Citizen Brand

Newspapers on the computer? No way.

Thanks to Noah over at Fast Company for this prophetic look back to 1981 at a novel idea in the making. KRON-TV gets credit for the story.

Horse Race Journalism

As the famous line goes - "We have seen the enemy and it is us."  We want to believe that we are paying attention to presidential candidates and their stands on issues so we can make informed and competent decisions in the voting booth.  But we can't help ourselves.  We get sucked into the "horse race."  Who is ahead in the Zogby Poll today; the New York Times poll tomorrow; and, the Nickelodeon/ESPN/O Magazine Poll due out tomorrow.....

As Super Duper Tuesday approaches, the latest national polling shows Barack Obama surging and closing the gap on Hillary Clinton.  It shows John McCain building a lead over Mitt Romney and it seems clear that Mike Huckabee is submarining Romney by splitting the "conservative" vote.

Polls are instructive.  They do give us a sense of where things stand at that moment in time.  But then we need a new poll right away to keep the buzz going....is Obama still surging?  Is McCain really starting to pull away from Romney or will the next poll tell us something different.

And so it goes.  The media serves as the drug dealer on the corner feeding the horse race frenzy.  Read this piece by Jay Rosen over at Pressthink to go a little deeper on this subject.  As you will see in Jay's piece, the media hasn't faired so well in their horse race predictions this year which has further contributed to this once or twice in a century electoral experience.  Of course the media's lack of success has also caused us no shortage of roller coaster rides as they attempt to fix their errors.  Jay points to one ray of sunshine in this exchange between Tom Brokaw and Chris Matthews on the night of the New Hampshire Primary:

"“BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?

“MATTHEWS: Yes sir?

“BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.

“MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.”

Matthews was being the realist: Without who’s-going-to-win, “we” might as well stay home. Brokaw (now long retired as the face of the NBC brand) gave him an apt warning in response: “The people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding.” But he was speaking as if the media had a mind and could shift course."

A novel concept indeed.....let the voters vote and then report on how they voted.

Final Four Fun with Colbert

Thanks to my friend and fellow Jayhawk Rob Merritt for sending this along today.  Even the Colbert Report is picking the 'Hawks to go all the way!

Wanted: More ads like this one

I'm betting the Roanoke Times will have plenty of candidates to choose from for the job of executive editor because of this want ad.

Thanks to B.L. and Amy for pointing it out.

Chances are they will get a few resumes that might not be ones they are looking for but what does that matter.  Think of all the buzz being created about the newspaper.  Newspapers know they are in a fight for their survival right now.  I'm glad to see papers like the Times and the Lawrence Journal-World that understand how to live in the new age and still put a paper in the driveway every morning.

Aspiring editors should dust off their resumes and answer the Roanoke Times want ad.  I think that paper might be around for a while.