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?

Signal-to-noise ratio in article comments

OK, time to try doing what I said I’d do here – expound at length on something of interest (to me, anyway), then boil it down for the on-air version.

We’ve had more than 4,000 article comments since we began the first version in early February – about 1,000 a month – postable comments, that is. Another, oh, 1,000 or so un-postable – some that make me nervous to think I might live near or interact with these folks;-)

So that’s sort of a 3-to-1 signal to noise ratio, in terms of wheat to problematic chaff – except for the fact I probably don’t hold to as firm a line as I should.

NOBODY reads Terms of Service – who has time, interest? – but they are there – and for our Website, they ban : “Posting or transmitting any unlawful, fraudulent, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or harmful information of any kind.”

Man, I could probably eliminate 95 percent of the posts, if I defined those labels rigorously. But it’d sure be a boring discussion – except of course that I’d be spending too much of my time explaining why this or that comment got deleted.

Our posts are anonymous – though folks can give their real names if they want, and some do. On the other hand, The Bulletin recently started having article comments – but only by paid subscribers – and the most they’ve had on any one story is… three. I do understand the tradeoffs involved.

But in talking to my big brother David today, it reminded me of the whole pluses-minuses thing to forums – for him, it’s viiting stocks/finance ones, for my boss at the station, it’s cars. Somewhere there’s folks already arguing about/discussing/offering advice on whatever subject you’re interested in.

And if the moderator doesn’t allow flamewars to burn out or hijack a previously interesting, thoughtful discussion, great – but I’m sure they get grief from the few screeching “censorship” or “freedom of the press.” Which is silly, because on the Internet, there’s always a place you can talk/argue about whatever it is you want to say. Whether anyone will be listening is another matter entirely.

So if the interesting or at least neutral posts outweigh the “you idiot!” etc. distractions, the signal-to-noise ratio is acceptable. And I’ve found just enough supportive, enlightening or at least not scarily negative posts to keep the thing going. Corporations are just not used to providing platforms for people to dump on them – fairly or unfairly. But my argument is, better in your forum then in a place you can’t monitor or weigh in on. And as I’ve said, folks come to our defense quite often without us lifting a finger.

So the typical routine on the more negative comment threads – and I can almost predict which stories they come about on – is the following sequence: Attack. Defend. Attack the Defenders. Defend the Attackers. Someone pleads “can’t we get along?” And eventually the argument loses steam and folks move on, except for an occasional add-on by someone late to the gathering.

I’ve been slammed for “deleting comments I don’t agree with,” when all that happened was a new version of a story came along and the old one is moved out (but linked to). I’d rather keep updating the same story, to keep the comment threads intact, BUT search engines like Google News don’t re-index existing story URLs, so that’s a point in favor of new stories, rather than updated ones.

Life’s full of tradeoffs. Fortunately, our current comment system from JS-Kit does provide for my favorite kind of community regulation – self-regulation. It allows folks to vote on whether they like a post or not (believe they slide up or down as a result), or mark posts as offensive (if, under the default settings, five folks make such a marking, a post VANISHES).

I know far bigger media outlets than ours have often abandoned comment systems for how they are abused. But USA Today is hanging tough, and several others as well. It just seems worth it, to me.

The BarneyBlog and High Desert Forum Network

As I mentioned on-air and probably here, I’ve done a few blogs/Websites over the years – heck, I built, in Microsoft Publisher (with an art assist from Greg Cross), The Bulletin’s first Website, back in the ’90s – go ahead, check out the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine if you care!

So it could be considered part of the Barney Blog/Website and High Desert Forum Network!

Oy. Let me explain.

I’ve started a few blogs in the past, and they mostly still exist. Plus, I’m anxious to add a non-article-specific forum to KTVZ.COM – probably nuts, considering how the comments alone get scarily abusive and potentially litigious at times – but I have this intense, perhaps insane desire to get communications going among Central Oregonians. Hopefully sane, thoughtful Central Oregonians (and visitors who care about our issues) who wish to discuss issues, not spend their lives either glued to the TV or firing off flames back and forth in an article comment thread.

