JonLowder.com

Running on Empty

I apologize ahead of time for the whining.  This time of year is usually tough for me because there's too much work and lots of stuff going on with the kids, like baseball, soccer, tennis and such.  Truth be told this year feels worse than the last few because, truth be told, I'm not getting any younger.  Right now I'm sitting at the computer trying to wind up my day after getting up at 4:45-ish, heading to the airport for a 6:30 flight to DC, heading straight to SCIP's (my client's) office and I'm still here at 8:30 (that's PM) with another hour of work to do.  I know there are lots of people who have it worse, but I'm telling you my tank's about dry.

I'm hoping to sleep hard tonight, but I'm one of those people who can't sleep well in a hotel so I don't hold out much hope.  The worst part is that this is the first day of an eight day trip.  The last four will be brutal as we put on SCIP's largest event of the year.  Everyone here will be on the clock from 6:00 a.m. until some time after dark, and everyone in SCIP's office has had it as bad (actually worse) than I've had it for the last few weeks.  I wouldn't want to be trapped in a closed room with any of us come Wednesday of next week. The upside is that these are a great group of people to work with and I seriously don't think I'd be doing it if they weren't. 

BTW, if you're in New York next week you should drop by the Marriott Marquis and check out the conference, especially if you happen to be in the competitive intelligence business.  It ain't free, but it's a great conference.  If you're not in CI then maybe you can just drop by and check out the elevators in the place; they're fast and they go way-high (49 floors).

Yep, I'm exhausted because even as I write this I know it's one of the dumbest, most self serving things I've written yet.  I know it's self serving because I've yet to mention what Celeste has to deal with while I'm gone: games that overlap and necessitate scheduling gyrations and begging for carpools, single-handed homework checking, and dealing with two teenagers and one tween for eight days solid.  It'll be a miracle if I don't come home to find her in AA.

But, it beats the alternative of unemployment and everything that comes with it.  With that I declare this whine-fest over.  Everyone have a great week.

Am I Cool or an Embarassment?

So I roll into my driveway last night, or rather this morning at 1:30 a.m. returning from my brief business trip to DC.  I'm up at 5:30 because I have a tight deadline that I have to meet today, and I go out to the driveway to get the paper while the coffee's brewing.  There I find that this little 'ol blog has been profiled in the Winston-Salem Journal, and it includes a picture of the family.  I'm thinking this is kind of cool and I'll bet the kids will love seeing their picture in the paper, so I put it on the kitchen counter and get the two olded up at their usual 6 a.m. to get ready for school. (The youngest is at Camp Hanes with the rest of Lewisville's 5th graders). Here's what happened:

• Neither one of them noticed the paper on the counter.  They're pretty much zombies in the morning.
• I pointed out the article to Michael, my 14 year old son, first.  He says "Cool" and goes to get dressed.
• Five minutes later I pointed out the article to Erin, my 13 year old daughter.  She says "Oh my God.  This is so embarassing.  I'm going to be laughed at at school."  Then she packs her stuff up, gives me a kiss and leaves for the bus.
• Michael says "See ya" and runs out the door after her.

That left me with a cup of coffee and the question of whether I'm cool or an embarassment.  Yep, a normal day.

FYI, Kim Underwood from the Journal emailed me some questions for the profile a few weeks ago and asked for a picture.  I wasn't sure if it would actually make the paper because the other blogs they've profiled involve "missions", or in other words they are written by people doing something good for the world.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out he actually ran the profile since this thing is pretty much random thoughts spilling out of my addled brain.  Make sure you check out next week's Web Sightings since it will feature what I consider the best blog in town, Life in Forsyth.

In a Vacuum

As I mentioned in my previous post we lost power on Sunday night and we've been without power and/or cable for about two days.  A consequence of our blackout is that we (Celeste and I) had no idea that something was going on at Virginia Tech until one of the people sitting at the table next to us at Panera started playing the video from CNN on his laptop.  After that the only update I got for hours was on the radio while I was driving my son to his orthodontist.  We stayed at a hotel last night so I was able to watch the news there, but really I felt like I was in a vacuum.

This reminded me of 9/11 when I was stuck on the streets of DC trying to get home and didn't hear about the towers falling down until someone told me as we waited to get on the Metro.  After that I had no idea what was going on until I got home that evening and saw for the first time the video that the rest of the world had seen hours earlier. 

