Category Archives: Journalism

stitcher: “Your information radio”

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The idea behind stitcher is simple. Organize your favorite podcasts and listen to them all together, in the order you want. It seemed more appealing as an iPhone app than on the desktop. (Like so many things). This is what Jeff Jarvis calls “be the platform, not the commodity.”

When our local news radio station switched from CBS to Fox, I really didn’t have a source for national news (after dropping XM some months ago). And I just never seemed to be in the car at the top of the hour.

With stitcher, I select from a variety of news (or other genres) sources and stack them in the order I want to hear them. And stitcher will email or txt me when something updates.

I can really program my own radio station now.

A feature I’d like –but didn’t find on the website– is the option of adding a local or state newscast to my line-up. You can submit a podcast and hope the stitcher folks add it but we’ll have to see how that works.

If I were programming a local station –or even a state news network– I think I would produce at least two special newscasts each day, designed just for podcasting. I’d have one online by 6 a.m. (local time) and the other by 4:30 p.m. I’d probably keep them in the 5 min or less range.

I’d do my best to get stitcher to add them to the lineup while promoting the podcast on air to the local audience.

Here’s something else I might try…

I’d create a KXYZ News Twitter page and blast out any and ever nugget of news I could find. From any news source. Local newspaper, TV station, news releases, blogs… wherever. And once an hour I’d link my tweet to a 2 min audio news summary. With a reminder that more news can be found on our website.

I think the real challenge for MSM is to stop thinking in terms of what is best for us and ask what would be interesting or useful to those formerly known as The Audience. Only then can we begin to reinvent ourselves for the future that is already here.

PS: And one more thing. If I was one of the growing number of reporters (print, radio or TV) currently out of work, I’d use some of my spare time to produce the podcast described above. You don’t need a printing press or studios or radio/TV transmitters or towers. You need a laptop and a camera and a smart phone. And some imagination. Bet you won’t be without a job for long.

Burma VJ: “I was filming when the soldiers came.”

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Thanks to Melody and Nathan for treating us to the powerful documentary Burma VJ, part of Columbia, MO’s True/False Film Festival.

“A tense suspense thriller in the guise of a new-form political documentary, begins in 1988, when Burma’s military junta brutally shot and killed 3,000 demonstrators, imprisoned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and outlawed independent journalism. In the years since, the Democratic Voice of Burma, a “television station in exile,” has begun sneaking images of the repression out of the country. Using cheap handicams, cell phones, short-wave radio and satellite feeds, the DVB transmits startling footage across the globe, fueling international outrage against the totalitarian government. When the nation’s Buddhist monks decide to take to the streets in September 2007, joined by tens of thousands of students, the DVB was there, allowing the world to watch both this event and its brutal aftermath. A testament to the courage of journalists and a cautionary tale for dictators, Burma VJ is truly inspiring.”

Nathan figured I’d enjoy this film because he reads this blog and knows I’m interested in journalism/media/video. And he was right. This story grabbed me from the beginning.

If I could ask one of the generals who control Burma just one question, it would be: Which is the greater threat to your dictatorship, guns or video cameras?

At the end of the film, the director, Anders Ostergaard, talked about the film and the audience was invited to donate money that would be used to buy more and smaller cameras for the DVB (smaller cameras are less likely to be discovered).

I take for granted that I can take a photograph, shoot some video or make an audio recording in any public place. And then publish it here for the world to see. I’ll try to remember there are others risking their lives and freedom to do so. One of my favorite lines from the film: “Those who are not afraid to die,come to the front.”

I assume Burma VD will be available on DVD, if it’s not already. I encourage you to watch it.

Media Room Etiquette

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Fellow-blogger Chuck Zimmerman (the KING of the event bloggers) is covering the Commodity Classic in Grapevine, TX. It’s a big farm show (for lack of a better term). So big, in fact, they had to post some rules for “Media Room Etiquette,” including this definition of working meida: “journalists, broadcasters and camera operators.”

