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Jack D. Lail

Journalism, Technology, History

Categories Archive

Ramblings

Exiting the freak show X

I’m joining the crowd rushing out the door at X. I will no longer post at the freak show, but I plan to keep my seat to lurk until the sports accounts I follow find the exit sign.

~1 min read

Riding out Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina

Today, two weeks after Hurricane Helene it is hard to comprehend the scope, scale, and fury of the storm that hit western North Carolina, East Tennessee, the Upstate in South Carolina and parts Georgia and Virginia.

9 min read

The Tennessee Three: Petty, partisan and profoundly racist saga

The question I have is was it after the fourth or fifth round at the Good Ole’ Boys Bar did it begin to sound like a good idea to bring expulsion resolutions against two young black Democratic lawmakers, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson and one of the few women in the Legislature, Democrat Gloria Johnson?

2 min read

Essential photo, video, productivity tools

This is a listing of programs I use regularly on my Pixelbook, a Chromebook introduced in 2017. That is to say it’s not the most powerful or fastest Chromebook and all the apps listed here work with it.

2 min read

Sun on Big Bald Mountain

Here is a photo of Big Bald, part of the Bald Mountains as seen from the Wolf Laurel Country Club in June 2021.

~1 min read

Tesla Supercharger opens in Pigeon Forge

UPDATE: The Pigeon Forge Supercharger is up and running. It’s at a shopping center on Teaster Lane near Wears Valley Road. It has 12 stalls (up to 250 kW).

1 min read

Ask a lawmaker on Saturday

The League of Women Voters of Knoxville/Knox County and the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists are holding a “Legislative Webinar” on Saturday at 10 a.m. to hear lawmakers talk about key issues that will be taken up by the Tennessee General Assembly this year.

~1 min read

Diversity of choice in the Google Age

What if the Internet is providing us not with seemingly limitless choices of news sources and a diversity of viewpoints, but with about as many as we got in the early days of cable and everyone watched TV news on one of three networks.

~1 min read

Flooding in Knoxville

Just seven days ago, Knoxville was flooded by historic rainfall, more than five inches on in a day on top of 10 days of continuous rainy days. Here is what it looked like just outside my subdivision.

~1 min read

We’re scattered

Cool map (or data visualization) from 23andMe of where my relatives are located.

~1 min read

Chromebooks just got a lot more interesting

My desk My desk with the Pixelbook connected to a KVM switcher with a PC mouse, keyboard and 26 inch monitor. I can switch from a Windows 10 desktop to the Pixelbook.

1 min read

Google PhotoScan

This one has been around awhile – and it really does a good job. “Scan” old photo prints with your phone with Google PhotoScan. It actually stitches together five copies of a photo to create a digital copy. This video explains some of the science behind this seemingly simple app.

~1 min read

Leonard Pitts: The facts need someone to defend them

~1 min read

Plex just keeps getting better

Plex just keeps getting better. Coupled with the iOS app, I use it as a personal Spotify. I find it less compelling for streaming video, but I don’t own a lot of video to stream.

~1 min read

Journalist training opp coming up in Knoxville

[caption id=”attachment_1995” align=”alignnone” width=”1200”] Journalism Writing Workshop with Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute on Saturday, October 7, 2017, 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., Scripps Convergence Lab, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. To register, contact contact Brenda Heidt at brenda@tabtn.org, or (615) 365-1840.[/caption]

~1 min read

Updated site

I overcame inertia and turned the lights out on my old Movable Type blog CMS and moved to Wordpress and SSL. Things went pretty well (it seems).  

~1 min read

State of the First Amendment 2015

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

~1 min read

A decade of freedom of information challenges

Here’s a A timeline tracing events over the past 10 years that show the country’s ambivalence over the free flow of information. It is being distributed by ASNE and major news organizations, including the Associated Press, The McClatchy Company and Gannett, as part of Sunshine Week, March 15-21, 2015.

~1 min read

Police vs photos

Getting arrested for merely taking a photograph of a law enforcement officer doing his or her job is all too common. In Memphis, there’s a memo.

