Why Journalism Matters.

I love to rip on sportswriters who ask the same questions each and every year, with only the names, records and teams changes to protect the bored.

Why ? Because journalism matters. Every game is its own ecosystem (welcome to the new tech buzzword inserted here to make you say.. huh ?). It takes on a life of its own, with strategy, personalities, sub plots. The best we get in questions is “what happened coach ?” or prompts that the reporter hopes will result in someone getting in trouble “What did you think of the refs ?” No depth.

I realize its  not really the reporters fault. Its the result of newsenomics. Or to paraphrase the masthead of a once great, now decent newspaper, “all the news we can now afford to find and print”.

Of course thats a shame, but it also is missing the opportunity of a lifetime.

The perception from traditional media seems to be that “media savvy youth of today” dont read , or need newspapers. They dont need the traditional 6pm news. They dont need news networks.

Thats true, they dont need them. They do want them however.

The problem is that they want them packaged to their liking - with a payoff.

Thats what media is missing with kids today. Its not the medium that acts as the circulation prevention team, its the lack of payoff and packaging.

Howard Stern has absolutely no problem discussing everything and anything happening in the world today. None. His listeners are without question better educated about the role of the FCC  along with any number of important relevant issues happening today, than viewers of the CBS Evening News. Kids and adults will listen to Howard. Why ? With Howard, you get a payoff. You know if there is an angle to be exploited to find the humor, irony or hypocrisy, he will find it.

Remember when “Mike Wallace with 60 Minutes” used to strike fear in the hearts of evil doers across the world ? And viewers of 60 minutes loved it. Why ? Because we knew there was always a payoff coming.  Anyone fit that role anymore ?

Journalism matters.

ABC hired Charles Gibson. Why ? Because he represents what ? Tonights stories on ABC all feature a talking head showing a picture , then talking some more , describing the picture.

A simple question. What is it that a viewer can get on world news tonight that couldnt be found on any Yahoo /Google?Yourfave newsite ? Where is the payoff ? Where is the journalism ?

Want to get younger viewers ? Go out and hire the very best recent college journalism graduates you can find. Give them a camera, a computer  and an area of specialty; Business, local politics, national politics, whatever. Better yet, ask them what they think matters.  Enable them to be the new “mike wallace and  60 minutes” . Tell them their only requirement is that they are equal parts journalist and adrenalin junkies. Focused on fearlessly finding the truth behind stories that matter to them, their families and friends.  Guess what, even for a 21 year old, its not just about Paris Hilton, Bradgelina and the latest Rap feud.

Kids want to learn. They want to know.

Journalism matters.

But they arent going to turn in unless there is a payoff.

Does anyone in mainstream media honestly believe user generated content stops with parodies of Lazy Sunday ? Troll through myspace. Its not only for personal branding. (yes, thats what Myspace is all about.  Personal Branding. MySpace = your indvidual CSS. You are what you post on your myspace page). Do a search on haditha, timor, any topic you can find in the news, and there are hundreds with an opinion about it on myspace, the other social networks and of course personal blogs like this.

Which leads to the question. Who will amass a material audience first.  Young, energetic  journalism graduates  who  post  about the  topics they care about on their own sites,  or the main stream media.

The race is on. Unless of course you hire the people that can provide the payoff that people of all ages want.

I just hired a young, award winning journalist to partner with me on a blog that will do nothing but try to uncover  corporate fraud. Young, energetic, fired up and damn the stuff  i have seen so far is good.  Will the payoff be about accounting gone bad ? Will it be a Skilling and Lay standing in front of the mike picture with accompanying text ? No chance. 

If we found the enron scam, I would push to tell the story with a flash animation parody  of Skilling and Lay to Shaggies “It wasnt me” along side a Bethany McLean/Peter Elkind quality story. Just as the movie “Enron The Smartest Guys in the Room ” told the story in a detailed and entertaining way, our goal will be to do the same.

Business is an easy place for me to start because the fraud and sithlord wannabes  uncovered can not only create great stories of interest for the webite and HDNet World Report,  but also allow me to buy and the sell the stocks of the company.  A journalistic conflict you say ? Not any more. Not in this world. It will be fully disclosed and explained. This site is for the profit of its owners and we will buy and sell stocks that are discussed, before they are made available on the site. So make any decisions based on this information accordingly.

Facts are facts. Right is its own defense. If we can uncover companies whose stock is public and that can be bought or sold and that allows us to pay for more in depth research and effort. Im good with that. 

