Month: March 2015

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March 12

By the end of yesterday, I told Kate that I was done with speaking, and would be happy if I didn’t have to talk to anyone else for awhile. Despite that, yesterday was oddly thrilling — going to the OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) studios and having a conversation “on mic” remains fun in a weird, oh, is this what I do now? way even after the first time it’s happened, and then having an hour+ phone conversation about Jack Kirby with someone way smarter than I am (even though I worry that I just rampaged over whatever she wanted to talk about, all the time) — it was great, even with the panic about making both appointments due to travel matters, even with the stress that it put on the rest of my workday.

I feel as if it entirely distended and ruined my week, though; this doesn’t feel like a Thursday at all, but another Monday even though there wasn’t a weekend in there at all. Or maybe it feels like the most Friday of Fridays, because there’s all the exhaustion but none of the relief of knowing that you can sleep in and relax tomorrow? Either way: this is going to end up being a strange, wonderful week in the end.

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Story creation could be interactive. There have been crowdfunding platforms such as Spot.us and Beacon, but nothing that operates on quite the level of granularity and speed envisioned by Jay Rosen’s explainthis.org, where users type in questions for journalists to answer. There are thousands of variations on the idea of having the users direct the reporting, everything from demand-driven production to a quiz after each story that says, “what should we report on next?” The point is to put journalists and users in an interactive loop. Good reporters listen anyway, but I want something stronger, a sort of contract with the audience where they know exactly how to be heard. For example: ‘Our reporter will investigate the top-voted question each week.’

From here.
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I don’t know what the future of journalism is. I know that Snapchat isn’t television. I know that blogs aren’t dead. I know that Twitter isn’t over. I know that people still read print. I know what CPMs publishers want, and I know what CPMs publishers get. I know some, but not all, of the tricks they rely on to nudge those numbers up. I know that brands can sell — really sell. I know that storytelling is a buzzword. I know that not all content is created equal.

I do worry about the constant churn of posts and stories and articles in this industry. I wonder sometimes if anyone understands what the motivation behind all the content is. I worry about young writers with big platforms who don’t get the editing, the support, and the guidance that they need. I do not worry about young readers, who are getting more information, news, and entertainment funnelled at their shiny plastic brains in more creative and unique ways than ever before in human history.

From here.
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Hmm. Just doing the maths. Midnighter is gay. Catwoman is bi. Constantine is bi. Harley Quinn is bi (with two titles in June). Alan Scott of Earth 2 is gay.

That’s four ongoing DC comic book titles with a lead character who is portrayed as being LGBT. That’s… getting pretty close to representative of the general population isn’t it?

From here.

Ignoring the fact that the math is wrong (Midnighter, Catwoman, Constantine, Alan Scott and Harley Quinn make up five characters, not four), this is interesting to me. Wonder if it’ll get picked up anywhere?

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