Social media is here to stay, get use to it

Mike Wise said he sent out the tweet about the false Ben Roethlisberger information because he wanted to prove how bloggers lacked credibility. He also said that he didn’t realized that his association with the Washington Post would follow him to Twitter.

I found that incredibly naïve, especially considering in his Twitter profile Wise mentions that he is a Washington Post sports columnist. Of course, people are going to associate him with the Washington Post!

I used to have my former newspaper listed in my Twitter profile. However, I ended up removing it because I wanted to avoid people associating me with my paper. This was almost two years ago. This should not be new information to Wise.  In fact, the Washington Post made headlines almost a year ago when they came out with their social media policy. Paidcontent.org posted the Washington Post social media policy, and a couple of passages stand out:

When using social networking tools for reporting or for our personal lives, we must remember that Washington Post journalists are always Washington Post journalists.

All Washington Post journalists relinquish some of the personal privileges of private citizens.  Post journalists must recognize that any content associated with them in an online social network is, for practical purposes, the equivalent of what appears beneath their bylines in the newspaper or on our website.

As a journalist, you are told that you always represent your organization. In fact, journalists are taught not to show any bias towards any political parties. Newsroom employees are usually not allowed to have political bumper stickers on their cars or put up election signs in their yards.

Destroyed his credibility

In the CNN interview, Wise says he destroyed some of his own credibility. I say he destroyed all of his credibility. If Wise sent out a tweet about breaking news again, why in the world would I ever believe him? In this day in age, the one thing that traditional media has over bloggers is their credibility. Right now I would give profootballtalk.com (one of the blogs Wise was trying to discredit) more credibility than I would for a man who works for the Washington Post.

Wise’s punishment

The Washington Post suspended Wise one month for the Twitter incident. According to the Washington Post’s ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, the newsroom was divided on Wise’s punishment. Some thought it was too harsh, while others felt he should be fired. Alexander wrote this:

For journalists operating in today’s multimedia world, there’s no excuse for a lack of awareness about the risks and responsibilities of social media. It’s a topic of endless discussion in the industry and at The Post. The fact that Wise’s “experiment” was somewhat premeditated only underscores his bad judgment.

But at its core, what Wise did isn’t about social media. It’s about fabrication, which is indefensible, even if done in jest. Our business is truth. A journalist’s falsehood on Twitter is the same as a falsehood in the paper.

I’m going to say it. I think Mike Wise should have been fired.

This wasn’t a case of Wise reporting information he gotten from a source that turned out to be false. He deliberately tweeted out this false information. Like I said yesterday, the cardinal sin in journalism is knowingly reporting false information. I don’t know any journalist that would have thought tweeting false information was a good idea. In fact, most would have been appalled if you had brought up the subject with them.

I know some people might be thinking that I’m too harsh, but I have seen too many great reporters that were laid off, forced into retirement or just left the industry that would have never done this. It really makes me upset that Wise gets to keep his job, while these fine journalist are out of work.

This isn’t what I planning to blog about today. However, when I heard about how Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise sent out a fake tweet about Ben Roethlisberger, I just got incredibly angry and felt the need to post my opinion on the story.

Quick recap for those not familiar with the story: Besides being a sports columnist with the Washington Post, Mike Wise has a radio show in Washington, DC. On his show, Wise has apparently talked about how bloggers and reporters will retweet information without doing any fact checking. Wise decided to do an experiment on his show, and sent out a tweet that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would be suspended for five games. (Roethlisberger has already been suspended for six games, but it was widely believed that his suspension would be reduced to four games. It was reduced last Friday. ) Wise’s tweet spread across the Internet. However, Wise revealed that it was a hoax. He had made the whole thing up. Since he sent out the tweet from a Twitter account (@MikeWiseguy) that identifies him as a reporter, the Washington Post has suspended Wise for a month.

When I first heard this story, I was shocked that a trained journalist would do anything this stupid. The number one rule in journalism is don’t make up information. If you get caught making up a story, your career in journalism is pretty much over.

