February 2007 Archives

It's easy to dismiss the camera phone if you focus on the visual quality of the image. This is very often the argument against their use in the newsroom, as you know if you've been reading the posts on this page (and you should be). But quality is a nebulous term. The footage to the left is not what I would call good "quality", but what it captures is priceless to me.

You see, I have pursued the "paper car" seen in the video for months and, until today, it eluded my photographic grasp. The car would be there, but I didn't have a camera phone. A friend would see the car, but again, no camera. Once, it was spotted in the computer center lot and and a call came to the newsroom to run out with a camera. By the time we got there, it was too late. "Moby blue" scooted away, just out of my grasp.

What made the difference today? My new Motorola SLVR. No, this isn't an ad for the SLVR. In fact, looking at the image quality it provides might make you run into the open arms of Nokia's N-series phones (full disclosure: we are working with Nokia on uses for the N-series, in case you missed that). Nevertheless, because my new phone has a VGA (ugh!) camera in it, I can now share the glory that is the "paper car" with the rest of the world. That is what I call a "quality" catch!

Who drives this vehicle? Why do they keep so much paper in it? Is it, in fact, hard to drive over speed bumps due to the low-riderish, compressed suspension?

These are all questions that a citizen journalist could answer by staking out the car and talking with the owner. Let's face it, a reporter isn't going to cover this story. Me? I had to get back to the newsroom to show off my catch to all of you. This must be that pesky lack of time so many have written about interfering with the citizen journalist.

So let me ask you, the viewer, is it worth-while to see this absurd vehicle in the diminished visual quality I have provided or would you prefer that I just verbally describe such a sight to you? Let me know in the comments.

After my news shift this Friday I met with Patrick who set me up with a sweet $500 Nokia N73 to film my citizen journalism assignment. I asked for little instruction with the device and encountered my first bit of trouble when I couldn't even figure out how to turn it on. (A quick phone call remedied that situation.) After I finally got the thing turned on, I experimented with it by filming my dog, fish, and roommates. Having a firm grasp on the capabilities of this gadget I proceeded to carry it with me the entire weekend waiting for inspiration to strike.

Inspiration didn't strike until Sunday when I realized I needed to record SOMETHING in order to get the project done. Then I remembered something in Lawrence that really irked me. Traffic signals. More specifically the traffic signals at the intersections of 9th and Vermont St. and 8th and Vermont St. The two are never synchronized, and the first driver in line can never make the green light at 8th St. when heading north and going the 20mph speed limit.

I had the idea to highlight this problem for my first vlog, but quickly realized the large GL camera were not designed to be operated while driving. But the Nokia N73 on the other hand...

The camera phone worked out exactly how I had hoped. It was easy for me to operate while driving, and was portable enough for me to do everything "on the spot" without the need of a tripod or microphone. You can judge the quality of the film yourself.

The only problem I have with the phone was the difficulty of downloading the media. The video files are saved at a tiny aspect ratio, and when I imported them into FInal Cut I couldn't increase the size. I ended up having to use iMovie, a program I had touched before.

It is possible that these phones will have a place in the future of journalism. I think I have proved they can be used by real people to bring light to a problem, no matter how small, that effects citizens. The only downside is the compatibility of the phone with current technology, something I'm sure will give newsroom directors many headaches.

In order to complete this experiment of ‘citizen journalism,' I tried to imagine how a citizen would go about getting a story. I only gave myself a few hours to complete the experiment because, after all, news is timely and most ordinary people wouldn't have a lot of time to complete a story. My results were just about what I expected; the only worthwhile ‘citizen journalism' comes at unexpected times.

When we think of ‘citizen journalists' we think of the shocking video out of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, or the cell phone video from Saddam Hussein's execution. We do not think of someone shooting video of pot holes on local streets (See above video!). The brilliance of ‘citizen journalism' is that it catches the unexpected. The downfall of it is that it isn't sufficient for reliable coverage.

Television stations can not be everywhere at a moments notice, which is what makes ‘citizen journalism' so valuable in some situations. One thing I have learned in the news business is to "expect the unexpected." The problem is that we can not always be at the unexpected by simply snapping our fingers. "Citizen journalists' can be anywhere at a given moment, like at a local fire last year, which provides us with astonishing pictures that would otherwise never be seen.

Although ‘citizen journalists' can sometimes bring us the most compelling footage, it is always associated with a compelling or historic story. When it comes to telling the story of sub-par streets in Lawrence, people will not accept the above footage on the news. ‘Citizen Journalism' is only as good as the phenomenon that it covers.

There's a classic scene in Swingers: Mikey (Jon Favreau), after careful drunken consideration, calls up a girl he just met at the bar that night. He leaves a perfectly acceptable message on her answering machine with one problem – he wasn't able to give the last number of his phone number before getting cut off. He calls back to give the last digit, then falls into the same trap again. Over the next few minutes, he hilariously and painfully descends into a downward spiral of incoherent babble, frustrated by the limitations of the technology at hand.

Eleven years later and the basic storyline remains the same. I have a RAZR phone, which had generally satisfied my expectations. Then I tried using it to play "citizen journalist" this week, and it was an absolute train wreck.

