Category: journalism

Is blogging endangered, like G.I. Joe’s?

Okay, there’s a provocative title, if only for those in the ‘Pac-NW’ who grew up with GI Joe’s being a regional success story.

I’ve been meaning to write a piece of basically, ‘Will Facebook and Twitter kill blogging?” But now, first let me tell my G.I. Joe’s story, now that the stupidly-truncated named ‘Joe’s’ will be fading into liquidation history.

My first real job was at the original G.I. Joe’s on North Vancouver Avenue, a long but not killer-for-a-teen walk from my mobile home… no, trailer home on Hayden Island (Jantzen Beach) in north Portland.

I worked the summer of ’72 in the original part of the original G.I. Joe’s – a quonset hut where, some 20 years earlier, Ed Orkney began selling military surplus. By the time I worked there, it had grown into your basic clothes, housewares, etc. kind of store, and I worked in housewares, toys and bikes. (Believe me, you would not want to ride any bike I ever put together, if you valued your life.)

I remember working up in the musty dusty storage area upstairs, lugging things up or taking them down, then being all hot and sweaty and asking a customer if I could help them, imagining them saying, ‘Yes, please stand downwind.”

I remember how IMPOSSIBLE it was to get the store’s linoleum floor un-slippery after a groovy lava lamp fell and smashed open, spreading that goo all over.

I remember using my terrible handwriting (thenand now) to fill out these forms to transfer items to other stores, or request them from other stores, and dealing with getting signs made for the little holders on the racks and shelves. It’s really my only retail experience – a few years later, I’d be neck-deeper in journalism, an intern at UPI almost my entire senior year at Pacific U. in Forest Grove.

I remember some nice bosses I had, without of course rememebering their names, and I also remember the discounts on merchandise, and for me, for albums. Buying Elton John’s ‘Honky Chateau’ that summer of 1972 (I was Class of ’73 at John Adams High, a story in itself some time.)

(And I remember, on one long walk to or from work one day, a sleazy driver pulling over and saying, in a wimpy-creepy voice I’ll always remember, “Would you like to have sex?” Uh, no. Ewww. Shiver…)

Anyway, flash-forward to now, and Joe’s (losing the G.I. was so … dumb.) goes bankrupt. It hadn’t been special or different enough – I hadn’t been in Bend’s for years, ever since the dumb move to wall off entrances to stores from the Mountain View Mall (now the all-outdoors, lifestyle (but only for Californians) shopping center called … what’s it called again?

So time passed Joe’s by, as folks went to the places where cheap prices rule, or trendier climes like REI beneath the smokestacks.

How does that relate to blogging? Let me try to connect the unconnectable, dot-wise;-)

I’m not blogging as much because I’m Facebooking and Twittering more, and there’s only so many hours in the day.

Blogging is a somewhat lonely enterprise. Facebook and Twitter are far more social – you are amongst friends, among followers, listening as well as talking, laughing and not just trying to make some “important point.”

No, blogging won’t go away. (Neither will journalism, though boy is it going through some rough times). But I feel I’ve neglected this little corner of cyberspace. As I have Newsvine, which I do enjoy but get tired of the yahoo factor at.

That reminds me – our comment system at KTVZ.COM now, much like Newsvine, is built around the news, pretty much (though folks could link to anything, I suppose.) But we’re probably going to finally launch the High Desert Forum at KTVZ.COM, using the latest version of KickApps, to allow folks to talk about things OTHER than the news (well, along with the news), to finally be able to post photos of the weather, wildfires, their kids Little League – whatever they’d like to share with a broader audience, primarily local.

See? Now when I post here, I have to try to catch up by cramming 4-5 things in the same blog entry. Maybe the 140-character limit of Twitter is the ultimate personfication of ol’ Bulletin editor Bob Chandler’s favorite reminders: “Omit needless words. Prune for vigor.” Followed by my usual whine to an editor back then, shoehorning so much to say into so little space: “But I don’t have time to write it that short!”

