May 2007 Archives

Ran out of time this week. On vacation next week. Maybe a rough stretch?

The month-to-date miles is 52.09.

Tags: jogging | fatbloggers | jason calacanis

Bloggers will be the salvation of newspapers -- or something like that -- from Dave Winer.

Another post where a "tech guy" is a more optimistic about the newspaper buisness and mainstream media biz than many in it.

It would be a waste of a tradition, of a good coral reef, if newspapers really died. They need to change, and imho, when that change happens, we will safely be in the era of Web 3.0

Make sure to read the comments.

Tags: Web 3.0 | Dave Winer | newspapers

We only waited two years to see this. And Bill Shory explains why.

Tags: open records | police video | in-car cameras

A little late with the data, but here it is.

The month-to-date miles is 41.65.

Tags: jogging | fatbloggers | jason calacanis

Or "good enough" revisited.

We had a video go viral this week. We had a story on Sunday about a Knoxville porn starlet who goes by the name of Barbie Cummings. She blogged that she had oral sex and had naughty photos taken during a traffic stop by a Tennessee State Trooper. (Her NSFW blog suddenly disappeared Tuesday)

The Highway Patrol has suspended the trooper while it investigates. The sordid tale is here.

We weren't the first to have the story. We got scooped by a local TV station, WATE, on Friday night.

But the reporter assigned to the story, Matt Lakin, got an interview with the Cummings on Saturday. He took his $99 Target camera (wait, they're $89 now). No lights. No external mic. No tripod. usually poor audio and a challenge to hold steady. We're not taking a fancy HD camera here, folks. It's just sightly larger than a cigarette pack.

Lakin shot the video and online producer Erin Chapin edited and posted it Saturday night.

Despite the technical limitation, it proved good enough.

You can see his interview here.

We believe he is the only reporter who has done a video interview with Cummings about her encounter with the Tennessee trooper.

Traffic to the video soared on Monday, getting almost as many views during Monday as we had for all videos last week, according to stats from the Associated Prees. We are one of the early sites using AP to host and play local videos.

AP said the video, which was available most of Monday only from our branded version of the AP player, ranked as the third most viewed video of the day in its Online Video Network of over 1,600 affiliates.

Calls came in from TV networks and Tennessee TV stations to use the video.

The video was moved to the full national network and on Tuesday was listed as an "Editor's Pick" in the national AP channel. At mid-afternoon, it was No. 1 in the AP network.

Sometimes getting the story is about thinking and being there. And that's good reporting, print or video, right?

Tags: Barbie Cummings | porn star | Tennessee Highway Patrol | newspaper video

An insightful column by Cleveland Plainer Dealer columnist Ted Diadiun on Knoxville's Channon Christian and Chris Newsom murders and the media coverage of their horrific deaths.

Tags: Charlie Daniels | Channon Christian | Chris Newsom | racial hate | Ted Diadiun

It's almost funny -- a lot of people outside the newspaper business are a lot of more positive on its prospects than those inside.

Here on a Podtech segement posted by Tina Magnergard Bjers and called "How Will Web 2.0 Change Journalism?" Google VP Marissa Mayer says newspapers, especially, are here to stay; Web strategist Jeremiah Owyang says many of his friends consume content on paper more than digitally and ScobleShow's Robert Scoble says if you want to be a sucessfully journalist, figure out Google, Digg and blogs.

Are they just spinning us? Or maybe the audience doesn't read the future of newspapers as anachronistically as we've come to see it.

Granted, the structural pain is real, deep and excruciating. But if we do it right, that's short term.

Tags: newspapers | journalism | Tina Magnergard Bjers

Now this is a desk, I can relate too.

It's Al Gore's office.

(via Rex Hammock, who doesn't have the same reaction as I do)

Tags: Al Gore | GTD | paperless office

. . . I think news is a unique opportunity still. But what is happening is that everyone is cutting back individual news operations rather than partnering to ramp up. Consumers dont need more brands, they need more indepth reporting of more stories.

-- Mark Cuban on Blog Maverick

Read the whole thing. Classic Cuban!