~1 min read

Journalist Ernie Pyle’s last column reads much like poetry

Ernie Pyle’s Last Column from James Brown on Vimeo. I had breakfast the other day in Indianapolis with my friend James W. “Jim” Brown. He turned me on this video he did recently about the last column Ernie Pyle wrote, a handwritten draft found in his pocket after he was killed, and about plans to print it as a small “book” on a letterpress. Among Jim Brown’s many projects has been helping out Pyle’s hometown museum in Indiana.

~1 min read

More mobile friendly design

I’ve switched this website to a more mobile friendly design. It’s the new “Rainier” template that ships with Movable Type 5.2.2.

~1 min read

Sometimes SEO goes ‘completely wrong’

“A Google images search for the phrase “completely wrong,” which Romney used in a recent interview with Sean Hannity, now leads to page after page of pictures of the GOP presidential nominee. A Google spokesman told CNN the photos are the unintentional result of normal Google search rules.”

~1 min read

An Appalachian stereotype you may have missed

Success is not one of the stereotypes of Appalachia or its people. If you watch TV, the images are of the violence and drugs of “Justified,” moonshiners like Popcorn Sutton, the crazy dancing outlaw Jesico White of West Virginia and a host of other images in which “role model” never comes to mind.

3 min read

Touch typing on a touch screen with your eyes closed

A touch screen app for the visually impaired. That’s ingenious Georgia Tech.

The info:

A team from Georgia Tech, led by Post Doctorate Fellow Mario Romero (School of Interactive Computing) has designed BrailleTouch for touchscreen mobile devices. The prototype app allows visually impaired people to easily type and opens the door for everyone to text or type without looking at the screen.

~1 min read

The Three Little Pigs meet modern media

… And we learn the wolf wasn’t all that bad, the pigs weren’t all that little, and it’s all part of a larger problem anyway, anong other story narratives.

If fairy tales were news stories, they’d be a whole lot messier.

And, oh yeah, ths is a great ad. (via Techdirt)

~1 min read

My most read blog posts in 2011

My most read blog posts during 2011 include only three written in 2011. Long tail at work or did I just used to write more interesting posts? A handful of these also made the list for the most read in 2010.

In the ring: Dolly vs Google (2008)

Just how did Benton’s Bacon become a craze? (2010)

Fireworks at the lake (2007)

On Being There (2007)

Angry Journalist as career Yoda (2008)

Clematis in early morning (2007)

These days there’s always a camera near the spotlight (2011)

Splatter (2008)

First Amendment found damaged in storm cleanup (2011)

In Washington, a half-effort on open government will get you an award (2011)

~1 min read

Tennessee journalist honored with lifetime achievement award

SPJ news release from this morning:

INDIANAPOLIS - The Society of Professional Journalists is pleased to honor pioneering Tennessee journalist Robert Churchwell with the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement. Churchwell, who died Feb. 1, 2009, was the first black journalist to work as a full-time reporter for a Southern general interest newspaper.

2 min read

The Onion covers Knoxville slackers

The Onion has a Knoxville datelined story today headlined: “Incompetent Staff Feels Underappreciated.”

KNOXVILLE, TN–Taking a break from surfing the web, going out for multiple cups of coffee, and missing important work deadlines, employees at Winthrop Media complained once again Monday about being taken for granted.

“I come in almost every day, bust my hump for like four or five hours, and what do I get? Nothing,” said Tom Bertram, one of several chronic underachievers employed by the Knoxville advertising firm. “You’d think management could show us a little appreciation now and again. It’s not like I particularly enjoy just sitting around here all day.”

Bertram then returned to his computer’s web browser, logged out of Facebook, and hurriedly responded to 14 work e-mails that had accumulated in his in-box.

According to sources, the 36-year-old isn’t the only incompetent employee on staff who feels undervalued. Joseph Garten, a production designer, notorious procrastinator, and all-around liability, said that he wished he got more respect around the office.

