Loading Post
Hang on a second while we grab that post for you.
Neil Gaiman’s brilliant graduation speech on living the creative life, made into a giant comic, from the same folks who distilled Neil deGrasse Tyson’s monologue on the most astounding fact about the universe into a comic.
Reblogged from Explore Source explore-blog
“As journalists, I believe, we explore what might be called the Periodic Table of Human Nature. Every life, whether celebrated or obscure, contains the same fundamental emotions, love or hate, ambition or indolence, exhilaration or despair. We just need to drill down deeply enough to discover them.”
Samuel G. Freedman, Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, in his book Letters to a Young Journalist. (It is absolutely worth a read.)
Related: Maria Popova’s recent review of The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning. Though it’s not quite about journalism, it is very much about storytelling, curiosity, and the discovery of humanity, which are fundamental to journalism.
She writes,
The book, which passes the skepticism radar even of someone as non-religious as myself, is really about cultivating our capacity for uncertainty, for mystery, for having the right questions rather than the right answers.
FJP: I often wonder about what spirituality and journalism might have in common, one answer to which is that they allow us to foster a similar sort of emotional fortitude.
Popova exercepts the book:
Spirituality is discovered in that space between paradox’s extremes, for there we confront our helplessness and powerlessness, our woundedness. In seeking to understand our limitations, we seek not only an easing of our pain but an understanding of what it means to hurt and what it means to be healed. Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is: There is no one to ‘blame’ for our errors — neither ourselves nor anyone nor anything else. Spirituality helps us first to see, and then to understand, and eventually to accept the imperfection that lies at the very core of our human be-ing.
To the cynic, that might sound a bit self-helpish but now see this, another favorite excerpt from Freedman:
To be witness, observer, and storyteller, and to develop and refine the skills of each, is to accept the burden of independent thought. It is to reject the easy comforts of our conventional wisdom or popular dogma. It is to welcome the dissonance of human events and render that dissonance with coherence and style. All of these exercises stretch the brain and all of them elevate the spirit.
I relate the two thoughts because I think welcoming the dissonance of human events requires us to welcome a fractured self first, which might helps us to ask “spiritual questions.” Popova offers another excerpt:
Listening to stories and telling them helped our ancestors to live humanly — to be human. But somewhere along the way our ability to tell (and to listen to) stories was lost. As life speeded up, as the possibility of both communication and annihilation became ever more instantaneous, people came to have less tolerance for that which comes only over time. The demand for perfection and the craving for ever more control over a world that paradoxically seemed ever more out of control eventually bred impatience with story. As time went by, the art of storytelling fell by the wayside, and those who went before us gradually lost part of what had been the human heritage— the ability to ask the most basic questions, the spiritual questions.
That’s a little Monday morning food for thought, and an insight into what’s drawn me to journalism—a space it seems, that allows for a very continuous, multihued deepening of one’s humanity. —Jihii
Bonus: If you didn’t check out our #whyJournalism survey results from a while back, you can do so here.
(via futurejournalismproject)
Reblogged from The FJP Source futurejournalismproject
How to Think About Our Networked World
On this Memorial Day weekend, Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton recommends you mix up your relaxation hours with some videos of smart people saying smart things.
We second that suggestion, and offer you (the above): a brilliant animated video by Manuel Lima, Senior UX Design Lead at Microsoft Bing, and founder of VisualComplexity.com, based on a talk he gave at RSA.
via RSA:
He visits the RSA to explore a critical paradigm shift in various areas of knowledge, as we stop relying on hierarchical tree structures and turn instead to networks in order to properly map the inherent complexities of our modern world. The talk will showcase a variety of captivating examples of visualization and also introduce the network topology as a new cultural meme.
