A few hundred words on the worth of a picture blog

So, I have this blog, which has been neglected for months, and I'm thinking about starting a new one.

Crazy.

Perhaps the smarter thing would be to actually start posting on this blog regularly.

That would be the smart thing.

I'm not sure I'm a very smart guy though. But there is a method to my madness.

The reason I'm thinking about starting a new one is twofold. One reason is that the blog could be, in a roundabout way, related to work. One of the hats I wear at work is to do the photo editing, cropping and color correcting of staff photos. I've been trying to share photo tips with the staff to help them improve their photography, but the way I've been doing that, with staffers scattered in four states, has been to write up photo tips. It's not very visual. Photography is sort of a visual medium. So, text-based tips seems just wrong.

The other primary reason I'm thinking about starting a new blog is to start it in WordPress. I've using Blogger for a long time and really know nothing about WordPress, so I was thinking it would be a way to expand my knowledge. I like to stretch my skills and try to make myself learn new things in this whole digital media realm.

I suppose there is actually another reason too, that really isn't about work. It's about returning to a first love. Photography and photojournalism got me in to the newspaper businesses long ago. I have recently been confronted with the reminder that I really do still love still photography. I came to realize it would never pay my wage full time long ago. But maybe a photo blog would get me out shooting some more, even if it was just for my own enjoyment and selfish purposes.

I haven't decided whether to start a new blog, or to include photo posts here or even on a work blog that already exists. But I thought confessing the idea here may push me to made a decision one way or another, sooner, rather than later.

I may be just the push I need.

It's a learning experience

The editor and publisher of the paper I was working for asked me why my title was assistant editor.

"I'm the editor," he said. "You aren't my assistant."

I was dumbstruck. I was working for him after all. If he didn't want my title to be assistant editor, shouldn't -- couldn't -- he change it?

I quit referring to myself as assistant editor after that, regardless of what my business card said. I functioned more like a city editor, so I started calling myself a city editor.

I was reminded of that today by seeing a posting for a job at the paper I worked for back then -- a posting for an assistant editor.

It surprised me for many reasons. One, is that a news posting for any news job in Oregon seems pretty amazing these days. But I was mostly surprised to see that the title was still the same, even all these years after I left. It was 15 years ago this month that I left that job on the Southern Oregon coast.

I was there a little more than two years. At the time, it felt like a lifetime. I made some good friends there though. Some of the people who were important back then in my personal and work life are still among my friend and several are among my Facebook contacts.

It was, as many people told me during my early career about work situations that were painful or difficult, a great learning experience. I hated the stress. I hated the rain. Perhaps that's why the bonds with the people were so long lasting. Enduring adversity together makes for strong bonds.

The news business has changed significantly since then. That paper, The World, in Coos Bay, has changed a lot too, including it's ownership, which has changed at least twice since my posting in the early-to-mid 1990s. According to the job listing, The World has gotten smaller too. It has lost about a third of the circulation it had back then.

The posting got me thinking about those days and those times. I'm glad I was there. It led me on to bigger and better things professionally. But I wouldn't want to go back. It's a smaller world after all.

Now who will tell us the way it is?

One of my earliest memories is of sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a black-and-white console TV watching Walter Cronkite's coverage of one of the Apollo moon missions. I was too young to understand the complexity of the science in sending men to the moon, but I knew that this was a big deal. There was something about Cronkite's coverage of the event that told even a young boy that this was a big deal.

My parents still have the console TV I watched the broadcast on. It hasn't functioned as a TV or a radio or a record player in decades. Now it's mostly a long, extremely heavy side table along a wall in my parents living room. But, sadly, Walter Cronkite is now gone.

For much of my youth, the three major networks were all the TV we had, but when it came time for the evening news, like many American families, there was only one channel to watch -- Walter Cronkite on CBS.

Cronkite retired before I pursued my education and a career in journalism. As a print journalist, I don't know that I consciously considered Cronkite an influence, but I know he was a huge influence on my early knowledge and understanding of the world. TV news and journalism have changed a lot since Cronkite retired from the daily media stage in 1981.

I learned about Cronkite's death, not from the evening news, but from the Internet, specifically Twitter, and then read the story on the Wall Street Journal website.