The quality of the video is strikingly poor with limited zoom capabilities. The worst part is that it only shoots in fifteen second increments. You want to interview someone? Good luck trying to fit a complete question and answer in fifteen seconds. And then you are prompted to "save" or "delete" the clip before you can record another one, which disrupts any natural flow to the interview.

"Gee thanks for those eight gorgeous seconds of insight, sir…hang on just a sec while I save this file to the video gallery, select a file name, get back to the main menu and then choose to create a new ‘flix"--

The Swingers scenario is 11 years old now, and nifty advances like Caller ID have sort of solved the problem. In a few more years, it's a pretty safe bet that prices will go down and technology will improve for video phones, and citizen journalists around the globe will begin to reap the benefits. Until then--for the vast majority of people who don't feel like dropping half a dozen C Notes on a mobile phone—we'll just have to settle for abysmal production value, fifteen grainy seconds at a time.

Driving is expensive. Gas costs lots and tune-ups are rip-offs. Parking downtown is often impossible and sitting in traffic sucks. This is besides the obvious environmental problems driving exacerbates, or our country's little oil addiction, which (arguably) is a healthy kick to our "keep the Middle East in turmoil so we can take advantage of its resources" reflex. The only real reason to drive anywhere in Lawrence (at least in the areas students frequent -- campus, downtown, student ghetto, East Lawrence) is that it will get you there faster than walking or riding a bike. Or is it faster? Nate Martin reports.

I threw out my journalistic instincts and know-how and became a citizen journalist for a day. I lugged around a camera phone and tried to find and capture a newsworthy event. But, I found, those knuckleheads, who occasionally make the five o'clock news for being at the right place at the right time with their camera phones, are simply lucky — not reporters.

The Assignment: Be a citizen journalist. Carry around a camera phone, go about your daily business and see what you find.

The Outcome: Outdated, "Blair Witch Project"- like video of the wreckage at Kennedy's Bar and Grill (Waldo, KCMO) and an unprofessional interview from a police officer. The cop said the fire roared for 10 hours on February 16. Asbestos was found at Kennedy's, which will prolong reconstruction, and 75th Street Brewery will take three to four weeks to rebuild, due to all the smoke damage.

My Feelings: Many things struck me about my experience as a citizen journalist. First, the officer I spoke with was helpful and willing to answer my questions. He wasn't hesitant or intimidated. If I showed up with a tripod and a big camera, he may have been less inclined to speak with me. Citizen journalists may appear less harmful to officials and experts than reporters and journalists; therefore, it could be easier to find story ideas.

While at Kennedy's, I found myself asking the officer questions while video taping the wreckage. Though the camera wasn't focused on him, I was hoping he would reveal something new and newsworthy about the fire and I would catch it on tape. I have taken an ethics in journalism class — citizen journalists have not. They may use unethical tactics to get interviews and stories.

Back at my car after taping, it struck me how unprepared I felt to create a story. I had video but no written notes. I made a visual story but not a factual one. I couldn't remember anything the police officer said. Citizen journalists can provide news stations with video but not actual stories. Professional journalists still have to go out and research, interview and develop a story worth broadcasting.

It was also difficult coming up with a story and getting my video on the computer. In conclusion, I found tales told from a camera phone are tall and incomplete.

It hurt when I walked to class this morning. That's how cold it was. The wind was hitting me and, for the first time ever, I wanted to yell because it was so cold. I don't know what I would have yelled..."COOOOLD?" Eh, probably something more profane. Anyway, I thought to myself, "It sure would suck to be out reporting on a day like this."

Later in the day, I was doing some research on Santa Rosa, California. A news station there, KFTY-TV, fired a bunch of their staff and is going to rely heavily on citizens for content. At first I thought this was an awful idea. If it were just a website where new content didn't NEED to be up every night, then maybe. But they need news every night to put on the air. What if people get lazy that day? What if the best video they have for their lead story is two kids' turtle race that a mom taped in their back yard?

What kind of city would it take to pull this off? They'd have to be pretty open-minded. Then I got on the city's Web site. Wow. This place really is progressive. I hate to use the word "hippies" but...hippies. I clicked on the News tab. After reading one of the stories there, I bought a plane ticket so I wouldn't miss this year's Scooter Rosa Scooter Ride and Festival. One third of the city site's news stories have the word "art" in the headline. The city's newspaper: The Press Democrat (likely promoting democracy rather than the political party's views...but still.)Their downtown has free WiFi service, which isn't really a hippy thing, but it's progressive from a technological standpoint.

The city's Web site mainly promotes the area's scenery, and that's what pushed me over the edge in thinking that this thing could work. It's surrounded by 200 vineyards and wineries. Current temperature: 70. People are going to be willing to shoot news because the place is just plain pleasant. It really does depend on the type on community, and I'm anxious to see how this plays out, but for now I'm going to shoot to work for a larger market and put on another sweater.

The Internet is everywhere. This might elicit a Homer Simpson style response, but I'm serious. Everywhere. Actually, maybe it is more correct to say the people who supply the Internet with content are everywhere. Recording. Blogging. Gossiping. Photographing. The use of the Internet to document our daily lives is so ubiquitous in the United States Time magazine named You as their person of the year.

That's right. You. You reading this blog. You spending hours at your computer reading news articles or watching video. You, the person contributes to this massive social experiment that is the World Wide Web.

