Headlines

Man, sometimes I just tweet and I'm all, "This is soooooo pointlesssss....what the heck am I even dooooiinnng..." but I just tweet anyways.

Until I hear about this FANTASTIC STORY OF HONORABLE CITIZENSHIP as reported by the AP:

"Portland Police have located Richard Lewis, 80, who had been missing since May 8.

Police this morning said one of the bureau's Twitter followers spotted Lewis and reported it to authorities. Lewis uses a walker and suffers from dementia."

That tweet either saved that man's life or ruined it by catching him trying to make his great escape to the beaches of California - that trip he'd been planning for years.

Either way, how 'bout that Twitter? I mean, when I heard that a Twitter user broke the story about the plane in the Hudson, that was cool, but finding an old man wandering through the streets, that's just plain honorable. This is, of course, one of the threads of new journalism.

I've commented before about how I see American professional print journalism changing to a more biased and commentary-driven industry/discipline, and I'll cite this as an example of the forwarding of this movement. With Twitter now out there, the "breaking" part of stories is becoming decreasingly important on the print side of things. If something major happens, it's more likely (especially at the local context) to be reported through social networking than the police or papers. What the papers do, which will always be important, is have the platform to broadcast such events to the widest possible audience. But this can be tricky. I hate seeing CNN read random no-name tweets during their "news hour." So far, the major papers have not stooped that low.

With the increase of citizen headline writing, the journalism industry has felt a sense of loss, often spiraling into a mid-life crisis, so to speak. This is why we see the Oregonian front-paging stories about clowns and the loss of random Hollywood Video stores.

The headlines are owned by the internet now. Therefore, I see the creative implementation of the reactions to those headlines both by the public and by the print journalist as a very valuable thing.

The journalist is not breaking the facts, but the reaction and involvement of citizens after the presentation of the facts. So, no longer is the story, "Thousands Gather for Tea Party Rally," but, "Tea Party Members Voice Vague, but Passionate Concerns." You've already seen headlines like the latter in your papers and online reading, but you would have never seen that in the early to mid 20th Century.
Everybody knows thousands of people were there, and they can find out what happened (someone spoke, bands played, banners were waved) perhaps throughout the article. But we need to know why it happened and what the implications are for the city.

With the abundance of information that is now available to us, the journalist must convince me why what you are writing about is important. Why is it important that 35 Hollywood Videos are closing (OTHER than the fact that I won't be able to rock that 3 DVDs for $20 deal)? Why should I know this clown's story?

That's why I see print being most successful at the weekly level. If the major papers turned their funding from printing thousands of copies every day to printing one or two quality products a week, maybe *gasp* people would read it. This way, the paper could support investigative journalism that takes more time - the story after the story. All of the weekly's would provide the most important stories of the week, setting the daily headlines straight and gauging the public reaction. Most importantly, I just think the product would be better quality. From design to layout to the quality of reporting and writing...it would just be better.

Thank You, Mr. President

This is why it is good to have an intellectual in the White House. While he's not signing a bill or stopping a war, this is certainly a moment of commendable leadership. Language matters, and the President's message to University of Michigan's class of 2010 is a word to the breakdown of appropriate political discourse in this country. One of my academic mentors has always said that the next generation must be taught two things that they are not being taught now: logic and rhetoric.

Thank you, Matt McG.

Street Roots: What Matters to the Vendors

Street Roots had this simple but touching photo slide show of their vendors holding a sign with the things that matter to them the most while on the streets. Go here to see all of the photos. It was cool to see the familiar faces, but also somewhat tragic.

The Latest in Unneeded Tasering

Yeah...wow. Here's a clip of the Phillies fan getting the taser from security guards at a game against the Cards. In watching this clip and the others that surround it, I find absolutely no reason for that guard to activate his taser. Is this how we're going to take care of these types of issues? He was running around on the field and you had like five guys running after him...and...you tase him. Hm.



Don't tase me bro!

Conquered Words: April

This is my monthly post where I tell you what I have read and (ever so briefly) what I thought about each work. If you haven't read these books, then read this blog and pretend that you did!

I'm starting to measure time on how often I write these. It seems like just yesterday I was writing March and all of a sudden I'm under April showers.

Well it didn't exactly rain books thanks to my solid block of schooling and the awesome work that is going on at church. However, the two books I did read were astounding. I'm starting to figure out that being in school generally keeps me away from the books I want to read. Sometimes, this is a good thing. Sometimes, I read ancient pieces of literature that I would never choose to read but are good for my general knowledge. But sometimes, sometimes I read astronomy text books and sometimes I read pretty ridiculous articles on globalization that repeat themselves over and over and over and over and over. And then sometimes I get really mad and I want to hit things. Until then, here's what I read:

1) The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. by Martin Luther King Jr. and Clayborne Carson (Grand Central Publishing, 416 pages). Do not give me another book on leadership, or how to lead, or what to do when this happens or that happens, or six ways for people to follow me, or ten ways to improving your leadership, blah blah blah....no no no, give me the testimony of a leader. Give me his stories when he was tried, give me his reflections on the decisions, the hurt of betrayal, or the pain of public failure. That, my friends, helps me. Martin Luther King Jr. was no saint, he has more sins than we speak of, but he led with ferocious certainty of success. Through the pages of this book, there is mostly the picture of a worried man. Worried that it wouldn't work, worried that his family was suffering, worried that people would hate him, worried that he would be history's joke. He wrestles with all of this and solves his worry by going alone in prayer. My favorite story he shares was when he was meeting with his core team in Birmingham, Alabama. They were all in a motel realizing they were out of money, and if Dr. King were to be arrested (as he planned to be the following day), they would not have bail for him and he would spend who knows how long in jail, unable to lead his movement. As he sat in this predicament, he had several voices of people he trusted saying different things. He was torn, worrying about the possible outcomes and seeing that he had sucked all his resources dry. Except for his God. He left the room and went into the adjacent bedroom telling his staff to give him 10 minutes alone. While in the room, he fell on his face and begged God for courage to do the right thing. After praying, he stood up, walked out, and told his people he would be arrested and trust that God would provide. He was arrested, and God did provide, but in more ways than MLK thought. After reading this book, it is clear to me that MLK's greatest leadership technique was his understanding of prayer, and his confidence in his vision.

2) Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (Random House, 349 pages). What to say about this novel? It won the National Book Award for a reason. The creativity of this narrative is so unworldly majestic yet so perfectly real. When I finished this book, I wanted to start it again. McCann has the ability to transcend the human language and at the same time communicate and formulate the most universal human stories, thoughts, and characters. This book tells countless stories of many different characters colliding at many different places and times, and McCann uses them to form some of the most inglorious tales, which is what makes this novel so dang glorious. The characters are raw, the stories seem so true, and the amount of emotion that is in each sentence is almost exhausting. This guy knows how to write, but I think more importantly, knows what it means to be human. I fully agree with Frank McCourt's take on this novel: "No novelist writing of New York has climbed higher, dived deeper." Somehow, McCann is able to transcend and descend at the same time, a rare feat in fiction. This is a symphony. Tons of different stories working in harmony together. Beyond all of this, McCann gives one of the best pictures of New York I've ever read. He paints New York as the most human of cities, universalizing it to reach all audiences.

Yikes. I guess that'll do, pig. That's what I read. Also, just to prepare you, I will probably have nothing to report for next month. I really don't see me being able to actually finish one book this month. I know, shocking. But I just don't see it happening. I give you this prophecy in order to warn you of the possibility of next month's CW being VERY LAAAAMMMMEEE.

Keep reading, friends.