“Digital outlets serve as the main source of news for the majority of those under 35, including 64% of those between the ages of 18 and 24. Meanwhile, TV still reigns supreme for 51% of those over 55.” — Business Insider
Category Archives: Media & Culture
Before magnetic recording tape
Reply
I’m not sure I’ve shared this photo of my old man. I’m blessed with a lot of great pics. It’s clear from this one how much he enjoys what he’s doing. Note the disc on the turntable in the foreground: just one track cut into the center of the disc. Probably a commercial. You can see more of these to the right of the control board. This is before magnetic tape and they “cut” these discs in the adjacent studio. If you fucked up while cutting, you put a piece of cellophane tape over that track and cut another one. I can’t even imagine trying find and cue these while doing a live shift. But the alternative was reading everything live. That would get old fast, for the announcer and the listener. Must have been an exciting time.
“Texas Ed” Pinner (WSLM)
I have a lot of photos of radio folk but this might be my favorite. “Texas Ed” Pinner, WSLM, Salem, IN. There’s all this ancient tech jammed into every corner. Reel-to-reel deck; Fidelipac carts; CD players (alas, I don’t see any turntables) and propped up in front of the controls… almost too small to see… an early iPod. Texas Slip is playing the hits from his iPod. Sigh. (Photo by Mike Cady)
“Notification gratification”
“Social media was serving, at least for me, as a sponge that wicks up any stray attention—and with it, time—and then keeps drawing more of both until you consciously break away from it. And of course it does — unlike reading, working, physical activity, or real-life socializing, social media is an activity that takes no effort. It doesn’t require any confidence, resolve, or intention, and doesn’t entail any risk.”
The only social media apps on my phone were Google+ and tumblr, with the former getting the lion’s share of attention. Both gone now. I can still check in but I have to be “intentional” about it, as David Cain says in his thoughtful post. Sit down. Open up the MacBook. And a browser. He said the mindless scrolling was eating up 45 minutes to an hour a day. Easy to believe.
Rotary dial phone
Is it getting harder to write good spam?
I never look at the email Gmail flags as spam. I just delete it, or let Gmail delete it. If some non-spam email gets tossed, no big deal. But this morning a subject line caught my eye. “Stop Sending Me Your Photos!”
This struck me as mildly clever. Someone is sending a stranger my photos? Gadzooks! — or — Did I mistakenly send photos to wrong person?! — or — I better let Jackie know it wasn’t me sending her photos.
I don’t know why it is so hard for some people to ignore ALL email from strangers? Do such come-ons tap into some latent loneliness?
It occurs to me there are people whose job it is to craft email messages and subject lines that will entice recipients to open. I’d love to get half a dozen of those folks in a room for a discussion. How’d they get into that line of work? Where do you get your best ideas? Can you always spot spam?
Portable cassette recorders
Came across this old photo (circa 1988) today and was — once again — struck by the gear we used. This is Lisa Wolfe, a reporter for The Missourinet.
The Radio Shack recorder is jacked into the Shure mixer which is wired into the big cart deck and the phone. So a reporter recorded audio from the phone (with a push-to-talk button in the hand piece); they then dubbed the audio bits they wanted to carts which they carried into the studio for newscasts. When they went into the field they unplugged the cassette recorder.
There were better recorders available but they were all much more expensive than the Radio Shack model which was damn near disposable. The problem was the buttons. Using the recorders as the did (endlessly starting, stopping, fast-forwarding, rewinding) trashed the buttons in no time.
The early SuperScopes (by Marantz) were good but every time they came out with a new model with more features, the buttons got flimsier and flimsier. And the recorders got more and more expensive. And they were nearly impossible to repair. So… Radio Shack.
Thinking back on those days, it occurs to me the cassette recorder was — in some ways — the laptop computer of that day. In the sense that it was our main tool for creating the content of the day (for us): audio.
Of course you needed a radio station or (in our case) a network of radio stations. But we sort of took that for granted.
Roger Ailes Was One of the Worst Americans Ever
From Matt Taibbi’s beautiful tribute to the founder of Fox news.
“Ailes made this the hate-filled, moronic country it is today. We are a paranoid, untrusting, book-dumb and bilious people whose chief source of recreation is slinging insults and threats at each other online, and we’re that way in large part because of the hyper-divisive media environment he discovered.”
TMZ: “Ailes fell at his Florida home 8 days ago and hit his head. We’re told Ailes fell unconscious and his condition went downhill. Our sources say he was put into an induced coma and died Thursday morning.”
Interviews
This is a little housekeeping post. A list of people with whom I have done interviews. A search by name should take you to these. This link will pull them all up.
2024-2014
- Wes Fewell’s Club Juana (2024)
- Wes Scott’s Speed Wagon (2024)
- Ron Bandelier (2019)
- Shawn Quinn: Keeping the ball in play (2019)
- Michael Mistler: Wind Sculptures (2018)
- Landis Duffett – Teaching Chinese in high school (2018)
- Ash Furrow – Mastodon (2017)
- Tom Boman – Learfield Sports (2017)
- Allen Hammock – Straylight (2017)
- David Brazeal – RepublicTigerSports.com (2017)
- David Gerstmann – Beginning of WireReady (2017)
- Gaylon Watson – KBOA (2014)
- Bob Priddy – His career at Learfield (2014)
2010-2009
- Jay Parks – Truck Drummer
- Keith Povall – UK buddy (2010)
- Matthew Howard – Photography (2009)
- Tony Messenger – Covering state capitol (2009)
- Tessie Hubbard – “Panty Mython” (2009)
- Clarence Lee Sherrill – Concrete Lawn Art (2009
- Paul Roe – British Ink (tattoos) (2009)
- Tim Robyn – State of Missouri websites (2009)
- Joe Bankhead – KBOA (interview by Jeff Wheeler) (2009)
- Jonathan Brownfield – Sports Photography (2009)
2008-2003
- Jason Rogers – Fez-O-Rama (2008)
- Mike Spooner – Animation (2008)
- Dave Shepherd – Radio (2007)
- Dan Shelley – WCBS-TV (2006)
- Ben Brogdon – Brushes with Near Greatness (2006)
- Dan Arnall – Journalism (2006)
- Kevin O’Keefe – Lawyer Blogs (2006)
- Dan Shelley – Radio/Journalism (2005)
- Mike McKean – Journalism (2005)
- Mary Quass – Radio (2003)