Monthly Archives: February 2004

Site of passage: another creative outlet on the Web

Jib Jab: The brainchild of brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, Jib Jab was created in 1999 to showcase their animation projects. Boasting nearly 300,000 subscribers and currently exhibiting more than 20 short animation projects (one of which, the political satire “Ahhhnold for Governor,” was selected to compete in this year’s Sundance Online Film Festival), Jib Jab is one digital media project you’ll want to place on your list of regularly visited sites (Jib Jab is also available as a link, under Diversions, to your left).

Chip speed breakthrough will change our lives

A number of online sites have linked to a New York Times story about what is being reported as a ground-breaking change in the way computers will process information. What, exactly, the impact of those changes will be in our day-to-day lives remains unclear to me, as of this writing.
But scientists certainly seem excited about the prospects for a “bold new vision of the digital future”.
C|NET offers another perspective on this important breaking story, as do the folks at the online computer journal The EE Times. Reuters’ ace tech reporter Daniel Sorid writes about the potential blurring of the worlds of computing and communication in his story, available here.

Breaking the Rules

One of the defining aspects of current journalistic practice that has, for years, caused me concern is the written-in-stone dictum that a responsible journalist must NEVER share his story with a source prior to publication.
Whenever, in the past, I queried a publisher or editor about doing such, to check a fact or to clarify information prior to publication, I was met with a look of horror, followed by verbal outrage and a litany of reasons why.
In this week’s issue of The Nashville Scene, media ethics instructor and ‘Scene’ contributor Willy Stern asks and answers the question “What is wrong with sharing a story prior to publication?”
You’ll likely be surprised at his answer to that question.