Brace for Impact

The word has spread through networked media of the fate of many in the legacy media in Northwest Arkansas today. In the sports world, it appears that by 6 p.m. tomorrow -- and certainly seven days from now -- the number of seats occupied within the Razorback media areas will be thinned considerably.

I've found today an interesting mix of social media and new media as the consumer of an event that is not likely to be well covered by the legacy media. As a result, personal connections and network media entities like Ozarks Unbound, The Iconoclast and Fayetteville Flyer were the sources.

The commentary spots on Ozarks Unbound in particular were pretty transparent covers of dismissed staff and family members of the fired. Several re-writes on the primary story today -- not a pure RTM effort, but certainly evolving with the increase of names and info.

Twerrorist?

Elliot Madison is the new cause celeb in the RTM (Real Time Media) world for his arrest for Tweeting out information that would allow protesters in the G20 to evade police.

Was Madison reporting on the event? Or coordinating and aiding and abetting the commission of crimes?

SWAT teams rolling down 5th Ave.

Report received that police are ‘nabbing’ anyone that looks like a protester

If he worked for the New York Times, these Tweets could be purely informational. Since he is a self-proclaimed anarchist, would the authorities be reading intent into his messages?

Huffington Post made this story huge nation wide, with little detail beyond the AP brief. The New York Times (Mr. Madison is a Queens resident) and ARS Technica have more details.

This bears close watching.

The Cruelest Trick or Treat

There's never a good time for layoffs, but the end-game of the northwest Arkansas newspaper war is this Saturday. According to the print reports, all staff are laid off effective Saturday, Oct. 31, with the ones that will be retained by the combined NW Arkansas Times and Morning News will learn during the last days of this week who gets to stay.

Apologies for the break

My wife, Libby, had Achilles tendon surgery 10 days ago, and son, Will, was in a car accident that left his shoulder torn up -- hoping we're not headed for an orthpaedic double -- and that's had me sidelined. Plus a big road trip to Ole Miss.

Promise that this week we'll be playing catch-up with lots of thoughts on the passing scene.

Our Twitter Event Closes

At the opening media day, Courtney Fortson addressed his Twitter statement that attracted considerable regional, some national, attention. He was direct and simple in his words:

"I regret the tweet. But you live and you learn and you move on to better things. So I have put that behind me."

Here's one of our local newspaper's coverage for another view.

More on FTC Blogger Regs

Slate weighs in today with a counter-point to a lot of the initial postings regarding the new Federal Trade Commission rules. Is Slate implying that the FTC is going after the blogosphere as a back-handed way of protecting legacy media?

Coming Next: Enemies List

Obama's communications team is rushing into the age of partisan media, full speed. The White House Communications Director Anita Dunn has declared war (perhaps, fatwa) on Fox News, and did so while currying favor with FNC arch-rival CNN. The money quote:

And that’s fine, but let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is

Dunn continued later to say:

We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.

Countdown to Nattering Nabobs of Negativism? We have fully reversed course from the Nixon White House, who decried the "liberal" media. The current administration lashes out against the "conservative" media.

Aside from delicious historical reversal -- really people, some things don't change much, the White House is lashing out at its most effective critics (recall how much the Bush White House loved HuffPo) -- what do we make of this? Perhaps the New York Times shows us the way:

Don’t pick a fight with people who like to fight. -- reportedly Roger Ailes, head of FNC, quoted to the NYT

Before we start handing out Peabodys, let's pause and remember that CNN recently devoted a fact checking segment to a comedy sketch by Saturday Night Live. Apparently SNL went a little over the top in picking fun of Obama's resume.

Let me see if I follow the logic. The news organization that's overly critical of the government -- not legit. The news organization that picks on comedians who are critical of the government -- "a news network" to quote the White House.

As Max Brantley aptly points out in his Arkansas Blog, time to worry when Jon Stewart becomes the fact checker of the fact checkers. (Stewart: "You fact checked a comedy sketch? . . . Did you also discover that sharks live in water and don't deliver candy grams?")

Or maybe, simply, it's a clear sign of the coming information apocalypse.

Blog Post Number Coincidence?

For those traditionalists in public relations, I think not. Very interesting piece on the Obama rapid response team from Time. Explains a bit of how they have shifted into attack mode rather than fact check or convince mode.

Speaking of White House spokesman Robert Gibbs in the piece:
White House officials offer no apologies. "The best analogy is probably baseball," says Gibbs. "The only way to get somebody to stop crowding the plate is to throw a fastball at them. They move."

In many ways, this reflects my earlier points that we continue to move away from the Age of Cronkite back into the age of advocacy, well on the edge of a "golden" age of partisan journalism unlike anything previously seen during the Yellow or Muckraker periods. I say golden in quotes because it took an Upton Sinclair months, if not years, to have an impact; a H.L. Mencken could only touch so many Americans from his east coast paper columns.

Imagine their power with the time and space crushing ability of the networked media.

Not sure whether to shudder or cheer. Know this much, if you plan on wading in, better be more than right or one risks a reaction not only from the media, but the order of magnitude power of social media amplification.

Or to quote more ancient advice: They sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind.

Crowd Sourcing Experts

Working on a story about a particular company or industry and you need a source? No further away than the new social networking site HARO (Help A Reporter Out).

Experts -- register to help; journalists -- can fish for assistance.

Interesting concept. There are separate interfaces -- one for the writer and one for the source.

May Change Everything

Remember the old payola scandals of the 1950s (or, as recent as the late 1990s with some DJs) in which record labels were paying money directly to radio station personnel to play certain records more than others?

FTC has weighed in this week to say that bloggers fall under the same guidelines. Quoting from today's WOMMA newsletter:

On Monday, the FTC revamped its "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." Bloggers are now officially part of the marketing and advertising game. They must adhere to disclosure rules or face fines up to $11,000. These changes may affect your favorite blog or not. Many bloggers who were accepting gifts and/or payments openly disclosed this to their readers prior to Monday. But those who didn't should change their policy ASAP.

So if you're getting free Starbucks to drop them into your Tweets or blogs, you'll need disclose or get a visit from the feds. Think we're kidding? This from Ad Age's website:

Within the text of the new rules, the FTC gives many hypothetical scenarios, including that of a college student who maintains a "blog where he posts entries about his gaming experiences." If that student receives a console from a gaming company and posts a review, "the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge."

So much for those 30K Tweets.

We ask these questions now. If you get Adobe educational discount software working at a college and mention them in blogs, disclose?. If you get free swag from your athletic department's apparel contract and say nice things about your running shoes, disclose? Company car? Other allotments? WOMMA ads this extra note about how the FTC ruling may end the era of the pro blogger and bring back more amateurs. Scary side note, that links back to the old home town paper.

Worms, exit can, stage right.

This Just In

Ryan Mallett just scored another touchdown; no, not really, but it seems like he's still scoring along with the Razorbacks even though the game ended two hours ago.

As we kill time loading video in the main website, I would imagine that Dallas Cowboys Stadium must be an awesome experience for the fans.

Little difficult, however, to blog from this odd press box angle. Much rather be home at DWRRS.

Oh wait, that's coming up next. Tiggers on Saturday A.M.

Off to the Cabana -- let's hear it for 24 hour drive through.

Could This be True?

Media has noticed that no social networking primary websites -- Twitter, Facebook -- are accessible on the Dallas Cowboys wireless network. They are blocked websites. Could that be true? Is that NFL policy in the press box?

Twitter is News, Not Journalism

Maybe that's the point as I read through some more academic posturings about the end of days as a result of the internets. When scholars and Pulitzer prize masthead newspapers cluck about how you can't possibly do journalism on Twitter, this is the point they miss.

Most people read or watch news. News is what effects their daily lives. News is what they also now get from their friends and family through social media outlets. And survey after survey says, they trust the news they get from people the know more than those that they don't.

Twitter helps make that possible.

Case in point last night there was a terrible accident back home in Fayetteville as the arch-rival Springdale football team headed to Harmon Field for I think the 102nd meeting of the Purple Dogs and Red Dogs. The SHS Bulldogs had a bus roll over in a ditch, injuring a couple of players, but resulting in the cancellation of the game.

I knew that in real time at the media reception hosted by the Cotton Bowl here in Arlington. I was able to relay that to media members here, and when my wife called -- who was in Fayetteville -- able to fill her in on details she didn't have. She was able to tell me they game had been rescheduled for today, something that was still in doubt via my sources.

Who was my source? My well constructed Twitter feed of the local newspaper, the local on-line group and the three local TV stations. Each had a piece of the puzzle -- although it wasn't until after the 10 PM casts that I got the details on how the wreck happened and where from the TV stations as they tend to withhold their breaking news until they have given it out on their primary medium (more on that later).

So the news found me and my iPhone. It was the real-time reporting that is rapidly becoming critical for multimedia success.

When I get back home, I'll want to know more and I'll read the long-form articles about what and why and who and how. But if I had not became engaged with the story through the breaking news, would I have really given much time to the follow-up, to the "journalism"?

