Sorry it has been a while once again, but it took another TV show to get me fired up enough to write. This time, however, it wasn't ER, which I've almost completely written off, by the way. One more ER employee's kid almost dying on the table will do that. No, this time it's one of my favorite shows, The Amazing Race, and this time, my peeves coincide pretty well with the goal of this blog. While a once thought CBS did a good job providing additional content and reader discussion boards online, it wasn't until I turned to them for some vital information that I realized how behind CBS really is. And maybe if anyone is listening, it can teach them what maintaining an online presence really means, because simply, it's like I tell my students in beginning newswriting: You never want to leave your readers with any questions, especially if you can easily provide the answers.

Tonight was the Amazing Race's season finale, and to no one's surprise, Nick and Star won. It would have been a much better final leg if Dallas (of Dallas and Toni) hadn't committed a fatal mistake by leaving his passport and money in a cab. This mistake put them seemingly so far behind that at the end of the last episode, the show's host Phil Keoghan met them on the street to tell them they had been eliminated. Even if they had made it to the end, they wouldn't have been allowed to continue without a passport.

Amazingly, that's where CBS left it. The end of the episode featured no scrolling text saying whether they ever made it home. I was especially appalled that at the end of the finale, when Dallas and Toni were conspicuously absent, the show's producers again failed to explain anything.

Aha, I thought, they must want people to go to the new, improved CBS Web site. I'm betting they have an interview with Dallas and Toni at the Elimination Station. No dice there either, just an insipid blurb about how sad it was for teams to leave sunny Acapulco. Wait, why were they in Acapulco again? Did I miss that stage?

Well, if the videos section didn't have the info, surely the CBS sponsored discussion boards did, right? Wrong! CBS hadn't even bothered to put up an "official" episode 10 thread yet, and the unofficial fan one wasn't any help, either. In fact, I thought a saw a tumbleweed blow by on the CBS discussion board because it hadn't really been used in a week.

I did finally find my answer, and I should have suspected it would be outside CBS' kingdom all along. Reality TV World published an interview with the Mother and Son team two days after the episode aired that featured such compelling information as how they got back and why Dallas put his bag with the passport down in the first place. Turns out he had to adjust his microphone at the insistence of the camera crew traveling along with him. Oh, and he got home after someone in Russia turned his passport in at the U.S. Embassy.

So why didn't CBS bother to tell its fans this? Why leave a loose end? If all the space you had was the 60-minute program, I could understand, but you're promoting the heck out of your improved Web presence, and you can't even pay someone to create or even monitor the threads? What's the point of the Elimination Station too - seeing Marisa and Brooke, the "Southern Belles," in bikinis?

The reason I think I'm so upset is that I've seen this all before. CBS' supposedly great Web site reminds me of newspapers' early Web forays. The thinking behind those efforts basically is like it or lump it. Don't consider what fans really want. Just copy what everyone else is doing. Discussion boards are big now. Let's do that. Maybe we should have our contestants blog? I hear that's all the rage. Oh, and because we have the fancy cameras, let's slap together a couple of videos and throw them up too.

It frustrates me even more because Amazing Race always seemed like a show that thought of its fans as more than Joe Sixpacks. One of the reasons I've always loved the show, and why I've heard it wins the reality show Emmy every year, is its crews follow the documentary style of film making. They show what truly happens and not manufacture drama. Now I'm starting to think maybe the producers just do this a little less on The Amazing Race than other shows.

When will the networks get it? Probably when other media organizations start, which will be sometime in 2016, or when their fans really start demanding it. If thousands of pounds of peanuts can save Jericho, maybe a couple hundred angry e-mails can bring some resolution to Dallas and Toni's real story on Amazing Race. If you're as fired up as I am, send them here. If you really want to improve your Web site, give me a call. I've almost got a fancy Ph.D.

P.S. I'm not the only one upset. Check out this great post by Jessi K. on RealityTVCalendar.com

Sorry, I've been away from the blog for a bit. I'm been traveling hoping to convince some university to give me a tenure track position, but I really have no excuse. I actually posted a couple of days ago about a new service MTV is offering (see below), but that post got lost in the Interwebs. So in true blogger fashion, I'm going to update everyone with a couple of short bullet points. This is really what I should be doing all the time, but I kind of have diarrhea of the fingers I guess. In other words, I type too much.

