Part of my job is to travel around the country and visit our newsrooms, where I make a presentation about our online strategy.  The Rockford Register Star is an example of a newsroom that has totally embraced the web.  They produced the video below to incorporate into the GateHouse training program.

In an age when information flows like a million Mississippis, we need to have an ethics about information.

In an age when access to information is as open as a billion galaxies, each individual is responsible for handling information ethically.

In an age when we are all information creators, contributors and consumers, we share a responsibility to each other not to mishandle information.

The information ethic begins with each person who both understands the power of information and the scourge of misinformation.

This is a role not solely for journalists, but journalists as the paid purveyors of information must not slip in adherence to high ethical standard (the ethical burden on journalists has never been greater); this is not a role not solely for bloggers, but bloggers as the vanguard of a new information river, must take on the burden of protecting and cherishing information; mostly, this is a role for all participants in the conversation, both the creators and the followers.

Not all participants will rise to the occasion, increasing the burden on those of use who recognize the responsibility.

The information ethic requires that we strive always for honesty, transparency, accuracy and fairness.

We must teach ethics as well as we practice ethics.

This is the ideal. Not all participants will recognize nor care for even a shadow of the ideal, but those of us who do must hold ourselves to the highest standards of information ethics.

This is no code of conduct we sign, no pledge we take, no oath we swear, no authority we obey. It is just something we do within ourselves.

And if we do, society will be better for it.

Jack Lail finally convinced me to give The Flip Ultra a try.  He told me the Ultra didn’t have the sound qualty problems of the older version of The Flip.  Below are two clips demonstrating the camera’s capabilities a bit.

I like it.  It’s super easy to use.  The sound is good — for a sound source in close proximity to the on-board mic.  Anything voice more than three feet away is lost.  The Casios we’ve been using do better in that regard.

The biggest draw back to making this the new camera we distribute to reporters is that it doesn’t take stills, and at our smallest papers, reporters want a camera that can do both still and video.  However, at a cost savings of about $100 per unit, it’s a pretty compelling option.

First video is from my day at Syracuse University, where I spoke to some journalism classes on Tuesday.  The second video is a bit of our tourism along the eastern edge of Lake Ontario on Monday.

I want to make sure all my friends in Southern California know about this … wish I could go. If you don’t know Buddy’s music, you can find several great free MP3s on his web site. RIP, my friend.

Yesterday, I thought about doing a piece on the NYT’s link-bait story on the stresses of blogging, but I thought … “I’m busy today. Why bother?” I knew bloggers would be all over it, and of course they are.

But just now, I read the following quote on Romenesko and it gets me fired up anew. My take on the story is that it demonstrates clearly where big-time Journalism has gone astray, and the quote from Larry Dignan confirms it:

I had doubts about the premise. Yes, blogging is stressful. Yes, it can be insane. But is it any worse than being a corporate lawyer? How many of those folks dropped in the last six months? How about mortgage brokers? Hedge fund traders?

Here’s the thing — the Times could have had a very interesting story about big-name bloggers, and aspiring big-time bloggers, and what some of them go through to achieve and maintain success. The Times could have done that with no sensationalism, no heart attacks, no news peg. The story could have just been interesting and informative. That’s news, too.

Instead, the Times tries desperately to pin two deaths to blogging, but then knowing it has over-reached, still tries to weasel out of it.

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

That’s not serious journalism. That’s weasel-word journalism. When you have to write a paragraph apologizing for the angle you’re taking on the story, there is something ethically wrong with your approach to the story.

The poorly chosen angle reminds me of NYT’s botched McCain coverage a few weeks back.

It’s shoddy journalism like this that drives people away from newspapers and reminds them of why they distrust us, why they hate us.

Here and now, I’m nominating Matt Richtel and his editors for a Dart.

Here’s a “must add” for your RSS reader and blog roll … the wild bunch (you know, people like Bob Benz and Wes Jackson) over at Maroon Ventures has launched a group blog.

This is a gang of smart people, so we should have high expectations for wise and insightful posts (just raising the bar, Bob!), especially now that they’re cut loose from their corporate newspaper jobs. You know what stiffs those corporate suits are like.