No. I'd have scanned the headlines and moved on. If time permits later today, I may read those stories on-line before I get back home on Sunday. But my interest is piqued, and I'll pull out my broadsides to read tomorrow night.

The news is the key. Getting it. Reporting it. Engaging the consumers in it. The collective needs to remember that while they worry about journalism.

On the Road Again

Ah yes, Taco Cabana. If you want to know the one thing I miss the most from the Southwest Conference, and the excuses to go to Texas, it is the Cabana. Think In-and-Out for Tex-Mex -- a highly regional, virtually single-state chain of some of the most awesome fast food around.

I grew up in Monroe not thinking of New Orleans like many of my friends, but focused on Dallas. The siren call of the Big D an easy five hours straight down I-20. I cut my teeth on urban driving negotiating the tight on-ramps and aggressive "Texas lane changes" of North Central Expressway. SMU was my alternate college of choice coming out of high school (followed in order by Hawai'i-Manoa and Slippery Rock).

Remembering how no one would ever live out on the I-635 loop -- what a boondoggle -- it seems today the traffic begins at the Red River. That part has become a bit unmanageable as Dallas becomes like Houston in interstate sprawl.

Getting back to some road notes -- if you have an iPhone and drink their coffee, the new Starbucks app is a must, the perfect echo-locator for the bean crazed. Yesterday's shower was the coldest hot shower I've ever had in a major hotel change (wide open, still tepid) and was complete with Cloverfield-like sound effects as the piping shuddered.

Yes, JerryWorld is a massive on the outside as it appears on television; perhaps even more so. And we're pleased to report, there is a brand new Wal-Mart directly across the street. That's just to clarify again for any of the old SWC era folks that Arkansas still rules.

DMN Columnist Adds

Kevin Sherrington brings together the threads of the last few days in the social media universe in his column today.

Well worth the read.

The Pros Limit SNW

Or, as the traditional media screamed today, "NBA BANS TWITTER."

No, the NBA put in some reasonable limits on the usage of social media, and they are just following along the guidelines established by the NFL.

The guidelines first; media hysteria second. ESPN's coverage today.

The NBA said no team member or individual within the organization directly involved in the team's participation in the contest can utilize SNW in a window of 45 minutes prior to tip through the conclusion of postgame media responsibilities. This is similar to the NFL's rules.

Contrary to GMA, this does not include Mark Cuban. Club personnel, including some on the bench, are not restricted. Coaches, players, trainers -- in other words, the people involved in the game who might need to concentrate more on the contest than on their tweets.

The blackout -- it doesn't seem right to call it a ban -- applies to all portable communications devices, including cell phones. David Stern knew what he was doing; Shaq can't call a personal assistant to relay a tweet.

The memorandum does not say if it applies to the team official SNW feeds -- or to The_Real_Stern. More to come there.

Let us transition from the distraction part of this (remember, several teams like the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks had made similar rulings earlier in the week) blackout to the media hype surrounding it.

Why is it a "ban", and why the focus on one brand name, "twitter"? Humble opinion -- cause large parts of the legacy media in equal parts misunderstand and despise Twitter.

The anti-Christ of media industry travail are those darn internets and interwebs. We may all like the ability of everyone to be equally connected to everyone else to go away, for Shaq to not have a follower base as large as one of the top five national newspapers in the United States. For Shaq to be reportedly offered as much as $30K for a single product Tweet.

With the leagues getting involved -- remember, NFL was in on this first -- and making the blackout last until after post event media conferences, it begins to look more like an embargo than a ban.

Nothing is going to prevent Shaq from giving his opinion of the game direct to his followers; it will simply delay it. Its the American version of Lance Armstrong giving the thumbs to European cycling media by sending out his injuries and comments to his list first. Except when Lance got the personal backlash of less coverage, the leagues are stepping in to prevent that by providing a protected window for the media.

Will this mean that Cleveland Plain-Dealer's reporter can message out a quote from Shaq in the locker room or media postgame event, but Shaq can't? Stay tuned for that battle.

The NFL's ban goes into this by locking down "any third parties representing" players, coaches or game ops personnel.

Dewayne Wade, a man with his own six-figure following, puts it all in perspective:

"When you come to work, you come to work. You can tweet before, you can tweet after. "

Well said.

Texas Twitter

Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach has sailed once again into uncharted territory, this time banning the use of Twitter with some fairly harsh criticism of those who employ the microblogging system. To pick up a quote from ESPN:

"a bunch of narcissists that want to sit and type stuff about themselves all the time. We'll put mirrors in some of their lockers if that's necessary but they don't have to Twitter."

According to Tech colleagues, the Red Raiders don't have an athletic department policy on Twitter and their academic area has one regarding Facebook. Leach addressed the situation as violations of team rules, well within his prerogative as the head football coach. While we might suggest that a standing policy is better, our own policy is grounded in the same basic idea.

Personally, I think what Leach did was not terribly progressive, but let me be clear -- he's the coach and its his team. He can do what he wants by "banning" his team from participating, but I would remind him of another college athletic name: Laing Kennedy.

Kennedy? Bueller?

Anyone recall the hue and cry, the Ohio ACLU threatened lawsuit, the national sensation set off by Kennedy and Kent State's proclamation that no Golden Flash would be allowed to post on Facebook. Remember it like yesterday because it came days before one of my major presentations at CoSIDA about this new fangled thing called social networking. His June 22 edit was to become effective Aug. 1, 2006, before the start of the fall semester, and ostensibly was for the protection of the student-athletes.

Remember, this was in the wake of the Northwestern soccer team scandal on BadJocks.com, and before some of my own research on why SNW was important for student-athletes assimilation into college and would represent stripping away a key support system through connection to their home communities.

We were in the brave new world of these students daring to say things and show things about their lives to all their friends, and the s looked on in horror. Kennedy backed off his hard-line ban, but that didn't stop some other schools from trying, most with little or no success. Today, education and guidelines are the path for both students and student-athletes in SNW.

Fast-forward to last week's Tech loss to Houston, and the unfortunate comments of a couple of Red Raider players. One lamented his senior year was headed south fast; the other opined about what he perceived as a lack of timeliness of his head coach.

Hey kids, when you get your Tech degrees and go out into the real world, don't try to narc on your boss. It's not losing your Tweets; it's called losing your job.

There will always be someone turning this into a First Amendment issue, which in my humble opinion it is not as much as it is the right of free associative groups to determine the standards of behavior within those private organizations. Free speech always has a price.

But is Leach wrong? No. Twitter isn't for everyone. Not every coach in America is looking to have 500,000-plus followers. In communication (and recruiting), it's just a tool. If you want to see a little of his side of the story, jump here and go to the bottom of the page for the video. We would encourage Leach to know that even though he told all his guys to dump the pages, not so hard for everyone to see them (we certainly learned that and did our best to share that tidbit with the community).

Is he right? Let me get out my self-absorbed mirror to bask in the radiance of my own prose . . . . .

Seriously, I would not recommend banning SNW. They are students. They are young people. They are learning. They will make mistakes. It's our jobs to educate and guide them.

What I do find interesting is Mack Brown's comments in the ESPN first-day coverage of Leach's decision:

Texas coach Mack Brown said he thought it would be against the law to tell players they can't use social networking sites like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook.

Granted, that's a paraphrasing by the ESPN author, but Brown's not without issue here. It was barely a year ago at UT that Buck Burnett got the heave-ho from the Longhorns for violation of team rules. Most media ascribed his violations of team rules to the back-up center's unique perspective on the Presidential race, posted on his Facebook account. He's since transferred to Abilene Christian.

Another side story: this account noted that one of the Tech players was promoting his new album set to come out in October, something we here at Arkansas and those at Kansas also learned is a NCAA no-no.

Another Sign of the Apocolypse

Internet advertising purported to exceed television advertising spending in the UK, according to Mashable.

OK, but how much advertising is available to spend with the BBC regulation of the medium? Don't know if that undercuts the validity of the data.

Could be like saying spending by cigarette manufacturers on NASCAR exceeds American television back when the Winston Cup was sponsored. But that was because advertising was banned on TV.

Brave New (J-School) World

Catching up on my Chronicle's while the NWACC class takes a test, I'm struck by two quotes in the Sept. 25 edition's story on the re-invigoration of J-School thru new media.

Michael Bugeja of Iowa State:
"Too often, when the technology is overemphasised in the curriculum, it gives the impression that you can do journalism sitting down in your pajamas. You can't do that."

I agree with the first half of that quote, but I've done some of my best work in pajamas; and on behalf of the great unwashed, a lot of important stuff overlooked or tut-tutted away by trained journalists has become rather significant. Let's chalk that one up, perhaps, to a well-intentioned thought that got away in the process of becoming part of an article.

Christopher Harper of Temple
"There's not a great future in working in mainstream media. The future is for smart, hard-working students to band together, create their own media and make a business out of it -- and that's what a lot of them are doing."

