Web Journalist Blog

There have been a couple stories recently about using fake Twitter followers as a way to show influence in politics.

Thanks to the Status People, there is a way to check to see how many alleged fake followers you or other Twitter users have: http://fakers.statuspeople.com

It’s not perfect, but it’s something.

It takes a “sample of your follower data. Up to 500 records depending on how ‘popular’ you are and assess them against a number of simple spam criteria.”

They also say that this tool is accurate for 10,000 followers or less. “If you’re very ‘popular’ the tool will still provide good insight but may better reflect your current follower activity rather than your whole follower base.”

You can read more about the Faker Followers tool here: http://fakers.statuspeople.com/Fakers/FindOutMore/

With those caveats in mind, here are screenshots of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates:

Presidential candidates:

Out of Obama‘s 18,653,463 followers, 7,088,316 are identified as fake accounts following. Out of the 868,277 that follow Romney, 173,655 are considered fake, by the site.

On the flip side, that’s 4,849,900 “good” accounts following Obama and 425,456 following Romney. We’ve leave out the inactive ones.

Vice-presidential candidates:

That’s 22,491 fake accounts among the 112,455 following Biden and 52,916 fake ones among the 203,523 accounts following Ryan.

The “good” accounts are 42,733 for Biden and 77,339 for Ryan.

Truthfully, there are no real conclusions to make here… just some numbers/stats to look over.

NOTE: I took the “test” and am proud to say that only 3 percent of my followers are fake.

Como una cortesía para The Courant, por demostrando ignorancia y falta de respeto a su propia comunidad, déjeme decir: lo cagaron.

If you were to translate this using Google Translate, guess what… it would be wrong. Anyone who is bilingual wouldn’t be surprised. But they would be surprised in hearing that a news organization would solely depend on using this primitive service as their “Spanish-language strategy.”

Sadly, this isn’t a joke: Hartford Courant’s Spanish site is Google Translate by Poynter

But, instead of just being disgusted or insulted by The Courant’s “strategy,” let me offer some tips for an actual strategy:

I preach experimentation, risk taking and embracing failure. You experimented and took a risk… and you failed. Oh, did you fail.

Learn from your big mistake and start genuinely engaging with your own diverse community.

Do you have any tips for The Courant or any other news organization trying to serve its Latino community? Please share them in the comments.

Oh, and if you are wondering, here’s how I’d translate my statement:

As a courtesy to The Courant, for displaying its ignorance and lack of respect to its own community, let me say: you fucked up.

As we know, Google’s mission “is to organize the world’s information” and one of the most influencial ways they help their users is through their suggestions via their autocomplete feature.

Autocomplete suggestions occur when you begin typing out a search. According to Google, it’s “algorithm predicts and displays search queries based on other users’ search activities and the contents of web pages indexed by Google.”

So, I was curious. What are Google users routinely searching for when it comes to the candidates for president and vice president?

Here are screen grabs displaying the current suggestions:

Search details: These searches were done on August 16, 2012 at around 2:30PM PT. I used a “reset” Safari browser. I reset the browser before each search. I was not logged into Google. I did these searches from my office USC campus, in Los Angeles.

Guessing from the results, these suggestions change over time, reflecting the larger news of the moment.

For geeks like me, Ignite talks are, well, a big deal… an honor, really… a rite of passage, if you will. There are so many powerful Ignites out there that have inspired, entertained and educated many… but, if you do one, bombing — in front of really, really smart people — is a strong possibility.

You have to be passionate, creative and brave. Well, in some cases, more foolish than brave.

As part of the opening of Spark Camp, I was foolish enough to volunteer to be among attendees to give a talk.

In an Ignite talk “presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes.”

My “personal and professional passion” is Horizontal Loyalty. Here are my slides and my talking points (many of them I forgot!), but adapted for this platform.

Slide 01

Screenshot from my HorizontalLoyalty.com site.

Slide 02

Horizontal Loyalty is concept taken from Robert Krulwich‘s 2011 commencement speech to UC Berkeley Journalism School‘s graduating class.

Slide 03

For those who may not know, Krulwich is a legendary broadcast reporter known for explaining complex topics, often science related. He’s also the co-host of Radiolab. His speech was posted on Discover Magazine blog, where it began to spread across the Web.

Slide 04

First, let me tell you what Horizontal Loyalty isn’t. It’s not a cheesy stock image, an awkward high five or a corporate teaming building exercise. It hasn’t been co-opted yet.

Slide 05

As cheesy as this sounds — or this image is — Horizontal Loyalty is us. In the speech, Krulwich says don’t wait for a call from The New York Times. Don’t invest everything in your dream company. Don’t give your heart to strangers. Don’t wait your turn. Instead, invest in your friends. Look toward them, the ones you admire, and put your faith in them.

Slide 06

We support each other. We challenge each other. But, while every generation feels this way, the difference is that we can and need to build something together.

Slide 07

This is very much Web culture. We collaborate and share our work. From the concept of Open Source to in-real-life meetups, we see this collaboration coming from the Web. I’m a podcast addict and two that reflect this concept are Nerdist and WTF. These two comedians launched their own podcasts with their friends as a passion project… before their podcasts, some considered their careers were essentially over.

Slide 08

Horizontal Loyalty is in our circles. It’s here at Spark Camp. It’s in groups like Hacks/Hackers and the new ProPublica Pair Programming Project. I’m proud to say it is a core part of my work… in projects like #wjchat and Learn Code for Journalism.

Slide 09

For me, the true embodiment of Horizontal Loyalty is Tomorrow Magazine. Created by former Good Magazine editorial staffers — either fired or those who quit in solidarity — this crew decided to banned together and build something rather than to give up.

