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1. Time for a new semester and a quick update

However, as I watched the program, I was intrigued in the consistent use of a couple of visual tropes that I recognized from previous Rushkoff episodes The Merchants of Cool and The Persuaders. Most prominent of these is the fact that apparently Rushkoff looks up quite frequently. We know this because each episode shows us shots of him looking up, apparently in awe of all that surrounds him.

Here are examples of what I’m talking about:

Douglas Rushkoff looks up in "The Merchants of Cool."

Rushkoff looks up in "The Persuaders"

And now Rushkoff is looking up in "Digital_Nation"

I don’t know exactly what to make of the “looking up” shot, and why it has been such a consistent presence in Rushkoff’s Frontline pieces. More of an observation than anything.

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Meanwhile, the dissertation is rolling again. I’m confident it will get finished this semester. Travelwise, I’ll be going to Edmonton, Canada next week for the Canadian University Press Convention (brrr!). Two weeks after that I’ll be at Texas Tech. Chicago two weeks after that. A trip to St. Louis later in the month. And at the end of the semester, I WILL be in Columbia, S.C. getting a hood!

More updates later. Meanwhile, check out Innovation in College Media for the latest posts.

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I’ve posted a list at the Innovation in College Media Blog of college media outlets and their online bowl coverage, including the obligatory rant about the Bowl “Championship” Series. Check it out. Also, be sure to check out this excellent article by Dan Wetzel about the BCS and a playoff system. I’m particularly fascinated by the hiring of former White House communications director Ari Fleischer’s PR outfit to create an astroturf campaign promoting the BCS. Fleischer is a political animal, not a sports PR pro. My guess is that hiring Fleischer had more to do with potential political ramifications for the BCS than any attempt to sway college football fans.

And I changed the theme because the other one wasn’t working for me.

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When they’re selling cowboy hats in the convenience store for $12.99.

Posted via email from Bryan’s posterous

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So I’m working on this Mimbo theme, and trying to get photographs to show up in the featured box. So here’s a photo from summer vacation (remember summer?)

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Matt Thompson writes an excellent blog post explaining the 3 key parts of news stories you usually don’t get. I encourage you to read the whole thing. (thanks to @jayrosen_nyu for the heads up)

He breaks it down into these categories:

1. The longstanding facts
2. How journalists know what they know
3. The things we don’t know

This is an excellent insight, and one that could be solved with a little bit of technology and some savvy journalistic forethought.

One solution is what I’ll call the “bookmarking” model, put into practice well by Publish2, in which a journalist shares links related to a story they’re working on. As a journalist gathers information for a story, they add links to the list, giving readers a chance to see what other information is available.

Another solution is the “wiki” model, which goes back to wikipedia. I don’t know that this has been practiced as much in mainstream reporting, but in essence, a reporter could provide explanatory copy that could then be used to provide the “longstanding facts.”

A third solution is the “blogging” model. This could be used for a reporter to explain “how journalists know what they know.” Not every story benefits from the “process” reporting that Thompson cites in this New Yorker piece on health care reform. And there’s a question as to whether most readers would want to hear all about the process. But adding such content to a blog that can then be linked to the original author would be beneficial.

Finally, there’s the “notes” model. Recently, I installed a WordPress plugin on this site called Sliding Notes. This plugin allows me to insert notations into a blog post – think of them as in-text footnotes. An example»

As a reporter goes about gathering information for a story, she should be thinking about all of these means of adding context, especially on complex stories that will require lengthy coverage (like the health care reform debate).

The main problem, as I see it, is that each of these solutions exists within an entirely different technological sphere. What I wouldn’t give to have a content management system that would allow me to face one browser screen in which I could type a story, add “wiki” material, blog material, publish2 links and parenthetical notes, instead of having to switch from platform to platform.

Then there’s the mindset/time question. Adding all this context that can be carried over from story to story takes time, and it takes a concerted effort to break into the reporting process and put all these notes into the system. Especially with the technological problem I mentioned above.

Anyway, it’s a good conversation to be having, and one that can help journalism in the future.

Your thoughts?

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The Internet makes it relatively painless to go TV-free, and still get the entertainment and information you want from television programs. This post is an explanation of ways you can legally enjoy most TV products without paying for cable.

For most of the past two years, I have lived without a television. At first, this was out of necessity (I didn’t have one and couldn’t be bothered to shell out money for one). Later, after receiving a second-hand TV from my grandmother, the return to a tv-free lifestyle was one of choice – I couldn’t see shelling out $70/mo. for basic cable.

Since then, I’ve been able to watch most television shows and movies that I’ve wanted to through a variety of sources. Some cost money, others are “free” and advertiser-supported.

The main benefit to using the Internet to view these offerings is the combination of time- and place-shifting. Even though you can time-shift a program using a DVR (like Tivo), you still have to sit in front of the television to enjoy the program.

With a laptop computer and wireless Internet access, you can watch a program from anywhere in your house.

The drawback is that the screen on a computer is not nearly as large as a television screen, so if you’re trying to watch something with your family, you’re going to have a problem. But some newer televisions actually come with VGA connectors, so you could stream the video through your computer onto the tv screen (although the quality would likely suffer).

