Erik Davis
Ray Kurzweil and
Tom Fenton

The books I’ve enjoyed most by these men:

TechGnosis by Erik Davis

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil

Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News, and the Danger to Us All by Tom Fenton

Check back for full descriptions…
I intend to write a review of each book to publish here later this month. But for now, I wanted to recommend them to you. Just in case you’re looking for some quality reading material for the holidays. When you’re done, we can discuss the books thoroughly…

And of course, this post needs fascinating video of scientists describing the future, so here ya go:

Ray Kurzweil: How technology’s accelerating power will transform us

Reuters – the world famous news and wire agency – opened a digital news bureau in the virtual world Second Life on October 16, 2006.  To this day, a team of reporters including Adam Pasick, aka Adam Reuters, and Eric Reuters, aka Eric Krangel, have their pens on the pulse of Second Life’s politics, economics, industry and more – both real and virtual versions.

Reuters CEO Tom Glocer talks about online publishing in real-life and Second Life:

Reading through the list of articles streaming out of the Reuters digital bureau is a multidimensional experience. Articles about the CEO of San Francisco-based Linden Lab are mixed in with interviews from real world conferences, right alongside interviews with virtual world bankers and so on.

What happens in Second Life that’s newsworthy? It may not surprise anyone to learn that election polls in Second Life favored Barack Obama by a landslide. There isn’t a strong Republican faction in the virtual world yet. I wonder how Prop 8 would have fared there?

Interviews with Adam Pasick / “Adam Reuters”:

CNET interview

NYTimes interview

Reuters interview

Second Life news page on Reuters.com

Interesting intersection of real and virtual worlds:

HBO buys machinima film created in Second Life – Sep 4, 2007

HBO has acquired the rights to a short-form documentary shot entirely within Second Life, as entertainment companies turn to virtual worlds as a source for new content.

A little over a year later, the Chronicle reporters published a book called “Game of Shadows,” appeared as a guest on David Letterman, the cover of Sports Illustrated and were thanked by President George W. Bush. It must have felt like living on Easy Street that year. Little did they know that a difficult legal battle the following year would challenge their convictions and threaten their liberties as journalists, citizens, husbands and fathers.

Last Thursday, Fainaru-Wada described his experience to CCSF News Writing students at the LGBT Community Center on Market Street. He described the intensive detective work he and Williams did during the four years they covered the story.

It started with phone calls to everyone in their rolodex and Williams reconnecting with sources he had maintained for more than fifteen years as a journalist. One big break came in the form of testimony from the secret Grand Jury sessions that led to the prosecution of Victor Conte, Greg Anderson and two others involved in BALCO and the distribution of steroids to athletes. Another big break came when Williams found a name and contact information for Greg Anderson’s grandmother. Williams contacted her and she was happy to fill in the blanks of most of Anderson’s background which led to numerous new leads for the reporters to follow.

In 2004, when Giambe denied using illegal substances, Fainaru-Wada and Williams wrote an article based on Giambe’s own testimony in front of the Grand Jury to discredit his public denials. Later that year, when Barry Bonds claimed that Flax Oil was the only performance-enhancing substance he used, Fainaru-Wada and Williams published an article which proved otherwise. Their investigation into heavily guarded secrets and the stories that resulted won acclaim and respect from their peers, politicians and even the U.S. President himself, who invited Fainaru-Wada and Williams to the White House in April 2005 to congratulate them on excellent reporting.

Imagine their surprise when, in May 2006, the Attorney General issued subpoenas for Fainaru-Wada and Williams, insisting they reveal who their sources were. They were also required to turn their notes over to the Grand Jury so that the leaks could be identified from the documents. The journalists refused and were supported by The Chronicle, the paper’s parent company the Hearst Corporation, California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and journalists from across the nation.

Most states have a shield law to protect journalists in such cases and California is no exception. However, there is no federal shield law to protect journalists in federal court and especially not in secretive Grand Jury investigations. Thus, Fainaru-Wada and Williams were threatened with 18 months imprisonment if they did not submit the information they had and The Chronicle was fined $1000 per day for defying the subpoena.

Faced with possible imprisonment and determined not to break his promise to his confidential source, Fainaru-Wada had to endure some tough situations in order to do the right thing. He told the gathering of CCSF students last Thursday that there were only two times he really got angry during this time.

“The first time I got mad was when I thought about going to prison while Barry Bonds broke the homerun record,” he said.

“The second time was when I had to explain to my 8-year-old and 6-year-old [daughters] that Dad might go to jail for doing his job,” he continued.

Lack of a shield law in federal courts is a dangerous thing, not only to the journalists and whistle-blowers it protects, but also to the public who benefits from such information. During his presentation, Fainaru-Wada quoted House Representative Mike Pence when he said, “I’m a huge supporter of the shield law because I believe it’s important for the public to get information unfettered.”

