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MySpace is the talk of the Web again, this time for speculation that it's stepping into the news biz.

Although MySpace reps haven't commented, the New York Post and MediaPost ran stories Monday saying the social networking site will soon launch its own news service.

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The service would be a news aggregator, similar to Digg, where MySpace users can rate and comment on articles, and post them to their personal pages.

I'm already wondering how this would affect sites like Digg and Reddit, as well as news organizations' sites. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is not good news for those of us in the news business, unless we view it as another way to get our content onto yet another platform," said blogger Terry Heaton, who broke the news last week citing "inside sources."

MySpace has the audience in place -- more than 100 million accounts, says the Post (which has the same owner as MySpace -- News Corp.). Now I'm wondering how that audience would use the service -- especially with the option for posting articles to personal pages.

What kind of news would the largely young audience post? Would the service, as Heaton predicts, help us understand what kind of news they're interested in? Would it help engage young people in the news?

The Post's article says MySpace (obviously) aims to keep users on the site for news instead of going elsewhere. That also begs the question -- would the service divert traffic away from news organizations' sites or increase it? How are aggregators out there now, like Google News, affecting news sites' page views?

It seems we could learn a lot from users' interactions with the news service -- not just for getting a better picture of news consumption habits, but for generating story ideas as well.

What would people in your coverage area post? How might that influence your coverage? And if they could author their own work, as Heaton reports, what would they write about?

Howard Finberg, Poynter's director of interactive learning, took a stab at answering what this combination of social networking and news might mean. But I guess we'll have to wait to find out for sure -- until "early 2nd quarter," according to Heaton's blog. Until then, tell me what you think.

By Pat Walters
Naughton Fellow

CORRECTION: Appended.

In mid-January, a video crew visited washingtonpost.com.Newsweek Interactive in Arlington, Va., to capture a behind-the-scenes look at this most innovative of major American newsrooms. They interviewed the guys who run the joint -- Jim Brady and Tom Kennedy -- as well as some of the other folks who build and maintain the stuff on The Washington Post's Web site. Here's what they came up with.

The video crew could have been from ABC, NBC or any of the major news networks. In fact, had it come a week earlier, it would have been there at the same time as a crew from PBS. Frontline was there working on "News War."

But this particular group was from Apple.

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By the middle of last week, the video, which was posted Feb. 23 on the Pro section of the company's Web site, had made its way onto a number of popular journalism Web sites. The Apple flick generated buzz among journalists in large part, I think, because it gives us a peek into a newsroom that is on the cutting edge. And what it reveals is very cool.

Lively video shows staffers zipping through a brightly lit newsroom, no doubt moving so quickly because they're working on groundbreaking multimedia projects. All of this action plays to an edgy digital sountrack that makes me feel more like I'm shopping at American Eagle than taking a tour of a newsroom.

It's no surprise that the film focuses on video production, a strength that both Apple and the Post are happy to show off. Last year Post videographer Travis Fox won an Emmy for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina, beating out MTV and National Geographic. Earlier this month, the Post launched "onBeing," an innovative video project that takes a stripped-down approach to telling the stories of interesting local characters.

As we watch the Apple piece, we learn the Post has 50 reporters with video cameras. We see them using those cameras and editing their footage back in the newsroom. It's a sweet setup. And the film makes the newsroom look fast-paced, innovative and generally cool. As the camera pans across a Macbook Pro -- with Final Cut Pro splashed across the screen -- Tom Kennedy, managing editor for multimedia, narrates:

"In the last couple years we've just really taken off with our video editing," he says, "because we've been able to do laptop editing in the field with Apple products."

And with that, we come to understand just what this little film is. "Oh yes," I remember telling myself the first time I watched it, "this is an ad." Apple, Apple everywhere.

To be fair, it isn't quite a commercial like we might see on television. The Pro section of Apple's Web site, on which this video appears, is a showcase for interesting Apple users. The miniature documentaries feature people like music producer Machine and pop musician Duncan Shiek.

And then, of course, there is the Post.

It felt strange watching Post staffers -- professional, mainstream journalists -- endorse Apple products.

Did I say endorse? I meant promote. Or acknowledge.

Here's executive editor Jim Brady:

"It wasn't an endorsement, it was an acknowledgement that ... we use Apple products," Brady told me on the phone last week. "Our entire multimedia department looks like an Apple superstore.

"Our editorial board endorses political candidates and policy changes," he continued. "If [this] were seen as an endorsement, that'd be a problem."

I could be alone on this, but I saw it as an endorsement. When I told Brady that, he didn't sound happy, but he also didn't sound entirely surprised. One thing about the video that irked him was the editing. It was "unfortunate," he said, that certain Apple-friendly quotes made the final version. When asked if he expected that Apple would spin the film to advertise its products, Bradly said he didn't.

"From our perspective it was like doing an interview," he said. "I sat there for an hour and nobody asked me about Apple at all."

Brady wasn't asked about Apple, and he didn't talk about it. But Kennedy did. And so did vice president for product development Rob Curley.

The Post wouldn't be the first media company to endorse a vendor -- see this year's Super Bowl issue of Sports Illustrated for a two-page Canon ad that features a few of the magazine's staff photographers.

