“Back pocket” journalism

In my Journalism of the Web class last semester, we spent some time talking about “backpack journalism” — that is, journalism done by reporters toting laptops, video cameras, digital audio recorders and satellite phones so they can function as one-person purveyors of online text, video and audio reports from anywhere in the world.

Kevin Sites is a good example of this, although a recent report in the Washington Post showed how backpack journalism is being adapted to community newspapering as well.

Now, according to Clyde Bentley, the backpack is turning into your back pocket. In this piece for the Online Journalism Review, Bentley introduces us to the Nokia N93, a cell phone (the label hardly does it justice) that can record high-quality video, still photos and audio, that runs Microsoft Word and other programs, and that can be used to write stories either directly or with a plug-in keyboard. When you’re done, just upload through the cell network or a WiFi connection. Bentley writes:

My dream scenario is walking into a neighborhood in jeans and sweatshirt, an N93 in one pocket and a keyboard in the other. Sans my tell-tale computer bag and camera, I think I could be just one of the boys as I developed my contacts. And when the time came, I could record audio clips of background sounds, take a few photos of the street corner crowd then shoot a video clip of that great old codger. Back at the café, I could type my story, file it to the office and amble into the sunset.

In the emerging news-media landscape, journalists will need to possess a variety of multimedia skills, whether they like it or not. At least they won’t have to worry about getting a hernia, too.

Discovering Japan

This is a hoot. The Boston Herald announces that it’s offering Japanese-language pages on its Web site to appeal to Japanese baseball fans who want to follow Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Red Sox.

“Readers on the Herald’s Web site can now click onto the Japanese flag icon associated with selected stories and view a Japanese translation of the story,” the paper says.

Here’s an example.

For years, the Boston Globe published Spanish-language stories the day after Pedro Martínez pitched at Fenway Park. Why this was done only after home games is still a mystery.

Anyway, the Herald’s move is very smart, leading me to wonder if the Globe, the Providence Journal and others — including the Red Sox themselves — will follow suit. (Via Romenesko.)

The price of censorship

Mockery, in this case. We can only be thankful that the Bush administration’s attempts at silencing its critics are so ineptly ludicrous. Like Moe Howard, President Bush’s dictatorial tendencies are consistently undermined by his inability to enforce his will.

Today the New York Times publishes the redacted version of an op-ed written by former government officials Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann, the husband-and-wife team that was censored even though they insist there is no classified information in their essay. Leverett and Mann’s article, complete with blacked-out sections, is here; their introduction is here.

The longer essay on which their op-ed is reportedly based remains online.

As that noted civil libertarian Curly Howard would say, “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.”

A good bad movie

Last night Media Nation Jr. and I watched “Masked and Anonymous,” a 2003 movie with an all-star cast that includes John Goodman, Jessica Lange and, improbably, Bob Dylan. I didn’t expect it to be very good, and I wasn’t disappointed. But it wasn’t boring, either.

Much of the writing was so bad that it made some pretty good actors and actresses seem like community-theater wanna-bes. But Dylan himself was weirdly compelling. You wouldn’t call him a great actor, but he projected an understated (very understated) emotional force that gave him real presence.

“Masked and Anonymous” is set in some dystopian near-future. It’s hard to tell exactly what has happened, but there’s been a revolution. The dictator is dying. And a has-been named Jack Fate — played by Dylan — is sprung from a hellish-looking prison in order to perform at a benefit concert.

Perhaps the best line is delivered in one of the DVD extra features, when Goodman laughs and admits that he has no idea what “Masked” is about. It’s that kind of movie. But it looks great, and there’s a lot of music by Dylan and his regular band.

In any event, it’s a damn sight better than Renaldo and Clara, Dylan’s four-and-a-half-hour 1978 disaster, to which I took Mrs. Media Nation back when I was dating her. It’s a wonder she married me.

Welcome to Media Nation 2.0

Well, not quite. But I updated to the new version of Blogger a little while ago. It doesn’t look that much different, but it’s got some new features. I’m excited/intimidated by the ability to assign “labels” (what most Web 2.0 types call “tags”). Potentially it’s a great way to find related posts. But I can’t just jump in; I’ll need a system.

Does anyone have any solid tips for using tags?

Death of a newscast

Timing is everything. Last September, I wrote twice about the sale of WLVI-TV (Channel 56) to Ed Ansin, the Miami-based owner of WHDH-TV (Channel 7), lamenting the loss of a quality newscast. But no one was paying attention at the time.

