Wednesday, February 8, 2006
They've just put up a downtown Burlington webcam at the Burlington Free Press website. Cool.
They've also got this deconstruction video — don't you mean demolition? destruction? — from the UVM Carrigan dairy building that went down this week. It's a Windows Media file. More like a TV news report than Channel-17 style uncut footage. I like it. It's building on this idea that for newspapers to survive, they have to become "community news organizations," like Michael Martine says.
Kudos to BFP online editor Allison Lazarz for making this happen.
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Just for fun — compare the Manchester, NH airport website and the Burlington International Airport website. Ok, ok, this isn't fair, because BTV's site is under construction. But don't you wish it looked like the Manchester site? I do.
Monday, February 6, 2006
Shot in the Dark is a compilation of photos shot by Myesha Gosselin. The feature appears in the print edition of Seven Days each week, on the inside back page of section A.
Feel free to use this thread to tell us what you think. We're still working out some kinks.
If anyone's still interested in the ongoing alt.weeklies vs. Craigslist conversation, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies has issued a press release of sorts. It pointed me to this great post by Anil Dash, VP at SixApart (which owns Typepad). If you're interested in this topic, it's worth reading. Much more so, in my opinion, than Jarvis at Buzzflash. An excerpt:
My advice? If you have a newspaper, publish something that's unique toyour community; Write something that nobody running a website on theother side of the country would have enough knowledge or information tocreate. Find a business model that makes your work seem valuableinstead of worthless. Free the smart, creative people on your editorialstaff to express themselves, especially online, without having to obeyseniority rules or arbitrary limits. And realize that the reason Craigis eating your lunch is not merely because his information is better,or because he cares about being online and you don't, but because he'sgiven people a place to connect with each other, instead of just beingpreached to by people too arrogant to stay curious.
Hard to argue with that. I should also point out that Seven Days is a real anomaly in the alt. weekly market. We don't do much national coverage — none, actually, if you don't include a couple columns. Almost everything we do is local. So some of his criticisms don't really apply to us. Good advice, though.
This happened on Saturday, but I was too busy taking my pregnant partner to the hospital (for a false alarm — no baby yet!) to notice. So I read this morning that PoliticsVT has suspended operations:
The last couple of days have been an interesting time for PoliticsVT, and an even more dismal time, at that.
Thisblog was created so that Vermonters could have a forum to debate theissues and keep themselves informed about our government. Inmy own, personal opinion – I believe that we have been successful. So,it was even more interesting when I received a phone call from ourfounder and former Bureau Chief, Cornelius “Con” Van Ness, asking whywe were not addressing the problem with the blog’s visitors.“
Youdon’t have to tolerate that kind of attitude from the bloggers. You aredoing something with your time and energy, and providing them withsomething that Vermonters can enjoy, if they don’t appreciate it, thanyou will have to make a decision whether or not they deserve it.”
Even more important, Con asked me a very simple question:
"Are you having any fun doing this, anymore?”
The answer, according to 6 of the 8 PoliticsVT contributors, was no. So the blog's on hiatus for a couple weeks, possibly longer, while these folks figure out if they want to continue.
My thoughts: First, a hearty thank you to the folks at PoliticsVT for their pro bono contributions to the political process.
Second, I'm disappointed that I can't find any links to the heated discussions they're talking about. I missed it. What happened?
Third, I want to agree with some of the commentors to this post that Politics VT should have treated their material from other news sources differently. They often reprinted entire articles from other sources. They attributed those articles, but if I recall correctly, they didn't link to the source websites. This was a mistake. It's bad form to reprint entire articles to begin with — you ought to stick to printing excerpts, and if readers want the full story, they follow the link. That drives traffic to the source website. It's just polite. And shorter posts make for a snappier site, in my opinion.
That said, I want to add my voice to those calling for PoliticsVT to return. Obviously people are reading it, and find it useful.
It's too bad that the writers are so affected by critical comments. Sure, they're hard to take — I know, I get them, too, and I've gotten more than a few negative letters to the editor in the paper over the years. But you're not blogging so people will like you, are you? If you're going to participate in the public conversation, you've got to get used to critical feedback (and it's especially critical online). I find that if I can sift out the malicious bloviating, I get some good suggestions I can use.
So get back in the game already, you anonymous ninnies! You're doing a good job.
