Saturday, May 3, 2008
This is where I'm posting links to things I plan to read and/or write about once I'm through with end-of-semester grading and sorting-out... Expect this list to get longer...
8:39:17 PM #
- Degrees in the Past. "Ultimately, to change the media industries, we've got to change our universities," says my old friend Vin Crosbie, without giving away all the secrets of what should change. "Although the youngest professors are for change," he says, "so are a great many
of the oldest. It's those aged in between who are most obstructive,
those who worked in the media industries during the 1990s before
entering academia."
Since I just arrived here at Radford by a circuitous career route, I'm one of the oldest and newest... and in a new School of Communication, so change is in the air. I'll know by July 1 how many of my older (in service to the university) colleagues are interested in the university's recent offer of a "workforce transition" early retirement option.
- A Primer on how to read your online newspaper after the paper stops using paper.
8:39:17 PM #
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Khoi Vinh, design director of NYTimes.com, has been answering questions from readers for the past week. One of those readers, Omar Yacoubi, offered the question our Web design students are most likely to ask:
The design director answered in terms of what he looks for when hiring, not in terms of a literal "course of study" -- but he went beyond design and technology to a couple of "skills" that make me glad Radford's Web design curriculum and the journalism curriculum are in the same school. One is "sound news judgment based on a deep understanding of current affairs"; the other is an ability to give "plainspoken explanations" of the tasks at hand.
Here's the full text of his answer to that question... I've added italics to indicate the whole block is a quote, and I've broken part of it into bullet points and highlighted a couple of things.
But don't miss the full Q&A column, which runs to nine pages if "printed" as a PDF file.
Khoi Vinh:
Related links:
8:13:34 PM #
Q. What course of study would you recommend at the graduate or undergraduate level
for someone looking to work in your field? Or, failing that, what practical experience do
you think most prepared you for your current job?
for someone looking to work in your field? Or, failing that, what practical experience do
you think most prepared you for your current job?
The design director answered in terms of what he looks for when hiring, not in terms of a literal "course of study" -- but he went beyond design and technology to a couple of "skills" that make me glad Radford's Web design curriculum and the journalism curriculum are in the same school. One is "sound news judgment based on a deep understanding of current affairs"; the other is an ability to give "plainspoken explanations" of the tasks at hand.
Here's the full text of his answer to that question... I've added italics to indicate the whole block is a quote, and I've broken part of it into bullet points and highlighted a couple of things.
But don't miss the full Q&A column, which runs to nine pages if "printed" as a PDF file.
Khoi Vinh:
"It's actually quite a complex mix of varied skills: an ideal applicant would have
"So obviously I look for people who can combine as many of these skills as possible. I'm not sure it would be fair to say that any one skill is more important than the other because they're all vital, but I can say that having a particularly weak foundation in traditional graphic design -- lacking an understanding of typography, color, composition and visual storytelling -- more or less disqualifies one immediately.
"There are a few other intangible qualities that I look for, too. The ability to effectively articulate one's ideas about design is a big plus; translating design's subjective nuances into plainspoken explanations is a critical requirement for this job. Agile problem-solving skills are also an imperative; being able to think about a design problem in a larger context than one's own role as a designer only makes it easier to pull off ambitious solutions. And maybe most important of all is enthusiasm for the work; there's no substitute for a designer who feels truly invested in the work."
Here's that link to the full article again.- very strong traditional graphic design skills;
- in-depth training in usability and interaction design;
- practical experience coding XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and Flash;
- a commercially viable comfort level with database and application programming;
- and last but not least sound news judgment based on a deep understanding of current affairs.
"So obviously I look for people who can combine as many of these skills as possible. I'm not sure it would be fair to say that any one skill is more important than the other because they're all vital, but I can say that having a particularly weak foundation in traditional graphic design -- lacking an understanding of typography, color, composition and visual storytelling -- more or less disqualifies one immediately.
"There are a few other intangible qualities that I look for, too. The ability to effectively articulate one's ideas about design is a big plus; translating design's subjective nuances into plainspoken explanations is a critical requirement for this job. Agile problem-solving skills are also an imperative; being able to think about a design problem in a larger context than one's own role as a designer only makes it easier to pull off ambitious solutions. And maybe most important of all is enthusiasm for the work; there's no substitute for a designer who feels truly invested in the work."
