Can you be a fly on the virtual reality wall?

Pretty things are pleasant to look at, but that doesn't mean they work.

For more than a decade now, I've been trying to figure out the many ways of not just how to cover the news, but how to present the news in the best way possible.

I've been doing this from my little corner of the news landscape and I've been using the tools available to me as the baseline, if you will, for what can be done. I also do this because it's fun.

In the old days, this would come in the form of developing a new type of feature for the paper. Slowly (too slowly, if you ask me) but surely, these efforts evolved into it what encompasses the digital world. That is where things really started to bloom. There's always a risk of getting carried away by the latest shiny thing, but the underlining focus is always about what is the best tool to use to cover the news as best as possible with the limited resources that we have (and limited, they are).

Anyway, there's a new virtual reality live stream function that can be shared with people in a two-dimensional format, and I decided to take it for a spin. When Facebook Spaces first came out, I gave my first impressions. Now that it has a livestream function (and beards!), I gave it another go.

When national news organizations cover the Mid-Hudson Valley

Little planet

A post shared by Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) on Jun 3, 2017 at 1:45pm PDT

Every now and then on Facebook, an "article" pops up rating this town or that other one as the best something-something or worse whatchamacallit of the U.S. It is usually done by a marketing or real-estate agency as a rather transparent ploy to create some virality. Often, the older articles keep popping up on feeds. And we sometimes get "tips" with those articles.
Other times, a national publication writes about something related to the Hudson Valley, and the tone can range from knowledgeable to curious to condescending. Sometimes it feels like reading the same old story. Sometimes is a fresh perspective on something familiar. But it's always interesting.
How do other people in the country see us in the Hudson Valley and the Catskill regions?
Also interesting are our reactions to such pieces, which can be more revealing about ourselves than the articles themselves.

Small world.

***
Four articles from outside the area about the area:


* "Tivoli, N.Y: Authenticity on the Hudson," New York Times, June 16, 2017.
Key passage: "But it is not Brooklyn on the Hudson, she said."
Why a key phrase: This is a meme that has been used by, you guessed it, The New York Times, repeatedly. And the gray lady is not the only one.

* "My dentist's murder trial," The New Yorker, July 3, 2017.

A very New Yorker ~longread~ on the murder trial of Kingston dentist Gilberto Nunez, which we covered extensively. There was also NBC's "Dateline," and CBS's "48 Hours." 

* "A Tech Executive’s Latest Start-Up Has Cleats, Jerseys and Goals," New York Times, June 27, 2017. 

A story about Dennis Crowley and Stockade FC, which, as you probably know, is going to the playoffs. There are some nice photos in that piece and you might know some in there. We've got some too. That story mentions how the goal is to have 1,000 people per game. The last game drew a record crowd.

* "How towns are hurt when malls run into trouble," Marketplace, June 21, 2017. 

The case of a national news organization using an example to illustrate a national issue. In this case, the example is the Hudson Valley Mall. This is also a case where the attention ended up in a story by us.  We have covered the issues surrounded the mall extensively as well. Here's a large sample from the last year. And mall photos from yesteryear.

BONUS: * "This chimp lived in a two-bedroom UWS apartment," New York Post, June 29, 2017. 

The source of this story now lives in Kingston. If you consider today's standards, this story is bananas.

***
One video:

Happy piggy Sister Mary Frances @catskill_animal_sanctuary in Saugerties, NY

A post shared by Daily Freeman (@dailyfreeman) on Jul 5, 2017 at 11:40am PDT

Short and sweet.
***

The Four:
*  Ride-sharing,
* Animals.
* Development. 
* Meat.
Cat:

http://newscatgif.tumblr.com/post/161359148822/when-your-story-gets-bigger-and-you-get-another

Yesterday's Internet, Today! comes in when you least expect it. This is what it's all about.

