a. fish

Licensing blog posts to MSM editors

Yet another gem culled from the blog of Robb (the last for a while, I promise.) First he rants on the terribly dated, elitest financing model of too many social sites in Web 2.0 powered by Financing 0.1 (aka: you'll get nothing, and like it!)  Said Robb, "Hoarding like this is so bubble."

But don't miss this from a commenter calling himself Tom Griffin:

There's an interesting little site in Britain called Scoopt that started out last year as a photo agency to enable the public to sell their pictures to the media. It has just branched out into licensing blog posts to editors. Could be worth keeping an eye on if the model takes off. They're advising bloggers to post to an 'open source newspaper' called Nightcap Syndication so I suppose there's a Web 2.0 aspect to it.

Did Jay Rosen or Dan Gillmore ever try this? If not why not?

Current.tv's Christoff returns from Mississippi

On MUNI's N train tonight I met Christoff from Current.tv. He was sunburned and red-eyed, having just returned from Mississippi. He was heading home from Current's headquarters, where he and his producer finished up editing two segments which will air on Current tomorrow (Wednesday.) Some tidbits he gave me in conversation on MUNI:

• He and his producer were able to drive down into storm-ravaged Mississippi in a Hertz-rented SUV. They encountered no barriers on their way down last Wednesday, yet they managed to get there three days before FEMA.
• Christoff recounted throwing up (which will be in his "pod" or tv segment) and personally seeing twelve bodies during his time there.
• The two-man reporting crew, who brought Power Bars and bottled water for themselves, gave the first bottled water to survivers they met on the trip.

That Christoff and his producer were able to rent an SUV from Hertz and just wander into this area, and be the first outsiders to greet some of Mississippi's Katrina survivors, should make for some worthwhile alternative tv news. Christoff said the segments will only be viewable on the television portion of the network, and will not be streamed online.

Last day of INPUT 2005

INPUT, the INternational PUblic Television conference, completes its week-long exhibition of film screenings and panels at the San Francisco Hilton this evening before kicking off INPUT2006 - Taiwan. While talk of right-wing politicization of the US Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) took on a hushed hallway buzz, the international producers shared solutions to this problem and other primetime audience challenges.

Battling execs like CPB chairman Kenneth Tomlinson may be business as public broadcasting usual. Gripes of local broadcasting stations being too politically correct, not taking enough risks or having the balls to show anything racier than Lawrence Welk pervaded conversations I had with producers from across the country and world. KQED, often accused of being a poorly-run operation, is in good company it seems.

Meanwhile, there's still time to view today's screenings each followed by Q&As with film producers. Beginning at 9:00AM, Brazil's "Carrapateira is No Longer Jealous of Apollo 11" will be shown as will several other documentaries such as US-produced "Power Trip". In the afternoon session, Sweden's "The Empire" is one of four films being showcased. And any films from earlier in the week, such as my favorite "The Dali Dimension" about Salvador Dali's relationship with top scientists of the twentieth century, can be viewed at INPUT's private screening room on the fourth floor.

SF Newspapers use more of the web

The San Francisco Chronicle published articles about local podcasters, and how to make a podcast, and reporters Benny Evangelista and Tom Abata published a podcast of their own.

Last month, on the same day that Superior Court judge declared California's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, sfgate provided a forum for readers to share their immediate reactions. The forum (which I cannot find now, it may have been removed, it was like this) worked like a message board but it did not provide threaded discussions to reply to user comments.

The San Francisco Examiner, on the other hand, has a permanent threaded messageboard/forum using phpBB. They also have a guestbook, though nobody has signed it, and the heading says it is a sounding board, but really it's just a mailto link to Editor Sarah Randolf.

Using their partnership with tv station KPIX, The Chronicle provided a clip of the April 6th Ritz-Carlton hotel Arnold Schwartzenegger protest along with the story article and photos. The paper also published video of KPIX interviews with 9-year-old Selah Kalaf and his father Raheem Kalaf, the subjects of the feature story Operation Lion Heart, which last Monday won a Pulitzer for feature photography.

And like Markos Moulitsas ("kos" of the dailykos,) the SF Examiner started a few baseball blogs: examiner-giants.blogspot.com for the San Francisco Giants and examiner-as.blogspot.com for the Oakland As. Each baseball blog has only one post each so far.

