March 2007 Archives

Apparently, the offensive "middle finger" began in the Hundreds Years War between the French and English.

According to the story, the English were so effective at killing the French with the bow and arrow, that the French could not even get in place to fight back. The middle finger is one of the fingers used to shoot a bow and arrow. As a result, the French would cut off the middle finger of English bowmen. In return, when an English bowman had the chance, he would raise only their middle finger - if they still had it - at the French to taunt them.

Pretty cool, huh? Well, actually, my boyfriend made that story up and told it to me. I told about five or six people until he finally told me I had unintentionally been lying to people. He wanted to see how many times I would repeat the story and thought it was funny. Unfortunately, I did not exactly agree.

So, I decided to figure out what exactly was the origin of the middle finger. I clicked my way to Wikipedia's "the finger". There are several ideas to how the middle finger became offensive. The Hundred Years War was not one of them, but it was the possible origin of the "V sign".

All the interesting facts you can find on the Wikipedia site are pretty amazing, I thought to myself.

Then it hit me.

People like my boyfriend can submit to Wikipedia.

In general, I trust people. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll make the right decision. From time to time, however, I have problems relying on people. Wikipedia is a good example of when to not always take somebody's word.

I'll use this site for personal reasons, usually if there's a technological term that I'm not sure about. From my experience, techies would rather brag about how much information they know than mislead people by giving out a bunch of B.S. The problem is, sometimes they give out information that they think that know, which might not be right.

So, I'll get a general idea from wikipedia, and from there I'll know where to start when I go to a more reputable website. This way, I can be sure I'm linking to something that's more dependable. I like to do more than just wikipedia research on whatever I'm talking about anyway. The point to linking to something is finding stuff that others may not have been aware of or able to find. Anybody can just google something or look it up on wikipedia.

The only way I'd link to wikipedia is if I've read the description about what I'm linking to, know quite a bit about the topic and confirm that it's accurate. I also realize that information could change at any time. Wikipedia has a big enough following now, that anybody directed to that site should know to take any info they get from there with a grain of salt. As a journalist, I question just about everything I see from any source, and I encourage everybody else to do the same.

I am totally excited for next weeks episode of MTV's The Hills. Lauren finally confronts Jen about hooking up with her ex. and we learn this isn't the first time Jen chases Lauren's guy. She kissed Jason, Lauren's ex-boyfriend, before they started dating! Lauren celebrates her 21st birthday and it looks like she and Heidi reconcile. But will Heidi still ditch Lauren and move in with her sketchy boyfriend? Find out Monday…

I write on my friends' blogs or Facebooks about MTV's The Hills rather than go to mtv.com. The stations' efforts to increase its web popularity struggles after recent internet applications steal youthful audiences' attention. Ten years ago, Napster was introduced and can be considered, in the words of Don McClean, the day the music died- at least on MTV. The popularity of YouTube and music blogging also adds to MTV hardships, especially as the channel moves away from music and towards reality television and selling to advertisers.

MTV aggressively advertises mtv.com to its television viewers, prompting them to visit after each show concludes. The site offers exclusive interviews, "after shows," interactive games, discussion boards, news updates, music video and show previews and sneak peaks.

MTV explores new ways of capturing kids attention online but still aren't piquing as much interest as it'd like. One new offer is a virtual world based on characters and places from MTV shows where you can create your own stories. Creepy though, since it is based on people from reality shows...

MTV needs to not half-ass its efforts in catching up to and surpassing its competitors or it'll be left in the dirt. It needs to take the rebellious vigor it started with in the '80s and bring it to the Web. For the last 16 years, MTV has had kids saying, "I want my MTV." Now they need to get them to say, "I want my mtv.com."

Many people may not know this about me, but I am a DJ. That's right, I can be heard saying "Here's an oldie but goodie, how about some Hootie and the Blowfish on your Saturday night!" (yes, Hootie and the Blowfish are now considered "oldies")

With the rise of Satellite radio, ipods, and Internet radio programs, things are slowly becoming less and less local in the radio world. But what good old am/fm radio has that iPods, and Satellite radio doesn't have is the FREE factor. We don't pay a penny to sit in our car and listen to our favorite news radio station or top 40 music stations.

With big corporations growing, like Entercom, Infinity Broadcasting, and Cumulus, there is pressure to adhere to market research and play only top 40 "approved" and preprogrammed music. This takes away the hyper locality(dare I use this buzz word) of am/fm radio stations. The station I work for can tell you the temperature down to the street name, right around the corner from where you live. Can satellite do that? Do large corporation run stations do that? No and no.

Just recently, Patrick Lafferty blogged about the fact that online radio is now making 14 cents a song per listener. In reaction to this horrible decision Lafferty states: "I thought this country was supposed to be about the free flow of information and the industrious pursuit of success and happiness?" Amen to THAT. This is my point exactly. For all of those naysayers who claim radio will be gone in the next 10 or 20 years, how can this be?

In a recent study done by Arbitron last September, it was found that radio reaches more than 230 million people each week in the United States. It has all the perks and advantages that Internet radio, and other information media like satellite radio do not.

So, I say, long live the mom and pop small non-corporate radio stations. We aren't going away!

I was in one play during my junior year in high school. I had a minor, 10-line role.

Had I known the future of my career, I would have jumped on the theater-geek bandwagon. Unfortunately for me, I could not, and still can not, tell the future.

Four years later, I am journalism student at The University of Kansas, and all I keep asking myself is, "Where are the theater classes for future journalist?"

I may not be able to see the future, but I can read trends when they happen.

Convergence? I hear a lot of talk about it in the school, but where I can learn to anchor and "report" the news as well as act out the scenarios? Think about how valuable that would make me as a journalist?

Now, I know what a few, and I stress few, people might say about this.

"Why not photograph / video tape the story as it happens, if it really is?"

Journalists are people too. We have other things to do besides work. Acting out news scenarios will give us more time for more stories too. Besides, we do not need to "show" the actual news happening. We know the stories are happening. We are hearing about them after all.

Plus, drama gets people's attention. WDAZ had the right idea, but think about how a little acting scenario of "emo" kids cutting themselves would have stepped up the drama. The station could have made a real difference in helping these "emo" individuals.

A few people might ask why did WDAZ not add some statistics of how many "emos" actually have depression problem or cut themselves? Why not talk to an "emo"?

Apparently there are such things as stupid questions.

Everyone knows "emo" kids hate life and want to die. Has anyone ever heard of an "emo" that wants to live a happy life?

There are a few people that just can not see the future of journalism. Take Jon Stewart for instance. Funny man, but come on, Jon. The "responsibilities" of media are being redefined. Times change.

Teach me, teach journalism students, the future to their career… acting.

I hear it pays better too.

The future of journalism is hard to predict. But I do know one thing is for sure. With trust in the media declining, many news outlets are using a different approach when it comes to the news. The biggest change is that media outlets are coming off less stiff, but are trying to relate to consumers on a more personable level. It may seem like a small observation, but even news anchors are turning in their old pantsuit duds and opting for more casual and trendy looks.

