GAME OVER

This is a little uncool - GAME Australia has gone into administration and has announced that along with not being able to provide the pre-ordered copies of Diablo III (a much sought after new game) -- it's keeping the deposit money.

There's got to be a better way...

Noooooo Zynga! Don't Ruin Draw Something!

Sob - news just in from Penny Arcade - Zynga is going to have 'corporate sponsored words' included in the iphone/Andriod game Draw Something.

If you're not sure why this matters - check out my last blog on whether Zynga is evil.

It's such a shame as it's a good way to ruin a pretty cool game. This might kill my involvement.

It's the Bamboo Bike!

Check it out! Info on what the bamboo bike is up to... they're really breaking ground...

Great, Book Publishing Going the Way of Churn-it-out Journalism

Poor authors. This New York Times article notes how writers who used to be able to put out a book a year and focus on making it the best - now have to do two books and short stories in between to feed the e-book appetite and to stay in the cultural in-group.

One writer does it by writing 2000 words a day, starting at 9am and going till 'Colbert' (usually at 6 or 7pm??), 7 days a week. 

Some authors don't even get revenue for the short stories. Not cool. 

Seems like no one but the billionaires and the trust fund kids have it easy these days.

Your House is Toxic and it's Killing You: The Fire Retardant Investigation

The Chicago Tribune has done a wonderful piece of investigative journalism here in its four part series looking at why fire retardant is all through our homes and in all our things - and why it shouldn't be. It's called 'Chemical companies, Big Tobacco and the toxic products in your home'

The newspaper argues big tobacco companies got the stuff put in everything to deflect away from the fact that cigarettes were contributing to increased fires.

Turns out fire retardant doesn't work as it is at the moment - and it's deadly.

I now wish I could source all my stuff minus the yucky chemicals - but it's near impossible unless you're going to throw a whole lot of spare cash at the problem.. assuming you have a whole lot of spare cash.

What's interesting is that an unrelated article I posted some time ago called Your Breasts are Trying to Murder You (notice a theme?) reviews a book about the history of breasts and the chemicals they absorb. Here's what reviewer Lindy West says about the author when she had her breast milk tested:


"Williams' journey begins when, alarmed by a news article about toxins in breast milk, she decides to get her own milk tested. And, surprise! It's packed with toxins—specifically, chemical flame retardants—that Williams is funneling directly into her baby."


Turns out the stuff really is in our bodies...

Aw Man, Turns Out My Draw Something Addiction is Slightly Sinful

So I've been playing the iphone/Android game Draw Something. Totally addicted. I've collective enough points to buy two colour schemes and have shared 79 games with one player all within about two weeks.

It's a really cool game and I get a kick out of watching how my drawing and that of other players improves over time. It also helps massage my right brain's creative skills.

It's basically a game that gives you three choices of what to draw - then you draw what you've chosen and hope the other person playing guesses correctly. I had no idea how much fun I could have.

But imagine my surprise upon learning about Draw Something's dark history.

Draw Something was created by OMGPOP, which a large and well known company called Zynga acquired.

When Zynga acquired OMGPOP it offered jobs to all the developers that worked there. One guy said 'No' because he thought Zynga was evil. He argued as a company it didn't respect its customers or developers and was just out to make money. He also couldn't get a guarantee that Zynga wouldn't force him to take a game he had made and owned (which was making hardly any money at all) off the market so it didn't compete.

But is Zynga evil? This article says maybe not, as so many people play their popular games, like FarmVille.

Check it out and decide for yourself. But for me, playing Draw Something is going to be that little bit less enjoyable.. though I don't think I'll stop my sinful indulgence.

Lesbian Couples and Legal Hurdles

This is a story that highlights the complexity of US laws when it comes to same sex couples and children. It makes for a good read in USA Today.

World of Warcraft and Journalism at War

If journalist's totally misinterpreted an event in a court case, to the point that they essentially made up the facts - what would that mean? Is it because journalists don't care about the truth? Because they're inherently bad people who just want to do as little as possible and pick up their pay check at the end of the day? Because when there's nothing exciting happening journalists just like to make stuff up?

