Breaking the rules

Fifty People, One Question: New Orleans from Benjamin Reece on Vimeo.

A fantastic idea that destroys all the limitations of rules in documentary and journalism to create a unique piece. I really want to see the camera setup. A Canon HV-20 with a Nikon 50 f/1.8.

I'm still thinking about what my answer would be.

The dominoes are starting to fall

Once the campaign advertising dollars stop flowing in by the truck-load, the majority coming from the Obama media machine, the advertising dollars will dry up like the lakes east of Los Angeles have.

Let's face it, we're in the midst of a recession. Advertising dollars are the first to go from budgets. Advertising is the rocket fuel for newspapers in print, whereas the ad dollars from the online version resemble the concoction of two-stroke motor oil and unleaded gasoline. You don't see NASA using two-stroke to get the space shuttle into orbit do you?

That recession is going to prevent many from spending too many ad dollars for the holidays, let alone some general advertising. Newspapers are beginning to topple before the election has even come to a close. The first quarter of 2009 is going to look like a scene out of the movie "Saw."

The question becomes: Do we cut off integral parts of the paper in an effort to free it for possible growth online? But if the recent digestion of data is any clue, cutting all the aspects of each newspaper might not work.

The first few dominoes have started to fall, how far will they go?

Making Media work for you

Here's a great story about a guy who found a niché and made his own possibilities with digital media. Entering user-generated ad contests he's nearly made a living out of it. Though he did start off in a rather bleak situation.

It's just another case of finding possibility and capitalizing on it.

InSight America

Magnum photo agency is doing a running project up to the election with some of their top notch photogs. Their objective?

Who are the people of America? What are we thinking? What makes us angry and frustrated? What gives us hope? Are some of us really all blue and some all red? Or are we mostly shades of purple?

What is the American Dream today?

Could be another interesting series to keep an eye on much like Hard Times.

Found via APhotoADay

Four for a Quarter

I was waiting around at the UPS Customer Service center while they dug up a package for me and decided to look through a couple issues of the Smithsonian magazine. I found great photo articles in both of them, but one had a url with more content.

A photographer produced a book based on the photobooth. You know, the ones you used to see in the mall and would get four photos on a strip. There are some great images and a unique notion about how these inexpensive commerce photography sessions recorded very interesting aspects of history. Four frames at a time.

Today, photographic imagery is at nearly every fingertip on a smartphone that the notion a trip to the photobooth could be one of the lone images of a person in existence seems crazy. I only hope that at some point this over abundant digital immersion will drive people back to analog, much like vinyl records are popular again as CD sales plummet.

Got Passion?

Simply put: If You Don't Have Passion - Get Out Da' Kitchen.

That's the title of DigiDave's blog post and it has some great thoughts and links about passion. It's a nice refresher for some of my goals.

Found via Journerdism

Pray for Snow

It's opening day at Arapahoe Basin and Loveland today and all I can think about is fluffy white blankets of joy.

Be sure to watch the hi-def version. The video has a lots of quick transitions that the normal definition looks lame.

Nachtwey's wish is XDRTB.ORG

Watershed moment in the future of American politics?

"We know it's in the millions," he said of the number of e-mails that lawmakers in the House have been receiving. "But we haven't counted yet, because when you're about to get hit by a tidal wave, you don't count the drops of water in the wave."

Seems as though millions of Americans let their voices be heard not only by calling their representatives. They used the fastest communication tool available. E-mail. And the US House wasn't ready for the traffic.

This is the first presidential election cycle that is saturated with the use of online tools and portals. The ease and effectiveness of the Internet in communication will become more and more integrated into our world. Hence, the iPhone and Android phones are the early stages of the evolution towards the mobility and connectivity of our communication world.

A digital stereo camera

Fuji has come up with a two-lensed 3-D camera.

I'm sure the camera is cheap, but the headset player will probably cost a fortune. It'll be interesting to say the least. Maybe someone will be able to hack it and use it for visual storytelling in a new way. Curious...very curious.