~1 min read

The signs are everywhere

Visiting the North Carolina county I mainly grew up in, I was struck by how far-reaching the headlines of about population trends can be. The signs were everywhere – in Spanish – in Asheboro, the county seat of Randolph County.

1 min read
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Media

The storming of the Capitol is archived

The FBI and District of Columbia police are searching for people involved in the violence at the Capitol on Wednesday – and they’re finding them and they are likely to find and arrest more.

1 min read

It’s about distribution, stupid

While everyone agrees media is being disrupted, it’s the distribution model, rather than the content itself, that’s changed.

Alex Sherman *[]: 2007-12-12T15:21:48+00:00

~1 min read

Reports from the front lines on the war journalists

I participated in a panel Tuesday called “I’m right, you’re wrong–you stupid jerk” or incivility towards journalists on social media. The panel was part of UT’s Social Media Week. Others on the panel discussion were Knoxville sports radio personality Heather Herrington, UT professor Dr. Mark D. Harmon and East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists President Annie Culver as moderator. Check out the Twitter coverage of #UTSMW19.

1 min read

Google Tools training for journalists coming to Knoxville

Don’t miss an upcoming free training opportunity in Knoxville for journalists. The East Tennessee chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is bringing SPJ’s Google Tools training to town on Saturday, June 2.

1 min read

First Amendment Encyclopedia launched

Middle Tennessee State University has launched a “First Amendment Encyclopedia,” containing more 1,500 documents significant in the First Amendment’s history.

~1 min read

When online comments go #MoreThanMean

The podcast “Just Not Sports” tackles the abuse and harassment women sports writers face in online comments with a video of “regular guy” sports fans reading comments to two women sports journalists.

~1 min read

The old and the new

The old knoxnews (a design in use for just over seven years) and the new design, launched July 22, 2014. The old site was on the “Ellington” platform; the new one uses “Endplay.” What’s up with the German ads? We use a screenshot service whose ip addresses are in Germany.

~1 min read

About that comment

What’s new in comments about comments. The debate on anonymous comments on websites continues while publisher retool or junk their comment systems. Meanwhile, a few interesting new experiments are happening.

~1 min read

Bot journalist reported California quake first

Ken Schwencke, a journalist and programmer for the Los Angeles Times , was jolted awake at 6:25 a.m. on Monday by an earthquake. He rolled out of bed and went straight to his computer, where he found a brief story about the quake already written and waiting in the system. He glanced over the text and hit “publish.” And that’s how the LAT became the first media outlet to report on this morning’s temblor. “I think we had it up within three minutes,” Schwencke told me.

~1 min read

Tool tip spreadsheet

Above is a screen shot of Touchcast, a powerful tool for creating a new kind of video presentation. It’s one of the tools listed in an awesome spreadsheet of tools of interest to journalist (most i’ve never heard of, much less tried) from the College Media Podcast blog.

~1 min read

Students reinventing journalism at MTSU

I’m interested to see what the “Bragg Innovative News Network” looks like when it launches Monday. The network was announced by Middle Tennessee State University earlier this week.

1 min read

Paywalls aren’t just for newspapers

Nice piece by NetNewsCheck on the plan by Cincinnati television station WCPO, owned by E.W. Scripps, to launch a paid-content model in January.

~1 min read

Instapundit at 12

Knoxville blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit blog turned 12 just a few days ago. Here’s his first post.

~1 min read

Is ‘conversation management’ a core newsroom function?

There a good bit of continuing discussion about comments and how to manage them (see the link list below). One camp, of which newspapers and TV stations seem to be moving toward, are trying to find pain free ways to manage comments (technology solutions) or to elminate them. The problem: They’re just so darn messy. Technology solutions alone are unlikely to be successful.

1 min read

Here’s another ‘time-suck’ post

The Social Media Day at the Associated Press Media Editors Conference at the John Seigenthaler Center in Nashville turned out newsier than I had anticipated. It had the ‘time-suck’ that went viral in the world of digital journos.