Related links:
- Khoi Vinh's personal site Subtraction 7.0 currently discussing his own problems keeping up with online news
- November '07 Q&A with Web newsroom editor Fiona Spruill
- June '07 Q&A with digital news editor Jim Roberts
8:13:34 PM #
Monday, April 21, 2008
New River Voice, started last year as a biweekly print publication with a Web site, is making the transition to Web-only publication.
The Web site image of the last print issue's lovely cover of a growing, green Earth, has this ironic note at the bottom:
1:37:47 PM #
Editor & Publisher Tim W. Jackson, an adjunct journalism prof at Radford, announced the change in the latest issue, along with a note saying the print edition had about 15,000 readers, but not enough advertisers and "essentially no advertising sales
representatives" to change that.
He said he plans to keep offering "progressive news and views and the best reviews that the NRV has to offer" at http://newrivervoice.com and would like to resume print publication someday... meanwhile advising readers to grab the last print issue as a collector's item "and sell it on eBay in 10 years and make lots of money."
That's probably not something you will ever be able to do with a Web site. (If so, this link to my old Web news employer might be worth a bundle: http://nando.net)The Web site image of the last print issue's lovely cover of a growing, green Earth, has this ironic note at the bottom:
Happy Earth Day, New River Valley!
Read this issue's From the Editor to find out
how the New River Voice is going to save paper.
Recommended Web-only role model, using a "sponsorship" idea instead of traditional ad sales, NewHaven Independent; see its about pages for more on its journalistic goals and pass-the-hat business model.
PS Doug Thompson has a nice write-up at Blueridgemuse.com, under the headline "Reality Bites The New River Voice."
1:37:47 PM #
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Just as we prepare for the fall launch of our new School of Communication, a nationally known journalist will be this year's commencement speaker here at Radford University -- John Feinstein of NPR, of The Washington Post, and of many bookstore shelves and New York Times bestseller lists.
Among other things, he's probably Radford's first commencement speaker to have been called both "a pimp" and "a whore" by a major figure in the world of sports.
"I wish he'd make up his mind," Feinstein said of coach Bob Knight's comments, "so I'd know how to dress in the morning."
More to the point, Feinstein said Knight's complaints were that his reporting was too accurate -- particularly his reporting of Knight's locker room language (a phrase I mean both literally and figuratively).
I'm not much of a sports fan, but I'm a fan of good storytelling and accurate, detailed reporting, and of journalism that cares about underdogs and human drama. I think Radford's grads are in for a treat...
As Radford President Penelope Kyle says in the school's press release about graduation, "John Feinstein's lucid writing and commentary on American culture and sports mark him as a natural for a university commencement. We're delighted and honored to have him." (I wish she'd added something like "... especially in a year when we are recharging our commitment to teaching journalism, communication and media studies with a new School of Communication," but that might be seen as padding the press release.)
For those who aren't graduating yet, or who just want more preview of Feinstein's personal storytelling style, the Library of Congress has a video of the half-hour Feinstein speech in which I found that anecdote about Knight. Given at a National Book Festival a few years ago, it also includes Feinstein's frank critique of athletes' attitudes toward writers, as opposed to ESPN interviewers.
For more of his humor, frankness and love of sports, a few of his books are
His recent columns from the Post, and a collection of older basketball columns.
2:47:23 PM #
Among other things, he's probably Radford's first commencement speaker to have been called both "a pimp" and "a whore" by a major figure in the world of sports.
"I wish he'd make up his mind," Feinstein said of coach Bob Knight's comments, "so I'd know how to dress in the morning."
More to the point, Feinstein said Knight's complaints were that his reporting was too accurate -- particularly his reporting of Knight's locker room language (a phrase I mean both literally and figuratively).
I'm not much of a sports fan, but I'm a fan of good storytelling and accurate, detailed reporting, and of journalism that cares about underdogs and human drama. I think Radford's grads are in for a treat...
As Radford President Penelope Kyle says in the school's press release about graduation, "John Feinstein's lucid writing and commentary on American culture and sports mark him as a natural for a university commencement. We're delighted and honored to have him." (I wish she'd added something like "... especially in a year when we are recharging our commitment to teaching journalism, communication and media studies with a new School of Communication," but that might be seen as padding the press release.)
For those who aren't graduating yet, or who just want more preview of Feinstein's personal storytelling style, the Library of Congress has a video of the half-hour Feinstein speech in which I found that anecdote about Knight. Given at a National Book Festival a few years ago, it also includes Feinstein's frank critique of athletes' attitudes toward writers, as opposed to ESPN interviewers.
