Now I haz an Audioboo too, Ho, Ho, Ho…
So I have never quite been able to throw down with the Apple crowd. I love new toys and i’ll admit that The Church of Steve has design down and interface right, but no flash?
We all know the issues that divide, that’s ok. I’m not saying it’s bad, i’m saying i’m not sold …yet.
Sooooo, I nabbed myself an Android phone, an HTC Hero. I like it, a lot. It has a lot of the fun I might be jealous of when I see my friends stroking their iphones, but it also has a slightly freer apps market (for now at least) and *that* is something I really do appreciate.
So, I have things and you (iphone pipl) have things, and I want some of your things too…that’s ok. Great coders are making some really cool stuff that apes, changes or improves upon similar iphone apps. One thing I really rather wanted to play with more was Audioboo.
From it’s first appearance, it has been something I rather liked. It’s plain and simple, it works and as an audiophile – Holy Cow! It sounds good!
I’ve played with a few phone in type audio apps and the sound quality was not enough for me to want to try again. (Thanks to those who got back to me on that issue and said something to the effect of – it’s your own crappy phone…my phone was not too bad thanks.)
So – Audioboo for Android – happy me!
Just need to think of a few more things to say really and find a better way of pasting that on here…
JK
Strange places and unfamiliar faces
It seems that work and my own will take me to new places to meet people I don’t know. It’s a gamble sometimes as I am usually on a flight alone heading into the company of a new friend or an old acquaintance I have never met face to face. A life online can do that. I have also travelled with people I know well and have known over time to less appealing outcomes.
The connections around the world that I make on a daily basis bring me close to people. Late night conversations on IM clients have shown me the personal lives of people thousands of miles away, their hopes, fears, current hang ups, love lives, work issues and surroundings. It’s an odd vision where so much is complete and yet the whole image can be a bit like tunnel vision. I love their company online, it’s like having visitors in for coffee, checking up, catching up.
On a recent work trip to a country I have only read about, I used social networks to get in touch with people on the ground. Usually there’s a work affiliated contact to put you in touch, but in writing about things online, it made sense to leave that method alone.
For work this was fine, but in fact the company I found was more valuable to me as these contacts became friends. One of the bloggers I met on my journey took time out to have some lunch with me. He wrote a post (that I cannot find yet and will link to when I do) about knowing people. He mentioned that we chatted like friends even on the first meeting while he barely knows his own neighbours.
The societal split in this way has been covered, how our communities exist not necessarily in the physical and traditional sense, but who do you call out for now when you need help? This used to be remarked upon as a sad disassociation, but I’m more inclined to think that it’s just different rather than wrong.
Support networks and friends online can provide a great deal when you need it most and of course when you don’t but you can maybe help someone else. Only trouble is, if a disconnect comes, do you have their numbers? Can you find them without being online?
I hope to keep travelling this way, my network has spread, it grows and changes as my proximity to others online ebbs and flows. I enjoy the company of those I cannot see and I miss those I met along the way and cannot share coffee with in person. It also means that if I can spend even odd moments in digital company just to pass the time, I have a richer set of options and an amazing array of cultures to explore and crack bad jokes with.
Web wanderings…
...to India?
A bit late to the party as ever, I read Martha Gellhorn’s ‘Travels with Myself and Another’ a while back. She was a woman with brass balls and apparently little in the way of fear. Another way of describing the former wife of Ernest Hemingway might be ‘mad as a box of angry snakes’.
She had one hell of a can-do attitude and could write in a way that few others could replicate for strength and clarity. She’s an icon in my portfolio of people i’d want to be like if I ever grow up.
So what of a modern Martha? I’m writing this on my jack-jones in a hotel room in Bangalore. I’d be an idiot to say it’s anything like her travels or that I can manage her style and nuance in reporting, but I can at least try to pick up a little of her spirit.
‘Travels with Myself and My laptop’ in a contrasted electronic city? I’m not going to brave mosquitoes and dengue fever of course (the bugs here are large, I’m certain had I been close enough to the cockroach I saw earlier, it might have asked me for a light). But there’s something to be said for planning to meet new people and getting out to strange places armed with bottled water and a vague sense of direction for a tale or three.
My visions of Martha, drinking with locals and writing in a notebook are romantic past ideas of journalists in colonies or explorers taking notes. Calling in stories over a wire from hot countries in a fever best managed with a cold Gin and Tonic. It’s not like that now of course and certainly not where I am.
I met with two tech locals who were plugged into their Blackberries chatting with friends in New York. It can never be so adventurous, but it can be safer and everyone seems a lot closer. There are still issues to cover, but maybe faster and in colour.
I’d have been afraid to follow any of Martha’s adventures, her marriage included! But today using digital means I rarely alone, even when I am miles away surrounded by different sights, smells and sounds. I wonder if that would have been challenge enough for my heroine?
JK
Far away, so close
A couple of things happened on the road in America. I guess life has a way of showing you things through odd timing that way.
Throughout the trip, blogging and uploading, I was accessing my email where possible to keep tabs on things at home in the UK and home in Australia. My Aunt has been fighting cancer, my Mum went out to Oz to be there with her through the hard times and the better moments.
I had a birthday early in the trip and felt sort of old. It was a sort of “nothingy” birthday one you don’t mind being away for . I’ve never been particularly good at parties. A birthday like that makes you feel grown up. The pink parties and candles are long gone and you get on with things. Maybe you tick a different box on forms, that’s all.
Shortly afterward, I got an email about home. My Dad wrote to let me know that my aunt was heading into morphine territory. The end was getting close. I called my Mum.
I sat in a motel room and listened to her voice cry across miles. In all my travels I’ve never felt quite so far away and still really close to her. I cried too, about being that close, about loss on the horizon and knowing that my Mum would be doing he best possible job of loving and being there. I hoped that she was not feeling too alone. She told me she was glad to hear my voice and I felt as though a million tiny shards of sparkling glass were passing through me.
I wrote to my Dad. I told him about the call and wondered if he was doing ok. All three of us on separate continents sharing the same grief. It felt as though my sense of home was spread around the world. I guess it really is people and not places.
A day or so later, the email came. My Aunt was gone. No more hospital, no more morphine, no more cancer to fight with. It made me feel not old or experienced at all. I’m too young to know much about losing people that close to me. Grief arrived as a rush of love and the feeling that there was nowhere to send it anymore. Gone.
I walked out of another motel room into blazing heat to call my Dad. I couldn’t find the right things to say. I talked about practical stuff. Around me, unfamiliar people, a strange car park and a place I did not know. We got in the car and I couldn’t say it.
I can’t seem to believe when it comes to religion, but that day was somewhat glorious. We had seen empty blue skies, but for that morning, perfect white wisps of cloud appeared creating beautiful shapes. As a child I imagined other people thought that a heaven would be in the clouds and that day I had some to look at. From time to time I cried a little bit, hot winds in through the open car window pushed them away and dried them on my cheeks. Miles and miles passed by.
Over the following days until the end of the trip, small pockets of grief turned up. I didn’t see the end, so I remember her from late night phone calls, laughing so much on my night shifts at work, during her days on he other side of the world. My Aunt never married, travelled the world and looked after my grandmother. She always had the wickedest sense of humour in the family and meant so much that I have some trouble processing that she is not around anymore to call. Grief is a selfish thing sometimes.
