Merrill Brown Addresses the Masses

And by masses, I mean an intelligent, intimate group of Cronkite School faculty and students.

Brown founded Court TV and msnbc.com before taking up the cross of launching News21, a program of the Carnegie-Knight Foundation, which we at ASU are a part of.

Now, he has taken on the daunting task of figuring out how journalists can make money online.  He’s working with  Gordon Crovitz & Steve Brill for the startup company “Journalism Online, LLC.”   The business will provide a service for newspapers, magazines and other journalistic organizations that will teach them how to implement tools to make users pay for content.

It’s our goal to create an environment for data sharing,  Brown says.

Tim McGuire, former editor and senior vice president of the Minneapolis Star  Tribune,  says Merrill is much more clear about what Journalism Onliine is.  Prior to this discussion, McGuire felt the company’s mission statement was unclear.

Dan Gilmoor wants to know why the company isn’t more uptodate with what they’re doing, why the world doesn’t get what’s going on.

Brown says that the company is in its 7th week and still figuring things out as it goes.  Unfortunately,there is a serious lack of data on this subject.  He says they are starting a conversation that should have been started 10 years ago.

Legal issues are “complicated, archane and difficult.”  The definition of fair use is an evolving one, and it is evolving now, according to Brown.

Mcguire wants to remember for that 340,000 ppl in the Phoenix-metro area still get a print version of the Republic and that cannot be ignored (business model?)

Brown is adamant that it would really bother him if what they created became a way for publishers to cop out of reinvention.

When asked if  he thought endowments were a viable option for long-term sustainability,  Brown responded,  that they are  “a way to underwrite new ideas and push them towards sustainability… long term, these endowed ideas still have to develop business models and strategies.”

Spotlight on Bill Gannon

LucasFilm’s Bill Gannon had a quick chat with Cronkite grad students yesterday and offered his thoughts on life, love and the pursuit of happiness…

He attributes his jump on the Internet bandwagon to Dan Gilmoor’s columns in the San Jose Mercury News back in the Mid-90s.  Prior to that, he was well-traveled in the print journalism world, covering all sorts of conflict all over the world.

He went to Yahoo in 2003 where he directed the efforts of the Home Page.  During Hurricane Katrina, he pulled all advertisements off  the page and worked with a Baton Rouge TV station to stream a live feed on yahoo.com of the news coming out of that station.  His colleagues affectionately began calling him the 7-million-dollar-man, because he cost the company that much in advertising. He also spearheaded efforts for online donations to victims, where Yahoo was able to raise 72 million dollars in 3 weeks. On top of that, his idea for a People-Connection is what brought about the David Filo programming codes that were able to help people find information on missing family and friends.

Now at LucasFilm, he is working to create/sustain/recharge the brand, focused mainly on the Star Wars and Indiana Jones product lines.

His Q&A session was fabulous.  He didn’t mince words and advised students about to graduate to do the following things:

1.  Have a conversation with Dan Gillmoor. Tap into the resources that the ASU faculty can provide.  He definitely believes that the Walter Cronkite School is better than Berkeley, where he taught.

2. Have conversation with each other. He doesn’t think students do enough of this and believes we have a lot to offer each other.

3. Master all the technical skills you can. Blog, Twitter, Flash, Dreamweaver… Learn it all and use it. It’s not going anywhere.

Livebloggin: Scott Rosenberg, formerly of Salon.com

Q & A Time:

Q: Does Salon have a viable business model for an online magazine?

A:  No, not really.  While Salon became a public company in 1999 and has stock options that bring in an annual stream of money, they are still operating in the red, which is being made up by several investors.  The frustration in not having a better business plan is what eventually led to Scott leaving Salon.

Q:  Who do you think is out there that Salon shares a segment with?

A: Slate.com came along about 6 months after we did and they were the closest competitor.  It was a problem for business people too, because what does online media mean? C-net and cnn.com? Yes, in a sense, but also no.  We could say we were unique because we were doing our own writing.

Q: What should journalism schools do to incorporate online with everything else?

A:  Propogation of ideas.

Q: How did you decide your target audience and how did you get the word out?

A: The target audience is “we have no idea.”  At the beginning, the founders of salon.com were not totally sure and looking to create a publication where they could do the work they loved to do and had a “vague notion” that there was a smart audience out there for that.  At that point in time, no one really knew how to target on the web. Turned out to be a semi-upscale news magazine, slightly older, slightly more affluent demographic.

