A day in Savannah

I got to Savannah around 5pm...I was really excited about getting to the hotel. I got a great deal on Priceline, and wanted to know exactly what I was in for $79/night. The result? AWESOME!

I'm right next to City Hall - the picture to the left was taken from my room - *and* I can see the river from my window (although I kind of have to crane my head a tiny bit.)

They told me that they can park my car for me...for $18/day. They do valet only, they told me...and parking is tricky in these parts. I later discovered that there is a lot next door that I can park in for free until 8am, and then renew my parking spot for 5 hours for $3.50...kind of seems worth waking up at 8am to save $15...especially since there are so many other things to spend that money on.

I dropped off my bags, and realized that I was a little short on clothes. I suddenly realized that I'd *planned* on bringing several shirts that I had hanging on hangers...but I left those hangers in the closet and only brought the bag I'd packed. So...I had plenty of underwear, jeans, shoes, socks, and everything EXCEPT for shirts. I'd noticed a cool second-hand clothing store (named 'The Clothing Warehouse') on my drive in, and tracked the place down and asked the guy there for some suggestions. I soon walked out with a couple changes of clothes to last me well for the next couple days of eating and drinking.

I was told to head to Jekyll Island because there's an amazing restaurant at the end of a pier there that serves amazing crab. I'm from Maryland, and telling me that there's a place to get fresh crab is all you need to say...so, obviously, that was my next stop.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that Jekyll Island is a 90 minute drive from here...but, the promise of delicious crab at the end of a quaint pier was too much to ignore.

I worked my way down I-95 and finally got to Jekyll Island. I'm sure the place is picturesque, but it's really hard to tell in the dark...but I didn't care. I only barely noticed the ratty little barbecue joint as I drove in towards the island. I followed the directions on my TomTom and got closer and closer to the fabled unnamed restaurant at the end of the pier.

On arriving at Jekyll Island I met the toll-taker who looked crestfallen as I told her what I was in search of. She was able to give me directions but had some bad news. I drove to make sure...and she was right.

The "Rah" Bar is closed on Mondays...as are most restaurants on Jekyll Island. Suck.

I remembered that little BBQ place I saw on my drive in, and the thought of tasty, smoky, sweet barbecue really started to make my mouth water. I remembered that column of smoke rising from the place, and realized that my proximity to Brunswick, Georgia almost ensured that I was in store for a really great meal.

However, as I arrived at that little barbecue place, I noticed the plume of smoke was gone...as were any cars in the parking lot. I parked and went to the front door...the sign read that they closed at 8pm. It was 7:58 by my clock...but the place was abandoned, locked, and empty.

I hoped that the TomTom would be able to help me find some sort of barbecue *somewhere* in Brunswick...but, don't be fooled. Brunswick, Georgia closes at 8pm...except for one place: The New China Restaurant. I hadn't eaten almost all day...and there's nothing better than salty Wonton soup and super-sweet tea when you're desperate for food.

I made my way back to Savannah and got back to the hotel, and realized (after parking) that there were two bars just across the street. I walked into 'Moon River' and asked when last call was. I was told it was half an hour ago...then asked what I wanted drink. The place was still stacked with at least a dozed suit-clad big-spending conventioneers...and the bartender was not at all anxious to kick *them* out...so his patience was my gain. I got a drink and a shot, and settled next to a girl in a hockey sweatshirt reading the New York Times.

She was homely and seemed Canadian...but she was really from New England. She used to be a US Marine, but now works at a funky lunch place...and is studying historical preservation. Her skill at conversation was obviously adapted from her training at recruiting agents...so it was a lot of pushing for details and little rapport-building.

I closed my tab, and wandered my way down Whitaker street and found a couple people sitting in a dimly lit bar sipping on drinks and listening to recorded jazz music. The place was named "Circa 1875"...I'm guessing that's from the date on the liquor license posted on the wall. I grabbed a Stella Artois and talked to a couple of sous-chefs from the area. We did shots (them Jameson, me Firefly) and talked about the area, places to eat, and how the economy is treating everyone. I learned that a restaurant named Garibaldi's may be the pace to go for local seafood...and, on my way back to the hotel, found out that Paula Deen's restaurant is just two blocks from here.