It didn't take long before someone realized the full intellectual power of the Internet and decided to give these people a job. But not a real job, just an unpaid one.

A news director at KFTY TV50, a small public access station covering the San Francisco metropolitan area has made the decision to fire 13 reporters from his news staff and replace them with ordinary citizens. He put his faith in these people to provide content for his station. The people who read blogs. The people who post on message boards. The same people who post and watch videos of stupid pet tricks on YouTube. You.

As radical as this idea might seem, previous trials have spurred surprisingly effective results.

According to a Washington Post article, which unfortunately you must pay to read on the Web site, the largest newspaper chain in the nation, Gannett Co., owner of the USA Today, has field tested an integrated newsgathering approach that relies on citizen support and the Internet.

The article describes how the Fort Myers News-Press , a paper in Florida, recently used used local experts to scrutinize city documents, eventually resulting the in the resignation of a city official.

Gannett is also trying the strategy at other papers, such as the Des Moines Register, where it is increasing the convergence of print and online media.

Other smaller stories of success are common in other regions.

In September 2006 the Seattle Times published an article highlighting the effect citizen journalism was having on a local community.

The article commended a blog titled Capitol Hill Seattle for providing citizens with common public information, such as a list of open swimming pools, as well as hard stories such as neighborhood crime rates.

Citizen journalism is even beginning to catch on around Lawrence. An new program, dubbed the Citizen Journalism Academy, recently graduated its first class of 22 people. The academy was sponsored by the two journalism heavyweights in town, The William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the monopolistic The World Company.

I do not view academies like this as training grounds for our replacements, but simply training grounds to improve our reporting. By listening to the comments and concerns of our audience and learning about their interests, it allows us to provide them with better content.

The essence of citizen journalism is to give the source easier access to the publishers. Citizen journalism is not in line to destroy us, but to help us. The citizen journalists are creating an interactive front porch where they can share the stories they care about and are letting on the secret.

Modern journalism will not be replaced by a new breed of people, only a new breed of reporters. The outfits operated by citizen journalists cannot be sustained indefinitely before they begin to grow and resemble a traditional news organization. In the words of Uncle Rick, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa, California, is hurting. The station is currently owned by media behemoth, Clear Channel, and serves the Sonoma County area, covering San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose in addition to Santa Rosa. Rather than continuing to dwindle in obscurity, the station has opted for a decidedly avant-garde move: ask people in the community to provide programming.

As always, the devil is in the details. In this instance, the details have not yet been released. So many questions remain: Will citizen journalists be paid for content? What kind of accountability will these citizen journalists have? What about quality equipment – will the nightly news now become an endless stream of grainy cell phone video clips? Any one of these issues, handled clumsily, has the potential to derail this novel little experiment.

KFTY General Manager and Vice President, John Burgess was less than inspiring in making the announcement, characterizing the bold move as merely "a business decision we had to make." Ho-hum. Where's the revolutionary zeal, Johnny boy?

This isn't exactly the type of move that you can "kind of" do. There has to be a firm commitment and extensive outreach or the quality (and viewer retention) won't be there. In perusing the KFTY website for more than five minutes, there was no discernable link for potential citizen journalists to learn more information about contributing to the station. Are you kiddin' me?

I'm going to go out on a limb here.

KFTY, as it is currently constituted, has no intention to implement the move. The announcement was just a good ol'-fashioned trial balloon to pique public curiosity. In this case, the station itself is in limbo with respect to ownership because Clear Channel has announced that it is "going private" and will soon sell all its TV stations.

The demographics of Santa Rosa are relatively conducive to the cultivation of citizen journalism, and it is a bold initiative. But instead of hype, there has been relative silence. My guess is that KFTY is merely positioning itself for a more favorable buy-out. Instead of bidding on some no-name laggard in the Bay Area, the same discerning investor now has the ability to bid on an innovative station with a streamlined staff and a virtually unlimited upside. That's actually a pretty shrewd way to artificially inflate the value of a failed station.

I'll admit to watching the local public access channel at my home in Overland Park. I watch it for the half a second it takes to switch to the next channel (likely ESPN for me), because good ol' channel 2 is what my TV tunes to when I switch off from my Nintendo Wii.

Otherwise, I'd never even know there WAS a public access channel.

KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa, Calif., fired most of its news-gathering staff earlier this month and claimed to be moving to viewer-produced news. That, and some nice community news and event dates. Sounds oddly like . . . uh, public access TV?

I worried greatly about viewers in Santa Rosa--maybe they don't have public access TV! (Holy crap!) Looking to save the viewing audience from such a lack, I looked into the cable TV offerings (enter 95401 as the zip code) in Santa Rosa and found, thankfully, Comcast customers can tune to channel 69 for all public access TV needs. (KFTY is on Comcast channel 10 in case you missed the the same boring stuff on channel 69.)

Gathering news is hard. It takes time, intense attention to detail, and a keen bullshit detector. Oh, and it takes some money, too. But asking if Citizen Joe will replace Journalist Joe as the producer and arbiter of news content is exactly the wrong question. If Citizen Joe wants to do his own journalism, he can try this nifty gizmo: swarmcasting software, which turns anyone's PC into an Internet TV station.

