Media, Technology and Society

Reporting "Lies" and "Liars" ...

2009-09-10T11:43:00.003-06:00

In my personal blog, I posted about the problematic use of the "lies" and "liars" frame to express disagreement with one's political opponents (using the Congressman Wilson shout last night as a springboard).

One of my Facebook friends just posted a note referencing an article from Fox News reporting that President Obama called Sarah Palin a liar, wondering if the president would apologize to her.

I chuckled at that, and then paused. I had assumed the article was referencing some moment from the campaign trail. I certainly didn't recall candidate Obama ever calling anyone a liar, certainly not directly, but I certainly didn't consume every single moment of the campaign trail coverage, either.

But the article was not addressing the campaign trail. The article, titled "Obama Calls Palin a Liar During Speech" was referencing LAST NIGHT'S speech.

Confused (I didn't remember the president mentioning Sarah Palin in the speech last night), I called up the Fox News article. Turns out it was simply a headline with a one-sentence blurb and an article link. The article link refers to an AP story, Obama: Claims of death panels are a 'lie.'

First of all, rewriting headlines to AP stories is hardly an uncommon occurrence. In the newsroom, editor often rewrite headlines to localize the story, conserve space, or any of a number of other reasons. But this is more than merely economizing words. This is a direct reversal of the statement. The AP's story reports that Obama stated that certain claims were "lies." The Fox News article composed the statement that since Sarah Palin had made such a claim, that Obama was (in effect, though this point is lost) calling Palin a "liar."

That's a stretch, even in these detail-challenged times.

Second, I find it interesting that Fox rewrote the headline of a three-paragraph story and then didn't even run the actual story. Just the rewritten headline and the first line of the story, with a link to the article (the link source is also not explicated). This practice is also not particularly unusual, but when an outlet significantly rewrites a headline and then doesn't run the entire text of a story, it looks bad. It certainly fooled my Facebook friend, who used the headline to wonder if the president would apologize to Palin for something a Fox editor wrote.

Third, this extension of objective logic to the statements of others is a slippery slope. If I say that a statement is a "lie" (I try really hard not to ever do that unless I know the other party knows better than their words), does that mean that I have now accused every person who passes along the statement of lying? Where is the space for misunderstanding? Ignorance? Faulty logic? Mistakes?

It's well-established that Sarah Palin did not originate the "death camps" argument, only the wording. The original statement originated with Betsy McCaughey, and McCaughey herself has backtracked from her original remarks.

If McCaughey made a mistake of logic, comprehension, or even if she had deceit as her motives for her statements, does that lead one to conclude that Palin lied when she repeated the statements? Is it not possible that Palin believed McCaughey's words were true? How would one establish that?

And even if one could establish that Palin KNEW the statements were false and repeated them anyway, does that make her a "liar"? How many lies does it take to make one a "liar"? One? 20? 100? 500? Is it a calculated percentage of truth/lies in public statements?

This is why rewriting headlines to extend a statement to an indirect object are so dangerous in a democracy. The headlines alone spread false impressions. In this case, the headline infers that the president might appear to be a hypocrite for seeming to call for an apology (which he did not actually do) for an action that he himself appears unwilling to apologize for (an action he doesn't seem to have actually performed).

Though it might seem that I'm picking on Fox News for this practice, I've seen quite a few rewritten headlines at CNN's site that also don't appear supported by the stories to which they refer. I remember a couple of months ago, CNN headlines seemed to include the word "slammed" and "slapped down" as an action verb in headlines for stories in which no motive or intention was discussed. Particularly in stories related to the White House response to the "birther" movement.

The difference between "disputes" and "slaps down" is rather large. We teach our journalism students to adopt more objective terminology, if only to maintain accuracy (one never knows, much less can prove, the contents of another's mind enough to establish motive without evidence).

Perhaps I'll look in on MSNBC. Maybe we have an epidemic on our hands.

The President's School Address

2009-09-07T08:48:00.001-06:00

Unexpected controversy has arisen over the President's plan to address the nation's school children this week. Personally, I think most of it borders on the absurd. Even if this president were planning to deliver a politically partisan message to our youth, do we really live in a world where we think 15 minutes of video can overcome the hundreds of hours of punditry that will follow, much less the conversations that parents can hav with their children afterward?

Well, regardless of the underpinning social context of these events, you can view the President's message to our children below. Enjoy.

Irony Re: the Death of Print

2009-06-15T17:48:00.002-06:00

You can't make this stuff up.

Today, I noticed that Jeff Gomez' new book, Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age, is due out July 5 ... UNLESS you have a Kindle. Kindle readers can download it right now.

Irony, anyone?

Thinking about the News Business (again)

2009-04-24T23:10:00.001-06:00

Today, I had the privilege of meeting with the CU SJMC Advisory Board to listen to their thoughts about journalism education.

More thoughts to come on that later.

During the session, the group was allowed to interact with Chris Matthews of MSNBC Hardball fame, through Skype.

Matthews spoke at length about the concerns of cable news personalities concerning the plight of newspapers. Acknowledging that newspapers bear the brunt of the reportage costs and efforts, Matthews suggested that his program “relies almost entirely on daily newspapers.”

Matthews also bemoaned the effects of Google on the news business, colorfully characterizing the company as “like an old guy, wandering around collecting bottles … the worst part is that Google didn’t even make the bottles, much less the coke in them.”

An amusing simile that will be with me for a while, I’m sure.

Former Rocky Mountain News Editor/Publisher/President John Temple was the guest speaker for the lunch session. Temple echoed some of his thoughts about journalism education that had appeared on his blog, and then discussed how he saw the newspaper industry’s challenges.

