Saturday night in Times Square

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We spotted this break dance show while passing through Times Square Saturday night and so I shot a little video with my new Canon S100. ©2012 by Jim MacMillan: jim@jimmacmillan.com • Blog • Twitter • Facebook • • Linkedin • Skype • AOL IM • Mobile 215.882.4765 • SMS

 

Space available: Times Square

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Here's a peek inside 229 West 43rd; the former New York Times building.

 

NYC HDR

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I started shooting with my new Canon S100 today -- and grabbed this scene while testing the HDR mode near dusk in Times Square.

 

Occupying in uniform

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I was visiting New York City on November 15th, and dropped in on Occupy Wall Street, having learned that NYPD forces had cleared demonstrators from the Zuccotti Park, beginning in the wee hours of the morning. I spotted retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis holding this sign and made a quick iPhone photo before dashing off to catch my train. A few days later, I saw photos online showing that Lewis been arrested and zip-tied, but read just now that Manhattan prosecutors will close his case if he avoids re-arrest for six months. ©2011 - All photos by Jim MacMillan: <a href="mailto:jim@jimmacmillan.com" >jim@jimmacmillan.com</a> • Blog • Twitter • Facebook • • Linkedin • Skype • AOL IM • Mobile</a> 215.882.4765 • SMS</center></b>
 

Swarthmore sunset

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I caught this sunset as my train pulled into the Swarthmore SEPTA station tonight.

 

Winter Colors

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I couldn't resist stopping to photograph this bush against the snow near my office this morning. Swarthmore College shares the campus with the Scott Arboretum, and nearly every living thing seems to be labeled, but the placard for this one must have been buried under the blanket of snow. ©2012 Jim MacMillan
 

Photos: Icy coating in Philadelphia today

The overnight snowfall looked beautiful from my rooftop in the Center City section of Philadelphia this morning but it was a cold, wet mess at ground level, and left an icy coating on every sign of summer recreation. ©2011 Photos by Jim MacMillan jim@jimmacmillan.com http://jimmacmillan.com

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Timing is everything

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It was just cloudy this morning in Philly -- until I went outside.

 

The Daily Mac: 01.17.12

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I grabbed this shot of the Schuylkill River on my way into work about 16 hours ago.

I'm having a very long first day of the semester and the next couple look pretty similar. So, it's a good thing that I like what I do.

The most exciting news came at tonight's meeting with the former War News Radio staff. We are expanding the project this spring to address more topics, produce more media and engage more audiences. The working title is Lodge 6. Please take a peek at our page and let us know what you think.

I woke up this morning to find a the story of a local murder victim splashed across both Philadelphia news front pages. With all sympathy to the victim and the bereaved, he didn't look much like the usual 90% of victims in Philly, and I thought the display was especially insensitive for MLK Day. Look for the usual blowback and front page token homage to a random victim of color in the next coming days.

On the bright side, digital MLK remembrances led me to a YouTube video of "Martin Luther King Jr. on Meet the Press in 1965" and an audio link to Marvin Gaye singing "Abraham, Martin and John."

While searching for another file, I found an entry from my Iraq War Diary this week in 2005. Meanwhile, at least 150 Iraqis have already died in bombings in 2012.

Don't miss this week's deadline to enter the Dart Awards and win $5,000 for trauma reporting.

Social media friends have concurred that I should not hyperlink quotation marks in most cases, and helped me to understand why my new glasses are giving me a headache. Catch the conversations at https://www.facebook.com/jimmacmillan

Some random links you should not miss include:
- 40 dramatic pictures of the Costa Concordia disaster
- How Much of US Consumables are Made in China
- Blight takes no holiday
- BBC reader predictions for life in 100 years
- Michael Hastings vs. Team America

Meanwhile, Forbes says SOPA may not be dead yet and Wikipedia is scheduled to go down in protest on Wednesday. Keep up with the latest news with Jimmy Wales on Twitter @jimmy_wales

Finally, come on out for the Philadelphia Conference 10th Annual Year in Pictures multimedia presentation Wednesday night.
 

While you were away: Journalism news from the holiday break

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The pace of change in journalism keeps accelerating so dramatically that I find less and less course content that I can retain without updating every semester.

After planning my new course on Peace and Conflict Journalism last spring and summer, racing through fall with the students, through the haze of final project and exams -- and the void of a holiday break -- I am now trying to rapidly synthesize my syllabus with some of the most recent developments across the industry and institutions of journalism.

