Christian Zavisca

On the Frontline documentary "Digital Nation"

My latest paper for COMM 601 Social Networking:

Disconnect

In March 2009 I went on a service trip to Tobati, Paraguay, in central South America. For nearly two weeks, we worked on projects such as building schools and medical facilities, distributing clothing and other items to people in need, and interacting with civic leaders, educators, and all sorts of folks.

What we, 20 American chaperones and 100 American high school students, didn’t have were smartphones or high-speed Internet connections. There was one Internet café in Tobati that offered a super-slow dialup connection (for a dollar a half-hour). In Paraguay’s capital city of Asuncion, we had access to a better-connected Internet kiosk, but nothing close to the speed of your typical Comcast broadband link in the United States.

On three occasions I used those Internet connections to check e-mail and read a bit of news. I wasn’t connected to the World Wide Web as I usually am, and I curiously found that I didn’t miss it a whole lot.

Constant pulse

I thought about my time on that trip as we watched the Frontline documentary “Digital Nation,” which explored a number of topics related to how we use technology today, and what exactly the rampant multitasking, Web surfing, texting, and video watching and recording that up-and-coming generations favor is causing them (and older people, too) to gain and lose in terms of learning, development, and focus.

The documentary was very interesting, and entertaining, but I think it tried to cover too much. It lacked depth. We got a lot of sound bites and frankly alarmist perspectives (particularly on segments covering secondary and higher education, the military, and at the South Korean Internet “detox” camp), without the sort of back-and-forth arguments that might have put those segments into better perspective. Those interviewed for the documentary make declarative statements, opinions really, that were just sort of allowed to dangle. I found this most prominent in the comments on how students today are missing out by focusing so much on digital communication.

But wait: There’s more

Fortunately, the Frontline Web site offers much more nuance than the documentary itself did. I found a “roundtable” bulletin board-style discussion of the participants to be particularly useful. In that discussion, James Paul Gee, a professor of literacy studies at Arizona State University and author of “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy,” described a blind spot in the documentary that I noticed as well:

“There is also an important issue missed by the show and that is the question of how people from different social and economic groups use and benefit (or not) from digital media,” Gee writes. “I guess it is not surprising that American TV does not much deal with class issues, but there is little doubt that digital media are leveraged by some families to great benefit for their children in school as part of a larger learning and literacy ecology that includes digital media and print. Other families use digital media in quite different ways. Indeed, there are many different uses with many different outcomes — my simple dichotomy really will not do, but it raises the issue of equity and outcomes for diverse people in our society (and, indeed, world).”

That’s an accurate criticism and points out a huge issue that goes largely unaddressed in the documentary (we never see the homes of the students at the tech-heavy New York school profiled, for example). Socioeconomic status affects a young person’s access to technology in the home and at school. And that brings to mind my trip to impoverished South America, and how that digital divide is felt in places that don’t have easy access to the Internet.

Links

Frontline “Digital Nation” site.

My knoxnews.com story on trip to Tobati, Paraguay.

JoeBlog review: I wrote a paper

This is actually the second paper I've written for my Social Networking class. We were tasked with reviewing a blog that we don't regularly read. Submitted for your perusal:

JoeBlog

Whenever I come across something written by Joe Posnanski in Sports Illustrated or the Kansas City Star, I always say to myself, “I need to check out more of his stuff.” And for some reason I never get around to it. That’s why I picked his blog to review. I know that he’s a good writer, but I’ve never read his blog, and yet I’ve heard that it is well-constructed and very popular.

It is indeed quite popular. He doesn’t post every day, but he does update several times a week (at http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/). The comments on his posts are always at least in double-digits, and frequently number well more than 100.

The good

JoeBlog is strongly written. Posnanski is inventive, often very funny, and articulates his thoughts and positions well. He’s a sportswriter, and so most of his posts are about sports, mainly baseball. His recent entries include a comparison of the steroid-linked admissions and apologies of Alex Rodriguez and Mark McGwire, an explanation of his voting in the recent Baseball Hall of Fame election, a discourse on Brett Favre’s critical interception in the NFC championship game, and an evisceration of Carlton Fisk’s recent comments on performance-enhancing drugs, comments that mangled several sets of statistics.

