End of the world theory

In this time of journalistic uncertainty the question begs more than ever before, is print dead?

It would seem that the grim reaper’ ugly mug is staring threateningly at the printed medium as a whole and many in the profession fear that his touch will come sooner than later.

With corporate buy outs of publications becoming increasingly frequent and Google and Yahoo seemingly working their ways toward media monopolies, the fears of completely syndicated news with robot editing are becoming more justifiable.

This scary view could be argued to the point of seeing technology become a real life version of the Terminator movies. Who knows maybe that’s why we voted for Arnold as our Governor, so he can save the day when the robots try to take over.

But back to the topic, is there any way to avoid the eventual Internet take over of news media?

When I was in high school I used to joke about blowing up the internet. Probably not a good idea to joke about blowing anything up anymore these days, but the response was always the same. You cant blow up the internet because it is everywhere, it isn’t just one place holding everything together it is more like a huge spider web that is squeezing the life (or meatspace life anyway) out of our planet. So Al Gore may save us from globel warming but it could be the internet, that he claims to have invented, that will be our eventual demise.

We talked in class today about how having a news paper is a symbol of community and civilization and while one is present we know the world is still being held together. While if and when the Internet takes the place of newspapers it will be the first sing of technology making our world cave in on us and after that the apocalypse could be right around the corner.

So be weary my fellow journalists we, like the Marines in war, may be the first ones to weather the storm that could be the end of days.

People crazier than me

Movie theaters, the Internet's next victim

Today I will be babbling on the topic of the film industry. I do realize that movies do not have all that much to do with news media but they are still media and I happen to be a cinema studies minor so I feel that topic is relevant. Now that I’m done justifying myself I can begin.

Technology and the internet are changing the way movies are being brought to their audiences. Movie theater attendances have gone down considerably in the last few years and with advances in home theaters, HDTV, crazy sounds systems and programs like Netflix it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Netflix now offers this program where movies are sent to you straight through your computer, you don’t even have to open your mail box and forget about worrying that a DVD might be scratched. Crazy. How you get that file from your computer to your television is beyond me but I’m sure there is a way.

So what will all this do to the film industry? Will movie theaters eventually be a thing of the past? I always thought that movies that went straight to DVD were the lousy ones that just weren’t big enough to make it at the box office, but now they might just be of the most cutting variety. At least that’s what my roommate tries to tell me he reads about in Wired magazine, but I try to avoid all that technological propaganda at least until I read about it in the newspaper.

The point is that the times they are a changing and not just in terms of newspapers going online now we have to deal with movies also going online. And I guess if you think about it citizen journalism is to newspapers as Youtube is to Movies, which is actually strangely reassuring. Because I know I’m not the only one that would rather watch Scarlet Johansen in a real movie than watch Joe Shmoe fall off his skateboard captured on a cell phone camera.
Netflix madness

Deford is my idol

I know I’ve already kind of talked about how one of the only things I like about the Internet is how it makes useful information much more accessible and its actually one of the most obvious observations that one could make concerning the web but its all I’ve really got in terms of saying anything good about non-meatspace. So I’ll share with you a positive Internet experience I have had in the last few weeks.

About a month ago I was talking to my mom on the phone and she was talking about the latest article I had written for the Orion that she had read online (yea she’s probably more computer savvy than me). And she told me (and this was a compliment so large that it could only be from a mother to her child) that my voice in my opinion reminded her a little of the great sports writer Frank Deford who she listens to on National Public Radio every week. Wow. I knew who Deford was obviously and I had read a lot of his articles in Sports Illustrated and even have a copy of one of his books, “The Great Old Game” but had never even given though about how his commentary could be any way similar to that of my own.

So I looked him up online and got all kinds of stuff, I read through many of his past blogs and found myself agreeing with almost every thing he had to say. Not that I could ever put any of it as comically or cleverly as he does, but his work had me very intrigued so I continued reading his work. On one site I found a schedule of towns that he would be visiting to give his lecture on, “The Hype and Hypocrisy of Sports” and to my thrill, Chico was on it. So I went and herd him talk and loved every minute of it and I must admit the dude and I have pretty similar philosophies about America and sports. Some of the stuff he said about soccer, the NFL and Steroids were right on par with my opinions.

So even though (besides my Mom) my voice may never actually remind anyone of Frank Deford’s, he certainly isn’t a bad role model to have when it come to sports journalism. And thanks to the Internet I will continue to follow his work.
Deford blogs

When web worlds divide

Interesting column in last Sundays pink section of the Chronicle by Neva Chonin entitled: In Blogs we trust. As it turns out the only way that I ever find out anything new about the Internet is by reading the newspaper. But anyways in her column she talks about conservatives on the internet and about all the new sites out there that are spreading right winged views.

