The Daily Peg: Pegasus News, Inc. Founder's Blog

New Year's Wiz-dom

Mrs. Peg and I don't like partying with the amateurs who only do it once a year, so we generally stay in on NYE. That means I'm working until the midnight orgy of greens, black-eyed-pea cakes and champagne.

In the meantime, I'm catching up on some reading and found a nice reminder from Hugh Macleod that even when changing the world, you still put your pants on one leg at a time.  He's right: some things never change.

Also, for all you lonely resolutioners out there, I found your community, via a link on Susan Mernit's blog. It's a nice site-- the only things it lacks are some additional features that I imagine they'll find over time. I also like the way they soft-launched, similar to our plan. They've obviously collaborated well with Google-- their adsense listings are amazingly relevant. Most importantly, thoough, the site brings a sense of community to what is typically a very lonely enterprise -- Cool.

I've started my list.

There's one particular goal in which I hope you'll consider joining me us.

Thought for the day

But brother pigs can fly
And so can man
When he's full of fried pork skin
- The Gourds "Cracklin's"

Voice v. advocacy

Jim Schutze fisks my D Magazine pals for their special issue on the Trinity project.

Tim Rogers responds.

I'm of mixed hearts and minds on this one. I haven't read all of the backup material Schutze cites; nor, frankly, the entire Trinity special, which was very, very loooong.

When we talk about having reporters bring voice into every story, that will inevitably lead to a certain amount of issue-advocacy.

Using a major (at least locally) media outlet to advocate a civic or mass-commercial cause is a tricky thing. I should know: While it would be a stretch to say that I was the father of these sorts of specials that D does periodically, I at least bought drinks and played wingman on the night she was conceived. And I've taken the old gal out on a couple dates -- once during the early days of the Dallas 2012 Olympic Bid campaign; and later in service of a group called "Decade of Progress" that was trying to pass a bond referendum benefitting a lots of arts organizations (and, by the way also a new NBA stadium) in Charlotte.

But, I'll have to admit, she doesn't look quite the same to me as she did back in the day. Is she fish or fowl? Journalism or propaganda? Or both?  And how does this turducken fly in a Journalism 2.0 environment?

D certainly isn't alone in doing advocacy specials.

I'm interested to hear what other Pegasi think.

---

Whatever you think of Schutze's take on the Trinity, the column (ostensibly a year-ender) begins with a beaut of a lede (best appreciated if you're a Dallasite):

Wow. What a year. The city's ship of state is pulling apart at the welds. Down in the engine room they're up to their necks in saltwater. Somebody threw the captain overboard. A big pirate ship from the Park Cities just hove into view. They want us to behead the remaining officers. We're thinking about it.

Speaking as a Dallas Observer columnist, this has been the second-best year of my life. The next one will be the best.  

Please understand. Rascality and mayhem are to me what wheat is to a miller. And I see bumper crops ahead.

He's right about that. This will be a pivotal year for Our City. Another reason we're in a hurry to get there and cover it.

Now hiring: 3,214,212 reporters

Anyone who doubted the reach and power of citizen journalism should have had their mouth shut with the remarkable "amateur" coverage of the tsunami. A brief, by no means comprehensive, survey:

• Peg inspiration Evelyn Rodriguez was vacationing in Thailand when the disaster struck -- she was on a boat when the Tsunami hit. She's been blogging from a free internet station at the hospital. (Yeah, in the "third world." Haven't seen such things at Parkland.)
• Jeff Jarvis and Glenn Reynolds have had exhaustive coverage, particularly of individtual Americans' efforts to offer aid.
• The NYT ran a piece on blogging the disaster.
• Some of the most moving and compelling footage has come from amateurs and was spread by blogs worldwide.
• There have been suggestions that the media (not a particular medium) could/should have done a better job of disseminating warnings, perhaps by SMS.  (We're currently looking into a federal grant because of our planned capabilities in this area.)

It goes without saying that our hearts go out to everyone touched by this tragedy.

The wealth of online coverage shows both the power of citizen journalism and the need for good editors.