Some may, or may not, be wearing PJs.

Enrollment is up across the country, and I'm a little concerned about why. As one prof in the piece noted, leaving with $30K in student debt doesn't make sense for a $25K intro local reporting job.

Let me be clear, Bugeja is spot on -- when university becomes nothing more than an Adobe certification training center, well, we're toast in two ways. First, you're teaching a specific tool, not concepts. What happens when the whole thing changes again? Second -- and I've pointed this out repeatedly -- when the heart of the program is vocational -- teaching a task or skill -- it stops being a curriculum.

Finding that balance between the classic skills and adapting them to the current technology is the trick.

Hey Steve Jobs

3.1 software for the iPhone -- it blows.

Watched three colleagues have the full restore; now I'm getting the full restore.

More like getting the full Monty.

I like the phone, but this constant jerking around the software components -- from the 7.x windows crash special in iTunes, the rapid patch to 8.1 and the same total rebuild to get to ready on 3.0 iPhone.

At least this time I saw it coming. Got to go, my phone just ate it again.

Thanks again.

Moving to the Present Tense

Getting into the moment is difficult when your past has been providing coverage. However the internet increasingly is a here and now medium, with a hint of the future. To that end, we're trying to adapt to more live events, more original digital and more posting created to emphasize what's "on" right now.

Good example this weekend was having what we'd call advance stories in the past going live on game day morning, or having a re-write with a focus on today. I'm finding the reflexive action of putting up the advance when it's sent out on the media list and as a "promo" for a game tomorrow or the next day leading to a frustration from website users that come to the page wanting to know what is going on today.

Simplistic as it seems, we need more of a network vibe. Maybe part of the answer in our upcoming rebuild is going to an "on the air" button that toggles on when there is either streaming or home event activity that would redirect a person to a live event or game day central.

Changing mindsets begin at the base level. Write present and active prose, you'll tend to think present and active. Nothing grinds more than one of these "the MascotHere TeamName will be hosting OpponentHere" ledes. Simply and presentize (oh, that's bad slang): "MascotHere TeamName hosts OpponentHere."

Game Day Remote

Working our way through the first road football game in our new arrangements. Appreciate the feedback via blog and Twitter on what to do when you're not in the press box. The consensus was on SNW, the given is not being there isn't the negative it would be in the traditional media days.

That said, I can't see going full bore blog without being on the ground. We will keep our distant Twitter fans updated, and handle all the postgame posting from here at the worldwide HQ of the the Hogs.

For those scoring, 3950+ Twitter followers, 22K+ Facebook and almost 7,000 iHog downloads -- not a bad starting point.

NYT on Tebow's World

One wonders at what point will be become bored with SNW. When the titillation of coed trying to get her topless picture with Tim Tebow is such a yawn that they stop trying.

For his and the rest of college athletics stars, I hope it's soon. The New York Times recently ran an eye-opening piece (College Stars Run for Cover from Fans' Hidden Cameras) that makes you ponder the apocalypse:

While shopping recently at RadioShack, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow was approached by a woman with a seemingly innocuous request to take a picture with him. But an instant before her mother snapped the photo with a cell phone camera, the woman tried to take off her shirt.

Um, that's right, before her mother took the picture . . . .

I keep hoping, like the streaking craze, this will pass. Kind of a milder version of the movie, Murder.Com, but as long as we keep clicking in to look, they will keep trying to post more and more lurid things.

Folks, let's keep it in perspective. Even if they are the head personalities of multi-million dollar athletic programs, and the focus of the hopes and dreams of the YourMascotNameHere Nation, they are nominally amateurs, college students and somebody's son/daughter/significant other.

Well, maybe not Tebow.

Tebow said that he could not go on a date because pictures would be on the Internet in 10 minutes.

That's a sad commentary on the fan base in general. Give these kids some space. You had it when you were in school.

Film Validates

Paul Greenberg of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reinvigorates the old chestnut of a picture being worth a thousand words as he discusses the recent episode of takedown journalism practiced against a standing American institution.

His two word catch phrase about the relationship between writing and imaging: film validates.

The editorial is quality, drawing on his own experience during the civil rights movement of how no matter the articles, it was the disturbing photographs during the Little Rock Nine and other events like Bull Conner's televised police riot.

The Original Pay Wall

With more media outlets considering the return of subscription models for on-line content, I am reminded of this very simple picture.

The door of the newsbox is the original pay wall. You paid your quarter, you got your content. At no time was the news "free" from the traditional newspaper, even with advertising support.

PR Gesture at Best

There are two proposals before the NCAA regarding collegiate press guides, one from the SEC to remove the media guide from the permissible items; one from the Pac-10 to eliminate media guides.

One of the proposals is workable; one of them is fantasy.

Guess which is which?

There is a place for paper in everyone's media strategy, and anyone who thinks that paper will go away simply has not been reading the studies. Paper consumption continues to rise, and the creation of "e-media" guides will not stop that.

Colleges that have dropped their media guides unilaterally have that right. They chose their strategy. What they should not have is the ability to compel others to follow their path.

At almost every school in Division I, printing costs are less than one percent of the overall athletic budget. That number isn't thrown out when the tens of thousands in "savings" are touted.

These are a pair of good articles through the NCAA to cover the various points in the debate, but let me add a few here.

Media relations isn't going to see its time saved by not putting out media guides. Who in the world do you think is going to have to keep up that old print-based file AND the on-line edition? Twice the work for a while. The perpetual media guide also brings its own tremendous difficulties.

The costs for quality new media are sometimes an order of magnitude greater than print. They are a time sink. They can be a money pit. And good luck coming up with effective limits in this area as the genie is well out of the bottle.

Carbon footprint? Costed out those servers, computers, etc?

How exactly does one "ban" media guides? If we decide to create printed almanacs to keep up with our critical records, will that somehow be illegal? What about the growing market for the athletic department annual report? What is a media guide, and what is an annual or yearbook created for fans?

Do we really want to cede the specialty printing market to third parties? If the Pac-10 rule passes, many institutions -- this one included -- stands to lose. Right now, we have a paid circulation of 10,350 for a football guide, thanks to the Razorback Foundation gift system. Many other schools pay for a large portion of their total printing budget through the sale of only football guides.

If we support the SEC proposal -- removing the media guide from the permissible list for recruits -- the whole canard of the recruiting media guide ends. But schools can continue to produce the printed materials either their fan base desires (and pays for) or their media needs.

Why I Love Solitaire

As a child, I sat at the the kitchen table with my grandmother while she passed the time with solitaire. She taught me to play her two versions of the game, one she called "Christmas tree" and her unusual version of the regular game.

To this day, there is no portable device I've owned that I didn't find a way to acquire the game. On the airplane, standing in lines, when there is a spare moment -- pop out the solitaire.

I was thinking yesterday why I had such a enjoyment for a game that is ultimately stacked against you. I realized it is the perfect game for media relations people. Why? You know that nine times out of 10 you cannot win the game. The goal is to do the best you can with the cards you've been dealt.

This is why I really love the game. It is a perfect exercise in making the best of what is presented.

Not Just College Athletes

Following up on Sunday's local Twitter event, we share with the group this from Sports Info Business and the unfortunate series comments by Washington Redskins rookie linebacker Robert Henderson. Henderson is winding up the fans with some direct to followers comments regarding the motivation of "half hearted Skins fans."

Sports Info Business hits the mark with the catch line "Twitter=Microphone." Nothing in the media training for NFL teams would lead even a rookie to think the kind of comments Henderson had would be OK to a reporter's recording device.

The difference as we've tried to emphasis in social media -- you are your own editor, and there is no one you can blame for misquoting. I think that "Twitter=Microphone" line has perfect pitch.

Read more at the Sports Info Business blog.

Thanks for the Kind Comments

Via our sports marketing prof Steve Dittmore here at UA, this post from Ultimate Sports Insider, which is Michael Cross, the executive associate AD at Princeton.

The Three P's

Burst of energy after a long week heading up to the first Fayetteville football game, but this one came to me in the customary place -- the shower -- this morning.

Our jobs are radically changing, but I see the new roles emerging for the college sports publicity expert falling into three areas:

Promotion -- Protection -- Preservation

Uh, where's the publicity? It's a mind-set that I'm afraid is trapping the current best of practice in the old "SID" world. Going out and seeking publicity, frankly, isn't that hard. Working the phones, writing a few press releases -- that's very 20th century now.

I'm favoring promotion. Creating the publicity release remains a staple, but one has to be ready to promote the story within your own media vehicles, get it to your traditional media followers, cross index and link it within social media settings.

The publicity message may be written, but it's likely encompassing of two or more media formats -- visual still, visual motion, audio, streaming, data form.

Last night, I had management of the two Twitter feeds and a live blog. At the same time, I needed to be ready to finish our "AP" style game story, create and link to it our statistical reports and presentations (the data), coordinate with our video folks for the postgame capture of the coach's press conference, link it with the replays of the game in audio and video, PLUS send out links to participatory media sites, email some of this material to legacy media groups.