Friday, February 3, 2006
This is completely off topic, but I can't help myself. You know how sometimes you're reading something online that leads you to something else, that leads you to something else, that leads you to... Nellie Oleson? Yep, Alison Arngrim, aka Nellie Oleson, has a website. She's now a stand-up comic, and does a one-woman show called "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch."
Her site is pretty basic, and it looks like she hasn't been keeping it up much, but there's some good stuff on there, especially for die-hard Little House fans like myself. There's even a "Don't Mess With Nellie" game.
I actually came across her site via something that someone wrote about the whole Cashman scandal. Apparently, Arngrim does volunteer work to with a group that advocates for stricter penalties for child molesters. She appeared on Larry King Live not long ago to admit that she had been molested as a kid. Very sad.
I wonder if her one-woman show is funny? It sounds funny. I would go, regardless. Alas, it's not playing anywhere nearby.
Thursday, February 2, 2006
Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine has singled out Seven Days in a post he made about alt. weeklies and Craigslist. Mostly, I think Jarvis is right when he talks about the way alt. weeklies are approaching Craig's business. We need to innovate, and we need to do it soon. Villifying Craig won't change that reality.
But I think this is wrong:
Let’s go look at Vermont’s alternative paper,Seven Days, which today is asking its readers to “send us your sexsecrets.” Well, I suppose that could build community, one birth at atime. I see them charging people to listen to personals on voicemail —a model that was outmoded 10 years ago. I see them charging notinsignificant rates for most classified categories. I don’t see anyopen exchange on their site, allowing the community to meet and share,not even any forums or community-run blogs.
OK, the part about the personals on voicemail is true (and I've heard rumors that that may be changing...) and what he says about classifieds is duly noted. But I say this blog counts as an "open exchange." No, it's not community-run, but it's community-driven. I link to every Vermonter who puts up a blog (that I know of), and I regularly link to and promote other local bloggers both online in the paper. I think what I'm doing builds community. And people are free to comment here about the paper, which they do on a fairly regular basis.
Heck, if people were blogging about the paper, I'd link to and respond to that.
Please, readers, feel free to comment here with questions/concerns about the paper. Do I need to make that any clearer? And feel free to comment on Buzz Machine if you feel so moved. I did.
And hey — didn't people like the sex survey? Readers consistenly tell us it's one of their favorite features. I thought this one was pretty good.
In a News Journal op-ed, reporter Al Mascitti sort of defends fired Dover Post reporter Matt Donegan. He also includes an interview with the Post's editor, Don Flood. Flood explains why he fired Donegan:
"Delaware is a small place," Flood said... "I knew this was going toget out there. I couldn't very well have Matt cover [an event such as]an NAACP meeting. If they objected, I couldn't very well say, 'Hey, youhave to lighten up a little bit.' "
The greater sin, Flood said,involved the publishing of newsroom meetings. "I can't have somebodydiscussing comments in the office about some of the stories we're goingto cover, and reasons we may or may not cover them."
But Mascitti concludes by saying he can understand why bloggers are upset. The internet, he points out, is one of the last places people have freedom of speech. He cites Cindy Sheehan's ridiculous arrest at the state of the union as evidence that our freedom of speech is eroding.
Ok, let me be clear. I agree that our freedom of speech in this country is imperiled. No argument there. But I don't have a lot of sympathy for this guy. Are any of us entitled to say whatever we want on our blogs regardless of how that will impact our employers? Unless our employers know and approve, I don't think we are. You wouldn't stand in front of your boss and badmouth your company and your job. You wouldn't badmouth the company on TV or in the newspaper and still expect to have a job. Why would you think you could do that online? Bloggers have to use common sense, just like anybody else. Maybe the courts will decide otherwise, but I doubt it.
That editor is absolutely right to ask how readers would feel if that reporter covered an NAACP meeting. That's a legitimate concern. Believe me, if I found out that a Burlington Free Press reporter talked about his job on some racy blog using his or her real name, I think that would be news. Likewise, if I found a blog by a Burlington cop, or an elected official, or a teacher that was racist or homophobic or pornographic, I would point it out. If you're putting one face out to the public, it's news when you show a different face online. Period.
That said, it's worth noting that the editor could have avoided this whole kerfuffle if he had known about Donegan's blog and talked with him about it. Why didn't the editor have a blogging policy in place? Why didn't he talk about online publishing etiquette with his staff? I'm sure they talked about the protocol for writing for other publications. It just boggles my mind that people in the media don't think about this.
