Merging Traditional And Social Mediums To Better Serve An Audience

Photo courtesy Steve Inskeep’s Instagram account: @steve_inskeep.

 

There was a wonderful example of merging-the-mediums storytelling today, 2-4-16, with Steve Inskeep reporting from Tehran, Iran.

First, I got a “publicity” preview and teaser of what Inskeep and his NPR crew were up to in Iran from interesting photos of Tehran’s subway system on Inskeep’s Instagram account. I happen to be particularly intrigued by photos of subway stations and people using them, so the Instagrams caught my attention right away.

Framing his radio story around exploring Tehran’s economic realities on hand, Inskeep wove a fascinating tale of Tehran’s cultural and economic life, and the various divisions of such, through his more traditional radio medium on today’s NPR Morning Edition show. I’m glad I had the visual preview beforehand though, as then I could “go along” with them in a much more visually imaginative way.

I need visual prompts. I’ve never, despite years of work in visual mediums, been all that visually imaginative. I’m a text-oriented person who works (and writes) better with literal prompts and signs and messaging of a more graphical interpretation.

In other words, radio storytelling, especially in a culture and city as intriguing and vital as Tehran, has its limits despite even Inskeep’s mastery of the medium. And he’s nothing if not a visually-minded storyteller and reporter when he’s on the move. Snapping interesting, contextual photos for Instagram (or wherever) clearly was a perfectly natural response to his new geography.

Thus, social media served as a natural enhancement to and for traditional forms of broadcasting. Especially within a place I’ve long been intrigued by and had often heard stories about from relatives who’d lived there ages ago (Shah times). And hope to one day visit myself.

Reporting about a place and a people with an enhanced level of audience comprehension and service can only help forge a stronger, intriguing, and respectful relationship between two cultures.

The Trouble With NDAs

Do NDAs trouble you too? I’ve had to sign a few NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreement) over the last few years. And they’ve stressed me terribly, as they are sometimes used as an intimidating, bullying tool, slapped in front of you at perhaps a vulnerable point in your life, and you’re told, “Sign, or else.”

I’ve refused to sign a couple, though. Particularly ones that have a non-compete clause in them. Be firm with these things and also with the kind of people waving them around. Have confidence in yourself. Don’t be intimidated. Take time to READ through documents carefully before you sign, well… anything.

And seek a lawyer. I’ve bugged the crap out of lawyerin’ friends and family with these NDA docs, getting them to review them for me, at no charge to me of course. And I’ll do it again if I have to.

From the About.com article – things to look out for in your NDA:

• That you can’t work for a competitor for one to two years
• That anything you conceived of while employed is the property of the company, even if you did it on your own time
• That you give up your right for a trial if there is an issue with the contract

Tip Your Huge Media Market Giant

A team of reporters from WSB-TV Channel 2 television news was there; someone apparently tipped them off to the arrest beforehand. The station has had exclusive access to the court proceedings since then.

Now I can’t speak to the matter of terrorism-related charges brought on anyone, let alone a Clayton County, Georgia woman who wanted to kill all the whities via YouTube. (Although this particular burden never stops Matthew Charles Cardinale, the editor of Atlanta Progressive News. But he’s in law school now, so off he goes. Go Matthew go.)

I can, however, speak to the stinky little underhanded and exploitative way in which virtually all federal and state-related arrest media straight out of Atlanta (that good ‘n juicy perp-walk stuff) gets handed to market-dominating WSB-TV (Cox Enterprises) alone, on a silver platter, by someone at WSB-TV’s brother who happens to work in federal (or state) law enforcement.

So let’s recap: someone who works in government serves up exploitative tidbits to a single, for-profit entity, Cox Enterprises. Over and over and over again.

This sleight-of-media-hand trick has been going on in the Atlanta media market for decades: exclusive access to media/news-gathering opportunities (those folk in big trouble with the law) which no doubt many other players in this same media market would also love to exploit for their organization’s financial gain.

May be legal, but it ain’t right.

The Media Rich Candidate

Let’s get this established right now, since we live in a time of “Biblical” flooding (by petty judgments): I’m not all cynicism and vinegar. I really do tend to watch the world in terms of the media it, preferably organically, produces.