Today I needed to make sure we were moving forward with our youth initiative by getting in coloring entries and pushing out the new ones, check with my graphic art student about the next wallpapers for this week's game.

All of this in pursuit of promoting our football team. A long way from writing the game story and faxing a box score.

What about protect? Here's the traditional public relations director part of our jobs that we have not done as aggressive a job in promoting the skill set associated with a trained media director. It is the obvious -- protecting the integrity of the brand you work with, having crisis plans ready and being willing to use them, having a sense of the public by using metrics to gather meta data but also an ability to sort that for the relevant anecdotal evidence.

This is one reason why I created the panel at this past summer's CoSIDA Convention with Lou Marciani from National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security. The SIDs were on the outside of the Incident Command looking in, and I hope there are some other members of our profession who will volunteer to staff up a CoSIDA committee on this very important part of our jobs.

To that end -- how many of you are involved right now in your institutions' H1N1 business continuation plans, FEMA or campus mandate emergency plans?

The last P could be the longest lasting because if we don't Preserve the records, the images, the data, the recordings of our institution's activities; we will wake up one day in the future and discover that the legacy of a great event or moment has literally disappeared.

Everything we do is some mix of these 3 Ps -- usually it's in the order above, but get into crisis mode and promotion can take a fast back seat to protection and preservation.

As usual, the board is open for comments.

Those Who Want the Policies

We've had more than a few people in the business seeking copies of our social networking policies. There are three parts -- a SNW policy for student-athletes, a SNW policy for staff and coaches and a confidential and proprietary information (CPI) policy that applies to all.

Send emails to my university account and we'll send them back to you.

Guilt by Twitter

Followers of the blog know that impact of social networking on athletes is a main subject, and I am sure many of you were waiting for comment regarding our own situation here at Arkansas.

Obviously, the coaches and department had to run their course, and those that have kept up in the media know we have not commented on names specifically. I'll honor that here, and say that when it is your school involved, you may not be as free to comment as when it is another.

Here's the extent of what I'm comfortable with today -- we had an athlete make an unfortunate comment on a social networking website. I have not spoken with him directly, but I believe that given what happened, he would just as soon take it back.

Regrettably, on Twitter, that's not possible.

Going back to 2004's presentation, I have preached (and that's an accurate verb choice) that once posted, always available. All that got in the way of recovering previous posts, memos, emails, photos stored on-line, etc., was the amount of forensic skill required.

Since it is a very text message oriented interface, the recovery skill needed to get old Tweets is zero. Three or four websites will do it for you.

For my fellow college media relations professionals, I cannot stress to you enough the need to get that message across to your student-athletes, your coaches, your administrators, your spokespersons. Think not twice, but thrice, before Tweeting. You really can't take it back.

This is not to say that it was not appropriate to remove an offensive or mistaken Tweet (I've done that when I've gotten a score or fact wrong). Just know that anyone can get it, and now you've got two questions to answer -- why did you Tweet that, and all the circumstances around why you removed it.

That's a technical point. What I wanted to implore you to also make sure your student-athletes understand is this cautionary tale from Arkansas. One young man who made a comment was not by all accounts involved in the event he commented upon. But because he did, virtually everyone falsely accused him of participation. He is now guilty by Tweet.

There has been plenty of follow-up coverage on this issue in our regional media, but the fact remains that with some who may have dropped the story after it first broke may still think this individual was involved; not simply a commentator.

Wondering Out Loud

Last night, I posed a pair of thoughts to my Twitter feed regarding "tweet-iqutte" on news. Is it considered permissible to remotely report via a feed?

This follows on some Jay Rosen items in which the noted NYU scholar appears to support the idea that there's no such thing as journalism in the real-time medium; that it is source material which lacks the analysis to be labeled as reportage.

I got several quick responses to the questions -- should you tweet something if you're not there and should you re-tweet texts you received from events -- and those have led me into another direction from my original line of thinking. (And, I sincerely thank those guys for the feedback.)

Pure Age of Cronkite Journalism (yeah, old time hockey; Eddie Shore!) would say its not permissible to sit back at the newsroom and listen to the game on the radio and write a game story; particularly with an on-site byline. Certainly, the professional leagues remain committed to the concept ( . . . the descriptions of this telecast may not be used without the expressed written consent . . . ).

Fast-forward to the participatory media of today, which appears to urinate on Eddie Shore to keep a cliche rolling. Fans gather together on message boards to interact on what they are seeing. Our sports management prof at the UA, Steve Ditmore, makes a good point about Twitter -- its a gathering for a conversation.

On to part two question, which is that I cannot be at road soccer and home volleyball at the same time. Yet our feed provides updates from both, thanks to staff members who are texting the info back. Does that make an athletic department's official feed a kind of AP for its teams, the central clearinghouse for updates?

Next weekend, I obviously won't be in Tuscaloosa, and it doesn't seem appropriate to do a live blog off the television for our football game. Or is it? Am I stuck back with Reggie Dunlap trying to recreate a golden age of information that has passed?

An inquiring mind wants to know.

But Explain the Apples

Jay Rosen earlier in the week repeated a nifty little meme he picked up about Twitter: calling it journalism is like calling the Farmer's Market a restaurant.

On first pass, I found that interesting. A point well made -- don't confuse the finished product of well-reasoned, carefully assembled high-end journalism with the rapid fire individual info bombs of the medium.

Then with a couple of days worth of reflection -- the very thing Rosen was saying there should be more of in this info world -- I believe I'll call Bill Smith.

What about the apples? Sometimes, the food you get at the Downtown Fayetteville Farmer's Market is perfect without any adornment.

There is place for real-time reporting -- occasionally it is all you need. Doing it well, keeping the story moving, providing context as an event unfolds; this is genuine journalism work.

Do you remember who Herb Morrison was? I'll admit to googling his name to make the point.

Let's turn it around. Do you remember "oh the humanity"?

So wasn't Herb a journalist performing real-time reporting for all time?

Obviously, Busy

A quick note -- as many of you may have read, we're having a SNW event right here at Arkansas.

I'll ask your patience until this is resolved.

In the meantime, I'll repeat an important piece of advice I have given in many a presentation -- in our digital world on-line; once posted, always available somewhere.

Interesting Perspective on Reality

Buried deep inside G. Anthony Gorry's essay on Empathy in the Virtual World in The Chronicle of Higher Ed was a pair of interesting passages.

"Digital technology has fostered a radical egalitarianism that has displace the authorities that were traditionally empowered to cultivate and guide our feelings for one another. It has made Muses of us all."

At first blush, Gorry stands in fear of Robespierre and the storming of society's Bastille. His piece at the same time laments the dissolving of hierarchy, bordering on a fear of the masses. It berates "a flood of fragments, which can inform us of much but can teach us little."

That bit is just titillation for kicker:

"Will false identities free us to conceal our intentions, to pursue our own selfish interests more aggressively? It would be deeply distressing if digital technology, which offers so many opportunities for liberation, liberated some of our worst inclinations and behaviors from existing social restraints."

Without saying it, Gorry helps support my longstanding position that screen names feed the worst in behaviors; we say and do things we might never do without the purported mast of anonymity. We inevitably regret those things when that mask is torn away, and identities revealed.

It is a far better world in which we allow each other to have opinions, including strong ones, rather than the skulking about in the shadows of pseudonym, rumor and innuendo.

Regrettably, our society is more inclined to support that type of behavior than respect an honest disagreement; to enable sniping over the duel.

Gorry closes with another meme that I could not pass up:

"We may have to jettison old habits of thought and avoid a debilitating yearning for the past. As McLuhan argued, we cannot drive into the future looking in the rear view mirror. But we can remember the road we have traveled. Our traditions embody much from our past that is important to our society, and we should find them anchros in the digital flood."

Reminds me of some earlier posts on the future of journalism teaching (on creative destruction | Jay Rosen weighs in | John Dvorak's take | the iMedia concept at WKU) -- honor the past, but stride confidently into the future.

Considering Future Initiatives

First week of football season consumes a lot of time, and it refocuses one's attention on the immediacy of tasks at hand. One of those tasks is building out staff to meet the growing needs of new media at our school -- and thinking about what that means globally.

Of the major athletic conferences, the Big 10 and the SEC currently have the most elaborate and far-reaching rights and networking arrangements. Both limit what the institution can do, some things directly and some things by sheer efficiency.

Taking a nod from our colleagues at Big 10 websites, I can foresee more original digital content needed for SEC members with the debut this past weekend of the SEC Digital Network. For several years, a staple of most websites was football game replays. The new SEC system can mount the replay faster and more efficiently than we can hope to achieve. This isn't to say we won't continue to have that replay, but it shows us that our production efforts are better spent in other areas.

Speaking of, we are looking for a few good interns to begin to learn the process of new media production and have advertised as such on campus. Just as in the past where interested students would come by the SID office, now we look for those same motivated individuals to become part of production units doing switching and graphics. I've got a few in hand to sort, and thankfully its an open week.