But what makes this case particularly interesting is what it says about our relationship with our audiences.

More and more news organizations are finding ways to give audience members a peek inside the newsroom. The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., broadcasts its news meetings live on the Web. KPIX-TV in San Francisco recently started a similar practice.

These videos are usually raw, brimming with banter, laughter and foul language. They show us as we really are. Sometimes we look good. Sometimes we don't. But if nothing else, we look real. And sometimes that means we look biased.

Critics will no doubt use the film to take shots at the Post's coverage of Apple. "Ah-hah! I knew your coverage of that iPhone thing has been unfairly favorable," the Windows fans might say. "It's not that cool."

It might be more productive, though, to ask a question. What can we learn from the film? Here are a few things. One -- The Post uses lots of Apple products. Two -- Those products work well for them. Three -- Post staffers like them.

And here's a fourth.

Whether or not you can imagine letting a video crew turn your newsroom's love of Apple -- or Canon or Marantz or any other vendor, for that matter -- into a promotion, the Post did just that.

There could be a lot of reasons for this. For one thing, the film is as much an advertisement for the Post as it is one for Apple. But I think it also suggests that we're all getting a little more comfortable with exposing ourselves to our audiences. More than ever before, the people we serve want to see us, to know how we do what we do, to understand what we like and dislike. They want to know we are real people. And we're showing them we are.

Maybe handing the task of self-documentation over to a vendor isn't the best idea.

But watch the Apple film again, take note of what it tells us about how the Post produces its Web site and try to imagine some ways you might turn the camera around and point it at your own news organization.

CORRECTION: The original version of this story attributed Tom Kennedy's comments on "apple products" to Jim Brady.

UPDATE (3/7/07): Since I posted this story Tuesday, a couple particularly sharp readers have pointed out that the Apple piece isn't really a video at all. If you watch it again, you'll notice that it's done in still images. I, of course, didn't notice this, and called it a video. My editor did the same thing. And so did a slew of bloggers who linked to the piece.

So, if it's not a video, what is it? I'm told that in order to be called video, a sequence of still images must be moving at 30 frames per second. The Apple piece falls well short of that, even at its most frantic moments.

Any ideas?

By Pat Walters
Naughton Fellow

Lots of political blogs run on punditry. One voice, one viewpoint. All text.

AirCongress is a little different.

First of all, it features hardly any original content. No overbearing voice. The site touts itself as the nonpartisan "online voice of Capitol Hill, the one place where people can go to hear and see the latest news of, by and about Congress."

Instead of text, this blog features audio and video. Like Google News, AirCongress is an aggregator. Instead of pulling together text news reports, it gathers segments from radio, television and, quite often, politicians' Web sites.

But unlike Google News, which is run by a computer, this site is maintained by a person, a journalist named Danny Glover.

Glover has worked in Washington, D.C., for 15 years. For a time, he wrote for Congressional Quarterly. Currently, he works for National Journal, editing Technology Daily and writing Beltway Blogroll.

For AirCongress, Glover functions strictly as a gatherer. He does not produce any of the audio or video that appears on the site. He collects a lot of it from YouTube, and tries to post 10 times a week. The tenor of the posts ranges from White House official -- a press briefing -- to grassroots critical -- a critique of online campaign video.

Glover says that he would eventually like to produce original content for the site. Now, he just doesn't have time. He says he generally spends 10 to 15 hours a week working on the site, making most of his posts during evenings and weekends.

Still, Glover has some ideas for expansion. Launch an online radio show. Ask college students to interview their local Congressmen on behalf of AirCongress. Hire someone to work on the site with him.

These things cost money. That's something Glover says he doesn't have a lot of right now. It's clear that despite his refreshing approach to covering Washington, Glover faces the same financial challenges as any other independent blogger.

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In the blogosphere, popularity, more than anything else, generates revenue. With the site's launch a few months behind him, Glover says about 300 people visit AirCongress each week. "It's a very narrow audience, I think," Glover says. "The C-SPAN kind of audience."

Traffic spiked modestly, Glover says, when the site was recommended on the popular blog InstaPundit.

Affiliate ads flank the blog content on AirCongress. They plug hotel rooms, rental cars and books. But Glover says they've yet to yield a check. Even though he has decided not to spend any money on marketing the site, Glover expects his audience to expand slowly but consistently. By May, he hopes a thousand people will be coming to the site -- and seeing his ads -- every week. By November, three to four thousand.

Glover hopes the site will one day make some money. But right now, he says, it's not about turning a profit. Or even covering costs.

"You have to invest money and you have to invest time to make it work," Glover says. "And right now I don't have a lot of either. It's a labor of love."

In a news environment inundated with the war in Iraq, it's easy to glaze over the basics: Who is Shiite, who is Sunni, and what is the difference?

NPR's Mike Shuster has taken that step back for listeners with a week-long package called "The Partisans of Ali."

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The series, which ran on "Morning Edition" from Feb. 12 to 16, starts with the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632. You'll learn how Muhammad's death sparked the Sunni-Shiite split in Islam, how these two groups interacted through the years, and why Iraq and Iran are now dominated by Shiites, who make up just 10 to 15 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims.

