More Relativity in Reality

Picked off a newspaper column, a reference to the work of Charles P. Pierce, and his Three Great Premises. This is taken from his book Idiot America, which appears more political than topical. His first two big ideas aren't very impressive. First is a poor-man's True Enough take that if an idea "sells" it becomes valid in the TV culture. The second is just a restate of the Hitler-like if you tell a big lie and say it loud and proud it gets by.

It is the third point that I find far more interesting and dangerous: A fact is that which enough people believe. The truth is measured by how fervently they believe it.

Majority of people become convinced that their version of an event was how it happened, it becomes a fact. Others will see their point of view and create their fact. Ah yes, the Manjoo universe of competing realities. Facts gain truth, in Pierce's estimation, by how hard they are promoted, backed and spread -- the fever of the fact believers.

Try that one out the next time you come across some controversy. You might get some interesting second thoughts.

Hessert Notes, Part Two

Kathleen Hessert's second day was more about social media, and pitched to coaches and staff than the media training with athletes on day one. Again, a day of validation for past thoughts in this blog.

Fans trust each other more than they trust marketers -- This is almost social media marketing gospel now, but the Hessert turn her was brilliant:

"You can say what you want your brand to be, but the key is what they [fans, customers, public] say you are."

Brings in the digital native/digital immigrant argument, and uses her 85-year-old dad as the perfect example of how digital isn't always about age -- it's about mindset.

I was a little flummoxed by the following paradox as she pointed out the newspaper average demo as 50-year-old that reads only 1.5 stories (making the argument you have a very small chance of hitting a shrinking group), but that the largest growing demo on Facebooks is 50-plus.

On engaging in the "attention economy", if a brand is not part of the conversations going on among the social media, that conversation will simply go on without you. You miss the chance to influence.

The Age of Now was another quick drop-in phrase.

Long Promised Hessert Notes

An opening disclaimer: I've been a follower of Kathleen Hessert's sports PR work for years. Roughly since she shook up the CoSIDA convention back in St. Louis, gosh, 1999?, I've wanted to see her come to campus to work with our athletes. I claim no input on that -- Jeff Long knew of her as well and scheduled her in.

First and foremost, anyone who TwitPic's her own presentation to athletes clearly has a tight grasp on the power of immediate social media. And by the time she left Fayetteville, she probably picked up 40 or 50 local followers for her Twitter feed. Smart move.

A lot of the media training for the student-athletes echoed past things I've done with the old department's training; plenty of stuff you'd read here back in the 2005 and 2006 posts -- plus the freshman media session many of the readers have received copies of in the past.

Couple of her numbers that should catch attention:
Quick to call out the top bloggers -- Deadspin at 450K in uniques would rank among the top newspaper circulations in the country; that Every Day Should Be Saturday should be everyone in college football's must read because it's the No. 1 football. (I point EDSBS out because of the "shock and awe" that ensued when I built a blogger panel at convention around its founder -- good to get some validation).
Noted that advertisers were now willing to offer to pay for Tweets -- when you think about it, not terribly different from old style "readers" done by Paul Harvey or Jack Buck. Everything old is becoming new again. One major feed offered $30k for a single product Tweet.

Topically, some things that would help anyone:
--Think of three words or phrases that define you, and then spend your time getting that message across.
--Balance is important to the brand and image
--In a crisis, better to get it out and get it over with -- I love this visual to "go for the fast hemmorage rather than the slow drip"
--Harder questions come when the media thinks you're lying, and they probably think your lying and ask hard questions because they know something you don't want them to know.

This is Summer?

Usually, there's some time for a vacation or slack, but this has been like traffic controller at O'Hare week.

At least it's been a nice cool week for weather. I'm thankful for that.

Finding the Outer Limits

Seems like those internets always work in waves. A month ago, it was faux tornado warnings. Now it's a rash of social media missteps, particularly in the media community, that's leading to a rush to create guidelines for employees on-line.

One of the starting points was an Associated Press reporter being called out for trashing a particular newspaper chain's financial decisions. Wired has great reporting on this. The result is AP putting out its own policies, which generated considerable commentary. You can see the policy in PDF here off Wired.

The follow-on has been social media guidelines at the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and other notable legacy institutions.