Hours of travelling overnight and I made it back home. Tired and plane weary, I was unpacking, making tea, sorting out laundry and post.
An envelope had arrived from Australia. I knew what it would be before I opened it. Life has an odd sense of timing when you come home to a birthday card from a dead loved one. Finally I had a moment to pour it all out and write some of this down. I talked to my Dad and we remembered how brilliant she is and that at least there was no suffering for her at the end. I still can’t find religion, but on her travels, I think she would have appreciated that bright day with all those clouds.
JK – I hate mawkish advice. But if you get a moment to tell people you love them, it’s probably a good idea.
BORK!BORK!BORK! – A recipe for disaster…
They came from Angela. Jemimah and LJ, just like you but sillier. Photo: QypeUK - Chris Osburn
INGREDIENTS
It’s two in the afternoon somewhere outside your stratosphere and LJ and Jemimah are hanging upside down in zero G laughing their asses off.
“Look! Look! Hair like a troll doll!” Jemimah buckles upward with tears of laughter. LJ’s eyes widen with recognition at the 90s dolls and she too soon keels over at the silliness.
“Where have the others gone again?” asks LJ once she has caught her breath.
“Off saving some place outta Betelgeuse…”
“Huh. How come they never take us with them?”
Jemimah smirks, trying to make her face even more like the tiny doll figures, “Dunno, Strider says we don’t take the job seriously enough and Laser boy says we’re unable to focus. Is there any food left?”
Our Lady of the Resistance, Anniemole. Saving the world, one meal at a time. Photo: Pixeldiva
Abruptly the two girls fall on their heads on the deck, swearing sharply. A tone chimes as the ship’s screen changes to show a woman peering in at them curiously. It’s Anniemole, head of the Earth’s Underground Transport system and their friend.
LJ grumbles, “Why did we route the phone through the anti-grav? Owww!”
“After Captain Crack caught us messing about last time impersonating an air balloon fest, we thought it might be better to be on the deck when visitors drop by,” huffed Jemimah.
“I won’t bother trying to translate what you’re up to,” says Anniemole briskly. “Where are the Lycras?”
The Lycras are the interstellar team of superheroes who travel between galaxies saving things heroically and shouting positive maxims. LJ and Jemimah work on their ship, Angela, as the tech support.
“They’re out,” says LJ.
“Saving something,” adds Jemimah, brightly.
Anniemole looks concerned. “That’s bad news. We’ve a situation on Earth that could do with some help…” She tails off in thought.
“We can do it!” LJ exclaims, “Can’t be that hard, I think we have spare Lycra somewhere around here, too.” Jemimah nods enthusiastically.
“I don’t think so,” Anniemole smiles sympathetically. “The human race’s participation in culinary preparation is under threat from cookerybots again. We’re two down on a crack team of competitive chefs and they’ll need some expertise.”
“No trouble,” says LJ proudly. “We cook all the time…and we can read up on anything else we need. We’re still a part of the crew of ‘Angela the hero ship’ you know.”
Jemimah nods unconvincingly.
Anniemole does not look sure but her time is short and she needs two people to join the fight. With reservations she relents, “Okay then. You two need to be in London, UK on Sunday morning ready to cook. The human race may depend on you, you could be our only hope. Be there on time and may the fork be with you.”
The screen buzzes and she disappears. LJ and Jemimah look at each other and grin. Research time.
Twenty minutes later, the girls are chewing on pencils, doodling on paper and frowning at the wide screen. A wikipedia screen is showing them results for the word “Chef”.
“Hmnnn”, says LJ “- this online Earth index is strange. Is that really a chef?”
“Let’s try another one of their databases.”
An old YouTube icon appears on the monitor and various video choices cascade down the screen. Jemimah waves at one of the options and a video opens up to show them some colour digital material. They exchange glances and wide grins as a slightly fuzzy man with a moustache and three fingers on each hand sings in a small kitchen.
“Irshdy birshdy biiiirshhh, coookey the chicken.” The man swings a cleaver wildly at what looks like a soft bird. “Bork!” he shouts and brings down the enormous knife.
“I don’t understand what he’s saying,” comments LJ.
“The label says Swedish Chef Muppet,” Jemimah is reading from the screen and taking notes. “Maybe Angela cannot translate foreign languages that old.”
“Angela, can you replicate that Chef Uniform for us?” asks LJ.
A soft voice over the tannoy replies, “Of course LJ, in sizes to fit you and Jemimah?”
“Yes please”
With a soft whirring, the replicator starts up a weave before white buttoned shirts and tall hats start to appear.
“Looks good,” nods LJ. “Let’s look up a recipe and get a map to London sorted.”
Just like the chefs on Earth. Photo: Chris Osburn, LJRich, QypeUK
METHOD
“It’s hard to believe all the people of Earth in kitchens had to wear these things,” LJ is fidgeting at a dark and curled false moustache that is tickling her nose.
“Maybe it’s a hygiene thing,” wonders Jemimah, wiggling her top lip around and trying not to inhale the stray fibers. LJ looks unsure.
Dressed like Muppets, the pair walk through the travel door and step from Angela into a grey London street behind the main shopping thoroughfare.
They’re at the Cookery School and today is the day where humanity gets to fight for its rights to the kitchen.
People are already gathering in the bright clean spaces. Curiously, none of them appear to be wearing tall hats or false moustaches. LJ and Jemimah look to each other and shrug, then grab hot caffienated
drinks and try their best to blend in as well as they can.
Borknotes. The masterplan. Written in code to look like a recipe. Photo:LJRich
Over the next hour, teams are formed into pairs who will each cook a three course meal. They are competing against each other, but most of all, they are working to impress the Aitkin8000 – a machine so
well-programmed to cook that it is waging (and almost winning) a campaign for all cookery to be automated rather than a pleasurable skill for any fleshy earthling to indulge in. The earth people around
LJ and Jemimah look downcast at this, steeling their resolve to find a way to impress this robot fiend.
WEIGHING UP
It’s not long before the kitchen space smells glorious and food bloggers and online funsters are creating great food. For a little while as they enjoy the task in hand, the participants forget to worry about what is in the balance for this competition. LJ and Jemimah are trying their best to come up with a plan to overthrow the robot and liberate chefs for humankind. Surprisingly they don’t appear to be taking it too seriously….
“Omnomnomnomnom!” LJ is gleefully spooning melted chocolate into her mouth, Jemimah is trying to balance a teaspoon on the end of her nose.
Their food is chilling and mostly prepared – probably not winning dishes – and they are certainly enjoying their time joining in. That is, until the judges arrive.
Culinary experts file into the kitchen and the general chatter and giggling falls away. LJ and Jemimah are still shouting “Chef! Yes Chef” when a dour, mechanised clanking echoes in from the doorway. The Aitkin8000 has arrived to serve its judgement.
The girls look at each other. “Know your enemy,” mutters Jemimah and goes about turning toast into breadcrumbs, trying to act natural.
The culinary chef-o-tron wheels around the kitchen. He looks human but the weight of his mechanised steps gives away the hardware within. Clicks and whirrs can he heard as he scans the food being prepared and asks questions. LJ is fielding his enquiries with a smile while Jemimah under cover of the sound of a blender checks the back of the droid for any obvious datapoints. Squinting at the back of his shirt she can see something under the fabric that doesnt look too human. A brief flash of light points to something distinctly mechanised. Behind his ear she can see an audio sensor too.