Slide 10

They decided to create one last magazine project and launched a Kickstarter campaign. By Friday, July 20, with five days remaining in the campaign, they have raised more than double their goal.

Slide 11

I believe in Horizontal Loyalty… it’s my mantra… it’s what keeps me sane… what keeps me going. But my belief in Horizontal Loyalty began in the 80s, with the film…

Slide 12

The Goonies.

Slide 13

If you haven’t seen the movie, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. It’s about a bunch of kids… misfits… that don’t wait their turn. They take action — go on a treasure hunt — to save their homes. To do something, because the adults in their lives failed them.

Slide 14

There is a scene in the middle of the film where the Goonies could turn back and give up… return to their traditional roles riding Troy’s bucket… but Mikey, lead Goonie, gives a powerful speech…

Slide 15

“This is our time, our time… down here,” he says from the bottom of a well. It’s up to us.

Slide 16

Look, Horizontal Loyalty is not about the Web… nor is it about technology. It’s not about age, either. It’s for people who believe collaboration is a strength, not a sign of weakness.

Slide 17

The Goonies were made up by a cheerleader, a jock, loudmouth, hacker, heavy kid, four eyes and a dreamer. They are made up of us.

Slide 18

In his last words of the speech, Krulwich says “Fall in love with the work, with the people you work with… with your dreams… and their dreams. … Believe in your friends.”

Slide 19

Slide 20

Goonies. Never. Say. Die.

UPDATE: With YouTube no longer being part of iOS’ core, this trick no longer works in iOS 6.

I accidentally found this trick earlier today and I thought it was worth sharing… I’m not sure if it’s common knowledge. (NOTE: I do see there are some older posts about this, but it was new to me and maybe you.)

Basically, with this trick, you can continue listening to a YouTube video via your iOS device even though you “quit” the app, are in another app or have shut off or locked your screen.

Here’s a how-to video:

Step-by-step instructions:
1. Launch the YouTube App and play a song.

2. Quit the app by click on the home button.

3. Lock your phone.

4. Double click on your home button.

5. Press play and enjoy the music!

Bonus tips:
– Also, make sure you do Step 2 by clicking the home button. That want, when you unlock your phone, you can jump into any other app and multitask while jamming.

– You can create a playlist via YouTube… but, in some tests, it didn’t automatically go to the next song. You have to skip to next song before current song stops.

This is the poor man’s Spotify… Hope you find it useful.

I was asked to write about Nerds + TV/Pop Culture… here’s my short piece, with other smart nerds.

Yes, but it’s not enough
One day the nerds will inherit the earth. And if you look at shows like Big Bang Theory, you might think our time has come. But while there are zombie shows and summer blockbusters based on comic books, contemporary media isn’t the beacon of nerd hope we’d like to imagine.

Read the entire piece here

I have to admit, I had high hopes for HBO‘s new show The Newsroom, but when I saw the trailer… I cringed.

The reviews are still coming in since it debuted tonight, but while discussing it with other journalists over Twitter, I remembered a much better show.

It’s a relatively unknown Canadian show that debuted 16 years ago… with the same name. (If I recall correctly, legendary The Seattle Times photographer Alan Berner was the one who told me about it.)

The Newsroom (1996): Wikipedia | IMDb

I’d describe it as The Office, but in a newsroom… also, it was five years before the original The Office was on the air.

Thanks to the web, you can buy the show on Amazon, rent the DVDs via Netflix or… see the entire first season (in pieces) thanks to YouTube.

Here is the first episode… enjoy!

Compare and tell me what you think!

If you liked it, here’s season one:
• Episode 2: Part I | Part II | Part III
• Episode 3: Part I | Part II | Part III
• Episode 4: Part I | Part II | Part III
• Episode 5: Part I | Part II | Part III
• Episode 6: Part I | Part II | Part III
• Episode 7: Part I | Part II | Part III
• Episode 8: Part I | Part II | Part III
• Episode 9: Part I | Part II | Part III
• Episode 10: Part I | Part II
• Episode 11: Part I | Part II
• Episode 12: Part I

Friend and colleague Mekahlo Medina, who is the NAHJ Unity board representative and who is also running to be on the NAHJ national board of directors, has created a series of promotional videos to get people excited about this summer’s journalism conference in Vegas.

I’m Unity’s co-program chair (along with AP‘s Paul Cheung, who is running to be AAJA‘s next president), and one of our goals was to truly take advantage of the conference’s diversity and have a fully integrated and progressive convention.

Here’s a video Medina produced after a quick interview with me yesterday:

Unity 2012 Las Vegas Robert Hernandez from Mekahlo Medina on Vimeo.

In case you don’t know, the Unity conference brings the Asian American Journalists Association, Native American Journalism Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalism Association together for a MEGA convention that happens only every four years.

• Here’s the conference programming: http://www.unityconvention.org/program.cfm
• Pre-registration for the conference ends June 29th… so go register! http://www.bit.ly/UNITY12reg

Clearly I am biased, but take my word for it… this will truly be a progressive, diverse conference. Cheung and I did a BlogTalk radio discussing why you should attend UNITY12.

For the lastest Unity 2012 news, make sure you check out the conference Tumblr: http://unity12convention.tumblr.com/

I wrote a quick post offering updates and information I’ve learned since launching the Learn Code for Journalism project.

This the experiment project that mashes up Codecademy’s Code Year with Google+ Hangouts, enabling journalists to learn programming socially.

Read it here: http://learncodefor.journalismwith.me/2012/06/18/what-i-have-learned-from-launching-the-learn-code-for-journalismproject/

This is a great scene from the film Moneyball. Thanks to Rob Curley (journalism’s Billy Beane) for hooking me up with the clip.

I’ve watched this clip on some bad days… to keep my head up.

BONUS: Sometimes we hit a homerun and don’t even realize it.