Mar
4
It is officially National Grammar Day! Whether you were the favorite student in your English class or not, today is the day for well-written sentences and articulate conversation.
I had a journalism professor who would give you an “F” if your paper contained even one error. That was enough to scare me into AP style submission.
Enjoy these tips from The New York Times’ Learning Blog: http://tinyurl.com/ybnh9w
Mar
2
This morning I woke up to the sound of a helicopter hovering above our block. I ignored it and went back to sleep but minutes later my phone was buzzing. A text message from a friend across town alerted me to a four-alarm fire in my neighborhood off of Greenville Ave. in Dallas. Four beloved restaurants in original 1920s buildings were ablaze.
My texting friend was watching the old-school morning news on TV and had the scoop. My husband glanced at his phone to find an email and iPhone photo from our neighbor who had walked down to the scene. We flipped on the TV and watched the live streaming coverage until it was time to leave for work. Once at the office, we both checked the local news blogs for the latest and emailed each other back and forth with our findings. Twitter was full of tweets, but no new info. Google’s new Buzz was dead silent – guess it hasn’t caught on in my neighborhood.
We are constantly evaluating and responding to the changing media landscape in this business. Today’s fire gave me a snapshot of where we are (and reminded me of the excellent social media reporting our Athens office did during the Georgia Theatre fire last year).
We had five or more sources of information for news of today’s tragic fire. Traditional news held the competitive edge with its helicopter view of the scene, but iReporters and local bloggers were adding to the dialogue by the second. My husband and I read our news online and are up to speed on the latest in social media. Even so, our instinct was certainly to turn on the TV. Do you think we cling to traditional media in times of tragedy?
