Morisy.com

I started my first blog sometime in 2000, and the past year or so, I've been trying to dredge it up from the past. Over a decade ago! Well, I finally came close: I got the username and password to my second blog, since after I wrote some stupid things on the first one, I deleted all the entries and started anew.

Here was that first entry on that blog, posted 2001-05-07 and titled "A new beginning":

Hey everyone, this is ! Most of the people reading this understand why. Anyways, things are really busy around now, but I'll try and update this with some semblence of frequency, or at least sporadic infrequency. I'll see ya around!

I was thinking of importing those old entries here, but it's all rather unfortunate high school drama, and better left there. Still, it's comforting to know I once again have access, and I'll figure out a way to back it up at some point.

My friend has a theory about "chick crack," the quizzes and factoids you find in Vogue and Cosmo and, literally, littered around the Internet. To be fair, I think it's only called "chick crack" because these glossies have mastered the art form: As I discussed with my roommate this evening, Maxim and FHM really just don't have the same knack for useless, dubiously factual information that these do, and what seems like such a inane form of trivia recycling (really, how many sexual positions are there that Cosmo can introduce hundreds of new ones every month?) actually requires, if not literary skill, at least some artful touch. Today's XKCD captures it perfectly, and nails at least one of it's practioners, Cracked.com, squarely on the head. As today's XCKD alt text reads:

"Cracked.com is another inexplicable browser narcotic. They could write a list of '17 worst haircuts in the Ottoman Empire' and I'd read through to the end, then click on all the links at the end."

Sadly, I would too. I'm actually kind of grateful I'd never (until now) heard of TVTropes, because the last thing I need is another time suck. Although this article on Diabolus Ex Vacuus is fascinating...

The Internet doesn’t work on a daily schedule. But even more importantly, it abhors the absence of voice. There’s a reason why opinion writing tends to dominate the most-read lists on our “news” sites. Indeed, what we’ve seen is that Internet communities tend to form around voices — informed, passionate, authoritative voices in particular. (No one wants to read a bored blogger, I always say.) --Dan Froomkin (source)

I hadn't realized it had been over three years since I attended Harvard's Nieman Conference, but the date stamp doesn't lie. I checked back because I saw Dan Froomkin, who I'd found to be one of the more memorable speakers that year, is still actively involved with the Foundation, authoring a series of blog posts on the future of news. The particular segment that caught my eye was entitled "Why 'playing it safe' is killing American newspapers."

Froomkin was an "early adopter" of blogging as far as newspapermen go, joining WashingtonPost.com in 1997 and being the long-time writer and blogger for "White House Watch." Looking back over my notes when I first heard him speak and what he's saying now, I'm surprised by how little they've changed.

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Amid the clamor for newspapers to "get it" with the web, we take a moment to remember the casualties. Or at least Editor & Publisher takes a moment, but leaves out the good stuff.

Roughly transcribed from that article:

Rich Jackson says he was fired as managing editor of The Palladium-Item in Richmond, Ind., on July 17, for what he claims was the fact that his bosses didn't like his MySpace profile.

"There was content on there they didn't like, but they never said what it was."

Content that included a song called "The Rectal of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Not there is anything wrong with that.

However, the background to Jackson's plight is more interesting: He created his own MySpace account after the paper hired a MySpacer to blog interesting stories, like stories about middle-aged women driving drunk.

These stories then spark insightful commentary like this:

I think this is slightly fun.... I image some crazy lady with a bunch of cats cruizing around with a bottle of whiskey in her hand. Though I am strongly against drinking and driving, and cops. lol

All fulfilling a clearly-defined mission that speaks the languge of today's youth:

The Pal-Item is on myspace for one reason! To hear from you! We want to connect with the teens in our community! This myspace exists for the sole purpose for you guys to voice your opinion about ANYTHING! So, go ahead...so what you wanna say, let your voice be heard! You can also check out the Palladium-Item's Web Site!

Who I'd like to meet:
YOU!! seriosuly, we want to know you!

Hey, with more exclamation marks than sentences, you at least know they are passionate, right?

My Dan Froomkin notes as promised.

Froomkin first threw out the idea of blogs as vehicle, correlating nicely with Keefer's take on format agnosticism.

Reuters reports that 34 percent see their blogging as a form of journalism while 65 percent don't. The survey found that 77 percent write to personally express themselves, rather than for fortune and glory.

Pew did the survey, entitled "Bloggers: A portrait of the internet's new storytellers".

After the L.A. Times' hastily withdrawn wiki editorial, few imagined papers would tread that path again. But tread they did, though perhaps using the wisdom of the masses a bit more wisely to collate data rather than to form an opinion on said data.

Ben Smith's political blog, The Daily Politics, got tired of not having one regularly updated, definitive source on where various New York State Assembly members stood on gay marriage. So Smith created and spotlighted the wiki, which is available here.

So far, even with the wisdom of the collective masses, only 30 out of 150 members have been pinned down.

The vast majority of the edits appear to have been done by Smith himself.

TVNewser recaps the "TCA press tour announcement of a 'multi-platform strategy' for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric."

Some web-related highlights:

• All day: "Interactive Daily Blog:" "Will be updated frequently throughout the day" by correspondents and others. "Couric and the Evening News team will create a transparent, two-way, continuing dialogue with viewers and readers that encourages online comments and questions."
• Early afternoon: Web-exclusive rundown: "Early each weekday afternoon, Couric will offer a web-exclusive rundown on-camera from the newsroom -- a first look at the stories being considered for coverage on that night's" evening news. It'll be on CBSNews.com and Verizon VCast.
• By mid-afternoon: "Daily Digital Reports:" "A daily, on-demand web-exclusive feature will provide extended interviews with the day's newsmakers hosted by Couric and conducted by her or a CBS News correspondent." Three to four minutes in length. Video podcast-able.
• 4:25pm: "Katie Couric Reports:" It's a one-minute look into a top story or issue by Couric and it'll be available via radio, Internet and wireless.

Check TVNewser for more info plus copy of the press release.

Media Life Magazine has an article on papers struggling to create original content for the web, and deciding what technologies that want (and can) bring to the table.

The WashPost:
"Our philosophy is that when a new thing comes out, and there's a lot of buzz about it, let's try it," says Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com. "You have to try new things. Media is changing by the day."

"Journalism on the web is a conversation. Why should we put a story on the web and have 50 blogs chattering about it, when we could host that conversation?" Brady says. "In the print world, the publication of the article is the last step in the process, and on the web it should be the first step."

The SpokaneReview:
At the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., that paper's site now offers everything from a large-scale blogging effort to webcasts of the paper's daily news meetings. The paper is hosting conversations on its 35 blogs and posting web-only content to supplement its print edition. Says Ken Sands, online publisher at the Spokesman-Review: "From the beginning we realized that putting the printed newspaper online was the least interesting, least important thing we could do."

Sands says some of the simplest initiatives have proven the most effective. One is a MySpace page for the paper's entertainment site that links to the MySpace pages of many local musicians. Another is weekly podcasts and music downloads featuring local bands.

In the end, Sands says the hardest -- and most important -- part is giving up control and pointing their readers outwards. Many reporters and editors have expressed hesistance at letting their readers escape, Sands said, but doing just that was the only sure way to keep them.

Via LostRemote

Scott Jaschik gave a great talk Friday at Cornell. The co-founder of InsideHigherEd has been causing some waves in the world of HigherEd coverage. My notes after the jump.