Arizona vigil for Laura Ling and Euna Lee opens larger question

July 15, 2009July 15, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / 5 Comments

If civic journalism is hard to accept, how about traditional journalism?

As a writer I felt compelled to stop by a favorite hangout in Tempe, Arizona last week for the vigil for Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Who are they? Two journalists facing a 12-year sentence in North Korea –whose plight was buried by media obsession with the gloved one.

There were similar vigils in San Francisco, Sacramento, Washington and Paris. The goal was to collect one million signatures to petition their release. I was somewhat disappointed in the turnout.

The goal was to collect one million signatures to petition their release. I was somewhat disappointed in the turnout.

Other than the vigil here, there were vigils in San Francisco, Sacramento, Washington and Paris.

But beyond their plight, as the attack on journalists goes on, it begs a larger question: do citizens really care if the media is muzzled, punished, expelled? Whenever I speak to people about this, I get the feeling that the answer is sadly, no. Or (long pause) ‘maybe.’

It amazes me how many enthuse over how anyone with a Twitter account or camera phone could report on a breaking event, but give scant attention to others who stand in front of the line, taking the hits. Maybe it’s because we still see the media in a “Them” vs “Us” dichotomy.

You want to see real blur? The blur between the Pro (professional) and the Am (amateur) is happening before our eyes. Take a look at what a news station in the Philippines is doing. ABS-CBN is holding a series of workshops on citizen journalism that will arm Filipinos with the knowledge and skills to report on events and incidents concerning the 2010 elections. Already 13,000 Filipinos have signed up.

Here’s another eye-opener. A list of countries ranked by degrees of media freedom. Only 70 countries are ranked ‘Free’ while 61 are ‘Partly Free’ and 64 are ‘Not Free.’ Check the list here. It’s an eye-opener for many here because freedom of the press, something we take for granted, is not exactly universal, and varies in degree.

Egypt, for instance is ‘partly free’
Sri Lanka is ‘not free’ –no different from the likes of North Korea, and Saudi Arabia
Only 70 countries are ranked ‘Free’ while 61 are ‘Partly Free’ and 64 are ‘Not Free’

It’s not just about two TV journalists is it? It’s much larger than that.

On a positive note, there appears to be some hope of a release, if Washington and Pyongyang held talks. Check this site, lauraandeuna.com for updates, and sign a petition here.

Civic journalism is coming. Get over it!

July 14, 2009July 14, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / 4 Comments

This story gives a new meaning to the term muck raking.

I like the idea of citizen journalism, and have written a lot about it in the past. I even try to practice it a bit, because there are some stories the media will never get to.

Civic journalism is even more interesting, basically community-funded journalism.

So it was interesting to see how the Director of Spot.us have to defend one such project. The site lets people submit ideas for stories and have media companies bid on them –basically fund the reporter. Lindsey Hoshaw, had suggested she could report on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a large amount of garbage that supposedly twice the size of Texas, floating around in the Pacific Ocean.

One reader sniped about the fact that someone was being paid for this, and Cohn had to come back and defend the fact that Hoshaw was being funded.

“The money we are raising is just for travel. That is a real and high expense for this story (it is in the middle of the ocean) – so that is where ALL the money is going. The reporter here isn’t going to pocket it.”

As Cohn rightly observed, such mean-spirited attacks serve no one.

But beyond this, the real issue is the public perception of -indeed, public appetite for — what big media ought to be covering. After seeing the OJ-like dragging on of the Michael Jackson story, my cynical side tells me that people need to wallow in this stuff. But I tend to be more of an optimist. I’ve met journalists who go for the bigger things.

I think we are at a moment where people will support stories not connected to celebrity and partisan politics. Is it better to spend $6k on a story about garbage than a story on a goofy governor? Is it worth our time, their airtime and all those satellite trucks to chase after Jon and Kate? Let’s do a survey on this. I am willing to bet we’ll see a lot more thumbs up.

People will consume what is served up (hence the formulaic stories on ‘Dirty restaurants,’ and ‘scams on Craigs List’) but they are also tuning out, Tivoing past, and canceling their subscriptions for a good reason.

Civic journalism will take time, but it is coming. We better get used to it.

https://hoipolloi.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/phoenix-medias-warm-glow-it-must-be-the-sun/

If Henninger can do it, so can Montini

July 13, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I love Don Henninger’s column in the Phoenix Business Journal. He comes across as the neighbor you always bump into when you mow your lawn –and happily gets in the way of that awful chore.

A few weeks back, when he wrote about ‘Seeing a Tweetie bird‘ I knew this was the moment I was expecting. “I’m a Twit” he opened with, admitting he was late in arriving, but inviting us to interact –minus the what-we-have-for-breakfast stuff. (Find him here on Twitter.)

E.J. Montini, another wonderful writer here in the Valley is right now going through a similar process. In last week’s Republic he’s all Facebooky but not all atwitter, he says. Montini already maintains a blog. My guess is that it won’t be long before he’s carving out 140-character column-like posts. Any bets?

I’ve seen news people I would least expect take on parts of social networking and blogging that must have gone against the grain of what they were taught at J-school.

You can do it Montini!

