What's Your News is a half-hour show hosted by a little red ant named Anthony, who talks to real-life kids about news from their lives.
The news is not the latest car crash or war story, but word that Zander has lost a slipper-sock or that Maya can play the piano with both hands.
I wrote what I thought was a very angsty piece on the mockery that television channels made of the November 26 attacks, exactly one year ago. I never completed it. Surprisingly, much of this still rings true.
Long before a real education in journalism and the wisdom of the years had caught up with me, I watched with unwavering fascination as a female journalist reported from the battle lines of the Kargil War in Kashmir. The histrionics of war didn’t seem – at least to my naïve eyes – as interesting as this brave woman, who didn’t flinch even as sniper fire nearly grazed her ears. The Kargil War in 1999 was different from every other war India had fought, not only because the specter of nuclear annihilation hovered precariously over both countries, but also because the battle barged right into our living rooms. Thanks to live television, every average Joe could follow a blow-by-blow account of the battle, right as it unfolded. Watching the tanks roll and hearing the sickening staccato of artillery fire only further stoked the fierce, almost unthinking patriotism that hung in the air. India had witnessed wars before but I’m fairly certain that my parents had only visualised combat scenes in their heads, or read about them in history books. This was different: it was immediate and in your face. I, for one, was hooked to the raw power of live television. I had wanted to be a journalist for years, but it was easier to make up my mind now. I wanted to be a part of the young, microphone-wielding brigade that was changing the way television news was presented in India. I questioned that decision several times over the next few years, none the least when I found myself working for a business news channel based in Mumbai. In the vast, all-glass newsroom that was my workplace, there were few places wherein to hide. And it seemed like we, trainee producers, were constantly in the line of fire. When news broke, our backs did too. In the spiraling frenzy that followed, we typed faster than our fingers permitted to put “tickers” out. Even before we made sense of what had happened, a reporter would have reached the spot and we would have “cut” live. OB van numbers would swim before our eyes. A thousand voices would bark orders simultaneously, and there was no time to be intimidated or confused. A year on, I realised that the adrenaline rush of 24/7 television had only drained me out. I had no passion for the information I put out – I was only a “keyboard monkey”, as a former colleague put it, capable of cutting-and-pasting with alarming speed. Convinced that its immediacy was also its undoing, I ran a mile from television and into the warm embrace of the written word. I lived without TV for three years, and never missed its cackle. Until, of course, ten armed men walked in to my city and put a gun to its head. In the early hours of the siege, when every new text message brought more bad news – I hoped they were rumours but they weren’t – I was holed up in a bar in Bandra. I could only watch the horror unfold on a small television set at the bar. Even by the standards of a city that has jostled with so much tragedy in recent years as to be considered jaded and soulless, the tragic events of November 26 and the days to follow cut deep. It was hard to comprehend how this city could be outraged so easily, and so completely. Every disbelieving eye in the fast emptying bar was preened to the television set, which was spewing out violent visuals that wouldn’t have been out of place in a war zone. On the night of November 26, as indeed for the 60 hours to follow, the television set was our only way to reach out to the rest of our suffering city. In retrospect, I wonder how I willed myself to watch television during that terrible time. It is now common knowledge that faced with an unprecedented, developing crisis, Indian media channels engaged in something like a free-for-all. Everyone had an opinion, and everyone expressed it. Anchors dropped their already flimsy pretence of even-headedness and let it rip. One gentleman didn’t leave the studio to eat, shave or collect his thoughts for two days running. How coherent his running commentary was at the end of two days is anyone’s guess. There is now proof that far from reporting events on the ground with restraint and accuracy, the cavalier media circus in fact may have endangered lives. Has anything really changed one year on? Television news is just as personality-driven, and television personalities are just as shrill and opinionated.
Google and TiVo are teaming up for a new deal that'll put your clicking habits into the hands of advertisers. Before you grab the nearest "privacy violation" placard, though, check out the specifics of this arrangement -- it's probably far less invasive than what you're expecting.
Google and TiVo's Ad Data Deal
The Google-TiVo ad data deal, announced on Tuesday, is described as an "audience research agreement." In simple terms, TiVo will share anonymous viewing trends collected from its base of subscribers with Google. Google will use that data to help its advertisers understand who they're reaching -- and who they aren't -- when buying television ads through the company's AdWords TV Ads system.
"None of this is being used to actually target an individual," explains Google spokesperson Eric Obenzinger. "It's more about delivering more accurate reporting back to advertisers so they can inform their future budgeting decisions."
So what does the data actually include? First and foremost, absolutely nothing about who you are.
"When we say that this is all anonymous data, we mean that it is literally anonymous in the strictest definition of the term," says Todd Juenger, vice president & general manager of TiVo Audience Research & Measurement. "We don't collect anything about where it came from."
What TiVo does collect is a log of what commercials you watched and what commercials you skipped. It's like an advanced ratings system, taking TiVo's DVR functionality into account.
"We know that some set-top box out there pressed play on a certain network at a certain time -- then we know they hit fast-forward, hit pause, and hit play," Juenger says. "You do that across a million and a half set-top boxes, and you get a collective picture of what percentage of people were watching a certain commercial at a given time."
