“The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.”

As our Founding Father left office, Thomas Jefferson was organizing the Democratic-Republican Party to counter Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Party. One party backed Great Britain; the other supported France. That’s perhaps what worried Washington most, but his warning holds merit 214 years later.

Our country is more partisan than at any point in my life. Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle shout down good ideas because in this political climate, the only thing more important than being heard is getting credit.

Perhaps one day we can work together, United once again.

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Newspapers used to be great PR advertising machines for sports teams.  It wasn’t unusual for a big city paper to have a sports reporter per team, whose sole job was to find and write stories about that team.  Think of all the free publicity that creates.  But now newspapers are cutting costs, laying off staff and sharing stories across newspapers.  The Raleigh News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer used to write up separate stories about games — now they share stories based on geography.

Sports teams, sports leagues, and Web sites that recognized this shift early are capitalizing on it, and it’s paying dividends.  I just want to take a minute to look at a few of those early adopters who have helped turn sports journalism on its head and are leading the evolution of sports journalism as we enter a new decade:

Adam Lucas, right, interviewing UNC baseball coach Mike Fox

Adam Lucas joined TarHeelBlue.com in March of 2001 as an embedded reporter.  It was the first hire of its kind at a university, and eight years later most of us in the Tar Heel fan base are still thankful for UNC’s foresight.  Now more schools are following UNC’s lead, offering more than just game recaps by SIDs.  It’s both a positive trend and a potentially alarming one.  Adam’s articles are must-reads for me following a game.  They are a great change of pace from news-ed pieces, written for Tar Heel fans by an objective Tar Heel grad who has the ear of a fan base.

This is the future of sports journalism for many teams.  For example, every single MLB team has a beat writer for that team’s web site and other sports leagues are following suit.  As long as there are still independent journalists writing about teams to offer an unfiltered opinion, I’m all for embedded reporters.  Adam has proven over these past eight years that he has access to insider stories newspaper and TV reporters aren’t privy to.

Shaquille O’Neal and Chad Ochocinco have embraced Twitter in a way that enables them to reach out to fans directly.  For athletes, their names are their brand.  What do you think of first when I say, “Tiger Woods?”  How has that answer changed over the past month?  Tiger hurt his own image, which essentially is his brand name and that’s cost him advertising revenue.  Shaq and Chad Johnson realize Twitter offers them the ability to shape their own image without having to rely on sports reporters or the World Wide Leader.

Jason Peck wrote last December that Shaq had 21,000 followers at the time.  In one year, that number doubled… and doubled again… and doubled again.  Shaq now has more than 2.6 million followers, 12 times what he had last December.  Chad Johnson has more than 500,000 followers and launched his own iPhone app that at one point was one of the top two highest selling sports apps on the iPhone.  He even broke the news when the Bengals’ first-round draft pick signed with the team.  Sports journalism is evolving on the social media front because athletes realize they don’t need journalists.  They are often eliminating the middle man and reaching out directly to fans.  This will only continue to grow in the next decade.

ESPN is hoping to change local sports reporting in much the same way that it changed national sports reporting.  The WWL has started to roll out localized versions of ESPN.com in Chicago, Boston, Dallas and other cities.  In many cases, ESPN is hiring the same sports reporters in those areas who used to cover teams for the local newspapers.  It’s a big venture, one they are pushing hard on network programming like SportsCenter and live games.  The smart thing ESPN is doing, is they are going after both national and local advertisers.  On ESPNChicago.com you might see an ad for StubHub right next to an ad for a local jewelry store.  ESPN can also reuse stories and video already being published on ESPN.com in a way that newspapers can’t.  It’s Chicago site, which launched in the spring, has already surpassed the Tribune and Sun-Times in terms of traffic.  Expect similar results in the other cities over time.

MLB has pioneered the Internet and social media in ways other leagues still haven’t.  NFL dominated TV.  The NBA has dominated worldwide expansion and player marketability.  MLB is dominating the newest frontier.  The NFL is still king of the sports world, but their efforts pale in comparison to what MLB is doing on the Web.  MLB has beat reporters for each team, localized all of its content onto one site, created MLBlogs.com so fans can add free content of their own, and was the first to make games available online.  It even launched the best sports iPhone app I’ve ever seen, which lets you watch live games on your phone — from pretty much anywhere.  There’s so much MLB is doing right on the Web, you almost wish the guys making those decisions were running other areas of the league

Are there sports journalism pioneers you think deserve to be mentioned?  Tell me who belongs on this list and what they’re doing in the evolution of sports journalism.

