Well, despite the career change, I do keep my ear to the ground for new media tools. Right now, I’m interested in Stupeflix, a really simple to use audio-slide show tool that lets you create seamless videos in Flash and for YouTube in a matter of minutes.

While Stupeflix is definitely more useful for your average user than to professional journalists (to whom I strongly recommend Soundslides), I will say that Stupeflix is quite innovative: It provides a simple and speedy API to process images, sounds, and other components into videos with relatively complex visual effects (complex for a Web app, anyway). Furthermore, the API allows users to create content and applications quickly and easily for the Web as well as Apple’s iPhone.

Lastly, the interface is so clean and simple that even a Web novice would have little trouble generating content and getting it onto YouTube.

Here’s a video I made with pictures of my new puppy. All told, it took me about 10 minutes (including interruptions).

Ahh, the World Wide Web. It’s a marvel of modern technology, to be sure. And like the steam engine and the jet engine before it, the Web-based search engine has allowed man to explore the vast reaches of the world around him–and the many worlds beyond.

Furthermore–ah, forget it. All I wanted to say was OMG CHECK OUT THIS CRAZY PARKING JOB OUTSIDE MY GYM!!!!12$@!~

Nice Job, Jerk Outside My Gym!

Because, why render just one handicap parking spot useless when you can screw with both?

Parking. FAIL!!!

The headline says it all. My multimedia journalism student, Ashlie Anctil, is streaming live from spring break at Walt Disney World. The show begins at 3:45 p.m., EST.

Online TV Shows by Ustream

Kudos to Steve Garfield and my student, Nick, for this great on-the-fly chat about new media tools for journalists. Steve interviewed Nick today during the discussion section immediately following our class. You can listen to the clip right here:

Using only his cell phone, Steve had the above report and Nick’s picture online and ready to be viewed within minutes. Now it’s just six hours later, and so far more than 120 people have listened to the file.

If you’re interested in doing this kind of reporting yourself (as any self-respecting multimedia journalist should be) you should check out Utterli. With tools like this available all over the Web, there’s no excuse for any reporter with a decent cell to miss out on breaking news.

In other news, here’s my only contribution to cell-phone reporting today:

In my grocery store’s organic freezer section–right above the soy ice cream and next to the chocolate-covered frozen bananas–is the Yoghund, a yogurt treat formulated just for your dog. Yummy. Or should I say “yuppie”? (I also have a close-up shot of the text. I took both of these images with my iPhone and posted them via the iPhone WordPress application, which I once reviewed here.)

There’s an “Angry Journalist” (specifically Angry Journalist #8010) out there who has come up with an interesting solution for preventing bloggers from stealing his/her content (let’s just say “his” for the sake of simplicity). Of course, by “interesting” I mean “insane,” but more on that later. Here’s what he writes:

I’m angry that nobody wants to hear my simple solution to the ‘they’re stealing our work’ problem. Here it is: Instead of posting stories online as HTML text, which can be read by search engines and copied-and-pasted by anyone, just convert the text to an watermarked image of the text. It would appear no different to the reader (except for the watermark, which could include a copyright notice), but nobody could copy the text (to paste elsewhere) because it would be a .jpg or .gif file and not text. If they copy/paste the text-image then the watermark and copyright notice have to go along for the ride. Search engines couldn’t read it without OCR processing, which they wouldn’t do (except for the largest major market papers) because that’s processor-intensive and they’re rather just steal from the next source than go to the trouble of transcribing yours. Problem solved (no charge).

In short, AJ8010 wants all copy text to appear as an image on his Web site, thus preventing search engines (and the people who use them) from finding them. In a later post, he writes:

If I want my stories cataloged by a search engine so they’ll send hits my way to read my stories and SEE MY ADS, then I’ll gladly send them a feed of tags in whatever format they need. They all have back doors for that purpose. But bloggers won’t be able to steal my text and reuse it without my ads because there won’t be any machine-readable text at the deep links I provide to the search engines.

Now on to why I think this journalist is barking up the wrong tree: Not only will bloggers be able to embed his JPEGed articles onto their blogs as he notes (still bypassing his ads for their readers), but he obviously has no real understanding of how search engines work.

Here are a few points I think he should consider:


Angry Journalist image courtesy of Gawker.

1. Bloggers will almost always cite where they get their news. Most people want to validate their arguments by saying things like “Hey, see? This was in the Times!” Also, though perhaps to a lesser extent, no one wants to take the blame for writing something that’s potentially inaccurate or controversial, so they give credit where credit is due. If anything, bloggers might end up driving more traffic to AJ8010’s site, particularly traffic that wouldn’t have gone there to begin with. Why pass up free advertising?
2. If bloggers are such a threat that their actions are noticeably taking away from his readership, AJ8010 should spend this time and energy trying to figure out why he and his news site aren’t getting more traffic. The key is to entice people to read your articles, not punish the few who were so enticed they decided to post your work on their own blogs. Logic dictates that people would prefer to read the news from the source, and not just from a blogging “middleman.” So if a blogger intrigues his or her readers with your work, those readers will eventually go to your site.
3. Search engine optimization: Let’s look at Google because it’s the big dog right now. Google’s algorithms still read meta tags, page titles, and URLs, but they put huge value on what’s visible on a page because that’s what readers want and because that’s what readers will see. If there is no or little text available with the article, Google will simply throw it out. Also, even if Google keeps the article, its ranking in a search will be lowered considerably because so many important key words from the article have now disappeared. (If you’re one of my students, you’ll remember my discussing all of this during our talk on search engine optimization. If you’re not one of my students, you can read a quick overview in the Week 2 lecture.)
4. What about visually impaired readers who require larger fonts, or the blind who use text-to-audio software to get their news?
5. By passive-aggressively only posting articles as JPEGs, AJ8010 will only end up sending whatever readers he has left away from his news site. People expect a certain freedom on the Web. If they don’t get it, they go elsewhere. Even if AJ8010 writes for a small-town paper, there are surely other regional papers or those from neighboring towns that wouldn’t mind absorbing his online readership. Print is suffering and newspapers are hungry.

