The latter half of the essay then moves into a theory about how this generation would make great Twitter-length copywriters that find a blend of fiction and fact matching the attention spans of our generation and our nature of crafting an online persona. It’s a compelling idea, but I want to get back to the first question of why this l33terati never developed (or has yet to).

It’d be tempting to blame it on the shortened attention span of our generation or the death of print (especially the consumption of literature that isn’t Harry Potter or Twilight), but I think that’s too easy of a target and would largely scrape the surface without finding the foundation.

It’s obvious to say a generalizing statement like, “kids don’t read anymore,” but I think you have to think about why that is — because of the attention economy.

But before the Internet, books consumed my life. I loved to read and it remained one of my core joys and hobbies in life until the Internet occupied my attention. In my school’s reading program, I excelled in a reading competition called Accelerated Reader (hopefully I’m not the only one that remembers this?) and you couldn’t pull me away from my books. Not being very skilled at athletics, I got a sense of adventure and fun elsewhere in the realm of fictional characters and their stories. This went on for a while, until I had access to the computer lab at my mom’s school library for hours after school.

Growing up, I had the unique experience of my generation to watch as the Internet exploded from something only a few computers in a building could access to nearly every home and every computer in the house. I remember the transition from dial-up to broadband. And in college I lived the glutton life of peer-to-peer consumption of all things digital.

All throughout middle school and high school I didn’t read anywhere near the volume of books I did in elementary school. I just wasn’t interested. And while my college years had a few moments of diving into post-modern minimalism (ie: Chuck Palahniuk), I read maybe a dozen books at most. Even now, I don’t read more than half a dozen books a year (and I haven’t been that big on fiction lately).

I don’t think it’s fair to say the introduction of the Internet provided me with one more generational distraction. That’s a huge understatement. The Internet provided my generation with an infinitely expanding distraction that probably gutted one’s path of jumping onto a literary movement.

Consuming the Internet is one thing. It’s another thing to be able to participate in its creation. And then use it to supplement your communication with friends. And share media. And play networked games.

At the end of the day, your life becomes consumed by a culture that’s managed to meld everything together into a seamless experience that places you in front of a screen and machine that incorporates all other media EXCEPT literature.

Long blocks of text never really went over well online. Yes, we read a lot of things online, but there’s something psychologically impossible about reading a whole novel on even the most beautiful of screens, let alone CRTs. And to read a book would mean unplugging one’s focus on the magic box that gave him everything else. Giving up literature seemed like a no-brainer decision that came with minimal sacrifice.

Maybe the reason “l33terati” never happened is all the geek writers value tl, dr above everything else.

Indeed, “too long, didn’t read” exists, but the reason why that attitude came to be roots itself in the simple reason of one’s limited amount of attention. If one’s attention is finite, then it made sense to shift that attention to a place where multiple things happened at once, rather than literature which is quite singular.

Before our generation, the growth of media and distractions could almost be linear. We had print. Then radio. Then TV. But the Internet isn’t linear. While you could only read one thing, listen to one thing, watch one thing, the Internet’s nature of what it could offer wasn’t singular — it is many and exponential.

Something had to get squeezed, and indeed many things did. The lack of a literary movement might very well be one of them.

But, I don’t think that it’s a foregone conclusion or will never happen. It still could, but it’s going to take a unique group of individuals to make extraordinary counter-culture decisions with their lives to refocus on crafting literature.

This means unplugging. It means the end of pointless clicking. It means shutting out distractions and not chasing more followers or web traffic. It will mean filtering what gets in and resisting one’s output to just literature exercises.

I think this l33terati, should it exist, has a grasp of the unique world we’ve witnessed and doesn’t need to play with the rest of the kids anymore. It’s time to make intelligent observations about it and discuss what happened to all of us as a generation.

The project actually came from a tweet by Jay Rosen, who wanted to know if a list of 20-something year old journalism bloggers existed. To my knowledge, none existed at the time.

I set out to create a definitive — but ever expanding! — list of young journalism bloggers and just provide it as a simple resource. But then I got to thinking that maybe I could do more than just a list.

(Clarification: I am accepting blogs to be added to the blogroll from anyone of any age. There’s no age limit to be included on the site.)

So, I bought the domain name “journalism.me” and went to work building a list of not just young journalism bloggers, but a more general list of personal blogs by journalists who blog about journalism. Yes, I’m aware of how meta this is.

