I guess one could try to put a positive spin on almost anything. Ken Doctor trys to find the pony in the pile of horse dung:

The only good news for publishers here is that lenders really don’t want to push publishers into bankruptcy, knowing that they don’t have much opportunity to make more of the assets than the current managers. Further, the wider financial squeeze means that ailing newspaper debtors are now one of the lesser problems many banks are juggling. There may be some shelter in wider misery.

The sad news is that the economic melt down is putting the squeeze on newspapers. Is there the possibility of good news coming out of this? Is it possible that local ownership of newspapers may make a comeback as they become less desirable a corporate acquisitions and affordable for some kind of local consortium?

Is it possible that a news gathering organization that is less tethered to maximizing revenue for a corporation might be able to serve its local readers needs better?

Is a failure of the corporate model of news ownership necessarily a bad thing for local news?

This is a horrible time for many good people. No one knows what the outcome of all this will be. Without disparaging the former corporate model is it too naive to think that the end result of this painful mess may be a better journalism product?

Lets say there is a really big story going on that effects everybody. It is complicated but not metaphysically unknowable. Would old media or new media do a better job of covering it?

The economic downturn would be a good example of a big story that effects everyone. Its complicated. So who would you say is winning the contest to inform the people?

Jeff Jarvis takes a look at the contestants and finds a surprise, the winner, for him, is radio.

NPR’s This American Life broke their normal format to take the time to explain what was going on and what the different amswers proposed meant for the markets and for individuals. They also used the internet to supplement their stories with podcasts that could go into more detail.

The big loser for Jarvis, and for any one else who cares about these things, was the cable news outlets. They avoided indepth analysis, ran a talking-head fest of noise and stuck with their usual formula of disturbing footage and snippets of shocking statements ran on an endless loop.

You have cursed the fates and Mr. Heldman because you are forced to blog. Now you might rejoice for the very same reason.

Collegescholarships.org is offering a scholarship for bloggers for $10,000. I know that is chump change for some of you but I can imagine this might finance that new Macbook you have been drooling over.

Here are the main requirements:

• Your blog must contain unique and interesting information about you and/or things you are passionate about. No spam bloggers please!!!
• U.S. citizen or permanent resident;
• Currently attending full-time in post-secondary education in the United States; and
• If you win, you must be willing to allow us to list your name and blog on this page. We want to be able to say we knew you before you became a well educated, rich, and famous blogging legend.

Important Dates:

• Accepting Submissions: October 15th, 2008
• Submission Deadline: October 30th, 2008

An Internet Meme is: a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet.

From the start of the Internet (August 16, 1070) through the first Emoticon created (Sept. 19, 1982) the sponge monkeys (June 2002) all the way to Chocolate Rain and LOLCats you can get caught up on all the important cultural moments supplied by the digital  crack house that we call the Internet.

The wonder that is the Internet Meme Timeline.

Dave Eggers says NO!

The truth is that American publishers put out 411,000 individual titles last year, an all-time record, and netted $25 billion–hardly a sagging industry. And those kids who have abandoned books for electronic media? Since 2002, juvenile book sales have shown compound annual growth of 4.6 percent for hardcover books and 2.1 percent for paperbacks.

Jeff Jarvis is a long-time journalist who embraces the changes brought about by the Internet and, as a consultant, tries to help print-oriented organizations understand why the world is different now.

He also gets cranky listening to the same objections over and over. So here are all the usual complaints about the digital world and his usual answers. 

My favorite:

The internet has no ethics. True. It no more has a moral code than a telephone wire, a car, or a knife. We who use it bring the ethics and laws we live under already.

Here is where you sign up for Twitter.

It’s called “micro-blogging.” Only 140 characters per post.

Those who are able to read your posts are limited to those who follow you. You can control who follows you or you can throw the doors open for everybody who wants to read your posts.

You can check it when ever you want to from the Twitter.com page or you can use one of many free standing programs that will update automatically.

You can use it with the text messaging of your cell phone (not a good idea if you don’t have unlimited messaging.)

You can exchange direct messages between you and someone else that will only be seen by you and that person.

Who uses Twitter?

Barack Obama’s campaign

The Wichita Eagle, to notify you when they post new stories

Ron Sylvester does live up dates from Wichita court cases he is covering for the Eagle

CNN

The Onion

Darth Vader (and many other famous fictional people although there is a suspicion that it is not really them)

Lou Heldman

And me.

If You want more information, try this article.

For a story about one person’s experience with Twitter try this link.

