I never read this guy....

But Jay Mariotti sounds like a real douche.

Which brings me to today's links:

1) "Not once in the last eight years can I recall seeing Mariotti in the Cubs' or Sox' clubhouse. With a press credential that allowed him access to every major sporting event and every major figure, he hasn't broken a single story in that time. He says Chicago is a weak market, the competitive edge gone. He has only himself to blame." Click here.
2) "One of them is frantically trying to engineer a meeting between Captain Morgan and Ted Sorenson, the painfully dignified Democratic legend who is finishing an interview with Tavis Smiley just as Captain Morgan bursts into the tent, T-shirts and Morganettes in tow. That person is me, and, in this, I am a failure. But, then again, we are all sort of failures here." (Via Romenesko).
3) "The former New York Times correspondent, U.S. propaganda maven, and leader in the anti-Castro movement is one of the last of the hard-nosed newsmen from the World War II era. His story pits a combative watchdog against a deceitful politician in one of Miami-Dade's wealthiest burgs — a place that despite its high profile and 42,000 residents rarely receives much media scrutiny." (Via Romenesko).
4) "I'm talking about the press corps' irritating habit of remaining seated during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the start of each night's session." (Via Romenesko).

Links for today...

1) Eight ways to get interactive data on your site.
2) Major League Baseball standings get more sophisticated.
3) A new Web site allows home buyers, real-estate developers, nonprofit groups and any other interested parties to map neighborhoods for free using a wide range of data, such as per-capita income, education levels and unemployment.

And...Not really journalism-related, but kind of cool. Devon Energy is building a new 54-story tower in downtown OKC that's pretty damn nice. Here's some pics from friend Steve Lackmeyer.

NBA team? New tower? Things are looking up in OKC.

What I'm reading....

I regularly forward some articles I read to a former boss of mine. He asked where I get this stuff...and then wanted me to forward everything. So instead I guess I'll try --- once again --- to start posting some of the things I'm reading. We'll see.

1) "The newspaper industry has a devastating history of letting the future of media slip from its grasp." (Via Romenesko).
2) "In the coming year, expect a lot of papers to eliminate money-losing Monday, Tuesday and Saturday editions, dump their classified advertising sections and combine forces with rivals or outsource overseas." According to this post, all options are on the table. Too bad newspaper executives didn't a sense of urgency a few years ago.
3) What is it you do here again?

So I'm finally settled ....

Well, we've found a place here in downtown Dallas, which means I can walk to work. This is a much-needed development for the expanded waistline, which has existed since college.

We still don't have Internet access at home, which means my attempt to start up blogging again is difficult. No, it's not that I haven't ordered Internet service...for I have. From AT&T, which supposedly installed it on Saturday, but I haven't been able to get it working yet.

And no --- it's not user idiocy this time around. I've had to call India twice, and both times the representative said there are "line problems" and a tech would come out to fix it. After the first call, I got a call to say everything is working. I got home and that wasn't true. I've called a second time, got the same excuse, but haven't received an update.

And no, I didn't want DSL. But it was the only service available in my building.

Abrams and the Kool-Aid

Lee Abrams has taken a beating recently in the newspaper-watching blog-o-sphere. A few Tribune watchers, like Tell Zell, are particularly angry (rightfully so, no doubt) with the leveraged buyout that has left the company saddled with massive debt amid declining revenues.

But Abrams seems like a decent guy. And I think he's trying. His MEMOS with random CAPITALIZATION, misspellings, and talk of 2x4s have made for comic relief in a time when the ax is hanging over our heads.

That being said, and maybe I'm drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, but it's tough not to agree with this.

"Trying something different, even if it seems nutty, is far preferable to stubbornly going down with the ship."

This blogger points toward another blogger, Bob Lefsetz, "a former industry executive who delights in pointing out how record companies, led by ossified management, have been totally eclipsed by the Internet and changing technology to the point where they're in danger of going out of business."

This guy's entry turns toward the newspaper industry.

