Journalism « Tom Cheredar

Best Experiences Of 2009 (Part 2)

January 5, 2010

See Best Experiences of 2009 (Part 1) for numbers 6 – 10…

5. Social Network Steroids

Any seasoned journalist will tell you “breaking” a news story just feels good. However, breaking a news story in 2009 doesn’t apply the same way it did a decade earlier. If you happen to be first to report something, it’s usually incomplete by virtue of being “first”. It’s also not the best story — a departure from the old days of print — and requires outbound links to additional reporting or factual information. Since this is the case, breaking news isn’t nearly as rewarding anymore.

Fortunately there is a modern-day equivalent: hitting the top/front page of a social news sharing sites like digg, reddit or popurl. I had a handful this year… (READ: Best Buy Adds Rental Service Bloatware To All Net Gadgets, READ: M.A.D. – Mutants Against Disney, READ: 25 Cosplay Babes Of Dragon*Con 2009, READ: New Doctor Who Logo – Whatcha Think? READ: Richard Hatch Creating New Sci-Fi Network to Cultivate User Generated Content, READ: Kevin Smith Talks About Twilight Fans At Comic Con [w/Video], VIEW: PopURL Screenshot)

4. ‘Breaking’ The News About Motion Comics On iTunes

I realize I just explained why “breaking” a news story isn’t anything special in the age of Internet journalism but this is an exception. When Marvel announced they would be creating motion comics sold via iTunes, I was reporting for Geeks of Doom at the 2009 New York Comic-Con. During the panel I looked around at the others sitting in the front row designated for press… didn’t see anyone else scribbling down quotes and requesting more information — which is what I was doing because I frequent tech news blogs daily and knew it would be huge. I filed an article as soon as I could. I was typing in a crowded press room with a very weak Internet connection and a dying laptop battery. It was by no means the most complete post but it had good quotes and outlined the announcement.

Read Write Web also thought so and decided to write-up their own post linking to all the appropriate sources (mine being the first) that helped facilitate and enhance the information. In turn, that same post from RWW was syndicated in the NY Times. So essentially, an article I wrote was linked to by a top tech news blog and in the paper of record. Oh, and it also made the rounds on the social networks. (And yes, I felt pretty damn good about all that.)

3. Connecting With Geek Bloggers & Reporters

Nothing against writing predominantly for Internet publications, but I miss the hell out of working in a staff room. I’m in Nashville and not one of the larger metropolitan cities like San Fransisco, L.A. or New York City. There isn’t anything wrong with that in terms of being able to produce content, but it does mean all the editorial interaction I have is virtual. Covering the huge convention circuit this year I got to meet tons of other folks who are doing the same. Andy Sorcini did a great post from SDCC that encompasses my feelings exactly.

2. Meeting ‘Mr BabyMan’

For anyone who doesn’t know who Andy Sorcini is, he’s the man behind the alias “MrBabyMan”. If you look him up on digg you’ll find his profile has nearly half a million views and that he’s responsible for over 4,ooo links hitting the front page, which translates to hundreds of thousands of page views. There is a simple reason for this: he shares really interesting stuff with his friends. He was and is, by all means, a “power user” in the greatest sense of the term. I don’t think he gets nearly the credit deserved for the kind of dedication to digg.com in its early days. Before the rest of the world caught on to digg, I wonder how many people would have dismissed it as boring if Andy (and others, but Andy especially) hadn’t pointed to so many entertaining links.

Seriously, most of digg’s visitors are passive and don’t even sign up for user accounts. And of the registered users, those that don’t submit their own links vastly outnumber those that do. Andy made sure there was always something cool to read in the early days — and in doing so, played a role in the revolution of news media.

Having known of Andy since early 2006, it was great to finally meet him in person at the San Diego Comic-Con. My only regret is that I was so exhausted after an insane amount of panel coverage that I couldn’t offer anything resembling coherent conversation.

1. Retiring My Pen Name

I was still covering the public education beat for my local newspaper when I began writing for Geeks of Doom. I was concerned people would find my geek reporting and draw conclusions about my coverage of the local news and all it’s politics. To keep the two areas of coverage separate, I adopted the pen name: TechGOnzo. Fast forward to the present-day. My journalism career has shifted drastically. “Geek reporting” is most of my work.