Getting the word out came a bit easier. It was covered in the business section of the New York Times.  However, that was not how they got their traffic.  Links are the most effective way to get traffic.  During the dotcom bubble they did some advertising in television, but Scott doesn’t find it very effective.

If he was doing it today, Scott would still focus on links, but also work to get people to Twitter about it, as well as getting mentioned in blogs and on Digg.

You have to find influential people who are already online in the area you’re working in, to promote your project for you.

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Scott’s book, on the history of blogging, is due out in August.  He sees blogging as a spectrum, from a personal diary to political commentary. It covers all aspects of online expression.

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Journalism has to be interactive when it’s online.

Scott doesn’t understand the notion that being in touch with the readers would compromise the credability of your writing.

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80 percent of the activity of people online is email/chat/social networking… essentially, people interacting with other people.

Journalism falls within a fraction of the other 20 percent.

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Six journalists to 1 Business person:  The ratio meant that the writers would have to give up previous notions that journalists had a duty not to worry about the business side of things.

Scott says originally he called Salon an “involuntary non-profit.”

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Salon.com was first launched in November 1995.  Scott says the journalism was the easy part. Everyone on board was familiar with writing and editing, and had been doing it for years.

“Dealing with the web was not as difficult as you might think back then… It was fun. It was a challenge, but it was fun.”

“The hard part was the business part.” 

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 Salon.com is an online newsroom that has been around for 10 years.  It is solely an internet venture and possibly the way of the News future?

Scott was on the “first boat” of the news migration to the internet. It started in 1994 when the San Francisco area was putting out a strike paper… They also made a website to show off the journalists’ work.  They updated every day, until the strike ended in 2 weeks. It was such an exciting experience, they just did not enjoy traditional print media after that.

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Scott Rosenberg, founder of Salon.com is speaking to a group of Cronkite students and I’ll be live blogging the whole thing!

Stay tuned for more

Just put it in the cart!

One of my dearest college friends tells a fabulous story about her dad, who lacks a little bit of discipline in the grocery store.  When he was responsible for the family shopping trips, anything the kids thought looked good got the approval stamp.  “Put it in the cart!” he would exclaim, regardless of sugar content, price, or nutritional value.   A far cry from shopping trips with her mom, who kept a strict eye on the healthy foods and carried her pre-cut coupons to save every additional penny.

Through various situations and jokes, “PUT IT IN THE CART” became a battlecry for the two of us, when we thought people around us were going overboard, either in the grocery store, during conversation, in their personal love lives or just about in any situation.   And now, given the top news story of the night , I am invoking my right to exclaim it once again.

An 800+ billion dollar “bailout stimulus plan” is on the table in Washington, and now we are only one congressional department away from pissing out another near-trillion dollars of money that American citizens are going to see coming off their paychecks for the next 100 years.  Did anybody forget that we signed off on 700-billion just about four months ago??? Does everyone remember that half of that money just mysteriously disappeared and then… oh yeah, wait for it…. The economy didn’t get better!

What the smokes is going on, guys? You can’t just “PUT IT IN THE CART” and hope like hell that things turn around.  We’re sinking an obscene amount of money into a system that very recently failed completely on the country! Here’s a thought:  DON’T pass another bailout.  Maybe we need to restructure the system instead of trying to prop this one up any longer.  Maybe the system needs to hit rock bottom.  Maybe times are just gonna have to get harder before they get better.  We were there, making the unwise decisions  during the 90s and early 2000s. We bought the houses we couldn’t afford, we racked up credit card debt we couldn’t pay off. And now the only thing to do is tighten the hatches and not spend money we don’t have til we get it straightened out.  These bailout packages are a big jump from FDR’s New Deal and they bank (no pun intended) heavily on the idea that rebuilding infrastructure is going to put enough money back into the economy to fix it all.  I appreciate President Obama’s attempt to create new jobs but I really don’t believe the “Trickle-Up” approach is going to trickle up high enough, now or ever.

I’m no financial expert, but it doesn’t take an IQ score of 160 to figure out that throwing a band-aid on a person in cardiac arrest is not going to solve the problem.  So congrats to the U.S. House of Reps…. Way to just Put it in the Cart, cross your fingers and hope for the best.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

Mashable.com’s top story right now discusses why the Obama administration should use Twitter more effectively as a means of mass communication. It cites Twitter Teams used by the Canadian and English prime ministers to keep in non-stop contact with their constituents, and argues that the Obama Team is not nearly at the same level.