2 min read

APME Social Media Day

Some random tweets from Social Media Day at the Associated Press Media Editors Conference in Nashville. The conference was held at the John Seigenthaler Center.

1 min read

Is Pinterest rocking your traffic?

It is for one of the folks on a panel I’m moderating this morning during the APME Conference in Nashville at the John Seigenthaler Cemter.

Back in March in an Advertising Age piece, Steve Rubel highlighted some thoughts from Chad Parziman, director of community and social media for Scripps Networks Interactive in Knoxville.

Scripps Networks Interactive owns HGTV, the Food Network and a suite of other video and web properties.

Parizman told Rubel that the company had passed on putting a lot of resources into Google+, but did put resources into Pinterest after already seeing traffic from it.

Traffic from Pinterest is exceeding 1 million page views a month for Scripps Networks, the article said.

~1 min read

What’s a Facebook like really worth?

The Social Media Day at the Associated Press Media Editors Conference in Nashville has one panel that will attempt to provide some answers to the question: What’s a Facebook like really worth?

4 min read

New Scripps Digital Division starting to make noise

This has been a bit under the radar, but a lot of work has been going on with the E.W. Scripps Digital Division, in which I now work, since early last fall. You’ll be hearing more as a lot of projects and initiatives are in the pipeline. Stay tuned, there are some exciting things in the works.

For me at a newspaper, itt’s been fun having more contact with our TV station digital folks and being part of a newly created division with a bevy of bold new ideas. On the downside, a lot of talented Scripps digital foks based in the News Sentinel building in Knoxville and who were with what was known as the Scripps Interactive Newspaper Group did not to move to Cincinnati.

~1 min read

Maybe newsrooms need to kick the front page habit

Newspapers have organizational habits built around the front page - that’s how most newsrooms decide what is important, and it’s how editors transmit signals to reporters. As more and more readers go online, we need to figure out how to create habits that respond to more segmented audiences, and news cycles that have varying durations.

1 min read

The ‘tragedy of comments’

Gawker Media mastermind Nick Denton said Sunday at South by Southwest Interactive that he plans to institute a new commenting system on his family of sites within the next six weeks; one that still allows anonymous comments, but which makes commenters into moderators. On certain stories, the new system will only allow certain users to comment at all.

For every 2 blog comments that are interesting, 8 will be off-topic or toxic, says @NickNotned here > bit.ly/y3hDzx - Agree?

-- Matthew Cerrone (@matthewcerrone) March 12, 2012

3 min read

The slant on media bias

The Wall Street Journal is among the most liberal media outlets in the U.S., more liberal than the New York Times and NPR. And the Drudge Report is left leaning, yes, left leaning, more left leaning than CNN.

One study found:

The most important factor driving the slant of a given newspaper is … the political leanings of the people who buy it. In other words: newspapers are giving the people the news that they want.

~1 min read

The inventor of the camera phone may surprise you

I remember Phillipe Kahn primarily as the CEO of database and programming tool maker Borland International, but he is also credited with inventing the camera phone in 1997, yes, in 1997. And he’s the only to have a photo to prove it, a photo shot of his newborn daughter on June 11, 1997. This video extends upon an ad Best Buy will air during the Super Bowl.

~1 min read

Media Credentials, the virtual debate version

Who is a “real” journalist? Why does @nypd decide who gets credentials? @megrobertson suggests nymedia “stop using them” #smwknd #ows

-- Jennifer Preston (@NYT_JenPreston) January 28, 2012

Apologies to all my jouro-hippie pals, but anyone who cries for end of press credentials has never had to control a crowd. #babybathwater

-- Mike Orren (@mikeorren) January 28, 2012

Update: A nice Storify piece on Press Credentials from Josh Stearns.

~1 min read

WNOX, a beacon in radio history

Knoxville’s rich radio history, particularly with WNOX, the first radio station in Tennessee (yes the first) and the 10th (or the eighth depending on who is counting) in the nation.

