April 3, 2009
Neglect
Sure, I have been neglecting this blog. Seems like that is always the way these things happen. It wasn't like I was tracking traffic here, and it is doubtful there was much. I am not exactly streaming video of puppies.
But rest assured that will all be changing. My brain will be back with a vengeance.
Posted by bmiraski at 3:14 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2008
Fed Speak - What does it say?
Since the time of Alan Greenspan, the guessing game of what the Federal Reserve will do at any of its Federal Open Market meetings has been turned into a parlor game.
The next meeting is August 5th.
My take? They are staying pat on the Fed Funds Rate at 2 percent.
I decode the Fed Speak in my latest post for Medill Money Mavens.
Posted by bmiraski at 6:04 PM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2008
The pen is mightier
With the economy in the dumps, luxury sales are slowing.
Just look at the auto sales numbers for June. There is no good information there.
Even with the high gas prices, car sales normally will stay firm, especially at the high end. However, consumers are more likely to be moving to smaller luxury items these days.
Learn more about pen sales and why they might be soaring in my latest article for the Medill News Service.
Posted by bmiraski at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2008
Is it time for GM to hit the road?
Oh, GM, I believe the time has come for you to get out of town.
And by town, I mean the Dow.
If you want a rant, you get one at Medill Money Mavens.
Posted by bmiraski at 3:30 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2008
Pit Wars
The latest in Miraski sports writing is available over at Blogcritics.
Ever wonder what life is like in the pits at a NASCAR race? I was on hand to see from a few feet away.
Posted by bmiraski at 8:30 PM | Comments (0)
July 8, 2008
Getty is Flickr bound
According to TechCrunch, Getty Images is going to be looking very closely at Flickr soon as it mines for images to add to a special section of its website.
Flickr members will likely try to do anything they can to become a part of the program, which stands to offer them both wide exposure and compensation for their work. Unfortunately, there’s currently no way for a Flickr member to apply to become a part of the program - they need to be “discovered” by Getty’s editors.
I probably have no chance of being discovered in the sweep, but man that would be sweet. Perhaps this should be encouragement to get more of my photos edited and up on the site.
Posted by bmiraski at 6:00 PM | Comments (0)
July 2, 2008
ESPN and Sports Journalism
What follows is a repost of an assignment I wrote for my Sports Journalism class on the state of sports media. I thought I would share it here, although I am sure it could be expanded and made a little less stream of consciousness.
What is wrong with Sports Journalism? Everything and nothing at the same time.
The downfall of sports journalism, in its own way, is the thing that made sports journalism take off: ESPN. The self-proclaimed World Wide Leader has both given fans access to things we would never have had 28 years ago, or even 15 years ago, but it has taken it to the extreme where every iota of a person’s life is analyzed to the extent where you say, “Why do I need to know this?”
That is not to say that ESPN doesn’t do great work at times. Until Sunday night NFL games moved to NBC, the broadcast team in the booth was the best in the business. Sportscenter, before it devolved into a wholly sponsored 90-minutes and a dunk parade, was one of the best outlets for sports news. And E:60, the new long-form journalism being done by the company is some of the best work I have seen, from some of the best writers at the company.
And ESPN gets online. They do well on the web, they have intriguing content written well, and they understand new media and podcasts – the college basketball and football podcasts are both spectacular and much more informative pieces of analysis than anything they put on television.
Maybe that is the issue though. The television medium is where ESPN is doing its worst work. Its best material is online, beating CBS and SI handily. I can’t say I get through the magazine anymore, but it was some good work when it first started, although the flashiness now is more than I can take.
Sports journalism has become a web experience. Game data is available in such a plentiful state, that there is no need to wait until the morning paper to get scores or game reports any longer. Fan sites and blogs get more hits than local newspapers about what is going on across the country (although many of the former are dependent on the latter for their livelihood). If you can’t get something up and out on the web quickly, no one is going to read it. Provide a forum for fans to post their chatter, and you will pull in views and generate buzz.