KFTY is clearly making a final gasp before drowning for good. Even its executives admit the station hardly registers with Nielsen ratings. Clear Channel made a mistake when it purchased KFTY, and making the station "viewer-driven" merely draws out the death throes of this tiny TV station.

Fire, insult and gag professional news people; a perfect example of how not to start a new journalism venture. But that's just what KFTY-TV50 in Santa Rosa, Calif., decided to do. Management told staffers, while they worked on the evening newscast, that the news would not air and that they were all fired.

The station went on to announce that they would replace the news with content from the community: citizen journalism (This link is specifically aimed at KFTY-TV50 management - educate yourself).

This led to a widespread condemnation from speculation among the blogging community that the station is a cheapskate looking to make easy cash off others' work.

Plus, the station pissed off at least some of its viewers. Yeah, the ones who are now supposed to give them content so they can make money. Wow! A trifecta of poor taste, bad management and lousy PR!

Let's take a look at some quotes:

News staff who were laid off were prohibited from discussing the station's decision as part of their severance agreement. - The Healdsburg Tribune

Translation: Media-created censorship of professional journalists about a major news story. Nice.

Frankly, I think we're going to do a much better job of covering local issues than we are doing right now. - John Burgess, KFTY-TV50's general manager

Translation: Some kid with a cell phone makes a better reporter than you.

I don't know that Burgess could have handled this any worse than he did. If he treats pros this way, how will he treat the amateurs he's banking on? Even if it wanted to submit content, how can the community possible trust him with its work?

I think building a community based news outlet can succeed, but first it takes an understanding of what makes communities work. Trust builds good relationships. Betraying the trust of the community only sets a news outlet up for future failure.

My father is an alcoholic sexist, and my mother has a criminal record.

No, this is not true. I made it up. Who is going to fact check my blog besides me, though?

When media starts to rely on citizen journalism, like KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa, Cal., who will be the fact checkers? Who will be responsible for false information?

Even if someone finally catches the false info, the damage could already be done.

I am not talking about damage to a blogger's credibility. I am talking about someone else's image. I am talking about blog libel.

If I do not like one of my co-workers, John Doe, what will stop me from posting stories on how he steals money from his volunteer jobs?

That sounds like news. It will get people's attention in the community. I bet I can even make up enough "facts" for a convincing story. People will always wonder about Mr. Doe like an accused rapist.

Then, what if John Doe applies for another job. His name is googled, and look what pops up.

Consequences for me: I can never be credible in the blogging word again.

Well, big deal. I was not going for credibility. I got what I wanted. I damaged Mr. Doe's name. Unfortunately, there is currently no laws threatening me or protecting people like John Doe.

Discussions on on-line libel tend to center about businesses, companies and agencies. None of which applies to an individual, citizen reporters.

Plus, there is nothing to stop a citizen journalist from creating another alias to "report" under. Anyone can blog from any Web accessible computer too.

I do not want my news from random citizens, whom I cannot trust provide the truth about their stories or even their own names.

Free-for-all, citizen journalism, like KFTY-TV, is not just annoying, it can be dangerous.

Although Clear Channel recently sold a sizable chunk of airspace and (arguably) shifted the dial that meters how much information it controls from "ludicrous" to merely "ridiculous," it still remains one of the worst corporations ever. Now, if there's one thing that popular culture has taught me about evil organizations, it's that they're almost always controlled by one super evil mastermind (assisted, of course, by a ruthless, sexless top henchman), but their day-to-day operations rely on any number of generally inept goons. In the scheme of today's topic, Clear Channel is that evil organization, and Mr. Steven Spendlove, the station manager for KFTY-TV, a Clear Channel TV station in Santa Rosa, Cal., is our utterly inept goon.

Mr. Spendlove has an idea. Long story short: His station stopped making money a long time ago (thereby rendering it useless to the Clear Channel profit machine), so, in a fit of managerial brilliance, he fired his entire news staff and now plans to rely on citizen journalists to provide the content he'll air as news. He will use footage given to him by independent filmmakers, students and community leaders as his news. Mr. Spendlove "hasn't determined" whether he'll pay the people who provide his footage. He hopes to follow the successful precedents set by citizen journalism coverage of calamities -- Hurricane Katrina, the London Subway Bombings, citizen reportage after a military coup in Thailand shut down their media -- and the advent of South Korea's OhMyNews, which accepts citizen journalism content and even makes a profit.

However, there are distinct differences between all of these other instances of citizen journalism, or what one could call "journalistic crowd sourcing," and what Mr. Spendlove is trying to do.

Let me philosophize for a second:

The opening line to Jean-Paul Sartre's Republic of Silence is, "We were never more free than during the German occupation." Sartre is, of course, talking about France's occupation by Nazi Germany in World War II, and what he's getting at is that under intensely oppressive circumstances, all of our actions become invested with moral significance. Triviality is stripped away, and every single action and decision we make assumes an amount of gravity and importance we do not assign any action or decision in our normal, daily lives. When people find themselves entangled in such oppressive circumstances -- terrorist attacks, hurricanes and political coups certainly qualify -- they act. The people who took pictures and provided other news content about these events did so with a sense of urgency. In the sleepy, warm Californian town of Santa Rosa, home of Peanuts' creator Charles Shulz, zany museum curator Robert Ripley, and the undefinable legendary growler Tom Waits (not to mention a rotating flock of tourists bound for the town's world-renowned wine tasting vineyards), nothing has that sense of urgency.