Even though I think Wise was incredibly stupid, I was interested in hearing why he did it. I listened to his interviews on NPR’s “On the Media” and CNN. Instead of coming off as a journalist who is sorry what he did, Wise came off as a kid who was more sorry he got caught.

Not taking responsibility for his own action

What made me furious listening to these interviews is Wise is blaming everyone but himself for tweeting the false information. He claims that after a few minutes, he sent out another tweet basically saying the previous one was false. However, Wise says that he was busy multi-tasking on the radio show, and he didn’t realize that the second tweet was never sent because Twitter was down.

Are you kidding me Mike Wise? It is Twitter’s fault because you decided to tweet false information? Why were you not paying attention to see if that second tweet went out? When I’m sending an important tweet, I always make sure to see if it pops up in my timeline. It only takes a minute, and you can even multi-task while doing it. If you are going to take the time to do this social media experiment, then you should make sure to follow it through.

Make sure to check out tomorrow’s blog post to read the rest of the blog

Katie Meier's picture at the Duke Hall of Fame. Notice how you can't see her face.

blog on Nov. 23, 2009. However,  I thought this would work well over here.

I went to my first Duke men’s basketball game on Saturday. After the game, I walked around the Duke Hall of Fame, and checked out all photos, plaques, banners and trophies of the former Duke sports stars. One banner stuck out to me, and not in a good way.

Duke, why did you use this picture on the banner honoring All-American Katie Meier? You can’t see her face! Seriously, did anyone think about this in the production process? None of the newspapers I’ve worked for would run this picture unless it was the only picture from that game, and they certainly wouldn’t run the photo if it went with a story about her basketball career. You can’t tell me in all the years Katie played for Duke there wasn’t at least one picture where you could see her face. Even if there wasn’t another action shot, run her team picture because at least I could see her face. If Katie Meier had been standing right next to me when I was looking at her banner, I would have had no clue because I didn’t know what she looked liked.

Side note: Katie Meier is now the head coach of University of Miami women’s basketball team. You can a nice picture of her bio page: http://hurricanesports.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl/mtt/meier_katie00.html.

This past weekend I went up to Charlottesville, VA, to visit my aunt and her family. Even though we would be doing tourist stuff during the day, I knew there would be a lot of down time at their house. I brought my computer and several Web books with me thinking I would have time to work on my website, launching my new blog, get some emails done, etc.

However, a funny thing happened at my aunt’s house. I saw how everyone was reading. It made me realize that it has been a long time since I have spent an afternoon reading. It also made me realize how much I miss curling up on the couch with a good book. I shut down my computer and picked up my book on Betsy Ross.

I admit that I was not completely unplug this weekend (anyone that follows me on Twitter would have seen I was online). However, my time online was very limited, and it felt great. The few times I got on my computer to do work, I was actually more productive than had I been sitting at my computer for five hours. I can’t even begin to describe how refresh I am feeling right now.

I experienced a lot of things this weekend, but most importantly I realized I need to take a break from my computer to remain productive. One way I’m going to do this is to make sure I schedule at least 30 minutes to read a book every day. I’m also thinking about scheduling a day trip every couple of months just to make sure I step away from the computer.

I’m curious what are other things people do to make sure to step away from the computer. I would love to hear everyone’s suggestions.

I made this decision on a couple of factors. First, I was going to be doing at least 10 photo galleries. Flash was easier, and faster, for me to use than JavaScript.

Second, no matter what everyone says, Flash is not going away completely. Even if the program is “dying,” it is dying a very slow death. I’ve actually been doing some research on this subject to try to understand the situation with Flash. I still haven’t quite figured out why Flash is hated so much, but I do know that this program isn’t going away anytime soon so I need to learn it.

The one problem with doing the photo galleries in Flash, is part of my website will not be viewable on an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad. I’m okay with this for now because I don’t think a lot of people would view my website on one of those platforms. However, I am annoyed at Apple for causing me this problem.

That’s right, I said it. I’m mad at Apple.

I don’t need the comments of: “iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch are Apple’s product, and they have a right to decide what will or won’t run on them.” I completely understand this, and understand that is their right. Full disclosure, I own an iPod Touch, and I adore it. I don’t know what I did without it, and would be completely lost if anything ever happened to it.

