Facebook – Cox Media Farm Slayer

I figure the Cox Media Farm’s AJC will eventually be folded, gradually or maybe not, into WSB. Here’s a great example of the process at work today.

Right now we’re seeing a stage of patronizing redundancy, with two Cox Media Farm products producing like-minded content… on the same page/URL. That too will pass. As the AJC passes into WSB broadcasting, Internet-minded properties.

Why? Cox needs a Bo Emerson (byline on the copy/text stuff) the way I need another Clinique giveaway lipstick. I’ve got six New Shade of Grape in the basket as it is.

Why have a Bo Emerson only banging-out redundant, old-school style text… in a high-speed Internet media kinda world?

Anything he’s alerted us to, in this piece, is readily available on Facebook. Which has 800 million users now. And growing. If you desperately need to ask a question about who got there first (to the park protest tonight, for example) you’d just Tweet ‘em.

Even way up in the air in his Gulfstream James Cox Kennedy (JCK) can see those kinda numbers. He’d better make hay with mommy’s money for his family while he can, as soon even WSB properties will be redundant and superfluous. We simply will not need them. Already, plenty of us do not.

But back to the present tense. Can you take a Bo Emerson and make him, say, a video journalist? Hand him a SLR and a tripod? Probably. Especially if he was straight outta J-school. He is not. Bo Emerson is a well-seasoned journalist.

One who’d better start banging out some other kinda media product, e-books maybe in his case, if he hasn’t already. (Trust me, as a seasoned multimedia-ist, it ain’t brain surgery, but I diverge.)

So thus Emerson’s wages are, presumably, already way too high, even though I seriously doubt JCK is overpaying anyone on staff with his mommy’s money.

And with J-schools cranking-out even more eager beaver kids with journalism degrees than ever before, cheap content-churning monkeys are merely… a job board away.

Anyway, James Cox Kennedy (JCK) isn’t the least bit interested in journalism and piddly, cumbersome product such as the AJC. He says as much in this 2002 interview.

Nope, JCK’s a cable/broadcast kinda guy. Although I bet he’s trying to be the best Internet content kinda guy he can be by now. To go with all those Internet supply chains he already owns. But Facebook’s pre-emptied so much of the grand plan of any good old-school media tycoon.

And that makes a Bo Emerson, and even Gal With The Pink Faux Chanel Jacket, well, superfluous. Cox Media Farm too, come to think about it.

As should we need to tune-in fresh media from the Occupy Atlanta movement tonight at 6pm we need only click, once, to its Facebook page… or those of its 4K-plus followers.

And we’ll do so with our Apple product and some (free if we can find it) wi-fi, not some big fat TV that comes complete with a whopping cable bill.

Cox Media Group – Contradiction, Confusion, Clownage

You’ve all heard and seen it by now. (If you’re in Georgia.) Some expensive, marketeer-driven slogan the Cox Media Farms Group is using to pimp their AJC product. Something about being clear, complete, correct. Three Cs. I forget the exact three Cs, so un-inspired I was by the campaign.

The AJC, the flagship Cox Media Farms Group product according to Wikipedia, is under new leadership. The first bit of non-inspiration out of the new AJC editor, Kevin Riley, was to start banning stuff.

But Riley’s got a sturdy ego, allowing himself a burst of uninspired face time with us *audience*, trotting himself at a nice clip through a newsroom in a particularly awkward moving pictures ad spot. Look busy! Nothing like a campaign of more middle-age white guys trying on *leadership* roles to inspire a Cox-only media consumption movement in the metro Atlanta masses.

(And can they ho-out Mike Luckovitch any harder than they are now at the AJC?! Jeez, they’re gonna break him they keep up this pace. But I diverge.)

Overall, the best part of whatever the heck it is they’re trying to do around the Cox Media Farms Group Of Stuff was a recent interview with their new president, Doug Franklin. (Lot of new, new, new fever around that barn, eh?) Whereby Franklin said this:

One of the things I (Franklin) should point out is that our goal is not to homogenize our media businesses.

Well, could have fooled me as a recent Cox internal memo, now in wide digital circulation, about how to “co-brand” Cox properties, but at the same time not let us out here know about this co-branding stuff, said this:

The decision to co-brand will be determined on the front end, in the story conception meetings between the respective properties. The branding will need to be communicated fully to the newsroom production staffs so they’ll know to use the labels.

