The Blind Tiger

When I added the new events calendar to Greensboro 101, I sent emails to the various clubs, organizations and venues in town inviting them to add their events to the Greensboro 101 calendar. One of the most enthusiastic responses has been from that storied Greensboro institution, The Blind Tiger. Melodi is now regularly adding nice detailed descriptions of the acts performing there. She is also utilizing the "Send a Press Release" feature that forwards the event information by email to sixteen local media outlets.

The Greensboro 101 calendar will show you all of the events around town or filter by category or by venue. The Blind Tiger's events are here. I haven't been to the Blind Tiger since they moved, but I really enjoyed Cowboy Mouth when I saw them back in the day at Ziggy's. They are coming to the Blind Tiger on June 16th, so I think I'll go.

Rhino Times provides cover for fear mongering deception

GREENSBORO, NC --- Earlier this week, parents of students at Eastern Guilford High School held a public meeting about violence at the school and duped the public and the media by showing a video they claimed was of a fight at Eastern. It was not. It was of a fight at an apartment complex seventeen miles away and a year ago. How did Rhinoceros Times reporter Paul Clark report the video? Like this:

[Eastern parent Jon] Dowell kicked off Monday's meeting with an evolved version of the video that showed two fights, one clearly at Eastern.

"One clearly at Eastern." And the other?

While one of the videos may have been clearly shot at Eastern, Clark leaves doubt about the other: maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. It was not, but Rhino readers will have no idea that the disgruntled organizers of the meeting, for some reason, duped the public.

The remainder of Clark's article describes parents' reactions to the videos, and of course they are perturbed, but by a false premise left concealed by the reporter. The Rhino could have contributed to a proper understanding; a realignment of people's attention towards the facts and away from fakery. Instead, the Rhino provided cover for people who used deception to gin up fears for support of their "calls to stop busing gang-related inner-city kids to Eastern."

Yes! Weekly's White Oak Amphitheater sponsorship agreement

GREENSBORO, NC -- It was a strange thing for a newspaper. Yes! Weekly publisher Charles Womack posted to the Yes!Weekly blog an announcement that Yes! is sponsoring the reserved seating at the new White Oak Amphitheater. It was boilerplate PR, carefully crafted quotations of each party congratulating the other. Strangely, requests in the comments for details of the deal went unanswered. Strange because a newspaper would find this rather important were it reporting on someone else's deal.

According to the agreement, Yes! is paying the coliseum $80,000 ($20,000 per year for four years) for a luxury box for all events, three VIP parking passes and to have its logo affixed to 2,000 reserved chairs, other seating and advertising.

News14 Carolina responds to "Eastern Guilford High School" fight video

GREENSBORO, NC -- Now, this is how you do it. No drama, no excuses, no bull; just a straight up, prompt and direct confrontation of the issue. Explain and correct. Seems easy when you see it in action. Makes one wonder why it's so rare.

Earlier today I wrote of News14 Carolina running a story in which they rolled some video of two boys fighting and said that concerned parents had identified the video as a fight at Easter Guilford High School. It was not. It was video of a fight from a year ago at an apartment complex 17 miles away from the high school. News14 Carolina News Director Dale McElrath responded. Highlights are mine:
----------

Dear Mr. Smith,

I appreciate the role you've taken on as an ombudsman for the media in the Triad. I believe that members of the news media, and the viewers, benefit from rigorous scrutiny. I welcome your input. If you've watched News 14 Carolina, you know that we are focused on more issues-oriented news. I firmly believe that the wrecks and murders that pass for news on other stations across the country are merely unfortunate events, which rarely rise to the level of actual news. If I have the choice between sending one of my reporters to a story about a potential tax increase or a murder scene, I will choose the tax story 99.9% of the time.

