Journalism at the dawn of the digital age

Journalism memory lane: Part 4

Personal computers, the World Wide Web, e-mail, cell phones, digital cameras, digital voice recorders and other tech advancements make things so much easier for journalists today. At the same time, now everyone has access to the same tools and can play journalist. (Hence the rise of bloggers and citizen journalists.)
Simple things like finding information on publicly traded companies or even corporate contact information used to be a chore. I remember poring over paper files at the Securities and Exchange Commission office in Washington, D.C. With the Web, there’s no need to leave the office for that any more.
Reporters used to spend a lot more time on the phone checking facts that now can be easily verified online.
Reporters also used to have a lot more paper clutter on their desks – files and documents they needed to research and write articles. Now that clutter has become digital – documents stored on PCs, bookmarks in Web browsers, and data in the Internet cloud.
The arrival of always-on, high-speed broadband Internet connections in the mid-1990s was a big deal. Getting a T-1 line at the office was a major coup for your workplace. Of course, now T-1 speeds are pokey.
My first e-mail account was through Rocketmail, which was purchased by Yahoo in 1997. I later abandoned it after it became inundated with spam e-mails. Today I use Web-based e-mail accounts from Yahoo and Google.
Old habits die hard and it took me a long time to switch from microcassette audio recorders to digital audio recorders for interviews. That switch happened maybe six years ago. I got sick of dealing with piles of microcassette tapes.
Other things that have gone bye-bye over the years include newspaper clips (why bother when your articles are searchable online?), Rolodexes and business card holders (LinkedIn and web searches have replaced those).
My first cell phone was a Motorola bag phone around 1990 that I used only in my car for “emergencies.” Voice minutes were expensive then. I didn’t use it for work. Using a cell phone for work didn’t happen for another 10 years or so.
Technology, like PCs, the Internet and mobile phones, has made journalists much more productive. But the news cycle has gone 24/7 and we’re always reachable.

Photo: Sony microcassette recorder (top); Rolodex business card file. 

Business executives, politicians, journalists go ‘all in’ on new cliché

The poker term “going all in” is sweeping the worlds of business and politics.
Corporate and government leaders have adopted the phrase as a folksy way to express how totally committed they are to a project or strategy. In poker, when players go “all in” they are betting all the chips they have left on the table.
Microsoft executives used to say they were “betting the company” on a new initiatives like Windows, the Web or Internet services. But now they’re saying they’re “all in” on cloud computing. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer first used the “all in” phrase for the company’s cloud computing efforts in March and has repeated it since, including at an event last week.
“We’re all in,” Ballmer said March 4 in a speech about Microsoft’s commitment to cloud computing.
A search on Google shows that the expression “all in” has really caught on in the last year or so. (See above chart. Click on it for larger view.) You see the phrase online as “going all in,” “gone all in” and “goes all in.”
It seems to have started with business leaders and then caught on with the media and politicians.
Media reports have had EMC going all in with cloud computing, HP going all in with Palm’s WebOS for tablet computers, Motorola going all in with Google’s Android mobile operating system, and DreamWorks Animation going all in on 3-D movies.
Also, President Barrack Obama has gone all in with his budget, comic Seth Meyers went all in as host of the Espy Awards, Warren Buffett has gone all in on railroads, and various sports teams going all in with certain player trades.
In poker, going all in is a risky strategy. If business executives and others keep saying “all in,” they run the risk of sounding clichéd.

Electronics recycling is too much of a bother

Let’s face it; most people won’t recycle their PCs and consumer electronics until it’s free and easy.
Driving through my neighborhood, it’s not uncommon to see CRT monitors, TVs and other electronics put out with the trash. The garbage crews dutifully pick up these items and toss them in their trucks with all the other refuse to dump in the landfill.
I try to be a good citizen and recycle as much as I can – aluminum cans, tin cans, plastic bottles, newspaper, office paper, etc. I even save old running shoes to recycle when there are occasional drives.
The last couple of years I’ve saved up my old electronics to drop off at an annual event sponsored by Motorola and the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County, Illinois. I’m aware that electronics gear contains toxic materials such as lead, cadmium and mercury that can leak into the soil and ground water when disposed of in landfills. I don’t want that on my conscience.
This year’s day-long event was held on Oct. 11 at Motorola’s headquarters in Schaumburg, Ill. By all accounts it was a great success. The 10th annual event processed 2,460 vehicles, diverting about 134 tons of residential equipment from the landfill.
But to drop off my small quantity of electronics – a couple of spent lithium-ion laptop batteries, two busted digital cameras, a DVD player, a VCR, a few MP3 players and miscellaneous PC peripherals – I had to wait in a line of traffic for nearly an hour. And that’s after driving 21 miles to get there.
I wouldn’t be surprised if participation at next year’s electronics recycling event drops off because people got fed up with the wait this year.
The problem with recycling electronics is that there’s no simple, standard way to do it. Some businesses offer free recycling on trade-in. Others charge a fee for recycling PCs or TVs. Then there are community recycling events like the one I attended. Consumers have to do some research. Most won’t bother.
Municipalities should encourage some sort of curbside pickup along with the regular recycling collection. Have special, colored plastic bags to hold electronics trash. Better separated than in with the other garbage, I say.