All in all, I suspect AJ8010 is only going to hurt his readership. But what do you think? Does he have a case? On one hand, we’ve seen extensive digital rights management in the realm of music and movies–why not print? On the other, we’re now seeing a trend away from DRM, particularly with iTunes because DRM only really hinders those who buy music or DVDs legally–those who take these things illegally always find a way to get around DRM.

So, what do you think?

The Associated Press reported today that Joe The Plumber is headed to Israel to serve as a war correspondent for the conservative Web site Pajamas TV. In the off chance you don’t remember, Joe (actually Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) gained national fame during election season when he asked President-elect Barack Obama about his tax plan. The McCain camp used a clip of the unflattering Q&A in an arguably well-fought attempt to gain support during the campaign’s final weeks.

As for Joe’s recent news, he plans to spend 10 days (and perhaps the rest of his 15 minutes) covering the Israel-Gaza conflict. His angle? Letting “‘Average Joes’ share their story.”

Now, I like the concept of reporting on Israelis’ daily lives and how war affects the average citizen. And, as a multimedia journalist, I also like the idea of regular citizens getting involved. The Web–including social networking sites, CNN’s iReport, Fox’s UReport, and blogs–has changed what it means to even be a journalist. It has grayed the line between “professional journalism” (e.g. the Associated Press) and “citizen journalism” (e.g., someone’s uncle’s blog on local UFO sightings or any other instance where non-professionals collect, report, analyze and disseminate news and information).

For better or worse, there is no Hippocratic oath for us in the media. And as much as I love my Society of Professional Journalists membership card, it’s not a license. Any argument against average citizens reporting the news is purely opinion-based. Surely any citizen, if he or she reports the truth, is a better journalist than Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair were in the end.

On the flip-side of things, I admit that I am more than a little uncomfortable at the prospect of Joe the War Reporter. To say the Israeli-Gaza conflict is a “serious topic” would be a gross understatement, and so I’ve got a lot of concerns: Does Joe have any journalistic training? Will he be fair to all parties involved in the conflict? Does he know the difference between objectivity and editorializing, and does he care? Will anyone be there to fact-check his work?

I’m leaving this one up to you guys. What do think about this issue? You don’t have to be a journalist to fill out this poll. In fact, I’m hoping to get a healthy mix of responses. If you do choose to take the poll, please elaborate upon your answer in the comments section.

Generally speaking, is citizen journalism a viable news source? (That is, do the pros outweigh the cons?) Yes No Not Sure

Note: I could be completely wrong to attach a time limit to Joe’s fame–a lot of Americans really seem to love him. Considering his personality and political leanings, he could wind up being the next Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly, after all, didn’t start out as a reporter either.

If there’s a cancer drug innovation coming down the pike anywhere in the world, you can bet the best oncologists know about it. This same devotion to education holds true for many lawyers, software developers, and any other talented soul who knows that what he learned in college could quickly become obsolete.

Now, it looks like journalists–once notorious for their distrust of new media and the blogosphere–are finally stepping up and accepting that one can’t be a Walter Cronkite or a Bob Woodward if one’s audience is disappearing. And that’s exactly what’s happening. According to a report last week from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, the internet has overtaken newspapers as a leading source of news. Considering the Web’s noticeable jump in popularity even since the 2007 survey, it is not unreasonable to think that television news could be the next victim. Not only does this same survey show television and the internet in a neck-and-neck race for audiences under thirty, but Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that virtually every media sector apart from the internet is slowly losing Americans’ attention.

Each year, the Project for Excellence in Journalism publishes a report on the The State of the News Media. This year’s report includes a survey of 500 journalists on what some fear is a dying profession. Here’s are some of the findings:

Journalists have become markedly more pessimistic about the future of their profession. But their concerns are taking a distinctly new turn. Rather than worrying as much about quality, they are now focused on economic survival. And in that new focus, we see signs of new openness to change.

Journalists are ready — even eager — to embrace new technologies. They think a range of new digital activities, from blogs to citizen media, are good for journalism. They even think, by 2 to 1, that splitting their time across multiple platforms is a positive change rather than a problem that is taking time from their reporting or spreading them thin. These are all attitudes hard to imagine a few years ago.