However, that is the dark side of sports reporting as it stands. Blogs, for all the good ones out there, are still dominated by a few mega blogs, which all link to each other, and promote some content which is no better than the gossip pages in People Magazine. I don’t care if Matt Leinart is out with five USC coeds, as long as he does it on his own time, and it doesn’t affect his performance on Sunday. Pure and simple. I know that there has always been coverage of players and their girlfriends, but it has been taken to a new level by the internet and some of the “reporting” that takes place on blogs.
So where are we headed? I don’t think that blogs are going away anytime soon, although the departure of Will Leitch from Deadspin will change the face of the well-established leader in the blog field (ironically, the one thing that ESPN doesn’t do well, outside of Bill Simmons, who I don’t like and don’t care to read). So the challenge becomes how you take the blog format and add real reporting to it.
It is something that is probably easier said than done.
To get real reporting, many blog writers would need access they don’t have: to press rooms, to interviews, to players and coaches outside of their MySpace and Facebook profiles. As with anything, that requires pull, something that most of the bloggers do not have but established media does have. That means no access.
Or does it? I contend that they could still pick up a phone, which is a common criticism of the reporting. Pick up a phone, call a team, call a school, call a coach, and see if you can get an interview. See if one of the players will talk to you. Sure you might have to use sources from attendees at a club if something went on inside, but it doesn’t hurt to try and get the official line from the school.
Most of all, stop making things up. The satire of some blogs goes so far over the top, you lose all meaning. By all means, write a good and interesting column, but lay off the made up storylines, and the fake interview room scenarios. They work in small bites, not when you constantly write them week after week.
The web is the current and the future of sports reporting and it needs to improve standards to be more like established media. The established media needs to learn how to do the web, or present content in more interesting ways.
The other day, I came across a great video piece on ESPN about rabbit chasing in Florida: a great piece which I have never seen on television, only on the web. The problem that ESPN would have with a piece like this on the big screen is that it would be over played. You would see it seven times on Sportscenter, it would be put into pre-game coverage, it would be played during halftime of a game with some of the players featured in it. It gets over-exposure.
On the web, the piece stands alone as a great look at a side of the high school game you couldn’t know unless you were from there, and covered the teams and the players. These are the stories that create sports fans.
ESPN found a way to make poker interesting on television and it created an empire. It could continue to do the same thing with sports reporting without going over the top like it does at times (Around the Horn, ESPN First Take (formerly Cold Pizza), 1st and Ten all come to mind at first blush). They have the ability to pull in those from new media (and they have) who do it well and make the industry on the web something to cheer about.
However, they can’t do it if they don’t pay attention to the content that gets placed on its television networks, the bread and butter of its business. It is no secret why Sportscenter commercials did well back in the day. They were only shown on ESPN and yet were some of the most popular ads on all of television.
It was advertising for a great product, one that has consistently gone downhill since its heyday in the late 90’s and early 00’s.
Print, broadcast and web have a lot to learn from the past and the current to continue to generate content which makes people tune in and keep reading. There is no magic cure to what ails current sports journalism, but there needs to be the willingness for the established media and the new media to work together to get it done, something I haven’t seen happen yet.
Maybe when it does, it will be even more unstoppable than today.
Posted by bmiraski at 4:38 PM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2008
AP Style revamp
It is somewhat sad that stories like this grab my attention. But they do, so I feel I have to share.
The new AP stylebook is out and it has over 200 new entries.
There is no more riffraff, people are no longer milquetoast, and there is no more malarkey going on.
But there is an iPhone, WMD (or maybe not), and social networking.
Yes, I know. I said this was sad.
Posted by bmiraski at 3:26 PM | Comments (0)
More Orlando Sentinel bashing
Welcome to bashing day at Benjamin Miraski's Brain.
You would think with the fairly decent economic news today, that I might be able to find some uplifting information to give you.
But no.
Steve Outing has an interesting critique of the new Orlando Sentinel design.
I had my own comment in the newsroom here yesterday that it reminded me of someone taking the web, and trying to print it on paper.
However, the best skewering of the new design might have been done by one of the Tribune's own staff, Phil Rosenthal, who wrote his column on the design in the same manner as the new news stories in the Sentinel.