The story you highlight in your blog this morning was one that seemed to be of legitimate interest to the community. A large group of parents gathered to discuss concerns about their perception that violent incidents were happening at the school their children attend. Organizers showed the video you highlight to parents at the meeting to illustrate their contention that Eastern Guilford has a problem with violence. We recorded the video directly off the screen during the meeting. As we put the story together, we questioned the source of the video and the organizer of the meeting assured us that she'd gotten it directly from the parent of a student at Eastern Guilford. She told us the student had shot the video at the school. In fact, while other news outlets did the story the night of the meeting without school response, we held the story so that we could balance the organizer's claims with an interview with the school's principal.

I have written a clarification to our story, which will air on our newscasts today.

Again, thank your for bringing this information to our attention.

Best regards,

Dale

Dale McElrath
News Director
News 14 Carolina

Parents punk News14 Carolina with "Eastern Guilford High School" fight video

UPDATE: News14 Carolina responds.

GREENSBORO, NC --Cruising Greensboro 101, I saw a story from News14 Carolina titled Some parents concerned about discipline at Eastern Guilford High. The story quickly shows some disturbing footage of two boys in a fist fight, cheered on by bystanders. News14 Carolina reporter Bob Costner describes the footage:

"Parents say this video shows a fight at Eastern Guilford High School taken by students with cell phones."

Wow! That's really bad. No wonder, as the story reports, parents are upset and getting organized, lead by former Guilford County School Board candidate Lisa Clapp.

But wait a minute. I've seen this video before. In fact, it's not of a fight at Eatern Guilford High School. This same video popped up on Greensboro 101 about a year ago and was identified as a fight at Hickory Trails Apartments -- 17 miles from Eastern Guilford High School. Indeed, view the entire original footage and it's plain the location is an apartment complex, not a school.

Described yesterday as a fight at Eastern Guilford High School by News14 Carolina.

Uploaded to YouTube June 3, 2010 and described as a fight at Hickory Trails.

I have asked the News14 reporter, Bob Costner, who gave him this video and who told him it was from Eastern Guilford High School. (Update: News14 Carolina responds.)

Register of Deeds Thigpen #1 story on AOL now

I cruised to the home page of AOL just now and saw that the top story was from the Huffington Post, about Guilford County's Register of Deeds: Robo-Signing Continues On Key Land Records In North Carolina 

Iannis Xenakis

When I was in college, I spent a lot of time in the Western Carolina University library by my own volition. I liked being there. Built shortly before my arrival, it had a state-of-the-art media section that included a listening lab, complete with stereophonic cassette players and high quality headphones. (Really, I'm not that old, we've just come a long way quickly).

Among the great things that library filled my head with was the music of Iannis Xenakis. Here are two of his compositions Pithoprakta and Thallein. More here and here.

We're No. 2 !!!

GREENSBORO, NC -- Greensboro, North Carolina is ranked second...

worst in the nation for broadband value; which is to say second worst for the speed of broadband internet access versus cost.

To my neighbors about to be raptured

To my neighbors about to be raptured, don't forget about your pets! You don't want them left behind and locked in your house with no care. For a mere $100 per pet, I will feed and care for your pets until Armageddon (non-refundable prepayment only).

The Filter Bubble. Where the Internet shows us what it thinks we want to see, but not what we need to see

One of the primary reasons the advent of the World Wide Web was so exciting and powerful was that it promised to tear down the gates maintained by the information mediators, the companies who decided what media and information would be available to you.

In this TED talk, Eli Pariser warns that the gates are being rebuilt by the likes of Google and Facebook, threatening to put Internet users back into a mediation bubble.

Mosaic Festival this Saturday

GREENSBORO, NC -- The Brand New Life is one of the many bands that will be performing at Saturday's Mosaic Festival. Crafts, food, activities and a beer garden too.

Latest News & Record circulation a mixed bag

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record has a sliver of good news in its latest six-month circulation numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations: For the first time in years, Sunday circulation actually grew during a six month period, by 378 to 86,465. For the six months ended March 31, 2011, weekday circulation continued to sink, by 1,081 to 60,993.

