Ted Gup writes for The Chronicle of Higher Education:

I teach a seminar called “Secrecy: Forbidden Knowledge.” I recently asked my class of 16 freshmen and sophomores, many of whom had graduated in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes and had dazzling SAT scores, how many had heard the word “rendition.”

Not one hand went up.

…

As a journalist, professor, and citizen, I find it profoundly discouraging to encounter such ignorance of critical issues. But it would be both unfair and inaccurate to hold those young people accountable for the moral and legal morass we now find ourselves in as a nation. They are earnest, readily educable, and, when informed, impassioned.

…

Then, too, there is the explosion of citizen journalism. An army of average Joes, equipped with cellphones, laptops, and video cameras, has commandeered our news media. The mantra of “We want to hear from you!” is all the rage, from CNN to NPR; but, although invigorating and democratizing, it has failed to supplant the provision of essential facts, generating more heat than light. Many of my students can report on the latest travails of celebrities or the sexual follies of politicos, and can be forgiven for thinking that such matters dominate the news — they do. Even those students whose home pages open onto news sites have tailored them to parochial interests — sports, entertainment, weather — that are a pale substitute for the scope and sweep of a good front page…

Obviously, I’m not so critical of technology, because it is only a tool and can go either way. But I question a few of the premises in the piece.

How can we add good context to news pieces? Do a Google News search for “Iraq.” Where do you even begin to understand the complexity of the past five years? It’s like trying to watch LOST in the middle of this season. Without that background information most of this information is useless. Click on most any story at Google News and you can’t continue to dig for more information about the subject, nearly every page is a dead end; You just get one article about one small piece of the larger picture. It’s incredibly disappointing. On the Web, we should always strive to leave a trail of bread crumbs with relevant links.

Compare news sites to Wikipedia where I can click for hours.

How can we make important information relevant to people that may not normally seek this kind of information out? Too often I feel like this industry throws dry but important information out there without linking it to real human concerns. People aren’t usually one trick ponies. They care about many different topics, some run parallel and some topics cross paths. We should find angles where multiple topics meet, wedge information about one important topic into the conversation about another. And make it relevant!

Citizen journalism and the “We want to hear from you!” aspect of it is kind of silly as an idea. But to assume that because people with cell phone cameras and such can’t commit acts of journalism is folly. This gets back to the broader picture. Gathering information people in our community collect, placed in a thoughtful, relevant context, only adds to the value of our own reporting. Obviously there is a lot of noise out there, but we should strive to act as the filter, to get to the signal that matters.

Just look through some of these photos from the N.D. Democratic convention to get an idea of what acts of journalism people in our communities are doing.

All of this feeds off itself. Broader context through citizen journalism adds more bread crumbs and helps humanize news. Continuity of the overall picture helps target news items to the right group(s) of people. Well informed people can provide more (and better) acts of journalism.

Jarvis, an open Clinton supporter has this to say about political bias:

Media have an Obama problem they’re going to have to grapple with now or after the election: They love him. They hate Hillary. And the gap between the two is clearly seen in coverage, which surely is having an impact on the election.

This, to me, only gives more weight to the argument that journalists should be disclosing their allegiances and votes. Reporters are not just covering the story. This year, they are part of the story. The ethic of transparency that I have learned online and that journalists apply to everyone they cover should also apply to them. I say that journalists have a responsibility to reveal their own views and votes — even as they endeavor to report apart from them with fairness, completeness, accuracy, and intellectual honesty — and we have a right to judge their success or failure accordingly as we also have a right to judge their roles in the stories they are covering.

I’ve been getting increasingly pissed off at the discussion about whether or not journalists should be allowed to participate in the democratic process.

The argument that critics may use available information about how reporters or editors vote doesn’t stand logically. When someone would use this data to criticize the media as having bias it is a psychogenetic fallacy at best, meaning to assume that because a psychological motive can be inferred (I mainly vote Democratic or Republican), that another argument is invalid (I can report on Republicans or Democrats fairly).