Nachtwey's Wish is revealed Oct. 3

I'm curious as hell to see what it is. There's a lot of stories to cover with a $100,000.

Here's the video from last year when he won the award.

Photog that rocks

This is a CNN story about a high school student that created a program for homeless children to have a voice with a camera. Watch the video. She won a huge grant to continue the program and expand it. There's some interesting photos that the children made as well.

This is a great example of the power of photography.

How small do you want to feel?

Scales of the planets to Earth with a cool backbeat.

Is digital photography killing photography?

The advent of inexpensive equipment that allows for even more photographers to produce photography. I paid nearly $4,000 for a Nikon D1H in 2004. I recently picked up a D300 that is nearly 20 times the camera for $1700. And don't forget to add inflation, it would be over $4,700. I remember buying a Nikon N90s film camera for about $1,000 in 1994 and thought it was unreasonable. Boy, was I wrong. The Kodak DCS420 was about $12,000 in 1994. Your cell phone now has twice the resolution the 420 had.

Eventually supply and demand market forces take over and the imagery becomes worth less and less. Add to the dog pile the notion of people willing to give their content away for free so that they can say they have been "published" or in hopes of getting "more business" and you have a recipe for destruction. One more layer to make it truly gloomy? Working photographers struggling to make ends meet in this harsh economy begin to under-cut each other's bids to get work.

All that adds up to an acceleration of inexpensive photography to go with the relatively inexpensive gear.

CNN's iReport and the like go even farther to destroy the notion of a working photojournalist. Why pay for the cow when the milk is free?

Sure, I'm a Flickr user. But I reserve copyright on all my images. Many don't and leave their work open to Creative Commons. Others give their work to Getty in an over-saturated stock photo market.

What's the future of photography? I don't know, but I'm thinking of buying a bunch of silver gelatin paper from Europe since it's fading so fast here in the US, finding a sweet Leica enlarger at a garage sale and preparing for the rebirth of traditional process.

Convergence might as well be retired as a word

Power photographer Vincent Laforet was tasked with putting the new Canon 5D MkII through its paces earlier this month. Well, this video nearly made my soil my pants. The rich visuals and complete command of the lighting are something dreamlike. Then we can talk about the camera and the absolute thrashing of the notion of a DSLR.

Also check out the behind-the-scenes video.

Nikon better react very very fast with an upgrade on the D700 –the D90 was going to be good until Canon did this– or they will be stuck at the back of the pack with Olympus, Sony and Fuji in the digital camera market.

All this being said, I'm still waiting for Scarlet. With the announcement of the 5D MkII it looks like the Scarlet will also be radically different.

All of this rapidly changing technology is just getting rolling. Hold on tight, just like Miss Budweiser it's going to get fast and rough.

Where's the line?

Parents are now social networking their children before they are barely even cognizant of life. Does this further the social interaction of people or does this go too far? Is there a line of no return in our constant sharing and publishing of our lives?

I know that I over broadcast my life at times and am too hyper-connected to various portals of social and digital media. I'm sure some people get sick of some of my pointless Twitter updates which is also connected to my Facebook and FriendFeed. Will all of this computational connecting become shallow and get people to connect in reality again? Social networking has seemingly taken over the web with it's ability to search out those of likemindedness and communicate. I just don't think that it is enough of a replacement for the true social interactions of a true social species.

I guess we'll see, right?

What is Journalism?

Just in case you didn't know how it all worked.

Found via graphicdesignr

A business opportunity in Colorado?

Those Canucks may have figured out a way to use beetle-killed trees for newsprint. Since the price for newsprint is going through the stratosphere, why not figure out a way to go local?

Just need some investment capital to set up a shop in Silverthorne or Dillon and fire up the chainsaw. 

Todd Heisler, Damon Winter and David Scull on photographing the conventions

Talking about covering the political conventions. I always like to hear what was going on outside the view of the viewfinder and behind it. 

Traffic is Growing Fast—but Capacity is Keeping Pace

Some interesting tidbits about the growth of Internet traffic and trends. 