Returning with the breadcrumbs as the Aitkin8000 is distracted by a raspberry meringue dessert, she shares her observation with LJ. The game is on.
Presently a competition organiser shouts out the time and the pressure is on the chefs to plate up and finish their presentation. Time also for LJ and Jemimah to make their move.
Little did they realise what their fate would be if the Aitkin8000 had it's way with the winners... Photo: QypeUK
PRESENTATION TIME
The girls get their food plated up and make a fuss to cover their moves. LJ snatches up her phone and gets the bluetooth running – it’s a long shot that the Aitkin8000’s systems would be wide open, but stranger things have happened. She glances as the screen and reads that the winners have not only been chosen, but their fate will be sealed. As the top chefs for the day they will be sacrificed as an example. She gulps. Their next move looks to be more important with each passing second.
Jemimah has moved closer to the robochef, carefully dripping oil on the floor as she gets closer. She nods to LJ and steps behind the Aitkin8000, still nodding at her partner.
With panache and in a very convincing move, LJ manages to step and turn on the oil, crashing into the Aitkin8000 who recoils, not impressed by the flesh contact. As he steps backward into Jemimah, she
catches his shoulder, hitting the concealed button and holding her breath to see if her hunch was right.
The Aitkin8000 twitches and halts on the spot, by now the other cooks have stopped their work, waiting to see if the robot will produce his chop-o-matic limb fittings and reduce the hapless pair to slivers of
meat.
Plotting your downfall with a wink and a cheery grin! Beware Aitkin8000. Photo: Qype
A long pause is followed by an electronic voice coming from the robot.
His lips are not moving and his head lols over to one side. “Reboot in process”. LJ grins at Jemimah as she leans in toward the robot and whispers behind his ear.
“Reboot aborted. System shut down,” the electronic voice is continuing as raspberry coulis drips from suspended cutlery and everyone freezes.
“Aitkin8000 system, abort!” shouts the electronic voice. “Command error, system error, erase data files, commands incomplete.”
The robot is no longer able to reboot and its own commands no longer make sense – the Aitkin8000 is wiping itself, permanently. The droid’s limbs start to tremble and shake, its head twitching more violently.
“This doesn’t look good,” mutters LJ and Jemimah moves to watch the results. The tremors increase as the autochef takes on a startling physical fit. People are backing away. With a pop and crackle, smoke
appears to be rising from the robot’s eyes and nose. He starts to utter random words, “Reduction, human reduction, slice, saut-…”
Olive oil. Who knew? Photo: LJRich
Finally with a cry of “Moderate Oven!” the Aitkin8000 shudders to a halt.
“Disappointing,” Jemimah shakes her head. “I thought there would be an…” The Aitkin8000’s meat covering explodes covering the pair in a greasy substance, much to their general disgust.
LJ delicately runs a finger down her face and licks it. “Olive oil,” she confirms. “He was running on olive oil.” They look at each other and the mess they are in and laugh.
FOR THE WIN
After a large clean-up effort, the remnants of the Aitkin8000 are finally cleared away and the chefs celebrate their victory with a meal. The winners of the competition are announced and it’s time for LJ and Jemimah to return to Angela.
They port back to the ship, still wearing their smeary oil-covered chef whites.
Back on Angela, the Lycras have returned and are not pleased to find their vessel has been left unattended.
“Where the hell have you two been?” demands the Cryptoid angrily, “We can’t leave you here to look after a domestic ship?”
The Binary chimes in, “What the hell have you been doing? You’re disgusting.”
“What are we supposed to do? We have to go out and save worlds that you two have never even heard of and we cannot trust you to look after yourselves?” The Shadow Lady is not impressed either.
LJ and Jemimah try their best to butt into the bitchkreig to explain but it’s no use. Lycra egos are not to be trucked with.
“At least go and clean up. And you need to fix the food replicant, it just keeps producing chocolate and coffee,” mutters Cryptoid.
LJ and Jemimah look at each other. “Bork?” mutters LJ, Jemimah smirks and they head off to change and think of something even more repulsive than last time to program into the replicator.
Job done. Humanity in the kitchen saved - time to head back to Angela. Photo: LJRich
Hurrah! Thanks to the organisers and Qype for putting a fabulous day together. Thanks to everyone we met who made us feel comfortable in our facial hair. Thanks to all of the photographers whose photos feature in this story and for goodness sake – VOTE FOR TEAM BORK!BORK!BORK! – Isn’t saving the world enough for your vote?
Text Experiment
If only this keyboard could do this...would it be a valuable result for pages?
I’m very fond of the Raw Shark Texts and generally fiction that makes me think about non-fiction ideas. The hyperlinked excerpt above contains links to get the book yourself if you like. It’s worth it. I’ll try to jot something more coherent here about what I was trying to achieve and why. It took a lot longer than I thought and some of the links could be chosen better or smarter or differently.
All together now
All talk?
Sometimes it feels like wedding season for journalism and social media. I’ve been out with my dance card to a few unconference and large group meetings lately – it’s good to see people interested and interesting people. So what’s the point of getting out into the air and chatting? I’m sure there are many people who would see this as a jolly and for those who drink a nice piss up to boot.
Not quite. If media is social then sometimes getting physically social, putting faces to screen names and cross pollinating ideas is really important, even if we don’t answer the question du jour about the future/saving journalism. Anyone who has spent more than a few weeks online knows that it’s a place of avatars and written messages open to varied interpretation, boasting, jokes and chit chat, but all of these things can be held up to a certain extent online without really being challenged. If you have to look someone in the eye and repeat what you tweeted, that’s a different activity. A get together can spark new connections and longer conversations with less scope for misunderstanding – even if we often see the same faces in the crowd each time.
Three examples I’m bringing here from the odd tweetups and collectives are JEECamp09, Amplified and Media140. First and always, I thank the people who put these together, herding cats is a walk in the park in comparison with getting busy journos together and making them think. Kudos to you all.
So what was the end result here? For each of these I can only propose my personal reactions – each of us gets their own experience and I’m sure there will be opportunity to express otherwise. The three events had quite different flavours. Amplified I have written about before so though it’s valid I won’t repeat. It’s a great unconference for ideas and mixed disciplines. I ended up talking music and news and trust at one point and wondering at similar challenges. There’s a whole bunch of people working in so many different ways and taking very different steps that it’s hard not to come away with a new spin on your own ideas.
JEECamp09 seemed a more sombre affair to me. The opening talk drew a divide between mainstream media, those who have fallen in the cutbacks and changes for media and bloggers. It was not so nice to see a them and us proposition but it’s a matter of fact for many. The event was held in Birmingham, an old patch for my own work and I found it hard to see so many people struggling with an uncertain future. It’s good to get out of the capital though. JEECamp certainly shook me up for keeping an eye over regional mainstream media. I follow blogs from all over the world, but my MSM concerns had been London-centric and I now think that was a mistake.
The one thing missing from JEECamp09 was the mad forging ahead I had witnessed at Amped. People were certainly working hard and thinking through the bigger issues much more, but Amped seemed to celebrate running full steam into trying stuff rather than cursing the situation. I don’t think either are wrong by the way and of course it’s my perception which will be different to that of others.