Commentary between the network media and the legacy has been, well, predictable. The youngsters saying you can't trust anyone over 30 and the old folks telling them to turn down that damn music. I'm particularly fond of this blend quote from a member of the TIME staff picked up by blogger Ann All, opining on the disconnect:

Most of this boils down to the classic old-media problem with new media: fear of the loss of control. . . . Transparency is one of the great benefits of the Web, not a danger. The audience for media outlets wants to know—and deserves to know—how decisions are made, what goes into producing a story, how the process of knowledge-gathering and idea-making is constant and flawed. Hiding that process isn't about serving anyone but ourselves—really, covering our asses. And that only hurts us; journalists are better off showing that they're human, that they make mistakes and that they (hopefully) learn from them.

In the corporate world, Intel and IBM are getting a lot of praise on how to strike the balance. Their guidelines serve as solid legal reminders that employees have certain responsibilities -- you can't break laws, embarrass the company or give out proprietary information -- but also encourage their folks to join the conversation.

In the blogosphere, Ann All has great columns (see her links above), but also at ZDNet and Editor and Publisher. The E&P gives plenty of anectdotes from various newspapers that have faced this problem during the late spring and early summer.

That's Why I Love Fayetteville

Where else do you get this in July:

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TULSA OK
0912 AM CDT SAT JUL 18 2009


...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE SET AT FAYETTEVILLE ARKANSAS...

A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE OF 52 DEGREES WAS SET AT FAYETTEVILLE
ARKANSAS TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 57 SET IN 1967.

Hessert Notes on Catchup Saturday

This week has been a hot mess, to reach back for some dated reality show jargon, and yes, Kathleen Hessert was a fantastic two days worth of media training and "new" media discussions. Notes and thoughts tomorrow, I promise.

I Hate Endings

First and foremost -- nobody get weirded out or read something into this post.

I'm doing some reading in a couple of books earlier this week and it just tripped a switch. I've never liked ending projects, even though I'm very good with deadlines and enjoy working with deadlines. Always thought there was something sad about finishing things.

So it hits me, gee, recon that's cause you grew up in hospitals shuttling around your father's array of illness? You know, maybe. At an early age, you got good with the thought of "endings," and got attracted over time to things that are perpetual -- like newspapers, then higher ed. I've never really like summer, cause that was the "dead" part of the academic year (aside from hot and humid -- no fan of either).

Probably why I feel quite comfortable with the never-ending networked media. There's always something new around the corner, something different to do; and that feeds the lack of closure.

Profound, no?

Repeat disclaimer -- doesn't mean I'm dying, leaving, etc. Just an interesting correlation between closure aversion and network media. I wonder if others feel the same way.

Outstanding Advice

I wish I had found this quote years ago when I was more directly involved in media training for coaches and student-athletes:

There aren't any embarrassing questions - just embarrassing answers.

Carl T Rowan Jr, US Ambassador to Finland, On press conferences, 1963

My kudos to The Universal Journalist for that tasty quote.

Thus Tweet Zarathustra

William Randoph Hearst quote of the day:

The modern editor of a newspaper does not care for facts. The editor wants novelty. The editor has no objection to facts, if they are also novel. But he would prefer a novelty that is not a fact to a fact that is not a novelty.

The Other Wire Service

As a one-time "employee" -- if stringer can get you that -- of United Press International back in my newspaper days, I was intrigued to learn through Craig Silverman's Regret the Error website that what goes for the alternative to Associated Press has put its stylebook on-line for the public.

Silverman, as you'd expect, is focused on what Reuters has to say in its Handbook of Journalism about accuracy, error correcting and validation. He hits some very strong points in the Handbook, and I'd highly recommend you taking a moment to jump over and read his linked blog entry.

In light of a growing number of weather hoaxes -- both here and across the country -- I was drawn to the Reuters' hints on dealing with internet sources. These would be words that every consumer of networked news -- both "professional" and citizen/participatory -- should have Post-It noted to their computer screen:

Do a reality check. Does this information fit within the bounds of what was expected? Any wild divergences are a clue you may be viewing information in the wrong context.

And this one, which Silverman also highlighted:

We have no greater protection if we pick up a hoax from a newspaper, a broadcaster or any other third party news organisation. The damage to our reputation from running a hoax is the same and in many jurisdictions we are just as liable under the law.

Indeed.

