Getting Back in the Groove

Today I became an official reporter for BYU's The Daily Universe. Sweet, right?

I'm working out of the metro desk and probably covering the national/White House beat. Again, sweet.

I took a trip to DC at the beginning of June. LOVE DC!

Couple of comments I've been meaning to make.

Discovered the magazine Capitol Hill. I really enjoyed it. There was a great article about journalists covering the White House that I found especially fun to read.

On my way back home I had a layover in Chicago. With all the hub bub of The Tribune trying to figure out it's identity, I picked up a copy to peruse. The new format was fine, definitely more manageable to read when sitting next to someone in close quarters. But, I was baffled by the "play" and "marketplaces" sections that still had the traditional formatting.

That's all.

how to use Twitter for reporting

Some slightly more advanced tips on how to use twitter to your journalistic advantage.




The site is kinda cool too, http://beatblogging.org.

Today I was at the local library for a brief moment. I decided to look up their journalism/new media books. (Now imagine that stupid buzzing noise that comes on when people get stuff wrong).

Nothing! Well there was stuff, but most of it was from the 90's and seemingly irrelevant.

I took two thoughts (and no books) away from the library today.

The first being that maybe the selection of journalism materials in our community library is a reflection of the state of journalism in my home town.

Second, why the hail would I look for to learn about new media in old media forms? Hello! I, we, should be going to the source! The best way to learn is usually first hand, thus the reasoning behind internships.

Anyway, just a friendly reminder to me, and all aspiring new journalists.

NEW not OLD.

A Taste

Here's a taste of what's happening in my neck of the woods. And this was back in March. Unemployment in Harney County has just reached something like 22% and with the closure of our sawmills here in Union County, our unemployment rate is bound to hit 18 or 19% soon.

Do Tell, Mr. Nobel Prize Winner

I'm Concerned

So I've been rereading Jeffrey Scheuer's "The Big Picture," (okay, truth be told I only read the first 60 pages fall semester when it was assigned reading, but I've held onto it knowing that when I had more leisure time I would read it). I've been reminded of some interesting points.

Scheuer talks about chief threats to indpendent journalism - profit and power. But then says the more serious threats are political and economic (Scheuer, 2008, p. 48).

If we rewind a bit Scheuer also discusses the fact that information is an economic good. This essentially means that information is subject to a market economy. Journalism is the transfer of information into context and understanding for the general public, thus journalsim is subject to a market economy (thus "the journalism industry").

But one of Scheuer's main ideas in his book is that democracy depends on quality journalism, and the quality of journalism that is produced within a state is indictative of the quality of democracy to be found in that state (Scheuer, 2008, p. 11).

If much of this rings as true to you as it did to me, then a state of grave conern must be encroaching upon your usually complacent state - maybe in the form heartburn, indigestestion, upset stomach or diarrhea (pink does more than you think) - because of what we see happening to journalism in its current forms. We see layoffs, we see cuts in content, we see all online news "papers," all in the name of money and profit. We see newsroom headhaunchos trying to use citizen journalists. Blogs are booming as replacement news sources and shows on comedy central become people's goto for hardhitting news.

One could argue that journalism quality is significantly decreasing. Does that mean so is the state of our democracy? How can we keep the quality while morphing into modern journalism? How do we swallow the bad taste of economically hard times and still provide citizens with "enough good information to make informed judgemdnts," (Scheuer, 2008, p. 25)?

Scheuer points out that not only do citizens need to be able to access good information, they need to understand the sources from which they are obtaining their info. How does that source reflect and explain and why? Do consumers of today's information understand from where they are getting their info? Does Joe Six-Pack's blog provide the same information as The Wall Street Journal? Does the average soccer mom understand the fundamental difference between the two?

All of this was just to say, I'm concerned.