So how can you watch TV without owning a TV? Here are some services that I’ve used and recommend:

1. Hulu – Hulu has a wide selection of TV shows and movies available for viewing, although the time limit for viewing can sometimes be very short (some of the dramas only have four weeks of back episodes available). They also have The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, usually available before 5 a.m. the morning after air. (UPDATE: Comedy Central no longer puts TDS and TCR on Hulu. They are now available at thedailyshow.com and colbertnation.com respectively) There are some classic sitcoms and dramas available: “Lou Grant,” for instance. The service is mainly advertising supported, but the ads are for a single sponsor, and usually higher-end advertisers, not the Sham-Wow guy.
2. TV.com – TV.com is owned by CBS Interactive, and is therefore a competitor of sorts to Hulu, although it doesn’t have the movies to go along with the TV offerings. If you want your CSI:whatever fix, tv.com is the place to go.
3. Amazon – Amazon has a streaming service that allows you to purchase TV episodes and movies. It streams well, but the costs are a little higher: about $2 per episode. But if you’re into watching old episodes of “the West Wing,” this is probably your best bet.
4. Netflix – Netflix has a two-week trial subscription, with the monthly fee being about $9 after that. I haven’t used the DVD mail order portion yet, but the choices in the streaming video part of the site are pretty decent. Not a lot of recent movies, but some good documentaries and older fare there. I recently watched Bridge Over the River Kwai again.

Obviously, these aren’t the only places to find quality fair on the Internet. You can watch political shows on MSNBC.com, CNN.com, or foxnews.com, depending on your persuasion. There’s also CSPAN, and the assorted network sites. Some people find the advertisements annoying. I don’t. I find the advertising on Internet video sites much less annoying than the standard fare on TV (cough – ShamWow guy – cough).

The main area where you’re likely to fall short is athletics. College and professional sports still haven’t gotten onto the streaming bandwagon as much as they could, and you’ll probably pay dearly for an inferior product. Hopefully that will change soon. (UPDATE: Depending on your Internet provider, you may have access to ESPN3.com, which streams a number of athletic events, including every game from the 2010 World Cup. Also, the NFL, MLB, and NHL have recently begun streaming some live games online, although there is sometimes a cost associated).

Thoughts?

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This is cyclical recovery. We all tend to confuse the cyclical and the secular. Newspaper revenues are subject to economic cycles. They ebb and they flow. But there is a second force, the longterm decline of the primacy of mass-circulation print, that is undeniable. The result is that you get kind of a sawtooth graph, pointing down. You might fool yourself that it’s actually pointing up by failing to consider how much faster the broader market is growing, but the fact is that newspapers have been declining in market share for many decades.

As we begin to crawl out of the hole created by the Bush administration’s disastrous policies, we need to guard against slipping back into the bad behavior of the past. This economy has done us a brutal favor by waking us up. Let’s not waste it.

link: yelvington.com | Steve Yelvington’s media weblog

Steve Yelvington points to some “green shoots” relating to the economy and newspapers. I’m less than optimistic.

With 70 percent of the U.S. economy dependent on consumer spending (and advertising is deeply tied to that particular economic force), I don’t see a huge turnaround in the economy any time soon. Consumers are squeezed by massive amounts of debt and hunkering down in this economic uncertainty. Residential real estate is still weak, and commercial real estate is facing a huge meltdown of its own. And banks are being closed left and right across the nation by the FDIC.

I am certainly not an economist, but economists do predict a “jobless recovery” for the next couple of years. I do not see how consumer spending will rise to the levels that we had prior to this economic meltdown any time soon. And that adds a layer to Yelvington’s point about the cyclical and secular nature of recovery.

The cyclical of this economic downturn may turn out to be much more secular than people think. The Great Depression had a profound effect on the generation that went through it, and this economic cycle will likely have a similar effect on consumers.

Yelvington points to a Gordon Borrell report that predicts rising newspaper ad revenues beginning next year (how they predict growth rates through 2014 is beyond me). But I think the most salient part of Borrell’s post is this quote:

True, it all equates to more of a dead-cat bounce than anything else. And even at 2014 levels of just under $30 billion, newspaper advertising won’t be anything near the $55 billion we saw earlier this decade. Nor will it ever return to that level. (emphasis added)

I do agree with Yelvington’s final point:

Newspaper companies have sinned against their own interests by borrowing like mad to buy more of the past when they should have been investing in the future. Corporate takeovers, luxury offices and new printing plants belong to the 20th century. The future for local media is in new digital products focused on the needs of local businesses. Do we have the will to pursue that future? I think we do, but knock on wood.

Newspaper companies will need to deleverage all of the massive debt they’ve grown, and that’s going to be a painful process. I just hope newspaper executives will learn the lessons from this debt bubble and not go back to spending money they don’t have in the future.

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Twitter and other social media sites have broken down a lot of barriers between the personal and professional.

This has led major media organizations (not to mention professional sports organizations) to clamp down on the social media craze by developing policies about these forms of expression. ESPN is the latest media entity to find itself navigating the waters of social media note about 'social media'» . And the results are mixed.

Jennifer Van Grove first reported yesterday that ESPN was putting the clamp down on employee twittering. Then, there was ESPN’s response, which was pure spin. You can read the entire ESPN social media policy at Van Grove’s update blog post.

There are some solid points in the ESPN guidelines, points that I’ve mentioned elsewhere (like not sharing internal deliberations – something that could kill morale in a newsroom). Overall, however, the policy is just as heavy-handed as some previous policies that I’ve seen, and really shows how much corporate hand-wringing can stifle individual creativity and things that would – in my opinion – benefit the company.

Of course, ESPN’s policy pales in comparison to the crackdown that’s been happening in the National Football League on players tweeting from training camp.

Ultimately, these policies which attempt to bureaucratize social media interaction will end up harming the company’s standing in the eyes of viewers who participate in social media. I don’t follow any twitter denizens whose sole purpose is to promote the corporate line (whatever that may be). If I want that, I’ll read PR Newswire or the web site. Give me someone real or I can do without. I suspect many Twitterers would agree.

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• Espn Wtf??? (twittermaven.blogspot.com)
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• NFL Star Antonio Cromartie Fined $2500 Over a Tweet (mashable.com)
• ESPN Limits Social Networking (nytimes.com)

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