Category: Journalism

Ratings Reign Supreme When It Comes To News

America doesn’t care about real news. We’d rather hear about something stupid or sensational. The guy who runs Fark.com and makes his living off stupid news knows this and wrote a great commentary for the Christian Science Monitor about this subject. People care about crap news and not real news. For cripes sakes, Fox News devoted 12 times more coverage to Anna Nicole than Walter Reed (and this was nearly a month after her death), and while I have my feelings about the bias at Fox News, I still don’t think they would’ve done it had they not felt that it would get them better ratings.

I doubt we’ll ever see the day again where mainstream/major news outlets care as more about good newsgathering then they do ratings/visits to their site or channel. The best sources of news will be the small-town dailies and small-market news shows and blogs. Now if they just weren’t such a pain to find … .

March 5, 2007

Photoshop and Photography Link Dump

Here are some more links for you, based on the theme of the last few days.

If you have any others to share, post ’em here!

February 25, 2007

If You’re Looking To Hire A Newspaper Editor…

…this is a really cool way to do it (via).

February 22, 2007

A Much Better Patent Search

In case you didn’t already know, Google has unvieled yet another tool: Patent Search. As somebody who had to spend a great deal of time doing patent research on the official patent search site, let me tell you that the Google search kicks the crap out of the government’s attempt. It makes it so much easier to find gems like this, or pretty much anything on this sex toy patent list like the talking vibrator or this dildo exercise system.

December 19, 2006

Flickr: Putting Professional Photojournalists Out Of Work

This just appeals to the journalist in me, but it’s interesting to see stories that use Flickr photos as primary news imagery. There are well-respected folks that foresee doom and gloom for the professional photojournalist.

Interesting thoughts. Links via E-Media Tidbits.

December 11, 2006

Heading To Eugene For The Game

I always make the trip to Eugene every year to watch the Homecoming game, and that would be this weekend when Oregon takes on Washington. So my dad and I are heading over the pass in the morning.

If anybody is going to be at the game, I plan on hitting the Emerald/J-school alumni tent for a few minutes so come by and hunt me down.

November 3, 2006

Network News Themes

Being a musician and a media geek makes me appreciate this page full of network news themes. Thanks Barney for the link.

August 20, 2006

Pictures That Lie

I’ll just quote the first page of this:

This photo isn’t exactly what it appears to be–nor are the other images that follow in this photo gallery. All were manipulated beyond straightforward cropping of edges or lightening shaded areas. Often they have a key element inserted or deleted.

While I had seen and known about most of them, there were a couple that I hadn’t seen before.

August 20, 2006

MTV Now Owns A Bunch Of College Newspaper Sites’ Domains

Sorry I didn’t hit on this earlier this month when this news first hit, but I’ve been busy.

Many years ago, I worked for a company that provided an online content management system for folks. When we started taking on a ton of college newspaper clients, we spun those of into another company that eventually became another company who then sold management of over a hundred of its college newspaper clients to another company (long after I left there).

The thing is that now, the parent company of that other company has been bought out (official press release) by MTVU, an MTV Networks-owned channel geared toward college students. While this would be fine and dandy, from the little bit I know about College Publisher, I know it registered a lot of the domains in their own name, meaning that the domains for many of these sites are now the property MTV/Viacom.

(more…)

August 15, 2006

I Can’t Believe I Missed This

I can’t believe I missed Freedom Of Information Act’s 40th Birthday this year. If you don’t know what the FOIA is, read up as it is probably one of the most important pieces of law this country has ever created. Despite the fact that the current administration wants to step all over the act and weaken it (your tax dollars at work here folks), the law is very important and should be preserved at all costs.

FOIA fans should also sign up for the FOIA Advocate mailing list.

August 1, 2006