A few media-related travel observations…

One thing that amazed on my recent trip to Peru was the pervasiveness of Skype and Facebook in hostels and internet cafes, even in some of the most remote destinations. A year ago when I backpacked in Argentina, a quick glance around a “locutorio” would reveal computers dominated by travelers on gMail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and the like. E-mail allowed those on the road the ability to stay in touch with friends and family with incredible ease.

Within a year and a half, however, not only did I find it incredibly easy to drop my parents a quick note, I could even call them. In Aguas Calientes, the tiny village outside Machu Picchu in the remote Andes, every internet cafe I went to offered Skype with headphones.

Incredible…

Back from Peru

Sorry for the month-long hiatus, but I am finally back from Peru.

(And in that spirit, check me out overlooking Machu Picchu!)
Matt overlooking Machu Picchu

But now that I am back, I am a graduate and will be adjusting to working at Southern Living down in Birmingham, Alabama. The next few days entail finding an apartment and all that fun stuff. Wish me luck!

What two aspects of journalism will never change?

Here’s the answer Bryan Gruley of the Wall Street Journal gave a group of Medill business reporters today:

People’s need for knowing what they didn’t already know.

People’s need for good storytelling.

Simple.

Most truths are.

If you have access to the Wall Street Journal archives, I’d suggest reading Gruley’s tribute to Tim Breslin, a former Chicago Wolves hockey player who died young of cancer – especially if you ever played hockey. It’s simply great.

Here’s a great piece on Gruley by Poynter.

Young adults weigh in on political parties

Medill reporters Emily Wood, Kelly Mahoney and Rachel Zahorsky in D.C. put together this off-the-cuff piece on youth attitudes toward political parties.

I say Republican, you say?

They are also soliciting comments on the piece so you can weigh in and they’ll be doing a follow up story.

Newspaper video: It just has to work

Haven’t posted in a while, but I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Boston working on a research project for the Newspaper Association of America on trends in online video and had a thought to share.

I’m taking a course in Web videography offered at Medill and taught by a Tribune Interactive video guy, Brad Piper. Longtime print reporter James Janega from the Trib put together a video on Fallujah, Iraq, and came in to discuss it. One of things he said that stood out the most to me was his point that when you’re in the news business, “It just has to work,” he said.

Although Janega had a background in broadcast before switching to print, he discussed how time constraints and the limited access reporters enjoy in Iraq due to safety concerns both limited what he could produce as a one man reporter with a handheld video camera. Furthermore, Janega was primarily responsible for coming back with a print piece of the paper.

But his piece did work. Plenty of his shots were shaky. His camera doesn’t have a jack for a microphone. And the video didn’t delve into the issues nearly as deeply as his print piece did. But his video worked. It showed a side of the story that his print piece couldn’t.

It’s an inspiring bit of news for small papers, in my opinion, with limited means to produce video. People have voted with their clicks and shown that they are willing (and eager!) to watch videos of lower production quality on YouTube, if the story is worth it.

I don’t see a compelling reason why they wouldn’t do the same when it comes to local video.

Business to business journalists use blogs as sources – report says

The Arketi Group, an Atlanta-based public relations and integrated marketing consultancy, issued a report looking at how business to business journalists use blogs. Here is one finding:
Arketi graph

The graph to the left shows that 84 percent of business to business journalists reported they would use a blog as a primary or secondary source.

This report kills me. Here’s why:

Blogs are defined by their medium, bloggers are not

Could you imagine a report asking whether or not a business to business journalist quoted a “speech” or an “interview” or a “written report” as a primary or secondary source? No, that’s nonsensical. All of the above, including blogs, are simply different media, across which sources of varying levels of reputability convey information – which brings me to my second point…

Blogs are not uniform sources of information

Do I get story ideas and learn about journalism trends from Jarvis and Romenesko? Sure. Do I get them from the latest blog indexed by Technorati? No. Just like I give more credence to something I read in the Journal as compared with the National Enquirer.

New York Times startup LifeWire provides syndicated lifestyle content

I recently saw a job posting on JournalismJobs.com for a full-time editor to commission and copy edit articles for LifeWire, an online content startup from the New York Times Co. that creates “on-demand lifestyle content” for top Web publishers.

A quick Google News search shows that, although their own page isn’t live yet, LifeWire has ran stories in CNN’s living, and travel sections for the past month or so.

I looked for some more information on LifeWire, but hadn’t read much about it. Any leads?

And P.S., doesn’t the site look awfully “Drupally”?

Alex Kuczynski at Medill – Style and Substance: Reporting on Popular Culture

Alex Kuczynski is scheduled to speak at the Medill School of Journalism at 12 pm on Monday, November 12 2007 in Fisk hall.

I picked up on it from a weekly newsletter I get, Flavorpill, which describes Kuczynski, saying:

“For some, the Critical Shopper columnist is bafflingly superficial, an over-privileged aesthete who sullies the paper’s reputation with conspicuous consumption and the jet-set lifestyles of the ultra-rich. Others simply see her as a shrewd and pragmatic businesswoman. After all, she delivers what people want — high-end shopping tips, luxury-product critiques, and the best place to buy a $5,000 chinchilla coat.”

I’ll be attending, so if you have any questions regarding Kuczynski, her work, or reporting on popular culture, let me know.