"a more immediately digestible reading experience"

A recent blog was posted by TIME's Michael Scherer that seems to sum up how the news is changing. While Scherer's focus is on political news, I think it's core ideas are valuable to all journalists, especially those of us still in the depths of our studies. I highly suggest reading the full article, but here's just a blurb:

"The Internet has changed the incentives for news producers. Once upon a time, the incentive of a print reporter at a major news organization was to create a comprehensive, incisive account of an event like Cheney's provocative interview on CNN. (Open the New York Times or the Washington Post tomorrow, and you will still be able to read versions of this story.) That account would then be packaged into a container (a newspaper, a magazine, a 30-minute network news broadcast) and sold to the consumer. In the Internet-age, by contrast, what matters is not the container, but the news nugget, the blurb, the linkable atom of information. That nugget is not packaged (since the newspapers, magazine, broadcast television structure do not really apply online), but rather sent out into the ether, seeking out links, search engine ranking and as many hits as possible. A click is a click, after all, whether it's to a paragraph-length blog post or a 2,000 word magazine piece. News, in other words, is increasingly no longer consumed in the context of a full article, or even a full accounting of an event, but rather as Twitter-sized feeds, of the sort provided by the Huffington Post, The Page, and The Drudge Report. Each quote gets its own headline. Context and analysis are minimized for space. The reader, choosing her own adventure as she clicks, creates her own narrative of the world, one that is largely dependent on the aggregators she employs."

Video Blogging with a PHAT Beat

If this is what videoblogging is, I'm concerned.







Found at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82aZZraeSxk&feature=featured

For Kicks and Giggles

(You might have to whip out your glasses to read this, it's blurry and small. Sorry. Oh, and only those in the news business might find this mildly entertaining. Again, sorry. Also, you can click the picture to be taken to the link. Peace.)

Hmmm...

"The system will bring down Obama." Hmmmm..... curious words. I think it a bit funny when people start taking issue with a "system" (aka the Constitution and government of The United States of America) that has worked so well for 275 years, because they need a scapegoat. The "system" grants people like Matthews, like Limbaugh, like myself, the right to speak freely, to report freely about the very "system" that they are complaining about. Laugh of the day.

Read more commentary at http://tinyurl.com/cuoyhe.

Our substitute: Miss Technolgy

BYU's newspaper, The Daily Universe, has a blogazine(an "online magazine and blog hybrid" see Google's definition) called Beyond The Universe . I hope to one day help produce it, so you should go check it out. Anyway, I was just reading a Q&A with LDSmingle.com creator Ben Peterson. He said something I already knew, but thought I would put it out there to remind us all....

"Q: How do you think our society is changing the way that we interact with each other?

A:I think technology is becoming a substitute for some key social interaction, and that people need to be cautious and have balance."

Is the world becoming too "twitterpated," is there a new disease that my sister Zoey seems to have called"textaholism," and should I be writing in my actual journal as often as I "blog?"

Somethin' I've been fiddlin' with....

(Click on the photo)

An audio slideshow I've been working on. Shots from lunch time at the Wilk, BYU's student center.

Maybe I'll Go Tweet Ashton and Demi...

I'm bored...what better to do then tweet Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, right???

Demise of Domino = Demise of Mags?

I read about the death of Domino Magazine and sighed a sad sigh. I had enjoyed picking up the magazine once and a while, envisioning my future home. Even though circulation was up, advertising was down, and thus the death of Domino. Money really does make the world go round.

While I was home over President's Day weekend, I was in Wal-Mart with my mother. She was expressing her frustration that two of her favorite magazines seemed slow in coming out this month. I told her about Domino's demise and jokingly suggested mayber her magazines were going out of business, too.

While sitting at my desk back in Provo, my mother called me to vent her sad dismay (she's often the barer of sad/bad/disheartening/dismaying news) that indeed the two favorite magazines discussed earlier (Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion and Country Home) were both stopping publication.

Shelter magazines aren't the only mags taking hits. For instance, LIFE magazine stopped publishing hard copies more than a year ago. It is interesting to ponder the effects of the economy on the print world, and wonder what this implies for the future of the magazine.

As for now, I'll miss poring over the glossy pages of Domino whilst envisioning my oh-so-chic future home....