The cloud is broken

How dependent are we on technology? How do we act when we lose access to television or the Internet or our cell phones? It's a question I like to return often, especially when we lose power or services and the only input I get is the turbulence of my thoughts.

I also remember having to go to the library and having to physically comb through index cards and rows and rows of books to find things. You might be nostalgic about the process, but it wasn't an optimal search experience, in that it took a long time to find what you were looking for.

So I'm a fan of technology, but I also try to be in touch with what it means to us, and how it shapes what we do and who we are.

Floating cats in the age of dogs

There's a hidden gem on Hurley Mountain Road, but if you get too close and are not careful, you might hurt yourself. Such is seemingly the current state of online discourse.

There is a difference between staying informed and driving yourself crazy, and information overload can result in unbearable stress and unnecessary and unproductive conversations, if you can even call them that.

So limit your social media consumption if you're finding yourself engaging with things that are not the original purpose of your visit to the networks. I get paid to do all news all the time and it can be exhausting.

What can you do? Glad you asked.

Then and now, a center

I went through the old library earlier today, looking for some old images and testing some new technologies.

 I was able to live-stream video in 360° to Periscope while moving around and was also able to do a static live-stream for more than 30 minutes without the need for a battery. These are developing technologies that can be useful during a potential breaking news situation, and I want us to be ready for when that happens.

#periscope360 from the @dailyfreeman's old library https://t.co/S4ScEBLlvj

— Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) January 24, 2017

Nothing exciting, other than the ability to do it (and getting tangled in my own cables).

***

After that successful experiment, I was also able to find a collection of quintessential anti-war protests from way back when, containing local demonstrations about Vietnam, the draft and the Contra affair.

One particular image's location was instantaneously recognizable for me (and I imagine for many others).

So I went ahead and did a slide in case you couldn't place it. 

That news problem

Don't you sometimes wish, in this world of instant news where everything looks the same no matter where it comes from, that you could get a reliable, filtered summary of the day's news at some point during the day?

Thinking of a way to do this, as a sort of evolution for Yesterday's Internet, Today!, I glanced upon two emails I get daily. The first one is the epaper email in the morning, that you should be getting if you're a subscriber. It's basically the paper as it appears in print, which comes in handy if you're away (you might notice that all the pages are in color as well). 

"But those are yesterday's news!" astute Yesterday's Internet, Today! readers might say. And you would be correct! What if you want what's happening up to now, but in email form, and without a subscription maybe? Why, there's an email alert for that! And a breaking news email alert if you don't want to wait. 

There's also text alerts,  and Android and iOS apps. 

And you can keep up on Facebook and Twitter. Or maybe you just want to get away from it all and simply get nice photos from Instagram. And we do that too.

So perhaps the problem is not so much that we don't do this but that we haven't told you about it well?

Worry, and be happy again

There’s an outpouring of ~feels~ permeating the American landscape, so I’ll spare you the lamentation and vindication takes. There are plenty of those on your Facebook feed, including those that say that your Facebook feed is part of the problem. But the important thing, as things are with all cycles, is not how we feel or even what does it mean, but what are you going to do with the information that you have?

Worry, and be happy

Look into the disorganized collection of sad and happy moments that is our very existence and consider that the collection is guaranteed to have both kinds of moments, but which ones we maintain and cherish are up to us. This is hardly an original idea, but it popped into my head today again and I wanted to finally settle it in some form or writing, so I can put it in my own collection.

Paved ideas at the intersection of raccoon cats and journalism

The first Smorgasburg Upstate weekend came and went and people mingled and ate and browsed crafts and funky furniture and old toys and tried to park. It was a well-attended affair and I'm curious to see how it fares on subsequent Saturdays. There were lots of familiar Kingston faces and venues at the event, and the food part of the fair had most of the attention from attendees. If you are interested, Brian has the deets. 
It was a bit too hot for my little one, so we ended up going to Kingston Point shortly afterward, where you could see the Hutton Brickyard while bathing. It is a great little beach on the Hudson and its water quality is fine, and I suspect, from my anecdotal conversations, that some locals avoid it out of fear of either water quality or mingling with the proles. More beach for us.

