Monthly Archives: June 2004

Fahrenheit 9/11

Posted on by

If I were Dick Cheney, I’d explore two options for dealing with Michael Moore’s movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. First, try to find a working time machine and send a Terminator back to 2000 and erase Michael Moore before he makes the documentary. That poses some real technical challenges, so Plan B would be to place armed National Guard troops at the entrance of every theater trying to show the movie. Close ’em down. I really think this option poses less risk to George Bush’s re-election than letting people see Fahrenheit 9/11.

Whatever your politics, this is a powerful film. Some have said it won’t change anyone’s mind about George Bush. The people that love him will love him (and vote for him) in November. Those that think he’s a dangerous moron surrounded by evil, greedy men…will still think so after seeing this movie.

But don’t you think that Dick Cheney and Carl Rove got an early copy and screened it there in the White House? Sure, they might have dismissed it as liberal propaganda. Or maybe Rove turned to Cheney and asked, “Did you ever see the Terminator movies?”

PS: If you’ve never read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, it’s a classic.

Edward R. Murrow Awards

Posted on by

Warning: Self-serving shop talk follows. The Radio-Television News Directors Association announced the winners in their annual Edward R. Murrow Awards competition today. This is kind of a big deal in the radio and TV news business. This year they started out with 3,182 entries and gave 74 awards to 53 news organization. The regional winners were announced a few weeks ago and today they announced the national winners. And one of our network websites won.

Entries fall into one of three categories (Network/Syndication Service, Large Market and Small Market) for radio and the same three for TV. And this year they added a category called Websiste Non-Broadcast.

Our entry (Missourinet.com) won in the Radio Network/Syndication Service category. Pretty cool given that the competition was ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN and god only knows who else. You gotta figure there’s some “online journalists” in NY and Atlanta scratching their heads and asking each other, “What the hell is a Missourinet? Somebody get a map!”

For some reason the RTNDA website provide the urls of the Website winners but didn’t create links. That seems a little clueless to me.

*Radio Network/Syndication Service: Missourinet, Jefferson City, MO
*Television Network/Syndication Service: MSNBC

*Television Large-Market: News 14 Carolina, Charlotte, NC
*Television Small-Market: Capital News 9, Albany, NY
*Radio Large-Market: KSL-AM, Salt Lake City
*Radio Small-Market: WBLL-AM, Bellefontaine, OH
*Website Non-Broadcast: Washington Post, Washington; Belo Interactive, Dallas

I’ll probably never know what they judges liked about our site. And let’s face it, those big national network websites have some cool features our site does not. But I can name a few things we’ve got that are unique or cool or both:

Crash Reports: Missouri State Highway Patrol accident reports, updated 24/7.
Legislature.com: Live debate audio from the state legislature. Then we archive. We’ve got it back to 2002.

Supreme Court Arguments: Oral agurments (live & archived). I think we have nearly 500 arguments online.
Missouri Death Row: Ours has become the “official” site for Missouri.

Last time I checked, there were no other websites featuring this content. On the planet. At least not the way we do. Of course, there’s a lot we can do to improve our site but, for now, it’s nice to know someone appreciates the effort. The big award show is October 4th in NY. Gomer Goes to Manhatten in a Rented Tux.

Business (and life) is like an extended road trip

Posted on by

“…we believe that the core of our business is to transfer knowledge from people who have it to people who need it. Yes, we are in business to make money, but this is a kind of housekeeping, not the purpose of the business.

I like to compare business (or life for that matter) to an extended road trip. Say you want to travel America by the back roads. You need gas for your car, food and water for your body. Especially before heading across Death Valley or the Utah salt flats, you’d better be darn sure that you have enough gas in your tank. But you certainly don’t think of your trip as a tour of gas stations! What’s the real purpose behind what you do?”

— Tim O’Reilly on making money