Spendlove's project differs drastically from the case of OhMyNews as well, because while that was an exciting new project steeped in the annals of democracy and the marketplace of ideas, the attempt to make KFTY-TV reliant on citizen journalism is a corporate ripoff of an exciting project steeped in democracy. Furthermore, as Spendlove (and lots of people in the mainstream media) seems to have forgotten, CITIZEN JOURNALISTS DON'T NEED THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA. While traditional bloggers often don't do much more than "recycle and chew on the news," citizen journalists who create their own content are free to publish their work online, where it will be available to a large audience, without the help of anyone, especially the corporate media whores they most likely don't like in the first place. They won't get paid either way, but at least if citizen journalists post their own content on their own website, it won't face the censorship of editors under pressure from advertisers, it won't be lumped in with a bunch of other crap they don't care about, and they'll actually get to take all the credit for all the work they did. What's to gain from the alternative? The glorious prestige that will befall you by getting your homemade video to air on a bankrupt TV station that no one watches, no one advertises with, no one cares about, and is the weak little baby of a monstrous media conglomerate that doesn't even give a shit about it?

Good luck, Mr. Spendlove, but I predict the overwhelming consensus response to your call for citizen journalist contributions to your crappy station will be: Thanks for the offer, KFTY, but no thanks.

After researching the decision by KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa, California to fire most of its staff in favor of "citizen journalists," it occurred to me just how offended I am by this.

The fact of the matter is that it can take hours, days, or even weeks to fully report on a story. Journalism probably can be considered an art considering the amount of studying and practice it takes to become a good reporter. I have been studying and practicing journalism for seven years and I am still nowhere close to being good at it.

The idea that Santa Rosa citizens will have the time and ability to fully report local news is not only absurd, but insulting to journalists everywhere. Santa Rosa is far from an upscale California city with lots of time on its citizen's hands. Household incomes hover around $50,000. People in this community work the average 9-to-5 jobs for a living, just like many other communities in this country. There is no way the time and effort needed for quality journalism is available to these people.

To this point, I have found no evidence that KFTY-TV plans to pay its citizen journalists for their work. Not that they pay their actual journalists either… Although it can be seen as a slap in the face to journalists everywhere, maybe it is a good thing such a cheap and greedy station manager will probably be put out on the street within a year because of his ill-advised ideas.

Argentina. Israel. Peru. Ireland. Australia. If you were to throw a dart onto a map and it landed on a country, my best friend Rachael will visit it... that is, if she hasn't already been there.

Traveling and discovering new places and people is something that she has always been fascinated with. I, on the other hand, have been living vicariously through her globe-trekking adventures since Junior year in high school, when she lived in France for 9 months. This is a plea to have her start blogging and vlogging.

Rachie,
You know I love you... but when you go abroad, I hate you. I hate that I can't call you. I hate that you're hundreds of miles away. I hate that we can't go shopping or out for coffee. I also hate that my mailbox gets full every time you send an e-mail and you want to tell the rest of us in the states about your fantastic time abroad.

Honestly, those e-mails are so LONG. Not to mention, you cram in so much information, we don't really know what you're even doing. It's impossible to really know how liberating it was to live with an indigenous tribe in the Andes Mountains through a mere few sentences.

We did talk when you were in Argentina last semester. But those video chats were few and far between, because we could only do chat when we were online at the same time. That's the problem. You go too far away, our time zones don't sync up.

This is where a blog and vlog would be useful. Just as I posted a vlog about what my day was like, you could post a vlog about what your family ate for dinner in Tel Aviv. Imagine how cool it would be for the rest of us to be able to watch the Bolivian protesters march past your bedroom window in Buenos Aires instead of looking at a few pictures?

It would not only act as an active diary for you to remember your trip, but it would be an interactive way for the rest of us to be in contact with you. No more long e-mails and we can get updates on your adventures as often as you're on the internet.

I've done my research on this Rachie. People are posting travel blogs from all over the world. There are people out there just like you. You could research a place through someone else's vlog, visit it, and post something about your experience. How cool would that be?

I promise it's much easier than you think. In fact, I bet you'll become addicted, wanting to post everything you do and see. The fun thing will be when the rest of us at home start to post comments and keep up with you without directly e-mailing us.

It will be easy to do. It will be fantastic. It will be like we are there with you.

Consider it. Because unlike the time I told you boys had cooties, this time I actually know what I'm talking about. Your travel vlog will be a huge hit.

Ciao, adios, shalom, kwaheri, bye!!!
T

For every 100 parking spaces slated to students, the University of Kansas sells about 156 parking permits. That means each student gets about 3/5 of a spot. Sounds like something I heard in history—seems like it was something about unfairness.

This wouldn't piss me off as much if only the nearby faculty/staff lots were chock full, too. But they're not.

At most, faculty/staff lots are oversold at a 29 percent rate—almost half the oversell rate students are forced to endure. (Stats are from KU Parking and studies posted on its site.)

Uh, hey Chancellor Hemenway—we pour thousands into KU's coffers each year (and tell Lew we've got season tickets for basketball). Think maybe you can at least get us some better parking if you're not gonna let us students into games we've got tickets for?