My criteria eliminated blogs written in an official capacity for a newspaper or news organization. The point here was to find personal blogs, not work blogs. I also didn’t include blogs that were basically resume/clips sites that copy/pasted one’s work. I’m more interested in what people have to say about their jobs and the field itself. I also would not be including group blogs, blogs from journalism institutions or news blogs.

So, what you end up with is a collection of individual voices discussing journalism all focused in one place. Hopefully, the site will drive traffic to their blogs and connect them with each other.

To do this, I took the RSS feeds from each blogger and fed them through Feed Informer. The problem with Feed Informer is that it only lets you compile 15 feeds into one digest, however, you are allowed six digests. So, I could have up to 90 feeds in six digests. Right now I’m using three digest feeds and taking those and putting them through Yahoo! Pipes.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Why didn’t you just start with Yahoo! Pipes?” The answer is complicated. That’s what I originally did, but ran into some problems with the RSS feed it spit out. It wasn’t valid and I wasn’t able to embed it into the site unless I used their badge widget. Unfortunately, the Yahoo! Pipes badges don’t display properly in Internet Explorer 7 (Firefox 3 and Safari were OK).

After feeding the three Feed Informer digest feeds into Yahoo! Pipes, I took that Pipes output feed and fed it back to Feed Informer so I could format/style the final feed and put it on Journalism.me as it currently looks now. Talk about a work around! Now, I’m sure there are ways to avoid this complicated mess, but for now it works and I’m sticking with it.

In addition to the main feed, I’ve also started a del.icio.us account to follow a number of these bloggers and see what bookmarks they are sharing. Del.icio.us automatically combines these bookmarks when you add users to your network and spits out handy feed, which I also used Feed Informer to embed in the site.

That’s about it! If you have a personal blog, please e-mail me at kiyoshimartinez@gmail.com and I’ll add it to the network. Also, if you add user journalismdotme to your del.icio.us network, I’ll add you in return and your bookmarks will be shared, too.

Enjoy and spread the word.

+ Beck Diefenbach has started a blog featuring some of the photos he’s shot during his internship at the South Bend Tribune. I’m not a huge photoblog person, but I get more interested when it’s photos shot by people I know.

+ Things that could kill me in Vietnam is the blog of my friend Jenette as she prepares to go to Vietnam to teach English. Landmines or avian flu? What’s worse?

Previously:

+ More friends who blog
+ Friends who blog
+ Friends who blog (and are worth reading)

Muxtape has a lightening-fast sign-up process and it’s functionality is dirt simple to use. Upload up to 12 mp3 files (no larger than 10 mb each) and then send your friends an easy to use URL — like kiyoshimartinez.muxtape.com. The interface is elegant. Click a song you want to hear. Use the arrow keys to toggle forward and back and the enter key to pause/play.

If you’re on Tumblr, I recommend following muxtapelist.tumblr.com, where people are linking to their Muxtapes. It’s a fantastic way to discover new music and share some of the rare tracks you own with others.

You can also follow the official Muxtape Blog and also the site’s creator, JSTN.cc on Tumblr, too.

Time to make my Muxtape!

Technorati Tags: music, mp3, filesharing, mixtape, muxtape, web2.0

+ Vasanth Sridharan is currently writing for Silicon Alley Insider. Although he only started this week, he’s got quite a few interesting posts: why there won’t be a price war between the PS3 and XBOX 360, how not even Spore can’t save PC gaming despite the hype and a list of 10 Facebook applications that don’t suck. Check out the rest of his posts here.

+ Former CampusByline co-blogger and roommate Jeremy Pelzer is the lead reporter for PolitickerCo.com, but he’s also started a Tumblr for Bad TV Ads. Often I don’t know what’s funnier: his commentary or the ads themselves.

+ Jonathan Blackhall, a friend from college who lived on the same floor in the dorms with me and is partially responsible for a months-long Halo addiction, blogs about open-source software and other topics at Encephalosponge.com. No, I don’t know how to pronounce that either.

Previously:

+ Friends who blog
+ Friends who blog (and are worth reading)

Technorati Tags: blogs, politickerco.com, silicon+alley+insider, politics, technology, open+source

+ HappyJournalist.com – I thought this would happen eventually. Although, as Gawker and others have pointed out, it’s not quite as popular. Honestly, I do think it’s unfortunate that so few people have posted there so far. Still, I’d hope that recruiters are taking a look at those who have. These are probably the people that you want in your newsroom.