This also reminded me that my habits have changed considerably in the last few years. I used to get most of my information from broadcasts, radio or television, but now I get most of it via RSS feeds in my reader or by browsing any number of news sites.  I'm beginning to realize how limiting the broadcasts feel, because when I'm online and getting my usual news stream I'm seeing one story from literally dozens of viewpoints.  With TV I'm getting that one story from a limited number of sources who all feel compelled to package events like this as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech" and then in two days will package it as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech: The Aftermath", and then in two more days will package it as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech: The Recovery Begins", etc.

Of course I could have read my feeds on my PocketPC but I had the slight problem that I'd deleted my mobile feed reader (long story) and had neglected to restore it.  Once I get the chance that's now a high priority, because I can't take much more of the broadcasters.

Nothing Like Timing

It's my busiest time of year.  My client's big annual conference is in two weeks and I'm responsible for all the exhibitors and sponsors.  This is the week that I get scores of calls and dozens of email every day with questions about the conference.  So of course this is exactly when I lose power and cable (i.e. internet and IP phone) for days on end.

Thank goodness for Panera and my wife's old laptop.  This experience also highlights the severe limitations of my PocketPC, which is great from updating documents and doing light email but is not suited for hardcore work.

Stress now at Defcon 5.

Jon

So Who Prays for Forsyth County?

After I vented my spleen yesterday I got to thinking that maybe I'd spouted off about the Forsyth County commissioners a little to rashly.  Specifically I said:

The Forsyth County commissioners and sectarian prayer supporters consistently point out that the commissioners invite representatives of different religions to open their meetings and so the current policy is fair.  I'm left to wonder if they think that inviting Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans and Moravians qualifies as different religions?  Exactly when was the last time a Pagan was invited to give the opening prayer?  How about a Muslim or Buddhist?  Heck, what about those Mormons that scare the crap out of your average Baptist?

I started thinking that maybe I should have checked before I wrote that, and I should probably look into it to be fair.  So I did.  I checked out the minutes for all the regular meetings held by the commissioners from 2000 to 2006 and the meeting summaries from meetings held in 2007.  That's 175 meetings held from January 10, 2000 to April 9, 2007, each of which began with a call to order and then the attendees standing to hear the invocation and the pledge of allegiance.  Here's who gave those 175 invocations:

• 152 were delivered by representatives of Christian institutions (Churches, Salvation Army)
• 16 were delivered by board members
• 2 were delivered by a representative of a Unitarian Universalist congregation
• 2 were delivered by a representative of Forsyth Jail Prison Ministry (both in 06)
• 1 by a Rabbi (November of 06)
• 1 by a representative of Carolina Dianetics (Scientologists) (1/22/07)
• 1 (3/12/07) the notes only say "invocation" and do not indicate who delivered it

I guess I was safe in my spouting off.  Although I did see the occassional Seventh Day Adventist included I didn't see any Mormons, Muslims or Buddhists.  I find it interesting that the Dianetics person was invited last month since that occured after the commissioners received the letter from the ACLU.  Another interesting point is that the board member who most often gave the invocation was Dave Plyler who lost his seat in a close election last year to Ted Kaplan.  Kaplan is one of the three commissioners to oppose proceeding with the court battle that the commissioners voted yesterday to pursue.

I wonder if we'll see more diversification of invocators as we move forward thanks to the attention from the lawsuit?

Two Editors, Two Decisions on Naming Duke Accuser

Once the former Duke lacrosse players were proclaimed innocent by Attorney General Roy Cooper the media covering the story had a choice to make: do they or do they not publish the name of the woman who accused the men of rape?  The Raleigh News & Observer decided to and The Winston-Salem Journal decided not to.  What's interesting about this to me is that the editors explained their reasoning on their blogs.  First from Melanie Sill the N&O's executive editor:

During the year since Mangum told police she was assaulted at a lacrosse team party, The N&O followed its longstanding policy of not naming claimants in sexual assault cases. This policy is accepted practice among most print and broadcast media in the United States.

The N&O has upheld this approach, which the newspaper has followed for at least 15 years, to avoid discouraging victims of rape and sexual assault from reporting such crimes. The N&O's policy regarding sexual assault claimants has rarely been challenged and we saw no reason to abandon the policy in the midst of a case.