The thing to stress to journalists of tomorrow is to up the "relatability" factor. More Americans are turning to the web for news. So to make those kids more ahead of the game, online producing and vlogging skills are must-haves when entering the job market.

In my journalism classes, I keep hearing that it's the journalist's responsibility to make the media look like the community they cover. Reporters work too much on the official level, which peoples the papers with old white men (who represent the country's power demographic).

I think of the story I've heard a professor tell a couple of times about when the Miami Herald debuted its Spanish edition (novel idea, right?). The Cubans had finally proven themselves enough of a market for the Herald to tap, but no one bought the Spanish edition of the paper when it first came out. It turns out that the Herald's problem was that it simply took all the news from its English edition and translated it. The moral of the story, says the prof., is that the paper's Spanish-speaking audience cared about different things than its English-speaking audience. So, after a while, the Herald had to take a new angle with it in order to really connect with the people it was trying to sell its Spanish paper to.

The joke that everyone seems to miss when he tells the story is how ridiculous it is that the major daily paper in Miami, a city with a 65 percent Latino population, has content that alienates its Spanish-speaking audience that much. Three-quarters of Miami's residents speak a language other than English at home, and 67 percent of those say they are not fluent in English. I understand that the days of major daily representing their respective metropolitan areas are over, but that doesn't mean they need to turn into Whites-Only productions.

So, if the media are going to look like the people, what will they look like? A quick peruse through Wikipedia's entries for "hyperlocal websites" (blog-ish, open-forum websites where people in specific geographic locations can wax about whatever they can come up with as citizen journalists) reveals that it's mostly meetings, personal notes, community events (plays, historical societies, etc.), a smattering of sports, social action and a University of Missouri, Colombia, journalism student being protested by neo-Nazis for his Marxist affiliations.

All and all, pretty bland stuff. Probably because I don't live in any of those places.

But mainstream media are adopting the hyperlocal dictum as well. Rob Curley, a New Media innovator extraordinaire, has been traipsing around the country from our fair Lawrence, Kan., to Naples, Fla., to Washington D.C., leaving a trail hyperlocal-ish online multimedia news websites in his his wake. His recent snatch-up by the Washington Post suggests that not a few media bigwigs want to tap his locally focused formula as part of media's next big thing.

We had a visit last week from a Rob Curley protege, Ellyn Angelotti, New Media Sports Editor for the Naples Daily News. Though her visit's purpose was undoubtedly important (to let us students know what we can do to prepare ourselves for a career in the New Media World) and she is unquestionably bright and qualified, somewhere in her schpiel about building a sense of community via a professional, highly technological, ambitious and profitable push for coverage of high school baseball, I zoned out.

Well, actually, I thought of Chomsky:

"I have the habit when I'm driving of turning on these radio call-in programs, and it's striking when you hear the ones about sports. They have these groups of sports reporters, or some kind of experts on a panel, and people call in and have discussions with them. First of all, the audience obviously is devoting an enormous amount of time to it all. But the more striking fact is, the callers have a tremendous amount of expertise, they have detailed knowledge of all kinds of things, they carry on these extremely complex discussions...

"...And when you look at the structure of them, they seem like a kind of mathematics. It's as though people want to work out mathematical problems, and if they don't have calculus and arithmetic, they work them out with other structures...And what all these things look like is that people just want to use their intelligence somehow...

"Well, in our society we have things that you might use your intelligence on, like politics, but people really can't get involved in them in a very serious way -- so what they do is put their minds to other things, such as sports. You're trained to be obedient; you don't have an interesting job; there's no work around for you that's creative; in the cultural environment you're a passive observer of usually pretty tawdry stuff...So what's left?

"...And I suppose that's also one of the basic functions it serves society in general: it occupies the populations, and it keeps them from trying to get involved with things that really matter. In fact, I presume that's part of the reason why spectator sports are supported to the degree they are by the dominant institutions."
(from Understanding Power, pp. 99-100, taken from Elliptic Blog)

Even esteemed multimedia mentor Rick Musser, during Angelotti's presentation, mentioned that if he were to go to a new town and start a news website for it, he would focus on high school sports. It makes sense. If you want to reign-in an audience, this type of thing will do it. It's what people really care about.

This makes me sad. It's becoming increasingly apparent to me, though my academic studies of media, that the American public simply does not want good journalism. Of course, when I think of the term "journalism," it's always pretty linked to politics, to democracy. And more and more, it seems to me that America does not want democracy.

I don't want to talk about it.

I didn't want to talk about it last night and, no, I don't want to talk about it this morning either.

I'm talking of course about performance issues. Embarrassing.

"I swear, this has never happened before—"

I mean, how in the world do you go 14 for 33 on layups and dunks?

I'm sitting here with the creeping realization that I may have lost all interest in sports until this August when the perpetually mediocre Chiefs head to River Falls. The tourney loses some of its allure when the Hawks aren't dancing.

One of the most exciting seasons of KU basketball has ended too quickly. It wasn't for lack of effort—the ball flat-out refused to roll in on some of the easiest shots for Kansas, while the Bruins routinely found the bottom of the basket on fadeaway threes with the clock running out. It was just one of those nights. I'm stubborn enough to believe that we were better defensively against UCLA than they were against us.

I'm also stubbornly optimistic in my belief that they'll all be back next year. B. Rush said he'd bolt if he's projected to go in the top 20, but I think the early tourney exit along with a "late first round" projection and the fact that he seems to be enjoying himself on the team all point to him sticking around for another year.

Though Wright is a top-5 pick, he's already said he's coming back. Before the loss, Arthur sounded like he was staying—and he should, because he's not ready for the league. Chalmers is the only other "risk" and his offensive performance against the Bruins (Seven turnovers? On 1 of 8 shooting? Really?) shows he can improve on a few things this offseason.

The tournament this year was a lot of fun, though, with some great finishes.

VCU over Duke was fantastic. I hate Duke basketball with a passion. My earliest tournament memory was watching Greg Dreiling, Danny Manning, Calvin Thompson, Ron Kellogg and Cedric Hunter fall to an evil team from the East with a coach whose name needed a few more vowels. (Try explaining to a second grader why "Krz…" actually is pronounced "Scha")

I vividly remember sitting on my parent's front porch, slumped forward with my head between my knees, devastated after Laettner nailed that impossible turnaround J at the buzzer to beat Kentucky like they were predicted to. I loathe their collective smugness and detached arrogance.

So to see a bunch of scrappy kids from VCU outplay and outhustle the beast from the east…well, it doesn't get much better than that. And then CBS found the money shot: Christian Laettner, sitting alone in the stands. Shattered. Stunned. Speechless. I'm not one bit ashamed to say that I leapt out of my seat with an exuberant belly laugh upon seeing his broken expression. You can't spell "Schadenfreude" without "Krzyzewski."

