Gustav

One of the best features of the Soundslides program is its ability to produce publishable work quickly. At the (Richmond, Va.) Times-Dispatch, tonight, the editor in charge asked that a show be put together of the top AP photos of people preparing for Gustav to hit in New Orleans. Then, after putting together a narrative from the related AP stories, he recorded the voice track. Sometimes, the images are synced to the audio points, but not tonight. The result, "Preparations for Gustav," can be seen here. It was linked off the home page as part of the storm package:

A story, a latte and a connection

Jodie Mozdzer of the Hartford Courant has a story today on how online-only news organizations are having a larger presence in journalism (fyi: East Hampton is on Long Island in New York):

The Island Traders coffee shop in East Hampton is not a traditional newsroom. It's a relaxed, colorful place with palm trees and bamboo shades, rather than a dingy office with ringing phones and clicking keyboards.

But news flows through this small bistro nonetheless.

This is where Cristina Johnson, editor of the online community newspaper East Hampton Today, often sits with her laptop and notes, tapping out updates on East Hampton politics and events.

Johnson is part of a growing trend in journalism: online-only news reporters. To file stories she needs nothing more than a place to set her laptop computer, a connection to the Internet, and, if she's lucky, a caffeinated beverage. ...more

nola.com goes all out

This screen shot shows only a small part of the offerings of the Web site of the local paper, The Times-Picayune. The paper distinguished itself during Katrina by publishing from its New Orleans offices as long as it possibly could. When it could no longer use an actual press, it published pages designed for the print press online with full readability. The blogs it hosted and the online forums it set up were instrumental in saving lives, alerting people to dangers and those in need, and helping friends and relatives connect during a time of chaos and devastation.

Gustav "evacuate" videos can be embedded -- but there's a problem

In keeping with the spirit of Web 2.0 -- interactivity -- and the essential spirit overall -- sharing -- CNN now lets users/viewers embed its news videos on non-CNN sites. (The video most recently embedded here was of people leaving New Orleans after Mayor Ray Nagin advised them to get out as the 'mother of all storms' bears down barely three years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.) The danger, in terms of the old business model for publishers hosting journalism, is that people will not need the actual site once they can see the video elsewhere. Nor will their "clicks" count as the "eyeballs" sales reps sell to advertisers. However, others contend that people viewing a CNN video, no matter where, will be likely to trust CNN enough to seek out that site for future news. And, it's free brand distribution. But there's a bigger danger. Bet you don't see a video here. That's because each time CNN updates, the link goes sour and you can no longer see the embedded video. Unless they fix it after the time of this posting, that's a serious frustration. I'm tempted to go elsewhere because CNN has now wasted my time -- I embedded two videos that worked and then didn't -- and, even worse, make the embedder look foolish.
UPDATE: About 60 minutes later, the video embed is working. Must have been my criticism, right? (Not.)

"TV Guy thinks this is cool"

Bill Silcock (Dr. Bill) called this to my attention: a panorama shot of Barack Obama's speech last night. The viewer can move the image in any direction. To see a larger image without going to The New York Times site, click on the image above.

Dove Evolution Video

Ok- so this video might be a little old, but I just saw a reference to Dove while I was surfing. I wanted to share it in case you haven't seen it, because it is pretty crazy to think that that is what is going on. It really makes you think about how our perceptions are getting distorted. I think this image distortion is having a serious impact on how we interact with each other and our expectations.

CSS Zen Garden

So- seeing as how we have been hacking away at this website, I thought I would share this cool website about CSS that my big brother told me about. It is called Zen Garden. Graphic artist go and modify the main page by only changing the CSS style sheet. There are some really cool examples that are fun to look at it. The neat part is, they didn't do anything to the HTML, just modified it with CSS. Anyway, have fun looking at all the different styles. Some of them are pretty incredible.

Several items of note...

There are a number of interesting posts I'm coming across lately. I don't have time to synopsize them, alas, so I'm going to archive them here via links and heds.
CBS Trying Hand at Citizen Journalism -- CBSEyemobile. Similar to the CNN imobile we looked at earlier in the semester. Also, here.

Birmingham Post Goes Web-First With Site Relaunch

London School of Journalism to Offer Lectures in Second Life

All in the eyes of the reporters...

OJB, or the Online Journalism Blog (a British publication), presents a series of cartograms -- pictures representing the world in terms of what was reported in 2007.As the blog explains: "These maps allow you to grasp several media trends at a glance."

Take Me Out

So I'm not a huge sports nut, but there is something about Chicago sports that fires me up, so to speak. Maybe it's just the hometown pride, but Chicago is a city that really gets behind its sports teams, and it's really cool to see. The Chicago Cubs in particular have a rabid fan base, and Wrigleyville during baseball season is truly a sight to behold. I thought I'd share video of opening day, if for no other reason than it does a really good job of creating a sense of what it's like to hang out with a bunch of drunken baseball fans on opening day (sorry about the annoying commercial at the beginning):

Mother Knows Best

So, if you're anything like me (which, God help you if you are), you have a mother who you love to death, and who means well, and who just wants you to be happy--but for the love of God woman, can you please just stop nagging me for two seconds and let me live my own life every once in awhile???

Ahem. Where was I? Right. So, luckily for me, my mother can't find the power switch on a computer, let alone send an e-mail, so the guilt trips and "advice" just come in the form of phone calls, which is just fine by me. Some people aren't so lucky, and it is for those people that Postcards From Yo Mamma was created.

The concept is simple but brilliant: readers send in e-mails from their mothers, which are in turn posted on the site, providing children with parents everywhere the comfort that they're not the only ones out their with a well-meaning but occasionally exasperating mother.

Here's a sample:

Look who finally learned the computer. Dad set me up email ACCOUNT AND ALSO SHOWED ME HOW TO GO ONLINE.I DON’T KNOW WHY EVERYTHING IS SUDDENLY WRITING BIG LIKE THIS, SO JUST IGNORE IT. SO HOW WAS THE CONCERT YOU WENT TO WITH FRIENDS/ CALL ME SOON. THIS WRITING IS WEIRD SORRY, LOVE MOM.

Visit and enjoy. And don't forget to take your vitamins and lock your doors before you go to sleep, and would it kill you to call every once in awhile??

Lights out, 8 to 9 p.m.!

What a brilliant place and way to publicize Earth Hour. I can't imagine a day going by without visiting Google at least a dozen times and, while okay maybe I'm a bit excessive in my use, it's a wildly popular place. I'd forgotten about this time, and certainly that it was tonight, until this morning when I Googled something. I'm getting my candle ready as soon as I hit "publish" on this.