The other side of Bryant Park

Midway through my time at ContentNext Media I made it through — barely — a singularly uncomfortable lunch that easily could have been an end point. It was at the Bryant Park Grill, a lovely place that for a long time after raised only the most negative emotions. I’ve been back to the park for a couple of social occasions but this afternoon, drawn by the kind of gorgeous New York day that comes only after a horrible storm, I’m sitting here feeling a kind of peace I couldn’t have imagined back then. This time the view is from the Southwest Porch, across the park from the Grill. The others at that lunch are in the midst of new ventures (It turned out I stayed the longest. Go figure.) the company has been sold twice and I’m in a place between the edges of decompression and what’s next.

It’s not a bad place to be even though it’s freaking my dad out. The temptation to walk from one job directly into the next was strong. The need to break the cycle I’ve been in for so long — and break the station — was stronger. It’s not easy to change course when you’re on a treadmill.

Today I’m challenging my perspective in New York, tomorrow I head for San Francisco to do the same at ONA12.

A virtual room of my own

I’ve spent the last eight years blogging but most of that was on behalf of paidContent. Six years ago I stopped my own blog, Trust But Verify, convinced that if I had time to write, it had to go to paidContent. That was part of my 24/7 approach to the job of reporting, editing, planning and building a company.  I wrote some personalized posts, which helped, but most of the time, unless I thought it fit on one of our sites, I mentally spiked what I had to say.  Twitter, and to a lesser extent Facebook,  provided

I wrote my last post as editor of paidContent last month . While my work can be published in other places (and will be), it’s time for me to once again have a virtual room of my own. I’ve kept the name Trust But Verify, one of the guiding principles I offered when I started helping other journalists move online. It has even more meaning in today’s real-time-on-steroids world — when news and gossip are mixed with information, misinformation and disinformation at a pace we couldn’t imagine even a few years ago; when eyewitnesses, sources and brands have the same tools as journalists; when spoofing identities is a sport; and when the power of the press potentially belongs to anyone who can hit send.

One difference between versions is that in addition to writing about journalism, technology, sports and life, I’ll also use this virtual room for some posts I once would have reserved for paidContent. My interests come with me, including the transformation of media in a multiplatform world; the creation, evolution — and devolution — of companies that change the way we connect with each other and with content; the people and the technology that make it all happen. I was a subscription addict, a gadget geek and a sports junkie when I got to paidContent and that hasn’t changed. None of these interests are going dormant just because I’m changing pace and place.

Mind the gap: I’ve moved to WordPress from Typepad, bringing my small archives along because I like a lot of those posts and I don’t like erasing the web. Breaking links is bad enough. I hope the gap between eras won’t be too confusing.

The site itself is a work in progress, particularly in terms of design and functionality. I’m looking forward to furnishing my new room.

Utterly Surreal … And Equally Lucky

I’m sitting in The Daniele hotel five blocks from our home in University City, Mo., watching Brian Williams report — briefly — on the reasons for the impromptu hotel stay: our power has been out since a massive storm front swept through Wednesday evening. We’re far from alone. Nearly 300,000 households in the metro area are sans power — some, like us, for nearly a week, others since last Friday’s encore storm. We finally gave up on most of the contents of the packed refrigerator/freezer in the kitchen and the large upright freezer in the garage. We can replace a lot of it with a few shopping trips but a large chunk of the spoiled food was squirreled away as I cooked over a period of months; some was from friends. (Then there was the stash of Frango mints … ] And yet, we are among the luckiest of the power-less. We were able to check into an affordable hotel with air conditioning (except for one very nasty night), online access, and wonder of wonders, OLN on cable so we didn’t miss the climax of the Tour de France. The hotel cut back considerably on service, closing the restaurant, not cleaning the rooms for several days, but still a plus, especially when considering how far some neighbors had to travel for a room or how some couldn’t get at all one during the worst of it. Ad, as my brother Edward points out, it’s not like it’s unusual for me to spend a week in a hotel. Our closest grocery stores are open; ditto for Companion Bakehouse, Northwest Coffee, various Starbucks and most of our usual haunts, allowing us a semblance of normalcy and some simple pleasures. We’ve been able to fill our gas tanks. We haven’t had to scramble for water or food. We don’t have pets or children to worry about. (We’ve been through a sweltering power outage with small kids and have nothing but empathy for anyone in that situation.) Our house survived; our cars are intact. (I heard about someone today whose family had four cars totalled in the storm.) The health crises we dealt with earlier this summer are past, leaving us well into recovery mode. And, for anyone who’s ever had to deal with a fridge gone bad, someone else did the emptying and cleanup, for which I am truly thankful.