Write. Write. Write

"Write. Write. Write" is the sort of all-encompassing and kind-of-lazy advice that feels OK to dole out or tweet when you have nothing better to say to fellow scribes who are having writer's block, or are frustrated with the news or their Facebook feeds or are having some sort of dilemmas.
But for ~writers~ it also is good advice and one that I'm currently following.

So there's that.

Uncertain symbols on a fixed trajectory

Look up. It's the summer of the state of news media reports doom and gloom, the best and worst time to be a news consumer/producer and everything old is new again etc., etc., but this time in a smaller circle, like water going down a drain.
There will be many metaphors and takes and algorithm tweaks and hopes to change that, but the only way to stop this sorry state in the industry is to break the sink and throw it out the window.

Your advice counts

I asked you on Monday for some general advice, and I received 5 responses, which is 5 more responses that I expected.

So here they are:

 "Love your family and friends as if it's your last day on earth," wrote Jim Gibbons.

 Lowell Thing wrote, "Well, it's that threadworn advice we're all familiar with that always still applies: Whatever that important thing in your life is that you've been putting off, start doing it today - but just do some little something to get it off the ground. Ideally that something should be visible to you tomorrow to encourage you to keep going. (The fundamental assumption of this advice is that doing something you really want to do (that is, the doing of it) is - a form of happiness.)"


"Don't forget to check in with yourself (myself) to observe what you need to work on personally. It's much easier (for me) to just keep the focus on everyone else's work...! I've found it's more obvious with a bit of alone time," wrote Emily.

"If you wish good advice, consult an old man (or woman)," wrote 'mean.'

And finally, Zagger wrote, "eat pizza upside down....(as in the slice, not you)...then re-evaluate your future choices."

I love all of these. And I thank you.

***

All right. Now let's go save journalism.

Stone cold killer. https://t.co/JXJxsLv40d

— Anil Dash (@anildash) May 27, 2016

***

One video: Curiosity didn't kill the cats. It got them on video.

On this, I wrote a thing.

The Four:

* Apparently there is a "local bedbug coalition."

* This dog.

* Legoland is coming to Goshen and everything is awesome.
* The Catskill Mountain Railroad's final rides are this weekend. But the comments will go on.

One cat: Delivering newsletters.

Yesterday's Internet, Today!  comes in different flavors.

If you could mail a piece of advice to everyone, what would it be?

Today's entry is a simple piece of advice from me: Listen to others.

And thus, it's my turn to listen to you! So if you had a newsletter and wanted to share a piece of advice, what would that be?

I know at least one of your replies is not getting to my inbox, so I'm making the call a public document. 

I would very much like to include your answers.




One cat, because cats:

Yesterday's Internet, Today! because Yesterday's Internet, Today!

Facebook's influence in the era of content

As a purported professional observer and chronicler and arranger of ~things that happen~ (and sometimes effusive emoter of excessive euphemisms), I enjoy taking note when ephemeral news gets entangled in ethereal virality.
And Monday was one such day, in which, like many other days before it, news happened.
But as big as those big things that happened were, I kept thinking about those other things, the ones that matter long past traffic inconveniences and web traffic spikes, like the schools elections that we care so little about even though we know better.
Or should know better.
Or, do we even know?
And, if you don't know, then how is it that we professional chroniclers of things that happen failed at informing those who needed to know?
For many a year, information mongers have arrogantly clung to the idea that it is the mythical citizen's duty to stay informed (it is, but whatevs). All of this is happening in an environment where the real citizens struggle with the day-to-day while enduring an incessant bombardment of all kinds of information.

So it is no wonder that nobody can hear the tree falling.
The forest is full of explosions.

