Amazon's Kindle

Blog post from a 202er:

Katy,
Interesting new technology. Amazon.com has this new gadget called the "kindle" you buy books and newspapers and blogs, and they are automatically updated on to this device. You can have thousands of books all on this little device. What does this mean for print? Is this just another step on the way to making tangible, paper documents obsolete? I just think it is interesting, especially with so many things moving to the Web (like Cap Times for example), and that article you posted on the blog last week about the "dumbing" of our generation. We talked about this last year in my j201 class, what could this mean for history? The thought of our entire history being on hard drives from here on out is a little frightening. And, the worst part is, I know all of this, and still can't help but think that is sort of cool /:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=amb_link_6369712_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1DPT074MSY63Z6E0HDDC&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=365797001&pf_rd_i=507846

Thanks!

Outing Prince Harry

Britain's Prince Harry has has been serving with the military in Afghanistan, fighting in forward areas. His presence was kept secret under an agreement between the military and the media.
Blogger Matt Drudge broke the silence Thursday, and the British are now calling him home, fearing that his presence would be a magnet for attacks and endanger his unit as a whole and him as an individual.
Assess the Drudge Report's responsibility here. Did he make the right call? Were other media outlets right to agree to the blackout?
Here's the take from an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute.

Packer Oops

This is an object lesson what can happen when you prepare your strat comm (or even journalism) in advance and test it on the Web.
The Green Bay Packers posted for a time on Thursday a story announcing Brett Favre's retirement. They say it was an error, but that may not satisfy fans or the blogosphere. Local news provided a bit more on the story.

Interview Links

You're about to begin doing interviews for your individual stories, and we'll discuss interviewing in lecture Monday. One great way to get comfortable interviewing is to watch other people do it. If you happen onto interviews online, post a link as a comment.
One of my favorites is the "Questions For" feature in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. But please note the line at the bottom regarding editing. We'll discuss the ethics of interviewing Monday.

KC News Meeting

The floor is yours, what news mattered this week? Post your comments and get a discussion going.

Photo editing and ethics

I'm going cross-blog here for an interesting note on ethics in photo editing. Check out this post from my advanced class. What do you think of the choices made here? Which photo is the one you would run if you were in charge?

Source Me

Here's a thread for you to post requests for help in finding sources for your Individual Story assignment. You can ask for help by posting a comment and then check back to see if any fellow 202ers have added a comment with a suggestion. Please remember that this blog is public, so if you put up an e-mail or IM address or phone number, the world can see it.

Online Power and Giving

Woah, check out this blog. It's a 9-year-old who is climbing summits to raise money for his school. I remember collecting coins for charity in a rinsed-clean milk carton when I was a kid. What does the Web do for kids who support causes?

Heckling at Home

Excellent blog addition from a 202er:

1. read this CapTimes story about an alleged crime in the dorms
2. read this response to it on the Critical Badger blog
3. digest the debate in the blog comments
4. weigh in through our comments

The poster sent this as an accompaniment to the Discussion Arena reading on digital heckling. What do you think of the response here?

Should news organizations endorse candidates?

TIME magazine's managing editor offers an intriguing question: why do newspapers endorse political candidates?
I'm curious what you think. You are the generation at issue here. What does it mean to you if the Wisconsin State Journal says it thinks you should pick, say, McCain over Huckabee. Take it closer to home. Does it matter who the Herald or Cardinal endorse as the best in the race? Does that kind of endorsement affect how you judge their objectivity or credibility?

Student Newspaper in Hot Water

The student paper at the University of Colorado is under the microscope for publishing an opinion piece that offended many.
Extend this to your own campus. Could this happen at the Cardinal or Herald? Has it? If it does, what means should be used to address the issue? Should the editor be fired?

McCain and the New York Times

It looks like the McCain campaign may be spoinlin' for a fight with the New York Times over an article posted online last night, covering his record on ethics choices.
What are the media ethics ramifications of this? To get you started, read this perspective from the Poynter Institute.

Ethics and Medill, an update

In case you missed it, I started an earlier thread about controversy brewing at Northwestern's journalism school and its dean using unattributed comments in his letter in the alumni magazine.
Yesterday, some Medill faculty fired a shot across the bow.
I have a lot of thoughts here but want yours. Specifically, I'd like to know what you think about the idea that PR writing is held to a lower sourcing standard than journalism.
And what about anonymous sources, are they OK to use? When?
And let's get right to the heart here. Is the problem that people think the dean should have named his sources or is it that they suspect he didn't really have those sources? If it's the latter, do they have a responsibility to come out and say it?
Finally, does it matter? I was having a little IM spat with a journalist friend yesterday, warning him that it's all too easy to blow these insider controversies out of proportion when they may not matter much to the wider public. I used you guys as Exhibit A: you posted only two comments to the thread on Medill but put up 30 about NIU. You have a clear sense of what is important to you. Do news media share those priorities?

