A couple of folks have asked where they can see my interviews from the shuttle launch. The first is with CNN’s Miles O’Brien and the second is with Orlando Sentinel Photographer Red Huber.

Based on the feedback I got from that day and other interviews, we are getting ready to launch a new video franchisee called “Inside the News.” More on that to come later. I’ll post some more clips soon.

Growing up Rachel Ray worked as a buyer at Cowan & Lobel, a gourmet marked in Albany. She realized that many people were reluctant to cook.

After all it would take way too long and they didn’t have the skills necessary to cook a fantastic meal.

We’ve all felt that way at some point. That’s why we go out to a nice restaurant to eat diner.

After all it’s better left to the professionals.

Rachel Ray didn’t think so.

Ray began teaching cooking classes and teaching people how to make meals in thirty minutes or less. Her concept caught on and soon local TV stations were asking her on for their morning shows. The rest as they say is history.

Are her meals as good as the culinary chefs you find in the top dinning spots in the city? Of course not, but they taste good and work when feeding a family.

Right now there are lots of journalists out there saying that they can’t do video journalism. After all it would take to long.
And for every journalist saying that, there are at least two TV journalists telling them that the product they put out will never be as good as what goes on TV.

I work in a newsroom that is pushing online video to all the journalists, yet I still hear whining that reporter video is not top quality and they should only shoot video if “there is a volcano in the middle of the highway.”

But you see I think we should take the Rachel Ray mentality.

The video that journalists shoot won’t be the same as what you see on TV. Nor can we expect it to be.

Instead we need to give them a recipe to create a quick way of shooting and editing video.

Video that our viewers wont think is what they will get on TV but video that they will still enjoy and want to watch.

It is possible. But it’s going to take some time and patience on both ends to figure it out.

Yesterday we did our first live video coverage at the Orlando Sentinel. (We did a trial of the Venue vote.) We streamed the launch of the Space Shuttle at OrlandoSentinel.com/live. We started our stream at 12:30 p.m. and went until after the shuttle launch at 6:36 p.m. For most of the time we showed NASA TV but at the bottom of every hour I anchored live updates with sentinel staff writers, editors, photographers and even CNN’s Miles O’Brien. First off we had a blast. We are also very happy with the numbers we got.

We were able to do this using a slingbox to send out signal back to the newsroom to stream on our site. I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank Alex Medina in Technology for all his help in getting it set up.

You can see some clips:
here, here, and here

oh and the actual launch video is here

Seriously that’s the call letters for a new station in in Hawaii; KUNT. To make matter worse the guy who owns the station also was issued KWTF for a station in Arizona. Read about it here.

Recently CNN.com debuted a new design for their website. For quite some time it was in beta. (A very smart decision on their part). I’ve had some time to use the site now both in beta and since it’s launch. Here are my thoughts on the site:

Good:
- Most popular news: This is something that sites struggle with. We know that folks want the stories that are off the wall and more fluff than news, but we fear (or should fear) putting them in top news. After all it’s not top news. This puts it in t prominent spot with out compromising the top news.
- Graphics: I really like the big “web 2.0″ style buttons for blogs, podcast, rss, email ect. Not at the top of the page but still prominent. This is something that most would have stuck in a vertical navigation.
- Vertical Navigation: It doesn’t have one. This creates a much cleaner site yet everything I need is still on the front page. Great design.
- Story pages: clean and simple. Lots or links on the side. Enjoy the Ajax use of the most popular (video, stories, and topics). I really like that the photo and video tabs keep you on the page. Very easy to use very little load time.
- Photos: Wow…when you are on a story page the photos are displayed in in a box and you can click through (with nice presentation) and not have to leave the page. And the built in slide show on the photo page is one of the better slide show setups that I’ve seen on any site.
- Story highlights: quick bullet points of the article. Better than a quick read. Took me a while to realize it was there. In my head i thought it was more links to other stories. Guess I should actually read things.

Needs improvement:
- Hot Topics: Great concept. They have put the “hot topics” as their own links on the top of the site. When you click on it it takes you to a story gallery of past stories on the topic. This gets very close to a concept I have talked to some folks about, but I’ll save that for another post. I just think there is tons of potential here.

