Random Mumblings

The Michael Jackson breaking news moment

2009-07-05T14:01:53Z

The above comic by John Campbell is a cynically funny view of news coverage of a celebrity death whether it's Michael Jackson, whose death inspired the above, or former NFL quarterback Steve McNair's yesterday in a bloody Nashville condo.

Continuing a pattern we've seen in the past with Tim Russert' s death and other breaking news events, Wikipedia was one of the earliest sources of news on the death of Michael Jackson (x17online.com, not TMZ had it first, apparently).

It even beat Twitter, says Danny Doyer of SEOmoz.org, who posted a timeline.

Well behind with reporting the news came MSNBC and CNN, but both had huge spikes in visitors, far outdistancing TMZ.com's traffic, which, however, increased fivefold and hit a three-year high. Newspaper Web sites? Not even in the equation.

And what was the trusted source that was turned to more than any other? Why, it was Yahoo, according to Hitwise, whose unique combination of search engine and content creator (often seen as a hindrance to having a clear business model) may have helped it. Some journalists were called in from off days in an "all-hands-on-deck" response, Richard Vega, Yahoo News editor, was quoted as saying.

Matt McGee at Search Engine Land has a fascinating post about how the search engines handled the load which Google first believed was some kind of attack.

We have to have accuracy and publish facts not rumors, but it remains clear: those who are right and fast are relevant; those who aren't, are irrelevant.

TMZ.com, the AOL blog often credited with getting the story first (and right), may have been the big winner. Wikipedia, meanwhile, continues to evolve not only as a encyclopedia, but as a "trusted spruce" for breaking news. And many are learning searching Twitter for real time news is more effective than using Google, which no doubt is troubling to the search giant.

Take my poll below.

Patriotic ... in the sense of citizen protest

2009-07-05T01:21:16Z

It looks very patriotic on the week of the Fourth of July, but I think it covered up a disputed sign on the side of the building of the Purple Pony.

(And because it's the Fourth, some fireworks photos from a couple years ago.)

The Internet Age that vanished

2009-07-01T14:15:23Z

There are no yellowing, faded newspaper Web sites. Except for the WayBack machine -- the best we have, but admittedly spotty -- the whole dawn of Internet newspapers from the mid-1990s on could vanish, never to appear in a yard sale or a treasure proffered up on the PBS's Antiques Roadshow.

A database crash, a decision to shut down some old servers, or even some spirited housecleaning, and, blink, days, months, years of an electronic newspaper could be gone

It's already happening. The Wayback archive does have some early Knoxnews home pages, but many of the graphics and photos are either gone or moved to a different location and don't work. In our early days in Vignette, we aged stories off in a couple of weeks, including online only stories for which there was no archive elsewhere. They are just gone. The organization of many static packages has been lost. Even if we still have them, we don't know where they are. When we transferred our articles from our old Fast Forward Web publishing platform to our current Ellington/Django platform, the stories were ported, but all comments were lost.

It's ironic that the digital forms of paper newspapers are making for a better historical record than the now often more robust online versions. For example, we have an archive solution (in fact, more than one) for the printed paper version of a dramatic jury trial in our digital archives, but the online version probably also contains important supporting documents as PDF files, such as motions and rulings, that would be of use to future researchers. The comments added to the story also provide some glimpse into the public's view at the time of the events.

Other than posting on the Web site, there is no archiving done with future use in mind. There's a good chance that over time the links will be broken as some new platform or technology comes along and changes everything.

Michael Miner explores this issue using the dormant RockyMountainNews.com site and how the newspaper archives that are being transferred to the Denver library system don't include those on the Web site. It's a good piece except for an odd aside about online comment management.

He writes:

The point is that real archiving's not a business--it's a public service. The digital newspapers of the early 21st century will be unknown in the 22nd unless they're aggressively safeguarded. They won't sit around in boxes until they're shredded or burned. Simple neglect will destroy them.

Do any newspapers have explicit archiving strategies for Web content?

Assateague Island pony

2009-06-30T13:09:05Z

A wild pony on Assateague Island National Seashore. This foal and its mother were walking along and in the road that leads to the beach on the Virginia end of Assateague Island on Monday evening.

Here are a few more photos.

The future of journalism is in safe hands

2009-06-29T13:14:16Z

A talented practicum student we had at the Knoxville News Sentinel during the University of Tennessee's spring semester has created an interesting new Web site called sfevent.tv

Franck Tabouring, who came to the U.S. from Luxembourg to go to college, received a bachelor's degree in journalism this year from the University of Tennessee and moved on to study film in San Francisco.

As a practicum student on the knoxnews.com online staff, he did a variety of maintenance tasks and site updating, but he also had time to do several videos that show his sense of humor.

