Media
Media
#digiday on CoveritLive
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 09/17/2009 - 08:26Digiday:Social Pregame
I am on the train heading to another Digiday conference. It has become routine by now; the long train ride, the short walk from the train station to the W hotel, the long tables with the glass water pitchers with something like strawberries and tarragon floating in them, and the same old faces.
I’m thinking about the Annie Le murder case and I’ve just written a blog post about Outbursts. In my computer bag is a copy of Shel Israel’s Twitterville. On the train is a group of five women heading in to be on some television show where they will throw pies at one another. One of them cackles “I love survivor. It’s my show. My husband and I watch it together. It is our date night”.
How does all of this relate Digiday? How can online advertisers engage in a discussion when everyone is focusing on the latest leading, bleeding headline or the results of last night’s reality television show? Will a conversation emerge at the Digiday conference, or will it be yet another conference where speakers broadcast at the audience and the audience tunes in and out like people do in the evenings at home.
I am tweeting this using the #digiday hash tag, and have set up the following CoveritLive page for the day.
Outbursts
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 09/17/2009 - 08:06Have you ever watched an elected official on television and gotten so mad that you could throw a shoe at him? Have you ever disagreed so strongly with an elected official that you wanted to shout out “You Lie!” at them? Have you ever felt so strongly about an awards show that you wished you could rush up on the stage and try to tell everyone why your favorite musician is so much better? Have you ever watched a sporting match and wanted to give the referee a piece of your mind? Have you ever wanted something so badly, you could kill for it? Have you ever wanted to just scream, WTF?
Today will be a long day of meetings. It is five thirty in the morning as I arrive at the local train station. On the radio, NPR is doing a tribute to Mary Travers, who just died of leukemia. Earlier this year, Irv Stohlberg, a noted local politician and good friend, died of leukemia. Another friend is currently fighting a difficult battle with leukemia and all of this, together with the beauty of Peter, Paul and Mary’s music puts me into a pensive mood.
The sky is turning from the dark of night to the deep dark blue of early morning. Across the street from the train station is the New Haven Police Department. The area is lit up brighter than day with portable lights and white or blue camera trucks and their crew crowd the area.
Even here you see the pecking order. Closest to the steps to the police station is a CNN truck. It is flanked by trucks from NBC and CBS news. Then are the affiliate trucks up from New York, further out are trucks from the Connecticut affiliates, and off to the side is a truck from a local news outlet.
Burly men are going through the motions of setting up tripods and running wires. Attractive young women talk dispassionately near the trucks about the segment they will soon be taping. They are all waiting to go live with the latest breaking news in the case of Annie Le, the graduate student who was murdered a week and a half ago. If it bleeds, it leads.
Mary Travers voice, singing, “It’s by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to be so in love with you and so alone” rattles in my mind. I think of Jonathan Widawsky, the fiancé of the murdered graduate student. What must he be going through his mind right now? What about the murderer? What led him to kill Annie? What must he be feeling right now? Did he ever read Crime and Punishment? Did he want something so badly, he killed for it? I fight back a tear for all of this, for the friends of the victim, even for the killer, and perhaps especially for everyone who covers this as just another story, something to boost the ratings.
Yet all of this causes me to take a step back. Are there more outbursts these days, or have things gotten that much worse? If they have gotten worse, why is it? Is there something more stressful about living in this Post 9/11 world struggling through an economic meltdown? Have we simply lost our ability to moderate our emotions and the ability to react appropriately in difficult times? If so, why is it? Has the loss of inhibition as we anonymously scream at one another online added to the problem? Have the cable news shows which have replaced informed discourse with pundits yelling at one another added to the problem?
I leave the media circus as I head to the train. I just want to scream, WTF?! Yet I know that it wouldn’t do any good, and would perhaps just add to the problem.
Live Blogging Colin's Show
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 13:09
Building Audience
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 09:18This afternoon, Colin McEnroe’s show on WNPR will “look at the State of the Blog. Specifically,… where blogging and other online communication/journalism is -- especially here in CT”. In a little discussion about it going on over on Facebook Colin says, “Old media seems shakier than ever” and continues on to ask “Do you bloggers feel ready to step up and fill the vacuum?” I answered in terms of volunteer and professional journalists and referred to my blog post Covering the Local News.
