Bet you didn't know...

Heard of The Ryugyong Hotel?  Be sure to look at this (very large) picture to get a sense of the scale.  Read the whole article too, especially the current reaction of the locals...

Star Wars Premiere and Local Coverage

Not to beat a dead horse, but I have one more bone to pick with the Bee's coverage of the Sith premiere.  I know I ripped the Bee for its coverage of the celebrities at the premiere.  On the other hand... This was a big deal for Modesto.  Expensive tickets ($250) going to benefit the Gallo Performing Arts Center with the Modesto "elite" (Marie Gallo, Kate Nyegaard (George's sister) etc) in attendance and yes, some celebrities.

So this is the perfect story for the Bee to cover to give me (a print subscriber) value that I can't get elsewhere.  I'm not going to read about this in the SF Chron, right?  Additionally, covering this is good for Modesto.   I'm sure that some of the people who went to the VIP premiere went because they are hard core star wars fans, but in general people went to see and be seen.  The more Bee coverage, the better value that ticket is, right?  The more images of *Celebrities* (hey, I said I'd give you Mark Hamill) signing autographs, locals sipping champagne, and people in general enjoying themselves, the more likely this  sort of fundraiser is to come off well in the future.

So the Bee does a decent story, quoting a variety of local residents about the movie and the experience.  It has several pictures (the link above has 4 pics, I can't remember if they were all in the print addition) of the festivities and generally does a standard newspaper story about the event.

It's not enough.  This is the internet age, after all, and I want at least images of the people who were there, the costumes worn by the fan club, and the celebrities in normal clothes signing autographs (don't you think Mark Hamill should always wear black with one black leather glove?)  Ideally I want video of the event.  How hard can it be right?  Too hard for the Bee's website, apparently.  Four photos (small resolution no less) of people who don't need the publicity.  This isn't exactly in-depth local coverage.  In fact, a xanga site has better multimedia of the premiere than the Bee does.

Why is that?  I'm sure the Bee photographer(s) who attended took literally hundreds of photos.  Why not show em to the world, or at least the paid subscribers?  In this sense the Bee typifies MSM organizations in that its procedures are superb... for the 1980s.   The website is a copy of the print version, erasing almost all the advantages of digital media.

This is where I suspect the blogosphere could come into it's own.  Granted, on large issues the blogosphere is doing far more media criticism than original reporting.  On local issues, however, one blogger with a digital camera just served as a better online suplement to the printed Bee report than the Bee's own website did.

The difficulty, of course, is that I had to find this blog post to see the pictures.  While technorati/bloglines etc make that somewhat possible, look at the entry.  No tags.  No description.  No way of knowing (except that I know him personally) that this was a certain event at a certain place at a certain time.  Obviously there is a need for infrastructure that allows for geographically based blog aggregation.   All sorts of software could be (and will, count on it) written to address this problem.  What you really need though, is a trusted geographically local name that could serve as a central collation point for geographically local stories.  It would even help if there were some human sorting, arranging and even editing going on of the potentially vast streams of local content bloggers could churn out.  Hmm.  Who already is providing local news and has the resources to tackle a project like this?  Sounds like the sort of thing a smart media company could do to enhance their local media coverage.  For the price of one staffer (cheap for a company that employs hundreds), online storage space and bandwidth (very cheap) the Bee (or any local paper) could amplify its news efforts.  How about trackback links for news stories.  User created media galleries?  Ideally, an interesting story on the front page of the print section might have multiple pieces of content (local blog posts, uploaded pics/movies/sounds, followups from later on) attached in the online version.  The paper, then serves as a teaser for the website and the media company rides the blogging wave rather than fighting it.

Celebrities Celebrity!

I was amused by the article in the Bee yesterday about the premiere screening of Revenge of the Sith.  George Lucas is originally from Modesto (though the general impression has been that he'd like to forget it) and threw his hometown a bone with a pre-screening of the latest Star Wars Edition.  Full tickets were $250 (benfitting the new Performing Arts Center apparently) and inluded the red carpet treatement with Champagne, dessert, and ... CELEBRITIES!

Celebrity guests — including original trilogy Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill — have lined up to walk the red carpet.

Now that is cool.  I can't name another thing Mark Hamill has done, but he is Luke Skywalker.  The list got more , um, interesting after that.

