A long-running soap opera legal case here in Boulder involves the Midyettes, a couple whose 10-week-old baby died. Molly Midyette is serving a jail term for not preventing the death of her son, while Alex Midyette is set to stand trial for child abuse resulting in death.
This week, Alex Midyette was granted a change of venue for his trial, due to the intense publicity surrounding the case. Just as with the fabled Jonbenet Ramsey case (Boulder’s most notorious criminal mystery), it’s just about impossible to find anyone in Boulder without knowledge of the Midyette case — and probably an opinion about Alex’s guilt, given his wife’s conviction.
Daily Camera commenters haven’t been reticent in expressing their opinions
What’s interesting about this change of venue is that the court cited Internet comments on local news websites (mostly the Boulder Daily Camera) and blogs as a primary reason for moving proceedings out of Boulder County, along with traditional media coverage. This may be the first time a court has relied so heavily on online comments to news stories in such a decision; it certainly won’t be the last.
The Camera’s Zak Brown covered the issue in this story, which includes a short quote from me.
TimesPeople, the new “social” feature of NYTimes.com, is intriguing. It’s early beta (Firefox extension), so I’ll forgive it for being a little awkward to figure out. Here’s a CNET interview with the developers:
A key element is finding your online friends also on it and sharing recommendations. I tried letting it look for people in my Gmail address book (which is huge) and it turned up zero folks who’ve also installed TimesPeople plug-in. I could use some “friends” to try it out. Hint, hint.
Like most newspaper websites these days, the Boulder Daily Camera’s allows users to comment on stories. Staff monitors the comments and responds to user reports of abusive comments by removing offensive posts. It’s all good … well, some good, some not so.
When you read bad comments, remember the good
The Camera is my main local news source, and I find myself drawn to read beyond the reporter’s story often when an active discussion thread builds. I’m sure that the Camera’s user comments are just like everywhere else — in other words, there’s a lot of awful stuff to wade through. Offensive comments, crude humor, outright stupidity, trolls looking to pick a fight, insensitivity to other people’s suffering, etc.
I don’t mean to paint too bleak a picture, since there’s often intelligent commentary in these comment threads, too. (But I think the stupid and outrageous comments tend to stick in your memory more.)
A comment thread in a story this weekend really stuck out as representing why allowing user comments on news stories is a good thing despite all the bad. A lengthy thread built up around the story of a cyclist getting killed on Saturday when he was hit by a dump truck at a busy and dangerous intersection on the north edge of town.
Most commenters on this particular story were respectful of the people involved in a local tragedy, but one comment stood out as representing why user comments are a positive thing overall. You never know what may turn up; in this case it was from a person with some involvement in the tragedy who the Camera’s reporter did not reach.
“First of all, I want to send out my deepest condolences to the family of the cyclist that was killed from this horroble accident. May he rest in peace!
“The driver of the dump truck is my brother. I know first hand, how much this accident has affected my brother. He is very emotional and cries so much for the loss of this man who died. It is a tragic, tragic accident. I ask that you please keep my brother in your prayers too. He is so devastated by this accident.
“Again, I send out my deepest condolences for this man’s family. I will keep him and his family in my prayers.”
We had a power outage in parts of Boulder County yesterday, and the Boulder Daily Camera covered it in a news story (if a bit late, since the Sunday crew apparently hasn’t been trained in web publishing). The very first user comment about the story appears to be from a sly marketer for a company that makes backup generators:
“Disasters, Hurricanes, Tornados, Wind Storms. We’ve all seen the after-effects, entire communities without power. I’ve read that on average 3.5 million people lose their power in the US each week! We just bought a generator from [company name removed] that now will ensure our family has the power needed when faced with these unexpected outages. With back-up power, our home now stays well lighted, secure, keeping our food cold and fresh and our air conditioning working. Our generator will also keep our sump pump working to protected the basement from flooding.”