HDNet news is also working on hiring the young and the restless to go out and produce stories that matter.  Stories that have a payoff. Will we package them to reach a young audience ? Nope. HDNet isnt trolling to reduce the average age of our viewers. We dont care how old they are. We will produce news reports that matter to people of all ages.  Our show Deadline is a nice little test with short , unique, irreverant stories coming from 30 plus stringers worldwide.

Journalism Matters. Im hoping the growing ignorance of this fact will make the news component of HDNet stronger and stronger and help us grow as a network

.

If you are a journalism major that can uncover stories others cant find and tell them in a way that others want to read. Send me an email with samples.

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[Blog Maverick]

He is right more often then he is wrong. It is why the Mavs are my team for the playoffs. Because Mark Cuban so often gets it. People want news. But fewer of them want it read to them by a talking head. especially when they can get just that via the Internet. They want context and settings, not just the cold hard facts. The current MSM tries so hard to be objective that it has lost context. Mass media is losing its mass appeal.  5:51:22 AM    

Sheep Dash! [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)].

Lack of sleep can affect your reaction times. This is a cute online game that tests how alert you are and also reveals the impact of a cup of tea or coffee on your performance. What was your reaction time? Did it improve after a cup of coffee or tea?

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... By "Hedwig the Owl" aka "GrrlScientist" none@example.com. [ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed]

fun. Not too surprisingly, I am very slow. Not being able to sleep is a cause of that ;-)  5:40:04 AM    

Subtropic warming could mean bigger deserts- study. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Earth's atmosphere is warming faster over the subtropics than anywhere else, which could mean bigger deserts and more drought from Africa to Australia to the Middle East, researchers said on Thursday. [Reuters: Science]

Hotter temperatures and less rain. The Southern US may be in for some rough years. Especially if the other data being generated is correct and hurricanes will be more potent because the Carribean is hotter.  5:32:05 AM    

New Orleans 'sinking faster'. Parts of New Orleans are sinking more rapidly than first thought and could become "death traps", a study says. [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Sunsidence is a real problem in many Gulf Coast cities (Houston comes to mind as another city that has bowl-like depressions. But its flooding potential is not nearly as huge as NO.) This will be a very difficult problem to overcome.One levee that failed was 3 feet lower than it was when it was built 30 years ago. A foot a decade is a hard number to change. With rising sea levels and bigger storms, NO may just not have much life left.  5:27:45 AM    

# TO HELL WITH THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, or anything in NYC; none of them are national icons or monuments.

After vowing to steer a greater share of antiterrorism money to the highest-risk communities, Department of Homeland Security officials on Wednesday announced 2006 grants that slashed money for New York and Washington 40 percent, while other cities including Omaha and Louisville, Ky., got a surge of new dollars.

[...]

The net effect was that the grant to New York City, which was $207.6 million last year, will drop to $124.5 million this year. Washington will see its grant dollars drop to $46.5 million this year from $77.5 million.

[...]

New York officials were given a one-page tally that explained, in part, how the region's risk-based standing was calculated. The document said the region had no "national monuments or icons," four banking or financial firms with assets of over $8 billion, 28 chemical or hazardous material sites, as well as nearly 7,000 other possible important, high-risk targets, like hospitals or major office buildings, a tally that some city officials said had major omissions or errors.

"It's outrageous that these bean counters don't think the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge are national monuments or icons," said Jordon Barowitz, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg.

The $711 million in so-called Urban Area Security Initiative grants was one piece of a larger $1.7 billion pool awarded to states on Wednesday, which is hundreds of millions less than was available last year.

Over all, New York State will get $183.7 million, a 20 percent drop from last year. That means that the state's per capita share of grant money, which totals $2.78 a person, will drop to an even lower level compared with some rural states, like Wyoming, which will get $14.83 a person this year, according to a calculation by Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York.

Apparently the Bush Administration is informing us that terrorism is much less dangerous than it used to be, so we don't have to spend nearly as much money on preventing it as we used to: isn't that great news?

Aren't these the people you want to trust to fight the War On Terror?

Read The Rest Scale: 3 out of 5. And strongly consider moving to Wyoming, where most people are Republicans, and a terror attack may happen at any moment, but they'll be more prepared! (Soon to feature the Dick Cheney National Monument! Wait for it!) - Gary Farber [Amygdala]

No monuments or icons in NYC? The story also suggests that NYC and DC are safer now than last year. I bet by their definition, the Twin Towers were not icons either. I wonder what icons and monuments are being protected in Wyoming?  5:16:53 AM