Seattle PI: Will it Succeed in Cyberspace?

The Seattle PI is one of the first newspapers in the country to stop the circulation of their paper and move all of it’s information onto their website.  Basically, the entire newspaper is run on the web.  This eliminates the cost of a newspress, ink and paper, but will this new strategy work in saving the paper from going bankrupt?

Due to the recent woes in the economy, many newspapers around the country are feeling the cost.  Many reporters are being laid off at an alarming rate.  The morning papers are continually shrinking as the medium takes it’s last few breaths.  With the addition of the internet and online news sources there is little room for a printed paper that takes several hours to put together.   So many newspapers have a adapted a new strategy to keep their costumers informed by creating multi-media websites mirroring their papers.  Here consumers can browse through the latest news and even listen to live audio clips and video.

The Seattle PI, however is the first of it’s kind to eliminate the paper completely and focus everything into an intereactive paper online available at your fingertips.  The big question right now is if this new venture will work.

After reviewing the site and all it has to offer I presume that it will prove successful.  Many papers at the moment have a website as well as a paper.  Eliminating the paper will alieviate costs associated with releasing a paper each day that has stale news in it.  The paper will cut costs in several areas including printing costs and delivery costs.  The only downside to this online newspaper is the amount of jobs that will be lost due to the exchange.  The delivery boy will be a thing of the passed and many people who have worked printing the papers will have to either retire gracefully or take on new job titles for the online medium.

I think they are anticipating the future of the newspaper, but with it comes a pretty hefty loss in jobs.  I think as a whole the only way for newspapers to survive is make their way into the digital age and leave the prehistoric printed page as a milestone left to show where we came from.  Although many jobs will be lost in the process I think that it is worth the blow in jobs.  Subsadizing is sometimes the only way to keep a business going, it will change the workplace, but many will have to learn to evolve with it and adapt to these new changes cause the future is here and it’s digital.

“Hope” is it fair use or not?

Mannie Garcia, an AP photographer, took several pictures of a National Press Club discussion on the crisis in Darfur, in April 2006, of George Clooney and Senator Barack Obama.  An artist by the name of  Shepard Fairey took one of Garcia’s photos he found on the internet from that set, cropped it around Obama’s face and changed the real photograph into an artistic expression.  When laid side by side the only similarity to the works is Obama’s look and head position, other than that the picture and poster are completely different.

During President Obama’s campaign Fairey’s poster with the word hope on the bottom became a national icon for the canidate.  It is at this point that everyone clashed.  The AP took a lawsuit our against Fairey for infringement, but before they could file the lawsuit Fairey’s lawyers filed a pre-emptive lawsuit claiming fair use.  So the question remains, is the artist’s conception and ultimate transformation of the photograph, just or is it simply copyright infringement.

A law professor from Rutger’s School of Law named Greg Lawstoka, discusses two cases in which the supreme court has settled is first harper vs. Row which ended with the supreme court deciding that it was not fair use and Campbell vs. Acuff Rows wnated to use the song pretty woman and they did and it settled out of he supreme court as fair use.

According to Lawstoka some significant factors for Fairey is the amount of a picture or work taken if there is less then a half of the original work there is a good chance the court will decide with Campbell vs. Acuff Row.  Also the intention of each use.  Garcia used it as a factual news photo, while Fairey used a tiny crop and transformed the news item into a bold statement whch transforms the picture from a factual item to an emotional idea so it is more in favor of fair use.

Lawstoka concludes that the case could go either way and it all comes down to the little details and what case the Supreme Court will side with. 

From my own journalistic prosective I will have to side with fair use after listening to Lawstoka, Fairey, and Garcia’s arguments.  According to Lawstoka a key factor is the amount of the work taken, originally Garcia admitted in his interview on Fresh Air that he went to the discussion mainly to photograph George Clooney and it just so happed that two senators one of which being Sen. Obama.   The full size image shows Sen. Obama in the right corner with Clooney sitting to his left in the shot.  Farey cropped the photo to a portarait shot of Obama and from there faded out the background and changed it into a piece of art.  I also side with the idea that Garcia took the photo for factual purposes while Fairey used a small section of the factual work to transform it into a symbol of hope.

My Picture-Story

My friend is a musician and i was thinking i would follow him around for a night when he has a show and show him getting ready for the concert, driving there practicing for it, preforming it then the after party.  I think i can get some really cool behind the scenes shots and talk about it with a beginning, middle, end format.

The Undying Case of King Tut

The article i am analyzing is called “Modern Technology Reopens Case of King Tut” and comes from writer A.R. Williams and photographer Kenneth Garrett of National Geographic.  The piece opens with a picture of King Tut’s mummafied body recieving a CT scan and on the next page, a full page artists conception of what King Tut would look like today using forensic reconstruction. 

The story centers around new theories on how the teenage Pharoh died.   Little is known about the circumstances surrounding his death.  He died at a very young age, but his body has little signs of trauma so for the first time in 80 years his body left the tomb for a CT scan so that researchers may get a clearer picture on what  killed him.

The story continues with a half page picture of Howard Carter, a British archeologist standing over Tut’s mummafied remains in his tomb. and at the bottom right of the page a small close-up shot of tut’s face.  Inbetween the shots is an explanation of what lies in King Tut’s tomb.  The next full page is dedicated to a 3D artist conception of a CT scan of Tut’s head.

The pictures follow the story in chronological order every thing written is accompanied with a photo or an artists drawing.  Both the writer and photographer shadow each other for the story to give not only the facts, but the visuals as well.

As the story progresses it gets into a two-page fold out on  all theories on what killed King Tut.  Some believe he may have died from a blow to the heart, but due to the new CT scan the cavity in his chest is most likely the work of the embalmers while they prepared his body for mummafication.  The CT Scan did show some interesting findings though, King Tut’s left knee seem shows signs of a fracture.  He may have suffered an injury and and without properly treating it may have died due to infection.  This section is filled with CT scan images and artist illistrations of Tut’s body, with a close-up of the fracture in his knee.

The rest of the article and pictures follow different aspects of the Egyptians, such as their belief in the afterworld and where King Tut was supposed to go.  The last few pages talk directly about the life of King Tut and have very few pictures.  The piece is successful in conveying the new research done on King Tut through the pictures and the story direction.

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