Indexing

I've got one word for you, son.

Hmm?

Indexing.

Call it the plastics of the 21st century. As work begins for the next generation of official website here at Arkansas, what I'm most struck by in looking at ourselves and peers is the inability to get what you want, when you want it.

Every coach, every fan, every administrator has their own point of view, dare I say agenda. No one's website is working unless the sport, the athlete, the story of their interest isn't front and center whenever they come to the site.

This is an impossibility to achieve in the two-dimensional Flatland of the HTML/CSS based world. Even difficult in the layered new interfaces using Air.

So I'm starting to turn my attention back to something basic -- as in improved search. What if on the front page, the most important, most prominent part of the website was the search bar -- thus putting the end user one, perhaps two, steps away from what they want at any time?

Crazy in college athletics? Maybe. But what is the primary part of the most used interfaces for our target groups -- recruits and fans? Facebook, iTunes, Google, even Bing. And what's at the heart of all of them -- search.

More thoughts later.

Today's Update on the Merger

More details on the end of the media world as we know it in the Northwest Arkansas.

The Morning News' story || Northwest Arkansas Times || Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

The perspectives are very similar, but there seems to be quite a bit of subtext as one would suspect.

Fond Memories of North Little Rock

Strolling through the lobby space of the now Wyndham in North Little Rock, I remember what's now a quarter century ago when this was the Hilton. A young senior journalism student and his fiancee made their way to the regional Sigma Delta Chi/Society of Professional Journalists convention. Picking up a pair of first place awards -- one for photography, one for sports column writing -- and thinking the gig as the sports editor of the twice-a-week Ouachita Citizen could last forever.

I don't remember the column, but I still have the picture. It was of a white student manager at one of our hometown high schools, reaching out his hand to console an inconsolable black football player sitting on the bench. Monroe had been desegregated not quite a half a generation in the high schools when that picture was taken, and it had special emotional meaning. Here was a young kid, maybe 10 years old, who clearly idolized the player and hurt for him in the way we do when our heroes have come up short; a scene that could not have taken place a decade earlier.

That picture is journalism at its best, and a reason why I still take time to write this blog on the changes in the field. It's also why I've gone to bat to help create a program that might inspire and instruct the next senior, who can head to the SPJ (no longer any SDX) to take that award home, maybe in new media rather than newspaper.

We'll see how that works out. Change is difficult.

And So the War Ends

First it was Little Rock, then it was Northwest Arkansas, but this morning it appears that the final battle of the great, decades long newspaper war in our state has come to an end.

Earlier today, postings of the decisions to approach the Justice Department to clear what essentially is a semi-hostile takeover. It reminds me of the last time such happened -- it was the Northwest Arkansas Times that was to be purchased by then still Springdale News, but intervention in a suiter and a lawsuit from Benton County Daily Record (if memory serves) put that one off.

This time, expect no white knight to ride to the rescue. Typical of our part of the world, however, as we mourn the passing of one of our competing newspapers. More than a few other towns pine for the loss of their only paper -- alas Ann Arbor.

Our Newspaper Market Just Got Interesting

Breaking news locally, the two major newspaper groups announced after staff meetings this morning a plan to create a single regional entity.

Where this could impact the university is a overall reduction of reporters assigned to "state" beats like the Razorbacks.

As they say, developing . . .

Stephens version || Wehco version

We All Make Mestakes

Funny when it isn't you, and all of us in the business can sympathize: Dept of Ed media alert to schoochilren.

Flippin' Out

As the fall seasons begin, the best $200 spent in the off-season was the high-capacity HD Flip camera we have deployed with our traveling teams.

Good quality for up-close interviews, easy interface for staff management and a native ability to create windows media makes this a perfect road tool. Our media relations contacts with soccer and volleyball can use the Flip instead of a pocket audio recorder to get the post-game from a coach, and in a little more time than it takes to post the story and stats, we can add video.

The ability to capture action isn't as strong, but that's not the Flip's main purpose. It's a social media tool -- quick things with your friends, a point-and-shoot camera for moving pictures.

In the past, we only had post-game video at home; now all our events can carry video -- a big step ahead for a small price. If a shop can't quite afford the large unit, the SD Flip is as low as $100.

If your state's telecom or campus contracts weren't as restrictive as ours and you can option for the 3GS over the 3G (just a missing "S" we're told), the media relations office could deploy with the full solution of multi-account Twitter management, Facebook updating and point and shoot video uploads. Something else to consider as your upgrade office phones.

Cold Hard Opinions

Tip of the hat to Jay Rosen's Twitter feed for today's reading. This space has spent its share of time thinking about J-School's future, and posited that if it's not careful, the networked media will island hop its way around the concept. Poynter Online columnist Earnest Wilson provides a bracing shot of ice cold water. The money quote:

Yet at the moment when legacy media are being excoriated for their demonstrable failure to adapt quickly to the new world of digital convergence, and when newspapers are dying daily, the performance and responsibilities of the institutions that train so many journalists, editors and managers has gone largely unexamined in the public eye.

And it goes from there. Care is needed, lest journalism return to its origins -- a trade of which one learned in the journeyman tradition.

Might Have That Backwards

From the recent Editor and Publisher story on AP and Gannett taking on the Southeastern Conference over its new credential policy. It quotes Mark Silverman of The Tennessean:

They fail to recognize that we are not just a newspaper. We use a variety of mediums and I believe we are going to be able to make a prior restraint argument.

Actually, the policy is quite the opposite. It recognizes that anyone can exist in all three of the basic rights bearing formats -- audio, video and data. And the policy is platform agnostic -- it's media.

The difference is the newspapers are moving into a realm almost exclusively held by television media in the past. The television station can stream its newscast, that may contain game footage. Newspapers, I suspect, could create a similar, non-archiving newscast, but seem to base their claim right now on that as the "difference" in how the policy is discriminating against their traditional form of media.

It's that archive of video living on the internet that is the issue. The story remains, well, developing.

Collision Course

Gannett and AP have drawn their lines in the sand against the Southeastern Conference, proclaiming yesterday they would not sign the league's new credential policies. I notice in the Editor and Publisher story that some of the tone has shifted to restraint of trade rather than First Amendment. I sense the reality that none of the conditions on the credentials related to limiting free speech has led the lawyers to shift.

Also seems the E&P story is quoting the original draft, rather than the current language, to make some of the key points.

Forgotten in the salvos are the restrictions media agencies submit themselves to when it is the NCAA men's basketball tournament (or any other NCAA championship) and when they cover bowl games governed by the BCS.

The internet and digital means of transmission change the rules for everything. In the past, a national network holding broadcast rights would not have known if a local television station from another network was using its footage without rather expensive and extensive local monitoring -- which they did perform. Now, it's a click away.

Copying and posting high quality video has the same relative ease compared to the old days of VHS. Tape to tape or film to film always lost something in the next generation copy. Not so with HD digital. Therefore, copyright holders are becoming increasingly protective.

Busy With New Class Notes

Pardon the pause -- time devoted to a retooling of my NWACC U.S. history survey notes this week.

New Favorite LIne

Catching up on The Chronicle Review's lead essay on "The Mixed Success of Postitive Psychology," I saw this pull quote:

For "defensive pessimists," one reasearcher says, focusing on what could go wrong spurs them to take more-effective action.

I like that, not because it feeds a dark side within, but it recognizes a firm reality. Just because your media specialist is always talking about what could happen, speaking in terms of the worst case, planning to mitigate the downside effect DOES NOT make that person a pessimist.

It makes them a defensive pessimist.

Time spent on media training, a quick Q&A before a difficult press event, working on talking points -- it is all to make the subject better equipped to convey the message.

In the past, one of my favorite responses from a coach, player or administrator was "they weren't as tough as you said they would be" or "they never asked the me questions you asked me." That means you did your job, because the 30 minutes spent hurling the most invasive, nasty, pointed questions imaginable -- the ubiquitous dirty thirty -- prepared them, gave them confidence in their positions and made them practice reaction to the hardest issues.

Today -- let me be very clear, I don't mean at Arkansas -- I see more and more discussion about leaders wanting only positive comments, only positive thoughts, to somehow channel The Secret into their media relations work. Those that spend their time raising questions internally get labeled as "negative", marked with a big black "N" for their attitudes.

Want the philosophy in a pithy single phrase: Plan for success, but prepare for disaster.

Any athletic season could end in a horrible losing streak in which fans and media are circling, and if you have not planned for that type of disaster, you are going to need a bigger boat. Certainly, as we look ahead to a potential H1N1 outbreak, it is not being negative to create plans on how games might need to be rescheduled and how teams might suspend activity.

No one wants to see that happen, but only fools skip into the future thinking that confidence that the unlikely will not come to pass is a legitimate strategy.

At the same time, we need to plan for a BCS bowl game. How will we leverage success? One must have both templates in hand, and know that the reality is you will probably use some of both scenarios during any given year.

