Sunday, February 27, 2005

Sunday Information Overload Breaking news -- an early-morning fire story -- was delivered to my computer this morning by WBIR-TV's RSS headline feed... Weblogger SouthKnoxBubba had the story too, with a passer-by's picture and a link to WBIR. He added links to the other TV stations, WATE and WVLT, as they put the story online. (WATE's version includes video in Windows Media Player format.) A friend of a resident of the building and an eye-witness provided the first comments to SKBubba's item -- participatory community journalism at work. (The News Sentinel's KnoxNews brief on Sunday afternoon looked like it was written much earlier, before the extent of the fire damage was known. Headline: "No reports of injury in downtown condominium fire." But the paper's partnership with WBIR created a front page link to the station's more complete report. By mid-afternoon, reporter J.J. Stambaugh and photographer Saul Young had the full News Sentinel story on the top of the KnoxNews.com home page.) The WBIR version is a good reminder to discuss the time-shifting capabilities of television websites, and RSS syndication in general, in Monday's classes. Here are some sample headlines from Sunday, and a link to WBIR's RSS subscription page. Fire Chief calling downtown fire "suspicious". A building in Downtown Knoxville burned overnight. There were condos upstairs, a business downstairs. Firefighters believe everyone got out ok.. Sen. John Ford files police report against Memphis reporter. Ford claims Andy Wise of WREG-TV stepped over the line during a confrontation last week at Ford's office in downtown Memphis. Howard Baker rejoins TN law firm. The 79-year-old statesman will work from his home in Huntsville, TN, as well as in the Washington offices of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz. I-40 on TN/NC border close to reopening. North Carolina transportation officials are closer to reopening all four lanes of Interstate 40 near the Tennessee line. Knoxville stores selling Sudafed that can't be used to make meth. A new tool in Tennessee's war on meth might be in your drug store soon. It's not a surveillance camera, or a limit on how much cold medicine you can buy, it is a product that might put meth makers out of business. Those summaries also will come in handy for a discussion of summary-lead writing, among other things. The UT Daily Beacon also sends headlines to my news aggregator, but no summaries. I hope the headlines were enough to prompt journalism students to follow the links to these stories in Friday's paper: Bill to prevent expression of personal beliefs in education Bill aims to stifle source revealing The New York Times has provided a headline-summary feed for a couple of years. Here are some time-shifted samples of stories that were still in my newsfeed archive on Sunday, although they appeared in the media and technology feeds going back a few days: 2 Involved in Flawed Report at CBS Resign Two journalists who initially refused to resign over a disputed broadcast about President Bush's National Guard service have submitted their resignations to CBS. NYT Fri, Feb 25, 2005 23:00 Henry A. Grunwald, Editor Who Directed Shift in Time Magazine, Is Dead at 82 Henry A. Grunwald, a refugee from Nazi-dominated Austria, rose to become Time magazine's top editor and later served as a United States ambassador. NYT Sat, Feb 26, 2005 23:00 The Internet: It's the New TV Television has long been a favorite way to pass time. But an annual survey by Jupiter Research showed that last year American adults spent as many hours a week in front of another screen - their computer's. NYT Wed, Feb 23, 2005 23:00 The Latest Initiative in Congress: Blogging The art of the Weblog is now being practiced in Congress. NYT Wed, Feb 23, 2005 23:00 I wonder... Did those congressional bloggers read Slate's article last week, "Rappers and Bloggers: Separated at birth!"? (Thanks to SKB for pointing that one out, too.) updated 6:30 p.m. 11:39:34 AM    comment []

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