Atlanta Media Bloggers

Attention Atlanta Bloggers!

Jon Gos has launch his bloggers meetup which I wanted to let everyone know about.
http://blog.meetup.com/375/calendar/5471619/

RSVP for Ethics and Social Behavior Online

Sunday, March 4, 2007, 7:00 PM

Where:

Sapporo Japanese Restaurant
1401 Johnson Ferry Road
Marietta , GA 30062-6495
770.565.7018

Description:

What are the ethics of Citizen Journalism?  Are there any?  Should there be? 

Anonymity seems to bring out the worst in some people. If you haven't noticed just take one look at the comments section of your favorite blog. This is a characteristic of human nature that we can't completely understand in one meeting but we can meet-up to discuss it over Japanese food!

 

Sherry tagged me

So I'm supposed to write five things about myself?

This 'blog slam' is a tagging game where you write 5 things about yourself and then tag 5 bloggers to do the same.

1. Soon I am moving to NYC to start a new job.

2. I think I hate packing and moving more than any human being on Earth, because I have a Grand Fixed Cross in my astrological chart, which means I'm incredibly stubborn, and am always pulled in four stubborn directions. So instead of sitting still, it means I've moved all over the country all my life. And every time I do it, it's so wrenching, it's a bit like being drawn and quartered as a torturous punishment in a medieval town. And I wouldn't NOT do it for anything.

3. I just watched "Good Night and Good Luck" about Edward R. Murrow, Fred Friendly, and Senator McCarthy, again, and I'm so intensely moved every time I watch it, it leaves me gasping and speechless. Maybe that will pass after I get some distance from similar circumstances.

4. In my past life, I was a Christmas Elf! Santa Claus was berry berry good to me this year, and for that I am deeply grateful. Merry Christmas, all!

Oh, and Tag, You're It!

Chip
Joshua Kucera
Wally
Crowpoet
Tim A Gem

Chris

p.s. Sherry I'm very sorry to hear about your dad.

 

My five

I was recently slammed, so now I must comply. Here goes...

1. I used to play the trumpet in grade school.
2. I love comics and have several boxes of comics collecting dust in my attic. 
3. I was once a prolific screenwriter.
4. I used to publish an ezine of bizarre crime fiction.
5. I have directed several music videos.

Okay, so now I have to tag 5 more bloggers. Let me see, hmmm...

Amybeth Hale
Sherry Heyl
Cheezhead
The Chad
Gretchen Ledgard

slam blog

I just read about a little blogging game going on that kind of reminds me of high school slam books. Did you all have slam books? It was a book someone would create asking basic and sometimes embarrassing questions, and then they would get all their friends to fill it out. The fun part was to read everyone's answers.

This 'blog slam' is a tagging game where you write 5 things about yourself and then tag 5 bloggers to do the same. The point that Charlene Li makes is how it even broke through to corporate bloggers and the joy of getting to know the real people within the corporations. Now, I personally think everyone already knows everything about me. But I'll give it a shot....

1. I played Cello in the 7th grade...and was quite good.
2. I was on the waterpolo team in 9th grade...but I swim like a rock - so I passed towels out.
3. I have successfully written 2 songs with my husband in the past 16  years...neither of which we have anymore :(
4. The very first piece of writing I ever published for all the world to see, is under another person's name.
5. I once out ran a cop - by accident...

OK...so now I tag 5 bloggers to write their 5 things.

Kevin Howarth
Amber Rhea
Grayson Daughters
Jim Stroud
Chris Boese

Converge South

Converge South, the South's biggest (only?) blogging and new media conference, begins Oct. 13th in Greensboro, NC. I see a few of us AMB are already signed-up. Since we're planning the first-ever Atlanta Social Media conference, this will be an excellent, hands-on way to get some good conference tips and tricks. Please join us in Greensboro if you can. Southern-fried networkin' at its best!

http://www.convergesouth.com/index.html

How NOT to get lots of comments on your blog...

