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.

Teaching Internet Safety

As a child of the 80's, I'm sure my parents are grateful that Internet safety wasn't a concern with my sister and I.  The biggest technological dangers we faced were prank-calling the wrong person (Note: Do not answer the phone pretending to be Pizza Hut when Dad's boss calls) or dropping a plugged-in hairdryer into the bathtub.  I think about my young nephews and am fairly terrified by the idea of them going online.  I believe they'll receive adequate supervision and instruction, but will they know how to identify a potential predator, avoid clicking on an ad that will install a virus or, God forbid, deal with cyber-bullying?

Not being a parent myself, I don't know what the best course of action is for any age group.  Certainly, children want some privacy and deserve increasing amounts as they become older and more responsible.  I certainly wouldn't have wanted my parents reading the notes my friends and I passed in grade school.  Harmless as they seem now, a lecture on why it isn't amusing to torment a substitute (when really, it's hilarious!) was something to avoid. 

Some companies now provide games for children of varying ages.  I tried some of these out and found them to be generally useful: 

AT&T's Safety Land (http://www.att.com/Common/images/safety/game.html) presents an online town with several buildings.  Children click on each building and answer a question, which helps the superhero to defeat the bad guy and offers a certificate to completers at the end.  (Do kids now like certificates any more than Gen X'ers did?)  The questions are good, and props to AT&T for showing some multiculturalism and diversity in the hero character, but overall the game is a bit short and is centered mostly around avoiding predators (primarily sexual, although never explicitly stated).  While the game has some good information, it's brevity might mean retention of the information is low, and it only offers education on one facet of internet safety.

Microsoft and the Canadian province of Alberta teamed up to present Bad Guy Patrol (http://www.badguypatrol.ca/).  This site has selections for 5-7 and 8-10 year olds, but the games for each age are very similar.  Each has 4 parts, each hosted by a different member of the Bad Guy Patrol.  Two include trivia questions, one includes idenfication of emoticons, and a fourth uses animals costumed as another species to reinforce the idea that people are not always who they seem online.  The characters are entertaining (a punk porcupine, highbrow owl, semi-creepy buffalo and talkative ram) and the multiple games present a wider range of safety concepts, but they did tend to drag on.  My attention span somewhat outlasts that of a 5 year old and I found myself asking "when is this going to end?"  I can see kids enjoying this game, despite the certificate!

For a little more retro fun, Quia has an Internet Safety Hangman game (http://www.quia.com/hm/40647.html).  It probably isn't the most well-rounded, but it's some entertainment for the few kids out there who might actually play pen-and-paper games when they're bored.  

My favorite were a collection of games from OnguardOnline.gov (http://onguardonline.gov/media/).  These cater more to older kids, teenagers, and even adults, and cover a much broader range of topics, from bullying and predators to spyware, ID theft, and hacking.  Overall, these had the best graphics and most sophisticated concepts.

Games are, of course, no substitute for parental instruction and monitoring, but I'm sure any parent will agree that sometimes their children will pay more attention to someone other than Mom or Dad.

It Goes Too Far

I've been sightly obsessed with Adele lately, so when "Rolling in the Deep" came on the radio last week, I turned it up and started to sing along (no fear...I was in the car alone!).

"Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your sqbzhhk bare..."

"What???"  I thought, probably out loud.  "It says SHIP!  They bleeped SHIP?"  Apparently, the reference to piracy was lost on someone.

My curiosity got the better of me and I emailed the station director:

Rolling in the Deep
"I'm curious as to why this song is censored. The line is actually, 'I'll lay your SHIP bare,' which is a reference to piracy. It's blanked out so it sounds like "I'll lay your sh-- bare.'  Political correctness gone a bit far, no?"

Re: Rolling in the Deep
"Good question.  You'd have to ask Columbia Records.  We play the single version that they released."

Seriously, Columbia?  Did someone actually think it said "sh-t"?  Or did they fear calls from parents?

"Columbia Records"

"Yes, I thought songs containing four-letter words couldn't be played on the radio, but that Adele song says, well, the naughty version of 'shoot'.  And now my daughter's singing along to it!"

"Ma'am, the song actually says 'ship,' 'laying a ship bare' is reference to piracy and pillaging.  Tell your daughter to sing 'ship'.  Have a nice day."

It isn't as if there aren't other, more indecent sounding songs out there?  I mean, am I the only one who never really hears "deuce" in "Blinded By the Light?"

Even if a song did include sh-t, as Eric Cartman would say, what's the big f-cking deal?  Are we really pretending that those words aren't heard by most people on a daily basis?  ("Not my kids!" you say.  Do they go to school, or worse, ride a school bus?  Case closed.)

I remember it being a big deal in the mid-1990s when then-racy TV show NYPD Blue uttered the word sh-t.  Oh, it made headlines.  Never mind the fact that it had shown shootings, homicides, sex, and Dennis Franz's butt (why, oh why, did we get his posterior over Jimmy Smits'?), but sh-t was something to talk about.

Later, in its fifth season, a South Park episode titled "It Hits The Fan" sh-t was uttered 162 times and written 38 times, bringing the total number of sh-ts to 200, or roughly one every eight seconds.  Of course, it caused uproar, but South Park thrives on this.  (For anyone who agrees with Mrs. Broflovski that South Park is just foul language and toilet humor...give it a try, it really is a brilliant, satirical social commentary.)

So we said sh-t a few times on TV, we're still bleeping it out of songs, but why?  Probably because the literal meaning is "feces," and the FCC has declared "any language that pertains to sexual or excretory functions" as indecent speech.  We can't laugh about it or use it as a curse, yet there is no limit to laxative commercials on air.  Wholesome grannies talk about "fiber regularity" as a euphemism for the fact that a healthy person sh-ts once a day and may need some diet adjustments if they don't.  When TV or movie characters hire dog walkers, they're portrayed as taking Fido out for a stroll; never mind that the real goal is taking him outside so he doesn't sh-t in the house and then picking it up in a bag.  Sh-tting is a normal function of a healthy animal of any sort, as regular as sleeping and eating, yet it's so taboo that it can't be referenced on TV.  Very silly, indeed.

Yes, there are more words whose connotations are more overtly sexual and/or violent.  Some cautions need to be put into place so children (and teenagers, and some adults) don't get the idea that it's OK to be obscene and indecent all the time.

Oh sh-t, never mind.  They're watching Jersey Shore.