Related posts:

1. 2010 MLB Playoff Predictions
2. Athletes joining Twitter in record numbers
3. “Balloon Boy” story shows power of social media

The headline is pretty gripping (even though it turned out the boy wasn’t inside.)  There are some breaking news situations that spread like wildfire through social media sites… Miracle on the Hudson, Michael Jackson’s death and what’s became known as “Balloon Boy.”

How did you hear the news?  Facebook?  Twitter?  A news alert emailed to your inbox?  We are now able to find out breaking news mere moments after it happens.  When something goes viral across all media — including social media — you know about it very quickly.

I found out about the story from a friend on Facebook.  That friend posted a link to CNN.com.  I clicked there and went to CNN’s live coverage online, watching the balloon speed over Colorado’s plains.

I logged onto Twitter, where “Balloon Boy” or a reference to the balloon took up seven of the 10 top trending spots.  Entertainment bloggers, sports bloggers, technology bloggers… everyone was talking about this kid.  The compelling video and pictures captivated everyone.  Many passed along the crazy story; many more prayed for the safety of the child believed to be on board.

I texted and called a few friends to tell them to turn on the television, and I turned the TV on myself as the balloon started to land.  Had I been on the go, I could have simply watched the balloon touch down from live video on my iPhone.  In the span of a few short hours, I used nearly every medium available to me to find more on this story or pass along the news.

Friends replace common news sources

TV stations, newspapers and the traditional media are no longer the primary source for my breaking news; my friends fill that role.  Think about how many people on Twitter and Facebook first heard about the news from friends and then retweeted or forwarded that news along to many more other friends.  My friends broke the news and then I turned to traditional news stations to find out more about the story as it happened.

Once I turned CNN on, the purpose of social media morphed from news breaker to conversation setter.  It gives everyone an avenue to express their thoughts, their concerns and join a larger conversation about the captivating event.  I was talking to a friend on the phone about the story while tweeting and reading my friends’ responses.

As far as journalism goes, this is the real power of social media.  It’s part of the reason why CNN was so smart to add iReporter functions to its iPhone app.  CNN can’t be everywhere at once, but its millions of viewers can be.  A smart reporter can also use things like Twitter to quickly alert followers to breaking news that they typically will hear about first through wires or phone calls from the newsroom.  The Twitter retweet can be a great tool to show that you’re on top of a story or many times that you are the first one to break a story.  Only the journalists themselves actually care if the dateline on their website beats the dateline on another website’s homepage.

Think about this: Viewers are more apt to remember who they heard the story from first as opposed to who reported it first.

Related posts:

1. CNN integrates social media into iPhone app
2. Athletes joining Twitter in record numbers
3. Evolution of sports journalism

PCWorld writes, “CNN’s new iPhone app puts rivals to shame.“  Wired adds that the new app is “informative and empowering.”

But then again, NPR has a terrific news app of its own, so what makes the new CNN iphone app so special?  Social media.  The World News Leader now offers it’s legion of iReporters a way to quickly and simply share pictures and videos remotely.

Let’s pretend another incident like the Miracle on the Hudson happens.  People who saw the crash right when it happened posted pictures on Twitter and one Twitpic image went viral.  Now those same people can send CNN images directly and CNN can turn that around quickly, adding it to CNN.com almost instantaneously and airing it on TV a short time later.

It gives CNN an army of reporters and makes it the go-to source for breaking news.

All this can be yours… for a price

There’s also something else that separates CNN’s new app from the competition — a price tag.  While the NY Times, NPR, USA Today and many more offer free news apps, CNN’s app costs $1.99.  That fact wasn’t lost on the Associated Press.  It too has a free news app but tried charging $2.99 for a Blackberry app earlier this year.  An AP story reported that the “download rate was less than a tenth of what the app usually attracts.”

There’s no question that some people will look at the new CNN app, see a price tag and decide it’s not for them.  But if CNN is able to monetize this app — and I think they will — we could see a change in the way other news agencies offer apps.  NY Times, you’re on the clock…

What’s the fuss all about

In case you are wondering, why can’t  I just go to CNN.com in my normal iPhone browser to get this stuff, the answer is because it’s not there.  That’s the biggest difference between CNN and other news apps.  I can get practically everything from the NY Times app just by going to the NY Times’ mobile website.  Why should I clutter my iPhone desktop?  CNN went the extra mile to add live video, flick-story viewing and the ability to save posts to read later.