Tags: newspapers | TV | Mark Cuban | media convergence

I was testing out my video camera, a Panasonic SDR-S150, and shot this video of one of my favorite potters, Mary Farrell. She was kind enough to be my test subject.

Mary and her husband, David, are marking their 30th anniversary of operating Westmoore Pottery in the Westmoore area of northern Moore County, N.C.

If I haven't bought at least one piece from them every year they've been open, it'd be close. I love their pottery. They make pottery in the styles of pottery made in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries.

She said she'd had a great time helping put together an exchibit at the North Carolina Pottery Center in nearby Seagrove that features the work of Farrells, Hal and Eleanor Pugh of New Salem, NC, and historical works from North Carolina drawn from private collections here and yonder.

The exhibit is called "Slipped, Dipped and Dotted: 18th-21st Century North Carolina Redwares" and runs through Aug. 25, 2007.

On this Saturday afternoon, she was doing a demonstration for two children and me of how she decorates pottery. Later a photographer from the Asheoboro, NC, newspaper showed up to take some photos.

If you are ever in the area, visit their shop. It's been featured in Country Living and Home and Garden magazine.

Tags: Westmoore | Seagrove Pottery | North Carolina pottery

The double-murder of Chris Newsom and Channon Christian that occurred in early January in Knoxville was an extremely heinous crime by any definition and has attracted international attention. Unfortunately, it has been adopted by white groups as the poster child of Black on White Hate Crimes.

Now it has its own Wikipedia entry.

The entry says:

Despite the horrific nature of these murders, they received virtually no coverage in the mainstream media

Pardon me?

That's a heinous falsehood. In East Tennessee, especially, it has been heavily and extensively covered by all media. The Associated Press has distributed several stories and photos through its network. How much more mainstream can you get than AP?

One of the stories posted on knoxnews has been among our top 10 articles daily for months. Extensive court documents have also been posted.

Heck, there was a story and video today.

Extremist are using this misrepresentation of "No Mainstream Media coverage" to whip up racial hate. Country music star Charlie Daniel has jumped to the front of the band with a May 7 opinion piece on his Web site.

In his May 7 posting, Daniels says:

Shame on the American media for letting such a violent crime as this slip through the cracks. I wonder what else they're not reporting.

Daniels should be ashamed of his own involvement in seeding lies and nurturing hate.

When the devil went down to Georgia, he did indeed find a soul to steal.

Tags: charlie daniels | Wikipedia | channon christian | Chris Newsom

The just launched today flickrvision and the earlier twittervision are utterly and endlessly fascinating.

You have a real time (or less than a minute ago) sense of the ever-changing teeming ecosystem of the Internet to wax National Geographic. Flipping from one to the other you see messages and photos popping up all around the globe. People expressing themselves in myriad ways through photos posted to flickr or tweets on Twitter.

Both sites are from Dave Troy.

He posted this on Twitter early this evening:

First day of http://flickrvision.com an unmitigated success! Amazing traffic volume, and just committed several more enhancements! Thanks.

There's some more info on the two sites from Brady Forest on O'Reilly Radar.

Try 'em, but warning: they're highly addictive.

Tags: twitter | flickr | twittervision | flickrvision | Dave Troy

In the sales pitch, Comcast says E911 works on its VOIP service, but it does it?

Anybody had any experience with it in the Knoxville area?

I've been generally pleased with the cable phone service.

Tags: Comcast | E911

Wow, what a nice weekend from Saturday afteroon through Sunday. Here's what last week looked like:

The month-to-date miles is 26.59.

Tags: jogging | fatbloggers | jason calacanis

... lots of folks are writing off (print) newspapers. But at this moment of their seeming weakness, relationships with them are paradoxically in very high demand among the Internet bellwethers.

It’s completely ironic. But maybe not. As soon as Yiddish was pronounced a “dead language” there was a huge surge of interest.

-- Greg Sterling

Tags: newspapers | Internet companies

With help from Tracy Sharp and Michael Silence, I did a list of women bloggers in Tennessee.

It's not billed a complete list, but just a selection of women bloggers in the state that shows varied interests and views of the writers. Lots of good ones to follow. Add 'em to your newsreader.