1 min read

Knoxnews, two online producers, online editor win awards

Knoxnews won the Award of Excellence for Overall Web site in the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists Goldne Press Card Awards, which were presented Friday night at a dinner at the Foundry..

Online producer Lauren Spuhler won the Online Reporting Award of Excellence in continuing coverage for her Bonnaroo 2007 coverage..

Online Producer Erin Chapin and reporter J.J. Stambaugh won the Online Reporting Award of Excellence for Multimedia with a series called “Use of Force.”

And Online Editor Jigsha Desai also won an honorable mention in the multimedia reporting category for a package on the 25th anniversary of the 1982 World Fair.

Complete list of winners is below.

9 min read

The curse of Barbara Bain’s dog

You’d think regular reader of O’Reilly Radar would have gotten over their emotional attachment to news on paper years ago. But, no.

2 min read

New Frontier Awards

Got some great news on Tuesday. From an Inland Press Association news release.

1 min read

On Being There

Or “good enough” revisited. We had a video go viral this week. We had a story on Sunday about a Knoxville porn starlet who goes by the name of Barbie Cummings.

1 min read

Knoxnews has launched RSS feeds

We are rolling out RSS feeds on knoxnews using the Scripps-built tool. Some say we were overdue – and perhsps we are – but many of our users have no idea of what an RSS reader is and why they might want one. When they, we hope they use our feeds!

~1 min read
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Newspapers

Another year, another year older

Researcher Greg Harmon of Borrell Associates says the average age of a print newspaper reader is 57 and the average newspaper web visitor is 51. Saying the industry’s aging demographics ought to have “everyone’s hair on fire,” Harmon notes that newspaper readers have been getting a year older every year for more than a decade.

~1 min read

In search of the formula for gut instinct

Will news judgment eventually be reduced to a formula that can be charted or is it best practiced by those, like Neetzan Zimmerman, with a particularly good gut instinct for what is news, or at lesat what will grab reader’s attention?

1 min read

Q&A with BH Media Group CEO Terry Kroeger

Warren Buffett’s “newspaper guy,” BH Media Group CEO Terry Kroeger answers questions from editors at the Associated Press Media Editors national conference on Oct. 30, 2013 in Indianapolis.

~1 min read

White House photo access controls public image

You may have seen many photos of President Barack Obama in his office. But did you know neatly all of those have been taken by the official White House photographer and released to the media.

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When does a newspaper paywall work?

Phil Bronstein, former executive vice president at the San Francisco Chronicle, says paywalls alone won’t fix the broken journalism model.

(h/t Danny McCall)

~1 min read

The model just went away

“The disruption was fundamental. Knight Ridder saw it earliest, experimented the most, worked the hardest - and it doesn’t exist anymore. Their top budget (for innovation) was $1 million - which doesn’t amount to the sushi budget in Google’s cafeteria.”

~1 min read

‘Without fear or favor’ could be an exception in journalism’s history

Some 117 years ago, Adolph Ochs, who began his career in Knoxville before buying a newspaper in Chattanooga, published a set of principles for his newest newspaper in which he said it would “to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved.”

1 min read

Frank Munger does ‘How I Got That Story’

Knoxville News Sentinel senior writer Frank Munger will be doing a “How I Got That Story” webinar on March 20.

The webinar is being held by the Scripps Howard Foundation; register here for the free one-hour session.

He’ll be using his coverage of the July 28, 2012 break-in at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn. by three protesters to talk about:

~1 min read

Being a jackass is a NCAA sanctioned event

A trio or more of media groups have been asking the NCAA to sit down and talk about changes it has ordered in the coverage of NCAA events that are detrimental to news organizations and their audiences.

~1 min read

Get a great deal on APME’s Social Media Day

As part of its national Conference, Sept. 19-21 in Nashville, the Associated Press Media Editors is offering a special one-day rate of $35 for the Social Media Day on Friday, Sept. 21.

This is a great opportunity to hear some great panels and get some takeaways you can start using immediately.

It’s open to line editors and top editors at newspapers, news directors at television stations or journalism educators. APME President Bob Heisse has the details.