Lima says:
Even more than the idea of repping these complex systems is the need for a new way of thinking. And this new way of thinking is about this pluralistic way of thinking that everything is interconnected, everything is interdependent. We are almost going back to the polymath, the Renaissance man mentality that it’s not just about being a specialist in one area, you need to know a little bit of everything. Or at least create outbound ties that you are able to learn from other disparate areas. And I think this is the most beautiful aspect of knowledge that we can take into consideration by looking at this networked thinking. It’s more important even that we make that mental shift because I think there is immense benefit that can come from this network outlook of the world itself.
FJP: GigaOm/paidContent 2012 had a lot to do with this same way of thinking—the theme this year was focused on convergence. (See our Storify of the event here.) I think Lima’s perspective on interconnectedness is useful not only to creators, professionals, and journalists, but to all of us, as citizens, siblings, parents, friends, listeners, speakers, and thinkers. See his talk here, and Twitter feedback here.
Reblogged from The FJP Source futurejournalismproject
Talking To Strangers: What kind of journalism do you want? A list.
I want a reading experience that defends the news from the circus that online advertising creates. I want good storytelling and analysis, not naked facts. I want news that admits and defends its point of view (and acknowledges that there is a truth to be uncovered), not news that parrots…
Reblogged from Talking To Strangers Source jcstearns
Students at students at a high school in Xiaogang City study with the help of of IV drips.
These photos were posted on a popular Chinese networking site last week. They show a group of high schoolers studying in their classroom for the Gaokao (national college entrance exam). An official has verified that the photo is legitimate. Source and verification here.
Taking cramming to a new, pretty unsettling level.
Reblogged from ShortFormBlog Source afternoonsnoozebutton.com
After the recent Amendment 1 debacle in North Carolina, it can’t hurt to know where your own state stands. Here is an absolutely fantastic educational and interactive graph looking at gay rights laws from state to state.
Reblogged from curiosity counts Source curiositycounts
I’m currently in Dehradun and posted this over at the FJP this morning.
Daughters Are Precious
My morning reading in the Hindustan Times today. A new column by actor-activist Amir Khan. He writes:
Every conceivable reason that I have come across during our research of people explaining why they want a boy and not a girl as a daughter does not seem to make any sense to me. For instance, “if we have a girl then at the time of her marraige we have to pay dowry”, or “a girl cannot perform the last rites after the death of her parents, or near and dear ones”, or “the girl can’t take the vansh, or family forward”…All these are man-made reasons. We have created dowry and are now killing the girl child as if she is responsible for it. We have decided for ourselves that girls can’t perform last rites and then we say the girl is to blame.”
FJP: Agreed, approved, and happy to see this in a newspaper.
Tags current affairs
Reblogged from The FJP Source futurejournalismproject
Afghan War: What is the Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement?
It’s a document with a pretty intimidating name, that’s for sure. Obama’s trip to Afghanistan early Wednesday local time seemed loaded with mystery — few knew he was there until he was actually there. He was there to sign a document that many watching the news had no idea existed until today. And the document itself is the definition of how a long-standing war will finally end, thirteen years after it started — at least as far as combat troops go. This document, just eight pages, was so important that the White House had to release a fact sheet to explain it to the average joe. What does it mean to you, anyway? Here are three things you should take from the Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement:
- one The U.S. government will continue to help the Afghan government train its security forces even after combat troops leave the country in 2014, with the goal of giving the entire region stability.
- two The U.S. will continue to fund security and development efforts in the country, but not by default — the president has to ask Congress for a new round of funding each year.
- three This effort goes both ways — Afghanistan is on the hook to improve the transparency and effectiveness of the government, while respecting the civil rights of its people. source
» So what’s the end date? The end of the document says this clearly: “It shall remain in force until the end of 2024.” (It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time this end date has been bandied about.) Which means, at that rate, the events around the Afghan War will be completely said and done 23 years after it started, though combat troops should be long gone. Hopefully.
Tags Current Affairs
Reblogged from ShortFormBlog Source shortformblog
Recently, we challenged readers to ask themselves if they were living up to their full creative potential. However if you’re already rusty, that’s definitely something that’s easier said than done. Enter Project Of How, a self-proclaimed “open interactive library of creative techniques”. I’m digging the manifesto and the site itself is a mental trampoline of brain teasers and tools. So next time you’re looking to stretch your school of thought, take a look.
