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Category: News of News (Page 4 of 11)

News and comments about news and media

Tom Linden takes the State of Things

J-School collegue Dr. Tom Linden will be host of WUNC’s State of Things at the end of this week — Wednesday, Thursday and Friday June 21, 22 and 23. Tom says:

On Wednesday the topic will be the state of HIV/AIDS in North Carolina. Guests will include UNC infectious disease specialist Dr. Peter Leone; Justin Smith, project coordinator for STYLE (an HIV support group); and Evelyn Foust, director, STD /AIDS Prevention Program at the North Carolina Dept. of Public Health.

Thursday, we’ll talk with J. Peder Zane, book review editor for the News & Observer, about a survey he conducted with prominent North Carolina authors in which he asked them to name the most distinguished work of fiction in the past 25 years. His poll followed a similar one posed by the New York Times Book Review section. The contrasts in the two polls are striking.

Friday, we’ll focus on gardening with interviews with local experts. That segment will be followed by a discussion with John Biewen, audio programs director for the Center for Documentary Studies, and some of his students, about their ongoing work.

We’ll end with live music from Cities (Yep Roc Records), a local Chapel Hill band that just released its first album.

Robin Roger: Blog, Newspapers and Community

Robin Roger’s Masters thesis, “Creating community and gaining readers through newspaper blogs,” gets great electrons at the Greensboro News and Record Editor’s Blog by John Robinson and more from Ed Cone on his Word Up blog.

Both note Robin’s conclusion (so I will too):

Findings suggest that the effects of high levels of community are cumulative; therefore, creating a blogging community can draw new readers — great news for newspaper marketers. Results from the study also suggest a virtuous cycle: frequent blog reading seems to lead to a sense of community, and vice versa.

I was lucky to have Robin in my class on blogging, community and citizen journalism last fall and to be on the committee along with Brian Carroll for her thesis which was chaired by Phil Meyer.

Here is Robin’s thesis [in PDF]

Ethics change in the e-Newsroom

The American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Kellie Hwang reports on a study by my collegue Phil Meyer (and students including Robin Roger and Gabriel Dance) called “Newspaper Ethics in the New Century.”

Tidbits include:

Editors are more assertive and have more influence on the business side today, while publishers are interfering less with news coverage.

72 percent of newspapers have an anonymous source policy, and 54 percent have recently revamped their policy. 81 percent of anonymous sources are used when there is a ‘clear and overriding public interest in information that cannot be obtained in any other way.’

16 percent increase of female editors since 1982.

Blogs are becoming more influential in newsrooms and editors are much more willing to experiment.

There is little indication that the drive for profit has led to a general decline in ethical standards.

Beyond Broadcast at Berkman

I’ll be up in Boston next week for the Beyond Broadcast conference held by Harvard’s Berkman Center. The schedule looks great. I’m on a panel called:

What the emerging participatory web media services are doing

* This is a panel of ‘web-only media’- emergent participatory and social media entrepreneurs. This is a vibrant and growing field with new entrants seemingly coming ever day. From Our Media to YouTube, Odeo to BrightCove, Conversations Network to Global Voices – people are using new media to facilitate citizen participation not just through text and blogging but now with digital audio and video. Is this the future of public media? What are the opportunities for cross-pollination with public broadcasting? What is the nature of this ‘third zone’ of media that is not quite commercial or noncommercial, public or mainstream?

Panelists include; Lynne D. Johnson (videoblogger), Bill Gannon (Yahoo!), Paul Jones (ibiblio). Moderator: Peter Armstrong (OneWorld.net)

I’ve also proposed a Birds of a Feather discussion for Friday night’s dinner to extend the conversation called something like: Brainstorm: What technologies and practices will define the next media revolutions?
Which I describe thusly:

Some of this will come from the discussionn by the panels, but others will not have had time to gestate and will need to be made clearer in discussion with others who are passionate and imaginative. Not just tech. Not ideas without tech. But the interaction of personal, social and technical. But what? Bring your opinions and your guesses and your visions.

So if you’ll be in the Cambridge area come on by the conference and sign up for the BoF dinner. We’ll talk and–more importantly–listen.

Also if you have ideas on what should not be left out on the panel or at the BoF, let me know and I’ll do my best to get your ideas and concerns heard.

If DNA testing is so simple…

If DNA testing is so simple that a whole lacrosse team can be tested and the results back within two weeks, then why can’t a deathrow inmate be tested?

