Vox reporter Anna North recently found my blog post about setting up a landline phone for kids and decided to learn more. She ended up interviewing both me and my daughter about it, and the resulting article was published today:
It was so fun to hear Ava describe this experiment to a reporter, including the use of the words "cringe" and "old-timey."
Much has been said in recent weeks about how the news media will need to transform itself if it is to keep up with continued deception from a President Trump, and with the proliferation of so-called fake news.
I think it's true that journalists have an almost impossible-to-navigate obstacle course in front of them for the years ahead. Covering hard news, calling out lies and omissions while maintaining their access, not becoming the story, not becoming desensitized, and just generally being on top of the actions of an administration unconstrained by any reasonable standards of integrity or transparency will be all-consuming.
But perhaps the harder task falls to an American public whose media literacy has apparently wasted away under the relentless influence of social media, clickbait journalism, passive entertainment, substandard education, and general civic apathy. It may not matter how well-sourced, researched and fact-checked a news article might be if the average reader doesn't know how to distinguish it from a speculative, misleading or just plain fabricated piece published by someone trying to get rich quick or advance an agenda. It probably doesn't matter how much time and money a media organization invests in being seen as credible if there is no widely accepted and respected standard for credibility.
If the public continues to give our clicks, attention and dollars to the most salacious and distracting stories over ones that cover the complex substance of politics and governance, there may be little hope for a strong fourth estate.
Continue reading "Without media literacy, is there hope for the media?"
On The Media had an interesting segment in Friday's show discussing whether or not it's helpful or important to watch propaganda videos released by terrorist organizations. Here's the audio, or you can download the MP3:
The discussion touches on some thought-provoking questions, including what good is served by viewing the videos, and whether or not media organization should display or outright censor these videos in the first place.
Related, DecodeDC has an interesting episode on whether or not the U.S. has a responsibility to act against ISIS:
At the beginning of September, the Palladium-Item newspaper in Richmond implemented what many other newspapers have in recent years, a "paywall" that requires users to have a paid subscription when viewing more than a certain number of articles per month on the paper's website. The paper launched some new features with their digital subscription, including a tablet version and new mobile versions.
I think this approach is a great thing, and is probably something they should have done a long time ago. Here's why.
Tales of my recent encounters with two newspapers of note, The New York Times and The Palladium-Item:
According to The New York Times website, home delivery of their Sunday edition is available where I live in Richmond, Indiana. Earlier this year I tried to take them up on that, buying a subscription online and eagerly awaiting that first Sunday morning when I would get to indulge in a paper-reading experience long enough to get me through at least one cup of coffee.
But that first Sunday, the paper didn't show up. "Oh, yeah, that's probably just some issue getting you in the circulation system," the phone rep said when I called. "We'll get it to you next week."
Week two, no paper. "Sorry about that, don't know what happened there. Hold on while I call the distribution center." They concluded it was just another circulation issue, and assured me it had been straightened out for sure this time.
As a fun project a few weekends ago, I created the website 47374.info. It automatically pulls together news and headlines from a variety of different news sources in the Richmond/Wayne County Indiana area.
The site has a simple display of those headlines that's automatically updated as they're made available throughout the day, and you can click on them to go read the original content on the source site - that's about it. There's a mobile-friendly version at http://m.47374.info/ and you can also easily see some recent local tweets from Twitter. The site's still officially in beta but I've gotten some great feedback from test users so far.
I created 47374.info because I was tired of looking in a lot of different places to see what's making news in my community, or wondering if I'd missed something that was only announced on the very transient Twitter. Some news sources have lots of content but make getting to it hard or leave certain key things out. Other sources have a few juicy nuggets of relevant content once in a while but don't make updates available via RSS feeds, so you never quite know how often to check back.
So with the magic of WordPress plus some custom Perl scripts, I've restored some sanity to my news-reading time. For the first time in a long time, I've set a website (instead of a blank page) as the default "Home" page that opens when I launch my browser. Over the last few weeks, it's meant I'm more aware of community news, and I spend less time per day getting there.
Thanks to all of the local news/headline/event publishers that work to keep our community informed!
If you try out 47374.info and have feedback, drop me a line.
There's an interesting and sad article in today's Palladium-Item, Main Street struggles for survival. Articles like it are being written about struggling downtown areas across the country, so of course it's nothing new in "this economy," but because it's about the downtown in my community, I take special notice.
The article contains some interviews with downtown business owners, some perspective on the history of the Main Street organization there, and some talk of renewed activity from merchants and business owners (myself among them) in helping make the area thrive. But there's something missing from the picture the article paints.
Continue reading "Why can't those downtown merchants get it right?"
I believe the time has finally come to cancel my subscription to the local newspaper, The Palladium-Item. It's a decision I've wrestled with even as I've supported and found excitement in the possibilities for renewal at the paper (and blogged about some of that thinking here, here, here, and here), and it's not something I'll do lightly.
I've gone from subscribing to the paper seven days a week, to just the Friday/Saturday/Sunday package, to just the Sunday edition. Here's why I'm going to finally let go of receiving a print edition altogether:
Continue reading "Why I'm canceling my print newspaper subscription"
For over a year now, I've been living well without cable or broadcast television in my life. I thought I would share some thoughts on how that transition has gone, and some pointers to tools and technologies you might be interested in if you're on a similar path.
(Disclaimer: I'm not here to tell you how to live, but my general sense is that the world would be a better place if people didn't spend their time watching television. Period. That said, and the reality of TV watching as a cultural norm firmly in place for now, I continue with my narrative.)
The first stage in my transition away from "watching TV" was to get free of the notion that my schedule should ever revolve around the schedule of TV broadcasters.
Jason Truitt at the Richmond Palladium-Item has requested input from the paper's readers on its current strategic planning conversations, saying "we want to do a better news operation in 2010." As I've done in the past, I'd like to try to answer some of Jason's specific questions here, and while they're somewhat particular to our community, my recommendations might be useful for other papers too:
1. Watchdog journalism involves writing stories that hold public officials accountable for their actions or stories that help to right wrongs in the community, for example. In what ways could we improve in this area?
