A gold and white and blue and black hot take of sameness

The sky at Wilcox Park in Dutchess County: Gold and white or black and blue?

The cycles are the same. The sites become the same. The hot takes become the same. The hot takes deriding the hot takes become the same. And there's no going back. So let's get the llama drama and the dress and what it means for journalism out of the way. Farewell, ~content~, we hardly knew ye.

Run away while you can.


Or not. Because it's OK. It's allowed: So save this for when it happens again:

LOLOLOL nice try

Woodstock in Halloween, but it could be any day, really.

I was going to start with a little story about the Google Glass picture that opens Yesterday's Internet, but I really don't have a story for this, because LOLOLOL nice try.

Links from the lonely corner of bitter cold and weirdness

One Google Glass photo:
There has been a person standing on the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway, across from Deising's in Midtown Kingston for about a month now.
I've seen different people on that corner, of what could be anywhere in America, during bitter cold days and during the last two snowstorms. They are getting paid to be there, sometimes dressed up as Lady Liberty, without a hint of irony, waving at people, seemingly happy. They are trying to get customers to get some sort of tax service, sometimes waving a sign I can't pay attention to because I'm distracted— every time— by that single inexplicable moment of humankind's utter weirdness, in the cold, on a corner, alone.

Humankind needs a raise.

***

DFMchat on hacking journalism when you've got no developers

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 are talking about how to hack, or rethink your journalism offerings digitally, especially when you've got limited or no resources and/or time. But let's not be abstract and get to the actual how-tos for specific topics and situations. What tool can you use for a story that has a long trail. What can you do with documents? But also, how much time can you and should you dedicate to each endeavor?  Bring your tips and ideas! And tools!

The feed is posted below. 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 automatically appear below.

Good Twitter, bad Twitter

One Google Glass photo: Twitter, in one word.

And the photo on top, because if the first image on this post is a gif, it breaks the Freeman website good jorb.

Breaking the ice on Germantown:

Watch Coast Guard ice cutters clear a channel for barges on the frozen Hudson River http://t.co/I0xfj5ADW6 pic.twitter.com/PcLG0rfUsQ
— New York Times Video (@nytvideo) February 24, 2015

Breaking the ice on Twitter:


One of the cool things about checking out Good Twitter is that you truly can run into wonderful links all the time. Even if you don't use it for conversation (and you should), there are great links and videos and gifs and all sorts of icebreakers. But even if you were just lurking, a good feed can be enjoyable. And if your feed is bad maybe is time to stop following some people.

Everything is ™

Menzel and Travolta #Oscars2015 @NewYorker pic.twitter.com/PkiBDAalf7
— lizadonnelly (@lizadonnelly) February 23, 2015

Milan resident and New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly was live-drawing the Oscars on Sunday and yes, live-drawing is a thing and if it seems hard to do, it is because it is.

And it is awesome.

Cold takes

Before we complain about how cold it is:

ICYMI Letchworth State Park on @GMA ‘This frozen geyser in #WNY is quite incredible!’ @NYstateparks PHOTO/JoBeth Rath pic.twitter.com/NjHcU4gIgG
— NY State Parks (@NYstateparks) February 19, 2015

Cold takes:
Lenovo is a cold company. Check your computer if you have one of those.
Cold quote: "It’s a cruel thing, but sometimes you read something and think, 'Uh oh. I could make something really meaty out of that.' I'd probably listen to the album anyway. It's about news, right?

Warmer take: I don't always follow sports media, but when I do, it usually involves animals:

This does not explain anything

Beware the 'explanatory' chart that doesn't explain anything pic.twitter.com/3Vyf54dR8c
— Digital First cat (@DFNewsCat) April 23, 2014

These maps explain nothing.
Norm MacDonald explains everything. 
The Times Herald Record's Barry Lewis explains how he was the first to discover that Lady Gaga got engaged (saved you a click: He saw her showing off the ring on Saturday).
Pro-Publica explains journalism to the Red Cross. 

Post-post

Post-pet photo contest:

@DailyFreeman @PreviewFreeman thank you! Cuda's smile recently changed. Unless Scott's does too, no more contests pic.twitter.com/KFOuJUcWU9
— Cuda the Pit Bull (@CudathePitBull) February 17, 2015

'Post-processing':

About 20 percent of photos considered for prizes for the World Press Photo competition were disqualified for excessive "post-processing."

I don't know why. They're just as real as anything else. Look, I post-processed this video:

DFMchat on ingenious Twitter 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.