This is the question being asked and chronicled as the businesss of an entire blog dedicated to the case of Jerry Conner with the title ” North Carolina Obstructs DNA Testing for Condemned Man! : Take action now to stop a wrongful execution! Tell the State to stop opposing DNA testing that promises to reveal the truth about the crimes for which Jerry Conner was convicted and sentenced to die”

The Ancient Way wins Horizon Interactive Award

The UNC Journalism and Mass Communication School produced The Ancient Way (hosted by ibiblio.org) was named top in their category for the Horizon Interactive Awards. Gabriel Dance, who worked with ibiblio.org, was in Galacia working on the project last summer and contributed to the project as did my collegues Rich Beckman, Pat Davidson, Alberto Cairo and Laura Ruel.

The judges said:

[G]reat use of video, photography, audio and a website. This site is more than an online magazine or news site… it is an experience. Visually it is well done. the navigation is simple and clean. The content speaks for itself.

We seem to be covering Spain pretty well. Galacia is in the Northwest of Iberia. I’ll be in the South next week in Granada. Just finished reading Washington Irving’s Alhambra and just received Ornament of the World from the conference organizers and have begun the Conquest of Granada also by Irving.

Talking Japanese (Blooker)

J-WAVE Morning Logo
Just off the phone with Jon Kabira of J-WAVE‘s morning show in Tokyo about the Blooker, blogs and publishing. It was more than a bit odd to hear the Japanese translation and recap each time I paused. I should have learned from my experiences giving talks in Siberia and in Taiwan that very short answers with long pauses help the translator, but on the phone without physical cues that’s harder to pull off. I hope the listeners weren’t too distracted on their drives into work by my unusual, for them, accent.
There was a lot of fascination about the newness of the blook and of the Blooker. Listening I could hear how the very words, blook and Blooker, are difficult for non-English speakers even if they are extremely clear talking radio professionals.
There was enthusiasm for Julie and Julia and the story told there beyond the cooking and for the interactive nature of blogs and blooks. As near as I can tell, this part was of great interest.
I wish I could speak/understand Japanese; Jon was one of the better interviewers I’ve worked with (in part because of the good advance work by Kanae Hasegawa).

BBC needs a copy editor, Mr Scooter

Found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4885100.stm
at 9:57 EDT (US) and still there at 10:22 pm [Note site reads: Last Updated: Friday, 7 April 2006, 02:16 GMT 03:16 UK ]

Pre-trial court papers cite Lewis “Libby” Scooter as saying he was told to tell a reporter Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure” uranium.

Mr Scooter, former chief-of-staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, is facing trial in connection with another leak.

He is accused of lying to prosecutors probing the naming of a CIA agent.

Former diplomat Joseph Wilson – husband of the agent, Valerie Plame – wrote a high-profile article in the New York Times in July 2003 casting doubt on a key White House claim about Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Mr Libby reportedly says in court papers filed on Wednesday that soon afterwards, Mr Cheney told him to pass information from the classified National Intelligence Estimate to Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter.

BBC-TV Blooker story

WillR reports that he saw the BBC-TV Blooker story last night. It’s online now (or for now). They did a cute trick with video effects that makes it look like you are seeing the series of interviews in a QT player on a large Mac OS X box. You may be, in fact. Well, almost — you can only watch the BBC stream in WinMedia or Real. Julie Powell, our Blooker winner is there, I am there, Russell Davies of Bacon, Egg, Chips & Beans, the anonymous Iraqi blogger (not Saleem Pax) and a rather confused editor from a traditional publisher in LA.
WillR sends this link which didn’t work so well for me. I did a search on Blooker on the BBC site and found the video link in this context which worked fine for me.

Blooker and Jones on NPR Marketplace

Between returning from the University of Pennsylvania and heading up to Boone for the Odyssey of the Mind competition, I did a bit for Marketplace about the Blooker. Several of my collegues heard it, but not me. Stephen Fraser sent me the link to the story (my/Blooker part begins about 3:30 into the 8:24 segment. Lasts about 1 minute).

Not as bad as I feared.

UPDATE: Stephen sends this better link (if you only want to hear the Blooker segment).

Cooker beats Hooker to win Blooker

As seen in Guardian UK: [with some corrections and additions]. More Blooker winner stories here. And the official Lulu Blooker announcement is here.

