The Media Distillery

Earlier this month Facebook announced the creation of Watch, a platform dedicated to original short form video. No doubt part of the social media juggernaut’s quest for world domination. Watch will appear as a tab on the Facebook platform. It’s a pretty great strategy because it will have users continually coming back to their News … More Facebook looks to takedown YouTube with the launch of video service

Let me first tell you I am no expert when it comes to Twitter threads. In fact, I had to ask a colleague (and then google) how to do it. And if you have no idea what threading is, it’s just linking a series of your tweets together. It can be especially helpful in crafting … More The subtle art of threading (no, this ain’t about your eyebrows)

My first semester in graduate school is coming to a close. And as I reflect on what I’ve learned so far, the concept that sticks out over and over and over again is this idea of digital convergence. I mean look at the recent news around Amazon. It was just announced Friday that Amazon was … More Digital convergence can’t replace our humanity

Oh United. What happened? You went from “Come fly the friendly skies” to “Get yo mother#^@%*&ing ass of this plane” and created one of the biggest public relations fails in years. Here’s what happened. In April 2017, United oversold a flight from Chicago to Louisville. Ticket agents first asked for volunteers to give up their … More There are PR fails and then there is United

This is for my ICC 612 class: Question: Based on your experience with WordPress, what are your impressions with working with WordPress – the pros and cons? It started as a blogging platform but has evolved – should it still be relegated for small blogs, or do you see enterprise use? Answer: WordPress is really … More Oh the wonders of WordPress

If mediocrity is something journalists today strive for then collectively we’ve achieved it. I say “we” in the sense that I too am a journalist, a part of the collective. But I certainly don’t strive for mediocrity, nor am I thrilled that my colleagues have grown accustomed to the benchmark. Seriously folks we have got … More How the media became mediocre in a President Trump world

When it comes to society and culture, diverse representation is critical. Unfortunately, in today’s media landscape that’s not the case. Diverse and alternative viewpoints help create a more balanced and well structured community. The FCC needs to do more to ensure more female and minority representation, because what we are seeing represented now is very … More Why we need more diversity in media ownership

One major concern of living in the digital era is how to bridge the digital divide. So what is the digital divide? Simply put, it’s the “haves” and the “have-nots”. But I believe it’s way more complex than that, and any solution to bridge the chasm has to be based on the idea of equity … More We need equity not equality to solve the digital divide

You get a social network. And you get a social network. And YOU get a social network. EVERYONE gets a social network. In this era of digital media, social networks abound, but not all are created equal. There are the standards like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. No doubt we all spend a lot of … More Wanelo: The online “Mall of the Americas”

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Shakespeare not to praise him! I imagine that’s what William Shakespeare’s contemporaries would have said after watching his play “Julius Caesar”. In an article published by  The British Council, Laura Estil notes that Shakespeare wasn’t considered a quality playwright in his time. In fact … More We need to rethink how we critique culture: Or why the skyscraper model sucks