"In other words, you can’t find the stories online. Steve Jobs’ mantra? Usability? It’s absent from each and every newspaper site except for the Wall Street Journal’s."

By the way, this has been a complaint of mine for a long time: I hate newspaper Web sites. I can't find anything. Ever. They're clouded with all kinds of nonsense. Sites make it miserably hard to find anything.

On that note, has anyone seen the redesigned Moonie Washington Times? Kind of an interesting approach.

I digress.

Anyways, this guy goes on:

"If those running the newspapers were so damn smart, they wouldn’t be in this predicament. Lee Abrams is looking to save their business. Whereas the Netizens are looking to kill it."

I think there's some valid points in what this guy has to say. But where I relate is how newspaper owners completely failed to adapt or change. For that matter, I think it sometimes applies to newsroom management, as well.

I can remember proposing blogs to a newsroom manager at another employer back in 2002, 2003 --- sometime in that era. I was laughed off with a variety of excuses of how it would blur the lines between news and opinion, etc.

"No one cares about blogs," an editor once told me.

Now I'm not proposing blogs were the end-all, be-all, by any means. Heck, half the blogs out there are just regurgitation of facts spilled out from a reporter's notebook with no personality. Doesn't make me want to read.

But my point?

We. Were. A. Monopoly. Who. Got. Our. Ass. Kicked. By. Sitting. Still. And. Pretending. Things. Would. Always. Be. The. Same.

And now, here are we. We're canning people left and right. And while it sucks that reporters are getting punished for the misdeeds of their owners (isn't it always the worker bees who get pummeled while the failed CEO trots off with millions?), maybe the owners are getting what they've long deserved --- welcome to competing.

It's time to sack up and innovate or go home, owners. What will you do?

I have already broken my promise...

Not too long ago, I decided it was time to post more often here. Maybe I'd post some random thoughts about something new I was learning...you know, self-indulgent stuff.

But I've broken my promise.

It's been a couple weeks since our editor told us to expect layoffs in the newsroom. In fact, it was the week after IRE. A lot of numbers have floated around, but it's safe to say we're talking significant layoffs from a newsroom of 300 or so reporters and editors.

It's real tough to stay motivated about journalism when the ax is falling all around you. Mr. Hartnett up in swanky Palm Beach Co. has a picture that illustrates things perfectly.

I realize THIS is the time we have to stay motivated. This is when we have to innovate, kick ass and take names. But it's almost like you need that period to catch your breath, to take account of what's happening and what's going to happen.

I need a new shrine...or offering...human sacrifice, maybe?

For those who don't know, our friends down south at the Miami Herald had an idea to save their jobs: Make offerings to the Santeria chicken brought in by some priest. Or that's how I understand the story.

So I made a little electronic shrine to the chicken over at a site I set up for just this reason.

But either the chicken didn't like being mocked, or the Santeria chicken didn't work, bringing to mind scenes from the movie Major League:

Pedro Cerrano: Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.
Eddie Harris: You know you might think about taking Jesus Christ as your savior instead of fooling around with all this stuff.
Roger Dorn: Shit, Harris.
Pedro Cerrano: Jesus, I like him very much, but he no help with curveball.
Eddie Harris: You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?

Anyone have an idea of a new shrine to make offerings? Human sacrifice? It's all in the name of not being canned. Judging from this article, we could use all the help we can get.

Case for a JOA?

Interesting idea in this article here....don't know what to think about it.

"Any form of collaboration in south Florida would unhinge the proud staffs of the Herald and Sun-Sentinel, who have competed fiercely against each another forever. But things are getting so grim that there may be no other choice."

Caspio and frameworks...

Mr. Hartnett up in trendy, swanky Palm Beach Co. gets the nod for finding this interview with David Milliron of Caspio.

Now I'm not as anti-Caspio as a lot of some people, who are way smarter than me. We've seen the blowups between Milliron and various bloggers.

In fact, for full disclosure, I pushed for my current employer to get involved with Caspio when I started back in October.