I decided to retire the pen name after a story I wrote was ridiculed because of an honest error. (I didn’t understand the way the UK numbered seasons of its television programs). The commenter(s) didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, despite understanding I was an American working for a publication based in America. Rather than fire off a heated rebuttal, I took a minute to see things from an irate readers perspective.

The conclusion? I’d probably leave a negative comment to someone listed as “TechGOnzo” too if I were him (or her).

[Devindra Hardawar of Slashfilm deserves some credit for pointing out how exhausting and unnecessary it was to maintain two separate persona. Thanks man!]

Honorable Mention: Being Quoted On Valleywag

If you follow my activity online, it would come as no surprise when I bash the Associated Press for their mishandling of producing news for the Internet Age. I could write a thousand words on how often they’ve dropped the ball on setting new standards for online journalism (concerning style alone). I could write a thousand more words about how they will never “get it” until they break down and hire someone like myself who wants to radically change the way they operate.

However, it was a nice surprise seeing one of my twitter updates quoted in Valleywag by the site’s editor, clever wordsmith Ryan Tate. I pointed out the lack of [read: zero] links within the AP’s article about Reddit’s Secret Santa exchange. You’d think a technology reporter would include at least one link to the reddit site itself — ya know, because the story is about how ONLINE communities connect ONLINE by SHARING LINKS. *sigh*

Check out the post to see my cartoon avatar sandwiched in between Lindsay Lohan’s racial slurs and Jeff Jarvis’ penis comment.

3 Comments | Journalism, Social Media | Tagged: Blog Posts About Blog Posts, MrBabyMan, Valleywag | Permalink
Posted by Tom Cheredar

Best Experiences Of 2009 (Part 1)

December 30, 2009

Let me apologize for doing a “top 10″ post about why 2009 was personally quite amazing. Each experience listed below should have been represented as a short post on my blog at the time it was happening. As it stands, life got in the way and I got behind. I’m also writing this post to satisfy a recent suggestion by Nick Holland to document everything I’ve done — no matter how large or small — into a CV file for the sake of reference. I felt like I could do more (or at least go beyond a regular list of factoids) by ranking 10 most valuable experiences I’ve had in 2009.

10. Seeing Journalism I Funded Get Produced (spot.us)

Spot.us is a non-profit organization that provides a platform for local journalists to pitch stories to the community and be paid a predetermined rate for their efforts through crowd-funding. People in the community will fund the pitches they think are important and when the set rate is reached, the journalist goes out on assignment. [Read more about spot.us...]

Over the past year I helped fund three different articles (1, 2, and 3) that actually got produced and published. You have no idea how satisfying that is to a journalist like myself who started his reporting career at the very end of print media’s era. Although Spot.us is focused on two localities at the moment (SF Bay Area and Los Angeles), the potential for an organization like this to be duplicated across the country is exciting. No longer would I have to be disgusted by the local headlines that regurgitate national news and wonder why they don’t cover more “insert-under-reported-subject-here”. Instead, I could either pitch the idea or fund someone else to make it happen. Incredible.

9. Working on PodCamp Nashville

Let me say that I dove into planning PodCamp Nashville, the “un” conference about interactive technology, with zero knowledge of podcasting. Of course, that isn’t a prerequisite for participating in PodCamp, but I did want to learn the fundamentals of producing a basic web cast. Initially that was my motivation for getting involved, but I soon discovered that the event was more akin to the penny dishes found on the side of retail store cash registers. If you need a penny, take one. If your change produces pennies, leave a few for the other customers. Replace “pennies” with “knowledge” that’s essentially the jest of PodCamp.

I knew about social media and journalism so I pulled together a speaker session outlining the value of staying connected to local communication channels while news gathering. In return, others shared their knowledge of producing web shows and podcasts. Overall it was a great experience that I’d describe as two-parts instructional, one-part philosophy. Oh, and it’s free.

8. Guest Hosting Cinegeek’s Web Cast

Considering how often Editor of CineGeek Stephen Lackey has invited me on his web publication’s weekly geek news podcast, it seems like I should have specifically mentioned the CultureSmash show before now. I’ve joined Stephen, along with Con-Trek Co-Host Alan Smith, Niko Qualls and Clovis Chitwood nearly a dozen times as a guest host since they first asked me onto the show this past summer. Every time I’m there I thoroughly enjoy myself and wonder why their listeners tolerate me.

