Pink

Fatherhood, , , ,

Sometimes I think I have no idea how to raise our girl to be a woman.

Sure, I’ve witnessed my parents do so with my sisters two. But then it’s only “I have an idea how to raise a girl to be a woman.” Not our girl to be a woman of my union with Erin. Because lo this is to be the girl who will grow to cure cancer, slay vampires, bring peace to the Middle East and will one day best monetize the websites of newspapers and magazines throughout the land.

She is to be The Chosen One.

Or so I’ve built it up in my mind.

In reality, she is but one more young woman who will be brought into the world by well-educated, over-read, liberal parents who are trying to steer their daughter clear of sexist influences and give her every choice in the world…except Pink.

Pink.

Last week, Erin and I were discussing colors for the nursery and I said “Anything but pink!” Because, of course, this will prevent…I don’t know.

Something.

It’s just too easy. Accepting pink as the default color for a girl is the equivalent of saying you liked The Joshua Tree when I was in high school: doing so raises far fewer questions about your personal point of view and allows you to get through a stressful situation without a bunch of weird looks.

In my mind, Pink is the pastel specter that hangs over our pregnancy. A threat far greater than any other, leading our daughter down the path of various princess-branded toys, which as everyone knows are the gateway drug to playing dumb to get boys to like her. And here thar be dragons!

***

A couple weeks before we learned we were having a girl, one of Erin’s relatives told us she hoped we were having a boy as she – owing largely to my fascination with all things Kryptonian – had bought us a few Superman onesies. Not missing a beat, Erin and I said our unborn child’s gender wasn’t an issue in this case as ours was a child destined to wear the shield.

Yet even Erin – a woman quite contrary – said to me at lunch last week “Our daughter might like pink and Barbies” in a tone that left unsaid the words “and that’s OK” as well as “and you might just have to suck it up and deal.”

My wife said these things after I expressed concern over exposing our daughter to – of all things – Phineas and Ferb as none of the female characters were women I’d want her to aspire to be:

* Candace – tattletale
* Isabella – boy-crazy (or Phineas-crazy, as it were)
* Mom – unobservant
* Vanessa – the child of an evil, if largely unsuccessful, mad scientist

My wife is more intelligent in these matters and reminded me that our daughter would likely want to model herself after Phineas and Ferb, the resourceful, charismatic, unstoppable heroes of the show. This brought me some measure of calm.

None of this should suggest I’m set on Turning Our Girl Into A Boy.* I want my daughter to be free to form her own identity, irrespective of the expectations of others, including – or especially – her father. After all, it’s not like I’m a typical male: I fake it pretty well but I know jack about sports, avoid dude culture at all costs and have preferred cocktails over beer since college. I’m far more Oscar Wilde than Oscar Madison.

My wish for our daughter is that she would be the human equivalent of an order in a Chinese restaurant: a little from column A and a little from Column B, becoming a well-rounded, thoughtful, multi-talented individual who’s sees nothing – even the color pink – in terms of gender and everything in terms of territory to explore at will.

* Let it be noted here that there’s an incredibly nuanced discussion to be had about gender constructs. Let it also be noted here that I’ve had a few glasses of wine and am unable to fully explore said discussion in the above but am aware of the issues surrounding it.

Trying to be both here and there

Fatherhood, , , , , ,

If you only follow my work here, you may be thinking that I’m a sad excuse for a writer/commentator. But as I noted in a previous post, I’ve taken to Tumblr and I find it suits my needs better than this blog. (Note: If you follow the link above, there’s currently an image there of me flipping the bird. Trust me when I say it’s for a good reason.)

The biggest surprise, to me, is the consistency Tumblr provides for my writing on media and such. My devotion to this blog always came and went in waves. I attribute this partly to a usability issue. Not to get too wonky, but this blog is tied to an old Gmail address that I no longer use and if I’m logged into my new Gmail address, I need to log out, then log in to this one and if I need a link or piece of text from an e-mail I need to log out again and….you see what I mean. Try as I might, I hadn’t fixed this problem. Plus, I’ve wanted to redesign here and devote this blog to longer pieces though I hadn’t quite figured out what I wanted to write about in this space.

It took an e-mail from my friend Fuzzy to remind me that not only hadn’t I posted here in a long time, my last update made it look like I was still out of work. So it was definitely time to stop thinking and start writing.

I’m now the director of digital strategy and development for Chicago magazine and have been since mid-May. This means I’m ultimately responsible for anything we do online – website, digital subscriptions, mobile, etc. I’ve got a great team of editors and producers under me who work hard and make the site look great. Plus, I’m working with a great boss at a publication with a rich and respected history. It’s a great gig and I’m excited to be there. And hey, I even get to be on TV sometimes.