Jackie Lightfield brought up a related issue, observing, “Don't forget the corollary, advertising and marketing is evolving away from old media, will old media figure it out...” The timing of this is particularly apt, because this morning the American Press Institute holding a conference, “Newsmedia Economic Action Plan Conference”. For more information on this, check out The Information Valet Project, which includes links to live blogging of the conference.
Yet even before you can think about monetizing online content, or any sort of content, you need to have an audience. Colin is fortunate. He has a long history here in Connecticut and when he started his show on WNPR, he had an immediate audience. Yet he needs to grow and maintain that audience. His use of Facebook can help in this area, and his keen focus on keeping his shows interesting is an important aspect of maintaining the audience. This is one area where local newspapers seem to fail. They take the audience for granted, and the audience is diminishing. I suspect the American Press Institute conference will delve into this a little.
This is also an area where I think many bloggers are failing. They write their blog for their family and friends, or for some special niche. Yet too often, they don’t interact with other blogs. I often write about sites like BlogExplosion, MyBlogLog, Blogcatalog, EntreCard, Adgitize and others which provide means of joining in a discussion with other bloggers, visiting their sites, getting them to visit your sites, and perhaps even exchange links.
Some sites go even further with this. Cornyman has been running a contest where bloggers win EntreCard credits for commenting on other blogs. He describes his blog as All you want to know about being financial independent... Saving, investing, earning money worldwide opportunities for your personal finances!. This is not the sort of blog that fits closely to a niche that I would be most focused on. Yet I visit that blog, and he visits me. Hopefully we both get a little bit out of our visits.
I participated in the contest and won 500 EntreCard credits from Confessions of a Fitness Diva. Anyone who knows me will recognize that this is even further from being a niche that I would regularly visit. I will use these credits to advertise on other blogs and bring in hopefully more readers.
All of this is part of reaching out and build a larger and broader audience. For those interested in monetizing traffic, a larger audience usually means more monetization opportunities. For those interested in getting their message out, it means more people reading what you are writing, often people that might not already be thinking about things you are writing about.
I hope I’ll have time to call in to Colin’s show this afternoon and chat with him and others about how bloggers can step in and fill the vacuum being left as the old media becomes shakier and shakier. Perhaps some of the discussion will even be helpful for old media folks rethinking their relationship to online media. I hope you Listen Live to Colin’s Show at 1 PM this afternoon and help grow his audience as well.
Exploring Different Points of View
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 09/12/2009 - 12:40Yesterday, I stumbled across a blog post entitled Religious Persecution in Modern Day America?. The post wrote about a
“10 year old home-schooled girl named Amanda Kurowski who was ordered by the New Hampshire court to attend regular school because of her "vigorous Christian faith." According to a recent WorldNetDaily report, a court official said Amanda "appeared to reflect her mother's ridigidity [sic] on questions of faith"
I added a comment to the blog post saying:
While I agree with your concerns about the specific case you mention, you need to be careful about confusing between an errant judge in the State of New Hampshire and 'the New Hampshire Court' or 'America'.
You must remember that the Judge in the case is a fallen person, just like you are I. Every day across our country, judges make good decisions and judges make bad decisions. I've written about several cases where judges have made bad decisions and the process of having these decisions over turned.
If the case is as clear cut as you present, I hope that Amanda's case is over turned, but I also hope that you and others do not disparage the New Hampshire or the United States judicial system because they are forced to rely on human judges.
I was surprised at the strident response I got from the blogger in which she responded to my comment on her blog as well as posted four comments on my Facebook page. She says things like
You accused me of something I did not do---I am not disparaging or anything like that…
Here are several links of the same news when they specifically said it's the Court of New Hampshire and the judge. Those are not my words. So also please be careful about making accusations against me. I DID NOT DISPARAGE.