Labels and everything too! Already in the pipeline, should the non-homogenization process need to be trotted out. (Cute how they’re still beating that dead print horse too.)

Yes, but us simple, passive, media consumers out here in the A are still not supposed to know there’s a Cox Media Farm Group Of Stuff homogenization effort under way. Again from the internal meme:

As a rule of thumb, most collaboration efforts will NOT be made known to readers/viewers/listeners.

That’s ok, because in the interview with TVNewsCheck Franklin goes on to tell us he will tell us this:

I will tell you that we have recently moved 30-50 journalists from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and they are now housed at the WSB building. We are moving more content people in with the television and radio newsrooms and I think you will see continued increased shared work there. So, yes, we are going down that path, but prudently to make sure we protect the outstanding brands we have in Atlanta.

But who needs to know what they heck it is they’re doing with their various media products, in the name of journalism, when we consumers out here have full access to whatever it is they’re trying to do up there in the C-suite!

You know how to get in touch.

Upcoming State of Media Forum In Atlanta

On Sept. 15, 2011 I will be speaking on a panel hosted by the marketing division of the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). This is titled: The State of the Media: Traditional, New Media, and Analyst Panel.

Registration for that panel discussion/breakfast is here. More deets are not yet available. Hope to see  you there!

And I’ll add more deets about the rest of the panel when TAG adds more to their page on this particular panel. They crank through about 5 panels a day, so it seems, at TAG, so updating each one could take a little time. Be patient.

Wave Your Magic Media Legitimizing Wand

I sleep like a baby at night, knowing I always bust MY butt to be the best illegitimate media source I can be. And there are plenty of others in Atlanta/Georgia who go at their illegitimate media efforts like bunnies, too.

Recent good examples are Todd Rehm at Peach Pundit and Matthew Cardinale at Atlanta Progressive News. Heck, Cardinale takes illegitimate media to a whole new magical level; suing the crap outta the Atlanta City Council for violating Open Meetings/Open Records law. And winning too.

I don’t want to re-cap that long and very winding issue right here. The Daily Report, Atlanta’s legal community daily, just did a good cover story on the messy matter of Mr. Cardinale. Alas, they’re big honkin’ capitalist pigs over there at the Daily Report, and they lock-up their legitimate media behind a firewall. New media curses on them.

Of course anyone with an Internet connection and a Facebook account has already copied and pasted the Daily Report’s story about Matthew Cardinale, and is merrily circulating it that way amongst Atlanta’s media and political cognoscenti. I’ll leave you on your own to find your, er, unique way to it.

But Peach Pundit, for a bunch of boisterous, loud conservatives (with fun, boozy happy hours too!), is very good at keeping information free and flowing to us lowly masses. So there’s an ongoing updating of the Atlanta City Council open meetings/records saga there. Seek away.

And please… do your part. Always be the illegitimate media YOU wish to see. You never know who will be the one to legitimize you with their magic, media-legitimizing wand.

I know I stash several, top shelf Media Legitimizers around my palace. Now if I could just figure-out where I put the damn things…

Internet Access as a Civil Right

Do you think of Internet access as a civil right? That’s the new buzz term being tossed around by Comcast. Seriously.

Comcast has been mandated by the feds to reduce the price of Internet access for low-income households… as a term of the Comcast/NBC mega-merger.

Please… let me know what you think about Internet access as a civil right. My opinion is just that – only my opinion. I want to hear others’.

To find out more about the Comcast Internet Essentials program, and how it will be applied to metro Atlanta, which has its own severe digital divide, please watch the video.

Nobody Plays Church Better Than Atlanta!

WSB-TV‘s Richard Belcher warned about *community pushback* over prosecuting the APS cheating investigation during a Sunday, July 17, 2011 TV special about the cheating scandal (as they’ve now branded it with special graphics and everything), up to that day’s point.

Go to 5:00 on vid for Belcher’s quote and avoid the audio dramatics at beginning.

I witnessed some of this at the community open house with new, interim APS Superintendent Erroll Davis on July 21, a man not the least bit stingy with his words and rhetorical side roads, highroads and by-ways.

I live-Tweeted during the July 21 community open house and Q&A session with Super Davis. One parent’s heartfelt remarks were powerful:

From my Twitter stream: *Parent in tears at mic over beloved #aps personnel who will no longer be there. People she felt, deeply, loved and cared for her kids.*

I think that’s pretty much what Belcher was alluding to in the TV special. And when that kind of raw (genuine) emotion gets fanned from the pulpit by preachers/emotion manipulators, well… hey, you’ve got yourself some good old fashion religion. A style!