In recent weeks The N&O's senior editors consulted a number of people with an interest in these issues, among them advocates for sexual assault victims, defense lawyers, current and former journalists, a district judge, journalism educators and ethics experts, in considering whether and under what circumstances to identify Mangum. No consensus emerged, but the conversations helped us consider essential questions about precedent and impact.

With the decision of the state attorney general's office to drop all charges against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, no charge of rape or sexual assault exists. Mangum's claim has been vehemently denied by the three men indicted in the case and by their teammates, who believe they have been damaged by a false accusation. Attorney General Roy Cooper said his office concluded that the three are innocent.

Mangum also has been widely identified on the Internet, including on mainstream sites such as Wikipedia. Because of these circumstances, and in order to more fully report on the case and its aftermath, we decided to publish her name. Additionally, we will review our standing policy.

And this from Ken Otterbourg, the Journal's managing editor:

Yesterday, we had an important decision about whether to name the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case. She is the college student/dancer/mother who was hired to dance at the party and then made accusations that led to charges that were dismissed by the Attorney General.

Most news outlets don’t name the accusers in rape cases, although there are exceptions to every rule. Several newspapers that I respect, including the News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, both decided to name the woman. Her name was widely available prior to this decision. Here’s the explanation of the N&O’s exec editor, Melanie Sill.

We decided not to. Here’s what our rape policy says, in part:

In the event that an accused rapist is acquitted or released after being charged [and that charge was reported by us], we will make significant efforts to detail the story behind the defendant’s success. In these narrow cases, we may choose to name the accuser if there is competent evidence that the charges were deliberately bogus. Even in this event, however, we will not use the names of any victim under 18 years old.

I think the key word here is “deliberately.” To my mind, what AG Cooper said yesterday is key, that the accuser may actually believe her stories. I’m not sure her charges were deliberate lies.

While reading about the papers' internal deliberations is interesting in and of itself, it's also interesting to read the comments in the posts.  Well at least at the N&O, since as of this writing there's only one comment at Ken's and it's just a small quibble with verbiage.  Some people feel that publishing the name of the "victim" will deter future victims of rape and sexual assault from coming forward. Others argue that it is only fair that the woman's name be revealed since the mens' names had been dragged through the mud for a year based on false accusations.  And of course there's the "liberal press" charges and other vitriol.  All in all, it's far more interesting and educating than what you read in the papers themselves.

Venting Ye Old Spleen

Maybe I'm cranky because this is the most stressful time of the year for me at work.  Whatever it is I've had it with some of the crap that passes for news and public dialogue these days and I figured what better way to blow off a little steam than to spell it out for the three people who read this thing.  So here we go.

Item #1: Forsyth County Commissioners and the ACLU re. Sectarian Prayers to Open Public Meetings

A while back the ACLU sent a letter to a bunch of municipalities in western North Carolina threatening to sue them if they didn't end the practice of opening public meetings with sectarian prayers said by preachers invited from various churches.  All of the municipalities were told by their lawyers that they didn't have a leg to stand on and some came to the decision to either open their meetings with non-sectarian prayers or with moments of silence.  Of course my county commissioners aren't listening to their lawyer and are considering going to court to fight the ACLU even though there is a ton of case-law, i.e. precedents, that have held against prayer at government meetings.  The commissioners are also getting a lot of vocal support for fighting the ACLU from local citizens with only a smattering of dissent. (For a taste check out the letters to the editor of at the Winston-Salem Journal).  What really gets my goat, though, is that the arguments put forward in support of sectarian prayer are downright obtuse.

One rationale that the sectarian prayer supporters use to argue their point is that the establishment clause should not be interpreted to allow a small minority to deny the majority their right to sectarian prayer.  This is as dumb an argument as you can make for this reason: Not allowing a government meeting to open with a sectarian prayer is not denying anyone the right to pray. If you feel like it you can go and sit in the meeting and pray to anyone or anything you like, but the government can't invite you to come and pray as their representative.  What's being denied is the government's "right" to sanction any one religious group or sect.

Another argument being floated is that denying Christians the right to invoke Jesus is also barring Jews, Muslims, etc. from praying to their God.  No one, including the ACLU, has said that the prayer before a meeting can't invoke "God", they've only said you can't invoke a specific deity like Jesus or Buddha.  I've mentioned that to a couple of people and they think I'm lying.  Whatever.