Congressman Pence is a conservative leader in the House of Representatives, head of a conservative think tank based in Fort Wayne and a Republican. He authored the Free Flow of Information Act, also known as the “Federal Media Shield,” which would protect journalists on a federal level. Pence plans to re-introduce the bipartisan measure when the 110th Congress meets in 2009. If passed, this legislation would protect journalists from having to tell their children that Mom or Dad might go to jail for a job well done.

Though Fainaru-Wada still wouldn’t reveal his source when he spoke to the group of student journalists, it’s been well-reported that the charges against him and Williams were dropped after Troy Ellerman admitted to leaking the Grand Jury testimony to Fainaru-Wada. Ellerman, a lawyer who previously represented Conte and another BALCO executive, plead guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to two years in prison. The whistle-blower received more prison time than Conte and Anderson’s sentences combined.

The News U training program is a project of The Poynter Institute and features more than 65 online courses – most of them FREE! Anyone can enroll and start taking classes immediately. There’s no time limits for completing a course – you simply move through the module at your own pace.

Classes range from how to write better headlines for the web, how to be a more efficient writer, how to incorporate multimedia options for print, web and mobile delivery and more than I could possibly list here.

Best of all, these courses utilize some of the top Flash programming I’ve ever seen: animations, video, photos, newspaper clippings, boxes of info that appear when you click and all kinds of dynamic stuff.  A student simply clicks through and reads small segments of info or watches an animation or otherwise chooses their adventure.

One module had me sitting face to face with a fictitious local mayor I was interviewing, when “my cell phone” rang and appeared on screen. The cell phone featured a video chat with “my editor” who gave me instant pointers on what to do.  It was a trip! I’d taken a few college courses online before, but nothing like this.  This was a lot like the real deal, but with tons of assistance.  The real virtual deal I suppose.  Perhaps this is what it would feel like to interview our Mayor in 2nd Life.

News University

Highly Recommended Courses in Multimedia/Online Journalism at News U:

Multimedia Reporting: Covering Breaking News – this course totally revolutionized how I think about online journalism and where it intersects with citizen journalism.  It shows how local coverage of Hurricane Katrina led to better rescue efforts during the first few days the waters rose.  EVERYONE interested in the future of journalism must check this out.

Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers – I haven’t taken this one yet, but it’s next on my list.  I think we may have viewed some of the exercises from this class in our Feature Writing class last week when we were discussing libel and defamation on blogs (and how to avoid it, natch).

Reporting Across Platforms – AND – Five Steps to Multimedia Storytelling – 2 classes that discuss different platforms and how to record and present different types of media.  I’ve taken both and both are great.  Neither one walks you through any particular device or software.  They just explain what types of stories work best in which kinds of media, how to supplement a story with different media and how to capture and deliver that message.

I can’t embed a course here for you to see, so you’ll just have to click over to the News University website.  But, one thing I learned in the excellent classes on multimedia and online journalism, is always try to incorporate photos and video to help illustrate your point.  So, to that end, I’ll leave you with this video of Kurt Vonnegut being interviewed in Second Life:

The Infinite Mind in Second Life with Kurt Vonnegut

http://mitworld.mit.edu/

MIT World Videos and Open Courseware

The site’s own description reads:

MIT World is a free and open site that provides on demand video of significant public events at MIT. MIT World’s video index contains more than 500 videos.

It features lecture series, guest speakers, industry conferences and the like on a range of topics.  Categories include Media, Public Policy, Education, Technology, International Affairs, Defense/Military, History, Innovation/Invention and many, many more.  Here’s 2 examples of videos you can watch:

“The Emerging Mediascape” is about the decline of foreign news and balanced reporting while celebrity-based news fills air time 24/7.  The discussion really resonated with me and supplemented what I’d learned from a fantastic, must-read book by Tom Fenton called “Bad News.”  (More on the book in another post…)  This video features a discussion between Mark Jurkowitz, Jeffrey Dvorkin and David Thorburn.

(Read more here)

Watch:

I haven’t watched this one yet, but it’s next on my list:

“The Emergence of Citizen’s Media” with David Thorburn, Dan Gillmor, Ellen Foley and Alex Beam.  According to the video’s description:

Extra, extra, browse all about it! The newspaper (as we know it) is history. As David Thorburn handily describes the situation: “The younger the cohort is, the less interested it is in printed materials and the more committed to emerging technologies. The implication is, within 25 to 30 years, there won’t be people who want to read newspapers.” These panelists discuss newspapers’ transformation in the digital age.

(Read more here)

Watch: