The Modern Journalist

The Accidental 25-Hour Plane Ride, in Twitter

I flew to New York City last weekend for a round of interviews for the book. Little did I know that the most exciting part of the journey (other than a few of the cool interviews) would come as I tried to fly home.

Tornadoes, thunderstorms, mechanical problems and general chaos descended upon my trip. What should have been a 4-hour, 55 minute return flight turned into an epic 25-hour excursion that involved at least 12 separate delays, cancelations and flight changes.

Fortunately, I never pack my batteries, cords or computers — so I Tweeted the entire event. What follows is a narrative as I slowly fell to pieces during my overnight stay at O’Hare (brought on because of a 2 1/2 delay on the tarmac at LaGuardia and a 30-minute delay in getting to the gate in Chicago).

I have no edited the Tweets (although I may, sic, at some point). Please enjoy — and let me know what you think. (Oh and remember to read from the bottom up as the Tweets are from latest to earliest).

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My New York City Experience

This book — or more accurately the process of the book — is about exploring the new ways we create, consume and connect with stories, information and data. That has changed dramatically despite what you will read writers telling you.

They are wrong. The world has changed. A good story is still important. It’s just not AS important as it used to be because there are more ways to tell a story and more people telling them. I grew up in Appalachia, surrounded by the best storytellers you’ve never met. Trust me on this when I tell you that it’s an art form that can be mastered by anyone.

But hypocrasy is a nasty beast in the new media world. Jeff Jarvis reminded me of that today when he published the “excuse” part of his upcoming book, which basically said that while new media is the dominant force of the future he was writing a book because it paid the bills.

There’s a grand tradition of these apologies in the world of new media writing. Former MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte did it artfully in Being Digital. And, frankly, I can understand why it’s there. Still, I understand why the nail gun is there too, I just don’t shoot a nail in my hand. That doesn’t make sense.

Since my book deals with new media storytelling, I thought it about time to do a few things: the Wiki for the book is now launched and you can get to that using the link on the right side of the page — or by clicking here; and I booked a flight to New York City with no interviews set up and no idea who I would talk to. You know, kind of like you get an assignment in the morning and have to figure out what to write by the end of the day.

Within four hours, that was fixed. Here’s how:

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Weird Tales About Internet Coupons

I was trolling through my inbox today looking for something interesting to write about when I came across this press release: Internet Coupon Usage Up 83% in American Households.

Normally I would have blown right past this but I’ve been thinking about my own shopping habits recently because I’ve loaded all my finances into Quicken. (Side note: apparently I spent a lot of money on ridiculous stuff). One thing I have noticed: I have my Borders coupons sent to my mobile phone, and I use those coupons to purchase books.

My premise with the book project, though, is that newspapers need to fundamentally alter how they view themselves. And that means overhauling the idea that they tell stories and instead view themselves as conduits for data.

What better way to do that then create a customizable online coupon section that people can use to print out — and organize — all of their online coupons.

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“How Much More Glue Can We Sell Them?”

Another reason I’ve been so MIA is that I’m digging through a whole series of books (which means you’re going to be seeing more book reviews in the near future).

There’s so much interesting thinking on globalization — and how technology has changed not only where we do business, but how we do business. It’s a trite statement to say just that, which is why I’m writing a book specifically about media. I want to delve into the heart of what a complete overhaul of the industry means — and what it means for the every day, average media consumer.

The effects are profound. And too far-reaching for me to explain in any detail on a blog. Or at least in this blog post (I’m 286 posts into this blog, I think we’ve gone into great detail overall).

One major theme, though, is that old adage about Rising Tides and Boats.

Journalism is going through a horrific time right now. Companies are shedding jobs faster than ever before and the industry has grown bitter. Not a day goes by that I don’t talk to a friends in the industry — and many of my adult friends are media folks — who are just pissed off and angry. They are angry their company stocks are failing. They are angry their company hasn’t prepared them for the future. They are angry that folks like me are replacing them. They are angry at themselves for not adapting.

It’s all very unfocused because their isn’t really ONE place to blame. It’s a systemic failure we seeing that can be summed up in one question, posed by Mexican president Zedillo in The World is Flat.

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Outsourcing to India

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I’ve been noticably absent from the blog for the past few weeks, which I’ve explained in the last post. This should begin to change in the next few months as I’ve taken some steps to lighten my research load.

Yesterday, I spoke with two managers — and I use that term, but I’m not sure what their actual titles are; all that I know is they manage other people — from Brickwork India, a Flat World company that handles business affairs for businesses and individuals.

The two — Ritu (pronounced Ree-two, which means “seasons”) and Sandhya (pronounced Sand-h-yee-ah, which means “evenings”) — switched easily between professional and personal. They asked questions about my project and put together a proposal for our working relationship in between trading stories about Bangalore (”the new technology center of the world”, Ritu said laughingly, but without joking) and my time in San Francisco (”there are a lot of Indians there”) and Boston.

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Where’s Brad

I’ve been a bit on the MIA side for the past few weeks but that hardly means The Modern Journalist is going away.