I spent two months unemployed. While it’s not an ideal situation, you won’t hear me complain about it. I had the support of countless friends and family members, was actively interviewing and chasing down job leads, networked my ass off and had plenty of time for beers on my back porch with my dog. There were times where it was rough, of course. If you’re not someone who does well with unstructured time and your identity is largely tied to your work then being unemployed will make you feel rudderless. I think I was able to adjust my outlook on both of these matters, but it’s an ongoing process. Still, those two months made me realize how lucky I am. When you have a friend who makes an entire website about you, it’s impossible to feel like you lost something in the deal.

The other important piece of news in my life as of late is…my wife and I are pregnant, three months and some change as of this writing. We’ve been trying for about a year now so this was somewhat unexpected as we had begun to make peace with the possibility that our efforts would require some medical assistance or might come to naught. But no, we are with child. A girl, specifically. We could not be more excited. Or – in my wife’s case – nauseous. (Gents who are interested in having a baby: Morning sickness is a lie. Just start calling it First Trimester Sickness now so you get geared up.)

If you’re looking to free your identity from your work, getting your wife pregnant is a surefire way to make that happen (though perhaps it’s not for everyone). Even more so than during my unemployment, I have been a Husband. I didn’t grow up in a house where there was “womens’ work” or “a man’s job” and that’s not how my life with Erin is either. We both work and take care of the house. With the notable exceptions of mowing the lawn (which I insist on doing) and taking out the garbage (which Erin insists I do but to be honest no man’s wife should touch garbage) we share work equally in our home. But Erin’s been busier than usual with having the baby and it’s exhausting work so I’ve had to fly solo on a few Operation: House and Home missions like grocery shopping, making dinner, etc. It’s difficult sometimes but due to a lack of a uterus, it’s the primary means by which I can support our family’s efforts to bring a baby into this world. Also, it’s not like doing a few extra loads of laundry makes me want to throw up, so I’ve definitely got the better end of this deal.

It’s in my nature of be a planner and a researcher so I’ve looked over a few books about pregnancy. Most of them assume the guy is either 1) a jerk or 2) incompetent. As someone who is neither (mostly), I’ve sought guidance from some guy friends who’ve mostly said that sometimes you need to ignore the books and go with your gut. But I highly recommend the books by Arnim A. Brott: they’re written in an easygoing style with a distinct lack of condescension. He’s informative and honest and acknowledges that pregnancy is tough for men, too. (If you’re wondering where to start, Father for Life is a good primer.)

While I love my job, the one thing it doesn’t provide for me is a writing outlet. It’s been an adjustment for me to work on “big picture” tasks and not get wrapped up in the day-to-day. This week, it occurred to me that the best way to allow myself that outlet, separate my work life from my identity, explore where my life was headed and give this blog a reason for being would be to write about all of it. I’ve been hesitant in the past to write about my personal life here, but in all honesty my digital identity is already a mix of the personal and professional so it’s not as if I haven’t crossed that bridge. So it’s time to push through whatever technical issues we’re holding me back and give this thing some life again.

With this next step, there’s a lot to talk about even in a review of the last several months:

* Babysitting my sister’s months-old child alone, a mix of problem-solving and playtime
* The weekend Erin and I watched our toddler niece and discovered what it was like to be solely, if only temporarily, responsible for the feeding, care and diaper-changing of a little human
* Discovering how good a show Phineas and Ferb is during the above weekend
* A purely instinctual moment during church when I went all Dad-mode on our misbehaving nephews
* Holy shit, that’s my kid’s heartbeat!
* What it’s like to be a guy who always thinks about the worst-case scenario which means you can’t truly allow yourself to be excited about a pregnancy until you hit that three-month mark
* How my friends and family knowing about our pregnancy made the whole experience real in a way that even seeing an ultrasound hadn’t
* My inability to do anything to make my wife more comfortable when she’s dealing with first-trimester sickness and how that makes me feel useless especially when I’m “a fixer”
* No, seriously, that’s my kid’s heartbeat!

My hope is that I’ll avoid writing about this stuff as if I’m the first man to have a pregnant wife but still bring something unique to the topic. If nothing else, it’ll give me an excuse to write a think piece on Phineas and Ferb.

Diving off a different platform

Uncategorized, ,

In the month since this happened, I’ve been keeping myself busy with a few things:

1. House-husband-ing
2. Lawn care
3. Beer
4. Tumblr

You can see my work on the latter here.

Why there and not here? The simple answer is that Tumblr allows for quicker publishing of small items that I don’t feel are worth a post here because I usually reserve this space for longer discourse or because the subject matter isn’t quite apropos to what I cover here.