Now there are some great tips for writing within the Handbook, one in particular that would be helpful for those of us attempting to create those ever-so-pithy Tweets. Quoting:

The 10 key words approach

Try making a list of 10 key words without which you simply could not write the story. They don’t have to be the exact words you will use in the story. Think more of the facts or concepts which must be there. So a story about oil prices would definitely have the key words oil and prices, but they might be expressed in the story as crude and dollars per barrel. Once you have that list of keywords you have the essence of the story. Most or all should appear in the first sentence. All should appear by the end of the second paragraph. [My emphasis]

And who says you can't say anything important in 140 words?

Nice Looks at Coach Tweeting

Many probably saw this first time through, but while doing some prep work, I came across this Andy Staples on-line column at SI. He makes several solid points. One funny one about how positive thinker coaches just believe you can wish the bad news away with enough positive Tweets. The other was something that I guess I had considered, but not really seen expressed this clearly:

Finally, someone needs to fill in coaches on the concept of intellectual property. The Stewart tweet quoted above is part of a series he calls "Mountaineers Rules for Living." These rules, usually erroneously credited to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, were written by conservative pundit Charles J. Sykes. Sykes does not receive credit on Stewart's page.

We all know that coaches like to have "quotes of the day" on white boards and similar guidelines for teams in their squad handbooks. It's one thing to lift information privately for motivation; quite another to do so publicly without attribution.

I think when our student-athletes do it, they call it plagiarism.

Dan Levy over at SportingNews.com pumped out a more recent look at the Twitterverse, and finds it wanting for the most part. He does remind us of a growing problem, noting Pete Carroll of USC:

But fans follow coaches just in case they break some actual news, like Carroll did when announcing the hiring of a new basketball coach at his school before the actual school did.

Reminds me of the guidelines I put into place back in 2000 regarding the proprietary information of the department -- the stuff that once was called "Transactions" in old AP-speak -- could not be released on personal websites. Ah, remember those bad old days when you needed a kid with some programming skill to tell the world she was "retiring," or to let all his friends and followers know he was done with school and headed to the NBA.

Just a Facebook entry away these days.

The Writer's Almanac

A good long drive will force you deep into your podcast collection, and it has been some time since I've listened to Garrison Keillor's daily affirmation for writers and aspiring poets. Gems from his last week's entries -- an ode to Kafka and the opening lines of his two great works, a quotation on reality from Hesse and a homage to Strunk and White.

Many days of the week, I am no fan of the way Strunk and White have beat the life out of prose, but two reminders that their little seminal collaboration remains useful (when taken in moderation or under strict doctor's orders):

Write in the active tense
Use no more words than necessary

Two S&W guidelines far more SIDs and journalists need to follow.

Keillor's daily podcast is brief, and found either through Minnesota Public Radio or more simply at iTunes. Always ends with a poem, and since Keillor has used my favorite American poet laurete, Billy Collins, frequently, it's always a pleasure.

Three Dimensions of Journalism

Not exactly Steven Hawking three-fold convergence of the universe, but past couple of days have prompted some additional thinking about terminology for what we do on a daily basis.

Riding home from a road trip, I was able to keep in touch with a key city of Fayetteville council meeting through the live tweets by Fayetteville Flyer, and, interestingly, the City of Fayetteville, itself. There was no other media participation through Twitter feeds -- unless they have some new ones I'm not subscribed to -- and that in and of itself is interesting.

By this morning's papers, I didn't get a lot of recap that was different from what I learned both from a networked media reporter and the official source.

How do we decide what was what here? I propose using the term real-time journalism for the live blogging or Tweeting from news events. It is raw, play-by-play in the sports world. I get the sense this is a new thing to many media members, novel. Not so much to those of us living sports on a daily basis. The recap or analysis that could have been in today's paper wasn't terribly deeper than what I had already read.

So, two of our three dimensions based on this event -- the real-time journalism and the review or recap. What I'm sure I'll see soon is the opinion or commentary phase -- three time-based type of views of the same event.

And I realize, real-time isn't that novel a label, but it better reflects what is going on for the journalist. Streaming live audio or video, some pure data stream (difficult in the news world, but C-SPAN tallies of Congressional votes is about as close to the live stats we have in sports) that lacks commentary or injects is not necessarily RTJ (see, it even makes for a trendy acronym).