I've got a rough itinerary for tomorrow...but I guess we'll see what happens...time to go to bed.

Being a journalist means being a marketer too?

Just finished 'The End of Journalism as Usual' by Mark Briggs in the Nieman Reports, and he makes a fascinating point about the future of journalism.

He references the blog Techcrunch and says that after just two years their coverage of technology has eclipsed the readership of similar coverage by the New York Times and bay area news outlets because they focused on their marketable content; directed it at a market segment that wanted it, and sold advertising to that market.

To some journalists the idea of thinking of targeted content and marketing detracts from the purity and truth-seeking that brought them in to journalism in the first place. However, Briggs issues a response to that line of thinking:

Digital entrepreneur Elizabeth Osder visited the University of Southern California last fall and spoke frankly to journalism students about this new environment, according to a summary posted by Online Journalism Review. She presented the following recipe for entrepreneurial journalism:

Start with the impact you want to have. Figure out what audience you need to assemble to have that impact and what kind of content is needed to do that. Then price it out: How much money do you need to do it?

After one student complained that this felt too much like business school, Osder defended the new approach as bringing to them a necessary discipline. “It forces you to be relevant and useful versus arrogant and entitled,” Osder replied.

What do you think? Do you think learning the additional skills required to make being a journalist a viable business is necessary, or does it take away from the purity of the job?

Buffalo Plane Crash

A couple quick thoughts on the tragic plane crash in Buffalo from Thursday:

For as connected and technological as our society is, it's amazing to me that the mainstream media didn't pick up on this story for well over 90 minutes. The story was covered by local affiliates, specialty websites, and Twitter well before the major networks even touched it. Why?? That's a question those networks will work to answer in the coming days and weeks

Miles O'Brien was let go by CNN late last year as part of a reorganization effort. To get into whether that was a good or bad decision is something for other people to answer...though I will say his thoughtful perspective on the incident is sorely missed in network coverage of this disaster.

F*** My Life

It's Friday, which means it's time for something a little off-the-wall and amusing.

FMyLife.com is a website of people complaining about unfortunate things that happened to them. It's a sort of one-ups-man-ship competition based on who had the worst experience. The content varies in terms of subject matter. Some of the posts are sexual in nature:

Today, I was having sex with a girl. After we finished she proceeded to tell me she already had a boyfriend and that his penis was larger then mine. FML.

some are disgusting:

Today, I bit into a cereal bar and thought the inside was oddly damp. I took a look at it and saw a maggot worm wriggling around. Its friend was in my mouth. FML.

some are sad:

Today, I called my dad to inform him I was coming home from college for the weekend. Expecting him to be excited, he responded with "why?" This weekend was my birthday. FML.

and some are just plain pathetic:

Today, this guy took me to Denny's on a first date and used a 2 for 1 coupon. It was expired. I paid. FML.


A good bit of the content is NSFW, but it's guaranteed to provide a little chuckle (or at least make you feel a bit better about yourself.

(thanks to Jason Reid for the suggestion)

Twitter fight!!

If you're a TV assignment editor like me (especially in local news), then you've definitely encountered a public relations call or two.

Here's the drill: the PR person wants you to do a story on the product or service they are publicizing, and you want to do stories about things that are unbiased and newsworthy. Rarely do those two roads meet...though, to be fair, sometimes they do.

Normally the call will consist of some poor, underpaid intern who's been handed a script and told to call hundreds of TV stations in the country they have on a list...that person doesn't particularly care about the product or service, nor can they speak intelligently about the subject. They just want you to downlink whatever feed is going out so the company they're representing gets advertising without paying for it.

This isn't to say that there aren't smart, savvy, helpful, friendly, and awesome PR people in the world (I've known several)...but it *is* to say that they are the exception to the rule.

A time when those excellent PR people can come in handy is when you need comment on something from an expert in a REALLY SHORT TIME FRAME. TV news works fast, and calling back the next day isn't good enough...especially in local.

So, reading this outburst from a media guy towards a PR person, I can start to understand where he's coming from. She (in his mind) had all the time in the world when she needed him to do some story about her product or service...but when he needed her to help out with comment on something, she was nowhere to be found.

However, where he handled it (on Twitter) and the way he went about it (by being a jerk and using a lot of profanity) are just downright stupid.