The series is a great example of explanatory journalism. Understanding the two groups is a must for understanding today's news. And from the feedback Shuster says he has received so far, listeners are grateful for the context.

"I think we tapped into a kind of thirst in some of our listeners to have a slightly fuller understanding of what's going on in Iraq," he said. "It helps them sort through what they're hearing every day."

Shuster, who has been a foreign correspondent for more than 17 years, says he's wanted to do a project like this for a couple of years. He noticed that the coverage on the war seems to lump together Shiite and Sunni militias and organizations.

"It's been muddy and murky and difficult to understand," Shuster told me on the phone Friday. "I don't think, until now, there's been an attempt to fully explain who the [Shiites] were."

Shuster knew for sure there was a need for an explanation when he read a small news item during his most recent stay in Iran. (He's been to the country seven times.) He read that Silvestre Reyes, the newly appointed Democratic chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, incorrectly identified al-Qaida as a Shiite organization.

When a member of Congress appointed to lead a committee on intelligence gets it wrong, Shuster thought others could use a little help as well.

"I figured there must be a great deal of confusion in our country about this," he said.

Friday's installment makes the connection between Islamic history and today's war in Iraq. You'll find that the scholars Shuster talked to pointed out some interesting contradictions in U.S. foreign policy. They also agreed that the U.S. government has ignored the history of the region.

As helpful as Shuster's series may be, it hasn't gone without criticism. The New York Times on Wednesday ran a column pointing to several elements the series lacks. The most compelling? A reason to care.

The Times has a point that the story sometimes reads like a "memorizable fact sheet on Shiism." An audio slideshow explaining the split demonstrates Shuster at his most engaging moments. But the story's fact-heavy nature doesn't outweigh the benefits of listening. When we lack an understanding of the people and places in our news every day, that's reason enough to care.

Gannett just announced a new program that could be a pretty sweet deal for students. Mainly because it ends with a job offer.

Starting this year, the company will recruit 30 graduating seniors to participate in a new talent development program.

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In June, those selected will begin a 10-week training program at Gannett newspapers and broadcast stations across the country. Once the graduate finishes the program successfully, he or she is guaranteed a position in the company.

"We want the best people we can possibly get," Tara Connell, vice president of corporate communications, said in a phone interview. "[The program] is one of the tools we have to get an innovative, creative, smart, talented pool for Gannett."

Students will learn how to deliver news in the company's new 24/7, multi-platform environment -- called "Information Centers."

Gannett is also recruiting advertising students for the program. They'll learn how to use audience-based selling techniques across news platforms.

That means students will learn to go to advertisers and say, for example, "You want to reach 19- to 25-year-olds? We can tell you what publications they're reading on what platform at what time."

"It's a whole different way of approaching ad sales, much more attuned to what the customer wants," Connell said.

Gannett hasn't cut any of its existing internship programs as a result of the new training. But Connell said there's a good chance some of its papers and stations might switch their resources to this program.

"It's too early to tell if we're spending more or less," Connell said. "We're using resources we have already."

So for those of you who graduated this winter, or are graduating this spring, check out more details here. The scramble to find a job can be scary. Look at this as one more opportunity.

By Leann Frola
Naughton Fellow

The beginning of 2007 brought a new face to our TVs, computers and print media: Ashley. The 9-year-old who will never grow up.

Ashley is developmentally and physically disabled. She has static encephalopathy [PDF], a condition that is the result of severe brain damage that will not improve. At her parents' request, doctors removed her uterus and breast tissue and gave her hormones to keep her small. Her parents say she will be easier to care for that way.

As coverage continued, the debate grew fiercer and the sides more polarized with this basic question: Was it right to stunt her growth?

But now the flurry of coverage has slowed. So I wondered -- how can journalists use what's been said to broaden the discussion about children with disabilities like Ashley's? What follow-ups could be written? How do we dig deeper than Ashley?

To find some answers, I turned to Arthur Caplan, Ph.D. He is the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of Poynter's national advisory board.

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In the following Q&A, Caplan shares what he thinks journalists have been missing and where to go from here.

How do we go beyond what's already been covered about Ashley?

I think Ashley's an interesting case. The policy questions are some of the things we need to be focused on, not just the odd or freakish nature of, "Is it right to keep somebody small?"

Is what's right for this family right for other families? What's the context? Is this a trend or just the weird, odd story of the week?

Families often can't get any home-care aid, but they wouldn't send their kid to a horrible institution. So a journalist could just ask around locally, what's going on?

What might be causing the lack of home-care help for those with severely disabled kids? Is it a lack of money, lack of resources, lack of knowledge about how to access resources, or what? What needs to be done so that these families do get more assistance?

And what happens to kids like Ashley if their parents abandon them or when the parents are too old to be able to care for them?

Journalism is attracted to wonderful stories and human interest, and that's what the Ashley story has. But it shouldn't be just that. Your second-day story should be these policy stories. Otherwise, there's a risk of turning the Ashley case into a kind of voyeurism.

