Two Stories I Don’t Want to See about US Airways Flight 1549

Posted: January 15, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: journalism, social media | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

I think this should be a series.

Everyone is safe from the Thursday afternoon incident in the Hudson river. Which means people are going to take about a five-second deep breath and then jump right into to over-analyzing.

Yes, the first images broke on Twitter. Absolutely fascinating, if you ask me, because of the angle and the style. I don’t know if I would have seen that photo without Twitter, this is true.

But, it doesn’t mean you can write the following two stories:

1) Citizen Journalism + Twitter = Heaven. No, it’s a valuable resource that provides a unique, first-person snapshot of events. Twitter is bite-sized, which means its great for fast reactions or pictures, but we aren’t going to see the end of all top-down media because we are all equipped with camera phones. It’s a reaction – not the vehicle for analysis. A couple of reasons, but “Retweet” doesn’t imply a conversation – especially when, by that point, everyone had turned to CNN to watch unfold.

2) Social media provided all of the comfort when everyone was OK. Twitter/Facebook helped get the word out about how everyone was safe, but I’m sure that people directly impacted wanted to hear a voice, and traditional media played a big part on getting to the scene with more images. There’s an important lesson in the value of Breaking News in all of this, but something should be said for personal interaction to those who’s loved ones were involved.

I think we got an incredibly interesting perspective out of social media, but let’s take it for what it is and not too much more. Everyone’s safe, that’s what matters.

Daily Show to go live on Inaugration Day

Posted: January 14, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Department of Broadcast | Tags: | Leave a comment »


From the Indecision 2008 blog:

You won’t need to wait until Barack Obama’s historic inauguration as the 44th President of the United States is old news on Wednesday night to get Jon Stewart and the Daily Show correspondents’ perspective on the Inauguration Day events.

The Daily Show is all set to report LIVE on Inauguration Day night (is that an oxymoron?) Tuesday, January 20th at 11 pm.

As such, you won’t be faced with a deafening silence on George Bush’s forward retreat from office. Nor will you miss out on any of the huge bits of Obama inaudacious audacities of hopeful reality.

Jumbo shrimp.

Now, what’s the reason?

1) All the good jokes will get gobbled up if Stewart waits a day-and-a-half.
2) The speed of communication will make the actual swearing-in old news by 11 p.m. on Wednesday.

Actually, I think there is just as much a possibility that the Daily Show needs to be a part of Wednesday morning’s coverage as the speech itself. Online blogs are just as likely to embed a clip of Stewart than any other broadcast, if not moreso. Why not stay relevant on one of the most historic days in history to the online audience that loves him?

First Offender: Spencer Hall

Posted: January 9, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Department of News | Tags: , | Leave a comment »

I thought I asked nicely for people not to write this column. Sigh.

What’s shocking that it was Spencer Hall, aka, Orson of Every Day Should Be Saturday. *Who’s team won last night*

5. Give me the gas and I’ll see you in Moscow. Sooo…line up Utah versus Florida for the 15th in New Orleans, and USC versus Texas in Pasadena on the same day, and then have the winners do it here in Miami on the 22nd. When Patton reached the line of control with the Russians, he allegedly said, “Give me a million gallons of gas and I’ll see you in Moscow.” Give me the money to make it happen, and we’ll see you in Playoffland for the war we all really want to see.

Now, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised that the offender I thought (Shanoff) and the person who ended up making the call are both Florida fans. They want to shut-up the doubters. Fair enough. But stop whining. You have the crystal ball of the mythical national championship.

Hall’s full piece is actually really quite good, especially for being posted at 1 a.m. from Dolphin stadium. Check it out.

Two college football articles I can deal without this week

Posted: January 4, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Department of News | Tags: , | Leave a comment »


It is absolutely inevitable that before Thursday’s “Mythical” National Championship game between Florida and Oklahoma, the following two articles are going to be written by a online sports influencer:

(No offense, but I have a feeling Dan Shanoff will be responsible for both of the following).

1. “See, if we would have had a playoff this year…”

Look, we’re all smart. Yes, if there would have been an 8-team playoff, SC, Utah, likely Texas and the winner of Florida-Oklahoma would be the “final four.” Please please don’t try to put these match-ups together and try and break down hypothetical Utah-Florida and USC-Texas games. It’s tempting. Don’t do it.

Embrace what we have, embrace the tradition of the bowl system. The fact of the matter is that even an 8-game playoff this year would have left teams at home. In fact, your conference champions from the Big East and ACC would have knocked out Oh. St. and, unfortunately, Utah.

This year is no different, as Dr. Saturday pointed out, than any of the times in the last few years (as recently as ’04 with Auburn and USC) where we’ve contemplated splitting the championships. It is a part of history (in fact, my alma mater claims a share of the 1940 title. I’m ok with that). And I’m convinced that no matter how hard we try, someone will be left out of a playoff because separating 8 and 9, however you do it – computers, media, committees – is even harder than separating 2 and 3.

2. “Next year’s top five will be…”
2a. “Next year’s top five will be (if Tebow/Stafford/Bradford/whomever doesn’t declare for the draft)…”

Someone wants to be the first to say that USC, Texas or Florida will be next year’s preseason number 1. The problem is that the same people who build and vote in the preseason polls are usually the same ones in favor of a playoff. Ohio State got into the Fiesta Bowl this year based on nothing more than starting with a high rank, losing to two top ten teams, and inertia keeping them there. The computers aren’t smart enough to fix that. So, hold your judgement ’til people play.

I also expect the hypothetical top fives based on who’s staying and who is going. That’s just going to get annoying. Patience people.

End of rant. Let’s just watch some football.

The Asteroid Belt

Posted: January 3, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Department of Digital | Leave a comment »

I really enjoyed David Armano’s post yesterday on coping with online identities over at Logic+Emotion.

Now, I’m not that big on the whole lifestreaming thing. Keeping things separate is actually important to me (I feel like I’ve said this a bunch recently). Keeping ownership of my digital identity – wherever it may be hiding – means keeping things in line and where they should be.

I’m halfway there on the first tip from the article, too (plus I love the image):

1. Analyze and prioritize your social systems
Go through all of your streams and prioritize the ones that you really care about and use. Think about the content on them and how frequently you keep the stream up to date. The ones with high frequency and content that you think is valuable should go to the top of the list. Think of these as your social systems—the ones that are active are part of your system, if not they eventually become dying planets.

I wanted to add in one more thing that I do to keep in control. I have my comfort levels of how far out I’m willing to go, and, to go with Dave’s metaphor, I’ll call it my asteroid belt.


For example, I tend to let my social link sharing happen through my other services – Twitter, Facebook – but that’s enough for me. I don’t do nearly enough shareable powerpoint presentations to make Slideshare part of my grab bag. For me, my asteroid belt is somewhere just past the LinkedIn ring. I’ll adventure out there, but I like my half of the solar system just fine.

The other thing I really love about this image is that – yes, Virginia – you are the center of your social media. As I try to get my “real world” (read: non digital media geeks) friends to embrace something like Twitter, usually I get the same response. Many of you do, too.

“Isn’t that a little stalkerish?”

No. It’s not. You choose what you update. You choose who you follow to get information that they choose to update (we’re back to this intent idea, hmm). You can even block people. Social media revolves around *you* if you choose to participate. Twitter is not a thing, following you around and publishing what you are doing/reading/breathing/drinking/wearing.

Although, I would like to try this for a day. Any volunteers to let me to be their Designated Tweeter? That sounds like an entire post and obnoxious case study in and of itself.

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