DrinkStrong

Free Wi-Fi in San Francisco...?

2007-08-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Recently, as in today I found a troubling article in the SF Chronicle about Mayor Gavin Newsom's free Wi-Fi plan to accomadate all citizens far and wide, rich and poor. The "free" network, which was supposed to be built by EarthLink, who just announced yesterday it was pulling out of the deal due to financial difficulties. Interesting, maybe thats why EarthLink just announced it was laying off 900 employees.

This looks bad all around the country, not just in San Francisco. Anchorage and Chicago just canceled their plans to attempt to build a free Wi-Fi network in their cities as well. Conviently their networks were also supposed to be built by EarthLink. The doom sayers are apparently out in force because the system does not seem "financially viable."

To me what doesn't seem financially viable is the company EarthLink. Google won a bid in San Francisco to build the network and test out new products, why then give the entire project to EarthLink, a company that is spread so thin you can practically see through it. I understand the Google-EarthLink connection but why specifically them. If Google is so interested in testing new products and advertising techniques why not pay for it completely out of pocket? Why didn't Mayor Newsom realize that Google's Earthlink wasn't financially viable and either not award them the contract or begin looking in other directions?

Instead of blaming the proposed system of free Wi-Fi within cities people should start looking at other viable options. Maybe Google and its little brother companies aren't the answer. Besides, the network system Google was pushing was to be paid partially by advertising revenue (nothing new in America) and partially by a faster, better tier of service that subscribers would have to pay $21.95 a month for.

It seems that to make this net work you could feasibly keep the second, higher tier of service for a monthly fee and add a tax on the citizens that live within the city limits. Or possibly add a tax to multi-million (if not billion) dollar companies located in San Francisco's downtown district. After all it is titled the Financial District. This, it seems would easily net enough money to pay for a free municipal Wi-Fi network that could be accessed anywhere.

No doubt the companies will not adhere to a tax, because, well they usually don't. There are plenty of other ways to get this Wi-Fi network built in San Francisco and other cities without Google and without Earthlink. I do believe in the end it could and will be finanacially viable for companies to invest in. Especially if they have control over advertising content and reach.

Just because a few companies can't hold their accounts in the black doesn't mean that free city wide municipal Wi-Fi is a failing option that can never get off the ground.

White Space and Unlicensed usage

2007-08-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

Well ladies and gentleman after a long nearly three month Summer vacation hiatus from all things writing I'm back to continue what I started for a college course last semester. While I am not entirely pleased with my lack of content throughout the summer months I am not taking full responsibility for it. Some things which I will call life happen and must be dealt with accordingly before any other activity can take place. So with no further ado...

An interesting debate has been on-going since 2002 involving "white space" found in the spectrum between broadcast television channels. The white space is there to keep channels located on the spectrum next to each other from creating interference and potentially making the channel un-viewable for the viewer.

In a recently written article titled White Space Debate Rages it seems companies such as Google, EarthLink, Dell, Intel, and Microsoft have created what they call the "White Space Coalition" to lobby the FCC for unlicensed use of these spaces in between, in hopes of creating more broadband competition.

Obviously television broadcasters are opposed to such an idea because they say there is still too many interference issues. A total of 15 to 20 percent of the American public still get their television over the air and the potential interference would be to much.

When the government mandated switch from analog to all digital happens in Feb. of 2009 the 700 Mhz will be auctioned off, leaving a significant portion of it empty, including the white space. Market competitors think this is a great opportunity for wireless broadband companies to grab it up and combine it with their already in place networks. The 700 Mhz band of spectrum is especially valuable because it travels farther and has a better propensity to travel through walls and other obstacles.

Broadcast television companies are lobbying for the FCC to wait until the transfer from analog to digital is complete before potentially allowing unlicensed use of these white spaces. In a report released by the FCC on Aug. 1st with the test results of the first potential white space prototype that will detect signals from occupied channels, so as not to interfere with them the FCC slammed the device. Microsoft, the builder of said device has charged that prototype A was broken already and prototype B, which Microsoft tested on it's own in front of the FCC performed at 100 percent.

I agree with the White Space Coalition on this one, wasted spectrum is dead spectrum. Officially the public still owns the spectrum and I see no reason to deny the usage of unlicensed white space areas to new, or small wireless broadband companies trying to find a niche in an increasingly competitive and closed off market. Besides in urban areas these white spaces are very small and by themselves do not offer enough spectrum to viably compete with any company already established. While I do agree that channel interference would be a huge negative and should not be allowed to happen, this option needs to explored further before decided on. Especially if the coalition is already putting money up front to explore and build devices that can operate within the white spaces. This doesn't seem any different then a pirate radio station securing a small amount of bandwidth to broadcast from. If interference is the only issue, it seems the white spaces should be used.

In Other News:

Politics Meets Mobile Technology

This is just another step in on-going direction of peer-to-peer and digital technology interweaving itself in life. Democratic presidential hopefuls have begun using text messaging to garner support in areas where the candidates will be campaigning soon. This effort headed By John Edwards involves sending text messages to his campaign and receiving updates as well as phone calls from Edwards if the phone user texts back "call." Barrack Obama has started allowing supporters to text the numbers that spell out his last name and include in the text a question regarding just about anything. This idea seems revolutionary now but in the grand scheme of things was just the logical next step in the process. Text messaging can be used to a great degree when trying to gather people in one geographical location such as a city, or county and should just become another media tool in the arsenal of candidates.

Media critic Solomon pushes limits of fair-use in new documentary

Norman Solomon is about to release a documentary titled "War Made Easy." It documents presidential administrations going back 40 years and their use of the media to galvanize public opinion on war. On the surface it appears to be a scathing assessment of the current administrations usage of the media in the run-up to the Iraq war. But as the film moves through it uses tons of clips and footage from television news to show exactly how the media has been toyed with. The lining behind this is simple, in an age where some media companies are trying to increase control over their content this documentary tests the limits of fair use. Which is protected under copyright laws. Many media companies are actually allowing content to be used on sites such as Youtube, or even personal blogs, but many of these companies have limitations, or at the least guidelines on how such content can be used. Give Solomon credit for scoring a double hit with this documentary for democracy. In the realm of politics and in the realm of copyright.

25% Newsroom Job Cut-SF Chronicle

2007-05-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

Even local, progressive newspapers can't seem to keep their money grubbing owners happy enough with advertising revenue and subscribers to avoid having news rooms jobs cut. The SF Chronicle has decided to cut 25 percent of its staff members.

To give you an idea of how much news gathering ability that really is here.

"Eighty reporters, photographers, copy editors and others, as well as 20 employees in management positions are expected to be laid off by end of the summer. Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega said Friday that voluntary buyouts are likely to be offered."

Hearts News explanation bordered around the absurd. In order to adapt to a changing market place and of course to offset advertising loses as more and more people abandon what is known as traditional media for the glowing world of cyberspace.

Dan Gillmor has some great commentary on the sad situation at the SF Chronicle in his post SF Chronicle Whacks Jobs.

Then there’s this howler, albeit attributed to Rosenstiel:

(This is an excerpt from the SF Chronicle article)
He said the effect, even for people who don’t read the paper, “is that 25 percent of what goes on in the Bay Area won’t be covered. It will happen in the dark. … Our research shows that there is a lot of information that appears in a daily newspaper that doesn’t get covered by TV stations or citizen journalists or bloggers when a newspaper’s staff is cut.”

The premise here is that the Chronicle is actually reporting 100 percent of what goes on in the Bay Area now. I suspect Rosenstiel was either misquoted or was being ironic. He’s too smart and knowledgeable to believe this.

Dan Gillmor makes a good point here in his comment on the SF Chronicle assuming they are covering 100%. No way, as good as the Chronicle has become since Hearts purchased it, it still doesn't come close to diving deep enough into Mayor Gavin Newsom's affairs (and no not with women, his political ones), immigration, or low and behold itself. In fact, I'm almost surprised the SF Chronicle ran a story about cutting it's own employees.