+ PeriodistaCabreado.com – A Spanish-language version of AngryJournalist.com, which I’m really excited about. I was actually asked by several people if I’d thought about doing a Spanish version of the site, and while I really liked the idea, there wasn’t a practical way for me to moderate it because I don’t speak any foreign languages. Thankfully, the site’s creator decided to do his own version and I told him the basic template ideas I used. He’s got advertising up, however, that’s his choice to make. I still haven’t changed my mind on not having advertising.

+ AngryResident.com – It’s a site for angry residents (doctors in training) to rant about their profession. Not one that you’d expect to be full of anger, but it’s surprisingly bitter. Who knew!

Additionally, a fan of the site and all-around cool guy Patrick Yen created an RSS feed widget for AngryJournalist.com that can be embedded in your blog of Web site to display the 10 most recent posts. Check it out and copy/paste the code yourself:

<div align=”center”><object width=”250″ height=”300″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.gonzopj.net/angryjourno/angryjourno.swf”></param><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent”></param><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always” /></param><embed src=”http://www.gonzopj.net/angryjourno/angryjourno.swf” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”transparent” width=”250″ height=”300″ allowScriptAccess=”always”></embed></object></div>

Finally, I’ve been fielding some interviews and questions for various people.

+ Check out my interview with Pat Thornton of The Journalism Iconoclast. Admittedly, I sound pretty terrible as I kept saying “you know” throughout the conversation, but that just means I have no career in radio. I had a fun time talking with Pat, who has some great posts on his blog about journalism that’s worth your time to read daily.

+ I filled out a six-part questionnaire for Journalism.co.uk, who featured AngryJournalist.com as part of their Innovations in Journalism series. To be quite honest, I don’t think I innovated anything, really. I just think I had a decent idea for a Web site that became somewhat popular in a niche.

+ I can’t forget to mention Steve Outing’s Stop the Presses column on AngryJournalist.com, either. His piece drove a ton of traffic to the site and gave it a second injection of life, not to mention brought it to the attention of the mainstream press (and to Romenesko, who has yet to link directly to AngryJournalist.com).

Technorati Tags: angryjournalist.com, journalism, blogs, media, newspaper, widget, podcast, interview, meme

First, I really dislike advertising. I run the Adblock plugin on my Firefox browser, and can’t stand bad advertising placement on Web sites. I find them simply annoying and I also wanted the site to be mobile friendly.

Secondly, while I think good advertising placement is possible and very necessary for lots of sites to survive financially, I didn’t need the advertising dollars. The cost of hosting and domain registration was less than I spend on comic books in a given week, so recuperating the cost isn’t that important to me.

Third, I’ve recently become a huge fan of the idea of “free” as it applies to the Internet and communications. Specifically, I speak about Chris Anderson’s new book, “Free,” (see a related video of his Nokia World speech that does a great job explaining the concept) and also I’d just started to read Kevin Kelly’s chapter on why the Internet rewards generosity from his book “New Rules for the New Economy.”

To me, these concepts are fascinating and I think they’re important economic models to consider when doing anything online, even something as simple as AngryJournalist.com, because it’s training your mind to think of different ways to bring content to users without using traditional forms of revenue. I wanted to challenge myself to find a non-typical way to make money, but also to do something that embraced the idea of “free.”

Fourth, I felt that if I pasted tons of advertising all over the site, people would not only be distracted from the content — angry journalists ranting about their jobs — but also think I was being opportunistic and trying to turn a quick buck. I’m not against making money or covering costs, but for me the lack of advertising added some credibility to the core mission of the site. There’s already enough people taking advantage of frustrated journalists.

So, how do I plan to monetize the site? I’d rather not say just yet, as I’m not even sure if I’m going to bother to do anything. For now, I’ll just let this experiment continue its course.

Technorati Tags: angryjournalist.com, advertising, free, new+economy, WIRED, Kevin+Kelly, Chris+Anderson, free

In just half a month, the site has received more than 1,000 responses — some well-written, others no so much — from journalists or other observers of the industry at a rate of almost 100 per day. Additionally, the site has more than 53,000 page views and more than 28,000 unique visitors according to StatCounter. While traffic has declined from the initial boom, I’m predicting in the range of at least 1,000 to 3,000 page views a day from now on. Additionally, the site has been linked to by dozens of blogs — big and small, for which I’m grateful — and I’m still seeing lots of referrals from Facebook, del.icio.us, and webmail accounts.

