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When I started something called “New Media Journalism” was the buzzword, and it was always something that intrigued me. So when people asked me what I wanted to do, I’d say some combination of the Internet and journalism. But I distinctly remember having no clear idea what that meant.

Three years ago, New Media meant a newspaper with a Web site. It meant attempting to do something with streaming video. And it meant giving newspaper reporters digital video cameras and recorders. In essence, I thought New Media Journalism would mean figuring out ways for the traditional media to adopt all the new technologies that were becoming more and more commonplace.

That, it turns out, was only part of the equation, and the lesser part, at that.

The change in journalism has been much more profound than a simple adoption of new technologies. Instead, we have seen (and will continue to see) a major shift in the locus of mass communication. New technologies like cheap recording cameras and the Internet haven’t just made it easier for traditional media to reach their audience, they’ve made it possible for the audience to take control of the message.

The old idea of “feedback” was that a newspaper or TV new show would have a number where people could call and leave messages. Or an address people could write to. So, if you had something to say about what big media was doing, or if you just had something to say, you’d meekly send a message off to an ombudsman or public editor and wait and hope they’d print it. In the New Media age, journalist (and journalism students) properly imagined that feedback would be enhanced; that was a good thing. The Internet would allow us to get more opinions and responses from our readers and viewers.

So, how to do that? Well, an e-mail address! Interactive polls! Discussion boards! Look at all that great feedback coming…back.

But letting more people contact their newspaper’s ombudsman is not one of the great triumphant promises of the Internet. Happily, it had more in store for us than that.

After a while, people got sick of waiting and hoping. And they decided they didn’t want their “feedback” posted on a letters page of a newspaper, they wanted an even bigger audience. So they did something that, because of new technology, had become ridiculously easy; they started a Web site.

And that, I believe, has started a real transformation in what the word “journalism” means. Putting aside the question of which are more trustworthy, blogs or old news, there’s no question that blogs are producing at least as much (if not more) content as old news. That’s a staggering shift. On one hand you have hundreds of huge organizations with payrolls and facilities and trained professionals. On the other hand you have millions of individuals and small groups; most unpaid and untrained. And yet blogs can compete with traditional news media outlets in terms of the amount of information they are distributing.

How long before this change reaches the rest of the information market? How long before home-movies distributed compete with Hollywood for the eyes and ears of valuable consumers? How long before academic journals have to compete with academic blogs for control of that niche? What will be the first major discovery to be announced in a blog? Or has is already been announced?

No one was surprised by the information age; we knew it was coming. But what we didn’t realize was control of the world’s new most valuable resource would be distributed from the ground up.

This just in from the Democratic National Convention: there are reports this morning that some of the balloons dropped last night after Senator John Kerry’s acceptance speech may have slowed his exit from the FleetCenter. It remains to be seen how this mix-up will affect the democratic candidate’s standing in the polls, but top campaign insiders say he won’t waste time making up the wasted time.

“John Kerry has always been a leader in times of hardship,” said Kerry’s mother. “He won’t let some balloons keep him from reporting for duty. He can do better. And HELP IS ON THE WAY!”

We’ll be covering these important developments and other equally important developments, such as the historical precedent for balloon-dropping, throughout the day.
Reporting live from Boston, this is Every News Media Outlet In Hysterics Over the Convention.

This week on the radio, on the internet, in the newspapers and in my living room, all I’ve seen is the very definition of non-news.

When a soap company sends out a press release saying that their product is better, stronger, and more ethically sound than all the others, it is generally considered (except in the most news-starved places) to be garbage. Literally garbage. These press releases accumulate on the fax-machine trays of newsrooms all over the country like pizza boxes on dorm-room countertops.

The Democratic National Convention and the upcoming Republican convention are such pizza boxes. News garbage; remnants of real news. To be sure, the national gathering of delegates to designate their presidential nominee has real news value. It only happens once every four years; there are sometimes dissenting factions within the party; and it’s the first real look the American public gets at the nominee.

But when the news media starts airing wall-to-wall coverage of an overblown political rally, it can mean only one thing: someone is taking a vacation.

Please, by all means, cover the candidates’ speeches. Go ahead, televise the remarks of important political figures (the Clintons, Barack Obama). Report on the views of the delegates and protesters and critics. All that, you may do, dear producers of the news-media, and my stomach-bile will remain unperturbed.

But this week has been too much. The swift-boat crewmates. The daughters. The wives. The friends. The convention is a public relations concoction. Everyone knows this. The politicians, the reporters, even the viewers know it. And yet there it is on my television: Move America Forward; Stronger at Home; A Tested Leader.

What does this stuff mean? Why is it news? Why do the conventions – moderately news-worthy at best, political publicity stunts at worst – deserve the kind of coverage they receive?

