Brad Marley

The iPad is truly a tremendous piece of technology.

Restaurants use them in place of wine lists. Hospitals show their patients X-rays on them.

There’s no doubt they are going to revolutionize how we consume data. Especially when it comes to the content we read.

But whether you are flipping pages in a magazine, or swiping your finger across the iPad’s screen to flip digital pages, aside from the multimedia additions the iPad can deliver, the story remains the same, no matter the vehicle.

The one qualm I have with the iPad (most Apple products, actually) is the elevated importance we have bestowed upon this device; as if using it to complete a task as mundane as reading a book is so much more awesome because, dammit, I read it on my iPad, bro.

It’s no longer enough to tell your buddy you read Stieg Larsson’s latest. No. You read it on your iPad.

I didn’t misplace my cell phone. I misplaced my iPhone.

There’s a difference.

Now, we’re seeing examples of this in the media.

In an excellent piece of investigative journalism on Deadspin on ex-Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl’s past transgressions, there was a line toward the end of the article that struck me as off. It spurred the thought for this post, if you must know.

To put it in context, the other coach mentioned (Jimmy Collins) has a long-standing quarrel with Pearl. Here’s the line that was used to describe Collins’ reaction when he read what Pearl said about his latest controversy:

Reading that quote on his iPad one day, Collins smelled a familiar skunk.

That’s all well and good that Collins had seen this play out before. And it was totally relevant to include it in the piece.

But a mention of the iPad? It did nothing to advance the story, other than, maybe, the coach is hip. Or Deadspin is hip.

I don’t know.

Deadspin gets a ton of readership. I’m sure of it. So there’s no need to stoop to name-dropping hot products.

But they did it anyway.

And it was pointless.

What do you think? Does this kind of unnecessary mention in your media bug you? Or am I splitting hairs?

Image courtesy of Limbic.

I’m going to start off this post by telling you something: I secretly want to be a journalist.

When I was a senior in high school, I wrote an article for the school paper on why our school didn’t have a hockey team. With a perfectly serviceable ice rink right next door to the school and hockey popularity in Michigan booming,  it seemed like a no-brainer. But our athletic director, who I interviewed for the piece, insisted we didn’t have the money to undertake a new team. So I filed my story and thought nothing else of it until I learned the following year that my high school now had a hockey team.

I will never know if my sorry excuse for a hard-hitting investigate piece changed any minds. But I had an inkling that my words incited some sort of re-thinking. And that’s a pretty powerful feeling.

In what was to become a recurring theme in my life, I never pursued this career avenue, mainly because the naysayers (those who moan the lack of income) won.

So when the opportunity arose late last year to do some freelance journalism on the side for the local Trenton page on Patch.com, you can bet your sweet caboose I jumped at the chance.

And ever since I started writing for this publication, it has changed my entire perspective of how I go about my day job in public relations. So, rather than keep these nuggets of advice to myself, I want to share four reasons why other PR pros should consider freelance writing.

1. Improve Your Writing – Let’s just get this one out of the way. The more writing you do, the better you will be. And writing different forms — feature stories vs. press releases — will exercise your writing muscle.

2. Think Like a Journalist – It’s funny. When I conduct interviews with my story subjects, I am doing the complete opposite work that I do when I host interviews with reporters. But by doing so, I’m learning to think more like a journalist by identifying the questions that will get to the heart of the story.

3. Get Better at Multitasking – I think it goes without saying that my day job takes precedence over my freelance writing. But I still need to coordinate and conduct interviews on my own time. I also have two little kids. Day job + kids + freelance writing commitments = learning to prioritize. I’ve found I am starting to get more out of my time, if that makes sense.

4. If You Got It, Flaunt It – Don’t let your talents go to waste. I know I’m not a terrible writer. And I like to do it. You would be surprised how many people hate the process. So I vowed to myself late last year that I would put my talent to good use for myself and my family. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a talent?

Are you a PR person and a freelance writer? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Image borrowed from noodlepie’s Flickr.

In 1959, two ex-convicts traveled to Kansas for what they were led to believe was an easy score.

According to one of their former cell mates, a wealthy farmer from Kansas hid a large amount of cash on his property, and it was ripe for the picking.

The plan was simple: steal the cash, kill the family, and escape to Mexico. But only two parts of the plan came to fruition. They never found any money.

A brief about the unsolved murders in The New York Times captured enough of author Truman Capote's attention to cause him to convince fellow author Harper Lee to accompany him to Kansas so he could write about the crime before any arrests had been made. He spent six years on it — including interviews with the suspects – before it was published in four parts by The New Yorker.

Six years. That's equivalent to six decades in today's tweet-it-before-you-prove-it news cycle.

If Capote spent six years on a story today, the publisher would laugh him out of the building when he turned in his manuscript.

But Capote worked in a time when there wasn't as much urgency; you could let a story simmer before serving it to the public. You could make sure every word was accurate without somebody breathing down your neck to throw up something half-assed because they didn't want to be the last to file the report.

Obviously, those days are history, which makes this book somewhat of a recent relic.

I highly recommend it.

I guess it's only fitting that a magazine focused on the impact of technology on culture, the economy, and politics, has figured out a way to avoid (or slow down) a trip to print publication purgatory.

Using inventive ideas like hiding puzzles within the pages, or urging readers to find a missing reporter in the real world (who, I might add, contributed a story on losing one's identity), Wired Magazine has taken the idea that people have more fun when they're interacting with something, and parlayed it into a successful print run.

All magazines should take a cue from this strategy. It's one thing to read how fast Usain Bolt runs the 100 meters. It would be quite another to watch a video of the reporter running the same distance to understand how far we lag behind.

But rather than continue to wax on about the most recent issue, here's a haiku that I drafted just for you.

Journalist on lam
Craigslist founder will not change
Digitized Fab Four

If that doesn't cause you to run to your nearest newsstand and pick up the latest issue — before both the newsstand and magazine are extinct — I don't know what will.

I had a few final thoughts I wanted to add after my recent posts around the allegations against the University of Michigan football team, mainly that Michael Rosenberg was just doing his job, same as if I picked up my phone and called a reporter with a story idea or my wife inserted a pic line (I hope I'm spelling that correctly) into her patient.

But then the Detroit Free Press addressed them and, well, there's really nothing left to add.

If Michigan lost to Western Michigan last Saturday, I suspect this issue would have grown to epic proportions in Ann Arbor and beyond, but winning tends to sooth the savage beast.  I guess we'll have to wait until after next weekend's game against Notre Dame to pick up the story where we left off. (Kidding.)

Anyway, here's the Free Press' explanation of how this story came to be.  Worth a read, no matter which camp you are ensconced in.