In fact, what I love most about my iPod is being able to check my Twitter feed without having to fire up my laptop.

What I hate most about my iPod is not being able to check out a link because it contains a Flash file.

An example of this happened a few months ago. I was excited about the new “The A-Team” movie coming out and could not wait to see the trailer. I was checking my Twitter stream one day just to see what was going on, and I saw someone had tweeted a link to the “A-Team” trailer. Of course, I clicked on that link right away, only to be disappointed that I couldn’t see the trailer because it was a Flash file. I didn’t have time to turn on my laptop to watch the trailer, and I was not going to have a chance to watch the trailer until late that night. I was pissed off.

Who do you think I blamed for this? The website for having the Flash file or Apple for not allowing me to see the link?

I blamed Apple.

I completely understand that there are bad Flash websites out there. I have seen company websites that are built entirely in Flash when there is no reason for it. However, I think it is unfair of Apple to punish me, their customer, because they don’t like Flash. Apple has been marketing the iPad as another way to browse the internet, but I would never buy an iPad since I can’t be guarantee to be able to see every website.

I’m curious if I’m the only one that feels like this. Do you get mad at a company’s website or Apple when you can’t see a Flash file on your iPod/iPad/iPhone? Leave me a comment below.

I wanted to start over with the blog because I wanted to change its purpose. I always intended it to be more than just me talking about Web design. That is why I chose the name Something Will Go Here, so I could blog about more than one topic. I still will talk about my adventures in learning Web design, but I also want to talk about other things like social and traditional media.

I also wanted to focus on the blog again because I’ve discovered that I like producing content. While working on my class project, I have been creating several photo galleries of different Revolutionary War sites. Since I’m using pictures that I took almost 5 years ago, I’ve had to do some research to remember why I would take a pictures of a well at the Ninety Six battlefield. If I didn’t do this research, I would not be able to write any photo captions.

Originally, I was dreading writing all these captions because I knew that would entail a lot of research (especially when it came to my Charleston photo galleries). However, I realized that I enjoyed researching this information. I’ve even started writing little introductions to some of the photo galleries because I realized I have too much information for the captions. This has inspired me to want to write more, and has given me the kick in the pants to not only blog more on this site, but to start a history blog.

I’ve also decided to declare a “blog day,” aka what day of the week to expect a new post. I figured it would be better to make sure I was posting at least once a week than making promises that I would post a few times a week. I realized that is unrealistic. There are going to be some weeks where I’m going to be so busy that it will be hard enough for me to write one post. Other weeks, I’m going to be able to knock out four posts with no problem.

Blog day for me is going to be Tuesdays. I might post extra stuff during the week, but except a new blog post every Tuesday morning. Feel free to call me out if I don’t deliver on my promise.

I think it is easy for people who are technological savvy to think that everyone is as knowledgeable as them. I know I’m guilty of this myself. However, that is far from the case.

At several of the newspapers where I have worked, they have tried to save news hole (aka how much space we have for editorial content) by trying to cut back on the stock listings, TV grids or the weather map. The logic behind those cuts was that this is information that people are already getting from the Internet and TV, so we can use that space for something else.

These cuts sound very logical. A great way to save space without getting rid of valuable content, and the readers should be happy we were putting more useful information in the paper.

We could not have been more wrong.

The amount of angry phone calls we got from readers after we made the changes were insane. They did not want us to cut the TV grids, weather map or stock listings, even if it is more logical for them to get that information elsewhere.

The Internet is very much like newspapers. People are resistance to change, even if it is for their benefit. If a browser is updated, “technology-challenge” people will focus more on what doesn’t work instead of what the new browser can do for them. In fact, given the choice between upgrading or keeping the old browser, they just will keep the status quo.

Trust me, I’m not making up these people. Two of them happen to be my parents.