Maybe Shell Was Right

A couple of weeks ago, I found some old notes about the Gruen Transfer and the impact of first impressions toward brand loyalty. The Shell Oil research seemed counter productive -- why market to people who can't buy your product. Nevertheless, the world wide oil company's findings lead to adding kid toys and other youth attractors.

Fast forward to last night and dinner with my wife and daughter. I casually look up at the TV which is showing the Sharpe 500, and make a passing comment to Ashley that "hey, your race is on." She looked up and it was a flood of memories. Oh, I miss that booth. Wasn't that fun. I wish they still did that. Didn't we miss the last one going to Florida for vacation.

When Ashley was six or seven, the Walmart vendors still put on fairly elaborate shows and booths at our local stores during the Walmart Shareholders meeting. Over the past couple of years, the off-campus booths at the stores have disappeared and the economy really dried up the on-campus ones this year.

Back when the vendors were trying to impress the public as much as the Walmart buyers, Sharpe had a big booth with lots of kid games and plenty of free pens and markers. It made a permanent -- sorry, no pun intended -- impression on my daughter, who still gravitates to the Sharpe display in Office Depot and with last night, remembers the company with warm emotions. By the way, my money is on her eventually purchasing Rubbermaid products over Tupperware or other brands for food storage as an adult for the same reasons.

I will grant that a good personal anecdote will reinforce any research to the individual. I have to say, this one is pretty compelling.

Wanna Have Your Eyes Pop?

Thanks to Kevin Selle for spotting this from BuzzMachine, Jeff Jarvis' blog, about Jarvis' presentation at the Aspen Institute on the future of media. Let's just say, you need to plan two or three passes through it. It's revolutionary. It's visionary. It's, well, risky.

Also, could be right. It's all about the hyperlocal -- and yes, we've been sold that pig in a poke before -- Topix, anyone? Two big things have changed. A greater acceptance of the "flying cars of the future" idea of the personal newsfeed, plus the near total collapse of the legacy metro newspaper. Second part seems more important than the first in Jarvis' models.

In Jarvis' piece, we see Google bubbling up again with one of their gurus touting the "hyperpersonal news stream." I can buy that myself, using a lot of RTC through Twitter to keep up with the breaking, RSS to take in my deeper info. Not sure about the concept of what "happens after the article" -- but Google Wave is crashing on the media shoreline once again.

Want to get good and depressed? Let me lift the addenda closer from Jarvis: "Jim Cramer says he’d short media companies, that journalism businesses aren’t working, that magazines are doomed." Ouch.

New Entry in the "Getting It" Sweepstakes

Thanks to a faithful reader of the blog for this morning update after the last post. Michael Kruse of the St. Petersburg Times provides his take on the SEC rights flap, and recognizes:

"They get it. The language of the conference's policy suggest they know all to well the high-stakes fight that's just beginning."

The future is now. Here's Kruse's column.

Setting the Right Blogger Terms

I've said for the past few weeks that the time has come for us to begin changing the terms away from the Kleenex-like references to Tweeting to a term that best expresses what is going on: real-time coverage. Similar to saying social networking website, or SNW, RTC is platform agnostic.

And today, for those who want to turn the Southeastern Conference's new policies toward non-pros attempting to do RTC in violation of the league's rights, a pair of reporters from the New York Times had a very balanced and accurate story today. Here's one of the soup bone quotes:

"The rules are aimed not at the casual fan who might post a few pictures of Saturday's football game on a personal web site, but rather at those who copy television broadcasts, create their own highlight reels and post them on sites charging for access or advertising."

In other words, pirates.

Let's not kid ourselves -- you know who they are and you know where they capture games and restream them on the internet.

This part of the "new" SEC credential policies got a lot of heat last week as it was pitched that the league was trying to stifle the First Amendment rights of the masses. No, the SEC was trying to protect it's own 14th Amendment rights as a corporate entity to protect its "life, liberty, or property."

As explained to the league members in July, many things within the new policies actually are not new. They have existed for years, even decades. Some were understood by all, but technology changed the rules. Some were never acknowledged, and now become hue and cry.

First, the understood. To walk into a stadium and broadcast a game took millions in capital and assets like distribution networks. Today, the right cell phone, enough batteries and a decent connection (good luck with that when 70K-plus try to call home about the last touchdown at Razorback Stadium) is all it takes.

The media -- and the fans -- understood that schools and leagues assigned the right to telecast games. Along with that went the exclusivity. No one credibly thought they could just walk in and claim a First Amendment right to broadcast games.

Continuing on the game broadcast path into the hidden -- for all these years, the network creating the broadcast had the right to tell others how and when that footage could be used. Look at the Olympics as a common example. Most rights holders did not bother to pursue the crude copies made of events, or simply had no way of knowing for sure that the 10 p.m. sports in the 147th market in the country was re-airing highlights without permission.

Enter digital. The ability to harvest video at a high quality and repost forces the rights holder to begin to consider pursuit. When people sell ads on such pages, it's no longer "fan" oriented, it's a business. And when that video is placed on line, it becomes discoverable.

Increasingly, there is real money in The Long Tail of old highlights backed by Google ads. Is anyone really surprised that the rights holders are now asking for their part of those proceeds?

Let me change terms for the sake of illustration. If the Rolling Stones were performing in Razorback Stadium, would anyone question the language on the back of the tickets that said it was a violation of the copyright of the performance to take audio or video recordings? Is it different when it's Arkansas vs. Ole Miss in football? Legally, no.

Emotionally, yes -- and let me say that the collective "we" get that. Fans are upset about this, and so are some media -- particularly new media.

At some point, big time college athletics is seen as a big business -- in fairness, it often is. And everyone likes to stick it to the man. So, yeah, what does it matter if I use a capture card to stream the game to my fellow fans who can't afford or can't get access to see the Razorback games live. The man is just tryin' to hose the fans for as much money as he can get.

No, the man is trying to pay for that stadium expansion. That practice facility. That team's expenses -- including those coach's salaries, especially when the fans want to pay "whatever it takes" to acquire a new coach or keep an old coach from becoming somebody else's trophy hire. Those sports that we all love to root but somehow don't find the time to either attend or pay for season tickets to support. And, the man is paying for the equipment, production truck rental, talent fees, satellite time, distribution networks, etc. to bring you the original broadcast.

So remember next Monday, when classes begin at the University of Arkansas that for the first time in 24 years, basic tuition is not increasing. In large part, that was thanks to a $1 million gift from athletics to the general operating fund of the university. On top of the existing roughly $3 million in direct or in-kind support to the school.

That $1 million didn't come from donors. It didn't come from ticket revenue. It didn't come from fundraising.

It came from rights holders.

First Final Four Head Coach

The 1998 Lady Razorback basketball team that went to the NCAA Final Four had produced three Division I assistant coaches until today, when Sytia Messer became the first to elevate to head coach. Tennessee Tech made the announcement today (and now we know why Sytia was needing those photos a couple of weeks back).

The MVP of the NCAA West Regional, Messer had a Cinderella career at Arkansas, setting the mark for consecutive games played and helming Arkansas' other great moment, winning the WNIT in 1999 as senior.

She was associate head coach at Georgia Tech, and takes over a program that had a 40-year history at TTU.

Who are the other two Lady'Backs in Division I from that team?

That would be Tennille Adams at Northwestern and Christy Smith at Valparaiso.

A lot of people thought the 1998 team was a miracle squad. Really? Let's take a look at where they are today. Along with three Division I coaches, we have a published author (Celia Anderson), sports director of a major US market (Tiffany Wright), former WNBA player now high school coach (Wendi Willits) -- and this is just off the top of my head.

Still, very cool to consider the player who was the leading scorer at the regional (Messer), the player that had the go-ahead offensive rebound and stick-back against Duke (Adams) and the player who stood at the free throw line and hit four ice-cold free throws to clinch it (Smith) are now all coaching at the top level.

Maybe there's a book in there somewhere -- I claim it first.

More from the Gruen Transfer

Cleaning house, contacts and notes lists to prep-up for the start of the active Razorback seasons, I came on this bit overlooked from earlier in the summer.

My favorite television show on advertising -- aside from Mad Men which gets Season Three this Sunday -- is The Gruen Transfer. It's a short-run talk show from the Australian Broadcasting Company, and it's the McLaughlin Group of PR.

Tod Sampson is one of the regulars, and he said this:

The internet is the ultimate truth serum

This was from an episode about bottled water and brands, and the reference was to the fact that if you as a brand put something out there, you will be held accountable for it on-line. He also added the fantastic thought about why more people just don't drink tap water. Utilities don't mount campaigns to get people to drink tap water because "they're lazy marketers."

Gruen is filled with great info -- and I highly recommend you putting it on your iTunes list. Sadly, I lost half of season one thanks to a stupid iTunes error, but I save every episode to my desktop for storage.

