Now watching a sneak preview of Ken McCarthy’s “The Katrina Myth: The Truth about a Thoroughly Unnatural Disaster.” Sandy Rosenthal of levees.org introduced it. 0 comments #
Day 1092: Live From Rising Tide 3 - Journalism Panel
August 23, 2008 - Filed Under blogistas, citizen journalism, media, new orleans, rising tide conference
Back from a fine J’anita’s lunch of spicy BBQ and a Diet Coke. Thanks, Craig and The Beautiful Kim! Also back from telling a couple of people to stay calm. Me?! What’s the world coming to?
Panelists, from left to right:
· Lee Zurik: WWL-TV investigative reporter
· Kevin Allman: author, journalist, and blogger, frequent guest blogger at Gambit’s Blog of New Orleans
· Eli Ackerman: blogger at We Could Be Famous
· David Winkler-Schmit: journalist and frequent contributor to Gambit Weekly and the Blog of New Orleans
Jeffrey introduces the panelists, reads the following excerpt from David Simon’s Does The News Matter To Anyone Any More? and asks the panelists their opinion of it.
… I understand the economic pressures on newspapers. At this point, along with the rest of the wood-pulp Luddites, I’ve grasped that what was on the Internet wasn’t merely advertising for journalism, but the journalism itself. And though I fled the profession a decade ago for the fleshpots of television, I’ve heard tell of the horrors of department-store consolidation and the decline in advertising, of Craigslist and Google and Yahoo. I understand the vagaries of Wall Street, the fealty to the media-chain stockholders, the primacy of the price-per-share.
What I don’t understand is this: Isn’t the news itself still valuable to anyone? In any format, through any medium — isn’t an understanding of the events of the day still a salable commodity?
Zurik, Allman and Eli don’t think ads influence them, but Winkler-Schmit admits that it is required to keep his job going, his paper running and television stations on the air.
Kevin Allman wants us to check out Robert Smigel’s scathing animation against NBC’s parent company, General Electric. Here is the VIDEO.
Applause for Zurik’s journalism with reciprocation from Zurik. Zurik lauds the efforts of Karen, Sarah and Eli in getting the story out.
Eli suggests that internet democratizes the news more so than papers. Zurik disagrees and contends that the shrinking newspaper and cutting staff is not a good thing. Internet news and mainstream media news cannot be conflated. Mainstream media cannot do investigative journalism in the same way. Mainstream media, however, “has real power and access, but blogs and MSM can be complementary.”
Now, they’re talking about Bill Moyers’s feelings on the media of the future:
… By 2011, the market analysts tell us, the Internet will surpass newspapers in advertising revenues. With MySpace and Dow Jones controlled by News Corporation’s Rupert Murdoch, Microsoft determined to acquire Yahoo!, and with advertisers already telling some bloggers, “Your content is unacceptable,” we could potentially lose what’s now considered an unstoppable long tail of content offering abundant, new, credible and sustainable sources of news and information.
So, what will happen to news in the future, as the already tattered boundaries between journalism and advertising is dispensed with entirely and as content programming, commerce and online communities are rolled into one profitably attractive package?
Allman says, “There’s nothing progressive about Arianna Huffington [who wants to pay bloggers nothing to write at her space]. She is turning into the faux-progressive equivalent of Drudge.” Read Kevin Allman’s posts tagged “Write for free!” to get the back story on why he is not happy with Huffington. Eli says it’s too early to say if the whole internet is going to be corporatized, but there are no Democratic candidates promoting net neutrality.
Now Jeff asks, “What is ultimately the quality of content when you’ve cut the budget to that degree?” He had something else to ask but had a brain fart so Kevin is giving us a story about Sam Zell. When asked if a paper should have advertising containing adult content, Zell is said to have stated to a number of employees, “What kind of man doesn’t want to look at pussy?” Very derogatory, very whorish on his own part. Winkler-Schmit says people like Zell want to “make sausage” and don’t care about content. Zurik comes back that it’s better to invest in quality journalism because publishing crap is ultimately not worth it. Eli says, “The cream of the crop rises to the top.”
Winkler-Schmit brings up how the NOAH story was broken. Zurik is upset that the biggest consumer reaction actually came from Nagin’s dismissive response to media questioning. He does not like that “the sex appeal of this story” comes from Nagin.
Forgot everything said in the last few minutes once Zurik said, “I read your blogs. My eyebrows are real! I don’t get them waxed!” Room almost explodes in laughter.
Q&A time. BTW, Sophmom’s blog is back up and she is liveblogging, so if you want to read another perspective on the Journalism panel, go to DotCalm.
Mark LaFlaur asks a great question: How do we take all these instances of internet/citizen journalism and have them rise to the top? How do we increase visibility? This is a question I brought up towards the end of my civic activism panel last year. Eli talks about Daily Kos diary and TPM Diary.
Varg brings up how one can’t be taken seriously when leaving anonymous comments. Much derision for the unmoderated, bigoted cesspool that is the Comments section of NOLA.com blog posts. Read my post on mainstream media blogs for context. Eli says, “If you’re too racist for talk radio, you turn to the NOLA.com comments section.”