It is a Mother's Day piece of sorts, but I was looking for women bloggers, not women who are mothers or blogging on motherhood.

Tags: women bloggers | Tennessee

There is a debate about whether Twitter and blogs are journalism.

Fred Wilson suggests that the discipline of journalism is an outdated concept, supplanted by conversation ... "a world of conversation." Based on that Twitter, Blogs, MySpace are journalism.

I do learn things on Twitter that I consider to be news. A lot is not.

I do learn things from blogs that I consider to be news. A lot is not.

A lot is not journalism in newspapers; classified ads, for instance. The cynical might suggest that a lot of editorial content in newspapers and on newscasts doesn't involve journalism in the gathering and reporting of news, either. That would be true.

You can't define journalism by platform. While mostly it's a social network, users did use Facebook as a news source during the Viriginia Tech murders.

I do see on Twitter headline type information and pointers to other information that are real news. It's 140 character message limit does give new meaning to the concept of a "tight story."

Tony Hung writes in Twittering Vs. Blogging: What Constitutes Journalism?:

Twittering ought to be no more castigated for its triviality than blogging because people cannot make the distinction between the message and the medium.

Twittering (and other forms of ambient broadcasting) are not the place or forum for extended and well thought out ideas, assertions, and in depth reporting, that’s true. But, on the other hand, its a great mechanism for reporting headlines — things that are happening in the moment, and since you can do it with text messaging you don’t even need to be at a keyboard to make it happen.

I love that phrase "ambient broadcasting." It is a good description of often-hard-to-explain Twitter.

Journalism, and news, also is not a world of conversation; the gathering and reporting still have to occur. News can include a conversation or there can be conversations around news. Conversation and participation may enrich, not supplant the experience of getting news.

John Heilemann, national affairs editor for Wired, says in Wilson's post that textbook journalism, twitter, blogs and social media are all part of a "more complex info ecosystem."

An information cocktail comes to mind, too; it is Saturday. Research, substance, spirits ... all inviting conversation.

You're invited to send me some news on Twitter.

Tags: journalism | Twitter | blogoshere

They're doing something funky with the images, but otherwise I like it.

Having a little search box is a great idea.

Tags: ap video network | news video

Changed my Twitter user name to Jack Lail. It was Devanel. Now you can find me at twitter.com/jacklail.

Newscoma says thanks!

Yes, add me as a friend.

Tags: Twitter

Oh cool, JetSet is shareable, embed anywhere ...

Get the code. And oh, yeah, they added a bunch of community features to their mix.

Tags: JetSet | Zadi Diaz

Thanks to Mark Potts for pointing to Iowahawk's Subscribe Now!.

And to NewTeeVee's Liz Gannes for pointing to Good Morning World.

Iowahawk has the history of the newspapers satirically nailed.

And Andy Peppers (played by Peter Oldring) and Alasdair Coulter (played by Pat Kelly) are indeed a "bad morning show for the world."

Together, they were a great way to start the day. Check them out.

Tags: newspapers | TV morning shows

The Tennessean tried something Tuesday The Roanoke Times tried in March - with the same results.

Surely, they foresaw what would happen?

Both put up databases of people in their state who had permits to carry a concealed weapon. Both took them offline fairly quickly in a hail of blog bullets.

Brittney Gilbert has a good rundown of the Tennessean shootout. Leading the charge seems to be SayUncle, who may have summed up the opposition to the public database with his blog headline: Tennessean Publishes “Steal Me” List. Bloggers noticed the database early Tuesday and by mid-afternoon, it was over, a letter from Tennessean managing editor Meg Downey was on this blog confirming that the database wasn't just suddenly or temporarily 404, but had been taken down.

It is an illustration that just because you legally and easily can publish databases of public information, the public might not think you should. And if you can't defend your position in answering their concerns, maybe they have a point.

In would be no surprise to find people often don't like having their names in publicly searchable databases. CEOs of publicly traded companies don't like their total compensation listed. Public officials don't like government salary databases. People want to keep divorces and bankruptcies out of the paper. Some people don't want what they sold their house for known. Politicians don't particularly like campaign disclosure laws or campaign finance databases -- unless it detrimental to the efforts of their opponents. Public information can be downright embarrassing when it, well, becomes public.