"There's no place like home, there's no place like home..."

This is the phrase that is serving as my mantra as I make the journey through the last few months of college. Like Dorothy, I will be sticking around this great state of Kansas. In the vlog to the left, I talk about what I want to do after I graduate. Home is where I will be. In this captivating 4 minutes, I highlight all of the positive things that can come from moving back home with my parents after I graduate from KU.

Among these pros is saving money. If you graduate and move on your own and get a job, your money will begin to dwindle significantly(unless you are a developing the next software to follow Windows Vista). Living with your parents, you will not have to pay rent, grocery shop every week, and PAY THE BILLS. I apologize in advance for the Destiny's Child soundtrack to the "bills" portion of my vlog. The song was just appropriate.

Also, it is good to live at home if you are a messy person. It will give you one year out of the college atmosphere to whip yourself into organized shape for when you live on your own. Watch your mom vacumn, watch her load the dishwasher and take notes on how she arranges those hard to place pots and pans. Soon, you will learn the dos and dont's of housework.

I hope everyone will take this option into consideration. It is not for everyone, but it is certainly the road I am taking after walking down The Hill in May.

So, I'm surfing the web in the news room, trying to come up with a decent vlog topic. I may have never been so frustrated as when I tried to use one of the mouses (mice? meese?) that they have in there.

Apple tried to combine two or three buttons into one button on this mouse. Surfing the web should not be this hard! I felt like I was a drugged up five-year-old in a sling! It's bringing up all sorts of crap that I don't want or need. I don't want to create a new folder. I don't want to copy or paste anything. I just want to check facebook (Oh, like you never get sidetracked and get on facebook for eight or nine hours. Shut up). I probably would have been done with this vlog three days ago if it hadn't been for this dumb mouse!

Let's go broader with this. When sleekness gets in the way of productiveness, then that results in worthlessness. In the media we see this all the time. For example, on several Sportscenter spots, where analysts are telling us who to bet on...I mean, who's going to win...sometimes the camera that they float around the anchors can make you dizzy. It's probably better to not make the viewers throw up, but what do I know?

Let's go with another sports example because I'm that kinda' guy. The motion effects they use for highlights, while sometimes cool, can just be annoying. Just because you have the capability of making Ladainian Tomlinson crap lightning bolts as he's running down the field doesn't mean you should.

So, if it's a medium, or anything else really, flashy doesn't necessarily mean effective. And as far as that apple mouse goes? End my subscription, 'cause I don't need your issues.

Four of the most promising candidates for the 2008 presidential election--John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama--dropped by the University of Kansas to speak with students about their policies, platforms, hopes and dreams about running the most powerful country in the universe--the United States of America. Though the event was purposefully not highly publicized for fear of a media fiasco engulfing our small town of Lawrence, Kan., yours truly was tipped off about the speech given to a handful of select KU students, and I managed to obtain some impromptu footage of the candidates' speeches, along with candid post-speech interviews.

I am not a fan of cute little kids or fuzzy pet visuals. But, I am a journalist.

Kids and animals are easy outs for photographers or videographers. At least I have been told that by several photojournalists.

Remember Nick Ut's Pulitzer prize winning photo of a napalm attack aftermath in Vietnam? You might not remember the photographer. You have probably seen the photo, though, even if you were not born at the time Ut snapped it.

Dramatic, tragic photos win prizes. The great ones sick around to mark major events of a decade, like the assassination photo of Robert Kennedy. After all, it goes with the old saying: "If it bleeds; it leads." Visual media of this kind must be what people always want to see.

Unfortunately, it seems the professionals do not always know everything. While news editors are more likely to pick photos, like Nick Ut's photo, non-journalist are not. When asked to chose the better of two photos non-journalists went with the cute kid and his fuzzy pet dog over Nick Ut's photo. It's the "awww" affect.

The internet has made choosing what news and information you want to view easier. Anyone can be an editor. The problem is, people might not break out of their comfort zone. Cute kids and their pets are great, but imagine if you could narrow even that down to cute kids and pets of your family and friends. After all who wants to see photos of people and animals they do not know. Sadly though, narrowing the information you take in, can narrow your mind.

If cute kids and pet are all people look at, these "awww" photos will lose their attractiveness. "Awww" photos are a break from the hard news. Neither visual type should replace the other entirely.

After all, no one, but my roommates, cares to hear or see their cute pet hamsters all the time. Even their friends and family are humoring them.

Believe it or not, their hampsters are not any different than your cute kid or fuzzy pet.

Sometimes you do something that you think is exceedingly clever and, when you're done, you realize you could be just mean spirited.

In my computer business, I get e-mails like the one in this video every week; e-mails barely coherent with only a vague idea as to what might be wrong. They always make me think of a spoken word bit by Henry Rollins. His point was that the fan from the Czech Republic, while struggling in English, managed to make it work. Oh, how I wish the same was true for my correspondents.

When I first started my business, I would spend hours trying to help people like this. They didn't buy their machine from me, but had somehow found me and I felt obligated to try and assist them. What I eventually learned is that, no matter how much time I spent with them, it never translated into a sale.

Some decide fixing their machine is too much work or money. Many of them just want is free tech support under the guise of being a potential customer. Looking at the Geek Squad's price list, I'm not sure I blame them. Actually, I have suggested to these e-mailers that they seek out the Geeks. I guess I get a bit of schadenfreude from imagining the ensuing conversation if they follow through.