Red is going hunting

Nikon has announced the release of the D90, which is a DSLR with video capability. Well RED has already been turning the motion picture world on its head with his proposed 5K RED Epic camera and now plans on snaring the DSLR world in his spiderweb. 

I may just wait another year to buy any kind of camera.

Wired article on the RED

Wired piece on the 4K RED HD video camera. Convergence progresses...

Sweet, yummy Olympic goodness

A truckload of fun photos from the Olympics. It's always good to see the photographer frames and not the stuff that runs on the printed page or sports section gallery.

Media Needs a Makeover

Rob Haggart reinforces the notion that content is king. Media outlets need to stop chasing those "every once in a while" readers/viewers and capitalize on the readers/viewers that are consuming.

How many times has it been said....

The shapeshifter that is Flash video

NewsVideographer's Angela Grant dug up a goldmine with a gaggle of info pages about converting digital video to Flash video. I'm sure I'll be pouring over the pages in the coming weeks.

Power of Photojournalism to connect the world

Just watch it. Nothing more need be said.

Creative info graphic about men dying

There's a lot of ways to go out there. But the leader is the evil that is cancer. I hate even typing that word.


Found via Popurls on Twitter.

Where can I get one of these?

The Krauts are doing pretty well

It's looking more and more that if you want to work for a newspaper, you might look at going international. Asia's papers are exploding. Europe's papers are gaining more and more traction. South America still gets its info from lady grays.

The last line of this post is striking.

Photography as a weapon

An interesting discussion about the fake Iranian missile launch and other fakes photos.

The power of a visual image is very broad, yet many take it for granted.

The nightmare that is online video compression

Angela Grant over at NewsVideographer posted a week or so ago her settings for compression and was given a few other resources for figuring out what kind of hand grenade to use. I'm hoping we can figure out a better number set to work with the new Scripps player.

J-students shouldn't be too worried

… nearly the same percentage of graduates in 2007 found full-time jobs within six to eight months of graduation as in the previous year, and salaries remained the same.

The stagnant salaries isn't much to rave about, but the notion that graduates are still getting jobs is a good sign. Might be a bad sign for those entrenched old-skool journos though. Having multiple skills is the key to getting a job.

Future browsing experience?

Here's a video clip about a browser in development by the Mozilla folks. There's some interesting notions in there as well as some that will probably be developed faster than the final browser. Scary, yet interesting stuff.

And people wonder why social networking works so well

Microsoft studied their instant messenger users and learned that the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is nearly true. It's 6.6. Can you say LinkedIn? That's basically the premise for that site: Who do your friends know that could get you a job or some business?

Opec 2.0

An interesting column about how the controllers of access to bandwidth could be likened to OPEC's control of oil. Comcast has already been testing tiered bandwidth plans in Canada and Time Warner is testing it on new customers in the southern states.

Who really should control access to the Internet, which is rapidly becoming the primary source of communication for all types of media?

So, how many journos got cut for this?

Despite Gannet cutting and cutting in newspaper and broadcast newsrooms they spend $10 million on an online streaming startup. At least they're doing something more than just cutting and cutting.

Tight limits on War Photographers

A NYTimes story about Iraq War photojournalism coverage. The trend is if a photo is made of injured soldiers or especially those killed in action, the photog is removed from their embed. There's a good gallery of images as well.

Inspirational Photog Interview

Found via MediaStorm

New Media Douchebags

Simplicity from the Muppets

Found via andydickinson.net

Parting Thoughts

The Columbia Journalism Review has set up a place for those that have left or pushed out the door of journalism to reflect. After reading Jim Spencer's piece, I'm looking forward to reading a few more in hopes of finding some solace. Solace in knowing that once I walk out the door of a newspaper in several weeks I'm not alone in feeling like I'm walking away from one of the most important and passionate aspects of my career.

AMEN!! Can this be done last month?

