I Wish I'd Written That: Part 3

For this week's "I Wish I'd Written That" I decided to focus on the universal portal for journalism: Poynter Online.
1. Will iPad Journalism be 'Good Enough' or Better?
Budding technology in journalism has always been an interest of mine. I've closely followed how technology has changed the industry, so I am very interested in how the iPad will either help or hinder journalists in the near future. The one section of this article that peaked my interest was this:
"The iPad, with its vibrant screen, fast processor and sleek design, doesn't look like a "good enough" device to me (though there are plenty of things it can't do-- yet). So the journalism that prospers on the device probably won't be, either."
With all the conveniences of the iPad, I have high hopes it will help journalists do their job better.
2. How ProPublica Investigated Nurses & You Can Too
I have many friends in the heath care industry, as registered nurses, nurses in training, and doctors to be, so this article caught my eye immediately when I saw it. The article has a few good points for investigative journalists, but there was one that I thought was the most interesting:
"This story was designed so that readers and users could interact with it in the way they saw fit. We put our database online so that users could search for sanctioned nurses and review all of the examples we cited (i.e., when we said we found 80 nurses, our site offered links to all of them). Dan Nguyen of ProPublica did stunning work making the database user-friendly."
The ability for readers to actually interact with this article is groundbreaking, in my opinion. The journalism industry is changing drastically, both in good and bad ways, but this aspect is a very good thing. I mean, how can a journalist report on what is happening in his or her beat without the feedback of the public itself?
3. Boyd Memoir Tells of Race, Politics, Plagiarism at the New York Times
I only know of the Jayson Blair's plagiarism through a few different news stories focused on plagiarism. I never knew of the gossip and racism that followed in the wake of his resignation. The one section of this article that got me thinking was about the morale of the newsroom after the fiasco went down:
"Days after the new appointments, terrorists struck the World Trade Center, giving the Times newsroom an opportunity to focus on a major news story. It had major journalistic success, winning seven Pulitzer prizes in 2002. That raised morale, of course, but then Blair's plagiarism came to light in the spring of 2003. Blair soon resigned and the Times wrote a massive investigative piece on his deception."
What made this the most interesting for me was the fact that the tragedy of the World Trade Center massacre rose morale for the newsroom. What I instantly wondered was, "Do those journalists who won the awards feel bad for prospering after such a huge, sad event?"

I Wish I'd Written That: Part Two

For this week's installment of "I Wish I'd Written That" I decided to focus on Newsweek, as many of their blogs are quite interesting to read.

1. When a Family Tragedy Turns Into a Youtube Sensation

This blog immediately caught my attention due to the title, because in my many adventures around the internet I have watched my fair share of gruesome death videos. I don't know why I watch these videos, but the morbid side of me forces me to watch them. The part of this blog that stood out the most to me was this:

"The Brancheau video isn’t autopsy imagery, but it is an issue of free speech and privacy—and in many ways, say legal experts, the precedent set by Earnhardt could still apply. 'Certain speech is not as valuable as other speech, and I think we need to say that,' says Solove, the author of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet."

My only problem with this logic is that it could possibly open the floodgates of what is "valuable" and what is not. I personally believe that all speech is valuable to someone in some way. Who can decide what future generations will decide what is valuable?

2. Educating Elite Hackers

The idea of having a cyberspace "army" has been around since the early days of networking computers together. The idea of private companies educating people to form our "defense" against electronic attacks. This was the one part of the article that stood out the most to me:

"It was the first Cyber Challenge, in 2009 and sponsored in part by Paller's organization, that piqued Coppola's interest. The cybersecurity simulation (titled "Netwars") required the 240 contestants to hack into 12 servers. Each server was worth points and whoever had the highest tally at the end of the game would be declared the winner. But instead of going from server to server, Coppola decided to hack the scoreboard and give himself the most points."

The best part about this is that he actually won the competition by essentially cheating.

3. What Ever Happened to the Gender Gap?

This article caught my attention, as I was under the impression that the gender gap in the workplace was almost non-existent, but apparently I was completely wrong. The opening to the article caught my attention the most:

"A new report by the World Economic Forum finds that even though more women are employed around the world than ever before, and now make up 52 percent of U.S. workers, major multinational companies are failing to capitalize on their talents."

It amazes me that we live in 2010, and problems we faced fifty years ago are still around.

I Wish I'd Written That: Part One

For my first blog entry in the "I Wish I'd Written That" series, I've decided to focus on one of my favorite sites: 1up.com. As an unashamed nerd, I browse this site almost daily for my video game related news and articles. Some of the best articles I've read have come from here, so here I have linked to three recent posts that have had certain parts that made me think.

1. Too Human: The Search for Alien Experience in Video Games

As the article points out in its opening, science fiction and aliens in video games are a dime a dozen. Players enjoy the feeling of being transported from their normal, everyday lives into the shoes (or claws depending on the species) of some sort of alien creature. Before reading this article, I took alien-based games for granted, and I didn't even think that these games, while being "alien" and different, were still coming from a human perspective. The one part of the article that got me pondering was this:

"Inhuman otherness isn't something that can be achieved in video games at this point in time. Short of a full body and sensory altering piece of tech, no controller and television display is going to make you feel like you're a creature not born on this planet. At this point, though, that's no bad thing. Right now, game makers and players should be concerned with getting games to meaningfully and convincingly convey humanity before we start working on evoking the interstellar other. We're getting there. Every time we construct a new digital world and a set of rules to obey and break within it that inspires a deeply human reaction, whether it be joy or sadness, amusement or fear, we get closer to a point where games will be able to let us be a monster from outer space. We don't need games to show us what we aren't. We're only just figuring out how to make them to show us what we are."

John Constantine, the author of this article, points out a great fact: that developers and players should focus more on making games more "human" before seeking ideas from beyond the stars.

2. The Impact of Literature on Gaming

When Electronic Arts announced a video game version of Dante's Inferno, the classic poem by Dante Alighieri, I thought to myself, "They really must have run out of good ideas." Any doubts I had were squashed when what turned out to be a very good game released. I was very happy when Bob Mackey, who I have communicated with on several occasions, wrote this article about the pros and cons of basing video games off works of literature. The one part of this article that got me thinking wasn't even directly related to video games:

To be fair, it's nearly impossible for any narrative to escape the influence of Classical Literature; due to the importance placed on their works over the centuries, the epic stories of Classical authors set up a sort of storytelling template for their audience over the centuries -- even today, you can't escape 12 years of basic education without running across something like The Iliad or The Odyssey."

Mackey reminds us that something does not have to be completely original to be good, which is a lesson we as writers should take to heart when reviewing our own work.

3. Retronauts Flashback: January 1990

It is always interesting to look back and reminisce about the past. Whether it be events, old photos, or even video games. The final paragraph of this article proves an important point in anybody's life:

The video game industry might be an entirely different world today, but as any good high school teacher will tell you, it is important to look back at our history so that we're not doomed to repeat it. Besides the obvious nostalgia trip a study like this brings, it also helps us learn a little bit more about ourselves and how far we've come."

While I agree that it is important to look back and not repeat past mistakes, I don't think anybody or anything can completely stop from repeating history.