Tabouring has been doing an excellent movie review blog since late 2007 called the Screening Log that has frequent posts so I found it interesting he was taking on another project while still in school.

In an email, this is what he said about sfevent.tv:

Yes, I decided to start a small cultural online video magazine that focuses on San Francisco and the Bay area. I plan on posting photos, raw footage and more detailed short documentaries about and surrounding people and all kinds of events here. I will also shoot what I call SF Spots, short clips highlighting wonderful viewpoints and other nice spots in an around the city. I will share all videos on YouTube and Vimeo, and use embedding for the site. That way, I won't need to spend tons of money on large storage online.

I'm only starting now (and slowly) with the Pride Parade, but hopefully I will get through all my Final Cut manuals soon and get to work on bigger videos for the site.

Knowingly or unknowingly, he appears to be among a growing number of journalists who are fashioning a new model of developing content and brands beyond the realm of a traditional media.

Here's what the about says about the site:

Welcome to sfevent.tv, a cultural online video magazine that focuses on San Francisco and the Bay area. Essentially, what you find on here are several categories of short documentaries and video clips about all kinds of events that have taken place in SF. We also focus on local businesses and profile interesting SF people who have a compelling story to tell and would like to share their ideas, concepts or events with online users.

Unlike the regular television newscasts, we don't simply cover an event, but we try to focus more on the people who put their energy and passion into organizing them. We want to figure out who these people are, and we give them the opportunity to share their adventures on camera. If you would like us to come and document your event or you want to spread the word about your SF-based business, please get in touch with us.

He's looking for feedback on the site so if give him a shout. I think all the sky-is-falling pundits who worry about where journalism is going just need to look to the Franck Tabourings coming along.

Birds at the beach

2009-06-29T02:02:18Z

These photos were shot at dusk from the porch of the condo where we're staying in Chincoteague Island, Va. On a nearby pier is a bar where a guy is playing guitar and singing Steve Miler's "The Joker."

Cause I'm a picker
I'm a grinner
I'm a lover
And I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun.
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I get my loving on the run Wooo Woooo

Anonymity is not a guarantee for online commenters

2009-06-24T17:47:10Z

Federal prosecutors who had made a broad request for user information of commenters on the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Web site backed down a bit, but an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing four anonymous commenters on the newspaper Web site says it's still an important, precedent-setting case.

(Maggie) McLetchie said that this case is an important one because it sets a dangerous precedent that would send a message that "if you go on the internet and you criticize the government, the government might start a criminal investigation about you, and we think that's extremely problematic."

Simon Owens, who interviewed McLetchie, notes the publicity about the Nevada case may make give pause to anonymous commenters on news stories because "the cloak of anonymity is not always everlasting."

The newspaper fought a far-reaching information request, but is not fighting a request for the machine addresses, or IP addresses, of two commenters whose comements could be construed as threatening jurors or prosecutors.

"I'd hate to be the guy who refused to tell the feds Timothy McVeigh was buying fertilizer," Journal-Review Editor Thomas Mitchell has said in explaining the newspaper's decision. MeVeigh was responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of a federal building.

The ACLU, who contends its clients feel threatened by the government subpoenas received by the newspaper, is also trying to get the judge thrown off the case.

Running the numbers

2009-06-24T14:22:59Z

We journalist types typically eschew focus groups and market research about news coverage, saying we know what a news story is and we don't need no stinkin' survey to figure it out. But we are learning to measure ... and are finding it useful even if we put away our pica poles long ago.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book Journalism Next, Mark Briggs has this about the News Sentinel's Tom Chester:

Tom Chester, news operations manager at the News-Sentinel, begins each weekday with a stand-up meeting in the newsroom. The first item on the agenda is a detailed report of content published and traffic generated the previous day. "We track updates on all platforms: web, mobile, email," Chester said. "We started with almost nothing and now we're up to about 500 updates per week."

If newsroom leaders had simply announced at a staff meeting the need to learn new skills and publish more frequently to more platforms, little progress would have been made. Instead, the formerly print-centric newsroom - which has also published 3,000 videos since 2006 - has the structure in place to measure and manage the new content, the newsroom was able to show significant progress and build upon its successes.

Briggs succinctly calls this: "Track. Measure. Adapt."

Measuring has become both a significant part of our newsroom culture and a significant driver for effecting change.

(News Sentinel photo by J. Miles Cary of Tom Chester putting up stats on our Visual Communication Center.)

Multimedia boot camp for journos planned in Nashville

2009-06-23T21:33:49Z

The Freedom Forum's Diversity Institute is putting on an intensive week-long multimedia boot camp in mid-August.

The program is designed for journalism educators, students or professionals with limited multimedia skills.

A big newspaper bet

2009-06-21T15:58:38Z

Nobody is investing in print newspapers, right?