As all of this plays out, we’re getting reports from our close friends on a kibbutz near Haifa, where my mother and niece spent time in the peaceful days of early summer … more reminders of how precious life is and how good we have it. Today’s message was welcome news — and more surreal than anything we’ve experienced here: a new baby is in the family, born underground in Nahariya.

Shelley Winters: 8/18/20-1/14/06

I’ve had the luck to meet and write about a variety of astonishing people. In 1993, one of my assignments for the Chicago Tribune’s Tempo section took me into a satellite of the legendary Actors Studio being conducted at Washington University, my alma mater.  I knew Shelley Winters was talented, often underestimated by the Poseidon Adventure generation. I didn’t realize until then just how skilled she was as an actress and teacher. How I envied those students.

I’ve uploaded the text of the resulting article. The formatting isn’t fancy. Then again, neither was Shelley Winters.

Linkblog.

Continue reading →

Reporter Kidnapped In Iraq; Translator Killed

In news suppressed by major U.S. news outlets until now, freelance reporter Jill Carroll has been kidnapped while on assignment in Iraq for the Christian Science Monitor. Her Iraqi interpreter, one of many who risk their lives as much as any journalist, was killed in the Saturday morning kidnapping. According to Editor & Publisher, the news was withheld initially at the Monitor’s request and released after it appeared in dozens of news outlets outside the U.S. I’ll deal with the futility of withholding news in the Internet Age another time. News stories: CSM | E&P. (Links via Romenesko.)

Now I join the Monitor and others in urging the release of this journalist and the protection of her colleagues and the people who make their work possible. Without them we outside Iraq have no hope of ever understanding what is going on inside a war zone that is also a home to millions. My thoughts and prayers are with Jill and those who know and love her.

From the Monitor’s statement:

"Jill’s ability to help others understand the issues
facing all groups in Iraq has been invaluable. We are urgently seeking
information about Ms. Carroll and are pursuing every avenue to secure
her release." —  Richard Bergenheim, Editor

It would be nice if someone removed the "give a gift subscription" ad from the bottom of the statement. I don’t think anyone is trying to benefit; it just doesn’t look good.

(Disclosure: I’ve freelanced for CSM since 2004 under far less dangerous circumstances.)

Euphoria, Then Sadness

One of those nights when the name of this blog is reflected in the news. A few hours ago, I came back to my Las Vegas hotel room to drop off some things and caught the welcome news on CNN that 12 miners missing after a  West Virginia mine explosion had survived. Back from dinner and working away with CNN in the background, I was half-listening to Anderson Cooper live in West Virginia — and noting that CNN was truly live, not Memorex — when a woman and children rushed up the camera blurting out that it had all been a mistake.One man survived; the rest were confirmed dead.

It was a startling moment in so many ways. With no way of confirming at that moment what he — and we — were being told, the story continued nearly unchecked. In a way, it was a replay of the way the news of survival was delivered hours earlier — a variation of the telegraph game run horribly amuck. This time, the news was right — one man survived and had been rushed to the hospital; the rest, in a horrible reversal, would not be coming home.

As I type, angry family members are being interviewed by Miles O’Brien. For now, the anger is aimed at the company, particularly the top exec. Earlier, during a press conference witjh Gov. Joe Manchini, reporters tried to figure out how much blame he should bear — some used a comment he made as a confirmation of the survival. But it wasn’t the governor who reported the survival story.

At some point, the media covering this story needs to look inward and consider the contribution journalists made to the spread of inaccurate reports. We all make mistakes (I made one Tueaday that’s still driving me crazy); most of us, if not all, likely have repeated inaccurate information because it came from a reliable source.  But we can — and should — take responsibility for what we report and how we report it.

Addendum: I’m not suggesting this coverage was based
on reliable sources; the sourcing and decision-making is unclear at
this point. The AP’s reporting certainly contributed to some of the coverage but that doesn’t explain why so many journalists at what had become a major media event went with what appears to be hearsay instead of waiting for official confirmation.  The live coverage of the euphoric scene had its own power. What would I or any of you have done in their place? The temptation to believe in miracles can’t be underestimated. Neither can group-think. I hope I would have been skeptical.