Citing a lack of innovation and a lack of the evolution of the print offerings, Temple portrayed newspaper publishers as being in the “manufacturing business,” and suggested that the daily grind of the production and distribution process discourages publishers from taking risks in favor of “keep[ing] the machine running.”

Key quote: “Instead of the owners changing the business, the business changed the owners.”

Temple also expanded on these thoughts on in a new blog entry.

Brief Review of The Kindle 2

2009-03-16T14:42:00.003-06:00

As part of my research (the part that delves into usability and design of formats that will likely replace print journalism forms), I recently acquired a Kindle 2.

I fear this is going to sound like a laundry list of complaints. It’s not. There are some great executions represented in the Kindle 2. If you check out the official Amazon page (linked above), I think most of this content is more than just promotional hype.

But I think most potential consumers need to think through their media uses and expectations to determine if this device is suited for them.

Early thoughts:

The screen is truly remarkable. In an age of rising concerns about sustainability, Amazon has produced a zero power (or low power) screen. And though it is black and white, I think the contrast and clarity do well to replace books and printed materials.
The physical interface is interesting. After almost a year on the iPhone 3G (I didn’t spring for the original, so this was my first experience with Apple’s interface), the Kindle’s interface seems quaint. Using a small stick to move around is reminiscent of my old Palm Treo, but it more remind me of a joystick interface on the travel Sega and Coleco games from the mid-1980s.
The physical “next page” buttons work extremely well. Though I still struggle a bit with the left-hand buttons. Even when I read with one hand, my affordance for the left “next” button is that it will turn “back.” The “back” button is right above it, but because the two “next” buttons are on the same latitude of the device, I continually hit the left-hand “next” button when I want to go “back.” Maybe this will be the new convention, but it is certainly not an intuitive affordance.
The software interface is a bit clunky. There’s a sound logic to it, but it is not intuitive to those familiar with Apple’s hand-held philosophy. But after a few minutes, it starts to make sense.
Not a fan of the menu structure from the Home screen. My newspapers and magazines get segregated into their own category (which mean they are not included in the main “Library” (Kindle doesn’t use this metaphor, probably because Apple uses it in its iTunes interface, but I think they should have). BUT, I can’t seem to organize my books by genre or even Dewey-decimal boundaries. Jane Austen is right in there with Thomas More and Lawrence Lessig. Sure, I can choose to arrange by Author or Title (and by the way, the software doesn’t skip over the initial articles such as “A” or “The” the way most library systems do. I foresee future integration problems). This makes browsing the thousands of titles my device can potentially hold an irritating endeavor. At least, for academic like me, who need to switch books regularly. For those settling in for a long read, I don’t think this is an issue.
The “page numbering” system will take some getting used to. Because users are able to determine variable font display sizes, traditional page numbers don’t translate to the machine. The Kindle does not scroll. You turn “pages.” So, a seemingly arbitrary numbering system (called “locations,” the default screen size brings you a range of about seven locations per screen. The largest text setting seems to include two locations per screen and the smallest text size appears to contain 10 locations per screen). Newspapers and magazines (and blogs) don’t seem to have locations. As an academic, I don’t know how useful it will be to bookmark (or footnote) “locations,” since the majority of my colleagues will need a page number translation. Maybe this is room for a future app?
The Subscriptions feature is nice, though has some problems. Magazine content seems well-suited for this environment (minus the color). Long-form reading is this device’s specialty, and I find reading magazine content easier to consume on the Kindle than in print form (I’m that guy who get irritable as a magazine crinkles and smudges, detracting from the content experience). The newspaper model needs some work. Most important problems for newspapers: the distribution model. Though I can test the format of a magazine by downloading a single issue ($.50 for most), I have to subscribe to at least a month’s subscription to view newspaper content. I subscribed to the Denver Post ($5.99). I was hesitant to subscribe to the New York Times ($13.99), because I already have the NYTimes iPhone app.
This brings up the problems with Whispernet, Amazon’s 3G network service. Unlike the iPhone, which can switch back and forth between its 3G data network and Wifi, the Kindle is in an exclusive marriage with its 3G network. What does this mean for me? Living in the mountains, where 3G is simply not possible, but Wifi spots are available, I can’t update my subscriptions until I am back in a major metropolitan area. Sure, I can drive to a Wifi spot, refresh my Archived Items on my laptop, download new books (still haven’t figured out how to do this for newspapers or magazines) and manually transfer the content to my Kindle via USB. This effectively means that my iPhone Kindle app has more access than my Kindle, since the iPhone can run on Edge, which is available wherever cell service is available. This issue falls prey to the digital divide in the worst way: only users who live in large metropolitan areas (where most of the 3G networks are present) will be able to capitalize on the network convenience factor. And, as an aside, Whispernet seems inferior to Apple’s 3G interface. Even with three or four bars in Boulder, Whispernet seems twice as likely to drop signal when I request a sync than the iPhone.
By far the biggest problem with the Kindle is the content management component. I don’t mean the ability to acquire new content. Amazon is actually really impressive at that part. But I have literally spent tens of thousands of dollars on books with Amazon over the years. And I have no way to acquire that content for the Kindle without spending tens of thousands of more dollars. Even in the early days of the iPod, I could import CDs into my library. This, I think, will be the Achilles heel of the Kindle business model. It actually needs the print industry to decline for the selection of offerings to look more attractive than amassing a print library. Of course, I could express concern about the lack of scholarly books in Kindle mode (I click the “I’d like to read this book on Kindle” button (which sends a notification to the book's publisher) about four times each day. But I expected that. The Kindle, like the iPod before it, will have to focus on short-tail best-sellers first and slowly build its library of niche publications. But I can’t believe it would be too difficult for Amazon (which maintains a record of everything I’ve ever purchased thorough their site) to allow me to download for free those books for which I’ve already paid the higher print price.