I don’t know everyone’s motivation for visiting the site, but as the site’s seen a great deal of “success,” I’m growing somewhat depressed and more concerned than before about journalism as an industry. It’s been pointed out a few times on the site by commenters that this site shouldn’t have to exist or be so popular. I have to agree.

I know that people’s complaints about their bosses, job, wages, etc., aren’t unique or new in journalism, or in the American workplace in general. But this doesn’t mean that those in the industry should be brush aside or ignore these frustrations. While I believe we’re at the most exciting time in the history of journalism with the Internet stimulating its advancement to new heights, we’re also seeing it come under attack from multiple fronts trying to destroy it. Worst of all, many of these are seemingly suicidal, self-inflicted wounds.

Here are some general observations that I’ve noticed from the commenters so far. Obviously, this is by no means exhaustive:

1.) Damn the man
This could be a variety of arrangements. Editors, publishers, management, executives, etc. That’s where I’m finding a lot of commenters point their fingers. They’re looking for better leadership and some accountability, not just hot air and new directives from a memo full of buzz words.

2.) A bad job market
Layoffs, hiring freezes, trouble breaking in, low-pay. It’s been said repeatedly, “you don’t go into journalism for the money,” and it’s evident to me that journalists know this. This isn’t the problem. The problem is that salaries are so low that it makes it financially stressful to be in journalism.

3.) Unfair workload
It’s not that journalists are opposed to learning new technologies and being involved in new media, but it’s a problem when staff is too few and the work is too much — often without overtime. Add to this beat consolidation when colleagues leave and no one new is hired and you end up burning out those who would like to do more, but can’t because they’re treading water to stay on top of everything for the print edition.

4.) Poor education/training
Complaints from college journalists seem to come from the fact that they’re being taught about the past, not the future of the news business by professors who haven’t realized the full effect of the Internet’s dynamic effect on news consumption. Also, there’s an enormous sense of selling young journalists on a sense of idealism, but with very little acknowledgment of how things actually work as the industry declines.

5.) Misunderstanding of roles
Different positions don’t understand each other and the difficulties of each of their roles. I get a sense that lots of people feel like others disrespect them and what they contribute. It’s very divisive and not unified in newsrooms, where job titles wall people off.

6.) Rise of advertorial
As papers move to go more local and find more ways to target local advertising dollars, it’s dumping more work on journalists to fill these special sections or pander to these businesses. What journalist wouldn’t be angry about this?

7.) Waste of talent
Bad story assignments and moving away from the public service and watchdog role of journalism also has many upset. Instead of focusing on what journalists think would be substantive, sub-par and feel-good stories are pushed. It’s as if all the editors got the hyperlocal memo, but missed the point on what that’s supposed to really mean. For some, this kind of work is insulting their abilities.

I think the most heartbreaking realization I’ve had while reading all the comments on the site is that so many are angry about the state of journalism, the one career that many thought could make them happy, and not having the power to make things better. I think the death of the American journalist’s dream is the root of this, and it’s worth being as mad as hell about. The unfortunate thing is that no one knows what’s next or how to fix it all.

Technorati Tags: angryjournalist.com, journalism, media, newspaper, blog, job, culture

AngryJournalist.com is for the underpaid, overworked, frustrated, pissed off and ignored media professionals to publicly and anonymously vent their anger. Share your story. With any luck, you’ll feel better.

The site has a simple prompt for visitors: Why are you angry today?

Anyone may write their rant about what’s causing them grief and publish it instantly for everyone to read. It appears anonymously — no e-mail or registration required. In a way, its purpose is two-fold. One, to give angry journalists a place to vent. Two, to let them know they’re not alone.

I created this site for several reasons. In private conversations with friends I sensed that there is a growing angst among the upcoming crop of journalists entering the field right now. Journalism-school graduates have the odds stacked against them.