Media140 I had some reservations about – it seemed a little woolly in being organised, but then it was put together with little time or personnel so now I see that it was indeed a class act to pull off in situation. Media140 was a journofest of familiar faces. I did wonder on arrival if it might be a bit like chatting to people at Tuttle about weekly updates ideas and projects. This did not turn out to be the case.
Apart from the middle aged white male fest panel – which was actually more entertaining than informative in the end, it brought about some consensus in what was happening. People on panels were asked (and frankly dealt brilliantly) with questions from the audience that would make a psychic quake. The fact that there was no answer to “Will this save news? What is the future of news?” does not mean that this gathering was not valuable. To the contrary, I came away with a broader sense of where we might be. It was never going to be a conclusion, but there is some comfort in discussing the triumphs and experiments of others. There was a surprising openness of thought for competing institutions that, although not always practical, did show a solidarity for trying to make things right. One point that stuck with me was being told that we are not taking large enough risks. It rattles about in my mind as something right, but identifying the big leap and acting on it is a tough one. What would the iPhone game changer be for journalism? It seems to be something that would really benefit from more positive gatherings within each media house, not complaining about the woes of the immediate past, but pushing doors and drawing up the more obvious problems in a clear light and using that base as a stepping stone to create something brilliant.
There – see? I’m all the inspiration when I have no idea what the answer is…ahem.
One great thing about these events is that in some way – even if the wifi is down or limited, you can attend remotely and participate from your desk, your home wherever if you have time, or read back on the highlights through blogs and online news outlets. It’s inclusive and with that many voices in the virtual room, surely we will find our way.
Beautiful soup
Paperless
So journalism as we know it is breaking and online is a hotbed of contradiction, experiments and half thought out games. But what if there were no existing rules?
The panic from big media houses and existing publishers is addictive. They’re closing down in small pockets of despair. People are losing their livelihoods – writers, cartoonists, columnists and printers. It’s a bit like the closing of a global mine. People are coping though – you are, I can see you are otherwise there would be carnage. It’s difficult and threatening and depressing, but there’s retraining and a whole truckload of new ideas to be tried. Though none of us look as though we’re going to get rich from it just now.
Those who have a little to spare are setting up their new ideas online. They are the middlemen and technologists providing fresh attempts to crack the nut. They mediate between big publishing houses that often eat up ideas or buy out successful applications – what’s a girl to do when she feels as though she’s wearing water wings in this tide?
Know what it is yet? Nope, me either.
Citizen reporters, big leviathan publishers, people who write blogs and take video or audio online, pod casters are still in the room and twitter dances about us in wisps and strings of short form update. Sometimes it’s a little like swimming (yeah, still with water wings – I’m not much of a swimmer) in primordial soup. It’s a bit yuk, slightly worrying at times and nutritious at others. No one knows which way to bet as to what animal will emerge to breathe on land, or if it will have the right number of legs. A leap should be made a risk taken, an unholy alliance and an experiment gone right, but I don’t know that combination, so never ask me. I can’t even swim.
Through this inspiring ebb and tide of mild data online, there was a question that reached out at the Media140 gathering recently. “What about the people who need news who are not online?” It was like a clear bell in a room full of people who had lost their memory. We’re failing those people as we mill about in online data. Someone must be dealing with the mess we turn our backs on and there’s still a lot of people who read carbon copy. They deserve a bit of quality for their loyalty don’t they? After all, it’s their coins that fill the coffers poured into online development.
I’m failing those people right now. Not that I expect they would be remotely bothered to read this, but they cannot. They cannot add their voice or opinion here, they cannot hear me scream or if magically I came up with a thought that was brilliant, that would not be available to them either. But would they want to? Can you imagine a paper subscription edition of blogs delivered to your door every morning? You could read it in the bath.
The arguments for and against a papery news are already known and have been hashed around endlessly, so I’ll not go into that here. But if the papers die and people are not online, where’s the news going to come from? TV? Radio? Should these areas be refined if the papers are disappearing?
Rather than shaping a comprehensive news outlet online with multi platform tricks, whiz-bang graphics and flashy-ass adverts, what if some of the principles we learned online were fed right back into paper – radically, with confidence. Paper reorganised with a column down the side telling you what other papers the writer reads? Lots of nice pictures printed beautifully with a way to find where all of those pictures came from?
OK – so that’s probably not really going to work, unless I can have 4D goggles now…can I? Now? No? OK. I wonder though, without the shackles of old media how different would our ideas be for presenting news media? Would they be different at all? Imagine a newspaper if you had never seen one but existed in a web only society and wanted to share the news with an offline audience? How would you try it?
Maybe contrail headlines one day…but I’d imagine that’s about as environmentally friendly as cutting down trees and … oh.
Bloggers, journalists (and not versus)
Similar but different
This is not and will never be the complete picture but it is a round up of thoughts at the moment on bloggers and journalists.
I like working with bloggers. I do so daily in many ways. I am a journalist, I work in mainstream media for a living. One of my concerns is about the relationship between the two sets. (I know that this is a simplistic divide but appreciate those who can bear with me for a moment on these broad strokes.)
I’ve watched and participated in the development of blogging and journalism over the last few years. There seems there may always be a few in each group who will divide the two in negative proportions. The “them and us” argument annoys me though. I am not an excellent blogger – but I could name twenty without really thinking and about the same when it comes to journalists. No, we are not the same. Even those who straddle the to positions have a strength in one over the other usually.
So, journalists are not bloggers are not journalists. In many ways I envy the freedom a blogger has, it’s something that I do not get to indulge in too often or fully. But there are bloggers who really deserve a profile as high as any popular newspaper columnist but they do not see the sort of syndication that brings this recognition. There are positive and negative points to both roles and reams of talent and unwarranted glory in both areas.
However, the segregation of “them and us” seems like a pretty negative divide. I’ve heard it used one way to describe mainstream media as predatory and aloof and flipped over to condemn bloggers as ill-informed and badly written. Throwing insult doesn’t really get us anywhere. All too often, the web being a place where people can let you know very directly whether or not you are hitting the mark, the cream can rise to the top – or is that just notoriety?
I guess I am somewhat optimistic when I look at the way that bloggers and journalists could work together. I’m not saying they have to – but there’s some great work that can be done when we do. Journalists speaking the language of web-natives works for a start. There are many who could benefit from the odd hyperlink and track back. The transparency of links in writing online shows your working out (to use a math exam term) and that you have some respect for the source you are working with. It also provides a way for readers to decide for themselves the areas of your writing they want to pursue further – in other words – added value.
Another area that makes me foam with rage is not asking permission for material. I cannot remember the amount of times that I have been appalled to see pictures, quotes, tracts of writing taken from blogs. This comment might seem a little late in the day, but it does happen and I cannot see why any writer worth their salt would approve of plagiarism over original work. The lines between creative commons and copyright for online material seem somewhat confusing to some and the fluctuations around sharing and pilfering are going to be with us for time to come. On the other side of that picture, making your blog out of the writing of published journalists without context or even a reason for using it other than boosting your site – isn’t that a bit lame? Syndication without permission, payment or reason? The bloggers I know who constantly amaze me are worth a lot more than cut and paste press clippings and their writing more valuable and thoughtful.