I'm Still waiting for the Chronicle to write a story about the MediaNews -Hearts Corps distribution deal that was struck down in court...

I find it utterly impossible to say, think, or feel that the SF Chronicle is going to become better in any way shape or form because of this purely financial decision. I hope this isn't Hearts Corps reaction to having his purposed deal with MediaNews shut down, as a way of "showing" us who is boss.

I find it hard to believe the newspaper industry is in as bad of a financial crunch as it has been saying it is. Even if they are cutting news room jobs brings me back to an older idea; the real problem with the media industry is the people in charge think it can solely be run as a business with the bottom line deciding most, if not all things. If the media is not one thing, it is not a business.

In Other News:

YouTube Pioneers Challenge Pentagon

Recently the Pentagon has banned access to YouTube by soldiers serving in iraq and Afghanistan but also to all soldiers using computers on any Department of Defense property. This very conveniently coincided with the military releasing a proposal for YouTube to host a news "Boots On The Ground" series. Showing the iraq war thourh the eyes of soldiers on the ground.

"In a Pentagon news conference Thursday, Defense Information Systems Agency Vice Director Rear Adm. Elizabeth Hight said the decision was primarily driven by concerns about bandwidth, or the capacity of the Pentagon network to handle data-heavy material such as video.

Company officials said they were especially puzzled by the block because it came just days after the military launched its own channel on YouTube offering what it calls a "boots-on-the-ground" perspective of scenes of combat."

My guess is the military is smarter than running into a band width problem with it's troops relaying information. I don't think the military wants any of our troops to see what this "Boots On The Ground" is actually portraying. Simply put (which is really obvious) "Boots On The Ground" is going to be pure propaganda for our war machine and the military/pentagon/white house doesn't want to give our troops the ability to realize that everyone is caught in this lie, them and the people at home.

The South Carolina State will dis-continue home delivery and News stand sales in 18 counties

This cancellation, which is self inflicted will result in the loss of around 1,800 subscribers. I find this story interesting because The State is considered South Carolina's "paper of record" and is the largest one in the state. Similar to the result the SF Chronicle will have because of the staff cut The State's coverage of local news will decrease. Just another example of self-inflicted wounds to the newspaper industry. Maybe if one of these huge newspaper conglomerates should figure out how to incorporate the Internet with their print edition. That is where the true money making and content providing will come from.

The Consumer Doesn't Need More Media Convergence

2007-05-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

Usually I have to hand it to what Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks says. I often cite him on this blog and all of them have been agreeable. But His post titled Newspapers, TV, and the Net - It's Convergence Time, written on May 2oth on his Blog, titled Blog Maverick.

I'll just tell you what he said that I fine difficult to swallow.

"Why isn't a CBS News merging their news department with a NY Times and rebranding itself as the 6pm NY Times News? Or with Time Magazine News? Or NBC News and???"

This sounds dangerously close to an advocation for increased corporate convergence not only simply media convergence. Is the CBS NY Times News really necessary? The NY Times has never dipped into T.V and did not build their reputation on T.V.

He later goes on to say

"But what is happening is that everyone is cutting back individual news operations rather than partnering to ramp up. Consumers don't need more brands, they need more in-depth reporting of more stories."

I agree with him when he says consumers don't need more brands, we don't. Its also apparent that news organizations are cutting back international and local news departments.

But partnering to ramp up means partnering up what advertising and distributing departments. In earlier posts I talked about the Media News-SF Chronicle deal, titled A Win For Clint Reilly.

The court ruled that any form of convergence in these departments eliminated competition and was therefore not allowed. I'm confused about what type of convergence Cuban is advocating. This idea sounds dangerous and I don't think should even be contemplated without much further discussion. It has already been proven that increased media convergence leads to loss of jobs, and lower quality news reporting, not better quality. By examples that are already in place More "brands" lead to better, more in-depth reporting, not the other way around.

In Other News:

Microsoft Makes Biggest Buy Yet

Microsoft will buy aQuantive for US$6 billion ($8.2 billion, paying an 85 per cent premium to snap up one of the last large independent companies in a consolidating web advertising market.

Interesting Microsoft acquires more advertising companies. And so be it another one bites the dust as mentioned in the quote. This was Microsoft's largest purchase in it's history and sends a signals to Google, and Yahoo that, at least for now it isn't planning on going away. This purchase of course followed Google purchase of DoubleClick.

Notes On Being a Better Citizen Journalist

This is a guide with some helpful but useful tips about how to build your citizen journalism site. How to create a personal experience with your audience and links to other similar sites. It is a quick read with a lot of helpful information that people who are interested in citizen journalism should read.

Progress For New Assignment

2007-05-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

I would like to congratulate NewAssignment.Net and founder Jay Rosen, also the author of PressThink, I would also like to congratulate Wired. Together these two combined resources and capital to create Assignment Zero, a collaborative effort between citizen journalists and traditional industry editors, think pro-am.

Recently Assignment Zero launched some preview drafts of the first project it took on. The issue they chose was Crowdsourcing.

If your not familiar with the term click the link above. It will take you to the Wikipedia definition, which I must admit need work. Here is another link to Rosen's own take on the first publication of all their combined efforts. he gives an awesome quote as to why they chose crowdsourcing and some insight into where it can go. Besides, Wikipedia itself started, or at least put the idea of crowdsourcing on the map. Check the Rosen article for tons of information on the main contributors of this project, future projects, and the main"idea" of where the crowdsourcing project is going to aimed. Also, he very candidly writes about adjustments that needed top be made and is open to the possibility of failure.

When Assignment Zero launched I wrote: “We’re going to report on the spread of what’s called crowdsourcing and the larger practice it’s part of: peer production on the new information commons, in all of its forms. Collaboration online — and why it works when it does — is an expansive and nuanced story with lots of locations.”

And why not? It is truly a great idea. Taking a job normally preformed by a professional and almost out sourcing it to citizens.

Check this wired magazine article written about it. In my opinion Rosen's quote says it all...

"This is an attempt to bring journalists together with people in the public who can help cover a story," says project founder Jay Rosen.

As a a bit of s side note on crowdsourcing and wikipedia. There is a documentary being filmed titled Truth In Numbers. The camera crew is traveling all around the world documenting international wiki events and how different societies use wikipedia.

Here's the problem, they need money. Check the website out and watch some of the trailers that document production as they travel.

In Other News:

military taps YouTube to promote its view of Iraq

This is bad news, it does contain a hint of good news but I'll get to that in the end. For all the rave YouTube has created and will continue to create in the coming years, and/or even generations the decision of our military to tap into as a source of practically free advertising to enlist is a bad idea. Many college campus's have already banned military recruiters and this is a avenue ripe with young eyeballs and impressionable minds. This is what the military is offering to produce as content.

"Moving into a realm long dominated by Islamic militants, the military has launched a YouTube channel offering what it calls a boots-on-the-ground perspective. The move recognizes that the Internet is becoming a key battleground for public opinion at a time when domestic support for the war is dwindling."

Oh the only hint of good is that if the military is embracing YouTube as a viable way to get their message out than have no fear for YouTube will never go anywhere. The only place it could go would be corporate.

Obama Takes Control of Myspace Page

I think the most interesting part of this story isn't that in the wake of declaring his candidacy for the presidency he decided to wrestle control of a Myspace page created by a supporter. This makes sense, politicians and Obama in general seem open to new media ideas but not so far as to allow someone totally unrelated to their campaign to manage something as visible as a Myspace page. What is interesting to me is that he (and his campaign minions) ever allowed somebody else to create and run a Myspace page for Obama. Although his campaign kept an eye on the page for content and obviously to be de facto editing crew. The one thing that doesn't sit so well is that Obama completely outed the man who created and up kept the Myspace. This guy was obviously a big supporter of your campaign and cause and you have now shunned him. A smarter decision would have been to hire him.