…

[L]ook inside what journalists say and they are largely optimistic about what technology brings to the craft. When asked to name what in particular they see as the industry’s strengths, those naming adapting to Web more than tripled among national journalists and increased ten-fold among those at the local level. And near the top of the list are two direct results of technology — timeliness and speed. About one in five name these as something the industry is doing especially well.

The emphasis above is mine. My master’s thesis actually focused on media convergence in student, professional, and mixed newsrooms from 2004-2006. I won’t summarize all 157 pages here, but I will note that as objective as I tried to be, my most frustrating finding was that the biggest roadblocks to creating multimedia newsrooms were the journalists themselves. The old rivalries among print and broadcast people were as rabid as ever, and few of the hardliners had any respect for the Web as a medium (or, more accurately, a vessel for media). I found that perplexing. I’ve always been interested in getting my fingers into all media, so what was up with these curmudgeons being so adversarial?

Well, part of the reason was fear. The term “convergence,” which has since fallen out of use and has found its way to buzzword heaven (or hell), has unfortunate ties to failed efforts to force journalists to do things that made them feel uncomfortable. The idea at a lot of these newsrooms was basically, “we want our journalists to be all-in-one reporters!” I don’t need to explain the potential for disaster when you send a reporter out to be his own cameraman during a hurricane, and I doubt I need to explain how scary it is for a lot of writers–no matter how good-looking–to speak into a lens, knowing that there’s no backspace key for a misspoken word.

Managers came to these journalists with nonsensical figures and charts on paper, trying to convince them that by taking on extra tasks they didn’t initially sign up for (or want to do, or know how to do), they would make their media conglomerations’ market shares skyrocket.

It wasn’t a convincing argument.

A lot of reporters quit their jobs in search of papers and stations that would allow them to flourish in their specific crafts.

But now, with the economy at a low and with so many news organizations cutting jobs, reporters have an even greater fear to worry about: their viability in a market saturated with unemployed talent. And while the circumstances for this new-found acceptance of the Web are less than ideal, the push for journalists to educate themselves on new technologies will surely have lasting long-term benefits for both content creators and consumers.

I can’t stress enough the importance of continuing one’s education even when gainfully employed. I’m convinced that my side-projects during graduate school are what got me my first “real job,” a great gig as a multimedia journalist for an internationally broadcast TV show. And now that this position has ended, I’m equally convinced that it was not just my work there but also my side-projects here and elsewhere that brought me the chance to teach multimedia journalism at Boston University starting this spring.

Over the next few months, I intend to learn more about the development aspect of multimedia journalism (specifically ActionScript and other elements of Flash). How about you?

(Originally published October 9, 2008)

There’s a strange garden just outside of Boston that’s been grabbing a lot of attention lately. It’s called “Cross Into the Abyss,” and like most things people put any effort into these days, it even has a Web presence. I recently completed an audio/stills piece on the Abyss, which you can see in all its overly compressed glory below. I plan to upload a higher-res version of the file to News-Geek fairly soon.

The goal here was to take a low-budget, NPR-esque/”This American Life” stab at a feature story. I wanted to cover something quirky and interesting. But while these pieces are fun, they can also prove challenging:

- How do you know that what’s interesting to you will interest your audience? Unlike hard-news pieces, features don’t necessarily justify themselves.
- How quirky can quirky be before it becomes crazy? That is, will your audience laugh at you for doing serious or semi-serious pieces on topics they might find… comical?
- Are you introducing bias simply by choosing your angle? Let’s say you want to do a story on how, when Timmy Smith and his parents took in a five-legged dog, the animal changed their lives for the better and made them all kinder, gentler human beings. But what if they all hate the poor mutt and simply can’t find anyone else to take him in? Pick your angle, but be willing to change it (or even your entire story) if the facts don’t fit the idea.

“Crossing into the Abyss” video, images, and audio (unless otherwise noted) © 2008 by Rima Chaddha-Mycynek. Two images from Post Secret and music performed by Piano Tribute Players used under fair use and not intended for profit.

(Originally published May 17, 2008)

I was interviewed last week for a feature in Mississippi’s largest-circulation newspaper, The Clarion Ledger. LaReeca Rucker contacted me for the piece, which was to focus on the increasing popularity of personalized products, when she learned that I had used HeadBobble.com to create Bobblehead versions of my fiancé (Steve) and myself. You can read my brief commentary on love, personalization, and the fun of bobbles below, but first here’s the article:

Getting personal: Products touting individuality appeal to the masses
LaReeca Rucker
lrucker@jackson.gannett.com

Ole Miss graduate Rima Chaddha and her fiance, Steve Mycynek, are fans of the NBC television show The Office and the show’s quirky characters, Dwight and Angela.

Click on either image to enlarge

“One year for Valentine’s Day, Angela gets Dwight the perfect gift - a mini bobblehead of himself,” said Chaddha, who did the same as a first dating anniversary gift for Steve.

Using photographs submitted to HeadBobble.com, customized figurines were created that look eerily similar to the couple. Mycynek holds a golf club, and Chaddha, who studies ninjitsu, wears a martial arts uniform.

Despite her effort to find the perfect gift, Mycynek topped Chaddha’s offering, presenting something a little more personal - an engagement ring.

Today, it’s all about (insert your name here.) Americans are getting personal with products, and you can find everything from customized Bobbleheads to DNA portraits.

