The A-Train: A New Path for North Texas

Courtesy of DCTA

The Tyler Morning Telegraph is forming an alliance with television station KYTX CBS 19 to form a news alliance.  The motto of the alliance is “More people in more places.”  The two organizations believe the alliance will allow them to better cover news in East Texas.

At both the Tyler Morning Telegraph’s website and CBS 19′s website, the story is a prominent feature.  Both pages on both websites feature multimedia elements.  The newspaper’s story contains a large article that contains a picture of the new “news team,” a text article (containing no links) and two videos.  One video is extremely poorly made by broadcast standards.  It features two talking heads of the “powers that be” at both the newspaper and the tv station.  However, the framing was terrible on one, while the audio and overall production value was not very good on either interview.  However, the raw quality of the video did give a sort of authenticity to the footage.  This is because there is no reporter track, just minimal graphics and two interviews.   The other video on the page is a video from CBS 19′s website.  The video is of a package the news network did on the subject.

Over at CBS 19′s website, naturally they are a bit more technological in their approach.  But not by leaps and bounds.  In addition to the main text article, the site has links to two video’s on the subject.  One is the CBS 19 anchors discussing the partnership, and the other is a more up-to-date video of the anchors leading the newscast with the story.  Also on CBS 19′s page are two related stories you can click on.  One links to the Tyler Paper’s web coverage, and the other is an article called “What ‘Total Team Coverage’ Will Mean For You.” That article is a recap of the alliance.

Overall, a fairly nice job on these multimedia stories.  However, there appeared to have been a sort of “ribbon cutting” event where the partnership was announced.  I think there should have been a slide show of some sort with photos from this event.  They also could have included a poll asking consumers what they thought of the alliance.

President Obama has dispatched two members of his cabinet to Chicago; Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.  The message Obama is trying to convey is that adults should take responsibility for the devaluing of life by young people.

Chicago is not the only place where this has occurred recently.  According to Duncan in a letter published in the Chicago Tribune, Four students have been killed in Tulsa, just this year.  Philadelphia, Seattle, Miami, and many others have also seen a surge in school violence in recent weeks.

Duncan says that money alone will never solve this problem.  “This is the time to look in our collective mirror and ask wheter we like what we see or whether we can do better together,” Duncan said.

Our World Screenshot

“Our World” is a new website that has a mission to help young people understand the news.  I think the website definitely has a noble cause and is off to a good start.  However, the website design and content does need a little bit of help.  The overall theme of the website has kind of a rough, “distressed” look which is great for young people.  However, the execution of  that design scheme needs some help.  The site doesn’t really follow the structure of modern news sites and has a very static feel, which definitely dates it a bit.  It looks more like a website from 2002.  Also, there are a few technical flaws with the site; for some reason the number “700″ keeps showing up in the top left corner, and the red frame the page is based on shifts and changes size from page to page.

I did get the chance to view some of the first episode before my computer began to freeze up the stream every few seconds.  From what I could see of that though, the “Our World” video newscast is pretty well done.  It really takes the edgy look and feel, and runs with it.  Hopefully the website will eventually capture the essence of the video’s graphics and vibe.

As far as my opinion on the entire concept; I do think that it is important that young people are informed and involved with current events.  But I’m not sure that this is the correct way.  I remember that when I was younger I was not fooled by the “News is Cool” or such and such can be “cool” concept that many tried to feed us.  The same kind of “edgy” presentations were used in schools to send us all sorts of positive messages by delivering the material in a youthful and “cool” way.  In my opinion, I never liked being talked to as if I was a “youth.”  Even now I can’t imagine why any high school student would want to watch news specially packaged for high school students.  Especially when that news is not an up-to-the-second, constantly updating, high quality news feed that is now so commonplace in our fast paced world.  Maybe I was just a weird kid (yeah, I probably was), but I would much rather have watched NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw or CNN than anything specially packaged for youth.

As far as “hip” news sites go, NBC affiliates such as NBC DFW are really putting out some incredible sites that push the boundaries of run-of-the-mill journalism.  Very exciting!

According to researchers at the New England Journal of Medicine, taxing sugar-sweetened beverages may help in the fight against obesity.  A group of specialists in public health have concluded that sugary drinks may lead to weight gain, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  The journal claims that taxing the drinks can make them too expensive to buy, and the tax proceeds will help finance health programs.  As much as $14.9 billion could be gained the first year if the drinks were taxed 1 cent per ounce.  The researchers know that taxation will not cure obesity, much like seat-belt legislation and tobacco taxation, but that it is a sound policy.

Kilpatrick Cuts Payback In Half

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has cut his restitution payments in half.  Kilpatrick told a judge he could legally cut his payments in half, because his monthly income has also been cut in half.  The development comes after the March ruling stating that Kilpatrick pay 30% of his gross monthly salary as restitution for his criminal conviction.  However, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy believes that Kilpatrick is violating his probation.  ”We have seen no proof that his salary has diminished,” Worthy said.  Kilpatrick’s former aide Christine Beatty has not yet made any restitution payments and currently owes $100,000.

My ethics professor at the University of North Texas, Terry Heaton, made a very good point in class last week.  A friend of his had coined the phrase “The people formerly known as the audience.”  This phrase really hit home with me because it is absolutely true.  Everyone with a Facebook, MySpace or Twitter account is their own media company, Mr. Heaton said.  Those of us with accounts on these sites are most assuredly broadcasting the events of our lives to an attentive public.

The “audience” used to consume products of the media, but now it would much rather participate than strictly observe.  In the last few years or so, reporters in actual media organizations have been making blogging an essential part of their job.  But many would argue that this is not a wise course of action.

Today, a reporter with ABC News “tweeted” that President Obama had just called hip hop artist Kanye West, a “jackass” in response to West’s recent blunder on an awards show.   The controversy with this issue is that there is an unwritten ethical rule conveying that chatter prior to an “on-the-record” interview is always considered “off-the-record.”  When the President commented on Kanye West’s recent controversy prior to his interview, at least 3 different ABC News reporters immediately tweeted about it.

ABC quickly made the reporters pull their “tweets.”  Aside from the obvious on-the-record and off-the-record ethical implications of this dilemma, the situation further fuels the debate of whether blogging and news should go hand in hand.

In my opinion, I think it is too soon to tell if this model is in trouble.  Should those ABC News reporters have posted the latest thing they heard, just like high school gossip?  Probably not.  But, like society has finally learned about music sales, we can’t always change advances in technology that make tasks easier and more convenient than ever before.  So, since the concept of blogging is not going away anytime soon, it is a concept that needs to be watched closely and refined with extreme care.  I do hope that someday it will become a system that works and adds to the experience of delivering and receiving news.