March Madness is the most thrilling and unpredictable event in organized sports. If you happened to grow up in Lawrence as I did, it's easy to get spoiled. (Final Four in '86, Championship in '88, Final Four in '91, and again in '93). Every year, "Kansas" is still the last team standing in my bracket.

Right now I'm trying not to think about the "14 for 33" from last night. I'm trying to remember the defensive grit; the selfless, creative passing and explosive potential that made this team go 34-5 this season, and remain one of the most exciting teams I've ever witnessed firsthand.

I'm left with that, and the hope that the team had as much fun playing as I did watching, and that they will stick together and set the record straight next year.

It's the only way I can bring myself to turn on the TV to watch North Carolina and Georgetown tangle this afternoon.

Spring break is here and I've been tanning so I don't burn as easily on my cruise. The Other day as I stepped into my 10 minute mini-vacation in the "box of sun," I was thinking about blogging. It made me wonder, if you can fake a tan... can you fake a blog? I did some Googling and found fake blogs are as common as a KU men's basketball win.


The real bloggers had few things to say about how to detect a fake blog:

1. Most fake blogs are just part of an ad campaign. Shel Holtz is a real person, and he blogged about fake blogs. He says fake blogs can be a great way for advertisers to reach out to their target audience. Adding, it's kind of sketchy because the company is convincing readers they're reading a real blogger when in fact it's a fictitious character. I, on the other hand, think that advertisers are smart for doing this because they're making the public relate to their product.

McDonalds did this by hiring people to blog about their Mickey D's experiences. Unfortunately, the the plan was foiled and people know that there in fact wasn't a person obsessed with collecting the train pieces from the Monopoly game. They just wanted to create a buzz around the game. Silly clown, blogs are for real people!

2. Cartoon character's can't blog. In other words, don't be fooled by Captain Morgan blogging. The infamous captain has left his mark on the blogging realm and has a blog on his site which allows "Morganettes" to blog about their "beverage" experiences. So, by defination just because real Morganettes log on and blog about their favorite Captain recipes, the blog is real. Holtz said if the Morganettes think they're actually talking to the Captain, they should put down their drink.

3. They have a fun buzzword: flog. And guess what... like the Oscars and Tonys, they have awards too! They're called the Floggies!! I think the important lesson learned is not only are people reading the fake blogs, but they're aware they're fake. And better yet, they're voting to see who's worse at letting us know they're fake.

So partially to my own naiveness, I now know when reading blogs, I need to make sure its legit. Because like a deep SoCal tan in the middle of January - looks can be deceiving.

As I was listening to Friday's press conference, leading up to Saturday's game against UCLA, Kansas' starting five along with coach Self started talking about the tradition at Kansas. Despite my efforts to be as objective as possible while covering KU during their tourney run, I bleed crimson and blue. Listening to coach Self talk about how much this school means to former players cued the first time on the trip I actually got goose-bumps.

A huge part of following the tournament is getting to know the personalities of players and coaches. All of the KU players are very down to Earth. They don't come off as having big heads. Bill Self is always polite to the media. He'll give us a smile and a "What's up guys?" while he's walking down the hall.

I haven't followed UCLA at all this season, and don't know much about their coach, Ben Howland. But at media day on Friday, the impression I got wasn't necessarily a very good one. He stopped the press conference about four times to referee the media.

After just one minute in to his press conference, he interrupted UCLA guard Arron Afflalo to tell the media in the back to be quiet because they were "having a press conference, here." (Check out Afllalo's face in the video). Let me remind you that the panel is at the front of a large room with chairs for the media to ask questions from. There's only a black curtain separating it from the TV work area.

After five questions in a row that were directed to him, he had another outburst informing the media (the people who do this for a living) about the "right way" to do conduct a press conference; by asking players questions first, and then the coach so players can go back to the locker room. That was despite the fact that after this specific panel conference, the players were going to separate areas for another half hour of individual interviewing. Also, there is a moderator at each presser. It's his job to keep time and choose who will get to ask the next question. It seemed like a suggestion like that would be his job, but I could be wrong.

I had the pleasure of sitting in on a Bob Knight press conference in Oklahoma City during the Big 12 Tournament. When he's on the stand, the mood in the room just changes. Reporters are more hesitant. A reporter asked him it helped his team to get an extra day of rest. Coach Knight balked at the question and asked the reporter if he'd rather run four miles today and do it again tomorrow, or if he'd rather wait a day. He then informed the reporter he needed to get more exercise.

Coach Howland reminded me of Knight. He was open and spoke his mind. Coach Knight won't be around much longer, so could Howland fill the opening?

Friday was media day at the HP Pavilion. UCLA had five players and their coach at their 1:30 presser (Pacific Time). After the 20 minute press conference, each player had a separate curtained off areas where we could interview them until 2:30. The coach stayed in the presser room to be interviewed while the players were in their separate areas. Kansas did the same from 2:45-3:45.

The only interview environment I'd been in until now was either the locker room or the press conference panel, so this was a fun experience. I was flying solo, so at first I tried to shoulder the camera and put the mic on the table that the player was sitting at. After a while, I decided there wasn't a good chance I'd actually use most of this footage.

I had already listened to and recorded the press conference and had heard some good things there, plus the lighting was awful in the rooms. I carried around the J-School's Nokia N73 cell phone to take some pictures of the players, and for the most part just listened while the other reporters did the talking.

I didn't need much UCLA coverage, so during their media time I hung out in Luc Ricard Mbah a Moute's area because it was the least crowded. There were a couple of occasions where he and I were the only ones in the little room. He was a very soft spoken guy. Coach Self said earlier he may be the most complete player on UCLA's roster, from an athletic standpoint. I didn't have much to ask him, so for the most part it was just awkward.

There was also a point when Sasha Kaun and I were the only ones in his area, so I just asked him what he was doing to pass the time and relax in-between games since I heard that Mario Chalmers and Brandon Rush liked to play cards. Sasha said he did homework.

Rush consistently had the most press around him, but Julian Wright's area was surprisingly slow so I spent a lot of time in there chatting him up. He said he passes the time listening the music and getting on facebook. He's got family in the area so he went to see the movie "Premonition." According to him, "It was garbage."

Since I had brought up free time, and hanging out with the other guys, one reporter asked him what Rush was like off of the court. Julian said he was always joking and goofing.

Reporter: "How do you mean?"

Wright: "Like right now"

Wright pointed behind us, to the back of the room, where Rush was poking his head through the curtain, sticking his tongue out at Wright. Priceless. Too bad I wasn't taking video on the phone, but it won't be the last time I'll catch Rush goofing off on this trip.

Sunny San Jose! I've never been to California, but it's great so far. Can't wait to see more of it than the hotel, the HP Pavilion and downtown San Jose. Days one and two are a wrap. Here's a little documentation of both. California LOOOOVE.

We should all learn to be a little whorish.

At KU's outstanding journalism school, I've learned essentials of the craft: researching public information, organizing and editing a story, and convincing reluctant sources to talk. Then I took an advertising class, and I found the missing ingredient.