Some useful links:

How to use Twitter for journalism
MuckRack has a good list of journalists using Twitter, photos
Media On Twitter: If you’re a journalist, you can add your name to a database

Bad week for blogger & radio hosts, mixed week for txt & tweets

June 25, 2009June 25, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Talk about mixed signals!

I came across two SMS stories that left me feeling that we are still getting our minds and lives around the potential of one-to-one communication and what social media has delivered.

The first was about how SMS is being used as an early warning system in Bangladesh. to alert people to possible floods.
The second was how someone used SMS in Uganda to perpetrate a hoax swine flu warning. It appeared to come from the health ministry.
Then there’s the story of a blogger issuing death threats. OK, he’s also an Internet talk show host.
And this one about radio talk show host Michael Savage threatening to publish names and photos of people at Media Matters.
But in order to bookend this with good use of social media, check out how a student, going by the audacious Twitter handle of TehranBureau, is using it to keep the world updated with events going on there.

Seven building blocks for a good story

June 24, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

We all tell stories, in some shape or form. They could start off with something like “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” (Anna Karenina). For the rest of us –even as we question the established technique— there are several ways to go after and craft a good story.

Tom Hallman, in last month’s Quill the magazine of the Society for Professional Journalists wrote a great piece on what separates a good story from a great one.

Distance – a story is more than a bunch of quotes, he says.
Stories are about things – People, not ‘things’ give people a chance to identify with the story
Direction – take the reader someplace
Pacing – Vary lengths of paragraphs
Theme – the best stories have an universal theme
Voice – this speaks for itself. You need to find your voice
Strong middle and powerful endings – pay attention to the entire story, not just the beginning

From: Building Blocks to a good story.

Hallman is a Pulitzer prize winner and features writer for the Oregonian.

Quotes for the week ending June 13, 2009

June 13, 2009June 13, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“Authentic communication is the new requirement, a paradigm shift has already happened, and most companies and communicators haven’t made the shift.”

Barbara Gibson, in her last post (The Last Hurrah) as outgoing IABC chair.

“that onerous system of checks and rewrites and hand wringing where legions of non-writers add their personal stamp to a piece of communication … to the point of unreadability.”

Steve Crescenzo, citing one of the two biggest obstacles to effective internal comms. The other is an overzealous IT Team.

“Twitter Tees brings community-powered t-shirt design to Twitter.

Threadless, which launched a way for Twitter users to vote on 4 T shirts with tweets that include “in space, no one can hear you tweeet” and “140 is the new 420”

“He’s the most … trollish person I’ve ever worked with!”

Leo Laporte, after cutting off Tech Crunch’s Mike Arrington, who suggested that Laporte had received a free Palm Pre.

“Did I really want to tell the world that I was out of town? Because the card in my camera automatically added location data to my photos, anyone who cared to look at my Flickr page could see my computers, my spendy bicycle, and my large flatscreen TV all pinpointed on an online photo map.”

Israel Hyman of Arizona, who claims his house may have been robbed because of his Twitter updates.

“We got the cure for Search Overload Syndrome.”

Microsoft Bing copy, on Facebook

“Every three years, the world completely changes, which makes strategic planning difficult. But while you can’t predict a future, you can prepare yourself for multiple futures.”

Mike Curran, the unofficial jobs guru of Silicon Calley, who is retiring after 23 years as director of NOVA

“we forgot the relationship part of public relations”

Lee Hopkins (@leehopkins) tweeting at the #IABC09 conference in San Francisco this week

“Although the pandemic appears to have moderate severity in comparatively well-off countries, it is prudent to anticipate a bleaker picture…”

Dr Margaret Chan, Dir Gen of World Health Organization, on raising the global pandemic level to Level 6

“a high-stakes poker game”

Former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, on North Korea sentencing of two US journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee

My foray into podcasting – Light Bulb Moments

June 11, 2009June 12, 2009 / Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Happy to note that I now have six podcasts published on iTunes.
They are also here at the Decision Theater blog.

More to follow!

I began the podcasts, Light Bulb Moments as a complement to the Decision Theater blog that bears the same name.

But none of this happenned overnight. Podcasting is an interesting a curious exercise. As those who do it will tell you, there are many components to it, from the interview prep, to the editing (if you’re not going live to the drive, as some pros like Mitch Joel and CC Chapman do), and the publishing.

My deep appreciation to two people –fellow IABC members– who have been my inspiration to get started: Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. For the past –what was it?– three or more years I’ve listened to several communications and PR podcasts, and still do. But For Immediate Release has been one show I never fail to get back to. I learned the nuts and bolts of the trade from their book, How to do everything with podcasting, then took a class at ASU, and jumped in. Suddenly the deep-end doesn’t feel so intimidating.

A note about Light Bulb Moments. It’s a sort of a peek behind the curtain, if you will, at what goes on here at the Decision Theater.

The core area (left), a room with floor-to-ceiling screens is a high-tech interactive environment. It’s used for planning –scenario planning– systems thinking and policy making.

We work with cities, businesses, govt agencies, school districts / schools and non-profits; more recently in pandemic influenza planning exercises. It looks very complex from the outside. So since part of my job is to communicate and distill that complexity, podcasts are perfect for this. It lets me capture the light bulb moments, plus the nuances –right down to the ambient sound.

Hoipolloireport

Angelo Fernando's blog since 2004

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