I can’t help but wonder… what is the big tweeting deal about Twitter anyway? I have an account and I think I used it exactly 3 times…. all on  the night of the election.  I’ve received several emails telling me “this person is now following you on twitter.”  I’ve got friends who swear by it as a legit form of communication, but I just can’t quite grasp why it is so ultimately central to our 21st century way of life.

Is it absolutely necessary in this 24-hour-news-cycle world, in this overwhelmingly important information age, that everyone at ALL times be able to know within seconds what EVERYONE else is doing?  IS IT??

I’m not positive that it is.  Why do we need up-to-the-millisecond updates on where people are and what they are doing?  Breaking news of some sort may be important to get out right away, but isn’t there like a 100-character limit anyway for each Tweet?  Not any different than when yahoo.com or cnn.com post breaking news stories with just a few details.  And can’t a well-placed text message or blackberry email get the job done just the same?

Maybe it’s just the same part of me that didn’t want to switch over to the new Facebook design when it came out (now I’m a big fan).  Maybe it’s a rage against the Unknown, because I really don’t understand it.  Maybe I’m just slow to hop on the bandwagon that will one day consume us all, but I’m not sold on Twitter.  Not yet.

Georgie-Boy’s back like HE forgot something…

George Mitchell is the newly minted U.S. State Department special envoy to the Middle East.  Hot damn! 

Yes, yes it is the same George Mitchell who took Roger Clemens to town in the 2007 MLB Steroid Report.  Yep, THAT Mitchell Report.  Why it was just this time last year when I sat riveted to the online coverage at the Hill while Clemens danced between clearly angry critics and fans hiding in Congressional suits, as he threw his body-builder wife under the bus and continued his one-faced proclamation that he “NEVER USED ROIDS, GUYS.  COME ON GUYS. I DIDN’T USE THEM.  Debbie sure the hell did, but I’M ROGER CLEMENS and I DIDN’T DO IT!!”

And now, that same George Mitchell, also a crafty veteran of overseas peace maneuvers it turns out, will take his orders from Mz. Rodham as he brokers a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.  Give it to em, Georgie.  You’ve already worked over 86 professional baseball players.  How much harder can it be to grab Ehud Olmert and Mussa Abu Marzouk by the necks and and shake them til peace falls out?

I’m Back Lke I Forgot Something

Quoting a local radio dj from today’s morning show… “Big things are going on right now. Barack Obama is about to be sworn in as president and the Arizona Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl.”

Why, yes. Yes, indeed. These are the events surrounding Jan. 20, 2009.

… Which also happens to be the day I resurfaced from Blogging Oblivion to once again join the World of WordPress as a (hopefully) consistent member.

Notent Notables of the Inauguration Festivities:

- Aretha Franklin’s oversized headdress. 

The Queen of Soul rocks a rhinestone-studded bow.

- President Obama jumping the gun on the first line of the Oath and then forgetting the words of the second line.

 - Ted Kennedy (and some other senator) needing medical attention during the Presidential luncheon.

 - Rick Warren’s over-zealous pronunciation of “Sasha” and “Malia” during the invocation.

And in a twisted turn of fate, the sports world has turned on its head, while everything I know to be true about the NFL has changed.

The Arizona Cardinals are going to the effing Super Bowl. Yikes. I won’t pretend that I think they have a chance against the Steelers defense, but hey, crazier things have happened and I also predicted they would lose the first round of the playoffs…

Then I predicted they would lose against Carolina… then again at home versus Philly. So anyway, I am 0-for-3 on the Cardinals predictions and that means I could quite easily go 0-for-4. But the law of averages has to kick in at some point, right?

Well, I feel better already. Yay for bringing blogging back.

Paris Hilton promised to vote or die and did neither. Don’t be like Paris.

Rock the vote, my friends.  Whether you want to be a Real Maverick or the Change We Need.  Get your ass down to the polls and cast your ballot.   If you don’t know where to go, Vote411 will help you out.

Also, if you’re an Arizona voter, make sure you know the 8 proposals.  If you don’t, click here and you can read them all.  Important stuff.

Then reward yourself with a free coffee from Starbucks for your work.  Democracy in action, people.  If you don’t vote, you’re not allowed to complain for the next 4 years.

Vote or die!

** Some of my classmates are doing a LiveBlog/FlickR/Twitter feed all day long.  Check it out for updated election coverage**  livelect.wordpress.com

Randi Rhodes is a big bag of douche.

