Category Archives: Journalism, norgs, the future of news
Some recent innovation in blogging
The Permalinks for paragraphs over at Press Think (mouse over the end of any paragraph for the link).
More at Nieman Labs and Scripting News (who has had this for a long time).
Congrats to Jay Rosen on the relaunch of Press Think.
Data Journalism and Visualization with an Example
Guardian: Paul Bradshaw: “How to be a data journalist”
ProPublica: Jeff Larson: “The Rainbow Connection: How We Made Our CDO Connections Graphic” (tools mentioned: google-refine (formerly Gridworks), Raphaël, JSON)
Counting political party stories on Google News
I am *not* accusing anyone of coverage bias. I’d bet that Google News’s story inclusion algorithms probably reflect what people are linking to and discussing generally.
Google News: “Republican Party”: 11,579 stories
Google News: “Tea Party”: 22,977 stories
Google News: “Democratic Party”: 15,668 stories
Fascinating.
Memeorandum has become essential
I have been hard on Memeorandum in the past, believing that its story selection algorithm’s were too narrow, that it promoted a small subset of the Web, but just look at it. Look at it again.
Memeorandum is the only one stop shop on the Web to get exposed to both sides of the political conversation taking place. That admirable, helpful, and downright impressive. No one else does this and I am thankful I can go there each day to get a round up of what’s being discussed in the political sphere.
Interested in data and visualizations?
Check out the Guardian’s Datablog, and while you are at it, read/watch the Guardian’s Simon Rogers interview with Jonathan Stray of Nieman Journalism Labs on the rise of data journalism and the tools they use.
My first interview, “Huey & the Banjo”
Last week I took part in a project that led me to help interview a large group of great co-workers and friends at CIM. To get some practice, I stopped by Suburban Station to interview one of the musicians who play there and was in luck when I found Huey & the Banjo. Here is the interview, plus some performances:
YouTube: “Huey & the Banjo 7.27.2010”
For more information on Huey & the Banjo, you can contact him at hustonwest at live dot com
It’s not fun recording a bunch of video.. with no audio
Arg! The Kodak ZI8 doesn’t remember your microphone gain settings between power ups. Not a problem when you are using the internal microphone as it is sufficiently sensitive enough. But it is very noticeable if you are using an external microphone.
Lesson learned for the day.
Is this a ‘Have you no sense of decency momment?’
The Atlantic: James Fallows: “On Today’s Hot Media Stories: Sherrod, “Journolist”.
The only way it would be so is if we collectively stop watching, stop clicking, and stop linking to such witch hunts, such hatred, served in pursuit of traffic and ratings.
And you would think that by now, in our media-savvy land, we’d instinctively know that soundbites out of context lead to misunderstanding.
For a world of context from all sides, check out the Memeorandum thread.
Ethan Zuckerman at TEDGlobal on the challenge and opportunity
Interested in how information reaches those it needs to reach? Intersted in acts of journalism crossing cultural gulfs and divides? Interested in web services and connectivity? You will want to watch Ethan Zuckerman’s talk at TEDGlobal 2010 and I hope be inspired: “Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to global voices”:
Check out his ideas on how to use Twitter to open up your world.
Zuckerman and danah boyd are helping establish a reasoned view of the Web and its potential based upon its now decade-plus history. It is why I feel project’s like Zuckerman’s Global Voices are so important. Following is danah boyd’s talk at PDF 2009: “danah boyd – PdF2009 – The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online”:
Related:
Ethan Zuckerman’s transcription of the talk
danah boyd: transcription of her Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) 2009 talk: “The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online”
Clay Shirky: “Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality”
Guardian.co.uk: John Naughton: “The internet: Everything you ever need to know”
Previously:
“If you believe in The Long Tail, then stop saying the web is “flat” okay?”
“It exists, and its influence matters”
The call to action:
raise voices, go beyond babel, engineer serendipity, build bridges, cultivate xenophiles, rewire