Saturday, February 27, 2010
This I Believe
I believe in Lisa Simpson. The brilliant writers of the hit television program The Simpsons developed a dynamic character who is as real to me as the dust under my dresser. At 27, I believe I’ll never be too old to have an eight-year-old as a role model.
When I was eight years old, I lived on a Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Maryland. I didn’t know about current events outside my world, which included my Catholic School, the naval base, and the local McDonalds, where my Dad bribed me with French fries to entice me to whine less about my after school program.
Our house was in Officer’s Quarters on the Chesapeake Bay. We had a Cocker Spaniel named Timmy who ran around our acre plot, meanwhile the twin blond Labradors next door, Chessie and Ginger, harnessed his ears.During my eighth year, I let the world happen around me. My Dad drove me to a weekly sports practice, I had sleepovers with friends, where we built forts and played Slapjack, I watched television sitcoms and cartoons very often, and I swam off our dock in the summer. I know I only had one year being eight, while Lisa Simpson has had twenty years - but Lisa attacks her neighborhood, her school and anything in her moral compass – which is everything. Lisa is the most unconventional rebel in the cartoon world. She challenges feminist foes and school bullies because she knows what’s right and wrong. Her instincts follow science and pragmatism. I believe in her character as if it was the Lisa religion. One day, Lisa exposes corrupt politicians when she skeptically trusts the U.S. Constitution and exposes a scandal between her local Congressman and Washington lobbyist during a writing contest in D.C. Her decision withdrew her chances at winning the competition. Lisa’s bravery and determination seem beyond an eight-year-old’s young developing intellect. But she grasps governmental intricacies and is an activist against ludicrous town traditions, like a “Whacking Day,” or the day for killing snakes. Lisa asks the event’s MC, Barry White, to use his bass vocal style to lure the snakes to safety, and the slithering reptiles live. Lisa has mishaps, like disrespecting her mother’s traditional principles and suffering from consumerism at The Olympics. But her consistent values for equal rights, learning and willingness to bear change, even if it’s slowly, are reminders how I want to live. Where Lisa seems predictable- as a smart, out-spoken, atheist outcast, one of her most luminous qualities is the knowledge that her actions affect the world, and her predisposed habits mustn’t hinder the opportunity to undertake an unfamiliar venture. Most people don’t challenge their self-schema often because it helps making decisions easier. I watch Lisa struggle too. But rather than settle into complacent patterns, Lisa wants to explore and make the world, not let it happen to her.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Legal art
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Mark Briggs and the future of journalism
Here are some of Briggs' main themes about journalism:
Although some traditionalists criticize social media sites for lacking transparency, the collaboration and connections have improved journalism.
- Facebook sharing rose 500 percent in six months.
- Twitter is the best thing since sliced bread. (My words, his approach...)
- The volume of Twitter increased 16 fold in one year.
- It's not inane, it depends on who you follow.
- Reporters can request input about stories from audience/readers.
- Even if we lose Twitter in a few years, the concept of microblogging will stay with us.
- Through API (Applied Program Interface), news sites are sharing their data so others can build their own Web sites.
- EXAMPLE: Openly Local - this site is building a database of local governments by using API.
- The avenues for sending content are increasing, including the new iPad.
- The average age for an American's first cell phone is nine.
- New sites like Utterli have helped locals send traffic crash reports to the police.
- Qik enables the public to send videos.
Entrepreneurial - Innovation comes to people that are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. - Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun
- In fact, hard work, sacrifice and risk are the keys to success.
Examples of new online business:
The future looks good because we will make the news look like we want it to.
But I've been told as long as I can remember that 50 % of new businesses fail in the first four years.
Sure, a Web site or a blog might be a side project that ends up attracting advertisers and a small income, but I want to be depositing money at the bank two weeks after I start a job.
Briggs taught me both incredible tools for journalism, like RSS feeds, in addition to advising I lower my guard and embrace social networking for the sake of jobs - and thus a paycheck.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Go Pro-Am, but don't ask for money
Pro-Am is also called "participatory journalism," in which newspapers and Web sites ask the public to contribute content (writing, photos, videos) to their publications.
Neighborsgo is one example of both print and online Pro-Am journalism. Neighbors started in 2005 and neighborsgo.com in 2007.
Here is an excerpt about its movement to add an online component to its work:
"In April 2005, we began as a 100-percent, user-generated newspaper called Neighbors. People e-mailed, faxed (!) and mailed (!?!) their stories, news releases and photos to editors, who then published their material in print. Some editors received between 100 and 500 e-mails a day, with multiple-megabyte attachments that often shut down their e-mail. If only we had a Web site where readers could post their material directly online …"
Neighborsgo.com says their content exploded with the online component, and sometimes it receives double the content they could publish in any one print section.
But from Briggs' definition, it's difficult to determine whether a publication can be Pro-Am, if journalists are paid.
Examiner.com was rated as the fastest-growing Internet news site in the U.S. in August and has more than 24,000 individuals throughout North America covering a particular geographic or subject area. (Time.com) Examiner.com pays their contributors based on the size of their audience per article.
(Click here for my posts on SanDiegioExaminer.com.)
Maybe we can be Pro-Am and be paid, even if it's "cheap-to-free-content." (See below.) I think I gained a few dollars from my work with Examiner, but I've only posted nine articles.
In his new book "Newsonomics: Twelve New Trends That Will Shape The News You Get," Ken Doctor says, "the economics of user-generated content are a potential godsend for media companies, big and small. Media can compare the costs of well-salaried editors, producers and reporters to those of 'cheap-to-free content,' eagerly offered by some pretty good writers."
It seems Pro-Am journalists work for free.
Briggs mentions NowPublic as particularly successful example of Pro-Am journalism, with over 100,000 contributors.
In an interview with NowPublic's director Leonard Brody in 2007, the online content editor of SignOnSanDiego and the blog Pushing News Online, Tom Mallory asked how NowPublic pays its contributors.
"We pay them in love," Brody replied.
Still, the site has a partnership with the Associated Press that allows the AP to use photos from NowPublic freelancers and pay them too.
But Doctor also asks if there is any "compensation beyond exposure."
Although the money question persists, and most of us studying to be journalists have more competition from Pro-Am journalism, to its credit it exposes an increase in the number and diversity of news sources.
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