links / running / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Move fast, move slow, so long as you move
22
Apr 15

Move fast, move slow, so long as you move

When we did the half Ironman in Augusta last year I realized one place where those races do a disservice to the athletes. They shut down the relief area too early. That’s not a knock on the support staff there, some person has stretched or massaged 100s of sweaty people in an endurance sport of their own and probably wants to go home. But those people that come in slow, and late, they’ve been on the course for a long time, and they deserve that support too.

That’s about the third thing I thought of when I learned of Maickel Melamed, who knocked down the Boston Marathon over the course of 20 hours. Also, he has muscular dystrophy, and he was out to prove something about Boston, and also about his spirit:

So the rest of us really are running out of excuses, aren’t we?

If, like me, you’ve been feeling a bit older than normal later, let’s take one more item away. 76-year-old man running 8 marathons in 8 days across Alabama:

“You meet a bunch of interesting people and you see a bunch of interesting things,” he said. “That’s what keeps me doing it.”

I should really stop looking up excuse antidotes.

I’m going to spend the next little while thinking about creating a job like this:

What does your role as lead news editor for mobile entail? Are you in charge of news about mobile developments? Or are you responsible for news content delivered on mobile?

Banks: I was hired to help reporters and editors think about how they could create unique content for mobile and content that’s optimized for mobile. So no news about mobile, but rather creating and optimizing news delivered on mobile platforms. That includes everything from working with designers and developers to building new templates for content on mobile, then teaching editors how to use those templates, to working toward making sure, for example, graphics that we publish work on mobile. I also will jump in and pitch ideas aimed at mobile — like an interactive about smartphone ergonomics that readers access on their phone, and by playing a little game and performing tests in this interactive could determine whether their phone is too big or too small for their hand.

I could see that being a fun position for the right journalist. One of the really neat things about it would be that, in many newsrooms, the person in that position would be blazing their own trail.

More and more content is going that way, no matter how fast or slow the rest of us move.

history / photo / Samford / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on A quick run through the hodge podge
21
Apr 15

A quick run through the hodge podge

They built a time machine in Manhattan. And it is fantastic. Just fantastic.

We should see to it that every elevator has this technology.

Speaking of going back in time, journalist Ernie Pyle was killed this week in 1945. He was the kind of journalist I want to be when I grow up — the traveling all over the country and meeting people and writing about them part, not the war zone part. But Pyle could write about war. He could write about loss. He could write about minutiae in the face of tragedy. And he could write about regular people. He could write about anything.

I’d never heard this story about the piece that inspired a young Pyle:

If any one thing inspired him, during this period, it was Kirke Simpson’s news story on the burial of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery. Simpson was an Associated Press reporter.

“I cried over that,” Pyle told friends later, “and I can quote the lead or almost any part of the piece.”

Kirke Simpson, as an old AP man, won the Pulitzer for the piece Pyle was talking about, the first wire service writer to win the Prize. And that piece is an incredible piece of literature and history. The lead Pyle mentions:

Under the wide and starry skies of his own homeland America’s unknown dead from France sleeps tonight, a soldier home from the wars.

Alone, he lies in the narrow cell of stone that guards his body; but his soul has entered into the spirit that is America. Wherever liberty is held close in men’s hearts, the honor and the glory and the pledge of high endeavor poured out over this nameless one of fame will be told and sung by Americans for all time.

Toward the end:

Through the religious services that followed, and prayers, the swelling crowd sat motionless until it rose to join in the old, consoling Rock of Ages, and the last rite for the dead was at hand. Lifted by his hero-bearers from the stage, the unknown was carried in his flag-wrapped, simple coffin out to the wide sweep of the terrace. The bearers laid the sleeper down above the crypt, on which had been placed a little soil of France. The dust his blood helped redeem from alien hands will mingle with his dust as time marches by.

The simple words of the burial ritual were said by Bishop Brent; flowers from war mothers of America and England were laid in place.

In between, and after, is a journalistic tour de force. They should read that at the tomb every Veteran’s Day.

There are photographs and more AP copy from the ceremonies here.

Something fun … this is at Birmingham’s WBRC. Mickey Ferguson is the weatherman. Swell guy, lots of fun. Wonderfully comical. And this other gentleman stole the show:

And also this, which brings two of my favorite themes together: the kids are alright and we live in the future:

Finally, spring at Samford is a wonderful time to be on campus. Here’s an example from earlier this afternoon:

spring

Not bad, huh? Hope it is a lovely spring wherever you are.

journalism / links / Monday / things to read — Comments Off on Things to read
20
Apr 15

Things to read

The Monday post with a ton of interesting media and journalism links. Since we have so many, let is jump right to it.

‘No-hands’ ad sales challenge legacy media:

Ever since legacy publishers and broadcasters got serious about selling interactive advertising, they have struggled with how to do it.

Should veteran ad representatives be cross-trained to sell portfolios of traditional and digital advertising? This came to be known as the two-leg sales call.

Should specially trained digital ad specialists accompany legacy reps on four-leg sales calls?

Should digital marketing strategists accompany digital ad specialists and legacy reps on six-leg sales calls?

Now, some of the biggest names in digital publishing are going in a decidedly different direction than flooding the zone with sales power: They are moving to zero-leg sales calls that eliminate human beings altogether.