The arguments given lead to absurd conclusions: Would you not allow reporters/editors of a certain faith (or lack thereof) to cover other churches? If your reporters/editors shop at Wal-Mart, should they be barred from covering stories about Target? I would argue that this information about journalists is easily gathered, too, yet there are no policies that trounce on these particular employee rights.

Why should we cater to lunatic or vague perceptions of what the media is or should be? We, presumably, as journalists are in the truth trade. We should not be perception peddlers. Isn’t that the whole point of the Fourth Estate? Our goal is to uncover the truth, so why do we hide from it? Ad hominem attacks against our reporters and editors shouldn’t affect our ability to work as journalists, or our ability to act as individual citizens. How can logically weak or completely invalid arguments harm our credibility as journalists?

Nobody seems to be discussing the credibility of journalism. We’re talking about the perception of credibility of journalism, which is an important distinction. Perception is not always reality, and we shouldn’t forget that. Ultimately your arguments come down to unnecessarily restricting newsroom employees’ personal freedoms to defend against possible (read: not imminent nor real) false arguments.

The fact of the matter is that we all carry bias. To fool our readers into thinking we don’t have bias by simply not participating makes little sense to me. Not allowing your staffs to participate distorts reality. This is a thin veil at best and actually harms our credibility as fair journalists at worst. We’re giving invalid arguments false validity when we play make believe with our leanings.

The better solution would be openness and transparency about our biases because we must be able to recognize them to overcome them in our coverage. Acknowledgment of bias is the first step to truly avoid conflicts of interest.

Don’t fear engaging your critics. Take them to task for their stupid beliefs. With logic and reason, not by hiding behind the curtain.

Shortly after polls closed last night, my wife got a text message from Obama’s campaign. He was the projected winner of the South Carolina primary.

A few minutes later I logged into Gmail, where Obama had already sent me an email about the victory and where I could watch his speech.

About a half an hour later a friend in Washington sent me a text with the percentage breakdowns.

This morning I logged on to  Facebook to see a notification from Obama, a simple copy/paste job from the email sent earlier.

Sometime today, I’ll watch his speech and Clinton’s concession speech on YouTube, since I was busy playing Super Mario Galaxy while he actually gave the speech.

Except for a CNN breaking update I got via Twitter last night (after Obama’s text message), I knew who won the primary without ever seeing a newspaper or TV site.

Only today, when I checked CNN’s excellent primary elections section did I go to an MSM site. News that I care about comes to me, despite the source.

I, like many other people, only go looking for news (on my days off) if something has first come to me to pique my interest. Then I find a site with valuable, contextual information laid out in a way that I can explore the data (in this case, exit polls). I can passively receive information I’d like to know.

If you’re not actively seeking out your audience, you’re doing something wrong.

Media organizations should be doing the same thing Obama does. It should be everywhere I am and it should provide valuable, easy-to-use added context and content if and when I decide to hit their sites.

I came across this very provocative post from Paul Conley today:

At this point, you can’t blame the boss for not teaching these things. The difficult truth is that people who can’t insert a hyperlink, who won’t read a blog, who don’t know how to work with Photoshop and can’t upload a video file just aren’t worth having around anymore.”

Now, as difficult times loom, I’m taking an even harder stance.
I’m urging employers not to offer any training in Web journalism.

My comment is awaiting moderation on his blog, but here’s the gist of it: I agree to a point.

We can teach anybody to do just about anything online. The Web could not be easier to learn. The difficulty comes in changing hearts and minds. We can lead the proverbial horse to water, but we can’t make it drink the kool-aid.

At some point, managers have to fire people that don’t fit. Every good manager knows that people who don’t fit a culture anymore can become a cancer. Every good manager hates this fact. If the business has moved to the Web, but certain employees have refused to learn, I can see situations where firing may be the only valid option.

That’s business with or without the turmoil of transition.  I just don’t know if we’re quite at this point yet.

To be a child with cancer in the 1970s meant almost certain death. Then, one day, some smart pediatric oncologists got together and said this won’t work. We can’t sit here as individuals and expect to solve this problem.

