Murder, hookers, and football
Posted on June 18, 2008
Filed Under: Work
Tagged: football, high school, hookers, media general, murder
I’m updating a high school football package for some of our sites this morning. As I was reading through the audit that details how the old package is being used, I saw this:
“the link takes you to an AP video page, which unfortunately is now running a story about the slaying of a woman believed to be a prostitute”
Murder and hookers. Yep. Sounds like my high school football team. How about yours? I’m guessing someone is getting a phone call this morning to correct that link. 
[image from http://www.sportsactionfigure.com/blog/—If you’re into sports figure collectibles, check out this site. Although the last update was in 2007, it’s well written.]
Should media outlets blog?
Posted on April 08, 2008
Filed Under: Richmond, Work
Tagged: blog, local, media, media general
A joint study from Ball State University and the University of Nevada, Reno says that newsrooms aren’t making commitments to their blogs and their efforts may be a waste of time.
The study found that “most newspaper staff-produced blogs contained a small number of postings, failed to create much interaction between the blogger and the audience and attracted few audience comments.”
Ball State journalism professor Lori Demo goes on to suggest that a reporter’s time may be better spent elsewhere. In light of the lack of audience participation, “Newspapers might consider spending staff time monitoring blogs as sources of news rather than trying to re-create the blogosphere on their Web sites.”
I don’t fully agree with the study’s findings, although it did focus primarily on political blogs.
read more »Local media using Twitter
Posted on April 08, 2008
Filed Under: Richmond, Work
Tagged: interactive media division, local, media, media general, news, twitter
I just talked to a co-worker, Ryan Squire, the Managing Editor at NBC-4 WCMH-TV, our NBC station in Columbus, OH. Ryan and his crew recently fired up a Twitter account for the station.
Ryan understands the value of Twitter as a communications tool for the station but he and the staff are taking it one step further by maintaining personal accounts which let you look in on the inner working of the newsroom.
Recent staff tweets include:
LaurenDiedrich: Is working on a super secret sweeps piece!
NBCSquire: Working with the desk to cover several afternoon shoots, including a cat stuck in a tree for 5 days!
Jason_WCMH: Getting details regarding a Washington County deputy that has been shot in the face with a .22 caliber rifle. Suspect is on the loose.
They’ve also received some praise on the270, a central Ohio resource site.
Channel 4 twitters! Much like the Dispatch does.
But what’s so much cooler, is that so does some of WCMH’s employees. I follow them, and it seems like I’m ease dropping a bit as to what’s on tap for the evening news. But that’s a good thing. Because they’re *building a relationship* with me (whether they know it or not). When they say they’re sending the feed of some report for editing, I want to watch it. Thus, I’m going to watch Channel 4’s newscast over the others.
Cheers to Channel 4! Now I’m off to see if the other stations are a cool as them.
Nice work Ryan!
I wonder if we’ll see any other outlets adopt Twitter soon.
Would you follow them?
Democratic primaries - it’s all about the pie
Posted on March 06, 2008
Filed Under: Work
Tagged: discovery, kristen novak, media general, newseum, usa today
Yay Kristen!
After stints at both the Newseum and Discovery Communications, a former co-worker at Media General’s Interactive Media Division landed a job with USA Today. She’s now working as “a design developer building rich media interactives”. Right on.
You can check out her latest work here: 5 keys to the Democratic primaries in Ohio and Texas
Nice pie charts, eh?
Clayton is busy
Posted on March 05, 2008
Filed Under: Work
Tagged: clayton lenear, cms, expressionengine, media general
We’re going gangbusters around work with ExpressionEngine these days. Almost everyone here, from the PMs to the developers to the support team, has something on their plate related to EE. Some people are busier than others though, especially Clayton.
Want to guess how I know he’s super-busy today?