A Win For Clint Reilly

2007-05-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

I'm going to re-hash a little over the MediaNews-SF Chronicle merger deal that was recently banned from taking place by a federal judge. From the SF Bay Guardian here is a complete collection of the legal memos submitted so far by both parties involved in the case. The Run Down

It seems our independent friend Clint Reilly managed to bring down the huge merger scheduled betwen these two giants media conglomerates. Acting on his own notion of media eithics and American law Reilly decided to sue the conglomerates. This is from an April 18th 2007 Bay Guardian story titled Media Trial To Proceed - In Public".

"After Federal Judge Susan Illston ruled that Reilly's case against local newspaper juggernaut MediaNews Group can proceed to trial April 30, and she has strongly indicated that all key evidence will be public."

The settlement that was reached just a few weeks before the trial was set to begin according to Beyond the Reilly Settlement. The agreement is full of legal details about what MediaNews can and cannot do as far as negotiating with the Chronicle. Some of the details were not disclosed. Overall the major concessions of the agreement were

"The settlement involved a lot of peripheral terms, but the essence was this: the Hearst Corp., which owns the San Francisco Chronicle, can no longer consider combining printing, distribution, and ad sales with MediaNews Group, which owns almost every other major local daily in the Bay Area.

Reilly announced that the deal prevents the supposed competitors from unfairly or illegally negotiating any major joint operating arrangement in the near future. The trial was scheduled to begin just days after the agreement was reached"

A key detail reached in the agreement is the ability of Reilly to appoint private citizens to the editorial boards of all major Northern California newspapers.

"According to the terms, Reilly will recommend private citizens for appointment to the editorial boards of every California Newspapers Partnership publication in the region, including the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times, and the Oakland Tribune.
He will also get access to advertising space in the pages of the papers for a regular column."

These are all major concessions won by Reilly from two major newspaper conglomerates that wield a lot of combined media power. I commend the Bay Guardian and Media Alliance for being one of the only voices sounding the opposition bell and for going to court to legally un-seal documents that otherwise would have gone forever unknown to the public as the sole remaining (somewhat) competitive newspaper is sucked up by the machine.

This is all great news for bay area media content and viewers/listeners. But there are som troublesome aspects involved as well. Where was our Governor? Where was the state Attorney General Jerry Brown? How come the Bay Guardian was one of (if not the only) newspaper reporting on this supposed merger? I subscribe to the Chronicle, but I read the Guardian every Thursday at work. I consistently have been reading about every update in the Reilly case since the begining and yet the Chronicle has not published one word about the case. This makes some sense since they would be reporting negatively on themselves, but is isn't that the point? What would happen if the deal went through then even more news papers would not be willing to report on themselves or others. That is why this case is such a big deal. To the bay area and the media nation as a whole.

The absolute most troublesome aspect of this case is what is printed in the very first paragraph of the Guardian story titled Beyond the Reilly Settlement

Shortly before Clint Reilly began a press conference April 25 announcing that he'd settled his federal antitrust suit against the Bay Area's two largest newspaper companies, Cheryl Hurd of NBC affiliate. KNTV, channel 11, loudly complained to the pack of reporters that she just didn't quite get the story.

"Why does anybody care about this?" she asked, sounding annoyed as she waved the press release listing the terms of the settlement in the air. "I don't even understand any of this. What's this mean?"

This is ridiculous! What do you mean a reporter doesn't get this story. This story has so much to do with our nation it isn't funny that people are not taking it that seriously. An independent reality investor sued two giant media companies for not playing fair and won in court publicly.

Reilly blocked a corporate merger and during the course exposed documents stating that two "competitive" newspapers were going to combine advertsing and distribution centers. This announcement after Hearst of the Chronicle invested $300 million in MediaNews, which allowed the company to then buy up numerous dailies around the Bay Area. Of course ot avoid anti-trust scrutiny the value of the $300 million investment depended on all non-bay area assets, but later memos revealed Hearts planned on shuffling the investment to include Bay Area dailies.

If you include Reilly's first lawsuit against MediaNews, which involved the purchase of the SF Examiner in order to ensure the SF Chronicle becoming number one. Do not forget either that this deal also exposed Hearst and the Chronicle of offering then Mayor Willie Brown favorable news coverage if he signed off on the deal.

For any reporter to "not get" this story is obscene and that reporter should be handed their head. As for Mr. Reilly, if all of us citizens had half as much civic duty in our blodd as he does this place would be far different; and I'd be willing to make an arguement that it would be better.

In Other News:

Indonesia gains first full time Blogger

In a country that resides so far above the digital divide line a development abroad like this one may not seem very important. Hopefully into the future this doesn't hninder our further development and expansion of our media capabilities. But for developments around the world it is a sign that bloggers/blogs and the entire idea of de-centralized, citizen contributed media sites is spreading.
"I resigned from my job from March 1, to become a full-time blogger. I will be dedicating my time to developing an Indonesian blogosphere...," said Budi Putra, in a phone interview last weekend. Purta quit his job working for Tempo Group, a large media corporation in Indonesia.

Google Should Buy Starbucks

This is an interesting thought. Starbucks has an image they are trying to fit as the third place people want to spend time. The other two being home and office. Google fits into this mold fairly well as being the third place people want to spend their time as well. One is physical space the other is loacted in cyber space. Quite a concept. The interesting things are that Starbucks already has a record label of it's own and granted the limited ability to download and have songs burned onto a CD for you while you wait for your mocha. This attempt at music distribution is a big step for a company based around coffee and atmosphere but for a company like Google it seems like a great purchase. Just think, as YouTube grows with Google and their other partners Starbucks has the potential to be the outlet for products that originate on sites such as YouTube, E-bay, or any other media content site. The cross advertsing for Starbucks seem well worth the purchase as well. The potential appears to be through the roof and Google's legal troubles make hinde any real consideration, but it is a very interesting idea.

American Towns

2007-05-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

Today in this post I am going to highlight one specific citizen media site local to San Francisco. The site is titled American Towns.

American Towns highlights specific geographical locations for each city all linked together under the title of the city you are looking into.

Here is the link to my city, San Francisco. American Towns is a comprehensive citizen media site where locals and/or visiters can go and check out local events and times.

The users have the option to upload their own events to the Events Page where everyone can see them. Each event has the time, location and a link to the
website of the location of the event.

American Towns-San Francisco links to news in SF, events, business events and news. As well as religion, school and community. The site comes with links to photos, videos and more that users can upload to the site to compliment a story they submitted or just upload pictures.

I like this website because it functions as a news portal for locals who are sick of reading "mainstream" media outlets. What this site has over competitors who aren't citizen media sites is a specific focus on San Francisco. Even the SF Chronicle doesn't focus entirely on the SF area.

American Towns could be the future. I'm sure the site is not perfect because there is no such thing as a perfect citizen media site, but the possibility of the future is near. Think of a main site that has each state listed with a link to that state's homepage of available sites that focus on specific cities within each state.

Depending on the structure desired after each site is broken down by state they then could be broken down by county and then city/town. The site could be made so accessible that people all over could check the site for upcoming news and events in their own city as well as cities they are planning on visiting in the near future.

Take time to check out American Towns and look up some of the other cities available around the country. Citizen media sites like this I hope will and I know they can be the future.
In Other News:

Deal Of The Year

Most people are aware that Viacom is sueing Google over copyright infringement issues. But what flew completely under the radar is a deal that Yahoo and Comcast have struck. Yahoo will now have the pleasure of selling advertisement on all Comcast.net videos. The potential here is big. Yahoo does not have a network of their own but Comcast does. Yahoo now has access to Comcasts entire network and anything an already private Comcast subscriber watches Yahoo has exclusive advertising rights. It seems Google has some competition at least making a run to appear in the rear-view mirror.

You Tube Under Attack

"The TV, movie and record giant NBC Universal teamed up with the TV and news behemoth News Corp to come up with a YouTube-like Web site that would be business friendly and not involve so many copyright violations." This is also big technology news and bad news for Google and You Tube. Between this business deal and the one between Yahoo and Comcast mentioned above Google is in a for a legal fight with Viacom and a content fight with it's top competitor Yahoo and another emerging competitor in News Corp & NBC. Plus the News Corp/NBC deal won't have copyright infringement which may very well draw a different type of advertiser as well as consumer. Look for changes in access and content of free, uploaded sites such as You Tube.

