Citizen photographers app…

Can you say “Citizen Journalist”? That phrase harkens back seven or eight years when everyone it seems wanted to become a journalist. It had its good and bad points and never really seemed to take off. Kind of floundered and dropped out of sight.

Well, now someone has developed an app titled “Tapln” that encourages citizens to shoot photos to be submitted to their local rag.

Participating newspapers would ask their readers to pull out a phone and snap pictures if they are on scene of an event…even to the point of shooting breaking news.

We all know the dangers inherent in having untrained civilians running amuck thinking they can do a pro’s job. I won’t list them. Why don’t you? Feel free to make a comment below and let the world know what YOU think of this marvelous new app.

(Thanks to Mickey Osterreicher with the NPPA facebook group.)

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A small sign of recovery…

…in today’s Stockton Record.

For months the jobs listings have been lacking…lagging. Nonexistent.

But today we have not one, not two or three, but SIX columns with employment offers. A small sign…but I take blessing small and large.

Now you see them…

It has come to this. Opened my newspaper this morning and there was only a page and a half of classifieds – the (former) staple of income for newspapers. You know them. Lost and found. Cars for sale. Garage sales, used stuff, pets, boats, farm goods.

There are (remember, Stockton is the former Ground Zero for real estate meltdown) three and a half pages of legal notices of trustee sales.

Professional Services has expanded from about half a page in former times to a full page. This includes everything from bankruptcy to tree services.

I wonder how much longer I’ll receive home delivery out here in a rural area?

Critical mass…

Every day when I wander out into the front forty to pick up my daily dose of what’s happening, I weigh in on the future.

Each day around sunrise a small blue truck whizzes past and a small white bundle flies through the air, landing with a thud and a long slide.

The (Stockton) Record. I’ve read it since I was a youngster. Did a research paper on it in college. It’s chronicled my wedding and the births of my children. And the passing of my parents and parents-in-law. All the good and traumatic moments of life.

And now I wonder if this phoenix child – this born again daily bundle – will survive much longer. As little as a year ago I hefted its weight into the house without thinking. Nowadays I eyeball it as I approach it…gauging its size. Checking its vitals. What is the content/ad ratio?

Some days the bundle is wafer thin…aneamic…barely there. There is content, but not the life-sustaining balance of advertising. On those days I fear the worst.

Today is Sunday and i was greeted by a nearly old-fashioned log of a paper…or so it seemed. The reality is my perceptions have adjusted to the times. I know what appears to be a heathy, bouncing bundle is actually a somewhat average or less-than-average package.

Losing a friend this way hurts…there are days of hope and days of despair. You almost wish the end would come quickly, but fear that it might.

And you will be forever poorer once it is gone.