Several Mississippi businesses allow customers to showcase their individuality. The Jackson store Fresh Ink offers personalized stationary, decals, towels, money clips and a variety of bags that can be monogrammed.

“We even have cutting boards with initials,” said manager Allison Ertz.

Emily Hassel, manager of the Jackson store Turkoyz, said engraved initial necklaces are popular.

“A lot of movie stars are wearing them,” she said. “They were in the new movie 27 Dresses. Catherine Heigl was wearing a ‘J’ for Jane.”

Stacy Stovall, owner of the Jackson store Monogram Magic, said she bought the business nine years ago when it was a luxury to have an item monogrammed, and since then, the demand has steadily risen.

Click on either image to enlarge

“It does make a $5 gift look like a $25 gift,” she said, adding that the store carries personalized car mats, among other products.

“When I saw the car mats, I thought, ‘What will they come up with next?’ ”

At MyKleenexTissue.com, you can upload a photo and create a customized box of Kleenex for $4.99 plus shipping. M&Ms offers custom-printed candies. NikeID.com lets you be the shoe designer. Clinique offers perfume bottles featuring your favorite pictures. And at ColorWarepc.com, you can customize your computer, gaming console, digital music player, cell phone and other products.

Adrian Salamunovic, 32, co-founded DNA 11 three years ago with friend Nazim Ahmed, a 31-year-old geneticist. They started their business in a 600-square-foot apartment in Canada and now operate a multimillion business selling DNA, Fingerprint and KISS Portraits to 52 countries and all 50 states.

Salamunovic saw a brochure of technical DNA images, thought they resembled modern art, and an idea was born. He asked Ahmed to “take a picture” of his own genetic code, and a new personalized product soon hit the market.

The company also creates lip and fingerprint portraits that resemble Andy Warhol pop art. You can even send a copy of your signature, and they’ll add it to the piece.

“The art is very now, very modern and it’s very personal,” Salamunovic said. “Whether it’s the DNA of a loved one or a pet, that’s what makes it so unique.”

Personalization is about distinguishing yourself from the pack, Salamunovic said.

“We’ve really noticed an interesting trend,” he said. “What’s happening is, in the world of cookie-cutter homes and generic cars in suburbia, people are trying to differentiate themselves from one another.

“The bigger and more compact the city, where you’ve got thousands of people stacked on top of each other, the more we sell.”

Chaddha, who lives in Boston where she produces Web content for the PBS science television shows NOVA and NOVA scienceNOW, understands the trend.

“We’re saturated with things to buy, and the variety we’re offered is insane,” she said. “Remember how the first iPods were all white, but not the bright white we see today? Now each of the several varieties of iPods has its own line of colors.

“I think people get addicted to that. Everyone wants to stand out. And why not?

“To get philosophical, I think it gives some people more of a sense of identity … Once you have everything, the next step seems to be ‘How can I be different?’”

The extended version of what I told Rucker is basically this: I feel that personalized gifts aren’t limited to (yet certainly cater to) a very specific demographic–people who are young, professional, and who have fewer worries in life compared to those with families and more prominent financial burdens. They tend to live in cities in similar buildings with similar amenities, and they tend to have similar hobbies and interests. (For a tongue-in-cheek list of these hobbies and interests, see Stuff White People Like. One interest is irony, hence the racially exclusive name of the site.) It seems that once you have “everything,” the only thing left to do is to stand out, lest ennui set in. Think Edward Norton’s character in Fight Club, only taken down a notch.

As for the American version of The Office, anyone fan can tell you that neither Dwight nor Angela is the epitome of love, romance, or feelings in general, at least on his or her own. As the more likable character, Pam, put it when talking about Angela’s decision to date another Office nuisance named Andy: “Angela and Andy might actually make a good couple… but I couldn’t do that to Dwight. Or Angela… or Andy.”

But here’s the kicker: In the scenes where it was just the two of them, Dwight and Angela made a great couple. Their affection for one another came through in a very real way, at least for prime-time TV. And it reminded me of the sweet “secrets” that so many close couples have–their inside jokes, their stolen glances, even their pet names (Badger and Monkey, in this case). Love is a very raw emotion. It can be as cruel as it is magical. But it is, in my humble view, a feeling and an experience to be cherished.

And so, the bobbleheads. I had ours made for Steve because I admired the way these two characters were able to portray the honesty of love, and because I knew that Steve felt the same way.

Technorati Profile

[CLICK FOR THE AUDIO VERSION OF THIS INTRODUCTION: (Nov182005.mp3--00:01:14)]
This is News-Geek.com with a digital audio update:

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) began his two-day stint and the University of Mississippi yesterday with a press conference for less than ten journalists from across the region. As you can hear in the audio file linked below, the conference was brief, yet informative.

Speaking at the beginning of the recording is Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss), who provided his own insights on issues brought up during the conference.

As you will hear, the first question is a strong one–it points to that morning’s newspaper reports of democrat and Pennsylvania Representative Jack Murtha’s call for Congress, the military and President Bush to bring United States troops home from Iraq.

McCain says both he and Lott, “respectfully disagree” with Murtha’s demands, and then goes on to explain why it is unfeasible to bring the troops home so soon.

