jeffsonderman - Latest Comments

Re: My career v3.0: Writing and teaching mobile, social media for Poynter

jeffsonderman — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:51:42 -0000

Thanks, Damon, though technically it is I who am following YOUR coverage. Good luck in Boston.

Re: My career v3.0: Writing and teaching mobile, social media for Poynter

greglinch — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:44:22 -0000

Congrats!

Re: My career v3.0: Writing and teaching mobile, social media for Poynter

dkiesow — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:40:09 -0000

Jeff -

Congratulations - I am looking forward to following your coverage.

Damon

Re: The TBD community shows what it’s about

Joy Mayer — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:11:59 -0000

Thanks for putting this together on such a crazy day, Jeff. You guys have a lot of support.

Re: How to customize the appearance of Storify on your site

virtualDavis — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:18:18 -0000

Bravo, Jeff, this is nothing short of a giant step for blogger-journalist-curator-kind! The Storify crew are building a powerful and overdue tool for curating the social web, and you've taken a critical step towards making it more design friendly. Perhaps Xavier and Burt are following your posts stream? And perhaps they'll integrate a css tuner on their end soon? Cheers!

Re: How to customize the appearance of Storify on your site

jeffsonderman — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:14:14 -0000

Thanks Chrys, good point. My first move was to hide the header entirely, so I didn't focus much on modifications within it. But I'm sure there's a lot you can do there.

Re: How to customize the appearance of Storify on your site

Chrys — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:19:14 -0000

very good solution :-)
in the header, there are many CSS code you can also customize : border style (#fff)... padding (to 0)...
div.sfywdgt_image... and so on !

Re: How to customize the appearance of Storify on your site

jeffsonderman — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:55:37 -0000

That's true, but my assumption is in most cases your blog or news site already has sharing tools on the page where you are embedding the Storify module.

Re: How to customize the appearance of Storify on your site

Ryan Kellett — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:36:37 -0000

Well done, Jeff. Will try this the next time I want to try a Storify embed. My only concern is that by pulling the header you miss out of the share functionality that links the widget and the actual storify page. I guess it's not hard to re-code that info into the page though... thanks!

Re: Silencing WikiLeaks

Amy S — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 21:30:01 -0000

People expect emails and electronic communications NOT posted to public sites to be private and remain private. Intercepting US mail is a serious offense and many of us feel likewise about the theft of private communications. I think Amazon booting Wiki is exactly like a landlord booting tenant who is engaged in illegal activity. And if publicizing stolen documents of any kind is not currently illegal, it will and should be soon. In the information age, information is a currency that deserves protection.

Re: Silencing WikiLeaks

jeffsonderman — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:57:28 -0000

Lamar, whether an act of speech is irresponsible is a subjective judgment. I have not read all of the cables, of course, but I'm not aware of any specific thing released that was patently irresponsible (read: dangerous). I have seen things that were embarrassing, and I have seen criticisms that the general act of the leak is disruptive to the government, but in my mind none of those things is extreme enough to justify censorship of it.

The larger point is, who makes that decision? I am not comfortable with one U.S. senator and a few corporations arbitrarily deciding what speech they feel is irresponsible and acting to suppress it. There ought be some formal due legal process, with burdens of proof and rights of representation and appeal, conducted in open court.

Re: Silencing WikiLeaks

jeffsonderman — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:50:04 -0000

"Stolen property" at a pawn shop is a poor metaphor for leaked copies of documents. When jewelry is stolen, the concern is that the owner is deprived of possessing it. In this case, the State Department still has the cables. The only issue is that now many other people also have copies of them.

Re: Silencing WikiLeaks

Spamfilter — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:36:43 -0000

Nice job at trying to justify your unjustifiable ideology with your footnote. You KNOW there was a valid reason for those corporations doing what they did. Wikileaks violated their terms of service! The material was STOLEN! No. Wikileaks didn't still it, but it is stolen information. Should pawn stores be allowed to have stolen material as well since they didn't steal it?

Re: Silencing WikiLeaks

Lamar Morgan — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:30:21 -0000

Isn't the WikiLeaks ordeal somewhat similar to the yelling of fire in a crowded theater? Yes, free speech is important. As an American, I will never back down from that position. But, free speech and irresponsible speech are not synomonous terms. When people abuse their freedom they tend to lose it. Maybe that is a fine line everyone needs to walk and not cross? WikiLeaks cross that line and lost.

Re: Silencing WikiLeaks

Howard Owens — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:16:53 -0000

It would also be helpful if anit-trust laws were enforced as originally intended.

Re: Video: Watch the sessions from ONA 2010

Wendell Cochran — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:06:25 -0000

Thanks, Jeff. This is really helpful

Re: What is journalism school for?