Yeow! When some friends first told me about this today, I really wasn't sure what a "sock puppet" was, and to tell you the truth, the guess I had in my imagination was a tad more off-color. I was glad to be proven wrong on that assumption!

So another professional journalist gets his poor ethics exposed, care of blogs and the blogosphere. I just have to point that out, because usually it is professional journalists ranting about the lack of ethical reporting standards in the blogosphere.

Link: New Republic Suspends an Editor for Attacks on Blog - New York Times.

September 4, 2006

New Republic Suspends an Editor for Attacks on Blog

By MARIA ASPAN

A senior editor at The New Republic was suspended and his blog was shut down on Friday after revelations that he was involved in anonymously attacking readers who criticized his posts.

Lee Siegel, creator of the Lee Siegel on Culture blog for tnr.com, was suspended indefinitely from the magazine after a reader accused him of using a “sock puppet,” or Internet alias, to attack his critics in the comments section of his blog. An editor’s apology replaced the blog on the Web site, announcing that the blog would no longer be published and noting that The New Republic deeply regretted “misleading” its readers.

Franklin Foer, the New Republic’s editor, said in an interview that he first became aware of the accusations against Mr. Siegel on Thursday afternoon, after a colleague noticed a comment in the Talkback section of Mr. Siegel’s blog that accused him of using the alias “sprezzatura” to defend his articles and assail his critics.

["sprezzatura" is a literary term, for art that seems effortless or comes easily]

[...]

In a statement by e-mail, Mr. Siegel said, “I’m sorry about my prank, which was certainly not designed to harm a magazine that has been my happy intellectual home for many years.”

[...]

Mr. Siegel became a polarizing figure, coining the term “blogofascism” in the midst of a debate over The New Republic’s support of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in the Connecticut primary.

The user named sprezzatura, an Italian term for studied carelessness, posted comments that were hyperbolic even in the blogging environment. After readers criticized Mr. Siegel for his post about the host of “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart, sprezzatura wrote: “Siegel is brave, brilliant and wittier than Stewart will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep.” (A later comment deplored other readers’ “inability to withstand a difference in taste without resorting to personal insult.”)

Mr. Siegel is not the first mainstream blogger to use an Internet alias or the first to be unmasked. In April, The Los Angeles Times suspended the blog of a reporter, Michael A. Hiltzik, after he admitted using aliases on his own blog and other Web sites. Mr. Foer said that as print publications engage the Internet, it can be difficult to clearly define and apply journalistic principles. “Obviously, this all happened in a newer medium where the rules are more ambiguous,” he said. “But we simply don’t tolerate the misleading of our readers.”

Arianna Huffington is keynote speaker at the Decatur Book Festival tonight!

Link: The AJC Decatur Book Festival | Event Schedule.

Sorry for the last minute notice. I'm not too organized these days.

It's at Agnes Scott College, Presser Hall, 8-9 pm.

I've always wanted an excuse to poke around the Agnes Scott campus. It's so beautiful.

Anybody feel like going? I plan to be there. While she isn't directly scheduled to talk about Huffington Post (slated to talk about her book on work/life balance), I expect she'll get some questions about the Post during the Q&A session, if there is one.

I'm a fan of what she's done with the Post, both in its navigation and architecture, and its sense of being a "stable" of a wide range of well-known people. She's given them a forum to blog and unleashed a powerful and now influential collective voice on the blogosphere and beyond.

In particular, I hope to ask her for more information about how she set up her deal with Yahoo! News, both to repurpose content from her site, but also getting primo structural representation in the opinion section of the Yahoo! News page. Did she make the deal the way it has usually been done with newspaper syndicated columnists? Or was there more of a trade or exchange aspect involved? Did she approach Yahoo! News, or did Yahoo! News approach her? I'm just really curious about the business model of the arrangement. Inquiring minds want to know!

Keynote Address

The AJC DBF is proud to announce political columnist Arianna Huffington as its keynote speaker! Join Ms. Huffington as she opens the festival Friday night at Presser Hall at Agnes Scott College with a discussion of her new  book, On Becoming Fearless… In Love, Work, and Life.  