The first notion of reader comments at the bottom of newspaper.com stories I had was it would be a good thing. Maybe people would chime in and figure out a way to solve problems or illuminate other problems. Thus a wiser and stronger community. After watching the constant attacks and childish games in the comments of the Camera, I have to say it's time to pull the plug.

After three comments the story is thrown to the gutter so that only a small number of people scratch, claw and bludgeon each other with poorly chosen words accelerating the downward spiral of humanity. And that's after the really horrific spiteful "comments" are removed by our lone web editor. Once more reason to dump them is not paying someone to babysit the comments.

I guess they didn't learn that lesson from Grandma: "If you don't have anything nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all."

Pew's stinky report

"Another diminishing skill set, interestingly, is photographers," the report says. "Overall, 31% of newspapers say they have cut back on photographers in the last three years, vs. 12% that had made net increases. At the biggest papers, this trend is more pronounced, with the majority reporting cutbacks on photographers (52%) and just 6% saying they had made net additions."

The underwhelming conclusion of the report is that as papers cut staff so goes the content. BRILLIANT!! Great idea, make a less desirable product for an already shrinking audience. That'll make all those greedy investors happy. I'm sure of it.

Ok, time to go get a tow truck to remove the tongue from my cheek.

Vanishing Americana

This website predicts that film cameras are at #13 of 25 things that will vanish from America.

At #23 is Newspaper Classifieds

The classifieds thing, I can see. Given some of the scary numbers the last few days from the newspaper industry, a few papers all together will cease to exist. The film camera on the other hand, will shrink and in time become a coveted form of art because of the limited number of people that know how to use film and traditional printing well.

Social Media: What the...

A great slide presentation about what social media is, can be and might become. Pay attention to trends and try to predict for potentials.

Found via Danny Holland

What's after convergence? Mobile Media

1 million iPhones sold over the weekend. I'm planning on picking one up myself in September. Too bad Apple went with AT&T, but I can't wait until 2011 for the market to open up. The media landscape will be vastly different by that time.

Interactive Narratives

The site has been re-launched with a new design and easier ways to search for content. Haven't had a chance to peruse too much, but will be a good source to find good ideas to borrow and use.

Video-journalism site funded by donations

Don't know if it will work or not, but hell it's worth a shot. Especially if they are doing coverage of very important issues that people "need" and "want" to be informed about. Time will tell.

Disney and the interactive Blu-ray

Looks like Disney is seeing an opportunity to be innovative with some technology to use the Internet with Blu-ray DVDs. Further evidence of the impending convergence. I like the line from Mr. Chapek – “We don’t rely on the consumer to have our vision for us.”

Open letter to Craigslist

Some good ideas in this one asking Craigslist to help keep local professional journalism alive. We can only hope that Craig and Jim actually read it.

Foreshadowing your own demise

A designer at the Mercury News shot a series of carnage photos after a few rounds of layofffs at the paper and posted them on Flickr. Everyone found solace and some humor in the midst of all the chaos. Well, the ax felled his job as well.

This made me throw up a little in my mouth

Alan Mutter figures the companies have lost a cumulative $49.7 billion in market capitalization in 3 1/2 years, vaporizing 51% of shareholder value since Dec. 31. 2004.

Found via Romenesko

Why doesn't this guy live here?!

A group of private investors is still very interested in buying the Baltimore Sun, adding that they would take less of a profit and –GET THIS!!!– invest in newsgathering.

Sweet Jesus! What a concept! Maybe there are a few people smart enough to make some newspapers work. God knows that most of the clowns running around buying up everything on a maxed out credit card are not doing the worker bees any favors.

The dying Two-Newspaper-Town

A business columnist at the Rocky Mountain News talks about how the News gets a bad rap concerning circulation numbers in Denver and that the landscape of the biz will not allow for the JOA papers to continue.

MediaNews is in the hurt locker with the collection agencies (financial backers that are already reeling from the housing debacle) as we speak. The completion of the Scripps split is final but there is not nearly the debt burden if any at all for the newspaper side. So the notion that The Denver Post will outlive the News could be a losing bet.

