Hidden Out In the Open

STORY link is hiding in HERE!
Last January, the Washington Post hatched a plan to take advantage of unsuspecting commuters at the L’Enfant Plaza metro station. They decided to place world famous violinist Joshua Bell in plain street cloths to play violin, and catch the commuters' reactions.

Washington Post staff writer, Gene Weingarten came up with the idea for the experiment. After, he heard a highly talented keyboardist playing at a metro station without not even getting recognized by commuters.

Weingarten had Bell play inside L'Enfant Plaza for 45 minutes, so, he played leaving his violin case open hoping for donations. When all was said and done 1,097 people walked past and only twenty-seven left tokens of appreciation, totaling to $30.
Three months later, Weingarten's article was published by the Post about the brain dead commuters.

The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) decided to do a recap about this piece in order to probe deeper into the idea of social experiments and journalism. CJR explained the relationship best by saying, "Indeed, Weingarten’s experiment was a recent entry in a journalistic genre with deep, quirky roots."

The idea of social experiments goes back as far as 1887 with yellow journalists like Nellie Bly. Who faked hearing voices to get admitted into a loony-bin in order to do her story. Critics believe these types of experiments to be unethical and lacking of actual scientific content.

Journalism is always pushing the known bonders of what is "social acceptable" making it pioneering field and proving grounds for reestablishing the status quo.

Budget cuts only lead to more termoil for LA Times

Earlier this week the Los Angeles Times had to say goodbye to editor, James E. O’Shea. O'Shea left the LA Times after refusing to follow through with budget cuts. The budgets of American newspaper companies have hit rock-bottom since sales of newspapers have fallen. In response publisher David Hiller demanded to cut cost, this didn't sit well with O'Shea obviously. Have budget cuts cost newspapers their souls? I think so, if editors and journalists lose control over their content to accountants and publishers. The Tribune newspaper executive Samuel Zill doesn't feel that cost cuts are the correct route either, but still sides with Hiller's decision on the matter of financial costs. If sales continue to drop what is to become of the newspaper? It would be a shame if this is a sign for the future.

link to article (Click Here)

Oprah likes discover new success.

Discovery is going to be working with Oprah to help her in a 50/50 venture to launch a new channel called Oprah Whinfery Network(OWN). Discovery decided to dismantle the Discovery Health channel to aid in the effort. Personally I'm stoked to hear this because there is not enough television that is pro socially positive channels out there.

I'm not endorsing Oprah in any way, but its good to see a "celebrity" doing something good. Oprah has done very well for herself in the world of mass media with "O" magazine and Harpo and also the resent opening of her school in South Africa.

Oprah has an awesome grasp on how to turn heads and catch the attention viewers and this is what I think drew Discovery to her in the first place. Her influence can be felt in everything for book sells for NY times best sellers to endorsing Barack Obama in South Carolina. Only time will tell whether it will work out...

Heres the link to the article (click here)

link to buzzmachine.com

This is a practice link to buzzmachine.com

Hello World

This is my first post to my blog....something short of AWESOME!