Archive for April, 2007
The panel at this morning’s video session at Nexpo covered a lot of ground for newspapers who are exploring the space. Presenters (and their presentations) included:
- Joel Rochon, Newsroom Systems Manager, Tucson Citizen (Moderator)
- Keven Roach, AP (AP online video plans and future)
- Anne Saul, News Systems Editor, Gannett (Training newsrooms for video production)
- John Yemma, Deputy ME for Multimedia, Boston Globe (Building an integrated video operation)
-
Fred Reitberger, Apple Senior Systems Engineer, Apple (Nuts and bolts presentation on hardware and technology specs)
Summaries, impressions and observations after the jump.
Read the full post April 24th, 2007
Joe Strupp at Editor & Publisher makes an interesting argument:
The folks at the Pulitzer Prize office say they don’t recall a college newspaper ever winning the coveted awards. Well come next spring, that may need to change. Given everything the student-run Collegiate Times of Virginia Tech has accomplished in the past week, from online scoops to poignant, thoughtful print presentations, the daily paper may deserve some consideration, even if a special category is required.
We pointed to the Collegiate Times early in the crisis, and their work was remarkable. They went into blog mode when the shootings first happened, and broke news on their site. They published profiles of the victims, ran continuous eyewitness accounts, and kept their community informed with important and timely information written for them, by them. The Collegiate Times had multimedia pages reporting on the tragedy. And Strupp points out that the New York Times and the Richmond Times-Dispatch linked to the Collegiate Times as its only source for a list of the students who were murdered. If the Collegiate Times were a “professional newspaper,” you’d have to think a Pulitzer would be in the bag. I hope the board can see that these students accomplished a major and landmark act of journalism.
April 23rd, 2007
Nashville, TN
Read the full post April 23rd, 2007
Danville, KY
Read the full post April 23rd, 2007
Nashville, TN
Read the full post April 23rd, 2007
David Halberstam was killed in a car accident in California Monday morning. Halberstam won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Vietnam War while he worked at the New York Times. He wrote 21 books, including “The Best and the Brightest,” a book that convinced many that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. From Wikipedia:
Halberstam put an enormous effort into his book about Kennedy’s foreign policy decisions about the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest. Synthesizing material from dozens of books and many dozens of interviews, Halberstam focused on the odd paradox that those who crafted the U.S. war effort in Vietnam were some of the most intelligent, well-connected and self-confident men in America—”the best and the brightest”—and yet those same men were unable to imagine and promote any but a bloody and disastrous course in the Vietnam War.
Thousands of readers began The Best and the Brightest feeling that the U.S. must pursue the war in Vietnam until “victory” was achieved, but became convinced by Halberstam’s book that the U.S. could not win and therefore should withdraw from Vietnam.
Halberstam was the passenger in a car that was struck by another car in Menlo Park. A student from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkley, was driving the car that was hit. Halberstam had spoken at the school Saturday. He was 73.
April 23rd, 2007
I’m currently at Nexpo, the Newspaper Association of America’s technology meeting. As usual, the show floor has lots of neat machines and it is a great place to shop for fun things like presses, inserters, editorial systems, and all that good stuff. This year, though, there are quite a few items on the agenda that pertain to online content, and especially video. Apple hosted a well-attended breakfast event to tout their rich media storytelling tools, and Adobe is selling their editing suite. Rob Curley is here, so hallways are buzzing about his newspaper video work like Naples’ Studio 55 and onBeing. Disruptive innovation is a hot topic. While they are still taking care of the ink and paper business, newspaper technologists are definitely not hiding their heads in the sand.
April 23rd, 2007
We’re used to TV segments in the news being sponsored. “Tonight’s weather is brought to you by your local Ford dealer.” But sponsored columns in the newspaper have always been something of a no-no. No more. The Philadelphia Inquirer is going to start a column called PhillyInc. next week, and it will have what sounds like the equivalent of what we call online a sponsor “wrapper.” The section will be sponsored by Citizen’s Bank, will have the bank’s logo at the top and an ad at the bottom and will be outlined in the bank’s green color. It will be written by the regular cast of staffers, and is not a “paid advertisement.” This would be a major change in policy should its example be followed by other newspapers.