The Forsyth County commissioners and sectarian prayer supporters consistently point out that the commissioners invite representatives of different religions to open their meetings and so the current policy is fair.  I'm left to wonder if they think that inviting Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans and Moravians qualifies as different religions?  Exactly when was the last time a Pagan was invited to give the opening prayer?  How about a Muslim or Buddhist?  Heck, what about those Mormons that scare the crap out of your average Baptist?

Finally, I'm willing to bet that the commissioners know this is a losing cause.  They've been hemming and hawing while they try to come up with a resolution that protects them from the vocal choir of voters who want to fight the ACLU. It looks like they might have found a way out of their jam by deciding to fight if, as todays Winston-Salem Journal reports, some Christian-folk get together funding to privately finance the legal fight.  That would mean that the commissioners wouldn't have to worry about any political fallout for spending public dollars on what everyone knows is a losing battle.  In other words they can pander to the vocal Christian majority of their constituents without risking anything.  Cowards. 

The county commissioners have been elected to represent all of their constituents, not just the majority who are Christians.  Every single one of them has an atheist, agnostic, and other non-Christian in their district but instead of looking out for this small minority's interest they're pandering to the majority.  They seem to think that their job is to do what the majority wants them to do, but if that's how representative government worked then we could run our government like American Idol.  Their job, first and foremost, is to uphold the law for all of their constituents and if they fight a battle that their own legal advisors say is wrong then they all deserve to be canned in the next election.  And for anyone who doesn't know me, I say this as a life-long Christian.

Issue #2: This Whole Imus Thing

What's to say that hasn't already been said?  Well, I'll just add a couple of thoughts. 

Number one: How did Al Sharpton become the black community's "representative"?  That's like the white community being "represented" by some strange hybrid of Pat Robertson and Donald Trump. Sharpton's an opportunistic gas-bag who's cause is his own wallet, period.  If there wasn't any money in it he wouldn't be "representing" anyone.

Number two:  Sharpton's antics took Imus from being a has-been listened to by a couple of million people who lost half their brain cells while dropping acid in the 60s and 70s to being the most prominent person in media. And it happened in less than a week.  Sharpton would argue that Imus is hurting because he lost a bunch of sponsors and has lost his simulcast on MSNBC (viewed by the tens of thousands!).  Of course now even my kids know who he is so when he starts streaming his schtick online, putting out podcasts, writing his autobiography, etc. he'll make a gazillion dollars.  But Sharpton doesn't care because he's reaping the benefit during his own show's sweeps weeks.

Number three: Imus and Sharpton both know that they're going to get even richer off this thing and they literally have a symbiotic relationship now.  I imagine that in a month they'll be toasting their success with a glass of Cristal at a restaurant in Harlem.  They're playing us for suckers and it's working.

Number four: Who thinks that by Monday we'll still be engaging in the productive "discussion of race" that this episode supposedly opened up? If you raised your hand I know of a bridge in Brooklyn that Sharpton would love to sell you.

That's it for now.  I do kind of feel better.

A Tale of Two (Allegedly) Drunk Local TV Guys

Several weeks ago a local TV morning anchor, Tolly Carr, was arrested and charged with drunk driving and allegedly hitting and killing a pedestrian in Winston-Salem.  Carr is employed by Winston-Salem based WXII 12 and the day after the accident the station released a video statement from GM Hank Price and covered it as a straight news item.  This past weekend an entertainment reporter for WKRN in Nashville, TN was pulled over and arrested for drunk driving and WKRN's GM, Mike Sechrist, announced it on his blog.

To me these two cases offer an interesting juxtaposition of two local news outlets that are using online media in fairly different ways.  The video statement from WXII is old school, one way information flow.  WKRN's blog allows for comments which means that you have the new school "dialogue" happening.  If you read the comments on the WKRN post, and there are lots of them, you see a pretty strong debate break out about drunk driving in general, and even accusations that the station is giving their man special treatment by not putting his mugshot on the air.  Because that debate is happening on his site Sechrist can address those comments directly.  Even though WXII did put Carr's mugshot on the air they (and the rest of the local media) were accused of favoritism in their handling of Carr's story, but since it was on local blogs and not on their site and WXII was absent from the debate.

In a strange twist to the Carr story a rumor started floating around that he had commited suicide.  The managing editor of the Winston-Salem Journal wrote about it on his blog from the perspective of a newsroom that was inundated with calls asking if the rumors were true.  Again, nary a word from WXII to be found.  I have the feeling that if similar rumors were to crop up in Nashville you'd hear about it directly from the GM on his blog.