What else hasn't been covered?

This is a good example where there's all kinds of voices that haven't been heard from yet.

There are various disability groups that have positions on what was done to Ashley. Most of them don't like it -- independent-living groups, disability organizations ... I haven't seen many voices from the disabled community on this case.

All kinds of professional societies -- not the same as the patient-advocacy groups -- they're people who are going to make a living studying something as opposed to having that condition. I didn't see much from them. What does the AMA (American Medical Association) think or NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) about all this?

Then there are different caregiver groups, some of which deal with severely disabled children or elderly patients -- people who've had strokes or aneurysms. It'd be interesting to hear what they have to say.

Another issue that did not get much attention: What's the simplest way to keep somebody small?

Just don't feed them as much. Caloric restriction is a way a lot of people have dealt with the problem Ashley's facing. Then there's a fine line between keeping people well nourished and starving them.

I haven't seen one word about caloric restriction, which means journalists haven't been digging that deep.

So that tells me that when people run into these kinds of stories, they tend to be completely dominated by the people who are blogging and by the charms or failings of the particular family. But there's not a lot of context given in that kind of coverage: Have other families dealt with this? What do disabled people think about this? What do doctors and experts think about this? What is the cheapest place to care for an Ashley? What if the parents abuse her if she is at home -- will anyone know? So it's been a very narrow slice on the Ashley case.

There's also some other things that've been said. The parents want to keep her home. Keep her home from what? An institution? What I'm getting at there is, are institutions for kids like Ashley horrible? Wonderful? Fine? Cesspools? Snake pits? You know, what are they? Do they vary from state to state?

It's a hard question to ask, but it's one a good, enterprising journalist would ask: Is it better to keep her at home? And what are the institutional options that are out there? What's out there for taking care of severely disabled kids like Ashley?

What's at cost? Do we want someone like Ashley to stay home because it'll cost the rest of us a whole lot of money? Is it cheaper if her parents are willing to take this on? What's the financial side of all that anyway? I haven't seen anybody raise one word about money.

Conversely, or related to this, when the parents of kids like Ashley [die], who takes care of them then? Does it matter if they're smaller? In other words, there's another issue out here. Are these kids going to be just kept small while their parents are there? But what happens to them when their parents are gone? What happens to them?

The parents, one of the things they said, they didn't want her to have breasts. How often are people who are in institutions attacked? If it is the case, that might be worth a little investigative story -- is it right to worry about it? Is it really the case that patients are assaulted by their caregivers? Do they screen people for sexual crimes?

So future coverage ideas:

• Look into the status of home care and institutional care for the severely disabled.

• Look into the financial burdens families face who try to care for a child at home.

• Look at the impact of having a severely disabled child on marriages and on siblings.

What do you think of the coverage so far? What's been done well? What needs work?

I think the core debate over her has been well-covered -- the pros and cons. We got both sides of the ethics of the procedure. I think people have a good idea of why the parents did what they did. I think their story has been told pretty well. I don't think it's entirely clear what was done to her -- with hormones and things. It's not that journalists didn't try, it's just you really gotta stay with that one.

I think the coverage was also pretty good of the thoughtfulness of the parents. Journalists acknowledged it was hard for them to present and were sympathetic to that idea that it's tough to tell your personal story of life with a disabled kid. But they might have ignored that question of what's the best place for a severely disabled kid to be. That's the tougher question to ask.

How do you cover the complexities of a story like this one while still making the information understandable?

I don't think that's so hard here. I think people get it. Here you're asking about institutional care -- what do other people who are disabled think about it. I don't think this is a technical thing.

How does running photos and videos of Ashley and her family affect the story and readers' reactions to it?

It generates enormous sympathy. It's skewing the case that way. Anytime you've got picture access of the little girl, people are going to identify with that little girl -- more sympathy for the idea of keeping Ashley small. She looks cute, she's appealing.

I think you have to [compensate] for that in the text -- making those who hate what was done to her heard. That's the balance that wasn't made. Not people who are caregivers -- real people with disabilities. Most of them don't agree with what they did to Ashley, just looking at e-mails from my columns.

I got a fair number of people who don't like what's going on with her, and they tended to be disabled. People who supported the family tended to be parents. It was strongly divided that way.

Ashley's parents blog about their daughter's condition and their decision to keep her small. How influential were blogs in disseminating information about Ashley? How did audience interaction affect the story?

They certainly made a difference on the story. There's a huge amount of blogging going on. But more than other stories, I don't know. They have a very big impact to drawing attention to the story, and seeing people debate it. It got a lot of people to vent their opinions ... and a lot of positive impact. Just people talking back and forth on what they thought.

I think most people got their facts out of the news, then they just used the blogs to vent an opinion. I don't think they learned about it from blogs.

How can journalists avoid exploiting or giving the appearance of exploiting someone like Ashley -- a developmentally and physically disabled child?

She's completely incompetent. You really can't get away from some element of exploitation. That's just going to be a part of that story. A 9-year-old, severely disabled girl who can't give permission ... there's no other way to get around it. You start talking about getting more pictures, more balance, but no, I think you're just stuck. You're going to take advantage of her, and that's just how it is. And I don't think people were put off by it. I think people were pretty tasteful and respectful about writing about it.