In all seriousness, it’s easy to forget there are other geeks of this caliber when living in the south. It’s not that they don’t exist, but compared to a giant metropolitan city like NYC you run into them less often. So it’s great seeing the CineGeek staffer covering a lot of the same conventions and fan-events that I’m at and then be able to discuss them at length via the podcast.

7. Creating The Journolution Subreddit

I get most of my news by reading online news blogs, but for almost half the decade I’ve relied on a link aggregation site to point me somewhere in the direction I’d like to go. Gradually my attention shifted this year from the social link sharing site digg to the much smaller Condé Nast owned competitor Reddit. There are several reasons for this but one of the largest is due to Reddit’s ability to create custom categories that act as their own individual link sharing aggregators (‘sub’ reddits). I immediately created a subreddit called Journolution to discuss the science and ethics of news. Technological advancement has wrecked havoc on the traditional code of ethics used to deliver the news and as a result there are thousands of Journalists discussing the science of news and then writing about it… reporting about it… all for the purpose of improving the quality of news gathering.

The core problem with writing and discussing the science of news is that there is no unity among its many “news scientists” and as a result, meaningful data cannot be extrapolated to reach greater, more complete conclusions. It’s as if every scientist was trying to nail down a conclusive theory for gravity even though such a theory exists and such theory is sound.

The Journolution subreddit could essential solve the problem described in the paragraph above by getting everyone to look in the same place as they tested their theories. It’s an effortless process of reading a thoughtful article about the state of news (or the News Industry, media trends, etc.), clicking a button to submit that article’s URL, writing a meaningful headline and allowing the public to vote it up or down (and comment).

As of this post, there are 27 subscribers (Woot!) to the Journolution subreddit. Many of them are pretty active so there’s enough to read week to week.

6. A Full Year Of Convention Coverage

I covered five different conventions in 2009, including both New York and San Diego Comic-Cons and Dragon*Con. Maybe this is sort of given since the bulk of my freelance work has to do with the geek genre, but I have never been happier than the time I spent in giant crowded convention centers covering panels as a journalist. I would have more to say about it if I hadn’t already written extensively about each and every voyage. I will say working these events were the highlight of my entire year.

See Best Experiences of 2009 (Part 2) for 1 – 5…

1 Comment | Journalism, Web Culture | Tagged: PodCamp Nashville, reddit, Journolution, subreddit, Blog Posts About Blog Posts, Cinegeek, Stephen Lackey, Comic-Con, Conventions, Best Experiences, Spot.us | Permalink
Posted by Tom Cheredar

Digital Nashville Education Organizer Responds

May 8, 2009

The organizer of Digital Nashville’s “Education Sessions responded to my last entry that basically pointed out they had scheduled their event the same day as the centre{source} Mixer. I felt like it was only fair that I repost that response in the main feed.

There are a number of issues I have with Digital Nashville and I only really discussed their disregard for scheduling (and/or rescheduling). Jacques (the organizer) said they planned their meetings out in late 2008 and that may very well be the case, but if the “Digital Nashville” community was intertwined with the actual digitally-minded Nashville community, I feel like they would have had no problem rescheduling. But that doesn’t mean they should have, only that it was a possibility.

The core reason why I am not a big fan of “Digital Nashville” mainly has to do with motivation. When I go to the Mixer or the Geek Social, I do so to meet others who could carry on a decent conversation about why (or why not) Google’s Chrome browser will (or will not) eventually become the most used based on android growth. If that sentence makes no sense at all, then not to worry, I’m sure someone would gladly bring you up to speed over a beer and slice of pizza. And you know what? You’ve just been educated. Take that line of logic and apply it to several other conversations and subjects and you’ve really started to understand bits and pieces about technology. Combine it with self motivation to teach yourself how to do something (like, writing php or understanding how to alter Cascading Style Sheets) and you’ve really got a decent education.

Digital Nashville’s motivation is inherently different because they want to bring people together to make them more marketable by educating them about subjects that employers need and/or small business owners need to know. At the core, this motivation is about money, and not too far down the road from that, survival. There is nothing wrong with wanting to learn new skills to make more money. But what I’ve tended to see with this group is that it gets billed as the community. It is not the community, its a club or organization.

Organizations can dictate commentary, delete comments on their message boards and justify how they would like others to perceive them. They seek out other members and offer tangible, exclusive advantages. So I don’t doubt that there is real value in the educational series provided by Digital Nashville. At the same time, I think there’s far more value in getting to know the community of digitally minded individuals in Nashville.

