Accept no substitutes

Author: Paul (Page 102 of 147)

Journalism ethics and blogs?

Took a call last night from a local reporter, Matt Dees, who part of the crew doing a series of stories on a sordid murder in Clayton. Three members of the family involved had/have blogs. Two of those members are kids in high school with Xanga and mySpace blogs. We chatted a bit about blogs in general. I wondered a little about reporting from the blog of a kid who is underage and acting out different identies on his/her blog. I pointed out that most kids even in college, see Fred’s facebook study on privacy, don’t think so much about just how much they reveal about themselves.
After we spoke, I went to the sites. Then I wrote Matt this note:

thinking since we spoke. how ethical is it for a professional journalist to quote from the blog of an underaged child (even a punk rocker)? if we agree that kids don’t actually understand that what they are writing in public, does that mean that their writings aren’t really fair game for news stories?

i don’t have the answers here i’m just wondering now that i’ve seen zzzzz’s site. obviously he’s trying on identities and he has friends who support him, but won’t he look weird to most folks reading the nando? does he deserve a kind of privacy that he didn’t seek for himself? should say kxxxxx’s or lxxxxx’s phone number be news or should it be protected? what is okay to use? remember we’re not talking about adults who should in theory be more aware. not even students at ncsu who put up pics of themselves with beer…

UPDATE: News and Observer editor Melanie Sill has a blog entry about this issue and about not playing the 911 tape. There are many reader comments too.

Future of Music (looking back the past 5 years)

Just off the phone after a longish talk with David Menconi of the News and Observer about tech and the changes in music in the past 5 or so years. A preview of the early 21st century.

My takes – iPods, podcasting, GarageBand, mySpace, blogs, low power FM and high availability of cultural materials in digital form for remix were not really here 5 years ago. This means that music is more of a conversation between listeners and producers in a direct way than any time since the period before piano rolls.

A band produces their music using ProTools or GarageBand. They keep up with their fans on mySpace. They distribute their rough cuts via podcasts. Their listeners hear the music on their pods whilst jogging, on the bus or in my class! They share with their peers via their blogs (or aim). They walk into the low power FM station that will take the risks in tastes that old Am
stations used to take. The music gets remixed to a dance track adding clips for a presidential press conference, say, into yet a new product that circles back thru the fans to the band.

Specific examples were given. Will see what David does with my overlong ramble.

Elvis and Nixon – the unpublished pictures.

Who’s on drugs in these pictures? Best seen as a fast slide show. (Thanks Jason for restoring these).

UPDATE: David Menconi, expert on all popular culture, points me to “Elvis Meets Nixon” of which IMDB says:

A “mockumentary” about Elvis’s real-life trip to the White House to become a federal marshal under the DEA, but meets the President instead. Along the way, the film exposes Elvis’s humor, drug problem, and even him pulling a gun out at a doughnut shop.

UPDATE: The National Archives have a great exhibit online now including photos of Elvis’ letter etc.

Wish UNC were Here

Today’s NYTimes carries an announcement that 4 tech companies — IBM, Cisco, HP and Intel — have joined with 7 universities — Texas, Illinois, Stanford, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer, and Georgia Tech — to agree to make software developed in collaborative projects freely available.
The article, and others based on the same press release, is short on details, but promises that there will be more posted later this week at the IBM Scholars site and at the Kaufman Foundation site now.

Listening to Sister Rosetta Tharpe 4 disk collection called “The Original Soul Sister.”

Tim Bloggers-Lee?

Tim Berners-Lee has the beginning of a blog at MIT. In his first post, he reflects on his feelings about how the Web has evolved to include Wikis and blogs. Hidden in a link (well, sorta hidden) is a write up on the first web brower which only ran on the NeXT in the very early 90s. I had one on my NeXT and still have the code on the machine now. Tim came by in 1991 and showed me how to turn his demo page for Hypertext 91 into my own personal page. I’m sad to say that since http://info.cern.ch/ is gone many historic links have vanished.

100 songs by McGuinn – arrives!

Just got my copy! It’s great to hear on the stereo and to notice the changes and the quality of the songs. It just showed up on Amazon too.

The notes say:

“In November of 1995 I began a project for the preservation of the music I love, Folk Music. Each month I would record a song, print the lyrics and chords, add a personal note and put it on my web site, mcguinn.com. I wanted everyone to have the opportunity to learn the songs and to be able to sing them with their families and friends, so downloads were offered free of charge. The original recordings were 11 KHz 8-bit monophonic WAV files, far below CD quality. I have re-recorded those songs in 24-bit 44.1KHz Stereo. To commemorate the 10 year aniversary of the Folk Den, this compilation contains 100 of my favorite songs from the project with many of the original notes.”

There are many surprises in this labor of love of music: A variety of instrumentation, 12 string acoustic, banjo, the famous McGuinn 12 string Rickenbacker, and the new 7-string Martin. Guest appearances on one song, “The John B’s Sails,” by Ridley Pearson, Dave Barry and Greg Isles. A recording made in 1958 by a 16 year old McGuinn (“To Morrow”). A thunderstorm in the background in “Oh Freedom.”

A great treasury of songs by a great guitarist and singer.

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