are wii fit?

Here’s one from our Jean Robinson. She does video production and has the Publication, Identity, and Communication portfolio at the United Church of Christ (they have an awesome website btw).  OC, Inc is the media justice arm of the UCC and Jean found this on their website:

Clearly, the eye-level placement of Count Choculas at the grocery store is direct, intentional communication with children of the electronic age. As Children Now reminds us “Children spend more time with the media than anything other activity, except for sleeping.” And this blog author for one is guilty of dreaming about food. How, then, does one raise healthy children in the electronic age?

To cut through the craziness, OC, inc. has organized a letter writing and petition campaign.  Go to this site. It’s worth a thought.

Do this, then go buy your kid a banana and scoot her outside.

Pulitzer Prize

Put it before them briefly so they will read it,
clearly so they will appreciate it,
picturesquely so they will remember it
and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.

– Joseph Pulitzer –

a word is worth a thousand pictures

CBS Studio, Chicago

“Give me the Liberty to know, to utter and argue freely according to my conscience above all other liberties.” – John Milton

Is it cold in here, or is it just me?

There can be no doubt that the quality of a response to a problem depends very much on the quality of and access to the coverage of it.  We as communicators have a unique obligation to the world – tell stories that don’t get told and tell them well.  The most important stories are often ones of discomfort, challenge, sacrifice, and oppression.

To this end, “more than 1,500 participants from 95 countries met June 21-23 to discuss “Climate Change and the Media.”  See the World Association for Christian Communication story here for more details.  There are narratives about climate change, some true, some false, some fall in between.

What do you do to brace yourself for controversial and challenging reporting? Are there any particular communication strategies that make things flow better for you?

@semiotics

Sometimes those shift + numeral symbols come in handy . . . and not just for dulling the impact of an expletive.

Where on earth did they all come from? Well, today’s symbol is the ubiquitous @.  Unlike, say, the $, or #, or *, the world would kinda grind to a halt if the trusty @ was obliterated all of a sudden. No more e-mails!

Origins? dunno.  How Stuff Works gives awesome examples of the names people have given to the English ‘at’ symbol. Check it –

• apestaart – Dutch for “monkey’s tail”
• snabel – Danish for “elephant’s trunk”
• kissanhnta – Finnish for “cat’s tail”
• klammeraffe – German for “hanging monkey”
• kukac – Hungarian for “worm”
• dalphaengi – Korean for “snail”
• grisehale – Norwegian for “pig’s tail”
• sobachka – Russian for “little dog”

And I have it on good authority that Quebecois refer to it as the “commercial A”, which I find terribly endearing . . .

wrong on so many levels

A snapshot from a library book on the relationship between violence and the nature of human nature.

What’s wrong with this picture?

(Besides that nothing about the highlighted sentence was cute, ironic, witty, or amusing)

e-mail, E-mail, email . . .

What one is it?

AP Stylebook is getting with the times and helping our kind through the grammatical foothills of this thing we call the Electronic Age. Help them get their New Media and Social Media sections together.

You should see some of the debates happening over there . . .

PS – Canucks will want to confer the Globe and Mail Style Book

today’s deadly sin? sloth

I think we all can admit that the Internet is making us lazy (lazier?).  So let’s just run with this and take it one step further.  You know how taxing it can be to go to your favourite site, find their little search box, type in your query, wait & sift . . . I’m bored just typing all this.

Here’s a hint. Go to Google, type your search followed by site: yoursite.com.  See the screen shot above for details. This helps you avail yourself of all the really helpful sorting options that Google gives you that other sites might not.  Filter out blogs, or videos, or straight up news. Set custom date ranges or just check out the last 24 hours. It’s all up to you.  Inspect the screen shot for details.

PS: Yeah, this post is a little Canadian centric (it’s favourite, not favorite and you can’t get more Canuck than CBC.ca), and even more Toronto centric (hey, my city was trashed. Indulge me).

What kind of cyber-sloth captivates you?

Community Media in Haiti

This is an excerpt from a WACC Global story. To read the full story, please click here.

Six months ago today, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti.  And the statistics continue to be, like the rubble that still dominates the city of Port-au-Prince, strewn across every article and headline: “Of the 1.5 million of Haitian displaced by the quake, only 28,000 have been re-housed , it would take three to five years to remove all the debris from Haiti if 1,000 or more tucks worked daily”.

Three of WACC’s partners, which are receiving help through WACC’s earthquake appeal – Rezo Fanm Radyo Kominote Ayisyen (Haitian Women’s Community Radio Network) REFRAKA, Sosyete Animasyon Kominikasyon Sosyal (Social Communication Animation Society) SAKS, andGroupe Medialternatif/Alterpresse – returned to the task of informing their fellow citizens using whatever means they had. In three videos shot by independent journalist and film maker Jane Regan during a recent visit to the country, these WACC partners speak about the future and their dreams for a new Haiti.

To watch one of the YouTube videos, please click here.

do unto otherz

Just threw the ‘z’ in there to get your attention.

There. I’ve got you.

Terry Mattingly said in a recent talk that journalists should never use a label on a group unless that group applies it to themselves.  He pointed out the gross misuse of the term ‘fundamentalists’ with respect to descriptions of Muslims in general.

Anything else stand out for you?