The Weather Channel Virtual Tour

I opened this thinking I'd seen weather rooms and TV news sets before...we tend to have good ones here in tornado-prone Kansas. But I wasn't prepared for this!

The Weather Channel's HD Studio of the Future is truly state of the art, and fascinating in its detail.

Studios are almost always much smaller than the viewer would imagine, and although this is compact, it is designed to allow for eleven different configurations of the reporters' desks. Eleven!! It's also four stories high and wide enough for an HD camera.

My favorite part are the swivel green screens. They are internally lit and have green on one side and wall-coloring on the other and can be used in both the nook-like interview corner and a side room from which broadcasting is done. It's definitely high-tech, and crams a lot of design into a small space.

It's been a long time since I've watched a Weather Channel broadcast, but that may need to change!

New York Times Virtual Tour

Maybe it's because I'm from Kansas, but I've always been fascinated by downtowns and skyscrapers. As a kid, I loved to look up to the top of the Epic Center and imagine looking out the top windows on to the city. Since then, I've stayed in high-rise buildings and always enjoyed leaving the curtains open and waking up with the cities. Something about feeling so small and still while watching the morning bustle felt a little reassuring, and a little voyeuristic (in a good way!)

That said, I'm fascinated with the architecture found in the new New York Times building. Far from isolating the city, it incorporates it. The lobby in particular creates a seamless transition from outdoor to indoor.

From the outside, the windows create sort of a fishbowl that spotlights the activity in the building. It's interesting to see individual people move about under the huge expanse of the tower above.

My very favorite part is the birch garden indoors. I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the outdoors being just steps away from a busy elevator bank and bustling office building. I've always been the type who occasionally liked to step back from an event, hide and observe, and this is the perfect spot.

At night, the effect is like that of a forest, still calming, but radiating an energy.

I've only been to New York City once, but this building is on my list for the next visit!

Like a Rock Star

It's easy to assume that rock stars always live glamourously. That myth is quickly put to rest upon viewing a backstage area or a tour bus. Been there and done that...on the road, they eat the same junk food and drink from the same Solo cups as you and I

During the recording, the making of the albums that earn them the fame and sell the tour tickets, certainly that must be glamourous, right?

Not really. Many studios offer virtual tours. Some are no more glamourous that my community college music building. Others have a wilderness spa-like quality that seems totally incongrous with rock stars. Or is it?

Of the studios I looked at, I was most drawn to Pachyderm, located about half an hour from Minneapolis. Now I'm not really a rocker chick, I'm more of a spa chick (or I will be once this degree begins paying off) and it seems quite serene. The photos show lush, secluded woods, and the studio owns and offers a guest house for artists' use. It's more reminiscent of a lodge than a rock palace.

The studio itself has the same serene, open feel. Large windows give outdoor views and allow natural light to come through and light wood floors and walls give an airy feel to the rooms. You would expect to hear some sort of panpipe music played softly through this space, yet it's a favorite of hard rock groups, most famously Nirvana.

While it doesn't seem very "rock and roll," obviously something about this setting allows the artists to capture some legendary work. Perhaps it's the perception of isolation and the ability to "make all the noise we want", perhaps it's the camp-like feel of the guest house. Whatever it is, it works!

The State of the Media

Media is changing, that much we can be certain of. The website http://stateofthemedia.org/2010/ shows an annual report of all trends media. There is a lot of information, and it takes a lot of time to digest, but the changes that are occurring seem to be the result of two factors: technology and economy.

Duh, right? Fewer newspapers and magazines are being purchased as the news media turns to websites and apps. Who wants to wait until the next morning to read the whole story in the paper when it will be posted online in near real-time? And who wants to sit in front of the TV when video clips are available on your iPhone? It's convenient, but it has resulted in a loss of jobs. Time and Newsweek employ 47% fewer employees than in 1983. Rather than professional journalists, technology allows it to often be disseminated by amateurs, including bystanders with video phones and bloggers. When former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was killed a few weeks ago, news sites around the world used videos shot on the cell phones of his captors to document his last minutes - videos that cast doubt upon the official reports of his death.