The Bad:
- Video: a couple things here. I like the player but they are not embeded on the story level. It seems that CNN is treating video as something that is not meant to compliment the print article but rather an ‘either you read the story or watch the video.’ This may not be a bad idea because most of the video they do are full pkgs from TV. The player also doesn’t have a feature that allows you to take the code and embed it in your blog. This is quite simple and allows your video to go viral a lot easier.
- Still a TV station website: OK I’ll admit I probably won’t every be satisfied on this one, but something that bothers me is that there are things on CNN.com that are still centered around the the TV station. For example on all the section pages page there is a mini TV lineup with Anderson Cooper, Larry King and the Situation Room. If it’s an ad fine, but If I’m looking for news don’t waste the space to promote shows that have only a little to do with the topic. I’m OK with a promo that is promoting a special program, but not just the TV lineup.

Overall I am very impressed with the site. It would be interesting to know how the design was created. Usually sites suffer from going through too many committees and focus groups. This one doesn’t appear to have the problem.

Danny’s Journalism Cartoons
Danny Sanchez a UF alum who I now have the privilege of working with at the Sentinel is producing journalism cartoons at Journalistopia. Be sure to check out the one about MU alum Adrian Holovaty.

Anyone wondering what it’s like to be a VJ. Here’s a story of one VJ covering another. From KGTV a station that is transitioning their reporters and phtogs to VJs. You can learn more about that at http://rosenblumtv.wordpress.com/.

This past summer I wrote a story for ABCNews.com. I wrote the story, titled “How Old is Too Old to Rock and Roll?,” because the Beach Boys were scheduled to perform on GMA as part of their summer concert series. Apparently the photo that someone picked was a photo of the Beach Boys performing for the Today shows summer concert series. I never noticed it and apparently no one did until now when it was posted on Media Bistro. I guess it’s a good thing that my story is getting more exposure, but what a cheap shot…now, almost a year later.

I’m posting this because I have brought this issue up in some political discussions and people seem to be shocked. The guys over at Freakonomics posted about a new study that show that people may now lie less about minority candidates than in the past.
Basically the idea is that people say they will vote for minority candidates in polls but when election time comes around they don’t. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that people like to say that race isn’t an issue and feel better voting for the minority candidate but in the end they don’t. Consider the case the study and the book gives:

Also in 1989, Democrat David Dinkins, an African American, won victory over Republican Rudy Giuliani in the race for mayor of New York by a slight two points, despite leading by 18 points in a poll conducted by the New York Observer a week before the election.

I also like to use this concept when talking about local news. I would venture a guess that when Nielson diary’s go out and people put that they watched all of some of the local news, they probably didn’t but they just feel good putting that down. It makes them feel smart.
Also if you haven’t ready Freakanomics you should. It’s a great book.

It never ceases to amaze me how local media outlets cover national breaking news in their backyard. We saw the Times Picayune continue to publish despite their offices being flooded by Katrina, the Collegiate Times, a student run paper, not only kept students informed about the Virginia Tech shootings but also became a source of information for people across the globe including major media outlets, and the Christian Science Monitor carefully covered the kidnapping of one of their own. In each of these cases the media outlet had the ability to draw on their vast resources they use to cover te daily stories and focus them all on the breaking news.

There are however some newspapers that don’t have a large staff, a fancy website or even access to the AP. The Kiowa County Signal learned quickly how to adapt this week.

The Kiowa County Signal is the local newspaper for Greensburg, KS, the town that a tornado destroyed this week. Howard Owens is the Director of Digital Publishing at Gate House media, the company that owns the Signal. He’s blogged twice now about how the paper has had to react.

The Kowia County Signal has since launched a new site full of information. They received permission for the AP to use AP stories. Their staff is now posting stories despite their newsroom being destroyed and Gate House Media sent reporters and an editor some who will shoot video for the website.

The site also allows citizens to submit photos. Although as Howard pointed out “given the fact that the town is devastated and residents might find it hard to participate in photo sharing, we may not get anything, but I think it is very important we make this tool available — important journalistically.”

I would assume that they are not putting out a paper right now but they still keep their commitment to keep the public informed. For that they should be applauded.

UPDATE: As Howard pointed out in the comments, they are a weekly (printing on Wednesdays) but have a special edition coming out today (Monday). Also, Gate House also owns the neighboring daily in Pratt and that is where the staff is working out of. Thanks Howard for the updates.