They formed an association to trade ideas, tell others what works, what doesn’t work.

They formed a network.

Now about 90% of children survive cancer.

Being newspapermen or women alone in this world trying to figure it out on our own will mean almost certain death for many of our products.

We can’t expect a single ‘a ha’ moment turn profits around, to regain readers and viewers and our communities. There probably isn’t a silver bullet.

I’m going to push this hard in the newsrooms I interact with this year. We need to get out there and join in the conversations. We need to trade ideas, not just with each other, but with the public at large.

The Networked Journalism Summit this year was a start. Poynter plans to launch online groups. There are plenty of existing media groups on Facebook. While there’s certainly a lot of noise, there’s some excellent conversations happening on twitter.

If you’re just reading media blogs you’re doing yourself a disservice. Quit lurking in the digital shadows. Start commenting. Join these networks, join the discussion. Start a blog. It doesn’t matter if you write obits or you own a large network of newspapers. The point is to trade ideas. The flow of ideas outweighs the network of people in it.

This year we shouldn’t simply talk about what we should do. We should talk about what we’re doing. Let’s get into heated debates with each other because it needs to happen. Let’s be honest when we fail and when we triumph.

Some people have asked me how I can maintain so much presence online, yet get so much work done or have time for anything else. (secret: I’m online a lot more than I should be).

Another secret: I like to think of myself as an information traffic cop. I take in a ton of information via RSS and love rerouting feeds for personal and professional uses. From my reader as of this post:

From your 117 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 4,116 items, starred 44 items, shared 115 items, and emailed 1 items.

Granted, most of those “reads” come from photos on flickr, ffffound and several other photo blogs. Another large chunk comes from hypem.com and I don’t listen to all the music. But still. That’s a ton of information coming and going.

Reader has cool features beyond simply reading content. Out of the box, you can share items with Google Talk friends, email and mashup feeds and items into personal tagging structures and create new RSS feeds based on those mashups. With or without knowing it, you create a personal, searchable database of everything you’re subscribed to, which by the way, comes in super handy when you’re like me. (I don’t remember everything, rather vague pieces of information I recall completely through personal database searching).

Anyway, here’s a fun project using only Google Reader, Firefox and some easy to install Greasemonkey scripts. We’re going to turn Reader into a multi-platform CMS (Content Management System). Basically, think AP Exchange, but you control the the incoming feeds and there’s no copy/paste to export to a platform.

Our platforms will be a link blog, Facebook, twitter, del.icio.us and a tumblr blog.

If you don’t have Firefox with Greasemonkey installed, go get Firefox, install it and then add the Greasemonkey plug in.  If you don’t have a Google account, sing up for one. You don’t necessarily need Facebook, twitter, del.icio.us and/or tumblr accounts, but get them (free!) so you can follow along.

Fire up firefox and install these scripts at userscripts.org:

Treader (allows you to post to del.icio.us and twitter from Reader)

Tumblr on Google Reader (allows you to post to your tumblr blog from Reader)

Facebook Sharer + Google Reader (allows you to share items from Reader to Facebook)

In Reader, use the Add subscription tool on the left to, well, add subscriptions. Do a search for your favorite baseball team. Or your favorite newspaper. Most likely you’ll find some stuff you’ll want to read and stuff you’ll want to share.

Once you start importing feeds, you’ll see some buttons at the bottom of each item, allowing you to add a star, share, email, add tags, share to Facebook and share on tumblr.

Clicking the star button works just the same as in Gmail. You can also create a public feed specifically for starred items under settings (and also for any tags you create).

The share button will feed your friends in Gtalk and your link blog new items (don’t worry if you don’t know the address to your link blog, click shared items in the left bar and Google will tell you). If you read something that audience might enjoy, just press Shift + S and Google will do the magic for you. Easy.

More shortkeys: Press ‘j’ to move forward an item in the list, ‘k’ to move back. There are other shortkeys by tying in ‘?’.