I think Caspio is absolutely, positively great for allowing reporters to put up searchable tools. Especially if a reporter has pieced together a small database on their own and needs a way to get it out there. But I don't think it's the ultimate solution, either.

But Milliron's quote here really gets me:

"Publishers are looking for tools that do not require huge upfront costs. More and more publishers are outsourcing the creation and maintenance of their database applications. A relative low entry point with a high return on investment is the mantra for today’s online database publishing world."

With all due respect, that's because newspaper owners are dumb. And their schemes, cheap ways and monopolistic haughtiness is what got our industry into the situation we face today.

We need research and development. We need investment in new ways of providing content. And that's not a one-size-fits-all application like Caspio.

Again, I think it serves its role well. But in the end, we need imaginative, new research and development that keeps readers reading our papers and Web sites. Please, no more schemes.

Talk about depressing...

So props to Danny Sanchez up in Orlando for giving us this great list of newspaper-related blogs.

But it's like a death watch. Especially here at Tribune Co.

One article is particularly scary.

It's tough to work when you're thinking about whether your company is going to pay its bills.

So it makes me wonder what's next? It's no secret the Sun-Sentinel is having layoffs, along with all our other Tribune papers. But what happens if we default on our loans? I'm no business lawyer, so it'd be nice to know what happens. Does that mean bankruptcy? Does it means we get the bankers to restructure the debt? What?

So could this only get worse?

Kind of weird situation....

So I get back from IRE all fired up. Especially after the Django boot camp, which gets a big thumbs up from me to all the people who worked so hard to put it on.

But at the same time, the Tribune stuff is no secret. Now I know how the French aristocracy must've felt when the Bastille was stormed. It's a little weird when you know there's an ax waiting to fall, you just don't know when or where.

That being said, I'm still excited about the future of journalism, thanks to great speeches by the legendary Phil Meyer and people like Aron Pilhofer.

Aron left us with what I think is the quote of the conference:

"You can't outsource the future."

So what did I like most? It'd have to be the Django boot camp. Maybe that's because I'm a sucker for anything hands-on.

First great revelation about Django (or Ruby on Rails) for me is this: It really forces you to think about relationships and good database design.

As a user of Caspio, a lot of times you want to take the easy way and just create a single table. Yes, I know you can use views and lookups and all that jazz, but it's kind of a pain in the tail for me.

A frameworks like Rails or Django forces you to think about not only what you want now, but what you might want in the future. That's a good thing.

Again, more to come.

Quote of the weekend.

I know it's been awhile since I've posted. But IRE got me a little fired up this past weekend and gave my lame mind lots of posting material.

The quote of the weekend was definitely courtesy of Aron Pilhofer.

"The future cannot be outsourced."

More to come later.

Ruby

So while taking Aron Pilhofer to the airport on Sunday, he gave me a nice rundown on Ruby on Rails (and, as a sidebar, Ruby itself). It was interesting enough to convince me to give it a look.

If you're even remotely interested, do yourself a favor and check this out. It kind of gives you a nice little overview of Ruby.

In other news, I got a new Django book in the mail last week. Was intending to mess with it today, but had to take the wife to the hospital when she sliced her paw open while using scissors on flowers at work.

What I'm reading today...

"Left-leaning" or "non-partisan"?

"Why would a Times article call the American Enterprise Institute "conservative-leaning," but not refer in the same article to the politics of the Mike Mansfield Foundation? Why do stories refer to the Brookings Institution variously as "centrist," "conservative" and "nonpartisan"?"

Who Will Tell Us?

"The steady drip of buyouts and layoffs has consumed an estimated four thousand newsroom jobs in print alone since the turn of the century, according to the much-chewed-over annual State of the News Media report released in March by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. As to whether the Web is replenishing this reportorial firepower, the authors are blunt: “In print, broadcast and elsewhere, more effort is moving to packaging and repurposing material….But less is being devoted to original newsgathering, especially the bearing witness and monitoring of basic news.”'

