Moyers

You need to watch this.

technorati tags:Media

Gentriblogging or blogifying?

Outside In has a ranking of local-blogging activity, and my lovely neighborhood of Shaw comes in second. As Steven Berlin Johnson points out via Boing Boing, the list is made mostly of gentrifying areas.

What he doesn't mention is that, if the Shaw blogs are examplary of the rest, it's pretty much just the gentrifyers doing the blogging. I'd bet the anonymity of the blogosphere insulates these bloggers from the larger community discussion, allowing this minority to give voice to sentiments that might otherwise be shouted down as racist or unwelcome. Gentifying areas bring together lots of these interlopers, and at some point the critical mass makes for a viable blog community.

Or maybe they're just hipsters.

technorati tags:Shaw, Gentrification, Blogosphere

Kurt Vonnegut is dead

So it goes.

The times has a good piece.

Sound noninvestment

According to the Times, looks like I'm not an idiot for renting after all.  And they've even got an infographic to show how much I'm not an idiot.  You know, aside from the fact that I have a job ideally suited for telecommuting, yet live in one of the country's most expensive markets.

technorati tags:Housing

Pew interestingness calculator on the fritz, too

Atrios links to Eric Boehlert's take on recent Pew nonsense:

I continue to be puzzled why the usually astute folks at the Pew Center for The People and the Press are pushing this angle that news consumers aren't interested in the unfolding AG purge story; a mini-meme that has spread throughout the Beltway. Last week, Media Matters detailed the flaws in the Pew narrative. Yet this week, Pew returned with this headline: Attorney Firings: Important but Not Interesting. There's no doubt people think the story's important to the country; a whopping 68 percent, according to Pew's own numbers. Yet the "not interesting" angle remains very thin. Again, Pew's most recent survey shows 20 percent of Americans are paying "very close" attention to the scandal. And although Pew reports it's "only" 20 percent, that 20 percent puts Purge-gate right on par with the percentage of people who were paying very close attention to the Janet Jackson Super Bowl controversy (February 2004), the murder of Laci Peterson (July 2003), the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton (January 1999), and the O.J. Simpson trial (July 1995).In fact, that 20 percent, in terms of real-time news consumer interest, puts Purge-gate ahead of the campaign examination of Bill Clinton's alleged extramarital affairs (March 1992), Paula Jones' sexual harassment accusations (May 1994), and the Whitewater investigation (July 1996). I don't recall much media chatter back then about how those sordid Clinton stories were "not interesting."

I think that this is an essential point to make - comparing interest levels to juicy scandal psuedonews, with which major media powerhouses love to fill airtime, is in my mind the best way to rebut any claims that people don't want to watch what's actually important. Just because the press is obsessed with boobies, doesn't mean that's the only thing that interests the rest of us.

technorati tags:Pew, Media, Journamalism

CNN newsworthiness calculator strikes again

Events seem to be of importance inversely proportional to their distance from the CNN studios.

For example: yesterday, five coalition troops were killed in Iraq, two by small arms fire. Theirs is but one more part of the long tale of the tragedy of this war; the conflict has taken the lives of 3,517 Americans, countless Iraqis, and continues to have grave impact on the stability and security of this country and the world.

But what graces the top spot of CNN's main page, and has since the early afternoon? Why, a shooting in front of their offices! The story, destined for a Pulitzer I'm sure, is an opus of incredible journalism. I mean, the reporters had to work long and hard to find reliable sources - their friends and coworkers!

John Helton, a CNN.com producer, had a direct view of the gunman through glass doors. "I saw him coming down the escalator pulling her along, around the corner. He ran into the plant and that's when they started struggling," he said.

Riveting stuff. So what's this story that merits such incredible attention?  Like most murders, it is likely a personal and private tragedy, but one that nonetheless bears little on the lives of most readers in any conceivable direct sense. 

But it happened right in front of CNN, so we get to hear about it.

technorati tags:CNN, Media, Journamalism, Priorities

Geek break

Having fun testing Flock, a web browser with blogging and flickr built in.  The new version seems to have worked out some of the kinks of yesteryear's, but I haven't gotten too far into it yet.

technorati tags:GeekBreak, Browser