While you can always search Reader for an item later, searching all your feeds can be messy. Treader does some cool things. Let’s say you want to bookmark an item via del.icio.us or know some people in your network that might enjoy the item. Press Shift + D. Enter your username, log in and there’s your del.icio.us pop up window. As if you were right on the page, using the del.icio.us plug in.

Treader works similarly for Twitter, too. Shift + T will give you a little Java window to edit the tweet. By default it prompts with the item’s title and a link. Easy.

Shift + T conflicts with the tumblr integration, so we’re going to get into some code to fix that.

In Firefox click Tools >  Greasmonkey > Manage User scripts. Select Tumblr on Google Reader and click the Edit button. A text file with some code should show up.  Don’t get freaked out, we’re just making a quick change. Find this chunk of code:

keyForAction: ‘T’

and change it to:

keyForAction: ‘B’

This will fix any conflicts with Treader and Tumblr. Select an item and press Shift + B at any time to bring up the Share on tumblr window. You can also just click the image to bring this window up.

I know that with tumblr you can select up to five feeds to automatically pull in, but I have somewhat of a problem using a catch all feed for that. I used to feed all my starred items to It’s Randomonium, but have since stopped, since tumblr’s true beauty relies on posting different item types (audio, text, quote, photo, etc.). I like to keep those options available.

Last but not least, if you still have items you’d like to share with people on Facebook, just mash the button and follow the prompts.

Think about that. You’ve just interacted with several sites without ever leaving Google Reader. If you’re a fast keyboard jockey, you could fly through your feeds, sharing items left and right.

Note: This is cross-posted from my other blog, It’s Randomonium.

Best class ever. Get famous on the Internet, get a better grade.

Think this is a stupid waste of time? Think again. Having a good grip on how to manipulate their digital footprint will be key for these kids come time to get jobs.

People (prospective employers, prospective girlfriends/boyfriends, teachers and just about everybody who knows you in real life) will eventually Google you. Internet stalking is a reality. I’ve done it and so have you. Let’s just admit it already.

Ultimately, we all want Google to reflect the real us—or at least, the very best parts of the real us.

This is why I have a Linkedin resume, two blogs, twitter and a public-facing Facebook profile among other sites plastered with my name that I control. Ultimately, if you Google me I want you to see me as I want you to see me. Not as I was posting on forum boards and IRC years ago.

Online image literacy is going to be one of the most imporant things coming up as Gen Y hits college and the workforce. We’ve only scratched the surface at what Google can do to affect our personal lives.

From a professional/creative standpoint, you want to make a good impression while having as few barriers to entry as possible. The Internet is all about communication and lowering the barriers (and with it, many of the old guard standards) of obtaining audience share.

On the Web, we are all media entities.

I have quite a few opinions about this Kurtz piece. If you haven’t already, you should read it before moving on with my disjointed rant below.

Regarding the Web stuff at the bottom of this article: I think fear of what others in the community have to say is not an excuse to try to quiet their voice.

By simply turning off a blog on your site, you don’t do much. There is absolutely zero cost involved for a blogger to a new site. They can set one up for free. Then they’re competing for the same attention every site, newspaper or otherwise, is vying for. To me, embracing blogs is more important than trying to compete with them in the long run.

Because some projects fail (by what measure?), does that mean newspapers shouldn’t try new things? No. Dozens of television programs get canceled every year because they don’t meet audience expectations. But that doesn’t mean TV programmers necessarily fall back on producing the same types of content over and over. Each new program tries to serve a specific segment of the overall market. You have winners and losers and hope that the balance keeps you in the black.

First: Be the best source to the most valuable markets, then branch out

Sometimes I feel like the newspaper industry tries too hard to be all things to all people, but ‘all people’ really turns out to be current, vocal subscribers.

There’s too much talk of ‘The Readers’ when we really mean ‘Some Readers.’

I’m tired of the vague subtext from editors that readers read the entire paper. I have never seen evidence to back this up. In fact, it’s quite the contrary on the Web.