Both McCain and Lott then go on to answer other questions on topics such as the high stakes war on terror, as well as on Bush’s nomination of conservative judge Sam Alito for the United States Supreme Court.

McCain ends the conference with a discussion of blogs, as well as one of his favorite topics–internet fundraising.

And in sports news, News-Geek’s sympathies go out to Senators Lott and McCain, as it looks as though Ole Miss football has seen yet another defeat this season. Thanks a lot, LSU.

[CLICK FOR THE PRESS CONFERENCE: (Nov182005pressc.mp3--00:14:48)]

John McCain is the man to watch in 2005 and beyond. While he never admitted to a possible presidential bid for 2008, he more importantly did not deny the possibility that he might run. A moderate who calls himself a republican, McCain is beloved by many on the right, the left and in between as a statesman and leader.

His record on most issues is mixed. For example, while he did not support same-sex marriages in 2000, he did say that he would be comfortable with a homosexual president in office. Likewise, while he did not support the Kyoto Accord on international emissions standards, he also voted no on drilling at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in Alaska. Moreover, he voted yes on developing 100,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles by 2010, and 2.5 million of these by 2020 (Bill S.14; vote number 2003-212 on June 10th, 2003).

A republican with the political blood of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt coursing through his veins, McCain is unafraid of working against party lines, as could also be seen last year when he was one of 58 senators to sign a letter to President Bush, urging him to work with Congress and researchers in the realm of embryonic stem cell research. The letter requested that all 78 lines be made available to researchers, as they only have 19 to work with right now. All 19 are contaminated with mouse feeder cells (Letter to the President 04-SEN8, June 4th 2004).

Soon after this press conference, Sen. McCain, along with Sen. Lott and Chancellor Robert Khayat, made the short journey to the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, also on the University of Mississippi campus. During this time, he delved further into the war in Iraq, as well as a number of other topics (as can be seen here and here).

I had planned initially to bring you, my dear reader(s), recordings of both this conference and Sen. McCain’s address to the public, which followed directly.

However, before I explain what happened, let me share with you a brief morality tale on the pros and cons of technology.

Unfortunately, while the digital age has been a godsend in terms of saving time and bringing the public at large information through multiple media, such technological advancements do come at a cost.

That is, while a man who uses a ballpoint to write his Pulitzer-worthy masterpiece has no reason to panic when his pen runs out of ink upon his work’s completion, even the most prideful of today’s tech-savvy journalists have the all-too-real fear of data loss lingering in the backs of their minds.

Hardly a pride-filled reporter, myself, this fear is a constant for me. But, hey–technical accidents happen. My much beloved iRiver H320 lost a bit of data last night thanks to a power issue. Lost in transit were my recordings of Sen. McCain’s main speech and, more regrettably (as I have no backups for this) a set of interviews I’d recorded for News-Geek.

Keep an eye out for Sen. McCain’s address to the public at the University of Mississippi, as I should soon be able to obtain a backup copy of his speech (and the question and answer session that followed thereafter). Thank goodness for fallback plans.

[Note: I had drafted a version of this article last night, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the fact that I was not typing in a program with an auto-save option, I lost it all. As they say, if at first you don't succeed, scream a few obscenities and try, try again.]

Is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a demon, or does she just play one on the internet?

The Web was abuzz with rumors and excitement yesterday as word circulated about the latest so-called “Left-wing” attempt at making the Right look bad. Bloggers, webmasters and forum watchers worldwide spent the day debating amongst themselves about Michelle Malkin’s latest commentary on USA Today’s supposedly suspicious use of photo-manipulation techniques.

A conservative columnist and regular contributor to Fox News, Malkin posted on her website copies of the following images, the first from the Associated Press and the second from USA Today’s website:

The Original Image

The Doctored Image

As you can see, the USA Today image is clearly and undeniably different from the original photograph, but this is not the point. The question at hand is whether USA Today intentionally altered Rice’s picture to make her look “possessed” and “demonic,” or any of the other laughable adjectives conspiracy theorists all over the political spectrum are throwing around about her these days. This resulting backlash from Malkin’s blog entry should come as no surprise. After all, accusations of a liberal slant in the media always get attention when there are visual aids involved

Careful not to make any accusations against the paper herself, Malkin speaks through the commentary of the letter-writers she chooses to quote on her blog.

One commentator named “Steve I.,” who claims to have received an A.A. from the Colorado Institute of Art, is quoted as saying the following:

(1) Any filter in Photoshop would apply to the whole image. The absurd sharpening would bring out her necklines, the stripes in her shirt, her lips, her nostrils, her earrings, etc. So the image was deliberately manipulated around the eyes.

(2) Notice how the pupils have been narrowed, like a cat’s eyes. Sharpening would not alter the roundness of her pupils, only accentuate them. Another paint or erase tool is required to achieve that effect.

Whatever Steve received his degree in, chances are that it was not in graphic design. Both of the above assessments are laughable.

On the first note, it is indeed possible to filter just one part of a photograph, even with versions of Adobe Photoshop that are older than the copy of v. 5.5 that Steve uses.

Using “masks,” a term very familiar to users who are even just moderately experienced with Photoshop, artists can apply image filters (such as those for sharpening, brightening or creating contrast) that will only affect the unmasked sections of a given image.

