Reader Responses 4/22/08

Reader Response – Average person spends more time using media than anything else

Another study full of confusing percentages and unbalanced fact giving, but interesting nonetheless. Focusing on how people spend their time during the day, I was looking for some counter facts to help the facts of time spent using a media device make more sense. The study labeled cell phone use, instant messaging and e-mailing as media usage. These are also forms of communication between people and groups. What I want to know is, how many hours a day did the 400 participants spend talking? What percentage of their day was spent sleeping? How often was the person multi tasking by having a conversation with someone while using a media device? I want comparisons!

Im also perturbed with the whole “average american” title that’s granted to tests and studies of a sample group. I know there’s some scientific formula that shows that the large group pretty much mimics the small group, but it still feels phony to me. I can understand how we may reflect the practices of a sample group into society as a whole, I don’t think this “average american” that only exists in charts and numbers really deserves it’s title.

Reader Response – Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War

These new school multi-media presentations are awesome. Reuters did a great job with this one.

A main feature that really stands out is the timeline function. Being able to click through a timeline of text, images and video that tells the story of the invasion of Iraq is quite compelling. Its an easy way for us to wrap our minds around the events that took place. 

Now jump over to the maps. More pertinent information displayed in an interesting and thought provoking way. This presentations use of graphics to convey information is excellent.

Reader Responses 4/15/08

 

Reader Response – The Public Bias Against the Press

 

Yes, we are cynical.  How can we not be? Our government misleads us, news publications are profit driven, extremely biased opinions come across on a news program that claims to be “fair and balanced.”  Of course we’re cynical.  That’s why we love The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.  They’re cynical too for the same reasons and they spotlight this cynicism in their reports on other news organizations.

 

The trust has been broken over the years.  The news outlets trust the reports from the White House as accurate.  We’ve seen repeatedly this may not be the case (think of WMD’s in Iraq).  We the people trust the news outlets to report to us the truth through investigation and facts.  We’ve seen that these things can be pushed aside to get the scoop and reap the profits (think of the Atlanta Olympic bombing).  

 

The media has also let us down in what they deem important to report.  Sex scandals, drug use, tearing down someone’s character and credibility.  How many stories have we heard like that in the past few years?  On the other hand, how many stories have you heard about your local government officials working to better help you in the past few years?

 

 We’re tired of the gloom and doom and we’re tired of scandals.  Give us hope, give us insight into what’s really going on somewhere without being trashy about it and without adding moral judgement.  These things will help positively shape our bias of the media.

 

Reader Response – What if there were an eBay for news?

 

This is an interesting proposition.  No longer would a news company need to hire journalists.  The editor could just buy the stories as they needed them.  I have some questions though.

 

What about local stories?  Would each city/county/state have its own sell-by-article site or would the mother site be broken down locally like Craigslist.  Maybe the market would decide that.

 

How do you check the facts?  Would this then create a new fact checker position at the firm?  Would their job be to check the sources of a story and verify it to give it  a green light or a stop?  Isn’t that what the journalist is supposed to do?  It does sound like a good check and balance system to me though.

 

What stops a civilian from simply checking this data bank of news articles rather than waiting for a publication to buy it and release it?  Sounds like it might be a great place to get information.  Then it leads back to who’s checking for accuracy.

 

They spoke about the site as being a way for a journalists reputation to build.  So is it back to individual reporters names and recognition rather than corporate names?  Do the media consumers simply align with someone they feel tells the story best according to them.  Is one journalist going to build enough rep. to be on the cover of many news outlets because they know the people want their story?  Is that a bit monopolistic?

 

Yes, an interesting proposition.  It seems, to me, to be another competition based forum, as many of our American systems are based on (i.e. capitalism), and I feel those competition based approaches lead not to the best, but to the most popular.  It’s easy to be popular, you just have to reference other popular things.  It’s not easy to be honest in the face of scrutiny.  I wonder, which articles will be bought, the most popular or the most honest in the face of scrutiny?

Soon to come…

Reading responses, beat journals, theme development and coverage… and a bit of my own opinion thrown in  here and there.