And that’s why South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley makes me look towards those blue media skies ahead. She’s the dream client for a media guide gal like me, as she rounds corner after corner towards her next political incarnation.

Haley, of the novel-worthy backstory, has a political future so bright you need sunglasses and a server farm to store it all in.

Gov. Nikki Haley of SC helps repair a flood-damaged home in the Columbia, SC area, 10-15-15. Photo borrowed from the Post and Courier.

Here she is going about her latest piece of Most Pitiable State’s business. Governor Haley moves effortlessly from winning Volvo USA, crying (genuinely so) for victims of unspeakable crimes, to helping veterans clean-up after “historic” even “Biblical” flooding. And all the Haley-associated media is free, locally-sourced, 100% organic product.

Well, maybe there was a portion of strategic, long game planning associated with the above veteran’s home rebuild photo op. Whatever. It was a smart thing to do. Round-up the usual earned media suspects. Whir those shutters. Bang on those keyboards, people. Squirrel away the media harvest as it comes in.

Oh how I’d love to be along for the media-rich ride on Nikki’s next political adventure. Because that will indeed… print big.

Delta Bashing Makes Editorial Data Fly High

Here’s a fun, Atlanta-specific, advertising/sales v. editorial modern media dilemma!

Clearly, anything related to Delta-bashing, particularly Delta‘s frequent flyer program SkyMiles, makes data go hog wild. As it did with some impressive CTR numbers I sent to the Atlanta Business Chronicle from my Facebook alone. (See graphic below. If you don’t know what CTR means by now, you shouldn’t be in the ad/sales side of the media biz. However, old fogey journos, I will give you a pass on it.)

I’ve yet to notice the AJC cranking out any of this trendy SkyMiles-bashing editorial product as did, rather gleefully, the Biz Chron. WABE also seems to have caught an editorial-minded whiff of blood in angry Delta customers’ waters.

(I can only dream of one day running a company whose profit margin and stock price chronically deflect the hatred of its own customer base! But let’s move on.)

And why would the AJC jump on the I Really Hate Delta! bandwagon? Delta’s a fine, legacy, ad-buying customer for the AJC and all of Cox Enterprises. I expect what Delta wants by now, editorially speaking, at the AJC or WBS, Delta’s going to get. Or have quietly overlooked. Barring plane-related disaster media, of course.

But there’s your data-driven media rub right there. As what the people want, editorially and as displayed by the numbers, is hardly what your dearest ad buyer would like to have lying around the house.

Torn loyalties. ATL style.

Podcast: The Theft of WRAS Album 88 By GPB

 

A WaySouthMedia podcast: The Takeover of WRAS by GPB and the #SaveWRAS Campaign.

Click here to listen: http://bit.ly/1GLWjl1 

For the Content Creator a New Website is a New Car

Seeing an appealing new website come online is to a content creator what an exciting new model of car is for the auto enthusiast: One is itching to get behind the screens to an operating dashboard and take it for a rich content-creating spin.

Because the best sites make it a delight, not a burden, to create and showcase new content – particularly if you’re an enthusiastic writer and photographer.

The Coastal Conservation League (CCL) of South Carolina has just such a new website. It’s gorgeous. And immediately displays the astonishing amount of conservation work done in the southern United States lowcountry by the CCL.

However, as a media professional, I went right to the press releases portion of the site, and I am now busily touting how the CCL has presented their releases within the new site.

As someone who is often called upon to write press releases, which too often serve as a client’s only new content, I am constantly bemoaning how releases are not getting the “workout” some deserve.

Not only are too many of them poorly written (not by me!) and merely fired-out via PR Newswire, they are not made interactive (live, working links), they are not visually appealing, they’re not easily found on websites, and they’re not made easily share-able in social.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

CCL’s Laurin Manning, working with Wide Eye Creative, has clearly conquered all those media-related hurdles within their new site. I’m delighted to have their example with which to beat folk over the head with.

Rather, show them. Of course, it’s up to clients where they wish to spend their time and money. But nudging them towards investing in a better website and a better press release is always a media professional’s time well spent.

Atlanta Solidarity Walk For France #JeSuisCharlie

This gallery contains 19 photos.

