Tag: California

Next Step in Participatory Journalism?

The California wild fires have been the lead story for most US news organizations over the past few days. The losses in lives and dollars are high.

For television it’s a compelling story because it’s got great video.

That’s awful, but it’s true. The pictures of flames towering into the sky, soot covered firefighters and distraught homeowners play into what television shows best… emotion.

Last night, for the second night in a row, Peter Jennings anchored World News Tonight from the scene of one of the fires. I can only imagine the ‘rolling stock’ TV stations and networks have brought to the fire lines.

That having been established, this disaster might mark the emergence of the next wave in journalism – the ordinary citizen as chronicler. A Southern California Wild Fires site has gone up with some amazing (and some pedestrian) photos of the action.

It is now easy for nearly anyone to get a reasonably high quality photo onto the Internet. Not only do we have digital cameras, but some of the cameras are built into the very cell phones that will transmit the pictures to their destination. And, it is reasonably easy to establish a website to serve the photos. Moblog sites, for showing mobile digital pictures, are also readily available.

Most of the photos on Southern California Wild Fires are nothing special. But, like the infinite number of monkeys typing on the infinite number of typewriters for the infinite amount of time – at some point they will produce Shakespeare. The number of excellent photos is more a reflection of the immense number of shots taken as opposed to the skill of the shooters.

I suspect over the next few years we will see more, not less of this. It will change how news is gathered and dispensed. I am worried that, like Gresham’s Law in economics, cheap photography will begin to drive expensive professional photography out of existence.

California Fires

This week the news has been filled with stories of the California wildfires. Spread from San Diego to just north of Santa Barbara and inland to desert areas, these fires are awesome in their ferocity and size.

The ground and helicopter based pictures are sobering to watch, but I think the full version of the image to the right is even more amazing. Taken by one of NASA’s low Earth orbiting satellites, it provides more detail than I’ve ever seen in a similar satellite image.

As of tonight the Santa Ana winds have subsided. Hopefully, over the next few days, these fires will be controlled by firefighters.

Convicted Killers I’ve Known

I don’t think of myself as traveling in a rowdy or criminal crowd, yet there are two killers I’ve known in my life.

One was a friend from college, George. I lost touch with him only to receive a letter years later after I had appeared on Good Morning America. He was watching from prison.

George did his wife in and then buried her under a freshly poured cement basement floor. Considering the crime, and considering he was convicted of manslaughter and not murder, there must have been extenuating circumstances.

This seemed very out of character for George. I had never known him to be threatening or violent – ever.

The other killer in my life is a little more notorious, Mumia Abu Jamal.

I knew Mumia on the late ’70s when he was a newsman and I was a disk jockey at WPEN in Philadelphia. I remember him as being very soft spoken with a beautiful deep voice. His copy was very well written. He was lacked any knowledge of sports. For heaven’s sake, he was asking me for sports pronunciations and background.

Because of the station’s format and our “naming convention”, Mumia was forced to have a more Anglo first, middle and last name and became “William Wellington Cole.”

You can’t make this stuff up! In retrospect, that was embarrassing.

I have no idea whether he killed the policeman he was convicted of shooting, but my guess is, he did. He had become more radical over the years and, I suppose, angry.

This is all brought to mind since he was made an honorary citizen of Paris today.

I believe the French have really honed their revulsion toward us and our society to a fine, sharp point. This is just another way to tweak us.

It must be sad for them to live in a country that is no longer an important member of the international community. I’m not saying we have foreign policy geniuses running the show, because we don’t, but our opinion, muscle, and money still count for something. France, on the other hand, is a marginal player at best.

C’est la vie.

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Look Ma – I’m on Slashdot

I love Slashdot. How could I stay away from a site whose slogan is “News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.”

I am there at least 4-5 times a day, following their links to see the latest in high tech. It is Linux biased in much the way The Catholic Church is Christian biased. But, it’s geek and nerd populated and I share a certain sensibility with many of its habitues (though, unfortunately I no longer share the same generation with them)

Its readers, rapidly responding to the story postings, add insight, insult and everything in between.

What makes Slashdot so effective is its self moderating system which starts limiting what you easily read (you can always get to everything, but probably don’t want to) as users come on and rate the postings. Judging by what I see, there are a lot of people moderating at any given time, though Slashdot only gives you the opportunity to moderate every once in a while. Then, later, the moderations get moderated!

In many ways it is analogous to Google, where your association with others decides your relative importance and where your links appear.

Anyway, I’m writing all this because I finally got a posting of mine on to start a thread. It started this morning, early, when I saw an article in the New York Times about speeding up media (listening at double speed, for instance) and how that is a burgeoning field.

I have used that same technique in my studies at Mississippi State, watching DVD’s at double speed. For me, it’s been very effective. Now, it’s shared with others.

Continue reading “Look Ma – I’m on Slashdot”

Arnold for Governor

It has been speculated for a while now that this evening on The Tonight Show, Arnold Schwarzenegger would announce he was NOT going to run for Governor of California. In fact, Matt Drudge made a big deal out of it.

No one told Arnold. He appeared with Leno and announced his candidacy.

With loads of people now running to be California’s governor, and with the election rules such as they are, it is possible that Gray Davis will be removed and replaced with someone who has less popularity than he!