Tuesday, January 29, 2013

DFM Chat on Vine, mobile video and uses for journalism

Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time.

Useless gifboom of my cat doesn't help the journalistic case
Today we're talking about mobile video platforms and how they can be used in journalism. Yes, I'm talking about Twitter's newly released micro-video platform Vine. But what about Tout, SocialCam, Gifboom, Cinemagram and the rest? What ARE the rest? Or is this just all a big fad? Can you really tell a story on 6 or 15 seconds?

The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can appear below.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

DFM chat on mobile reporting

Bad Photoshop image by me
Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time.

Today we're talking about how to use mobile devices in journalism. What apps to use, how to use them best, and — key point here — how to actually save time while doing all this, because if editors tell you that you have to tweet and live-stream and take notes and cut a video and moderate comments and crowdsource photos and write a story at the same time, they're nuts and hurting your publication.


The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can appear below.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The Wolf calls Radio Woodstock listeners 'Hippie Hypocrites'


The Wolf is not happy.

After leaving his short tenure at radio station WDST-FM, disc jockey Bob 'The Wolf' Wohlfeld blamed the station's listeners for not giving him a chance, calling them "Hippie Hypocrites."

"Both the management at WDST and I knew it would require some adjustments to make me work with the station. I feel I was judged not by the station management they were great but by listeners who judged me on what I did 14 years ago at PDH and not my two weeks on DST. Hippie Hypocrites who did not give the show a chance but blasted me for who they thought I was 14 years before."
Happier times? Bob Wohlfeld at WDST-FM in Woodstock in early January.
The remarks were given to reporter Paula Mitchell when I had asked her to get a statement from him on Friday. Paula had written a nice feature about the show, which unfortunately ran in print the day after the show was canceled and Wohlfeld left the station.



Yes, the awkward and short tenure of disc jockey Wohlfeld's show, "Walkin' Up With The Wolf," at Radio Woodstock, was made more awkward (for me, anyway) because the Freeman had a feature in print of a show that no longer existed, which is also the reason I'm injecting myself into this (and this is my blog, anyway, so there).

Here's what happened.

Wohlfeld started the show on Jan. 7. We had a small item about it, planning to develop a bigger story considering the unusual pairing of the outspoken disc jockey and the laid back station. The story was ready to run on Jan. 11, but I decided to push it a week because of scheduling reasons (basically, we have two special sections this month that we also have to work on and blah blah I'm busy go away).

So I decided the feature should run on Jan. 18, thinking that by then the show should be well established and rainbows and unicorns.

Boy, was I wrong (about the show, anyway).

On Jan. 17, both Wohlfeld and WDST announced they were parting ways amicably, less than two weeks after the show had started. However, when those announcements were made, the print version of the Freeman was already produced. So we nixed that story online, and planned to post what had happened. I wrote a quick post about it on Friday, and didn't get a chance to follow up until now.  We knew that while public pronouncements were all nice, there was private musings (and public listener posts on Facebook and our site) that painted a larger picture.


http://alltheragefaces.com
Basically, listeners were not happy with The Wolf.

"Not happy" is, obviously, an understatement.




Now, The Wolf is a known commodity. And so is the station.  But the station's listeners didn't like them together. And Wohlfeld didn't like that he didn't have a chance to prove himself (while probably burning a bridge, but whatevs).

I'll let the Wolf's quote stand on its own, because hippies and stuff.

A programming note, WDST's program director Jimmy Buff updates on the station's current schedule:


FYI: I'm doing mornings now. (Greg) Gattine will stay in afternoons. Carmel (Holt) will do midday's and Justin  will handle evenings.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

DFM chat on the use of images online

Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time.

Today we're talking about using photos on social media, in the wake of a recent ruling where a judge found that some news organizations had used images improperly. Also, how to spot origins, and fakes!


The live feed is posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can appear below.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

DFM chat on the pros and cons of automation on social media

Automation has its uses, but not everyone agrees
Journalists, members of Digital First Media and pretty much everyone else who wants to - are going to be taking part on the weekly Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time.

Today we're talking about the pros and cons of automating tasks on social media.

The live feed is (automatically) posted below. But you can also follow the chat here or here or also here. And you can also check out past chats over here.

If you want to chime in, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can appear below.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Four words every journalist should stop using right now

Warning: Reading this post may cause a severe outbreak of journo-nerdism.

 

The problem with buzzwords is that they usually have a life cycle. As they become more and more popular, they get applied and misapplied to an ever-widening cluster of concepts, making them more vague than meaningful. This prompts a backlash, and before long, the term can seem outmoded or even wrongheaded.


Monday, January 7, 2013

Total interactive upgrade to totally useless poll

I had started to make an interactive version of "Important Kingston survey not important," but I ran into the 10 question limit on Polldaddy (I have a freesies version) and I didn't have enough time to move it to Surveymonkey.

Anyway, my original idea was to present the column in the following format.
Page II is the most important one. (UPDATE: I'll post the results later if there are any entries)

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

News Cat Gifs! update

FAQ!

Are you planning to keep posting news cat gifs?
Yes, as long as there is an appetite for them.

Do you check or post News Cat Gifs at work?

Yes. But I also work insane hours so it's a wash. It only takes a minute or so to post, anyway.


Does your boss know you're behind it?
Yes, and pretty much from the beginning (running around in glee saying, "You've gotta check this out, BWAHAHAHA!" didn't help).

Can I submit to News Cat Gifs?
Yes.

Do you make any money from them?
No, and I'm not planning to. The gifs, except for a handful, are not my creation.

Daily Freeman digital initiatives for 2012

What follows is a slightly abstract slideshow of the kinds of offerings we've given you last year.