Seriously, I have an excuse.

I know you're not supposed to do "sorry I haven't posted in a while" posts, but I feel like I need to.

I've been busy the last week or two trying to familiarize myself with the world of Audacity, server space and FTP clients so I can start posting podcasts up here.

Yes, that's right, podcasts. The first one is done, but I'm still trying to get it uploaded onto my own little free slice of server space. (Don't get too excited--I only decided after the fact that it was going to be for public consumption, so it's not very good.)

If you simply must have something decent to read, I present to you my Delicious page, which I've been working on this week to start building up a library of nifty ideas about newspapers, journalism, evangelicalism and all that fun stuff. Enjoy.

So what happens next? Fiery inferno or somewhat less fiery inferno?

I've probably had/heard more conversations about the future of newspapers in the past two weeks than the previous six months combined, and surprising number of them have involved people who aren't in the industry themselves.

If you're so inclined and have plenty of time on your hands, here are three long big-picture pieces published in the last two weeks that are required reading for anyone trying to understand what's next for newspapers and journalism. I was pointed to all three by NYU media professor Jay Rosen, so hat-tip to him and to "mindcasting."

In order from most to least depressing:

--"Goodbye to the Age of Newspapers (Hello to a New Era of Corruption)" by Paul Starr, The New Republic. This is the traditional-media viewpoint, the classic "you'll miss us when we're gone" argument. The title says it all: Starr chronicles how newspapers are dying, then warns of the widespread government and big-business corruption that will result without an institutional watchdog. It's pretty scary stuff. He finishes by looking at a handful of economic models (like public and nonprofit funding) that could save newspapers.

Like many in the newspaper industry, Starr (a professor himself) is primarily concerned with the question, "What will happen to newspapers?" The next two have already moved on to the next question: "What will happen after newspapers?"

--"Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable" by Clay Shirky. Shirky, a pioneer of internet philosophy, argues that the correct answer to that question is essentially "No one has any idea, and that's OK. Information revolutions are, by nature, chaotic." He compares the current situation to the one soon after the invention of the printing press, when old institutions like the church and the Ancients were beginning to be viewed with distrust, but no new ones had yet sprung up to take their place. We're in the middle of that phase right now, says Shirky. The systems to take up the work to be left behind by dying newspapers haven't been developed, and they may not be for some time. But realizing this is far better than pretending everything will be OK just because we feel it has to be.

--"Old Growth Media and the Future of News" by Steven Johnson. Johnson's essay sychronizes well with Shirky's; both start with that same fundamental question, and both acknowledge that nothing sufficient is in place to succeed newspapers yet. But Johnson has a more optimistic slant, using the examples of technology news and political news to argue that the internet has already shown an ability to produce an information "ecosystem" on various subjects that is superior to the old newspapers-and-TV-dominated one. It's only a matter of time, he says, before that ecosystem develops for local and regional news and sports. 

And one bonus, for those of you not as into the whole "reading" thing: This podcast (hopefully this link works--if not, you're looking for Part 2 of their podcast) is a fascinating discussion of why newspapers are failing from two rather unlikely sources: ESPN's Bill Simmons, the premier sports columnist of the internet generation, and Chuck Klosterman, one of the top pop-culture critics of that same era. It mostly takes the angle of sports news, but it's a fun listen anyway.

Welcome back to the real world, buddy.

I drove through the night to Chicago last weekend for an energizing, encouraging, exhausting weekend with friends--then drove through the night back. (There were three of us, and we rotated driving. Don't worry, we were safe.)

It was one of those whirlwind retreat weekends where the "real world" seems a lot less "real" when you get back. But I had about 24 hours to catch up on sleep and generally veg before heading back to work Tuesday afternoon.

An hour after I arrived, I watched a coworker clean out her desk in tears in front of all of us after being laid off.

Layoffs suck. Period. They're demoralizing, depressing and humiliating.

I still have a job, but I think all of us at work feel a little bit less employed, a little less ownership in the place where we spend half our waking hours each weekday, after the events of this week. Layoffs are happening to a lot of people all over the country in far worse proportions than what we saw, and those people need our kindness and our prayers. It's times like these that I think the middle-class segments of American church (which among evangelicals sometimes feels redundant to say) could end up being infused with a fresh sense of urgency to apply Jesus' teachings to the hurting people around them. We try to shield ourselves from this type of physical need, but it's not--and shouldn't be--avoidable.

One step forward, 14 steps back

So you may or may not have heard, but there's this thing called the "digital TV transition" that went down around here a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, the goal was to switch our signals over from analog to digital so our beloved boob tube experience could become that much more magical. And in my case, that process instead involved destroying said boob tube experience. Let me 'splain.

No, we're not morons who forgot to get a converter box and then decided to start complaining now about how "they never warned us." When my wife and I bought a TV two years ago, we decided to obey the Best Buy salesman when he told us to make sure we got one that receives both analog and digital signals. We don't get cable or satellite--just rabbit ears--so for one year and eleven months, that's exactly what we got. Five analog stations came in, along with two digital signals from stations (CBS and PBS affiliates) that had started high-powered digital transmission early. I could watch football and March Madness, and the better half had her Bachelor. Life was good.

The first station in our area to switch completely to digital was our NBC affiliate in December. That went fine--we just rescanned and got the new digital station with great reception. Then out of nowhere at the end of January, that channel went dark. OK, whatever--we watched The Office online, anyway. Then came Feb. 17, when our ABC, CBS and PBS were going to make their switch--no problem with the latter two, since we had been getting those digital signals for two years, right? Yeah, no. When we rescanned, the only digital channel that came in was ABC. No matter how many times we rescanned, CBS and PBS were gone, as was NBC. If you're keeping track at home, that means we're down to two channels--ABC (which is spotty) and our still-analog Fox. And in two weeks that also means three of the scariest words in the English language: No March Madness.

In conclusion, what the crap? The day after the transition, this AP article says, nearly half of the 25,320 calls into the FCC were about this one issue. TV stations responded to this flood of phone calls by frantically putting together stories telling viewers that "Oh, by the way, not only do you need a converter box, but you also need a new antenna." First off, why were we not told this during this $1.2 billion advertising campaign? How could we put such a ridiculous amount of resources into public education for this transition and not figure out that once people converted their TVs to digital signals, they still couldn't receive them? Oh wait, a research firm did figure this out--but they were shouted down and called scaremongers by the FCC and the broadcasting industry.

Second, I don't need a new antenna--or least I shouldn't. My situation is different--and arguably more frustrating-- than all the people in that AP article. I know my antenna is capable of receiving every single one of the digital signals in my area. Why? Because my antenna actually already got all these digital signals. That is, until the "transition." It took my perfect capable hardware and actually rendered it useless. So much for progress.

So, um, anybody want to let me over to their place to watch March Madness?