To begin, the state of the old industry doesn't look good, with a new report from USC Annenberg predicting that most newspapers will be gone in five years and a leading newspaper analyst concurring that print advertising is in a death spiral. 

(To be fair, I should point out that I just Googled "newspaper death spiral" to find the above article -- which I read last month -- but other results led me to predictions going back to 2007.)

Back in October, the Knight Foundation examined "How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability" -- with a rich and comprehensive report examining many of the leading projects launched in recent years.

Next, A Columbia Journalism Review article took note of another impediment in "Nonprofit News and the Taxman: The IRS questions whether journalism startups qualify for tax-exempt status."

Later, Tom Stites at the Nieman Journalism Lab published "Taking Stock of the State of Web Journalism," arguing in Part I that "we're still a long way from a sustainable model" and reminding us of the previous Knight Commission "Informing Communities" report which praised "lots of interesting efforts but found no business models that are both self-sustaining and replicable from community to community."

On the bright side, yesterday's LA Times profile of Digital First Media CEO John Paton pointed out that their Pennsylvania-based Journal Register chain "has increased digital revenue from $6 million to over $32 million over two years."

Meanwhile, Digital First's Steve Buttry literally wrote the book on "digital-first" journalism in a series of blog posts near the end of 2011, which he soon  -- and generously -- made available as a downloadable PDF.

More recently, hyperlocal journalism pioneer Howard Owens updated his popular 2007 post with a new version called "Ten things journalists can do to reinvent journalism, the new list. Concerns with engagement, transparency, and redefining objectivity endure -- but with a little more clarity now.

In December, CJR's Dean Starkman penned a smack-down of what he called the "future-of-news (FON) consensus" among popular digital news gurus -- but the blowback got a lot more traction. Clay Shirky responded directly and Starkman followed up.

At the very least, Starkman had written an outstanding primer on the status quo and led me to set up a feed folder just for Jarvis, Paton  Rosen and Shirky. 

Fact-checking got the spotlight when Politifact.com's disputed "Lie of the Year 2011" met the wrath of Krugman and more.

More recently, New York Times public editor Arthur S. Brisbane ignited a firestorm with a short post asking" "Should the Times be a Truth Vigilante," -- in a way that is objective and fair. Shirky summed up the situation and the fallout for the Guardian.

Yesterday on CNN's Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz briefly brought up journalists as referees and pointed to "The Fact Checker" blog at the Washington Post -- which measures untruths in "Pinocchios."

Next, Craig Newmark jumped in to advocate for fact-checking with a nice roundup of resources and recent articles.

Closing out my roundup, I can't ignore GigaOm's "News as Process: How Journalism Works in the Age of Twitter" or "Nick Kristof on Occupy and the Rise of Citizen Journalism." BuzzMachine's "Journalism via Jokes" may just be my latest must-read but don't miss Poynter's "Three Trends from 2011 that will reshape digital news in 2012."

Finally, there's SOPA/PIPA debacle, which may have just collapsed  or died but a Wikipedia and other sites still have plans to shut down in protest on Wednesday.

Did I miss anything?

About

I am an independent multimedia journalist, university educator and instructional new media consultant based in Philadelphia.

This year, I will continue advising the students who report and produce War News Radio at Swarthmore College - and teach a new course on Peace Journalism.

I spent last year teaching graduate multimedia reporting courses at the Carter Journalism Institute at NYU, and leading journalism innovation seminars at Temple University, as well as producing War News Radio.

I spent 2009-2010 as an assistant professor on the convergence journalism faculty at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Until 2008, I was the senior photographer, a photo-columnist and the first solo video journalist with the Philadelphia Daily News, where I had worked since 1991.

On leave from the Daily News in 2004-2005, I was a photographer and photo editor for the Associated Press in Iraq, personally covered over 200 combat missions, and at times managed the AP’s Iraq photo report and staff development in Baghdad.

I was honored with the Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents, and was included in the Associated Press photo team awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography and numerous additional awards.

In 2006-2007, I was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, and an Ochberg Fellow with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma in later 2007.

I have led photojournalism seminars at Tufts University, my alma mater, and undergraduate courses at Temple University, including a course I designed on journalism and trauma. In 2009, I traveled across New Zealand to present a series of lectures on trauma journalism.

More recently, I was named one of the Five Biggest Photographers on the Internet by Photo District News, and Philadelphia Magazine’s 2009 Best of Philly “Nuevo Journalist,” both for my experiments in social media journalism.

I am sometimes available for editorial assignments, commissioned projects, select commercial contracts, and instructional new media consulting.

Thank you for visiting, Jim

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