I’m hoping MSM will visit some metro Atlanta churches so we can get their, uh, unique perspective. Because… nobody can play church like we do in the A.

I should also mention that security for the July 21 open house/new Super Erroll Davis was considerable. For good reasons too, I’d imagine.

There is no shortage of emotion-letting & vetting and general hand-wringing going on in Atlanta over the APS cheating matter.

And long-known local crackpots, trashcan media, assorted contract-seeking vultures, citizen journos, Joe Blows, MSM, national media, parents, onlookers, snake-oil sales types, very dubious leaders, people who kinda give a shit, you get the point, are all mixed into this civic stew still bubbling steadily along on the cooker.

Dish it up.

UPDATE: The second July 24, 2011 WSB-TV special on the APS cheating investigation is here.

Under The APS Investigation Atlanta Media Circus Tent

As I’ve died and gone to Atlanta media circus heaven lately it’s been hard to break away to play ringmaster by providing the necessary, critical blog posts. Facebooking and Twitter alone are about to do me in.

Honestly, I’ve been having too much fun sitting back with my peanuts and cotton candy watching from here in the cheap seats. But someone’s gotta play local TV news farm media critic in this town, other than @RichardsDoug; and there is, of course, no one better qualified to do so than me.

Thus, let me take a moment to pry open the laptop and reflect on just last night’s Atlanta local TV media hightlights and lowlights before I go back in for more. (Thank goodness for that new, 4-5pm block from Channel 2, eh?)

Last night WSB-TV, or WizBee or Death Star Two as it’s called in the biz around here, was on disjointed fire! When they open a 6pm with longtime, hysterical crime reporter Mark Winne (his Facebook fan page is here) rest assured we’re going to be served drama.

The local TV news station that can’t do ‘em some news drama, in a city as ragingly dysfunctional as Atlanta, is just dead to me. Otherwise, why bother to exist? Anyway… getting to the point.

Winne led-off with pretty good shrieking over the hilariously mule-headed refusals by a few implicated (now kinda sorta fired) APS school administrators to… go down without a public fight. I think they were bellowing for a publicized *hearing*, whatever the heck that is. Good luck with that tall order.

The best part was a replay of Winne grilling, weeks ago, one of the most mule-headed APS admins fingered in the whole royal cheating mess, Tamara Cotman.

Low and behold, Cotman was, once again, right up in our living rooms. Still looking slouched down and bloated from all the investigatory stress and educator cake she’s been consuming over the years, defensive and sliding down a slippery conference room leather chair slope of no-where-else-to-go prayer.

Cotman was posed in the classic ATL local TV media perp tableau – lawyer on one side, Mark Winne leaning in with a question on the other. Talk about media places you never want to be seen in this town.

Bless her tired, stressed, cake-laden heart. I almost felt sorry for her, as, so far, Jesus has yet to come to her emotional or otherwise rescue. Maybe next year. Keep those prayers and cards and letter coming, Atlanta!

I Spy Scandals In ATL Media

There are two lovely, slaphappy, public office-related messes playing-out right now in Atlanta you won’t want to miss a moment of: the APS cheating scandal and Governor Deal’s trail of dubious dealings.

Thing is, the media attentions applied to both situations are so random and all-over-the-place it’s like Dick Cheney on a quail hunt; you never know where the shots are coming from, nor what they’re going to hit.

There is no clearinghouse of information, so you’re bound to miss something… if you’re not paying close attention.

Investigative journalism is an odd bird. Although news farms like to say they get their content from some pristine well of hard work, that’s not really the case.

Most get their news from the other news farm down the street. And most scandals erupt because people are gossipy tattletales and can’t keep a secret.

And sometimes people will even tell a journalist if they’re a hardcore whistleblower with stuff like paperwork to flaunt, and not just your common trash-talker over at Manuel’s.

But ultimately, it’s up to a near-solo, working journalist to keep the fires of an investigative situation burning… with loads of  seasoned skepticism and doubt mixed-in with better-than-yours sources.

Says longtime, Atlanta investigative reporter, Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered and the AJC :

The trick is to know your topic thoroughly, keep asking questions when things don’t add up, and sometimes even when they seem to. Focus on what people have done, not what they say they’ve done. And do not assume that the most likely explanation is correct, or at least 100% correct. There are nuances to everything.

