LESSONS FROM THE MOUNTAIN

The results of the Mountain Workshops are up on the Web and well worth spending some — well, a lot of — time with.

The annual workshop brings students and working journalists together with leading photojournalists, editors and writers for two concurrent workshops, one on photojournalism and one on photo editing. (Among the pros at this year's workshops were Pulitzer Prize winners Carolyn Cole of the LA Times and Barry Gutierrez of the Rocky Mountain News.)

The web site features six short multimedia pieces (great photography augmented with audio) but there's much more. If you go to the main menu and click on the list of participants, you can see the works of all of the young shooters, and there are dozens of them.

This is great photography not only to look at, but to learn from.

SOURCE: Interactive Narratives.
11:13:16 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

COSTUMED UP

From Rex Sorgatz at fimoculous.com (you really should bookmark this guy):

Last year, I went as the little AOL guy for Halloween. This year? I'm going as a Spam Filter. My nerd is bigger than yours.

DON'T TELL ME THIS

David Akin follows up on Apple's announcement that the iTunes Music Store is coming to Canada next month, but ends his version of the announcement with a question mark.

Akin has a link to a news report that apparently quotes one music industry leaders here as saying no agreements have been signed yet. (I'll have to take his word for it: the link goes to a subscription-only Decima newsletter.)
9:34:47 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

MEDIA GETS HYPER

Mark Glaser at Online Journalism Review has a nice overview of hyperlocal media, the citizen journalism movement that has spawned titles like Northwest Voice and even a couple of journalism school experiments.

I'm fascinated by what's happening. I think this is an exciting part of the emerging new media landscape, but I'm not convinced this is the media-killer that some of its proponents seem to think it might be.
8:50:05 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

PET SOUNDS

The softer side of the Internet: catblogging.

NOTE: NY Times link so registration may be required; SOURCE: Atrios.
6:43:53 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

ASKING TOUGH QUESTIONS

Jeff Jarvis wonders who will ask the tough questions of those in power in an age when mainstream media has given up on the practice and citizen journalists don't have access.

Howard Stern said this morning that the only reason his call to Michael Powell yesterday [Jarvis has a transcript] is making such big news today is that journalists no longer ask tough questions.

He's all too right.

TV especially thinks toughness (and balance) come from getting people from two sides on the air to yell at each other.

Jarvis points out that a weakness of citizen journalism is that few people have the access to decision-makers that journalists do. That means reporters are going to have to start doing the job they are supposed to, he says.

We the people don't have the access.... The journalists are supposed to do it for us and they have the access but they get scared of pissing off power. They wimp.

The problem media today isn't that it's biased. Or that it's unbiased. The problem is that media stopped thinking like a human being and asking the questions human beings would ask.

Jarvis' complaint about a sometimes too compliant media is an old one. It's valid, but the lack of tough questioning has always been balanced in media minds by the "need" for continuing access so that important stories can be covered in the future. He's correct, too, to tie it into the notion of media objectivity and the quaint-sounding (and increasingly out-dated) media adage: we report, you decide.

Is there a way out? I think so. Citizen journalism (whether through blogs, podcasting, reader-driven media or whatever) has the potential to push the profession hard on the issue of asking the questions that really should be asked.
11:00:14 AM  LINK TO THIS POST