Video blogs: The future of blogging?

Sitting in on a conference call with Philip Meyer (see previous post) the other day got me thinking about the future of journalism and online communication. Technology and the online environment are changing so rapidly that new archetypes are continuously emerging, Meyer said. He told the audience members to monitor these changes and be ready to join the companies that are leading the wave of innovation or to create your own company and start the next wave yourself. So with that in mind I ask you, Is this the next big thing in online communication? You be the judge.

Is a blogger a journalist?

If a reporter for one of the mainstream media discloses confidential material, such as information from a secret grand jury hearing, he is often afforded protection under his state's shield law (if his state has one). Shield laws protect reporters from having to reveal the sources of their information. And protecting sources is essential to a journalist's work. If a journalist cannot protect a source's wish for anonymity, that journalist loses credibility. He loses the trust of the source and ultimately the source will be reluctant to reveal confidential information in the future.

Build a reputation for doing right by your sources, Lance Williams, an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, said during the National Writers Workshop last weekend.

If journalists were to make a habit of turning over their anonymous tipsters whenever a investigative agency comes calling, it would undermine the industry as a whole and have a chilling effect on sources. Many of the stories that now make it into the papers would dry up.

Similarly if a journalist for a mainstream media outlet, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, finds himself being sued or being coerced by the government to reveal his sources, his deep-pocketed employer will often back him, paying what sometimes amounts to a small fortune in legal fees to protect the journalist. Such was the case with Williams, when a federal judge ordered him and his colleague Mark Fainaru-Wada to prison for as long as a year and a half. The jail time was seen as the only means of pressuring the reporters into revealing their sources of confidential grand jury testimony about star athletes' use of steroids. Williams said last weekend during the Writers Workshop that the Hearst Corporation, which owns the Chronicle, probably spent more than $2 million defending him and Fainaru-Wada. As a result, the two journalists never spent a day in prison.

But one of the fastest growing and most influential forms of communication out there receive no such protection: Blogging. So far the courts have been reluctant to grant bloggers protection under state shield laws and most bloggers don't have pockets that are deep enough to fund a protracted legal battle. Underscoring this point was the fact that a California judge last year ruled that three bloggers, who Apple Computer claims revealed trade secrets in their online publications, must reveal their anonymous sources.

Many feel this was the wrong decision. "There is no principled distinction between a New York Times reporter and a blogger for these purposes. Both operate as news sources for wide swaths of the general public," said Susan Crawford, a law professor at Cardozo law school of Yeshiva University (and a blogger).

Professor Philip Meyer (photo) of the University of North Carolina wrote last year that, "Traditional journalists should support them (bloggers). There is neither sound moral or legal justification for claiming that those who work for major news organizations have stronger First Amendment rights than the rest of us."

I happen to agree. These are heady times, times when so many precedents are being set and the future of these nascent online communication forms are being decided. The stakes are high and it's important that we get it right. In this case, the right thing is to afford bloggers more protection, not less.

On writing 2: Tips from the National Writers Workshop

It's Sunday, a short day at the Writers Workshop, but also one of the most helpful. The first speaker of the day was Naka Nathaniel, who specializes in new media for the New York Times. He was joined by Casey Parks, a J-school student from the University of Missouri Columbia, who accompanied Nicholas Kristof to Africa last fall. The talk was the most inspiring of the weekend. Not surprisingly their focus was on new media.

If you incorporate video and audio, your stories will practically sell themselves, Nathaniel told the crowd.

The talk really opened my eyes -- as well as the eyes of my cohorts -- to the phenomenal storytelling possibilities available to us. As we walked out of the session, Katie and I were both buzzing, talking about ways to tell our stories through video, audio and slideshows.

In addition to being inspirational, the talk was also practical. Nathaniel offered several suggestions for the fledgling new media journalist. In regards to software programs: Learn Audacity and Final Cut Pro. Soundslides is a good program for creating Web slideshows. Don't bother to learn Flash.