How information is handled (or what we choose to publish/broadcast) in an age of Internet and electronic databases can be vexing. The media should make as much information available as possible. Government, itself, at all levels should be more open; not less so. I'm all for Sunshine. But as the gun database shows, the rational can't just be "because we can."

Both the Roanoke and Nashville incidents show how fast and effectively a decision can be questioned and, that, yes, the powers that be do sometimes listen. I haven't a clue as to what was discussed internally at 1100 Broadway in putting up or taking down the gun permit database. It appears from here The Tennessean decided it wasn't worth taking the shots to leave it up.

Doubtful the most sterling day in American Journalism from start to end, but a pretty good example of what the buzzwords "interacting with your audience" and "two-way communication" can mean for mainstream media. In the old days before security cards and ID badges, they'd just show up at the office and slug the editor. But things were simpler then, weren't they?

Tags: The Tennessean | The Roanoke Times | open records | Second Amendment | First Amendment | newspapers | Right to Privacy | CCW

Some good commonsense advice on the legal issues of having an online site, blogging or not. Bookmark it!

Tags: law | copyright | trademarks

Varied the routine a little this week. Instead of one short, two medium and one long session, I did two short, and three medium sessions.

Looks like I lost 1.5 pounds last week.

Here's what this week looked like:

The month-to-date miles is 12.53.

Tags: jogging | fatbloggers | jason calacanis

The technology and media use quiz from the Pew Internet and American Life Project divines that I'm in the "Omnivores typology group," part of what Pew calls "Elite Tech Users" in a report posted on its site on Sunday.

I don't think it's deadly, but it may tag me geeky. It doesn't exactly describe me; I'm not in my twenties or a student. But in general, yeah.

But the real question is what are you?

All the groups are described here and in the report linked on this page.

Key report finding: Half of all American adults are only occasional users of modern information gadgetry

Oh yes, Omnivores. Here's what we know about Omnivores (from the Pew report) ...

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

Basic Description

Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Defining Characteristics

You might see them watching video on an iPod. They might talk about their video games or their participation in virtual worlds the way their parents talked about their favorite TV episode a generation ago. Much of this chatter will take place via instant messages, texting on a cell phone, or on personal blogs. Omnivores are particularly active in dealing with video content. Most have video or digital cameras, and most have tried watching TV on a non-television device, such as a laptop or a cell phone.

Omnivores embrace all this connectivity, feeling confident in how they manage information and their many devices. This puts information technology at the center of how they express themselves, do their jobs, and connect to their friends.

Who They Are

They are young, ethnically diverse, and mostly male (70%). The median age is 28; just more than half of them are under age 30, versus one in five in the general population. Over half are white (64%) and 11% are black (compared to 12% in the general population). English-speaking Hispanics make up 18% of this group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many (42% versus the 13% average) of Omnivores are students.

(via Twitter friend sheywood)

Tags: Pew | technology use

Big awards weekend for the the online news staff at knoxnews.

Of course, they deserved the recognition they got -- and more!

Jigsha, Erin, Lauren, Katie and Talid are just an absolutely awesome team. Way to go folks. Rock on.

SPJ Green Eyeshade Awards
(Presented in Nashville on May 5, 2007)

NICHE JOURNALISM
First Place: GoVolsXtra -- Online and Sports Departments, Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel

BEST USE OF MULTIMEDIA
Third Place: Sweet 15 - Jigsha Desai, Lauren Spuhler, Kevin Cowan, Joe Howell, Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel

Full list of finalists.

East Tennessee SPJ Golden Press Awards
(Presented in Knoxville on May 4, 2007)

SERIES/PACKAGE/PROJECT WRITING
Award of Merit: Andrew Eder, Erin Chapin,Knoxville News Sentinel

WORK FOR OTHER MEDIA -- VISUALS
Award of Excellence: Jigsha Desai, Lauren Spuhler, Joe Howell, Knoxville News Sentinel
Award of Merit: Jigsha Desai, Lauren Spuhler, Erin Chapin, Katie Kolt, The Knoxville News Sentinel (Swept category)

Full list of winners.