Georgia New Media Notes March 31, 2011

Several new media things jump out today… Facebook is such an amazing tool for tracking legislation going through the legislative process. The Sunday Sales/Senate Bill 10 may or may not be before the Rules Committee today.  Advocates such as Rich Sullivan and co. are at the Georgia State Capitol now Tweeting and posting Facebook updates about this one bill’s progress.

Lobbyista, media, advocates and ordinary folk, take note! Could save tons on tasseled loafer polishing costs by not having to hoof it along the hallways of the Gold Dome. Watch and learn from the comfort of your connection.

Then again, just being at the Capitol on a busy day is exciting in itself. Go live and in person whenever you can. Just report back for us what is going on… as it happens. Social media tools make it very easy to do. (They’ve got great wi-fi at the Dome.)

Other quick note… when giving interviews to text-only outlets avoid passive language, such as Michael Bond’s here. While it’s earnest, and might work in a broadcast environment, it always prints bad.

Councilman Michael Julian Bond pointed out that Sandy Springs and DeKalb County have full government participation and the continual council snubs are “almost getting to the point where it is beginning to be offensive.”

Elsewhere, Bob Barr believes in the intended effects of mass media propaganda. The best money can buy. Cute, huh?

One more… from what I hear, bloggers are already revolting on donating free content to @11AliveNews/@gannett‘s Where U Live project. Must give back, news farms! Must. Think of better ways to give back to the blogger (on-air time comes to mind), and you might get more better content from ‘em.

Today is the deadline to nominate your fave Georgia journo/blogger now for The Atlanta Press Club 2010 awards. It’s easy to do.

That’s it for the morning. Make it a great use of new media day!

Should Media Work For Law Enforcement?

This one is still confounding me… should media, old or new, be whoring for the FBI? For example, broadcasting the demands of a cop killer jonesin’ to get on TV, as much of Georgia media did recently?

Doug Richards of WXIA and blogger at Live Apartment Fire has the post-mort boast-review of how it all went down here. Please read that first for critical background before answering the ‘ho question. Excerpt:

This guy won’t turn himself in unless he does it live on TV, because he’s afraid our guys will shoot him when he comes out of the house.  I need a TV crew to set up in front of the house, and feed a live picture to the other stations.

Immediately and emphatically, I said:   We’ll do it, Vernon.

I woke-up today with a firm no they should not on the matter. That could change by afternoon though. I know if I’d have been chosen to broadcast a cop killer… well, I’m a total weanie, and I wouldn’t have been anywhere near a scene like that to begin with, having had the thrill-crap scared out of me long long ago when working in TV journalism. So there. But…

What do you think?

What’s Ahead With WaySouth Media, Inc.

A few notes about what’s in the works with WaySouth Media, Inc. (my co.) for the weeks ahead. In hope that you will join some of the pan-media reindeer games all through metro Atlanta.

1.) WaySouth Media, Inc. is one sponsor of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s luncheon address to the Atlanta Press Club on Monday, January 31, 2011. This event is open to the public and is sold-out, but there’s a waiting list, and tickets usually free-up at the last minute with Press Club events. (News can break, and journos and media suits have to go fix it.) To get on the waiting list to what should be a timely and newsworthy luncheon (will the mayor seek control of APS?!) contact the Atlanta Press Club Monday morning.

2.) Coming February 4-5, SoCon11, Atlanta’s oldest and biggest social media conference, is back in town… now in its fifth year. I’ll be leading a workshop on mobile media and politics during the afternoon on the 4th, but come to SoCon11 for the fun kick-off party at the Carter Center on the 4th, and prepare to hang-out all day on the 5th at KSU for the great networking and interesting lineup of speakers and interaction from a multitude of backgrounds, services, businesses, and disciplines. SoCon is very much an UN-conference, so everyone participates. Or else! But register now as it’s about to sell out.

3.) February 26, I’ll be back at the 20th Annual Georgia Bar Media and Judiciary Conference, as a panelist on a panel about online reputation management (or lack thereof). Need to meet some lawyers, judges, media execs, bloggers, crime fighters, reporters, journos, politicos, even more lawyers? Well, the annual Bar/Media seminar is the place for that. Contact the Georgia Bar Association for info on this conference.

I’m looking forward to such a dynamic kickoff to a fast-paced and innovative all-media year ahead in 2011!