The economy has also affected media consumption and spending. Much of this has coincided with technology, such as the decline of newspaper subscriptions. Why buy a paper when the information is free online? Likewise, advertising campaigns by companies have been cut, and declining sales and ad revenue have forced all forms of media to consider their bottom line, consolidate, and in some cases, to fold.

This report contains a wealth of information, but it remains to be seen how this generation's desire for on-demand and inexpensive (if not free!) media drives future trends.

Ethics in Reporting

Poynter's NewsU consists of free online courses and references for students, journalists, and anyone interested in the workings of the media. Upon being directed to the ethics section, which corresponded with a section in class, I found it interesting applying some of the principles to my own experiences both participating in and watching news stories.

Part of ethical reporting involves accuracy and fairness. Sometimes, telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth involves unpleasant details or those that may seem irrelevant to the story.

The Society of Professional Journalists has set forward four guiding principals for ethics in journalism:

- Seek the truth and report it as fully as possible
- Act independently
- Minimize harm
- Be accountable

Of these, I find the "minimize harm" principle to be the most interesting. When does journalism cross the line from informing to exploiting?

Years ago, my family and I were victims of a prairie wildfire, in which we lost outbuildings and beloved, cherished animals. As I was putting out hotspots on that horrible afternoon, a battered old car with out-of-state plates pulled in the driveway and two young women got out with notepads and cameras and claimed to be writing a story. When asked for a statement, I gave them this, "Get off my property." They complied, and quickly...my mom always credits something she calls my "mad Amazon death stare" (and claims is second only to Frank Martin's in the "looks that could kill" category) with an ability to get my point across. I had no intent of being photographed red-eyed, sooty, and distraught; and I had no intent of providing a statement to wrench anyone else's heart. There were enough already broken, and at that moment my privacy was all that was left to guard.

The next morning, while I slept, KAKE TV from Wichita interviewed her and a clip aired on the news that night. I didn't know about it until my best friend called to say her dad had seen it. It was tastefully done, my mom looked good, but it was extraordinarily painful to watch. I knew what had happened, I could see the rubble out the window, but it was only slowly becoming reality, until seeing it on TV drove it home in a minute-long clip. The campus newspaper and TV station sent an email asking to do a story. I didn't want to, and asked my boss (himself a former journalist) what I should do. He told me that if I didn't want to, I could just ignore it, I owed them nothing.

Looking back, I can't fault them. What happened was newsworthy, and everyone adhered to the words of the Guiding Principle: Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect. When I told one pair to go away, they went; when I ignored another request I was left alone; and the journalist who interviewed my mom was extremely tasteful.

Years later, the Wichita media was focused on the BTK case. A serial killer, long presumed to be dead, imprisoned, or gone from the area, had reappeared and was sending cryptic messages to the media and police. These missives appeared with regularity. Amid straight reporting were human interest stories about the victims, interviews with surviving friends and family members, and stories about how their children were faring after losing parents. Some were tasteful, some were disgusting. KAKE news, apparently one of the killer's favorites, led the way in the over-the-top emotional stories. At the head of this was Susan Peters (who I find annoying on a good day, the woman makes a story about the level of water in the Arkansas sound like a baby's funeral) who in one spectacularly awful interview brought a victim's son back to the house where his mother was murdered while he was locked in the bathroom. He was obviously emotional, but she kept prompting him for memories and feelings all while clinging to him from behind like a baby baboon. I found this disgusting, and so did many other people who saw it.

I would say this example crossed the line, as the code expands the principle to include "avoid pandering to lurid curiosity". If this didn't qualify, I don't know what would...there was no pressing need to bring him to the house, no question of where it was, and no reason to air this other than to exploit his grief.

Ethics are a tricky point, and while there are guidelines, it is up to each journalist and editor to determine whether stories are suitable for airing, and ultimately to the audience to determine the same.