Rule Number 3: Don't Be Stupid!

A YOUNG, RECENT college grad/ former journalist posted a guide to succeeding in journalism on the Innovation in College Media website. It is full of great advice.

This is my favorite:

With Google and Wikipedia you no longer have any excuse to be stupid. Ever. Have a question or curious about something? Type it into Google.

Don’t know HTML, how to install blogging software or shoot and edit video? Too bad, you’re out of excuses because you have the Internet. Take the initiative to learn these yourself. Add value to your skillset and make yourself more marketable to an employer.

Your college education isn’t the reason why you don’t know new media — you are. Saying, “I’m really bad with computers” won’t make people pity you and hand you a job. In a competitive job market, there are no more free rides.

No one’s saying you have to be the expert, but ignorance isn’t tolerable. Spend your free time online learning something new and stop wasting time with Scrabulous on Facebook The-New-Faces-at-Facebook ! And once you learn these new things, take it a step further and think, “How can I use this to be a better journalist and tell better stories for the consumer?”

The photo above comes from the Aperture Photo Agency, a product of Temple University photojournalism students.

Young People Are Interested ... But Are They Informed?

NO DOUBT, this year's election cycle has garnered a lot of excitement from the younger generations.

Younger voters have been voting in primaries at higher rates than in the past, across the country.

Still, very few young people actually read the news, watch broadcast news or read online sites that have great depth. Rather, the New York Times reports, young people are using social networking tools like facebook, myspace and YouTube to send along individual stories.

Is this a good thing? Can people really become deeply informed by reading the handful of stories that become viral in cyberspace? Are they getting comprehensive information?

Can we get enough information just through word of mouth?

Now, each of the candidates have pages in myspace and facebook, and they all drop videos onto YouTube. By bypassing traditional media - sending messages directly to the audience rather than have messages filtered by the media, are the candidates setting the agenda?

Talking Sports With Ray Didinger

A LOT OF people dream big. Few achieve their goals.

Ray Didinger, TU class of '68, is living the dream. And he'll tell you all about it in class on Thursday, March 27.

As a child growing up in Southwest Philly and nearby Delaware County, Didinger idolized the Philly sports teams. As a kid, he went to an Eagles training camp, saw the sportswriters out on the field, and he decided that was what he wanted to do.

After completing his journalism degree at Temple, he landed a job as an Eagles beat writer. Then he became a columnist. He traveled around the world documenting sports, and life in general. Then he left newspapers to craft long-form documentary films for NFL Films. He still does that. And he appears on Comcast SportsNet's Daily News Live program occasionally, and after every Eagles' game on the Eagles Post-game Live show.

He has also authored several books, with the most recent one published last fall.

To Dish Or Not To Dish

SO, THE GOVERNOR OF New York gets busted by the feds for soliciting hookers. How much more info does the public need?

Then, David Patterson, the guy who replaces the disgraced Eliot Spitzer, announces that he has had multiple affairs while married. One of his paramours is on his gubernatorial staff.

How much information should the media provide? The editor of the Albany Times Union wrote this:

"If you're the editor of the newspaper here, you're torn: You could choose to be embarrassed that you haven't reported all this stuff that has been going on beneath our noses, or you could realize that you would be more embarrassed if you got dragged by the tabloids into reporting a bunch of salacious details that aren't really any of our business."

But salaciousness sells! That's why the AP is opening that celebrity wing of their wire service, right?

Don't people want the dirt, and therefore, isn't it the media's responsibility to provide those dirty details?

Or should the media take the higher ground, and only report criminal behavior?

Would You Sell Your Soul For a Job?

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS is hiring 21 new employees for positions in New York, Los Angeles and London.

Excited? There's a catch: the newbies are on the celebrity beat.

In defending the well-respected wire service's foray into the world of celebrity gossip, one executive said, "The entertainment vertical is not about gossip, unnamed sources and innuendo or about “peephole” journalism with AP photographers becoming paparazzi. It’s about recognizing an opportunity to use our journalistic talent and unmatched network of resources to produce high quality, multimedia coverage in an area of growing interest."

Do we really need more celebrity gossip?

Do people want more celebrity info or is this the Associated Press looking to make money?

Boston Mag Is Going Straight To Hell.

THE ADVERTISEMENT above for a health club appeared in last month's issue of Boston magazine (sister mag to Philadelphia magazine).

Catholics in the heavily Catholic town freaked out.

"It's offensive," a Boston archdiocese spokesperson said. "I hope they make the decision not to run it again and perhaps offer an apology to the religious community."

Is there anything wrong with a magazine running this ad?

The Big Story: Your Team Needs You.

THE INFORMATION that follows comes directly from TU president Ann Weaver Hart's e-mail to the Temple community:

Men's Game: The men play Michigan State this Thursday, March 20, in Denver, CO at 12:30 pm EST. We will be hosting two sites on campus to view the game: The Great Court in Mitten Hall, and the Howard Gittis Student Center Room 200.

Women's Game: Sunday evening in College Park, MD at 9:30 pm EST, the women will play Arizona State. We will televise this game in the Howard Gittis Center Room 200.

Support your teams.

The photo above comes from the Aperture Photo Agency, a product of Temple University photojournalism students.

Can We Talk About Race?