Reblogged from curiosity counts Source curiositycounts
“If you’ve been told a journalist is supposed to be objective, forget that. Human beings are subjective. Being fair, being a real honest broker of information means that you can correct your own natural biases. You have to think of how a person is going to look at the portrait of themselves that you’re giving a reader, or a viewer, or a listener. Will they recognize themselves or not?”
The Influencing Machine: A Brief Visual History of the Media
via Brain Pickings:
One of the coolest and most charming book releases of this year, The Influencing Machine is a graphic novel about the media, its history, and its many maladies.
Written by Brooke Gladstone, longtime host of NPR’s excellent On the Media, and illustrated by cartoonist Josh Neufeld, The Influencing Machine takes a refreshingly alternative approach to the age-old issue of why we disparage and distrust the news.
Gladstone (in the video above):
…what victims of the syndrome have lost: identity. They no longer know who they are. They have shattered themselves into fragments and projected the shameful bits onto the influencing machine. That is my metaphor for how we see the media. We feared the telegraph, the radio, the television, the computer. Heck, Socrates even disdained writing. But I believe the media are mirrors, a mess of mirrors. And what we fear is not the machine, but the reflection.
FJP: This just made my day! Wonderful, creative, exciting, intelligent, and so true. —Jihii
Reblogged from The FJP Source futurejournalismproject
Could a Super PAC Sponsor Sesame Street? Seriously.
Reblogged from Talking To Strangers Source act2.freepress.net
Wikipedia Goes To College | Fast Company
If only this was the case when I was in college.
How Wikipedia plans to become an accepted citation source on academic papers… and to recruit professors to write and editor articles in their fields of specialty. Check out my new @fastcompany article.
Reblogged from Journal of a Journalist Source journalofajournalist
![This is why when my friends’ ‘read articles’ show up on my FB newsfeed, I Google the article instead of clicking on the link.
futurejournalismproject:
Over at the Columbia Journalism Review, Ryan Chittum writes about the ethics of social news apps.
In particular, he notes that while there’s much we may want to share, most people don’t understand the extent of what we share. For example, one partner in a relationship reading an article about breaking up that then appears in his or her Facebook timeline.
Facebook calls this frictionless sharing.
Chittum believes that publishers need to be more transparent about what their Facebook apps are going to do and share. Using the highly successful Washington Post app as an example, he writes:
The tagline [to the app] is “share what you read with your friends!”, which sounds innocent and useful enough. I like to share links to stories I think other people should read. Up high it says, “Okay, Read Article,” and when you push that button, it installs the app. There’s nothing telling you directly that you’re installing an app. A box in the bottom corner says “This app may post on your behalf, including articles you read, people you liked and more,” but how many people actually read that?…
…Not only does this stuff show up in my news feed several times a day (Yahoo’s app is also a frequent offender), but you can also go in there and click on your friends who have the app to see what they’ve read. The history goes back months. Jeff Bercovici reported back in the fall that even if you set the Post’s Social Reader to not let anyone see what you’ve read, friends can still go in and see what you’ve read. That’s egregious.
The solution, of course, comes back to the reader. First, monitor your app settings. Although, the Bercovici article gives pause as to whether that would even work. Second, contact publications about their apps and the concerns you have with them.
Ryan Chittum, Columbia Journalism Review. The Ethics of Social News Apps.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2bs0mNfjS1qedj2ho1_r1_1280.png)
This is why when my friends’ ‘read articles’ show up on my FB newsfeed, I Google the article instead of clicking on the link.
Over at the Columbia Journalism Review, Ryan Chittum writes about the ethics of social news apps.
In particular, he notes that while there’s much we may want to share, most people don’t understand the extent of what we share. For example, one partner in a relationship reading an article about breaking up that then appears in his or her Facebook timeline.