For more of his humor, frankness and love of sports, a few of his books are
- The Last Amateurs: Play for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball,
- Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers,
- Civil War, Army vs. Navy: A Year Inside College Football's Purest Rivalry,
- The First Coming: Tiger Woods: Master or Martyr and
- A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour
- The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail.
His recent columns from the Post, and a collection of older basketball columns.
2:47:23 PM #
Monday, April 7, 2008
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2008 include six for The Washington Post, among them the "breaking news" prize for coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings a year ago next week. The paper also won the meritorious public service medal for exposing mistreatment of veterans at Walter
Reed Hospital, a series that led to improvement of conditions there.
The Pulitzer Web site hadn't yet posted the winning stories when my broadcast-news-veteran colleague Joe Staniunas reminded me it was Pulitzer announcement day, but the Post's own story archive about Virginia Tech has been online all year, including texts, photographs, video, multimedia and discussions. (Today it added a page of all its Pulitzer submissions.)
Joe also mentioned that Roanoke station WSLS won a Peabody Award last week for its coverage of the shootings, a story I'd missed, what with the entertainment-oriented and Iraq war news Peabody winners taking most of the headlines. Buried down among the 35 awards in the press release, the WSLS citation praises the local broadcasters for "two intense days of live, exhaustive and remarkably calm coverage." Joe and I both expected to see The Roanoke Times as a Pulitzer finalist in the breaking news category for more excellent work last April. (The paper has been a finalist a few times before.)
If you enjoy good writing, but haven't used the Pulitzer.org website, take a look. The page for each award includes a "Works" tab with inks to the stories, photos, cartoons or other media that won the prize -- not just for this year, but all the winning stories for a dozen years that Web versions of newspaper stories have been available.
On the Post's website today, Howard Kurtz refers to the six awards as the largest haul in the paper's history, and Joel Achenbach reflects on all of the award stories being original reporting, "probably our best gimmick." They were, he says, "full of shoe-leather journalism, from the coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy to Steve Pearlstein's reporting-driven columns in the biz section."
Achenbach gives a special nod to a story that won the feature writing award for his colleague Gene Weingarten, a story that ran with the catchy but not terribly informative headline Pearls Before Breakfast. I'm so glad he pointed it out. The sub-head is "Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out." Here's its lead:
Of course the Post wasn't the only Pulitzer winner. The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune won investigative reporting Pulitzers for uncovering toxic imports and hazardous children's products, respectively. The Times' Amy Harmon won an "explanatory reporting" prize for finding human stories to illustrate the ethical issues in DNA testing. A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story about county corruption won the "local reporting" prize. All are, or will be, readable at http://pulitzer.org
The Post's other prize categories included national reporting (about Dick Cheney), international reporting (private security firms in Iraq) and commentary (by Steven Pearlstein).
While the story about Joshua Bell in the D.C. subway was a pleasant surprise, the Pulitzer board had another musical prize I didn't expect: A "Special Citation," down there beneath the other non-journalism awards in arts and letters, to Bob Dylan: for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
That gives me an idea for a story... If you happen to wander through a Metro station and hear this weathered old guy with a harmonica, a guitar and a nasal voice, stop and listen.
7:34:47 PM #
The Pulitzer Web site hadn't yet posted the winning stories when my broadcast-news-veteran colleague Joe Staniunas reminded me it was Pulitzer announcement day, but the Post's own story archive about Virginia Tech has been online all year, including texts, photographs, video, multimedia and discussions. (Today it added a page of all its Pulitzer submissions.)
Joe also mentioned that Roanoke station WSLS won a Peabody Award last week for its coverage of the shootings, a story I'd missed, what with the entertainment-oriented and Iraq war news Peabody winners taking most of the headlines. Buried down among the 35 awards in the press release, the WSLS citation praises the local broadcasters for "two intense days of live, exhaustive and remarkably calm coverage." Joe and I both expected to see The Roanoke Times as a Pulitzer finalist in the breaking news category for more excellent work last April. (The paper has been a finalist a few times before.)
If you enjoy good writing, but haven't used the Pulitzer.org website, take a look. The page for each award includes a "Works" tab with inks to the stories, photos, cartoons or other media that won the prize -- not just for this year, but all the winning stories for a dozen years that Web versions of newspaper stories have been available.
On the Post's website today, Howard Kurtz refers to the six awards as the largest haul in the paper's history, and Joel Achenbach reflects on all of the award stories being original reporting, "probably our best gimmick." They were, he says, "full of shoe-leather journalism, from the coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy to Steve Pearlstein's reporting-driven columns in the biz section."
