Mom! Come quick! Kay’s on TV!

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Every four years, the national media spotlight burns hot and heavy on Iowa. Never more so than this year. And savvy network reporters frequently call on Radio Iowa News Director Kay Henderson for on-the-ground perspective and insight.

She was part of an 8 minute segment on MSNBC’s Hardball Wednesday night. The rest of the show pretty much sucked. Lance Armstrong’s non-answers to Chris Matthews questions made Lance sound like the politician he will someday be. But someone at Hardball had the good sense to bring Kay on, so we’ll forgive them the rest.

Radio Iowa is a Learfield network and I’ve worked with her for the past 20 years.

iPhone Confessions: 30 Day Update

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In a day or two it will have been 30 days since the iPhone went on sale (CNN reports sales have been disappointing). I popped off an email to Tom Piper, George Kopp and Dave Morris to see if they were still as pleased with their iPhones as they (Tom, George, Dave) were when they first got them. I haven’t heard back from Dave yet, but Tom and George filed reports… after the jump.

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The Loser Decision

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“It’s an objective fact that life often presents us with choices where the comfortable decision leads nowhere and one that threatens your ego has all the potential in the world. You need a healthy ego to endure the abuse that comes with any sort of success. The trick is to think of your ego as your goofy best friend who lends moral support but doesn’t know shit.”

— Scott Adams

Who’s reading (and who’s not)

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The Harry Potter buzz reminded me of an earlier post (exactly one year ago today) on American reading habits. That post linked to a bunch of stats on reading habits at ParaPublishing.com, including:

  • One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
  • 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
  • 42% of college graduates never read another book.
  • 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
  • 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
  • 57% of new books are not read to completion.
  • Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
  • Customers 55 and older account for more than one-third of all books bought.

If you can point us to more recent data, leave a comment. I want to believe these stats are wrong but have no reason to doubt them.

Sony Handycam vs. Casio EX-S770

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I’ve often wondered why my video doesn’t look as good as other clips I watch on YouTube. I chalked it up to equipment but learned this week that I have not been properly encoding my video before uploading to Google Video or YouTube. I’m hoping that will improve my stuff.

But today I decided to shoot a few minutes (3.5) with my Sony Handycam (DCR-TRV740) for comparison with the little Casio I’ve been using. I really expected to see a noticeable difference and while the sound was certainly better, I can’t say the video was that much improved.

It’s quite possible I still don’t have my video shit together in terms of encoding but I’ll eventually get that figured out. And I guess I’m pleased the the little pocket Casio stacks up so well against the larger Sony camcorder. All of which brings me back to my original fondness for the Casio: it fits in your pocket so it’s always with me.

But I’m going to make greater use of the Sony (with tripod and good mic). And if you know how to tweak video for YouTube, I’d love to talk.

Scott Adams: Bullfighting

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“I normally value the life of a human being higher than the life of an animal. But I think we’d all agree that the best animal is better than the worst human. Bulls usually mind their own business. All they want to do is eat, poop, and hump anything that moos. … On the other hoof, a matador is a guy who didn’t have enough people skills to be promoted to serial killer. Honestly, I don’t see how anyone can root for the human in this situation. I’m delighted when a bull puts a horn up a matador’s sphincter and trots around the arena wearing him like a rapper’s hat.”

More on Bull Schadenfreude.

20th anniversary of Radio Iowa

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Radio Iowa is one of several state radio news networks owned by the company I work for. The first newscast went up “on the bird” on July 1, 1987. So the network is twenty years + 3 weeks old. I dug out the “start-up” file and took a little stroll down memory lane.

In the newsroom that first day: News Director Dennis Sutterer, O. Kay Henderson and Todd Kimm (Kay and Todd are still there, grinding out the news and sports). We leased two tiny rooms from an advertising agency in Des Moines. One for a studio…one for a very snug newsroom.

L-R: Todd, Dennis, Kay

Planning for the network started in October of 1986. In February of 1987, we mailed our first packet of info to radio stations throughout the state:

“Radio Iowa will be Iowa’s first full-service, satellite delivered state news network. Headquartered in Des Moines, Radio Iowa’s three person news staff will cover the legislature and state government.

The enclosed packet includes brief descriptions of Radio Iowa programming; a schedule of feed times; affiliattion contract and clearance declaration; and a demo cassette.”

There was more, but you get the idea.

In March of ’87, Roger Gardner and I started in-station pitches. A few of the stops on that first swing: Bill Wells, KSO, Des Moines; Mark Mennick, WOC, Davenport; Kevin Kelly, WDBQ, Dubuque; Betty Baudler and Rich Fellingham, KASI, Ames; Larry Edwards, WMT, Cedar Rapids; Glenn Olsen, KQWC, Webster City; Mary Quass, KHAK, Cedar Rapids; John Carl, KCOB, Newton; Don Tool, KRNT, Des Moines.

I think we went on the air with 32 affiliates airing our reports.

Gobler Mercantile Company

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Gobler Mercantile CompanyMy make-over of “KBOA: The Early Years” is far from complete. But I had to share a snippet from one of the pages. A Tribute to a Country Store was written (and self-published) by Virginia B. Branch. It’s probably the only history of this small country store that got big. Not Wal-Mart big but something of a phenomenon where I grew up. Here’s the paragraph that caught my eye:

“About 1952 television had come to Gobler and each night, out back on the porch of the furniture department, one of these new inventions was displayed for benefit of the general public. It was here that most of Gobler’s citizens saw their first TV. A good-sized crowd was on hand every night. There was only one channel at the time so no disagreements could arise as to program choices.”

And now it’s Tivo, iPods, AppleTV and all the rest. From one channel… to thousands.

If you support the war in Iraq, why aren’t you over there?

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If you support the war in Iraq, why aren’t you over there? That’s the rude question Max Blumenthal asked some young Republicans:

“…when I asked these College Repulicans why they were not participating in this historical cause, they immediately went into contortions. Asthma. Bad knees from playing catcher in high school. “Medical reasons.” “It’s not for me.” These were some of the excuses College Republicans offered for why they could not fight them “over there.”

State Fair video contest

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David Brazeal (the Man Behind the Curtain at Learfield InterAction) points us to this entry in the Missouri State Fair Video Contest.

“Show us in 60 seconds or less how you are preparing for the State Fair by entering the “Preparing for the Big Show” video contest. Create your work-of-art, then post the video to YouTube with the tag “mostatefair”. The grand prize winner will have his or her video premiered before the Jason Aldean concert opening night of the Fair.”

When pros see stuff like this or the summer intern video I posted earlier… I’m sure all they see poorly shot/edited amateur video. When I see these, I think, “Damn, that’s clever!” Or funny. Or interesting. And I’m reminded that almost anyone can now play in this sandbox. I love that.