Facebook calls this frictionless sharing.
Chittum believes that publishers need to be more transparent about what their Facebook apps are going to do and share. Using the highly successful Washington Post app as an example, he writes:
The tagline [to the app] is “share what you read with your friends!”, which sounds innocent and useful enough. I like to share links to stories I think other people should read. Up high it says, “Okay, Read Article,” and when you push that button, it installs the app. There’s nothing telling you directly that you’re installing an app. A box in the bottom corner says “This app may post on your behalf, including articles you read, people you liked and more,” but how many people actually read that?…
…Not only does this stuff show up in my news feed several times a day (Yahoo’s app is also a frequent offender), but you can also go in there and click on your friends who have the app to see what they’ve read. The history goes back months. Jeff Bercovici reported back in the fall that even if you set the Post’s Social Reader to not let anyone see what you’ve read, friends can still go in and see what you’ve read. That’s egregious.
The solution, of course, comes back to the reader. First, monitor your app settings. Although, the Bercovici article gives pause as to whether that would even work. Second, contact publications about their apps and the concerns you have with them.
Ryan Chittum, Columbia Journalism Review. The Ethics of Social News Apps.
Reblogged from The FJP Source futurejournalismproject
In Which Editors Become Brand-Managers
Click through to read John Koblin’s piece on the new role editors have had to take on as magazines develop into multi-platform brands. Highlights below.
Some aren’t worried.
Everyone at Condé Nast is supportive of the most important thing — editorial freedom and independence — and, at the same time, I know that financial health is essential and so is getting our work to new readers through new technologies. Still, I don’t much love the talk of ‘brand’ and ‘brand managers’ — I prefer ‘the magazine’ and ‘editors.’ Harold Ross used to talk about The New Yorker as a cause and that’s what it is for me and for all of my colleagues.
-David Remnick, Editor, The New Yorker
Some are a bit worried.
Journalism, photography, design, creative thinking, editing and packaging, they’re what drive it all; they require a great deal of care, thought and attention, and I don’t hear a lot about them these days. What I hear is ‘That’s great for the brand.’ No, that is the brand!
-Jim Nelson, Editor-in-Chief, GQ
The consensus: This isn’t a bad problem to have.
Even though it can be annoying to hear magazines talked about as brands — because magazines themselves are fantastic creatures and brands sounds a little more homogenized — they are brands. I’m just a big believer in a good editor to understand his or her reader and their needs better than anyone. I like the future of a magazine industry that puts editors in charge of directing their brands in partnership with publishers. Would any of us really want a world that those decisions are being completely made by people who are not relating to our readers?
Cindy Leive, Editor-in-Chief, Glamour
FJP: I’d like to pull a different question out of this debate, one related to a comment Nelson made when interviewed. He argued that editorial work suffers on account of the meetings that distract from it.
Meantime, magazine making? It’s become an assumption that that’s the easy part of your day; you’ve got that covered. But it has never been easy, and the day you take your focus off it is the day the magazine becomes less interesting. So yeah, I worry about ADD, about being spread too thin, absolutely. And sometimes I think we’re pushed to do too much with too little. And I’m concerned about stress levels, for quality-of-life and quality-of-job reasons but also because, crucially, you need mental space for creativity and excellence.
Mental space for creativity and excellence. I’m instantly reminded of a Digiday piece I read yesterday, on whether privacy or collaboration better fosters creativity. It referenced an earlier NY Times opinion on the same topic, in which Susan Cain wrote,
Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption.
Now this isn’t completely related to the editor-turned-brand-manager dilemma, but it is some interesting food for thought. I think Nelson’s point about needing mental space for creativity and excellence warrants a lot of attention. That allotting time for non-editorial endeavors is crucial for the financial health of a publication is indisputable. But I do wonder what steps publications are taking to nurture the creative health of their content.
—Jihii
Reblogged from The FJP Source futurejournalismproject
Notes