More than likely, their education was inadequate — it’s rare that new media skills were taught or were de-emphasized — making the majority of them less competitive. The job market is terrible. More companies are having hiring freezes — or worse, layoffs — meaning fewer opportunities are available. It’s an instance where supply greatly outnumbers demand. And of what jobs are available, these entry-level jobs pay poorly. It’s even worse in broadcast media.

Couple this together with an industry that’s getting hammered by Wall Street. Stock prices are tumbling, circulation’s falling or remaining stagnant at best, advertising dollars in print aren’t being replaced by online revenues and the pressure increases from above to keep tightening belts and “do more with less.”

As they say, shit rolls downhill … right onto the front-line reporters, copy editors, page designers, photographers, etc. Odds are good these people didn’t create the problem, they just inherited it. And many of them are making sacrifices, pitching good ideas and trying to fix this aching industry.

Outside of these discussions with those I’d consider close colleagues, I also read this report by Dr. Scott Reinardy at Ball State University: Newspaper journalism in crisis: Burnout on the rise, eroding young journalists’ career commitment. The report’s results and conclusions are worth reading, and they reinforced some of the observations I’d made of my friends and acquaintances:

31 percent of young journalists (34 and younger) expressed intentions to leave the profession.

For those who expressed interest in leaving newspaper journalism, a follow-up question asked: “If you are intending to leave newspaper journalism, what would be the reason(s) for leaving?” Of the 223 journalists 34 and younger who said they intended to leave or answered “don’t know,” 36 percent said money or salary was the reason, 27 percent said hours or schedule and 19 percent said stress or burnout. Also, a reference to family life was mentioned in 13 percent of the responses.

The report includes some anecdotal stories from responses collected for the study and are worth reading as well.

The end of Reinardy’s conclusion includes this statement, which prompted me to think about where the industry is headed in the future:

So in an effort for newspapers to raise revenues, maintain circulation and provide readers with more information in more ways, another crisis might be upon us. Perhaps lost in this evolutionary period of newspaper journalism is the news worker. When he or she is no longer able, or no longer willing, to provide quality journalism, the journalism of crisis won’t be found on Wall Street or in the circulation data. It’ll be found in the newsroom.

After reflecting on this, it dawned on me that most publishers, managers, executives, etc., probably have no idea just how angry “trench” journalists are in their own newsroom.

But I suspect most of these journalists aren’t going to speak up. They’re low on the totem pole. They need to pay off their college loans and work long enough to put in a year or two until they can move on to another job. Some of them might feel it’s easier just to stay silent rather than be combative and confrontational.

Maybe they would blog about it, but that’s risky. What if their boss finds out? What if they’re punished for just pointing out the bullshit that their newspaper, station, organization is oblivious to? It’s too risky.

And that led to the third reason why I wanted to create AngryJournalist.com. I thought, “maybe if it became big enough, executives at media companies would take note and realize how frustrated their employees actually are in the industry and do something to change it.”

Granted, since it’s all anonymous, specific papers will never know they’re being discussed or ranted about (unless someone wants to name names, which I recommend against for obvious reasons), but the larger goal is to change the perception across the industry.

I’m not naive to think that one Web site will change everything, but hopefully it’ll spark discussion. Or at least be something that helps other journalists get through their week and know they’re all in this together. It’s an experiment and I’m curious to see where this goes.

So, feel free to join in. Read. Write. Share. Think. Feel better.

Technorati Tags: angryjournalist.com, journalism, media, newspaper, blog, job, culture

+ Back to Asics – My good friend, Maureen, has started a blog on running. I don’t run, but some of the posts are kind of interesting to non-runners, such as this one about how runners in Kenya literally are chased by angry mobs and have to dodge rocks.

+ In Chambers – Aaron Chambers, Springfield bureau chief for the Rockford Register Star, has started a blog about politics and government in the state capital and some national topics even slip into it. For those who don’t know, Aaron was my boss while during my PAR internship at UIS and it’s great to see him blogging on a regular basis, along with his new intern. It’s a great read if you’re interested in Illinois politics, because Aaron fills it with the stuff that doesn’t make the paper. For instance, this post on Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and the follow-up post, too. Honestly, I don’t know why the “leftovers” make for more interesting reading material than what’s found in the newspaper, but I think it’s because it’s not rehashing what’s being echoed elsewhere.

That’s it for now. Got a blog you think I should be reading? Put it in the comments.

Technorati Tags: blog, rockford+register+star, Illinois, politics, government, running