The Race Card

I found this column intriguing. It's an argument about reactions to race in the presidential campaigns and how small comments can be inflated. I liked the way he tied it to past campaigns to illuminate the differences, especially the Willie Horton case, which was a key issue in the presidential race when I was your age (does that make me sound as old as I think it does?).
So what do you think? How does race matter here, if at all? Is it being used strategically by either side in the Democratic race? What will happen in the general election?

Are We Dumb?

I'm quite curious what you think of this piece, as a member of a generation she targets in her argument.

Is it copying or is it not?

Hey Katy,
An interesting blog topic regarding plagarism in speeches...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/us/politics/19campaign.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1203437157-zYC6qCDhBwxaXX/8/VFJSw

http://badgerherald.com/news/2008/02/19/obama_catches_flak_f.php

KC News Meeting

Sorry, I got locked out of Blogger for a bit because Google thought I was a spyware robot. Never thought I was that nefarious.
Here's what I've been reading, in massively abbreviated version. Please add yours:
- Wisconsin primary
- street racing tragedy
- Castro stepping down
- Kosovo recognition
- elections in Pakistan
- Microsoft fights for Yahoo

Sourcing lecture linx

ESPN hoaxCity of Madison
AP on gun seller
NIU
HP
Election graphic
Street racing
Race and crime

AP and Its Members in Conflict

The Associated Press, built on the bedrock of newspapers, is finding itself less tied to them as a revenue stream. At the same time, newspapers are finding themselves looking for a way, any way, to cut expenses. This puts the two in conflict and highlights the economics of this industry.

Race and crime

When I ask you what distinguishes online journalism, some of you answer a key is the space to do more than you could in another medium. This is an amazing and heart-rending illustration of that. I'd love to see them go beyond the blog now, to put some depth to the breadth, particularly by using audio or video to give voice to families that have so often been invisible. I think it's also interesting how on-scene reporting can deepen the kind of data you'd find in everyblock and how race played in different ways for the audience.

Ethics and Medill

A great discussion topic from a 202-er:
______
Hi Katy,
I'm sure you've heard the dean of the Medill school of journalism at Northwestern was caught possibly using fabricated sources in the alumni magazine. I thought this would be interesting to discuss on the blog. It is really shocking that the dean at the most prestigious journalism school would resort to this- what kind of example does his behavior give to journalists everywhere? Here is the link to the article in the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-northwestern-dean_14feb14,0,4916533.story
__________
Let's explore this.

I wrote a piece in our alumni newsletter a few years ago and led with a reference to an old city editor of mine. Unlike Lavine's vague memory I recall clearly, actually, stewing a bit over quoting him, grappling with whether to go with "show them" or "show 'em." But I decided the latter was really the way he spoke to me. Honestly, it never occurred to me to name him. I never considered him an "unnamed source." His identity was in no way germane to the story, and I remembered vividly what he had said to me (I routinely saw him as god-like in my reporting infancy).

I also realize now that I did just the same thing with a column I wrote last summer on the ethics of using social networking profiles of crime victims in reporting. The wrap to that story came from a visit I made to a 202 lab to discuss the issue. I recall just as vividly who told me the story and the context in which it was raised. Yet, again, I did not name her and made no conscious decision not to do so.
___________
Journalism schools are interesting places to play out journalism ethics. So what of it, the dean's and my choices? What of the other sources -- students and faculty members -- refusing to go on the record to discuss the situation? Is it OK to use anonymous sources? If so, in what circumstances? Was the dean's letter "journalism"? Did I do my audiences in both cases a disservice?

NYT job cuts

Another post from a 202er ...

___________
Hi Katy,

I saw this article today on the NY Times about the newspaper cutting about 100 jobs in the newsroom.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/business/media/15times.html

It's another case in the last week of changes in the newspaper business.