Atlantans walk for solidarity with France and the victims of the January 2015 attacks in Paris. 1-11-15. #JeSuisCharlie

So You Think You Can Cover A Violent Protest?

CNN’s Don Lemon (L) and Chris Cuomo (R) deal with uninvited guests (center) in their Ferguson, MO live shot. Vine screen grab courtesy Tim Burke. 11-24-14.

Don Lemon of CNN’s such a douchebag. He’s so douchey he’s trending on Atlanta Twitter, and not in a good way. Mostly he’s trending for being too white-ish and jabbering on-air about smelling weed burning in Ferguson, MO last night, 11-24-14, as the non-indictment of Officer Darren Wilson news broke. Everyone loves to hate on Don Lemon. Me too!

That said about Lemon’s douchiness, as an aspiring cub news producer I once got caught-up in the midst of a downtown Atlanta protest that turned violent. Blacks were angry (Maria Saporta reminded me of what sparked the outburst) and were massing, yelling, marching, and breaking windows along Peachtree Street, and assaulting, brutally, innocent people who just happened to be near the protest and thus convenient targets.

When it became crystal clear there was no one around to protect me (I don’t think I ever saw a single cop in the mix), and after having had someone I thought was a friend scream ugly things in my face (she was part of the protesting crowd; I was news media covering the event; that’s what unnerved me the most), and my crew concentrating solely on getting the shot and not giving a rat’s ass if I was attacked, I immediately dropped my assignment like a scalding hot potato, ran to the edge of the protest, hailed a cab, and beat a swifty retreat back to the newsroom.

Never again would I put my own life in danger just to “get the shot.” I clearly got culled from any future potential war correspondent herd that day. Whew!

In other words, a violent protest in America is a very scary place to be in the middle of. Kudos to anyone in news who lasted through the night in Ferguson. (Including His Douchiness, Don Lemon.) They’re a hell of a lot braver than I’ll ever be.

The Historical Legacy of WSB-TV Production

After pondering the despicable act by despicable people of attempting to suppress the black vote in the year 2014, in Georgia of all places, take a media moment with me as I say something nice about a Cox product: WSB-TV.

The above (click the pic of Junior Farmer to get to the video) is excellent news reporting and packaging of a complex issue breaking that day (yesterday 9/17/14). As it gets immediately to the heart of a complex and historical matter, the key players, the SOTs, and the visuals.

This type of deft political production work, by WSB-TV’s political reporter Lori Geary and her production team, could not have been done without a longstanding, working knowledge of the issues on deck for the day’s news coming down – to be able to turn around this kind of comprehensive media that fast. In other words, sit back and watch professionals do their thing, cub reporting wannabees.

Knowing exactly who to get to, in a precise and time-thrifty way, and who to focus on and zoom to in the contemporary Georgia/Atlanta political arena, is editorial and production tandem work sourced from a unique and historic talent base that exists almost exclusively in WSB-TV’s deep-benched, legacy production crew. It’s hard to duplicate that level of precision political packaging elsewhere, in other words.

And it’s something we see often with WSB-TV’s political reporting. Not just yesterday’s. They know their civil rights history and legends behind the scenes there, as their production crews have lived, worked and played around Atlanta for a very long time. If one loses a career cameraman or director of 40-years at a place like WSB-TV, they take a lifetime of some mighty historical production expertise with them. And that’s simply not replaceable with an iPhone and an intern.

Tip of the hat indeed, as TV political reporting tends to take a back seat to the more easily social-shared written word. And folk who take politics and media seriously are dismissive of Cox-derived TV news, so tainted they are by a self-directed reputation founded from featuring senseless violence, self-promotion, and roadkill carnage over more civic-minded news.

It’s important to remember that visuals and sound working together, as opposed to radio/print/static screens, are also important to a highly nuanced political story, particularly a voter fraud/voter suppression story from the south. Especially in a state with a mighty history of dubious political legacies, ghosts and legends.

Don’t miss it.

The Craptastic Digital Life Of The AJC

Don’t vote? Then don’t complain about politicians.

No doubt you’ve heard that one before. Exactly why I never miss a voting opportunity, as I sure don’t like missing out on a good political whine.