Nathaniel said that the media titans such as the New York Times and Washington Post are scrambling to find journalists with computer programming skills. If you have the opportunity, he suggested, take some computer science classes. If you needed any extra proof, Nathaniel mentioned the story of a University of North Carolina student who is about to receive a degree in journalism and computer science and is being pursued by the NYT, the Post and several other large media outlets.

Nathaniel also recommended journalists read University of Florida professor Mindy McAdams' blog to learn more about new media.

On writing: Tips from the National Writers Workshop

I’m up in Portland this weekend for the National Writers Workshop. It’s an important event, to be sure, filled with such notable journalists as Pulitzer Prize winners Jacqui Banaszynski and Diana Sugg, Mark Kramer, the founding director of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism, and Jack Hart, the venerable writing coach for the Oregonian. While the conference has been a little too newspaper-focused for my tastes, there’ve been several important lessons and reminders I’ve received – and that’s just in the first day.

Among the most advice was that of Jack Hart, who told the audience that a good narrative story requires more than just an interesting topic. A narrative story must have a theme. There must be a reason for writing about a topic, a big idea, a universal truth. “Say something important about how the world works.”

Hart gave the example of soccer moms. If you want to write about the topic, you’ll need a theme, which could be as simple as “Non-working mothers drive community.” Once you’ve got the universal truth or the theme, you can focus your writing and it won’t simply turn out to be a report about an interesting topic, which Hart said was just an invitation for a reporter to empty his notebook on the page.

Hart said he actually types the theme at the top of the page before writing and then keeps it there as a reminder until the first draft is complete.

Another helpful tip from Hart – if you’re looking for story ideas, you might try the book Famous First Facts. It’s apparently filled with exotic facts and stories.

From Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, investigative reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle and authors of the book Game of Shadows, when working on investigative stories, be explicit with the sources about what specifically you’re looking for. When you do, someone is likely to provide the information.

Deborah Nelson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1997, also offered up advice about investigative reporting. One of her best pieces of advice was to go to the subject of the investigation early on in the reporting and return often. They often prove to be one of the best sources of information for an investigative piece. If an individual or company is reticent, read them or e-mail them a draft of the story and tell them this is what the story is going to say unless I can get your side. They usually respond pretty quickly after that.

Finally, Nelson said that if you want to affect change with your stories, you’ll need to name names, name the policies that are at the heart of the matter and be specific. When you do this and write a compelling story some pretty amazing changes can occur.

Nelson also recommended the article “The Blood-Cancer Experiment” by Duff Wilson and David Heath, as an example of great investigative reporting and writing.

Well that’s all for tonight. But if tomorrow’s presenters are anywhere near as good as today’s I’ll have another installment of writing tips for you.

For more information on the National Writers Workshop or for tips on writing visit the Poynter Institute Web site.

This I believe ...

“Death Valley? Are you serious?” my girlfriend asked. “What could there possibly be in Death Valley that you’d want to see?”

“I don’t know, but I want to find out.”

This was how my cross-country road trip from California to Minnesota began. I couldn’t have envisioned, at the time, what lie ahead, but I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to find out.

The sun was rising as we drove into Death Valley that April morning, and in the slanted rays of dawn, the land was as pale as a corpse. Save the muted yellows and browns that color the hills, the land appeared bled of color. Tawny mountains surrounded the tabletop-flat valley, crouching on the horizon like enormous camels of rock, with myriad arms and legs emerging from the crags.

The early morning chill stilled the valley. Nothing stirred. The land was sucked free of sound. The growl of an approaching car could be heard for miles.

More wondrous than the absence of life on this scab of cracked earth, was the existence of it. The varieties were manifold: On a nearby hillside bighorn sheep, so emaciated and drawn that their ribs were visible through the snarl of matted fur, clacked across a field of sharp-edged rock. Finger-length fish wriggled about a scalding trickle of water snaking across the desert. More curious still were the wildflowers blooming across the desert floor. These brilliant, yellow survivors appeared so delicate that they might wither at the touch. In spite of the sun-scorched desert days, frigid night, winds that could bow an oak and a climate so arid it feels like inhaling cotton, they flourished.