Again, I know most of these points will seem like I find more at fault than good with the Kindle. Not so. I know I’m not really the target of this device. I read a lot, but most of what I read isn’t available for this device. And I am multimedia-centric (it’s quite obvious that this device was designed to constrain the noise normally associated with digital content to maintain reading integrity).

My primary interest is how to design new content for the intended audience of this device. This may offer insights into the future of print interfaces, at least those removed from the multimedia convergence model preferred on the Web.

I’ll likely expand the various points raised above in future posts, as I grapple with nuanced understandings of the issues and hopefully begin to come up with suggestions to either overcome short-comings or improve user expectations about why such shortcomings actually improve the text experience.

Facebook clarifications

2009-03-15T14:59:00.004-06:00

Wow. I keep forgetting what a diverse audience I have for my Facebook status (this is why I cut so far back on my Twittering, I think all of this should be two-way communication, and I usually don't have the time to responsibly hold up my end of the bargain).

Yesterday I mentioned on my status that I was "'Kindling' interest in electronic journalism." This was, of course, a reference to my playing around with the Kindle 2 I received on Friday. I'm getting ready to do another round of design usability analyses on different communication platforms and thought that it would be good to start thinking about the design issues related to getting content onto the Kindle.

I immediately received two responses from Facebook (and real-life) friends of mine. One asserted that the Kindle could not save journalism which was too far dead to revive. The other dissed the Kindle itself.

So, in communicating with those friends, I was reminded that I should clarify my terminology with regularity.

I rarely mean "industry" when I talk about the future of journalism. Journalism predated the current corporations that provide America's news commodity by a couple of millennia. If and when those companies and corporations fall, journalism will simply look different.

Most journalism I consume is a mixture of the corporate commodity and the emerging models that have nothing to do with the corporate sphere. So, since my Kindle now allows me to subscribe (and pay for) blogs as well as newspapers, magazines and books, one of my interests in is how these sources outside the dominant corporate sphere can generate subscription revenue.

For example,

Now that I can pay a couple of bucks to get Gizmodo on my Kindle, how does that content need to be tailored for that environment?
How much will that cost in terms of time and effort? Is the market for the Kindle a likely crossover for Gizmodo?
If so, what's the cost benefit analysis of designing content versus shoveling blogbloat into the interface?
If not, are their other platforms that can take advantage of this distribution channel?
Will the combined platforms distributing this format down the long tail offset the cost in time and resources to redesign content for this medium?

I'm not interested in saving the industry we have. My research has always been about what comes next. The industry can either join in or not, as far as I'm concerned (I'm pretty jaded on this point since I've been arguing adaptation for more than 10 years now at conferences and meetings with little serious engagement).

On the platform side, I can offer about a dozen critiques of the Kindle after only 12 hours, most centering on the network architecture. BUT, I don't investigate tech for the "ultimate gizmo." That's why I have an 2nd generation iPhone, an iPod Touch, an iPod video nano, a traditional iPod nano, I recently gave up my Treo, I recently cannibalized my last "dumb phone" to make a 1st Generation iPhone work, etc.

My view of diffusion is that high-end users like me are actually a small percentage of our culture. And we are trying to think about how to communicate with the WHOLE culture, not just the techno-elites.

The Kindle has sold a LOT of units. There are people who love books and hate video, and this is a device designed to capitalize on them. So, how should content be designed to reach them? Once someone buys a Kindle, how do we reach them? What will their expectations and tolerances of multimedia be?

Because my suspicion (and I have done not a shred of research on this yet) is that Kindle owners will not crossover as much with iPhone and iPod users as is conventionally thought. I can already see how could hack the "Text-To-Speech" function to include an audio file. Like an interview supplement to a newspaper story. But would anyone want that? Isn't the point of the Kindle to disengage the dynamic universe of multimedia content and approach content from a more static and simplified way? That some people will want static content that does not encourage interactivity but simple consumption?

(In my first few hours, I suddenly realized this was a device for the cultural elite and older generation. It seems to built around some older expectations of interface design. I think by comparison, Apple and the Blackberry are going after a completely different crowd).

So, I'll trying to make sure I understand the design and usability constraints (as well as the target market of users) for different distribution methods. Because though I am a VERY concerned about the digital divide, I am even more concerned about the platform divides that will come after more of our content is digitally distributed.

I don't think in 10 years much content will be consumed on a desktop computer. Which means we've got to think about how to design content in redundant language forms to ensure that someone doesn't miss a key part of the story because the Kindle has different capabilities that the iPhone.

Maybe it's important to also point out that all of these devices are transient. We barely have the infrastructure available to support mobile phones, much less the capability of distributing most of the multimedia forms we're capable of producing to most people.

My head is always in a particular place, and I forget how poorly my words convey what I'm thinking about, particularly when I'm so clumsy with the language.

Yikes, Re: CUI

2009-03-14T17:33:00.003-06:00

Ok, those who write for student media are prone to make mistakes.

Student media are meant to be learning opportunities and as such, those who work don't have the greatest amount of experience.

I'm on the CUI publications board, so I've been reading their posts more frequently (I've also been interviewed a couple of times by them, which always draws my attention).

I saw this (unfortunate) gem yesterday:
"Lowest unemployment rate in a quarter century requires creative job-seeking startegies"

Ugh. The spelling error in the headline not withstanding (my spell check registers the mistake, so I wonder how this happened?), I think the reporter and editors must have been confused about how the unemployment rate works.

