Word on the Street

“Do you still write letters?” my dad asked, handing me a book of stamps he had bought me.

“Definitely,” I said. “It’s kind of a lost art.”

As someone who still writes letters to friends, I love being the receiver of letters just as much as I like being the giver. As a kid, I used to love the sound of the mail truck stopping in front of my house at 2:45 p.m. each day. And I’m infatuated with this idea: sending love notes via bicycle.

A blurb in The Chicago Tribune’s Red Eye publication earlier this week read: “Want to work at a love factory? Pink — a traveling courier service for love notes — is holding an orientation at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the St. Paul Cultural Center (1215 W. North Ave.) for volunteers interested in packaging and delivering love notes by bike. The service ends Aug. 15.”

Delivering love notes by bike — or even by foot — seems so antiquated. But really, how cool would it be to receive an actual love note by bike, or to be the person delivering it? If my career in journalism doesn’t work out, I’ll know what to do instead.

Instead of being a letter carrier, I’d be a letter keeper. I’ve got plenty of experience to qualify. I try to preserve the letters I receive, and often hope that the letters I send don’t end up in the trash. I have an entire box of handwritten letters and cards that family and friends have given me throughout the past couple of years. As I was packing for Dallas, I debated as to whether or not I should keep the cards and letters, but I couldn’t part with them; too many hours worth of handwriting and thoughtfulness to just eradicate with a toss.

I have another whole box dedicated to the art writing letters. It’s filled with fancy cards, some simple stationary and envelopes — but never quite enough. That has always been one of my pet peeves: Most of the time when you buy stationary, you only get half as many envelopes as you get sheets of stationary.

Now, if only stamps didn’t cost so much …

I did some live blogging Tuesday during Poynter’s pre-UNITY “Diversity in the Digital Age” workshop at The Chicago Tribune building in downtown Chicago. You can check back at www.poynter.org/diversityatwork on Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for more live updates! I’ve only live blogged a few times, so I’m open to suggestions as to how I can improve. What do you like about the live blog updates I’ve posted? What would you like to see more of, if anything?

This weekend I’ll be heading to Chicago to attend UNITY, a convention that’s held every four years for minority journalists. Members of the National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Asian Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Association of Native American Journalists and others gather at the convention to network and attend diversity-related workshops.

I’ll be live blogging for Poynter Online during the Diversity in the Digital Age workshop that Poynter is putting on Tuesday, July 22, and Wednesday, July 23. I’ve written Q&As with two of the participants (there are about 40 altogether). You can read a Q&A with Odette Keeley of New America Media here and a Q&A with The Maynard Institute’s Richard Prince here to familiarize yourself with the work they do.

I live blogged during the Nieman narrative journalism conference in March, though my “live blogging” consisted of me writing a blog post quickly and then publishing it immediately after the workshops I was covering had ended. This time, I’ll be using Cover It Live, which, like Twitter, posts your updates automatically. I plan to Twitter from the workshop as well, but I like the idea of being able to post longer updates that aren’t restricted to 140 characters. I’ve experimented with Tumblr and have read and written about Odeo, Qik, Seero and other tools but haven’t actually used them.

What other live blogging tools would you recommend I use?

If you’ve used Cover It Live, what did you like/not like about it?

New medical research released this week shows that there is no evidence to prove that breast self-exams do any good. In fact, self exams may even lead to unnecessary biopsies. Like many other news organizations, TIME magazine reported on this issue, but it also linked to coverage about the “changing face” of breast cancer, focusing on one Asian woman’s experience with the disease.

What I like about the changing face story is that it takes a frequently reported health issue and diversifies it. In doing so, the article taught me something new. I’ve read dozens of stories about breast cancer, but I never knew that the disease is a relatively new concern in China. TIME reports:

But in China, as in most other emerging economies, breast cancer is a relatively new concern, something that both patients and doctors are only haltingly learning how to treat. Previously a malady that mostly afflicted white, affluent women in the industrial hubs of North America and Western Europe, breast cancer is everywhere. Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America have all seen their caseloads spike. By 2020, 70% of all breast-cancer cases worldwide will be in developing countries.