Commercial free radio or subtle advertising?

2007-04-23T23:39:00.000-07:00

According to this NY Times Article Clear Channel Communications of all companies has decided to conduct an experiment in commercial free radio. At there Dallas, Texas radio station Lone Star 92.5 the new plan is to have advertisers sponsor single hours of programing.

The main advertising sponsors are going to be AT&T, Coors Brewing Company, The Guitar Center, and Southwest Airlines. Each company will get about 2 minutes of advertising incorporated into the hourly broadcast by the DJ.

According to the NY Times article the sponsor ship will go something like this.

For example, the D.J. will identify Southwest Airlines, one of the station’s first advertisers, as the sponsor at the beginning of the program. In a prototype provided by the station, the D.J. later discusses the South by Southwest music festival, a popular annual event held in Austin, and concludes, “You know, the best way to get down to Austin for South by Southwest is Southwest Airlines. They have tons of flights. It’s the way I travel.”

The Lone Star station has also reportedly changed their format from classic rock to a more Texas inflected rock-country mix. Including Lynard Skynard, and Bob Dylan.

Clear Channel suprises me as a conglomerate who is willing to shake up the radio status quo. But they obviously have the resources and stations to make a worthwhile experiemnt out of it.

It seems the changing of the format didn't originally go over so well in the beggining because the area the radio station covers is a big classic rock market. But it may be because they needed a change in the actual DJ's personalities.

“In a major market, for a classic rock station to change formats is really an anomaly,” said Fred Jacobs, a radio industry consultant from Detroit who helped popularize the classic rock format in the mid-1980s. “You could make a nice, long, healthy list of top five stations that are classic rock,” and several would be No. 1 or No. 2 in their markets," he said.

Wether Clear Channel is trying to grab the attention of a different audience or they wanted to change their DJ's personality because of the conversational nature of their new marketing scheme, it doesn't matter.

The interesting aspect is the marketing idea. While it may seem like a good idea in theory some people are not going to like their DJ's constantly pumping products through the airwaves. It is in a way "selling out." Nobody is going to believe that the DJ is actually endorsing products they use or favor. The four main sponsors listed above are the only advertiser that the LoneStar station is going to sell sponsorship of programming hours to within their respective business. (Southwest will be the only airline, Coors the only brewery, etc.)

In essence the LoneStar station is not really going to be commercial free radio. The station is selling advertisers the sponsorship of programming hours and the DJ's are going to talk about the products. Essentially it is a more subtle, almost subconscious way of reaching listeners than actual commercials were. At least then (in theory) the listenrs knew they were being advertised to.

What really remains to be seen is if this new marketing idea will actually result in better radio. Whether or not people like their DJ's pumping products if this idea turns out to be better than the previous it could catch on. It is known by all that listeners don't like listening to commercials, most change the channel. So if dealing with the DJ talking about products he has to talk about for 8-10 minutes an hour is better than having to listen to possibly annoying commercials, bring it on.

Let's just hope they realize that a station that has just recently changed their format must use this new on-air time to play more music the listeners want to hear. That is the only way to gain a good, new reputation with your listeners that will make them moe likely to listen to your DJ's talking about your sponsors.

In Other News:

Google to buy Double Click

This story is interesting, though it broke over a week ago new information has arisen. Google and Double Click agreed to a 3.1 Billion dollar google take over. Double click is based in New York and helps it's clients track on-line advertising such as search ads and other click through advertising. Google, who leads all companies in this market hopes the purchase will enhance their ability to reach even more people with advertising.

In a follow up story posted on April 20th

FTC asked to block Google and Double Click deal

Three different interest groups filed petitions to have the Federal Trade Commission block the purposed deal between Google and Double Click because of privacy concerns over the fact tht Google will then be able to keep track of a persons internet web searches and the websites people visit. The FTC was originally asked to look into Double Clicks behavior seven years ago when it purchased a Abacus a direct marketing firm. The deal later fell through.

Self Introduction

2007-04-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

I've decided I'm going to explore some options with the use of audio on my blog. I haven't figured out exactly the direction I'm going to go, but dang it I need to start. So here is a quick self introduction about myself and why I like citizen media.

This audio is not polished by any means, hence my qualifier about trying to experiment with audio. Enjoy.

Self Introduction

Citizen Media Sites are Here To Stay

2007-04-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Recently posted on the Center For Citizen Media website was a Post about a report titled Citizen Media Fad or Future of News? This report was funded by The Ford Foundation and conducted by J-Lab.

Here is a brief description of the study from the Introductory chapter. The methodology and scientific purpose are explained. For a summary of each chapter go here Editor's Weblog.

"J-Lab created a questionnaire intended to capture as much data as possible through in-depth interviews in the summer of 2006 with founders, owners or operators of a diverse group of 31 citizen media sites. We supplemented that data with an online survey in the fall of 2006. We specifically targeted readers, contributors and operators of the nearly 500 citizen media sites we could identify at the time; 191 participants responded to most or all of our 60 questions.

This report presents our analysis of that data as well as commentary from the 31 front-line innovators. It offers a baseline of motivations, methods of generating content, and measures of success."

This report (though I did not read the entire thing) assumes that citizen media sites are here to stay. Which I of course agree with, but many people still do not agree. Through the interviews the researchers are attempting to create a manual for starting a citizen media site.

I have not heard of anyone else conducting an in-depth qualitative study on creating citizen media sites and training either yourself or your staff.

An interesting citizen media site I found was Hartsville Today. Hartsville Today is a totally independent citizen media site that uses completely user generated stories and ideas about Hartsville. Go here for a look at the way the page's are designed.

Harstville Today is the epitome of the citizen media website that I am imagining in my mind springing up all over the nation. At least one comprehensive citizen site for each town (at least county) and possibly more than one for big cities such as San Francisco. As the report referenced earlier argues that citizen media sites like Hartsville Today are here to stay even if people are not getting paid.

The overall depth of information that people can give on their own environment is amazing. Real people, Real concerns and real involvement. Hartsville Today also tutors it's citizen contributors from time to time.

"From time to time we'll talk about what makes a good story, how to "link" across the Internet to bolster your stories, and how you can use things like picture phones to help tell your stories."

In Other News:

The Maturity of The Web

This is from a blog post on Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, blog. He makes an interesting argument that the days of the PC being the platform for innovation and change are all over. The production of computers with faster processing speed come out almost all the time. All the while prices continue to drop. The consistency with which we produce computers is now the standard. It is now a mature platform as Cuban calls it. Innovation and change are what leads to a mature platform and right now HDTV has it. It's an interesting thought, being able to upload user generated content to different networks who then sell subscriptions through your HDTV service. It also opens up a can of worm for the content generators. Differences in the price of service from network to network, Different political views from network to and network, and even access (cable or basic) are all major questions users would be interested in.

Eyespot Digital Storytelling

2007-04-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

I finally finished my Digital Story, told using still photographs that I took myself and narrated, by of course, myself.

I am actually going to link from here to the video because the video itself has nothing to with the content on this blog. Plus, it was originally supposed to be posted five days ago, which makes it late. But I wanted to finish it anyways, if for no other reason than to learn the technology aspect. Here's looking at you Ms. Drennan!

If you don't know anything about Digital Storytelling, click Here. This site gives examples and has a good FAQ section.

The link to the location of my Digital Story is actually my other blog that has very different content than this one, and basically a different overall direction. So this random Digital Story fits in perfectly.

Freely Thinking Beings

Covering the Presidential Campign like Never Before

2007-04-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

Recently Jay Rosen of Press Think and Arianna Huffington, former California Governor candidate and syndicated left columnist announced plans to combine Rosen's new experiement NewAssignment.net and Huffington's blog titled The Huffington Post to cover the 2008 presidential campign like never before.

