[MGP-Forum Announce] Sony starts selling the Soney eBook reader: $349.00

[Robin 'Roblimo' Miller]

Jane Stevens wrote:
> I'm not objecting to reading at all. But why put 1,000 words into  
> text that work better as still photos with audio? 

Speed. I read ~3000 words per minute, and most people talk at around 100 
WPM. Therefore, unless I'm driving or doing something else that occupies 
my eyes but leaves my ears at least partly free, reading gtets 
information into my brain 30 times faster than listening. Even someone 
who reads at 300 WPM is taking in text info three times as fast as audio 
info.

Plus there's the linearity/non-linearity factor: It's easier to flip a 
few pages back in a book, or scan 20 lines up in a newspaper story, than 
it is to root through an audio (or video) file for the words you want to 
go over again.
> Fiction, especially, will remain as it is. Much nonfiction  
> can probably stand to lose some words to photos, video clips, audio.
>   

Fiction has already changed. TV sitcoms and dramas have replaced short 
stories as our most popular narrative styles.

As far as non-fiction moving toward mixed-media, I agree. I'm shooting 
more video and typing less these days, but my video delivery tends to be 
in the form of short clips embedded in a "wrapper" text story rather 
than as standalone pieces.
> We're entering a world of storytelling Zen: the story decides how it  
> wants to be told. Sometimes video. Sometimes still photos. Sometimes  
> audio. Sometimes graphics. Sometimes text. More than likely, some  
> combo of all. And, for journalism, the story is linked to people who  
> carry on the conversation and add to the story. Not elite at all.

Yeah. We'll see how it all plays out. People like me (no degree, but 
wide range of knowledge and experience) are not welcome in today's 
corporate newsrooms. And when you want to get the "real" lowdown on why 
Jamal shot Andrea, you're still better off lean against the wall along 
Martin Luther King and share a 40 or two with a couple of guys, using 
reporting tools no more intimidating than a pen and notepad than 
pointing a vidcam at the police spokesbeing's face at a news conference.

Ditto talking to police, soldiers, cabbies, and other blue-collar types 
likely to be suspicious about "college kid reporters."

I find it amusing/amazing that I am 100% up to date on our local police 
force's contract negotiations with the city (Bradenton, FL) but that I 
haven't read a word about these negotiations in either of our local 
papers and, worse - cops I talk to tell me no reporters have tried to 
talk to them about salary matters, and that they probably wouldn't talk 
to reporters about it anyway, because (typical statement), "They aren't 
like you, Rob. They come here as like a stop in their careers and only 
write about police if they have something bad to say about us."

That's enough typing for the morning. I need to grab my new HD vidcam 
and go watch a couple of local candidates campaign door-to-door. No one 
else around here covers the grunt work of trying to get into office, so 
that leaves it to me. I'll have a nice little mini-documentary about 
campaigning on my site -- roblimo.com -- after the November election.

Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
Editor in Chief, OSTG
Bradenton, Fleriduh