I must say I would never read a paper written that way.
Posted by bmiraski at 8:27 AM | Comments (0)
June 23, 2008
"Man on the street is a waste of time"
"Readers know it is too."
Those are comments from Kent Fischer of the Dallas Morning News, an education reporter who was consistently asked by his editors to provide color quotes from parents and interested parties for his daily stories.
However, with blogging, he has been able to outsource the quote gathering to the interested people who comment on his blog.
This is the essence of beat blogging, a trend which defines what makes some of the best blogs out there. Obviously this blog is a little bit of everything and therefore doesn't qualify in that arena. However, if you look at the highly focused blogs, what do they all have in common?
1. A theme strictly held to
2. Solid reporting
That is how you develop readership, that is how you develop a following.
That is what newspapers should be thinking about as they package content for the web, not just repeating what they print in the daily edition. Why not post it all as blogs and then print the daily with the best comments?
It seems that is the way that the Orlando Sentinel is trying to go with its redesign that I have written and linked to articles on. However, there is also the thought that they have tried to make the daily too much like the web instead of working the other way around.
I will be interested to see how BeatBlogging, the website that spawned those quotes takes off and follow its progress. It could be the future of journalism, something I probably need to keep my eye on if I want a job when I graduate.
Posted by bmiraski at 9:20 PM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2008
Huffington Post moves to Chicago
Apparently the Huffington Post will launch a Chicago edition according to its founder Arianna Huffington.
Initially, the site will launch an edited news aggregation site (similar to the main Huffington Post web site) localized for the US metro area around Chicago, Illinois. The site will be managed by a single editor to start. "We are aspiring to be a newspaper in that we want to covering all news [sic], not just the political blogging the way we began," Huffington said to the conference attendees.
Political affiliations aside, I have a hard time seeing how a one-man operation, as she hopes to start with, will compete with the local content already generated by two newspapers and by original reporting sites like The Windy Citizen and Gapers Block.
She isn't going to be able to get a person who will be able to go out and cover issues that are being addressed there and by the local blogs already.
I understand the need to be hyper-local in this new media world, but she really seems to be reaching if she intends to start with only one person in the newsroom.
If this was really a good pilot, she might want to think about what a normal staff in a city the size of Chicago would look like and put them on the ground. That might generate some real competition as opposed to one person who will just be linking as it looks right now.
That said, I am available for the opening.
Posted by bmiraski at 6:23 PM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2008
Want 5 words? It wll cost you
According to some chatter on the web, the AP has now added an excerpt pricing line item to its current licensing form.
Basically, if you don't mind publishing the whole article, for only a month (then you have to take it down), and you don't mind putting the AP's ads and logo on it, you can do it for free.
However, if you want to excerpt as little as 5 words, it is going to cost you...$12.50.
Seriously? If that was the case, I would think that free lance writers would be getting a little more for their works.
That pricing cover up to 25 words, so that would mean a 500 word story should bring in $250 each time out. Yeah, good luck negotiating that rate.
Posted by bmiraski at 9:18 AM | Comments (0)
This isn't the first time the AP has complained
Yesterday, I wrote about TechCrunch's intention to not link AP stories until the AP stops with its silly strategy to fight bloggers who post excerpts from its stories on their sites.
I received an email later from Simon Owens at Bloggasm, who interviewed Rogers Cadenhead of Drudge Retort, the blogger who received seven cease and desist notes from the AP, after the incident.
Turns out that this isn't the first time that Cadenhead and the AP have butted heads.
Thanks Simon for reaching out.
Posted by bmiraski at 8:34 AM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2008
Coffee catching on
Apparently stories on coffee and premium craft roasters are catching on. Not too long ago, I published this story on Chicago's Metropolis Coffee Co. located in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood.
Another Chicago craft roaster, Intelligentsia, is expanding out in California. boingboing was on hand to get a tour of the facility and the coffee roasting process.
