Frank Michael Russell

Brazil: Globalization, Digital Media, and a Nation's Olympic Challenge

In an increasingly globalized world, rapid economic growth has brought attention to four BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China.  While these countries have been grouped together since a Goldman Sachs report on emerging economies in 2001 (Lemann, 2011), they each have their own cultures, politics, and financial strengths and weaknesses. 

Brazil will take its place on the world stage in the next few years as host of the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympic Games in 2016.  The country—South America’s largest both by population and land size—will have a chance to show whether it has matured into a major Latin American and global power.

Storytelling in the Digital Age: ‘Being There’ with Kapuściński and Herodotus

In Travels with Herodotus, Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński alternated between two compelling narratives—passages from Herodotus’ The Histories, culminating with the tragic conflict between the Persians and the Greeks, and his own travels as a foreign correspondent in India, China, and countries in Africa. 

Although separated by many centuries, Kapuściński and Herodotus used journalistic approaches to crafting narrative text.  Their stories took on a dramatic, cinematic quality.  Kapuściński discovered a world beyond Poland in the Cold War era.  Herodotus documented an epic tragedy that ended with the downfall of a great ancient empire.

In both narratives, readers discover new worlds through the eyes of Kapuściński and Herodotus.  For this reader, Travels with Herodotus benefited from the use of two screens.  The book itself was read on a tablet computer with Amazon.com’s Kindle software, while a laptop was used to search on the Internet for characters in Herodotus’ Histories and for the settings of Kapuściński’s travels. 

In a digital age, narrative text still can be a compelling storytelling choice.  However, today’s journalists can choose among—or combine—numerous other storytelling tools.  This essay examines five media tools that could enhance the story for a journalist retracing the two writers’ travels: film, personal narratives, interactive maps, social media, and blended multimedia.

A Robot’s World: After Outsourcing, Offshoring, and "The World is Flat"

In The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman (2007) argued that 10 political and technological forces—most notably, outsourcing and offshoring—have flattened our planet. 

Globalization supporters have contended that these trends have increased wealth throughout the world.  However, other economists have responded that globalization has not been without its costs, among them short-term disruption for workers whose jobs have been moved overseas and an increased use of energy from fossil fuels that has exacerbated the problem of climate change. 

Finally, moving beyond the trends that Friedman identified in The World is Flat, technological development might bring permanent displacement for many of the world’s workers. 

In this next wave of innovation, robots would manufacture many products, taking the jobs of human employees here in the United States and overseas in countries such as China.

Social Media, SEC Football, and the Missourian ICE Desk

This post was originally published at the Reynolds Journalism Institute blog.

With the Missouri Tigers joining the Southeastern Conference, we knew the 2012 football season was going to be big.

Probably the first question that many Tigers fans had was: Could Missouri compete against big-name SEC teams such as the Alabama Crimson Tide, the Georgia Bulldogs and the Florida Gators?

At ColumbiaMissourian.com, a Craving for Online Olympics Coverage

This post was published originally on the Columbia Missourian's The Transition blog.

Our nightly Olympic Highlights aggregation feature has been very popular with readers at ColumbiaMissourian.com, so I want to share some Google Analytics traffic data. Here are page views so far, excluding readers from the Missourian newsroom:

July 29: 2,829 (the most popular story on the site since the Olympics began)

July 28: 1,832

July 31: 1,034

July 30: 830

Aug. 2: 475

Aug. 1: 365

Aug. 4: 271

Aug. 3: 213

This nightly feature has been produced by editors on the Missourian's interactive copy editing (or ICE) desk.

Copy Editors Can Be Web Content Creators

This post was originally published at the Columbia Missourian's The Transition blog.

I'm proud of the aggregated content Columbia Missourian journalists have created over the past two semesters on our interactive copy editing desk.

As the news industry tries to find its way toward a successful transition from print-oriented to "digital first" thinking, it's tempting to view copy editors as a costly budget line rather than a valuable resource.

Other journalists, including American Copy Editors Society President Teresa Schmedding, have defended our profession by showing that copy editors create value for news organizations. Copy editors can be skilled at writing focused, SEO-friendly online headlines. They catch errors that can save publications from costly libel suits.

As research by Fred Vultee of Wayne State University has demonstrated, readers appreciate our efforts. They notice the difference between edited and unedited copy. In particular, copy editors' work can make a difference in perceptions of liberal or conservative bias in our news stories.

Copy editors are also skilled at aggregating content. We've been doing that for decades by creating index material and packages of wire news briefs for print newspapers. In the digital-first environment, we can create similar material that can be posted as valuable, reader-friendly online content.

Media, Innovation and Current Events | A&T, Aereo, Yelp, Zynga

AT&T is changing the definition of “unlimited” for its unlimited data plans, according to a Los Angeles Times story. The company now will slow down data transmission for 3G customers who exceed 3 gigabytes of data a month and for 4G LTE customers after 5GB.

Media, Innovation and Current Events | Health Costs, L.A. Times Paywall, Facebook

An Internet startup in Santa Monica is offering a new website that makes it easier to compare prices on prescription drugs, according to a column by David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times. GoodRx lets consumers type in their location and the name of a medication to get prices from several pharmacies.

Media, Innovation and Current Events | Washington Post, iPad Ads, Demand Media

 

Newspapers have struggled in the past decade in the transition from print to digital media. A New York Times article this week examined The Washington Post’s effort to protect its reputation for high-quality journalism while drawing readers to its website.

 

Media, Innovation and Current Events | LinkedIn's 'Freemium' Success; Plus: News Video, a Smaller iPad?

LinkedIn’s fourth-quarter earnings report this week demonstrated the value of a “freemium” model for information businesses. LinkedIn, like other networking websites, has attracted a large number of members — about 150 million, according to the earnings news release — by offering its basic service for free. The Mountain View, Calif., company makes most of its money by selling access to its large, easily targetable audience to employment recruiters and advertisers.