The article gets at the diversity angle without screaming, “this is a diversity-related story.” I’ve found in reporting on diversity-related issues that people sometimes get turned off by the word diversity.

Quality diversity reporting doesn’t just focus on the D-word; it looks at how global issues relate to the people in under-covered communities — people who may play critical, but misunderstood or unknown, roles in the overall story being reported. The changing face story wasn’t “just another” cancer story that revealed nothing new, and nor was it just another diversity story.

To my earlier point: Why do you think some people get turned off by the word diversity?

Some of my college friends might argue that I minored in dancing. I often took “dance study breaks” and made time for “dance party warm-ups” in our dorm room when I was bored, tired or just needed a laugh. On weekends, my roommates and I hosted dance parties in our common room, and even got some wallflowers to dance on occasion.

My roommate Julia sometimes played the Kings of Convenience’s “I’d Rather Dance with You” song late at night to ward off our fatigue. While out having fun, my friends and I — all 10 of us girls — would request Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” or Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.”

I know you’re probably laughing right now.

But heck, lots of people dance, even if they’re not good at it. (Think Elaine on “Seinfeld.”) When I was at a wedding in Marco Island recently, I went to a restaurant where senior citizens were dancing with one another at 11 p.m. Their old legs made for wobbly transitions and slow spins, but the dancing seemed to keep them awake, spirited, and young at heart.

A younger guy, 31-year-old Matt Harding, just finished dancing around the world — literally. As part of a Stride Gum advertisement, Harding graced Australia, India, Miami, New Guinea, Zanzibar and dozens of other places with his swaying hips. He danced the same dance in each location and, in many places, had fans who danced alongside him, unabashedly flailing their arms and bobbing their heads.

If you haven’t seen the YouTube video of Harding dancing, I’d suggest you check it out and that you read this piece that my colleague Kelly McBride wrote about The New York Times‘ coverage of the young dancing phenom.

A weekend of dancing, followed up by a Monday morning viewing of Harding’s video reminded me just how freeing and fun dancing can be. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a dance break.

Some people on Twitter have been Twittering about the New Yorker cover illustration of Barack and Michelle Obama. He’s wearing Muslim garb, and she has what looks like an AK 47 strapped around her. In the background is a picture of Osama Bin Laden hanging above an American flag burning in a fireplace. You can find out more about the illustration here.

The New Yorker‘s David Remnick said the illustration was meant to be satirical. Some commentators are saying people need to lighten up and realize that the cover illustration isn’t meant to be taken literally. Others, though, say, it’s not an appropriate time to make such satirical stabs. What’s your reaction to the cover?

The infamous Twitter Fail Whale

Twitter’s Fail Whale has been making quite the appearance lately. A picture of the whale appears on Twitter pages when the site is “over capacity,” which seems to happens more often than it used to. My guess is that this is because so many people are joining Twitter. Throughout the past month, I’ve received an increased amount of e-mails letting me know that people are “following” my updates on Twitter.

Last year at this time, I never thought I’d be a Twitterer who Twittered Tweets. I said as much in a two-part series of articles I wrote about news organizations experimenting with Twitter. At the time, people were just starting to use this social networking site. “What’s Twitter?” lots of people would ask. “You answer the question ‘What are you doing?’ Doesn’t that sound a little pretentious?” Now I get asked these questions much less frequently.

Sure, the idea of updating everyone on what you’re doing can seem pretentious, but many Twitterers don’t answer this question literally. They mix up their Tweets with questions that they pose to their followers, or quotes they like, or links to their recent blog posts. More than anything, I use Twitter as a news aggregator. I am “following” about 50 news organizations on Twitter, meaning any time the news organization updates its Twitter page, I receive a Tweet alerting me to the news. Rather than visiting Newyorktimes.com, espn.com, npr.org and cnn.com individually, I can use Twitter as my one-stop news shop.

I’ve shared this use of Twitter with some of my journalism friends, and a few have since joined. I wonder what has caused so many people to join Twitter recently, and if the Fail Whale will keep appearing on my Twitter page when I try to update it. If you’re a new Twitterer, what made you want to join? If you’re not a Twitterer, why haven’t you joined yet?