We have to taco about this

I was in the hospital today because of some chest pains and I spent all day there to find out that I am a healthy human person, actually, and that is most excellent. That's me there in the ER, trying to get some work done in between medical tests. It's a bit tricky to type with a gigantic thing on your finger while on morphine. They even did an extensive sonogram, but they could not find problems or a demonic beast or a chest-bursting alien. Such is life.

 ***

Journalism's mad world

*Obligatory starting song*

It was a pretty hectic day yesterday manning the Freeman fort, thanks to the one Donald named Trump, not to mention The Chelsea Of The Clintons, plus your random police blotter acts of mayhem insanity, and only today I've been able to get some of the 360-degree stuff up.

I'm playing with those formats and presentation, still, trying to figure out the best way to deliver virtual reality and 360-degree content, considering that most of us don't yet have virtual reality devices, or good ones, anyway, secretly wondering if I'm trying to solve a problem nobody asked for.

But the wheels of disruption care not for professional existential anxieties, and just today, YouTube announced that it will support 360-degree video live-streaming, and that opens the possibilities tenfold, including hyperbolic "Matrix" references, even though nobody has figured out how to make this work in a sustainable business model, which is fine for us journalists, I guess, until we're all unemployed and wondering why everything crumbled around our overlong run-on sentences.

And we do all this while ducking charges of "This isn't journalism" and "how come you aren't covering x or y or this news or that?" while at the same time, another study of the obvious points out that "People hate hard news, but love pretending otherwise."

And so we must resurface another truth, that the light content partially subsidizes the harder things, by relieving it from market pressures to perform or fill random goals, and just let the journalism stand on its own.

And so it was Pulitzer Day today and the journalism was fierce, as was Congrats Media Twitter. So congrats to you if you don't know what Congrats Media Twitter is.

There's, of course, a proper essay hidden in all these thoughts, with accompanying gifs and assorted multimedia, neatly packaged in a monetized Facebook Instant article.
But not today.
Today we fight the Content Management System —I do have a day job — until the beast dies of stubborn obsolescence or it brings us down into the pits of darkness like a fire demon with nothing to lose.

It's a mad journalism world out there.
And I'm glad I get to try to shape it, if only a tiny bit.

P.S. I'm breaking form from the regular newsletter convention you all love (that's what I tell myself, anyway), but there's definitely a cat in one of those links. I guess you're going to have to click.

Yesterday's Internet, Today! also plays with forms of distribution and hopes you don't mind.

Have you hugged a newsperson today?

It's National Hug A Newsperson Day, another one in an never-ending line of totally irrelevant hashtags that are incredibly pointless until one gets to be remotely related to you.
So hug your nearby newsperson. They likely need it.
But be careful, some of them bite.
The more you know.

The travails of an informed sense of place

I wish I had a treatise about the toils and tribulations of torments
but I don't.
I'm simply here and happy to be.
So when things look difficult I cherish existence a little more, with a tinge of the necessary sadness that helps inform my sense of place and privilege.
With that in mind, Let's move forward.

Post text - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

The algorithm giveth

One of the difficult things of figuring out the right way to present ~content~ on social media is that the platforms that host the content change all the time, and their goals don't necessarily align with those of media types. As more and more producers become more dependent on forces outside of their control, they lose the ability to showcase their offerings.

You can't make up the rules when you are playing someone else's game.

At the end of the day, distilled from all tech and rules and lines of code, the best stuff (hopefully) ends up on top.
It's always a race, but where we go is up to us.

Shamrock Run world

A video posted by Daily Freeman (@dailyfreeman) on Mar 16, 2016 at 6:29am PDT

How to cover a live event with a portable 360-degree camera

The possibilities afforded by limitations

The key to working with limited time and resources is knowing what they are, and using them as a clearly defined starting point.
You know what you have. You know what you want.
You know what you can do. And you know what you want to do.
That way, instead of being caged by your limitations, you can use them to hack your way into new workflows and paradigms.
The path is clear, especially when you are the one who's making it.