The Evolution of Professional Social Media or Why Twitter is Great-Tasting and Good For You

Internet, , ,

On October 10, 2009, I gave the following talk at TweetCamp Chicago, “a day-long “unconference” for anyone interested in utilizing Twitter professionally, or just learning more about it.” I’m just now getting around to posting it because:

A) Life previously got in the way and
B) I just got laid off so I’m burnishing my professional reputation in various spaces, not the least of which is social media.

I gave this talk to a varied group of newbies and Twitter power users; business-minded individuals who wanted new ways to promote themselves; journalists and writers of various stripes; and folks who were just interested in learning more about Twitter. If you fall into any one of those categories, there’s something in here for you.

And if you like what you see here and you think “Gosh, we could use someone like this in our organization” then peruse my resume and if I look like the right person for the job, send me an e-mail at ourmaninchicago at gmail.com.

—
Good afternoon. Thanks for coming back from lunch. I will do all I can to keep you from feeling like a nap.

First, I’d like to thank Maura Hernandez and Keidra Chaney for asking me to deliver the keynote address here at Tweetcamp Chicago. Having recently organized a conference of this size, I know the work that goes into such an endeavor and they deserve a lot of credit for giving so freely of their free time. Many are quick to complain about the lack of women and persons of color here in Chicago, but few do anything about it. So they deserve a lot of credit for filling a need.

Second, allow me to apologize for reading from prepared remarks for this talk. While I can extemporaneously talk a blue streak given the opportunity, you’ve all paid good money to be here and therefore deserve organized thoughts and salient points rather than a verbal stopped clock that’s only right twice a day.

To give you some quick background on me, I’m the editor and director of content at Playboy.com. I walk into work every day hoping and praying that people do still read us for the articles. As for how I got here, I’ve had a few different careers in radio promotions, tech support and social work – with a brief tenure as a substitute teacher – before starting a freelance career as a writer at Chicagoist.com, a local news and culture blog. From there, I landed at Time Out Chicago as its Web Editor, which is where I first started using Twitter. After two years at TOC, I moved to Playboy.com as a senior editor and was made editor in July of this year.

What I learned in each of these jobs was how to convey information or an experience to someone in a way that feels real, that feels personal. And that is exactly what the best social media does.

The title of this keynote address is The Evolution of Professional Social Media. At first glance, the title suggests that social media has finished evolving, that it has come into its own as a medium, as a platform, as a mature means of communication. Nothing could be further from the truth. For those of us who’ve spent a lot of time in the digital space, this becomes painfully obvious anytime you try to explain things like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Digg to someone who doesn’t use these services on a regular basis. Let’s be honest: The easiest explanation of how you use them sounds a lot like dicking around to most people.

When I first heard about Twitter, I thought it was a really dumb idea. As much as I’ve made a career online, I didn’t feel like the world needed one more way to exchange IMs with each other. Plus, 140 characters? What could you possibly say in 140 characters? And what use would I have in sending a message to a whole bunch of people at once or hearing about what people had for breakfast?

(By the way, you’ll hear that line about breakfast a lot from people who, at best, misunderstand Twitter or, at worst, fear it. I’ll return to this point later but for now trust me when I say it’s a crock. I’m on Twitter all the time and I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve read “These scrambled eggs are a great start to my day!” or “Just eating my Fruit Loops!” I will, however, admit to extolling the virtues of my morning coffee on several occasions but that has more to do with the devil’s bargain I have with caffeine.)

ANYWAY!

What I didn’t realize – and what few people other than Twitter’s founders probably realized at the beginning – was the power of it to convey a larger picture, one short update at a time.

In April of 2007, TOC ran a story on Twitter. Creator Jack Dorsey was quoted at the end of the article this way: “I think text as a medium is not as explored as it could be. In a short message, in those tiny details, there’s a lot of meaning there and a lot of our personality.”

And that’s exactly it. Social media thrives because it brings personalities to the fore, yours, mine and even the personalities of businesses. It’s about a diversity of voices and if you’re not adding your voice to the mix…well, it’s just not as interesting. Have you ever gone to a party and just stayed in the background not engaging with anyone? Not dropping into a conversation, not speaking up, not injecting yourself into the discussion? That’s Twitter before you sign up, log in and hit send. It is absolutely pointless and boring…until you contribute.

Twitter and other forms of social media are already affecting you personally. They’re also changing the way businesses create a brand identity, and the way journalism works. But it’s nothing more than a tool for communication that is no more or less fallible than the people using it. The nature of it means it has not finished evolving and probably never will.

Now then: How does Twitter work for you as an individual? On two levels: as a way to enhance communication within a community and as an information resource.