The Great Atlanta Media Leap Forward

We’ve got a lot of, er, *transitioning* ahead of us in Atlanta. We can read between the lines, here in this greatest of Southern cities, and understand what the underlying code is there. And yeah, if we weren’t so darn cowardly about those matters we could have an open conversation about the City of Atlanta *transitioning*, but I don’t think we’re quite ready for that yet.

Anyways… that’s off-topic, as what I’d like to point-out today is the great effort by 11AliveNews, or what we used to just call WXIA, to live-stream the critical Atlanta Public Schools (APS) board meeting for the community yesterday, January 24, 2011. The meeting whereby board members were first chastised by an outside accreditation group, not for the elephant that remains in the room (CRCT cheating), but for *infighting* issues among board members.

Whatever. The board was soundly scolded, given a deadline and loads of impenetrable rules to waste a lot of meeting time trying to follow. Then some local politicians got up to say their, rather futile, piece. Get their crucial face-time in.

And then the board did what we all knew they were going to have to do to move their game piece forward – voted to adopt the SACS recommendations to fend-off loss of accreditation.

Chris Sweigart, the all-things-online dude at WXIA, a Gannett station, grabbed his laptop and treated the Atlanta (and beyond) online community to open air and sunshine – via a live-stream of the APS board meeting. So the stream suffered from low audio and a dubious 3G connection. Nonetheless it let us play along at home. Kinda like we were the first village to have a scratchy broadcast from a new, magical device. And everyone gathered around to listen carefully to an important  live event.

The thing about Internet live-streaming is that pretty much anyone can do it. You need an Internet connection and a smart phone with the right (free) app. That’s it. And you’re off and running. Politicians could do it. PTA moms could do it. Third graders could do it. Community agitators could do it. Facebook Group enthusiasts could do it. But people don’t do it as much as we should.

And of course our various interest groups and stakeholders are so laughably hell-bent on public lip-flapping and having their turn at a podium and getting their egos stroked that they rarely, if ever, take time to understand that technology has enabled a world of blazingly bright sunshine on our public and governmental and community proceedings and processes.

Reporters are so deep in not missing a word as they type or write down the proceedings they seem blissfully unaware, in a press box, of technological advances that most third graders could set-up and distribute on a playground social network. Who knows where their media bosses are in all these new technologies. (I don’t want to even get an answer to that, given that I still hear horror stories of executives who require an entire secretarial pool simply to print out their own damn emails.)

The fact of the matter is that the community can watch and listen live, to whatever, and come to their own understandings and conclusions. When we do, we hardly need to have what we’ve already been subjected to parroted back to us in all the usual, traditional media ways. For instance, in that increasingly obsolete TUNE-IN WAY LATER IN THE DAY!, tease-oriented TV/radio media environment. Been there; done that. Why tune-in later?!

It’s not that it’s not well parroted back later at some other point in time. It’s just that waking-up to, for example, an excellent WABE report on an APS board meeting you paid careful attention to as it played-out, comprehensively in real time, becomes untimely and somewhat redundant.

Again, I can’t stress enough how what I point out is hardly a condemnation of quality journalism capability. WABE has that in spades when it comes to covering APS matters. Yet to ignore and not even begin to put one’s quality journalistic efforts and deep experience more to the matter of real time, live eventing, and how technology is evolving there, is ignoring the media elephant in the room – the real time, technological capability of the citizen. Or let’s call it *the audience* – that elusive entity always being chased after, especially in memos from suits in Dunwoody-based offices.

Perhaps it is there (live-streams, not Dunwoody) where more of our very capable journalism efforts should be directed. For example, Chris Sweigart had a hard time keeping his live-stream going and answering the many questions his audience (me) had regarding the who, what, why and where of what was playing-out on our laptops back at the coffee shop or airport or Dubai for that matter.

Live-streaming always has some techno glitch that needs attention. All the while, editorial attentions must be paid too. That’s where good journalism comes into play. Citizens may have a smart phone, a Ustream.tv app and a wi-fi connection, but they may not have the journalism experience to go along with their gee-wiz techno toys. It thus becomes a matter of improved multitasking.

The Atlanta media outlet that finds a way to combine more local, community-based, comprehensive live-streams with some ace journalism is the one that can give that precious, all-important, techno-advanced *audience* what they really really want. And that news outlet will take a great leap forward for Atlanta pan-media in the process. I know who I’m keeping my eye on.

Social Media and the Growing APS Mess

This particular social media swirl is playing out on my territory, and promises to challenge me to TRY to keep up! But you know I’m the woman for that job.