Sunday: 86,465
6 month change:  + 0.4% (+378)
12 month change:  - 3.1% (-2,810)

Weekday: 60,993
6 month change:  -1.7% (-1,081)
12 month change:  -9.8% (-6,632)

Average circulation in thousands

Since 2005, the N&R's weekday circulation has declined 35.9% from 95,119 while Sunday circulation has declined 22.9% from 112,154.

Hinterlands dilute Greensboro stats to our detriment... again

GREENSBORO, PIEDMONT TRIAD, MILKY WAY GALAXY -- "Among the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the nation, the Greensboro-High Point region ranks 74th in access to buses and other types of public transportation," reports Amanda Lehmert of the News & Record. She is citing a study by the Brookings Institute that purports to measure and rank people's access to public transportation to and from home and work.

Wow! Really? That's not good, but you have to read carefully. As Amanda notes, and to the headline writer's credit, they get right, the study is of a "metro area" including Guilford, Randolph and Rockingham counties. Asheboro, in Randolph has some bus services and Rockingham county has no public transportation at all and thus, once again, the good of Greensboro is misrepresented because of a regional measurement.

Fortunatley, the Brookings Institute makes available a really nice interactive map that allows a better perspective on how Greensboro is doing. It looks to me like there is room for improvement, but we are certainly not as deficient as the area as a whole.

See for yourself.

On the Greensboro City Attorney's qualifications to practice law in NC

GREENSBORO, NC -- Last week, I commented that North Carolina state law prohibits people from practicing law in the state without passing the Bar exam. That lead me to wonder how the newly-hired City Attorney Rita Danish, a lawyer from Ohio who is not yet licensed to practice law in North Carolina could be giving legal advice to City Council members.

While I got some emails about it, everyone talked around the issue, no one offering a definitive explanation of why Ms. Danish's actions were not contrary to the prohibitions of state law. So I asked Frayda Bluestein, professor of public law and government at the UNC School of Government -- who, as I've told her, makes a great contribution to our civic well-being and the health of our democracy by willingly answering questions like this from people she doesn't know.

She cited the North Carolina Bar rules, which say that a lawyer not licensed in North Carolina may indeed "provide legal services to the lawyer's employer or its organizational affiliates." There are some circumstances, like a trial,  that require the approval of a judge, but not the kind of activities in which Ms. Danish is engaged: providing services to her employer, which she is perfectly able to do.

Much thanks to Dr. Bluestein for the information

News 14 Carolina gets an F in statistics

News 14 Carolina:

In 2011, one in every six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Wow! Really? That's horrible. At that rate, every man alive will have prostate cancer by 2016. Which, of course, is so absurd that it cannot be true And it is not.

According to the National Cancer Institute, there were 217,730 new cases of prostate cancer in the U.S. in 2010. That's about one in every five hundred and fourteen adult men. Not one in six.

WFMY's Mickens gets an F in math

GREENSBORO, NC -- Sam Hieb at Piedmont Publius posted a segment from WFMY's Frank Mickens in which Mickens takes the Greensboro City Council to task. Mickens compared the average time for the past five Greensboro City Council meetings to the averages for the Winston-Salem, High Point and Burlington city councils. He concludes:

"Greensboro City Council averages a whopping six hours and eleven minutes."

Mickens has made three mistakes.

Math error
The average time of the past five Greensboro city council meetings is 5 hours and 43 minutes, not the "whopping" 6 hours and 11 minutes Mickens reports.

Small sample
I'm not sure why Mickens chose only the last five meetings to average, but that's a small sample for a body that has more than twenty meetings a year. Average the length of the all of Greensboro City Council's meetings this year to date, and it is 4 hours and 48 minutes.