Yeah, nuts. I should be committed;-)

Anyway, let’s take a trip through history:

The Computing FOOL: Circa late ’90s – Ah yes, Microsoft Publisher – for the time, it was sure fun. And creating Websites back when you had to know FTP, etc. I haven’t figured out how to get in there and change it – and I don’t want to, it’s a fun little time-capsule of pre-Y2K nervousness and – well, I’ve moved since that messy desk picture was taken, but it’s replicated in my current abode. (This thing was playing music until past year or so, that file musta gotten lost or something.

Please Release Me!: Then I found a super neat Website creation site – not a blog creation, but full-blown Website – called Squarespace. I still pay $5 a mo. for the thing, for two reasons: 1) It’s about the easiest way I’d seen to then, and really still, to create full Websites, not just linear blogs – and 2) It’s home to my Grand Idea for a book/consultancy/speaking tour/$$$-generating movement – to help people in government, public business anybody realize that they don’t have to play the old PR game and beg for time/space from Old Media – they can communicate with and build relationships directly with their customers/voters/etc. Barack Obama knows it, and so do a lot of smart folks. But everyday folks who have lives to lead need a helping hand and kick in the tush, hence… the idea for Please Release Me.

If I could clone myself, that’d be one of my top clones’ missions – and just might get enough attention and money to let the Real Me retire;-) (Or at least hire some great help and stop working so hard;-)

Barney’s BendBlog: Circa 2001-02 or so – This was before Blogger got bought by Google, and as with everything else I’ve done like this, it’s suffered from neglect as I pursue by workday passion, KTVZ.COM. But suffice it to say I can talk more…freely there than in a blog like this that I’m using within the station’s Website. Depressingly, I found that Blogger does allow World Now’s new Video Player Widget to embed its code into the site – and that WordPress, from what I can see, doesn’t (oh, I’m sure if I run it through some third-party program, no thank you very much;-)

I also had the truly frustrating – and it’ll sound familiar to you – experience of getting stuck without the password for the Blogger site, and getting stuck in some sorta vortex trying to get it sent to me and straightened out. (Honestly, I think the world could blow up some day because the person in charge of The Button hits it out of frustration because they can’t remember the damn password!)

So I invite you to visit any/all of these semi-moribund Websites/blogs, leave a comment or 3, and suggest which if any deserve further attention from Yours Truly. (I especially like the Squarespace one, believing there’s a true calling for PR 2.0 (I believe that’s been used) or whatever the “Truly Public Relations/New PR” mantra could bring.)

Now, as for the forums. As I said, I’ve been trying out various pieces of software – oh, and before I forget, the article comments’ tiny typeface WILL get larger in a week or two, yay! – but there’s no real way to try these without trying them on the public.

WorldNow also has announced a partnership with KickApps, a social software creator, but we’re not sure how much will come of that. Still, I’ve used forum software it’s powered, Yuku, to create the High Desert Forum. I like the look, but again, how can you tell if something will be useful until you have it? So please, try to sign up, make posts, etc.

And if you wish, compare it to some earlier tries, such as this one created in Forumotion, or this one, powered by ActiveBoard, or this one, through ExcoBoard, or this one, through ZetaBoards.

Yep, as Chicago once sang, “I’ve been searchin’ so long… to find an answer.”

And who knows what other free/easy/good-looking forum software is out there I haven’t tried? (Maybe you? Please let me know!)

I believe in the Internet’s ability to have us talk to each other, and communicate in ways we never could. The comments on articles – now I don’t know how many, but surely close to 10,000 in 4-5 months – have been infuriating, frightening, depressing – and entertaining, enlightening and hope-inspiring of a true community dialogue.

So please, kick the tires of my “network” – if they break, well, no $ lost, just a bit of time – let me/us know which you like and why, and if you think I’m nuts or if it’s a grand idea.

Sure, there’s the Social Networking software of Facebook and MySpace and many others offering similar platforms. We may well use one or some of those tools as well. But I believe the good old fashioned, somewhat ’90s-style forum software is a great foundation as well – and these too are branching into blogs, embedded video, etc.

