I must apologize for not posting here more often, nor for doing the 2x-weekly video pieces I’d done with frightening regularity for so long.
I’ve been busy. Oy. But with good things, new things!
Please Check out the Election Links page on KTVZ.COM’s Decision 2008 site, when you have a sec. I’ll be adding more links before the ballots are mailed next Friday (and no doubt even more as the election approaches). A great way to find out what’s being said online about measures and candidates, well after the Voters’ Pamphlet is printed and the ads are done.
Also check out Prep Sports Nation, linked off our home page and High School Hits page. It’s sort of a Facebook/social network deal, for local prep sports athletes and fans. You can post videos and photos, connect with friends online, etc.
The other big chore of late has been arguing with/debating/defending our coverage of the 16-year-old now charged with murder in the samurai sword slaying of his mother’s boyfriend. Three stories, close to 250 comments, and it’s enlightening and frightening to see how many people claim to have knowledge and are laying it all out there, hang the consequences in terms of a fair trial etc. Fascinating, in its own way.
I’ve also spent quite a bit of time yakking at Newsvine, where the debate over vraious conspiracy theories, fueled by the economic crisis, is only topped by the shrill debate over the presidential race. At least THAT will be over soon;-)
So I’ll try to get back to some regularity, at least in online posting. Oh, by the way, if you feel tempted to pass along that e-mail which made the rounds in recent weeks on the ‘We Deserve it’ Dividend, please read this first. Ah, Snopes, worth every penny we don’t pay for it. Always a good place to check before passing on what sounds good, but you’re not quite sure.
Leave it to Barney 
Hey Barney, I left you a comment on KTVZ.com asking why KTVZ insists on sending reporters out for live shots in locations where NOTHING is happening (i.e. Fuller in front of the Bend police station’s sign reporting on the Kaleb Brown case). I don’t understand the point.
But then I forgot to look and see if you responded and now, of course, I can’t find that story.
Care to respond here?
Yeah, that’s one of the problems with the comment system – finding a specific one!I did respond, of course.
Anyway what I said was, basically, we do live shots of varying, um, quality because a live shot is the BEST way to show we’re out there, not just sitting around the station/newsroom and waiting for the phone to ring.
Sure, the scene of a wildfire or dramatic chase is a great live shot, but we’re limited topographically to line of site to one of the buttes where our microwave signal can hit. (Satellite is broader, but… dang expensive, and we don’t have that capability in Nielsen Market 192.)
And now, this time of year, the new challenge is … sunset. It gets darker earlier, and live shots are inherently tougher at night.