ugachaka :: Jacob was here

The Today show totally screwed Microsoft in it’s coverage of the videogame industry recently by saying that the Xbox 360 had been “recalled” in not so many words. Way to leave it open for interpretation. I bet the PR people over at Microsoft are moderately upset about that one.There has to be a camera tech or correspondent that knows enough about games and the latest consoles to step in there and correct someone before these mistakes are made on air. The tech guy and Roker look to hate down upon the Xbox 360 over the warranty extension and make it seem to unknowing parents like a recall is expected and necessary.

No good at all. The Today show crew also made goofy references to Wii being a #2 console and PS3 being a “Trojan horse.” Trojan horse? I don’t see how it being pretty much the most advanced tech makes it a Trojan horse. I think everyone that buys it knows exactly what they are getting. The Blu-ray player is part of the expense of the system. Ah well…it’s the mainstream media I guess.

Many of you may have already seen the first video, but someone just recently shared the remix with me. Give me the gold!

Priceless.

I love how ridiculous people can get…and then the crowd mentality that forms around it. Now, thanks to YouTube, we can all laugh at them.

An article in Editor & Publisher last week stated that with the demands on newspapers today and the smaller number of employed reporters, writing has to get faster and sometimes shoot straight past editing.

Today, the 56-year-old reporter, who has served in various reporting and editing roles over more than two decades, is back on his old beat. But this time around, he says any extra time he once had is gone, and the likelihood of mistakes has blossomed. Not only must stories be done as quickly as possible for the Web, but covering government meetings means more updating online and less time working sources and developing leads.

In my view, the quality of the writing and sources in news stories was what really established journalists from bloggers and other media. Without those checks, newspapers especially will lose what little edge they have over new media. I can’t think I would prefer to read the paper copy of the newspaper if the online version is basically the same story with fewer errors.

He adds that the core geographic area is shrinking because the paper is increasingly targeting local residents: “Readers who are an hour and a half away will probably not see as much coverage as they used to. We have given up something, because we can’t do everything.”

Journalists can’t do everything, but this trend will put more demand on those writers who can write quickly and accurately while taking their own photos. The hybrid journalists coming out college today with that kind of background will definitely be able to make a mark right away.

Newspapers are going to die. Everyone has been saying that for years.

An article in the American Journalism Review this month gives some evidence to the contrary for all you apocalyptic folks.

The most interesting point I found made was Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham’s analogy that daily newspapers are being forced to become longer-form journalism which echoes on to all forms of print media.

Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham, who says his Web site roughly equates to a daily paper and the print edition to a Sunday paper, uses an assembly-line analogy to describe the shifting place of weekly newsmagazines in the media pantheon over the last two decades: “What’s happening now is that headlines are delivered by the Web. That has pushed newspapers to become more like the newsmagazines were in ‘82, and it’s pushed the newsmagazines to produce a monthly-quality product on a weekly basis, and it’s pushed the monthlies into the place of the great quarterlies, and now the quarterlies have become books.”

Good read if you can spare some time from making your print publication longer.

I am not one of the great believers that all print media will die out and be replaced by blogs and online content. While print media may be struggling in some aspects, I think that there will always be a place for print media in some form. There are of course always rumblings in the media and industry journals about this trend though–just like one might suggest from reading this one from the Media Daily News.

I also recently just read a post somewhere (if I could find where, I would have a link) talking about a columnist that was preaching users would pay for the content of his column and getting hit back with many insulting comments about just how much readers wouldn’t pay for it. The conclusion of that article was that people won’t pay for content anymore. There is too much free content available out there. This is a far more true statement than preaching that all print media will come to an end. Wish I could find the link.

Nancy Grace from CNN Headline News is being sued for causing the suicide of Melinda Duckett after interviewing her.

What responsibility does a journalist have for the impact of their interview?

When we interview, especially in investigative journalism, journalists try to really attack a subject…some journalists at least. The point of all this is to get to some definitive answer, the truth, but what effect does it have on our subjects?

In Grace’s case, I haven’t seen the interview myself, but I have seen several of her appearances on television. Here she is defending herself on Good Morning America.

Grace seems a little upset about it, but she doesn’t really seem apologetic–more defensive. I don’t know if it is simply a sign of the judging mentality in some of the media today, or if she did just happen to interview someone who was already a little mentally unstable. I personally don’t think it was Grace’s responsibility that Duckett committed suicide. I would say that she probably did have something to do with the disappearance of her son if she can’t answer questions about it and then went off to commit suicide.

But it is still sad and raises the question.

This is a story that I wrote based on looking at transcripts/video from the 2005 International Symposium on Online Journalism as practice for covering this year’s like a true online journalist:

Man vs Machine

“It’s not easy to beat a machine,” Len Apcar, editor-in-chief of The New York Times on the Web, remarked at the 6th International Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin on Friday, April 8, 2006.

When the Pope passed away, the Times online staff scooped Google News, which they consider one of their competitors, in getting the story on the Web. In the age of blogging and citizen journalism, the Times must consider everyone competition.

“The culture basically has to revolve around the central idea that a scoop is a scoop no matter where it goes,” Apcar said.