Here's the way I got to see it. Obviously, it runs in reverse time order, and my apologies for the shamless cut and paste from their feeds to AccessFay (the city feed) and Fayetteville Flyer (FvillFlyer):

accessfayThe City Council has decided to leave it on the 2nd reading, and the item will be on the 3rd and final reading at the next City Council mtg.about 23 hours ago from web
fvilleflyerSale Barn issue tabled for two more weeks. #faycouncilabout 23 hours ago from Tweetie
accessfayThe City Attorney advised comments about buffer zones, are not offered in a bill of assurance, also CC shouldn't consider who owns propertyabout 23 hours ago from web
accessfayThe Council is discussing the rezoning. They have spoken about compatibility, buffer zones, traffic concerns, impact on existing neighborsabout 24 hours ago from web
fvilleflyerAlderman Petty is defending students. Says Mr. Buckner's comments are offensive. Lady in crowd is vocally upset w/ Petty. #faycouncil

danasargentWatching the Fayetteville CIty Council meeting. (Channel 16 in Fayetteville) #faycouncil
(This is a notable Tweet, the only one from a legacy media person during the entire string -- What I'm editing out are dozens of reposts of scrips that are "website stories" from the local television stations across the region)

fvilleflyerCouncil member Gray is in favor of rezoning. Crowd is very uneasy. Lots of angry glances. #faycouncil
fvilleflyerCampus Crest offers to build 25ft buffer w/ trees between apts and road in front of cemetery. Says willing to work w/ neighbors. #faycouncil
accessfayThe applicant is reviewing their rationale for DG zoning. (Less intensive uses, offer buffer zone, other property is available for cemetary
fvilleflyerCampus Crest making presentation in favor of rezoning sale barn property. Making case that rezoning fits with 2025 master plan. #faycouncil
fvilleflyerWoman has been speaking so long that Mayor Jordan asked her to sit down. She talked another minute or so. #faycouncil7:00 PM Jul 7th from Tweetie
accessfayThe lawyer for the applicant, stated "owner has rights, & they should be considered & he should not have to wait 2 yrs to have it purchased6:47 PM Jul 7th from web
fvilleflyerLawyer says ,"It would certainly be a hardship" on the owner if barn rezoning is denied. "Yeah right," says woman in crowd. Wow. #faycouncil
accessfayThe property owners believe that they should have the opportunity to sell their land. No one from the Cemetary made an offer to purchase.6:40 PM Jul 7th from web
accessfayThe majority of the individuals in the audience are speaking against the rezoning. Most veterans want to see this as cemetary expansion.
accessfayThe City Council is hearing testimony on the rezoning of the old Sale Barn property. The request is from I-1 to Downtown General6:37 PM Jul 7th from web
fvilleflyerSome guy: "Who the hell wants to build a house near a cemetery?!" #faycouncil
fvilleflyerJim Buckner: "The worst possible neighbor to a national cemetery would be university students."
fvilleflyerSue Madison says City has been accomodating enough to the Sale Barn owners over the years. #faycouncil6:19 PM Jul 7th from Tweetie
fvilleflyerMany citizens speaking in opposition to rezoning of Sale Barn property including Sue Madison. #faycouncil
fvilleflyerSue Madison is in the house and being interviewed by Alex Flippin. #faycouncil6:02 PM Jul 7th from Tweetie
fvilleflyerCity Hall is nearly full already. Expecting fireworks tonight.6:00 PM Jul 7th from Tweetie

I'm particularly fond of the "straight" news approach of the facts as they happen to mark progress from the city, and the inject of commentary from the Flyer.

To be fair, there was some other news in this stream -- I did cut out the live blogging by the Northwest Arkansas Naturals that happened in this set of posts.

What else spaced out the Tweets? 12 consecutive Tweets with links to the website of one TV station's 6 p.m. cast, 6 straight Tweets that were links to another station's 6-cast, another dozen Tweets to the website from the four other TV stations in-state that a follow. Some Breaking News and Drudge headlines. Four personality tweets from a news anchor and three from a sports editor.

A Different News Reality

Sarah Palin provides the latest episode of social news versus legacy news with the continuing coverage of her resignation. USA TODAY carries a story detailing the perplexed politicians and pundits. It serves as little more than a vehicle for the public statements of a cadre of public figures.

Taken at face value, nobody knows what the soon-to-be former governor is going to do or why she did what she did.