In Jay Rosen's post on Press Think, titled Participate in Politics by Covering The Campign he describes their new idea

"Our idea is not complicated: it’s campaign reporting by a great many more people than would ever fit on the bus that the boys (and girls) of the press have famously gotten on and off every four years, as they try to cover the race for president."

If your not familiar with NewAssignment.net, it combines professional and amatuer reporting to bring stories from around the world. Here is a exerpt from NewAssignment.net's mission statemnt

" At New Assignment, pros and amateurs cooperate to produce work that neither could manage alone. The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion. It pays professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards; they work closely with users who have something to contribute. The betting is that (some) people will donate to stories they can see are going to be great because the open methods allow for that glimpse ahead."

The Huffington Post is essentially a left leaning news/blog/opinion site written by someone who has experience to give it credibility. It focus's on political issues of the day and provides information and commentary. Though titled the Huffington Post, she is not the only contributor to the site. There are often times guest writers fromthe journalistic world or the political world to provide different angles.

Now apply this conceptual framework or reporting to covering the 2008 presidential campaign. The goal is to have a site for every candidate, from Hillary Clinton to Sam Brownback. The more popular candidates have maybe 50 to 100 people following their campaigns from diffeent angles. Instead of the traditional system of a certain number of reporters, hand picked by the candidates to be allowed "on the bus" all covering the same horse race type beat.

With this system you could have people covering issues from state to state as candidates travel through. Just think if you had five reporters at each major stop on athe campign trail. Covering five different angles, one posssible angle could be the war, another could be immigration, etc. Another way to strucutre it would be to have some reporters cover domestic issues while having others cover international issues.

If it works, and all the information is contained at one site edited and put together by professional editors and reporters, a reader will have access to a much more organized and larger body of information to draw from about each candidate.

I'll admit that right now it seems like a long shot but Arianna Huffington has already been hiring journalists for the beginings of quick investigative pieces which will hopefully lead to the ball rolling on the entire idea.

Another place for a good overview of the project is Huffington's announcement post. This is passionatley written and contains a link at the bottom to join the campign coverage.

In Other News:

Bloggers reject net code of conduct; call open door for censorship

There are two sides to this issue one says leave the net how it is right now and the other is proposing to have sites sign an on-line code of conduct which will provide their sites with a badge of approval. For sites that chose not to sign the code, they get a badge that says "Anything goes."

The driving force behind this proposal is Tim O'Reilly, chief of O'Reilly Media Inc. A book publishing company. He also is proposing a ban on things such as anynomous comments and says bloggers should be allowed to delete hateful comments without being accused of censorship.

Yahoo will provide searching capabilities for Viacom websites

This is interesting to the blogosphere because the nature of access to searches and content within those searches. Viacom is currently in the middle of a 1 billion dollar lawsuit with Youtube, and essentially Google over copyrighted content being frelly dsitrubuted. This is a direct attack on Google from it's biggest competitor Yahoo. Not to mention we now have two distinct sides in this debate. Google, Youtube and it's other properties clearly support open, free content to most people while Yahoo and Viacom clearly lean the other way. Hopefully Google wins.

Oh My Changes!

2007-03-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

An article in yesterdays Sf Chronicle business section described the South Korean Citizen Journalism site OhMyNews and its continuing strategy of changing for the media market. After three years of turning a slightly positive profit in the year 2006 OhMynews slipped back into the red.

To begin in May of this year OhMyNews is going to launch a vigorous new campaign titled OhMyNews 2.0 to bring 100,000 citizen journalists into the Korean operation and Brand new sister site titled OhMyNews Japan. The Sf Chronicle reported that

"Softbank, a Japanese conglomerate, has invested $11 million to beef up its video news capabilities, upgrade its Web site and start a separate edition of OhmyNews in "Japan."

This is big news for the little independent news site that could. Starting another edition in another major Asian country is a big step towards increasing their political and social influence. OhMyNews gained acclaim rather quickly due to some key issues happening in Korea. But since then has fallen off the international news radar screen. Teaming up with Japan will bring exponential technological benefits to the website and organizational patterns. As well as enlisting thousands more citizen journalists into the fold that bring an entirely different cultural outlook on world and domestic issues.

On the broader challenges facing his operation, Oh Yeon Ho the founder and publisher of the site said he will be upgrading the quality and quantity of citizen-produced journalism.

He also sees OhmyNews expansion into Japan as a key aspect of a much grander plan. "I want the OhmyNews model to go around the world, so the professional-centered journalism system becomes an interactive system between professional and citizen journalists," he said.

This is going to be a new feature I'm going to try and implement. At the end of every post I am going to try and link to certain interesting articles I've found throughout the time not posting. I need to think of a name for the segment. Interesting. Any ideas?

- Movie Studio sues Blogger over Topless Photo of Jennifer Aniston
This seems minor in the grander scheme of bloggers having their rights infringed upon, but I think it still needs to be mentioned. Aniston is claiming an entertainment blogger posted a stolen picture of her nude. Allegedly taken during production or post-production of the movie "Break-Up" starring her and Vince Vaughn. Normally I would believe someone like Aniston but it just so happens this is the second time she has sued someone over alleged topless photos being published. Here's some advice Stop Taking Nude Photos!

- Egyptian Blogger insults Allah, sentenced to jail

This one is a little more serious. An Egyptian blogger insulted Allah, the Egyptian president and Islam and is was sentenced to four years in prison for it. Bloggers, amnesty international and free speech advocates every where are up in arms at this blatant attempt to silence a prominent critic.

Here is a quote from the blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil who used the blogging name Kareem Amer said at his trial

"He blasted Al-Azhar, calling it the "other face of the coin of al-Qaida" and called for the university to be dissolved or turned into a secular institution. He said it "stuffs its students' brains and turns them into human beasts ... teaching them that there is no place for differences in this life" and criticized its policy of segregating male and female students."

Eyespot Mixed Video

2007-03-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

Jeez, this is late. A whole day already. I have never used eyespot before and I must admit, I'm not a huge fan. This video is about weblogs, or blogs. It basically consist of interviews with people who mostly are from foreign countries. I found this footage on eyespot already and cut and pasted surfing highlights in between the interview clips. oh, I obviously edited the interview clips as well into a mix and match. It is about 2 and a half minutes long. What Is A Blog?

I hosted it on Eye Spot, but I must admit I don't like it very much. I think the idea is good, interweaving something other than the main content, but my technological inadequecies and the working time frame made it difficult. But I did learn something. I decided not to load any audio behind the visuals because of the audio problems we talked ab out in class last week and obviously it is already late.

Alright CSPAN

2007-03-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

House Leader Nancy Pelosi recently violated CSPAN's copyright laws when she used CSPAN footage on her Blog.

Of course Republicans wasted no time in issuing a statement accusing Rep. Pelosi of copyright infringement. Originally CSPAN announced the blog was in violation and asked Rep. Pelosi to take the footage down, which she promptly did.

After the original announcement to conservatives who accused her of the violation, CSPAN changed its mind and announced that the blog was in violation but CSPAN was changing their copyright policy.

CSPAN decided any non-commercial user could use footage from the channel as long as they correctly attributed the material. This makes sense.

"Given our background and our history, an open approach is the most consistent with our mission," said Rob Kennedy, C-SPAN's president. "We are now saying under the new policy that that will be OK, for her or any blogger or citizen journalist" to post C-SPAN video online.

From this SF Chronicle article

This issue pertains to a much larger one for me. The idea that 1) The most powerful lady in America has a blog, which means they can't be ignored, 2) CSPAN recognizes the need and benefit for people in her position to be allowed to use footage in their campaigns and blogs. 3)CSPAN recognizes the importance of all bloggers being able to access material they broadcast.

I also think that CSPAN's overall importance just went through the roof. After all, they publish nothing but political content in full un-edited fashion that can now be accessed by anyone. Before blogs and citizen journalism not very many people watched the 24-hour congressional and committee watch. Frankly, it was boring television. The type of stuff college students watch for assignments.