Sue happy in the US, but funny

A former journalist turned lawyer is suing the newspaper he subscribed to because the layoffs and cutbacks will create an inferior product and he would not have renewed his subscription if that had been disclosed.

Go get 'em!!

Found via Fading to Black

A J-skool graduate thinking smart

"Fight the war, don't sweat the battle." That's her approach to the deluge of negative news (especially in the last week) about the newspaper biz.

Why even have titles anymore?

John Temple, editor, publisher and president of the Rocky Mountain News, writes about the new process of producing news in this time of "somewhere in between the old and new days."

As I read about all the types of coverage and types of mediums used I only recognized two names from the photo staff producing visual content from the field out of the seven or more identified in the blog post. All the others were from other parts of the newsroom. Starting to look like a convergent newsroom in Denver, where you need to know how to do everything when it comes to reporting the news.

Some help from the newspaper Gods

Two charitable organizations are funding projects to find a way to keep newspapers viable, despite double digit declines in revenue percentages while cutting the staff that produces the content. Let's hope they find some brilliant people to create a way for one of the most important aspects of freedom in this country.

Time spent on "newspaper" sites down

Wonder what the cause is? Is it not enough time to spend reading because people work two and three jobs? Or is it because the content presented and published just isn't of interest or decent quality with the blood letting in the industry?

Time's Top 50 Websites

A breakdown of Time's Top 50 sites and the type of advertising –if they have any– used. Google may just take over the world at any moment. They are going to beat down comScore and Neilsen too.

Found via Journerdism

MacGyver to the rescue of newspapers

Damn skippy!

'Til Debt Do Us Part

Not to be a doom and gloomer with the recent posts, but......

Editor & Publisher story about how newspaper debt is strangling the industry and the cost cutting might not help in the long run.

Twitter's got a competitor - PLURK

It's a bit more interactive and visual, but the biggest catch is the karma points. Based on your use and other's feedback on your use you gain or lose karma points. An interesting way to try and keep it real and away from the spammers, I guess. We'll see if it works. I'll probably stick with Twitter for a bit longer though.

Newspaper cuts on a map

Here's a nifty Google map with known staff reductions at US newspapers. Kind of ugly and sick to look at, but basically where there's a higher population there's a higher reduction of staff. The number of those cut the last 13 months is staggering.

Found via cyberjournalist.net

Are you kidding me? $3.50?

Sad to learn some very pertinent information about the company that owns the paper I work for from a blogger in the company rather than our own management. It's pathetic that management doesn't have the stomach to pull everyone into a quick meeting and explain what is going to happen when the company is split into to separate companies. Thankfully there are bloggers out there digging up the information and sharing it, if only a few are finding it.

Romenesko's Impact on Journalism

The Poynter blogger has definitely changed the landscape. But in some respects I wonder how much damage he's done as well. I mean, I get all kinds of information about the progressing downfall of the industry on his blog that has helped me form the notion that like the Titanic, the orchestra is going to continue to play as the ship sinks into the abyss.

Lazy Bastards

A fantastic post about how we read online and what studies have shown about reading habits. Near the end is a caveat about how reading a print product will never go away because it is a different style of reading.

Google's moral compass

Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the company has a duty to make advertising work in order to help companies continue to make high quality content. Glad that they realize the fact they don't supply any of the content that they make all the money off of. There are discussions on projects about not being "evil." Shocker.

I sure hope they figure it out soon. Wall Street isn't all that patient last time I checked, unless it's Google they are talking about.

Newspapers will outlive Microsoft

A funny column by a Seatlle PI writer hammering a Microsoft exec for a prediction that all content will be read and fed electronically as print media dies.

The question that still needs to be answered

A question was asked at a newspaper conference of what we mean when searching for ways of "saving the newspaper." So what do we mean when we feel the need to "save" the newspaper? What should be saved and what doesn't need to be saved?

Performance based pay cuts but still BIG salaries

Here's a nifty comparison of CEO pay and shareholder values and the respective pay increases or decreases for 2006-2007. I'm curious to hear what next year's numbers will be. The comments are typical on the post but the one about Scripps point-man Lowe is staggering.