Adrastos tells Zurik that the bloggers are going to start a band called “Lee Zurik’s Eyebrows.”
Clancy DuBos, “reborn as a blogger,” reiterates Simon’s question, “Does anyone give a shit about real news any more?” The panel says that people generally tune out when the news is too heavy. Allman says, “What people want are hard local complicated news and Saints football.”
Ultrabrown reports that Loins Of Punjab is coming stateside this September. Unfortunately, the closest the film will come to a showing down here is in Houston. Starring Shabana Azmi, Ajay Naidu (of Office Space fame) and up and coming stars, what I’ve seen and heard of this film reminds me of Four Rooms and Best In Show. Or as the film’s website puts it, “think Monsoon Wedding meets Annie Hall, in a diner in Queens, for a masala omelette.” 3 comments #
Day 1075: Karen Gadbois In The Levee
August 6, 2008 - Filed Under blogistas, funny, media, new orleans, recovery, rising tide conference
First it was the Wall Street Journal, followed by the Gambit (1, 2) and then, off and on and when they absolutely-positively could not avoid mentioning her, the Times-Picayune. Finally, New Orleans’s own version of The Onion has discovered and used the phrase “local activist, Karen Gadbois” in a cover article. It’s a journalistic miracle! The mainstream media admits that this amazing woman, who neither works for a newspaper nor carries a press pass, exists!
The New Orleans Levee | Mayor Blames Lee Zurik For … “Everything”
… As a result, the FBI, HUD, the city’s inspector general, numerous mental health experts, activist Karen Gadbois and others have begun investigating the mayor’s latest program of buying thousands of Crimestoppers-like billboards throughout New Orleans that offer up to a $5,000 reward for Zurik.
Come see The Zohan Zurik, Karen Gadbois, Kevin Allman, Cliff Of The Crib and … wait for it .. Eli Ackermann, Dedra Johnson, John Barry, author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America AND all of your favorite bloggers at the third annual Rising Tide Conference held on the weekend of August 22-24 [SCHEDULE | REGISTRATION]. Conference day lunch catered by the makers of the best fish sandwich in my neighborhood and all of New Orleans, J’anita’s.
Related: The American Zombie | It’s Official …
Day 1063: The More We Modernize
July 25, 2008 - Filed Under books, culture-society-history, energy
The more we inherently stay the same.
Re-reading Daniel Yergin’s The Prize, with some added experience and urgency, I’ve come across several gems like this description of energy consumers in the 1850s, before the advent of kerosene and petroleum. Sound reminiscent of people today?
… For those who had money, oil from the sperm whale had for hundreds of years set the standard for high-quality illumination; but even as demand was growing, the whale schools of the Atlantic had been decimated … For the whalers, it was the golden age, as prices were rising, but it was not the golden age for their consumers, who did not want to pay $2.50 a gallon - a price that seemed sure to go even higher. Cheaper lighting fluids had been developed. Alas, all of them were inferior.
Did Yergin mean $2.50 in 1850s money or the money of 1993, when the book was published? In any case, what cost $2.50 in 1850 would have cost $43.44 in 1993 and around $65 today.
Day 1063: New Restaurant In Green Bay!
July 25, 2008 - Filed Under football, funny, green bay packers, photographs
The Jets can talk to Brett. Rumor has it he may be traded by early next week.
Update: Oh, what now? NFL.com: Favre expected to submit letter of reinstatement to NFL
Hit-n-Run Novak. Once again providing an opportunity to cry into the keyboard that this douchebag spoke at my college graduation ceremony while, a few hundred miles away, Wisconsin’s graduating class was addressed by the Dalai Lama. 0 comments #
Day 1061: Links For 2008-07-23
July 23, 2008 - Filed Under computing & internet, desi / india, digital rights, football, green bay packers, louisiana, movies/tv, music
* Favre Allegedly Used Packer Cellphone To Call Vikings
Nothing but forthcoming and cooperative with us, huh, Brett? You’re still under contract with the Packers and it is dimwit moves like this that make a whopping 200 people desire your return and relegate you to a simple link and not a whole post on this blog. Please go fishing.
* Raw Story | GOP cyber-security expert suggests Diebold tampered with 2002 election
When a consultant working for the Republicans serves you up for election-machine-related wrongdoing, you must have done something really bad.
* First an album, now Radiohead open sources a music video
Plus, the video for House of Cards uses computer rendering and visualization techniques.
* Bolly-Hinduism: Not Only For Jessica Alba But Also Natalie Portman
Devendra Barnhart and girlfriend, Natalie Portman, created and starred in this Spanish-language music video which has nothing to do with the Ramayana but uses it as the basis for the video’s set, costumes and makeup. I agree with Ultrabrown’s take that “the whole shambolic shebang is highly exoticist.” Then again, the East has yet to let go of its assessment of the West as being overrun by bikini girls with machine guns.
* D points out that former governor Edwin Edwards is waiting to learn if his sentence will be commuted. Edwards Now More Than Ever!