April 23rd, 2007
I like it whenever I come upon contrarian points of view. And newassignment.net has a doozy. Steve Fox writes about Virginia Tech student Jamal Albarghouti’s cellphone video of the shooting at Virginia Tech. Here are some of his thoughts:
As everyone steps up to applaud the “citizen journalism” that occurred yesterday, with kudos upon kudos give to the cellphone video made infamous by CNN… Consider this: the video had no inherent news value and told no story. It did have sounds of bullets being fired and screams. Those were bullets that killed, maimed and injured students and faculty members. This wasn’t a video game. Is such video responsible journalism? Are these the types of Citizen Journalists that people want to see? Are we doomed to create “citizen journalists” to play the I-patsies for cable television?
A poster in Fox’s piece also points us to Paul McCleary’s thoughts from CJRDaily called “What Happens When an I-Reporter Gets Hurt?”:
Arguably the most stunning thing about Albarghouti’s footage is not what he was filming — it took repeated viewings to figure out exactly what it was that he captured — but the fact that he seemed to run toward the gunshots. We applaud — scratch that — we expect any cameraman worth his salt to move toward the action, but a grad student with no experience in these situations?
I will respectfully disagree with Fox’s take on this. There is plenty of news value in a firsthand, eyewitness account of a major news story. Just because Albarghouti wasn’t in the classroom doesn’t mean what he captured wasn’t news. He had sound and he had pictures of police moving in. We show pointless exteriors of buildings hours after a crime has taken place there. This was news video. McCleary’s point is more provocative. There will come a time when someone rushes to he scene of a tragedy to capture it on video and gets hurt. Does that mean we stop asking people to send in pictures? No. It means we - as you already hear - tell people to use common sense and not take risks. Mind you - If he were my kid, I’d scream at him. (And take away his cellphone…)
April 23rd, 2007
The Los Angeles Times is reporting it will cut 150 employees as the paper continues to have declining revenue. 70 of the job cuts will come from the newsroom, which will lower the editorial contingent from 940 to 870. Meantime, the Chicago Tribune will cut about 100 jobs from its newsroom and will offer employee buyouts. Both the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune are owned by Tribune Co., which was recently purchased by Sam Zell for $8.2 billion.
April 23rd, 2007
The Washington Post reports that the Federal Communications Commission will recommend Congress enact legislation intended to curb violence in TV programming. The legislation would also extend government power to the ability to fine basic cable channels for the first time as well. The FCC has had the power to fine TV stations that show sexually “indecent” material, and now wants the government to have that same authority to levy fines on violence, especially on programming airing before 10 p.m. Still, as the article points out, the recommendation is broad and it would be up to the Congress to decide what “violence” is. Does cartoon violence count? Professional wrestling? It seems the nightly news is safe, but what about an infotainment show that features that same footage?
April 23rd, 2007
Jeff Jarvis was on CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz Sunday, discussing how students used new media to inform each other about the shootings at Virginia Tech. Also in on the discussion - Mary Katherine Ham of TownHall.com.
April 22nd, 2007
(This piece originally appeared in the AR&D Media 2.0 Intel Report, April 20, 2007, and has been edited slightly.) News Directors absolutely want to hire reporters, anchors and producers with online experience. Many consider it essential now, as indeed it is. Part of the transition to becoming a 24/7 local media operation is having people with online skills who don’t have preconceived notions that “TV comes first and everything else comes second.” So NDs are giving the edge to candidates who have computer chops. But, as Cory noted in his April 16th entry, many of the kids coming out of school don’t list their computer experiences on their resumes. Why?
Read the full post April 22nd, 2007
It’s nice to read a mainstream article about a new technology that embraces the tech and understands it. Of course, it also helps when the article is written by a the editor-in-chief of the M.I.T. publication Technology Review. Jason Pontin offers a review of Twitter, which we’ve been playing around with here at LR:
My own experiences with Twitter were mixed. I quickly realized that decrying the banality of tweets missed their point. The only people in the world who might be interested in my twittering — my family, my close friends — were precisely the ones who would be entertained and comforted by their triviality.
But I also strongly disliked the radical self-revelation of Twitter. I wasn’t sure that it was good for my intimate circle to know so much about my daily rounds, or healthy for me to tell them. A little secretiveness is, perhaps, a necessary lubricant in our social relations. I wondered whether twittering could ever have broad appeal.
I believe it will have broad appeal, in the same way YouTube does: large numbers of people who create information that appeals to a small audience.