Achenbach gives a special nod to a story that won the feature writing award for his colleague Gene Weingarten, a story that ran with the catchy but not terribly informative headline Pearls Before Breakfast. I'm so glad he pointed it out. The sub-head is "Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out." Here's its lead:
He emerged from the Metro at the L'Enfant Plaza station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
The story has everything -- great detail, humor, sadness, beauty, suspense, surprise, a naked Greta Scacchi.... and more than one punchline. It's a Sunday magazine-length piece, more than 7,000 words, but I hope students who love writing will take time to read. Don't rush through to the end any more than you would skip to the last phrase on a CD of Joshua Bell playing his $3.5 million Stradivarius.Of course the Post wasn't the only Pulitzer winner. The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune won investigative reporting Pulitzers for uncovering toxic imports and hazardous children's products, respectively. The Times' Amy Harmon won an "explanatory reporting" prize for finding human stories to illustrate the ethical issues in DNA testing. A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story about county corruption won the "local reporting" prize. All are, or will be, readable at http://pulitzer.org
The Post's other prize categories included national reporting (about Dick Cheney), international reporting (private security firms in Iraq) and commentary (by Steven Pearlstein).
While the story about Joshua Bell in the D.C. subway was a pleasant surprise, the Pulitzer board had another musical prize I didn't expect: A "Special Citation," down there beneath the other non-journalism awards in arts and letters, to Bob Dylan: for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
That gives me an idea for a story... If you happen to wander through a Metro station and hear this weathered old guy with a harmonica, a guitar and a nasal voice, stop and listen.
7:34:47 PM #
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Exploring Publishing Possibilities: A McConnell Library Symposium
The fine print at that address mentions that I'm on a panel Wednesday, discussing "online publishing" with blogs, wikis and Web sites (the kind of work I've been doing for years), and its relationship to the kind of "publishing" that gets people tenure (the kind I seem to avoid compulsively).
It dawns on me that I may be on this panel to serve as a bad example! In any case, it should be entertaining.
If you can't make the event in person, here are a few relevant links for my general stream of clicks-or-consciousness on the themes of our discussion -- academic publishing issues today, including "open access" publishing, examples of online interactivity behaving something like peer review, and some online examples of research data being presented to new audiences in new ways.
I may or may not get around to annotating this list on my blog after the panel, but the compulsive clickers among you will quickly see where the collection is headed... starting with an experiment in "blog-based peer review."
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/04/2332n.htm *
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/28/open
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/01/1322n.htm
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5538/2187a
http://tinyurl.com/2dxa6w
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/16362.ctl
http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature04997.html
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/
http://wethemedia.oreilly.com/
http://codev2.cc/
http://codebook.jot.com/WikiHome
http://www.smartmobs.com/
http://www.rheingold.com/
http://www.instapundit.com/archives/028317.php
http://www.cluetrain.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/books/12publ.html
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WEBSUC.html
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=521835
http://www.danah.org/
http://www.danah.org/papers/
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/02/06/openaccess_is_t.html
http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/wesch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/3ao3rm
http://everyblock.com
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/140
http://gapminder.org/
OK, so your main conclusion may be that I'm developing an unrequiteable crush on danah boyd... or at least on her research productivity. Perhaps giving up uppercase letters on one's name helps...
---
* While most of this page was posted on the date indicated, one breaking-news link was added the next morning. Coincidentally, I was able to do that without the need of resorting to GMail's "custom time" feature http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html
Actually, the deceptive "manipulation of time" is another issue in the world of academic publishing, something that would be appropriate for a new edition of another panel I was part of once, on digital research archives.
4:32:59 PM #
The fine print at that address mentions that I'm on a panel Wednesday, discussing "online publishing" with blogs, wikis and Web sites (the kind of work I've been doing for years), and its relationship to the kind of "publishing" that gets people tenure (the kind I seem to avoid compulsively).
It dawns on me that I may be on this panel to serve as a bad example! In any case, it should be entertaining.
If you can't make the event in person, here are a few relevant links for my general stream of clicks-or-consciousness on the themes of our discussion -- academic publishing issues today, including "open access" publishing, examples of online interactivity behaving something like peer review, and some online examples of research data being presented to new audiences in new ways.
I may or may not get around to annotating this list on my blog after the panel, but the compulsive clickers among you will quickly see where the collection is headed... starting with an experiment in "blog-based peer review."
