JackLail.com

Maybe newsrooms need to kick the front page habit

2012-05-13T17:34:49Z

I recently did an email Q&A with Charles Duhigg, the New York Times reporter who wrote The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. The interview appears Monday in The Knoxville News Sentinel (I hope you'll read it).

One chapter of Duhigg's book deals with civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks' Dec. 1, 1955 refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala. and how social habits helped spark and sustain the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott and played a pivotal role in creating the Civil Rights Movement.

In addition to social movements, Duhigg explores how habits -- good and bad -- affect companies and how some leaders have reprogrammed habits and reshaped culture within their companies. Surely, if habits can help create and sustain social movements and affect some of the nation's largest companies, they might have some use for transformating newspapers, who have floundered in adapting to change. So I saved for this blog one question and Duhigg's answer from the email.

Q: As a person in an industry -- newspapers -- undergoing great upheaval and transformation that is apparently lacking a Paul O'Neill or a Howard Schultz, are there lessons in what you learned about habits and successful companies that could or should be applied to newspapers?

Duhigg: Newspapers have organizational habits built around the front page - that's how most newsrooms decide what is important, and it's how editors transmit signals to reporters. As more and more readers go online, we need to figure out how to create habits that respond to more segmented audiences, and news cycles that have varying durations.

Top Photo: President Barack Obama sits on the famed Rosa Parks' bus at the Henry Ford Museum following an event in Dearborn, Mich., April 18, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Dangerous ideas for pushing the boundaries of journalism

2012-05-03T01:19:47Z

Lots of video responses have been posted to April's "Carnival of Journalism" of question: "What is your most dangerous idea for pushing the boundaries of journalism?"

You see them on the right in the recent posts list on this site for University of Southern California's J556 class taught by Andrew Lih. Give them a look; they are generally around 1:40.

Here's Paul Bradshow of the Online Journalism Blog to get you started:

Training as a dangerous idea for journalism

2012-04-28T19:06:26Z

My April Carnival of Journalism entry offers up training as my most dangerous idea for pushing the boundaries of journalism.

A roundup of all the responses to "What is your most dangerous idea for pushing the boundaries of journalism" will be posted sometime afer April 30.

Do you find training as an odd choice?

Another look at recording police officers on the job

2012-04-22T21:26:19Z

Glenn Reynolds (Photo credit: jacklail)

Police arresting citizens, including journalists, for taking photos or videos of them performing their official duties and seizing their camera or cellphones has become increasingly common.

Typically, the vaguely broad interfering with a police officer laws are used to stop audio, video or photographic recording.

University of Tennessee law professor and blogger Glenn Reynolds makes an argument for the constitutionality of recording police that does not hinge on the First Amendment and that covers the recording of police officers in private places as well as public areas:

"In an age of ubiquitous recording, citizens have already learned to expect that virtually anything they do outside of their home may be recorded by someone. Yet those recordings are usually controlled by others who have no obligation to retain them in order to protect citizens' rights. Under these circumstances, a due process right of citizens to record their encounters with law enforcement (and, perhaps, other government officials) serves to level the playing field and to protect important liberty interests that may not always be fully protected by the First Amendment."

We toot our horn

2012-04-22T16:26:49Z

This blog won "Best Blog" not affiliated with a news organization from the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists in awards announced Friday night.

Lots of great regional journalism was honored; read through the list.

An Appalachian stereotype you may have missed

2012-04-09T03:06:17Z

Success is not one of the stereotypes of Appalachia or its people. If you watch TV, the images are of the violence and drugs of "Justified," moonshiners like Popcorn Sutton, the crazy dancing outlaw Jesico White of West Virginia and a host of other images in which "role model" never comes to mind.

My cousin, Dr. Amy D. Clark, an English professor at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, hopes to change a few Appalachian stereotypes, at the very least, for the young people living on its hills and in its hollers.

Working with the Napoleon Hill Foundation, she collected success stories from Appalachian sons and daughers into Success in Hill Country.

The book was published March 2 and the official launch with an author signing and a reading will be April 28 at the Southwest Virginia Museum in Big Stone Gap, Va.

Clark collected oral histories from, among others, NASCAR president Mike Helton (from near Bristol, Va.), former NFL player and College Football Hall of Famer Carroll Dale from Wise, Va., author Lee Smith who grew up in Grundy, Va., and novelist, television writer and film director Adriana Trigiani, who hails from Big Stone Gap, Va.

In addition to personal advice on what made them successful, Clark explores how where you come from is as important as where you are going.

Among her inspirations for doing the book was her own childhood. As she writes on her blog:

"I knew I wanted to write something that could inspire young people, particularly those like me from the mountains or otherwise rural places that might be all but forgotten. I remember as a teenager thinking about what I would do in life and feeling convinced that to make something of myself I'd have to leave home, that there was no success to be found here in the hills and hollers, the farthest place imaginable from where Important Things were Happening, places like Los Angeles and New York City. I loved the mountains and everything about our way of life (and still do): the way we talk, our seasonal work like harvesting tobacco and making molasses, the old-timey hymns we sang in church. But I saw nothing resembling our way of life on television or in the magazines that came in the mail. The one television show we could relate to, even though it was set during the Depression, was The Waltons, because it was about a rural family who sounded a little like us and lived in the mountains. (I'm proud to say the creator of that show, Earl Hamner, read this book.)"