Check it out for yourself.

Have you been on either end of this kind of phone call? Does he deserve to be called out like this (especialy since he took down the offensive messages soon after sending them)? Leave me a comment and tell me what YOU think!

Big thanks to my coworker Gary Bender (@GLBcnn) for pointing out this story.

(Original source: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%40aprildunford)

Candyland versus Mario

I've mentioned before how awesome Steven Johnson is, but I think this particular blog post exemplifies how adept and fascinating Johnson's worldview is.

In this guest spot for Boingboing he discusses playing video games with his kids, then trying to introduce the games he played as a youth (Battleship, Candyland, and Sorry! for example) to his own children. The generation gap becomes rapidly apparent...and argues even more forcefully that kids today aren't dumber than those of previous generations (though they may not be in the best shape ever - childhood obesity has doubled over the past 20 years). In fact, the torrent of media that they endure on a daily basis has made them exceptional at multi-tasking and quite media savvy when it comes to advertising and biased messages.

It used to be that the advertisers tried to be one step ahead of the consumer, or that they always underestimated their intelligence. What's going to happen when those consumers haven't started high school, and easily see through the thinly-veiled product propaganda of most of today's Madison Avenue?

They're really watching us...

Yesterday was somewhat newsworthy for the first press conference by Barack Obama, but what was significantly more important is that he took a question from Sam Stein.

As the New York Times reported, Sam Stein is a reporter for The Huffington Post, and may go down in history for being one of the first blog reporters to ask a question during a network televised press conference with the president. It's a huge moment for the legitimacy of new media...but not the first in this venue.

My co-worker Devon Sayers would be quick to point out that, though his question may have been heard round the world, it was Politico who made the first real dent in that glass ceiling.

There are two main seating areas for the daily news conferences, one for the mainstream media outlets (the room you see the press secretary, or their designate, speaking to every weekday - seen on the left) and a second overflow room. Politico just last year became the first media outlet that exists solely on the web to get a seat in the main daily briefing room.

That said, the continued evolution of online-only properties as a legitimate news source is a fascinating trend. In local news, the generally-accepted belief is that people under the age of 35 don't care about local news. The average age of network news viewers is in the 50s or 60s...will the upcoming generation of news consumers develop to embrace solely online content? And, if so, what does that mean for the traditional media outlets?

The story of imeem...and why you should use it

Remember Napster?

Napster was the first popular digital music service that brought people to the web for the explicit purpose of downloading and listening to free music. For an 18 month period (from 1999 to 2001) it was a magical place - for the very first time any music by any artist could be found and downloaded for free. There'd been nothing like it before. It was the first time people began to see the opportunity for free content distribution that the web could provide.

Napster (in its original form) was shut down by legal challenges in 2001, due in no small part to the band Metallica realizing that people were getting their music without paying for it.

A contingent of programmers who worked on Napster started imeem...a social networking/music website that has one big change from Napster. Though you can also find almost every song ever written on imeem (much like Napster) this time you can listen to them with the blessing of the four major record labels (Sony/BMG, EMI, Vivendi/Universal and Warner Music Group).

Of course there are other differences: imeem allows you to befriend your favorite bands and meet other people who are into the same music you are; imeem allows to listen to your favorite music anywhere you can access the internet, and imeem allows you to create playlists for other people to enjoy. In essence it's a grown-up, officially sanctioned Napster.

That said...what's to stop people from downloading music off of BitTorrent?

Where do you get your music? Lemme know in the comments below...

Nieman Reports Continued

I've continued reading the Nieman Reports from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard...and came across the following two interesting quotes:

Indeed, slick production has become so closely associated in their minds with cynical storytelling that they now prefer video reports with a more amateur feel. And something similar is happening in print media; there, readers fear they aren’t getting the “real” story from professional reporters who aren’t allowed to draw conclusions and “tell them the truth.” Instead, they prefer bloggers and those who join in discussions online who are not constrained by “fairness” from calling a liar just that, especially when those writers follow their passion to develop the expertise necessary to make such calls. - Robert Niles in Passion Replaces the Dullness of an Overused Journalistic Formula

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

News consumption fares no better, according to a small but in-depth recent study of 18- to 34-year-olds commissioned by The Associated Press. The 18 participants, who were tracked by ethnographers for days, consumed a “steady diet of bite-size pieces of news,” almost always while multitasking. Their news consumption was often “shallow and erratic,” even as they yearned to go beyond the brief and often repetitive headlines and updates that barraged them daily. Participants “appeared debilitated by information overload and unsatisfying news experiences,” researchers observed. Moreover, “when the news wore them down, participants in the study showed a tendency to passively receive versus actively seek news.”