I think linking and respect when writing any piece of journalism or blogging is paramount. Otherwise how can you really obtain trust and a fair reputation for your output?
The idea that bloggers are just waiting to be journalists and journos think they are better than bloggers should really become something of the past. I know that the people I am referencing online in this piece might be reading it and thinking “Well duh!” But I guess I’ve popped it up here for the one or two who might cruise past and think again about the value of what they create online.
Or tear me to shreds because I have skipped over finer points to the discussion with my big fat house painting brush. Tell me why I am wrong…
Prohibition
For reasons of health, I have not been able to drink much alcohol for quite a long time now. It’s sort of ok most of the time, as well, those who know me will know that I am almost always at work or in a state of general exhaustion anyway.
However. every now and again, I do manage to get out and stay up late with friends. I’m lucky enough to know many great and funny people. Sociable, entertaining and smart people who I love to hang out with. Great movers and shakers who can rip up a dance floor as well as any. My friends are also nice when they are drunk. This is pretty important when you are a non-drinker.
As we all know, being drunk can appear in so many forms – mean, violent, tearful, confused, funny, noisy, horny, irritating, sombre – take your pick. I like my friends drunk or sober and they don’t tend to fall into the bad categories.
Tonight (and this morning I guess) I had a think about what it was like when I could drink (there was more dancing) and what it is like now that I cannot. My friends are ace as ever, but on the way home trying to flag down a cab on Oxford St, I see the usual Saturday night show. Girls with their skirts up, guys getting rowdy, people throwing up and walking in the road. It didn’t seem too much like fun.
Drunk strangers are pretty freaky when you are sober and it’s late. You’re not sure if they are friend or foe. Will they hit on you or just hit you? I felt relieved when I got my cab and knew I would not be too drunk to give directions and had my wits about me just in case something threatening did happen.
But in my ears was a turn of phrase that makes me wonder. Someone during the course of the evening questioned whether I was fun, or having fun. I was having fun and I could listen to good friends mess around drunk or sober till the cows come home. But was I no longer fun? I wasn’t shouting or dancing or drinking alcohol. Does this pencil me into the boring collection of people you only want to take out when there’s nothing too exciting going on?
I get in less trouble now I cannot drink that’s for sure. I don’t take the wrong people home, wake up feeling green or break things when I’m on my way to falling into bed. But I also feel less capricious and in some ways less appealing as a fun friend out for night time adventure.
There must be a balance I guess. Maybe the key is more late nights without drinking and getting used to wreaking small havoc in a different way. I guess at least though I can still blog some bollocks, I still talk less of it in the queue for the night bus home.
If you could no longer drink would you feel less appealing socially?
Before you know it, you’re home.
A friend of mine will be returning home to the US from China very soon.
I only know her online from twitter and gtalk, we’ve never met. It’s funny how a life online often leads to people you barely know being the best company. Also, she’s great to talk to when the UK is asleep and China is awake.
She says that the time before she can finally come home is dragging (I have no doubt of course that she values her time in China, but you know what it’s like when you’re ready to be home again). It reminded me of something I think maybe my mother or even my grandmother told me about a long journey home.
You’ve probably had a long journey in front of you. Maybe you are walking home, or maybe you remember walking home from school when you are tired. Sometimes it is a different sort of journey – a long project, a thesis – take your pick.
The trick is to remember the other long journeys you have had and that feeling when you finally got there. Then to think about when you started the particular journey you are on or started anticipating what you are waiting for. You know what? Without getting too far into my own navel. Life’s pretty short and before you know it, you’re home.
The journey will become a memory, that hard work becomes experience and maybe after years and years it will be an oddity you barely remember.
When I do this, I can half picture walking home from my primary school back home. Feeling tired, looking for some shade. It reminds me that those days are long gone.
In the process of distracting myself with these things, before I know it – i’m home too. Whatever that may be.
Flat to rent – but not to you.
A seemingly perpetual past time in London is the search for a flat or the search for a flatmate.
I’ve been fairly lucky in my years here – a good run in Maida Vale and now fairly settled in the NW. Though there was about a year of slight madness in between.
Everyone has tales of people who come and see your home and those who show you theirs. It’s a freak show, no doubt about it! No, you cannot move in with your frogs. Are you seriously falling asleep on my couch during the intv? Yeah, I can tell you are a guy on the phone and yes we did advertise for a girl. No you can not move all 18 of your back packing mates in to kip on the floor “for a bit”.
So we’re at it again. Our emails are out there, we’re showing the room. We’ve agreed that it has to be someone the two remaining flatmates don’t already know – so we can avoid factions. My remaining flatmate is being a top bloke by fielding calls as I work all hours around the clock.
Essentially I guess it comes down to your own prejudices and ideals. But I’m hoping we’re normal enough and that whoever comes to live with us will also keep it together and not drink blood or burn my comic collection.
It’s hard to think about Mel leaving, she’s one hell of a force, unforgettable, funny and smart (not much to live up to for the new girl eh?) but I guess in a city that is so transient, we get used to people pretty quickly.
Let’s hope at this age going through this process gets easier.
Knowing what we do and what you do too.
After having a minor wrestle today with this blog. I realised that I need more practise to go with what I preach.
Don't be rude. Have a little think first.
It’s terribly simple to start mewling about who does what and whether they’re “doin it rong!” But try it yourself and maybe that will alter your perspective.
Blogging’s not hard, in fact at the moment, it does not even seem to be too fashionable. That’s ok though, it still intrigues enough of us.
One thing to remember though, through blogging, messing with soc networks, attending soc net events and a lot of the work I do as a paid job. Learning should be continual, change to be expected and well, knowing what you are asking others to do and understanding their role – that’s important too.
Unqualified mewling just won’t do. Though of course, I’m an optimist.
Do you know how to do the things you criticise?
Good to be back, hoping, doctor, to be more regular.
JK
Silly paranoid moments, aren’t they? Are they?
I have a confession.
Actually I probably have more than many, but not for today. My current confession is….
“I often log in online in the morning as I am getting ready for work. I turn my laptop around to face the wall when I dress.”
Looking back atcha...maybe
Yep. That’s true. I have a little tech paranoia. Don’t you?
There are probably more things that I do out of odd paranoia but they’re not to the front of my mind at the moment. I’m trained to curb my language in front of a microphone – even when it’s not turned on. I’m not too bad with running a spell checker and when writing for work I print and re-read documents – just in case.
Domestically, I laugh at myself for turning my laptop away. Mostly it’s because there is a little web cam embedded in the top of the screen frame. I rarely switch it on, but, hmnn. It’s not really cued up to stream anywhere, but, y’know. In fact the place I go to that take video content, always ask to connect to my camera too. But, y’know, it’s just sorta…It’s a bit silly isn’t it?
I guess it’s amusing as a habit until I forget someday and some freak accident occurs and the web has to deal with the horrors of my morning habits clothed or otherwise. Fingers crossed for my sanity and those that might one day be blinded by that awful image.
Are you oddly paranoid about your tech? Do you have rituals for your netbook or strange habits for your ‘phone? Add your weirdness here if you like. I’m fairly sure we’re not alone on this one.