Tsunami Revisited: Evelyn Rodriguez

Getting to know Evelyn Rodriguez, who translated suriving last year’s tsunami into something personal for those of us light years away, was one of the best parts of BlogHer for me; even better was the late afternoon we spent in Palo Alto a couple of days later. I’ve been incredibly remiss in not mentioning her anniversary trip back to Thailand, where she came so close to losing her life. This time, Evelyn’s  journalistic mission is no accident. — she’s on the scene as a solo journalist, also as a participatory journalist and a citizen journalist as long as we’re tossing terms around.. (Yes, I still shudder at the cj description but I’ll honor others’ choices.)

Evelyn explains: “I’m collecting stories of resiliency, growth, faith, and grassroots action – and whatever unfolds once actually there. I’ll offer (and hopefully via in-kind donations leave behind equipment) to teach locals to tell their own first-person stories in their own words on their own blogs long after I’m gone. … I’ll delve into how people are rebuilding emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. I believe their stories can teach all of us and shed light for anyone confronting with loss in their own lives. And now with Katrina and worldwide disasters in Guatemala, Mexico and Pakistan/India, it seems all the more relevant to learn from those thriving post-tsunami.”

You can follow her journey through her blog Crossroad Dispatches. And you can give yourself a (insert holiday of your choice) present by supporting Evelyn’s efforts via the tipjar or Paypal (less admijnistrative cost for her), as I have.

Tsunami Revisited: Evelyn Rodriguez

(This is a duplicate that occurred while I was using a new plug-in. I’m leaving it up in case someone is linking to it.)

Getting to know Evelyn Rodriguez, who translated surviving last year’s tsunami into something personal for those of us light years away, was one of the best parts of BlogHer for me; even better was the late afternoon we spent in Palo Alto a couple of days later. I’ve been incredibly remiss in not mentioning her anniversary trip back to Thailand, where she came so close to losing her life. This time, Evelyn’s  journalistic mission is no accident. — she’s on the scene as a solo journalist, also as a participatory journalist and a citizen journalist as long as we’re tossing terms around.. (Yes, I still shudder at the cj description but I’ll honor others’ choices.)

Evelyn explains: "I’m collecting stories of resiliency, growth, faith, and grassroots action – and whatever unfolds once actually there. I’ll offer (and hopefully via in-kind donations leave behind equipment) to teach locals to tell their own first-person stories in their own words on their own blogs long after I’m gone. … I’ll delve into how people are rebuilding emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. I believe their stories can teach all of us and shed light for anyone confronting with loss in their own lives. And now with Katrina and worldwide disasters in Guatemala, Mexico and Pakistan/India, it seems all the more relevant to learn from those thriving post-tsunami."

You can follow her journey through her blog Crossroad Dispatches. And you can give yourself a (insert holiday of your choice) present by supporting Evelyn’s efforts via the tipjar or Paypal (less admijnistrative cost for her), as I have.

A call for professional journalists

Here’s something you don’t see every day — a call for more professional journalism. Russell Beattie uses the upcoming launch of Newsvine, which will combine straight news with blog-like conversation, to explain the need for professional journalists compared to blog-columnists like him:

Forget all this “social news” crap where lazy people read a bunch of
news sources, add a bit of uninteresting, usually uniformed opinion or
analysis and throw it out there as a story. There’s a real need for
professional journalism, but published with a blog-like versatility,
accessibility and accountability. We don’t need more columnists – we
need more journalists, willing to get their hands dirty, keep their
opinions to themselves as best as possible and help inform the rest of
us of what’s going on in the places we live.

Can’t agree about the more columnists but he raises an interesting idea — and not simply because I think he’s describing what we do at paidContent.org. (one difference: we include opinions although news is always our prime focus.) Russ’s focus is on local news, where those willing to accept the responsibilities that come with committing journalism may be able to make the biggest difference.

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“Radio. God, that’s going to break down a lot of walls.”

Just caugh at few minutes of Inherit the Wind — the version produced the same year I was. Here’s a little snippet near the end, a conversation between Spencer Tracy as Henry Drummond/Clarence Darrow and an announcer from WGN that’s relevant on so many levels I can’t resist:                                                                                                                                               Drummond: You’re going to broadcast?

Announcer: We’ve got a direct wire to WGN Chicago. As soon as the jury returns, we’ll broadcast the verdict.

Drummond: Radio. God, that’s going to break down a lot of walls.

Announcer: You’re not supposed to say “God” on the radio.

Drummond: Why the hell not?

Announcer (covering the mike): You’re not supposed to say “hell” either.

Drummond: This is going to be a barren source of amusment.

(I actually transcribed this before I found the job already done on IMDB. Next time, I check first.)