Have a good weekend,

NIU Shootings

As raw as the events are, I'd like you to think about the Northern Illinois mass shootings and the media implications.
Check out news organizations:
- Chicago Tribune
- Washington Post
- New York Times
- CNN
just to name a few. How are they handling the coverage? What's the level of sensitivity? Of information? Are you getting insights? Or repeats of the same information? How are they handling the questions of mental health? Of victims' stories? What writing has resonated most with you? What images? What things shouldn't have appeared?

Then I want you to look at the strat comm angles. I know this seems odd, but this is a story that was handled by PR people, the university communications staff at NIU. Go to their Web site and look at the information. Did they provide enough info and do it quickly enough? Look at some of the info updates earlier on. I found them interesting because they didn't just update and replace info. Instead, they used strikethrough to show what info had been updated or replaced. Watch the press conferences and examine those interactions. What role did public relations play in this tragedy and was it done ethically and effectively?

Ads and Newspapers in One Post

Great intersection of news and strat comm. A cooperative has introduced quadrantONE, a way for national advertisers to push their messages out to smaller local and regional newspaper sites. If you're Miller Beer, you're not going to negotiate individually with the Journal Sentinel, State Journal, etc., to post ads on their sites. The theory is that quandrantONE will give media buyers a chance to specialize without too much effort in contacting individual outlets.
Newspapers are in trouble. Ad revenues are down, as is circulation. Advertisers need new avenues to consumers. No one has figured out a way to truly leverage the Web as a revenue model. Will this work? What do you think?

In College in Wisconsin? Help me out

Do me a favor if you're a college student in Wisconsin. Take the survey below and pass it along to other students, especially those on campuses other than Madison. Let's take this baby viral because representative results will help us tell a better story.
_______________
The Journal Sentinel is asking students to complete a short, anonymous survey about drinking behavior and to send the link via e-mail to at least 20 friends. Students also could post the link on their Facebook page.

The survey will be used confidentially by staff writers working on an upcoming series of stories about alcohol.

Here is the link to the survey, which takes about 5 minutes to complete:
http://tinyurl.com/2vzveb

The survey results will be sent directly to a database at the Journal Sentinel.

Journalism students who help spread the word about this survey will get their name in a contributor box that will accompany an upcoming series of stories.

Thanks.

Cool Digital Strat Comm

OK, this is really fun. Look at the innovation from marketers at Holiday Inn Express. They found a way to tie into the interest and energy about the primary campaigns with an interactive branding message. You can highlight a candidate and find out how much he or she would have saved by staying at their hotels instead.
This is edging into an area of interactive that tries to get users to play games to keep them on a site and attending to a message. It happens in news too. It also emphasizes viral, not paying to get a message out but making it interesting enough to get people to forward it for you (much as I'm doing here).
Is this effective? Would you share it?

KC's News Meeting

What's going on this week? Here's my start to the thread. Post your ideas via comments.
- Yahoo! rejects Microsoft's bid
- do you know what "superdelegates" are?
- BlackBerry service down (what are all those CrackBerry addicts doing tonight?)

Strib Layoffs

Another 202er supplies a post. (Have I mentioned how much I love you guys?)
________
Hey Katy,

Here's an article on WCCO (Minneapolis) from today. Looks like the Star Tribune is laying off people in their print department. Tie into the Cap Times?

http://wcco.com/business/star.tribune.job.2.651035.html
________

This was a part of the conversation I'm hearing at the multimedia conference I'm at this week. Job losses are nothing new in newspapers right now. The interesting, and disconcerting, element to this one is that these are involuntary layoffs, not voluntary buyouts. At papers like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that have been cutting staff, the cuts to date have been voluntary and accompanied by a severance package. These cuts are not anything pretty, but they're a grade above a layoff.
So here's what I want to know from you: does this scare you? If you want to go into journalism, how does this time feel for you? I gave a speech last week to the Wisconsin Newspaper Association titled, "Why It's a Good Time to Want to Be a Reporter Even Though Everyone Says It Isn't" (and incidentally, the subtitle was "Yes, They Pay Me to Teach People to Be Concise"). Why do you think I'm optimistic?

What's Your Candidate?

Great blog addition from a 202er this morning:
_________
Hi Katy,

I found this story through the NY Times and it reminded me a lot about today's lecture and the several Mac vs. PC examples we heard today. I thought you might find it interesting how these technologies are becoming representations for entire genres, demographics, styles, etc. and how one writer used them to contrast Obama and Clinton in this article.
_________
What do you think? Do the styles of the two platforms fit the styles of the two candidates? And then what would John McCain and Mike Huckabee be? We've talked about branding in marketing. How are the candidates brands faring in your opinion?