There's a good interview with citizen media pioneer Dan Gillmor on PBS' new blog, Media Shift (which, by the way, is a great resource).
Gillmor, remember, left his tech writer job at the San Jose Mercury News to start Bayosphere, a San Fransisco area citizen media site. Last week, he published a letter on the site to Bayosphere readers, explaining why the site had pretty much failed to meet expectations. Now Mark Glaser at Media Shift asks him about his new nonprofit Center for Citizen Media.
Gillmor says his center will provide research and analysis for citizen media projects, will help identify best practices (yay! standards!), and will do public education and outreach. That, I think, is the biggest hurdle to citizen media operations. Most Americans just do not get it ... yet. The public in general has to be much more technologically literate than they are to understand what citizen media is, and how (and why) they should participate.
And, of course, it's not just "the readers" who need education. From the interview:
Q: What are the biggest challenges for running a citizen media operation, either independently or within a news organization?
Gillmor: This is a long, long topic. My recent posting discusses howone independent site saw it. I still believe big news organizationscould thrive in this environment, given their historical and currentreach in their communities. For reasons that elude me they’re basicallynot trying.
The biggest challenge for everyone in this space is keeping our eyeon something crucial: This is all about shifting from the lecturetoward a conversation [emphasis mine]— and also remembering what I’ve been calling thefirst rule of conversations: You have to listen. We all have things tooffer, but we all have more to learn.
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Matt Donegan, 24, a copy editor for the reporter for the Dover Post, was fired from his job Monday for posts he made to his personal blog. I found this article explaining the situation. Apparently, the Post editors canned him after somebody who read his Myspace site called in to a talk radio program to complain about it.
The complainers say that Donegan made offensive remarks. Here's what's being billed as the worst of them:
The blog features many sexual references, along with a complaintabout Donegan's black neighbors partying late into the night Jan. 15because they didn't have to get up for work the following day: MartinLuther King Jr. Day.
"I bet James Earl Ray [King's assassin] waswoken up by black people yelling pointlessly in the streets the nightbefore he killed your civil rights leader," Donegan wrote.
But Donegan says it was all a joke. He says he's not a racist. He points to other satirical comments on his site, and says he's just goofing around. He says the paper violated his right to free speech when it canned him. Hmmm. I wonder if they had a blogging policy at the Dover Post?
I have two comments about this situation. First of all, what a dumbass. The guy works in media and hasn't figured out that anything he writes online can be traced back to him? And he thinks his employers won't care? Gimme a break. Should he have been fired? I don't think I know enough about his relationship with his editors or his work at the paper or his attitude to venture an opinion. But what he did was unprofessional. And truly stupid.
BUT... he brings up an interesting point in a blog post about his termination. He points out that he does, in fact, have a growing audience for his ramblings.
It feels great to have people read what I write; you know, the things that aren't about Capital School Districts financial troubles or goats with No. 3 bleached into their hair by rednecks. Writing that kind of drivel is just about as interesting as reading it — which is not at all.
I think observations like this make media watchers nervous. When gutsy, clever and interesting writers leave newspapers (or get fired) in favor of finding their own audiences online, who will report the "boring" news in the newspapers? More importantly, who will read the papers? Who will pay for the papers?
I think this guy sounds like an asshole, but he's not a bad writer. He might still have a future in journalism. Just maybe not in the newspaper biz.
UPDATE 2/2/05: I take back what I said about not having a future in the newspaper biz. He could write for an edgy alt. weekly... if he wised up and either got permission from his editors to blog, or worked out a deal where they let him do whatever the hell he wants.
One of my editors just forwarded me an email she got from Donegan, who is actively shopping himself and his story to alt. weekly editors. Smart guy. Sounds like he's both looking for a job, and looking for some sympathetic coverage. He says he's contacted a bunch of civil rights orgs and prominent bloggers to take up his case.
And he writes, "While Delaware is a "fire-at-will" state, it's absurd to think someone could be canned for something like this." Well, it might seem absurd, but it's happened many times before, and it will happen again, until people learn that they'll be held accountable for what they publish online. You'd think that with all the media coverage of people GETTING FIRED FROM THEIR JOBS FOR BLOGGING, any reporter worth his notebook might have learned that if you want to avoid this mess, you use a pseudonym. Or at the very least, talk to your boss, find out what the blogging policy is, and work out some kind of understanding.