Gjven the pace of news media, more news organizations are empahasizing or incorporating “Breaking News” in their programming and strategy. Good for them. The immediacy and intensity can encourage civic engagement. But challenges remain in the news, and indeed new ones arise with affinity for speed and immediacy.
For example…
I was reading a USA Today article, something I rarely do, and rather enjoying their new page layout. A aptly-sized red alert banner popped up over the top of the page, informing me of a red-hot breaking news story.
[Click]
But the zinger of a lede, flashy display and my craving for scoops were all sunk by this:
A screen-consuming ad for LOL videos. Not the best way to keep a news-junkie strung on. I ended up reading nothing and watching no LOL videos.
This entry was written by Andrew Hart, posted on February 8, 2013 at 7:18 pm.
The problem with following journalists on Twitter is that they post a lot of junk (not excluding myself). Wait, that is just a problem with media. But I was assured today that buried beneath all the mud, there be treasure. Treasure of undeniable value. Think Shark Week, all the time.
This is what I saw. Be it real or not, I enjoy sharks. In this case, Mr. Alex Burns was sharing this incredible specimen being tracked on a slick new site, Shark Tracker, “where you can observe the navigational pattern of sharks that have been tagged with satellite tracking technology all for the purpose of shark conservation.” Among the beauties they are tracking now is Mary Lee, the shark that came across my Timeline.
The fine people at OCEARCH (the non-profit behind Shark Tracker) have nice profile (16 ft., 3456 lbs., eyes of steel) of Mary Lee. Mary Lee’s vanity shots are wonderful. I would love to post them, but OCEARCH has staked their copyright claim, so instead I will urge you to go visit their site, and meet Mary Lee: http://bit.ly/N4w5QW http://www.OCEARCH.org
This entry was written by Andrew Hart, posted on January 29, 2013 at 5:45 am.
Last one here for this University of Chicago forum on gun control politics in America, and it’s a must watch. My friend had an incredibly rare opportunity to turn the tables on Mr. Tom Brokaw, to slang some poignant questions at the legendary newsman.
Hmm…Can’t tell which is the better reporter here.
This entry was written by Andrew Hart, posted on at 5:19 am.
As mentioned in the previous post, a good friend of mine was involved in a fascinating panel on the politics of “Guns in America” at the University of Chicago, presented by the Institute of Politics.
The panel featured
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City of Chicago
Rep. Steve Latourette, R-Ohio, Retired
Jens Ludwig, Director, UChicago Crime Lab
Steve Chapman, Columnist and Editorial Writer, Chicago Tribune
Moderated by: Tom Brokaw
The video from the panel is online, and well worth watching. This endorsement of a 80-minute video comes from a guy who seldom has the patience to even click on a link to a video. I also applaud the panel for by-and-large avoiding the cliche “serious debate.”
This entry was written by Andrew Hart, posted on January 22, 2013 at 5:14 am.
A good friend of mine was involved in the production of panel on gun politics at the University of Chicago. The panel was world class: Tom Brokaw, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former U.S. Rep. Steven LaTourette, columnist Steve Chapman, and University of Chicago Crime Lab Director Jens Ludwig. I cannot wait to hear the discussion, which should come out next week. For more info, visit the U of Chicago news site.
With social networks and cloud storage abundant, email often gets overlooked as a vulnerability to user privacy. Sadly, not even a tool as widespread as email (I have an email address of a bird) is exclusive to the user.
For this, we can credit The Stored Communications Act. The Act, originally written in 1986 (yes, the eighties), makes it legal for law enforcement to access data stored on servers longer than 180 days. Back in 1986, it was reasoned that most data would have been removed from servers by this point, but that is certainly not the case today. While you may have difficulty tracking down that email from a special someone from years ago, I am sure there are legions of goverment data sleuths who could do so.
If you would like to verify that email is being accessed or need some interactive-map fun, Google has a Transparency Report where you can track attempts of government bodies to access user data and other neat Internet things. google.com/transparencyreport.
This entry was written by Andrew Hart, posted on January 6, 2013 at 10:23 pm.
Citebite is a new tool to me, and it has quickly made it into my bookmarks toolbar. Citebite generates a link directly to selected text within a website. I have found it useful for sharing targeted content with others, as well as a means to highlight something I would like to recall.
The simple interface takes a chunk of text and the URL of the page containing the text and in return get a link that opens directly to your selection and highlights it.
Give it a go. Send poignant quotes to your colleagues, friends and yourself.
This entry was written by Andrew Hart, posted on October 14, 2012 at 5:16 pm.
Recently came across Wordnik, and have been growing more fond of it each day. Initially, it was a utility: looking up words, finding synonyms and the like. I discounted the romantic claim from Wordnik’s “About” page: “Wordnik is a new way to discover meaning.” I can now appreciate this.
Give Wordnik a word, and it will return definitions, examples, related words, lists, comments, images and audio. There is also a community (meh), a Word of the Day and random words. To boot, the site is well designed, making it enjoyable to browse. Thus, my brief synonym consult turns into a deep-dive exploration of language.
Kudos to you Wordnik, you have been bookmarked.
This entry was written by Andrew Hart, posted on September 15, 2012 at 4:55 am.
I highly recommend exploring Twitter’s advanced search capability. Doing so can help turn your overwhelming and sometimes nonsensical streams into manageable and strategic discovery tools. Explore the capabilities of Twitter’s interface, and for those seeking to strengthen their command of the feature, familiarize yourself with the syntax used. This guide from Twinitor shares a substantial list.
TEXT
twitter search : containing both “twitter” and “search”. This is the default operator.
“happy hour” containing the exact phrase “happy hour”.
love OR hate containing either “love” or “hate” (or both).
beer -root containing “beer” but not “root”.
#haiku containing the hashtag “haiku”.
from:alexiskold sent from person “alexiskold”.
to:techcrunch sent to person “techcrunch”.
@mashable referencing person “mashable”.
“happy hour” near:”san francisco” containing the exact phrase “happy hour” and sent near “san francisco”.
near:NYC within:15mi sent within 15 miles of “NYC”.
[Click]
A screen-consuming ad for LOL videos. Not the best way to keep a news-junkie strung on. I ended up reading nothing and watching no LOL videos.
