Electric Fishwrap

As we all watch the news updates on evacuations for the floods in the Midwest, we must remember that journalists live there too. Yesterday, our managing editor sent out an e-mail that was mailed to him, that reads, in part:

The staff of The Cedar Rapids Gazette, for example, has been overwhelmed with the generous and unsolicited help and offers to help from newspaper colleagues as they continue to publish and broadcast on all platforms through the flooding disaster in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. They were especially overwhelmed by the truckload of bottled water, cots, fruit and other donations from the Dubuque Telegraph Herald.

The Iowa Newspaper Foundation wants to help you help these people in need. Newspaper employees in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Vinton, Iowa City and other towns in the flood zone face personal losses. Some employees have had their homes and personal belongings destroyed or severely damaged.

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Working on a blog shift here. Bear with me for a few days

My paper has made the transition from afternoon distribution to evening distribution. For the newsroom that means reporters and editors are actually there after 4 p.m. For everyone else that means… not much. Except I hear we are actually gaining subscribers because of it even though all predictions said we’d lose a couple hundred.

The only downside to this big change is there is now competition for the newsroom’s only laptop. I love using the laptop. I can type much faster than I can write. I can look up archived stories for background information and to ask better questions. Most importantly, it has an air card so I can file right from my meeting and then go home and bring it back to the newsroom in the morning.

When we were a p.m. paper most reporters wrote their stories between 7 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. the next morning. But now that we’ve all got a deadline of 9:30 p.m. everyone wants to use it.

Fortunately most of my meetings end before 9 p.m., so if I hurry back I can push the envelope of my deadline.

I turned the key on my 1995 Ford Taurus and threw it in reverse. I heard a clunk, something not uncommon for the car, but I didn’t really think anything of it. As the speed limit in my town is 25 MPH, I didn’t attempt to go higher than that until I was out of town limits. It took me about 10 minutes to realize my transmission was shot.

I loved my car. Don’t let anyone say otherwise. My blue Taurus had character, maybe made more so by the bumper stickers on the back:

Reunite Gondwanaland

The lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math

Those two politically neutral bumperstickers have been great conversation starters with soccer moms after a school board meeting, and with political candidates (I particularly remember explaining where, or rather, when, Gondwanaland was and a rudimentary discussion on plate tectonics with Pete Coors, who ran for senate in 2004).

So I’ve replaced my Taurus with another car. A 2004 Toyota Prius.

I’ve always thought that Prius owners are snooty, smug, pretentious hippies who  have more money than sense. So it was really difficult for me to accept that a Prius was the right car for me.

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I often went to Multimediashooter to get inspiration or just browse the incredible projects that were posted. But someone decided to ruin it for us all. A hacker deleted every post and now the creator of the blog doesn’t have the heart to continue. I don’t blame him.  Ugh. What a loss.

*Lowers pen and notebook and bows her head*

Journalists are quick to point out the perks of their job. For me, that includes knowing things before others do, talking with high-profile people and poking my nose where it doesn’t belong.

But what about the bad side of journalism? Well… most people tend to sweep it under the rug. Now, thankfully there is a web site to vent our anger: AngryJournalist.com. You get to hear complaining from every angle: editors about reporters, reporters about editors, crappy pay, hours and benefits.

It’s all there in black and white. Even if you don’t post there, it’s good therapy to just read and know that other people have bad experiences too.

Tons of trades have had websites where they can vent their bad experiences, like tipthepizzaguy.com, bitterwaittress.com and any number of other groups if you just add “sucks” to the end of a search string.

Several journalism blogs have been buzzing about the latest social networking tool for journalists interested in multimedia: Wired Journalists. Of course I joined a few discussion groups after signing up. We’ll see how useful it is in the coming months.

Thank you to Meranda Watling for telling me the commenting was broken on my site. I’ve hopefully fixed it now and people should be able to post something without the hassle of registration. Time for me to catch up on my backed-up topics!

Google engineers spend 80 percent of their time working on assigned projects and 20 percent of their time on their own projects. Is it any wonder that Google is such a good company?

What if reporters did it too? What if reporters devoted 10 percent of their paid time to their own projects?

That’s the question Mindy McAdams asks in her Teaching Online Journalism blog. Mindy points us to the Fleet Street blog, where the blogger reports that the BBC is already doing 10 percent time in newsrooms:

All of the designers, developers, project managers at BBC Audio and Music Interactive are allowed to spend 10 per cent of their time working on their own pet projects — anything they like as long as it is work-related and benefits the Beeb.

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Yesterday I went to speak at a high school journalism class at Sedro-Woolley High School. First off I really hate public speaking but I also like spreading what I know and helping when I can. So when the journalism teacher there, Bridget Heffele, asked me to come in, I felt I had to. I don’t know many people in every district so I figure it’s good to get in some face time when I can.

I introduced myself and gave a bit of my background, and then I asked how many of them read a daily newspaper, either online or in print.

Nothing. Not a one. One girl asked if MSNBC.com counted. I revised my question and asked if any of them read news sources. Only about five in a class of 15, and four of them read MSNBC.com (for story ideas for their paper) to the BBC (one student seemed to want a world perspective).

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