Ya gotta learn how to sell something, and how to make a deal. Donald Trump is right.

Keeping the government accountable, speaking up for those can't speak for themselves—those are important journalistic ideals. I can write the story, but can I sell it to the busy masses? Maybe we're a little off by making the News & Information track merely about copyediting or reporting. Maybe we should teaching Whorin' 101: How to Sell Yourself and Your Work.

The job market for us j-school grads is killingly tight. Only the best survive, right? Sort of. It's more a combo of the few talented who can also market their skills productively. I can be Bob Woodward with my reporting abilities, but I should be Donald Trump in my sales ability if I want to land a great job after graduation.

Or if I want to sell a story to an editor in the daily budget meeting. And what about drawing in an audience to read the story once it runs in the paper? I'm not talking about more Anna Nicole coverage, but a marketing concept applied to both the craft of journalism and the search for jobs. (But not be a media whore.)

I'd like to learn that here at KU. Why not Donald Trump as guest lecturer? (Watch this flash animation. Trump might be promoting himself with this, ya think?)

It was just two years ago. When I was a sophomore, I didn't know what a blog was. I was reading them on collegehumor.com every day, just didn't know it. When I was a sophomore, I didn't have a Facebook account. The closest thing was AOL instant messenger. When I was a sophomore, I had never heard of YouTube. I was more into "stupidvideos" at the time.

My how things have changed. I've since ditched all of those "juvenile" sites and upgraded to keep up with the rest of the cool kids. Now I can't go a day without using any of these, whether it be for a class or for personal interest. Just two years later, an advanced media class actually requires me to type out a weekly rant and share it with everyone on the Web.

Maybe I was just out of the loop, but we've come far enough that sophomores nowadays are going to know how to use these tools. Let's teach students how to use them as journalists to get people's attention and inform.

Teach them to separate the newsworthy blogs and posts from simple entertainment. Assignment number one: have everybody bring in a newsworthy YouTube clip. Then the class can discuss whether it's actually newsworthy or just entertaining. Viral vid isn't necessarily news. Or is it?

As for facebook, discuss how you can use it to reach people. It can also be used to see what people are talking about. There's no better tool for story ideas. Talk about new facebook groups that students have seen pop up that they noticed are gaining popularity, and what that means.

The Daily Show does a great job finding the real news and making light of it. Watch an episode in class . Talk about why it's so popular. Is it because people actually want to be informed by this type of show, or strictly for entertainment? Both?

So, sophomores of the Journalism School, consider yourself lucky. You're going to learn how to use these online networks to your advantage. If your roommate's giving you crap about being on facebook for such a long time, just tell them you're doing homework.

I remember standing in a corner margarita bar on Bourbon Street late in the afternoon March 19, 2003. I was celebrating my 26th birthday. I nursed a rum and coke and watched the start of the war in Iraq on the bar's TV. Looking around, there were only two people watching the news: me and the bartender. Everyone else steadfastly looked away from the TV.

It was a small scale observation, just a moment in time. It didn't necessarily represent the entire country or any greater truth. Just the truth of one bar, on a street corner of New Orleans. I've always thought it was a great anecdote though. Maybe a piece of the larger story of what was happening all over the country too.

Last semester, I spent three months investigating how KU handles Beak 'Em Bucks accounts. Throughout the story, and when it was finished, my instinct said that this was a bigger story. That at other universities, the same thing was happening. I wanted to expand the scope, really nail down the national numbers, but there is only so much human bandwidth one man has (thanks to Ellyn Angelotti for introducing this term to me).

Both my anecdote and my Beak 'Em Bucks research would have fit perfectly in larger stories; but how would I go about doing such a thing?

Enter, stage left, approaching-overused-buzzword: Crowdsourcing!

I've been of two minds about the idea, both endorsing and bashing it. But a project launched Wednesday has me interested. Wired News and newassignment.net are collaborating to build a single, uber-article on crowdsourcing, using…drumroll…crowdsourcing. They call it Assignment Zero.

This is, so far, the one of the best uses of journalistic crowdsourcing that I have seen. Professionals, experts and regular folk all working on one story.

I hope it works. If it does, they may expand to other topics. I know I have the pieces to some bigger stories (or the willingness to find pieces), just not the time or resources to flesh them out.

What stories do you have a piece of, or would you work on, to help create a crowdsourced uber-article?

Edit: For complete coverage by Nick (and others) of the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament experience, check out Road to the Final Four

Last weekend I was in Oklahoma City, watching KU basketball. This weekend I was in Chicago, watching KU basketball. Oh, did I mention those trips were free? I mean, I tell people they were free because I didn't pay any money to go, but that doesn't mean I didn't pay anything. I paid my dues with plenty of stress-out time.

Believe it or not, covering sports can be tough. Sure, we get great seats and amazing food. But that's only about 10% of what we sports reporters do while we're at big events like the Big 12 or NCAA tournaments. In Chicago, I'd get to the United Center about 4 hours before the KU game, and for the most part I needed every extra minute I got. I ran in to a bunch of technical issues, and by the time I got everything figured out and set up, it was game time.

For the Kansas/Niagara game, I didn't even watch a lot of the first half. I was working on posting video for my blog. I'd go back to the media workroom about 4 times during each game (sorry, people in my row) to change tapes in the deck that was recording it, and to make sure it didn't stop recording all together (it was a piece of crap).

Once the games ended and press conferences were over, the media are back at work. Which quotes were good? Which bytes work for the focus of your story? Athletes and coaches aren't like other sources for normal news stories. You can't just call them back a half hour later and ask "Hey, what was that you said about your team's rebounding tonight?". You get them for about 20 minutes, then they're gone until after the next game.

Wanna talk stress? Try doing a standup. I don't know if everybody's as bad as I am, but I can't ad-lib to save my life. Then you've got people whispering to one another "that idiot messed up again"...or at least that's what I'm assuming they're whispering.

As far as posting stuff on the Web goes, that's the medium that should be putting out content faster than any other. Newspapers have until they print. TV stations have until the next hour of news. The Web? There's no reason people should have to wait for the stats and results. Not only does stuff need to be posted now, it probably needed to be posted 10 minutes ago. So when your equipment messes up, it makes you wanna slam your face against the desk that much more.

Don't get me wrong, I love covering sports and I intend to make it my profession. Getting paid to watch sports. It's something the average Joe only gets to do when he's not at his job. But it's not just watching. It's a lot more, and I hope others see that.

"SPRING BREAK!!!"

You've gotta either yell it, or follow it up with a heartfelt "Wooooooo-Hooooooo!"

This has become a bit of an inside joke among a couple dozen friends of mine for the past several years. It began as a slightly irritated observation:

"You know those party clips that MTV shows with people dancing on the beach and crap?"

"Yeah."

"Why does everyone yell "Spring Break" on those? I mean, seriously!--who really says that?! …And they do it *every* time, too."