One of the frequent knocks against Twitter is the suggestion that there are all these people out there that you HAVE to pay attention to and read and etc. etc. Let me ask you something: Between the moment you walked out of your house this morning and the moment you walked in the door here at Tweetcamp, how many strangers tried to tell you about their day or made you listen to their thoughts on Obama’s Nobel peace prize or told you “Hey you need to check out this link! OMGROFL!” Not that many, right? This is exactly how Twitter works: you choose whom you’d like to read or follow. Sure, there’s the occasional spammer or some other annoying person trying to get you to pay attention to their blatherings. But you run into Crazy People on the bus all the time and it doesn’t make you stop taking the CTA does it?

Most – if not all – of us are very busy people. We frequently lament our inability to keep in touch with friends and acquaintances or to do all that networking that we all know is important, particularly as journalists, writers and media types. The people on Twitter are not strangers you’d like to avoid, they’re the people with whom you wish you could spend more time. Twitter not only makes it easy to find out what people are working on and what they’re up to, it makes it easier to find time to do it. Rather than having to find a few hours out of your week to catch up with an old friend or trade professional tips, you’re able to do so a few minutes each day, several friends and associates at a time, replying to their questions, seeing pictures of their kids, and telling old jokes. It’s as if a huge group of important people in your life are at one cocktail party that you can drift into and out of at your leisure.

This cocktail party is like a series of concentric circles filled with friends, acquaintances, influencers, problem-solvers, and, yes, even celebrities. The information I get from the people I follow on Twitter creates a road map of the world for me. Spending a few minutes each morning checking my Twitter feed gives me a sense of which bus lines are running slow, how my friend Mike’s home-brewing project is going, what the weather’s like, the big local news stories and what Alyssa Milano is doing right now.

So how does all this affect businesses?

Twitter allows businesses to apply this level of personal engagement to their brand identities. That sounds like a lot of corporate BS so let me say it this way: Twitter allows businesses to seem human.

To illustrate this, let me share with you an experience I had at Time Out Chicago. I started a Twitter feed for Time Out Chicago in March of 2008 so we could report from the South by Southwest music festival. When I returned, I connected TOC’s blog to our Twitter feed so that every time we posted something, it would automatically send the headline of the post and a link to all our followers so they could click through it, our blog would get more traffic, etc. While not exactly a failure, it didn’t really succeed either. It would be like you coming into this auditorium expecting to hear me – a living, breathing person – give a talk on the professional use of social media and instead having me hand you a few sheets of paper with my talk written on it. It’s flat, there’s no personality. Once I started including questions or comments for our followers in our Tweets, and started responding to their replies to our content – along with those links – our followers grew. And people started to share the links among themselves and develop a relationship with us.

So let’s all agree to stop describing Twitter as “what I ate for breakfast.” Even as a joke. What Twitter proves is that more personal engagement is something people want. Not just with people they know, but with businesses they patronize. How many times have you rolled your eyes as you punched your way through a menu tree when calling a customer service line? Or sighed when you realized someone was working off a script instead of really listening to you? People want to know that the businesses they deal with are staffed by be people who are real. By people who seem like they eat breakfast.

Once businesses understand that Twitter is a form of two-way communication, myriad possibilities emerge. Want to know what your customers think about your product? Go on Twitter, search for the name of your product and see what people are saying. Yes, it’s a self-selected sample. But it’s immediate, costs nothing and allows you to follow up with people in a way that traditional customer surveys don’t allow. If you want to start a buzz, drop hints about what you’re working on. Or, better yet, bring them behind the scenes of aspects of your business they wouldn’t normally see.

We’ve had a lot of success with this at Playboy in live-Tweeting from parties at the Mansion, the Casting Call photo sessions or even goings-on in our office. (As you might imagine, this coverage usually comes with links to photos and I’m not ignorant enough to suggest that this doesn’t do most of the heavy lifting for us). The inner workings of our business are now open to the public in a way that was not previously available. The best part about it is these updates come to people via their laptop or their cell phone. It’s the embodiment of something I learned when I was in social work which is to meet the client where they’re at.

This isn’t insidious. Remember: These folks have invited your brand, your business into their personal lives by following your Twitter stream. You’d be foolish not to take advantage of those possibilities.

Now, this isn’t without its own set of challenges. It’s easy to sometimes overestimate the influence of the conversation that’s happening on Twitter, especially if the things people are saying aren’t positive. But there are case studies involving some of the most-groused-about industries out there like airlines or cable companies who have used Twitter to reach out to their customers, resolve their problems quickly and end up with happier and more loyal customers.

Still, you’ll need to make peace with the fact that your online brand messaging is no longer something you can fully control. Perhaps even within your own company. For example, how many people have heard that we’re putting Marge Simpson on the cover of next month’s Playboy? Most of you probably heard yesterday thanks the way we got the word out on Twitter. We did such a good job that even now Marge Simpson is still one of the most-discussed trending topics on Twitter.