When mistakes or misreporting happen, there's isn't an excuse - but there's always a reason.

There was a blog post last month objecting to how journalists have interpreted what Anders Behring Breivik said about his time playing World of Warcraft. It quotes Breivik's statements where he says he used World Of Warcraft as a reward and a recreational break before he carried out his attack. It then takes issue with journalists reporting that Brievik used World of Warcraft to 'prepare' for his attacks.

As a journalist who has spent some time court reporting I've been thinking about the article and what its criticisms mean for my profession.

I can understand why there is a desire by journalists to report the online gaming aspect of the trial. What does it mean when a mass murderer immerses himself in a particular online game? Does it mean anything? Does it say anything about the game itself? Though journalists can't really unpick the answers in 300 words or less, such an intriguing aspect of the trial will make journalists want to report on it.

I do agree with the blog post on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Breivik did not say he used the game to practice his attacks or prepare in the sense that it aided his planning or execution. Breivik has been taken out of context and the trial reportage leaves the impression that the game can be used to prepare people for violent acts. It's not great journalism in any sense.

So I then started to imagine myself in that courtroom as a journalist reporting the Breivik case. What would I have done if I were covering the trial and my editor had asked me to come up with an angle on that particular aspect of it?

In a 40 second radio story, or a 90 second TV package, or 300 world online piece, how could I have described that part of the trial in a way that used the fewest words possible (as my profession and editors demand) as well as retell the story in a way that interested my audience (another demand of my profession).

How else could I have written the leadline or headline?

"Breivik took year off to play World of Warcraft"? Sure, we could go with that, but what if my editor wants something more interesting? Would this be enough to make the audience read the story or listen to the rest of my piece? Would you?

"Breivik 'rewarded' himself with year long gaming gorge" Ok. Better but a little unclear.

"Brievik took year-long break to play online game before attack" Wordy and not very, I'll say it, 'sexy'.

"Brievik mentally prepared for attack by playing World of Warcraft". Bingo.

A journalist might argue that even though Breivik said he was using the game as a way of taking a break before the attack, you could interpret that as a way of mentally preparing, by checking himself out for a year and rewarding himself before the attack.

Now we have the beginning of the reportage moving away from what should be clear, crisp and truthful. It won't take much for an editor to remove the word 'mentally' in that headline so that the story becomes that Breivik used the game to prepare for the attacks.

This is not a great way to report, most especially in court cases, and I'm not defending incorrect reportage a lot).

Journalists aren't evil people who don't care about what they do - there might be a couple there but the vast majority really care about their profession and want to be known for doing a good job. They want to tell the story and get people out there to care about it.

I don't know what the journalists at the trial were doing, why they chose the headlines they did or what their aim was, I wasn't there.

But what I'm wanting to demonstrate is that through the process of doing what's expected, the facts can get reinterpreted rather easily. When journalists don't have a lot of time, but much is still expected of them, liberties can be taken in the way they interpret stories and quotes. Sometimes it's expected and is understood to be the business of journalism -- depending on the newsroom and outlet.

When you read some of the best journalists in the Guardian or the Independent (both well respected newspapers), they build up a portfolio of the facts, and then they tell you what that means and how to interpret it. That's what they're supposed to do, especially if they have an expertise. Otherwise it would just be pages and pages of listed facts with the reader not knowing what to make of it or the time to figure it out. But this system only works well when you fund it and give the journalist resources and time.

Most journalists don't have that luxury.

But why can't journalists just say what happened in the trial and be done with it? Why the need to dress it up?

Firstly, journalists are under pressure to find a sexy headline, and some facts of a case don't lend themselves to that (Again - just stating what happens, not saying it's right).

Secondly, journalists are now often expected to file every hour - sometimes every 30 minutes.

Think about what you can achieve in that time frame on an ordinary day. Maybe get ready for work? Write a shopping list?  Normally you wouldn't think to give yourself 30 minutes to write a cogent piece that's meaningful, accurate and interesting all at the same time. But that's the job. Journalists need to fill the empty space and so they rush to keep delivering material.