By prepping a package in advance, the Times conducted final edits in time to put the story online immediately upon the Pope’s death.

Online Ego

Speed is not the only impediment to publishing online. Editors face the problem of convincing reporters to post to the Web since having the scoop is the only reward for journalists. Other publications often republish the same information without crediting the Web story once the reporter puts it out there. Through feeding egos, Apcar convinces reporters they will be more widely read by publishing on the Web.

On an average day, the Times publishes about 35 or 40 Web stories. Beat reporters usually write the stories for the paper and Web unless a beat reporter is too busy. In that case, a Web staffer writes the story, and when the beat reporter writes an article on the topic, it replaces the Web story.

Online Journalists Earn Tips and Reader Interest

The first Times’ reporters to jump onboard the move online were the correspondents outside of New York.

“They understood the power of this because the people they talked to could read their stories,” Apcar said.

Foreign correspondents suddenly began receiving tips and additional information once the communities the correspondents covered could read their work.

Online journalism also allowed The Washington Post to discover what their readers were really interested about. In publishing a blog following Washington’s new baseball team, the Nationals, the executive editor of WashingtonPost.com Jim Brady found that the life of a baseball reporter interested readers more than actual news about the team. The blog is one of the most popular by the Post.

“If you really want to see where the comments are on this blog, it’s all about, you know, what it’s like to be out there traveling the country all of the time,” Brady said.

Readers really wanted to hear about the life of a journalist.

“We have recognized that there is a fascination with what goes on behind the curtain at a lot of major media organizations, which we’re trying to put a light on that and give people a sense of what it’s like,” Brady said.

Getting Citizens in on the Action

Citizen journalism is a hot topic among online journalists right now, and while both the Times and the Post have an interest in interacting with their readers, neither have made significant efforts to accommodate citizen journalists.

Comment: This is probably dated now since I bet both sites have made strides to include citizen journalism

Technorati tag: journalism, multimedia, Google.

Another article from the former PartyCampus.com that I wrote back in the fall of 2004. Not many comments from the PartyCampus.com readership on this one…

A recent article in The New York Times highlighted recent news release segments produced by the government to promote agendas or support initiatives such as the war in Iraq. Video segments were filmed and sound bites were placed praising the administration for their job in Baghdad. The same story also brought up columnists who were exposed for being paid by the government to write in support of the administration’s policies. Now, it is fine for the government or any institution to try and generate positive publicity. Celebrities and corporations are constantly throwing stuff out there to try and advertise products or themselves. All you have to do is marry Britney Spears, which isn’t that hard these days. If there wasn’t so much secrecy surrounding the White House, the Bush family might have their own reality show on MTV.

The problem with this practice arises when news organizations neglect to inform people that these video clips or printed news releases are made by another institution and not the news organization. Most people take what is in the paper or on the televised news to be objective reporting, so putting news releases on without attribution is comparable to lying to the public.

As the public of tomorrow, we shouldn’t let the world we will inherit become a manipulating commercial nightmare. Press releases have tried to put spin on news forever, but video news releases go out pre-formatted with interviews and commentary ready-to-play for news programs. If someone sends you your homework, you probably will just use it as is and not write “Made by my friend Mike” at the top of the first page. Video releases make it too easy for journalists to be lazy and not preface the report with a statement on its source. Small-town stations serving rural areas are especially likely to show these releases because they don’t have the resources to investigate themselves. Within those communities, no one would be able to scrutinize the news and have no other source to contradict the news released. Jethro and Paw would be none the wiser–maybe they would have been anyway, but they deserve a chance.

If this policy continues, pretty soon the news will be a series of commercials for various corporate and government interests. I know I don’t want to start seeing infomercials on my news broadcasts. I get enough of those in the early hours of the morning while recovering from the night’s festivities. Just imagine “1,000 soldiers have now lost their lives in Iraq, but you could save tons of money if you switch to Geico.”

Some media outlets, such as the FOX News Channel, have already been accused of spreading propaganda in their programs, and, if the media begins to air un-attributed news releases, all channels would eventually go the same way. It is not the place of the government to frame and report on its own functions; journalism and the First Amendment were designed to maintain a watch on the government for the public. It is also not the place of the government to influence columnists or influence them to gain their support. Columnists are not paid to write someone else’s opinion; people look to columnists as having their own personal biases, but not advertising for the highest bidder.

I can appreciate independent sources of opinion and news for keeping commercialization out of the media. Perhaps we will all just have to start going to more bloggers and Internet sources for our news. What has the world come to when “Diary of a FreaKaZOID” has more truth than CNN? While these outlets may or may not have their biases, in many cases they admit their bias. We expect a need to be skeptical of things we read on the Internet as opposed to what we see on the front page of the paper. Whatever the solution, I hope journalism will survive without being spoiled by a flood of government or corporate produced news releases because it is not fair to any of us.

With that said, we should all rush off to our nearest news station that we feel is not being responsible and burn that mother down–no kids, you can’t blame me because that is not what I am saying. All I am hoping to instill is a demand for morals, a foreign concept for some people during their youth and possibly their entire lives. It is these morals that will prevent media from becoming a commercial spectacle.

Technorati tag: Bush, Iraq, journalism, fox.

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