Too much to do

This week I had the distinct pleasure of talking on the phone with Steve Buttry. He is the director of community engagement and social media for Digital First Media. Digital First Media used to be known as the Journal Register Company and it owns a bunch of news properties in the Northeast and beyond. Steve is a well-known innovator in the journalism world and often speaks to industry groups about his experience with the hyperlocal news startup TBD.com and other ventures.

I wanted to talk to Steve about why I am so damn busy. Actually, I wanted to pick his brain about ways to deal with the ever-increasing workload we all feel as journalists in the 21^st century. Why bother an even busier guy with a question like that? Well, because, Steve is presenting a webinar titled “Managing your Changing Workload.” (It’s from 1 to 2 p.m., CST, Feb. 10, and it would be $35 well spent.)

Newspapermen and women have always worked at break-neck speed. It’s just that we did far fewer things in the not-so old days. We used our time to obsess over comma splices and AP style. We still do that, but now we have to update the Web, tweet game results, write blogs that add nuance to our coverage, upload videos, moderate comments, curate user generated content… Obviously, something’s got to give. …

In praise of dictionaries

I know this is going to sound painfully 1973, but I still love my big ol’ dictionary.

Look, more often than not, I Google words too. If I’m in the middle of editing something on our server, I’m very likely to go online and type the word to see if I’m spelling it correctly. Sometimes it’s easier than reaching for the old Webster’s fourth edition.

But I realized today that I like that big, heavy book-version of the dictionary for much the same reason I like printed newspapers: Both of those old standbys teach me things I did not know I wanted to learn.

Example: Today I was editing a story and came to a full stop at “taxicab.” I didn’t know whether it was one word or two. So I reached onto the shelf and looked it up. Probably took 30 seconds or so. I’m guessing that is 10 seconds more than it would have taken to look it up online. The image you see with this post is pretty much what I saw.

Taxi dancer? Have you ever heard of a taxi dancer? …

On SOPA and Wiki

If you hadn’t heard of the Stop Online Privacy Act or its companion, PIPA (no, not the English princess), before Jan. 18, you likely had after you tried to see that Wikipedia page on the Absolutely Fabulous Housewives of New York City. The Internet hiccupped that day and it seemed like a big deal, didn’t it?

I may be a bit out of my depth here, but here’s my take: The battle boils down to a tussle between big-money outfits in Hollywood and Silicon Valley and those on both sides are more interested in making money than preserving Internet freedom or intellectual property rights. In other words, I think there is room for compromise and both are being more than a little disingenuous as to their motives.

But forget all that for a moment. How did you do without Wikipedia that day?

I bet you did just fine. Journalists have flourished for hundreds of years before there was an online encyclopedia. We weren’t about to fold up because the dang thing was down for a day. But what if you awoke to a world without Wikipedia? …