So I’ll stop there. Hope all’s well with all of you, and come looking for me or us (KTVZ has pages/feeds too) at Facebook or Twitter. I’ll be the one trying to find the Magic Answer to monetizing either/both for the station.

Wish me luck;-)

Being an assignment editor is… challenging

And thanks to a Facebook friend, I’ve found a lady in Denver, Colorado, Misty J., who writes a wonderful, fascinating blog about what the joys and tears and challenges of what this job is like – as well about Twitter, which KTVZ now has a feed on (we also have a new Facebook page! Come check us out;-)
http://assignmenteditorminds.blogspot.com/ is it, and if you’re all curious about what we face on the phones, in the newsroom etc., I highly recommend it.
I plan to be a regular commenter there. It might even inspire more blogging by yours truly.

Remembering Bob Buxton

Go ahead, say ‘who’? I’ll understand. He was a co-worker, and a friend, and … well, read on. I thought I owed it to the guy, having waxed poetic about Bill Friedman, a far better known local individual who died almost the same day, at almost the same age.

REMEMBERING BOB BUXTON:
By Barney Lerten
Nov. 16, 2008

Two men, Bend residents of similar age, passed away recently – within a day of each other, actually. I knew them both, in totally separate circumstances. Many knew Bill Friedman, and I was honored to speak Saturday at his public memorial service, a simple gathering in a scenic park by the river.

Far fewer knew Bob Buxton – and even many who knew him didn’t know much about him. I am not yet of the age where I read the obituaries/death notices daily – may I never grow that “old” in my sphere of interests – so it was in a touching, honest piece by Janet Stevens in Friday’s Bulletin that I learned of Bob’s passing, at age 71, a year shy of Friedman.

The brief death notice in the paper, when I looked it up, simply noted his passing and said “no services will be held.”

No surprise. Bob wouldn’t want the fuss.

Now that I think about it, Buxton and Friedman did look a bit alike – gray hair, big glasses (like mine), a gray beard by the point in life I knew them.

But while Bill was comfortable in the public arena, and had married twice (at least?), Bob was a single man throughout his life, who had his pleasures and joys (dune buggying at the coast, taking long trips in his rig, and as a philatelist – that’s stamp collection) but was definitely what many would call, by and large, a loner, even amid the often cacophonous din of The Bulletin’s newsroom.

Don’t get me wrong – Bob could be very friendly, and caring, and work hard at keeping up a friendly conversation. But nobody would call him a party animal. Many might use the term curmudgeon, or even a grump. But he was who he was, and he was great at editing the wire and building pages at The Bulletin. He was a stickler for getting it right, as am I. So in that sense, we’re kindred spirits.

I first got to know Bob as a gruff voice on the telephone during my years with United Press International’s Portland bureau, when he (or his boss, Bob Chandler) would call about a typo or error in the wire report, or to ask where the hell the daily midday stock list was (something we had to call someone to get and manually punch in back then, probably the last thing holding up putting the then-afternoon paper to bed and presses to roll).

I always tried to do as they asked as fast (and typically frenetic) as I could, never knowing that it would help lead me to my next job when, as the last UPI reporter in Portland and next-to-last in the state, a boss in LA I barely knew called me up in late 1990 to tell me I was “the best person (they’ve) ever had to lay off.”

Ouch.

Months later, unemployment about to expire, I called Bob at The Bulletin to see if there were any openings. (My wife’s folks lived in Bend, so that would be a plus). He said there was, put me on the phone with then-City Editor Jeff Nielson. Long story short: I came over for an interview, two women turned down the job for various reasons, and I was in (first beat: Redmond, Sisters, religion and agriculture if I’m not mistaken….)

Much like Janet’s piece in the paper, I must note that while we worked in the same building, and were friendly with each other, Bob and I didn’t become close friends. Not really of the same generation, but he could harrumph with the best of them, and joined in the sometimes tacky, frequently crude humor you find in just about any newsroom. (Later, after his retirement, we fellow Bulletin refugees would chuckle over an error or two in the paper, as if to say, that wouldn’t happen if we were there.)