Unless you notice a couple of paragraphs in the middle. USA TODAY obliquely refers to Palin's Facebook page, pulling out a brief quip, then to Palin's Twitter page and some damage control work regarding accusations of a FBI investigation.

Suddenly, the six paragraphs in front and the six paragraphs behind are nothing more than two giant buns around the meat of the story. If anyone read past the rambling opening, they were off to the social media.

You betcha.

The story's not that different from the death of Steve McNair or the continued detailing of Mark Sanford's "hiking". There is the reality based on the 20th century model of objective journalism playing out in print and on screen. Then there's the fully digital story existing in the partisan world of 21st century social media.

The disturbing part is the way the versions of what happened diverge. There is a news for everyone.

Another Must Follow Source

The Nielsen folks didn't get to be who they are and stay who they are by missing trends. Too keep up with the what's hot from their numbers, bookmark the Nielsen blog. Many of the numbers used in my Just a Fad post came from an assortment of their entries.

I'm also intrigued by Instapaper and the iPhone app. Can't get the "Read Later" button to work at all in Mobile Safari, and the sync over technique failed as well. However, on Firefox and Safari, it works magnificently in capturing whole long webpages into single, text friendly, iPhone reader friendly caches to read when I have time. Great way to store up stories for flights or long drives.

Posts Too Long

Consider this my lone concession to the theory folks who say no one reads long prose anymore.

I will make this note short, and punchy.
Perhaps with sentence fragments
Short bullet points
Reader can skim

Then again, maybe not

Just a Fad?

Hear it all the time -- from colleagues near and far -- that Twitter thing won't last. Can't monitize it, therefore, it's not worth the effort.

Hmm. Sounds like another on-line company, privately held, flash in the pan. Yeah, that Facebook thing, that'll never catch on.

I will grant this -- Twitter may fly away under the Fail Whale, and the nay-sayers are absolutely waiting for things like this week's Nielsen notes that for the first time in a year, Twitter adoption was flat.

Look at the numbers in the numbers: top usage group for Twitter in February numbers, 35-49. And not close, 41.9% in that demo; next is the 25-34 at 19.1%. I'm no math major, but that's double the nearest demo. Kids? Not so much a factor.

Mobile adults. Those reaching the prime spending (and giving) age. Looking to keep up with a mobile world. Yes, that's the other key demo.

Twitter quitters remain an important factor, and feed the this won't last mindset. The drops of April and May appear to be coming back, either with new members or renewals. Either way, the content continues to improve, and that's likely a major factor in the last spike.

There is the small matter of Twitter's growth -- 1,448% from May to May -- and that's very significant, dare I say Facebook-like expansion. In this relm, 18.2 million registered really isn't that big (remember FB and MySpace continue in the triple digits).

Here's the bigger number: time spent on Twitter has grown 177% from year to year, from only a little more than six minutes last year to over 17 minutes this year. Why? More content to read. At 140 characters (if that many) per post. Diversity is what I believe drives the growth. Only so much to read when its two or three feeds; now with BreakingNews plus the usual media suspects, Twitter becomes that easy one-stop portal for information. A mobile fulfillment of that oh-so-1990s dream of the "customized front page" that those internets would bring.

This is where I see the power of the medium, not necessarily the application. It's still kludgy, and lacking the finished nature of an iTunes interface. Reminds me of the big old white Motorola cell phone I once packed back in the big hair days. Functional, but not mass market.

The name may change, but this "fad" is not leaving anytime soon.

Working Through Science of Fear

Another very interesting book which borrows some of its psychological and behavioral theory from the same sources as Farhad Manjoo's True Enough. Some echos of Regret the Error in places, and statistical debunking monographs.

There are some fascinating angles to the evolution of networked media.

As I mentioned earlier, very, very busy this week -- and into the weekend -- to clear out some projects and make time for a quick road trip before buckling down to some major in-house projects.

Busy Week, Big Changes Ahead

Just back from the SEC TV and Digital meeting. Not enough time to fully digest and relay, but one very important highlight for our RazorVision members and distant fans:

Get signed up, get ready -- there is more streaming headed your way than every before.

No, that doesn't include live football. It does include football replays earlier than 8 a.m. the next morning, however.

Now remember, ESPN is producing everything for football this year, a ton more for men's basketball, and as I understand it, that will all be available via ESPN360. Combine that with RazorVision, and our CyberHogs are going to get all they want.