Federal Building LINK

Is this news?
Is a DDA board member and elected official?
Just wondering why it all matters and why this board member has no privacy.

“Is this news?”

It’s typical of the kind of observations made in the Stopped.Watched. section of this publication. If you’d like to submit your own Stopped.Watched. items it’s as easy as sending an email.

“Is a DDA board member an elected official?”

Some DDA board members are also elected officials (Sandi Smith serves on city council and John Hieftje serves as mayor), but they are not elected officials by dint of serving on the DDA board. They’re appointed by the mayor (the mayor’s slot is prescribed in the enabling legislation for DDAs) and confirmed by city council.

“Just wondering why it all matters and why this board member has no privacy.”

Readers of The Chronicle’s coverage of DDA board meetings will recognize that it’s of anecdotal interest (i.e., “it matters”) because the DDA board authorizes funding for the LINK bus service downtown. Given that the LINK’s on-time performance is a point of frequent criticism, the fact that a board member was waiting to board, and will experience first-hand the quality of the LINK’s service, means that future decisions by the DDA board will likely be guided by a least one bus ride.

I would have missed the board member in question except for the fact that as I rode past, I heard a voice call in greeting, “Hey, Dave!” The privacy of that individual board member was respected–they were not identified by name. Though, had they been identified, I would contend that this would not have amounted to intrusion on that person’s privacy.

In my opinion, the Chronicle will be more interesting if there is more actual journalistic writing and less focus on the Stopped.Watched submissions.
It’s nice to be able to clarify details in the comments section, but it’s even better if the reason for a submission is included in that submission. Brevity is good, but I think it’s better to be clear and to the point.
Remember who, what, why, where, when and how?
That’s what I’m interested in reading about.

I don’t read the sports section of newspapers because frankly, I don’t care about sports. That doesn’t mean I think sports shouldn’t be covered or should be covered less – for some people, it’s the most important part of the paper.

I love the Stopped. Watched. items. In fact, I think they’re my favorite part of the Chronicle. Are they ‘hard news’? No, but so what? A paper needs local color, too and the SW items are great because they’re brief and they’re submitted by many community members, not just 2 or 3 opinion columnists.

Keep up the good work, Dave. You’re delivering excellent straight-up journalism and you’re keeping the local flavor fresh. Well done.

The stopped watch section is a result of the facebook and twitter fad. Personally, I don’t like facebook and twitter. There is too much nonsense information that takes up too much of my time. Announcements of breaking news and meetings are good, but “what you saw while waiting for the bus” is just to superficial for my taste.

I agree with Fred where I also like reporting with more substance.

I also like reporting with more substance. And I love the stopped watch feature. It often feels like poetry to me. When I read those bits it feels like there are tentacles reaching into many places in the community. And, it contributes to real news. At least one of my items was followed up this way.
These tiny snippets have often been developed into full news stories by Dave and Mary. I very much enjoy submitting them, and especially like reading other people’s perspectives. They are quick to read, and far more insightful that I would have predicted. I hope this section of The Chronicle continues to grow.

Everyone agrees that there should be reporting with substance; why not also explore new media forms as well?

Stopped. Watched. provides an archive of everyday life in Ann Arbor, documenting the simple items; it may not be hard news, but it is not without merit.

Also, do not underestimate the complexity that can emerge from repeated simple interactions. The full impact of Twitter like services is not yet fully understood. (See article in NY Times as an example.)

I just don’t “get” those simple interactions. Most of them just appear meaningless to me.

I actually believe that twitter and facebook are making society less social, not more social. If you can keep track of what people are doing electronically (facebook, tweets, ect) then there is no reason to call or meet with your friends, go to a meeting or even venture out into society anymore.. You already know everything while sitting home in front of your computer. I prefer human contact.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am computer literate and know how to use all these programs and devices. I just don’t “get” the thrill of it all and can’t wait until the fad dies.

It’s an additional tool,not a replacement. Facebook and Linkedin hve actually created more in-person interactions for me, as well as solidifying some long distance friendships. I’ve also seen it be helpful for people with hearing loss, odd schedules, and other issues that can create barriers to communication. Check out the Doonsebury strips on that last month.