We determined that "Spring Break!" is actually a state of mind.

It should be used as a greeting—you have people over, and someone may swing the door open, and, struggling to carry in a fresh 12-pack, may shriek "Spring Break!" to announce their arrival instead of actually knocking or offering a more traditional salutation.

It's a battle cry for scholastic brethren. It has a certain motivating appeal that is Lombardi-esque, and usually results in a roomful of raised glasses and broad smiles.

"Spring Break!" actually works best when it's unexpected: the dead of winter, for example. It's a cathartic iteration that spices up any occasion, if only momentarily.

The kids on the MTV clips may have been catering to the cameras, but they struck a common nerve. "Spring Break!" is living in the moment, surrounded by good friends and not caring what tomorrow may bring.

And, because March Madness is tipping off right now, "that's all I've got to say about that."

SPRING BREAK!

(Warning: this is my biggest rant of the semester. By far.)

I worked with two University of Missouri journalism graduates last summer. They had gone to one of the best journalism schools in the world and they knew it.

"So how much should a new j-school grad expect to make?" I asked them.

"Probably between $21,000 and $24,000," they said.

I couldn't believe it. I bleed myself for years at KU, only to start out making as much as the night stocker at Target? A salary that paltry is almost disrespectful—c'mon guys, you can appreciate your content producers a bit more than that.

That started my free-fall away from merely to reporting and editing as my job of choice as a journalism major. To be honest, I think I'm starting to entirely re-think my approach to journalism.

Corporate profit obsession will finish killing American journalism within the next 10 years. Editors at regional newspapers have told me that their corporate parents expect profit margins as high as 20 percent. The Kansas City Star (where I interned last year) is a cash cow for McClatchy, the firm that owns it.

Don't get me wrong—I'd sure as hell invest all my money in anything that boasted a 20 percent return. But any beginning finance student will tell you that cash flows aren't a function of the here-and-now. Cut chunks of veteran staff, and you'll save some money in the short run—but the product you sell will be irreversibly damaged for the future.

Journalism doesn't need more content managers or editors or managing editors. They need producers of content—reporters, writers and correspondents. They damn well don't need any more shareholders or investors.

But I'm not stupid, and I know merely protesting won't help much (though I applaud the folks from Minneapolis and St. Paul in the picture above). I'm planning to fight on the enemy's terms—I hope to finalize my application to the University of Missouri-Kansas City's MBA program this summer. If newspapers (and journalism) are to be saved, journalists must be equipped with the weapons of finance and business.

(If nothing else, I'll get paid more.)

Let me first say that I've never seen media coverage like I've seen this weekend. So much media. So many politics involved. So many stomach aches because of the free pop and chips. All of the outlets are trying to accomplish their goals without getting in the way of everybody else. At events I normally cover, there are only two teams: Kansas, and whoever Kansas is playing. With eight teams here, it gets hectic.

I did some eavesdropping in the media room during the Wisconsin/UNLV game while I was waiting for some other blog video to render. I listened in on an interesting conversation between two photographers. I couldn't tell if they were from different media outlets, but they were both there to cover Kentucky.

As a journalist, I found this conversation especially interesting because one of the photogs was in his late 20's, the other in his late 50's. They mostly discussed the cameras they used, and places they'd been, but I noticed the younger guy, who we'll call "New School" had quite a few pointers for the older photog, who we'll call "Old School." New School helped him out with some settings on his fancy digital camera as well as suggested some things he could do for the outlet's website (like creative slide shows).

Then they started comparing new-age photography to how they used to do it. New School said he was talking to someone who used to use film as opposed to digital.

New School: "You don't want to run out of film. I couldn't even imagine switching film that fast. I guess you just had to be good at it?"

Old School: "We used to switch between plays. We always kept an eye on the end of the game, make sure you had a fresh roll"

New School tweaked Old School's camera:

NS: "That make a difference?"
OS: "Oh, big difference. Some things I don't like about these cameras"
NS: "Like what?"
OS: "Well, the shutter speed moves on you"
NS: "You use the shutter focus as well?"
OS: "Huh?"
NS: "The shutter focus."
OS: "Oh, yeah yeah."

Assuming I stay in the field, I got to thinking about what I'm going to be asking some young gun how to do in 30 years. I'm blogging, I'm e-mailing and I'm editing in Final Cut pretty much all at the same time, and these guys are talking about film cameras. We talk about strides in journalism every day in J694, and it's cool to see the transition to the "new school" way live and in person.

Journalism schools must walk a delicate line. On one side lies the wish of almost every student to build a skill set that will enable them to get a job and flourish in the world of professional journalism. To do so requires they practice the tried-and-true methods of journalists who have been in the industry for a long time. People have been doing journalism for ages and have figured out a thing or two about what it is, exactly, journalists should do.

On the other side lies a difficult and not-easily addressed question: What is wrong with journalism today that this new generation of journalists should look to fix?

The first side is hard enough. Learning how to find stories, get sources, write clearly, edit correctly, etc., can easily take up four-plus years. The second side would be almost too much for a student to deal with, if it weren't absolutely essential for the future of journalism. The more journalism students (and journalists) learn to unquestioningly repeat the old ways, the more the world will evolve without them, and the less they will be able to make a productive contribution to society. To simply learn the trade is not nearly enough. Journalism students must learn to level the critical eye they'll need as reporters on their own profession.

In the age of new media in which we find ourselves, the critical eyes of countless blogs are leveled at news media daily. Blogs work as watchdogs for news media and have, time and time again, shown when media have been wrong. In a certain sense, blogs are doing the job that journalists should already be doing -- exposing each others' faults. Not only would journalist-to-journalist criticism be more credible than random-blogger-dude-in-his-basement-to-journalist criticism, it would get journalists in the habit of looking at the news they report in different ways than they are accustomed to, forcing their reportage out of the "press release, press conference, official source, inverted pyramid, print" rut.

The most important thing you could teach future journalists is not how to survive in the world of blogs, YouTube and comedy news, but how to be an active participant in that world. While the students in advanced media classes are honing their TV and newspaper reporting skills (and, for the most part, copying what TV and newspaper reporters have, for better or worse, been doing for years), let the students in Journalism 201 hone their critical skills by writing blogs about the news reported on KUJH, in The Kansan and Jayplay. This would also fuel interconnectedness between the different media the J-School hosts (one blog would have content about all three), and give the student advanced reporters a taste of what they can expect from "real" blogs once they enter the "real" world of news reporting.

The time is upon us when everyone can be active in making and shaping the news. The first thing students who enter the J-School should do is take part in that.

For the last 10 years the ACC has been pampered by not only the NCAA selection committee but the sports world in general. It is by far the most overrated conference in the country. It is no different this year as the ACC received (not earned) 7 NCAA tournament bids while taking away multiple at-large births from more deserving teams.

According to the ACC standings, two teams (Georgia Tech and Duke) has fewer than 10 wins in ACC conference play. This conference is not strong enough to warrant 7 tournament bids. Furthermore there are more deserving teams especially in the ACC and Big XII.