So, let’s over-simplify until I can do a full (video) report on this matter: Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is in a big brewhaha of a mess. It’s a two-prong mess. I won’t go into full mess details here, as that’s the AJC’s job. But first is the CRCT cheating scandal, and second is the APS board’s probationary status.

All could come to a lovely head of face-to-face steam at tomorrow’s APS board meeting, open to the public at 4:30pm, FYI. At APS. (Stay tuned for that live eventing. I may live-stream here. Haven’t decided yet if I want to venture out from behind the laptop yet though. And come early to sign-in. Who knows what APS might do about the posted times.)

What’s fascinating, in that horrible fascinating way, is being able to watch the social media tactics and approaches (I’m loath to call them *strategies* as it’s all rather amateurish right now) present… almost in real time. Even I may not be able to follow it all. But I’m sure gonna try.

Let’s explore, with a handy scoring system, where we are so far:

1.) APS social media scorecard – 1. And they get a score of 1 (out of 10) only because they have at least established a Twitter feed for their sunny-side-up bits. Sorry, APS. But you haven’t even touched your Facebook page since the summer of 2009. Not much going on your website. And APS Superintendent Beverly Hall’s letter explaining the accredidation probationary status APS is now operating under arrived at homes via the Backpack Network. Call Hermione for a better spell soon, APS. Or you’ll be overwhelmed. If you’re not already.

2.) A Facebook Group called Atlanta School Board: Step Up or Step Down already has 266 members, and was pointed out to me by an APS teacher, so seems some APS teachers are banding together with APS parents. And heating-up neighborhood discussion boards and email chains and petitions. That’s good. I give ‘em a 6. They’ve got a’ways to go to keep up with this other group that’s sprung from the PR mess though.

3.) ReCallAPS, so far, is posting fewer Facebook friends than the above group, but I’m certain they will catch-up and surpass. They’ve got a blog going already, and a Twitter feed; Twitter being what will fuel the fires the fastest. Their message seems wishy-washy though, so I’m just giving them a 5. For right now.

For what it’s worth, social media is everyone’s field to play in for communications – crisis or otherwise. Have at it. Make it work for you. Just know it’s a game you don’t want to be on the sidelines merely watching.

Royal Marshall RIP

Atlanta radio personality, comedian, father, husband, and friend to so many in this town and elsewhere, Royal Marshall, has died. To say it was unexpected and tragic seems inadequate.

It was unexpected, so very sudden. Last night. He just collapsed and died. He was only 43. And just kinda always out there…. whether on Facebook, or slapping around Boortz as the ubiquitous side man, or doing stand-up at the Punchline.

I had the great fortune to take Jeff Justice’s Level II Comedy Workshoppe with Royal. We all learned so much from watching him, hanging around him, sensing his style and unpretentious, super-smart ways. He was the person in the room everyone wanted to be around. That bright-light personality everyone wanted to bask in and be like.

Royal was just part of being an Atlantan. And now that inherent sense of place and person is gone. I miss him already. RIP Royal. The world needs so many more just like you.

Atlanta TV News Snowcoverage 2011

Never one to be left behind when it comes to self-promotion, WSB-TV goes for a high school yearbook approach. (See pic.) Oh please don’t let them slap that on a billboard!

I had to drag my friend/neighbor Jenna away from the TV news Snowpocalypse coverage so we could take the kids to our neighborhood Willy’s for tacos last night. I really needed to get out of the house, but I needed a Willy’s margarita even more. But I know it’s hard to tear yourself away even for cocktails, as local news has been some of the most compelling TV going this snowbound week of non-stop coverage.

There’s my fave, Mark Winne, who’s been pulled-off the crime beat to go chat-up DeKalb County snow plow drivers now stuck in drifts alongside the road. Drink when Winne blurts *crime doesn’t take a day off* because he will inevitably say that, for your entertainment purposes.

And there’s top shelf material, WSB-TV’s Richard Belcher, finally catching-up with someone possessing half-a-brain from GDOT (Georgia Department of Transportation). If anything needs a top-to-bottom media overhaul it’d be GDOT, eh?

Then there’s Hullinger over at WXIA chasing GDOT’s Vance Smith all the way down to the Gold Dome basement. Snort! And Wizbee’s (what industry insiders call WSB-TV) pol-gal Lori Geary talking poll results from pollster Matt Towery about who out there stuck inside (with a land line) thinks GDOT is doing a heck of a job, Brownie. (Only the old folk, of course).