In recent years, Bob had turned to me a few times for advice and assistance in the foreign (to him) world of personal computers. He wanted one primarily to go on eBay and bid on stamp collections. Unfortunately, I have just enough tech knowledge to be dangerous, and am a lousy teacher – too easily frustrated, especially when I couldn’t make things work.

Bob was fighting several health problems in recent years, but still managed to find things to chuckle about and enjoy – a good NASCAR race on TV, his cat Fred (a friendly gray fellow that I think was a Russian blue).

I tried not to feel sorry for Bob being alone – he had some friends, some mutual, some not. But I felt more than a bit guilty for not visiting or at least calling him up more often.

We did chat online – he learned to use instant messaging, and his screen name fit his dune buggy affection, as ‘DoonDood1.’ (Mine is ‘computingfool’ – will skip the story behind that this time, too much about me already.)

So anyway, Bob, glad you’re out of pain now. You’ll be missed by those who knew and appreciated your dry humor, your smile and your friendship. May your celestial travels put you behind the wheel of a really nice rig, hitting the heavenly coast, a great diner, a NASCAR track or wherever your heart takes you.

Hidden treats and tricky touchy topics

First of all, I just wrote a piece that I hope to share on-air – er, on-Web video – about the parts of KTVZ.COM that just don’t get the attention they deserve, because they’re not locally produced.

Of course, folks go to the Website for local news, but have you ever just happened to click on the part marked Lifestyle, off to the right in the Navigation links? Just the Halloween page alone has recipes, safety tips, videos on how to make great kids’ costumes without sewing – the works! And there’s tons of content on every topic imaginable, from technology and money to health, family life etc. Give it a try once in a while!

Okay, then there’s the heavier topic I may/may not do a video piece on, depending on whether I want steam coming out of my ears for all to see.

We have quite the questioning group in our article-comment community – some are the typical armchair quarterbacks you might expect, but some try to put the thumbscrews to ME over why we didnt report this or that, or didn’t know this or that that the cops aren’t telling us, etc.

It gets pretty maddening. So let me make some points.

Other than victims’ names – if they aren’t hurt, we usually leave that out – I use just about EVERYTHING police tell us in news releases, in our online stories. And quite often, more, because there are inevitable ‘holes’ in releases that I try to fill, some more obvious than others (“Captain, when it says ‘vehicle’ – are we talking a car, motorcycle, SUV? And when it says ‘residence,’ do you mean apartment, duplex, mobile home?”

Stuff like that.

But quite often, police don’t include some information in a release because they don’t want to hinder their investigation by revealing too much. Most, I presume, of our online comment-posters realize that, but some get all incensed and claim we or they (or both of us!) are “covering up.” It makes me as mad as the ones who say we “slant” stories in order to make them more exciting. BS. But they have a right to their opinion.

I enjoy some decent head-scratching questions about what “REALLY happened” in this or that notorious crime. But I get heartburn when I see folks claiming to know “the real facts” and throwing them out there AS facts. How do we know Mr. or Ms. Anonymous isn’t just trying to muddy the water and mess up what police and the courts are trying to do?

It’s not as easy a cut-or-dried issue as others where it’s clear where the line is and what goes over it and needs to be deleted (remember, I can’t EDIT postings, only let them be or toss them out – the system doesn’t allow me to edit them, which is good, because then I’D assume liability. No thanks.)

There have been a few folks who’ve called for my head on a platter, claiming the postings – which I admit do get pretty wild, and insensitive at times – tarnishes the station’s reputation. Those daggers thrown at me don’t bother me too much, because I work for an organization that has totally supported our efforts to build dialogue on the news we report. They see the pluses that no doubt have the inevitable minuses, too.