Cablevision Chief: Deal will 'bolster' Newsday

"In the News12 interview, James Dolan promised a "renewed invigoration of the newspaper here on Long Island." He said cable executives feel "that we can make this paper at least what it was before," referring to circulation declines experienced under Tribune."

Great shirts....

Full disclosure: I stole this post from Danny Sanchez over at the Orlando Sentinel.

But who doesn't need a shirt like this?


Some of these shirts are almost as nerd-a-rific as my personal favorite (which you can find here):

OK. I lied. Sort of.

Ok, so the other night I posted this, proclaiming mission accomplished on my little Django problem. However, in my late-night bliss, I forgot it was only half the problem.

I'm also having trouble getting a search form to work properly. Hopefully this will be easier, mainly because I was able to get the search stuff figured out here. My problems actually started because I wanted to know how to display the other fields in the example.

Anyhow, I plan to work on this later today if I can get some more pressing stuff out of the way. Otherwise, it'll probably be tonight.

Then I plan to move on to learning how to create a URL-driven search page similar to this. We'll see what happens.

Django and success

Too bad I can't bring in Borat to give a nice "Success!"

After several days of beating my head against the wall, bugging Derek Willis and Matt Waite to the point they probably would like to shoot me, I finally figured out my Django woes.

For days, I was having any trouble getting beyond Chapter 7 in The Django Book. There's the spot where the author shows you the template. More specifically, the place where you show the search results in the loop.

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to show additional data. Waite beat it into my head that it didn't have anything to do with the data request in the view or model --- i.e., it is the equal of

select * from table

whether I like it or not.

I kept trying to modify

      {% for book in results %}
       
{{ book|escape }}
     {% endfor %}

into something like:

{% for book in results %}
       
{{ book|escape }} {{ anothervariable }} 
     {% endfor %}

Or

{% for book in results %}
       
{{ book|escape }} {{ modelname.anothervariable }} 
     {% endfor %}

And I tried all kinds of different things. I tried Waite's suggestion to do some sequential error checking to identify whether it's the url, the view or the template. But assuming it isn't dumb luck, I discovered something that finally broke through to my slow brain.

I apparently needed this:

{% for book in results %}
       
{{ book|escape }} {{ book.anothervariable }} 
     {% endfor %}

Again, assuming that's what I needed (and this isn't luck), I think I've gotten past the big brain block and hopefully Django will be a little easier to digest. I can already see the awesome and amazing speed with which you can put together an app.

For some reason, I assumed I needed to reference the model name, apparently forgetting the basics so clearly illustrated here in crayon-like colors for dense-minded people like myself.

That being said, it's cool I've needed to learn so little Python to make something useful (OK, I haven't made anything useful to anyone ELSE yet). As someone who attempts to use Perl, I wasn't looking forward to the idea of learning another scripting language.

So thanks to all who helped. And thanks to my random late Friday night (I have no life, apparently) find from Jacob Kaplan-Moss.

I feel much better now.

After I published this rant, things got a lot better.

I downloaded MySQL and installed an instance on my local machine. By pointing Django there, I was able to get the connection and things started clicking. So I'm pretty confident that it was Tribune blocking the port, not me being an idiot. At least this time.

It's the small things that piss me off.

So I've embarked on learning Django. Again. But this time with gusto.

However, just like any other language, it's the small things that trip you up.

I spent a decent portion of today trying to figure out why I could not get Django to talk with a DBMs of some sort. First up was SQL Server.

The Django Book appears to indicate you can use ado_mssql. But after numerous trips in Chapter 5, particularly with the following:

>>> from django.db import connection
>>> cursor = connection.cursor()

I kept getting getting an error message. Best I could tell, the SQL Server part isn't really supported yet. But I could be wrong.

Then I decided to move on to MySQL, considering that's what everyone is using anyhoo. I could absolutely not get a connection. I was trying to use a MySQL install on my A Small Orange account...But no luck. I couldn't figure out the problem --- I checked my settings over and over, even e-mailed tech support.

