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…

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!

Live Blog for GA General Assembly Crossover Day

Have at it here.

Georgia Libertarians Had A Good Night Out In The ATL

Longtime Georgia political, Libertarian blogger Jason Pye didn’t win the category (Online/Multimedia) he was nominated for tonight at the Atlanta Press Club 2009 Awards of Excellence and Journalist of the Year. Veteran journalist Jim Walls did. Congrats to Jim!

Bob Barr, Daniel Adams and other prominent Libertarian Party of Georgia folk were there tonight at the awards ceremony to support Jason too. See pic.

However, Jason being represented is a huge step forward for the Georgia political blogosphere. Having a blogger as a finalist in the The Atlanta Press Club Awards of Excellence race is a good thing, and the culmination of hard, mostly thankless work on the part of Jason Pye.

It’s a big step, and I’m so freakin’ proud of Jase and all the other Georgia bloggers that I could hug ’em all. They’re doing good work and moving forward, and next year I want to see many more Georgia bloggers represented in the APC annual journalism awards.

And many congrats to the very deserving Dale Russell who won Journalist of the Year tonight from the Atlanta Press Club. Russell won for his team’s hard work in, quite literally, bringing down the (GA) House… the whole Glenn Richardson, er, affair. (Of which I will not recount here.)

I’m tickled pink that I have so many nominees as Facebook friends. It’s an online world now, kiddies. Good journalism and friends are always worth sharing. 🙂

Video Blogging The 2010 Georgia General Assembly Session

Some have gone before me. Bloggers venturing forth to blog the Georgia General Assembly (don’t ever call it The Legislature) session at the State Capitol. And gotten themselves in a bit of a sticky wicket for their nondisclosure efforts in the process. (Atlanta political blogger Andre Walker of course comes to mind.) No one has ever gone video blogging down Georgia State Capitol ways. Until now.

I spent last week getting the lay of the land at the Gold Dome. Tagging alongside (trying to keep up is more like it) with veteran political newsman, Tom Baxter. Baxter and I are video blogging for CBSAtlanta, Channel 46, WGCL, a Meredith property.

The special web page they’ve created to house our multimedia materials is Covering The Capitol.  (I do photos too.) And yeah, it’s not real pretty. Not yet. There is the proverbial ways to go.  The video player won’t do right in some browsers. (Although it works fine if you select the videos via the “Videos” tab up top.)

Our videos are sure not real pretty either. Not yet. We’re all on a steep learning curve right now. Like Chloe, I’ve got new software and new gear issues. And also like Chloe, no one is the least bit sympathetic. Maybe if I wish hard enough my Jack Bauer will emerge from the mist, but I ain’t holding my breath on that ever happening. Sometime around the end of the session, mid March or so, I expect we MAY begin to level off of the steep ride up. I hope you bear with us though as we’re offering up loads of unique Georgia political media you simply will not find anywhere else.

My hat’s off, way off, to CBSAtlanta (on Twitter as @CBSAtlanta) for trying new online media things… and for having an open mind with their willingness to let me and Baxter have a go at in-depth political coverage during the course of the 2010 General Assembly session. As I like to say, “be the media you want to see.” That’s CBSAtlanta all over – a true community news outlet.

This is an amazing opportunity for me. To tag along into the Celestine Sibley press gallery, to march along the floors of the stunningly gorgeous State Capitol, meeting and greeting as we go, is infinitely thrilling and fascinating. For instance, after one week I know where the “good” lobbyists hang and where the “bad” ones perch. I know a few new faces and names by now, good and bad and in between ones. I don’t yet know where all the bodies are buried, but rest assured Mr. Baxter does! (The remains to your left live in the Governor’s Capitol press office, BTW.)

I feel like a cub news producer again. A trainee. The new girl. And that’s ok. I am nothing if not adaptable, and our system of government in Georgia, as we face a fiscal crisis such as we’ve never experienced, is having to adapt… like it or not. These are exciting political times for Georgia. Out with the old and in with something new. (At least in theory, right?)

I’m delighted to have a front row seat for the 2010 session to share with you. Tom and I will be using every mobile social media tool we have (before our batteries need re-charging at least) to bring you word and media from our State Capitol. Heck, before the session’s over I hope to have done some live streams and broken at least one very juicy story.

Follow me as SpaceyG on Twitter (I’ll be tagging material as #GALeg there) and follow Tom Baxter as twombax. CBSAtlanta is just that on Twitter, and their special General Assembly page is here. Friend Baxter and me on Facebook. CBSAtlanta is on Facebook here. Watch  CBSAtlanta broadcasts in the mornings, at 4pm, 6pm and 11pm for special broadcasting appearances too by Baxter.

And of course, if you’ve got a great tidbit you’d like me to turn my under-$200 HD camera on be sure to tell all. You know how to get in touch. Hope I see you on the floating marble staircases. Can I get a quick interview if so?!

I Went To An Atlanta Local News Station And All I Got Was This Flip Cam

In all fairness, I also got a tee shirt when I went to the CBS46 “Blogger Summit.” And a nice highlighter pen thingee in the goodie bag, in addition to the Flip cams CBS6 news director Steve Schwaid and co. handed out to the 25 or so assembled Atlanta blogerati who filled up an empty studio with pizza and some lively chatter about community, social networks, and what bloggers can and cannot add to the broadcasting milieu on July 20, 2009.

Come to think about it, CBS46, or WGCL, did a remarkable thing this evening – they invited Atlanta bloggers and social media utilizers from the metro area into their station to talk about, er, stuff. I can’t say this has ever happened before in Atlanta – the MSM reaching out in such a way, other than that one ill-fated meeting at WSB-TV a couple of years ago, but that meeting was so pointless and futile it’s not really worth mentioning so I’ll leave it at “ill-fated.”

