Author Archives: Steve Mays

Jon Stewart as value-added news aggregator

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I still try to watch one of the network newscasts each evening. But, increasingly, I rely on The Daily Show for the latest news.

Jon Stewart devoted over a third of one broadcast last week to Wolf Blitzer’s interview with Dick Cheney on CNN. Not only did Stewart go through numerous highlights from the interview, but the Daily Show staff gathered supporting video clips to provide context for the interview, using previous statements of position and policy to hold the veep accountable for the stuff he was saying now. You can watch the segment here if you missed it. [Eat the Press]

AgWired: Guerilla video

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I refer you, once again, to AgWired for a good example of how easy it is to add video to your blog or website. Chuck Zimmerman is covering the International Poultry and Feed Expos in Atlanta. His posts include –as always– still images and audio. But he is increasingly dropping in short video clips.

He’s just roaming around the floor in this clip but he could just as easily have stopped to interview an exhibitor or speaker. The operative word here is “easily.” He ran the video through Windows Movie Maker (free) for a quick edit and a title…uploaded to YouTube (free)…and then embedded their flash player in his post. Done.

Contrast that to dragging around a cameraman and sound guy (expensive) who have to get back to a studio for post-production (expensive: time and money). Then you gotta get it to the TV station or cable channel and blah, blah, blah. Chuck is carrying everything he needs on his back and if the expo hall is wifi’d…all he needs is a place to sit down.

Radio Iowa: The Blog, getting noticed

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Allbritton Communications launched The Politico today. It’s a free tabloid with an estimated circulation of 25,000 aimed at political junkies and Beltway insiders, and its companion website.

The Politico has garnered attention by snagging high-profile journalists to run the paper. Two of The Washington Post’s top political journalists — editor John Harris and reporter Jim VandeHei — left to become The Politico’s editor-in-chief and executive editor, respectively. Reporters have been lured from Time, U.S. News and World Report and the New York Daily News, among others.

Ben SmithOne of these superstars, Ben Smith, is blogging and includes our own Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa) in “Ben’s Favorite Blogs.” Just the latest high-profile link love for the Bloggerista.

In this 2003 post, I included Kay in my list of “Blogs I Would Read if They Existed.” And now it does. And I do.

More The Politico here and here.

Go away! We’re busy!

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If you email the Missouri State High School Activities Association, you are likely to get an automated response that includes the following:

“The MSHSAA staff will respond first to more traditional means of communication such as telephone calls, written correspondence and faxes. The MSHSAA office can be reached at (573) 875-4880 during regular office hours. As time permits, staff will reply to email messages that include the sender’s complete name, address and phone number.”

I don’t even know what to say about this. It speaks volumes about how the organization views its relationship with the public it serves (?). I am inspired to create a new category here at smays.com: Clueless and Proud. Say it loud!

AgWired blogging from Germany

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The Hardest Working Blogger in Show Business, Chuck Zimmerman, is in Berlin, covering the annual meeting of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists. IFAJ is “a non-political, professional association for agricultural journalists in 29 countries.” As far as I can determine (and Chuck is aware), he is the only person blogging this event.

You gotta figure that at least some of the attendees have laptops and digital cameras with them. Not one blogger in the bunch? Maybe there’s coverage of the event at the official IFAJ website…nope.

Old Media types can’t understand why I’m even asking? Bloggers can’t imagine attending something like this and not putting up a couple of posts.

Night Snow

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Looks like we have about 4 of our predicted 6 inches of snow and it’s still falling. But we have a nice fire going and Lucy and Ripley are snoozed out. Barb made a big pot of chilli and all is right with the world.

Where we live there’s no traffic sounds or city lights and nights like this are peaceful and beautiful. I couldn’t resist sharing a minute with you. If you listen closely you can hear the wind chimes just a couple of feet from where I was standing.

Chris Pirillo: “Apple gets the consumer”

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“My brother Adam isn’t a geek – and he’s never written to me about any other device (from Apple or any other manufacturer). It’s not even out yet and I already hate the iPhone… largely because someone else didn’t make it four years ago. Seriously. Apple gets the consumer in ways that no other company ever will. It makes my new Smartphone seem so… ancient.”

Matt Taibbi: The argument for more troops

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“The argument for more troops assumes that the troops we have there already are actively engaged in making Iraq secure, only there aren’t enough of them. What I saw was that our troops were mostly engaged in keeping themselves secure — and even that was a very tough job. The Iraq war has gone so wrong that it is no longer an occupation, no longer even a security mission. It’s just a huge mass of isolated soldiers running in place in a walled-off FOB (Forward Operating Base) archipelago, trying not to get shot or blown up and occasionally firing back at an enemy over the wall they can’t see. It’s lunacy. Adding more guys to it just means more lunacy. But our government has a high tolerance for that sort of thing, and I wouldn’t bet on it ending anytime soon.”

Mr. and Mrs. Edwards court bloggers

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Radio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson chatted with Mrs. John Edwards this afternoon about –among other things I imaging– blogging. Here’s a couple of excerpts from her post/transcription:

“It’s just a great medium and I’m really glad to have the opportunity to speak without having somebody say what I meant to say, you know, which happens whenever there’s a reporter between you — or even, honestly, your own press people — between you and the people you’re trying to get to listen to what you have to say.”

“Here’s what the Internet has to offer. It is a direct medium between people. There is no filter. There is no intervention and that is unparalelled. If you think back about the way we used to communicate in a democracy centuries ago where people stood in the town square, handing out pamphlets with their opinions on them — isn’t this the closest we’ve really come to that again? We’ve returned to that which is what we were based on, where people can stand on their little corner of the Internet, handing out their opinions to people who are willing to listen to them.”

The Obama Channel

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Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and potential 2008 presidential candidate, inked a deal recently to coordinate his Internet video campaign through Brightcove. Obama posted a video Tuesday announcing he’s forming an exploratory committee for the 2008 election. Brightcove will provide ongoing publication of campaign videos, creation of an Obama channel, and a syndication function that will allow bloggers and Web sites to publish campaign clips.

Brightcove looks, on the surface, similar to YouTube. But it’s very different, in that YouTube is designed for consumers to share videos with each other, while Brightcove is designed to allow businesses to publish videos to the Web.

Forget the politics for a moment… think of the implications of millions of people using their blogs to propagate the messages of their favorite candidates. We might live to see a day when it doesn’t take bazillion dollars to run for office.