~1 min read

Henry King, one rare journalist

Henry King was a cotton mill worker in a mill town called Franklinville, who began submitting articles to the newspaper and it began to print them. He eventually left the mill, but not the mill town for writing. He didn’t get his first full-time job as a newspaper writer until he was 40.

2 min read
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Adversity is a mean teacher

Newspaper paywalls by the numbers

The American Press Institute has published a new report on paywalls at U.S. newspapers that finds that ‘everybody’’s doing it.’

~1 min read

The model just went away

“The disruption was fundamental. Knight Ridder saw it earliest, experimented the most, worked the hardest - and it doesn’t exist anymore. Their top budget (for innovation) was $1 million - which doesn’t amount to the sushi budget in Google’s cafeteria.”

~1 min read

Journalists: There’s not a less risk-taking crowd

“It’s just that journalists have to get more creative and entrepreneurial. And, I think, that’s the problem. There’s not a less risk-taking crowd than a bunch of journalists who like to tell everyone how to run their businesses,” said Kara Swisher of All Things D.

~1 min read
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Video

Essential photo, video, productivity tools

This is a listing of programs I use regularly on my Pixelbook, a Chromebook introduced in 2017. That is to say it’s not the most powerful or fastest Chromebook and all the apps listed here work with it.

2 min read

My top YouTube videos of 2021

Here are my top YouTube videos based on views in 2021. The No. 1 video had more than four times the views of the next one.

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Sun on Big Bald Mountain

Here is a photo of Big Bald, part of the Bald Mountains as seen from the Wolf Laurel Country Club in June 2021.

~1 min read

The storming of the Capitol is archived

The FBI and District of Columbia police are searching for people involved in the violence at the Capitol on Wednesday – and they’re finding them and they are likely to find and arrest more.

1 min read

A flyover of Gay Street

I’m experimenting with Google Earth Studio, the new web-based animation tool for Google Earth. I suspect it replaces the aging Google Earth Pro desktop program. It certainly appears more powerful.

1 min read

Students reinventing journalism at MTSU

I’m interested to see what the “Bragg Innovative News Network” looks like when it launches Monday. The network was announced by Middle Tennessee State University earlier this week.

1 min read
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Tesla

Fast Charge TN Network plugs in slowly

Tennessee and TVA’s plan to fund a network of electric vehicle fast charging stations along every 50 miles of the state’s interstates and major highways is moving at a trickle charge pace.

4 min read

Second Knoxville Tesla Supercharger under construction

UPDATE: This 250 kW supercharger recently became operational and should make supercharging in Knoxville a bit easier. The 150 kW supercharger in Turkey Creek was often full and with a line on weekends.

1 min read

Tesla Supercharger opens in Pigeon Forge

UPDATE: The Pigeon Forge Supercharger is up and running. It’s at a shopping center on Teaster Lane near Wears Valley Road. It has 12 stalls (up to 250 kW).

1 min read
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Carnival

Dangerous ideas for pushing the boundaries of journalism

Lots of video responses have been posted to April’s “Carnival of Journalism” of question: “What is your most dangerous idea for pushing the boundaries of journalism?”

You see them on the right in the recent posts list on this site for University of Southern California’s J556 class taught by Andrew Lih. Give them a look; they are generally around 1:40.

Here’s Paul Bradshow of the Online Journalism Blog to get you started:

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Training as a dangerous idea for journalism

My April Carnival of Journalism entry offers up training as my most dangerous idea for pushing the boundaries of journalism.

A roundup of all the responses to “What is your most dangerous idea for pushing the boundaries of journalism” will be posted sometime afer April 30.

Do you find training as an odd choice?

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Quotable

Some people to follow on the ‘Future of News’

Liz Heron, who posed the question of “Who’s your favorite thinker on future-of-news issues? Why?” will be the keynote speaker Sept. 21 on what is being billed “Social Media Day” at the Associated Press Media Editors Conference in Nashville at the John Seigenthaler Center. Join us at the APME Conference Sept. 19-21!