In simple terms, a mask of an image is like a gray-scaled copy of it that is placed on top of the original image, although the mask is not visible in the photograph itself. The black parts of this invisible mask are opaque to filters, while the white sections are transparent and the gray sections are semi-transparent.

Imagine looking at a field (your main image) behind a fence (you mask). The wood of the fence would be the black part of the mask, while the gaps would be the white. If the filter of sunlight hits the fence, the light only affects those parts of the field not hidden by wood. As a result, the image of the field would appear unaffected in some places (the shadows) and affected in other places (the strips of light).

It is common practice for artists and photo editors to create masks that cover everything in a photograph but someone’s eyes. This allows for them to run simple, one-click filters on just those eyes, making them in many cases both brighter and sharper.

Here are the eyes of the original image and the doctored image:

The Original Image

The Doctored Image

On the second point, Steve’s alleged ten years of experience with Adobe Photoshop obviously never led him to use sharpening or contrast filters. While the doctored eyes certainly look a little “cat-like,” it is absurd to say that this was done with the elaborate brushwork or erasing tools.

Below are the results of what I got when I took the original image and ran an unsharp mask on it. For the sake of effect, I used the maximum amount of sharpening with the maximum radius and no threshold. Of course, I did not select just the eyes, as you can see by the changes in Rice’s other facial features, but this is not the point. Instead the point here is that, unlike what Steve said in his commentary, there is no need to use brushes in order to change pupil and iris shape. Instead, this is a side-effect of changing the sharpness of the picture.

The Original Image

The Original Image, Now Doctored By Me

Obviously, this was not the only filter that USA Today used on the eyes, but as you can see here, even the simple use of an unsharp mask has made the them look “cat-like.”

So much for Steve’s expertise. It seems just a touch suspicious that Malkin has yet to publish any letters refuting Steve’s claims.

As for the claims of another commenter, “L.C.,” it is true that USA Today used more than just an unsharp mask to edit the look of the eyes. As you can see above, such a mask makes the eyes look very un-human, so of course more editing was done to make them look more realistic.

What L.C. neglects to mention is that newspapers will often brighten eyes just so that they appear normal on “dead tree” editions of the papers. While the photo editing certainly appears a bit excessive on the web, here is what the normal photograph and the doctored image would look like in newspaper print:

The Original Image

The Doctored Image

In order to get these effects, I enlarged the original and doctored images until they were about 600 pixels wide and 473 pixels tall. This should be closer to their actual size prior to going to the Web.

Next, I grayscaled the first set of images and then used a halftone filter on them before bringing them down to the size you see above. For the second set of images, I simply used a color halftone before resizing again. Mind you, I used the weakest halftone I could get.

The images on the left represent what the original photograph might look like on paper, while the ones on the right depict the doctored image. Being that newspaper paper is low in quality and porous, chances are that the eyes in the first image would be very difficult to see in print. The second set of images now show clearer eyes.

These supposedly “demonic” photographic edits, then, were probably not part of a vast, Left-wing/USA Today conspiracy. With the evidence shown above, it looks more like the for-print photograph accidentally made it to the web.

This is one of the flaws of media convergence. Sometimes the wrong image goes to the wrong medium.

This is not to say that photographic doctoring is new to journalism. Indeed, sometimes magazines and newspapers make major ethical mistakes. While airbrushing and body part shifting is common place in fashion magazines, the real ethical problems lie in photo editing in relation to hard news.

There are countless examples of this taking place in the media, and for the most part, there have been no political ties associated with the editing. Below is one of the most famous examples of this, which took place during my childhood in 1994.

The Original Image

The Doctored Image

When the above issues of Newsweek and Time hit the newsstands simultaneously, it was easy to see that Time, perhaps in an effort to be dramatic, darkened their copy of former football player O.J. Simpson’s mugshot. Although race was likely not a motivating factor in this, many groups responded with anger, accusing Time of perpetuating the “brute” stereotype of African Americans.

To be sure, photo doctoring happens all of the time. This is not a justification of the matter, but it is a very important point to make. What USA Today did hardly seems unethical, despite what the likes of Michelle Malkin or Matt Drudge have to say. These two are not exactly bastions of journalistic ethics, themselves.

While Malkin picks and chooses her “evidence,” provided by pseudo-experts who just happen to agree with her, Drudge seems to accept any story as fact, regardless of the lack of details before him.

According to research conducted by media journal Brill’s Content after the President Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, Drudge claimed that 51 of his stories from January through September of 1998 were exclusives, although only 31 actually were. Of those 31, a full third contained glaring falsehoods, while another third consisted of questionable information that had yet to be authenticated. (Source: David McClintick–”The big extract: Drudge’s report card.” The Guardian, 31 Oct. 1998: 12.)

As for any “Right-wing” conspiracies in the news, it is only fair to make note of what I like to call the Republican Halo Phenomenon, something many forum-goers have been discussing since Malkin posted her blog entry. The RHP represents a plethora of pictures taken over the past few years where various republican leaders have been “haloed,” so to speak, by different objects. Is this meant to be subliminal? Possibly. Is this just a coincidence? In most cases, I would say so.