But guess what? The word leaked out about this back in August. Guess who leaked it? Our founder and editor-in-chief: Hugh Hefner. On his Twitter feed. But it got picked up by a couple of blogs, and ended up building a small buzz that we capitalized on later with a larger push.

One of the challenges we have in using social media at Playboy stems from its very personal nature. But you have to allow the people who work for you the freedom to develop a voice that speaks to your specific audience and you can’t expect that the way you communicate in one part of your business will apply everywhere. We have a lot of different aspects of our brand from the magazine to the website to Playboy TV to Playboy Radio to the Girls Next Door show to our extensive licensing division which works very hard to slap the Bunny head logo on everything we possibly can. But this means the group of people who count themselves as fans of Playboy – and we have 1.3 million people on Facebook alone who say they are – all have a different experience with the brand. So we need to find a different way to personally engage with those people based on their individual experience with Playboy. Twitter is a great way to do this for all the reasons I’ve already outlined. Plus, we have a huge coterie of Cyber Girls, Playmates, various other Playboy models and even Playboy employees on Twitter who are all contributing to the discussion.

I want to wrap this up by talking about how Twitter can be valuable for journalists, personally and professionally.

It’s no secret that the many of the people in the newspaper-slash-publishing industry are wetting themselves with fear over where the industry is headed. It is entirely possible that gainfully employed people in this room could be laid off next week. How can Twitter prevent this? Well, it can’t. But what it can help you do is start expanding your personal and professional profile now.

Speaking as someone who has not been pursuing a writing career his entire life, I can tell you that there is a large group of folks – outside of the industry – who follow the careers of writers and journalists like other people follow Brad and Angelina. It used to be that a newspaper or magazine writer’s following was hard to judge. Perhaps a column would spur several letters to the editor or result in an angry follow-up quote from Mayor Daley at a press conference.

But if you’re a writer or journalist with a Twitter account, it’s very easy to see how many literal followers you have. What do editors and publishers see when they see that number? They see web traffic, they see potential press mentions. In short, they see money. And you making money for them means they’re more likely to spend money to hire you.

Let me give you a tip when you’re setting up that Twitter account. Do include your professional affiliations in your bio but don’t let your boss be the boss of your Twitter feed. Create your own personal Twitter account and tweet about your work there. It might be harder to get followers at first, but unlike other work assets, it can’t be taken away from you when you leave that job. And if your company is smart, they’ll want to leverage your presence by linking to it often anyway.

In our jobs as journalists, we are often only as good as our reporting. And in reporting, we are often only as good as our sources. Guess what Twitter is? A direct line to thousands of sources who are revealing breaking news every day. Food writers follow the many chefs on Twitter discussing their restaurants’ operations. Political beat reporters are familiar with Cook County Board commissioner Tony Peraica’s tendency to tweet whatever is on his mind at any given moment. Following several prominent people who make up your beat is a very efficient way to stay on top of the local and national trends that influence them. This makes you smarter and better at your job.

If you’re looking for an expert on a particular topic, Twitter is good for this, too. Even better, the transparency of Twitter and the Web lets you research a source before you pull out your notebook. That source’s Twitter feed likely contains several links to their blog, their other media appearances, and what primary sources they’re reading. Plus, you’ll get a very good sense of how they speak from their Tweets. I guarantee that someone who can consistently make a sharp, witty observation in 140 characters will be a quote machine for your piece.

At the beginning of this talk, I said we’d be discussing the Evolution of Professional Social Media. If I’ve done my job, you’re walking away from this with two ideas in your head. 1) The evolution of professional social media depends largely on personal interactions and 2) it is impossible for you to fully experience and understand social media without involving yourself in it. Luckily, the barriers to such involvement are low. And for those of you still worried that you’ll make a mistake as you put yourself, your business or your journalism career into the world of social media…well, mistakes are a part of life. And social media is life evolving because of them. One update, or one moment, at a time.

What’s wrong with being sexy?

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As a media critic, I respect Robert Feder about as much as I respect anyone in the field; he and Phil Rosenthal are the best examples in Chicago of how it should be done. But this week, I think Feder’s trying to have it both ways in criticizing some local news personalities who appeared in an upcoming photo exhibition at a local art gallery.

Last week, in a post on his Vocalo blog, Robert Feder criticized a photo shoot that appeared in in Michigan Avenue magazine that featured local television anchors and reporters – Mark Suppelsa, Anne State and Anna Davlantes, among others – in “sexy photos.” The personalities in the pictures aren’t nude or even scantily clad. But they are sexy, in a well-scrubbed, preppy kind of way. Feder reported the photos are part of “they’re among 30 photos of local broadcasters…in “On TV/Off TV,” an exhibit opening Nov. 20 at Packer Schopf Gallery.”