Still no luck.

Best I can tell, it's because of Tribune's block of port 3306. Knowing we had an MySQL install here on one of our CAR boxes, I tried to get that working. That would seemingly show whether it was Tribune blocking the port or my idiocy.

So we'll try again tonight when I get home. But I've got my money on the port being blocked.

Frameworks!

So far, I've played around with Django here at home. But I've done nothing more than display the date and time. What can I say? I got sidetracked.

But I see IRE is going to offer a Web frameworks bootcamp during the conference in Miami. Yay!

Back from Tempe....

Well, I actually made it back from Tempe. But more important than getting back, I survived my time in Tempe.

We spent mucho time learning about regression, correlation and several other social science methods useful in journalism.

That all got me thinking.

My friend Allison is a Ph.D sociology student at the University of Colorado in Hippieville. We've spent a few e-mails talking about social science and journalism. The other day, I whined that if newspapers fail, who else is going to do this kind of work?

Her response:

"A lot of people do this kind of work. It just doesn't go as public as a story the Dallas News does. So, we start making it MORE of a priority to get research out to the public. There's definitely a movement towards this right now, but it's more
towards getting research about a particular issue to the practitioners
who work in that area, not the whole general public."

To me, this is the very problem. Social scientists write for other social scientists. Academics write for academics. It doesn't matter if academia starts trying to find more ways to publicize their work --- it's still going to be written for other academics.

During the camp, Steve Doig told of a story where a journalist presented his findings to an academic, who was astounded. "I never knew newspapers could do work like this," he said. As I remember the story, and forgive me if I'm a little off, the academic was planning to do the same work, but was going to take a year to apply for grant, start figuring out a framework, on and on and on.

Journalists can do social science-type work and make it palatable to the general public. But this kind of work dies in a compressing newsroom environment.

So this is my depressing thought for the day. I guess I really don't have a point to all of this, other than my hope we can find a way out of this current environment.

In Tempe...

Well, I made it to Tempe in one piece aboard Delta. Given the recent stories about the FAA getting nice and cozy with airlines, it wasn't a given, I suppose.

Anyways, I'm here for IRE's advanced statistics boot camp, which has me stoked. I feel like it could help shore up one of my weaknesses.

I was supposed to meet up with other students and the two teachers, Steve Doig and Jen LaFleur, for food and adult beverages...but the bed kept calling. Or something like that.

I had to leave Ft. Lauderdale on an 8 a.m. flight, which meant I had to get to the airport about 6:45 a.m. So I woke up at 5 a.m. after getting to bed somewhere around midnight.

Got to the desert fabulous Twin Palms, which features peach doors, parrots, and dogs in the lobby, about 2:30 p.m. Set the clock for 4:30 p.m. to meet them at 6 p.m. Next thing I know, it's 10 p.m.

Too bad. Oh well, it means I'm up early and ready to go this morning.

So it's off to do some journalism learning.

Another personal post...

You'll have to excuse me. I'm going to use this space for another post personal in nature.

Mark Hutchison, a mentor of mine from The Oklahoman, was appointed online news editor for the company's online operations. So why is this a big deal?

Hutch has shown unbelievable courage in the last few months. Not too long before I left The Oklahoman in October, Mark suffered a tragic injury while fishing in southeastern Oklahoma. He fell down an embankment, leaving Hutch paralyzed from the chest down.

Mark's been to hell and back since that accident. He's suffered illnesses that landed him back in the hospital for weeks on end. I've been told most who suffer such an accident rarely return to work --- and if they do, it's only after a year.

Hutch will return about six months or so after his accident.

Mark hired me the first time as a metro editor. After his appointment as city editor, Mark gave me the opportunity to cover the Legislature in my mid-20s. I owe a lot to Mark Hutchison.

Much of what I learned about journalism, ethics and raising hell came from MULK, as we liked to call him.