I'll be curious to see how the media world covers Cronkite and his passing. We've been bombarded with all the minutia surrounding Michael Jackson's death for more than three weeks now. By all rights, coverage of Cronkite's death should eclipse coverage of Jackson's death based on the role Cronkite played in generation's of lives. But I know it won't. By Monday morning the media world will largely have moved on to other things, including more trivia about Jackson's life and death. It's a different world than it was in Cronkite's heyday.

At my current job, I have been consumed for more than a week with preparing for the launch of a new website. It's an exciting time and an exciting world. I love the conveniences of modern technology and the speed with which information can be shared with the world. But part of me missed the time when the world was as black and white as that old television set and we could tell the most important issues of the day affecting the world by where they ranked in Cronkite's broadcast and how much time the segment commanded.

So long Walter, and thanks for keeping the issues of the day in perspective.

Read and watch news with a critical eye

I am proud to be a journalist. I am also pleased, in this difficult journalistic climate, to still be a full-time employed journalist. But sometimes people need to realize that the things that get reported as big news isn't necessarily important news.

This current swine flu static is a good example. What's largely missing from this story is context. People obviously care about this story. It's resonating with the public. But should people care? Probably not, at least not as much as they the media and general public seems to right now.

As of this writing, Mexican health officials say there have been 159 deaths and 2,498 illnesses so far in that country. Mexico has a population of just under 110 million people. That means that 0.0024 percent of the population afflicted, sick or killed by swine flu in Mexico.

My dad told me something once that put some of what I -- and my media brethren -- do into context. My dad is a pilot. One time he had a problem with the landing gear on a plane he was flying. I don't remember all the details, but I think the nose wheel on the plane didn't come down. So he made an emergency landing at the Hillsboro, Ore., airport. To him it was no big deal, other than it caused some minor, but expensive, damage to the plane.

A TV crew showed up at the airport to cover the "story." He didn't see what made that a story at all. No one was injured. As he put it, it was the aviation equivalent of a non-injury traffic accident. A fender-bender really.

TV stations and newspapers don't show up for non-injury fender-bender accidents. They pay no notice really, unless of course it ties up a freeway during rush out. In that case the collision isn't the story, the story is that large numbers of people are stuck in traffic.

Fifty-five people have died this season of the plain-old flu in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and more than 24,000 have gotten sick from one of the non-swine flu strains. The CDC also estimates that each and every year 36,000 people in the U.S. die from some sort of flu related cause.

Where are the screaming front page headlines over that one? Why don't the stock or commodity markets react to that?

Why? Because it's normal. It's ordinary. News isn't always just what's big or what's important. A critical component of news is often just what's new or different. The old journalism saying is that when a dog bites a man, that's not news, but when a man bites a dog, that's news. Why, because it's unusual.

People are getting sick from something called swine flu. That's new and different. Of course people are getting sick and dying from regular ol' flu too. But that's normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill life and death.

It's sort of like reality TV. Just because everyone is talking about it doesn't mean it's important. It's a distraction for a while from the economic recession, high unemployment and layoffs.

So buckle your seatbelt tight. You are at more risk driving your own car than riding in a plane or from swine flu. There's far more important stuff to worry about. The Blazers have to go back to Houston and play the Rockets on their home floor, after all.

Goodbye P-I

Starting Tuesday, Seattle is a one-newspaper town.



When I heard the announcement today that Tuesday's edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer out be its last print edition, I though maybe I would write a long, philosophical post about it. But I just don't have it in me. But I just can't. It's all too sad. Layoffs, furloughs, pay cuts, papers folking. It's just all so bleak. Every newspaper journalist I know has been touched by this. Even those left with jobs have seen 401(k) plans shot to hell and they are left to wonder if, or when, their livelihood might evaporate too. Journalists can relate to those who have lost jobs in this economy, because we all know someone who has joined the ranks of the unemployed. And we all know the competition for future job openings, at least in the short term, will be fierce.

We are like the former newspaper employees who set type in hot lead or did paste-up work in composing rooms. Their jobs were lost forever to technology.

