Author Archives: Steve Mays

Newsroom New Year’s resolutions for 2007

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A few nuggets from Lost Remote Managing Editor Steve Safran’s Newsroom New Year’s resolutions for 2007:

Start thinking of the web as more than our newscast online
Your website is a new channel, not just a new way of repurposing your news. If you were magically given a new TV channel, you wouldn’t populate it with your newscast over and over, would you? So why are you doing that online? … Think of the website as a new channel instead of a news site.

Integrate blogging into our newsroom
I know, change is painful. It’s additional work, yes. Not a ton, but some. Get over it. Workflows change.

Prepare my site for the 2008 elections
Now’s your chance. There will be a lot of money going into online advertising for the election. And you can get it. But only if you can make a compelling case that your site deserves it.

Never allow the words “added value” in my shop again
As long as you are training your advertisers that the web is added value, you are telling them it is NO value.

Existing newsies need to know the painful truth: we have to work on more platforms as part of our jobs now. If we don’t want to, that’s fine. Younger people who will work for less will be graduating this June. And next June. And the following June…

I started flogging this mule almost ten years ago. And I couldn’t fill a teacup with the progress I’ve made. But then, June is just around the corner.

Will your radio station be in every Ford?

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Ford Motor Company and Microsoft are expected to announce new “Windows Automotive” software called “Sync,” that will make it possible (easier?) to make hands-free cell phone calls and download music or receive email.

Chicken Little“If you can use your car to download music, you can also use it to stream music. And if you can stream music then you can do so from any number of music providers, not just your radio station.”

“What is YOUR group doing to be in front of this trend? What is YOUR group doing to be in every car in every way in 2007 and beyond? What content do you have that every Ford will want to stream?” — Mark Ramsey at Hear 2.0

If I were still a radio station program director, I might grab a program schedule and go through the day asking that question about each programming element. I think there will be lots of stuff folks in my local market will want to hear (news, weather, sports, etc) but they won’t want to make an appointment to listen to it. They’ll want to have it automatically downloaded to their cars so they can hear it when they want it. Podcasts.

Blog Wars

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I stumbled across this a couple of nights ago while mindlessly surfing the cable channels. A fascinating documentary on the Sundance Channel. In Blog Wars, filmmakers James Rogan and Phil Craig examine how online democratic activism is shaping important elections by focusing on the decisive Connecticut senate race and Ned Lamont’s challenge to incumbent Joe Lieberman.

“You can’t Swift-Boat Moqtada Al-Sadr”

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From a blog post titled “Iran’s Smackdown on Dubya,” by Matt Taibbi:

“And we also now can say for sure that the famed cold-blooded ruthlessness of the Bush-Rove-Cheney crew has been proven to be a crock. Those guys are ruthless when it comes to winning American elections. But when it comes to war and diplomacy, they’re a bunch of kittens. You can’t Swift-Boat Moqtada Al-Sadr. When it comes to real enemies, our leaders are useless.”

Taibbi also writes a column (“Road Rage”) for Rolling Stone. In the December 14, 2006 issue, he writes about John Ashcroft’s recent appearance at the Department of Justice for the unveiling of a new portrait of himself.

“Ashcroft sat beneath the infamous “Spirit of Justice” statue –the great lady with the naked stone tit that the religious nutcase Ashcroft once ordered clothed. Now she was unclothed again, her big boob-cone honking at the audience of tight-assed law enforcement officials, and Ashcroft could do nothing but sit under it with a nervous smile on his face.”

If you wonder “who cares?… you’re not alone. Taibbi was the only reporter there.

Bruce Sterling: The Future of the Internet

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“The future of the Internet lies not with institutions but with individuals. Low-cost connections will proliferate, encouraging creativity, collaboration, and telecommuting. The Net itself will recede into the background. If you’re under 21, you likely don’t care much about any supposed difference between virtual and actual, online and off. That’s because the two realms are penetrating each other; Google Earth mingles with Google Maps, and daily life shows up on Flickr. Like the real world, the Net will be increasingly international and decreasingly reliant on English.

“The Internet crawled out of a dank atomic fallout shelter to become the Mardi Gras parade of my generation. It was not a bolt of destructive lightning; it was the sun breaking through the clouds.” — Science fiction writer and futurist Bruce Sterling in his final column for Wired

This idea resonates with me because I have very little faith or confidence in institutions… and a lot of confidence in (some) individuals. And the Net allows me to find and connect with individuals in ways institutions can not.