and i am all the procrastinators’ ring leader.

it’s almost august and here i am, i only had one interview conducted for my thesis. i still have to write that japan trip and other things that i should have done eons ago but haven’t.
is this a manifestation of any psychological incapacity on my part? or i [...]

Walter Cronkite, “the Anchorman”, died of cerebrovascular disease at 92.
But he repeatedly condemned television practices that put entertainment values ahead of news judgment.
“Broadcast journalism is never going to substitute for print,” he said. “We cannot cover in depth in a half hour many of the stories required to get a good understanding of the world.” [...]

every three years i encounter forks on the road. forcing me to choose which route to take.

as i told my sister earlier, i am now left with two choices: be destitute and do something that i love or earn well but what i would be doing may not be my passion. finding the middle ground is hard these days. beggars cannot be choosers.

the impending overhaul at the office may not agree with me. i was rebelling against it last thursday, which explains my sloppy output. friday, i was a little bit more calm so my boss and i tried to think about it rationally (because we don’t have a choice).

but i guess i am only giving myself until next quarter until i figure out if i should bail out or not.

but then, why am i waiting until the next quarter? why can’t i just go NOW?

perhaps i am hoping for a miracle.

brooke shields said this is michael jackson’s favorite song. and if you read the lyrics, the song speaks volumes of the burden or the life he has lived.

poor guy.

*UPDATE: i have to correct a lot of things here. i wrote this in one go and didn’t bother to edit. [coz that's what i do everyday 'til evening, noh.]

how do you think people got their news about michael jackson’s death?

CNN? nhoooooo. Twitter. Facebook.

then they just went to cnn for validation.

netizens got their instant news fix through social networking sites and blogs since these tools do not have to be mediated by a roomfull of editors and other gatekeepers. in a matter of seconds. not hours, not days.

but since they have to be instant (as all things now are), fact-checking has only become secondary to these sites (i.e. blogs, social networking sites), resulting to a lot of erroneous stories like jeff goldblum’s death and other michael jackson stuff.

because of that, people went back to cnn for confirmation and/or correction of the speculations that went around.

in the end, people had to rely on traditional media for a more accurate view (i.e. factual reportage) of what was happening. so traditional media may still play a vital role in society for a while. in what form, i don’t know.

the news about the riots in tehran were reported via twitter since traditional media, esp. bbc, couldn’t penetrate the country. it gave the people around the world an insight on what was happening but then again the problem of accuracy and truthfulness still nags people and the traditional media.

as i’ve said in my old entry about bloggers vs journalists, the main difference between the two (and the advantage of traditional media over the other) is the gatekeeping element in traditional journalism.

i’m not saying that one is inferior over the other but the main point of this entry is that the two forms of media (i.e. new vs traditional) both have their own strengths and weaknesses and both should take advantage of each other’s strong points.

the changing face of philippine print media

but i have to tell you that the new media is forcing the way we consume news, thus traditional media have to should reformat to keep journalism alive.

that said, many in the local media are pushing now the envelope as far as they could go in terms of keeping up with the new media.

let me first cite what newsweek said in their editorial about reformatting the magazine. in their obama on obama issue, newspapers had to do more analytical or in-depth pieces to justify their existence since the role of coming out with spot news is already addressed by the internet and cable TV. so newspapers had to find their place(s) in the world.

to differentiate/separate themselves from what newspapers are doing, news magazines like newsweek had to reformat how they bring the news and what kind of news they should come out with. i say, they did away with the kooky celeb news and other pop culture shluck. (but Time is still doing it and funny, i find Time more fun to read even though i’m a newsweek subscriber).

there was a note of skepticism in newsweek’s editorial about what the newspapers are doing (i.e. going into magazine territory) by writing that, to paraphrase it, “there is only so much wisdom you can summon in a few hours on” a daily basis.

sooo true.

when doing special reports or analyses for my paper, i need at least a week to work on it. to do that on a daily basis is cruel to the journalist and to the news outfit itself. it strains the mind, resources and the editors, ergo, the news may come out as — well, can’t find the apt words for it but the closest thing that is on my mind now is half-baked.

on the local front, malaya had to reformat and had to put the back page in front, thus the birth of business insight. the manila times may reformat. they already started with the sunday edition about 2 3 years ago that was supposed to be devoted to special reports (but i have a mouthful to say about that but they’re for my coworkers’ and friends’ ears only).

philippine star had to come up with their own online real-time news site to compete with inquirer.net. i heard from an insider that businessworld is forcing their reporters to submit ‘breaking news’ also, to compete with pdi, star, gmanews.tv and abs-cbnnews.com. i don’t know about the other newspapers like manila standard today and business mirror.

in the philippines, money is still made via the hardcopy format (the advertising millions is still through those static ads) but you have to satisfy the people’s craving for instant news so you have to have that website and as much as possible it should be real-time. but it takes a lot of resources and journalists’ patience (if they’re still tapping the print reporters to do the online work) to be real-time. and in this current economic situation, i wonder how we could stretch ourselves to the limit.

but then, we couldn’t just rely on TMZ, twitter or facebook for news, right?

remember dilana from rockstar: supernova?

good thing she didn’t win the contest. apparently she’s doing better than the band that was supposedly named supernova. where are they and the emo lukas? kfffft. gone.