Chancery Lane – Chapter One
At about 2.30am I wake from a dream about my enemies. Nothing too bad, just the normal anxiety of an on-line gamer. My exploits on-line in MMOG worlds have not been so great, mostly because I’ve been trying to cut back.
I remain still and listen to Helen breathing beside me. She’s spark out so I ease myself upright and look at her. Though she is dreaming, unconcerned, tired out from work, I always think I can see disapproval there. Is there a crease between her eyebrows? Is she frowning at me?
It was at her word that I tried to cut back on my time on-line, I was getting to bed five hours after she turned in, waking her up or just never in sync. I guess she’s right about that, we’re on a road to a sad end if I kept it up. Her unemployed internet gaming loser boyfriend.
In the next room I can feel my laptop calling to me. I’ve been taking these early cat-naps. Heading to bed at the same time as Helen, she seems really pleased about this and I like that. But I sleep during the day while she is at work too – she thinks I get up early to search for work on-line and I do help maintain her site sometimes. It’s only simple stuff that doesn’t take long.
I slowly slip out of bed, trying not to disturb the covers or make anything creak to wake her. Ten minutes later I’m on the couch with the news on silent and browsing the web following tid-bits from my feed. I tend to pick up interesting new tech and fun stuff. It’s important to at least keep abreast of what’s coming up, so when that job interview does happen, I’ll know what to talk about.
Looks like my feed is broken through. Running down the screen is a series of apparently broken links and non titles. I click on one to see what’s happening. <gamer 45> ??. 19.11
Turns out the link is not broken after all, but the page that comes up is not familiar to me. I can’t even work out what sort of wrong it might be.
I’m not a coder, I’m not even sure if this is code. It reminds me of a directory page, sort of. But I don’t know enough about it to really be interested for more than the average 5 seconds. I’m about to shut the page and find out what’s happening in the game when I notice there is a cursor on the page and it’s blinking. A bit like writing a document or waiting for me to write.
I mouse over to the cursor and hover. I wouldn’t know what to write. But then who would care if I changed something anyway? It’s not as though I can break anything there.I’m about the click in and maybe write another 23 when the line begins to write itself.
<gamer 45> What do you think?
I wait, wondering if maybe this is a sort of chat room I’ve opened and just not recognised the page. The cursor blinks on and I wait for the answer. I wonder who they are talking to. Nothing happens for a while and I rest my hands on the edge of the keyboard thinking of making some smart ass reply.
The cursor returns to the next line and writes something I didn’t expect.
<Chancery Lane> Is it all guesswork?
That’s my screen name, Chancery Lane. I use it everywhere, my gravitar, my network icon and screen names. Is someone impersonating me? I don’t know this network and I don’t know “gamer 45”. I’m a bit rattled and annoyed that someone might be using my name. I take a breath, about to mutter to myself when my Gtalk pings into life. It’s Neil – screen name Masterass, something he still clings to from older web chat room days.
Masterass: Bender! What are you doing? Your missus know you’re up?
Chancery Lane: Nope, she’s asleep.
Masterass: She’s going to peg you mate, she’s a smart cookie…
Chancery Lane: I know. 
Masterass: ..and then I shall move in and show her real lovinnnn!! 
Chancery Lane: Right. If she gets pissed at a dullard like me, she’s not going for care in the community like you mate.
I look at the web page I had open earlier and click into it. Having Neil on-line with me has lent me courage.
The second I click in and <Chancery Lane> pops up. The cursor waits for me to type.
Wait, so that’s me there now? I’m more than a little confused. I hit the space bar, thinking. Then the cursor returns to the next line.
<Alexandria> Welcome. Are you going to join in this game?
The cursor returns and winks at me expectantly. A game? Now that I can understand a little better. I’m about to ask how and get as far as my screen name when the screen changes again and an audio file starts to auto play. It’s the sound of a woman laughing. Giggling, playful but a bit mean. I feel tricked and not sure what to do next. I turn the speaker down and watch the file play out, repeating. When it’s ended it returns to the start and plays again. It’s annoying.
I open the window where I was chatting with Neil but his green dot is grey, he’s logged out. I stop the audio player and frown at the window. What game?
Concerned about the security of my feed, I feel weary. I’ll look at my firewall tomorrow maybe. I need to go back to bed so I can “wake up” with Helen. As with most late night activity on-line, this will all seem a bit silly in the morning.
Chancery Lane Chapter 2
The following afternoon I’m rolling out of bed. I was awake to see Helen off to work – all smiles and cups of tea – exhausted at 8am. Then I went straight back to bed. Now I am showered and propped back up in the living room with the laptop open infront of me.
There’s a security and virus checker working in the background – the odd adventures of last night stayed with me and I want to make sure that there are no holes in my system. It’s not as though I have much to give away, but I’d rather not be a bot centre. Sadly my little machine is not powerful enough to do much when the security system is running, so I’m waiting and watching a little daytime crappy TV.
The phone rings and it’s Neil. “Chance!”
“Hi Neil”
“Why the long face gamer? Where are you anyway? I thought we had some fun planned in the game?”
“I’m scanning the computer for…”
“You have a virus or something?”
“I don’t think so – something odd popped up last night but nothing really important I don’t think.”
“Ok, well when you are willing, we’ll go for some onscreen killing!” He’s giggling on the line. Most of the time I like the fact that the person who finds Neil’s jokes the funniest – is Neil. He calms down. “By the way Chance, what’s your new profile all about? I can’t say I don’t like it, but I can’t say I really understand it either. You found something new and interesting to play with? Something you want to share?”
“What new profile?”
“Very funny. I’ll catch you later anyways. The same place and the same time for me, you should come to the bar, bring the Missus.”
“What new profile?” Now I know I must have been phished or something. I sigh, Neil disconnects the phone and I look at the laptop. I don’t really want to start opening the pages that will show me the problem. I hate this sort of thing. I wonder what will be waiting for me there. I distract myself by wondering if Helen will consider coming out for a beer with Neil again. She never seemed to like him much. Sometimes, I can understand it.
Amped09 – Impressionism
Ok.I’ve sorted my socks, cleaned the flat, put more laundry on and phoned my Mum. I don’t have many other excuses so it must be time to get this down on screen.
Amplified 09 – February – Some notes.
I got to Tiger Tiger near Piccadilly early. I’m not particularly sure why – must be the urge to recce places. Nick (@loudmouthman) is headed our way – bringing wifi. Toby (@sleepydog) is sorting out people and white boards – he has the air of someone wringing their hands but he’s not actually doing so. Mike (@sizemore) has set up equipment and as usual seems calm. Jo Jacobs is her usual power house of control and a good person to look too – especially as I am at a spare end.
I sit for a moment and take stock. Soon, the mezzanine of this bar will be filled with people, some want to listen, some want to talk and most of us will make new connections that will either help us professionally, cement friendships or change the way we think about our lives on-line.
The theme of Amped is to further conversations, identify ideas and see where we can take them. Of course new people come to each event and some were at the last one, so it’ll be a combination of getting into the flow, catching up and pushing forward.
Around me the bar staff are doing their day work, burly barmen in black carry boxes of beer up and down stairs. Nearby I hear the tinkle of Windows followed by the shoop of Skype starting up. We’re hoping to be wired to the web and streaming conversations for people who cannot be here. But with so many bloggers in the room, I suspect it’s not an issue if we end up talking and writing later.
