Oops! Print did it again

She is one of the most successful and talked about female artist of all time. She has been to the top of the top and the lowest of the low. She is Brittney Spears and she has been compared to everybody and everything form Madonna to sliced bread. But I bet you have never heard her compared to print media.

Print media is a lot like Spears than people may realize. Long before cable television and the Web, print media was the best way to get news. People would turn to newspapers and magazines to get news and entertainment. Spears was the first female pop star of this generation. She was everywhere you looked and she became the face of music in the late 90s.

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Print media wasn’t threatened until cable T.V. came along and delivered 24-hour news. Later came along the Web and the 24-second news cycle. All of a sudden print media wasn’t the only way for people to get news and entertainment. Newspapers are now cutting back and in a state of financial panic.

The same could be said about Spears. She got a little bit older and couldn’t keep up with new artist like Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson and Beyonce. She went off the deep end a little bit, shaved her head and the rest is history.

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Without Spears there was a void in the tabloid world and in culture. Even though her music isn’t the best, it still sells and is a constant. Its kind of like print media. People can get information faster from the web or more in-depth from watching CNN but print media has always been the constant. Without it there would be a void that couldn’t be replaced. Like Spears, print media will never completely die off, it just might take a hiatus or two.

 

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Now that I am done with comparisons there are some good arguments on whether print is dead. I like the argument going on here. One person says that print is where words go to die because they get archived or recycled, when they belong online so people can access them and share them with others.

The other person argues that print is where words go to live, just as the Greeks had used them generations ago. I side with both arguments. I do believe that print should be online for all to see and share but there is something to be said for having paper copies and historical records in print. Print itself is history and needs to be preserved. 

Who can you trust?

Friedrich Nietzsche, a German classical scholar, said, “I’m not upset that you that lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” I don’t think there is a better quote to summarize how people feel about journalists.

In a survey conducted in 2000 by David Mercer, Director of the OUBS Futures Observatory, journalists were one of the least trusted people in America. They were rated just a shade higher than politicians. That is upsetting to see, especially when journalists are the countries main source of news.

If people don’t trust them than they won’t trust the news either. This is a major problem for the journalism field.

Stephen Pritchard, editor of “The Observer” raised a good point in an article he wrote from 2002, right after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said that journalists need to stand up and question the government and question the news or else they are not doing their job. Journalists are supposed to convey hard and truthful news to the public.

Pritchard also claims that the government was coming down on journalists saying they were being unpatriotic by questioning the government’s decisions following the attacks. A lot of journalists followed the flow and ran stories that may not have been fully researched. The Washington post took a lot of heat for supporting President Bush’s plans and Web sites like this are out to point out the flaws of the Washington Post’s work.

What’s sad for journalists is that the damage has already been done. The public is no longer upset that they have been lied to by a few journalists, but they are upset they can no longer believe them.

 

I need my fix

Every sports fan has it. That itch deep down that can’t be scratched. They always need more information and more statistics.

Sports fans used to be limited to television programs like Sportscenter but with the creation of the World Wide Web fans can get information updates every second. For football fans one of those Web sites is Profootballtalk.com and, in my opinion, it is the greatest football site on the Web.

Blogs and privately run sites like Profootballtalk.com have become increasingly more popular. Profootballtalk.com was even just rated the best sports blog on the web.

The problem is Web sites like ESPN.com and NFL.com, is those sites don’t give the true news. They only report stories that their reporters break or they leave out stories that might make organizations look bad and they don’t want to loose their press rights.

For example, a story broke about a month ago that former Green Bay Packer Brett Favre helped the Detroit Lions prepare for a game. The story was all over football sites except for ESPN.com. ESPN prides themselves on being the world wide leader in sports and they don’t have one word on the story.

ESPN claims it is because they didn’t have a credible source but the truth is Brett Favre is a big contributor to ESPN and anytime he is on ESPN their viewer ship increases tremendously.

That is why the Web is so great. It allows readers to receive information that would not have been available before. Sports blogs are growing because people want to hear the whole story, not just what mainstream media wants to give them.

Blogs have scratched that itch for sports fans. Or at least temporarily soothed it.

 

The day has come

The day has come. Today we are referred to as a demographic instead of people. We are liberals or conservatives. We live in red states or blue states. We are grouped by our age, color and income. We have become useless statistics for news stations to keep viewers glued to the television. Exit polls are now apparently news.

Stations like CNN, FOX, MSNBC and ABC are showing non-stop election coverage and all their Web sites are being updated by the second. Every news station wants to be the first to project a state’s votes but it feels like no one wants to be correct station.

As of 6:56 pm, Tuesday, Nov. 4, CNN.com has projected Obama has 199 Electoral votes to McCain’s 78. At the same time MSNBC.com has projected Obama has 200 Electoral votes and McCain has a projected 124. McCain has 46 more Electoral votes from one site to another. ABC has given McCain 130 votes and FOX has taken down its tracker.

This seems to all go back to the 24-second news cycle. The invention of the World Wide Web has changed how journalism and newsrooms attack events such as the election. People now want to see statistics and which states voted for Obama or McCain. To keep up with the competition, news stations update numbers and stories without fully knowing the whole story.