Reporting and Airline Security

Curious what you think of this case. A reporter in New Zealand followed up on a story on an in-flight stabbing aboard an airplane by boarding a flight with a knife and a fake gun in carry-on luggage.
What are the ethical implications here? How do you weigh the risk the move posed against the public benefit of pointing out holes in the security system? Should the reporter be prosecuted? Or was this exactly what journalism is supposed to do?

Fark

Just got this msg with a link to share.

Hey Katy,

I thought you'd enjoy this site. It's called Fark.com, and it pretty much takes some of the biggest absurdities from the media each day from a ton of outlets - in print, online, and broadcast. It is especially critical of poor writing and bad leads - quite timely for our class! They've even published a book with some of the site's best findings called, "Its Not News It's Fark: How Mass MEdia Tries to Pass Off Crap as News."

Enjoy!

http://www.fark.com/

Rachel's Thread

Hi Vallens Lab. I'm so sorry you got snowed out yesterday. We're going to have to shaft your Discussion Arena chats this week and next to plug in the media analysis presentation that got scrapped yesterday.
I'm starting this thread to give you a way to comment and post ideas about the Discussion Arena readings for this week and next. Have at it!

Holy cats

If you want to see the biggest breaking story in Madison media in a long time, check this out. You may not know much about The Capital Times, but this is huge.
I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the move.

Cool Innovation

A few years ago, I happened to stumble across a site called chicagocrime.org that brought together mapping and data on crimes in Chicago. I found it downright thrilling as a former crime reporter because it gave people access to information both broad-based and hyper-local. I had always felt constrained by paper, ink and time, never able to tell my community all of what was going on and where. This site struck me as a fascinating extension of journalism.
So I was beyond bummed when it went offline last week ...
... But thrilled that its creator, Adrian Holovaty, launched a new project that takes the original model many steps forward. Dubbed "EveryBlock," the project gives users access to data well beyond crime. Want to know if a restaurant in your neighborhood has been inspected? It's there. News stories covering your block? Got that too. Even Flickr photos.
Go in and surf around in it. They're EveryBlocking now in Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
Then tell me what you think. Is it a site you'd use in your own city? What's your opinion of the interface? What other kinds of information would you use?

KC's News Meeting

What news stories are you monitoring this week? Here's a start on mine. Post yours via comments.
- Super Tuesday
- horrific mall killing outside Chicago
- Britney in crisis
- economic stimulus
- Kenya
- salary for our new chancellor
- umm, what's that? snow in our forecast? get outta here!
And while you're at it, think about how these kinds of stories play to the communication values we discussed in lecture. Britney and prominence. Kenya and conflict. Which have the greatest quantitative impact? Qualitative?

Super Bowl Ads

So we didn't have much time to chat yesterday about the advertising bonanza that is the Super Bowl. Which ads did you like? Which did you hate? Which do you think have the greatest effect? And what about the Richard Simmons spot ... was it insensitive?
More on ads. It's Super Tuesday. What are you reading about candidates' ads? I'm getting a lot of that kind of traffic on Facebook, especially notes about this piece in support of Obama. Curious how this is playing with your generation.

Moderating Posts

An interesting column by the Chicago Tribune's public editor, Timothy McNulty. A public editor is sometimes called an "ombudsman" at a news organization. They're designed to be readers' representatives on a host of issues involving what goes in the paper and why. The New York Times has a particularly interesting public editor right now, Clark Hoyt. He's ruffled a few feathers, which has been fun to watch.
What do you think of McNulty's point? Should online reader posts be moderated? How can you relate this to your media use? Ever put a "shout out" in the Herald?

Acceptable Lingo or More Morbidity?

OK, you chimed in on Britney Spears. Now check this one out. Is it acceptable for journalists, especially talking heads on broadcast, to refer to tomorrow's primary battle as "Tsunami Tuesday"?
Sensitivity also matters in advertising and public relations (check out the pieces for this week's Discussion Arena).
I have my own view. What's yours?

Well-Prepared or Morbid?

What do you think about obituaries prepared in advance? Reporters recently revealed that AP has a prepared obit for Britney Spears, speaking to the darkness she's recently been through. But the vast majority of obits in the can are for people in their 70s or older.
What does it say when we prepare text in advance of the death of a woman in her 20s? Should an obit merely cover a career or should it speak to the larger context of a person's life? Should it speak to her troubles or is that trampling a person's grave?