Here’s the crux of Feder’s point in a post titled “Sexy photos expose TV news as a glamor game“:

“[The photos underscore] the willingness of these media people (and their approving bosses) to risk whatever journalistic credibility they have in order to ratchet up their Q scores and Nielsen ratings.”

But let’s be clear about what these pictures are: they’re part of a gallery’s photo exhibit, and were also printed in an upscale, local magazine that chronicles the social scene of Chicago. They weren’t created by the news organizations these people work for, nor were they primarily intended to be used by their PR flacks for publicity purposes.

I disagree with Feder’s take here, but I respect his opinion and the point he’s making: If you’re too sexy, you won’t be taken seriously in your chosen occupation. It’s a legitimate point of debate and Feder’s right to discuss it in a journalistic context, like his blog. But again, I disagree. And, not for nothing, but as editor of Playboy.com, I know a little about outward displays of sexuality.

From my point of view, a person’s sexuality is as much a part of who they are as their job. And expressing a confident, healthy, honest sexuality should be admired in the same way as one’s skill in the boardroom or the newsroom. This isn’t about forcing your sexuality on someone else or using it to make up for a lack of talent, this is about letting someone express their whole self in an appropriate context. (If you saw any of these folks in public dressed in the same outfits from their photo shoot, would you think it was inappropriate?)

Arguably, all the people in this photo shoot are talented, in-demand professionals. As if to underscore that point, one of the women in that shoot, Anna Devlantes was just signed to a new contract at Fox Chicago.

Feder broke the news of Davlantes’ move on his blog. But instead of using her standard head shot (something that, as a longtime media critic, Feder would have easy access to either from his files or after a quick phone call to her publicist), he went with…one of the “sexy” photos.

What gives? How can Feder criticize the sexing up of these news professionals while using use the same photos to sex up the visuals of his blog? Plus, Feder’s blog is a journalistic endeavor. If these photos do not add to the journalistic conext of these men and women, then why use them again here?

I tweeted about this, and Feder’s response (via Twitter) was: “From the editor of Playboy.com?” His point, I assume, was that I have no standing in this debate as Playboy engages in the sexing up of a person’s image on a daily basis. But as I said above, I think that’s exactly what makes me have some skin in this game, pun intended.

I sent a couple responses to him, essentially the same points I made above. Feder’s response was “Just because I question their judgment in shooting them doesn’t mean the sexy anchor photos shouldn’t be seen.”

Fair point. Again, Feder’s a journalist. He has a responsibility to discuss the images of news personalities in town and how it affects their jobs. But his initial post on the existence of the photos was last week, effectively putting the photos into the public eye. There was plenty of conversation about it, so it’s not like his post disappeared into the ether.

So I don’t understand his reuse of the photos in a different context. Either he’s trying to contribute to their supposed erosion of journalistic credibility through their continued use (which I doubt, the man’s a professional) or he’s just trying to sex up the visuals his blog about journalism. Nothing wrong with that, but if it’s not OK for local journalists to crank up the hotness, why is it OK for one of their chief critics’ blogs?

To reiterate: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being sexy, and I don’t think sexuality prevents a person from doing their job effectively. While there are perfectly valid counterarguments here, you can’t say sexuality has no place in journalism, while trying to…find a place for it in journalism.

UPDATE: Michigan Avenue has additional photos online (h/t Gapers Block).

Playing catch-up on Chicago media

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Disclosure: I’ve had past business or personal interactions with most of the people or entities named above and plan to have them in the future. To the best of my ability, I try not to let the above color my opinions. Where such interactions might cloud my judgment on an issue, I tend to avoid writing about the topic altogether or confess to a specific bias or association so the reader can judge for him or herself.

Between work-related matters and our impending move to the South Side, I haven’t had much brainpower or free time to spare here. But there have been some significant events in Chicago’s media landscape recently so I figured it made sense to do a quick roundup. Here’s a month’s worth of posts:

Chi-Town Daily News folds and becomes Chicago Current: The first issue hit the streets this week. Creating a niche publication is smart (are you listening….um, everybody?), and an integrated web-print model is too. The full-page Mercedes-Benz ad that ran on the back page suggests support from the ad market. But here’s what I don’t get about CC’s plans: From a Crain’s story about the new publication:

“Chicago Current will be distributed to about 2,000 aldermen, City Hall department heads, judges and other public officials; it will also be available free at downtown Chicago Transit Authority train stations. The targeted readership of elected officials and bureaucrats will give advertisers — including contractors and advocacy groups — reason to pay for ads, he says.”

[Emphasis mine]

From the Chicago Current‘s “About Us” page:

From incisive coverage of City Hall, the CTA and other agencies, to the nitty gritty on topics like lobbying and campaign finance, the Current brings you vitally important information you won’t find anywhere else.

