Excuse me briefly while I un-Furl my wiki

By GRAHAM OSTEEN
Item Editor-At-Large
graham@theitem.com

We had a newsroom seminar at The Item this past week with my good friend Doug Fisher of the University of South Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

You can read all about Doug and his work at commonsensej.blogspot.com.

He’s become one of the leading teachers and thinkers in the country when it comes to navigating the new media world, which is fascinating but overwhelming to even the most experienced journalists.

Part of our role now is to understand what’s out there in order to better decipher it for you, our readers. There’s a lot to decipher.

It’s not just about reporting information any more, and we — newspapers — are no longer the gatekeepers of information. The local reporting aspect of our job remains critical, but it’s also about sharing and interpreting information that’s pertinent to Sumter, Lee and Clarendon counties, and there are countless new tools available to accomplish this task.

There are also many ways for people all over the world to “find” us, meaning The Item and the Sumter regional market, and we are learning how to retool in order to provide our advertisers and readers the best service available. Here’s a place to start: Look up “Semantic Web” on Wikipedia.com.

Think of it this way: There’s no reason to be online if no one can find you, just as there’s no reason to think customers will find you in this market if you don’t appear in one or more of the many products we offer, both in print and online. You may as well be invisible. We want people to find The Item and our customers, and we want them to like what they find.

We’re still scratching our heads about much of what we’re learning, but we’ll keep working on it.

For now, I need to check my RSS feeds, update my Wiki, go to my Furl, del.icio.us, Feedblitz and Technorati accounts for a peek, check Soople, Icerocket and vixy.net, check my online bookmarks account, check my e-mail, check my voicemail, return some phone calls, then call it a day.



I received good feedback from my column last week about growing up in Sumter.

I left out Ashleigh Weatherly, an integral part of our group and a fine hide-and-seek player, and the formidable Elizabeth Bultman of Tucson Drive, who is from “their” side of Guignard.

The following gem came from a source I agreed not to identify publicly. I don’t like anonymous sources, but in this case I cut out most of the names anyway. Give me a call and I can confirm or deny your speculation by clearing my throat — once for yes, twice for no.



I have just spoken with a testy member of the Tucson Drive contingent, NAME WITHHELD, who has told me in confidence that the Tucson crowd is preparing some sort of retaliation for you “calling them out” in your Sunday column. During his rant, NAME WITHHELD mentioned M-80s, water balloons, and shaving cream. I for one am not afraid of whatever they might throw our way. After all, I used to be one of them, having lived at ADDRESS WITHHELD until seven years of age. This has never been disclosed, but I was sent against my will over the Maginot Line (Guignard Drive) in November 1967 by the Burns brothers to gather intelligence on you guys. Once safely embedded on the east side of Guignard, I saw the light and vowed never to return (unless it was to see NAMES WITHHELD, or other hot chicks). Plus, my mom wouldn’t let me cross Guignard by myself until I was 10.

As for the clubhouse, I do remember the carpet walls. I also remember a poster on a wall in the “makeout room.” I think it showed Marlon Brando/George C. Scott or some similar actor on a motorcycle with the caption “You Better Watcha Your A—.” I remember like yesterday seeing Mr. Schwartz come in the room, look at the poster, shake his head and walk out. I had always thought the clubhouse became off limits after NAME WITHHELD got caught making out with NAME WITHHELD on the trampoline during a party.



There you have it.



     

As Johnny “Guitar” Watson said, “Lord it’s a real mother for ya.”

So in that spirit:

Happy Mother’s Day to my wife and the mother of our children, Julie;

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, Jackie;

Happy Mother’s Day to my mother-in-law, Em;

Happy Mother’s Day to my sisters-in-law — Gayle, Sarah, Susan and Susan; to my cousin, Courtney; to my aunts Judy and Boo, who were like mothers (and sisters) to me and who gave me a nickname that I can’t print in a family newspaper.

And finally, Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers in The Item coverage area, and all of those around the world as you find us on the World Wide Web.

Graham Osteen is co-president of Osteen Publishing Co. and Editor-At-Large of The Item. Contact him at The Item, 20 North Magnolia St., Sumter, S.C., 29150; graham@theitem.com, or call 803-774-1352.