Nick arrives and immediately starts tunnelling around the the place armed with cables and boxes to bring us on-line. It doesn’t seem easy and there are some jarring moments between him and the staff. It’s time for some lunch before kick off – naturally my tuna melt arrives at about the same time as forty people and I’m sitting near the door armed with name stickers and Sharpies and a list. That makes me door-bitch for a while, but that’s OK. I get to see how many and who and I’m nosey like that.
Lots of people file in, looking about for those they know or asking where things happen. An unconference can be pretty confusing it seems. Many people want to be told where and how to do things others are content in milling about. “Unstructured structure” can be tricky but it makes a really good way for people to relax and talk.
I’m still at the door as Toby leads the crowd together for some ground rules. People are still trickling in. I skip the first round of conversations to eat my lunch and make more notes. Given I can barely read my handwriting at the best of times, I wonder what they will be worth when it comes to write up, but, y’know….
There are many topics on the agenda and a lot of people. Various factions split up into larger and smaller groups. So I take my camera for a walk around and an earwig. The future appears broadly though government, books, music, wimax, churches, networking and identity. It’s fascinating and I see people smile and nod, gesture, listen and participate.
People will talk.
We get a break and people file to the bar, making introductions, finishing conversations and starting new ones. I bump into Steve (@Solobasssteve) and Lo (@lobelia) and we start to chat and catchup. We’re dicing around the ideas of news and music – our separate fields. It’s time for a new session and we start our own.
There’s something nice about a big open conversation. We sit at a booth and Ben (@Ihatemornings) and Xander (@quitexander) join us. There are others and I’m crap with names – but safe to say it was a varied mix of creative, corporate, musical, media and tech. One of my favourite flavours.
It’s sort of predictable and surprising that all of these people come together with different disciplines and stumble over the same problems. We hash over issues of trust – Do you trust mainstream media and corporate brands on-line? Do you trust bloggers if you want to upload something from them? Do you trust things that are free? Will you take them if they are not so simple to acquire as that that is paid for? Are you confident using your mobile phone as a multi skilling tool?
There’s a lot of trust on the table – or not depending on which area we are mashing up.
Eventually the conversation comes to a natural stall. I’ve heard a lot of points of view – and due to my appalling habit of long hand note taking, I almost missed making one or two of my own…But it’s nice to have adults around the table and listen to others – otherwise, how the hell would I learn anything?
The afternoon spreads out a little, there are odd short sessions and I catch up with more people I know. Then I crash a chat to meet someone else who works not a million miles away from my desk, he has interesting views on open source data and we talk over work and new issues for presentation and collection for documentaries and news. I hope to hassle him more and certainly look forward to seeing the shape his work will take.
By the evening people are a bit fried. There are so many ideas and so many angles to think about. We are gathered to applaud those who put it all together and there’s a lot of grinning and tweeting going on. There’s also some food to be had locally and more silly banter that is way off agenda.
That’s a sweeping observation for you at least. Most people seemed to be pleased or inspired, some were still shaking their heads in disagreement, I only saw one person leave because, “Y’know, there’s no wifi…” I am guessing that one is not familiar with how talking face to face can really be useful. I enjoyed it – though this time I was dipping in for flavour rather than calling a straw poll or discussing my work. Which certainly made things more relaxed.
There’s more to add – but this is just one document. I also have a few things to bring up in bullet points, sharper areas for discussion or reminders for me to think about. But if you’re not bored now, you will be if I don’t stop. Another Amped chapter – soon.
A newspaper heart and an online mind
Newpapers, near you, for now.
I have chosen heroes through my life, some unconsciously, some for particular reasons, but there is a certain group of characters that I’ve looked up to, felt kin with, appreciated and loved to know about. Here’s a starter – Hunter Thompson, Peter Parker, Alan Johnston, Lois Lane, Studs Terkel, Anna Politkovskaya, Clark Kent, stop me when you see a theme here.
I’ve been a journalist for almost more than half my life now. It’s the best job in the world. For me anyway.
Reading around the web where a lot of outstanding journalism exists today, there’s a certain conversation that’s coming to the top. Find these people – Bill Thompson, Clay Shirky, Phil Bronstein, Alfred Hermida Read what they are saying about newspapers.
I’m none of those people in either of those lists, I only have my own experience rather than an authority really, but I wanted to clear my mind about what I’ve been reading, I came from newspapers and my history is unravelling behind me. Not just me of course.
I was fifteen when I started out as a nervous cub photographer, carrying a kit that weighed about as much as I did. Every evening before deadline I would submit hand printed images from the dark room to the formidable smoke filled news-floor where the editors and subs sat. It was one of the biggest rooms I ever entered around that time and full of knowledgeable, opinionated and formidable people. I loved it, I love it now.
I love newspapers, but I see that they should go. If you have read the newspaper commentaries about the future of these printed sheets that I listed above, then you won’t mind if I don’t go into the argument about what might happen or be surprised that I don’t know either. Though there’s a hell of a lot at stake when it comes to things like fact checking, quality and style and democracy in news making. It’s not the point I feel like making today.
My memory of newspapers is in opposition to my rational thinking about shutting down the presses and moving onto digital realms. Thinking that those memories are heading toward history wrenches my heart so I’ll share some.
Thinking about reading a newspaper. A real honest to goodness paper document, the one you need to concertina on the train. I love the smell of a fresh paper, the ink and that thin paper that almost dissolves in water. The mix of pages, some with colour and others with black and white images. The choice of a headline, the proof of editorial decisions, the splash photographs that take your breath away.
I remember knowing someone who never read newspapers, he said it was depressing. To me, the newspaper was something adults read when I was a kid and they found out about almost everything. I know that this is a fond nostalgic moment so don’t bother with the political angles and the choices that are made and yes, I know you cannot learn everything from a paper, lets move on.
We delivered the papers when I was at school. For some child slavery wage we lugged enormously heavy satchels of paper and dropped them through letterboxes. Rain or shine, dogs at the gate and nice old ladies with Kit-Kats if you were lucky. We’d return the neon bags to the newsagent with ink on our hands, earning a living felt really grown up.
By the side of our newsagents there was a stack of old papers that were not sold. They sat outside, mouldering in the rain, rotting in the sun. If you have smelled the aroma of rotting newspapers, you’ll know what I mean. It stinks but it was an old familiarity.
I left the paper for a bit to go to University. Every holiday though, I came back to it. It paid well and the work came naturally. So many people to meet, so many stories to find out about, so many photos of so many things. There’s no room in my head to try and remember half of the images published, all without a by-line. They didn’t seem to give them out to young photographers and well, I was mostly happy to see the morning papers illustrated with some of my work.
As as student, at the weekends I would go out on a Saturday and buy the Guardian or the Times, sometimes both if I had nothing to do. I’d make coffee and toast and go straight back to bed. The supplements would fall on the floor, the sports section discarded, the world news in my hand, toast hand frozen on the way to my mouth, pictures in my mind of different worlds, trying to imagine what it was like to be other people, trying to understand what was going on.
I associate the weekend papers with leisure, having time to read them properly, sharing them with boyfriends, reading out sections of this and that, talking about what was happening, speculating on why. I used to rip out the more spectacular photos from the magazines and pin them to the wall, not as some valiant effort to inspire me as a photographer but because they moved me, because I simply loved looking at them.