"Lowest in a quarter century"? I thought it was a joke or an ironic, Onion-esque reference. But no, as our unemployment rate creeps towards the HIGHEST point in quite some time, students are becoming nervous about getting a job, the point of the story.

And the error only appears in the headline.

What a tragedy. Some student's hard work derailed by a poor headline.

I wonder what their re-post/corrections policy is for errors?

Facebook Asks For User Input interview

2009-03-12T16:55:00.000-06:00

One of the many interviews I gave to students last week resulted in an article:

http://cuindependent.com/news/2009/mar/12/facebook-asks-user-input/

The reported seems to have recorded and presented my words accurately, but there are some contextual errors in this story.

Key passages (with my commentary, following):

Rick Stevens, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism, said he thinks Facebook’s attempted terms of use were “pretty awful.”

“The new terms of agreement kind of reflect what Facebook often tries to do, which is control [its users],” Stevens said. “What Facebook was trying to do, yes, was reprehensible but many corporations have done the same thing.”

I didn't say Facebook tries to control its users. I said Facebook tries to maintain control of the content posted on its site. Important distinction, but not a critical error.

Stevens said the Facebook community is the best place to stop offensive changes to Facebook.

“The community could be powerful when it gets focused and when it understands the issue at hand,” Stevens said.

Ok, the direct quote is correct, but I did not say the "best place" to stop said changes would be within Facebook. I personally think if someone is concerned enough with the changes, they should file a lawsuit for improper notification of changes to a binding agreement (which is the real problem, still not addressed).

Stevens said at the end of the day, Facebook’s main job is to cater to its users, making them the most powerful influence on changes to the social networking site.

“The content that is being produced on their site is the attractor, the item that brings people to that site to begin with,” Stevens said. “If people were to lose interest in Facebook and move to another platform, Facebook would lose its goldmine and it knows that, so [Facebook officials] are trying to find ways to hang onto that content.”

Oy! The direct quote is, one again, correct. But the summary lead-in is just flat wrong. I didn't say that, I don't think that.

I think I understand what happened here. The quotes, dispersed in small blocks, required the reporter/editor to add a transition. And when she/he did, the result was a summary of what he/she THOUGHT I meant, supported by the direct quote. But I didn't say that, and if he/she thought I meant to say that, he/she misunderstood more about my views than I originally thought. The lead-in adds context that misrepresents my words.

Rush's Constitution

2009-03-01T12:38:00.001-07:00

LOVE Rush Limbaugh.

Seriously, as the conservative movement has run aground, Limbaugh has become the unofficial (or official, if ideologues like Ann Coulter are to be believed) voice of "conservative America."

And apparently the voice of conservative America is riddled with truthiness instead of truth.

Current example. Yesterday, Limbaugh spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Among the statements he made is the following:

"We believe that the preamble of the Constitution contains an inarguable truth, that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, freedom -- and the pursuit of happiness."

Like I said, LOVE Limbaugh.

First of all, the Constitution doesn't HAVE any such language, preamble or otherwise. Second, this language appears exclusively in the Declaration of Independence (the document justifying the right to breach one social contract to form another). Third, he mangled even the quote. Jefferson's three inalienable rights (and they were certainly arguable, then and now, which is not the same as inalienable) were the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (derived from John Locke's inviolable three rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of property). Freedom does not appear among the assumed rights of either Jefferson nor Locke, and it certainly doesn't appear in the Declaration of Independence (much less the Constitution).

Because "freedom" would be a sub-set of the "liberty" Jefferson argued for, though I doubt Jefferson would recognize the use of the word "freedom" Limbaugh seems to be implying.

I wonder if his audience even noticed? Somehow, I doubt it.

The Future of Journalism Interview

2009-02-28T14:38:00.004-07:00

Another interview, this one for an online publication called Face the State.

Here's the promo:

"The recent closure of the Rocky Mountain News raises plenty of questions about the future of journalism, including prospects for students studying news reporting. What options await students graduating into such an unfavorable jobs climate? FTS visits with Rick Stevens, associate professor of journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder to find out."

(Of course, I'm actually an assistant professor, but why quibble over a temporary promotion?)

And here's the audio file:

If you'd like to download it, use this link:
fts-weekend-2009-02-28-segment3-web.mp3

The CUIndependent board

2009-02-24T17:23:00.002-07:00

I've just been asked to serve on the publications board of the CUIndependent. This student-run news outlet has been controversial in recent years and is in the process of being separated from the SJMC program's oversight.

The board's duties? To select the editor-in chief for each upcoming semester, and to provide journalistic accountability for the CUI.

So, I guess I should start reading it more consistently. I should probably also keep some notes in this blog about what I see.

The Fate of Journalism Interview

2009-02-11T14:47:00.003-07:00

I was interviewed a few days ago about the downturn in the print newspaper industry.

Here's the article:
http://media.www.oxyweekly.com/media/storage/paper1200/news/2009/02/11/Features/The-Fate.Of.Journalism-3623219.shtml

Key quotes (of mine) from the article:

"We are in a new era in terms of communication and unfortunately the news industry, particularly print, have been very slow to change the way they do business," said assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Richard Stevens.

Another:

"We haven't experienced a communication revolution like this probably since the printing press was invented. But I don't think that means automatically that the print industry is doomed. I just think it means that they are going to have to rethink the way they do business and find a new philosophy and a new place in the American media diet. We have to change or die. It's evolution. It's that simple," Stevens said.

(I think this last one was a bit mangled, but still gets close to what I was saying).

The interview lasted for about 20 minutes and I recall delving rather deeply into diffusion theory and Fidler's mediamorphosis process to describe the possibilities in front of us, but none of that made it in.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Journalists don't seem to like to include theoretical perspectives in their interviews, and if this weren't true, the industry might not be in the fix it is (for example, Fidler's theory is at least 13 years old at this point).