New Year's bullets

• CyberJournalist.net's top 2004 stories
• Jay Rosen is posting on the top ten ideas of 2004. I'll note at length once the cycle of posts is complete.
• Meantime, his nephew, Zack (a veteran Deaniac) gives some advice to the Greensboro crowd re: a blogging community.
• Friends in Houston #1: Kevin Whited directs us to some Journalism 2.0 reporting on a gulf coast blog. Good stuff, whith just the voice we're planning on using to deliver news big and small.
• Friends in Houston #2: Also just became aware of The Lone Star Times, a Houston site that also seems to "get it" in terms of content voice.
• Rex Hammock hopes we're not on the verge of a "dot blog" boom/bust cycle. (And if anyone is putting "tens of millions" in a blogger business, I've got some newsprint in Dallas to sell 'em.)
  UPDATE: I mis-interpreted the allusion in Rex's post, which makes much more sense if you read the first comment on this post.)
• Phllip Meyer: We need to keep genuine journalism alive long enough for the successful media entrepreneurs of the future to find a way to capture and sell the influence that traditional media are abandoning through their cost-cutting strategies. Those who understand the influence model and apply it to the new, more specialized marketplaces could start to look very much like journalism's philosopher-kings of the twentieth century. (Via Bob Stepno.)
• Is Yahoo! watching you outside of Yahoo!?
• WSJ on stealth advertising.
• And the difficulties of measuring online traffic.

Tabs of steel

Another reason why tabloids are superior to broadsheets: An elliptical trainer Christmas present  changed my  morning routine (used to go to the gym, when I could wake up).

It is damn near impossible to read a broadsheet while exercising on an elliptical trainer.

We're kickin' it old school

One of my favorite things about Turner Classic Movies is the "One Reel Wonders" they use as filler between features. Sure, you've seen Vertigo a thousand times, but TCM is the only place you'll catch a gem like Important News.

Featuring a young Jimmy Stewart in a supporting role, the fifteen-minute short short is the story of "Scoop," an old newspaperman in a small town. It's big news for Scoop when he spots the editor of a Chicago newspaper vacationing in town; bigger news when a nationally notorious gangster is killed in the streets by the Feds.

But the paper is about to go to bed, and Scoop can't let the local farmers down by burying the story about the impending freeze. And he can't bump the ad on the front page because the local department store owner has gone all-out for his biggest sale ever.

So, Scoop puts the story where it belongs -- in the obituaries. I paraphrase:

Gunman killed
Notorious gangster Howard "Pretty Face" Wilson was killed by federal agents in a gunfight on mainstreet last night. He was not known to have relations in town.

The locals initially make fun of Scoop for burying the lede, but then the big-city editor runs a laudatory piece on him in the Chicago daily and tries to hire him away. But Scoop knows his town inside and out and has a story about the birth of a set of twins to run -- Important News.

Scoop, in other words, was hyperlocal when hyperlocal was cool. I'd argue that despite technological shifts, the world hasn't changed all that much. I could draw about a dozen parallels to this paraphrase on why the early frost can't be left to the burgeoning broadcast media:

Those farmers all have mortgages, but they don't all have radios and televisions.

Every medium is important; content is king, queen and ace; and local is what matters. Even the big-city editor could see it.

God Bless Scoop... And us too.

Avoiding crowds

It's been too long since I posted any Hugh Macleod, but  he's been traveling more than he's been writing lately. This new post from "How to be Creative," fits nicely with the market differentiation for which we strive:

Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

Your plan for getting your work out there has to be as original as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new market. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.

Or, more succinctly:

Basically, when 20,000 people have the same biz model as you, you are dead meat.

It strikes me that the people who say that "it's all about execution" miss the point. Of course, you prepare for and focus on execution, or the idea never comes to fruition. But, humans and human systems are inherently fallible. While it's crucial in the moment, over the long haul, execution can't save you.  Sooner or later, someone will either a.) screw up or b.) build a better mousetrap.

Finding the new model -- that's where it's at.

Getting pushy

Via MocoNews: Is wireless content the new Pointcast?

A commenter on the story adds:

It's here, it's ready, it's proven to make money - but can you get anyone to invest in it? (hint: answer is 'no')

Oh, how I wish I had some spare cash, or a friendly investor. We as a company have had this content ready to go for 2 years, at a price and business model that's already been proven to work (since we're providing the content that other people are making money from), and there's a damn simple way of implementing it. Especially as you can now get the receiving application embedded in your handset.

Sounds like a market looking for an aggregator.

Virtual inanity

Funny Michael Miner column on a world in which Philip Roth is looked at as a newsie historian. Cutting through the gag, there's a hint of a real concern here, one that argues for the continued existence of some sort of mainstream media.