Archives for the month of: January, 2008
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Microblogging Goes Mainstream

January 21, 2008 //
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Twitter’s spreading … or should I say, its use among mainstream journos is spreading. In today’s NYTimes.com, Noam Cohen describes how political reporters from Slate, Time and AFP (among others) are using the site to send on-the-scene descriptions from the campaign trail.

The 140-character limit is giving rise to the return of telegraphese, Cohen notes. He also observes that tweets sometimes have unintended double entendres. As Ana Marie Cox of Time.com cautioned:

“If you only Twittered and only read Twitters that would probably be a bad thing.”

But would it? After all, so many users embed links and have the “follow” feature turned on, it’s possible get the bigger picture on any subject the Twitterverse is talking about.

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Categories General Journalism, Social Media

The Future of Ideas is Free

January 18, 2008 //
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Larry Lessig’s latest book, “The Future of Ideas” is available as a free download.

Lessig, who founded Creative Commons and is no stranger to Internet-related controversy, argues that old-style institutions are killing the free flow of ideas by using legal and technological means to protect their online territory.

From the book’s website:

“The choice Lawrence Lessig presents is not between progress and the status quo. It is between progress and a new Dark Ages, in which our capacity to create is confined by an architecture of control and a society more perfectly monitored and filtered than any before in history.”

Should be good reading, and good food for thought.

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Categories General Journalism, Journalism & the Law

Just What is Journalism?

January 17, 2008 //
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’Taint the same as blogging. Nonagenarian NPR commentator Daniel Schorr tells the Sacramento Bee:

A person like me who believes in the tradition of a discipline in journalism can only rue the day we’ve arrived at where we don’t need discipline or anything. All you need is a keyboard.

(via jimray)

Categories General Journalism

White House Blogs Bush’s Mideast Trip

January 8, 2008 //
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You read that right.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino announced it this morning. It’s called “Trip Notes from the Middle East” and it started today.

It’s a one-way group blog about Bush’s eight-day trip to the Middle East, where he’s trying to revive stalled peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley are expected to post. Perino said she’d probably put a few things up as well. But there’s no place for comments, no ranking, no community elements.

So I suppose in this case, the “blog” only refers to the physical format, and not so much to the practice.

Which makes it seem like kind of a travel journal written by third parties.

We’ll see.

Categories General Journalism

Leading Indicators, Or Following the Iowa Caucus*

January 3, 2008 //
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So here we are, a few hours and counting down to what will be the first test of online national campaign coverage.

The Des Moines Register has a great homepage headline: “All Eyes on Iowa.” And it looks like the public has been busy commenting on articles and the blogs in the caucus section.

Iowa Public Radio and WNYC in New York are joining forces for live, two-hour coverage, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Central.

While most major news outlets are likely to be reporting returns as the Associated Press feeds them, the can’t-wait generation can look elsewhere for live updates. Townhall.com is trying an experiment in live coverage by the public, asking readers to Twitter, email or text message insider reports of last-minute efforts before polls open.

Townhall will be aggregating the information on its Twitter feed, IowaCaucus. Twitter members who’ve said they’ll be live-tweeting or sending in early return results include podcastmama, thepunk and smalleraperture.

Cody Marx Bailey, who’s in College Station, Texas, has built a Google map, where he plans to post live return information.

It’s been estimated that only 100,000 Iowans will help determine the front-runners for the presidential election. In years past, when there was some time between Iowa and the New Hampshire primary, the Iowa caucus acted as a leading indicator, letting the public know how those in rural states might vote, and letting campaign donors know who to throw their money behind.

With the Wyoming Republican primary on Jan. 5, and the New Hampshire primaries on Jan. 8, Iowa may not have as much pull. Nevertheless, tradition dictates we pay attention. Good luck to the candidates and to those pulling together online coverage.

*Update: In addition to the pretty cool interactive primary tracker described last month, LATimes.com has the names of the top five candidates floating in a so-called vote cloud on their homepage. The returns data comes straight from AP, but it’s a nice way of visualizing it.

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Categories Data + Graphics, General Journalism, Maps
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