Local TV news in Atlanta during this wild winter storm of January ’11 is a wacky ride of knowledgeable, experienced reporting combined with can’t-go-wrong images that even an ancient, union cameraman can halfheartedly point and shoot in a general direction and still get great snow-covered video.

Like the Catholic Church’s ad campaign to get folk back despite a pedophilia problem, now’s the time to come home to local TV news. It may not get this good until the next big *snow event*…. what Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed calls this icy mess we hope will melt away by King Day.

Media Matters Regarding ATL and Snow

Atlanta bloggers (me and Charlie of Peach Pundit) analyze Atlanta Snowpocalypse on 11Alive/WXIA. January 12, 2011. And boy was it an adventure! Driving to the station and back. Not a whole lot of adventure in this *debate* though. Maybe some other time.

Stop Atlanta Media Crimes

I watched something very vital and important on Atlanta’s PBA Channel 30 on the (public) service show called In Contact – an honest and frank discussion about obesity in young black girls. And how this epidemic of obesity is, essentially, robbing young black girls of their childhoods, as the rate of sexual activity for obese girls under 13 is very high.

It was a deadly sobering and scary scenario. One that was well-presented on the show by experts in the Atlanta community on the matter of childhood obesity. After watching the show I was eager to share this media discussion within my social networks… online of course.

Well whoa Nellie! for me, as the show In Contact does not seem to exist online. You can pay a lot of money for a hard copy of a show, by some snail mail process though. And sure, who’s going to do all that just to share it on their Facebook?

(And don’t ask me what PBA30 hasn’t been doing over the years of the rise of social media to build their social networks because I sure couldn’t tell you.)

I can tell you however, old Atlanta media geezers in charge, and let me say it ONE MORE TIME LOUDLY… if you do NOT put your media online then the online community can NOT (easily) help you share your mission and your message included within that original media. Put the stuff online, fer chrissake!

Then ASK people within your social networks (you have been working hard building out those, right?) to help you share that media… and YOUR message along with it.

How many times do I have to tell you old dino Atlanta media people this? Good grief it gets maddening as media outreach solutions are so very simple nowadays.

Less yapping, less studies, less dubiously inflated old-school production budgets (you know who you are doing this in Georgia), less 200-page proposals that never get read – and more social media doing.

Trust me, it’s not hard to do… AND it works.

Georgia’s Jobs Creation Project Thwarted By Tea Party Binge Drinking

Georgia’s in a bit of a sticky-wicket, eh? The Georgia GOP has been railroaded by the Tea Party Kool-Aid their teenagers were passing around in a patriot-drag party earlier this year. And, like bummer, the reality police have since raided the place.

Well, this rhetorical hangover is sure gonna be a bitch now! Because Savannah area congressional Rep. Jack Kingston got swept back to where he always was (Georgia Congressional District 1) in a I Hate Pork! frenzy, yet is somehow entirely dependent on congressional pork scraps from Obama’s table (otherwise known as earmarks) to fund the Army Corps of Engineers’ ga-zillion dollar project to dredge (deeper) the Savannah harbor.

Remember kiddies, the Army Corps is the bumbling group of engineers who will oversea the Savannah dredging op; the Army Corps’ bumbling engineering projects are funded entirely by earmarks. And talk about another real bummer, Kingston didn’t get appointed head of House Appropriations either. From Politico:

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), a tea party favorite who lost out on his bid to chair the House Appropriations Committee, thinks his party may have overreached.

“Let’s look at transportation,” he said Wednesday. “How do you handle that without earmarks, since that’s a heavily earmarked bill? How do you handle a Corps of Engineers project? I think, right now, we go through a period where we have gone one step further than we meant to go, and there are some unintended consequences.”

Among some members — including Kingston and Simpson, both appropriators — there’s a feeling of giving Congress some tough love until it realizes what it’s thrown away.

The suits, especially the ones at the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA), love ‘em some federal pork so much that, let’s be honest here folks, they can’t really exist without it. They sure can’t come up with the billions needed to dredge the Savannah harbor all on their own, with just our pittance of state-of-Georgia taxpayers’ money.

