Read It Raw From The News Wire Services

Read It Raw From The News Wire Services

I was reading some more of the book, The Media Savvy Leader. David Henderson confirmed one of my biases. When he wrote about the best way of getting your story published is to get it published to a wire service like AP (Associated Press) or Reuters.(P.83)

I prefer to read my news immediately as it is coming out on the wire services. These are available for free on the internet. I often like to read Yahoo!News because it will post the news within minutes of it coming off the wire services. I think that the longer you wait to read the news, the more likely people will attempt to change the content of news articles. There are many services for monitoring news. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_monitoring

Mr. Henderson has not talked about news monitoring in his book so far, but I think it is a very important topic.

I have watched articles change within hours with corrections to their statistics, statements about a specific ethnic group, or political views. It is not just left or right wing political groups which are monitoring the news, it is corporations, government, religious groups, and lobbyists.

You often have to wait a full day before the news appears in the newspapers. By then, it has been massaged to be nonobjectionable or accurate by various interest groups. The news has become sanitized and safe to put in databases like Proquest, Lexis, and similar places. It is a piece of packaged information.

After it has become safely placed in the newspapers, it is then picked up by television. David Henderson opening chapter heading for Chapter 9 is "Journalism Driven by Profit and Fear." He accurately describes that television news is a profit driven industry maintained by ratings. He does not call it "Infotainment"-- but that is what it happens to be in my view. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infotainment

I admit I rather like weird news as well. I like to visit Snopes, the urban legends page sometimes. http://www.snopes.com

The next step in the process after it gets to the mainstream television channels is that it changes from infotainment to pure entertainment. Barack Obama and John McCain both made it to Saturday Night Live. Also, places like The Onion lampoon the news as it comes out. http://www.theonion.com/content/index The news once it is in the papers effectively becomes somewhat questionable.

There is a natural progression in my viewpoint from News (Citzen Journalism, Wire Services)--> Information (Newspapers, Magazines, Magazine Databases)--> Infotainment (Most television news) --> Entertainment (The Onion, David Letterman, Saturday Night Live).

I prefer to have my news fresh from the wires because of this. I have read that breaking this cycle is quite hard for mainstream news because of media censorship. There is an excellent book called Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free press, by Kristina Borjesson, Editor.

These are my views and not necessarily the views of David Henderson. I am just taking some insights from his new book, The Media Savvy Leader Visibility, Influence, and Results in a Competitive World. The book will be released on January 8, 2009.

Engraving of an Erudite Researcher
Octave Uzanne, Le Livre, Paris, A. Quantin, 1880.

Good Afternoon

Today has been mostly a day to tie up loose ends. I have tomorrow off to go vote. Today, I mostly did small things. I ordered a new clear acrylic wall display unit for magazines and pamphlets for the Job Information Center. I talked about setting up an account for Movie Licensing with the business office, and I talked about doing a combined business and computer training course with the computer lab.

I also did some minor every day tasks, weeding, and maintaining the current events display. I'm going to weed some more of the law books.

I found my copy of The Media Savvy Leader and The Ginger Star on my desk. I'm finding that I am becoming a little bit distracted with all the small things I need to do these days. I left my books over the weekend.

While I was on twitter, I found an interesting link from Tor Books, they are giving away a comic book interpretation of the novel Ender's Game on the Marvel Comics website.

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=7987

Today has been a nice slow day. Tomorrow I vote. I think I might go very early in the morning to avoid the rush and lines. The polls open at 6 a.m.. The poll workers have to be there by 5:30 a.m. It should be interesting.

The Media Savvy Leader, Daily Thoughts

Good Morning

Happy Halloween to you all.

The Media Savvy Leader, Visibility, Influence, and Results in a Competitive World by David Henderson

I was reading a bit of The Media Savvy Leader. I noticed that there was quite a bit on public relations in the book. On the back of the book, the category is business/marketing. There is no indication that there is any public relations content on the front or back cover. It might be good to get the word public relations somewhere on the back or front cover. It would help clarify what the book is about to the reader.

There is no CIP data with categories for the book The Media Savvy Leader. This is an example of a Cataloging In Publication Entry.

MacKowski, Chris.

The PR Bible for Community Theatres/ Chris MacKowski

p. cm

ISBN 0-325-00440-4 (alk. paper)

1. Community Theater-- Handbooks, Manuals, etc. 2. Publicity-- Manuals, Handbooks, etc. I: Title: Public Relations Bible For Community Theater II. Title

PN 2267 M34 2002

792.022-- dc 21 2002003541

There is an important reason to include this. The library has to determine where the book is going to go in the building. It is better that you determine the call number and the subject headings than they do. Call numbers and subject headings are chosen at the discretion of the librarians. The book, The Media Savvy Leader, could be put in a variety of other locations than you want, media studies, or communications for example if you don't give this information. I am assuming you want it to be in business, marketing, and public relations.

Also on P.73, there is a reference that the Handbook for Bloggers by Julien Pain and Dan Gillmor being available for free on the internet. There is no url for where the book is located. It might be nice to have a link. Here it is: http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542

I also think you might want to include a list of recommended books and websites at the end of the book. You do cite some books. This would be appreciated. It does not have to be formal.

So far I am enjoying the book immensely. There are a lot of useful tips on how to talk with the media. I really like the bullet pointed lists.

Daily Thoughts

This morning, I wrote my monthly report and sent it to my supervisor. I also did a new display, Making Comics. This includes titles on drawing, storyboarding, and writing. I put Scott McCloud's Making Comics, Will Eisner's Comics & Sequential Art, The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics, How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema and many other titles in one of the glass cases in our lobby.

Planet Stories has reprinted The Ginger Star by Leigh Brackett. Leigh Brackett wrote the script for film, The Empire Strikes Back my favorite of the Star Wars films. She is one of the best of the classic space opera writers. I really enjoyed The Hounds of Skaith. Her character, Eric John Stark is an excellent example of the classic adventurer character.

I found this article on Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury. Apparently, Doonesbury has predicted an Obama win and some papers are considering not putting the strips in because of the ethics of having the strips put together before the election is finished. It is kind of an interesting idea.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-doonesbury1-2008nov01,0,2244580.story