Tags: Knoxville News Sentinel | SPJ | Green Eyeshade Awards | knoxnews | Society of Professional Journalists

On the changes wreaking havoc on the newspaper industry:

"The truth is, the world has changed in a significant way. I don't know that Joseph Pulitzer or William Randolph Hearst or E.W. Scripps could do much about that"

(via Sudan: The Passion of the Present)

Tags: newspapers | Warren Buffett

A nice story about one of the News Sentinel's carriers, the folks in the wee hours of the morning delivering newspapers. From Sunday's Letters to the Editor.

Woman in need received help

SUZZANE DAUGHERTY
Jacksboro, Tenn.

Tags: newspaper carrier | Good Samaritan

This one is bound to go viral ... Medieval Tech Support.

(via Tim O'Reilly)

Tags: help desk | tech support

I ought to do something like this at home and work. Have you ever seen my desk? All the secrets of Narnia are there and more.

Back to Twitter.

Tags: organization | organizing | clutter

The Digg Revolt is fascinating:

It's stage-setting.

Revolts are good for traffic.

It's not the mob that's the problem, it's anonymous individuals.

It's much bigger than we realize.

And who has the upper hand?

Finally, the delicious irony of it all.

Tags: Digg revolt | social media | Digg surrenders

Matt Waite has the right idea. Train yourself for the newsroom roles in demand. Could it get any easier than it is today? Call it career sweat equity.

If you get training opps, make the most of them -- and share.

Duh!

No need to wait for the reorg memo.

(Thanks, Mindy)

Tags: cultural change | training

One of favorite blog sites, NewTeeVee, has an interesting take on online video.

According to number-crunchers Hitwise, graphic major news events — like the death of croc hunter Steve Irwin and the hanging of Saddam Hussein — helped spur an almost 200 percent increase in traffic to multimedia news sites in the past year. While the jump is likely of little surprise to NewTeeVee readers, one interesting nugget from Hitwise’s US News and Media report was that market share of the top 10 news and media websites actually decreased by 3.8 percent over the same period, perhaps a sign that viewers are finding and clicking on “non-traditional” news sites instead of just the big broadcast brands. Good news, long-tailers!

I looked at Knoxnews' AP Online Video Network traffic and while the number of streams is relatively small, the growth rate is huge: up 495 percent year-over-year and up 78 percent in April from March.

Granted, Virginia Tech had a big impact on the April numbers, but that's only part of the picture. I can only cleanly measure AP Online Video Network streams, but we've been ramping up our local video efforts over the past year -- and particularly in the last six months. That means the true growth in video consumption on knoxnews, a newspaper dot com, is much, much higher than the numbers above.

Maybe newspaper sites figure into the non-traditional sites mentioned as benefiting from video growth? Film at 11 for TV, if true.

Tags: video | online video | video blogging

The Bearden Junior Varsity Baseball team won the 2007 Oak Ridge Junior Varsity Tournament on Tuesday night.

The Bearden team beat the Farragut Junior Varsity team 12-9 in the semifinals and beat the Farragut Freshman team 2-0 in the championship game.

While the tournament involved teams from three or four counties, beating their utter arch rival Farragut in the semi-final and championship game was sweet for the players and parents (that would include me).

I believe the regular season record for the team is 21-2.

Earlier in the week, Knoxnews online producer did a feature on the JV and freshmen teams playing "beanbag baseball" at a senior center. See the video

Tags: baseball | Bearden High School

There are lessons to be learned here.

It would be interesting to see an analysis of whether the "mass revolt" involved the small percentage of Digg users that consistently push stories to the front page or a wave of dissatisfaction. I suspect the former although the story spin so far is of a "mass uprising."

Sounds like a successful guerrilla action by the heavily armed influencers.

Wonder what Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose would do in an electronic lynching? Oh, what the hell, gimme the rope .... ?

Tags: digg | social media

Thought I'd share these early morning photos of the Clematis growing up our back porch.

Tags: Clematis | flower photography