This is a disturbing portrait: multitasking consumers uneasily “snacking” on headlines, stuck on the surface of the news, unable to turn information into knowledge.
(cited by Maggie Jackson in Distracted: The New News World and the Fate of Attention)

The Philip DeFranco show

Twenty-three year-old Philip DeFranco (AKA sxephil) has been doing his brand of online newscast since 2006...and it's led to a considerable bit of success.

Each newscast is honest, funny, fast-paced and entertaining: there's a little editorializing, a genuine request for viewer interaction, and review of the big stories of the day told mostly WITHOUT B-Roll!

Though these webcasts violate the gospel rules of TV news (speak slowly, avois bias, use pictures to tell the story) he's extremely popular. His newscasts have totalled over 11 million views (the 'cast embedded below had nearly 400K views in only 3 days) and he's the 9th most subscribed YouTube submitter of all time (and the leading news submitter, unless you count the What The Buck Show, which focuses mainly on celebrity news.)

The show has popular current stories, and includes links that allow viewers to go more in depth if they so choose. They cover some hard news, but mostly the talkers of the the day...and the format allows each show to be produced quickly...making them very topical. In addition to the YouTube platform, he has his own blog where content that compliments the show is posted.

Maybe this is the next iteration in the marriage of news, entertainment, and the internet? Take a look and tell me what you think:

Rides of State

It’s Friday again, which means it’s time for something fun and random from the web.

Not to worry, I’ve been delving deeper into the Nieman Reports, and I’ll have a lot more great content and notes from that in the coming days, but today I wanted to shine the spotlight onto the most original and interesting thing I’ve found this week.

The author of the blog Tamerlane’s Thoughts, named only as “kashgar216” decided to compile a list of the vehicles driven by the heads of state of every nation in the United Nations…all 196 of them.

The project took him to obscure media outlets, propaganda videos, and a good amount of detective work. This wasn’t a quick, fly-by night project (as evidenced by sentences like “After examining the roofline, the shape of the rear view mirror, and the shape of the headrest, I have concluded that this is a Merc S-class.”)

The collection is pretty impressive, and just more evidence that if you’ve ever wondered about anything in the world, there’s some guy somewhere on the internet who has likely figured out the answer.

Parents Just Don't Understand

A favorite segment of mine on Collegehumor.com is titled "Parents Just Don't Understand." It's authored by Susanna Wolff and outlines brief stories from college-aged submitters. The stories outline the fundamental differences in the understanding of technology between the baby-boomer generation, and the tech-savvy kids of today. Here are a few eye-opening entries:

I caught my father on Google the other day typing in "show me snow machines". I later found out that he starts any and all searches with the words "show me", or "I want to see".
Kayla-Rose Kirkland

My mom called me over because every time she plugged in her mp3 player the computer "froze" and when she unplugged it it worked again. I asked her to show me so she bent down, unplugged the mouse, plugged in her mp3, then when she moved the mouse and nothing happened said, "See?"
Nick Calenti, Arizona State

I made the mistake of trying to explain Wikipedia to my grandmother. She's now convinced that anybody can modify any website at will, and she won't use Weather.com anymore because she's worried that vandals will change the temperature on her.
Jeff C.

