Jason Whong: Renaissance Man-in-Training

There is something unusual about taking an oath of secrecy.

I have been known in the past as a guy that is so-so at keeping some secrets. But for some reason, because I am sworn to secrecy, I am now really good at keeping a lot of secrets.

Now that I think about it, it’s because I can use the secrecy oath as a reason to keep it secret. For example, when I signed nondisclosure agreements, I would not reveal to anyone whatever information was covered in the agreement, citing my signature of the agreement. I take the secrecy oath even more seriously than that.

When I signed NDAs, the only people who wanted to know were fanboys and journalists I trusted. Now, I’m a journalist. My occupation is finding information - secret and unsecret - and sharing it. But I don’t even feel compelled to share that which I’ve sworn to keep secret with other journalists.

(And no, the prospect of criminal penalties for violating the oath has not affected my decisions on this matter. It really is the principle of the oath, and my belief in what I am doing.)

Perhaps there can be a future for me in Langley.

Technorati Tags: top secret

Erin recently took a quiz that tested how many countries you could name in five minutes. I initially didn’t take it, but I decided to give it a whirl. I had some issues with it not liking a space at the beginning of stuff I typed, so it slowed me down while I went back to delete the space. But oh well. Here’s my (not so) awesome result.

Actually, I have to write a bit more, so the
graphic
will
appear
somewhere
below
the advertisement.

By the way, these ads are pretty lucrative. If I invested a bunch of time into this blog,
who knows how much I’d get from it?

62

Technorati Tags: geography

People love to laugh about the inane warning labels they find on products.

For your amusement, here is a warning label I was inspired to write today:

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO OPERATE STRAIGHT RAZOR WHILE SUCKING ON A PIECE OF CANDY LARGER THAN ONE INCH IN CIRCUMFERENCE. NICKS, SCRAPES, CHOKING, SERIOUS INJURY, OR DEATH MAY RESULT.

That is all.

Technorati Tags: random, humor, straight razor, shaving

True story:

I’m at the Elmira College gym because there are two games there, women’s and men’s basketball. A friend of mine from the local TV station, Toby, comes up and starts shooting the game next to me.

He hoists his camera onto his shoulder, points it in the direction of the action, and starts rolling tape. Then he notices something unusual.

“Is it me, or does this camera smell like smoked meat?” he asks me. He holds it up to my face, and I take a whiff. Indeed, it smelled very much like smoked meat.

That station doesn’t have enough cameras for everyone to have one, so it’s not unusual to take a camera there that someone else may have used earlier in the week. I told him my best guess: someone had taken the camera to the apartment fire that left ten people homeless in Elmira.

The next day I saw today’s paper and freaked out because of the headline about another fire:

“Pa. barn fire kills 70 cows”

(You may LOL or scream, as you find it necessary.)

Technorati Tags: humor, photojournalism, cows, fire

As many of you know, I have had two major careers this far in my life.

My first gig was in marketing for publishers and developers of entertainment software, also knows as computer games. It was fun. I learned a lot. I was passionate about the products, but I was also young and dumb. I’ll leave it at that. Anyway, I wrote press releases and planned aisle-blocking presentations for trade shows.

My next gig was in journalism, for a mainstream media conglomerate. I am now a photojournalist. The mainstream media conglomerate has been my longest employer, at 4 years and counting. I am actually digging it. (I was in entertainment software for 6 years, two of which were self-employed.)

All of this experience gives me a unique viewpoint on a recent current event: one of the more successful gadget blogs, Gizmodo, thought it would be funny to go around the Consumer Electronics Show with a device that acts like the power button on a remote control to turn off a bunch of TVs in mid-presentation. And videotape the prank, and edit it into a music video. And defend it, saying that they’re better than other journalists that go on press junkets and kowtow to the corporations they cover. (Which is also something journalists aren’t supposed to do).

I am not going to link to them. You can google them, if you want.

Gizmodo says that this sort of prank did no harm, and is what irreverent journalism is all about. I disagree.

When journalists are on private property, their behavior can be regulated by the property owners or other authorities. These regulations are the source of much scrutiny by editors, who decide whether the regulations prevent the reporters and photographers from covering the news accurately and responsibly, and whether the regulations infringe upon the rights of the media organization. If so, they don’t cover the event.

As a journalist covering CES, you should ask critical questions. You should note when a company is not forthcoming in their answers. That’s your job. But you can’t shout these questions in the middle of sales presentations that are not open for questions… that’s the equivalent of what Gizmodo did, though they did far worse.

“Culture Jamming” is incompatible with true journalism, which is the accurate reporting of what happened, not making things happen and then reporting on them.

So, Gizmodo: if I ever find myself in marketing and PR again, I will make sure my organization doesn’t work with yours.

Technorati Tags: gizmodo, CES, macworld