You see, Mark is not a small man. He's probably 6'3" or so and about 250 --- all solid. We would play basketball during lunch at The Oklahoman's courts and sometimes I thought Mark was confusing football with basketball. He would get a look on his face that let you know he was driving for the hoop, and people just got out of the way or risk losing a tooth.

His editing style was about the same. If your story sucked, he let you know. He pushed you to be the best.

"Bend over and grab your ankles," he once shouted to a reporter who hadn't turned in a story to his liking.

Now you know why we called this old school journalist "The Incredible Mulk."

Mark also taught this city boy a little about fishing.

I'm proud to not only consider Mark a mentor, but a friend.

Welcome back, Hutch.

Sorry for the quiet...

I know the posts are few and far between. You see, I'm getting married.

I proposed back in September or so when Tribune flew Kathryn and I down here for a house-hunting trip. Since then, it's been kind of a logistical balancing act.



Kathryn has flown here and I've been back home to Oklahoma. For those of you who don't know me, I grew up in Tulsa. I went to Oklahoma State University and then took a job at The Oklahoman, the state's largest metro daily based in Oklahoma City.

It was weird leaving Oklahoma City. It's a metro of more than 1 million people that's rapidly growing. Just 20 years ago, it was a dusty cow town where no one wanted to live. Fast forward a couple decades and hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private capital investments and it's a different city with an NBA team on the way.



But it was time to leave. It was time to do something --- and live somewhere --- different.

So tomorrow, she's loading up her remaining things --- most of them are already here --- and her mom's friend is driving the truck down here. Kathryn will fly down on Thursday night. The truck will arrive Saturday.

A bit of an exclamation point on the relocation of my life.

She'll fly back for a couple weeks and then I'll join her before our March 1 wedding.

So the posts may be few and far between until then. So stick with me. Sooner or later I'll think of something interesting to say.

EveryBlock....

The great Adrian Holovaty has launched his much-anticipated EveryBlock.

I'm not quite sure what to think. Well, that's a lie. The geek in me loves it.

I love how it aggregates info from all kinds of different sources. I noticed it even grabs "missed connections" from CraigsList. Cool.

But what will the average person think? Who knows? But it sure seems to be headed in the direction of what Matt Waite calls "molten" data. Or at least the way I understand what he means by molten data.

Any thoughts?

Newspaper buildings...

Newspaper buildings have always fascinated me. In many communities, at least part of the building is a pillar of the community. Places like Tribune Tower in Chicago come to mind (though it may not be a newspaper building for too long).

I stumbled across something cool from William Hartnett, who is just up the road at the Palm Beach Post.

Check out newspaper buildings.

Data ghettos....

Some random rambling thoughts...

Fellow Floridian Matt Waite has coined a new term: "Data ghetto."

"The Data Ghetto is that one mishmash page where all of that site’s databases are lumped together."

I think Matt hits on some great points here. I've gotten that feeling that most of the industry is just plain confused. Sometimes it seems like we want stuff online just for the sake of having stuff online, but we don't have a clear mission.

Chalk it up to the tumultuous time in our industry, I suppose. But the confusion can't last long. Or we're in trouble.

At the same time, I am a bit of a fan of the data ghetto for some reasons, a lot of it having to do with public service. I think we should take advantage of the ability to bring the power of public records to our readers --- and add some transparency to what we do.

"That said, here’s how we can get out of the data ghetto: add some journalism to it."

I agree. And I think a lot of us are trying to figure out how to do it.

Like one of Matt's readers points out, a lot of this is version 1.0. Hopefully we keep going to version 2.0 and beyond.

Sulz style....

Well, according to the Politico's Ben Smith:

"The New York Times has figured out a way to bypass the massive journalist exodus from Iowa to New Hampshire, starting late Thursday. Two words: corporate jet.

Exhausted Times staffers will be transported, Sulzberger-style, out of Iowa starting around 6 a.m Friday morning."

Paging Mr. Zell. Are you listening? I could use a ride in a fat corporate jet.