Quite the contrary. I’ve been doing a few things that are moving my project along quite well — in no small measure to some of my readers, my blog readers and — let’s face it — India.

What I’m working on:

1. I’ve done 30 interviews so  far for the book using Skype and Pamela for Skype, and amazing recording device that let’s me capture every call as a .WAV file. I love it.
2. On Thursday, I’ll start shipping off the first of these interviews to India for transcription.
3. Next week, I’ll then begin putting behind the firewall on the PBWiki that I’ll be using to craft the individual sections. Only those I’ve interviewed will have access to this — but it will hopefully make the writing process more accurate.
4. I’m finishing up the proposal on Thursday and it’s going out to everyone who has said they would help me — with the goal of having it off to at least one press next wee.
5. The NING social network is about to get re-invigorated as well — so for those of you commenting over there — thanks — and for those interested, please join us.
6. Finally, once the proposal is out — I’ll be picking up steam again with the blog.

It’s an exciting time for me — finishing up the proposal and talking to so many amazing social media folks. It’s been a great deal of fun so far — only like 150 more interviews to go :)

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4 Thoughts on Design

My main point is that the tradeoffs should usually be skewed further in the direction of “Obvious” than we care to think. (Don’t Make Me Think, p 14)

I’ve been spending a lot of time writing about the editorial side of digital news, but that’s only part of the story. In fact, it’s not even half of the story because there are so many other aspects of a modern news organization (sales, marketing, circulation and design).

The irony is that the content is the third thing people notice about your site, which inherently makes it the second most important part of the site — if you go by the top down mentality.

The most important aspect of a site is functionality. When you type in the URL or click on a search link, that site better load — and load fast. Regardless of what the site looks like and what the site says, people want the site to work.

Every click is a promise to your user that they will have a functioning, fast experience. Break that promise, you’ll lose readers.

The second important aspect is design. Once that site loads, you better have an easy-to-use visual navigation that 1) let’s me know who you are what you do, 2) displays in simple terms what is important, 3) makes search prominent and 4) tells me where to start.

An epic fail on those four parts breaks your promise to the reader and will limit your growth. But there are ways to avoid that.

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Newspapers v. the Web: 2 Choices, 1 Answer

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Of the 23 percent who got news on the internet yesterday, only a minority visited newspaper websites. Instead, websites that include quick updates of major headlines, such as MSNBC, Yahoo, and CNN, dominate the web-news landscape.(July 20, 2006, The Pew Center for the People and the Press: Online Newspapers Modestly Boost Newspaper Readership)

I’ve had a question rattling around in my cage for the last few days. Which would rather give up: Google, Travelocity (for travel and leisure), MovieFone (for movie and entertainment news) or your local newspaper?

What about Twitter v. your newspaper? Or Facebook?

Where is the line where you finally say — okay, I live without that application but I can’t live without my local paper.

It’s a broad question, as Chris Graves pointed out on The Modern Journalist social network — where I first posed this. Her response was to question whether it’s fair to compare sites like Google and Travelocity to the local paper, which I took to mean: do people use these for the same things, and if not, what does it matter which one you use for what.

The point is well taken, although I think her question misses a larger issue. The Pew Internet & American Life surveyed people in December 2007 to find out what they were doing online. 37 percent of all people — behind only “use the Internet” and “email” — was “get news”.

That should be a big boost to newspapers. The number one activity — that is the thing people do after checking their email — is read the news.

Yet less than 1 in 4 people actually go to a newspaper for that news.

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4 Steps to Create A Modern News Story

(The) “big successes” on the Internet, Web sites such as YouTube, have content that’s 95 percent generated by the public. Content on the Tribune’s site is 97 percent house generated, just 3 percent public — the comment boards and photos. (June 18, 2008, Chicago Reader: Will Newspapers Survive?)

There is a disturbing construct I’ve noticed in my discussions about journalism: the distinction between professional journalism and citizen journalism.

My brethren are rightly nervous about the transitional period happening with ad revenues. Jobs are disappearing quicker than most in the industry imagined. Readers are finding their ways to new outlets. Emerging skill sets are replacing traditional skills sets.

That has rationally led to the bunker mentality. Lock the doors. Get out the guns. Ain’t nobody coming in this house without a fight.

They’re fighting a war with people who, at best, regard them with the same emotional level as a pedestrian walking down a busy street, which is to say not at all.

They have signaled the masses to help them save the venerable institution of traditional journalism. The problem: many people don’t care. They are moving on to other outlets, ones more in tune with how they experience and interact with data and information on a daily basis.

They have, like the recording industry, alienated the very people who should be their closest allies: the readers.

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5 Reasons the Story is Dead

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The past few days have transformed my thinking about the future of journalism. For the first time since I started this project, I had time to sit, contemplate and read what other people far smarter than me had to say — not about journalism, but about the way we work in the modern world.

The more I read, the more I have become convinced that my initial thesis for the book — that technology is radically shifting the journalism landscape quicker than the industry is set to deal with — is correct.

If Thomas Friedman is correct that The World is Flat — and I think he is, the way we both interact with and consumer data (er, news) will never be the same.

But journalists don’t believe that yet. And it might be too late.

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