1. The Job Hunt: Last week I was at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and next week I'll be in Norman, OK interviewing for jobs. I also had a phone interview with Michigan State that I don't think went well enough to lead to a site visit, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. With the economy the way it is and universities, including Missouri, freezing positions, I have to be grateful for what I've received. I still have a bunch of applications out (Hello Oregon, TCU, Arkansas and Tennessee!) that I haven't heard from.

2. Videos on demand: Too bad my earlier post on MTV Music didn't make it because it was filled with lots of self-deprecating wit about my wanna-be rocker days. Regardless, the point was to trumpet the arrival of MTV's new site which does something the network itself hasn't done in about a decade - actually play videos. In fact, the site has nearly every video MTV has ever played, including such luminaries as the 10-minute "Thriller," the first video ever on MTV "Video Killed the Radio Star," and the video that changed my life - Metallica's "One." Too bad it's only the short version. I'm still going to embed it at the end because my head is starting to bang just thinking about it.

3. Sad Economic News: WhizKids, the makers of one of Lincoln's favorite games HeroClix, announced it's going out of business. This post on GeekDad says they are looking for a buyer for the HeroClix franchise. I wonder how much money we've got in the bank? Oh, none because Lincoln and I have spent it all on the little plastic HeroClix figures! In all seriousness, it's a really fun game for anyone who's wonders what it would have been like to command all the powers of the Mandarin.

4. Some newspaper news (well, sort of): I wrote a couple of months ago for The Cyberbrains about how newspaper Web sites have neglected one of the most important elements of their print publications - the Comics page. My suggested solution was to embrace Web only comics such as Homestar Runner. King Features, one of the largest syndicators of comic strips, had a better idea - Create a Web comics presence news organizations can add to their Web sites. It's an interesting idea and could work, if (and this is a big IF) the site and the comic creators will fully embrace the advantages the Web has to offer. I hate to knock a fellow Mizzou alumni, but I really don't see the 85-year-old creator of Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois creating Flash animations or even video strips. More to the point, I don't see King Features giving him the help he needs to do it.

5. Role Model: I try to point out good examples of blogging, especially news blogging, when I can, and I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the inspiration behind this post. Check out Bob Collins of Minnesota Public Radio and his daily feature called NewsCut.

Here's the video I promised. ROCK ON!!

As much as I don't agree with his policies, I have to give Barack Obama credit. Based on my experience working as an election judge at a Columbia, MO polling place on election day, I clearly saw how well Obama and his campaign mobilized voters to hit the polls. In fact, many of the some 500 people I checked in last Tuesday were first time voters, who said they were making the effort to participate in this historic election.
My day as a poll worker almost didn't get started. As many of you know, I'm not a morning person, so before going to bed Monday night, I triple checked my alarm to make sure it would go off at 4 a.m. Well, I should have quadruple checked because it didn't, but for some strange reason, I woke up at 4:45 a.m. anyway. I was late, but I made it well before the polls opened.
A line started forming at about 5:30 a.m. and more than 20 people were waiting before we opened the poll. However, that was really the last line we saw all day. We had a steady trickle of voters the rest of the time, with anticipated rushes at lunchtime and after work never materializing. Our precinct still had a better than 50 % turnout, which was good. But it would have been better, I think if our precinct hadn't been so new. We had at least a dozen people come to our poll mistakenly after getting incorrect directions to another new polling place from Google Maps. I have to wonder how many people gave up after not finding the poll at the place they thought.
However, I was also encouraged by the commitment most voters showed. A couple of people told me they drove around town two hours before finding our poll. We also had scores of people wait extra time while we called the central polling location to verify their addresses or voter registration. In fact, I can think of only one person all day who left in a huff, and I think she came back and did what she needed to vote.
The most encouraging thing to me was the diversity of people who voted. Mothers brought their 18-old sons. Sons brought their 76-year-old mothers, who had never voted before. I even had one woman who said she had lived in the United States for more than 20 years try to vote because she wanted to support Obama. I didn't have the heart to tell her she couldn't vote because she only had a green card. I think the supervisor ended up giving her a provisional ballot anyway.
In all, my experience was positive. The worst parts were waiting. I wished we were busier. I will definitely work at the polls again because it taught me to appreciate our democracy even more. Even if the outcome didn't occur as I had hoped, I witnessed the voice of the people in action, and I'm OK supporting it.