Now, with this whole new world of people watching, formulating, and publishing political content all over the web CSPAN's coverage is bound to be played and linked to in thousands of posts regarding political issues. Now, readers can view just a five minute clip that pertains to whatever issue that particular blogger is blogging about.

CSPAN has made itself available to all bloggers as well as government officials in the position to inform the public. This is an important step for citizen journalism.

Here is a video from You Tube where Rep. Pelosi speaks. Of course this footage is from CSPAN. And I thank you CSPAN.

The State of Journalism

2007-03-13T16:55:00.000-07:00

The Project For The Excellence in Journalism has released it's "State Of Journalism 2007".

The report mainly makes the over lords of mainstream journalism look clueless as how to move forward in the next stage of journalism: The digital age. It is no surprise that traditional media outlets are rapidly losing viewers and readers to on-line news sites or independent publishers. This trend has been happening for a while now.

The problem is too many news organizations competing against each other for the same thing. According to this report

"The move toward building audience around “franchise” areas of coverage or other traits is a logical response to fragmentation and can, managed creatively, have journalistic value. To a degree, journalism’s problems are oversupply, too many news organizations doing the same thing."

What is meant here by "franchise" is essentially hyper-local coverage. Think of a news outlet letting go of it's foreign bureau and moving those resources to completely cover one city. One thing that must also be accomplished simultaneously is the conversion of some news outlets to cover foreign news completely. Anything else would leave a huge news gap that would frankly be unacceptable.

If foreign reporters were brought home for some outlets and focused on local coverage with the reporters that already focused locally. A news outlet could probably at the very least double the amount off reporters coving local news. At the same time another news outlet is transferring reporters to foreign detail compensating for the earlier lose.

Another positive aspect of separation of coverage is it would not affect anything independent publishers or bloggers do. In fact bloggers already covering a local "beat" could join the paper and continue covering the beat. Under this type of system bloggers oor citizen journalists are more likely to be paid because the news outlet shifted reporters and resources. This is still far from being a viable option but this system allows more freedom.

I think this idea is worth exploring, lest the overlords are scared. Either way the environment is changing and the industry must change also.

Study Finds Journalism in Flux

France Misunderstands The Idea

2007-03-09T18:15:00.000-08:00

The idea is citizen journalism, or at least some form of citizen participation in generating content, be it their own or for a news sight. This law the France Constitutional Council passed under the not so watchful eye of the public makes the recording of violent acts, the uploading of, the hosting of, and basically any other connection one can think of a criminal act. Punishable by up to 75,000 euros. Thats a lot of dollars my friends.

The law was bundled under the purpose of solving the "Happy Slapping" social problem. Happy Slapping was the name dubbed for juveniles who record beating each other up and then upload the video and/or pictures and audio from their mobile phones. This was all bundled into a larger legislative package to "Fight Juvenile Crime."

Teachers and parents are also concerned about the passage of this law, but for a different reason. "What is raising concern among teachers, social workers and doctors, right now, is another aspect of this law package: their new obligation to hand over confidential information on juvenile offenders to the police or mayors. The video ban slipped by unnoticed."

Another very troubling aspect of this legislation is the quality certification of the government of information sources. In order to be able to film violent acts, or protests that aren't supposed to be violent but end up becoming that way you have to go through a certification process to become a "professional" journalist. This is similar to what America's bloggers and journalists are going through, who is professional?

France's legal definition of a "professional" journalist, which was written in 1935 says "It states that you are a professional journalist and entitled to a press card as long you are on the monthly payroll of a registered publishing or TV company."

Even trashy tabloid writers are "journalists" in France, this is a standard America would not accept.

Every person needs to receive a press card to be official. Then the web site, or blog that you are posting or hosting your content on must also be certified by the government. There will be a committee (of who, or who picks) that gives out quality stars to each site based on "quality" of information provided.

Am I insane in thinking this is a Patriot Act type push to slowly change France's media into state sponsored. There are so many possible conflicts of interest involved in this issue. News outlets might start censoring stories based on the fear of losing their certification. Especially since as of yet there has been no information released saying what the requirements are.

No stories about the state are going to make it through that filter, no stories about anything negative internationally about the state. Essentially they would become propaganda machines. For a journalist or blogger what is the point of getting certified as a "journalist" if once you film or shoot the violent act you can't post it because the state thinks it is sensitive material.

What if the government solicits information from a hosting site because something was published that was not supposed to be and they wanted to know more about who it was. Couldn't they then go and ask every certified site for information. Isn't this what Josh Wolf was afraid of. The stringing together of subpeonas until they've got everyone. Would the government need a legitamte reason to ask for information or would it be wide open?

This is a horrible idea and a clear infringement of America's 1st amendment rights. Not to mention technologically impracticable. How does one differentiate between video with violent acts compared to video with non-violent acts? Plus, how does the law enforcement wing of France feel about this. Doesn't this law take away at least some of the possibility of witnesses coming forward with information. What if you filmed it and then turned it into the police? It seems like this law really shoots some of the effectiveness of citizens helping solve crimes right in the foot.

Here are some links to more information regarding this issue, as you can imagine there isn't much information yet because it was passed so recently.

Paid Content

Oh My News

Social Media: Citizen Journalism

MacWorld
This one is the best, I think Oh My News took it's lead from this article

An Ethical Start For Citizen Journalism

2007-03-05T12:54:00.000-08:00

I recently discovered a post on Our Media written in November of 2005 illustrates a code of ethics that all bloggers who join the non-profit Media Bloggers Organization must adhere to in order to be a member.
Here is the actual post. Standards for media bloggers

I read the early code of ethics and it does only seem to be a medicore start compared to what "Traditional Journalists" already have in place. Here is a link to the RTNDA Code Of Ethics that U.S news organizations prescribe to.

As is obvious the RTNDA version is much longer and wordier in description about most of the same things the Media Bloggers Organization address. This does make sense, I think it is safe to assume that the RTNDA version was the model the Media Bloggers used.

These two codes of ethics in particular stand out to me in the RTNDA verison of ethics. "Clearly label opinion and commentary. Guard against extended coverage of events or individuals that fails to significantly advance a story, place the event in context, or add to the public knowledge." Journalists and news organizations do not fulfill these two standards very well.

If the standards that are so highly touted by the institution are not followed by the institution itself than how can they use them to exclude other groups who also do not follow them?

I would not consider the Media Bloggers Organization's code of ethics to be the final solution to this problem of defining bloggers as journalists or not. However, I felt this post necessary because the institution of journalism has used ethics as a reason to exclude blogging. The blogging world itself recognizes that to be taken seriously they need to adhere to some type of ethics.

This is a start by one grassroots media organization. Hopefully it will continue to be refined and updated as time goes by and more challenges arise.

Once again I will end with a video searcher and found on the Internet about journalism. It was posted 7 months ago on you tube. The speaker is Robert McCHesney, he is the director of Free Press a non-profit group that promotes media awareness through education.

He brings up some good points about bid media and its interests. Namely that to be able to own a broadcast station and a newspaper in the same community, the media group could run everything out of one newsroom, and cut staff and building costs, as well as the combination of advertising. This sounds similar to what Dean Singleton's media company and Hearst's SF Chronicle were trying to do. Using the example of radio in 1996 when the telecommunications act opened up ownership possibilities that were unthinkable before. Big media reaped tons of money and now the same strategy is being employed in television and news papers.

11 Layers of Citizen Journalism cont...

2007-02-28T17:37:00.000-08:00

I have been presented with the argument that citizen journalists have no reason to be objective and in fact it would not be in their interest.

One solution that may be introduced would be to pay the citizen journalists for the content they provide. Major news outlets can easily afford to pay a journalist for content on a per basis, they do it already with free lance. What exactly is the difference between a free-lance journalist and a citizen journalist, or even a blogger? Is it that bigger media companies expect citizen journalists to submit content for free? Or is the age old argument that "citizen journalists are not familiar with the ethical structure."