If the purpose is to present the candidates to the public, fine. Present the candidates. Televise their speeches, allow them to state their case. But if your goal is to let the public educate itself about the candidates, airing 15-minute campaign ads disguised as biography films is not the way to do it. Giving each candidate a huge chunk of the information spectrum to spew what is mostly vague, meaningless NON-NEWS is not the way to do it.

If those hours of television and radio time, those newspaper and Web pages were devoted to real reporting about the candidates’ records, their platforms, their actions and the results of their actions, that would be news-worthy. That would represent a real contribution to the voting public’s knowledge of the issues and the candidates.

Instead we see, for the most part, the news media descending on these non-news events like Flying Elvises on the plains of Las Vegas, if the plains were filled with lonely, topless dancers. And they treat the empty vacillations of the national parties like the real news that they’re not.

Why? I don’t know, maybe because it’s easy. Maybe they think that’s what people want to see.

And maybe it is.

But when I turn to the news and see nothing more than dressed-up press releases from the Kerry or Bush campaigns, all I want to do is turn it off. With all the balloons, confetti, and cheesy music, it starts looking a lot like the coronation of a prom king.

And to tell you truth, whether John Kerry or George Bush wins that honor, I couldn’t care less.

Update: I was just kidding with the balloon thing up top, but no sooner did I post it than I saw this (here’s the audio). What am I, psychic or something?

Five pages of simplistic Spanish musings about the book “Mosen Millan” stand between me and my diploma. I could write them in one hour and be done with it before I go on vacation this Saturday. Then I could commune with the northern Minnesota landscape without preoccupations about the religious symbolism of Paco in the lives of the Spanish peasants.

But it’s not due till next Thursday – that’s more that a week from now – and my fingers are union laborers: they don’t do any school-related typing until all the kinks have been ironed out of the contract (benefits, worker’s comp, etc.). Negotiations are going slowly, so it looks like this is going to end up being one of those last-minute jobs.

Like the Olympic stadiums in Greece.

Cause: am lazy. Result: bringing laptop up north to compose Spanish paper while my feet dangle in the 40-degree waters of a lake bigger than Spain. Fortunately, Grand Marais is only 30 minutes from where we’re staying, and the good people there have set up a bang-up wireless network: you can get a signal anywhere in town (indoors and out), and daily access is just $6.

Oddly, that means I’ll finish my college career on a bench in a park in a small town in northern Minnesota. What began with a bang will close with a click. And then, like it did four years ago when high school ended, my life will begin again.

Or not. College was so much more like high school than I expected; it wouldn’t surprise me if post-college isn’t that different from college. Except for the school supplies. No need to buy scissors and glue and erasers any more, they’ve got cabinets full of that stuff at work.

What? You mean I didn’t need scissors and glue in college? I could have sworn we used scissors in my calculus classe. You know, my Multivariable Calculus class at the University of California – Berkeley? Don’t you remember? We made snowflakes!

Funny how you stop needing to know the things you learned in elementary school. For some reason, you can’t get to calculus without going through the paper-snowflake stage. You will never again need to know how to make paper snowflakes, but without the lower levels you can’t get to the advanced stuff. So what’s more important to teach; scissor handling or differential equations?

The truth is, college is just one of those low-level stages in the end, too. It may cost tens of thousands of dollars more than elementary school, but years from now college will be no more than the base-soil in the great landfill of knowledge I will have by then built up. And on that landfill I will construct cheap, pretty houses to sell at inflated houses.

My brain is the landfill; my words are the houses, in case you’re not following.

So consider yourself lucky, you’re getting this stuff for free. Thirty years from now you’ll have to pay for it. And then you’ll have to put up with that garbage smell too.

The new duds, which according to the report are the Army\’s first uniform change in more than 20 years, have a different camouflage color, one that\’s supposed to be more effective in a variety of fighting conditions.

\”But what about style?\” asks NPR\’s distinguished expert. \”Don\’t those Pentagon prima-donnas know the baggy camo look is so over!? I mean, duh, mid-90s rappers but that to bed a long time ago.\”

Now, I know what you\’re thinking: what place does a fashion editor have commenting about the Army\’s new uniforms? And what difference does it make if they\’re ugly or not? Aren\’t they meant to keep soldiers from getting killed?

Well, I\’m here to tell you it makes a big difference. And if you think bad fashion can\’t be deadly, you haven\’t been watching enough television.

The Army needs functional, versatile clothing, yes, but why should our boys (and girls) over there have to suffer the taunts of a better dressed enemy? Just look at those Al Qaeda guys, with their hip robes and scraggly beards. That\’s so hot.

If we don\’t see an emaciated, parasite-ridden underwear model wearing a diamond-studded Von Dutch turban on the cover of GQ by next year, I\’ll eat my hat.

