Here’s a clip from a story that ran a few days ago at nola.com about social media and sports events that quotes me:
For television announcers like Simms, the former Giants quarterback and current CBS sportscaster, that means more competition from the Twittersphere.
“You can watch a couple hundred people call the game through your Twitter client, and that’s very empowering,” said David Johnson, an American University professor who teaches digital journalism.
Demand tends to peak during big plays and controversial calls, as Johnson saw first-hand last month. When Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre threw a crucial interception with seconds left in the NFC championship match up against the Saints, sports fans reacted.
“There was just a massive outpouring, instantly, of thousands of messages,” said Johnson, a longtime Green Bay Packers fan.
via Super Bowl fans will be all a-Twitter | Super Bowl Central – - NOLA.com.
For better or for worse, Magid changed television newscasting with his “Action News” format. One one hand, the focus on local news and more engaging broadcasting was a very needed development to take full advantage of the medium and move away from straight up radio rip-and-read desk anchors. On the other hand, most of what we now detest as glib and unsubstantial in overproduced broadcast news is derived from the changes he brought about… changes that have been taken so far that news is actually lost in the entertainment.
Some quotes pulled from the washington post obit:
Frank N. Magid, 78, the television “news doctor” whose survey research and advice to local television stations in the 1970s resulted in co-anchors who chatted between stories, fast-paced graphics, sports tickers and live shots, and a heavy reliance on both crime coverage and feel-good segments, died of lymphoma Feb. 5 at Santa Barbara [Calif.] Cottage Hospital.
….
But Magid-style changes were criticized as both a uniformization and a dumbing-down of news coverage. “Thanks to him, local newscasts throughout America are like airports or fast food joints; they lack all traces of indigenousness,” wrote Tom Shales of The Washington Post in 1982.
….
Mr. Magid’s research also recommended CBS News feature Walter Cronkite as the solo anchorman on its evening news program. That didn’t stop the venerable broadcaster from describing the work of consultants such as Mr. Magid as “a fad” and “balderdash,” in a widely reported 1976 speech, dubbing those who followed his advice “suckers for a fad” and “editing by consultancy.”
via Frank N. Magid dies at 78, created news anchor ‘happy talk’ – washingtonpost.com.
The Impenetrable Layer of Suck, a brilliant geo-visualization of a hilarious and insightful comment made by Peter Corbett (@corbett3000) of istrategylabs. Middle management generally seeks to entrench and justify existence by viewing knowledge as power. Top down organizational hierarchies and tall management structures have been proven time and again as inhibitors to change and growth. Agile organizations use matrix structures that are flexible and responsive, empower all members as stakeholders in the larger goals, and reward people by recognizing talent, skill and creativity.
Inspired by posts on http://usesthis.com – How nerds get things done, this is my home office desktop setup.
From left, macbook pro with extended monitor and wacom tablet, handbuilt pc running xp with logitech cam and epson scanner, lava lamp, dell laptop on ubuntu 9. The macbook also has three virtual machine images in it: ubuntu 8, xp on bootcamp/parrallels, and kubuntu – and also has MAMP and a bitnami django stack. I code in dreamweaver, jEdit, and/or komodo IDE. I design in cs4.
Left of this is a tall secretary (not pictured) where I keep my drafting and art supplies, I draw and hand draft on the foldout table and have a folding easel for bigger projects in oil, gouache or watercolor. I keep cameras and cables in one of the drawers. We’ve got three film slr bodies with various lenses, a few different digital point and shoots, a nikon d80 slr with a few lenses and a jvc minidv camcorder. No developing on site, the oil paints are the only toxic chemicals – kept safely out of kid reach.
Other machines in the office on two other desks (not pictured) include a g4 imac for kids and audio recording that is midi interfaced into a Roland full stage piano and also a g4 mac powerpc tower for general use, writing, and light graphics work. While older, both are still running solid on osx 10.4 with older versions of ilife, creative suite and open office. I want to get a line6 pod to bring the guitars and bass in.
My garage has a shelf full of torn apart whitebox towers, drives, chips, boards and spare parts that I affectionately refer to as the boneyard (my wife, not so affectionately). I have a soldering iron and I’m not shy about using it.
I did all this to test my email postie wordpress configuration. Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