But the matter of digital at the AJC.com (and other Cox digital products too, but I’ll worry about the others later) has gone beyond whining to just embarrassment at and for our flagship, hometown, news delivery outlet. (I’d call it a paper, but I’m not referencing any print product here. Just the digital stuff.)

I think of gorgeous pictures from the Atlanta Beltline lantern parade last night that could have enticingly filled out a compelling homepage this morning, 9-7-14, shifting to exciting sports-related photos later in the day to enhance the Falcons’ season opener, alongside the numerous political stories from the week in some kind of overview wrap-up. And, yes, even that craptastic Ross Harris (the dad accused of murder-by-hot-car) story somewhere in an appealing homepage-in-my-head Sunday edition presentation… and well, I just wanna cry for what could be AJC.com. And WSB-TV.com too. (They should be one e-product really, but that’s another rant altogether.)

When you don’t give a shit about digital, guess what? It shows! “Coming Sunday” on Sunday, plus all the cliched copy and grade school headlining imaginable? Gawd, today’s AJC digital product is so pitiful I wouldn’t dream of sharing it with my social network; I’d rather bury it out behind the woodshed.

My head is reeling, because the hard-working journalists, the few left around there, the proud, have done plenty of heavy journalistic lifting all through the past week, especially regarding the nasty level of corruption all through Georgia state and local politics. There’s been great work from numerous Cox employees reporting a massive amount of hanky panky straight out of DeKalb County, our bustling courtrooms, the AG’s and the governor’s offices, etc.

Only to piss it away on digi-crap you see a sample of in the above picture/screen grab. And on a Sunday too, the prime news reading and media consuming day for a serious journalism audience. And I’m not even highlighting their hideous homepage, whatever’s there, or not, now. Nor the online AJC’s rampant level of daily copyediting (or lack thereof) boo-boos. I’m scared to go back to their weekend-neglected homepage.

Since I gave-up on the AJC’s digital presentation with my croissant, second cup, and screens this morning, I thought about buying the paper product with which to properly absorb the Georgia political and otherwise news of a busy past week.

Not now. I’ll just put my $2.50 towards a NYT and call it a Sunday.

Launching The Southern News Network

 

Help me launch the Southern News Network. To give to the build-out effort, go to the Southern News Network’s Go Fund Me page for more information. And thank you!

Grownups Are Corrupt

 

Pheeeww weeeee! Of all the smelly players in the theft of WRAS by GPB deal, Georgia State University’s VP of Student Affairs, Douglass Covey, could be the stinkiest. And it’s a tough tough competition.

Seems Covey made sure GSU student fees were used to pay for a brand new WRAS transmitter in April of 2013. And then tossed that brand new student-paid-for (unknowingly and undisclosed to them, of course) transmitter into the sweet GPB deal for use when GPB took over WRAS.

Which, according to rules and guidelines of Georgia’s state universities’ behaviors, may not have been a sanctioned/legal use of university student fees. The sweet deal itself also not known to the public or students of GSU/WRAS at the time, of course. Come to think about it, the deal was known mostly to just Douglass Covey, his inner circle of intimate cronies, and key committee folk only. (Remember kids, these are all state organizations we’re talking about here. Thus all beholden to Georgia’s Open Records laws.) 

From Jennifer Waits in a Radio Survivor blog post:

Although it hasn’t been mentioned much in reporting about the situation at WRAS, in April 2013 the Georgia State University Student Activity Fee Committee approved a proposal to replace the WRAS transmitter. Estimated costs at the time were between $676,000 and $750,000. Meeting minutes also reference a construction permit to “install its main antenna on a downtown tower, allowing for a much improved signal in North Georgia, especially on campus, and in the Georgia Dome.” A few months earlier, discussions were well underway between GPB and GSU. An early draft agreement from January 2013 even proposes that GPB would help pay for the cost of a transmitter. The old proposal suggests that GSU and GPB would partner “to acquire bond dollars to cover all one-time costs of transitioning WRAS to digital broadcast…” Throughout the conversations between GSU and GPB, GPB was kept up to date about the timeline for WRAS’ new transmitter.