I haven't even covered whether the same journalist gets sent out for the whole trial. Often it's a different journalist each day trying to understand the context of one small part of the trial they're witnessing - and then file on it. Very hard to get a whole picture, or know if you're making a big deal out of an aspect of the trial that isn't worth it. It's not like you know you are going to be covering the trial on that day and can prepare for it. You're assigned your story when you arrive for your shift.

There is also this desire to somehow make each element of a court case link back in a meaningful way to what the accused has actually done. We start to report 'around' the issue, picking bits and facts in isolation because they make an interesting part of the story. The result is that we can start to fracture the picture so much, that the context and reality of what has actually happened and why, becomes lost.

These days we more and more start to justify 'interpretations' of events that remove themselves bit by bit from what's really happening because we're interpreting those events on the run.

I'm not defending every piece of sloppy journalism out there, clearly some journalists just get it plain wrong. For the talented writers the compromises are much smaller because they can manage to get around the pitfalls with clever writing, but otherwise there are many journalists out there who do make mistakes, forgivable or not.

But journalists are under more and more pressure to deliver a story out of their hour in court or their time on the scene. Think about how many news channels there are - sometimes multiple channels for the one outlet: online, radio, TV, headlines, long format programming ... all these have to be fed everyday.

Journalists don't get a few hours or one day to go back over what they write before they present it to the international boardroom.

Gone are the days when a journalist could sit in court all day and then come back to the editor and say 'look, nothing significant really happened and if you want a headline I don't have it' and the journalist wouldn't be judged for it.

There is such a demand for content that journalists are under enormous pressure to 'get a story out of it'. If you get sent to the story, especially the biggest one in the country - get something out of it or you're not doing your job. Can you imagine a headline on the Breivik Trial: "Nothing happened today"?

It takes a very brave editor that is willing to defend the journalist and spend money just to have someone babysitting a trial without getting a story out of it.

In the newsroom, some get the reputation for being a 'storykiller'. That's when you're a journalists who says too many times 'nah there's no story in it'.

Many journalists don't want to be known as storykillers. They want to try and 'feed the beast' and do what their bosses expect of them. If you have a round or beat, and you're in radio, several stories are expected out of you in the one day - maybe five or six.

Let's not even go into the fact that with pay actually dropping in real terms for journalists, many more junior reporters are covering stories, with older people who need to pay the mortgage getting out of the business. Junior reporters who lack rigorous training and experience.

Sometimes the media outlet won't send its own correspondent as it doesn't want to pay for the trip, so the newsroom relies on stringers who get paid on a story-by-story basis. That means that stringer wants as much as possible to get something 'up' so that they can get paid for it.

What are we to do?

The fault lies in the lack of time given to journalists these days, the lack of space, the increased pressure, the drastically reduced pay when you compare it to other highly skilled industries. The pressure isn't where it should be from editors - the desire to get it right, no matter what and the space to do so.

Now, editors want to go home and hear the story they had on their output also appear on another outlet. They don't want to 'miss' the story - they want to do what everyone else is doing. This is more true in some countries than others. What choice do they have? They need to 'compete' and they need their bulletins filled and their online content fed no matter what -- you can't broadcast a shorter bulletin because there's no news.

The reality is, you get what you pay for.

We're not paying enough experienced journalists and giving them the time to report accurately, without the fear of 'not bringing back a good story'.

And so we get World of Warcraft misreported.

But how do you fix it? It would take a major restructure and rethink of traditional forms of bulletins and news feeds. But our whole industry is now geared to feeding the beast and I don't see that changing any time soon.

The meaning of LOLCats

This is a thoughtful piece by Rebecca J. Rosen in The Atlantic which covers the phenomenon of LOLCats and other memes online. It's worth a read as it gets you thinking about what all those 'Shit white girls say to black girls' are about and how and why we distribute these pieces amongst each other. Also some great examples with video.

LibriVox - Put Your Voice to Books!

Screen shot of LibriVox website

Librivox This is a great site if you're a budding broadcaster and want to keep in practice. You also help people get access to all sorts of books which are no longer under copyright.