Not your local TV station's news show

2009-06-17T18:01:00Z

Can a newspaper do local TV? One of the most ambitious efforts yet just launched in Las Vegas with a brassy party. Hey, it's Vegas, baby.

Greenspun Interactive is doing a half-hour show called 702.tv on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the 10:30 p.m. slot on a cable channel in Las Vegas. As planned, it will go to five days a week in the fall.

And where it's trying to compete with other local TV news is not on front page hard news, but on the fun stuff about one of America's glitziest cities.

It's slick. It's fast faced. It's fun. There's also a relaunched Web site, 702.tv.

"What if there were a local newscast that wasn't about the latest accident on the 215 or the latest house fire?" Rob Curley, president and editor of Greenspun Interactive said in Las Vegas Sun article. "What if it were fun and informative? That's 702.tv."

"If 'The Daily Show,' the Travel Channel, the Food Network and E! were to try to do a daily local show in Las Vegas, this is what it might look like," he said.

The core team of 702.tv did a groundbreaking Web/cable TV show during Curley's stopover at the E.W. Scripps-owned Naples (Fla.) Daily News called Studio 55. But 702.tv is several iterations from Curley's efforts in Naples. It's more disconnected from a print product or traditional Web site than Studio 55.

Staffer Denise Spidle gives some more behind the scenes details.

This one will be fun to watch -- the episodes and the project.

(One of the show's on-air personalities, Emily Gimmel, interestingly, is also in a reality show set in Louisville, Ky., called Southern Belles: Louisville. Somebody should do a reality show about hanging with Rob Curley! ... Red Bull could sponsor, or Mountain Dew.)

Tell a story like it's about your mother

2009-06-17T10:12:10Z

"My mandate for news teams is that I want them to shoot every story like it's about their mother, brother, sister, father, and cousin. Tell it that way. That's the road to clarity, truth, understanding and fully becoming global."

-- Ann Curry, NBC

Psst! .... Aggregation

2009-06-16T20:23:27Z

It's great to see the Miami Herald launch a local blog aggregator, South Florida Blogs, with journalist-turned-entrepreneur Dave Mastio. There's some explanation of what they're up on the Knight Digital Media Center Web site.

It's an idea I've long thought was a no-brainer. Maybe that because we're doing it, too.

Few other newspapers or local news media sites are, however. Organizing and helping disparate voices in the community be heard seems to me to be an obligation of a local media organization.

Mastio had a vision for a business built around blog aggregation a few years ago and he continues to evolve and expand that vision. He runs BlogNetNews and several other blog aggregation sites and at some point expanded his concept to work with local media.

We joined up with him in August 2007 for the Knoxville Blog Network, an attempt to fill the void left by the loss of Johnny Dobbins' pioneering Rocky Top Brigade Web site (remember that one?). Dobbins is at Media General's TBO.com these days.

It was also an attempt on our part to be more inclusive of bloggers. I think it's worked to a degree. Yet, the power of the tool remains largely undiscovered.

If you're a Knoxville area blogger (broadly defined) and you're blog is not included, add it. And add the javascript to the most recent posts in the network on your site.

In this audio interview, Mastio uses the Knoxville blog network as an example of what he's trying to accomplish.

Some of the overlooked features of Mastio's blog platform is it's powerful search and it's RSS feeds and widgets that easily let the non-technical add a local blog "news wire" or blog search to their site.

And what I really think is neat is an advanced feature, Feed Central, that lets users slice and dice the network of blogs by blog or keyword or category and create a custom list that can be pulled into a reader or appear as an email of headlines. (An example below uses just blog posts with the keyword "journalism.")

Again, isn't it time to bring in the other voices? If you interested, drop Mastio a line at editor @ blognetnews.com. Tell him, Jack sent you.

Get this widget!

Getting some notice

2009-06-15T16:01:14Z

I like the scoop on these scores.

No rush to vanity URLs on Facebook, only 3 million so far

2009-06-14T23:46:28Z

Tony Hung of Dive Jive Interests points to a Bloomberg piece that says about 3 million "vanity URLs" were grabbed over the weekend, some 500,000 in the first 15 minutes (that would be me).

He wonders if that's really a "rush" considering Facebook has, oh, 200 million users.

I think it begs the larger question of the importance and awareness of reputation management on the Internet -- specifically realizing how important it is to own your own Google Search results (particularly if you have a reputation and profession you care about), how Facebook ranks in all of that (can rank quite high), and how a Facebook vanity URL containing keywords might in turn rank (again, theoretically high). But that's really a post for another time.

Good point. I saw that social media evangelist Chris Brogan tweet that he didn't plan on getting facebook.com/chrisbrogan. I'm not sure what Chris Brogan's line of thinking was, but it would seem to me you want want to claim your name if possible.

Does any of this matter even if your name has some "brand equity?"