A school assignment took me to the usually untouched AM airwaves on my car radio as I was driving home earlier.  Since the antenna is broken on my car, I had some trouble finding a station that got a clear signal, but I stumbled across 1190 AM and The Randi Rhodes Show.

I can completely respect views that are different than mine and I am totally fine with strongly opinionated arguments from the other side of the coin.   But Randi Rhodes is way too over the top for me.   Her critique of John McCain didn’t bother me, her misunderstanding of a veteran’s point of view was even bearable, but when she accused all Republicans of being illiterate, I almost jumped through my speakers to punch her in the face.

I think the quote was something along the lines of “People that support Republicans, people that are affiliated with the Republican party… you can’t even have a conversation with them. They don’t read. They don’t know what they’re talking about, they’re not educated, they have these opinions but they don’t know what’s going on.”

I can recall only a few other times in my life when I was so offended. Really, Randi Rhodes? I’m not educated? I don’t read? I don’t know what’s going on in the election? Thanks. I must have got into grad school on a pure fluke. This isn’t the damn West Wing and you’re not comparing Jed Bartlet to Rob Ritchie, all right? So get off your intellectual high horse, jackass.

Let me say a big F-U, Randi Rhodes. You want to generalize? Fine, you’re the one with the mic.. You want to stereotype? Okay. It’s your show, so you’re entitled. But pull your head out of your own ass long enough to recognize that it’s POSSIBLE that someone who’s not on your way-liberal-left-wing-whacko-springboard-of-fun might actually have… a college degree. I mean, there’s just the smallest chance that there are a couple Republicans out there who are informed on the issues. I would LOVE to debate you on the tax plans.

And your radio show was boring. I was actually relieved when the signal started fading out.

I hope I never have to listen to this dumb broad again.

Like a Phoenix, rising from the ashes

So I have decided to come out of hiding.  The last two weeks have been, how do I put this mildly…… Troublesome.  Waiting eight months to watch your team play live and in person is bad enough, but the agony compounds exponentionally when you finally get to that Chrismas Morning, don your visiting team fan apparel and then head to the home team’s stadium two miles down the road, only to gasp in horror as your  Top-5 Power Ranking, pre-season Super Bowl favorite team winds up derailing into an overtime cloud of dust and the only thing you can do is bury your hands in your head as the hometown faithful go whooping and hollering past you on their way to a joyous celebration of drunken euphoria.  You will also soon be drinking, but it will be to wash away the heartbreak of the tragedy that just occurred on the football field.  Now, if you have experienced something similar to thie little scenario I just described, I would like to shake your hand, since I can now say I’ve walked a mile in your shoes.  Without any explicable reasoning, the Dallas Cowboys, the one true love of my life, the only team I’ve ever been faithful to, took my 24 years of fanship and happily bludgeoned it to pieces right before my eyes.  My only solace was that, as a female in a jean skirt, the raucous crowds of Cardinals “diehards” were not nearly as disrespectful to me as they were to any male Cowboys supporter.

Hell.

Then it came out the next day that good ol’ Tony had busted his pinky finger in overtime.  Which is phenomenal because he was on the field for exactly 3 snaps in overtime.  What a complete and utter disaster.  The Cowboys cost me my sanity that day.

Then, of course, they went above and beyond the call of duty to further my anguish.

Instead of say, playing, when they traveled to St. Louis to take on one of the WORST THREE teams in the league, they instead chose to have themselves a game of intrasquad dodgeball while the G.D. RAMS disenfranchised them 34-14.  Really it should have been 34-7.  Brad Johnson got lucky to Miles Austin near the end of hte game.  After the first quarter I could only continue to watch if I mentally removed myself from the situation and acted like I was not emotionally invested in the game.  Being a glutton for punishment true fan, I coudn’t actually bring myself to stop watching until the final play, but something inside of me died that day.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back.

4-3.  Romo out at least another 3 weeks.  Multiple injuries on the defense that I can’t even begin to type out because I’ve already purged myself enough in this blog and I prefer not to get any more depressed about the situation.

My championship season is circling the bottom of the toilet bowl.  First the Tigers.  Now the Cowboys.  Apparently if you have me for a fan and the most talent on paper on your team this year, expect to wind up taking a fat shit haflway through the season and then hoping for the best the rest of the way.

Somebody please, pray for a miracle on Sunday, because if we want to maintain .500 status before our bye, we absolutely have to find a unicorn and come out with a W against Tampa Bay. God knows what New York is gonna do to us next week…