I'm exhausted and should be heading to bed. I've got to be up at 4 a.m. tomorrow to help open the polls. Yes, I signed up to be an election judge this year, and while the primary reason I did it was to get paid, I'm proud to be helping out in this important election.

I'm not going to spend any time debating the candidates or the issues here. There's already been plenty of that in this election season. I think I've had five phone calls tonight. But I do want to say that if you don't think your vote matters, you are wrong.

Typically, I'm an independent. I've even voted for the Libertarian ticket for president before, so it has been easy for me to think my vote didn't matter. My justification for voting Libertarian that year was to enable the party to receive presidential campaign matching dollars. But there's an even better reason to vote your conscience, no matter who you support. The reason: it's the foundation of what makes our nation great.

I know that sounds like empty platitudes coming from a wannabe journalism professor and researcher. It would have a lot more weight coming from a political scientist who could cite chapter and verse about elections decided by a small percentage of voters. But I can tell you that journalism has made me passionate about democracy, and the election training I've received so far has helped me see how important every person's vote is. Boone County, Missouri, where we live has hired hundreds of extra student poll workers this year to ensure the county can serve the expected 80 % voter turnout.

Later I'll write more about my experience. I may even make a connection with journalism somewhere in there. But for now, it's sufficient to say I've learned first-hand how important the election process is for our nation, for our towns, for our states and even communities. So if you have a minute tomorrow, go and vote, and if you in Columbia and near the Sunrise Optimist Club off Paris Road, stop in and say, "Hi!" I'll give you an extra sticker!

I've been swamped lately with trying to keep up with paper deadlines and staying on top of my classes and dissertation proposal. But I'd be very ungrateful if I didn't post a little bit of thanks to the four guest speakers who spoke to the online journalism class I teach at the University of Missouri. They added insight and real world experience that I could never teach. I'm still baffled a bit that they agreed. One even drove all the way from Nebraska to be in class while still filing a story for ESPN on the road. But I think it shows the close community that can be fostered online among a group of like-minded individuals worried about the state of the news.

First, Dana Martin, editor of the Northwest Voice in Bakersfield, Calif. shared her insights on going from most popular blogger on the site to running the whole shooting match. The Northwest Voice is really the first citizen journalism site in the United States, and with Martin at the helm, still serves as the model for all others to follow. Martin deftly handled some tough questions from the class about running a news operation without a journalism degree, but what I think she showed the students is that enthusiasm and a belief in what you are doing may be just as important as knowing how to write an inverted pyramid story in today's world of journalism. Northwest Voice has always been smart about finding people who exemplify the community spirit that a citizen journalism site creates.

Next, Meredith Artley, executive editor of LATimes.com, gave students in class a realistic look at the journalism industry they'll face when they get their degrees. She's been working hard to bring the online and print staffs closer together in creating the best news product possible. What I appreciated most about what she said is she emphasized being able to tell a good story first. The technical PHP-coding skills come second. That's something I think our students in their rush to learn all they can about the Web need to hear.

Elizabeth Merrill, a senior writer for ESPN.com, reinforced that notion even more. Merrill, who was the Chiefs beat writer for the Kansas City Star before joining ESPN, still believes in newspapers and has found her newspaper experience pivotal to her success at ESPN. The key to online presentations, she said, is owning the story. Each element must not just repeat the others, and each has to bring something different to the ultimate story. I had the class read her piece A Town Torn Apart because I think it shows exactly what she's talking about.

Even at Yahoo! news, a good story drives the news, said Robert Padavick, our final speaker. As a senior producer, Padavick has organized projects such as Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, and People of the Web, and even though these pieces have great video, he said he knows how important a good written story is as well. From his perspective, it seems as if Yahoo! understands its audience well. The company pulls information from hundreds of sites, including news wires and other blogs, but for its original projects it has to give audiences something they can't get anywhere else. He showed his understanding of his audience and the election season by asking the class a few direct questions about Sen. Obama and his impact on the election. I hope we gave you some good information for your blog.

In the end, I hope this blog posts helps you see the wealth of information we tried to expose students to. Teaching about the Internet will always be a challenge because it seems to constantly reinvent itself. But kindness and willingness to share are part and parcel of the online experience because we know the only way we'll get it is together. I'd encourage you to visit some of these links if you get the chance. Even as I added them to this entry, I remembered how I laughed at some, cried at others. I think they all represent good journalism in its many different forms.