But be warned - you give up all rights to what you record as you're making the recordings available for all use.. That means if someone wants to burn the books to CD and sell them on ebay - they can.

But hey -- it's for the greater good!

TNR: Obama and the Legacy of Gay Marriage

This is a solid opinion piece by Jonathan Rauch in The New Republic. He argues US President Barack Obama's enduring legacy might not be health reforms, but his movement on gay rights in America.

Wired Reports: U.S Military Encouraged 'Hiroshima' Tactics Against Islam

This is an amazing and confronting piece.

It's on Wired's National Security blog Danger Room where writers Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman obtain documents which show special training US military officers received.

They were encouraged to wave a war on civilians in Islamic countries and Muslims themselves, using Hiroshima style tactics or threatening Saudi Arabia with starvation.

It's pretty full on stuff. The comments are also interesting and offer insight into what Wired's readers think about this.

There's one there by a former officer who confirms this sort of thinking was in the military, he says he left because of it.

Diablo III is Coming...

From Blizzard Entertainment
Press Pack
Collector's Edition Cover

It's unavoidable. Excited twitterings about Diablo III's availability is filling gamer conversation in bars, coffee shops and most especially in the virtual world.

Penny Arcade, the successful gamer comic strip can't wait.

What's fascinating about this game is that Diablo II came out in 2000 -- 12 years ago. This next version has been 12 years in the making. Blizzard Entertainment announced it 4 years ago and it's taken that long to develop. It's due to be released May 15, in 5 days. I can see the queues now.

Man, it better be good.

25-year-old Kickstarter Whiz

I posted sad Kickstarter stories a little while ago, but here is an interview with the 25-year-old who ran one of the most successful kickstarter campaigns... Eric Migicovsky and his team founded Pebble, an e-paper smartwatch that's compatible with iphones and Android phones.

He raised nearly 9 million dollars in his Kickstarter campaign as people bought up orders for the watch. The campaign is actually still going and has 8 days left on it, but the watches are sold out. He's still making money though with over 10 million pledged.

I can't remember what I was doing at 25.

Whiskey Flavoured Lube

At the risk of making this blog look like nothing but breasts and other body parts... I couldn't resist posting a press release a colleague of mine was recently sent.

If you might be offended, look away now.

Otherwise...

Whiskey Flavoured Sex Lube appears to be the new product coming out of Canada, and they're sending broadcasters this hilarious press release in the hopes of getting it some media attention... I'm having trouble picturing the segment though...

PS: There's a Sex and Drinking Festival??!!

Hey,

I thought you might like to know that some next level business moves are being made on the internet at this very moment.

EpicMealTime is pleased to announce the launch of Whiskey Dick, the world’s first bourbon-flavored personal lubricant.  You’re welcome. 

EpicMealTime’s Whiskey Dick™ is water based, hand crafted and proudly Made in America.  Whiskey Dick is the gold standard of booze-flavored massage oils, it’s aged 4 years in white oak casks and guarantees a velvety-smooth finish.  But don’t delay, the first batch only yielded 5,000 bottles and it’s available starting Thursday May 10th at www.whiskeydicklube.com  for $11.99. 

Whiskey Dick’s distinct Tennessee taste won it a Triple Gold Medal Award at the 10^th Annual Great American Sex & Drinking Festival in Bean Station, TN (we also placed in the BBQ competition). So remember, the next time you get Jacked, Whiskey Dick will be there to help you rise to the occasion.

Want to get Whiskey Dick?  Well, if you’re interested please email us at xxxxxx and be sure to include your address and contact info. 

See attached release for more info about Whiskey Dick and EpicMealTime.

Old No. 69 is Guaranteed Good Times,

xxxxxxxxx

P.S.  Stop hating.  Don’t be jealous.  

P.P.S.  Yes, the most American thing in the history of the world is coming from Canada – French Canada.

P.P.P.S. We never want to spam anyone (and hate getting spam ourselves, especially from PETA, angry vegan fanatics or the work from home consortium), so if you'd like to be removed from receiving future emails please click the link below and we will ensure you don't receive anything in the future from us.