It’s hard to find credibility in news stations when four different stations have four different numbers for each candidate. 

There is also a sense of over coverage. There are ireporters in every state sending in their video reports. There are breakdowns on how middle-aged teachers with two kids and drive four door cars voted (OK that might be an exaggeration). There are “experts” predicting how I am going to vote when they don’t even know me or my beliefs.

Whatever happened to just reporting the numbers as they are confirmed? Why happened to news anchors telling people to stay tuned for the actual results? What happened to the news just being news? I guess that day has already passed.

Where have all the readers gone?

Sitting down and reading the newspaper would be the equivalent to sitting down and playing a nice game of Pong on an Atari. Why would I want to play Pong when I can play Madden or Call of Duty online with my with my friends on a Playstation 3 or X-Box 360?

The same could be said about taking the time to read. The invention of the Web has speeded up the process of life and made it easier to access information. There is so much information on the Web that readers don’t want to spend the time reading a whole article when they can jump to other articles and videos.

In class, it was mentioned that publishing companies were hurting in business because so many people are getting information on the Web now. Well Random Hose Publishing has taken a step in the right direction. The Widget option they added for their books is a great way to interact readers and get new people to their Web site.

That leads me to interaction. The Web has substituted reading for interaction and new media. It kind of goes back to Weinberg’s theory and the Web is all about communicating. Instead of reading a whole news story, I can watch a video clip or read a few bullet points on the topic and then leave a comment. Leave my point on the story.

Maybe when I get older I will learn to appreciate reading the same way I do the Atari. The Atari is a classic and it takes me back to simpler times. Maybe one day reading will do the same. 

The Fourth Branch

Watch closely. Do you see it? Look a little closer. See anything now?

Don’t tell me you’re believing everything they’re telling you right now? Turn it up louder. Still believe it? You really think that’s the truth?

Don’t you see they’re holding back information? They’re telling you what THEY want you to hear. Still don’t see it? Then turn it off. The media only tells you lies anyway.

 

This may not be my view on the media but it definitely is for a lot of Americans and it definitely is for rapper Immortal Technique. Immortal Technique has made a name for himself with controversial lyrics and his song, “The 4^th Branch” is no different. He speaks for a handful of Americans who think the media is bias.

Here are some lyrics from the song: (as found on azlyrics.com)

 

 

“They bombed innocent people, tryin’ to murder Saddam

When you gave him those chemical weapons to go to war with Iran

This is the information that they hold back from Peter Jennings

Cause Condoleeza Rice is just a new age Sally Hemmings”

 

“It’s like MK-ULTRA, controlling your brain

Suggestive thinking, causing your perspective to change”

He feels news corporations don’t tell the truth behind events that have happened leading up the Iraq War. He is saying Condoleeza Rice is holding back information and then compares her to Sally Hemmings, a slave who was rumored to have had five children with Thomas Jefferson.

 

He also mentions MK-ULTRA and how the media wants to mold your perspective. They don’t want you to know the truth. They want to tell you lies and you will just believe them.

 

Why would he think the media would withhold information that would make America look bad? The answer may be in the next verse.

 

 

“The brink of holy war, bottled up, like a miscarriage

Embedded correspondents don’t tell the source of the tension

And they refuse to even mention, European intervention

Or the massacres in Jenin, the innocent screams

U.S. manufactured missles, and M-16’s

Weapon contracts and corrupted American dreams

Media censorship, blocking out the video screens

A continent of oil kingdoms, bought for a bargain”

 

“We act like we share in the spoils of war that they do

We die in wars, we don’t get the contracts to make money off ‘em afterwards!

We don’t get weapons contracts, n***a!

We don’t get cheap labor for our companies, n***a!

We are cheap labor, n***a!”

 

He is saying that news companies get media contracts for wars and news corporations and their parent companies also manufacture war weapons. According to ickypeople.com, CBS and NBC are owned by companies that also make nuclear bombs and planes that are being used in Iraq. Why would they want to tell the truth about the war when they are making tons of money on it and their weapons are the ones killing innocent people?

 

I agree with Immortal Technique when he says the media is bias and this has got me thinking that media outlets shouldn’t be owned by huge corporations with agendas. As Americans we deserve the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So how can we get facts that are not slandered by the media? To quote Immortal Technique, “Turn off the T.V. and just read.”

 

 

I’m so much cooler online

I think a community is a place where someone feels comfortable and is surrounded by people who share the same ideas and common passion about something. This stands for whether it is physical or online.

 If someone considers their neighborhood a community they might share the same passion for the neighborhood as other people. Or if someone considers their school a community it’s because they feel everyone there is focused and passionate about school.

The beautiful thing about defining a community is that there is no right or wrong answer and there can be different views.

To me a good community should be like a good significant other. The community shouldn’t care what someone is dressed like or if people are up on the current fashion. It shouldn’t matter if a person is a successful lawyer or works at the local Taco Bell. It shouldn’t matter what car they drive or how good looking they are.