American self-help writer Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) posing for a portrait (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Who was Napoleon Hill? Born in a one-room cabin in Pound, Va., in 1883, he was a journalist by 13 and an interview with that titan of American capitalism, Andrew Carnegie, in 1908 changed his life. Carnegie believed there was a formula for success and commissioned Hill to do the research. He interviewed some 500 people in the project, the most famous and most successful people of the early 20th century, for a three-volume book called "The Law of Success."

The research launched a new career for Hill, who was one of the earliest personal-success writers. His most famous book, "Think and Grow Rich," has sold millions upon millions of copies. Hill, and his organization after his death, have churned out self-help title after title and created an industry around his principles of success.

Hill is known for many sayings. Among them:

"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

"Happiness is found in doing, not merely possessing. "

"Do not wait: the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along."

"Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure."

Maybe, just maybe, some of the Appalachian stereotype spotlight will shine on people like Hill and those in Clark's book.

Let's take a moment to bloviate on reporters

2012-03-28T18:13:49Z

Rachel Maddow in Seattle.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rachel Maddow, appearing on Wednesday on Howard Stern's radio show:

"What I'm worried about with news is we're moving to all these business models where nobody is paying the reporters. Everybody's paying people to comment on what reporters turn up. Nobody's paying the reporters. There have to be reporters. There have to full-time editors. It's got to be a professional gig. Otherwise, the rest of us who bloviate for a living are not going to have any facts on which to base our bloviation.

"If something important happens in the country somewhere in Oklahoma, thare's got to be good reporters in Oklahoma who go cover it, who tell the rest of the country what's happening there. And if all the local reporters get cut, we're screwed.'

A few pictures and videos you won't see this week

2012-03-25T16:16:00Z

The Supreme Court of the United States. Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the Supreme Court begins hearing six hours of arguments on Monday about whether portions of the Obama health care law are legal, there are few things you won't see: photos or video from the hearings.

Several media organizations had petitioned the court for an exception to its customary ban on photos and videos given extraordinary interest. But no, the court said it would release audio and written transcripts within two hours of the hearings.

The case would have been a good opportunity to be a bit more open. In an age of Facebook status updates, Twitpics, and YouTube, justice seems blind to the times or technology.

The 'tragedy of comments'

2012-03-12T19:46:35Z

Gawker Media mastermind Nick Denton said Sunday at South by Southwest Interactive that he plans to institute a new commenting system on his family of sites within the next six weeks; one that still allows anonymous comments, but which makes commenters into moderators. On certain stories, the new system will only allow certain users to comment at all.

For every 2 blog comments that are interesting, 8 will be off-topic or toxic, says @NickNotned here > bit.ly/y3hDzx - Agree?
— Matthew Cerrone (@matthewcerrone) March 12, 2012

"Anonymity is at the heart of the Internet..and the discovery of truth on the Internet" --@nicknotned
-- Chris Tolles (@tolles) March 11, 2012

"The idea of capturing the intelligence of the readership -- that's a joke." Nick Denton. cnn.com/2012/03/11/tec...
-- lorcan dempsey (@lorcanD) March 12, 2012

While he didn't delve too deeply into the details, Denton did say the first commenter will have responsibility for maintaining the quality of the conversation.

He rejected editors and writers engaging in comment conversations and moderating as requiring too much time. He rejected real names saying anonymity is "heart of the Internet." He rejected gamification like up-voting and down-voting, saying the decisions were not meant to be democratic.And, he said, third-party management, such as using Facebook, is inadequate.

That leaves coming up with something else. It's not like news organizations and others aren't trying. Here's the most recent of my comment links:

Turns out you can only build so many things with Legos

2012-03-11T15:49:20Z

Andy Plesser of Beet.TV interviews Rob Malda, CmdrTaco, co-founder and former editor-in-chief of Slashdot, on his new gig with the WaPo Labs.

The seamy side of cool

2012-03-08T21:00:08Z

Created by: Online MBA Programs

Touch typing on a touch screen with your eyes closed

2012-03-08T11:51:54Z

A touch screen app for the visually impaired. That's ingenious Georgia Tech.

The info:

A team from Georgia Tech, led by Post Doctorate Fellow Mario Romero (School of Interactive Computing) has designed BrailleTouch for touchscreen mobile devices. The prototype app allows visually impaired people to easily type and opens the door for everyone to text or type without looking at the screen.

The Three Little Pigs meet modern media

2012-03-03T16:15:10Z

... And we learn the wolf wasn't all that bad, the pigs weren't all that little, and it's all part of a larger problem anyway, anong other story narratives.

If fairy tales were news stories, they'd be a whole lot messier.

And, oh yeah, ths is a great ad. (via Techdirt)

Broadband availability is for city slickers

2012-03-02T17:38:10Z

Connected Tennessee is doing a "crowdsourcing" experiment to gather information on boradband availability in Tennessee.

Use this map to verify what's available in your neighborhood. If it needs correcting, use this form.

The good news: 95 percent of Tennessee hosueholds have broadband available. The bad news: 110,000 rural households are completely unserved.

Details on how Connected Tennessee came up with its stats.

Others saw red flags, but Brad Keselowski saw a smartphone opportunity

2012-02-29T13:30:44Z

View the story "Others saw red flags, but Brad Keselowski saw a smartphone opportunity" on Storify