From 1981. Lots of sites have linked to this gem. So will I.

Top story around noon is how Twitter is still being debated as a news source. Journalism peeps wear me out sometimes with their slowness to embrace new technologies. Twitter is a great aggregator of commentary and information. Is it always correct? Nope. But the correct stuff always overwhelms the incorrect stuff. And the more peeps you have in your Twitter network, the more informed (or entertained) you are.

Some people don’t get Twitter. It’s not for everyone. I hear that some people don’t even check their email every 15 minutes!

Anyway, TechCrunch pointed out that the tragedy in Mumbai yesterday was first reported – and firsthand – by those using Twitter in India, well before the mainstream media figured it out.

UPDATE: CNN now has a story about it. But even the lead sentence indicates a bit of being behind the times.

It was the day social media appeared to come of age and signaled itself as a news gathering force to be reckoned with.

ESPN.com is slated to get a major redesign this January, John Skipper, the sports networks’ EVP of Content, told ContentNext Media’s EconSports conference. In a Q&A with NYT TV sports and business reporter Richard Sandomir, Skipper said that the revamp will be video-centric, including a larger video player and a new navigational scheme. He also talked about ESPN’s various content platforms, including how important (yet still nascent) ESPN360 is, how ESPN The Magazine is faring in the horrid economy, and even what the company would do better than NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) if it got the Olympic bid.

ESPN says it posts between 125 and 150 video clips a day. I mean, that’s just showing off. But it does illustrate their depth of content and the partnerships they have with the major sports leagues, notably excluding the NFL and its footage.

By comparison, NewsOK cranks out and posts around 100 video clips a week.

Here’s my favorite quote from this article, and one I applaud big-time, as they talk about getting rights to the Olympics from NBC:

“We (ESPN) don’t believe we’re serving sports fans by making them wait four or five hours to see an event, which is why we show Euro soccer in the afternoon, and we just got rights to cricket in India, which we think will be a good product for 3 am. We’re not anti-time zone in our company, and we know that there are lots of sports fans up at all times of the day.”

Actually, “everyone” is probably more like only those in the media business who can’t help but notice the emerging new technologies (Internet, cell phones, iPhones, etc) that make news more immediate and on-demand. Truth is, the every day guy probably doesn’t even care where he’s getting his news. I doubt he has loyalty to newspapers or the local TV news. It’s convenience and what topics he’s interested in.

Wednesday was not a good day for a few newspaper chains’ stock. But Thursday was a different story: newspaper stocks bounce back big time.
]]> http://blog.newsok.com/davemorris/2008/04/24/newspaper-stocks-bounce-back-big-time/feed/ 0 http://blog.newsok.com/davemorris/2008/04/07/cbs-to-outsource-reporting-to-cnn/ http://blog.newsok.com/davemorris/2008/04/07/cbs-to-outsource-reporting-to-cnn/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:17:50 +0000 David Morris http://blog.newsok.com/davemorris/2008/04/07/cbs-to-outsource-reporting-to-cnn/ NY Times is reporting tonight that CBS may outsource some of its reporting to CNN.