Living Above the Fold

Whenever news breaks, the first people on the ground, before reporters arrive, are ordinary folks with cameras. Citizen journalists have played an important role in getting us the first glimpses of developing news, from the London transit bombings to the Southeast Asian tsunami to the Virginia Tech massacre. With the advent of YouTube as a hub for video-sharing, there’s finally a venue outside the mainstream media where amateur journalists can distribute their videos to a wide audience.

While professional journalists have used the service to distribute documentaries, the nature of citizen reporting on YouTube still remains very time-and-location specific, more a matter of catching an event, something fleeting and out of context, than of telling the story behind it. Last week, YouTube announced Project: Report, a journalism contest that aims to change that.

Can Pulitzer Contest Boost Serious Journalism on YouTube? (PBS Mediashift, September 25, 2008)

Public-access television is a sometimes bizarre world where anyone with the time and inclination can appear on television. It’s where you find the rants of Colombus, Ohio, goth Damon Zex and the strange instructional videos of Let’s Paint TV, where Los Angeles host John Kilduff taught viewers how to paint and make blended drinks all while exercising on a treadmill. Then there’s my personal favorite What’s Your Problem?, the story of a man having a hard time eating a fish.

You’ll notice that all those videos are now available online.

In an age when it’s increasingly easy for amateur filmmakers, citizen journalists, and the general public to distribute videos online, is there any point in having a public-access cable channel?

Public Access TV Fights for Relevance in the YouTube Age (PBS Mediashift, December 17, 2008)

I’d been hearing a lot about how businesses could use Twitter to boost their branding and sales.  But I hadn’t heard much about how charities and non-profits could use the same technology to help raise funds for worthy causes.  On April 14, actor Hugh Jackman pledged to give AUS $100,000 to the charity that could best convince him, via Twitter, that it was deserving of the award.  He later announced that, unable to decide, he had chosen two winners to split the prize: Operation of Hope, a medical foundation that donates surgical procedures to children in developing countries born with facial deformities, and Charity: Water, a non-profit dedicated to providing safe drinking water in developing countries. That led me to look at some ways that non-profits could use Twitter to draw attention to world problems and help work toward solutions.

How Charities Harness Social Media to Raise Awareness, Money (PBS Mediashift, April 28, 2009)

I was inspired to investigate this topic after hearing Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland called on Irish Catholics to spread positive prayers via Twitter, texting or email.  It made me wonder about the other ways that people of faith might use social networking to reach out and proselytize.  It seems like the Internet, not being a push medium like TV, might not be the ideal way to reach people who aren’t already interested in a topic.  What I found was quite the opposite!

Religious Evangelists Spread Faith Through Social Media (PBS Mediashift, June 4, 2009)

Hey cats and kittens!

Remember that photo of Sarah Palin toting a rifle while posing in her bikini? In this article, I took a closer look at that (Oh ho ho, get it?) and other hoaxes and urban legends getting circulated as truth online. Check it out here:

How Forwarded Email Jokes, Hoaxes Evolved with Social Media (PBS Mediashift, January26, 2008)
And if that’s not enough to entice you, we’ll also tell you about that YouTube video that makes you gouge your own eyes out. Or does it!? Spooky!

It was only long after I completed this article that I realized the term I was groping for in describing that eye-gouging video was the motif of harmful sensation.  A good phrase to have in your verbal repoitore to impress people at parties.

Speaking of self-publishing, here’s another piece on the topic.  This one asks the essential preliminary question: Is self-publishing right for you?  How can you use it to propel your book to success!  Let’s see, shall we?

6 Ways that Authors Can Succeed by Self-Publishing Books (PBS Mediashift, October 24, 2008)

Okay, say that you’ve written the Great American Novel. And maybe you don’t want to go through the hassle and expense of finding a publisher — so you decide to publish it yourself.  What’s the best self-publish service for you?  I took a look at several options in this Mediashift piece.

5 Great Services for Self-Publishing Your Book (PBS Mediashift, March 2, 2009)

When I used to work as a copy editor for the Fairfield Daily Republic, we must have gotten at least a letter a week complaining about what was happening in the funny pages.  Sorry, people, but just because I work the copy desk at the local paper doesn’t mean that I have a direct line to Cathy Guisewite. I can’t pass along how upset you are about Cathy marrying Irving.  I recommend that you contact King Features or whoever is in charge of that.

In this article, I took a look at how newspaper cartoonists, like editorial cartoonist Daryl Cagle and “Sally Forth” scribe Francesco Marciuliano, are dealing with the brave new world of the Internet.  This article was also fun because I had a chance to speak with one of my favorite bloggers, Josh Frulinger of The Comics Curmudgeon.

Newspaper Cartoonists Engage Audience (Even Haters) Online (PBS Mediashift, March 30, 2009)

In retrospect, I don’t think that title really captures the essence of the article, but oh well. Hindsight, eh?

This is one of my favorite articles.  There are blogs dedicated to everything these days, but this is one blog subculture that I didn’t know much about going in.  I have a sneaking suspicion that some of you may find it interesting to learn about the thriving world of zombie blogging…

Zombie Bloggers Create Communal Horror Stories (PBS Mediashift, June 29, 2009)

If anyone reading this hasn’t yet seen it, go watch “Sita Sings the Blues.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfS2p1vFics) Nina Paley’s comic retelling of the Ramayana — spliced with episodes from her own life — is by turns hilarious and heart-breaking and always utterly charming. Paley spent six years and $200,000 creating “Sita Sings the Blues,” and it almost never saw the light of day due to copyright constraints. Paley took the unusual step of distributing her feature for free online. In my latest Mediashift article, I had a chance to talk to Paley about a new distribution plan that seems to be paying off:

Animated Film Takes Donations, DVD Sales to Pay Music Costs (PBS Mediashift, August 5, 2009 )