“Media company officers, advertising sales representatives, and support staff DO NOT qualify as working media, UNLESS their PRIMARY purpose for attending Commodity Classic is to specifically engage in gathering and/or reporting news about Commodity Classic events, trade show activities, and/or grower organization meetings.

Commodity Classic staff reserves the right to examine recent samples of news work product to determine a person’s qualifications for complimentary registration and media credentials, and at their sole discretion reserves the right to refuse anyone not meeting the minimum qualifications.”

You think the lines between public relations and news are getting a little fuzzy? Sounds like. Would love to know who did not make the cut.

Full disclosure: Learfield (the company I work for) owns a farm network that has reporters covering Commodity Classic.

Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill on Twitter

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Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill has been getting a lot of interest in her use of Twitter (microblog, social networking tool, blah blah blah) to keep her constituents informed about what she’s doing. Politico recently named her to their list of the ten most influential Twitterers in DC (right behind Karl Rove).

Missourinet (network owned by Learfield, the company that pays me) reporter Steve Walsh brought up Twitter in a recent interview and the senator spoke wistfully about a day when she can “speak directly to everyone in Missouri,” describing it as “Nirvana.”

AUDIO: Excerpt from interview

It was telling that my friend (and co-worker) Steve set his question up as “nothing at all to do with anything serious.”

Hmm. Should the day come that every elected official can speak directly to every one of the people they represent, without talking to a reporter, things could get serious (for the news media). Don’t get me wrong, we need good reporters like Steve, who can call bullshit on the politicians when necessary. They will always have a role. But it seems to be changing.

And this just in… anyone with access to the Internet can hear directly from Senator McCaskill.

Twitter coverage of prison release

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Joshua Charles Kezer walked out of prison a free man. In jail since he was 18, Kezer has been in prison for 16 years for the 1992 killing of Angela Mischelle Lawless, a 19-year-old college student found shot to death in her car just off Interstate 55 near Benton, Mo. A Cole County judge overturned his murder sentence and a Scott County prosecutor has declined to file new charges against him. You can read the full story –by Tony Messenger– at StlToday.com.

I continue to be fascinated by Twitter as tool for reporting. This story probably wasn’t big enough for TV or radio to break format (what a quaint term). But Tony’s “tweets” give me the sense of being there, watching. Not sure how else he might have accomplished this. Remember when radio was the most immediate medium?

“Democratization of information”

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Last month I –like many others– made note of Janis Krums being among the first to report (on his Twitter feed) that an airliner had crash landed in the Hudson River. Will Leitch was in the SF offices of Twitter, working on an article for New York Magazine, as the story was breaking.

“In the midst of chaos—a plane just crashed right in front of him!—Krums’s first instinct was to take a picture and load it to the web. There was nothing capitalistic or altruistic about it. Something amazing happened, and without thinking, he sent it out to the world. And let’s say he hadn’t. Let’s say he took this incredible photo—a photo any journalist would send to the Pulitzer board—and decided to sell it, said he was hanging onto it for the highest bidder. He would have been vilified by bloggers and Twitterers alike. His is a culture of sharing information. This is the culture Twitter is counting on. Whatever your thoughts on its ability to exist outside the collapsing economy or its inability (so far) to put a price tag on its services, that’s a real thing. That’s the instinct Stone was talking about. If the nation has tens of millions of people like Krums, that’s a phenomenon. That’s what Twitter is waiting for.”

I’ve given up trying to explain the phenomenon that Twitter has become but can’t help take note of the examples that pop up almost every day.

@angelawilson does freelance work for us and works from her home. Today she had The Price is Right on (“just for background”) and one of the ladies picked to be a contestant was part of a group of women wearing shirts with their Twitter names on the front (mine is @smaysdotcom). Host Drew Cary had to explain to the studio and viewing audience what Twitter was. I hope that shows up on YouTube because I’d really like to see it.