When looking at the Big XII I can make the argument that Kansas State was screwed in the selection process. Kansas State was the first team in Big XII history to have 10 conference wins and 20 overall wins and not make the tournament. Their resume is far superior than Georgia Tech and maybe even Duke (who lost in the first round).

Finally let's look at Syracuse who had 10 wins in the Big East and 23 wins overall. The Big East, unlike the Big XII, is considered one of the best conferences in the country.

Overall, it is a shame that teams like Kansas State and Syracuse get screwed by the NCAA selection committee because of a petty bias that leans toward the ACC. The pampering of one of the weakest major conferences in the country needs to stop.

The road to Chicago began a little late for my liking. Wildman Nick Nelson and my main man, Justin O'Neal, couldn't hit the road until about 6 p.m. thanks to midterm testing. Come on, it's March, it's almost spring break, it's St. Patty's day in Chicago and you're sticking around Lawrence to take a test? What the hell, you're in college, brother! I guess I just don't see eye to eye with younger classmen.

The highlight of the trip thus far has to be a pit stop we made in Brooklyn. No, not New York. We are talking Brooklyn, Iowa. It was heaven!

While Wildman was taking care of business, I saw "the claw" and knew I could win a stuffed animal. I put a buck in the machine and went to work. First time, no success. The second time, glory! I won this dog that reminds me of Quaildog from the old-school Nickelodeon show "Doug". Doug and his dog, Porkchop, had episodes where they entered Superhero mode and became Quailman and Quaildog. The stuffed animal is identical. Don't believe me, check out the proof to the right.

I took a few minutes to bask in the glory of actually winning a stupid stuffed animal. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I was blown away. I saw a Kermit the Frog stuffed animal and knew I had to make an attempt for him.

He was stuck up on the corner of the machine and there was no clear way to win him. Then, a lightbulb switched on in my brain. (Cue singing) "I can do anything!" Thank you Reading Rainbow for instilling this lasting tune in my brain!

I hope you are picturing the machine in Toy Story, with the aliens, Buzz Lightyear and Woody stuck in it. I threw another bill in the claw machine and went after Kermit. My first attempt: Success! I was ecstatic. Two stuffed animals for two dollars. Unbelievable! At Worlds of Fun, I spend an average of $35 to win a big stuffed animal. Here, I got two medium-sized animals for $2! I love Brooklyn, Iowa!

Wildman won a pink teddy bear, but is claiming it is a bunny. He's just trying to rub it in my face. There was a Bugs Bunny that was impossible to win, so now he won a pink bear and is trying to claim it's a bunny. Give me a break!

As graduation looms ahead of me, I have been thinking about what I need to hurry up and learn so that I can get a decent job. To be 100% honest, that's why I took Journalism 694 class. Learning how to use the Web along with traditional forms of news is becoming a huge industry. I didn't want to get left behind the crowd, so I enrolled in the class.

I think the new Journalism 201: topics in the media class will be no different. It will help prepare students for what to expect after they walk down the hill. Newsies been told for a few years now that less and less people are watching the news on TV, and instead are turning to the Web and alternative news shows for their news fix.

I understand why people my age are turning to shows like The Daily Show for their news. Jon Stewart doesn't talk over his audience, he talks to them in a voice that they're familiar with. When the public is fed a bunch of crap, he looks into the camera and confirms it - unlike "real" anchors.

Don Shelby, WCCO-TV's godfather of the anchor desk, talked about The Daily Show vs. "real news" in his one minute Jon Stewart spin-off during the local 10 p.m. news. I agree with what he says, we - the traditional news people - can't set up the punch lines; we can only hope that you can find them. Something I was pleased to hear, was there isn't a big difference in content between local and national news shows and The Daily Show.

This is because content is important. My suggestion for the Jour 201 class is simple. Break the class up into groups and have them learn news content. Each week a different group will be assigned to watch a few news casts and compare them. The shows should include stations from Kansas, national stations and The Daily Show.

As part of the assignment, the groups will review which stories each station ran and how they covered them. By the end of the week, that group will post a blog on what stories they thought were the most "newsworthy." They will also include which stations covered them best, how they covered them and why the story was newsworthy.

I think that by analyzing real newscasts from different markets, they will understand what makes things newsworthy. The Daily Show's writers understand what the real news is. They are then able to turn around and point out its flaws. Hence, making it entertaining to watch the news.

Perhaps after the Jour 201 class, the students will be able to pin-point the newsworthy tid-bits and make the stories they write more entertaining too.

Students need to understand that citizen stories are the way of the future. We are already seeing that with home videos on YouTube and the Kansan's "Free for All." People enjoy seeing themselves in any type of media. Students need to learn how to get out into the community and find these types of stories.

I propose that students come up with one "personalized" story a week. By "personalized" I mean that they need to find a story that affects someone in the local community. This would be a useful tool as students progress through the journalism school.

I think that students should keep some kind of journal that describes what their story is, who it is about, and how to reach them. This will give them a good place to start when they get into upper level classes and need to find stories. Learning how to gather stories that people care about is an invaluable tool in journalism.

To professors, I say let students write wiki. Some might say, what madness is this to teach students a medium oft derided by citizens and professional journalists. I say, let them write wiki.

Uncle Rick recently sent out an e-mail about Gannett newspapers. In the e-mail, Gannett's CEO was quoted as saying, "Rich and deep databases with local, local information gathered efficiently are central to the whole process."

The newspapers have always been the medium of record for much of the legal goings on in a community. But this idea of being THE local database is different and only possible by embracing the Internet. It moves beyond archives and into a living, changing entity. And wiki is the ultimate community database tool.

Let the professionals write wiki too!

For the 201 class, students could add an entry to Wikipedia about the University of Kansas that isn't already there. Since errors get so much attention with Wikipedia, students could try finding an error in an entry, particularly one about KU, Kansas or the media.

In the longer run, journalism students could build and maintain an independent wiki about KU. Wikis already exist about some universities. The KU Information Technology and Telecommunications Center maintains a wiki about research projects.

Writing and revising entries on a KU wiki would give students, particularly freshman and sophomores, a chance to learn web code, learn about the history of the community they have joined, practice research techniques and meet sources they could user later when they are reporting the news. It would make them better reporters when they reached the advanced media level. It could also give lessons in citizen content if all members of the KU community were allowed to add entries.

It could help unite the campus media also. Entries could link to stories produced by the Kansan and KUJH. It could be a reporters tool to. Once it was well fleshed out, reporters could search through people using it to find sources. If it was built well, under every entry on a person who attends or works at KU, it could list how many times they had been mentioned or quoted in campus media. This would likely require adding a tagging feature to original content at the Kansan and KUJH, but that's a good idea too.

I say, let them write wiki.

The most important thing in higher education is not learning what to think, but how to think.

I'm in a tricky position here, as I might be the only one in the class who did not major in journalism as an undergrad, so I couldn't honestly say what's "missing" from the experience.