I’ll be the first to agree that there is still a lot of noise to wade through, but isn’t that always the case when creating social networks and community? I’ve been surprised and impressed with how effective these tools can be, and how much they have increased my in person contacts and experiences.

Absolutely a benefit for me. I’m just waiting to see what happens next.

Here is an article from USAtoday describing people like me.

Are you a twit if you don’t want to Twitter?

Admittedly, some of the Stopped.Watched submittals are oddly interesting, but life is not a sound bite.

My suggestion would be to separate the Stopped.Watched rss feeds from the hard news feeds. That way if I can choose which I want to read.

Thanks for the good discussion on this!

There’s more to life than sound bites and twitter one-liners.

I’m sure glad the Chronicle is overwhelmed by these soundbites, instead of busy publishing 2,500 word articles about important issues.

Excellent suggestion, Fred. Does Matt’s sarcastic post help you see that the world is not so black and white as you portray it?

MTC, you admit not getting it, then draw a conclusion anyway, then wish for the end of what you don’t understand. Are you feeling left out? If so, others might provide some tips for how to learn about social media. Otherwise, can you live and let live wrt to this?

Re: [11]

There’s a syntax for sculpting the RSS feed to include the sections you want, which is described in one of the monthly milestones. It’s not exactly user-friendly. We could do a better job on that score: the link that says RSS in the upper left gray box should ideally lead to a page with a bunch of pre-defined feeds so that people didn’t have to assemble their own.

Part of the reason we haven’t yet addressed that in any meaningful way is that we’d like to give our “sections” some additional thought — I don’t think they’re currently very well defined. It’s part of the reason we relegated them to the footer after the first few weeks of publication. We’re hoping a school of information student might take an interest in undertaking an analysis for a class project or an internship basis.

Steve – I get the concept and understand it completely. I just don’t “get” what some see as entertaining, enlightening or newsworthy about it. I am trying to find a nice way of saying that I find it meaningless and useless; so “No” I do not feel left out and still can’t wait for all the hype to end. (I am quite tech savvy and do know how to use all the systems.) I make this comment mostly in relation to twitter. In my eyes, parts of Facebook originally had a good purpose (reconnect with old friends) but I feel it is now just a way to encourage voyerism and gossiping.

A couple of notes on Stopped.Watched., its relation to Twitter and its place in The Chronicle.

In terms of resource allocation, I think it’s appropriate to assign a low priority to Stopped.Watched. items — which we do. It’s a minimal effort to paste the content from correspondents’ various submissions into the WordPress interface for publication. It’s an activity I interleave with myriad others — responding to comments and questions left on the site or sent by email, writing, reporting, processing photos, etc.

My sense is that it does not increase the drag on my productivity to the point where there’s a choice between Stopped.Watched. items versus some amount of center-column articles. That is, I think if the time I invested in Stopped.Watched. through the day were eliminated, it would not result in additional reporting and writing of a longer and more substantial nature. I could be wrong — I haven’t tried to measure it.

The editorial hand that’s wielded for Stopped.Watched. items makes that stream somewhat different from, say, a typical Twitter feed. There’s a smaller “box” that a Stopped.Watched. item needs to fit. It’s one reason that we didn’t just code a Twitter feed to auto-dump into that slot — something many readers have suggested would yield a “better” more spontaneous, instantaneous, and overall richer mix.

Twitter itself is evolving as more sophisticated tools have become available (Tweetdeck, for example), so that the follower-followee relation is now almost moot for many people — they monitor key words or hashtags as opposed to simply monitoring what the people they’re following are Twittering. The integration of other tools with Twitter tools also means that it’s possible to generate more Tweets with startling efficiency, which increases overall noise and redundancy. It’s forced me, for example, to use Tweetdeck — to filter out certain types of Tweets. It’s like an arms race.

So I certainly understand My Two Cents’ sentiments.

Without repeating the descriptions above of some of the benefits of Stopped.Watched. items, I think they have value in excess of the resources it takes to ensure their publication. But given a choice between paying an additional Chronicle staffer to manage the Stopped.Watched. items versus write additional articles on, say, the school system, it’s a pretty easy choice (for schools).