If you want to give it a shot, follow me and I will follow you.

It came up in class that when you paste a text from Word to the blog it does strange things with the formatting. Thanks to fellow Wichita blogger Cincy Stanford here is a site called Word Off that fixes many of the formatting problems. Below is an example that has a lot of formatting in it pasted from Word.

Below that is the same text after being submitted to Word Off.

Straight from Word

Specific Purpose:  To inform the audience about the different crew members aboard an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank.

       I.            Show You Tube video of tank firing while jumping.

    II.            I am going to inform you about the different crew members aboard an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank.

 III.            Main points:

a.       Specifications—69.54 tons, 32.25 ft long (with gun), 12 ft wide, 120mm M256 main gun, 7.62mm M240 machine gun x2, .50 cal. M2 machine gun.  1500 hp transmission, holds 504.4 gallons of fuel in 4 fuel cells, will go roughly 275 miles on that amount of fuel.

b.      Driver—the person in this position is responsible for making sure the vehicle is in good running condition.

c.       Loader—this crewmember’s primary job is to keep rounds going into the main gun during combat.

d.      Gunner—this member of the crew is second in command.

e.       Tank Commander—anything that happens on the tank, happens because the TC says it does.

Word OFF example:

Specific Purpose:  To inform the audience about the different crew members aboard an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank.
I. Show You Tube video of tank firing while jumping.
II. I am going to inform you about the different crew members aboard an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank.
III. Main points:
a. Specifications—69.54 tons, 32.25 ft long (with gun), 12 ft wide, 120mm M256 main gun, 7.62mm M240 machine gun x2, .50 cal. M2 machine gun.  1500 hp transmission, holds 504.4 gallons of fuel in 4 fuel cells, will go roughly 275 miles on that amount of fuel.
b. Driver—the person in this position is responsible for making sure the vehicle is in good running condition.
c. Loader—this crewmember’s primary job is to keep rounds going into the main gun during combat.
d. Gunner—this member of the crew is second in command.
e. Tank Commander—anything that happens on the tank, happens because the TC says it does.

The page this is linked to has a lot of information. But it is worth the time.

DR4WARD is

Dr. William J. Ward, a.k.a DR4WARD,
currently teaches integrated marketing communications / 360 degree branding and international marketing in the College of Business at Alfred University. 

Who knew Batman’s butler had a university. But I digress.

Read the post. It scans quick. You get the gist of what DR4 s up to. But the videos he linked to take some time to watch. They are worth that time.

The first video takes 4 minutes and 32 seconds. It helps understand what is different about information on the web. I mean it really helps. Seriously.

The second video takes 5 minutes 29 seconds. It looks at what can be done with information on the web.

A question to ponder. If you tried to communicate all the information presented in these two videos could you do it in 10 minutes? Could you present all the information, with the impact of these videos, in 10 minutes?

The third video is 9 minutes and 30 seconds of scary stuff. This is “The World Is Flat” but with out Friedman’s happy face.

Video number four is 4 minutes and 44 seconds. DR4WARD asks, “Does this video accurately reflect your learning experience”? I have another question. How do you think the people in this class get their news? Will the introduction of social media into college instruction influence the consumption of news? Ooops, that’s two. I would love to discuss this video in class (HINT Mr. Heldman HINT)

The fifth video is a test of your curiosity. It is an hour and 6 minutes long. Yikes! It is a classroom presentation by the man who put together videos one, two and four. Dr. Wesch is a professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University. No cattle are harmed in the course of the lecture.

The last video is one man’s attempt to bring social media into the classroom. Good stuff but the vieo kept hanging up on me. Stupid technology. Paper and pencil are much more reliable.

I give this site two thumbs up and Joe Bob says go check it out.

Jelena is right. Papers are much healthier outside of the United States and their future is bright. But, and you knew there was going to be one of those, that is in the forseeable future.

The American newspaper industry knew that the media was changing in the 70’s. But they thought they were smart enough and strong enough to direct the changes to their favor. Right up until the bottom started falling out of everything the confidence of newspapers was evident in how derisively they treated those who suggested that the internet might cause some changes in their business model.

Historically technology changes culture. Think of all the cultures that were centered on the horse. Those who believe they are not influenced by what goes on in the rest of the world are the ones who usually have to go through a lot of self-inflicted suffering before they re-learn this lesson. 

Hopefully those outside the United States and Great Britian will learn from our faliures and what ever comes from the chaos we are entering.