Juicy Campus Dries Up

2009-02-05T10:45:00.003-07:00

Well, it's officially gone.

As of 12:01 a.m., the controversial gossip site JuicyCampus.com went offline.

The site's demise was announced yesterday in the homepage's banner, as well as on founder Matt Ivester's blog.

Citing a loss of ad revenue in the current economic climate, Ivester announced that yesterday would be the final day of the site's services.

While at SMU, I was involved in many of the discussions and debates about the content related to the Hilltop. The ruthless commentary filled with sexually explicit language, the references to the bugeoning drug culture and several incredible violations of individuals' privacy kept the site in the public discourse. And this was likely the objective of it's design.

When I accepted the position at the University of Colorado at Boulder, I looked at the gossip posted on the site for the campus. Much tamer by SMU standards, the campus unit was removed sometime in the last few months via request.

Much of the content posted on the site was stirred up by trolls and bots, and little of the available content had socially redeeming value.

So long, JuicyCampus. You will not be missed.

Obama crashed the Internet ...

2009-01-20T16:35:00.002-07:00

... or at least slowed it down.

The AP is reporting that with approximately 10 million viewers watching the ceremony online (and "tens of millions" consuming at least part of it), the top 40 sites saw a performance reduction of 60%.

Sadly, news sites remained largely unaffected, since viewers clicked around them to get to the live feeds.

Whitehouse.gov refreshed at 12:07 eastern (just before the ceremony began), but it too suffered diminished performance as millions of Americans logged on to watch the transition of graphics.

Between that and the Washington D.C. cell phone service problems reported because of the cellular activity increase, Obama's popularity appears to be putting a strain on our national infrastructure.

Here's hoping he notices and makes expanding our digital infrastructure a priority.

Newspaper Industry Facing Huge Challenges interview

2009-01-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was interviewed by John Gardner of the Glenwood Springs Post Independent.

here's the article in its entirety:
http://www.postindependent.com/article/20090105/VALLEYNEWS/901059997/1074&title=Newspaper%20industry%20facing%20huge%20challenges

Key quotes and commentary:

“The industry is certainly diversifying and, to a certain degree, is seeing a more democratic playing field in terms of competition,” said Richard Stevens, assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“We are in a new era in terms of communication and unfortunately the news industry, particularly print, have been very slow to change the way they do business,” he said.

Dead on, illustrating why I'm growing increasingly concerned with newspapers in the online realm.

Another quote:

“I think the biggest problem is an unwillingness to change early as it occurred for many of these organizations,” Stevens said. “The industry could have easily invented eBay or Craigslist, or some of these models that are redistributing income away from (traditional media), but we were just slow out of the gate. We were at a dominant position and did not change when the world called for it.”

Again, good reportage, though I always struggle with whether one should capitalize "Craigslist." The organization never capitalizes its name, yet it is a proper noun. Which is also whi I avoid starting a sentence with "eBay."

The third passage:

Developing revenue from online advertising has proven a great challenge. But all is not lost, according to Stevens.

“The biggest paradigm shift for all analog media is the understanding that if in the 20th Century we built media on competition, that in the 21st Century it should be built on collaboration,” Stevens said. “I think online media gets that. They share information right and left, they connect to each other in new ways.”

The one thing that is a certainty, at least in Stevens’ mind, is that newspapers have to change but he’s confident they will.

“We haven’t experienced a communication revolution like this probably since the printing press was invented. But I don’t think that means automatically that the print industry is doomed. I just think it means that they are going to have to rethink the way they do business and find a new philosophy and a new place in the American media diet,” Stevens said. “We have to change or die. It’s evolution. It’s that simple.”

Hmmn. I'm not sure how to take the "at least in his mind" line. Is it only in my mind that newspapers have to change? Can we at least agree on that fact? I've been arguing about this issue since I began grad school in 1997. Surely we've come far enough and seen enough to be able to say without qualification that print news will be in trouble (sooner or later) if they don't change how they operate?

*sigh*

If this is only in my mind, then I think a lot of people are going to eventually learn what's been in my mind, and I fear it will be a surprise to them (but not to me).

CubanSleuth leads to SEC charge?

2008-11-17T15:15:00.004-07:00

Earlier today, Mark Cuban was charged with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yes, THAT Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, billionaire entrepreneur and media icon.

The official complaint (PDF) charges that in 2004 Cuban allegedly received private information from Mamma.com under the conditions of nondisclosure, and that four hours later Cuban dumped his stock shortly before it devalued, saving him approximately $375,000.

Posters at his blog are expressing their outrage: most of it at the SEC. That the bailout occurred without noticeable sanctions appears to be causing some frustration among the faithful.

I also heard a nasty rumor floating around that the SEC might be singling out Cuban at this time because of his financial backing of BailoutSleuth blog, a site dedicated to uncovering the activities between the U.S. Department of Treasury and private companies that the Treasury Department refuses to divulge.

I'm going to dig a bit and see what I can find.

DeLay-ed Labeling

2008-10-29T09:06:00.003-06:00

Marxism is suddenly on the rise.

Or so it would appear. During a Monday interview with Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden, a Florida reporter named Barbara West used a quote from Karl Marx to ask the senator to defend charges that running mate Barack Obama is “being a Marxist.”

The transcript appears below:

Barbara West: You may recognize this famous quote. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." That's from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he's intending to spread the wealth around?

Sen. Joe Biden: Are you joking? Is this a joke?

West: No.

Biden: Or is that a real question?

West: That's a question.

Biden: He is not spreading the wealth around. He's talking about giving the middle class an opportunity to get back the tax breaks they used to have.