Google's TV Ad Platform
Unlike with Google's more widely discussed Web-based advertising platforms, the data collected by TiVo won't result in any information being tied to your account or any contextual ads popping up on your system. In fact, the program is actually no different from what Google was already doing within its TV Ads division.
As Google's TV Ads site explains, advertisers using the platform already had access to second-by-second data collected by set-top boxes. Up until now, Google's Obenzinger says, that data was collected solely through a partnership with Dish Network. With the new deal, TiVo's data will be combined with Dish's to give advertisers a more detailed picture.
So, that's the truth about the Google-TiVo advertising deal -- not quite as scary as some preliminary stories might have led you to believe. If you're still flying your "Google Is Evil" flag, though, fear not: The power to opt out is completely in your hands. Just head over to TiVo's Web site and sign in to your account to change your privacy preferences.
And for a detailed look at Google's other ad-related ventures, click over to "Inside Google's Advertising Empire." Your personal tour awaits.
JR Raphael is co-founder of geek-humor site eSarcasm. You can keep up with him on Twitter: @jr_raphael.
Project Runway: We Have a Winner!
But first, the formalities: Thursday night brought the second part of the finale (and someone needs to tell the folks at Lifetime that "finale Part 1" is like "a little bit pregnant"—it is or it isn't the finale), and there was only one question left unanswered: Who would win? The collections had been out there since the Bryant Park shows back in February, and Tim Gunn had explained the meltdown shown in Lifetime's promos for the finale in a fabulous interview with the Los Angeles Times. After an avalanche of faint praise (Nina Garcia, "I thought they all put a lot of time and effort into their collections"; Heidi Klum, "It really looks finished"), Heidi named Irina Shabayeva this season's winner.Despite Irina being the clear favorite going into Fashion Week, her victory was by no means assured. The judges praised Althea's coolness and her talent for connecting with "the street." They enjoyed Carol Hannah's impeccable draping and tailoring and her willingness to play with color (at least in comparison with the others—the whole show was like a scene from Pleasantville). What won it for Irina was that her collection was the most cohesive. Too cohesive, perhaps—every single garment was black, which doesn't photograph well. As Nina Garcia observed, "It gets very little editorial, black." Still, Irina had a story—"My collection is all about New York. ... What it takes to survive in this city as a woman. It's about comforting and shielding yourself"—and she paid attention to detail. She was the only designer who had made hats to accompany her looks, for example, and, overall, her pieces looked as if they belonged in Bryant Park rather than at a high-end fashion show in a suburban mall. Still, there is one unresolved issue. As Tom & Lorenzo, the kings of Project Runway commentary, revealed earlier this week, the T-shirts that garnered Irina so much praise weren't exactly all her own work. The slogans were copied from "Reasons To Love New York," a December 2008 piece in New York magazine. Oh, Gucci, maybe Season 6 isn't over yet after all.
"It'll be better next time" is a phrase that rarely brings the reassurance the speaker intends, but it's the best thing that can be said for Project Runway. The book is now closed on Season 6, which was beset by legal problems, second-rate contestants, uninspired challenges, inconsistent judging, absent judges, too many one-day contests, and the wrong venue. Let's pretend it never happened and hope that Season 7, back in New York and with Michael Kors and Nina Garcia guaranteed to be on hand for all the challenges, will induce a case of selective amnesia.
Previous Project Runway Recaps: Week 1, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12
From Slate's Brow Beat blog: http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2009/11/20/project-runway-we-have-a-winner.aspx
http://brettlamb.com/blamblog/2009/11/diseases.html
related: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/11/canadians_are_cool_with_how_i.html:: By Lauren Adduci, Client Strategist
On the afternoon of Oct. 31, college sports fan Shawn Walsh noticed an attempted eye-gouging of Georgia's Washaun Ealey by Florida's Brandon Spikes. This particular act had upset Shawn since he felt the refs had not caught it and the announcers had failed to mention it. Instead of sitting back and letting the incident pass with just a few grumblings, Shawn took action. He rewound it, recorded it and uploaded it to Twitter.
Spike's suspension is proof that with the rise of social media, fans are becoming empowered. “Fans always believed they were part of the process, but now with new media they are part of the process," said David Carter, executive director of the USC Sports Business Institute in a Sports Illustrated article about the incident. "They've gone from being engaged by face painting and supporting their team to being influential activists in getting the word out not just about what's going on with their team, but also with rival teams."
"Social Media is Today's Instant Replay"
While the possibility of becoming influential activists can be exhilarating for fans, it can become difficult for schools and conferences, since this can turn into a PR nightmare. "Social media is today's instant replay," said Kathleen Hessert, a media-training consultant whose company, Sports Media Challenge, counts the ACC, Conference USA and the Big Ten Network among its clients. "If something wrong happens and blows over, an entity like a conference or school can say 'We'll deal with it quietly.' But with social media, it's becomes almost impossible. When fans' voices become so loud the entities can't ignore it, it provides a different component to their decision-making."
Bottom Line
By this time next season, most schools and conferences likely will have staffers fully dedicated to monitoring social media during and after games to defuse potentially toxic situations. At least, that's what SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom envisions: "I could see having a person on social media advocating the positive points of what went on in that game, and seeing what other people are posting and defending your program."
Learn More
Shawn Walsh's original Tweet
Related Sports Illustrated article