All that should matter is if the person can add something valuable to the community through valuable input or the passion they have for something.

Unfortunately most communities are not like that. Most communities are like that girl that agrees to meet you on a blind date then fakes an emergency phone call the moment she finds out you live with your mom and love “The Notebook”.

Physical communities can be very judgmental and very competitive. It can be about who’s yard looks the nicest or who’s child is on the Honor Roll. Some people might turn to online communities to escape the judging and drama.

But most people find out that there is the same judging just different issues. People argue over who is right about a topic and resort to personality slams when no one even knows who anyone is. Fights break out over who is the top poster and who knows the most.

It seems all communities, online or physical, will never be that perfect relationship but rather that date that leaves you high and dry. The only way to around it is to ignore it and join in or order take out and get to watching that movie with your mom.  

Back to the Stone Age….. 1985

Back to the Stone Age…. 1985.

 

Meet Larry. This morning Larry woke up, showered, made a cup of coffee and read the morning paper. He licked the stamp and posted it on the letter to his son, Ryan, who is away at college. Ryan had a rough week because he stood in line for three hours to sign up for Magazine Writing and when he got to the front is was full. Ryan spent a total of eight hours on campus signing up for classes and then spent five hours in the library doing book research for his cemetery project.

 Larry rides his bike to work now because he had to sell his car for rent money. He lost all of his money just like everyone else when the stock market crashed. How do people expect to trade stocks and have their businesses run smoothly when they can’t connect to the outside world?

 Larry has a busy day ahead. He has to swing by the travel agents office to book his flight to go see Ryan for Thanksgiving but first he has to go to the bank and move some money around. He hates going to the bank now because the lines are so much longer than they used to be when there was online banking. After that he has to ride to PG&E and pay his electric bill.

Larry misses his old job at Apple. He used to design ipods and iphones, but there is no use for those products anymore so Apple let him go. It doesn’t matter though because Apple closed down a month later anyway. Now he works as a stocker at Safeway for minimum wage. He counts down the time until he can go home and watch the six o’clock news to see if they covered the debates today. They didn’t last week and Larry wants to know the candidates stance on health care and how to fix the economic crisis. 

One thing you should know about Larry is he isn’t real. He is a fictional character and lives in a post Internet world. Americans are very dependent on the Internet and a lot of financial systems are maintained online. If the Internet were to crash there would be chaos in the Financial Markets and communication would come to a halt.

But it should be stated that for us college kids, Larry’s life seems unreal and old fashion. But there are 20 million homes in the U.S. that have never had Internet connection. So even though I think the economy would severely suffer and businesses would fail, life can still go on. It would be just like the Stone Age…. Probably somewhere around 1985. 

 

Moonbats are such Boo Hockey

I support the reality view of David Weinberger and the view that traditional news media filters the information to viewers and readers. Even though I agree with most of his views I don’t agree with all of them.

I agree that when ordinary people challenge news and facts, like Wikipedia, it makes the news almost fair. That people with different opinions can agree on something. This is better than one editor or one news station telling us what is news and this is the truth of the matter.

I also agree when he said, “News will draw on social expertise rather than rely on men in a well-lit room.” I believe that people will learn more from other people’s thoughts than the thought of a select few in a newsroom.

The one view, however I don’t agree with is that all knowledge in new media will be deep. Yes, I think people will know more about specific topics of interest but they might not be well rounded with their knowledge. If a person only likes sports, they can go directly to ESPN.com and not have to deal with politics or the stock market.

I believe new media will make people’s knowledge narrow and shallow. This is the only view of Michael Keen that I support. I feel people will always need traditional media to get up to date news with facts from reporters who have the information. However, I feel like blogs and social networks are important to discuss news and get everyone’s take on a news story and not just the chosen few in a newsroom. 

Like SocialPicks, an social networking site that lets a person pick stocks and then compare them to other people’s picks on the same site. The site generates a score and ranks users on smart choices. It is sites like this that people can learn from and form their own opinions other than what is told to them. 

            

Change is inevitable. It’s how you change with it.

I’m not old enough to remember but I could imagine that journalist had this discussion when CNN and Cable came along and gave birth to the T.V. reporter. Now the conversation has to do with the rise of the Internet and Blogs and whether Bloggers are considered journalist.

The rise of the Internet has people wanting up to the second updates and stories. People can’t even wait for their favorite gossip magazines to hit shelves anymore they have to go to Web sites to see what the Olsen twins wore to a fashion show. People want their information and they want in 5 minutes ago.

But with the emergence of the Internet how much of the information that people are getting is true? Anyone can create a blog (and in some cases two) and anyone can post anything on the Web. Like the theory of what happened to TWA Flight 800. This person believes it was shot by a U.S. missile and supposedly has proof from other journalist who believe the same thing. It wouldn’t be hard for someone to read this, believe it and then spread it along as truth other than a theory.

The emergence of videos on cell phones has changed journalism. People would rather see live footage from an eye witness over an edited video shown by all 200 news stations.

There is no doubt that technology is changing journalism. It is up to the journalist to make the change for the better.