I know this has been a pretty mean campaign. I was on a television station the other day and doing a satellite feed to a major network in Florida. And the anchor quotes Karl Marx and says in a sense, "Isn't Barack Obama Karl Marx?" You know I mean folks, this stuff you're hearing, this stuff you're hearing in this campaign, some of it's pretty ugly.

Since the interview, the Obama campaign has suggested that the reporter is a registered Republican, and that her husband is a Republican strategist. In an interview with Larry King, West refuted the latter claim (but not the former?).

There are several aspects of this event that intrigue me: one, that seeming agreement with one sentence of an author who published thousands of statements is grounds to label someone with the weight of an entire ideology; two, that Republicans (and apparently reporters) can simultaneously claim that Obama is a socialist and a Marxist (which raises an earlier paradox among conservatives who charge that Obama is a Muslim while simultaneously criticizing his ties to the pastor of his former church); and three, that any candidate running for office and receiving sponsorship from industry and social organizations and who doesn’t appear to be calling for a worker’s revolution can be attacked for being perceived as a Marxist.

Lots of ground here. This will probably not be my only blog on this subject.

On Tuesday, I noticed that three of my friends on Facebook were including the label “Marxist” in their concerns about Obama’s lead in the polls. The proximity of all these specific charges of a specific ideology raised my suspicions. What are the odds that so many people in the same week (most of whom I would have been surprised to learn understood what Marxism is or that it even existed – and in truth when I inquired, most of my friends apparently conflate Marxism with socialism without demonstrating an ability to distinguish between the two)?

Then I looked back at the transcript of the West/King interview, and read the line in which West said, “I think a lot of people who are talking to me out on the street are saying they are very, very concerned that this idea of redistributing the wealth means taking it out of somebody's pocket who is a wage earner and putting it in somebody's pocket who refuses to work. And they're asking about. That's what they don't want. That is what they want to know, what does this really mean?”

A lot of people on the street are asking about Marxism?

How could so many conservatives suddenly become concerns about an ideology that many did not seem to know existed and many still quite ignorant about?

I did some digging. Turns out, this particular charge appears to have originated from a surprising source: Tom DeLay. Yes, Tom DeLay, former Republican congressman and Speaker of the House (before he was ejected during after a Texas grand jury indicted him for conspiracy to violate campaign finance reform).

Apparently, DeLay gathered together a group of conservative bloggers (many of whom were already making this argument) and issued them the Marxist charge, demonstrating that you’re never too far removed from power in the G.O.P. to issue misleading talking points. He had made the claim back in June to the mainstream media.

Maybe these events will lead to a discussion of the differences between socialism (in its many forms), Marxism, the views of Marxian scholars and communism.

But somehow I suspect not. This campaign has largely been run on the backs of vague claims about scary terms that the general electorate seems unwilling to investigate (I still can’t believe I find people labeling ANYONE as an “Islamofascist,” which continues to be a contradiction in terms).

I wonder how much damage we’re doing to our democracy with this constant deluge of vaguely defined constructs of fear? Shouldn’t we be encouraging a healthy discussion about our fears, to ensure they’re brought into the public discourse for examination?

I also wonder if the damage to our dictionary might be even greater.

Can it still be called a newspaper if it's doesn't appear on paper?

2008-10-28T13:01:00.004-06:00

It’s happening.

In a startling revelation this morning, the Christian Science Monitor announced it will abandon its print publication and resort to publishing exclusively on the Web in April.

Coverage:

My immediate reaction? Surprised at the timing, not the conclusion. Nor do I think this is necessarily a signal of things to come in the next year or so.

The Christian Science Monitor is rather niche in its nature. I have long appreciated the foreign coverage it provides, but the publication is nonprofit, so one wonders how relevant its strategic decisions are to its profit-driven counterparts.

Although the publishing industry is technically declining, it is still wildly profitable. And I suspect most news organizations will not be forced to abandon print in the near future.

One question this raises for me: IF this decision DOES signal a trend (which I do not suspect at the moment), how would this trend call researchers to reevaluate the Digital Divide literature? If a large portion of our population do not have access to the Internet because of physical location or because they can’t afford it, what will it mean for democracy if we see print organizations move to the Web?

I have a thousand questions rattling in my brain, but I have to go teach class. Perhaps more later.

Expelled? Or "misportrayed"?

2008-10-27T09:42:00.002-06:00

I'm FINALLY catching up on some of my Netflix and got around the Ben Stein's documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Purporting to investigate the persecution of freedom in the American scientific academy, the documentary represents the worst its genre.

Say what you will about Michael Moore, when his critics use his methods (which they claim are dishonest and misleading), the ring of hypocrisy is hard to deny.

Below appears the review I wrote for Netflix (I gave the film two stars out of five):

A clumsy and manipulative exploration of an interesting topic.

Stein prowls the alleyways of academia without distinguishing between instructor ranks and tenure-track ranks. And several of his prominent subjects apparently have credentials, but the viewer is not provided with details. This represents the worst problem with Stein’s approach: the lack of context. Large numbers of qualified academics are denied tenure every year, and to assert without question that each of these cases is political demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of the tenure process itself.

And in at least one of the cases, the instructor was not on tenure track, making the argument about the connection between academic freedom and her release from the university blurry at best.

Stein also points to eugenics as a cause of the Nazi Holocaust (spending no effort to discuss other variables that contributed, such as Hitler’s experiences in WWI, the economic forces in modern Europe, the influence of Nietzche on modernity or even Hitler's own religious faith). Stein equates eugenics as a natural outcome of “Darwinism,” instead of the narrow movement that it was within the academy. The result is the unsubstantiated claim that "Darwinism" directly justifies the Holocaust and will create another such movement in America today if unchecked.