Diesel, death and dinosaurs

Overall winner and winner of non-fiction category

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
Julie Powell (Penguin) [and Little, Brown in hardback – pj]
Source blog blogs.salon.com/001399

[A great blook isn’t a website shoveled onto paper. Julie and Julia successfully makes the transition and grows as it goes having learned from the blog readers. The deeply personal story here, the story of an obsession, leads us all to see what could be trival and indulgent as a personal and as it turns out communal art, an art of transformation and of conquest (of egg dishes and of selfdoubt). – pj]

Runner-up

Biodiesel Power
Lyle Estill (New Society Publishers)
Source blog www.biofuels.coop/blog

[This blook too is about obcession and drive and community. The blook is printed and bound in the most environmentally friendly manner true to the last drop of ink to the higher goals for the writer. This attention to detail, to harmony inform the writing and the story telling while the self-reflective humor in the stories keep the blook from become preachy and sour. – pj]

Fiction winner

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Cherie Priest (Tor Books)
Source blog http://wicked-wish.livejournal.com

[I am not a reader of the gothic, but this blook captivated me with its gusto, its invocation of a dark South both in mountains and in swamp. Priest can tell a tale and she can write a sentence that competes with the best out there. Stephen King should be very afraid. – pj]

Runner-up

Hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery Set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble
Tom Evslin (dotHill Press)
Source blog www.hackoff.com

Comic books winner

Totally Boned: A Joe and Monkey Collection

Zach Miller (Boxcar Books – self-published through Lulu.com)
Source blog www.joeandmonkey.com

[I teach people about the same age as Joe. I thought this comic blook was a non-fiction documentary. The humor cuts to the bone. It’s that true. That’s why it hurts but you laugh. – pj]

Runner-up

Dinosaur Comics: Huge Eyes, Beaks, Intelligence, and Ambition
Ryan North (CatPrint)
Source blog www.qwantz.com

[A single set of illustrations manipulated into dozens of different stories by the words alone. The art, i mean the skill and imagination, dazzles me at every page turn. Everyone I hand this blook to is delighted and laughing. – pj]

WSJ – Blooker article

The Wall Street Journal article on the Blooker Prize is out (and will be out in print tomorrow). Great coverage informed I think somewhat by the long phone call to Buenos Aires that I had with the author, Ian Mount, on Wednesday. Cory and I aren’t directly quoted or mentioned (only indirectly) which is okay.
I love that the Executive Editor of Little Brown says first what a hit “Julie and Julia” turned out to be, but then warns other editors and publishers away from blogs (the better to keep that resource to herself?):

Little, Brown Executive Editor Judy Clain, who acquired “Julie and Julia,” says she was amazed by the boost the book got from fans of the blog. “What we underestimated was how huge the audience was,” she says.

Still, not every blogger is a born author. “I don’t think a blog is a great place to look for new writers,” says Ms. Clain, “because there are so many, and so many aren’t very good.”

Nervous administrators seize middle school papers

Just minutes after the student newspaper was distributed at Smith Middle School yesterday, the papers were recalled by the assistant principal. No explanation given at the time. The students went on break, which will last just over a week, with no idea of which articles might be offensive to their adminstrators.
This morning, parents who too were curious could read a sorta explanation in the News and Observer and in the Daily Tar Heel.
Although the paper, according to advisor — and my collegue — Chris Roush, has a record of getting proper permissions from students and parents of subjects of stories (in conversation and in a comment on Eric Muller’s IsThatLegal blog), the principal (speaking in part for the assistant who seized the papers) said:

“I’m not trying to assume that it was gathered inappropriately, I just don’t know that students knew that they were being quoted for the paper,” she [Principal Reinhardt] said.

Reinhardt added that she also was concerned that the parents of the students in the articles might not have been aware of the stories. (source Daily Tar Heel – see link above)

Chris tells me (and the press in both stories and on IsThatLegal) that the Student Press Law Center and the North Carolina Scholastic Media Association have been notified and that they support the student paper and feel that all ethical and legal steps were properly taken.

Where are we now? The Tar Heel reports:

Stephanie Knott, assistant to the superintendent for community relations, said parents of the students involved will be notified, and the district will contact the Student Press Law Center in Virginia for advice.

Mark Goodman, executive director of the center, said he’s eager to help address the issue.

“We’re here to find a way to ensure that the student message gets out, but everyone stays on the right side of the law, and we’d certainly be happy to help them do that,” he said.

In the meantime the students’ lesson in civics is not really about protecting student confidentiality nor even about the Hazelwood decision. In the absense of an explanation for the ceasure, the lesson is about nothing more than the unexplained and seemingly arbitrary exercise of power over the press. Was the paper ceased because of a detailed compliant about the school’s internet filters or about one of the sports stories or another feature?

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