What advice do you have for journalists covering a story like Ashley's who have a strong opinion about it?

Drop the strong opinion. This is a very complicated issue, and you cannot bring any ethical or ideological baggage to it.

You've written a column for MSNBC.com about Ashley, saying that you do not agree with her parents' decision to prevent her from growing. To what extent would you encourage other journalists who might not have your bioethical background to also write opinion pieces?

I would encourage them. Once they learn about the story, they can surely make sound arguments pro or con, and this is a subject that is so new that it can greatly benefit from debate.

Where can journalists covering Ashley and related stories turn for resources?

Lots of places, but a good start are children's hospitals, state departments of disability, parent groups at public schools, and clergy who may have counseled families with severely disabled kids.

Taking a step back to bioethics in general, what issues do you see brewing for 2007 that journalists should be aware of and plan ahead for?

Watch out for the possibility of another face transplant this year. And keep an eye on avian flu -- that story will be coming back again.

---

Editor's Note: These responses were gathered from phone and e-mail interviews and edited for clarity.

By Pat Walters
Naughton Fellow

The Internet has given readers new -- and sometimes nasty -- ways to interact with writers.

We're in the midst of a "reader revolution," a time in which every reader is a writer, Gary Kamiya argued in a Salon.com essay Tuesday. It takes little more than a mouse click -- no forethought required -- to lash out at a public figure, an aquaintance or another writer. Maybe one day, Kamiya imagined, readers and writers will play nice, or at least adhere to some rules of decency. It isn't clear whether or not he really believes such a day will ever come.

Despite his concerns about the current state of the dialogue, Kamiya concedes that the Internet -- specifically, blogs, e-mail and blog-style story comments -- has given journalists an enriched understanding of their readers. I've noticed that many news organizations have even been finding ways to use reader input as content. Some newspapers, for instance, quote from comments left on stories by readers.

www.sfgate.com

Using reader-generated content is not a new practice. Newspapers have been printing letters to the editor for decades. But the practice is changing.

One particularly interesting development appeared at the San Francisco Chronicle a week ago. The newspaper started podcasting messages left on reporters' and editors' voice mailboxes. The feature is called "Correct Me if I'm Wrong ..."

The first one, posted last week, is absolutely hilarious.

Listen to it here.

Readers or, rather, listeners, have responded enthusiastically. One called in to leave a voice mail in response to the podcast. Another listener remixed the podcast and posted it on YouTube. Someone else cut it up so snippets of it can be played on a cell phone.

Judging by the reactions of my coworkers, my response was typical. I laughed. Really hard.

But after I wiped my eyes, I started asking questions.

When is the last time a newspaper Web site cracked me up? What's the point of this podcast? Is it good journalism?

In Tuesday's New York Times, executive editor Phil Bronstein said he came up with the idea, and explained its purpose in this way:

"This is about listening to your readers ... Newspapers used to be a lot more lively than they are now, and they could definitely stand some of that."

Agreed. Energy is refreshing, particularly when it shows up in the newspaper or on its Web site. But still, I wondered: What exactly does this kind of content do for listeners?

When I called Bronstein Tuesday, he told me the point of the podcast is to "add to the conversation" between the newspaper its readers.

"I think there are letters to the editor, that run in the paper," he said. "And there are comments, that go on the Web. And, I think, 'Correct me if I'm wrong...', these go somewhere in between."

Bronstein said letters to the editor and, to a lesser degree, online story comments, are often written guardedly. Sometimes this caution results in a thoughtful piece of criticism. But it also has a tendency to snuff out whatever fervor prompted the reader to respond in the first place.

Voice mails, on the other hand, aren't always so well thought out. They're different, Bronstein said. They're passionate.

"Because this is an audio feature, I think [you get an added] intensity and uniqueness," Bronstein said. "These are not things that you'll hear in the normal course of the day. ... [They're] unpredictable. ... In audio, you can sort-of hear how people feel ... Whether they have conspiracy theories, or they're complaining about a headline."

Speaking of conspiracy theories, a Washington D.C. lawyer named Brian Lehman claimed on a blog that last Friday's voice mail podcast was a hoax. He argued that the story the caller was complaining about didn't exist, and that the complaint itself was carefully orchestrated by none other than Matt Groening, creator of "The Simpsons."

It turns out that the story in question does exist. Richard Geiger, library director at the Chronicle, dug it up for me Tuesday -- an August 2005 Associated Press piece. It's not clear why Chronicle staffer Ken Howe, who received the voice mail about the piece, saved it for so long. As for Lehman's Groening claim, I'll defer to the readers of the Freakonomics.com blog.

Bronstein acknowledged that the Chronicle makes no effort to determine if callers really mean what they are saying. "We're presenting it as it is," he said. It's a voice mail to a reporter or an editor.

For the sake of this discussion, let's assume that the voice mails are genuine. Imagine you are a reader of the Chronicle. As you drink your morning coffee and read the paper, you notice that a certain reporter is sprinkling semicolons all across the page. This gratuitous use of punctuation angers you, and you call the writer to express your rage. You leave a voice mail. Maybe you get a little out of hand. Okay, a lot out of hand.

