I’ve often cited “Creating Passonate Users" and one of its chief bloggers, kathy Sierra, as a favorite site, rich with humor, wisdom and solid advice.
So I was totally bummed out by this latimes.com piece
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-internet31mar31,0,4064392.story?coll=la-home-headlines
that reports threats have forced her to cancel appearances and worst of all, to shut down her blog. (sorry i can't embed the links in the text. I'm using a loaner machine that's playing tricks.)
Go to her post, "Death Threats are NOT "protected speech" http://headrush.typepad.com/
and you’ll understand why, in the face of such hate speech, she’s scared to leave her yard and is not sure she’ll ever blog again. What a loss! What a crime (is it?)
What can/should/is being done about it?
One of the treasures of Portland, Ore. is Powell’s Books, with what seems like million miles of book shelves, a literary labyrinth you can happily get lost in.
Powell’s connects those of us not lucky enough to be in the neighborhood with a monthly newsletter. My favorite element is the interview with an author. Here’s the a sketch about this month’s author and his book:
“Ishmael Beah became a soldier at age thirteen, one year after rebels attacked his village, flushing him into the forest to survive as a fugitive with other boys his age. In ”A Long Way Gone,“ Beah describes Sierra Leone's civil war as he knew it, entirely absent of political context. Kill or be killed — these were a homeless orphan's options. "Told in clear, accessible language by a young writer with a gifted literary voice," Publishers Weekly raves, "this memoir seems destined to become a classic." On the eve of publication, Beah discussed rehabilitation, forgiveness, hip-hop, moving walkways, and more.”
Read the interview here
It’s less about writing, but more about the tragic madness ongoing in Africa, a young stranger’s response to the West that lightens his account of “ a drug-filled life of casual mass slaughter ”
“When I got on a plane the first time and we landed at Schiphol Airport, I was already so out of it. I thought I was dreaming up the whole thing, being on a plane. We got off at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, and they had those... what do you call it? You know, like the escalators but flat?
Dave Welch: Moving walkways.
Beah: The moving walkway. I remember when I went back to Sierra Leone I told my uncle, "They're so improved, they make the ground move.”
“Looking for Web journalism teaching tips,” is the title of this interesting forum posted last month on Online Journalism Review (ojr.org).
It was kicked off by Mac Slocum, a veteran online editor and producer and web journalism teacher, who observed that “ Web journalists are often expected to have at least a rudimentary understanding of Web technology, so it's important for journalism educators to provide future journalists with the skills necessary to succeed in the Web environment.”
Sounds reasonable, until you’re faced with tough questions provoked by that philosophy.
“How do we avoid the allure of technology?” Slocum asks. “How do we make sure that the elements of journalism continue to be the focus, even as we teach students HTML, Flash and other tech-centric subjects?”
The answers, from a-half dozen teachers--and one j-student--range from the philosophical to the practical.
They should be required reading for journalism deans, professors, and students who share a common challenge, whether they think of themselves as online journalists.
We are all navigating between the time-honored verities of journalism education and ever-changing technologies that not only change the way news is gathered and delivered, but profoundly alter the way we think about the practice of journalism.
I found the questions and answers they generated thought-provoking and look forward to more posts.
Amid the gaggle of the capital chatterati let free after the President’s speech tonight, there was Suzanne Malveaux of CNN reporting from the White House lawn. Early in her live stand-up, she paused to say she'd just gotten a message on "my Blackberry" from an unnamed White House official expanding on the Bush position. Without a pause, she started reeling off administration spin, verbatim, from the smartphone cradled in her hand. I was struck by the way technology has--and will undoubtedly continue--to change the gathering and delivery of news.
From the moment anchor Anderson Cooper turned to Malveaux, I heard, but couldn’t see, what sounded like a chorus of chants in the background. I wondered if she would explain. And she did, in an aside informing viewers that there were protesters outside the White House.
And another thought came to mind.
What better serves a democracy? Delivering, apparently without much reflection, instant, anonymous and unaccountable arguments via Blackberry, which in my opinion cedes control to your source, or perhaps making another, split-decision: turning towards competing, human voices to report that citizens have opinions, too? And hey, those folks might even be willing to provide their names!
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless information."
~Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)