However, if you’d like to see some examples of President Bush haloed in a variety of ways, go to this Google Image Search.

Certainly, there are many folks at many different news organization who like to insert their political leanings into all that they do. Most journalists agree that these people, regardless of their politics, should be weeded out.

There are no vast, any-wing conspiracies lurking in the shadows like the bogeyman at night. There are only those individuals with persecution complexes thinking that the entire “other” political side is out to get them.

Ms. Malkin, Mr. Drudge and dear readers, please understand: the biggest conspiracies man sees in the world around him actually reside in his head.

[Special thanks to Thomas for helping me put the Photoshop information in laymen’s terms.]

There was a time before the advent of blogs and personal websites when police and other officials could shelter the public from the thoughts of mad men—at least, for as long as the investigations into their crimes continued.

Now, it seems that some of the most notorious modern-day murderers and rapists will chronicle their lives for the world to see. Some seem to journal their thoughts as a cry for help, while others do so solely for narcissistic reasons. Others write for no other reason besides the fact that it is trendy. Whatever the reason, their words, feelings, thoughts and opinions are available for the world to see, and likely will be for some time.

John Dallas Lockhart, a former lawyer whose computer contained photographic evidence of his raping a 3-month-old girl, evaded police for nearly a year before getting caught in June. Lockhart wrote on his own blogs about a variety of topics including his family life, his work, his extravagant sexual lifestyle as a swinger and, beyond all of this, his deepest and darkest thoughts on life.

Below are two excerpts from his first journal, Days in the Life… (Lockhart’s second journal, created after his separation from his wife, Laurie, is called Ramblings of an Inverted Mind).

The Great and Secret Show @ 2004-01-31 11:50:00
”We all have our public faces. The one (or ones) we put on for the world at large. Some of us have many public faces - one for family, one for neighbors, one for close friends. I believe in most cases none of these faces are “false” or “fake”; we simply all make choices about the level of personal detail we choose to reveal in various situations. Being openly who you are is a wonderful thing, but does the lady you chat with in line at the bank really need to know you think she’d look hot with a giant cock gag shoved in her mouth, hanging upside down in your basement with some low level electrical current running through her nipples? Probably not.

This journal has been one of those faces for me. While it has perhaps been revealing to someone who’s paying close attention, it has nonetheless been a highly selective exercise. LiveJournal is not typically therapy for me, or venting - it’s simply writing, and I’m well aware of my audience when I post. It’s truth, but only selected snippets of it…things I think will be an interesting or funny read. Through them you all see a part of my life, our lives, but certainly not the broad spectrum.

Of course, there is also a private face - the ‘you’ known only to you (if you take the time to reflect) or, if you’re both lucky and brave, to one or a few special others. This is the Great and Secret Show - theatre with an endless run, leastways ’til death do you part. This part of you, at least this part of me, doesn’t see the light of day very often. Though I’m wildly open about a lot of things, there are wide trampling swathes of me that are simply closed…permanently under construction…inaccessible to damn near everyone, including me sometimes.

But not today. The following is as close as most of you will ever come to a seat for my secret show. You’ve been warned….” (Read More)

Mess with a Three Year Old - It’s Fun and It’s Easy @ 2003-12-14 18:36:00
“I was laying on the couch a little while ago and for some odd reason Tristan asked me if he could take my socks off. I said sure, and he started pulling on the toe of my left sock. Pull as he might, he couldn’t get it off. I told him that was because I put special glue on the bottom of my foot to make sure my socks didn’t fall off, and if he wanted to get the sock off he’d have to lick the bottom of my foot to soften up the glue. Being the trusting soul that he is, he went right for it…he even got a couple of fuzzy licks in before I got my foot out of the way. Is it mean to take pleasure in goofing with your own child like that?? lol

Laurie thought it was pretty funny too, but she couldn’t decide if it was funnier than earlier when, after pretending Tristan was Santa for a while and I was a reindeer, Tristan asked me to cut up a piece of pizza he was eating with my reindeer horns. I went into the kitchen and got a knife and fork, then came back in holding them like antlers on the top of my head. I bent over and took a shot at cutting up his pizza that way, but mostly I just scraped some of the toppings onto the floor. Laurie still laughed so hard she peed.

I think I need to get a hobby..lol”

In hindsight, the first excerpt provides us with an idea of Lockhart’s humanity—something I feel that everyone has, no matter how deep within themselves they keep it. The second excerpt, while a bit odd-sounding, comes off as reasonably harmless fun until we take into consideration the criminal charges Lockhart faces today. With those charges in mind, this quote transforms from implying “strangeness” to a certain level of “sickness.” Even still, one can see his human side.

Just what happened in Lockhart’s life, sending him down the spiral of increasing sexual deviancy? What is it that made it all right, in his mind, for him to commit the atrocious crime of raping an infant? Some people might be quick to say that it is because he is not a human. Perhaps they are right. I am no psychoanalyst, and for all we know, Lockhart’s last shred of humanity left him the day he gained sexual pleasure from a defenseless child.

The inspiration for this entry actually comes from our next blogger, Joseph Edward Duncan III. Duncan, as you might recall, has made headlines this past week for allegedly abducting Dylan and Shasta Groene, ages 9 and 8 respectively. According to the most recent headlines. Ducan is alleged to have raped both children, and to have possibly killed the young boy.