NPR is right to question the Army\’s new standard-issue pants for being too \”Hammer-like\”. Why can\’t they have some nice, faded-wash jeans? And really, would a little bling-bling be too much to ask? If we keep sending guys to patrol the streets of Baghdad without even a scrap of hardware, how we gonna\’ get respec\’?

I know! Shiat.

Anyway, here\’s to NPR for never missing a chance to do journalism that really matters. You simply will not hear this programming anywhere else. But it doesn\’t come easy, and it isn\’t guaranteed. So pick up the phone and make a donation.

They accept all major credit cards, personal checks, and bags of designer clothes. Call now, your contribution could make all the difference…

I am assuming, of course, that I pass the classes required of me to graduate. I know I\’m just tempting fate, but I\’m pretty sure it\’s in the bag.

I just have one summer class left, and then I\’m done. The class, which I have to take because of the weird way credits transferred when I came to the U of M from Berkeley, is Spanish 3015 – Conversation and Composition.

In other words, I\’m going to have to sit in a classroom for three hours, three nights a week, from June through August, to prove that I\’m able to converse and compose in the Spanish language.

Spanish. The language I learned to speak before I learned English.

In pre-school – I was about four – I couldn\’t speak English. The few years I had spent on this planet had been spent entirely in the company of my parents, and they didn\’t talk to each other in Ingles.

So, one day, my mom got a call from the pre-school teacher, saying that I was screaming and crying that I kept repeating the word \”Guante\”.

It means glove. You\’d think those trained professionals could have figured that out, since, after all, we were about to go outside, and it was freezing.

There is some bitter irony in all this: after all this time studying how to communicate in English, I have to prove I can do it in Spanish in order to graduate.

At a time when public distrust of the news media appears to be at a dangerously high level, there is evidence of a deep and fundamental disagreement between those who produce news and those who consume it.

Although most journalists believe quality and values are vital elements of their work and see themselves as providing an important civic function, the reading and viewing public seems to think of journalism as a bottom-line-driven enterprise populated by the ethically challenged. Last month, the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism released a wide-ranging study — \”The State of the News Media 2004\” — that concluded that a key factor in journalism\’s sagging image is \”a disconnection between the public and the news media over motive.\”

\”Journalists believe they are working in the public interest, and are trying to be fair and independent in that cause,\” the survey found. \”The public thinks these journalists are either lying or deluding themselves. The public believes that news organizations are operating largely to make money, and that the journalists who work for these organizations are primarily motivated by professional ambition and self-interest.\”

So, I\’m wondering, does the internet help or hurt this perception? One one hand, people who think the mainstream news outlets are driven by the bottom line and ethically challenged can find news sources that they find more acceptable online.

And, especially when it comes to news analysis and discussion, there\’s almost no limit to the number of sources you can find. If you think the New York Times is slanted in the wrong direction, you\’ll be drawn to Andrew Sullivan. If you think FoxNews is a great billowing balloon of hot air, try Josh Marshall\’s Talking Points Memo or Atrios. If you think they\’re all crazy, Spinsanity.

A survey of the blog-reading public surely wouldn\’t find that the bloggers are driven by the bottom line. Whether they are ethically challenged depends on who you ask.

But I think that\’s the point. If you only use the internet to read what you want to read, you\’re probably not going to have any complaints. But the major newspapers and broadcasters that were the subject of this study don\’t have that advantage. They have more people to preach to, so less of those people are likely to be members of the choir.

I went up to everyone ahead of time and asked them if it was OK for me to take their picture. Usually, I don\’t do this, I just shoot whatever I want, but it\’s a little awkward to stand in someone\’s lane with your camera in their face as they\’re trying to bowl. So I figured it would help if they knew what I was doing.

On a whim, I asked the attendant if I could walk out on the lanes (the ones that weren\’t being used) and take pictures from there. Surprisingly, she said yes, as long as I wore bowling shoes, and was careful not to slip and fall (the lanes are oily). She even let me have the shoes for free.

So I got to walk way down to the end of the lanes and shoot the balls coming toward me. With the camera. Shoot with the camera.

After that, she offered to let me go in the back room, where the pins are mysteriously gathered and reset. 50 years ago there would have been a bunch of pimply, bruised pin-setters back there smoking cigarettes and trading dirty jokes. Now there are huge, complicated machines to do that job instead.

By \”that job\” I mean trading dirty jokes. The machines tell jokes.

Anyway, here\’s a shot of a mildly successful bowl by a kid who was wearing a fedora and dark sunglasses:

When the ball hit the back of the lane it practically knocked me off my feet. They get going fast there toward the end. Not a very good place to bring a fragile, thousand-dollar camera you borrowed from school.

Here\’s a balletic (ballet-like?) bowler:

Ever wonder how those pins get set up? It\’s not magic: