See me. Feel me. Touch me. Read me.

The trend toward hyper-local news continued this week as Seattle-based Fisher Communications announced the launch of 38 neighborhood news Web sites.

Fisher operates radio and TV stations in Oregon, Seattle and Idaho. The company said the new "hyper-local" sites combine reporting from its stations with online Web templates. As with many hyper-local outlets, much of the content is user-generated.

Hyper-local sites are one of the latest attempts by traditional media outlets to recapture lost ad revenues, as more advertising dollars are spent on new technologies.

Um…like…you know

In communications, “trigger words” are those words or phrases that press our buttons and cause a strong emotional reaction. So which word pulls the biggest trigger?

According to a Marist poll released yesterday, “whatever” tops the list. The poll found that 47% of Americans just can’t stand “whatever.” Other terms Americans found annoying include “you know” and the ever-popular “it is what it is.”

The poll breaks down distaste of particularly grating words by region, age, income, education, race and gender.

Read the whole story here. Or don’t. Whatever.

Balancing Act

A pretty decent definition of “journalism” comes from a most unlikely source: Fox News. Bernie Goldberg makes some pretty good points about what it means to be a fair reporter on Bill O’Reilly’s show.

However, O’Reilly deserves a demerit or two for telling Bernie not to give him additional info “because then I have to go back and research it.” Do journalists really avoid facts just so they don’t have to do the leg work?

TV or Not TV

According to Reuters, Americans are watching an average of 151 hours of television a month. Great news for networks and advertisers.

The only problem is that the ways people watch (and what they watch) are changing. New technologies mean more ways to view and old rating systems need to catch up. Broadcasters, advertisers and media buyers are joining forces to develop new ways of keeping tabs. Read the whole story here.

William Safire, Khloe Kardashian and the State of Journalism

"Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy?

I don't know and I don't care."

-William Safire

"cant stand peps cant believe Im promoting sumthing bc I believe in the product!! 2 bad the 1s who hate will never really b happy!"

-Khloe Kardashian on Twitter

Media critic Neil Postman asked (and I paraphrase): Just because information can travel quickly over great distances…is it news?

In her Huffington Post article, Nancy Snow echoes Postman as she points out that on Google News, the wedding of reality TV star Khloe Kardashian and Los Angeles Lakers' forward Lamar Odom is getting more hits than the death of New York Times columnist, William Safire.

Snow suggests the fact that “the death of an esteemed giant in American journalism is less newsworthy than a second-tier celebrity wedding” speaks volumes about the decline of American journalism. Read the story here.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Sure all this Beatles 09.09.09 stuff has been called the Magical Marketing Tour, but the first 25 seconds of the Beatles Rock Band ad (below) are freaky good.

Welcome Back

Ahhhh September. The air is crisp, baseball is approaching its Fall Classic and Communication Concerns returns (does that rhyme?).

It’s also the time of year when I happily explain to my media students that there was a time before texting and e-mails and tweets. In this past Sunday’s NY Times, Joni Evans (co-founder of wowOwow.com) recalls the “pre-tech” days of the publishing biz circa 1970.

It’s a great read and a fun way to restart our blog. Read it here and welcome back.

"O" No!

Proofreader alert! When baseball’s Washington Nationals took to the field on Friday, the team’s name was spelt incorrectly on two of the player’s jerseys. The uniforms of Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn featured a large “Natinals” across the chest.

The mistake was soon discovered and by the fourth inning both players had changed into uniforms with correct spelling.

A missing “O?” This culd happen t anyne!

J-Schools Adapt to Digital Media

On Sunday, The New York Times featured a profile on how journalism schools are dealing with, and adapting to, the fact that digital media is forever changing the traditional media landscape. The story mentions how one professor realized his “Business of Journalism” course was nothing more than a history lesson in desperate need of revision.

Contrary to the recent doom and gloom, however, the article reports how some institutions are proactively meeting the challenge, which could perhaps be summed up in these six words: Click here to read the story.

All the Ads That Fit We Print

The line between editorial content and advertising content just got a little blurrier. On Thursday, The Los Angeles Times ran a front-page ad that looked an awful lot like a front-page story. Like many other print organizations, the Tribune Company, which owns the paper, is experiencing financial woes. Still, many find this latest move questionable. Read the NY Times report here.

Facebook'em Danno!

It seems the desire to add friends and connect through social networking got the best of a U.K. prison warden. The official signed up 13 criminals as Facebook friends. In addition, the warden is suspected of smuggling cell phones to his buddies, assumingly so they could keep in touch. Gawker has the whole story here.

Resuscitating Print

OK…so maybe not all print media is dead. ADWEEK just released its 2009 Hot List of Top 10 magazines. The list identifies consumer mags with “standout advertising revenue and page performance.” Some familiar titles such as People and Vogue made the cut. To find out who topped the list, read the whole story here.

False Hope

The iconic Obama “Hope” image created by artist Shepard Fairey has led to a series of lawsuits. Fairey used a photo taken by AP photographer Mannie Garcia to create his image. The AP is arguing copyright infringement while Fairey claims the image falls under fair use provisions. Garcia, now a freelancer, wants no part of the argument. paidContent.org sums everything up. Read the full story here.

Video Killed the CNBC Star

Media Week reports that Jon Stewart’s blasting of CNBC is driving record-breaking traffic to Comedy Central’s Web sites. The video (see it here), entitled “CNBC Gives Financial Advice,” points out several instances when CNBC’s financial experts have doled out poor advice. See the video below. Read the whole story here.

Lip Service

Remember junkets? Those wonderful media-fueled frenzies where PR folk would scream “everybody into the pool” and treat reporters to the good life for a day or more? Well, most of my journalist friends have seen the junket pool turn into a puddle with freebies going the way of fair and balanced reporting.

Or maybe my print friends are just in the wrong medium? PR Week recently featured a story on how one PR firm is treating bloggers to nights on the town in order to jump start “buzz” for a lip gloss client.

Read the story here.