[Emphasis mine]

Based on the new website and the first edition of the paper, Chicago Current is trodding much the same ground as the Chi-Town Daily News did. Nothing wrong with that, but add it to the above text about “the nitty gritty” of dealings that most pols would rather see hidden from view and it looks like the Current wants to reveal the insider deals of politicians – the same people it wants as its audience. To quote Chasing Amy: “Can I explain the audience principle to you? If you insult and accost them, then we have no audience!” Those same pols would probably take a dim view of any advertisers – who depend on those same folks for their business – supporting such a publication.

Maybe I’m off-base about Chicago Current‘s plans but there’s not a lot of evidence to the contrary. While Geoff Dougherty deserves a lot of credit for quickly launching another new business venture, my friend and Chicago Media Future Conference co-organizer Mike Fourcher rightly points out that new media ventures need to work harder on their brands than anything else and perhaps more time spent defining audience and content would have worked to the Current‘s advantage. Still, the marketplace is getting crowded, which leads to…

Chicago News Co-operative launches, Chicago Community Trust puts its money where the names are: If I’m fuzzy on the plans for Chicago Current, I’m even more vague on the Chicago News Co-operative. And I’m not alone. As the former Mayor Daley used to say “Where’s their program?”

What I do know is they’ve got a lot of big names, many of whom used to work at the Chicago Tribune. But if we’re all agreed that the Web will play a vital role in the future of news, then this isn’t the team you want leading that charge. The Tribune‘s leadership in the online space came after those folks left. Plus, the media spaces the CNC said they’ll work in are organizations like WTTW and WBEZ. I’m a frequent viewer/listener or both, but where’s the innovation there? (The CNC says it will launch a site called Chicago Scoop in January.)

On a side note, the CNC was the recipient of $50,000 in grant money from the Chicago Community Trust. Later, Chicago Tonight contributor Rich Samuels tweeted that the Community Trust would no longer fund the Chicago Matters series, a joint venture between WTTW and WBEZ. As the CNC is currently using office space at WTTW, I bet there were a few awkward moments around the coffee maker that morning.

As for the Chicago Community Trust’s other funding decisions, I question why the CNC, so flush with connections and resources, had a greater need for cash than smaller, more innovative shops like Gapers Block, Windy Citizen and Beachwood Reporter, which only received $35,000. Perhaps it’s because the CNC’s plans are more ambitious. But according to the Community Trust’s press release, the money will be used “to support development of a new L3C cooperative business model providing enterprising journalistic coverage of the Chicago area using various Web, print and broadcast platforms, including a new Web site called “The Chicago Scoop.” From that description, the ambition is hard to intuit.

The takeaway for the Current and CNC is this: In the absence of actual evidence, people tend to fill in the blanks – or create your brand’s identity – themselves. Why would you want to give away control of such a valuable resource?

James Warren becomes publisher of the Chicago Reader: I don’t have much to say here, but from where I sit it would seem to be good news that the Chicago Reader‘s survived the questionable direction of Tampa’s Ben Eason and that a person steeped in Chicago journalism is at the helm. But to hear Reader editor Alison True tell it, this could be a potential minefield:

“It’s good to hear the board and Warren acknowledging how important journalism is to the success of the company,” says Reader editor Alison True. “Because we’re looking forward to getting the resources to support it. But if that wall disappears, so does our credibility.”

In the past year, the Reader‘s done some vital work, in spite of the perceived threat from Team Eason. Perhaps True knows her team does its best work when it’s got something to fight against, whether that enemy is real or imagined.

The rise of Chicago Now: It’s been interesting to watch the direction of Chicago Now. They’ve adopted a startup mentality, despite the appearance of the full force of TribCo resources behind them. (I cracked up at this tweet from RedEye’s web editor, which suggested there was something serendipitous, not synergistic, about a Tribune marketing project getting prominent placement on a Tribune blogging platform.) As Marcus Gilmer points out on Chicagoist:

There’s no denying there are quality reads on the site: the Parking Ticket Geek has become particularly notable in the wake of the parking meter privatization, the CTA Tattler is still a go-to for us, our pals at Gapers Block have a page, and there’s some good sports coverage. But at 126 blogs and counting, the site still feels unwieldy, making it more difficult to find other potential quality reads.”

I’ve joked that by 2010, one out of three people you meet in Chicago will have a blog at Chicago Now. The site wants to be all things to all people, to provide blogs that run the gamut of Chicagoans’ interests. It’s a clear goal, designed to take advantage of local advertising dollars. It’s important to note they’re not trying to be a publication, just an agnostic platform (like HuffPo), so this broad effort may pay off, especially with other TribCo entities like WGN Radio offering them broadcast space on its airwaves. To truly succeed, they’ll need to embrace these opportunities, not pretend like they lucked into them and ensure that audiences can easily find what they have to offer.

