which is my only complaint of the otherwise lovely What Was There mentioned above. I love that one, but you have to go to the site to upload things into the cloud, and into their conversation and others’ knowledge base.

Look, the simple truth is mobile is rapidly arriving, immediate future. Whatever tool the end user chooses — something in your pocket, purse or backpack or some fantastic thing not yet invented — apps, for as long as they exist as movers and shakers, are going to need to be a dynamic multi-lane stream of information.

If your app should help me solve my problem, wouldn’t it be nifty if another user of that app could too?

Things you heard on the playground that turn out to be true:

Research at Nanjing University has found that strands of RNA from vegetables make it into our bloodstream after we eat them, and can regulate the expression of our genes once they’re inside us.

MicroRNAs, or miRNAs, are little strands of RNA that selectively bind to matching sequences of messenger RNA, resulting in repression of those genes. Their role has only been understood in the last decade or so, but miRNAs are currently believed to take part in a vast number of processes in both plants and animals.

Turns out you are what you eat. Keep that in mind at the dinner table.

Samford / Wednesday — Comments Off
21
Sep 11

Not a lot, just enough

A day of reading, writing and grading. The writing and the grading seemed to dominate.

I also worked on a lecture for class.

There were a few meetings, conversations with colleagues, drafting a student into some social media work, critiquing the newspaper, making sure the Crimson’s site looked respectable. I like the new design, and played around in the guts of it for a while today.

The only other things that happened were a morning trip to the gym — I lifted weights, brah. There was a marginally unhealthy lunch, because I’d lifted weights. I followed that up with a working dinner that a rabbit would find delicious.

A full day in four paragraphs. That’s not disconcerting at all.

I wrote that thinking “That is disconcerting, actually.” The more I think of it, though, I’m OK with that. Paragraphs are ideas and actions. Make them worthwhile, right?

journalism / links / Samford / Wednesday — Comments Off
14
Sep 11

Still a busy week

Have you ever written one thing over and over?

Yeah. That’s where I am today.

Anyway, the second issue of this year’s paper is out. Looks pretty nice, too.

Lots of areas the hardworking student-journalists can be proud of. Lots of areas for them to improve. That’s about where you should be in the second week.

You can see all the stories online at the also newly relaunched samfordcrimson.com

And now back to the same paragraphs of the same paper. I hate when that happens.

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7
Sep 11

But do you remember the very best fish you ever had?

Campus is back on the grid. Things returned to normal at around 3 p.m. yesterday. In the middle of restoring power to something like 200,000 people the hardworking folks at Alabama Power determined the problem. A sprocket burned out at a sub-switching point somewhere off campus. They moved a few patch cords and the place sprang back to life.

We’ve all returned to campus. Many folks have their power back, but some have been tricked by the automated messaging system “Congratulations! You may blow dry your hair!”

The customer happily returns home to find out they’ve been duped. They still flip the switches, fully expecting the magic to happen, but nothing.

I had lunch with one of those gentlemen today. He’s very much the dapper, put-together sort. You’d never know he hasn’t had power for two days if he hadn’t said anything about it.

Lunch was at the famed Rotunda Club. (Shouldn’t we modify our understanding of fame? First page of Google returns? That surely makes you famous, right?) This is an annual lunch the university’s Office of Communication hosts for the newspaper’s editorial staff. One of the few perks they receive for the job. The company is pleasant, the food is delicious. We should meet there every week.

I was telling one of my table-mates today that the best fried chicken I’ve ever had was in that very room. It was my first time to eat at The Rotunda Club. I’d been on campus for about a week. That was four years ago. It was a feat never to be equalled.

We can all speak of memorable meals, expensive bills and tasty, sinful special plates. But a four-year-old memory of friend chicken? Those nice ladies are doing something right up there.

And then I had four meetings in a row. One of them on the newspaper, another on the Digital Video Center, another on the newspaper and so on.

I wrote emails, I composed the things to read post you see below. (I’m cross posting those on my Samford Crimson blog, if I haven’t mentioned that before.) I prepared for my class tomorrow, the workshop session I’m delivering tomorrow.

The students are working on their paper and we’ve been troubleshooting every issue under the sun. The first edition each year is always like this. It is exciting; I get to sit back and watch it grow. I have a sense of how the staff may grow around their yearlong project and that is a thrill to see happen. But this first night is always a long effort.

And there will be changes this year. We will discuss them tomorrow.