For the curious among us, here are the rest of the features available in the CNN iphone app according to CNN.com:

• Read all the latest news most important to you. Easy to navigate by flicking or scrolling through stories and news objects just like album artwork on your iPod. Easy to consume with both snack-size highlights and full stories. Easy to share via Facebook, Twitter and SMS.
• Watch live breaking news and on-demand video clips across all news categories
• Save text and video stories to dive into later – and even save text for viewing without a connection (on flights, etc.)
• Follow topics most important to you, and receive alerts when developments in those areas are published
• iReport directly from the App! For all you iReporters, the CNN App provides a direct gateway to iReport.com allowing you to browse content or instantly upload your photos and videos (if you have the iPhone 3GS)

Related posts:

1. “Balloon Boy” story shows power of social media

Pfc. David Gordon

I always wanted to interview a World War II veteran and have them tell me their story.  Last year, Pfc. David Gordon was kind enough to tell me things that he had never told anyone before.  It was an eye-opening interview and one that will stay with me for a long, long time.

Mrs. Gordon listened from the kitchen, and she later confessed that he told me things he hadn’t told her in 64 years of marriage.  This interview is a tribute to those men, like David Gordon… and like my grandfather, who fought in World War II, helping preserve our way of life and saving millions more in Europe.

“Thank you” is not enough… but it’s a start.  Thank you.

Click here to see more from my interview with Pfc. David Gordon

CARY, N.C. — The Fourth of July is a special day for many Americans. For Pfc. David Gordon, who is now 85 years old and a relic of a time that is slipping further into history, it means maybe even more.

Gordon fought the Germans from the D-Day beaches in World War II, preserving the independence of many nations. The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial now overlooks the site where Gordon once fought, and the graves of 9,387 brave soldiers offer sobering reminders of the chaos that took place on the sandy beaches below.

“It was like a living nightmare and that was the beginning of it,” Gordon said. “The dead bodies, we had to step over them, which gave us a taste of what we were in for.”

Gordon said the training he went through was extensive, but nothing truly prepares you for the reality of war.

“You can hear about it or you can see it in the movies, but to experience it yourself, you really can’t describe it, the horror of it.”

Gordon enlisted in the Army when he was just 18 years old. Days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Gordon put college on hold and jumped in a car with five friends; they all enlisted. The Army assigned him to the 30th Infantry Division, and like most soldiers fighting on the front lines, death was just a cat’s whisker away.

Gordon’s five Purple Hearts are colorful reminders of the scars he still carries today, and his Bronze Star is a testament to the time taken away.

Now 64 years removed from the beaches of Normandy, Gordon’s home in Cary, N.C. is lined with pictures of a beautiful family—children, grandchildren and a memorable ballerina, but when he thinks back to his time in Europe, Gordon said he inevitably thinks about those who didn’t make it home, his fellow soldiers, his friends, whose lives were cut way too short.

“What I think of mostly often was seeing my buddies, seeing them killed… seeing them killed and the pain.”

But World War II was a “necessary war, period,” as Gordon says, and he would enlist all over again if he had to.

“Can you imagine if we were occupied by people like Nazi Germany, the SS Troopers, if we were under their control?” Gordon asked. “It certainly would have been worth even my death to have done something to correct that situation.”

While it’s hard to say what all soldiers fight for, it was quite simple for Pfc. David Gordon. He fought for the people whose names he didn’t know but whose faces he will never forget. Seventy million people died in World War II, including 40 million civilians, and Gordon’s stories of Nazi atrocities paint pictures of evil that movies don’t do justice.

“You can’t imagine people being so cruel and inhumane to other people. That’s what kept us going, fighting. I couldn’t feel sorry for myself. All I could do was wish we could have done more, could have saved more, could have gotten there sooner… Done more.”

But the men who fought and died on the beaches of Normandy did more than we will ever be able to thank them for.

Today is July 4, 2008.

Today is Independence Day, as is tomorrow and the day after that, thanks to men like David Gordon and rolling hills of unforgotten friends.

Click here to see more from my interview with Pfc. David Gordon, including:

• How it felt to storm the beaches of Normandy
• Why he considers himself so lucky… (Hint: a bullet went through his helmet… and he lived)
• The atrocities of war
• Sleeping at night when the sky lights up like the Fourth of July… every night
• Why former President Harry Truman is and always will be his hero
• His one wish for everyone each Independence Day

Package that aired on News 14 Carolina:

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