Death Valley turned out to be the highlight of our trip across the West. The land was so magnificently bizarre that it was as if it had been plucked from one of Lewis Carroll’s reveries. The inscrutable mysteries of valley life and the absolute tranquility of the land stirred my imagination and my girlfriend’s as well.

“I would never have guessed Death Valley was so beautiful,” she said.

Few people do, I imagine. That’s a shame.

But that’s why I believe in exploring.

Prejudices and false impressions too often cause us to miss all the wonderful things the world has to offer. But when you open your mind to the possibilities and explore, you can discover some pretty magnificent things.

To hear the author reading his essay go to:

Gabcast! This I believe #1




To learn more about NPR’s This I Believe project go to: This I believe

This fish tells one heck of a story

Don't let this be the one that got away. Stanley Fish, a distinguished academic, dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of 10 books, writes a blog for the New York Times about politics and current events.

The blog, as it should, goes beyond the realm of typical mainstream media fare and provides thoughtful commentary on topical issues. His incisive blogs deftly blend the probing, analytical mind of an academic with the scintillating prose of an accomplished writer. His commentary is smart and clever and often employs cutting wit. Despite his lofty credentials, his style and voice is accessible. As a result his blog, I believe, caters to a wide and diverse readership.

The columns help readers deconstruct the politics and spin that pervade media today and help people put a frame on the issues of the day.

Take for instance his column on the Don Imus firing:

"Early on in the Don Imus firing controversy I took an abstinence pledge, vowing never to write anything about it. I now go back on that pledge, not because I have anything to say, but because there isn’t anything to say, although almost everybody in the world has been saying a great deal. What I mean is that there are no serious issues that might be appropriately – as opposed to opportunistically – attached to this incident. The story should not be filed under 'free speech' or 'racist speech' or 'the culture of indecency' or 'double standards'; it should be filed under 'blunders with unexpected consequences' ...

"In Mr. Imus’s case, what followed his disparaging of the Rutgers women basketball players was unanticipated not because he had intended no insult, but because intending insults has always been his line of work, and he had no reason to believe that this five-second instance of his ordinary practice would bring everything crashing down. Many commentators have said that Imus should have distinguished between his usual targets – Hollywood celebrities, politicians, sports icons – and 10 innocent and vulnerable young women. But this criticism assumes that behind what Imus said over the years was some kind of social or moral or philosophical calculation. There was nothing at all behind his daily performances; he was just occupying a professional niche – Don Rickles with a network – and doing exactly what he was paid to do."

I don't typically read many blogs during the day, but this one is a staple. Try reading it yourself and you'll get hooked too.

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/

A shortage of drummers

Is it true black people have an extra muscle in their calves?

Is it true you can tell the nationality of an Asian by the slant of their eyes?

What’s the typical night like in an African American home?

The questions sound conjured from a less-enlightened era, an era of ignorance and prejudice when Jim Crow was the law of the land and Separate but Equal was the country’s official creed. Sadly these are the curiosities of today’s enlightened society, having been posted on a race-related Web site. They are questions and sentiments that Leonard Pitts deals with on a daily basis.

Pitts, a Miami Herald Columnist who won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for social commentary, delivered the University of Oregon’s annual Ruhl Lecture, speaking eloquently and effectively about America’s “great conundrum” – race. Racism and ignorance thrive even today, Pitts said. “You cannot know unless you’ve experienced it (racism) how frustrating it is,” he said.

Pitts, who regularly writes about race in his syndicated column, related today’s situation with the slavery-era drums of centuries past. “The drum was the thing that connected us to one another … the way we told the stories that reminded us of who we were …” he said. “In the United States, in 2007, the sound of those drums is brought to us by the media. That’s where our stories are told.”

As evidenced by the above questions, it appears the media is drumming quite softly. Pitts challenged the crowd, which included a large contingent of journalism school faculty and students, to take up the mantle of leadership on the issue.

“As journalists, we are privileged to be the gatekeepers,” Pitts said. “We determine who’s drums will be heard.”

As an institution, journalism must listen for and describe the drumbeat of the races if we hope to erase the intolerance and ignorance that pervades our society.