View Arianna  Huffington’s bio.

There's a ton of other events at the conference, plus a festival atmosphere with a book market on the Decatur Square, a barbecue and fireworks among the many things scheduled.

Activities In-Depth:

• Antiquarian Book Fair
• Barbeque and Fireworks
• Children's Activities
• Cooking Authors and Demonstrations
• Food, Beer, and Wine
• Keynote Address    
• Live Music and Poetry
• Panel Discussions and Book Signings
• Writer's Conference
• DBF Stages
• Event Schedule

That grid schedule is just a BEAR to read tho. Wish they'd redesign it. Here's some other events that pertain to blogging:

PANELS – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

E-Storytelling: In which we discuss the new form of writing commonly referred to as online fiction, from short stories to comedy pieces to email-text-and-Instant-Message-as-storytelling device. 10 a.m.

• John Warner, editor of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
• Jack Pendarvis, author of The Mysterious Secret of Valuable Treasure, Pushcart Prize winner
• Jamie Allen, editor of The Duck & Herring Co.

Real Writers Blog: In which we discuss whether today's writers need a web site, a blog, a podcast, and/or a MySpace account.  1 p.m.

• Laurel Snyder, poet and NPR contributor
• Tayari Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling
• Touré, contributing editor with Rolling Stone
• Amy Guth, author of Three Fallen Women

I'm also interested in this session by The Atlantic Monthly fiction editor. Gotten a few rejection letters from him over the years! But I think I need special (free) registration, and I haven't heard back yet.

Magazine Fiction: In which Atlantic fiction editor C. Michael Curtis discusses the realities of rejection, cover letters, and other literary matters. 5 p.m.

• C. Michael Curtis, Atlantic Monthly, author of Faith: Stories and God: Stories.

I think you need special registration for this one too, but I know there are comedy writers in this group, so I thought I'd pass it on:

WORKSHOPS – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

That's Not Funny: A Definitive Guide to Written Hilarity, Wit, and Mirth, By Prof. Rev.  John Warner, Humorologist. 3 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Political bloggers would probably love to be a fly on the wall in the $13 admission brunch with a former editor of The Nation. I dunno if any spaces are still available tho.

And one of the Indigo Girls, Emily Saliers, will also be speaking on a topic with her father.

Is There a Place For Bloggers in Local TV?

Maybe I should add to that title... "And would you even want to be there?" Trust me, local news stations are insane asylums! But sometimes it's the inmates who are having all the fun. This article is fascinating, and I'm going to try to contact WKRN (Nashville) about what they're doing.

By placing the tools of the personal media revolution in the hands of professionals, the station is opening the door to uses of the material that go far beyond what's seen on-the-air. Many of the VJs also have blogs, and those will evolve to include their video. The idea is to turn each beat into an on-line franchise, and the options after that are pretty significant, especially as the audience/readers get involved.

Nashville has a remarkably cohesive and growing blogosphere, and Sechrist has announced plans to work towards a citizens-media-generated daily news program through them, and again, the flexibility offered by the VJ concept — and the eye-opening revelation that local amateur journalists can be very good and knowledgeable storytellers — make this a real possibility moving forward. What will this do for the people who don't watch local news anymore? Stay tuned.

Full article here.

A delightful parable by Nick Carr

This whole topic has generated much kerfuffle in the blogosphere, but it's the kind of kerfuffle I like, because it forces introspection, forces one to examine unquestioned assumptions about whether online interfaces are as democratizing as the spin often claims, whether there could be political/social biases embedded in deep structure interfaces.

The folks who have roundly spanked Carr for claiming things that they say the open "Home on the Range" of the Internet makes impossible have a point, but still, Carr's humorous parable rings true more often than not, particularly in the opening bit, and the epilogue.

Link: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The Great Unread.

The Great Unread

Prelude

Once upon a time there was an island named Blogosphere, and at the very center of that island stood a great castle built of stone, and spreading out from that castle for miles in every direction was a vast settlement of peasants who lived in shacks fashioned of tin and cardboard and straw.

