Rant on Rating Journalism

In what seemed like a thinly veiled effort to boost user numbers for start-up site Newstrust.net, my classmates and I were asked to sign up for an account at this site, then rate three news stories on the same topic. (I chose the earthquake in Chile.)

I believe rating news is one activity where the truth will not necessarily emerge from the collective knowledge of average citizens, which seems to be the point of Newstrust. Also, I don't think this knowledge could even be gleaned, as I don't believe each story reviewed will ever get more than a handful of reviews, because, as it always is with news, what was news yesterday and worthy of rating is old news today, and not as interesting a read.

This inherent news problem makes the goal of having the cream rise to the top, or however the saying goes, impossible as the average rating of a certain story will only reflect the polarized, subjective views of a few people.

Even as a person going through training to be a better journalist, I wouldn't suggest my ratings of certain stories as particularly helpful or even necessarily reflective of an unobtainable "true" rating determined by mashing together ratings of several people.

A few problems I had with the site:

1. If you're rating a story that has already been rated, it's not too far fetched to imagine you might be influenced by the rating presented when determining your own.

2. Search results for stories rated on the site are terrible--it'll be difficult to find a story on a topic you'd like to know more about by searching for it on NewsTrust.

3. The banner that allows users to rate stories only appears on the page where the original rater posted the URL. If you click to "read more," and the story opens on another page, the NewsTrust banner disappears and you can't rate the story from there.

It's a noble goal to want to make people more media literate. And forcing people to think about what they've read and why they feel it was or was not informative is a good way to do that. But I think the people that are going to take the time to do that are probably not the people who most need to be taught about media literacy.

It's a great idea--the act of rating a news story should help a reader become more media savvy. However I do not think anything of great significance will be revealed in the collective ratings themselves, as the stories being rated are constantly shifting according to the daily news cycle, and will therefore never have enough ratings to reflect some kind of collective knowledge about what is good or bad journalism.

And thus, I end my journalism rant.

Brought to you by Dead Tired, an after effect of competing in your first triathlon of the season...even if you only did 2/3 of it...and it was a sprint...

More on the Treeathlon to come!

Mourning Athleticism Lost

I just received an email from Planet Ultra informing me that the Camino Real Double Century went well this year.

And it made me a little sad.

OK, a lot sad.

That means it's been over a year since I did my first double century with my favorite ultracycling buddies Robyn and coachubby. That means that at this time last year, I could swing my right leg over the Silver Bullet, clip in, and ride for 18 hours straight. Up mountains, down mountains, up mountains again. Just out there, enjoying my buddies' company. Or, you know, huddling together in a ditch on the side of the road in the freezing rain. That's fun, too.

And so, this evening, I mourn for my long lost ultrafitness, which has been obliterated by training weeks so short they don't even count as training, revenge of the hambutt, and a fondness for frosted bite-size chocolate mini wheats.

At least my brain is getting toned.

Proof? It hurts.

Teenage Socialization Hits a Speed Bump

"Wi-Fi Turns Rowdy Bus Into Rolling Study Hall" proclaimed this article from the NY Times on Feb. 11th.

Using the example of a school bus in Arizona, the Times went on to show how wi-fi enabled school buses are allowing kids to settle down and get their work done. Or play video games.

Does this make any body else a little sad?

I imagine teenagers (and younger kids) already engrossed themselves in some pseudo social activity like texting while riding the school bus. But isn't part of becoming an adult--an adult who can deal with all types of people--learning how to handle the fat bully in the back of the bus?

I realize to someone only 5 years younger, I must sound like a grandma reminiscing about the days when 16 year olds did not have cell phones and if they did, it was only to dial 911 when they wrecked the family Volvo.

But with all of this technology invading every aspect of our lives--including, apparently, the school bus--aren't we missing out on some part of the human experience? You know, the one when you talk to other people, face to face? Or tie the shoelaces together of the girl you have a crush on? Or get punched in the gut by a bully?

Having kids play video games is "a whole lot better than having them bugging each other,” said the bus driver in the article. But is it? Is it really? Isn't it kind of better for "stir-crazy teenagers" to be "teasing, texting, flirting, shouting, climbing (over seats) and sometimes punching (seats or seatmates)." It's part of social development.

I'd argue it's worth a few spit wads in the driver's hair now and again to give teenagers a half-hour of non-virtual social interaction.

That way, the driver and the teenagers will have something fun to put on their Facebook updates when the ride is over.

Info Management for Type-A Triathletes: A Free Stanford Education

Between training, work, family and stuff, it's easy for a Type-A triathlete to go into a panic trying to manage everything.

A class assignment led me to create a netvibes page. It's like iGoogle, but fancier. You can put everything you spend hours trolling the internet for in one handy-dandy place.

Want to pretend you're in my Digital Journalism class with Howard Rheingold? Well, you can. For real. Here's our class syllabus. Do the assignment for class #6 and you, too, can have a nifty netvibes page in no time.

Ahhh. Now doesn't that feel better?

Here's a screenshot of mine:

For my reading pleasure, I have feeds of the following things:

• NYT most-emailed list (did anyone find something fun to read?)
• winter olympics news feed from google (who's kicking ass?)
• Stanford's weather forecast (should I ride my trainer or outside today?)
• Outside's blog (what crazy stuff did Colton Harris-Moore get himself into recently?)
• Bicycling magazine features (should my next bike have electronic shifters?)
• Slowtwitch (how fast do I have to get to be featured on Slowtwitch?)
• Le Monde--a la une (because I like to think I'm French. And I need to practice la langue. La une is the front page feed)
• Media Shift's blog (will there be any journalism jobs in June?)
• all things paris from Twitter (see Le Monde)
• Funny or Die blog (I like funny)
• TMZ (I like funny)
• my Twitter feed (journalists are e-stalkers. twitter is an essential stalking tool. now I and 2.4 million other people know what Lance had dinner with his girlfriend Anna Hansen last night)

France Issues Arrest Warrant for Floyd Landis--No More French Riviera Vacations

If you're one of those people who takes comfort in knowing someone else has screwed up far worse than you ever will, look no further for this week's pick-me-up than Floyd Landis.

The French have issued an arrest warrant for the cyclist. They claim he hacked into the French Anti-Doping Agency's computer in 2006. That was the year Landis won the Tour de France, then had his victory taken away because he was charged with doping.

And now the French believe in order to prove his innocence, Landis hacked their computers.

But the warrant can only be served in France.

Landis hasn't twittered (@TheRealFloydL) since the 6th, and on January 27th he was in San Diego. Looks like we won't be seeing any tweet from TheRealFloydL saying, "Enjoying a glass of wine after a ride through Aix-en-Provence" any time soon.

So if you're feeling down today, men, look no further than Floyd Landis to make you happy; at least you didn't self-induce a second round of puberty only to find that you can't vacation in France ever again because of it.