And then this afternoon I learned (from the Twitter feed of St. Louis Post-Dispatch Reporter Tony Messenger) that some kind of big “nuke hearing” was getting ready to start in the Senate. And that there was so much interest the hearing room was so packed they had to set up closed circuit TV monitors in a room on the third floor.

I followed Tony’s Twitter feed for a bit, where I learned that one of the senators (Jolie Justus) on the committee holding the hearing, was also using Twitter to let her “followers” know what was going on. You can check out her “tweets” (you should pardon the expression) at http://twitter.com/joliejustus. Where she assured us she’d tell us more about the four hour hearing tomorrow on her blog, Fresh Meat (she’s a freshman senator?).

What does all of this mean? I’m not sure I know. Does it mean something? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it does. As Twitter co-founder Ev Williams says in the NY mag piece:

“It’s another step toward the democratization of information. I’ve come to really believe that if you make it easier for people to share information, more good things happen.”

Me too.

UPDATE: Sen. Justus started her blog as a Freshman Senator two years ago. [Thanks, JW]

Steve Outing: The all-digital newsroom

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“What will it take to get one of the remaining jobs in the all-digital newsroom? Certainly an understanding of, and probably enthusiasm for, new forms of media and storytelling. The transformed newsroom will be filled with multi-functional journalists who are comfortable carrying around a digital camera and tiny video camera; who make it part of their routine to record audio for possible use in podcasts or multimedia project sound clips; who are regular users of social networks and understand how to leverage them to communicate with and attract new readers, and share some personal information about themselves as well as promote their work; and who are comfortable and willing to put in the time to engage and communicate with their readers or viewers, including participating in reader comment threads accompanying their stories.”

“With blogs at the center of a reporter’s work universe, there’s still much to do in this new kind of news operation.

Here’s what the reporter/blogger will routinely do:

1. Long-form stories and features. But in this new environment, a reporter may do fewer of these because of other duties. And they may be in a variety of formats, from simple text and video to multimedia presentations, audio or podcasts.

2. Regular blog entries (basically short articles) through the day. The reporter in this organization doesn’t wait till all the facts are in when it’s a big breaking story, but reports what’s known quickly. Additional blog updates can be added as the news event progresses. (Again, don’t take “blog entry” to mean “text.” A reporter might post video or audio to the blog, as well.)

3. Instant updates. When relevant, a reporter will put out short alerts to mobile phone news alert subscribers; to an e-mail list; as a “tweet” on Twitter or brief report on other social networks to update the reporter’s “friends” and “followers,” etc. This can take but a minute (with proper systems in place to streamline the process), and then it’s on to the write-up for the blog.”

— From Steve Outing column at Editor & Publisher

Is Ana Marie Cox wearing pants?

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Suppose you had a friend that was really smart and funny, and that friend got to cover and live-blog White House press briefings that you could watch “with” her (on  C-SPAN) and chat back and forth. Does that sound like something you might be interested in?

Okay, Ana Marie Cox isn’t a friend of mine but she feels like one. I’m one of her legion of fans that go back to the Wonkette days. She now works for Air America.

I don’t know if this is journalism or not and I don’t care. In the same way I don’t care what you call The Daily Show. I call it fun and interesting.

I think of this as the MST3K effect. Even a boring press conference is fun if you’re watching it “with” fun people.

Seven Years Before the Blog

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Every year on this date I pause to recall that it was way back in 2002 that I began blogging. Like many others, I was posting little rants on my website before we had the tools and the name, but this is the date I started “writing some stuff down.”

That post was a long quote from Carl Hiaasen’s novel, Basket Case. He described two types of journalists and alluded to the “slow-strangling dailies,” a number of which have finally strangled in the last year or so.

On the 4th anniversary of this blog I met some friends and had four beers. I’m afraid 7 beers would put me out of commission for several days, so we won’t do that.

Another thing I used to do was browse back through the earlier posts but with 4,000+ that is no longer practical. So this post will serve as another scratch on blog wall.