Here is an article on Poynter written by Steve outing in November of 2005. He lays out some good arguments and scenarios of what could happen if media outlets began paying citizen journalists. Paying Citizen Journalists

This could be another possible solution, or partial solution to the problem. Citizen Journalism content marketing companies. Almost like a union for citizen journalists. A citizen journalist could become a member of a content distribution company that will negotiate with media companies over price and access of content. At this point you could inject the ethics. This is done by creating certain standards in order to be a member of these so-called unions. I'll admit here that it would seem that in order for this to really take hold and have an impact there would need to be some sort of legal definition laid down about citizen journalists and bloggers.

"But now, if you're a witness to a significant news event and you happen to snap a good photo of it, there are alternatives to simply handing it over to a news outlet for the public good. Three photo agencies have debuted in recent weeks that attempt to gather the best of citizen news photography and then market it to traditional news organizations: Scoopt (U.K.), Spy Media (U.S.), and Cell Journalist (U.S.)."

This quote "But the idea that there is an essence of citizen journalism - as replacing the so-called traditional journalism - is dead," is from an article titled From citizen journalism myth to citizen journalism realities.

I just want to point out that this website is an editor's weblog, and thus it benefits him to frame the debate of citizen journalist vs. traditional journalist. Here's a good quote from a post on Jay Rosen's blog Press Think titled The People Formally Known as The Audience

Citizen Journalists never wanted to wrestle control over all media from more traditional media outlets. But with increased technology and citizen involvement the two forces can combine and create something never seen before in media history.

11 Layers of Citizen Journalism

2007-02-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

This is a post on Poynter written by Steve Outing. It is extremely insightful about the path that news organizations need to take to slowly integrate either complete citizen journalism or some aspect of. It is titled 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism

One of my favorite and I think essential idea he brings up is the idea of the citizen add-on story. Here is the paragraph from the article.

"A small step up the ladder is to recruit citizen add-on contributions for stories written by professional journalists. I mean more than just adding a "User Comments" link. I mean that with selected stories, solicit information and experiences from members of the public, and add them to the main story to enhance it."

In my opinion as the mainstream press continues to try and adapt their product to the ever changing internet and increasing demand for interactive media products this idea of the citizen add-on can play a huge role in helping the mainstream press move considerably closer to something resembling citizen journalism

My vision of how this could be structured and possibly accomplished I guess is something along the lines of a news source, say NBC launches it's website. Obviously there is going to be a local web page linked off the main page. From this local page you could link to citizen journalists blogs, vlogs, etc. that can afford to focus an even closer lens on certain local areas.

One may ask how you get enough writers. My answer is to start small, maybe even with a "real" reporter focusing on a few local aspects. Of course, you would advertisement to the community about the need for writers on specific issues. Who comes forward. A cal trans worker who can shed light on the inner workings of road issues and the way the system works. A mom who is a member of the schoolboard gives information on stories about education. You see where I'm going with this.

IN theory the possibilities are endless, one main news sight could link to 15 different local blogs covering all sorts of community issues closer than the mainstream press can afford to because of lack of time. This could even prove to allow for better national or larger local coverage because it may free up "real" reporters to cover other issues, instead of the ones that covered amply by the citizen's.

Here is an example of this in San Francisco is SF Metro Blog

This is another of the most succesful citizen journalism operations ever. Based in South Korea Oh My News

Here is the final piece of my post. I found a video on You Tube about citizen journalism. It was produced by Cambridge University and posted August 23rd, 2006. The best part is in the middle. They interview a videoblogger who went and met his local coucilmen and showed his vlog. The councilman liked it and decided to start his own. The Councilman's name is John Tobin. This demonstartes the transparency that could be possible. Can you imagine a world where most if not all politicians have a vlog discussing important issues for every constituency. Check it out.

Hilarious...Hilarious

2007-02-21T23:37:00.000-08:00

This is good. Searching google for blogs I stumbled upon a blog titled Hollaback NY>. The description more than the title intrigued me. Here it is from the site itself.

Holla Back NYC empowers New Yorkers to Holla Back at street harassers. Whether you're commuting, lunching, partying, dancing, walking, chilling, drinking, or sunning, you have the right to feel safe, confident, and sexy, without being the object of some turd's fantasy. So stop walkin' on and Holla Back: Send us pics of street harassers!

While digging around and reading some of the funny stories about some of the things guys say to women, I found out that San Francisco only recently (within a few months) had started a chapter of Hollaback SF>. SO I decided to check it out because I live in San Francisco and the stories I knew were going to be funny.

I would not consider myself a guy who just "hollas" at women but I've definetely seen it happen in my life. SO I pass this on to whomever would like to check it out. You know the stories are going to down right hilarious.

Awesome Keith Olberman video; The death of Habeas Corpus

2007-02-20T18:31:00.000-08:00

This is a video that was posted on YouTube on October 18th, 2006. Keith Olberman does an outstanding narration job of this story. Essentially Olberman takes aim straight at President George W. Bush and his administration's policies regarding The Military Commissions Act.
Personally I have not listened to Keith Olberman very often so I imagaine he usually sounds like that, but something in his style really heitened the importance of the story for me. The video is slightly long, eight minutes and 43 seconds, but even the first few minutes are really interesting and worth sitting through.

Place Blogger

2007-02-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

My Blog Lines reader notified me I had some un-read posts at Jay Rosen's blog Press Think. I stumbled on one that had actually been written about a month ago that about a site the debuted on New Years Day. This site, aptly named Place Blogger tracks blogs about places.

Lisa Wiliams, a blogger from Watertown, MA created the site to track blogs about places that were either to far away or to small top be reached y traditional media. These place blogs aren't neccasarily news, or features we would include with the traditional media coverage places get. The reader can get a feeling for the place, its style, atmosphere, and vibe.

This is an excerpt from Jay Rosen's post on Press Think. Place Blogger creator Lisa Wiliams had this to say about her own site.
"Placeblogs, however, are about something broader than news alone. They’re about the lived experience of a place. That experience may be news, or it may simply be about that part of our lives that isn’t news but creates the texture of our daily lives: our commute, where we eat, conversations with our neighbors, the irritations and delights of living in a particular place among particular people. However, when news happens in a community, placeblogs often cover those events in unique and nontraditional ways…"

The place blog Fresno Famous is so successful the Mclatchy news company, wo owns the Daily the Fresno Bee just decided to buy it. This is a good and bad dcevedlopment. It is good because it is essentially a sign that the newspaper industry is willing to accept sites like these as legitimate sites of information collecting and diseminating. It is bad because when new, creative ideas are bought by old, archaic institutions things generally do not go the way of the new creative idea. But we shouldn't nay say so soon, who knows.

Here is a link to the Press Think post, in it Jay Rosen gives links to the top ten place blogs, Fresno, and Sanata Barbra made the list from our home state of California

Hyperlocal Blogs

Enjoy!

Shrinking Competition Amongst Bay Area Newspapers

2007-02-12T21:31:00.001-08:00

Recent interesting news in our Bay Area left me dismayed, and worried about the future of the newspaper industry and their competition. It appears thanks to an independent real estate investor named Clint Reilly sued MediaNews and Hearst Corp. under anti-trust laws. Recently court documents released by Judge Susan Illston show that both media companies had no intention what so ever of competing against each other. In fact evidence shows that they were planning on combining distribution, advertising and reporting coverage area in an attempt to save money.

This would have virtually stripped the Bay Area of the last of its truly competitive newspaper. Dean "Lean" Singleton recently bought the Contra Costa Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune, the Marin Independent Journal, and the San Mateo County Times, along with a bunch of other smaller papers. Singleton owns every paper surrounding the SF Chronicle and, rumor has it, was willing to give up it's Sunday dailies in an effort to allow Hearst to maximixe the market.