 So, do you agree? Is there a place, with controls over those who would hijack discussions and create flame wars, to really talk about the issues – in, dare I say, respectful fashion that involves listening and an open mind, not just venting to flap one’s digital gums?

I’d like to think so.;-)

Tech joy (or, ‘Clear your cache’)

Why oh why can’t we make computers that just work?

If I had a nickel for every blog post worldwide that had such a thought, I probably could afford a top-of-the-line computer – and want to bet it too would be balky and aggravating?

And then there’s the harmonic convergence of tech woes, when our 10-Fox news had a full weather forecast, followed by silent NW Cable News, our news audio with black screen and finally, our full package – in time for sports.

It’s enough to curse the Gods of Technology.

I was having a problem too geeky to describe in detail with our Website’s CMS (content management system). I still haven’t seen the updated version of a story show. The East Coast tech, calling before 11 (thankfully), suggested I clear my cache. I said I could, but what do I tell our many Website visitors – they have to clear their cache to see updated stories?

They’ll just go to another site – who can blame them? Plenty of news fish in the cyber-sea.

Oh well. Hopefully our freeze warning (it’s June!) won’t freeze out Balloons Over Bend again in the AM (actually it was the wind, and it sure was blowing this evening. Summer will arrive by July 4, right? Ah, Central Oregon;-)

 

The string is broken… no biggie

I didn’t post yesterday, waah! Wacky day with triple-OT hockey game blowing up our already-late newscast, so… no time no time.

That’s OK, I know folks will forgive me. Anyway, will try to get in some blogging time later this week.

By the way, we had another great month in May at KTVZ.COM, with 1.23 million page views, still leading our much-bigger sister stations – and as News Director Mike Bothwell pointed out, we’ve doubled our views from a year ago, when we made the big switch to World Now. We had one wild day last week with 25,000 views of comments alone – the day after that teen police chase/gunfire/suicide tragedy. If I knew where they came from, I’d try to get them all to visit more often!;-)

Hope you’re having a good week…

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…” 😉

Live streaming video x 2!;-)

So I’ve put out two “not really breaking, but sorta” breaking news e-mails in the last hour.

One is to watch, via KTVZ.COM, MSNBC’s coverage of the fascinating discussions going on at the Democratic Party Rules Committee of how to solve the Michigan and Florida primary messes.

The other I’m watching is the space shuttle Discovery astronauts suit up and later blast off for the International Space Station, courtesy of NASA-TV.

We’re really only “pass-throughs” for both networks – one we’re a part of (NBC), the other we taxpayers all pay for. It’s like our links page – sure, it’s just linking to other folks’ stuff, but the goal is for folks to say, “I don’t know how to get there – but I know where to go to get there!”

Now if only my hard drive would stop thrashing. (Darn that Norton 360 v.2 upgrade.) It does it about half the time now, and while it doesn’t slow my PC to unacceptable levels, it is a drag on the system.

That, and today’s dual space/politics live streams, remind me of a fun conversation I had with visiting brother-in-law Don last night, always a great time. I thought about some paralells between government and technology.

Both try to solve problems. Both do – some of the time. But both drive us nuts, and don’t live up to the grand dreams they espouse. Neither can save the world. Both could doom the world. Both mean well, but (and boy do I know THAT feeling.) And it’s hard not to think, in both broad categories, that the less they do, the less trouble they cause.

I’m a defender of both against the critics, but especially government, because for some reason, we believe government – a collection of fallible, imperfect human beings – should get things right all (or more) of the time, when the truth is, you multiply a person’s flaws by the hundreds or thousands involved in such enterprises, and it’s amazing they get anything of value done at ALL.

So what do you think?

Blogging about writing about blogging about writing

That headline is likely longer than this post.

I won’t be doing as many posts on Sunday and Thursday nights, as that’s when I write my Monday and Friday pieces for my on-air gig.

Of course, tonight I wrote about this new “baby” of mine, a different place to talk about journalism, KTVZ, the Internet, and probably other stuff as well.