April 22nd, 2007
San Diego
Read the full post April 20th, 2007
Seattle
Read the full post April 20th, 2007
Cory Bergman and Kate Anderson are getting married this weekend in Hawaii. On behalf of the LR Faithful and the employees here at One LR, I wish them a terrific wedding, a wonderful marriage and a hell of a party.
About frickin’ time, Bergman.
April 20th, 2007
In the wake of poor earnings reports at three major newspaper companies, Reuters posts a story with this opening line, “U.S. newspaper publishers are betting the Internet is the key to their survival, but a worsening classified advertising slump is hampering efforts to make good on their digital strategies.” And this quote from an analyst, “My sense is this is a real red flag for the industry. Rapid online growth appears to be dimming. That’s a big problem.” Online ad growth has slowed significantly at Tribune (from 30 to 17 percent), Gannett (30 to 16 percent) and NYT Company (from 72 to 22 percent). Another analyst weighs in and says that more acquisitions are needed “and that is not likely good for short-term shareholder value.” Yet he cautions “we’re just talking about a quarter here.”
Plus: Media General reports first quarter loss
April 20th, 2007
Clear Channel will sell its television group to Providence Equity Partners for $1.2 billion. The 56 stations (includes 18 digital multicast stations) span 24 markets. “This is a rare opportunity to acquire a premier collection of broadcast television stations with strong positions in many attractive markets across the United States,” said Providence Equity managing director Al Dobron. Back in November, Clear Channel announced it was being acquired by private equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital. At the same time, Clear Channel said it would put its TV stations up for sale. Press release…
Read the full post April 20th, 2007
Coming next Wednesday, PBS will air Buying the War (video preview), an analysis of how the media dropped the ball in the run-up to the Iraq War. Writes Greg Mitchell in Editor & Publisher, “While much of the evidence of the media’s role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong.” It airs Wednesday, April 25th, at 9 PM on PBS.
April 20th, 2007
All three newspaper companies experienced significant revenue declines as advertisers continue to shift money from print to the web. But the story here is the competition for those online ad dollars. The NY Times Company reduced its 2007 guidance for online ad growth, citing the advertising environment as “difficult.” Says one analyst, “There is stiff competition for internet advertising, and the transition (for newspapers from print to the web) will take longer and may well be less profitable than was anticipated.” This underlines the urgency for media companies to expand aggressively into new, local, niche internet businesses with high revenue potential.
Meanwhile: Google’s first quarter profit skyrockets 68 percent, beating analysts’ expectations once again. CEO Eric Schmidt said Google was “still at the beginning” of its core search and text-based advertising business, and he said the company expects its traditional newspaper, radio and TV advertising services to be big businesses by 2008.
April 20th, 2007
Raleigh, NC
Read the full post April 19th, 2007
Earlier we posted a blurb about the Chicago Tribune launching Triblocal.com, and now Dallas Morning News along with WFAA have launched NeighborsGo.com, a hyperlocal news site that’s powered by users. The site features user blogs, photos, video, forums and stories divided up by community. The social networking backbone is powered by Small World Labs. (Full disclosure: I work for Belo in Seattle, the same company that owns Dallas Morning News and WFAA.)
April 19th, 2007
On the Today Show Thursday morning: “We had planned to speak to some family members of victims (of the Virginia Tech shooting) this morning but they canceled their appearances because they were very upset with NBC for airing the images,” said Today host Meredith Vieira. We have a swirling debate over the issue here.
Update: NBC, MSNBC and other networks said they will pull back on using the video going forward, yet NBC News defended how it handled the story. “The decision to run this video was reached by virtually every news organization in the world, as evidenced by coverage on television, on Web sites and in newspapers,” NBC said in a statement. “We have covered this story — and our unique role in it — with extreme sensitivity, underscored by our devoted efforts to remember and honor the victims and heroes of this tragic incident.” Meanwhile, Fox News said it would no longer show the video at all.
April 19th, 2007
Via “Starring Amanda Congdon,” here’s video of the opening session from RTNDA@NAB on Sunday afternoon. Hosted by CNN’s Miles O’Brien, the panel discussion of online media and journalism features my AR&D partner Terry Heaton, Michael Rosenblum, Amanda Congdon, Elizabeth Osder (who was the director of products for Yahoo! News) and videoblogger Zadi Diaz.
April 19th, 2007
Next Entries
Previous Entries