Good grief. The wording is so obviously from the company’s marketing department. (No, I haven’t confirmed that. But it seems obvious, and at least one other commenter came to the same conclusion.) Traditional marketers are struggling with how to engage in online conversations and get a grasp on “social marketing.” This is so clearly NOT the way to do that. (They’d have done better by being honest about it. The wording above is embarrassing.)
I have a few projects going right now, and I find that I’m remembering to post to this blog less often than I usually do. It’s not just that I’m busy, though; I’ve always been busy. No, I think that in part I’m blogging a bit less because I’m tweeting more. (To “tweet” is slang for posting to Twitter, but I’m using the term here to represent posting to various micro-blogging and personal-update services — which are proliferating, BTW; just yesterday I signed up to Plurk.)
Used to be that whenever a stray thought or insight came into my head, I’d blog about it. But now I’m more likely to condense said thought/insight into 140 characters and tweet it. If it can’t be boiled down to that, then it becomes a blog item.
How is this working out for you? Are you blogging less now that micro-blogging services like Twitter are gaining in popularity?
I was a bit taken aback this evening when I saw that Derek Willis quoted one of my Twitter posts from earlier today on his blog, The Scoop. (That’s an insightful item, by the way, about the behind-the-scenes situation at the Washington Post where interactive star Rob Curley and his team are departing.)
Now, I don’t mind at all that Willis used my tweet. But it did get me thinking about my postings to micro-blogging sites like Twitter. I need to start thinking before I post something that it could show up anywhere, and get much wider distribution than just the couple hundred people currently following me on Twitter. I suggest that you start thinking likewise.
Today’s tweet went beyond my Twitter followers; will yours?
I remember many instances in recent years where people naively posted something to their blogs and expected that to be private conversation between the few friends who follow their blogs. By now, I sense that most folks have figured out that when they post to their blogs, it’s anything but “private.”
Twitter posts aren’t private or even semi-private, either.
I encourage you to take a 6-minute break and listen to this Seesmic video essay by Paul Bradshaw, senior lecturer in online journalism at Birmingham City University (UK), as he talks about new distribution models for news. It’s important stuff.
Y’know, in the decade and a half that I’ve been involved in new media/online journalism and covering it as a journalist, I often find myself covering themes. In recent years I’ve ended up writing and thinking a lot about “citizen journalism” and “social media.” Right now, the theme is the distributed web, just as Bradshaw emphasizes in this video.
If you want to know what to focus on in 2008, this is your clue.
WCNC-TV (Charlotte, North Carolina) web gal Kayla Castille wrote in today to report on a journalistic success with using Twitter:
“I just wanted to update you on our Twitter coverage at WCNC. We did it for the primary yesterday, and it was incredibly successful. It was the 3rd most-viewed page on our site, right behind the complete election results and the top story on Obama’s win. The reporters, anchors and producers really got into it, and they were all excited when it succeeded.”
Just a short tip today. … Allow your readers to post comments on your content. (And yes, I mean all of it.) That’s hardly a new idea. Many news websites allow users to post comments on their content. Surprisingly, some still do not. (Which is pretty sad; allowing user comments is the base level for online media interactivity. There’s just no reason not to allow it.)
A recent article by Miami Herald executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal confirmed the wisdom of allowing user comments. In the Letter to Readers, he wrote:
“In the six months since The Miami Herald began publishing comments at the end of online stories, the response has been like nothing we’ve seen before. Hundreds of thousands of readers are posting comments or following along with them each month.”
When some news people think about “citizen journalism,” the inclination is to think of encouraging (and perhaps teaching) non-journalists to act like journalists. For example, my hometown paper features something called MyTown, which announces:
“Post news, events and photos. Blog, create your own groups, set up RSS feeds, and build your own communities and web spaces. It’s up to you to provide the nitty-gritty details that make your community special. No news is too small — from Little League to college scholarships, professional accolades to pie-baking contests, volunteer opportunities to neighborhood watch programs.”