This is interesting, although I never really thought about it a lot of the content on the internet seems to lean slightly to the left. I guess conservatives are for the most part more into the traditional forms of media like print, television and radio. No shock there, can’t imagine finding too many good ol’ boys on Myspace. But now they are starting to catch up on to this whole Internet idea and aren’t going to let those liberals hog the web with all their propaganda.

The result is more propaganda. Apparently conservatives feel (and I can’t completely disagree) that Wikipedia is polluted with liberal bias and they aren’t going to stand for it. So now if your not sure if what you read on Wikipedia is legit you can check out the conservative answer to Wikipedia on Conservapedia and then hope to find a point between the two extremes that could actually have factual value. Good luck.

The point is that it is becoming increasingly hard to trust that information that you seek doesn’t have an agenda behind. Although the Internet is the biggest source of misinformation and skewed facts, television is right there with it, with Fox news for the righties and CNN for the left side.

Why should we have to pick which bias we want when it comes to knowing what’s going on in the world? Are we that divided that we can’t even tolerate each others views?

I don’t remember it always being like this, I’m sure it’s somehow the Internet’s fault.

The Internet and adiction

There are two things that I plan to give up before I graduate College. The first, probably more important is cigarettes. Obvious explanation for that one with all the health risks and whatnot I know I need to kick the habit in the near future. The second might not seem as important but it is something I have given some thought to, and that’s Myspace. The issue with Myspace is that having a profile on it, you exposes yourself to whom ever might want to find out any slight detail that you or your friends might have put on there. Any future employer isn’t going to be too thrilled to find out about how one of their potential hires was “so drunk last night dude.” The point is that there is no privacy on Myspce or the Internet in general. Once something is out there it is pretty much out there for good so you have to be careful about what is said about you.
As far as the addiction part goes it’s going to be hard to give up the convenience of staying in touch with old friend with just a few clicks of a mouse. I have one friend who doesn’t have a cell phone so the only way to get in touch with him is to send him a message on Myspace, which he is constantly checking.
Okay so it will be much more difficult to give up cigarettes, there is definitely a chemical addiction there but there is a physiological addiction that goes the same for both. What will I do after a nice big meal when I can’t have a cigarette and check Myspace? Well I’ll have to find a way to cope; the time to grow up is approaching.
Hyperlink? I dont dare put my Myspace link on here so some random person's will have to do.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=174416415&MyToken=669591d3-65d8-449c-86dd-e9d4f5b0ff2c

South Park characters hip with the internet

I don’t know if you all caught last night’s episode of the brutally satirical Comedy Central cartoon, South Park but i sure did. As often is the case when a new episode is aired, my mind was blown.

In this weeks episode Cartmen, the shows anit-hero, begins to uncover a terrorist attack on South Park when a Muslim student is introduced at school. Cartmen immediately calls fellow character, Kyle who is home sick, and has him check the new student’s myspace account. When the facts don’t check out Cartmen smells something funny and the full on spoof of Fox's drama, 24 ensues.

Through out the episode Cartmen is in contact with Kyle using Google, youtube, mapquest and myspace to dig deeper into the conspiracy. "Cross reference his youtube posts with his myspace page blogs," Cartmen says at one point.

I don’t even know what that means or if its even possible but it was hilarious to see these characters who are supposed to be in fourth grade solving a terrorist attack using the internet while the FBI and CIA have trouble keeping up.

In one particular scene the FBI is working along with the boys and one of the agents tells someone to use ask jeevs to search for one of the suspects. The boys all laugh and inform him that nobody is still using ask.com.

It kind of makes fun of how the older generation is so out of touch with the advances in the internet world and how some children have a better idea of how to get information on the net than adults.
Anyway it turns out that they end up preventing the attack but the Muslim student had nothing to do with it. And the moral is that Cartmens racism, though misguided, is responsible for saving America. Another good moral would have been: If you’re a terrorist don’t post on youtube.

Here is an example of some the effect that South Park has had in the media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGGt_HI304

Printed words on paper a thing of the past?

There is much that journalists can learn from bloggers and other forms of online journalism. Journalist can learn about audience feedback and being more interactive with the readers. Obviously this can only happen in online publications but it seems that that is the direction that newspapers and the media are going. I think that newspapers will never actually completely die because they still have their advantages, like being able to pick it up and walk around with it. (I hate reading from a computer screen too, it's miserable on the eyes.) But the fact is that most of the new generations out there are using their computers exclusively to get their news and new crazy features are becoming very popular. Like vlogging, and all that mess. The point is that news outlets need to keep up to speed with the rest of the online world. Sometimes when I don’t get a chance to read the paper I will go to the San Francisco Chronicle's online edition and I must say that it is terrible when compared to other online newspapers. It has hardly any graphics zero space for reader response, pretty much just the exact text that’s in the print edition. I don’t really mind because I just read the articles anyway, but it is surprising when I go to the Orion's web site and it has ten times the features. I guess it just goes to show that the younger generation is already moving forward and older media outlets are being left behind in the dust.
Here is SF Chronicle's sorry excuse for an online paper: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/