In the past few days I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails asking why I didn’t write about the death of Channel 56. So I’ll say it again — briefly. The FCC shouldn’t allow anyone to control more than one television station in a market. Because of the agency’s deregulatory zeal, good people have lost their jobs. More important, viewers have lost a newscast that many people trusted and liked.

Kudos to retired anchor Jack Hynes for speaking out (click here and here). And be sure to read today’s Inside Track account of the no-class manner by which the 56 folks were shoved out the door.

We also talked about the demise of Channel 56 on “Greater Boston” last Friday. You can watch it here.

Together again

In an irony that only media junkies could appreciate, Boston Herald reporter Dave Wedge today grills Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh over his office’s decision to drop a drunken-driving case against a “politically connected socialite.”

It was Wedge’s reliance on sources in Walsh’s office (including Walsh himself) that led the Herald to lose a $2.1 million libel case brought by Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy, who objected to being portrayed as a “heartless” judge who “demeaned” victims of crime. (As I argued at the time, Wedge’s reliance on those sources should have cleared him under the Supreme Court’s Times v. Sullivan standard. The verdict is currently under appeal.)

The socialite, by the way, is Suzanne Magaziner, the wife of Ira Magaziner, best known as the principal architect of Hillary Clinton’s failed universal health-care proposal.

A final irony is that Walsh lost his bid for re-election in the Democratic primary last September. He’ll be replaced by the victor, Sam Sutter, in a few weeks.

The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro covers the Walsh-Magaziner story here.

Carter and Dershowitz

Not Carter versus Dershowitz, which might have been worthwhile.

A day after the Boston Globe published an op-ed by Jimmy Carter whining about the treatment he and his new book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” have received, the paper comes back with a piece by Alan Dershowitz whining about Carter’s refusal to debate him at Brandeis (and whining about Carter’s whining).

It’s as though the Globe were letting Carter and Dershowitz edit the opinion pages, when it ought to be the other way around.

This shouldn’t have been difficult. Not many people are going to read Carter’s book. And not many people are going to read Dershowitz’s review of it on Frontpagemag.com (hat tip to Steve for the link). The Globe should have told Carter that if he wanted to write an op-ed, he should use it to make two or three key points summarizing his book. And then Dershowitz should have been told to respond. The op-eds could have run the same day or on succeeding days.

The Globe had a chance to educate its readers about an important subject in the news. Instead, it published 1,500 words about not much of anything. It was a lost opportunity.

Where’s Alan Dershowitz?

Last Saturday, the Boston Globe editorial page criticized Jimmy Carter for refusing to debate Alan Dershowitz at Brandeis University over Carter’s new book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” The editorial said in part:

Some of the fury Carter has provoked is so overwrought that it appears to confirm his own overstated contention that any criticism of Israel is treated like heresy by the mainstream media. But it is precisely because of the hyperbole of his critics, and the seriousness of the issues he wants to raise, that Carter should agree to debate that inveterate defender of Israel, Alan Dershowitz.

I agree. So I was a little surprised today when the Globe ran an op-ed by Carter in which he both flogs his book and whines about the way he’s been treated. Carter writes:

[T]here has been a pattern of ad hominem statements, alleging that I am a liar, plagiarist, anti-Semite, racist, bigot, ignorant, etc. There are frequent denunciations of fabricated “straw man” accusations: that I have claimed that apartheid exists within Israel; that the system of apartheid in Palestine is based on racism; and that Jews control and manipulate the news media of America.

Actually, the Carter op-ed isn’t a surprise. It’s the lack of a counterbalance from Dershowitz or anyone else — not necessary under normal circumstances, but necessary because the Globe just got finished applauding Brandeis for insisting on a debate rather than a monologue.

Coming tomorrow?

How old is Rocky?

New York Times: “Since he was last seen 16 years ago in ‘Rocky V,’ this two-time former heavyweight champion, now pushing 60 (Mr. Stallone’s age), has evolved a philosophy of the ring that befits an older, slower athlete.”

Boston Globe: “‘Rocky Balboa’ is about a 50-year-old boxer’s last shot at glory, but it clearly represents the 60-year-old Sylvester Stallone’s attempt to climb back in the ring after a career that has dwindled into inconsequence in the past decade.”