Part one:
On the nature of innocent fraud

I've been reading a short book - an essay, really - by John Kenneth Galbraith called The Economics of Innocent Fraud. It's his last work, written while he was in his nineties, not long before he died. In it, he explains how we, as a society, have come to use the term "market economy" in place of the term "capitalism." The new term is a kinder and gentler one, with its implication that economic power lies with consumers rather than with the owners of capital or with the managers who have taken over the work of the owners. It's a fine example, says Galbraith, of innocent fraud.

An innocent fraud is a lie, but it's a lie that's more white than black. It's a lie that makes most everyone happy. It suits the purposes of the powerful because it masks the full extent of their power, and it suits the purposes of the powerless because it masks the full extent of their powerlessness.

What we tell ourselves about the blogosphere - that it's open and democratic and egalitarian, that it stands in contrast and in opposition to the controlled and controlling mass media - is an innocent fraud.

Part two:
The loneliness of the long-tail blogger

The thing about an innocent fraud, though, is that it's not that hard to see through. Often, in fact, you have to make an effort not to see through it, and at some point, for some people, the effort no longer seems worth it. A few days back, the blogger Kent Newsome asked, "Who are the readers of our blogs?" His answer had a melancholy tone:

The number of bloggers competing for attention makes it seem like the blogosphere is a huge, chaotic place. But it only seems that way because we have all ended up in a small room at the end of the hall. When people refuse to converse with me or go out of their way to link around me, it hurts a little. Until I remember that while they aren't listening to me, no one in the real world is listening to them either ...

[...]

The best way, by far, to get a link from an A List blogger is to provide a link to the A List blogger. As the blogophere has become more rigidly hierarchical, not by design but as a natural consequence of hyperlinking patterns, filtering algorithms, aggregation engines, and subscription and syndication technologies, not to mention human nature, it has turned into a grand system of patronage operated - with the best of intentions, mind you - by a tiny, self-perpetuating elite. A blog-peasant, one of the Great Unread, comes to the wall of the castle to offer a tribute to a royal, and the royal drops a couple of coins of attention into the peasant's little purse. The peasant is happy, and the royal's hold over his position in the castle is a little bit stronger.

[...]

Epilogue

One day, a blog-peasant boy found buried in the dust beside his shack a sphere of flawless crystal. When he looked into the ball he was astounded see a moving picture. It was an image of a fleet of merchant ships sailing into the harbor of the island of Blogosphere. The ships bore names that had long been hated throughout the island, names like Time-Warner and News Corp and Pearson and New York Times and Wall Street Journal and Conde Nast and McGraw-Hill. The blog-peasants gathered along the shore, jeering at the ships and telling the invaders that they would soon be vanquished by the brave royals in the great castle. But when the captains of the merchant ships made their way to the gates of the castle, bearing crates of gold, they were not repelled by the royals with cannons but rather welcomed with fanfares. And all through the night the blog-peasants could hear the sounds of a great feast inside the castle walls.

   

Meeting Notes 8/17/2006

Show notes to the Atlanta Media Blogger's Group Meeting at "Da Loop" in Atlanta.

Roll call:

Dan Greenfield Corp Communications for Earthlink
http://bernaisesource.blog.com

Leslie Nealson AEA
Alan Urech Stoney River Capital Partners
Kevin Howarth
Chris Boese www.serendipit-e.com/blog
Andrew Lunde what.isviable.org
Jim Straud http://www.jimstroud.com/
Sherry Heil http://www.mindblogging.typepad.com/
Marshall Shumaker Game & Business
CJ Poolah social entertainment
Mark Bee
Grayson Daughters http://spaceygreview.blogspot.com
Peter Fasano

Things mentioned:

http://www.kenradio.com/

Tim Moenk http://aoide.net/

Naked Converastions Scoble http://redcouch.typepad.com/

BlogHer Speaks with Arianna Huffington

http://blog.listenshare.com/

sitepals.com