Snow and Cold
It’s been interesting to watch the technology unfold during this latest weather blip.
To those not in Louisville we have three inches of snow, it’s been below freezing for two weeks, and the public schools are closed today. Yesterday, the day the storm began around 5 am, all the local stations were out in force with their new “live drive” or whatever-cams mounted on the dashboards of their news cars.
At 5 it was dark. So we saw stand-ups lit by headlights. Then the slow crawl as the vehicles traveresed the city and region. I must say the quality of WAVE 3’s video was far superior to the others. The one on WHAS 11 looked like my first webcast from 1996. WLKY32 had a better quality image but it was not full-screen. Sorry SnowFox dudes, don’t watch you guys.
The dashboard cameras were then utilized later in the day when reporters arrived at the faux “kids fell in the lake” story. So we saw point-of-view, live footage as the news car arrived in Jeff to a story that wasn’t really there. Oh, the perils of live reporting!
I think as a service to viewers these live-cams are a good idea. I just pity the poor dude who has the drive the car around the metro.
This Guy Has It Figured Out
My whole blog is about preparing for the future by integrating journalism, video, muiltimedia and web skills. Here are some new years resolutions from someone who has a true sense of what it will take to continue competing:
Let me know what you think.
2010: Twenty Ten
A New Decade. Wow.
There haven’t been nearly enough end-of-year stories. We need more. And the dearth of end-of-decade information has been appalling. It’s like thousands of journalists lost their jobs in the past 10 years.
Ooops. They did.
Let’s all hope the tweens blossom into a new age for the writers and journalists out there looking to do meaningful work. I see a lot of them in class and they are talented. They will be needing jobs!
The 2010 skillset is completely different from the 1990s. We all have to think in multiple platforms, all the time. I look forward to a challenging year.
Oh Tiger. What about the children?
So there’s this newspaper in Taiwan called Apple Daily. It takes re-enactments of stories online into a very new and original territory: animators there create cartoons that depict how the news may have happened. Gawker has a link here:
Since the current generation of students grew up with Dateline NBC-type re-enactments of story components for dramatic effect, I wonder what they’ll think of this. Here’s Tiger doing the slap’n’tickle with a porn star. Here he is helping one of the “11” choose lingerie.
In a related development, Gatorade is not longer going to advertise or sell the Tiger-water or whatever it was:
Ahem. The slogan: “It’s in Tiger. Is it in you?” I could snark here but won’t.
Bottom Line: cartoon re-enactments that are just flat made up are bad for journalism. But plenty entertaining.
Gate-crasher-gate, Day 6
So those clever Salahis have an explanation for why and how they broke into the White House. They just aren’t telling anyone because they have to follow the Secret Service “timeline.” Pu-leeze!
http://bit.ly/7aNZh0 Here’s the latest from NYT.
No surprise the wannabe stars turned up on the Today Show. It’s all about synergy in 2009! They want to be on NBC-owned Bravo Network. Media integration dictates they appear on a “sister” network. It’s just like Disney stars appearing on Disney-owned ABC’s Good Morning America. Except in this case we’re talking about a couple who broke into the White House and were next to the president, not the latest from Miley. Add to that the news that both Barack and Michelle Obama are furious.
I am hoping the Secret Service and FBI find a way to charge them with everything short of treason. I see no better way to teach the nation a lesson about the empty pursuit of fame.
To watch them say nothing to Matt Lauer, click here. http://bit.ly/4IJTfu
Tiger Woods and the Gate Crashers
Interesting dichotomy when you look over this past weeks trending news topics. One one hand you have a couple desperate to be news. On the other you have the most famous man in the world trying to stay out of the news. One thing is for sure, the blogs will be blowin’ up about both for weeks to come.
Here is Time magazine’s take on the Tiger part of the equation: http://bit.ly/4zgoaZ
I’m scouring for a cogent analysis of the gate crashers. But they personify all that has cheapened our media culture.
Shameless Self-Promoters
White House Party-Crashers want $$ for story. Let’s send the FBI over to see how many free questions they’ll answer.
http://bit.ly/4DPdxi
Hey Ralph, hold your nose and jump!
My first unofficial blog was on Myspace two years ago. That lasted for all of a month at best. But now anyone of consequence in 2009 has a blog that relates to their jobs and interests. Hell, they even make movies about these things now that star Meryl Streep.
Since I am also putting the finishing touches on a new online reporting class that will be offered next year–it will combine my expertise in both written and video journalism–I need to have a track history of posting my thoughts online. When I put together UofL’s first weROCK iMovie festival a year ago, I was quoted in some publications as saying “video is the new vernacular for students.” And it definitely is. I will be talking a lot about the marriage of video and the internet, video and news, video and journalism.
Here’s me taking a virtual ride at Streaming Media East in May, 2008.
I spoke at the conference about engaging students in the streaming media age. They expect all their info to be delivered to the mobile devices which truly are revolutionizing several industries.
It’s an exciting time. Northwestern (my alma-mater), NYU and Columbia have programs exploring where new media will lead us in the new decade. For my part, it means integrating traditional news writing with video, flash and other emerging tools.
So with that I end my first post so I can finally say I did this–I’ve been meaning to start this blog since the Spring!
This is at Bally’s Sterling Brunch
during the NCAA Tournament!
The new vernacular 