Posnanski writes: “So, the point he wants to make is based on entirely faulty information. Whatever. I guess the thing I wish is that old ballplayers — especially great old ballplayers like Fisk — would look a little bit deeper rather than falling into the ‘In my day, we had to walk uphill through the snow’ act. Can’t we have a conversation? Can’t we talk about this without constantly expressing our own moral superiority?”

He also gets away from sports and writes about his family and other subjects, most entertainingly in an occasional, riotously funny series on “infocos” — infomercials.
Design-wise, the blog is clear and simple, which I like, with a plain white background. It even includes a brief glossary.

The not-as-good

JoeBlog’s posts are occasionally a bit long and drawn out, which is by design (its subtitle is “Curiously Long Posts”) but can cause reader fatigue on occasion. The comments are plentiful, but don’t always contribute a lot, and since they’re not threaded it can be easy to lose track of who is saying what to whom when the number of comments runs into the hundreds.

But on balance, it’s a fine blog-reading experience. Joe should be proud.

Links:
Posnanski on Carlton Fisk’s comments: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/01/19/iron-fisk/
JoeBlog glossary: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/glossary/
The Latest in Infocos: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/01/21/the-latest-in-infocos/

I am now quite famous

One of the local papers did a "Getting to Know" feature with yours truly as the subject.

This makes me immediately stop reading

I'll put my media critic's hat on for a moment when discussing this story in the Chicago Tribune on the Critical Mass downtown bicycle protests.

A groom was driving down Michigan Avenue to his wedding rehearsal dinner on a Friday night this past summer when he found himself engulfed by a sea of bicycles.

Angry that he would be made late, he started yelling, only to have half a dozen cyclists surround his car and verbally assault him for traveling by four wheels.

The groom had stumbled upon Critical Mass, the monthly event that sees up to 3,000 bikers riding through Chicago's streets, running lights and blocking traffic, all with a somewhat reluctant police escort.

"Riding your bike is fine, but taking over the streets like that is out of control," said the driver, who asked that his name not be used. "I can't believe the police allow it to happen."

Really? Leading off a story with an anonymous quote? You can't find a similar anecdote on the record, or convince the guy to give his name?

This is something that drove me nuts as a newspaper editor. Easy anonymity creates a number of problems. If it's so easily granted, why would anyone ever want to give his or her name to a reporter? And for readers: Why would they believe a thing this source has to say?

An officer and another motorist are also sort of haphazardly quoted anonymously later in the story (I went back and skimmed the rest of it while writing this). Big shock. Maybe it's just me, and most readers don't care. But I wonder.

Stuff you learn as a freelance sports reporter

I moved back to northern Indiana recently after spending several years down South. Now, I went to school here in Valparaiso, at Valparaiso University, and I grew up an hour east in South Bend, but I hadn't spent much time in the region in quite a while. So freelancing for the Post-Tribune and scout.com (covering Notre Dame) has been fun, and educational. I've learned:

1. Some local geography I would not otherwise have gotten to know. I had no idea that I lived so close to Portage and Wheeler high schools.

2. That you need to remember which organization you work for. I've been telling people that I work for the Knoxville News Sentinel for the past four-plus years. These days when I introduce myself, "News Sentinel" is still on the tip of my tongue. I haven't actually blurted it out yet, but I'm sure I will.

3. That I don't yet know the little tricks that can help a sportswriter make deadline. I parked in what I thought was a good spot at Portage High School for the Portage-Chesterton football game last week, but I still got stuck in some horrendous postgame parking-lot traffic. I know next time to park way, way out, near the only exit that's not blocked off after the event.

4. GPS can be a lifesaver. MapQuest, I love ya, but in this instance, not so much. Driving from Valpo to Notre Dame-at-Purdue football last weekend, I was led by the driving-direction site to a dead end (unless I followed the directions wrong, which is entirely possible). And then I remembered that my handy-dandy new iPhone has GPS, I turned it on, and the phone showed that I was only about a mile and two left turns away from Ross-Ade Stadium. Plus, I stumbled upon a free (nights and weekends) parking garage. Still stunned by that on a football gameday.

5. Sometimes, on a weeknight, when you're covering a local sporting event, all kinds of crazy national news breaks.

Back on the sports beat

I worked in the newspaper business for about 15 years. I began my illustrious print journalism career as sports editor at The Torch, Valparaiso University's student newspaper, before getting into the news side.