THE SERMONS OF Barack Obama's former pastor have become part of the presidential campaign this year. Some people believe the pastor's words are incendiary.

And yesterday, in Philadelphia, Obama spoke to the nation about race relations in America:

"The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American."

There is a danger in journalism and journalists perpetuating stereotypes. How do we avoid such situations?

Many media outlets tried to cover the story by talking about the differences between predominantly black and predominantly white churches. Does that only further the divide between people, or does that help create a better understanding?

Read the full text of Obama's speech and leave your comments below.

Can You Hear Me Now?

JOURNALISM IS A tool intended to help communities. Media outlets are supposed to inform citizens about things that will help them lead better lives.

The reality is that journalism is a business, and the mission of the craft has suffered because or it.

Enter the Prometheus Radio Project, lo-fi radio pioneers who travel the world and build radio stations as community-builders.

A few folks from Prometheus will talk to our class on Tuesday, March 18. And they are always looking for people who want to get involved.

Get involved!

Who Controls the Internet?

AN ONLINE college gossip site is causing a stir at some universities. On Juicy Campus, you can post just about anything.

The New York Times wrote about the site today, citing a Juicy Campus post that outed a Yale University student as a porn star. And the post had a link to videos (not the NY Times' post, you perv).

Should this kind of information be regulated? Should anyone be able to post information online? How would you feel if your life was broadcast to the world?

Would you read a site like this? Isn't Facebook getting creepy enough?

(I already checked ... Temple is not a participating university)

Off the Record, You're a Pain in the Butt.

BARACK OBAMA'S FORMER foreign policy aide, Samantha Power, called Hillary Clinton a "monster." And then she tried to take it back.

"We f***** up in Ohio," Power told a reporter from The Scotsman, a newspaper in Great Britain. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win. She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything."

What do you do at that point? First she says something that would definitely be newsworthy, then she tries to restrict you from using it.

Would you publish the quote?

Broadcast News Behind the Lens.

PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS about today's guest, Pete Kane, an NBC10 photojournalist who was honored in 2007 with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.

Did he inform you about things you had not considered? Did you think about journalists working seven days per week, on holidays, over night and 33 hours straight when necessary?

The anchors and reporters get the face-time and the glory. But it's people like Pete who see the city at it's most grassroot, gritty and sometimes rawest level.

Who Is Responsible for Online Comments?

AFTER THE REDSKINS' Sean Taylor was murdered in his South Florida home, rumors and speculation about his death floated everywhere, especially on the Internet.

Some commenters on newspaper and blog sites assumed that Taylor was involved in something negative (drugs, violence, etc.) and that was why he was killed. Sometimes, the commenters became racist - Taylor is African American. They made assumptions about his life based upon the color of his skin.

Some media companies have people who monitor comments and they eliminate the rude and possibly defamatory ones. But that requires a person monitoring every story online and every comment posted. That is a lot of work that many media companies cannot afford to cover.

Who is ultimately responsible for material like that being published online? Can you blame the media outlet for what commenters post at the bottom of online stories?

Is it wrong to censor comments? Shouldn't the public be allowed to have a voice? Or do the media have a responsibility to maintain civility?

By the way, if you have not read this story by Inquirer sports columnist David Aldridge, read it now. It is a wonderful appeal to end violence.

In The Heart Of Darkness?

NATIONAL PUBLIC Radio newscaster Jean Cochran reported that president George Bush was going to visit Africa, and Cochran referred to it as the "Dark Continent."

Then she was stunned to learn that people were offended by the phrase.

"I will concede antiquated but I was unaware it was 'racist and irredeemable,' as one person put it in an email," Cochran told NPR's ombudsman. "I was floored. Am I insensitive? I don't know how that could be since I didn't know there was anything to be sensitive about. I understood the term to refer to the African jungle. It's a canopy blocking out the light. A geographical term."

The phrase, by the way, dates back to the colonial era of Africa during the 19th century.

Was Cochran insensitive or is this a case of the political correct police running amok?

Note to Self: Get Involved.

A NEW ONLINE youth culture mag, Urbaniti, is now posted. It is operated by Temple students, and they are looking for people to get involved.

Get involved.

And post your comments about the site here.

Does Anyone Want Serious Journalism?

NEWSPAPERS ARE losing circulation at a pretty rapid clip. Television ratings are down compared to past years, largely because there is just so much competition out there. And the mag business is as difficult as ever (most magazines don't last 5 years).

But here is a story about a British-based, global magazine - The Economist - that is not only surviving, but thriving.

"The magazine expects to show 13% circulation growth in its upcoming filing, on top of the 8.5% jump in the number of advertising pages in 2007," reports MarketWatch. "With a circulation of about 722,000 in North America now -- and more than 1.3 million in total -- the magazine intends to crack the 1 million threshold on this continent in the next five years."

The amazing thing? They actually do serious, investigative journalism on a weekly basis. They take a world perspective on events from the war in the Middle East to nanotechnology.

"The Economist tries -- hard -- to reach smart people, eschewing the kind of broad audience that Time and Newsweek target," the MarketWatch story continues. "In other words, don't expect to see Britney Spears or her ilk grace the cover of the Economist."

Do we need to give readers their Britney covers to lure them to read the real news inside the magazine (or newspaper, website or television newscast)? Or will Americans actually read probing reports that don't involve celebrity exploits?