I was more amused than offended at the expulsion from the Smithsonian. Does any viewer really think that ANY uninvited camera crew WON’T be tossed out of the Smithsonian? They sell prints and videos of their cultural artifacts as a major source of revenue.

And then there’s Stein's ambush of Richard Dawkins. Having read Dawkins' recent book, "The God Delusion," it is clear to me that Dawkins' views (which I ultimately disagree with personally) are not represented by Stein's interview. Watching Dawkins struggle to make sense of Stein's questions is painful, it does look as if he thought the conversation was geared for another treatment (which supports his widely circulated claims that Stein lied both about the title and the intent of the film when he arranged the interview).

All said, it was never clear whether Stein possesses the needed credentials, background or gravitas to make him a good focal point for this needed discussion. Much context about the rancor surrounding these debates is missing, leading the viewer to take on faith that there exists a terrible and arbitrary bias within the academy.

Perhaps Stein should limit his cultural authority to his gifts of comedy and financial insight (though did he not also miss the recent crisis on Wall Street? I don't remember any warnings from him to his viewers and readers).

Going Viral

2007-05-26T09:08:00.000-06:00

Viral media is changing the face of campaign promotions. And it's about time.

One of the core principles of the Internet Revolution (including the "information revolution," etc.) is the increasing segmentation of the American consumer. Just as the industrial revolution pulled us into large, faceless groups we referred to in terms of the "mass," the Internet revolution is breaking us into narrowly defined segments bonded together by similar interests.

And this should make political advertising more interesting. One of the more frustrating aspects of advertising is its mundaneness. Subtleties in message, humor and even intertextual reference have to be reduced inversely to the size of the audience. The larger the mass audience, the more simplistic the message must become.

But all that changes with the niche reorganization of groups across the various Internet platforms.

Take the example of the Challenge of the SuperDuperFriends, a parody political cartoon advertisement. This cartoon is fabulously funny to me, but probably shoots wide of the general American consumer.

Taking the familiar (to me) forms of a nostalgic cartoon, the creators embed several interesting messages about the upcoming election process without having to explicitly say anything.

Why do I find it so funny? Because I am old enough to have grown up with the Challenge of the SuperFriends cartoon (although my favorite rendition of this series was the 1984 Super Powers version, based on the Kenner toyline introduced the same year) and young enough to have cared to watch it.

I do have some research interest in superhero narratives (as a substitute for American religion, as a form of national mythology, etc.), but these particular cartoons are nostalgic only for a small generational slice of American consumers.

This viral ad would not work on television. The soundtrack, instantly recognizable to the viewers of the 1979 cartoon, would simply be inaccessible to those too young, too old or those with childhood interests other than DC super heroes.

Setting the Record Right ...

2006-11-28T22:47:00.000-07:00

That is, right as in "correct," not necessarily Republican.

I came across an article in the Mail & Guardian today concerning the speculation the the forthcoming Bush Library will be located at SMU.

Among the reasons why this particular story cited SMU as a lock was this statement:
"The institution, next door to the couple's church, recently gave the president an honorary doctorate."

This brought me up short. I am a member of the SMU Faculty Senate, and I was pretty sure this wasn't correct. But then, I only arrived at SMU in 2004, so it was theoretically possible.

But no, after doing my homework (4 minutes of it, anyway), I ascertained that the president did not receive an honorary doctorate from SMU. But his father did back in 1992.

So once again, the son gets confused for the father. And this one apparently nets him a rumored doctorate from SMU.

Once again, a couple of minutes in Google could have resolved this. It's called fact-checking, people ...

Forced to tighten the reins ...

2006-10-31T07:47:00.000-07:00

It's a sad thing when ideals are crushed by reality.

Last night, after only 2 months in our new house, I finally had to take my wireless network down and restrict access to only our laptops.

It was a significant moment for me. I've had a wireless network in my dwellings since 2001, and I have never password protected it, nor restricted access to it in any way. In Austin, WiFi was ubiquitous (thank largely to the Austin Wireless City Project): we could find a signal driving around town at nearly every stop light. In our first home in Dallas, we were rather isolated. Sure I knew our neighbor sometimes logged on, but I have always viewed access as a resource to be shared.

But in our new house, one block from the university, our network has been constantly used by others. And last night when my wife irritably pushed her laptop away after getting slow performance, I decided to take a peek at the router logs. EIGHT other people were logged on, and a quick survey of my surroundings showed an iTunes download in progress and a Limewire library growing on a neighbor's computer.

It was simply too much. I firmly believe that wireless access should be shared. Yes, i read the New York Times article earlier this year about piggybacking. But with six other wireless routers within range of our house, there would seem to be plenty of signal for everyone. Ours being the only open network, it just took a couple of months to join the ranks of the "stingy WiFi brigade."

To be sure, there are a lot of questions about the legality of sharing Wifi connections. But that's not what deterred us: it's simply the abuse and its effect on our own own accessibility.

One more thing I dislike about Dallas ...

2006-09-27T22:57:00.000-06:00

Another reason why I am not crazy about over-restrictive copyright laws: culture is meant to be reproduced and shared.

Today I encountered a very odd example of copyright infringement. I was listening to "The World," a radio program put together by Public Radio International. Towards the end of the hour, Lisa Mullins (the host) interviewed Shaunna Bresnahan, a New York City college student who can sing the names of all the countries in the world in under 60 seconds. (Here's the audio track of the segment).

Breshnahan received attention last week on the set of the Late Show with David Letterman (transcript) for singing her tune (the song puts 193 countries to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance).