Naomi — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:38:45 -0000

Whoops, that's ROB O'Regan :)

Re: What is journalism school for?

Naomi — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:37:41 -0000

Editor Ron O'Regan's blog post about his daughter starting j-school -- against his advice -- offers some additional insight for potential students: http://emediavitals.com/blog/1...

Re: Malcolm Gladwell’s errors on social media activism

andrewottoson — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:07:48 -0000

I think #3 above calls into question whether Gladwell's argument even pertains to Iran, given that SMS is considered of equal or greater importance. Does SMS signify a weak tie or a strong one?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl...

Annabelle Sreberny, professor in global media and communications at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, agrees. "Twitter was massively overrated. But spaces like YouTube and Facebook have been very important for sharing information."

But Sreberny, who is organising a conference next week on the role of non-conventional media in Iran, adds: "I wouldn't argue that social media really mobilised Iranians themselves – the protest were best organised using SMS."

Point being, Iran might not be the exemplar of a social media revolution Gladwell takes it to be.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell’s errors on social media activism

Steve Buttry — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:02:11 -0000

Excellent points, Jeff, and here's one more: Malcolm Gladwell has tweeted 10 times, so I think it's safe to say he doesn't really understand Twitter relationships.

Re: Read the study: “Citizen Journalism Web Sites Complement Newspapers”

Steve Buttry — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:54:36 -0000

Sorry I missed this when it was initially posted. I'll link to it shortly. I should note that the report posted here is one of two based on the research by this group. My blog post focuses more on the second report, which has not been published: http://bit.ly/c0ZSHA

Re: Read the study: “Citizen Journalism Web Sites Complement Newspapers”

Anna Tarkov — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:06:36 -0000

I agree, this is very disappointing. It's like comparing apples to oranges. Are oranges going to replace apples? No. Are oranges worthless? NO.

Re: Read the study: “Citizen Journalism Web Sites Complement Newspapers”

jeffsonderman — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:22:12 -0000

Initial reaction: This study errs in not viewing blogs and citizens sites as a collective, dynamic ecosystem. Instead it compares each CitJ site to each newspaper site.
More thoughts added to post above.

Re: What is journalism school for?

Dan — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:53:16 -0000

Rock on. I especially agree with point No. 2 in meeting a network. I got a Masters of Science in journalism (go ahead, laugh it up) in Boston and the best thing that I found was a prestigious network of professionals (some may know of The Scarlet Mafia) in the sports reporting industry. I got opportunities, learned on the job and made a name for myself.

Did my courses teach me all that much? Yes and no. My J-school knews the importance of multimedia and is a leader in the area but most J-schools are still behind the curve. I came out knowing how to shoot/edit video/audio, take/edit pictures and create slide shows. And I am a writer, always have been. Never thought I would have acquired those skills, especially since I missed a part of the digital revolution in my early-to-mid 20s. For the most part I have taught myself the technology ahead of the curve and during school I helped pass it on to professors who, just like the rest of us, are learning along the way. A new ad network comes out everyday. A new smart phone platform. A new social media API. Android or iOS? HTML5 or Flash? The "experts" cannot even answer these questions, let alone the j-schools.

I count myself lucky. I would have never been in the position that I am now if not for j-school. It was great for me. It might not be great for others. There is value to a j-school these days (even those who are foolish enough to get a Masters in journalism) and I am living proof.

As Jeff says "The degree doesn’t matter if you don’t have work ethic, aggressiveness, initiative and common sense." True. j-school can help you break down a door otherwise closed but only you can make yourself succeed.

Also, an obscure aside. This article was written on my birthday.

Rock on.

Re: What is journalism school for?

jeffsonderman — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:59:45 -0000

The Wiegel case is complicated.. not sure it's a directly instructive to this topic. But in short Weigel got canned for expressing opinions. Granted he phrased it a bit rudely (that Matt Drudge should set himself on fire), but still they were just opinions.

The old school print guys are uncomfortable with opinions from news reporters. They're not supposed to have them, which is absurd.

This post (http://voices.washingtonpost.c... on WaPo from fellow blogger Greg Sargent says it best: "I submit that someone can be a "real" reporter if he or she is accurate on the facts and fairly represents the positions of subjects; if he or she has a decent sense of what's newsworthy and important to readers; and if readers come away from his or her stuff feeling more informed than they were before." Within those bounds, feel free to express an opinion. In fact, I WANT an informed, fair reporter to give me their best opinion about who's right.

And that's where it does tie to this topic. Reporters should be experts who are paid to give us their fair opinions, along with all the facts and context. I can disagree with their opinion while still retaining the facts it is based on.