My parents have never been up-to-date on the latest technological trends. Some examples:

• The first computer they ever bought was a Mac. However, they bought the Mac back in 1995 when PCs were the ‘it’ computer. Fifteen years later, and my parents now own a PC when Macs are the ‘it’ computer.
• If it wasn’t for me, my college graduation pictures would still be on the digital camera because my parents don’t know how to get them off the camera. I graduated college in 2003.
• At 16, I was the only one in the house that knew how to use the VCR. I learned this by taking the crazy step of reading the manual.
• My last trip to St. Louis, my dad asked me to clear off all the downloads on the desktop computer because the Internet connection was running really slow. I realized it was running slow because they haven’t upgraded their Internet router in 3 years, and there was actually very few downloads on the computer.
• My mother recently asked me what restarting her computer meant.

I could go on about my parents’ lack of computer abilities, but I think you get the point.

While some people might be horrified by my parents’ lack of technological skills, this doesn’t bother them at all. My dad is happy with his computer as long as he can do work email, check the sports scores and play the occasional computer game. My mom is happy as long as she can shop online.

In the past, my parents have tried upgrading their computers, but it always seems to work worse than before. Instead of learning more about their computers, they have just adopted the attitude of “if it works, why mess with it.” They use the desktop computer so rarely that they don’t realize the browsers need upgrading.

When my parents come across a website that is broken in IE6, they don’t think, “Oh, I better upgrade the browser.”

Instead they think, “What is wrong with this website? Why doesn’t this site work? I’ll just go somewhere else to get what I need.”

The failure to make sure the website works in IE6 has just cost the company 2 potential customers. That is good money just being tossed down the drain.

Before anyone scoffs, and says my parents just need to “get with the times”, realize that there also are a lot of people who are using IE6 because they don’t have any choice.

I’ve worked at a couple of companies where the computers I was using were so old that IE6 was the only browser that worked on them. There was one website that I would visit everyday, and it worked great until the webmaster decided to start upgrading with a ton of video content. Every time I went to the site, it crashed my computer. I didn’t have the option of upgrading the browser, so I stop going to the website. I know I’m not the only one who had this problem with this website, and those people came up with the same solution as me. The Web traffic for this website has never been the same.

Due to my classes, I know why it is important to be aware of IE6. Until IE6 is completely debunk, I’m going to make sure my websites work on that browser. At the very least, I know my parents will be able to look at them.

This statement actually struck a chord with me. I always hear people complain about bad Flash websites. However, I never hear people complaining about websites that have bad HTML, CSS or JavaScript coding.

The most important thing I learned in my Web design classes is how important it is to write in valid code. If you don’t write in valid code, there is no guarantee that your website will work in every browser. I’m amazed at the number of websites that don’t take an extra 5 minutes to run their HTML or CSS code through the validators at W3.org. It only takes a few minutes, and they even tell you how to fix the problem. I’ve actually used the CSS and HTML validators as a debugger to see why something on my website wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do.

Not only are people not validating their code, but also they write too much code for their site. They don’t take a few minutes to clean up the unnecessary code in their files. That extra code means it takes longer to load your website.

For the Flash-haters out there, I have a question for you. How many are you writing in valid code? Have you validated every single one of your websites? Have you taken out extra code you don’t need? I think you should be able to answer yes to these questions before you are allowed to complain about bad Flash websites.

Editor’s note part 2: This is the first part in a series of my trials of learning JavaScript. I’m hoping to have the second part up sometime early next week.

One of the inside jokes in a newsroom is that journalist can’t do math. I know I cracked that joke a few times myself, especially when a bunch of journalist were trying to figure out how to split a check.

I have a confession: When I was in school, I was pretty decent in math.

I generally got A’s or B’s in my math subjects. Even if I struggled with a subject (like long division), I eventually would have that “light bulb moment” and would be able to finish my homework and do well on the tests.

Then I had to take Geometry.

I spent my sophomore year of high school struggling with Geometry. I went to my Geometry teacher all the time to get help on my homework. Every time I finally understood something like proofs, I was told I was doing it wrong. I still don’t know how I managed to get through the class with a B. To this day, I still don’t understand Geometry.

Now you are wondering what this has to do with JavaScript. Well actually a lot.