The panel had a compelling discussion about the importance of first experiences in forming a brand allegiance. Why did Shell Oil spend so much money on toys and other items that were pointed at children? Because in some controversial research, Shell discovered that setting the brand hook early was crucial.

I loved this passing reference at the end -- the best way to kill a bad product is to advertise it successfully.

Cuts Both Ways

Troy Smith of the Baltimore Ravens surely wants to make sure the world knows he's not TroySmith10, lest he incur some similar fines to the San Diego Chargers' Antonio Cromartie. The Baltimore Sun reports the Ravens' QB as one of the latest spoofer victims, but the Sun article also delves into some of the Ravens' policies. For example, Baltimore is not planning to ban Twitter around its camp. We also pick up this tidbit: "The NFL says it supports the 300 or so players who tweet and the league has 807,473 followers on its Twitter site, but it has banned in-game tweets."

At the same time, Georgia discovers how the media is tracking on the activity of its athletes through Facebook. Injuries to players were discovered through casual updates of status, resulting is a flood of questions at the next practice. Players again need a reminder, the media is increasingly looking at all SNW as legitimate, quotable sources.

More Significant Twit-colypse

Meanwhile, back at the hard data, the Twitter Haters could find a more important trend than the recent runs of media restrictions on the real-time journalism product. Nielson Wire picks up on this trending data -- Teens Don't Tweet.

The fast-growing RTJ system is seeing is most rapid growth with Gen X & Y, but the true Millennials seem to care less. For June 2009, 64% of Twitter's growth was age 25-54. The next cohort? Not the recruit age kids -- it's the AARP members with 55-plus at 20%.

What does it mean for college athletics? Tickets and news -- yes.

Coaches reaching out to potential student-athletes -- not so much.

I'll give this the anectodal thumbs up from the Smith household as neither the 12-year-old daughter nor the 18-year-old college bound son have accounts, or could care less.

Now Facebook -- as the conventional SNW product -- can't live without.

Food for thought.

Unsolicited Opinions

While cleaning through some files at the house, if I was programing for a hoops team, I'd be looking at the imminent resurrection -- shudder -- of disco. My money is on Turn the Beat Around becoming the new band song at schools in the near future. Catchy hook, nice scratch/percussion in the middle, would work well with the growing number of bass guitars and amplification at lots of schools.

Why disco? Look, I lived that horror the first time as the hauler of albums to my dad's night clubs (how many 15-year-olds did you know that had a subscription to Billboard to pull titles for orders). But just like those vintage ties, give anything time and it will cycle back. My seventh grader and her slightly older junior high generationals -- looks like a casting call for Hair.

Same reason why AC/DC is suddenly the football stadium band of choice -- what's old is new to the students and the parents and 40-ish ticket buyers can secretly bob their heads back and forth and remember when they heard it as a first edition back in the day.

Other quick cuts:

I'd have a rally video based on Four Minutes, and hammer it at the four-minute timeouts.

Somebody is going to jump on Stop the Rock for a pregame or timeout rally video with lots of slam dunks and drives to the rack ( . . . you can't stop the rock, can't stop the rock).

Now I'll bet what you'll hear in a lot of arenas is Boom Boom Pow, but for my money, reaching back for something like Boom Shot Dis (hey, didn't the Razorback band have that last year -- yeah, that's right) shows a little hipper edge. Something a little ragged edged? Reach back for Franz Ferdinand Take Me Out (pick it up at :51 and splash those team mug shots). Radar Love at the 3:42 breakdown -- tell me you couldn't have the pep band rake the crowd with a power horn line to that.

Of course, I always thought we should have been playing the Dudley Do Right theme song. Then again, that peculiar music taste might be why I'm writing the blog instead.

Do I Want to be the Media?

Some Sunday clarifications as we all seek to figure out exactly what the SEC's new rights agreements mean for everyone. I had more than one media member comment to me during Saturday's football media day that "you want the fans just coming to your website" and "you just want to be the media."

Well, the short answers are: Yes and I don't have a choice.

Up front, let me counter something that may be taken from a series of posts over the past few months regarding the future of networked media's impact upon sports media relations. Brand-based information is on the rise, and it is because the resources for the legacy media to continue being the broad source of information are disappearing.

We are media now not by design, but by necessity. I'll use our local market as an example, but those reading nationwide know it to be true. Both newspapers laid off the women's basketball and Olympic sports full-time beat reporters during cutbacks this spring. It has resulted in a net loss of coverage for those teams. We had zero legacy media at the NCAA Gymnastics Championships in Lincoln. A first ever appearance for our team, that made for an even better story when they advanced to the Super Six.

I have absolutely no doubt that if it happened two or three years ago, one or both of the reporters would have been in Lincoln -- an easy drive from Fayetteville. The worst case scenario would be a stringer hired for one of the two. But a shutout with no one there? Inconceivable.

The SEC track and field championships were a regular for our media, the Baton Rouge Advocate and the Gainesville Sun. This year, only one of those four papers were at indoors and none of them hit the triple crown like they did in the past.

Why? Resources.

That doesn't mean interest from the legacy media is gone -- what's gone is the financing and the willingness to spend discretionary money on sports that may not have immediate circulation return. The precious resources left are now poured into the "media" sports, depending on the school or market.

That brings us to the second of the two questions. Our fans want football on the website, as much or more as they want that live coverage from the men's golf team making a miracle run at the NCAA Championship.

Are we -- the institutional website -- to sit back and concede coverage on our most popular events, and just focus on the events the legacy media no longer invests resources into coverage? Or worse, are we suppose to continue filling in the gaps for the traditional media with our investment?

Here's the point my colleagues in the legacy media, in my opinion, overlook. What they bring -- as I've stressed over and over in this blogspace -- is value-added content. It boggles my mind that I have numerous media upset that we're putting uncut, wall-to-wall video or audio from press events on our website. Let's not go down the copyright road on this, but if everyone has the same 20 minute long presser, what's the difference maker? What is the traffic driver? Cutting that presser into a three-minute highlight package with B-roll and voice over by a beat reporter who can give interpretation.

Instead of playing to advantage -- staffs of experienced journalists -- we're on the verge of a throwdown over running the unedited video and exceding a time window.

Future of Recruiting

Evin Demirel has an interesting lead essay in today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (pay link) on the rising globalization of basketball, specifically how Americans are now seeking to bypass even the one-year stay in college before reaching the NBA. The dramatic title --

At what price do you give up your youth, or your child’s youth? Well, the answer is: millions . . . and counting

doesn't exactly convey the depth of the piece. We get the usual "hypocrisy of American amateur sports" business and the hints that maybe we should pay those poor college athletes.

Basketball is the focus of the piece, and maybe we should be honest about a couple of things. America was once the place where the world sent its youth to learn our game (be truthful -- basketball is the only 100% born on this soil pro sport). Now there are viable alternatives.

We are to basketball what Europe is to soccer -- the elite. Part of what Demirel details in his story is how futbol has worked around the world, and baseball functions in the Western Hemisphere today. The more interesting passages are devoted to the lengths a handful of American families are going to advance a young athlete's pro potential. In this area, Demirel does his most meaningful work.

At the end of the day, I'm left with this thought. Parents and relatives pushing a talented child ahead, and traveling across the country in search of training or advantages. A system that seeks out, identifies and then uses these young people. Who are these lost youth?

They call them child stars. Paging Macaulay Culkin.

Don't Think Brand; Think Concept

The Death of Twitter was proclaimed from the highest and lowest media this week with the END OF THE WORLD announcements of:

A fine for a San Diego Charger carping about camp food in his Tweets

A dozen NFL teams attempting to declare Tweet-free zones around camp

ESPN issuing "draconian" restrictions on the "First Amendment rights" of its employees

As Darren Rovell said earlier this week, let's take them in order:

Antonio Cromartie gets hit for a $2,500 fine because he Tweeted that the Chargers served "nasty food." We're surprised by this?

Cromartie is a businessman, and his business is representing the San Diego franchise. If he said this to the San Diego Union-Tribune, would we believe the organization's reaction would have been any different?

He didn't get his First Amendment rights violated -- the reality is he never had them on this one anyway. I'd be willing to guess somewhere in his contract language, there's some clauses about adverse commentary on the organization. Perhaps a team rule or two. Or maybe, a little common sense.

When I write this blog, I do not presume that I can say anything about anything. The same would be true if I worked corporate PR at Wal-Mart (Facebook followers, help me out here). Or NWACC. Or the Northwest Arkansas Times.

You see, Twitter isn't without consequence. If you are a celebrity, whose job essentially is as an independent contractor toward the industry, one can take the time to contemplate one's navel all day long and rip the craft services trailer without fear of repercussion.

Let's go with a little further to our friends in Bristol, Conn. Every major corporation that has significant on-line presence now has a Social Media Policy for its employees.

Think ESPN went a ways in its? Have you read the Associated Press? Washington Post? These are media outlets whose stock in trade is A) information and B) reputation.