At the same time, there is a general direction in which technology is dragging media, and certain tendencies within the craft that will be amplified.

The ability to sniff out shenanigans is a timeless quality. This becomes even more crucial in the digital age with mainstream media outlets like Reuters getting caught up in one major faux pass after another: the "double smoke" incident, the "woman with three bombed houses," and the "little girl that actually fell off a swing" are just a few recent gaffes from the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

One of the most valuable services a blog provides is to act as a watchdog on mainstream media. Already, blogs like Confederate Yankee have received praise for investigative journalism at a time when the established media is searching for a way to regain credibility after dropping the ball on "that whole Iraq thing."

A highly entertaining and informative book is Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S. by Alex Boese (who also operates an outstanding website). He gives a wide array of hoaxes that "made it big," and how they were eventually unraveled. If there is one book that captures the essence of detecting a fraud in a way that would appeal to an undergrad, this is it.

Mark Twain said that "history doesn't repeat itself; it rhymes." No two hoaxes are exactly alike (except for the Nigerian prince scam), but there are a number of red flags that should activate the attention of an engaged viewer. Learning the history of media is certainly important, but memorizing major missteps of the media in the past becomes "interesting but irrelevant" if that same student can't apply those lessons when it counts the most.

My friend John works for Farm to Market Bread Co. in Kansas City. On February 16, he delivered bread to 75th Street brewery and saw Kennedy's, a KC favorite neighborhood bar and grill, on fire. He pulled over to call the police but heard sirens in the distance. I asked John what he did next and he said he watched it burn…

Journalism 201 teaches students to take journalistic opportunities.

Like the J694 citizen journalist assignment, ask 201 students to carry a video camera or camera phone and find breaking or yet-to-be reported news in their community. Don't request they act as "citizen journalists" but as intelligent and aware news reporters. If they can't find anything, tell them to create something. Chances are most students find unusable footage but a few may stumble across headline news.

Show the students' videos in class and discuss if the stories have news or entertainment value. Also, compare the video to current/popular information programming, namely from or on the Web, like YouTube, Amanda Congdon, lucky camera phone video that made it onto primetime news, ect.

The class teaches students to take journalistic opportunities because it gets them looking for and at news. Asking students to be mindful of the fact they are carrying a camera phone and looking for a story, teaches them to be aware, think on the spot, ask the right questions and use their resources.

It also teaches students new and trendy ways of gathering and presenting information to the public. Study blogs and vlogs like the 694ers and examine newspapers, magazines and news/entertainment television and its multimedia options. Students see and learn new, effective ways to present news to Web savvy viewers.

Who gives a crap about "The Pit Breakup"? Evidently hundreds of thousands of YouTubers give a crap. The only reason is because it was creative and funny, not because they are concerned about anything.

So this Ryan Burke guy made up a "YouTube event," and got a bunch of people to watch him "break up" with his girlfriend. Staged or not, this is just a case of Burke knowing how to utilize facebook to feed his attention-hungry needs. He used the Internet to get these gawkers together, and that's the only reason this is notable.

An article from insidehighered.com interviewed different folks about the incident. Surprise surprise, the people interviewed who were expected to have a "professional" view on this tried to turn it in to a huge concern.

"We take it very seriously," said the assistant vice chancellor for student affairs.

The director of the Carolina Women's Center called it "upsetting," and asked how "anyone was supposed to feel safe" on this type of campus blah blah blah.

Get a frickin' clue people. That's how college people are in the year 2007. We generally love mean-spirited hilarity. Astonishing! This must have happened overnight! I want to thank Dianne Lynch for bringing this stupid thing back to Earth. She said this is why we're stuck in the "gee whiz era of the Internet."

The University didn't issue a statement because they didn't want students to think they're just out of touch old people. Well, it's too late for that, because that's exactly what I was thinking before I even got to that line of the article. If this event bothers you, I hope you NEVER find yourself in Lawrence, Kansas in the vicinity of 13th and Ohio St. on a Friday night. There are some astonishingly irresponsible things going on there at that time, and you might poop yourself. I'm going to use some "hip lingo" here, try to follow me: Chill out.

As a 12-year-old, David Copperfield endlessly fascinated me. He embodied magic and illusion. After I took my step-daughter to see him last year, I kind of wondered if the only trick he's still capable of is keeping his career afloat. Maybe I'm just older and more cynical, but I've gotten used to better illusions.

As a society, we love illusion, whether it's the simple magic tricks of birthday magicians to the elaborate machinations of Copperfield. Though we don't often think of it this way, each breakthrough in communication technology created new forms of illusion for us to indulge in: radio dramas, big screen movies, Fox News, etc. The Internet delivered the promised land of illusion. Dozens of fake worlds thrive. Snopes built a brand name debunking e-mail illusion. That beautiful, 22-year-old aspiring model you met in a chat room a couple of nights ago: illusion.

Illusion, however, cannot be used as a barometer to judge the health or ills of our people. Several commentators have used the recent "Pit Breakup" event to pontificate about the mistreatment of women in modern society. Using illusion to make decisions about our society is not only foolish, but dangerous.

The breakup was no more a symbol of female humiliation than sawing a woman in half is a symbol of female mutilation. It's just the new magic: social magic and illusion. We're too smart and jaded to really be wowed by the old standards. Copperfield may not make my mouth drop in awe anymore, but I salute Ryan Burke for his prestidigitation.

Quote of the week (about science, but applicable here):

"The times I've been wrong is when I assume there's a brittleness in a complex system that turns out to be way more resilient than I thought." –Stewart Brand, as recently quoted in a New York Times article.

Admit it, you've checked out the "reality" that is YouTube. I'll be the first to raise my hand and say I watch the videos. Sure it's a crazy cultural phenomenon, but hey - everyone these days wants their 15 minutes of fame.

Now more than ever before, it's easy to sit around with friends and come up or recreate a crazy situation, take out your video camera and post it for the world to see. And maybe, and just maybe, someone else will see the video and think it's halarious.

I find it concerning that people are starting to use sites like YouTube at younger and younger ages to broadcast their self-fulfilling prophecy. I found video of a kid making his New Year's resolution. Here's the spoiler: it was about not looking at the camera while he tapes his vlog. Seriously, this kid is 12 - his resolution is to NOT look at the camera. After watching the video I looked at my friends and said "what did his babysitter help him set up the shot before nap time?"

Could his parents possibly know their son is sitting around taping a vlog and posting it to the Web? And how does he even know how to do that? I'm 22 years old and have trouble posting links let alone making my own vlog. So I can feel better, I have convinced myself this kid doesn't have any friends, and mistakes the over 771,000 hits as his friends and as validation for a job well done.

I think it's easy to think people care just because they hit up your site more than 100,000 times. But there's no genuine concern there. Heck, it's entertaining. I'll watch a girl pretend to get publicly dissed for cheating on her boyfriend. It happened to me, and I would have loved to make him suffer. Would I post it on YouTube... probably not. We were in 8th grade. But it could have been entertaining and I would have chosen a better song than "Not ready to make nice."

