Monday, September 25, 2006

USA Today

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember.
Involve me and I learn."
-Benjamin Franklin

The USA Today interactive site on population was engaging. After I overlooked the coding error that had gibberish bleeding through, the information and presentation communicated with impact. The scale of growth became easier to grasp when viewed as a graphic.
This dynamic presentation allowed me to pick and choose how I wanted to receive the info. The varied formats added perspective to the piece.
The population counter reminded me of a deficit billboard I saw in New York once. It illuminated the U.S. national debt for all to see over Times Square.
The only gripe I have is that the USA Today dictated which countries population I could view. (I was disappointed that Canada was not included. Was wanting to view some larger trends about North America in general and was unable to do this.)
~Brant

Saturday, September 23, 2006

weekly blog review~two

This was a light week for Pogue's Posts. As I've mentioned before though, Steve Pogue is sweet on Apple. He had four posts this week. Only one did not promote an Apple product. (It would have, if Apple made cell phones!) Wonder how much Apple, Inc. stock this guy owns? The coolest link on his site this week will convert your phone number into word/number combinations. Mine offered some lame choices but check it out for yourself at PhoneSpell.com.

I must admit I'm disappointed with Mr. Hancock's PhotoJournalism blog this week too. He posted a series of Brazilian Jui Jitsu demonstrations, some pics from his local high school football games, and a couple of local Beaumont features. His site is subtitled 'Professional photojournalist Mark M. Hancock discusses photojournalism and the eccentricities associated with gathering images for major U.S. daily newspapers.' I though he would blog more about his process and thoughts, not just display his pictures with captions.

Thank you Mr. Deggans for coming through for me this week. The Feed proves to be an interesting read once again. He points out the idiot patrol over at CNN (Christiane Amanpour and Anderson Cooper excluded). I couldn't agree with him more. But guess what? The lineup on MSNBC is just as weak with the exception of Chris Matthews' Hardball (O.K., O.K. and occasionally Obermann). The Doc Blocks are lame reruns too. I thought competition was a good thing, perhaps raising the journalistic bar. It appears that both gave the other permission to lower standards and seduce the viewers with mind prattle. Let's just call it downFOXing the viewer.
Deggan's recycles a list of his 10 favorite T.V. shows. Just filler here.
He also recaps his interview with Dennis Miller. (Is he still on the air?) But enough. (See downFOXing.)

~Brant



Saturday, September 16, 2006

weekly blog review~one

note: I decided to change one of my blog choices. The Daily Kos was way too large a blog for 1 person to successfully review every week. (unless I quit my job and dropped my classes) So I will review 'The Feed'. Eric Deggans, St. Petersburg Times Media critic, writes The Feed for the Tampabay.com.

This week David Pogue (Pogue's Posts,
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/) featured a few of his observations that reflect how technology impacts today's world. He reviews the hoax of LonelyGirl15. He suspected this vlog (video blog) to be a phony. His experience with the medium pays off.
David also observes that some of the guideposts to our audible world has became outdated due to technological advances. (i.e. the busy signal on the phone, the sound 'ka-CHING' from the cash register, or the 'ding' of typing to the end of the page on a typewriter.) Very astute on his part. I'll never listen to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon the same way ever again!
He also introduces us to pixel artists. Here's A video done entirely in pixel art!





The most interesting post on http://markhancock.blogspot.com/ this week is the online interview announcement. The readers could e-mail questions to Mark Hancock. He will be interviewing film maker and documentary photographer, Denis Delestrac this week. Mark will post the interview on the blog. This way others will be included in the interviewing process.

Finally, Eric Deggan's, The Feed: Eric is getting clever. He realized in order to generate more hits on his site, he could mention hot topic key words that would trigger recognition by majority of internet searches. Therefore, driving viewers (eyeballs) to his blog. (even though he may not cover the particular subject in any depth in his blog)
This weeks hot key words were Cruise (as in Tom, Katie, and Suri) and Debra Lafave. I can't say I blame him for not wanting to write anything else about any of these! Enough said. I hope his hits increase though because I find issues on his blog interesting such as the post questioning whether Nancy Grace's approach was too extreme concerning the interview with Trenton Duckett's mother (who killed herself the same day). It ties together the influence on the media to impact the news, crossing the line and becoming part of the news instead of reporting it. Eric reminds us of another incident that resulted in a murder of a Sarasota woman after an interview. I recall Sally Jessie Raphael being in the spotlight for a time for a similar suicide case. These topics are far too important to be swept aside for another entry about tomkat.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Criticism

We were given an assignment to write about a time we remember receiving criticism for my Editing I class. As I recalled such a time, the value of the 'event' became evident. So therefore I am posting it here as well in case it stirs anyone else's memory.


I don't remember any writing criticism, but certainly remember the weekly portfolio reviews in photography school. There were a couple of times, especially the 'end of semester' critiques, that got my heartbeat racing.
Once was asked by a panel of three teachers to explain certain choices I made producing a multimedia slideshow. I was forced to grapple with new vocabulary and justify my decision/editing process to these professionals. One instructor said, "let him bleed", meaning, don't rescue me, don't feed me answers, let me sit in my 'unsuredness'. That experience taught me to come out of my shell, make sense of powerful communication tools and learn to articulate the process.
No matter how uncomfortable it was at the time, I am now grateful for many experiences such as that in school. They taught me to engage, and connect to my passion.
~Brant

Thursday, September 07, 2006

BLOG PICS

The Blogs I decided to track this semester are fairly diverse.
The first one is http://www.dailykos.com/ It is a blog that has enjoyed huge popularity. The site was created by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga who has a political science and journalism educational background. The site keeps an eye on the political landscape as well as the media.

The second site is http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/ David Pogue's site highlights new media and its technology while it is still fresh. He writes for the N. Y. Times. His site covers a wide variety of material from critiquing video blogs to pointers about new product specs.

http://www.markhancock.blogspot.com/ is the third blog site. It is a blog created by Mark M. Hancock. Mr. Hancock currently works as a photojournalist for the Beaumont Enterprise. His site discusses his process of image gathering for media. It also contains comprehensive links to weekly photo highlights, collections of various publications special photo sections and industry awards.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Homework?

I will continue using this blog for my fall semester at USF Journalism and Mass Media Studies.

There is also a link to this page on Debbie Wolfe's
Media Convergence USFSP site.

I found no question on the site to answer for Thursday's homework listed on the course calendar.
I did however come up with a more succinct working definition for
'MEDIA CONVERGENCE'.
Media convergence is a synergistic cross utilization
of multiple resources and technologies
to create content
which promotes an effective dynamic informative experience
for the purpose of broadening understanding
and communicating ideas.