Be real about this. You have a contract to provide content to the World Wide Leader. Does it make sense that they would be OK with you sharing that for free? Or speaking against the company? Recon they'd just be fine with your tips to Deadspin? Hey Leather, I doubt it.

Now, does this mean it's the end of the Twitterverse? Hardly. In spite of the extremely snide personal comments of some colleagues both here and at another university, Real-Time Journalism is here to stay. The technology is not only that simple, it is that important. Oh, there's no such thing as "journalism" in a text message (BTW -- one must sneer appropriately while saying the word journalism in that statement).

Fine -- call it Real-Time Media, call it Instant Citizen Journalism, call it mobocracy; but don't you dare say there's no reportage involved. Twitter as a brand name will be as gone as MySpace and Friendster someday. Real-Time Media is here to stay.

Don't think so? Ask those kids in the streets in Teheran how important RTM was to not only their cause, but potentially their survival. How many more without Neda? I'll bet the ones from 20 years ago this summer back on Tianamen Square wish they had TwitPics.

So declaring a no cell, no Tweet zone around a NFL team (when, by the way, the league signed off on those 32 embeds for CBS and pretty quickly jumped on the teams for trying to shut down media members Tweeting) is not functional. Telling those employees of a franchise they can't be their own reporters -- not that different from telling them not to talk to reporters. In fact, kind of evens the playing field.

Thinking About Arkansas

"That's the one thing I want from your mother's apartment," my wife reminded me. She was speaking of my nursery school finger paint composition that adorned the kitchen wall of my home back on Huntington Street in Monroe, and later in my late mother's apartment.

Not only was the artwork exquisite, it had it's own libretto of a back story provided by the artist. My grandmother and mother never tired of the tale. I came home from St. Christopher's and proclaimed that this was a picture of a cowboy on a horse who was chasing a Razorback, and in the corner was the invisible squirrel.

Myself, I was always impressed with the turning of two small dots into the eyes of said transparent creature. THAT's making the most our of a situation.

But my mom and her mother were proud of the Razorback. Frankly, it was the best part of the finger work, complete with a spiky ridge-back. Ma-Ma was pure Delta, getting her teaching degree at Arkansas A&M and spending her days as a single parent teaching the children of Arkansas City. She even lived across the street from the one-building school district, where I almost died in a playground . (You read that right; story for another day)

My mother grew up there, playing a little basketball for the old River Rats of ACHS, and eventually meeting up with a Central casting Louisiana rogue that was my dad -- talk about a house divided back when that meant a heck of a lot more between Arkansas and LSU.

Those weekend trips up 165 North into Chicot County, watching the telephone poles along the railroad track fly by from the luggage slot behind the back seat of my mother's black VW Bug. (Hmmm, maybe that's where the trendy small Euro car thing comes from . . .). These two women took great pride in teaching their young Shoat to Call the Hogs at an early age.

Been a lot of change in Fayetteville, but starting a third decade (oh my, a 21st year -- the freshmen weren't even born when I arrived) with the Razorbacks, sometimes you figure you might have been born for something. You just hope everyone else realizes it.

Nothing to See Here

Move along, move along, says the NFL to Twitter. Ten teams came out with no-Tweet zones around practice, only to discover the league says that's against policy. Considering CBS has hired 32 networked media members -- mostly former bloggers -- to "embed" with the NFL teams for real-time reporting, yesterday wasn't the "dark day" for the immediacy media that bloggers made it out to be.

Coming Soon

Once I've had a little time to reset, I will get the technical notes from today's YouTube in the Classroom posted here for my fellow UA Teaching Camp attendees.

Who Mourns the Milkman?

When I was a child, my mom would put the milk bottles outside our back door with a little paper pinwheel to let the milkman know what products we needed.

At the intersection of two of the busiest streets in the center of Monroe stood the Clover Leaf plant. Behind the building where the milk was processed was a pair of long piers where the milk trucks parked. The angled parking spaces were covered to keep the Louisiana heat away from the vehicles, and special power attachments dangled from the roof to hook up the refrigeration units when the trucks were at the plant.

It was a fascinating model of distribution efficiency.

Today, the sprawling space once occupied by milk plant is a vacant lot, a convenience store and a chain pharmacy.

Last time I checked, you can still get milk. Pretty much the same stuff today as the late 1960s.

What's missing is the home delivery.

Care to think about another industry who for decades has depended upon the distribution of its product to the doorstep?

Bottle or Tap

In our local market, the gaping hole into free content for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette closed with the gating of the northwest Arkansas editions of the statewide paper. The ADG had been paid on-line for some time, but savvy readers knew the vast majority of the content could be read through the Northwest Arkansas Times or Benton County Daily Record -- the NWANews.com website.

As one might suspect, the decision has led to indignation among the Arkansas diaspora. How dare WEHCO take away our news content? We've even had complaints sent into our website at the university asking the Razorbacks to get involved on behalf of the fan base.

Putting the content behind a pay wall is counter-intuitive to the herd's thinking. I have advocated advertising supported free content myself. At the same time, you're telling your audience what it's worth when you give it away for free. For that very reason, over time, free admission never works in athletics or entertainment.

Perception of value is reinforced by cost. The problem comes when cost and value are out of proportion. A $15.95 audio CD with eight to 12 tracks became seen as a ripoff by the masses, and once they could copy and distribute to circumvent the perceived high cost, they did in droves. But a 99-cent digital track proved to resonate with people, and money spent on music is heading back up.

Let me provide another analogy. People drink all the water they could when it is free. Over time, they just expected the water fountain to be there. Every day, we are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of water fountains, faucets and dispensers.

Who drinks from the tap any more? Nobody. Why? Because around 10 years ago a marketing company began to build value into buying water prepackaged in a bottle. It's convenient. It's healthier. It's cleaner. It's safer.

Really?

Studies show that's not necessarily the case. Sometimes the water in the bottle is worse than the tap. Then there is the tremendous cost of packaging and delivery. Plus the environmental impact.

We buy bottled water because we perceive it has greater value than tap water. We pay handsomely and eagerly for it. This is the key for on-line subscriptions. The value added to the information you can get anywhere is what separates the premium newspaper staff written stories from the rest. Not to mention that the media staff has packaged it into an easy to use bottle rather than the virtual fire hose of information that is the internet.

Last Bits from Science of Fear

Daniel Gardner quotes Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, about why humans are so interested in each other:

"We are social mammals whose brains are highly specialized for thinking about others. Understanding what others are up to -- what they know and want, what they are doing and planning -- has been so crucial to our survival of our species that our brains have developed an obsession with all things human. We think about people and their intentions; talk about them; look for and remember them."

As I continue prepping this fall's class notes for history up at NWACC (ya'll sign up for Tuesday nights now), Gardner gifts me with a new quote on my favorite bane of history -- presentism.

"Simply put, history is an optical illusion: the past always appears more certain than it was, and that makes the future feel more uncertain -- and therefore frighten - than ever. The roots of this illusion like in what psychologist call 'hindsight bias'."

Couldn't say it better.

There is a ton of significant other theory and data within the book -- I highly recommend it to those teaching journalism or working the profession.

Cleaning Out the Notebook

In advance of the security upgrade on my iPhone, past notes and quotes.

"I'm here in case the shuttle blows up." -- News reporter describing his life on the NASA beat. Does this explain why we as a nation have no vision for manned space flight? Forget the Age of Cronkite and space race promotion. Or does it speak to a lack of vision and/or an inability to articulate that vision from the government to the media?

"The battle is between legitimate and non-legitimate media." -- So said Tim Brando to the luncheon crowd at CoSIDA back in June. Come to your own conclusions.

Let me add a final note -- if you are a PC user with iPhone, don't trust you'll be able to recover any notes taken. While 3.0 system and 3GS should sync notes now, the only way to make sure to keep things you may have jotted down is email them to yourself. Learned this the VERY hard way in the 2.0 to 3.0 upgrade, and the iPhone decided to eat itself. Recovered everything but -- you guessed it -- notes.

Gardner on Journalism

Here I'm letting David Gardner's book, Science of Fear, speak for itself. There is a whole chapter on the media, and considerable reconsideration of its conclusions in the final chapter.

"Fear means more newspapers sold and higher ratings, so the dramatic, the freightening, the emotional and the worst case are brought to the fore while anything that would suggest truth is not so exciting and alarming is played down or ignored."

"Journalism is not run by a scientific formula. Decisions about a story being newsworthy come from the head, the heart and the gut." -- quoting NPR's Sean Collins

He concludes with three culprits for the increasing fear in the West: "The brain, the media and the many individuals and organizations with an interest in stoking fears."

Gardner's hardest shot from the final chapter:
"The media are among those that profit by marketing fear - nothing gives a boost to circulation like a good panic - but the media also promote unreasonable fears for subtler and more compelling reasons. The most profound is the simple human love of stories and story telling. For the media, the most essential ingredient of a good story is the same as that or a good movie, play, or tale told by the campfire: it has to be about people and emotion not numbers and reason."