I asked our News University folks to
hold open the registration until the last minute for our live Webinar, which is being held twice in one day.
The first Webinar will be at 10 a.m. and the second will be at 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST). Newsrooms, classrooms and individual journalists and students are welcome to join us. My last two Webinars I've done have attracted hundreds of journalists nationwide in newsrooms large and small across all media.
During the Webinar I will:
- Show you how social networking sites are influencing the 2008 election with video, candidate sites, citizen-generated ads and voter-contributed photos. I will also show you how to find rich content.
- Show you how to investigate candidates and their supporters. Who is influencing whom?
- Show you the coolest ways that creative journalists are engaging the public in stories about politics and elections.
- Teach you how to build an interactive map, a tag cloud and more.
All of this in one hour for $19.95. And we even have financial assistance available if you need it. You can learn more about this by
signing up now.
Hay Shortage and Skyrocketing Prices
Friends of mine who dabble in the horse business tell me the price of hay is so high they are selling animals because they can't afford to feed the beasts this winter. A dry summer made the first cutting of hay thin, and for some farmers, there was no second cutting of hay at all.
Cattle farmers are selling off herds. Some cattlemen find that the calves they weigh much less than they should because they have not had enough to eat.
It is true in California, and it is just as true
in Virginia. The situation is so bad that one
horse sanctuary in North Carolina is worried about how it will feed its horses that were abused and neglected in the past.
One hay auctioneer in Virginia says prices are higher than they have been in 14 years. Illinois farmers say what used to be a $4 bale of hay now can sell for $10 or more, but they just don't have enough to meet the demand.
For those of you in cities, check with zoos or even the carriage rides operators. Elephants and other large critters eat a lot of hay.
The Jenkem Nonsense Spreads
News of "Jenkem," a mixture made from fermented sewage that, if inhaled, can produce a high, has circulated in a
zealous Florida sheriff's department,
across the Internet and
into newscasts from Florida to Illinois, Iowa and Texas.
Watch one of those newscasts here.
As the story goes, the kids were capturing sewer gas from toilet waste and huffing it. Of course, there is no proof that it is happening, and there are no arrests or children showing up at hospitals high on sewer gas.
This whole fermented mess found life on a Web site
called Totse.com, which is just the place to learn how to make poisons, bombs and grow better pot. A poster named "Pickwick" now admits that he staged a Jenkem-huffing scene back in June using dough rolled in hazelnut chocolate spread.
Read more about the unraveling at Salon.com.
The photo the whole thing was based on is
posted here. The name "Pickwick" is listed on the bottle, along with the word "Totse."
Amazingly,
in a police officer forum, two people claiming to be officers in Colorado and Las Vegas said they had been warned of the Jenkem "scare."
Here is the sheriff's department bulletin [PDF] that started this silliness. The bulletin says jenkem is now a "popular drug" in American schools.
Jenkem may have roots in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, where it has been used by street children for at least two years,
according to BBC News.
The Public's Waning Interest in War Coverage
A new study from the Pew Research Center shows that the public thinks the Iraq War is the most important issue facing the nation. Yet, the public also says it is reading and watching fewer stories about the war.
The study says:
Currently, just 16% of Americans name the Iraq war as the news story
that first comes to mind when asked what has been in the news lately.
In December and January, a period when U.S. policy toward Iraq and
President Bush's troop surge drew extensive news coverage, far greater
numbers named the Iraq war as the first story that came to mind.
More generally, public interest in news about the situation in Iraq
is now less than it was earlier this year or in 2006. Since June, about
30% of the public, on average, said they have followed news about the
situation in Iraq very closely. In 2006 and the first two months of
this year, about 40% on average paid very close attention to Iraq news.
So, how does the public want us to cover the war? The study continues:
Fully 63% say that "the challenges faced by some U.S. soldiers
returning from Iraq" have received too little news coverage; about the
same number (61%) say that reports about soldiers' personal experiences
have been undercovered. A majority (52%) also says that efforts to
improve conditions in Iraq are getting too little coverage.
Smaller pluralities believe news organizations have focused too
little on ground troops in action in Iraq (47%), Iraqi civilian
casualties (46%) and plans for ending the war (45%).
There are some aspects of the war that sizable minorities believe
are overcovered. Three-in-ten say the press has given too much coverage
to how much the war costs, while about the same number (29%) says that
anti-war sentiment has been overcovered. However, even on those
stories, as many or more say the press has provided too little coverage
as say they have been overcovered.
People who mostly get their news from Internet sources are the most critical about news coverage of the war. About four-in-10 (41%) of those who
rely on the Internet for Iraq news say news organizations are
giving too little coverage to the conflict.
Inside the MSNBC Redesign
Check out this site to learn about the evolution and wide range of ideas behind the new MSNBC site. I was very interested in the notion of using user groups for feedback. I really like how the new MSNBC site allows users to organize the page and expand areas of interest on it.
The Hidden Music in 'The Last Supper'
Have you seen
the story about a musician and computer programmer, Giovanni Maria Pala, who thinks he has found a hidden "hymn to God" in Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper"? Pala says he found found that by drawing the five lines of a musical staff across the painting, the loaves of bread on the table and the hands of Jesus and the Apostles could each represent a musical note.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning
Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other
materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and
analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it
will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The
column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of
the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be
corrected.