But who will they need to call-on and make nice-nice with (soon) to get the pork they indeed DO need to fund lots of stuff the Big Business suits in Georgia, such as Frank Blake of Home Depot, want? Why that Muslim Kenyan in the White House! The kid they’ve kicked around the playground for a couple of years now. Kinda like that gubernatorial candidate, pathetic as he was, that the Georgia bloggers kicked around for a year or so who now has sued their flamer-butts for slander and libel. *gulp* But let’s not diverge under the rock of the Georgia political blogosphere…

So, in this laughable manuever they think the Georgia press won’t tell on ‘em about (and knowing the Georgia press they very well may not) the GPA and GOP suits and Frank Blake and his lobbying minions are going to send Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed to pow-wow with, you know, the brother. The one in the White House. Save face with the holy and righteous constituents back home, because it’s not like the white folk GOP leadership in Georgia’s can be seen asking Obama, of all people, for a handout.

I mean, they’d have to stand there, cap in hand, and look the dude they’ve been calling names all this time straight in in the eye and say, *Yes Sir, Mr. President. Whatever YOU say, Mr. President. We know we owe you BIG TIME if you give us Savannah Port earmarks now.*

Hell, if I was Obama I’d make ‘em crawl in to the Oval Office on their knees. While wearing those silly hats and breeches the Tea Party drag queens love so much. But I’m sure POTUS is a lot more forgiving than I am.

Don’t the white folk who need Big Federal Money back home in the woods just crack you up? It’s *jobs for Georgia* now though, so it’s all good. Right?

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed On Dredging Savannah Harbor

From the Georgia Ports Authority forum on December 2, 2010. Mayor Reed addresses the impact the proposed (pending receipt of many earmarks) dredging, of the Savannah harbor to allow for bigger ships, will have on the metro Atlanta area.

GA House Bill 277, referenced by Mayor Reed, is here: http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2009_10/sum/hb277.htm

Media by WaySouth Media, Inc.

How To Make The Media Your Bitch

Did you hear the uncontrollable sobbing? See the river of tears? Cringe a lot but keep watching and listening? Feel those familiar, empathizing stabs-through-the-heart as a parent? Sure you did. Who could miss the bizarre, loud, soggy and sloppy vehicular homicide perp-’fession yesterday in Atlanta media. It played big.

Now I will confess. I am in shock and awe with defense attorney’s, Lawyer David Wolfe’s, sick and brilliant and kinda wild media tactic. Trust me, ALL local Georgia media are now his personal media bitch, even the usually crime-reserved WABE. Watch him as he trots out the hysterically earnest nice white folk with the cute white folk names… such as Christa. What media could resist? And why would they? Gonna print big. Sell some papers. Tune-in. Click-on.

And the terrible thing is that all this Get To Know Me And My Deep Regrets tactical media ploy by Wolfe could keep this remorseful, hysterical-on-cue, stupid young woman out of the pokey… in what will now become a trial of the year, if it ever gets to trial. (NOTE: One atty. says the D.A.’s office will never plea down here.  Too high-profile for that.)

This one plays close to home as I just spent four months downtown at the Georgia State Capitol during the 2010 legislative  session, where earnest young folk such as the victim in this terrible accident (not crime), Jordan Griner, made the whole silly place hum.

Jordan Griners were everywhere. Young Griner was very much the face of the next generation of Georgia political operatives. Far too young to yet be turned manipulative and hard and unfriendly and cunning by the relentless power drama at the Gold Dome. And far too young to die, at just 24, on a Midtown street two blocks from the safe confines of home after a fun and casual night out with friends.

On an almost daily basis I too drive through the intersection where Jordan Griner was killed by the stupid drunk club-goer, thinking of young Jordan but also thinking of how I too was once a young, stupid, Atlanta night-clubber. In other words, ye olde classic There But By The Grace Of The Goddess scenario.

Now that I’m older, wiser, less energetic, and presumably more analytical, particularly with media matters, I really want to have a nice long chat with Lawyer David Wolfe about his media mechanizations for his stupid, drunk, club-going client; I’m fascinated by Wolfe’s mad legal-media skills and tactics. He waves his client-wand, and wow, all Atlanta media step and fetch to do his get-this-on-cam-for-your-A-block bidding… all without spending one dime or lifting a finger. Just a phone call or email or two or a dozen.

Naturally, I want to hear all about his overall media strategy too, which of course he’s not going to reveal to me or any other media-type or reporter. (Dale Russell may get an interview after all is said and done. Maybe.)

So until I get motivated enough to find a trial lawyer in my social network to interview, please leave me YOUR thoughts on this public, Georgia-specific, legal-media matter here. Especially if you’re a lawyer.

photo courtesy WXIA