Duncan’s own blog, Blogging the Fifth Nail, contains an even deeper look into his psyche than we get initially from Lockhart’s journals.

Here are a few exceprts:

Still Confused @ 2005-05-13 17:43:00
“My blog entries lately are erratic and full of a lot of B.S., for that I apologize. I am just trying to put down what is in my head, regardless. As far as ‘taking people with me’ well, I don’t know if that is right or wrong. In fact, I don’t know much any more what right and wrong even is. My view is either everything is right (in some regard) or everything is wrong (in some other regard). The question (one I am struggling with at this point) is, “Does it matter?”
Does anything matter? My mother is crying right now, because her son is in trouble again. She tried to raise a good son, and she knows her son has a good heart, so why does he do these things? She is probably more hurt and confused than me. Does it matter? It hurts me to know these things, but DOES IT MATTER???
A hundred years from now, all my mothers pain will be forgotten, and other mothers will cry for there sons. A million years from now there probably won’t be any mothers (at least not like we know).

…

I wish I could be more honest about my feelings, but those demons made sure I’d never be able to do that. I might not know if it matters, but just in case, I am working on an encrypted journal that is hundreds of times more frank than this blog could ever be (that’s why I keep it encrypted). I figure in 30 years or more we will have the technology to easily crack the encryption (currently very un-crackable, PGP) and then the world will know who I really was, and what I really did, and what I really thought. Also, maybe then they will understand that despite my actions, I’m not a bad person, I just have a disease contracted from society, and it hurts a lot.
I hope to complete this journal before I die (soon) or turn myself in (I still might do that, I think it is the right thing, but of course, I’m not sure).
Speak of being sure; I wish I could be sure about my thoughts. But right now the only thing I’m sure about is that I’m sure about nothing. It is not a good position to be in considering my circumstances (being a felony fugitive and all).”

The Demons Have Taken Over @ 2005-05-11 21:17:00
“Thanks for the comments. As far as letting God take care of the Demons, too late. They’ve locked up the ‘Happy Joe’ person in the same dungeon that ‘Happy Joe’ kept them in for so many years. Now they are loose and I am very afraid. From now on I may refer to ‘Happy Joe’ as ‘Jet’ (me) and the demons as ‘The Bogeyman.’ If you are familiar with me or even my fifthnail website then you will understand the names (see www.fifthnail.com).
I have been asking God to help defeat the demons. In fact, last night I was on my knees begging him, crying out loud to him, to help me. He didn’t answer, again. The problem is I am loosing my religion. I don’t accept anything at face value, not even my own thoughts. So when I start having religious convictions I question the source. And in my current situation I figure I am under a lot of stress, and there are perfectly natural human mechanisms that account for all religious experiences. The demons (if that’s what they/it are/is–I use the term for mere convenience) have convinced me that I should at least question my religious beliefs, (this makes sense, otherwise I would believe anything) and that is how they got the key to the dungeon, and trapped me inside.
To be more specific, I am scared, alone, and confused, and my reaction is to strike out toward the perceived source of my misery, society. My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die. As for the ‘Happy Joe’ (Jet), well he was just a dream. The bogeyman was alive and happy long before Happy Joe.
I was in prison for over 18 years, since the age of 17. As an adult all I knew was the oppression of incarceration. All those years I dreamed of getting out…And getting even. Instead, I got out and I got even, but did not get caught. So, I got even again, and again did not get caught. So, I figured, well, I got even twice (actually more, but that’s here nor there), even if I’m the only one who knows, so now what? Well that was when the ‘Happy Joe’ dream started. I met a bunch of really great people, the kind of people I didn’t even know existed, but here they were, bunches of them, my neighbors, my landlords, my professors, my coworkers, and they were all good people, who were willing to give me a chance despite my past. They were willing to accept me and be my friend, something that was new for me, having been betrayed by many “friends” and even my own family.
So, I tried to make it work. But the problem was those demons. The ones who ‘got even’ for me. They kept reminding me that if my new “friends” knew about them (and what they, I, had done to even), then so much for their friendship. So, “Happy Joe” was just dreaming, or pretending to be happy.

These excerpts are chilling, to say the least. The internet is full of “inverted minds,” as Lockhart would call them, but this statement is not meant to bring about any level of fear. “Inverted minds” can exist anywhere and everywhere—they can reside within our bankers, our lawyers, our doctors, our grocery clerks and even within ourselves.

Needless to say, it is no wonder that they exist on the internet as well. If there ever were a melting pot, it is the World Wide Web. Goths, furries, punks, diabetics, good samaritans, bad samaritans, women, men, bisexuals, transsexuals, asexuals, metrosexuals—they all have their own communities, and yet if one looks hard enough, he will find that members of these groups also intermingle.

There are many other “inverted minds” with blogs. Two others who come to mind are Rochelle Waterman, who is new in prison for the murder of her mother, and Jeff Weise, who gained posthumous fame after killing nine people and then himself in Red Lake, Minn.

There is far less to be learned on Waterman’s and Weise’s journals. Whereas Weise barely wrote any entries in his, some of Waterman’s entries have now been blocked from public view.