When you take into account inflation most staff journalists have taken a pay cut as well with the measly two percent annual increases. Here's an interesting column about that one.

Want a newspaper job?

Looks like you better be willing to speak another language and move to another country. But there are lots of papers with increasing circulations out there. Just not in the US or Europe.

Newspaper financial woes explained simply

Here's one of the best explanations of the financial issues facing newspapers these days. Only catch is that newspapers are not investing for the flip side of the coin. Say they make it through the dark scary tunnel? They'll come out the other side and run into another critical issue of not having a quality product or even a staff to try to salvage a product.

Scary numbers and charts

Umm, don't know what to say other than - damn. I highly doubt that Wall Street will hold out for the transition of revenue sources. That's one more thing that has yet to be brought up. What's going to happen when investors want to cash in all their chips when the writing on the wall becomes more apparent.

I'm back from the motherland

Had a good time in Scotland. Took a few photos.

It's been bad for graduates before

Regina McCombs' speech to the University of Minnesota Journalism and Mass Communication graduation this month. It's been bad before, it will get bad again in the future. It's all about maximizing opportunities.

Might be a little quiet for 2 weeks

I'll be O.O.C. until June 8.

See you on the flip side.

A photo a day

An interesting blog about a found series of photos. Never know how your images will effect or impact people.

Keep shooting!

An interesting idea to keep newspapers important

Here's a unique idea that will get those on the polarized sides of politics and cynicism fired up. But until there's a legitimate finding otherwise, subsidies could be very rational. The airlines have been getting bailed out nearly every decade since they began to open it up to any and all in an effort to be public transportation. Information and an informed society seems a bit more important than that trip to Hawai'i. Otherwise we'll be seeing more of these reports just before the bottom absolutely falls out.

It's all about the content, really

The Detroit Free Press put together a page of all their Emmy winning online pieces. If you want to know what people will sit through or click and view, start here for your first lesson. It's all about content, quality, functionality, interactivity and a plan to make all that other stuff happen.

Another collision of sorts

So there's been an interesting story going on in Boulder. Seems a rent-a-guard and a restaurant co-owner had a Taser shootout over a parking issue this past weekend. It's been getting all kinds of traffic because of the weirdness and stupidity that abounds. As a result an editorial cartoon was created in response. There it is, another blending of mediums. Don't know if it's as funny as peeing with a focus, but it's pretty dang funny.

Pay attention at ALL TIMES

Looks like Ryan McGeeney of the Standard-Examiner took a javelin in the leg. It's not too nasty, but I'm sure it hurt like hell. Looks like he'll be alright. But the quote from the coach and the results after the incident make this a classic for the beer table after shooting some state athletic event.

Gaming and urninating collide

So here's one example of how our endless media consumption continues to push the envelope. I've had a couple ideas for a "captive audience" in the toilet the last few months, but I think I'll just flush mine after seeing this.

And you didn't think there were gatekeepers

The NY Times' article Message Machine from April 20 was a result of tons of hard work I'm sure and shoe leather to find out that the Pentagon was creating contrived spin in the media about the Iraq war. There are several surprising notions in the story but according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index survey not many other media outlets cared too much.

If it had been about Jack Black revealing the Brangelina twins news it would have spread like wild fire. Oh wait, it did.

Sin City in complete multimedia glory

There is so much information in this I don't even know where to start or what to say. Basically you'll have to take a look and get engrossed. I just want to know how many people had how much time with how much planning to put all this together. It is extensive. Never thought I would be able to learn so much about my birth city.

World Press Photo Photog Interviews

Good interview videos with the winning photojournalists of the World Press Photo categories. There's also interviews from 2007. It's interesting to hear more about the back story of photographs. What the photog was thinking and attempting and the end result. The interview with Tim Hetherington about his 2nd place story reveals an interesting struggle while making photos in war torn Afghanistan.

Close call

A sequence of four frames from a Reuters photog in Afghanistan with some Marines that came under fire.