Under this plan that media access to networking data becomes even more important.

Here’s more on that now, The most concerning element of Facebook’s potential new power:

Much has been made of Facebook’s potential new partnership with the Times, Buzzfeed, and a handful of other news organizations, who may soon start posting stories directly on Facebook instead of having Facebook readers reach their content through a link. This move has the potential to make a lot of money for cash-strapped news organizations and produce another anchor into the news world for the cash-flush social network.

It also has the potential to rob news organizations of their soul. Felix Salmon believes this could kill the news brand (it could). Others, like Mathew Ingram, argue that it could give Facebook too much control over which news organizations thrive and which will die when the social media company decides to tweak its algorithm (it does). But the problem is much broader than that.

What this discussion has missed is perhaps the most crucial element of Facebook’s new power: the right to choose between the free expression of ideas or to instead impose censorship when it deems content unworthy. That should worry the public, because when given that power in the past, Facebook has ruled with an iron fist.

Interesting video and social media reads:

HBO gets prickly at Periscope over Game of Thrones live streams
Is Periscope a new frontier for TV piracy?
Snapchat Is No Longer Selling Its Original Ad Unit, Brand Stories
Fusion to Turn Its Snapchat Channel Into a Network With Five New Shows
Dashcam video shows Arizona officer intentionally running over suspect

That last one isn’t about social media, but look at how CNN is integrating tweets into the story. That’s a nice step in a good direction. It augments copy, demonstrates different perspectives and isn’t just reporting about stuff a “reporter” found on Twitter.

The evolving nature of things … Hey, Google! Check Out This Column on Headlines:

THE headline was perfect: “China’s Tensions with the Dalai Lama Spill Into the Afterlife.” Engaging, informative and clever, it sat atop a story about reincarnation and the succession plan for the Tibetan Buddhist leader, accompanied by a photo of the golden-robed monk.

Then there was this headline, which also did its job, but made my head spin: “Apple Unveils iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite at Developer Conference.” Cluttered and notably lacking in grace, it was designed to be found by those searching the Internet for specific terms.

If New York Times headlines are supposed to be lyrical — or even just elegantly spare — the Apple one would seem to flunk the test. But these days, the test has changed, and so have many aspects of headline writing at The Times.

A few forward-looking think pieces:

The Boston Globe’s David Skok on pushing digital change
You Don’t Need A Digital Strategy, You Need A Digitally Transformed Company
How to Get Your Game On in the Newsroom

Sad and inevitable news from Delta State over in Mississippi:

College Board votes to cut Delta State journalism program
State press association denounces Delta State for eliminating journalism major, shuttering newspaper print product

The story goes that the president is cutting back for budget purposes. The other version of the story goes that he didn’t like some of the coverage the award-winning Delta Statement produced. Here’s the news editor of the Statement, Connor Bell: Long live print newspapers. Also, here’s the editor-in-chief, Elizabeth Zengaro: The power of the press.

The week before all they did was win three first place awards, second place in general excellence, and a dozen more honors in other categories at the 2014-15 Mississippi Press Association competition. And now they’re covering the forced shutdown of their publication. Various people fought the good fight, but, in the end, you’re reduced to watching a program shut down, students transferring, a campus go under-covered and simply quoting Don Quixote.

Finally, two great references to bookmark:

Verification Handbook, v2
2015 Pulitzer Prize winners

photo / weekend — Comments Off on Catching up
19
Apr 15

Catching up

The weekend post with … the extras. You haven’t already seen these on the site so you can see them here now. So we’ll get right to it.

I like that someone took the time to print up a slip of paper and slide it into this little name holder. You seldom see that sort of dedication, but our friend Sally Ann is dedicated … to her recipes, it seems.

recipes

I’m also interested in the nicks on the Remington Rand sticker. Remington Rand split off of Remington Arms and made things like office equipment and electric shavers. They’d add companies that made adding machines and binders. During the war they made pistols and in the 1950s they got into the electronic computing business. Sperry Corp., a mainframe company, bought Remington Rand in 1955 and then merged in 1986 with business equipment maker Burroughs to form Unisys, which now measures their financials in billions and employs more than 22,000. Odds are you have a Unisys products in your home.

Bet you didn’t see that coming when this started with a recipe box.

Took this in the stairwell beneath my office. It was a dreary day, looked like this, felt like this and opaque windows captured it all:

recipes

Dewayne, our friend the balloon maker, made an Akbar action figure:

recipes

Allie is posing for you. Every now and then she likes to be famous on the Internet.

recipes

Auburn / baseball / friends / photo / weekend — Comments Off on Day at the park
18
Apr 15

Day at the park

Enjoyed a doubleheader of baseball today. The first game was at noon, and A-Day was going on across the street. It was a busy afternoon, with people still filtering in at the end of the first game and staying through the second.

Like these guys:

The home team got beat in the first game, prompting the rally caps in the late innings. If you didn’t wear a cap you go with the rally sunglasses.

Auburn blanked Ole Miss in the second game 14-0 to take the series. We watched online as the Auburn gymnasts earned a sixth place finish at the national championships and the softball team won just down the street. Also, there was the win-either-way nature of A-day game. It was a fine day to be a sports fan.

Pizza for dinner, kitty cuddles after that. Think I’ll go read myself to sleep now.

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