Sent to you as a gift from the future by the people at
Epic Meal Time in Montreal Canada

Everything You Wanted To Know About Your Food

Is it a carbohydrate? How much Vitamin A? If you're trying to get healthier and want to know more about your food -- look it up on the United States National Agriculture Library. It was certainly more than I wanted to know about potatoes and rice...

Your Breasts are Trying to Murder You

This is a great book review by Lindy West for Slate and Jezebel.com. Funny, sassy - it's all about a new book on women's breasts and how they're out to kill the people they're attached too. Seriously. It's called Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams..

BPA is not a nice chemical..and it could be in your receipt

BPA is not nice... but it is a bit scary to read that it's in some cashier receipts -- does anyone know if this chemical is banned in UK or Australia?

Here's Nick Clegg's Turn

His reaction to the Lib Dems massacre in the UK local elections...

On Penguins and Politics

More Guardian fun on a bank holiday morning with Charlie Brooker, Penguin politics and the UK local elections...

It's hard not to feel a tinsy bit sorry for Cleggy's Lib Dems. A penguin-costumed contender beat a Lib Dem candidate in Edinburgh...

UK Meritocracy? I'm not so sure...

This is a real corker! American writer Gary Younge making a few well-aimed points in The Guardian about the UK's class system.

He argues it must be tough to be someone with inherited wealth telling poor people to 'buck up' in tough economic times...

I took one thing away from it -- I would LOVE a starting salary of 90,000 pounds! Where do I sign up?

PR People to Outnumber Journos

This is news in The Australian Newspaper - a Newslimited (Murdoch) publication.

Not necessarily wholly new figures - we've known these stats for some time.

But what's most interesting and enlightening are the comments - there's no love lost for journalists there and very little sympathy.

It means journalists will have a hard time convincing the public that with more pay and more of them, they would have the time and space in their workload to do their jobs properly...Trust is very low.

You Can't Do That To Meat!?

Has anyone heard of meat glue? What tha?

Australia and Julian Assange

I was wondering where John Pilger was the other day, and a piece of his cropped up on the Information Clearing House list.

He's still up to his trademark prodding and questioning which he does so well.

He's arguing that the ongoing 'war on terror' is still dangerously eroding rights.

As an example he's having a go at the Australian government over it's support of the US in it's efforts to get Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor, into its clutches..

Much of this I didn't know.

Remember the LA Riots?

When four police officers where acquitted of the beating of Rodney G. King, LA descended into chaos. The beating was caught on video tape and fuelled debate on race and justice in the US.

It's fascinating to read this article, which not only has links to background on how it all started, who the main protagonists were and where they are now, but also looks at what happened to LA afterward and the setback it suffered as a metropolis.

It's one in a series of how the event changed the area and isn't the most important thing to take away from the riots 20 years on, but it's worth a read.

Riots really do leave a lasting mark, in this case one element was in the restaurant industry. The customers left and so did the multiplicity and multicultural melting pot of restaurants in LA, for a time.

I wonder what cultural mark the London riots have left?

Respect, Cockroaches

Apparently, Cockroaches are a friendly, egalitarian bunch who talk to each other about food... try and control the creepy-crawly urge as you read... Thanks BBC Nature for telling us all about it..

Why Do They Hate Us?

This is an article which was the source of discussion on the BBC World Service's Newshour yesterday. The article looks at attitudes towards women in the Arab/Middle East written by an Arab woman and a journalist herself, Mona Eltahawy. She appeared on Newshour to defend her article after it was criticised by another female writer as being the work of an "Anglophile". Both writers appear in discussion on the program. It is an angry article but I can understand why there is so much anger and impatience with the poor treatment of women. Have a read and see what you think, or listen to the discussion on Newshour here.

Sad Kickstarter Stories

For those of you who don't know, Kickstarter is a website that allows you to raise money for a particular project you're working on, or a product you've developed and want to manufacture. There have been some spectacular successes on Kickstarter with millions of dollars raised for really exciting and original projects.

But spare a thought for those that have failed in their attempt to raise a few dimes.. While it makes for fun reading, if you're working on a Kickstarter project page, it's also a good lesson in what doesn't resonate with the audience...