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It's the gambling, stupid: American families sick of economy that values gambling over workOctober 1 2008

By Robert Niles: I think many journalists and analysts are missing the core story underlying the populist revolt over the Bush administration's proposed Wall Street bailout.

People aren't merely upset with the idea of their tax money going to prop up rich Wall Street businesses and investors. They're disgusted with an American economy that increasingly values gambling over work. Not only that, many of these Americans are perfectly willing, even eager, to watch this gamblers' economy fail.

In many neighborhoods across the country, families can no longer afford to buy a home and anticipate a comfortable retirement on the money that they make working. Salaries and wages just don't provide enough cash.

According to National Association of Realtors, the median home price in the United States in July 2008 was $212,400. (That means half the homes sold in the U.S. that month cost more, half cost less.) However, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median family income was just $50,233. Using a traditional (pre-housing bubble) standards, a typical American family, earning that median income, could not afford to buy that median-priced home. And that's after housing prices have dropped 10%-40% from their peak prices, depending on the city. That typical family, earning the median income, likely would qualify only to by a home in the $125,000-$175,000 range.

If you wanted to buy your first home anytime during the past six years, you had to gamble. I know that buyi

Scammers scraping phone numbers, street addresses for spam call and postal mail campaignsSeptember 17 2008

By Robert Niles: Laurie and I have put our home and cell phone numbers on the U.S. federal Do-Not-Call list, but that hasn't stopped solicitors from calling. Curiously, though, the sales calls we've been getting tend to come in clumps (more pronounced that your typical Poisson distribution) and often ask for the same wrong name.

Clearly, our numbers have gotten on some list, associated with a variety of wrong names. Given that we tend to get a new string of calls every month, we figured this isn't random chance resulting from someone writing down a wrong number on an application someplace. Furthermore, the folks who call us rarely have any idea what the do-not-call list is (tipping us that they don't work for large, established call center firms), and often will keep going with their pitch even after we tell them that there's no one by that name here.

What's up? By talking with some of these callers, combined with some online sleuthing and a little deduction, here's what we've figured out.

In an effort to get around the federal Do-Not-Call list, scammers are scraping telephone numbers from the Internet and selling those lists to marketers, telling would-be buyers that these are "clean" lists of people who have agreed to take business calls. (Presumably, because they've published their numbers online, though the buyers aren't told that's where the numbers came from.)

The "better" lists

Advice for the newspaper industryAugust 29 2008

By Robert Niles: If you call your readers stupid for reading the content in your newspaper, don't be surprised when they quit reading your paper altogether.

Print and Online Newspapers: Working Together, Becoming StrongerAugust 29 2008

By Lorraine Lee:

Summary

Over the course of this year, my research has examined the current state of the news industry, delved into readership trends for both print and online newspapers, and assessed technologys effect on journalism. I have interacted with many industry experts and read countless articles on the transforming world of journalism. Under the mentorship of Professor Mary Nesbitt at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, I have learned more than I could have imagined this year and am that much more prepared to enter the industry as a productive and effective journalist.

To put this fourth paper in perspective, it is necessary to recap briefly what was discussed in my first three papers. My first research paper focused primarily on the current state of the news industry and the Internets rapidly growing and significant role in getting people news when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it. As reported in my first paper, more readers prefer to get their news online, now that more than two-thirds of Americans (68.1 percent) use the Internet at home, a substantial increase from the 46.9 percent of users who reported home Internet use in 2000, according to University of Southern Californias Center for the Digital Future (2007). Even so, overall interest in news has declined, especially amongst the younger generation.

My

Multimedia Journalism: The Age of New Technology and New OpportunitiesAugust 23 2008

By Lorraine Lee: Part one: The Future of Print Readership: Following Cultural Trends
Part two: The Future of Print Readership: The Role of Story Content/Presentation

A. INTRODUCTION

For my third research paper I will focus on how new technology has paved the way for multimedia journalism, and examine the changing relationship between reporters and readers resulting from this development. This topic naturally follows the subject of my second paper story content/presentation. My second paper analyzed the effect which story content and presentation have on readership, and looked at how to draw in readers with the way in which a story is written or presented. My third paper takes my research one step further, by exploring how multimedia journalism (through enhanced content and presentation) can increase readership and reader engagement by appealing to their visual as well as auditory senses. I further discuss what technology has done not only for journalism, but also for reporters and readers.

Multimedia journalism which often includes a print or online story supplemented by some other form of media that is more interactive than just text is becoming a prevalent way to do journalism. New technologies will solidify this trend. Multimedia stories require additional skills from journalists, but