There is no other exciting time to be in journalism, from a technology standpoint, than now. (Although the fear of layoffs does not sit well.). To witness newsrooms transition to mobile, social media and digital-first platforms, and be there on the frontlines of it all, is exactly where agents of change need to be. We are part of history. Not looking in from the outside. Not being critical of the news media 24-7, although I do this quite regularly. But in it. Making decisions that stick or fail. I get goose bumps just thinking about this.

Amy Zerba, amyzerba.com. Difference Between Tenure-Track Professor and a Journalist.

She just left her job teaching to join the Times. Sounds like she can justify that decision.

(via futurejournalismproject)

LSU Basketball: A Tiger Win Against Marquette Promises an Impressive Season

By Josh Bergeron for Bleacher Report 

Let me start by getting something off my chest. If the LSU Tigers beat No. 11 Marquette on Monday, they will make the NCAA tournament.

Now that my prediction is out of the way, I believe some explanation is necessary. 

Basketball and LSU do not often go hand-in-hand. Marcus Thornton and Tazmin Mitchell are LSU’s most recent memories of basketball. However, Trent Johnson may have started a basketball revival at LSU. Fans were able to get excited for the first time in years last season with the addition of Ralston Turner, who regularly scored 20 points per game until he was injured.

This year, Johnson added guards Anthony Hickey and John Issac as well as four-star center Johnny O’Bryant. These additions have had an immediate impact and Johnson has already secured another four-star recruit in regard to next year. 

At 7-3 the Tigers are nothing to shake a stick at, but they have not entered the upper echelon of college basketball, yet.

Read the rest on Bleacher Report.

Rise of the robot journalists

My journalism career began when I joined the staff of my high school newspaper during freshman year. Three years later, I was named sports editor - a curious choice, since I neither knew nor cared much about sports.

Never one to be deterred by ignorance, I prepared for basketball season by taking the sports sections of Tampa’s two daily newspapers and jotting down samples of basketball lingo. After perusing several articles, I knew two dozen ways to describe the act of making a basket.

It took me a lot longer to understand that good writing required more than stringing clichés together.

A lifetime later, I now realize I could have been replaced by a computer. The New York Times reported recently that artificial intelligence is being used to compose news stories.

Before anyone challenges the premise that journalism and intelligence should be linked in the same sentence, let me elaborate:

According to The Times, a firm in Evanston, Ill., has created a program that takes data, such as sports statistics or building permits, and turns them into readable articles. The technology has been employed by the Big Ten Conference and Fox Networks for short summaries of baseball and softball games since last year.

For years, the article explained, programmers had tried to create software for basic articles, but the results tended to follow a fill-in-the-blank format and read as if they had been written by R2-D2.



Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/24/3157815/commentary-rise-of-the-robot-journalists.html#ixzz1YuUHZSps


Cool email

Hey doods. Josh B here. So I got an email today. It was pretty exciting. Wanna read it? Ok, here you go!

Hey Josh, 
My name is Sean Swaby, I’m the Featured Columnist Coordinator here at Bleacher Report. I’m writing because you expressed interest in writing about LSU—or at least listed the Tigers of a team of interest—in your writing application. 
Aside from the fact that your writing sample was already impressive, we’re actively on the lookout for LSU Featured Columnists as we enter football season. If the Featured Columnist (FC) program is something you’re interested in, I can follow up with some additional information about what’s expected of our featured writers along with some of the perks of becoming an FC. I’d love to get you on the fast track to have your work more prominently featured. 
If you’re interested, let me know and we can get the ball rolling from there. Of course, feel free to fly any other questions my way and I’d be happy to help. Looking forward to hearing from you. 
Best, Sean 


Why Legalize Marijuana now?

Before you begin to read this, let me say that none of this writing is mine I read it here.  I do not condone the use of illegal drugs nor do I partake in the use of drugs, but I do think that Marijuana could be a huge economic boost to the economy if used in the right way — at this point I am not going to express my opinion on the medical and health benefits/consequences.

____________________________________________________

Suddenly the world is abuzz with talk about legalizing marijuana and other drugs. Political candidates, politicians, former presidents, interest groups, and even the Global Commission on Drug Policy are all calling for drug-policy reform. Given that we are in a worldwide economic and fiscal crisis, why is everyone interested in drug policy? Have we all suddenly regained our senses and realized that prohibition is irrational?

No, the more important reason for the interest in this issue is economic sense. Drug prohibition is a burden on taxpayers. It is a burden on government budgets. It is a burden on the criminal-justice system. It is a burden on the healthcare system. The economic crisis has intensified the pain from all these burdens. Legalization reduces or eliminates all of these burdens. It should be no surprise that alcohol prohibition was repealed at the deepest depths of the Great Depression.

Two Republican presidential candidates, former governor Gary Johnson and Congressman Ron Paul, support legalization. Ron Paul and Barney Frank have introduced legislation that would allow the states to legalize marijuana without federal interference. Former president Jimmy Carter recently published an editorial in the New York Times calling for an end of the global war on drugs, a position he has held since he was president.

Finish reading this post here from the Ludwig von Mises Institute.