One link was to One News Now, a division of the American Family News Network, New Hampshire Court orders Christian homeschooled girl to attend public school, that article provides a little additional context with
The case involves divorced couple Martin Kurowski and Brenda Voydatch and their 10-year-old daughter, Amanda. The couple split in 1999 when they were living in Massachusetts, and the proceedings moved to New Hampshire after Voydatch relocated to that state with her daughter in 2002.
Although Voydatch has primary custody over Amanda, both parents agreed to a parenting plan that included joint decision-making responsibility. A court-appointed guardian served as a mediator.
The article includes the famous quote about the young girl, ” She appeard [sic] to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith”. However, the article does include the important preamble that has been lost in much of the coverage about the case, “According to the guardian ad litem's further report and testimony, the counselor found Amanda to lack some youthful characteristics.”
Based on all of this, I responded to the blog post with the following comment:
binkee Perhaps I did misinterpret your post. However, you're title "RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN MODERN DAY AMERICA?" does sound like it is a commentary on "modern day America" as opposed to the decision of a single person in the court systems of New Hampshire.
In addition, it sounds as if you are misinterpreting my comment. When I said, "you need to be careful about confusing between an errant judge in the State of New Hampshire and 'the New Hampshire Court' or 'America'", I did not say that you were in fact making that confusion, but instead warning against the potential for that confusion.
Beyond that, I would encourage you to try and get broader and more complete information about the decision. You cite a few different sources of questionable objectivity, each referring back to a specific advocacy organization.
In particular, the focus of the story seems to take a quote severely out of context. Specifically, you and other sources quote the second half of a quote from a court appointed 'Marital Master' whose job was to determine an issue between divorced parents about where the child should be educated.
The quote about how Amanda "appeared to reflect her mother's ridigidity on questions of faith" omits the important first part of the comment: "According to the guardian ad litem's further report and testimony, the counselor found Amanda to lack some youthful characteristics" The rigidity on questions of faith of a ten year old is sited as one example of where the child lacked "some youthful characteristics".
While we all hope that our children will reflect our own beliefs, and important part of growing up is differentiating from ones parents. This can be complicated in the situation a broken family. So, it is not unreasonable for a court appointed official to note where normal childhood development appears impeded in a broken family dispute before the court.
Based on what I have done for further reading, the real issue is not about the religious beliefs or the whether or not the child was receiving all the course material she would receive at a public school. The real issue sounds like it is concerning the social and emotional development of the child which the father believes is not being properly met and the mother believes is being properly met.
I respond this way for a couple different reasons. First, I am concerned when people do not question the reports that they read from some news sources without questioning them, or attempting to get a fuller context. (Again, I am not saying that you do this, but it came across that way in your blog post).
This is especially of concern to me since I try to attend court hearings to get as much first hand information before I blog about this and I have often seen people in blogs, at advocacy organizations, and traditional media organizations present views about cases that bear very little correlation to what has really gone on in the courts.
Looking at this from the press release from the Alliance Defense Fund which was launched by Dr. James Dobson and others, which has been repeated in the World Net News, founded by Rush Limbaugh collaborator Joseph Farah, and American Family News Network’s One News Now, this may well be religious persecution in modern day America.
However, New Hampshire Public Radio presents a more balanced view of the case. It covers many of the issues that the Alliance Defense Fund talks about but then goes on to get the father’s side. In Judge Orders Homeschooled Girl to School, they report
Mr. Kurowski [the child’s father] objects, and his lawyer, Ms. Donovan, says it’s not about religion.
“He respects his child’s faith – he’s been to the church, he supports her in that,” Donovan explains. “We’re interested in pursuing the best interests of this child, and my client believes her best interests are served overall by attending public school.”
The article also includes this quote about the order:
The judge’s order goes on to say, “Amanda’s vigorous defense of her religious beliefs… suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.”
Perhaps this gets to the real issue. Do we want people to seriously consider different points of view? It seems as if the father wants his child to be exposed to different points of view. I want the same things for my children, and I wish more news outlets and blogs would also more seriously explore different points of view.