According to Georgia State email correspondence, the new transmitter was delivered in late April 2014. Interestingly, around this time (late April), Georgia State’s Vice President for Student Affairs Douglass Covey resigned from the board of Public Broadcasting Atlanta (which runs competing public radio station WABE). The GSU/GPB agreement was announced publicly in May 2014. Although the new transmitter has yet to be installed, it’s been pointed out that since student fees were used to pay for something that will be largely used by GPB, it could be construed as a misuse of student funds or even fraud.

Talk about a low life maneuver! And that’s not even counting Covey’s utter duplicitous skunkiness of sitting on the other public media folks’ (PBA/WABE) board throughout the icky and secretive maneuvering between GPB and GSU for expanding GPB’s public airwaves reach beyond the 24/7 grasp of the kids of GSU.

Man, what a skunk. I wouldn’t trust Douglass Covey to walk my dog to the curb.

 

Kids of WRAS and GSU, Meet Your New Overlords!

Teya Ryan (President & Executive Director, GPB) to the left. Mikey McDougald (Chariman of the Board, GPB) to the right. And they are coming at you WRAS/GSU kids with some wow kinda “significantly different” news programming products you young people can get all up in.

Like that three helpings of Bill Nigut programming product on WRAS GPB! (If you add in Nigut’s TV show.) From Rodey Ho of the AJC’s blog post:

He [McDougald] said duplication during mornings and afternoon drive-time are common and that the local news content will differ. While WABE focuses on Atlanta, GPB’s news content will be “significantly different” with a promise to increase its news operation, he wrote, noting GPB’s state-wide reach.

McDougald wrote that WRAS will have three original programs including a 9 a.m. weekday news program that starts in the fall, a political roundtable that debuts today and a Saturday arts/culture show that launched last Saturday hosted by Bill Nigut. He hopes more original programs will come in the future.

And they’re just getting started! Help ’em power up a laptop desktop all by themselves when you get over there to GPB headquarters to do your blessed intern thing. They need strong young folk around to work their droopy farm into shape, especially now that they’ve got all that exciting, new, and “significantly different” Bill Nigut-powered programming.

But don’t ever forget who calls the programming shots and ideas at Farm GPB. Those two in the above picture! And their political media henchman, Bill Nigut, of course.

You kids have you some fun now, ‘ya hear! (The nearest Starbucks is .5 miles away. Across the Connector. Mapped it already for you. Start hoofin’. Ryan likes a Grande Latte no sugar at 10am sharp every morning.)

GPB Claims Stealing Is Giving – To Georgia.

On the long-gone back of possibly the most hardass military freak known to war history, General William Tecumseh Sherman, GPB is trying hard to raise money to support its limited supply of quality programming. As they simultaneously grab WRAS’ programming from GSU college students learning a trade and give it to a self-absorbed mouth-in-a-suit, Bill Nigut.

GPB’s chairman, Michael H. McDougald (yeah I know, Mike who?) banged-out a windy reply to Dr. Louis Sullivan’s, chair of WABE/PBA’s board, recent sound and decisive condemnation of GPB’s theft of WRAS programming. Here’s a self-congratulatory, defensive sampling of McDougald’s letter to Sullivan. (You can trudge through the entirety here if you wish.)

We [GPB] produce original programs which enhance the learning experience, such as a 365 segment series titled, Today In Georgia History, which covered a year’s worth of Georgia history; and more recently, 37 Weeks: Sherman on the March, which is a week-by-week chronicle of Gen. Sherman’s march through Georgia.

Odd way to go about asking Atlantans for their money, eh? By evoking the name of General Sherman?! Good series, though. I watched some of it; before GPB killed WRAS, that is.

But the hard, cold, cash-based fact of the matter at hand is that donors and their money are what will keep GPB alive, well, and perfectly able to dig-in like a Yankee in North Georgia for the we’re-never-ever-giving-WRAS-back-to-the-GSU-kids long haul.

Mikey knows that. We know that. And yeah, we also know the odds of winning any fight to get back WRAS for the kids of GSU are as meager as Gerald O’Hara’s cotton fields circa 1865 or thereabouts.