Posted by bmiraski at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
TechCrunch boycotting AP
Michael Arrington at TechCrunch is boycotting the AP based on the AP's recent actions with regards to links and quotes of its stories.
The short of it is that the AP is trying to restrict bloggers from linking and posting short snippets of its articles claiming that it does not fall under the "fair use" clause of the copyright laws.
According to TechCrunch's post:
A.P. vice president Jim Kennedy says they will issue guidelines telling bloggers what is acceptable and what isn’t, over and above what the law says is acceptable. They will “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.”
Add in that apparently AP employees are going around and posting the contents of a letter from Kennedy in full on any blog that seems to reference the incidents that have occurred.
So TechCrunch has a new policy:
So here’s our new policy on A.P. stories: they don’t exist. We don’t see them, we don’t quote them, we don’t link to them. They’re banned until they abandon this new strategy, and I encourage others to do the same until they back down from these ridiculous attempts to stop the spread of information around the Internet.
At the risk of upsetting a future employer, I will join in this crusade until the policy is changed.
The linking policy was something that was encouraged for all of AP's clients by blogger David Cohn aka "DigiDave" back in May as something that would help save them money and make their news organizations more innovative because as he saw it, the AP was not looking out for its clients anymore. The result?
As I see it: This would allow newspapers to run more original local content, save money and build serious brand loyalty. The AP does none of these.
At a time when newspapers are trying to innovate to keep their consumers around, and trying things like radical front page redesign instead of forward thinking, maybe they might want to start paying attention.
(Link to DigiDave found through Brian Boyer's Sixth W)
Posted by bmiraski at 9:03 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2008
Tim Russert has died at 58
Tim Russert has died at 58. Meet the Press will never be the same.
Posted by bmiraski at 3:53 PM | Comments (0)
What do you want in your paper?
If you still read the news in a hard copy format, its an important question:
What do you want in your paper?
It is one that the ombudsman is asking of the Chicago Tribune's readers in response to word that they are going to downsize the paper to a 50-50 split between news and advertising.
The downsize is not a shock. It is inevitable in the current climate of news and instant gratification. So it becomes even more important to deliver a product that meets the needs of the people buying it.
Now, you don't have to "cater" to them by writing only stories that they want to read. Otherwise, based on some recent articles on ABC's news business, we might as well just be reading People magazine.
There are times you have to give people the news they need.
And so it all comes back to how soon are we going to have a one section paper with only the very necessary record of the day inside?
Steve Ballmer of Microsoft says actual-paper newspapers will be dead in 10 years:
In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down -- my opinion.
Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.
So I am going to go with five.
Posted by bmiraski at 8:39 AM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2008
World News Webcast close to changing format
The Wall Street Journal ($$) is reporting that the World News Webcast put out by ABC is close to changing its format.
ABC's news-division president, David Westin, says the network is considering ways to reinvent the broadcast, including as a series of updates throughout the day.
It is too bad that the viewer numbers for the webcast have not been higher. According to the article, the website that the webcast runs on only received 145,000 hits last Monday. There was no indication of the number of subscribers to the podcast version of the webcast.
I have consistently watched the webcast over the last 18 months, partially because I was working longer hours and this was my only access to the news during that time, and mostly because it was the best example of what I thought news should be on the web if you wanted a summary news program, much like traditional broadcast news.
From my time in school I can tell you: Putting together a 30-second video for the web is hard, let alone, trying to produce a 15-minute broadcast. If ABC News were to try and do the former throughout the day, they would likely burn themselves out, let alone the people who watch the webcast with the constant updates.
The article also points to the "tastes" of consumers, which are just scary.
Of last Monday's 7.8 million clicks, three million were to photo slideshows, including one of celebrities at the beach and another of the "pregnant man."
The webcast always had a "fun" story at the end, much like the endcaps on traditional news which were fun and light-hearted. However, if that is going to be the majority of the news that people go to for the webcast, and the webcast will change content to meet that, I will stop watching.
This is (was?) the best news on the net each day. It is too bad it may be shortlived.
Posted by bmiraski at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2008
Dallas Morning News unveils new format
Interesting tidbit that I am gleaning from Romenesko this morning.