The interview was about what you'd expect: how remarkable it was that a young woman had the ingenuity and the global awareness to set out to learn the countries of the world through song (though Mullins did point out several changes to the political world not reflected in the song).

But here's the irony: Bresnahan didn't write the song. The song was written by Randy Rogel for the now-defunct cartoon, Animaniacs. The song, called Yakko's World, was performed in the second episode of that series in 1993.

To her credit, Bresnahan said twice in the course of the interview that she had learned the song watching television, though Mullins seemed to take this as her adapting the tune from television to her own words.

All of which I am fine with, save perhaps the fuss that is being made over a struggling actress reciting verbatim the words from a cartoon performance.

However, this story got me thinking about copyright. Strictly speaking, Bresnahan performed the entire song on both network television and on national radio without giving credit to the lyricist or the copyright holder (presumably, Warner Bros.) Now I don't think she received any funds for doing so, but certainly a struggling actress could benefit from the attention drawn to her by such exposure. Should she somehow become a superstar, one wonders if the copyright holder of that song could make the argument that he or she (or it, Warner Bros.) deserved some compensation. Not that I think they would (I imagine Rogel would be pleased to know that at least one child benefited from his work). But a strict interpretation of copyright law (similar to those made in the dispute by the RIAA when communicating with Negativland, for example) keeps cultural expression from ocurring.

Culture is meant to be spread, performed, improved upon, reinterpreted and redistributed. To place firm restrictions on its use doesn't merely line the coffers of the few remaining media conglomerates in our world; it denies most of the world's populace access to the culture in the first place.

Wouldn't it be great if the members of all those countries could learn to sing the Yakko Song?

Thinking Different ... again

2005-10-13T09:59:00.000-06:00

The world has changed.

Yesterday, Apple held a special event in which it announced the new Apple iPod. No, not the nano, that cute little music player that slips into the smallest pocket … this is the big one. The Apple iPod TV.

Now, and an iPod roughly the size of my iPod Photo, users can play music, display photos, listen to podcasts and now, finally, watch video. And we’re not talking .mov files of movie trailers; we’re talking about whole television shows and (presumably) movies.

And Apple was well-prepared for this innovation, retooling a portion of the iTunes music store to sell video files of popular television shows like “Desperate Housewives,” “Lost,” “NightStalker,” “The Suite Life,” and “That’s So Raven.” Each episode can be downloaded for $1.99, or season packages can be purchased for a discount.

Apple often claims to be on the verge of changing the world, but this is the first time since the introduction of the original iPod that I’ve felt its claims have been justified. Portable broadcast television. Portable DVR recording and playback capability (for the savvy among us, anyway). Truly one is closer to living in an interconnected media world than ever before.

And it didn’t hurt that they announced the whole project with an exclusive U2 music video segment.

Of course, I’m looking at this device for its potential. I care less about transferring all my DVDs or downloading broadcast content to my iPod than I care about the potential for video podcasting. Truly original video content distributed through electronic content services? THAT’s a change our media world has needed for some time.

Allowing cheap distribution technology to the masses gives us one more tool to ensure that more content is produced outside of the executive suites because of the large amount of capital investment needed to launch a new television program or movie. The potential gains for the documentary film industry alone are enough to create excitement.

Thinking locally, I can’t wait for our broadcast journalism students to be able to serve up their news programs through a digital network where individuals in any part of the world can download them automatically every morning for playback on their computer or portable video player.

Oh, yeah. Apple also introduced its new streamlined G5, a digital media center with increased power in a tight streamlined package. But that’s just a new computer …

An Evening with Kurt Eichenwald

2005-10-12T21:17:00.000-06:00

I just came from the 2005 Rosine Smith Sammons Lecture in Media Ethics Featuring Kurt Eichenwald.

For those who don’t know, Kurt Eichenwald has been a writer and investigative reporter for The New York Times since 1988, and primarily covers Wall Street and corporate topics such as insider trading, accounting scandals and takeovers. Eichenwald’s work has earned a number of awards and nominations: the George Polk Award in 1996 and 1998, and a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. Eichenwald also authored the 2005 bestselling book on the Enron accounting scandal, Conspiracy of Fools.

The evening was quite enjoyable. My wife and I were late additions to the pre-lecture dinner, and both the food and conversation around the table were as enjoyable as they were intriguing.

The lecture itself was a gem. Eichenwald focused on the institutional biases inherent in an occupation built around knowledge dissemination: too many reporters unable to acknowledge a simple truth about most topics they cover: “I don’t know.”

Eichenwald argued that truth is far too complex to present in 800 words or 2 minutes of air time, and journalists should remember that their job is not about delivering truth, but the incomplete facts that can lead to truth.

Though he cited many reasons for the recent decline of integrity in the field, Eichenwald’s central point was to illustrate the pack-mentality — that journalists pursuing a story too often deliver the journalism that the audience desires, conflict frames that reinforce the audience’s view of the world without challenging conventional wisdom.

When taking a systemic view of this phenomenon, the deterioration of the quality of information presented by journalists makes the world more confusing, not less so, and the level of critical debate soon degenerates into celebrity personalities screaming at each other while no one critically listens to the content of their opponents argument.

In this way, Eichenwald argues that rather than challenging the status quo, journalists often reinforce it by allowing incomplete data and evidence to pass muster unchallenged, creating a shallow sort of social “fact,” surrounding a given story.

Perhaps the highlight of my evening was hearing one of my students ask Mr. Eichenwald about his take on Weblogs. This particular student has consistently raised concern about the impact of blogging on the field of journalism, and it was pleasing to me to watch him adapt his concerns into the public realm. Clearly, more conversation will be forthcoming.

All-in-all, a fine evening for those who enjoy thinking critically about the field of journalism.