But of course stealing WRAS away from just kids is a great way to encourage even more donating to GPB. Use those WRAS 100K power watts for what they can really do: be the best fundraising bully pulpit GPB’s got in its money-raising arsenal now. Hear Bill Nigut roar. Oh god but will we. I’d rather Sherman himself stomp across my patio. Trust me, they sure know that value-added fact around the dingy halls of GPB, or they’d never have gone to all the bother of stealing WRAS in the first place. So now they’re giving nothing back.

Also from Mikey’s letter to Sullivan:

Clearly, our intention is to offer Atlantans an alternative service to WABE, and we believe our differentiated programming will bring new donors to the public media table. As a result, we do not see this partnership as you suggest, as “a waste of taxpayer’s money.” GPB has no intention of using taxpayers’ money to support this new initiative. We fully anticipate, as with WABE, that the marketplace will support our programming on GPB Atlanta.

If you’re tired of Mikey, Teya Ryan, and Bill Nigut’s hideous march through WRAS, burning out the kids of GSU from the music programming they’ve commanded and championed for 40-years or thereabouts, there’s really just one thing you can do now to fight back: hit the GPB weak spot, the market place, and cease all giving to GPB.

Oh, and be sure to stop by the #SaveWRAS protest of GPB’s takeover of WRAS today, Friday July 11 from 3:30-6:30pm at the GPB headquarter in Midtown Atlanta, 260 14th Street. Bring a clever sign or three, some water, and a good attitude. No bullhorns or amplification or bad manners allowed. Parking is free on the third floor of the GPB building. But don’t go into the building! Go outside to 14th street to peacefully protest in front of GPB.

Show Atlanta how you really feel.

 

Get On Board The GPB Programming Theft Train!

 

In a rigid environment stripped of anything remotely representing a “two way street,” GPB’s Bill Nigut babbled non-freely away recently (Thursday, July 3, 2014) to AJC’s Rodney Ho about not one but two upcoming WRAS shows he’s stolen carved-out for himself. One being called, snort, “Two Way Street.”

Given that no one’s the least bit interested in organic Nigut dung radio product, but rather far more interested in the outrageous public relations heap GPB’s laid in the wake of their mindless decision to raid WRAS, Ho dutifully attempted to steer his Nigut chat time toward media issues people actually want to hear about. Only to be shut-down by a free speech wrangler named Mandy. From Ho’s Radio & TV Talk blog:

When I mentioned that some WRAS fans are making him the bogeyman, he shrugged. “As a guy who covers politics,” Nigut said, “I know people decide to assign a motive and give you an agenda. It has nothing to do with reality or who you are.” Twice while I was on this subject, GPB spokeswoman Mandy Wilson interrupted me to say, “We’re here to talk about Bill’s radio shows.” I wasn’t expecting Nigut to saying anything except positive things about the deal and he didn’t appear to mind talking about the deal. But with a publicist in the room clearly uncomfortable with me probing that subject, I backed off.

Because what Atlanta really wants is to consume news from news farms where the news product is locally-sourced by obstructionist publicists named “Mandy.”

But wait! There’s more! More Bill Nigut in our futures! Of course Bill Nigut just had to have another politics show all for himself, in the way a toddler hoards all the red and green trucks, now that he’s playing with his stolen programming booty there at GPB.

Blessing GPB’s Act of Media Thievery

I had to drive around during the day for a few hours yesterday, throughout metro Atlanta. I listened to the “new” GPB-ized programming on WRAS 88.5 (no longer “Album” 88.5 of course) through most of my drive time.

It’s exactly what I, and plenty of other Lois Reitzes-haters, have been hoping for on our Atlanta airwaves, which we’ve never had and often wished for as quality news programming in our cars/wherever from the 9am-3pm hours.

I never in a million years thought I’d get my wish, some 25-years later, on the backs of the kid-powered Album 88.5 programming that shaped my life throughout young adulthood

I felt absolutely dirty the whole time I was listening, knowing what an ill-gotten act of outright thieving and programming-gain it was on the part of GPB’s Teya Ryan and her nasty media henchman, Bill Nigut.

At least Nigut’s personal act of thieving windbaggery wasn’t yet ready for air. That’s an ugly lying in wait – to incite more than a mere blog post by one person.

Or is it? I wonder about my Atlanta/Georgia media peers being far too excepting of the status quo, the way they always have been. I expect they’re meeting already at The Atlanta Press Club to gush and drool over Teya Ryan and Bill Nigut’s programming coup. And hand them a manufactured award for what they’ve done to the kids of GSU, of course.