The next day, you're clicking around on SFGate.com, and you find "Correct me if I'm wrong..." Click to play. It's a familiar voice. It's your voice, railing about semicolon addiction.

Should you have expected the voice mail you left to have been saved and broadcast?

Bronstein would say yes.

"You are calling a newspaper, a media organization, and our role in culture is to publish," he said. "You are leaving a general voicemail, a recording of your comments."

Any messages that contain confidential information, news tips or what Bronstein described as information intended "for a specific reporter about a specific story" won't be broadcast.

The point, Bronstein told me, is to present people's opinions, general comments about the news, the paper and life in general.

"[Listeners are] able to hear what other people are feeling and thinking," he said.

Is broadcasting a voice mail legal? Looks like it. Poynter Online associate editor Meg Martin and I checked out California's wire tapping laws. While it is illegal to record a telephone conversation without alerting the person on the other end of the line, that doesn't seem to cover voice mails.

"Please leave your message after the tone." Okay. I consent.

We found nothing that indicated it might be illegal to broadcast a legally obtained recording.

But the more important question, I think, is not whether this practice is legal, but whether it is ethical.

Bronstein said the voice mails the Chronicle is broadcasting are coming from folks who want to be heard. They're opinionated people, the kind you might find on Speaker's Corner in London, standing on a soapbox, shouting into crowds. They want to be broadcast.

But what about the readers who aren't career blowhards? What about the person who comes unhinged in a voice mail simply because it's a voice mail, a message she assumes will remain between her and the journalist she's calling. "It's not like I'm writing a letter to the editor," she might tell herself.

If she's calling the Chronicle, she'd be wrong -- it is like writing a letter to the editor.

Listen to the Chronicle's second voice mail podcast here. This guy thinks Bronstein is controlling his brain. He raves about it until the machine cuts him off at two minutes.

It's pretty clear that these podcasts are designed to entertain, and to do so by making fun of certain wacky readers. The written introductions to each installment are snarky. And both blog-style postings are tagged only as "comedy."

For the journalists who listen, the podcasts give particular gratification. "Ah, I've totally heard that guy before," we might think. Or worse: "Hah, take that. Last time you'll to call in and yell at a reporter. Jackass."

In certain ways, this podcast works. It clearly attracts readers. And it gets them involved with content, talking about it, writing about it and playing with it. But what does it actually do to further the mission of the newspaper?

We're journalists. Everyday, we set out to tell stories, true accounts of people, places and events that might help our neighbors better understand the world. Interacting with those neighbors, particularly the ones who read our work, is becoming increasingly important, a challenge that is at once simplified and complicated by the Internet.

I think back to Kamiya's hopes for a world in which writers and readers interact peaceably. Harmony between writers and readers, categories that increasingly overlap, is dependent on respect. But when a reader calls to leave a voice mail, are we responsible for warning her that the recording she's about to leave might be broadcast to a million people?

Should the content of a voice mail -- serious news tip, grammar rant or personal tirade -- affect the way we treat the caller who left it?

At what point does our struggle to be popular with readers start to pull us away from our comittment to informing, teaching and inspiring them?

You tell me.

I've set up a voice mailbox to catch your calls -- leave a message at 727-456-2357.

Give a call. Tell us what you really think. But consider yourself warned.

We might just publish what you say.

By Leann Frola
Naughton Fellow

Forget the clinking crystal, white tablecloths and dimmed lights of the restaurants you're used to reading about.

RELATED RESOURCES

"Chain Reaction" columns By Kevin Pang "Precocious palates" By Kevin Pang Sign up to receive About the Job by e-mail: Click here (sent Mondays and Wednesdays at 9 a.m.)

Kevin Pang, a Chicago Tribune features writer, approaches dining critiques from a different angle -- one we journalists, and our readers, are all too familiar with:

The fast-food industry.

WE STAND IN LINE WE DRIVE THROUGH WE SAMPLE THE LATEST IN FAST-FOOD FARE

That's the motto of his monthly column "Chain Reaction."

"I just think that everybody eats fast food, so why not write about it?" Pang told me on the phone.

Some of his past stories:

• A review of the Pizza Hut's Sicilian Lasagna Pizza. Here's a sample of what he had to say about it:

"It suffers from identity crisis. Like a "woe is me" high school freshman, this aspires to look and taste like something it's not. Just be yourself, pizza. We like you just the way you are."

• A story about "kid foodies." These are "kids who are eating foie gras instead of chicken nuggets," Pang said.

When one of the kids Pang interviewed was asked by a waitress if he wanted ketchup, he replied: "I don't eat ketchup. I eat olive oil."

The kid was 5 years old.

"He's got a palette that puts mine to shame," Pang said.

Pang said he tries to emulate the writing of Calvin Trillin and Jeffrey Steingarten. They have a more personal approach to food writing, Pang said, that uses all the senses.

"You're following them throughout their adventures," he said. "You really live vicariously through them."