SF Vloggers: Sell video to KPIX and break the "Stringer" Cartel

(UPDATE/CORRECTION 3/10/2005: On 2/17/2005, this post described an event with stringer videographers as a "price gouging effort." That phrase was this author's word choice, and was never uttered by KRON editor Misha Rosiak. She clarified the videographer selling video for high rates was "not a regular stringer." Because of the unusually high price, editors at KRON spoke to other stations about the specific footage and its price, Rosiak said.)

A way to make money, or scabbing a grassroots union: KPIX is being boycotted by a San Francisco cartel of "Stringers" - grassroots style videographers who shoot events all over town and sell them to local news stations. The local Stringers are organized; they monitor CB scanners for newsworthy events, obey turf boundaries, and agree not to sell clips from a fellow Stringer's territory.

Misha Rosiak, an editor from KRON who spoke at my journalism class Thursday night, reported contention in the Stringer "conglomerate" vs. MSM local news station relationships. KRON does not usually talk with direct competitors KTVU and KPIX, but communication was sparked among stations, who agree the KPIX boycott is a price gauging effort, Rosiak said.

Email to my journo teacher

I wrote a looong email to my journalism teacher. Im taking journalism101 "News Writing and Reporting" at San Francisco City College. I have no expectations of becoming a fulltime reporter, I just wanted some writing instruction to hopefully publish an article in a tech mag somewhere someday.

But this email which just came out made me realize I have pent up feelings: resentment, shared anxiety, compassion, outrage for the news business today. Originally I sent Jon (the teacher) a NYTimes article about podcasting, and asked him why The SF Chronicle (our local paper) has a less than stellar tech beat. He responded that "Some people would say the Chron has pretty extensive tech reporting, but those are opinions" he has no opinion (_sigh_), and asked me to elaborate. (Email below).

Uncertainty needs a home

Suspicous anxiety dustbunny sans anchor might go away...yeah right. Janet Jackson was velcro for unassigned, unrelated unease. The biggest black eye in the Eason Jordan story, in my opinion, is not the bloggers on the right, not the bloggers on the left, not Jarvis, Jordan, the Davos organizers, but CNN - do they care?

His accusers may be right, his allegations true, both, nobody seems interested. A TimeWarner quarter priority ladder: risk avoidance, ratings, real news, truth.

This giant suspicion cloud ("it's an outcome still unexplained, reporters on the media beat")-  the source, either CNN, Jordan, some kind of authority can quell the upset by giving it a home. Doubters from the right: he was one of many who just happened to get caught - why should we watch? Doubters from the left: they report it, unless of course it upsets the wrong people in which case they'll spike it and fire the reporter, we decide - why should we watch? "The most trusted name in news"?? Sounds like "Fair and Balanced".

Appreciate the Medium: Berkeley Rep

My last post for the night before UNPLUGging. Just had to note this because below I argue that for podcasts not to suck they should use the medium in ways that you cannot use text. So to really appreciate medium(s?) go see Berkeley Rep's Eurydice (your id issy) which has been extended through November 21. If you cringe at the thought of sitting through a live play as stuffy tthhheeeatah, this is not what you're imagining. It is based on a chapter of Ovid's Metamorphosis but the language is current Amerrkin English, there are no intermissions, and it's over in 90 minutes.

But the SET! The set is incredible, the floor and walls of the stage are blue tiles as the story takes place inside a swimming pool (not underwater though). At one point faucets in the set walls gussshhh with water, and this is an effect that cannot be accomplished in film because the water comes flooding towards you, the audience, but these really conspicuous drains at the very very front of the stage suck the water in before it reaches your toes.

And don't tell the guys this but it's also a touching story. Recommended.

VetDay TV

Surprised a president is reelected in a badly run war? Some say "Americans have become remarkably isolated from the rigors of war".

Isolated from war? I wonder why that is. Lots of people watch the evening news: "Laci Peterson! Laci Peterson! Laci Peterson! Laci Peterson! Oh, there's some kind of thingee happening in Iraq".

Affiliate owners sure sound like they'd prefer to air programs they think are "a patriotic, artistic tribute to our fighting forces". I'm sure if they just gave Michael Powell a ring he'd tell them they had fine paranoia: "the FCC, given its current timidity in dealing in this area, would not grant an advance waiver, which would have allowed stations like ours to run it without any question or any concern". Oh.

Can't they run it with the bad words bleeped out? Not sure I want to know.