OK, then what happened?

In the mix of finger pointing about irresponsible bloggers and posts that only fed page views because of shock value, I've noticed that mainsteam media outlets have been just as guilty.

Case in point is a video clip from the front page of this morning's Chicago Tribune which takes you to the video of a woman falling in front of a train in Boston. The link simply says: "Raw video: Woman falls in front of oncoming train in Boston" and drops you off here without any background or follow up on the incident.

For any sort of in depth reporting, you'll need to surf to the Boston Globe web site, hunt around a bit and find a story about the train's conductor, who has been honored for stopping the train in time.

I have a problem with this setup. Primarily, with the mainstream media dismissing bloggers and smaller sites for not doing enough research or reporting and then turning around and doing something like this.

It's not OK to stamp a video as "Raw Video" and failing to provide any background whatsoever. When the link has more information (such as the location) than the video page, that's a major problem with the system.

I will be the first to admit that blogs as a whole are still rough around the edges and for a quick fix, many people will just click away to see a woman fall in front of a speeding train. Without any background, this is a little sketchy for my tastes as it's hard to defend posting something like that as newsworthy without any actual news attached.

When we hit a point that a major metropolitan newspaper is simply tossing out links without any background - and especially something as strangely compelling as this - it's time to consider where the web product went astray.

Especially in a city like Chicago, where the El plays such a major role in most people's daily lives, a video like this will certainly draw attention. However, without any sort of context it's a pretty blatant grab for eyeballs and does a lot of harm to any newspaper's only real commodity - the trust it has from its readers. When they start throwing up odd, macabre links like this without any deeper meaning, it gets hard and harder to justify that trust.

(Image from Boston.com)

We're not dumb, just choosy

A little over five years ago, the two major dailies in Chicago got into a turf war for the eyes and minds of the twentysomethings in the city.

The Tribune launched the Red Eye and the Sun-Times launched the Red Streak within weeks of each other, each screeching with shrill headline every morning. While some fresh content was added each day that was designed to appeal to the Lincoln Park crowd, most of it was the same content that appeared in the "real" paper, only pared down.

The message was pretty clear - "We don't think you have the attention span to digest the whole article, so enjoy this shorter version, dumbass."

I was not a happy panda when I saw what was happening.

On a particularly grumpy day, the Red Eye ran a small ad, asking for feedback in it's annoyingly snarky way. "Let us know what you really think," it said. "Go ahead, we can take it."

I sent an e-mail to let them know that I didn't appreciate being talked down to in print and that the problem wasn't the length of the stories, it was the content. In short, if they printed 100 or 1,000 words on steps for a healthy colon or on selecting the right retirement home, I wouldn't read either one.

They responded by offering me a spot on their reader panel.

After reading Frank the Tank's call to arms for readers of our generation, I'm filled with a renewed sense of outrage and a desire to help push content for my generation. It feels much like a space between hopefulness and a loss for where to begin.

Much like the traditional argument against the perceived liberal media bias - the reporters, while they may be liberal, are paid by a conservative old guard of ownership - I feel that newspapers today have a major blind spot with regards to what readers want and how they consume content.

Frank is correct in explaining how our generation consumes both hard news and celebrity fluff, but it goes beyond that. While people my age are now in editorial positions at the major papers nationwide, I imagine it's a hard sell on the content and budget side to craft better ways of delivering the stories.

I believe strongly that some of the most worthwhile content generated in the past half decade comes from the online departments, who piece together wonderful stories in a multimedia format. Pictures, audio and a splash of Flash do wonders for capturing moments and helping readers grasp the state of affairs in Darfur or understanding the emotions invovled with the post-Katrina mess.

While the major dailies are finally embracing these new ways of telling the story, they're a few years late to the party for my tastes. This isn't brand new technology, it just takes coaxing to get the big papers to engage in a degree of trailblazing.

So, where does this leave things?

Right where they've always been, with a little more "online only" content and the usual cut and paste jobs from the morning paper for the paper's web site. Breaking news can be added in a more timely manner, but I'm not seeing much innovation.

I read recently that both TV and print media are simply the competition for eyeballs to sell ad space and spoke to an AP reporter on tour this week who thinks that the smaller papers will lead the online revolution because of expense and the fact that they have long-standing ties with advertisers who will fund the switch.

My money is on history repeating itself - wait for the comet to strike and kill off all the dinosaurs which have grown too large to adapt.

(Image taken for Siberia, Minnesota)

The opposite of subtle

For those who don't live here in Chicago, you're missing out on a high-water mark of modern advertising.

I speak, of course, of the "Get Tested Chicago" campaign. Get tested for what? Genital-chomping STD's, silly!

At first, the ads were mildly shocking and kind of funny. Apparently, I've been missing the boat by not keeping a closer eye on the city's gay publications. I implore you to check out the full-sized version of the ad on the right.

It's only one ad campaign in a line of blunt force advertising here, which had expanded this week to include the automated voice on the city's bus and train lines telling riders that without help from the state, the bus they're on won't be operating at the end of January.

Right in between announcing stops and warning people about assaulting other riders or drivers is the announcement that the elderly should be prepared to start walking. I'm shocked that it's not coordinated to go off when the bus passes a shoe store or a bike shop.

It's something to think about as you're walking to the VD clinic.

The hunter becomes the hunted

There was a point in time where athletes - and for the sake of this post, baseball players - were pretty normal guys.

Before inflated salaries made "sports star" a high end profession on the pay scale, most players made a few thousand a year and lived comfortably, but not miles apart from a mechanic, baker or reporter.

I've read pieces that suggest players and reporters traveling together on the team's dime wasn't such a massive conflict of interest in the 30s and 40s because they were all in the same basic pay grade.

That's what was interesting about this interview that Deadspin - how do you categorize Will Leitch? Kingpin? Founder? Overlord? - writer Will Leitch did on ESPN Radio.

The question about Deadspin's Super Bowl coverage came up and Scott Van Pelt's assertion that ESPN's on-air talent was being stalked as the bloggers waited for them to screw up.

All of this is reminiscent of the change the sports world saw when players went from being categorized as athletes and became celebrities and entertainers.

Not so much fun, is it fellas?

I'd need a lot more space than would be interesting or worthwhile here to get into the whole dynamic and what I consider to be out of bounds - not that I have any great insight, I just have a lot of opinions.

There are a lot of other facets to the interview and larger discussion - mainly the emergence of Internet journalism versus it being a new format for knuckleheads to spew stupidity - but it seems that the years of peace and professional courtesy afforded by the established media are coming to an end.

(Image from: thecia.com.au)