Here's a peek at what he's working on now:

Pang tells me he's on a mission to find the spiciest food in Chicago. He's also trying to learn about the chemical compound in peppers that makes you sweat (a chemical called "capsaicin.").

"It's not only talking to people with a bottle of Pepcid AC," he said. "I'm also talking to nutritional biochemists and scientists about what happens when you're eating spicy foods."

So what's your paper doing to follow the eating habits of your community?

Pang's been on this issue for about two years -- and said it hasn't been easy being the "go-to guy for fast food."

"It requires a lot of extra work on the elliptical machine at night."

By Pat Walters
Naughton Fellow

[UPDATE -- 7:15 p.m. -- Rob Curley calls in. See below.]

RELATED RESOURCES

Poynter's Amy Gahran reported on Studio 55 just before it launched this past spring. American Journalism Review discussed Studio 55 in a story about innovation in journalism this past summer. Fast Company magazine profiled Curley and Studio 55 in November. Sign up to receive About the Job by e-mail: Click here (sent Mondays and Wednesdays at 9 a.m.)

Self-proclaimed "Internet punk" and local-journalism innovator Rob Curley has been at Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive since October, but still gets e-mails about work he did in Florida, where, for 14 months, he worked his magic at Naples Daily News.

That's where he helped establish something called Studio 55.

It's a vodcast. Don't worry, I didn't know what that was until recently, either. Studio 55 describes it this way:


The concept seems straightforward enough, and the result is super cool. Check it out here. How, though, did the Daily News pull this off?

Questions like that one seem to be driving the e-mails Curley still gets about the project. And it looks like he's planning to give us some answers. In a blog post Monday, Curley wrote:


Now, there have been times that Curley has let weeks go by between posts. I'm not saying he doesn't have plenty of good reasons. He's an extremely busy guy.

But the site says that when Curley does post next, he will write about a few specific aspects of the Naples vodcast:

• The strategy/thinking behind Studio 55

• The equipment used to produce the project

• The production process and staffing

Some questions to Curley: How did you (and your team) do it? What's the audience for this kind of thing? How many people are watching it? How much does it cost? And is it making money?

Can't wait to see some answers.

[UPDATE -- 7:15 p.m.]

Just heard from Rob Curley.

He told me he expects to post the first of three pieces about Studio 55 by mid-afternoon Wednesday.

Will we see anything about the economic viability of the project? Not likely. Curley did say, however, that newspapers' online ventures generally take about 18 months to catch on with readers. Studio 55 launched roughly nine months ago.

"I mean, the bottom line is this: People don't look at newspapers and think, 'Oh, my God, they probably have a television show.' So, we have this huge learning curve to overcome," Curley said on the phone.

Curley's choice to write about Studio 55 now is not an indication that he is hanging on to an old project. It's just the opposite. Within weeks, Curley's new employer, Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive, will launch its newest project.

Curley is writing about the vodcast now so that he can begin to devote space on his Web site to discussing the projects he's doing for the Post as they launch.

The newest Post project will feature video and will "definitely be something that's a little unusual for The Washington Post," Curley said.

"It's definitely not video interviews with Donald Rumsfeld," he said. "It has absolutely nothing to do with Capitol Hill ... I'm really excited about it."

Me too. So, keep an eye on Curley's site for some reflections on Studio 55. And get ready for something new from the Post.

If it's as cool as Curley told me it is, it'll be work a look.

By Leann Frola 
Naughton Fellow

Now there's a way to tap Google's resources when you're out on assignment. No Internet required.

If you're not sure how to get someplace or need a phone-book listing, Google has provided another option for you besides the traditional 411.

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Sign up to receive About the Job by e-mail: Click here (sent Mondays and Wednesdays at 9 a.m.)

It's called Google "Short Messaging Service." Basically, you send a text message to Google, and it texts you back.

Thanks to my reporter friend Betsy Lee at the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press, I discovered you can get not only phone book listings and driving directions, but movie showtimes, weather, dictionary definitions, product prices and answers to basic questions -- like a population count or an author's name. It doesn't cost more than a normal text message.

Dial 46645, or "GOOGL." Go to Google's interactive demo to practice typing in key words.

You'll receive up to three text messages. The results are text-only, so there won't be any links or Web pages.

I just tried it to find grocery stores here in St. Pete. I typed in "grocery stores, st. petersburg, florida," and received two text messages after about a five second wait. Both texts had a store's name, address and phone number.

It helped me to go to the interactive demo before trying it. The demo gives you blurbs on how to type in your request correctly. Here are a few that Google lists:

• To get business listings, enter what you want to find and include a city and state, or zip (ex: pizza 10013, Blockbuster boston ma)

• To get weather information, enter 'weather' (or 'w') followed by a city and state, or zip (ex: weather 10013, w New York, NY).

• To get driving directions, enter your start address then 'to' followed by your destination address (ex: 94040 to 94043, pasadena ca to los angeles).

Visit the help center to learn more about the basics.

The one frustration I found with this, however, is that it only gives selected information. I knew there were more grocery stores in the area than the ones that popped up on my screen. (And I also prefer talking to a person.) But it at least gave me some options if I hadn't known the area. And you can get way more information from it than 411.