The Dallas Morning News is introducing a one-section condensed version of the paper for non-subscribers to bring them into the fold.
An interesting move.
My argument to the continuation of newspapers is that they are too big. Outside of the Wall Street Journal, which manages to fill its pages consistently with well done news, it seems to me that a good amount of what gets printed in a daily is not anything that someone will read.
Remember that newspapers used to be single- or two-page publications, and they only covered the most essential information for people.
Posted by bmiraski at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)
June 7, 2008
Business Week Chicago is no more
According to an article in Crain's, the Chicago edition of Business Week, which was a monthly making it a very accurate journalistic title, is no more.
Since Crain's is subscription-based, here are the highlights:
The cause was slow ad sales, according to several people familiar with the situation. Two staffers, one in editorial and one salesperson, have lost their jobs.
and
The magazine, typically 52 pages long, was included as a supplement for Chicago-area BusinessWeek subscribers and was not available on newsstands.
Seems to me that if you limit the potential base of readers to only those who read the main edition, you might have caused the ad sale problem.
Sad, since I know my professor was very excited about this development as another sign that business journalists were in high demand.
Oops.
Posted by bmiraski at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)
June 5, 2008
Ugh
Gerry Doyle, who writes the very interesting Read Ink, just made my day more crappy, if that is a possibility.
Posted by bmiraski at 5:15 PM | Comments (0)
Leitch leaves Deadspin
For some (read Buzz Bissinger), Will Leitch embodies everything that is wrong with blog journalism, if that isn't an oxymoron.
For some, Will Leitch is everything that blog journalism is supposed to be.
If you haven't seen the Bob Costas roundtable on the state of sports media, find it. I agree with a lot of what Buzz said, although the way he said it probably wasn't the best. The few videos of it that existed on YouTube have been removed.
Pesky copyright violations.
Well, Leitch is apparenlty going somewhat mainstream as a contributing editor at New York magazine. You can read his first goodbye post at Deadspin.
So there is an editor job at Deadspin open.
Brian McCabe, who often appears on Chicagocubsonline.com, asked me if I wanted the job.
"Yes and no," I said.
"Why no?" he asked.
"No, because I don't agree with a lot of what they post. Then again, yes, because I would love to have a post of mine that had..." *looks at screen* "...7821 hits on one of my stories," I replied.
"In a hour," Brian said.
Damn.
The article is now up to 10,234 hits.
Posted by bmiraski at 2:39 PM | Comments (0)
Why Bloggers, including this one, suck
Another reason why I have grown to like the non-fundamentally based blogging world a little more. Everyday Should Be Saturday used to be a good read.
Now it is a little over the top and comments like this from their own writers:
“Where’s the journalistic integrity?” Reilly asked. “He has my email — why didn’t he try to verify it?” Indeed, the blonde that “looked like a stripper” accompanied Reilly to the party Friday night, and he confirmed that she’s his live-in girlfriend.
We’re not journalists, for one. We’re bloggers, and as usual, we’ll have to tell you the definition of blogger by telling you that there is no definition.
While the full post ends with a somewhat excellent olive branch, I disagree with the premise that bloggers should do anything differently than journalists would. This is especially true considering that most people read blogs while as we know, paper circulation of newspapers and some magazines have gone down.
People need to start picking up the phone and making calls to verify some of the rumors, not just take them at face value and run with it.
Plus, I have a hard time believing that there was no one that knew how to get in touch with Rick Reilly.
Maybe they should have tried calling Sports Illustrated and seeing if they had someone in the media department who might be kind enough to let them have some content information.
It isn't that hard, and I think if you mentioned you were going to post some not nice info about Reilly and then said you would like his side of it, they would be more than helpful.
/soapbox
Posted by bmiraski at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
June 4, 2008
More sour news about the newspaper industry
There is a proper response to this article.
I think it is "Fuck!"
When even the weeklies are a little scared about papers and making it online, there is something seriously wrong.
I guess technically it will be my job to fix that.
Posted by bmiraski at 6:01 PM | Comments (0)