My mom won't make a cell phone call unless her charger is plugged into it. She thinks that it changes to a land line and she gets 'way better reception'.
Aaron Thompson

My mom didn't want my younger brother to make a MySpace for fear of Child molesters, but finally she decided to let him make one. That same day she made him take it off because a man named "Tom" had hacked into his account and added himself as a friend. She made me e-mail MySpace to let them know of a possible child molester.
Alex J., Dickinson College

My sister got an iPod for Christmas. My dad said he wants an iPod so that he can listen to mp3s while he plays solitaire on the computer.
Shawn Cullen, U.M. Rolla

My mom asked to see my pictures on Facebook. I thought about all the drinking pictures that are on it and then I thought about my mom's computer skills. So I said, if you can find them by yourself, sure. I came back 5 minutes later and she had an empty Microsoft word document up. I think I'm safe.
C Murphy, Salisbury

When my mom tries calling my cell and I don't have it on, she'll send me text messages saying, "Turn on your phone."
Andrea Gutierrez

My mom won't scroll down on Youtube videos because she thinks then she won't be able to hear them.
Tim F, UConn

My high school Spanish teacher, on multiple occasions, has been known to photocopy blank pieces of paper in order to get more blank pieces of paper. She's completely oblivious to the fact that you can open the copier to take out the paper.
Jared Kent, Johnson & Wales University

My Mom became a fanatic about the cleanliness of our front yard at home. I couldn't even walk outside when I was at home in my pajamas. When I asked her why she, all of a sudden, cared about our front yard, she replied that the "Google Earth people" would see and post it on their web site.
Katie Phillips, Virginia Commonwealth University

Does Social Media Have a Place in Journalism?

TV has always been accepted as a tool for entertainment, so TV news adopting the tools of online media doesn't really seem too big a stretch...but newspapers have always been a bastion of old-school journalism.

To TV people, newspapers have a reputation for being staid, slow-moving and slow to react. Newspapers have extensive planning operations, and TV news has to be able to move with the immediate changes to a story.

This piece, then, from a staff member of one of the largest newspapers (The Chicago Tribune) discussing the usefulness of social media is refreshing. Not only refreshing in that it shows a gr0wing acceptance of the usefulness of emerging online media...but especially so since that it outlines a plan they implemented to create an online social media identity for their operation.

So, how did this little foray into social media turn out? According to the author, Bill Adee, the "goal for [the project] was one million page views a month. By June, at its peak, it was doing more than six times that number."

The project continues with permanent funding.

There's an enormous opportunity for media outlets...and they can either buy-in now while the price is low, or be forced to play catch-up in the years to come.

One BILLLLLion Dollars

With so much talk of financial bailouts, its hard to completely grasp exactly how much money $1 Billion really is. That's part of the point of this installation by Michael Marcovici. Check out this link from Geekologie for more...

The uses of Twitter

Twitter is being used in more inventive ways all the time. Amanda Congdon, formerly of Rocketboom.com has a Twitter feed that informs subscribers when she’s doing her next live online broadcast or has posted new content to her website. iJustine uses it in the same way…although iJustine extends the reach and content of her Twitter account by using associated applications (like Twitpic) that allow her to link to pictures she takes while out in the world. It's much more work than I'd ever do...though I too have a Twitter account I update from time to time.

Some uses are incredibly helpful for newsgathering: The Alaska Volcano Observatory is the scientific outpost currently monitoring the situation at Mt. Redoubt…a volcano that is likely to erupt over the next days or weeks. In addition, public safety agencies (like the Scottsdale, AZ Police Department or the LA Fire Department) have been getting on Twitter as a way to distribute small bits of vital information to several media outlets quickly and simultaneously.

However, other uses are not nearly as pragmatic…the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a story this morning about Gen. Lee Beauregard’s Twitter page. General Beauregard is no military hero mind you…he’s Georgia’s groundhog answer to Punxsutawney Phil.

This is yet another example that the development of new technology and the uses for that technology often develop independently of each other.

Super Bowl Ads

The story tomorrow, now that today's game is over, is more likely to be the super bowl ads.

I noticed a few of ads that were from solely online properties (cars.com; ETrade, GoDaddy, Priceline, Monster, Careerbuilder, and Cash4Gold on just a cursory inspection) and wonder whether that is likely to increase or decrease as our economy continues to develop.

I'm sure there were many more ads for online properties in some past super bowls (the year or two right before the dot-com bubble burst comes to mind) but the continued development and expansion into the community subconscious is a telling sign of things to come in the future.

That said...let's see the ads. The good people at fanhouse.com have already ensured that they are all visible online and broken down by quarters of the game.

(my personal favorite is this one)

http://superbowlads.fanhouse.com/