If the distinction that Digital Nashville is more of a organization than a community were more apparent, then I’d probably not be writing this response. (That and seriously, your Facebook should be a group, not a personal account.)

Digital Nashville Organizer’s response:

Tom,
Very insightful piece here and as being the organizer of the Digital Nashville’s education series I really appreciate all feedback, especially given that we are such a new organization and even more new to providing, what we feel, are quality education sessions. I say that last part with confidence as the majority of attendees have said so.

Once more, we really appreciate your, the community’s, feedback on all we do. In fact, so much so that we are soon to announce a town hall style meeting in June for gathering and opening a more proactive dialog between the leadership team, all being volunteers from the community, and the community itself.

Yes, we are aiming to not have an overlap of events for this session, as we do all our session, and hope you come and bring all your great feedback with you.

Lastly, let me address your claim that the scheduling conflict was intentional on our part. As being the organizer of these events I can insure you that this is not true. We started planning these events in November and chose the last two Thursdays in the month as the target dates for our events. In fact, our next event will be presented by Nick Holland from CentreSource as our relationship is very strong.

I hope I have helped clear up the two concerns in your posting and you are able to make it out to our town hall meeting in June. Any other feedback, feel free to provide to me directly at education-at-digitalnashville.net.

- Jacques

Leave a Comment » | Flame On, Social Media | Tagged: Digital Communities, Digital Nashville, Education, Motivation, Nashville, Responses | Permalink
Posted by Tom Cheredar

Guest Post On The Drill Down – ‘CrunchWag’

April 17, 2009

Below is the guest post I wrote for The Drill Down about the recent similarities between TechCrunch and Valleywag, two web sites that report about technology news primarily on the west coast. If you didn’t get a chance to check it out last week, head on over to the site and give their podcast a listen while your there…

Months ago Muhammad Saleem pointed out that TechCrunch’s redesign bears a shocking resemblance to the Gawker Media site templates. I thought it was interesting but didn’t give it much thought until this week.

Seriously, has anyone noticed the first signs of a mini Valleywag reunion over at TechCrunch?

Full article via thedrilldown.com

Leave a Comment » | Journalism, Tech Industry News | Tagged: CrunchWag, Guest Post, MrBabyMan, Staff, TechCrunch, The Drill Down, Valleywag | Permalink
Posted by Tom Cheredar

Are You Prepared? – Motivation For Laid Off Journalists

April 9, 2009

Lets agree that the “Mainstream media” is going to die. There are plenty of diagnoses that indicate its going to die and the only real disagreement is in terms of how much time it has left before it passes. It’s time to prepare for the hard task that comes next.

It’s time to pull the plug on the traditional concept of news gathering. It’s heart may still beat as long as it stays hooked up to the advertising money machine, but the brain no longer functions.

That’s a very scary thought for anyone still working at these organizations because a) We got into this career because we are journalists, not to make money and b) Money is necessary.

But publications do not define our identity as journalists, and for the men and women who will soon be seeking employment elsewhere, it’s important they be reminded of that.

Keep in mind, I’m not talking about freelancing to pay the bills and provide for families. The chances are great that freelance work won’t be an option for most people and they’ll have to get a job that’s extremely different than the one inside a newsroom.

What I’m eluding to is for people to fulfill that sense of duty, that led them to the newsroom in the first place . If you take the financial aspect out of the equation, everything makes more sense. I’m not arguing that we abandon ever getting paid for our services to the community, but there will be times where we’ve got to be selfless and continue reporting for the greater good. And just as members of a congregation pay a tithe to keep the church up and running, such is true of journalism too.

Our congregation is everyone around us. Our church is democracy, justice and honest communication.

And on that unfortunate day when some of us receive a pink slip, remember this quote: “It’s only after we’ve lost everything, that we are free to do anything.”

My fellow journalists, are you prepared for anything?

Leave a Comment » | Death of Print, Journalism | Tagged: Death of Print, Fight Club, Inspiration for Journalists, It's only after we've lost everything that we are free to do anything, Journalism, Journolution | Permalink
Posted by Tom Cheredar

Tom Cheredar

Best Experiences Of 2009 (Part 1)

Guest Post On The Drill Down – ‘CrunchWag’

Are You Prepared? – Motivation For Laid Off Journalists

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