Twitter meets YouTube

So how about a service that combines the microblogging and "following" nature of Twitter and the video capabilities of YouTube? Well, here you go. It only seems like a natural evolution in the realm of social Internet tools. Hopefully I'll get into the beta, so I can add my quality facial expressions to my random thoughts. Watching the continual uptick of Twitter use for journalism as well as social implications, I can see Seesmic doing just as well if not better. With a face to the content there may seem to be more of a notion of truth or validity than just words in a balloon.

A new visual way of doing a music video

Holy Mac ad, but there had to be lots of storyboarding and pre-planning for this gig.

Do you have faith?

A blog with prayers and news about the newspaper biz. I don't know if it will help pull us all up from this nosedive, but sure as heck can't hurt.

And for my next trick (trip)

This sounds like an absolute hoot. This could be done over a long weekend with four or five people. Might need to do it sooner rather than later given the rising cost of petrol.

One more potential future of journalism

The notion of a news outlet being based on a non-profit model could be one more way to keep the integrity of journalism alive and ditch the heroin-like greed of Wall Street's expectations. I believe there are a lot of folks watching MinnPost.com with a magnifying glass and microscope. Let's hope they continue to become a viable enterprise.

The cuts just keep on coming

So here's some scary ugly numbers about the number of media jobs lost this year and total jobs lost in the country this year. Absolutely astounding. Well, you might as well add nine more to the total of media jobs cut. The Camera laid off one in the newsroom and eight others yesterday. I knew it was going to be too hard to be positive in these posts.

Found via Journerdism

Future of news online?

Very simple idea by Josh Wolf using readily available and inexpensive online tools to disseminate news and info. They did a proof of concept during the Olympic torch protests in San Fransisco. More evidence that smaller groups of journalists coming together will be able to find a niche and find their place in on the Internet.

Found via Frontline's Twitter feed

Geeks gone violent

Here's a really interesting video on several levels. First, the style of videography is different for a news production. Second, it's a unique and interesting story. And finally, ESPN has been opening up the spigots on its content to the web. There's a reason they are called the "world wide leader in sports."

So, what's the next big idea?

The title of this LifeHacker post "Where You Find the Time" is one way to look at this video, but if you really watch it and are an open-minded media person some very interesting perspectives become very apparent. The trouble that television, newspapers and other MSM face is that they lost not only the monopoly of where info comes from but that consumers want to have more control to contribute, consume and share. So, what's the next big idea?

The power of a "renowned" photog

So it seems that Annie Leibowitz has become such a power in producing photographs of celebrity that even the celebrities feel they must do as she says. I've posted about Leibowitz's growing self-righteousness before. Here's just another chapter in the book. So much for the subject being the most important aspect of the photo. In the upper-echelon of magazine photogs it IS about the photog.

Getting out of that black hole of negativity

One of the hardest things to do in the business is to stay positive about the craft. I'm the first to admit that I can easily fall into the pull of the negative energy in the office. So here's a post to reinforce a new effort to get more positive about as many things as possible. There's lots of new opportunities out there....but print is nearly as dead as the trees used to make it. Couldn't help it.

Dead Man Walking?

This chart is as frightening as the title of the article – The Newspaper Death Watch

It's the first in a series by Advertising Age magazine. Fantastic, can't wait for the others with cheery titles like that. There are serious problems for newspapers, what most would call a perfect storm. The broken business model includes but not limited to: fracturing advertising clientèle, readers jumping online, skyrocketing production costs, increased competition and lots of missed opportunities. There are still some golden opportunities for newspapers, the only catch is that they won't look much like a newspaper when they do finally change.

I think I'll go find some kittens or something to cheer me up now....

Your paper is in the mail

So let me get this straight, the newspaper -which already has information that is hours old and been updated several times on the web- is going to be delivered via snail mail? I could see this working for a weekly paper, but doubtful it will help any other papers. The Time Herald is a five-day-a-week paper by the way. One more win for the bean counters' shortsightedness.