Today we are talking about Twitter as a journalism tool, and not just a traffic machine. But let's go beyond the usual useful uses and find and share ingenious ideas to make the service even more valuable. How can videos uploaded directly to Twitter help? Have you checked how many app installs have occurred because of your news account's tweets? Bring your tips and ideas!

The feed is posted below. 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 automatically appear below.

The unbearable arrogance of being. On Twitter. To complain about it.

Even thought the metrics-obsessed Media Twitter totally knows that Twitter is not great for referral  traffic for news sites, because, you know, they are looking at their numbers, the Twitterati were nonetheless all sharing an essay in the Atlantic about how Twitter is not that big when it comes to traffic. 

So, just in case, let's be clear about something: If you're only using Twitter to increase web site traffic, you're doing it wrong.

Don't tweet. Be happy.

Were you happy with the winners of this year's pet contest? I hope you were this happy.



Not happy:

Of all the WAT moments in the in New York Times Magazine article about how one tweet can ruin a person's life — and there were plenty — the one that stuck out to me the most was the the fact that "Delaware kept the pillory until 1905 and whippings until 1972."

Also in surprising news are the 'frighteningly sensible' proposed drones rules that came out on Sunday.

THANKS, OBAMA.

It beats working

I know you've been wondering what would happen the Cathy comic strip had Louis CK jokes because that's exactly what this Tumblr is about and it's magic.

PETS PETS PETS

"The blood-soaked conspiracy of Valentine’s Day, driven by the oppressive chocolate capitalists, has arrived once again."

That's right! And if it's near Valentine's Day it means it's Freeman Pets-time!

Bring in the garb cans

Literally.

Not literally:

Do not listen to the old man yelling 'THE END IS NIGH' (to young journalists)

"People who work in news should talk to people who don’t work in news." 

BUT NOT TODAY! Today we go deep into the land of Media Twitter and ... what do we find?
'Advice for young journalists,' that's what.
It goes like this: Give up all hope. But don't, really. Also,  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  But, seriously, it's about monsters, caskets and islands. And now you're old.  And now you're dead.
And that was just the last 24 hours so I'll spare you the other hot takes.
Good jorb, everyone.

Snow and other flakes

The Grammys are officially something that can bring together the Democratic Ulster County Comptroller and the Ulster County Independence Party Chairman. Congratulations. United we snark.

You're totally going to believe what happened next

This week in 'This person did (x). What happened next was utterly predictable':

Web currents and left sharks

Kingston Daily Freeman, Feb. 19, 1906.

I thought we were done with Left Shark, but here are some journalism lessons?

DFM chat: How to improve routine stories

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 are talking about stories! How do you improve routine coverage of news?
But! Does everything need to be a story? Really? Bring your ideas, links and #realtalk.

The feed is posted below. 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 automatically appear below.

The future of journalism is cats and Legos

There is a real research paper from a real university about cat instances in the New York Times:

This article critically examines the Times’ cat tales in the context of the cultural history of journalism and the academic study of human–animal relations, also known as anthrozoology.

Exciting! But behind a paywall so ...

SUNY New Paltz is No. 1 on this thing. What happened next surprised no one.

We have a wonderful campus, but it's the people who truly make #NewPaltz a beautiful place! Thanks for coming out today. Here is a little teaser from today's shoot. #npsocial #beautiful64 #suny #NP #hawkseyeview

A video posted by SUNY New Paltz (@sunynewpaltz) on Oct 9, 2014 at 6:36pm PDT

One of my first lead stories for 'The Oracle,' SUNY New Paltz-student run newspaper back in The Before Time, was about pot smoking on campus. It was accompanied by a huge photo of a dude hitting a large bong in a dorm that the editors easily managed to obtain. I remember that the jump was terribly mangled in the editing process.

'New Brooklyn' won't die. 'New Brooklyn' is a zombie.

DIE pic.twitter.com/DnLwqrz9qe
— Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) February 2, 2015

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where the New Brooklyn article was born, and what that lousy meme was like, and how news writers were occupied and all before they had a New Brooklyn article written, and all that hipster kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Unfortunately for me and you, here's The Daily Beast reanimating that whole 'Catskills is the New Brooklyn,' thing.  And here's All Over Albany wonderfully deconstructing that terrible zombie meme.  It should be dead, but it creeps up and scares you all over again when you least expect it.

It could be worse, though. We could be talking about the left shark.  Or both sharks.  Welcome to journalism, everybody.