Heron is Director of Social Media and Engagement for the Wall Street Journal.

Suggestion: Mine these recommendations for people to follow on Twitter.

[View the story “@lheron et al. on "Future-of-news thinkers"” on Storify]

~1 min read
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Uncategorized

The Magic Window

It’s fascinating how a low-cost, but powerful technology like Microsoft’s Kinect, a motion sensing device primarily marketed as an addon for the video gamer’s Xbox 360 but also available for Windows computers, is being used in creative ways. Here’s one I noticed at the Georgia Tech People and Technology Forum 2012 on Tuesday called “The Magic Window.”

It’s both simple in purpose and powerful in potential. Tie a Kinect unit to a fisheye video camera with a web app to allow people look into a “magic window” for a remote tour controlled by gestures like looking the left and right. Other types of content can be embedded in the presentation to add additionl depth.

Watch Brian Davidson, Operations Manager and Principal Software Developer with the Georgia Tech Research Computer Operations Network, show how it works. (Sorry about the shifting contrast in the video; I was trying to pull out some of the detail on the monitor.)

Students and faculty demonstrated many of the projects they are working on Tuesday afternoon, which I’ve found to be the most fun part of the event. Most of the projects are far from polished and some are at a very early stage of development, but the ideas are truly amazingly creative. I expect to see many of these to find their way into real world applications in the not too distant future.

1 min read
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Mobile

Does journalism even need articles?

The hiring of Anthony De Rosa from Reuters as editor-in-chief has given fresh buzz to Circa, which does “atomized” content, adding nuggets of info to continuing stories. I’ve been using the app for awhile and, while I like it, it’s not yet got for me a compelling daily must-read. But the Circa team is onto something, something journalists should be paying attention too.

~1 min read

More mobile friendly design

I’ve switched this website to a more mobile friendly design. It’s the new “Rainier” template that ships with Movable Type 5.2.2.

~1 min read

Are you ready for your cell phone to explode?

At a panel last week on “Mobile Devices and Beyond,” Bruce Thomas, director of the Wearable Computer Lab at the University of South Australia, held up his smartphone and said: “I just want to get rid of this.”

2 min read
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Family

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Knoxville

COVID-19 vaccinations by day in Knox County

Here’s a look at how COVID-19 vaccinations are going in Knox County, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. They can’t come fast enough; the rolling seven-day average as of Dec. 21 was 23.11% of the coronaivrus tests were coming back positive. (Simple visualization using Google Flourish.)

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History

Remembering another Rukeyser

Reading about Louis Rekeyser’s death last week and listening to a special hosted by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo reminded me of an interview I did years ago with Rukeyser’s remarkable father, Merryle S. Rukeyser (Jan. 3, 1897 – Dec. 21, 1988).

2 min read
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Music

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Journalism

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Tennessee

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Access

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Training

Poynter’s Al Tompkins coming to Knoxville

If you’re a journalist in East Tennessee, this is a “can’t miss” event, a chance to attend a workshop led by Al Tompkins for free! (Make sure to RSVP.)

~1 min read
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ETSPJ

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Environment

The Castle at Jockey’s Ridge visible again

A castle buried at Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head on North Carolina’s Outer Banks has emerged from the dune’s shifting sands, according to The News & Observer in Raleigh.

1 min read
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Fatblogging

Running to Hot Rize

Didn’t jog as much as normal; did weights instead.

2 min read
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Sports

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First Amendment

Freedom of speech often takes courage

Good watch for this holiday weekend, “The Editor and the Dragon,” the story of W. Horace Carter (Jan. 20, 1921 - Sept. 16, 2009), a community newspaper editor in Tabor City, N.C., who courageously editorialized against the Carolina Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s as the organization was gaining power in the region around this town on the North and South Carolina border.

~1 min read
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Social

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Network

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Digital Life

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DIY

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Website

New year, new CMS

After years of hosting my own site on Wordpress I have moved it to Jekyll.

1 min read
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