I'd been thinking of what I could possibly do for a "free swim vlog" and decided to sleep on it. As I was drifting off, a line from The Simpsons came to mind: "I've always admired your tart honesty and ability to be personally insulted by broad social trends." In this case, Principal Skinner was speaking with Edna Krabapple, but the person that immediately came to my mind was Andy Rooney.

What would Andy Rooney think about video blogging?

I have zero experience in acting, but figured that I had better get in the right mindset before filming: crotchety and confused. No better time to try this than first thing in the morning before having a chance to shower or fully wake up. I smear Pomade through my hair before parting it, button up a dress shirt and jacket—normally any one of these things is plenty to put me in a foul mood—and hit record. Oh yeah, I'm also battling a head cold. I'd practiced my Rooney impression for a good five minutes over the last couple days, and generally come off sounding like some bizarre amalgam of Gilbert Gottfried, Dennis Miller and Beavis.

My dogs seemed fairly certain that I had completely lost my mind, and kept their distance. So…you have been warned. Hit "play" and there will be nothing you can do to get those 90 seconds of your life back. Enjoy, and for God's sake, please don't let anyone outside of this class see this. Ever. Seriously. Thanks.

Technology can be a politician's saving grace or worst nightmare. Thanks to the YouTube explosion, a politician's worst moments can be posted for everyone to see. It happened to Hillary Clinton earlier this week when a video or her singing the national anthem off key was quickly posted on the site for ridicule. Another presidential hopeful, John Edwards, had a clip of him playing with his hair splashed across the site.

The potential of these videos to do harm is obvious, but today's candidates are harnessing the power of Internet video to propel their campaigns further than any pundit could have predicted.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is at the forefront of this new technology. According to a New York Times article, Clinton is commanding the power of Internet video to create a "vlog" to discuss issues with possible supporters. These videos are strikingly similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Fireside Chats", but expand the idea to allow live questions and answers from the audience.

According to the same New York Times Article, another presidential contender, John Edwards, has adopted a similar tactic inviting video bloggers to travel with him and submit postings from the road. Edwards himself is similarly utilizing the power of Internet video posting clips of himself at town hall meetings.

The question becomes with so many candidates supporting their own vlogs on campaigns websites, will there be a place for professional vloggers in the crowded campaign cycle?

Professional political vloggers, such as ABC's Amanda Congdon, attempt to cover the complicated world of politics by creating vlogs that are a mixture of one part The Daily Show and one part network nightly newscast.

If the presence of candidate sponsored vlogs increases, it could be tough times for Congdon. Potential voters could flock to candidate vlogs in order to obtain more straightforward information than can be provided by Congdon.

Ned Lamont of Connecticut made a huge push during the primaries of last year's midterm elections by using blogs and vlogs. He actually defeated two-term senator Joseph Lieberman in the primaries. Much of his success was credited to his use of the internet; however, when it came to the general election Lamont was walloped by Lieberman.

Primaries are generally seen as nominations by party loyalists, otherwise known as activists. The reason why Lamont's blogs and vlogs were so successful in the 2006 primaries was due to his politically active supporters taking the initiative to search and view his internet resources. Voting in primaries has become a joke for many. To see the joke, look at an article in "The Onion" in which friends of a 25-year-old call him a "geek" because he votes in every primary. Beyond comedy and parody, young people view primaries as unimportant elections; therefore, only political activists participate in them.

Political scientists will tell you that America's decision makers lie in the so-called "moderate-realm." In the recent 2006-midterm elections there are many arguments that democrats won because of moderates. Moderates tend to be less active in politics, which lessens the chance of them searching and using blogs and vlogs.

After losing the Democratic primary, Joe Lieberman ran in the General election as an idependent, who appealed to moderates. Without the use of blogs and vlogs, Lieberman annihilated Lamont in the general election.

I am not saying blogs and vlogs won't have an impact in the future; however, until they become just another popular information medium, like the TV, their impact on politics will be limited to party extremists. For now, "I'm Sticking With Joe" because he proved that the mainstream media has the real impact on the swing votes.

"Second place is the first loser," my friend Melissa informed me. "And no one remembers third."

Firsts are important. Most girls remember their first kiss. Mine was in my small, hometown's movie theater on a Friday night. His name was Brett.

Other names come to mind when I think of "firsts". George Washington was the first president of the United States. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president who fruitfully controlled the power of radio with his fireside chats. Then, there was gorgeous John F. Kennedy, the first president who successfully tapped into the power of television.

The next major technological power presidents and presidential candidates must learn to master: the Internet. Creating Internet video blogs, known as vlogging, can bring candidates face-to-face with voters on a large, more personal and closer scale than ever before.

Recently, Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made news with their vlogs. Clinton even used it to announce her plans to run for president in 2008. They are not the first politicians to vlog, though. Senator John Edwards is just one other example of a politician who has tried to master the art of vlogging. It is obvious vlogging is already part of political elections and voter outreach.

Do you think Roosevelt was the first president to try and use the radio for political gain? And what about Regan? Was he the first to jump on the television idea? No.

Thus, the real question is not whether vlogging will impact the 2008 presidential election.

