Mainestream Press
Calling all builders, businesspeople and budding fashionistas….educators, entertainers, and more… - Official Linden Blog. The Lindens are once again asking folks to place their information on file so that they can match lucky contestants with press requests looking for particular angles on stories.
Dedric Mauriac responded with his info: BlogHUD : Volunteering for the media
Speaking of the press and Second Life residents: Cylindrian let us know that a local news reporter was coming by her place to interview her about her use of SL. Diligent little hive minds that we are, a bunch o' her friends and mine teleported over to her home in Artroplis to provide avatar-props for the interview.
Supposedly the interview will be posted to the CBS affiliate's website so that we can all watch. When/if I get a link to it I'll post it here. That is, if it ever actually gets posted.
I had a whole blog entry written about what I overheard as she was interview. The whole thing is written around a rather weak joke. I'll post it later. In the meantime I actually heard some news after the fact which is more interesting and more serious so I thought I would get to that first then move on to my big leadup to my silly joke.
Claudia Mantis clued me in to the fact that Cyl had heard back from the reporter that came out to interview her. It turns out that the reporter's producer says, although they love the positive feel-good story... they want Michelle, the reporter, to dig up some negative stories to tell to offset Cylindrian's positive message.
Says Cylindrian: "she's really upset about it... as am I"
In hindsight Cylindrian feels that "it was a GREAT interview," and that "y'know, focusing on the positive."
Personally I think it's a bit amusing that my 1/2 written blog post about the event was slamming the reporter. I tried to include tempered messaging to make it clear that the reporter seemed to have good intentions though. I'll go ahead post it without any major edits so as not to ruin the punch line.
I was probably targeting the wrong person when ranting about negative questions as it seems that it was her producer who wants the negative angle. I agree with Cylindrian when she says "it just makes me sad that good doesn't provide ratings." After all, it's the constant negativity and narrow focus of reporting on SL that drives us nuts, right?
Cyl says that if all the reporters hear is negative stuff about SL then that's what they're going to ask about. I think that's a self fulfilling prophecy and a rathole. There are some reporters that have managed to get entirely positive articles about individuals using SL past their negative-enforcement-team.
"She was a sweet lady, she came to my house to learn" said Cyl "all she wanted to do was learn from someone who was a success, and learn about the community... that it's more than a 'game'". I'll note here that Michelle found Cylindrian via Linden Lab's press department - so there's another comment in the next post that you can take with a boulder or two salt.
Speaking of her own involvement with Second Life Cyl says that "a lot of good has come out of it and [Michelle's] eyes were opened to that"
Congratulations to Cyl for representing SL musicians in a nice positive light!
Comments
It wasn't me! Really!
Nice post Dol :) Can't wait to see what they made of the subject.
Posted by: Claudia Mantis | January 19, 2008 10:45 AM
When I figure out what I'm doing in SL, I may sign up.
Posted by: Crap Mariner | January 19, 2008 01:41 PM
Interestingly enough, the reporter for our Fox and ABC affiliate here did a great job of covering SL in a positive light when she worked on my story.
However, her biggest fascination was "you can make money there?"
Story is available at http://richpalmer.com/blog/2007/11/20/rich-desoto-in-second-life-on-fox45/ if anyone hasn't seen it.
Posted by: Rich Palmer | January 20, 2008 12:04 PM