STL Social Media Guy

Or maybe it’s the site we hate to love?

We all poo-poo the reliability of Wikipedia as a source. My friend Jack Lail points out over here that the site had updated its entry on Tim Russert with his death before AP moved an alert on it. It reminds me of March 4, 2007 — a Sunday. I was on call for my newsroom and got the word that former Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton had died.

I spent two hours getting the story posted, updated and all the other stuff in place — then checked Wikipedia. Yep. It was already updated, with a link to our story. A month later, one of the guys in our newsroom morgue pointed out that the online Encyclopedia Britannica still hadn’t been updated (it has been since).

(Update: Welcome, Lail-fans and beyond. As long as you’re here, why not subscribe to my feed?)

I was invited to return to my alma mater to judge nominees for the Illini Media Company hall of fame. Ten of of us gathered (and one more by proxy) in the fourth floor of the student media center, in its third year of existence, and a far cry from the dumpy basement of Illini Hall where I worked for The Daily Illini.

The Illini Media Company is an independent, revenue-generating company that operates the DI, WPGU-FM, the Illio yearbook, Buzz (an entertainment pub) and Technograph (a technical journal). Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been to a bunch of Cardinals games, but last night’s was the best seat I’ve had (compliments of a friend from church). The cell phone camera doesn’t do it justice, but the 200 level behind home plate? Are you kidding? And the weather was gorgeous. Wow.

I decided to take this dusk shot, then realized Albert Pujols was at the plate. I snapped this one, and on the next pitch, he knocked it out of the park.

The Redbirds beat the Astros 3-2. The Cardinals are 2-1 this season when I’m in the stands.

Posts have been slow for the past few days. Believe me, I know it. And I feel guilty about it. But a major project at work is promising to come to a close soon…and hopefully I’ll be able to get back in the swing pretty quick after that.

These are shots from my car of My City on my way to work — shots that I wouldn’t have been able to get if Highway 40 weren’t closed for reconstruction and if I weren’t taking the detours.