I admire their chutzpah at WGCL if nothing else. It may be a case of nothing left to lose so why not go for broke? But to widen the net towards taking seriously Atlanta’s numerous community content providers seems like a reasonable, if not likely highly lucrative, approach.

The chit chat at CBS46 was brisk and spicy, as was the A-listing of some of Atlanta’s longtime, well-regarded bloggers who showed. Spotted in the crowd were Blog For Democracy’s co-founders Catherine Smith and Melanie Goux, Peach Pundit’s Buzz Brockway, Dan Greenfield of BernaiseSource, Amani Channel of My Urban Report, Rusty Tanton of Georgia Podcast Network, Tessa Horehled of Drive A Faster Car, and Doug Richards of Live Apartment Fire.

(Oddly enough, as CBS46 isn’t a Cox Plantation property, a couple of reporter/bloggers from the Cox Plantation Big House showed too, but I’m not sure why they were there as they never said a word. Go figure. Your guess is as good as mine.)

CBS46 wasn’t too coy about why they wanted us bloggers and SM users there. They wanted us bloggers and citizen journalists and writers and marketeers and promoters there to ask us to provide content. For free. To them. (Thus the handing out of the Flip cams.)

And that’s ok. I didn’t think we were invited in to be given paying jobs as journalists and anointed Queens and Kings of the ATL. CBS46 wants to try new things. I assume they need to try new things. They’re willing to experiment, in a rather large way, with citizen journalism and the news content they broadcast. My hat’s off to anyone willing to experiment with change in a traditional medium and not be crystal clear as to what, or even where, the road ahead is going to be. (That approach having been my personal MO for the last couple of years or so.)

But I gotta tell you, with so many places to give our content away for free, other than our own blogs, at some point I’m going to get hyper-picky. No one’s offering grownup money, so until they do we’ve got to be happy with a tee shirt, free pizza,  and an occasional guest flash of our homemade news-style content wherever we can get it.

I don’t know if this is the formula for changing the world, and somehow I doubt it is. But in the Atlanta market at least it is a fresh approach and a start to messing around with the status quo of local news broadcasting as we’ve historically known it.  (White anchor, black anchor, traffic chopper, and a whole lotta crime scene tape.) And that’s got to be a good thing.

So is the nifty Flip cam handed out by CBS46. I’ve been wanting one of those puppies for a while now. I got mine home and pointed it at the dog. She didn’t seem to mind:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “I Went To A Local News Station And Al…“, posted with vodpod

Social Media Rubber Has Met The Road

This one blog post from Ford’s new social media director, Scott Monty, illustrates a terrific example of the role social media is playing in crisis PR communications.

In this particular case, the post demos how social media is being used to progress the overall conversation to a more positive consideration of the automotive industry… at a time when that industry, from a PR standpoint, seriously f-ed up.

From Scott Monty’s blog:

It’s been a rough week. And for someone who is new to the auto industry, this is truly a test.

And at Ford, our social media efforts are just in their nascency. My colleagues at GM have a pretty strong team in place, while I’m just one guy doing what I can. Since Ford doesn’t yet have a robust public platform in the social media space, it’s largely been a matter of individual engagement. And for much of the week, it’s been like fighting a forest fire with a squirt gun.

Full blog post here. You will need to explore it to understand this post at all. But in a nutshell, Scott jumping immediately into the media cycle to circulate this one YouTube video alone, the compelling statement from a Detroit area Congressman at the now infamous “Gulfstream Hearing,” has likely shifted the conversation already.

And how did I first come to click-on that particular video and LISTEN to it? Why Twitter. Of course. Scott from Ford is not only my Twitter friend now, but he’s also a Facebook friend. Now that’s getting up close and personal with crisis communications!

But the real winner here will be Ford… for having had the good sense to hire a social media director as autute as Scott Monty. He knows the medium he’s operating in like a cop knows how to sniff the air for doughnuts.

Scott might be new to Ford, but he clearly is not new to being precise, transparent, honest, blunt, no-frills and totally straight-up when the BS was (is) swirling all around him.

Take note Edelman. Wal-Mart, etc.

A Brunch For Georgia Bloggers – August 23

Finally! Someone does something nice for us local bloggers. I hope this is the beginning of a trend. We might be a lot less snappish and grumpy if more people fed and watered us like the Libertarians are willing to do:

The Libertarian Party of Georgia
is proud to announce that we will
be hosting an event:

Brunch with Georgia Bloggers

Where:
The Crowne Plaza Ravinia
4355 Ashford Dunwoody Road
Atlanta, GA 30346-1521

When:
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Brunch begins at 10:30 AM
Discussion with Candidate(s) 11:00 AM

Purpose:
To give local political bloggers
one on one time with Libertarian
candidates leading up
to the night’s main event.

Please RSVP to:

Chairman@lpgeorgia.com

Blog To The Death

Blogging – only the strong survive. From today’s NYT:

They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

Full story here.

“Real” Reporter At GPB Likely In Total Shock By Now

Get the smellin’ salts, Pork! Oh poor Capelouto… not only are the rogues at Cox Plantation linking to bloggers today, but Atlanta blogger content direct from the Gold Dome (Shelby’s) is, GASP, getting picked-up and distributed by… the Associated Press. Oh how the sky is falling!

[livevideo id=B7F16661FEB548F6B3C46F68250CFE0E/543838/street-team-08-the-democrats.aspx]
Street Team ’08: The Democrats’ right to defend

More Proof Bloggers Will Take Over The World

You gotta love a blogger/programmer who pole dances so beautifully… in her geek glasses even. Women are truly amazing.