No, what makes me nervous is the threat some of our anonymous postings pose to people’s reputations or ongoing criminal cases. In other words, I fear a lawyer at the door, with a tort claim or subpoena. After all, one doesn’t have to WIN a lawsuit to create an unholy nightmare for the recipient.

So that’s why I often plead, even beg, folks to THINK before they type, and think AGAIN before they hit the ‘submit comment’ button. If they value our exercise in community dialogue, and don’t want to see it vanish, they need to think of the impact of their words, intentional or otherwise. I’ve had to laugh at some postings that rip apart the claims of a crime victim or someone involved in a case, then add at the end, “My prayers to the family” or somesuch. With such comments posted like that, they’re going to NEED those prayers.

I think ulterior motives are boundless in such troubling postings. I have no doubt that I’ve failed at times to be completely equal in deciding when to delete a post for violating Terms of Service – depending on how big the avalanche of disturbing posts, how scared I am at the particular moment, etc. I’m human, and don’t always react to the same things the same way.

But I try. And I tell some folks, “You think those are bad? You didn’t see the ones I DELETED.”

Ugh. Anyway, enough venting for one night. Y’all have a great week!

Into our living rooms, losses of pain (or ‘Less Stay, More Cation’)

Wow, check this out: http://echuck.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/13/1571290-in-memoriam-nbc-newsman-tim-russert – such wonderfully written, heartfelt comments on the passing of someone many of us felt we knew, and liked, even though we’d never met him.

I was in Master Control, prepping to record tonight’s ‘Leave it to Barney” (darn that lint roller!;-) when the golf gave way to an NBC News Special Report slide. Then,Tom Brokaw. Then the sad news of Tim Russert’s passing. It was a shock, I’m guessing, to everyone when they heard the news. Surely at our network, in our profession, and to middle-aged males across America who work too hard, get too much stress and too little sleep, and fear the pain that takes us to the Next Stage.

Tonight also marks the start of time away from the newsroom, a whole week, to mark my 25th wedding anniversary to darling Deb. It’s, to use the new term, a ‘Staycation’ – because until my wife finds a job;-/ we can’t afford to go far, much less to the dreamed-of Hawaii. Plus, there’s this beast called KTVZ.COM that always needs feeding, and the folks in the newsroom only know so much about how to do that. My fault, I suppose. I care too much about every word, want to beat back every typo, so…  I can’t let go.

Former station manager Jim DeChant, the Wise Buddha of NewsChannel 21, taught me some good lessons when I arrived a few years back, with only high school and college TV experience. He (and others to be sure), talk of the special power of television to bring people into our living rooms, day and night, to the point where we truly feel we know them (and like them, hopefully), so when we lose them, it’s like a loss in the family.

Those Newsvine tributes show just how true it is. They are almost more tear-inducing than the loss itself. People who don’t know each other and actually never knew Tim Russert, felt they knew him, and with his passing, we shed collective tears. The Internet has that power. So does television. May we use it wisely, and try never to abuse it. It’s too important.

And I’ll do my best to make it less “stay” and more “cation” over the next week. If that means a few less updates of the Website – well, my apologies. Get away from the keyboard, now that the High Desert has finally warmed up. Read a book in Drake Park. Get on that bike. Hug those spouses and kids.

Life’s too short. Who needs another reminder?;-)

There’s Bend, and then there’s ‘Bend’

A few years ago, Bend became all of Deschutes County – at least, in the eyes of Uncle Sam. When it created the Bend Metropolitan Statistical Area, or MSA, it included every square inch of Deschutes County – Brothers to Sisters, Tumalo to Terrebonne, Redmond to La Pine. I once knew why, but I forget.;-)

Then there’s the other big government entity that says what’s where – the U.S. Postal Service.

To their way of thinking, “Bend” extends beyond Sunriver, almost to La Pine, west halfway to Sisters, and north halfway to Redmond – in terms of mailing addresses, that is.