Now I feel dirty and disgusted. There is no amusement in this particular mostly Atlanta media matter. At all.

#SaveWRAS

How To Be An Old Media Bully. A Primer.

UPDATE: Seems GPB has abandoned their attempt at a “two way street” and removed all comments and commenting from Bill Nigut’s blog post referenced in this post and associated hyperlinks. Too bad. Loved the “Whatever Saruman” one! 

Bill Nigut is “thrilled” to be back on the airwaves of radio, via WRAS. That makes one person in Georgia. The rest of us? Not so much. (See the comments, coming fast and furious, at his blog post trumpeting his latest broadcasting theft thrill.)

Mr. Nigut’s on-air and in-real-life persona has always been loud, large, and obnoxious. He’s that person who insists on being heard through the din of a crowded networking event or cocktail party. Sucks the wind right out of any space, and takes it all for himself.

It helps that he’s a tall guy, but Nigut can bray and preen with the best of ’em. I once made the mistake of walking past Bill Nigut and Neal Boortz chatting together at some random Atlanta Press Club event. I was hurled three city blocks away by the gasbaggery posturing alone.

Nigut makes claim to being a champion for pretty much everything and everyone he can think of: the helpless, the homeless, the voiceless, the poor, but especially Richie Rich Chamber-types, in his windy GPB blog post declaring his latest radio show intentions with WRAS, awww shucks, ma’am style:

I am thrilled to be back in radio and hope you’ll join me to meet extraordinary people, hear important ideas and explore the rich arts and cultural work being done in Atlanta and Georgia. It should be fun; it should be illuminating, and if I do it right, it should make us all just a little more aware of what a remarkable place we live in.

Beware a wolf in sheep’s clothes. Nigut is merely an old media bully worming his way into a place, space and time where he is not wanted because he believes his own hype, and is still in love with the sound of his own voice, and has sorely missed hearing it bellowing hither and yon from whatever Atlanta microphone he can grab first before anyone else has a chance to get there. Everyone knows this, because they’re watching it happen. In real time, more or less, given the enduring popularity of the #SaveWRAS hashtag.

GPB stole programming out of the mouths, minds and hearts of numerous Georgia State University students, and took it for a very select, very few one old media talking heads. No one’s believing a wisp of spin put on the matter by anyone at GSU or GPB leadership. They’re operating in an echo chamber, as that deafening sound you don’t hear anywhere in Atlanta is anyone other than Bill Nigut and Teya Ryan themselves coming to their own sorry little defense of what they’ve done to raid WRAS.

The best thing Bill Nigut can possibly do for his rapidly fraying Georgia media legacy, and trust me, he surely thinks he’s still got a shot at one, is to give the programming of WRAS back to the kids of GSU. Now.

Aunt Pitty Be Like

Marketing The World Cup To Sports Haters

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like soccer (football). I don’t like most sports. It’s not so much a sport itself, but rather the mass-marketing and the mass-marketed-to people surrounding teamed ‘n themed sporting franchises that puts me off.

I find conversations from people engaged by mass-marketed team sports to be clichéd, hyperbolic, robotic and grossly uncreative. In other words, people talking about sports bore me to tears. Within 1-minute of someone talking about and/or watching sports I’ve pretty much left the room.

Needless to say, I’ve watched zero seconds of World Cup action thus far.

Then why would someone like me, who hasn’t watched or cared about 3-seconds of World Cup action, (almost) buy a U.S. Soccer team/franchise jersey?

Because the purchase of a U.S. Soccer jersey meant something to me. It spoke to my ego. A single picture of a customized soccer jersey fed my ego and my self-centeredness, along with my need for instant gratification.

The U.S. Soccer team jersey I almost bought was cute, in a patriotic red, white and blue. Best of all it was customized. On a mock-up photo, auto-generated on Twitter to get my attention, “my” jersey had my Twitter name (@SpaceyG) stamped across the back.

I wanted that thing. And to be mine, it was just a few more taps ‘n swipes away on my iPhone. An impulse sale was almost made in a mobile environment, something very hard to do, so it seems.