Robert Feder joins Vocalo, Vocalo comes in from the cold: Before the launch of Vocalo, a joint radio-and-web venture from Chicago Public Radio, some of WBEZ’s best talent worked behind-the-scenes to help make the project a reality. They brought the same passion to this project that they brought to WBEZ. Then Chicago Public Radio decided it wanted to divorce itself from Vocalo, making it completely user-generated, except when it came to funding. CPR quietly funded the program, hiding its true intention from its subscribers and siphoning off resources to keep it afloat. The product didn’t improve – the passion just wasn’t there – and WBEZ subscribers were upset. Finally realizing that a little professionalism wouldn’t hurt the product, Chicago Public Radio brought WBEZ and Vocalo together online. (Clicking the Blog button on ‘BEZ’s website takes you to Vocalo.org.)

In a further indictment of the anything-goes style of the early days of the site, CPR also brought in former Sun-Times media columnist Robert Feder as a blogger for Vocalo (or is it WBEZ? It’s hard to tell…). Feder’s work at the Sun-Times was indispensible, but his recent comments about Chicago Now – despite having a ring of truth – suggest he’s blinding himself to the reality of the problems in his new neighborhood. It would also help his cause if the material of his columns (Sneed, Bill Kurtis’s wacky commercials, retreads of his previous work) wasn’t so weak. Vocalo’s become more transparent lately, but whether more professionalism is the key to its success remains to be seen.

Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson return to CBS2: On Friday night, Kurtis and Jacobson anchored the CBS2 10 p.m. newscast together for the first time in the last 20 years. It’s clear CBS2 wants viewers to associate its current newscast with the groundbreaking reporting efforts of its heyday. The first half of the broadcast delivered on that score, offering up stories like a Pam Zekman investigation of the inability of Chicago police offers to properly meet the demand of 911 calls. But the constant references to days gone by, not to mention a Friday night appearance, made the whole affair feel like Old Timers’ Day at the ballpark. Moreover, the news of this supposedly monumental event didn’t break until the day before, robbing CBS2 of a potential ratings boost.

If CBS2 wants to convince people that they’re still doing hard-hitting news at 10 p.m., it could dump the lame “Cold Case” moments it’s been doing with Kurtis, sign him and Jacobson to short-term contracts, pair them with up-and-coming reporters and build on the future promise of their past gravitas.

Moreover, CBS2 ought to pick a neighborhood in Chicago, open up a local bureau there, and do some Web-only reporting. This venture could be accomplished with a skeleton crew investment, but the returns would be significant. They’d be the only local television station doing this, and it would show they were committed to not being pretty, but being realinnovators.

The best thing I’ve read all week

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I might be biased thanks to my line of work but this spoke to me:

“The women are also dressed in period threads, and many have big Afros. I am happy to say it brings back an element sadly missing in recent movies, gratuitous nudity. Sexy women would “happen” to be topless in the 1970s movies for no better reason than that everyone agreed, including themselves, that their breasts were a genuine pleasure to regard — the most beautiful naturally occurring shapes in nature, I believe. Now we see breasts only in serious films, for expressing reasons. There’s been such a comeback for the strategically positioned bed sheet, you’d think we were back in the 1950s.” – Roger Ebert, “Black Dynamite”; Chicago Sun-Times

When online ads attack

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This unholy mess is on People.com* right now:

(Click to embiggen)

I hate rollover ads to begin with since they inevitably (purposely?) cause the user to accidentally expand the ad, covering the content of the page (where the real value resides).

But this ad from American Cancer Society (which isn’t even in its expanded state) coupled with the subscription ad prevents me from reading the headline and what looks to be the first 2.5 paragraphs of the story. That’s bad enough, but there’s nothing I can do to get rid of the subscription ad since the American Cancer Society ad is covering the Close button I assume is in the top right corner of the subscription ad. You can’t click-and-drag the People ad anywhere and can’t shrink the ACS ad to get access to the close button.

Does refreshing the page get rid of both ads? Yes. But that’s a lousy user experience, I’d say.

Yeesh.
* Save your judgment. I clicked a friend’s link via Twitter, I wasn’t looking for the latest Jon and Kate update.

Twitter doesn't leak off the record comments, people do

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“There’s no such thing as ‘off the record’ with Twitter.”
– Lost Remote*

I don’t know if Cory Bergman is serious about that statement or using it for a clever headline, but he’s wrong. That’s like saying “There’s no such thing as ‘off the record’ with notebooks.” Or typewriters. Or computers. Or vocal chords.

Twitter is a tool for journalism. When you’re a journalist acting in said capacity, you’re operating under the same set of ethics as when you’re in the newsroom, on the phone with a source or in any of other traditional setting.