Eventually at the paper I was writing as well as taking photographs. A pale blue screen and some terrible ASCII character layout. I used to panic and take calls before deadline, wondering how the hell I was going to squeeze the words out so that they made sense. I take pride in what I write for work and have probably naïve and strong beliefs about truth and taking the time to create something interesting for an audience.
Eventually, before midnight I would have sent the words down a wire, the modem squealing away, then a call to the subs to make sure they had the words. No wonder I’ve never been a happy early riser.
I love that a Newspaper is “put to bed”. The eds and subs working late to create something that will be wiped clean and started again the next day. At night time the newspaper was born. If you’ve been in a newspaper building with presses, you’ll know the sound. It’s soft but audible and it shakes the building, it used to reassure me.
In the dark room with the photographers I learned from some people who will stay in my memory forever. Formidable and gruff sports photographers with their super-zoom lenses. Locals like me in and out on the beat to snatch an image here and there. We developed the pictures in a dark room which where then scanned by a picture desk. Hand printing is brilliant, creating something out of light – artistic, technical and before long, natural.
The chemicals smell yuk and the prints come out wet, you emerge blinking into the daylight of the office and double check what you think you can see in the orangey light of the darkroom. They smoked at the paper then too, pipes and cigarettes, right there near the chemicals, a bloody minded ability to ignore the no-smoking signs. Some of the people I learned from there made beautiful images, for small distribution local rags, but still put every effort into making it right. They taught me, some of them frightened the crap out of me with their foul language and rough attitude, but they worked so hard and took time to help me out. Many of them are dead now. Already.
So from photography, through news writing and subbing, onto radio and now on-line news. I have moved and changed and read and learned all along the way. I have to. The ideas of the newspapers dying destroys parts of me, makes me want to cry, I want them to still be there in their smoky rooms, swearing and creating great journalism. There are of course still so many excellent journalists that I look up to. I get lost in their writing just as much as I did on paper.
Someone I know said that the death of the newspaper is “never gonna happen”. I think that’s a predictable view. She was told this at college some years ago. Someone much smarter than me pointed out that our short term expectations are too high and the long term ones too low. No, the papers are not dead today, but they are heading into that familiar curve of change that starts slow and stealthy but soon speeds up and before you realise, something totally different has arrived and you’re already accustomed to it.
Shutting the presses seems necessary but my visceral nostalgia fights me on every level. Heart and mind.
I hope that the great writers and photographers of the old school that we are still lucky enough to have around us are either able to write on-line or willing to learn, their knowledge and experience is far too valuable to be lost in this revolution. I still want to be taken away by their stories and pictures. The young writers now and in the future have different arenas to play in, they’ll miss out on some of the camaraderie that I feel very lucky to have seen. Maybe it’s a good job that my other heroes include Bruce Sterling, Spider Jerusalem, William Gibson and more. At least whilst mourning the past a little, I can still be inspired by possible futures.
Ask without influence
People who know me (and those who don’t may get the gist), realise quickly that I ask a lot of questions. I guess I fall into interview mode quite often. Wise old owl and all that. The more I listen, the more I can learn.
I’ve noticed in a couple of incidents online that asking questions can also influence others in ways that are not always positive. The two that come to mind are associated with events and happenings that could affect a great many people.
Briefly:
I had a call about something happening around Oxford Circus in London – some police around and a siren heard, the person on the phone wondered if I was nearby and did I know what was happening?
- Nope. But of course I was curious – like any person living in the Capital, you know this will affect the Tube and probably your journeys that day. So I put a call out on Twitter…”Anyone at Oxford Circus?”
The first messages I got back were from people sounding somewhere between curious and mildly unnerved. More came in from people a little closer, there had been a fire engine and some cops – but essentially nothing to get fussed about.
I was unsure though. As I have been trained – if I cannot see it, I need a trusted source, otherwise I’d just be passing on irrelevant or worse information. Basically, adding to a panic.
Second case:
Much broader – swine flu. I know, were all bombarded with information so I’ll keep it short. There are cases cropping up, closer to home for me and others and there is also plenty of data online to help people learn the facts. But this doesn’t stop people having a panic or creating noise that is not so helpful. It’s been trending on twitter for days, so I guess we are all at it. So it’s giving me pause for thought when I ask questions of people online. I’d want to be sure that I am not adding to the brouhaha.
I had the privilege of talking to Marcel Salathe recently. He studies epidemics at Stanford. He also has a neat area of study ongoing asking people what they know and how they feel about swine flu. Then he can see if this feeling online can influence what is happening on the ground, in real life. If traditional meeting places are not great as a virus could be passed on, people communicate online about what is happening, swap links and pass on news. But they will also pass on things that are not news. It bears considering.
Thinking further, I wondered about what happens around various conflicts or even smaller cases of civil unrest. So many of us are wired, it’s so simple to send something and have that repeated or even corrupted and repeated.
I see a lot of propaganda emails, some with the sort of imagery no one should see from places of war and violence. Of course there must be a source and yes, these messages have origins that are terrible, but also they are cut and pasted into new scenarios, painting current events with a grim hue, falsely.
Marcel pointed out to me that calming misinformation is hard, but that people will also listen to some extent to the truth if it is put out there too. I wonder if human nature likes hyperbole though and that messages in the ether can be more damaging than the things we have to face in our real and fleshy lives.
What sort of data do you pass on?
If you want to take the Stanford survey, it’s here.
Bucky Rambles
No longer the final frontier
Bucky Rambles is a space boy. Eleven years old, he floats around with an upturned goldfish bowl on his head to keep in the air. By swishing his arms a little and bending at the waist, Bucky can sort of move around a little and look over at Earth. It’s where he comes from.
First bathing in the glow reflected on the planet, he smiles vaguely. But although he turns regularly to contemplate the spectacle, drawn to it’s wonder, he cannot stand to look at it for too long. Staring at the blue grey planet he gets a choking feeling. It’s something like the time his little baby sister Alice was born and the time when his first dog Poppy died. A happy sadness. It’s hard to feel it for too long and he looks away again into the stars.
So Bucky Rambles is a space boy and he’s living up to his stupendous name. His parents actually called him that when he was born, on Earth. The neighbours said his parents were crazy to give a boy a name like that, but they looked at each other over his head and shared a knowing smile. When Bucky was bigger, but still smaller than he is now, his father told him that he had an extraordinary name to remind him to do extraordinary things, to fly higher. Bucky became an astronaut, built his own Buckymobile and blasted off into the wide beyond so he could look back and share the world with everyone.
Out here with Bucky it’s spectacularly quiet. He knows the cameras are still on in his goldfish bowl and that everyone can hear him breathing softly in the nothing. Sending messages home. But Bucky is alone up there, the transmissions only go one way. He thinks about what to do when he gets home again, it’s a long journey to come. The most extraordinary thing he can think to do is not be alone. He’ll grow up and get married and have children with extraordinary names. He’ll get to know people, some he might know for years.
Bucky Rambles the space boy turns back to the earth and wants to go home.
(This story came about in a rush of images after Susanna misheard and created the most extraordinary name. Thanks Susanna!)
leave a comment