Social Media Nerd
Concise, curated news and rambling rants on social media
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Quote reblogged from interesting times.The good news, young writers, is that your life does not have to be extraordinarily interesting, because there are billions of people in the world who do have interesting lives, and you have the privilege of telling their stories. Even the most productive journalist could not write 1% of humanity’s freely available interesting stories in the course of an entire career. Your friends, and neighbors, and community members, and people across town, and across your country, and across the world far and wide are all brimming with stories to tell. Stories of love, and war, and crime, and peril, and redemption. The average inmate at your local jail probably has a far more interesting life story than Susan Shapiro or you or I do, no matter how many of our ex-boyfriends and girlfriends we call for comment. All of the compelling stories you could ever hope to be offered are already freely available. All you have to do is to look outside of yourself, and listen, and write them down.Journalism is not narcissism, Hamilton Nolan (via susie-c)
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Quote reblogged from interesting times.I am bad at interviewing people. I avoid situations in which I have to talk to anyone’s press agent. (This precludes doing pieces on most actors, a bonus in itself.) I do not like to make telephone calls, and would not like to count the mornings I have sat on some Best Western motel bed somewhere and tried to force myself to put through the call to the assistant district attorney. My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.Joan Didion selling herself out in the introduction to Slouching Toward Bethlehem (via susie-c)
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Link reblogged from That's No Space Station
The parents of a little boy who darted past the shooter just before his teacher and classmates were slaughtered put up a sign asking people not to ring their doorbell, CNN reported. Every time it rang, they said, their six-year-old son thought the gunman had found him.
Blogging sure hasn’t done any favors to journalistic ethics. But the mainstream media seems delighted to shoot itself in the foot with a sawed off shotgun.
“The parents of a little boy who darted past the shooter just before his teacher and classmates were slaughtered put up a sign asking people not to ring their doorbell, CNN reported. Every time it rang, they said, their six-year-old son thought the gunman had found him.”
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK
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Being in media is terrifying right now. Whereas in the old days, you wrote something and then a fleet of people printed it and handed it to X hundred thousand people so they would read it, now, the fleet is gone. You are alone out there in the ocean and there’s not much that anyone can do for any given story to make sure that people read it. […] We do not control the distribution of our work. Period.
Alexis Madrigal (via theatlantic)
FJP: Others think that change is awesome.
(via futurejournalismproject)
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The journalist has not been replaced but displaced, moved higher up the editorial chain from the production of initial observations to the role that emphasizes verification and interpretation, bringing sense to the streams of text, audio, photos and video produced by the public.Clay Shirky, Emily Bell, C.W. Anderson, Post-Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the present (via soupsoup)
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Link reblogged from GayWrites.
The Associated Press has removed the word “homophobia” from its Stylebook, guidelines that dictate how a number of publications spell and use certain terms. The term “ethnic cleansing” will be removed as well. The changes will appear in next year’s printed edition of the book.
Here’s their logic:
The online Style Book now says that “-phobia,” “an irrational, uncontrollable fear, often a form of mental illness” should not be used “in political or social contexts,” including “homophobia” and “Islamophobia.” It also calls “ethnic cleansing” a “euphemism,” and says the AP “does not use ‘ethnic cleansing’ on its own. It must be enclosed in quotes, attributed and explained.”
“Ethnic cleansing is a euphemism for pretty violent activities, a phobia is a psychiatric or medical term for a severe mental disorder. Those terms have been used quite a bit in the past, and we don’t feel that’s quite accurate,” AP Deputy Standards Editor Dave Minthorn told POLITICO.
“When you break down ‘ethnic cleansing,’ it’s a cover for terrible violent activities. It’s a term we certainly don’t want to propgate,” Minthorn continued. ”Homophobia especially — it’s just off the mark. It’s ascribing a mental disability to someone, and suggests a knowledge that we don’t have. It seems inaccurate. Instead, we would use something more neutral: anti-gay, or some such, if we had reason to believe that was the case.”
This is a big change for those of us in the news industry. Thoughts?
AP, you are on point.
I love me that stylebook.
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Video reblogged from Laughing Squid Links
Off Book: The Impact of Twitter on Journalism
The world of journalism has changed in the internet era. Newsrooms are significantly smaller now than they were 10 years ago, and news is no longer a once-a-day product, but instead a constant flow of information. The rise of Twitter brought concerns within the industry - would this overwhelming source of direct raw information put professional reporters out of business? Journalists are now faced with the challenge of adapting their roles in this digital era, finding new ways to add value to content, and helping to ensure that the internet is changing our worldview for the better.
Featuring:
Jeff Jarvis, Director, Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism
Mark Luckie, Manager of Journalism & News at Twitter
Craig Kanalley, Senior Editor of Big News & Live Events at Huffington Post
Chris Anderson, Director of Research, Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism -
Quote reblogged from The Political NotebookA distinction needs to be made. The battle over ideas — over who owns the truth in a given conflict — should be fought with notebooks and video cameras, not weapons of war.
David Carr, “Using War As A Cover To Target Journalists.”
This is beautifully written, and talks some serious sense about a dangerous trend.
(via thepoliticalnotebook)
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So now governments liveblog war. Uhm. Okay.
I guess with journalism devolving into political PR, we owe Twitter a shot at acting as the 4th Estate.
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Photo reblogged from The Daily What
![thedailywhat:
This Is All Kinds Of Predictable of the Day: And who reads newspapers anymore, anyway?
(Embiggen.)
[4thestateproject]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcgmjsTgtq1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
This Is All Kinds Of Predictable of the Day: And who reads newspapers anymore, anyway?
