Quick thoughts on social media and the future of journalism from Jonathan Groves, journalist and assistant professor at Drury University. Longer musings are available at my full blog.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Knight News Challenge: Announcing the next Knight News Challenge: Data
Attention, news nonprofits: Another opportunity from Knight.
Photo Credit: Flickr user Koen Vereeken
The Knight News Challenge is being offered three times this year, in short, focused rounds to better mirror the pace of innovation. Winners of Round 1, which focused on networks, will be announced June 18. Here, Journalism and Media Innovation…
Was struck by this quote from a TED talk from 2009 by Elizabeth Coleman, president of Bennington College:
When the impulse is to change the world, the academy is more likely to engender a learned helplessness than to create a sense of empowerment.
A quick retort: One of the greatest features of Twitter is the ability to @reply to any public account and let the public watch the conversation take place.
This one-two between News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch and Channel 4’s Jon Snow has been making the rounds this weekend. Enjoy.
Problems with journalism, circa 1947: Some things never change
In 1947, the Hutchins Commission (a.k.a the Commission on Freedom of the Press) spent months examining the issues facing the modern media.
In that comprehensive report, the commission raised many concerns that still plague us today: inaccuracy, consolidation, technological upheaval.
The comment on sensationalism from pages 55 and 56 is particularly informative for today’s journalists (emphasis added):
To attract the maximum audience, the press emphasizes the exceptional rather than the representative, the sensational rather than the significant. Many activities of the utmost social consequence lie below the surface of what are conventionally regarded as reportable incidents: more power machinery; fewer men tending machines; more hours of leisure; more schooling per child; decrease of intolerance; successful negotiation of labor contracts; increase of participation in music through the schools; increase in the sale of books of biography and history.
In most news media such matters are crowded out by stories of night-club murders, race riots, strike violence, and quarrels among public officials. The Commission does not object to the reporting of these incidents but to the preoccupation of the press with them. The press is preoccupied with them to such an extent that the citizen is not supplied the information and discussion he needs to discharge his responsibility to the community.
Piled Higher and Deeper in Journalism: I'm a Proud Digital Furry Mammal Living in the Trees
Finally have some time to catch up on old posts and found this gem from my brilliant research partner, Dr. Carrie Brown-Smith of the University of Memphis.
One of the most passionate defenders of journalism I know.
Someone was just asking me about this, so I’m publishing this amusing exchange I had on the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Newspaper Division list serv about one year ago, when the division was debating changing its name to something a bit more digital friendly,…
Learning about creativity from the Muppets
Today’s NPR story on Morning Edition about the Muppets provided a glimpse inside the creative mind.
During the story, correspondent Susan Stamberg tapped into Muppeteer Bill Barretta to learn about the group’s creative process:
Barretta is in charge — checking sightlines, positioning monitors, tweaking costumes.
Barretta also performs: He’s the man behind several characters previously enacted by the late Jim Henson, including the Swedish Chef, Rowlf the Dog and Dr. Teeth. He performs some newer characters, too — not least Pepe, the little Spanish-speaking shrimp.
“Not a shrimp, please — he’s a king prawn, OK,” Barretta objects, in Pepe’s voice. “Big difference. Size is what matters, all right.”
Barretta says his wife’s Spanish aunt was the inspiration for Pepe.
“[She] had this great way of talking to people — she only spoke in statements,” he explains. ” ‘Iz a black shirt, OK. Come on, Beulah, we go to the mall, OK.’ That’s what she said all the time: ‘OK,’ at the end of everything.”
It happened that during a brainstorming session for a 1996 Muppets TV show, Barretta found himself describing his aunt-in-law.
“She was a little bit selfish in a way, and I said, you know, ‘She’s very fun but a little shellfish,’ by mistake. And one of the writer-directors said, ‘Wait a minute, OK, maybe it’s a lobster or it’s a crab or a shrimp — no wait, it’s a king prawn, ‘cause maybe he has a problem with size.’ “
Sometimes, it takes a village to make a Muppet.
But then, collaboration is a Muppet tradition, according to Barretta.
“That was something Jim created,” he says, “and I’m just glad to be part of that process.”
I do love Web infographics. But this Guardian graphic nails what’s wrong with the genre.
Two weeks ago I got a call from my doctor, who I’d gone to see the day before because I’d been feeling worn out and was losing weight, and wasn’t sure why.
He was brief: “Amit, you’ve got Acute Leukemia. You need to enter treatment right away.”
I was terrified. I packed a backpack full of clothes, went to the hospital as he’d instructed, and had transfusions through the night to allow me to take a flight home at 7am the next day. I Googled acute leukemia as I lay in my hospital bed, learning that if it hadn’t been caught, I’d have died within weeks.
—
I have a couple more months of chemo to go, then the next step is a bone marrow transplant. As Jay and Tony describe below, minorities are severely underrepresented in the bone marrow pool, and I need help.
A few ways to help:
- If you’re South Asian, get a free test by mail. You rub your cheeks with a cotton swab and mail it back. It’s easy.
- If you’re in NYC, you can go to this event my friends are putting on.
- If you know any South Asians (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, or Sri Lanka), please point ‘em to the links above.
*NEW* Organize a donor drive near you (the most helpful thing you could possibly do!) email 100kcheeks@gmail.com. They’ll send you kits, flyers, tell you what to say, and make the whole process easy cheesy.
My friend Amit Gupta founded my favorite photography site Photojojo. A few weeks ago, he was diagnosed with leukemia. Amit is one of the nicest, most genuine, most creative people you could ever meet. Prior to founding the awesome Photojojo, he also co-founded Jelly in 2006 in NYC, a coworking community, that’s now spread to 60 cities across the world and helped spark the coworking revolution. It looks like Amit will need a bone marrow transplant quite soon. We can help him with that.
Unlike blood transfusions, finding a genetic match for bone marrow that his body will accept is no easy task. The national bone marrow registry has 9.5 million records on file, yet the chances of someone from South Asian descent of finding a match are only 1 in 20,000.
This is where we come in. We’re going to destroy those odds.
How? By finding and registering as many people of South Asian descent as we possibly can.
Tests are easy– a simple swab of the cheek. If you’re a match, the donation involves an outpatient procedure. It’s not fun, but it’s not dangerous either. And doing it could save a life.
We are encouraging anyone of South Asian descent to take a test to see if you’re a match.
You can get a free test by mail, or, if you’re in New York, you can join us Friday, October 14th for a special party to rally support.
We’ll have test kits on hand at the party, as well as music, booze, and maybe even a photo booth. It will, for the first time, combine a House 2.0-style party with a New Work City-style party, and if you’ve ever been to either, you know they are always something special.
Please spread the word and please do everything you can to help Amit beat leukemia. He’s a superstar.
Much thanks to Tony and pals for organizing this event, and EVERYONE who’s been tweeting and reblogging.
Please help get the word out any way you can. My life quite literally depends on it.