Back to my point. Many of these videos on YouTube are as entertaining for the person to make as for us to watch. We enjoy the little insight to their lives and hope for the worst. It's so much juicer when someone flips out or does something stupid. We're drawn to these little videos like bugs to a campfire. It's just a matter of time before we find ourselves getting burned.

When my dad was younger, he spent a lot of time at his grandfather's cabin located on Gardner Lake, in Gardner, KS. One of his fondest memories there was when one of his uncles was repairing the roof, and fell off. Now this may sound morbid to anyone else, but to my dad it was "the time I laughed the hardest."

The truth is, this generation is guilty of being amused and entertained in the same way my dad was long ago. We like to see people out of their comfort zones, humiliated, or just plain hurt. Why? It makes us feel less stupid.

The "pit breakup" is just another example of our need to see others in pain. Why else would over a thousand people gather to watch it live, and over 300,000 log on to youtube.com to watch it(sometimes again and again)? Take, for instance, the bridezilla video. In this video, we see a bride who "wigs out" when she gets her hair done for her wedding, and it is cut way too short. She proceeds to take a pair of scissors and demolish what is left of her hair, all the while crying and screaming in hysterics. This video has gotten over 2.5 million hits on the web.

It is later revealed that both the "Pit breakup" and the "Bridezilla" videos are fake, and were in fact staged events. In the Bridezilla video, it turns out the bride was a 21-year-old Toronto aspiring actress named Jodi Behan. Some also argue that Ryan Burke, star of the "Pit Breakup" was staging the event to get noticed by The Daily Show on Comedy Central.

So, the question to consider is WHY? Why do people feel the need to stage such horrible events and post them on the internet for thousands to see? Personally, I think this has become all about celebrity. Behan is a perfect example. The Bridezilla video certainly got her noticed as an actress and the video was even featured on NBC's Today Show. Lonelygirl15, famous for her youtube.com posts in which she portrayed herself as a 15-year-old girl who needed to be loved, recieved an award from VH1 for her acting abilities at the "Big in 2006" awards.

Until we stop watching and reveling in other's stupidity, these "web stars" will continue to reach ridiculous celebrity status for no apparent reason other than the fact that we let them.

At the University of North Carolina, Ryan Burke staged an elaborate flash-mob break-up with his supposed "girlfriend" Mindy Moorman. Several video cameras and a thousand bored UNC students attended the event, which Burke had hyped via Facebook events.

It was all a hoax (they weren't even dating at all). A silly promotional ploy Burke had designed to "show the power of Internet communities."

Burke had a group of singers show up to allegedly serenade Moorman in celebration of her birthday and Valentine's Day. He posted a Facebook event inviting anyone to see the fake bait-and-switch, and the event devolved into Jerry Springer-esque, R-rated tirades. He really, actually thought he was doing a significant social experiment.

He wasn't. No one came because of the unique promotional capability of the Internets (which is a series of tubes). They all came to see Bitch #1 vs. Bitch #2. And what, no bitch-slapping involved? Ryan Burke, you disappoint me.

Did we learn anything new today, folks? I don't think so. Everyone can still have their 15 seconds of fame by hyping crap that plays to the lowest common denominator. Forgive me for saying this, but I disagree with Moorhead's assessment of Burke's abilities: he's like, "a genius person," she said. A UNC counselor wrote the student newspaper to complain about "emotional abuse" modeled by Moorhead and Burke's silly skit—c'mon, let's not take this too seriously.

Uh . . . if I post a video of me pooping (in broad daylight) on the front lawn of the all-female GSP Hall here at KU, then I will surely be famous for a little while. To any KU student who meets me thereafter, I'll be known as "that one guy who took a dump at the girl's dorm." Oh yay for me! I conducted a significant social experiment!

Honestly, I learned more about human nature when KU's famous campus masturbator was in town. (Where'd he go, anyway?)

Well, whaddaya know? Turns out the "Pit Breakup" was a hoax after all. University of North Carolina student Ryan Burke now claims the entire event was staged to demonstrate the power of the internet. He notified people of a "YouTube event" via Facebook, and hundreds gathered on campus. The event provides an interesting case study of mob mentality and groupthink, but it also is remarkable for its online popularity: the video received nearly 750,000 hits as of February 28. So why on earth do people attempt this sort of thing and why would anyone else care?

I think it may have started with American Idol: this idea that anyone can be the next (artificially manufactured) star. Contestants are compensated with airtime if they are worthy, or so wretched as to invoke hysterics. Everyone theoretically starts from equal footing. More importantly, the show is reflexive and interactive, encouraging viewers to participate by text messaging who they think should win. The essential notion is that every person matters and every person can have their fifteen minutes.

YouTube isn't really that different: it's a barometer of the zeitgeist. It's a gorgeous sort of schizophrenia that reveals the full (or limited) range of the human condition. From the guy that set the world record for t-shirts on his body to Lonely Girl to the Leprechaun "sighting," to the UCLA taser incident, to…well, last month—some kid at North Carolina publicly scorning his "girlfriend" on Valentine's Day in front of a thousand people—YouTube seems to be well on its way to replacing sitcoms as the fodder of choice for "water cooler conversation."

But where's the big payoff? Corporate execs are spinning their wheels trying to get financial traction in the YouTube craze. Companies like Pizza Hut occupy the homepage of YouTube with "contests" for people to enter "funny videos" showing that they are the "biggest fan of Pizza Hut pizza" – but it is worth mentioning, judging from low ratings and cynical comments, that many people have not taken kindly to this heavy-handed effort at promotion.

People like their YouTube moments to be quick, entertaining, and genuine. So far the online community has been relatively quick to denounce hoaxes and corporate charades masquerading as comedy or drama. Hopefully the critical qualities of the masses will keep pace with the ever-improving sophistication of the frauds.

I grew up in small town Ottawa, Kan. There is only one high school. Good ol' Ottawa High.

People are not kidding when they say everyone knows everyone else's business in a small town.

People were also not kidding when they said the internet would bring us closer together than ever before. Real or not, the "pit breakup" is just another example of how the World Wide Web brings me back home.

You think that video will haunt those two for the rest of their lives? Probably not. Can anyone ever respect either of the two ever again? Yes. Are their professional lives ruined? Get real.

If your argument against me is that it's out there on the Web forever, then you obviously do not come from a small town. Someone else will make a bigger, dumber mistake and steal the spotlight. I've seen it a hundred times before.

The best was my sophomore year in high school. A girl in the grade below me thought it would be a smart idea to send a photo of herself topless to a male senior, by e-mail. Almost every guy in school received a forwarded copy of the photo. The photo might have even ended up on a Web page. If you think parents and school administration did not hear about it, then I do not know where you grew up. It gets better though.

One exceptionally ornery student created a hotmail account to send the photo to her father.

In my boo