So are those folks “Bend” residents? Of course not, they are MILES from the city limits, and never will be part of Bend – and if I know those rural residents as well as I think I do, they’re darn GLAD not to be really “in” Bend, whatever their catalogs, junk mail and bills tell them every day.

I raise the issue because we did a story of a big drug bust down south of Sunriver, and after using “South county” for a while – a most unwieldy term – I dared to call it a “La Pine” home where it happened.

Well, not exactly – but a heck of a lot closer than Bend is!

So of course, I came in for some grief, trying to “lump” these criminals in to give La Pine a black eye.

Puh-leeze. All I want to do is give people a better sense of where these locations are, good, bad or ugly. If someone from Oregon Water Wonderland is elected president – hey, it could happen – I bet folks would be glad to say they are from “La Pine,” or “Sunriver,” or even “Bend.” Even if they’re not really from any of them.

Geography, politics, crime and … well, human nature. Is this a great country or what?

Ah, me public;-) (And ‘the news is depressing’)

Got a haircut this afternoon to neaten up, long before I decided to make a rare (on purpose) visit to Bend craigslist (already have a nibble on my free still-working fax machine – then I remembered KTVZ.COM’s Mark It Place, ugh!) and of course HAD to go read rants and raves where one of the major Abusers of Anonymity (calls itself “the TRUTH TELLER”) said I “could possibly be the MOST UNATTRACTIVE MAN ALIVE!!!”

Owwwww. I’m sure whoever posted THAT is a stunner of gorgeousness;-)

Anyhoo, back to my haircut, a fine job by a young gal named Kelsey. Had a pleasant chat, learned she’s born and raised in Bend. Asked if she ever watches the news. Said no, “it’s too depressing.”

Well, that depressed ME. I mean, we don’t WANT to depress people. Or bore them. Or anything more than enlighten, engage and sometimes entertain, when it’s in the proper context. (Some say we want to “scare” them, but it’s more a matter of what surveys find – people want to know about things that threaten their or their families’ safety, for example.)

I’m sure many people out there feel that way about the news, to avoid it because it’s depressing, be it TV or other medium. I told her of the rash of tragedy of late, and she knew nothing of it, but said if it was someone she knew, she’d no doubt have found out another way, not needing the news to learn more about it.

True.

And of course, if someone gets, say, stuck in traffic behind a wreck, or hears sirens in their area, many of them will watch the news to learn what happened. (Some even call us, which is fine – we appreciate the tips. But you should know, anyone can call 911 non-emergency in Deschutes County, 693-6911, then hit 5. That’s often what we need to do, when we get a tip or hear things on scanners. We do try to not pester them too much.)

For a while, we offered a “good news story of the day.” But that seemed, well, artificial. I’ve said it many a time – it’s not news when 1,000 people cross the street safely – it is when one doesn’t.

Tonight, we had what I call bittersweet-good/bad news stories. Take Heaven Can Wait, for example, a very successful ninth annual fund-raiser for the Sara Fisher Breast Cancer Project. Bummer topic, but upbeat story about 3,300 folks gathering for the 5K run/walk. I’m glad we led with it. It’s also a people story, not an issue story (or worse yet, a “government meeting” story, bleh.)

Too much “good news” sounds like fluff (or free ads, which of course everything we do is, in a way) only of vital interest to the program, organization, people (or their families) involved.

I LOVE dramatic good news stories – the rescue of a child, for example. But those don’t happen every day, of course.

So the Ugliest Man on Local TV (hey, I said  I have a face for radio;-) is quite interested in your thoughts on whether you watch or skip the news because it’s too depressing – and what might get you to tune in.

By the way, The Associated Press tonight reported the results of a study that found young people suffering “news fatigue,” as they get bombarded with snippets of breaking news, repetitively. (http://www.ktvz.com/Global/story.asp?S=8409270).

It said “that participants yearned for quality and in-depth reporting but had difficulty immediately accessing such content because they were bombarded by facts and updates in headlines and snippets of news.”

As Linda Ellerbee said, “And so it goes…” 😉