So it's been fun to come back around and freelance on the sports side, for this Notre Dame site and, starting Friday, for the Post-Tribune.

On Saturday I covered Notre Dame's 33-30 home win over Michigan State. I took a couple of iPhone photos on the sideline that weren't half-bad.

Paying for the news — or not

Hey news consumer, can you spare a dime?

That's what newspaper editors quoted in this Editor and Publisher story are asking.

As newspapers scramble to decide how best to increase revenue online, editors are desperately trying to figure out what content to charge for, while still keeping print viable and their Web numbers up.

Most newsroom leaders who spoke with E&P said no decisions have been made but admit they welcome a paid approach to online, noting that readers seem to be willing to pay for Web content that is useful, exclusive and/or in-depth. In each region, however, the definition of marketable content varies. Some editors believe everything is chargeable. Others point at sports, or find blogs and analysis the most sellable.

It's an interesting story, and explores difficult questions.

I am, of course, without answers, but I'm watching the debate with interest.

As a career newspaperperson until very recently, I've been pondering my role as a news consumer. I was surfing the Web site of my former employer, the Knoxville News Sentinel, via my phone while having lunch at Valparaiso University's Harre Union just today.

Would I pay a small amount of money to gain access to currently free knoxnews.com content if it was entirely behind a paywall? I'm pretty sure I would, both to support the good folks at the KNS and because I'm genuinely interested in Knoxville news, though I no longer live there and don't have family or deep roots in the Southeast.

But would I pay more than a little? And how much would be the dealbreaking point? And what if the pay process was unwieldy or annoying? Would I just bail?

And there are more questions on the flip side. OK, so newspapers keep content free. How would the News Sentinel target advertising to me? Does it need to? Am I a valuable piece of the online readership puzzle in terms of my utility to advertisers?

In the Editor and Publisher story, several news execs seem to favor a tiered approach: some stuff free, more specialized or unusual or useful content behind a paywall. But where's the right balance? What should be free? And, most importantly, will consumers pay?

My News Sentinel sendoff

On my last day as a copy editor at the Knoxville News Sentinel, my fine colleagues sprung a surprise pizza-and-cake fest on me, complete with a bag of KNS swag: highlighters, notepad, water bottle. Not too shabby!

The stellar Karen Knotts baked us a cake. The squiggly mark after "good" represents an editing mark. A nice touch. Plus, my boss, the also stellar Cathy Shepherd, let me go early, which was a great help, since I had to leave the next morning.

It was a crazy couple of days. Pick up U-Haul Friday, load said truck that day, go to work Friday night, drive nine hours north on Saturday, and here we are today.

So many of my colleagues had kind words and well-wishes for me over the last few days. It's such a talented group, and a super-nice bunch as well.

And it meant a lot that my friends and colleagues cared enough to give me a nice, low-key sendoff, which fit perfectly.

Thanks, y'all.

More photos via Flickr.

Steve Dahl, Phil Rosenthal, and Chicago

I grew up in South Bend, Ind., on the fringes of the Chicago media market. And I worked as a sports writer and news editor in Michigan City, Ind., which is about 40 minutes from The Loop.

When I think of Chicago, I think of three guys: Steve Dahl, Phil Rosenthal, and Roger Ebert. Steve, a radio icon, has been off the air for many months. I'm very much looking forward to his return. His podcast is set to launch today.

And I am looking forward to moving back to the Midwest.

I'm wishing Steve all the best, and I'm excited to move back to northern Indiana.

University of Tennessee 63, Western Kentucky 7: Hey, I wrote that headline!

On my last Saturday at the Knoxville News Sentinel, I wrote the A1 headline that appears in today's paper.

Headline writers come in all sorts of styles. I tend to go for the straight-laced, subtle headline rather than striving for something that's overtly catchy or flowery. I thought this one was a nice, workmanlike entry. I like the subdued double-meaning (i.e., a revival in the sense that UT is back after going 5-7 last year, and a revival in a tongue-in-cheek religious meaning — Vols football is described as a sort of religion around here on occasion) and it's fun to work "Rocky Top" into a headline.

While I was at it, I took a few photos around the outside of our building.