This is the January 31st article detailing the issue Between The Sheets

The SF Bay Guardian has released many stories about the law suit and pending decisions, but currently that is the only source of information regarding the issue. I am dismayed, but not surprised that the SF Chronicle itself has not mentioned one peep about the story or it's consequences. This is not surprising, newspapers are notorious for censoring stories and news that affect their ownership circles, or worse thbeir advertising interests.

This is the Febuary follow-up article in the Guardian that details what the court ordered records that were released recently show the two media conglomerates were planning for the Bay Area. One thing is for sure, it was not competition.
What We Know Now

Here is a profile the Guardian did on Dean "Lean" Singleton in late 2006. Hopefully this will give you an idea of how he, and his company MediaNews operate. "Lean"

What do we do?

First we thank Clint Rielly for sueing in the name of free, competitive press and we wait and hope that judge Illston and Jerry Borwn, California's attorney general step up to the plate and completley dis-allow this business deal. The anti-trust law breaking is so obvious now it would be a slap to the public, and out constitution's face if nothing is legally done to ensure competition exists between Bay Area dailies.

Here is the link to the search site at Bay Guardian, located here is all the stories that the Guardian has published in the last few months regarding this anti-trust media monoply issue. It makes for good reading as well as informative for the public good at large. MediaNews/Hearst Corp

The Narrowed 3 Blogs...

2007-02-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

Out of confusion I;m not sure whether I am supposed to post this on my blog which is here, or on the class blog which is somewhere else. I didn't see anyone else posted their three chosen blogs on the class website so her goes. Besides it would be easy to link them right?

Blog Number One: WordBlog

I found this blog at Technorati. The author is a former journalist who now teaches journalism at the University of Westminister, London. She writes about journalism in a changing industry during a changing time. Her topic selections are interesting, she discussed video's on blogs and how the Internet has allowed a "break stories" for youself appeal. Formely she wrote for a Sunday weekly in London and was making am point that journalism is changing because by the time Sunday comes around the story has already been broken by a different paper. An aspect I don't like is her posts at times are not very long and at times not written very well. For instance there is one posts titled "Bad Blog Day." Posts like this don't lend themselves to consistency or high readership, which it seems she does not have.

Blog Number Two: Press Think

Jay Rosen teaches journalism at New York University, and is a forer chair of the department from 1999-2005. His blog focus on all aspects of journalism. He obviously teaches the standard type to his students but he is one of the largest proponenets of citizen, open source journalism. On his blog he announces the debut of his new open source site New Assignment. This site is probably the most comprehensive journlaism site I've ever read. He covers every aspect from the practical to the theoretical.

Blog Number Three: Alister Cameron

I found this blog by searching Google blogs. Alister Cameron is a blog consultant and Web Designer at Alliance Software, a Pastoral Intern at Crossway, a father of four and a husband of one. His blog focus's on marketing of on-line business (including blogs) open source, content meduims and social networking. I know the least about this blog then I do the other two. I enjoy the topic sleection as well as the conversational style of his writing. It seems I agree with him on most things I've read so far, and I found his post on social networking sites very informative and thoughtful.

"Citizen Journalism"

2007-02-11T19:25:00.000-08:00

The article on the front pager of the SF Chronicle today caught my attention in a big way. A Television news station had to lay off most of their employees and decided to employ the public, at least to a certain degree. They gave twelve digital cameras out to community members and told them to go.

To my knowledge this type of move for a television news station is a first. If for some reason it's not a first it has to be ranked around the top. This is the type of stuff that Dan Gilmor advocates on his many blogs (Citmedia, Dan Gilmor's Blog) for open source, citizen involved content. It makes sense, who better to cover the niche aspects of their own community but the people involved. Picture a mom who is a member of the parents-teachers committee at the elementary level. Why couldn't she cover her own meetings that she has to attend anyways? Saves money and time for larger news organizations and allows "Journalists" to cover the "real" stories and allows smaller, usually forgotten issues to be covered by people who have a stake in them.

While this new found idea that Steve Spendlove of Clear Channel has come up with is not a guarantee for success and should not be taken as a blueprint for other organizations. The inevitable questions that will arise are who covers what? How many citizen journalists do you employ? As mentioned in the article in the Chronicle do you pay the citizens? And do you need to hire more editors to gate keep the vast amount of material that is going to be submitted.

Here's my idea, you do pay the citizen journalists, either per word, per page, or per story. Paying per story would probably be the best way to organize it because then Clear Channel can set one rate for all stories. Next, Clear Channel should send out open invitations to citizens in the community to submit their ideas of what to cover. You may get a high schooler that wants to open a window into the skate boarding community. A housewife who who is an excellent gardener. A husband who works in construction. The possibilities seem endless. A rotating schedule of feature stories could be developed. That way you can employ more citizen journalists, there by covering more stories but rotating the day they appear. Another recommendation would be to have Clear Channels lawyers develop some kind of agreement that the citizen journalist should have to sign. Basic rights, libel, slander, and invasion basics, and the ethics of journalism. This may be difficult because America officially has no legal definition of a blogger and certainly no legal protections for them. This will change eventually though, it is only a matter of time before the blogosphere wields equal if not more influence than other media outlets.

I truly hope Mr. Spendlove has a developed plan of action to approach this un-forseen territory he catapulted himself into. For I believe this could be an instrumental step in the development of open-source, citizen participated content. A recommendation for more information on Dan Gilmor and his ideas, check out his book We The Media.

Oh before I forget here is the link to the article in the Chronicle Tonight At 11, New By Neighbors.

You Tube video...

2007-02-08T16:37:00.000-08:00

Lite Bright art work. What an interesting way to spell the word Light...

Uploaded video!

2007-02-08T16:29:00.000-08:00

Butters

Help! Lara Logan

2007-02-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

I'll title this blog post the same as Lara Logan titled her e-mail to friends and family pleading for them to assist her in getting her report of escalating violence in Iraq to air on CBS. She is a veteran chief foreign correspondent for CBS news, yet her editor chose a story she submitted earlier in the day as more "newsworthy."

"Logan filed the gritty report about dangerous conditions near the Green Zone on Jan. 18 for the "CBS Evening News." The network didn't air it, deeming some of the images of tortured bodies that it contained too graphic, and because another story Logan filed that day from Iraq was more newsworthy, said Sandy Genelius, news spokeswoman."

This is a quote from a CBS report about Lara Logan requesting for help. Here is the link CBS Correspondent Makes Plea For Airtime

In her e-mail she begged for her report to be shown because of the escalating violence that was going on every day. Isn't that "newsworthy?" Though it may be a small contribution to the continuance of information spreading but I feel like it is valuable to pass on her letter and her original report. CBS only streamed the video on it's news division website, which I will link to here.

Battle For Haifa Street

After clicking the link, you have to search in videos for "Lara Logan" and when your results come up, scroll down and click "next 10" and it is titled the same as the link location is titled "Battle for Haifa Street." The video was posted on January 18th, 2007 and was never aired on the CBS Evening News.

News Department spokesman Sandy Genelius said "It's pretty much yesterday's news for everyone here."

Feel free to pass this on, but at the bar minimum watch the video.

Awesome version

2007-02-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

Press Think

2007-01-27T15:26:00.000-08:00

Press Think is the blog that I enjoy reading. The author is a man named Jay Rosen, he teaches Journalism at the University of New York. This is a clip from his bio on Poynter Rosen is the author of PressThink, a weblog about journalism and its ordeals (www.pressthink.org), which he introduced in September 2003. In June 2005, PressThink won the Reporters Without Borders 2005 Freedom Blog award for outstanding defense of free expression. He also blogs at the Huffington Post. In July 2006 he announced the debut NewAssignment, his experimental site for pro-am, open source reporting projects.

He is an extremely good writer that has an awesome unique view of the power and capabilities of the media as well as the true purpose it should serve.

PressThink

First post of the Year

2007-01-25T15:45:00.000-08:00

link

Link? Where does the link take me, it would be nice to know before I click on the link.

The link will take you on a far away journey to a place not travelled to very often by the likes of us.