Now, news staffers know the feeling too.

The P-I name will live on, at least for a while, in cyberspace. But it will have far fewer people doing the journalism that covers the issues important to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

Emerald staff on strike?

Are you following the dust up at the Oregon Daily Emerald? If not, you might want to check out this story about the Emerald news staff going on strike.

I won't try to tell the story here. It's bizarre beyond words, but apparently the students objected to a job offer to Steven A. Smith, thinking bringing him on board would someone threaten the editorial independence of the student journalists. Yes, that's the same Steve Smith who has been editor of the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore., and Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo. Smith shares his side of the story on his blog.

Forgive, me, but I find the whole thing funny, but sad. Where is the reality of the working world in this whole scenario? Journalists at a financially troubled paper choosing to go on strike? Now?

Makes me glad I am a journalist trained at Oregon State University and gained some practical experience at the Daily Barometer, although the journalism program (part of the College of Liberal Art, not a Journalism school). But the reality is, what I learned in school only got me that first newspaper job and a lot of training has happened since.

One of the things I learned outside the student environment was a point perhaps too subtle in understanding the First Amendment when I was young and more principled than experienced. The thing about freedom of the press is that freedom belongs to the people who own the press, not the people the owners hire to run the presses or cover the news.

This would all perhaps be a lot more amusing if my daughter wasn't thinking that she may want to go to the University of Oregon and study, God forbid, journalism.

On, and all you purists out there lamenting the rise of social media, guess what? I learned about the strike on Twitter.

A video obituary of the Rocky Mountain News

This takes a while to load and it's long, but it's a moving tribute to the Rocky Mountain News of Denver by the folks there who are now out of work.

It's a scenario likely to play out in newsrooms, newspapers and cities around the country this year.


Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

An intra-family Civil War may be brewing

My daughter was one of hundreds, if not thousands, of high school students to take part in the University of Oregon college visitation today in Eugene. The Oregon campus was also host to the Society of Professional Journalists of Oregon and Southwest Washington's Build a Better Journalist conference.

I had decided to go to the college visitation when I got an e-mail at work about the conference, so I decided maybe I would try to participate in that too while I was in town and on campus. I figured it would allow me to show my interest and support, without subjecting my daughter to having to endure both parents tagging along all day.

Sounded like a good idea to me. But I'm paying the price now. I'm exhausted from crisscrossing the campus all day long to meet up with family for some things then attend some sessions of the conference. I'm tired, but it's a good tired.

And, truth be told, I'm also proud of the fact that one of the reasons Suzanna wanted to visit the University of Oregon campus is that she may be interested in studying journalism at the U of O. There's enough pride that I could even handle my daughter being a Duck, no matter what she decides to study. That's a little tough for an Oregon State Beaver to admit. But the reality is Oregon State can't compete as a training ground for journalists. Maybe it never could, but there are many OSU alumni who have, or still are, skilled journalists out there. But we are becoming a rarer breed, as the journalism department at OSU was shuttered a few years after I earned my degree there. You can't even get the degree I got at Oregon State anymore.

Regardless of where Suzanna goes to school, or what she decides to study, I am getting excited for her, planning for college and planning for her future. Maybe it's because college was such a great adventure for me and a voyage of self discovery about so many things. It wasn't just getting the education and the skills needed to start a career. I found myself in college and was introduced to a wider world of people, options and opportunities that I didn't even know existed. Just being on the U of O campus today, with its red brick buildings, grass-lined paths and colored leaves floating to the ground, I was reminded of many of my college experiences. I hope she has a great college experience with many fond memories that last her a lifetime. I know I'm not yet ready for her to be grown up and all on her own, but I am so proud of the young woman she has become.

As we walked through the Duck Store at the end of the day, I realized that may there is room in the wardrobe for some non-Beaver collegiate logo apparel in my wardrobe. Maybe, I could wear something that identifies me as a Duck dad.

As I was walking back to my truck I caught myself daydreaming about attending a Civil War football game with my daughter some fall day in the not-too-distant future. Maybe it could happen. I could handle a Duck daughter, as long as she can handle her college friends seeing me in my Beaver gear walking beside her over the Autzen Bridge.