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/04/2332n.htm *
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/28/open
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/01/1322n.htm
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5538/2187a
http://tinyurl.com/2dxa6w
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/16362.ctl
http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature04997.html
http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/
http://wethemedia.oreilly.com/
http://codev2.cc/
http://codebook.jot.com/WikiHome
http://www.smartmobs.com/
http://www.rheingold.com/
http://www.instapundit.com/archives/028317.php
http://www.cluetrain.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/books/12publ.html
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WEBSUC.html
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=521835
http://www.danah.org/
http://www.danah.org/papers/
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/02/06/openaccess_is_t.html
http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/wesch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/3ao3rm
http://everyblock.com
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/140
http://gapminder.org/
OK, so your main conclusion may be that I'm developing an unrequiteable crush on danah boyd... or at least on her research productivity. Perhaps giving up uppercase letters on one's name helps...
---
* While most of this page was posted on the date indicated, one breaking-news link was added the next morning. Coincidentally, I was able to do that without the need of resorting to GMail's "custom time" feature http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html
Actually, the deceptive "manipulation of time" is another issue in the world of academic publishing, something that would be appropriate for a new edition of another panel I was part of once, on digital research archives.
4:32:59 PM #
Thursday, March 27, 2008
In next week's New Yorker -- online today -- Eric Alterman discusses the decline and eventual demise of the daily newspaper. Toward the end, he sums things up like this:
Among other things in his 6,000 words or so, Alterman describes Huffington's rise in the blogosphere with her critique of The New York Times coverage of America's decision to invade of Iraq...
But the article also mention that a contributor to Huffington Post spread false reports during the Hurricane Katrina crisis that some people were "eating corpses to survive." Huffington ordered a retraction. "The alacrity with which the correction took place was admirable," Alterman says, "but it was not fast enough to prevent the false information from being repeated elsewhere."
The moral seems to be that professional journalists, with traditions of group decision-making and fact checking, are less likely to be taken in by rumors and hoaxes, that their trustworthiness should be deeper than veneer.
That's what makes this week's news from California especially disturbing: At The Los Angeles Times, editor Russ Stanton and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chuck Philips, among others, have had to issue an apology for being taken in by false documents... after the http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ analyzed copies of the material and flagged the paper's error.
Fortunately, in this new pro-am journalism world, the newspaper had posted the material on its Web site, where watchdog bloggers could do the after-the-fact fact-checking. For what it's worth (irony?), the original story had been the hit of the year for latimes.com, attracting nearly 1 million readers, according to the Associated Press.
SmokingGun: Big Phat Liar
Assorted follow-up stories:
1:14:17 PM #
"...it is impossible not to wonder what will become of not just news but democracy itself, in a world in which we can no longer depend on newspapers to invest their unmatched resources and professional pride in helping the rest of us to learn, however imperfectly, what we need to know."
His essay is accompanied by a cartoon showing another pundit, literally strangling a figure made of newsprint, captioned "Arianna Huffington questions newspapers' 'veneer of unassailable trustworthiness.'"Among other things in his 6,000 words or so, Alterman describes Huffington's rise in the blogosphere with her critique of The New York Times coverage of America's decision to invade of Iraq...
But the article also mention that a contributor to Huffington Post spread false reports during the Hurricane Katrina crisis that some people were "eating corpses to survive." Huffington ordered a retraction. "The alacrity with which the correction took place was admirable," Alterman says, "but it was not fast enough to prevent the false information from being repeated elsewhere."
The moral seems to be that professional journalists, with traditions of group decision-making and fact checking, are less likely to be taken in by rumors and hoaxes, that their trustworthiness should be deeper than veneer.
That's what makes this week's news from California especially disturbing: At The Los Angeles Times, editor Russ Stanton and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chuck Philips, among others, have had to issue an apology for being taken in by false documents... after the http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ analyzed copies of the material and flagged the paper's error.
Fortunately, in this new pro-am journalism world, the newspaper had posted the material on its Web site, where watchdog bloggers could do the after-the-fact fact-checking. For what it's worth (irony?), the original story had been the hit of the year for latimes.com, attracting nearly 1 million readers, according to the Associated Press.
SmokingGun: Big Phat Liar
Assorted follow-up stories:
- Editor & Publisher: 'LA Times' Fall on 'Puffy' Story Reveals New Scrutiny Of Online Documents
- New York Times blogs about LA in 'The Lede'
- New York magazine gets ironic about an LA Times review of "The Wire."
- Reader comments on the story at LAT quickly broke 350
Read this excerpt from Roy Harris Jr.'s book about Pulitzer Prize winners
1:14:17 PM #
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