Denim, Hard Cheeses and The International Symposium on Online Journalism
Denim, hard cheeses, wine, my wife JoAnna. All things that improve with age. Add the International Symposium on Online Journalism in Austin to the list. This has always been one of my favorite events of the year because it combines professional and academic panels exploring the evolution of online journalism. The conference entered its second [...]
This Year’s (News Production) Model
Experiencing Journalism: A new model for online newspapers Tom asked me to write a brief description of the book chapter I presented at his l New Media Theory (How far have we traveled) conference at Texas Tech April 16, 2010, so here goes: (Editor’s Note: This was the first-place paper at the conference. Way to go [...]
The New State of the News Media Report is Here!
Iam not a big fan of the movie “The Jerk,” a movie that is even below my sophomoric taste in films (my wife JoAnna may be stunned to know that there ARE movies that fall below my acceptability bar). But I recently thought of the scene from “The Jerk” when the new phone books arrive [...]
Foraging for News: News Gathering as a Social Act
Anyone who has read this blog over time (IS there anyone who has read it over time?) knows I have an academic crush on the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which is constantly releasing interesting studies about how the public uses the Internet. I also have crushes on Michelle Obama, Kate Winslet and Congressional [...]
Lies, Liars and the Media that Enable Them: Part II
Earlier on this blog I reviewed a study by Bruce Hardy, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Kenneth Winneg, “Wired to Fact”, which found that heavy Internet use enabled people to differentiate between facts and deception above and beyond the influence of traditional news media during the 2004 election. The article also faulted traditional media for failing to [...]
Your Most Trusted Source (?): Fox News
It has come to this. It used to be that Americans turned to the three network anchors for their news and information. Walter Cronkite was regarded not only as the most trusted anchor but also as the most trusted man in America. Cronkite earned that lofty distinction because Americans believed that when he spoke, he presented [...]
Leach, Tech Shanghaied by the Media
My wife and I were sitting at Dallas Love Field airport waiting for our flight back to Lubbock when I read the news on my Blackberry: Coach Mike Leach had been suspended from the Alamo Bowl while the school investigates complaints from a player and his family about treatment of a player after an injury. [...]
Journalists and Online Sources: No Ref Required
Without a doubt my favorite Christmas movie is “The Ref”, which puts the fun back into dysfunctional family holiday movies. Cat burglar Gus (Denis Leary), after an attempted robbery goes awry, abducts a woman Caroline (Judy Davis) and her husband Lloyd (Kevin Spacey) who simply can’t stand each other. They bicker constantly, even when threatened [...]
Laying off the techies
I nodded in recognition when I read Regina McCombs’ latest blog entry on Poynter (“Power Struggles over Converged Newsrooms May Diminish Value of Web Sites”) about the layoffs of online staff at the Washington Post. She suggests that the targeting of multimedia folks in the latest rounds of cuts at news organizations is an indication [...]
Obama? Pakistan? I want my balloon boy!
President Obama’s town hall event in New Orleans was pre-empted. News about the Pakistan’s army offensive had to be put on hold. Questions about our strategy in Afghanistan had to go unanswered. All other news had to be ignored while we stood transfixed (well, those of us who weren’t tweeting or Googling) as a silver [...]