It is, who will be remembered as the first president who cracked the code to vlogging.

Buried deep on an unnamed friend's computer you could find evidence. Not the kind that could put me in jail, but evidence none-the-less. In 15-second video clips, I am a fool, a bastard, a drunkard and other words I'll choose not to use here.

They are the party vids from my heyday. And hey, did we party. Think Roman debauchery at it's finest. It's not my lifestyle now, but those videos have immortalized what I was. No presidential nominations for me.

Now, imagine if GW's college friends had owned video cell-phones. Think he would have won the presidency? A little more recent: Monica. We could have watched vid of the stain that shook the world. What would Hilary's chances be if we had all watched her hubba Bubba go oral in the Oval? Boom-chicka-wah-wah!

Beware politicians, Little Brother is the new demon behind the camera lens. He's your best friend in college. She's that one night stand in Albuquerque. LB is tagging along with your campaign, but he was also there when you were a dumb kid. Little Brother doesn't want to expose you to the government; LB just wants to expose you. And it's not just you; it's your wife or husband, your kids, your staff and your friends. Their past can kill your future.

Video's greatest selling point has been shock. Some can hope that online videos are democratizing the process, but rational discourse doesn't capture the public's imagination like chaos. Racial slips-o-the-tongue, the Dean scream and "hot" blood are tame compared to what will come. Prepare for full frontal nudity, violence and the absurd. The gotcha, past and present, will be the online video star and what makes the vlogs of the 2008 election.

Or maybe America is more forgiving than I think.

Dear Wannabe President:

If you're reading this, then that means you at least know what a blog is. This is a good start. I am a new voter, and I don't know who to vote for. I, like many of my uninformed peers, am on the internet for hours at a time. Do I need to spell this out for you?

Good luck with that election thing,

-Politically Ignorant College Kid

I'm not much in to politics. I've only been alive long enough to vote in one presidential election. Yeah, I "rocked the vote," but I haven't paid attention to any other elections since then. I'm not even sure what "primary" is. We vote on who we're going to vote on? Whatever. I'm new to this.

I never paid the attention I should have during government classes, and I know there are thousands of others like me out there who didn't either. There are a ton of new voters who are just too uninformed to care about voting, but I do think that blogs and vlogs will help change this during the next election.

Of course candidates will use vlogs to campaign. They'd be stupid not too. YouTube reaches millions, and it's FREE. With vlogs, idiots like me who don't have a clue about the candidates can be informed by not only the candidates themselves, but also people my age that might care about the same issues as me. Stuff that the major news networks might not even talk about all that much.

Blogs were supposed to change the way campaigns were done during the last election. This time around, vlogs will be responsible for a few of those swing votes (Did I just use the term 'swing votes'? I'm getting better already).

Ana Marie Cox saved me and damned me (probably eternally) to hell.

Blogs like Cox's "Wonkette" have impacted my politics—in fact, despite the fact that Cox has since retired from the Wonkette site, I rarely bother with straight political news stories any more (except for my beloved Wall Street Journal).

It's way more fun to read snappy, snarky analysis and interpretation like this wicked item: "Are abstinence pledges just an evangelically correct way of saying [anal sex]? 'Yes,' says a group of Ivy League crotch scholars." (Read the whole thing. Beware Cox's use of cruder words.)

Yowch. Why read the politics and policy in the newspaper when Wonkette will distill it all into silly sex jokes for me? Yeah, baby—I'm addicted! My interest in political ideas and people has been saved.

Now just imagine if a telegenic video bloggerette delivered those same acerbic lines in a 2-minute vlog. The walls of the newsroom would shake with my laughter. There's no way I'd forget such a thing. But video blogs right now are nothing like the nuclear wit of Ana Marie Cox. Some have great production value, but most are still at the snore-inducing level of presidential candidate Barack Obama's new vlog.

Cox, my blogging idol, has gone on to Time.com—and I'm stuck in the hell of public-access-type political video blogs. Ana Marie, if you don't come back to blogging, I'll still be singing the Ave Maria for the way you restored my interest in political news.

I've got 30 minutes before my next class starts. Actually, my break was 45 minutes, but I spent fifteen of it watching a flying lawnmower, a guy backflipping on to his face, and that cowbell skit from Saturday Night Live. I've decided to pull myself away from YouTube long enough to type this up.

You know what YouTube's best quality is? It not only allows anyone to share a video of anything to someone across the world, but it also lets us tell everyone what we think about it. Sure, most of this stuff is stupid, but every now and then something gets posted that's actually newsworthy, and may not have gotten the attention it deserved otherwise. It's called the YouTube effect, and it's changing the way people share information (sometimes really dumb information, but information nonetheless).

I don't necessarily think YouTube is killing TV news for its generation. It's simply entertaining us more than anything. YouTube is citizen journalism at its best. I'm not going to trust the majority of the yahoos who post on YouTube. I'll let the pros supply me with news I can trust.

And I'm not sure YouTube is even affecting television news. Why do I think this? Because I am part of the next generation of viewers, and I've never actually used YouTube for anything productive. I honestly don't know anyone who has. I've also never come across something so gripping that the whole world absolutely needed to know about it. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got like 10 minutes left, so I'm going to go back to watching kids kicking each other in the crotch.