People have habits, cater to them

Each section, each piece of content (articles, comics, games and even advertising) is serving only a segment of the entire readership. Most people don’t say ‘I want to be informed of the world around me.’ They say ‘what happened in last nights Twins game?’ ‘What stupid joke does Mallard Fillmore have today?’ ‘Why did Playmakers change it’s name?’ ‘Why were the police on my block yesterday?’ Readers want to know about content that is relevant to them in some way (individual interests, subjects, proximity all play a role).

I think the serendipitous nature of learning something new about the world from a paper or a Web site is secondary to the reason people actually pick up the news. It comes after they’ve done the crossword, checked the box scores, cut coupons, read the obits or scanned the front page.

The real ’silent majority’ don’t read your product (yet)

The man who talks about the ‘silent majority’ of subscribers is probably right. But, personally, I don’t think that group of people should be the largest slice of readers. Think of it like a pie chart. This man represents only a slice. The business objective is to grow the overall diameter of the pie, regardless of why people read the paper or go to a Web site. The way to do that isn’t to just listen to your readers. Listen to the people that aren’t reading, too. The San Jose Mercury News is on the right track.

None of this changes the fundamental role of the newspaper. We are still providing information to people who need it. We have to ask what information people want and package it in a way that serves a segment of the community.

Somewhere along the line, this industry forgot to ask that on a daily, monthly and quarterly basis.

Shortly after writing my last post about an email I just sent off to Rep. George Miller, I see this in my feed reader (the comments are a hoot!):

In response to a mass email from the staff of Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry, which was sent to Page apparently by mistake, the irritated classical critic fired back an off-the-cuff response. Danger! Danger! As everyone should know by now, when you send an email you should just assume that everyone in the world is going to read it.

…

Barry and his staff are demanding that the Post fire Page, and the paper has actually placed him on leave.

Here’s the email Page sent:

Must we hear about it every time this Crack Addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new — and typically half-witted — political grandstanding? I’d be grateful if you would take me off your mailing list. I cannot think of anything the useless Marion Barry could do that would interest me in the slightest, up to and including overdose. Sincerely, Tim Page.

Really? Page was placed on leave for this?

Really?

I have been wrong for a while now, I guess. Newpapers aren’t becoming irrelevent because of lackluster design, pompous editorial attitudes, laziness, inability to adapt to technology, boring news, boring writing and boring graphics.

brass, gall, nerve, spine, rocks, cajones

They are becoming irrelevent because they lack balls.

This is the god damned Washington Post and they’re caving because an off-the-cuff email. Please.

I could understand if it was a political reporter. The relationships there are important for WaPo. I could undertand if it was what was said in the email was untrue (it’s not, Barry has been busted for coccaine several times). I could understand if the email Barry’s staff sent out wasn’t a mass email (read: spam, bacn, news release, it’s all the same).

But this was a response to an inadvertant email meant to fly into an abyss like every other take-me-the-fuck-off-your-fucking-list emails millions of American send out every day. Excuse my French, but I think I’m painting an accurate portrayal of the digital culture we live in.

Back to newspapers: Grow some. Try harder. Stop whining. Stop making bland decisions by committee.

Stop being wimps. Do something.

The Associated Press: AP Urges News Industry to Embrace Online

I’ve put a lot of thought into this in my young journalism career.

The methods of gathering news hardly change. Only the delivery mechanisms. We still go out and engage the community, ask questions. But we now have amazing opportunity to really listen to our audience. That’s the “institutional arrogance” that Curley is talking about. I’m saying this at my own risk: This entire industry may not really be listening while we communicate.

As aggregators and producers of information (news or otherwise), we can only benefit by being closer to our communities, online or off. The Web is most valuable when it provides a gathering point for discussion. That discussion can be about products (Amazon and eBay), humorous news (Fark.com) or video (YouTube, Vimeo, and a million other sites). The Web is just another bar, another softball field, another book club.

The beauty of the Web, in my eyes, is that it lowers the bar for anyone to produce media, to share their thoughts and expertise on any topic with anyone who happens across their site. That isn’t competition, that’s opportunity to listen to and engage our audience, on a one-to-one level and on a global scale at the same time.

The best we can do is facilitate and become a part of the discussions going on in our communities.

Same as always.