WXII is putting its toe in the water by hosting three or four blogs, but some of them don't allow comments and with the exception of the sports blog they aren't updated very often.  More importantly the blogs are merely an extension of their on-air personalities (anchor, weather, sports) and don't give the audience a look behind the camera at the station.  I personally think that the power of blogs and of most new media lies in the ability to draw an audience in and make its members feel like part of the "family."  While GMs, managing editors, and publishers traditionally view themselves as behind the scenes bosses they are in fact the true representative of the organization.  They represent the entire organization and are in the best position to articulate the goals, concerns and direction of the station, paper, magazine, etc.  By communicating consistently with their audience they draw them into their world, make them feel like they have a stake in the station/newspaper/magazine's future and ultimately keep them as a viewer/reader.  And when bad things happen they have a line of communication directly with the audience, which means they can deal with the fallout without having to go through intermediaries and they can nip rumors in the bud.

The bottom line is that all media organizations are businesses, and the GM is kind of like a CEO.  That's why a recent article in Wired titled "The See Through CEO" is applicable to them.  In the article the author cites cases where companies have benefited from their leaders communicating directly with their customers, writing openly about all things related to the company including the good, the bad and the ugly.  In each of those cases the companies have grown and prospered and the CEOs attribute that growth to their openness. 

Because media companies are already so visible, and because local TV news folks are uniquely intimate to their audience (more than a few people think of local news anchors as a part of their extended family), then it stands to reason that more openness could be particularly effective for them.  They put food on the table by selling advertising.  Advertisers are interested in audience size and demographics, and if by embracing online tools that encourage dialogue they also increase loyalty, then GMs are doing what they're paid to do: increasing their bottom line.

In defense of Mr. Price at WXII there aren't many media types who are doing this yet. If he needs a first hand account of a blog's utility he need only walk down the street to talk to Ken Otterbourg at the Winston-Salem Journal or pick of the phone and call John Robinson over at the Greensboro News & Record.  While I doubt they would be able to give him quantifiable numbers showing that their blogs have contributed directly to the bottom line, I'm fairly certain they would tell him that their guts tell them they're doing the right thing and that their efforts will pay off in the near future.  And of course that's the other thing GMs are paid for: their gut instincts. 

The People, Yes. Yes!

A friend of mine in Greensboro, Sean Coon, has been working diligently to get a new venture called The People, Yes off the ground.   Sean has entered The People, Yes in a competition at Netsquared's Technology Innovation Fund that could result in funding for his effort.  Take a moment to check out Sean's post about it here, and then go to Netsquared and vote for five of the proposals that you think deserve funding.  Of course I think you should vote for The People, Yes, but I'll trust your judgement.

FYI, here's The People, Yes mission statement:

Our short-term mission:
To reach out to our neighbors on the other side of the digital divide and provide the necessary training and logistics for enabling a new online community of voices via blogging, podcasting, vlogging, etc. We plan on directly engaging with the homeless community and folk living at or below the poverty line, but will work with any Greensboro resident who would like to publish their point of view.

Our longer-term mission:
Once the collaborative blog platform gets legs, we plan on creating meshed communities of local resident's topical interests, while focusing on engaging both individuals and local businesses to sponsor individual media creators. A large percentage of sponsorship revenue would be funneled back to the content creators themselves, with the remainder going back into programs that support the local homeless community.

More background about The People, Yes can be found here.

Tell Us What You Think Rick

An old friend (and boss) of mine, Rick Biehl, recently had a letter printed in the Washington Post sports section.  Let's just say he doesn't think highly of the team the Nationals is putting on the field this year:

It's unfortunate that, with the weak attendance the Nationals are about to have this season, you already raise the issue of whether the D.C. area deserves a Major League Baseball team, noting [last Sunday], "the game is here now."

The 2007 Nationals are not a Major League Baseball team, and no city in the country would support the kind of game this crew is about to play. The Nationals are not only the worst team in baseball, they could be the worst team since the 1962 New York Mets. It's unfair to judge the Washington region if it fails to go crazy for this team, which in addition to being horrid, also plays in fan-unfriendly RFK. The test of whether D.C. is worthy of a Major League Baseball team should await the day when it actually has one.

Rick really needs a blog.