Those scheduled to join them on the red carpet are Modesto resident and Broadway legend Carol Channing,

That's nice.  Carol is a nice old lady who can still kick up her heels and sing!  (Last summer she showed up at MoBand and led the crowd in singing "Hello Dolly".)  She's really embraced Modesto since moving here to marry her childhood sweetheart.  Makes for a nice story and she's a crowd pleaser.

third-season "Bachelor" Andrew Firestone,

Ok.  I've never heard of him but probably people will recognise his face...

Kate MacMurray (the daughter of "My Three Sons" actor Fred MacMurray)

Hang on.  Is this implying that Kate MacMurray isn't an actor?  Google says: Your search - site:imdb.com "Kate MacMurray" - did not match any documents. I guess she's related to a celebrity at least, but this is starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel... Not.  Lots more "celebrities" will be there including Marieh Delfinio (from the spectacular piece of cultural cinematography Jeepers Creepers II) and that chick from Coyote Ugly.

Now I don't mean to run down any of these two-bit actors (who undoubtedly are talented, attractive etc etc etc).  More to the point is that the perception exists that Modesto is still hicksville USA.  I happen to disagree with that perception, but when the newspaper of record raves about "Celebrities" loosely defined as people who may be related to people who used to be famous, it certainly does nothing to dispel our reputation.

It's not all bad of course.  At least my brother can still go to the party and try to pick up on Natalie Portman's best friend's brother's niece ... Yeah something like that.

Interesting Blog

I found an interesting blog run by a pastor named Brad. This post in particular caught my attention. I've read a good bit of the brad's blog now (and listened to an audio sermon) and feel we're at some different places theologically, but at the same place in the ones that count. Some of what he has to say sounds very willardian to me (that's a good thing!).

The great eschatological reality is that by the Spirit's power we possess salvation from sin.

What does the phrase "salvation from sin" mean to you? To so many evangelicals this equivalent to saying "I will go to heaven when I die". That isn't what I think of though, nor, apparently does Brad. I'll give you a hint. Romans 8. (Yes that was the whole hint. If you want more, go read 21stcenturyreformation.blogspot.com.)

Media Criticism

I recently read an article in my local newspaper that illustrated for me why many people do not trust even their local versions of the MSM. (Yes I realise that wasn't a link to the story, more on that in a minute.)

Briefly, the article was about the phenomenon of "freak dancing" in local Jr High and High Schools. The article covered the facts well and with a certain air of objectivity: a principal who threatened to shut down school dances was interviewed, parents who were concerned about the level of sexually explicit behavior their children were exposed to added their concerns and a student on each side of the issue was quoted. Even a DJ got in his five cents.

Balanced, right? Well sorta. The article's opening lines nod a head at the history of parents not appreciating their kids' dancing and music.

Just as Elvis Presley's pelvic gyrations horrified adults a halfcentury ago, freaking has become the adult-gasping rage today.

Note the subtext. Teens will be teens and parents will be fuddy-dudies, right? Nothing to see here, so move along... That Elvis sure could shake his hips, couldn't he.

Not so fast. Are we really talking suggestive dance moves? Or are we talking strip routines? DJ Robert Pacheco (owner of TNT Productions) says he can't play a particular Nelly song because the kids follow the song's advice and start taking off articles of clothing. Mom Prentice Holtsman (who virtuously says she doesn't allow kids to smoke or drink at her 15 year old's parties) says she allows most freaking but banned a move called the "cry baby" wherein dancers "dancers get on their hands and knees and simulate sex". Delhi Middle School Principal Dave Woods says he stopped a dance at which seventh graders were freaking. This doesn't sound like a case of parental overreaction to teenage behaviour.

But that wasn't what I was going to write about.

When I looked for the text to this article I couldn't find it. The Bee's site (modbee.com) only lets you search for articles published in the last 7 days. After that you have to pay $3.95 to download a single story from the archives. Now throught the magic of google i was able to find both the google cache of this story and the actual link to the story (folks the site: modifier on google search is your friend!)

I can't verify that either of those links will still work by the time you read this post. The Bee could request that Google's cache be cleaned of any modbee content (IIRC) and obviously modbee.com has no interest in allowing the internet to easily find old content on their site.

This then is finally my point. If MSM (and that includes you, Modesto Bee) wants to be perceived as accountable and honest by the public and John Q. Blogger, it is not enough that they are able to recognise the shading of stories by inserting subtextual similes, it is also important that their product be available to be checked, criticized and ultimately improved. Open up your archives modbee!