Selective Comparison
I question the value of this kind of comparison over a short period. Nonetheless, it is certainly less informative to compare Greensboro only to smaller cities. A better comparison would include the next larger North Carolina city. That would be Raleigh; and here is a comparison of the average meeting lengths this year.

Greensboro: 4 hours, 48 minutes

Raleigh: 5 hours, 5 minutes

It is good to see local television spend a little time on local government. This story, however, created the wrong impression: that the problem with Greensboro City Council is simply that the meetings are too long. We should be very careful about cultivating that impression because the likely response will be less public discussion and debate, less time for speakers from the floor and more of the council's business done behind the scenes.

Wrap your head around this very cool civic endeavor

GREENSBORO, NC -- The names are intriguing, but not very revealing: "Elsewhere." "PICNIC." So, lest you don't have the time or inclination to dig into it, let me break it down real easy for you, because I think you might want to know.

Elsewhere is a collaborative organization, a collection and a space in downtown Greensboro. This Friday night, they are having a fund raising dinner (with "locally sourced" food). The proceeds will go to fund one of thirteen nominated urban community projects. Those who attend will have a chance to review the projects, talk about them, then vote on which to fund. Thus, PICNIC: Partners In City, Neighbors in Community. Event details here.

Here are the nominated projects (details here):

Sod Sofa.
Construct two "living sofas" made of sod in Fisher Park.

Windows to the Past: People, Places & Memory in Downtown Greensboro.A multimedia project of Greensboro's history

ARCBark
Doggie treats made by developmentally disabled participants of ARC.

Crafty Conversation
Combines crafts and practice in English conversation for immigrant residents of Avalon Trace.

Glenwood Coffee and Books
A bookstore and coffee shop in the heart of the Glenwood neighborhood.

Art Tasting
A community garden in Winston-Salem.

Guilford Adult Initiative Network
For a workshop for seniors to promote awareness and self-protection in matters of financial exploitation and physical abuse.

The Arts & Community Exchange Project
To implement arts-based programming in the Guilford County Juvenile Detention Center.

Acres for Atmosphere
Planting trees and protecting polar bears.

Glass House
Build greenhouses in community gardens from recycled materials.

The Center for Visual Artists
Improve downtown Greensboro by refurbishing picnic tables and commissioning a mural design.

Food not Bombs
Increase serving capacity for free public dinners.

Edible Schoolyards
Invite artists and residents to design and paint a collaborative public mural: “Healthy Greensboro.”

Gee, ya think?

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange:

Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented. (1:55 mark)

Carolina History and Haunts Tour

GREENSBORO -- The Carolina History and Haunts Tour popped up on Greensboro 101 yesterday. It's a ninety minute history/ghost story guided walking tour of downtown Greensboro. I'd never heard of it before, but it sounds like fun.

The News & Record's new life boat

GREENSOBO, NC -- It was probably a week or two ago when we first noticed. No one seems sure.

Snuck up on us.

This new newspaper writer. This Mike Kernels.

You can almost see the wheels turning as he tries to keep style elevated. Above substance.

Call it compact. Call it forced casual. Surely a result of clueless management: trying to push through. Still employed. To retirement. Desperate: How about something for the tweeters?

Short. Insipid. Endless.

Tweet.

Bonus: extra column inches!

^5

No complexity. No controversy. No commas. Shallow is good. Lots of it. A halcyon hop across a placid pond. From two-dimensional lily pad to lily pad. One might say were metaphors allowed. Or a thesaurus.

It cannot be easy.

Take the possibly interesting. Write fifteen hundred words. At a second grade level. Keep it mundane. Make it sound worthwhile but avoid the controversial. No matter how much the story begs for it. Conceal the news hook but make it sound interesting. Hard. Harder than you think. This paragraph. Too long. Too revealing. Makes the point.

@You: Bet you cannot do it.

He's right. Right as rain. If rain were ever right.

I can't.

I am barely at two hundred words and ready.

For a nap.

Or a lobotomy.

Can I get a press pass?