If your fingers get tired from all the typing, send a text message requesting shortcuts. Send "tips" or "shortcuts" to 46645.

Here's one tip I already found on the site: It doesn't matter if you enter "D" or "d," or "PIZZA" or "pizza." UP, down, it makes no difference.

Google lists a few more tips on the help center:

• period between the business name and the location to make sure you get business listings ('pizza.10013' or 'pottery barn.boston ma')' Use 'D' or 'Define' before the word for dictionary definitions ('D prosimian').
• before the product, or 'price' or 'prices' at the beginning or end of your query to find prices using Froogle ('F Sony Handycam' or 'Sony Handycam price').
• 'W' or 'WX' followed by a location to get the latest weather conditions and four-day forecast for a particular U.S. location ('W dallas tx').

There's also a Troubleshooting section if you're having any problems.

Is this the best way to get information out on the field? That's up to you. But at least it's another option.

By Pat Walters
Naughton Fellow

Among the competitors that newspapers have blamed for their tanking ad revenues, craigslist is king. Classified ads, once a key piece of the newspaper business model, are migrating to the Internet, where it is easier, cheaper and increasingly more effective to post ads. What's good for craigslist, the logic goes, is bad for newspapers.

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Sign up to receive About the Job by e-mail: Click here (sent Mondays and Wednesdays at 9 a.m.)

But the problem, I think, is not that craigslist is bad. It's that the newspapers don't own it. Craigslist is very good, especially for reporters.

More than anything, the site is a killer place to find story ideas.

Newspaper reporters have long been gleaning story ideas from the classified ads in their publications. But the ads are cumbersome on paper. They appear in brain-numbingly small print. Most of them are short, and few have headlines that give readers a quick idea of what the ad is hawking. And, hell, paging through newsprint gets your hands dirty.

Enter craigslist. The site -- which is available in 450 cities worldwide, including locales in all 50 states; Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico and Guam -- has been around since Craig Newmark built it in 1995. According to the site, it draws more than 5 billion page views a month, or 15 million unique users.

But let's get to the good stuff: the ads themselves. Each month, the site registers 14 million new classified ads. And wrapped up in lots of them are story ideas.

Admittedly, this idea does not work everywhere. If you live in the boondocks, it might be a while before craigslist makes it to your town. But if the site continues to grow, as it has over the past 10 years, you won't have to wait long.

I grew up outside Philadelphia, so we'll start there. I'm writing this on Tuesday afternoon. I'll start in the upper left-hand corner.

In what appears to be an effort to stay true to its anti-establishment vibe, the site is kind of a mess. But it's messy in the same way my desk is. I know everything is there, and if I shift things around long enough, the bits I'm looking for will, without a doubt, appear.

I look in "lost+found." Sadly, someone's dignity is missing. As is a member of the Yoder clan's birth certificate. And, of course, cameras, dogs and more dogs are lost, too.

Those ads were all listed today. The rest I will link to, though, will span the last few days. I love this. If I miss a day of the newspaper, some of the previous day's ads might disappear. On craigslist, they simply move down the page. I can scan weeks of old ones.

In addition to "lost+found," the site lists "personals" (very fun to click through), "housing" (less fun) and "jobs" (somewhere in between). My favorite ads, though, generally pop up in the "for sale" section.

I'm not saying we want to write about every petty sale that happens in town. But sometimes the stories behind these transactions are fascinating. Let's take a look.

In "general," I find a beast of a kegerator that makes me wonder who has parties that demand the simultaneous attention of three kegs and a collection of wigs that the seller claims will "knock the socks off your partner." In "collectibles," I turn up a 1902 Navy anvil for sale. And in "household," I discover a collection of albums on the block.

I ask not that we write about the things themselves, but the stories they tell us. Like the tip of an iceberg, all I see is a 1902 Navy anvil. What is the story that lingers beneath it?

We find those stories by asking questions about the things. Which ads prompt some of the strangest questions? My vote goes to the "wanted" ads.

What kind of person wants to buy a typewriter these days? Why doesn't the Air Force ROTC provide drill rifles to its students? Why is someone collecting hotel soaps? And why does this character want "an insanely weird job?"

And, of course, there are more.

Each of these is just a start, a nugget that prompts questions, and lets you know, without even leaving your desk, what people in your community are thinking, talking and caring about.

So, next time the business side knocks craigslist, keep in mind the story it helped you find last week. Let it be a reminder that we're in this business to tell stories that connect our readers to the human experience. Craigslist is doing just that.

We might as well find a way to be friends.

By Pat Walters
Naughton Fellow

Temperatures dropped below freezing in New York City this morning, prompting residents to don heavy coats, wool scarves and winter caps.

Is that news?

This week it is.

The Weather Channel reported that this past weekend's balmy weather broke temperature records in cities throughout the Northeast. The weather was front-page news. Winter-related business tanked in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; allergy season struck early across the Northeast; and the director of the Coney Island, N.Y., Polar Bear Club has thought about cancelling this year's season of winter swimming.

RELATED RESOURCES

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Web site on El Niņo NOAA Northeast Regional Climate Center