I also promised all my posts won’t be ‘Barney-length’ opuses, so… let’s just say I’m glad to see you here, especially if it’s after seeing me on the air, and… leave it at that 😉

Another teen tragedy, alas

Read all about it – and the dozens of comments on it – at http://www.ktvz.com/global/story.asp?s=8388713.

This time, because of a snarky but well-timed criticism of some partial info we got from school district, I had the never-fun task of calling the family – hoping so much a spokesman or friend would answer. Instead, it was the teen’s stepmother, who was relatively gracious, considering what that family is going through, who helped straighten out the info.

We’ve had about 40 comment postings so far – but 25 THOUSAND viewings of the comments. Clearly, these totally unrelated teen-death tragedies have struck a major nerve, and people not only want to speak out but read what others say – good, bad and, yes, ugly. I’m not sure I’m drawing a firm enough line on the personal attacks people feel the need to send out, often protected by the much-abused anonymity, but there have been enough good wishes, thoughtful remarks and cogent discussion that it’s worth the hassle.

I think. 😉

People who think we relish bad news should see how bad I was trembling after that phone call. I offered condolences, I asked if there was anything we could do, I said I can’t imagine what they’re going through – and I can’t. It’s one thing for a beloved football and wrestling star to run away from a police stop and die in a mysterious manner. But for a clearly troubled teen, close to graduation, to flee police, SHOOT AT THEM and eventually take his own life, despite police efforts to end it peacefully – that one hangs just as heavy, if not heavier.

Bad choices. But then come the armchair quarterbacks, the parent-blamers, the police-blamers, the society-blamers, and those who defend against them. It’s almost like a badly choreographed opera – predictable in its sour notes and occasional sweet sounds.

To me, above it all, is the sweet sound of a community getting to weigh in – again, good, bad or ugly. I’d love to set rules of decorum, but that’s like trying to arrange the world to one’s liking.

It’s too messy for that, but with that mess comes all the joy as well. You can’t separate them.

Enough ruminating. Thanks to NHL, it was a longer day at the station, oddly enough, and emotional for me, as well. Hoping for a few calmer days…

 

Tragedy, tech and spell-check

This is not going to become a blog full of daily, lengthy defenses/explanations of our work at NewsChannel 21. But while I sit here with police scanner up, trying to help the night crew figure out just what’s going on in a pursuit/search/?? out Pronghorn/Powell Butte Highway way, it seems like a good time to state a few things “for the record.”

1. We, as did other media, offered extensive coverage of an unusual, tragic sequence of events in which a star Culver athlete ran from police at a Bend traffic stop and somehow suffered fatal injuries.

It was suggested we were calling him a hero when he set a bad example. I weighed in there, I’ll weigh in here. To some extent, this reminds me of the Tyler Eklund incident last year, when we didn’t lead the attention on that young man, we simply followed an emotional outpouring from the community. When hundreds show up at an impromptu candlelight vigil at the Culver High football stadium, something has struck a major-league nerve. Rumors are flying. We won’t report them, and will delete comment postings with them as soon as we can. Everyone has enough pain up there to need any more inflicted by those who abuse the anonymity.

To separate the way this young man lived from how he died is difficult, but must be done, no matter what the cause of death is found to be. The more that young people can be reminded that even the best among them make bad choices – and a single bad choice can lead to tragedy – the more the danger of further tragedies is lessened.

We will go wherever this story goes, painful as it may be, and are very thankful for a remarkably honest set of information and heartfelt revelations by coaches and family. It’s not an easy time to be on camera and share your deepest emotions. How could we not pay attention? How can anyone watch and not be moved?

2. We’re beta testing some new things at KTVZ.COM, and it always reminds me of the frustration of not being able to solve everyone’s technical problems. We’re working to fix the small typesize and other usability matters. Your patience is appreciated, input welcomed and venting – well, if you must.;-)

3. Some kindly point out typos – others have gone so far as to question our commitment to our craft. I pulled my hair out the other day when I realized that the spell-check that’s done when I finish and post an article only checks the headlines and captions! I have to run a manual, “click the icon” spell-check for the story itself to be checked! So from now on, I will, of course, and you’ll see fewer typos. I hope…;-)