I’ve had no problem learning XHTML or CSS. Like Algebra and Pre-Calculus, there is logic behind them that I can understand. I know if I want my website to have this effect, this is the XHTML and CSS code I have to write. If I did something wrong, it is easy to find where I screwed up.

JavaScript is Geometry all over again. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t figure it. For my website, I’m trying to do a simple rollover button. Nothing complicated, and there is even a code in my textbook on how to do a rollover with an external JavaScript file. (For my class project, all my JavaScript must be in an external file).

Even though I’ve written the code almost exactly as it is written in the book, I can’t get the JavaScript to work. I’ve struggled with this for days. I’ve asked for people’s help on figuring out the code. I’ve even dreamed about it, but for some reason nothing is working.

I’ve gone through all my textbooks line by line to understand the JavaScript code better. Every time I think I finally had my “light bulb moment,” I get excited and go to fix the code. I’m all prepared to do my happy dance only to see my fixes don’t work.

My laptop is really lucky I can’t afford to replace it, or else I might have tossed it against a wall by now.

People keep telling me there is tons of JavaScript codes out there, and just to google them. I’ve done that and discovered that not only are there tons of JavaScript codes out there, but they are all done in different ways. Like proofs in Geometry, there are tons of different ways to do something in JavaScript.

Sigh.

This is incredibly frustrating because I really want to learn JavaScript, but I don’t understand how people can do it if there are 7 million ways to do one function. Are there some Web standards for JavaScript that I’m missing? Some JavaScript Guru that has formed his/her own standards? I would love to hear people’s suggestions. And yes I know about jQuery, but for my class project I need to include JavaScript.

P.S. My JavaScript and XHTML code is posted at: http://gist.github.com/424354.

P.P.S. I’ve uploaded a work in progress of my website at IStopForHistoricalMarkers.com. I should upload a couple more pages this weekend, sans my rollover buttons.

Ever since I developed an interest in web design, I keep hearing conflicting reports about Flash. Some people think it is a great tool for creating web sites (and in the case of newspapers a way to develop powerful multimedia stories.) However, I’ve discovered there is also a fair amount of ‘Flash-haters.’ Apple seems to be leading the cause of the ‘Flash-haters’ by refusing to allow Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

I still haven’t heard a convincing argument from people on why I should be pro/anti Flash. For the record, I think I am neutral Flash. I think people shouldn’t use Flash as much on their web sites, but I also think people are fooling themselves if they think Flash will disappear anytime soon.

Despite my neutral Flash stance, I do face a Flash dilemma: do I use Flash on my capstone project? There are going to be a ton of photos on my web site. I might even use a video (depending on how ambitious I want to be). It would be easy to create a photo slideshow with Flash. I’ve used the program a few times before, and I know that it wouldn’t be hard for me to learn Flash. Plus, I have seen a lot of job postings mentioning they want candidates to know Flash.

However, my web site wouldn’t be friendly to any Apple product that isn’t a computer. Nothing annoys me more than not being able to view someone’s web site on my iPod Touch. The new A-Team trailer came out yesterday, and I had to wait all day until I could get to my computer to watch it because it was in Flash. I was pissed.

To help me figure out a solution to my dilemma I did a Flash pro/con list:

PRO

• -I would become more versatile in Flash.
• -It would be easier for me to use Flash.
• -Not a big fan of writing JavaScript code.
• -Flash would be faster than learning how to write the JavaScript code.

CON

• -Flash can’t be viewed on most Apple products.
• -My web site wouldn’t be ‘mobile.’
• -I would have to use JavaScript, and thus improve my JavaScript skills.
• -Do I want to learn a program that might be going away in a few years?
• -Potential employers would be more impressed by my JavaScript skills than Flash skills.
• -Improving my JavaScript skills would be a boost to learning other coding programs

MY DECISION

I’m going to attempt the slideshows in JavaScript. However, I reserve the right to change my mind and use Flash. It really might come down to a time crunch issue. Also, I’m giving fair warning to anyone that I know that has decent JavaScript skills. I will probably spend the next month pestering you with JavaScript questions.