DennisPillion.com

How Newsweek would cover a zombie attack (with screen caps)

It's one of the burning questions of our decade: How would major news organizations like Newsweek cover a massive Zombie invasion of the United States?

Well, now we know. For a limited time (in IE and Chrome browsers only) you can go to www.newsweek.com, type in the old Konami video game cheat code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, enter) and you see a mock Newsweek homepage breaking down a (hopefully) fictitious undead invasion.

Journalism ethics panel set for April 13 at The Birmingham News

The Alabama Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (of which I am currently president) is pleased to announce a panel discussion on journalism ethics to be held Tuesday, April 13 at The Birmingham News.

Organizing this panel was my first major effort as POTAPCOSPJ (President of the Alabama Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists), and the panel should be excellent if I do say so myself.

The participants will be:

John Archibald: Columnist for The Birmingham News, and he's on Twitter.

Chris Pollone: Reporter for NBC13, WVTM Birmingham, who also Tweets.

Tanya Ott: News director for WBHM Birmingham, 90.3 FM.

The moderator will be Chris Roberts, assistant professor in journalism at the University of Alabama.

Roberts is about to release a book on journalism ethics, so he should have a lot of thought-provoking questions for the panel.

I'll be there as well to make a brief opening statement, and if you're at all interested in the ethics of modern journalism, you should be there too.

Journalism serves an important role in any democracy, and if you want to speak to the people who make it happen, come out and let your voice be heard.

UPDATE: We made this an event on Facebook, so if you plan on attending, RSVP yes.

The future of Web video on al.com?

Maybe the headline is a little over dramatic, but we're changing the way we do sports videos at al.com. I've been shooting and editing video there for two years now, but now we're focusing more on telling complete stories with our videos, as opposed to just showing game highlights or post-game interviews.

For example, check out this UAB basketball video I shot earlier this week:

UAB beats Tulsa 65-55 for first place in C-USA

Yes, that overly nasal voice you hear in the background is mine. That's another change that's going to take some getting used to for me. I don't especially like going on-camera or doing voice-overs but it's easy to see how the finished product is more watchable than just highlights with no context added.

Keep an eye open, as I'll be putting together some National Signing Day videos as well as a preview of the state high school wrestling tournament this week.

MOB presentation: Web video by al.com

Tailgating at the Magic City Classic

I've got those Buy.com headphone shipping blues

Ordered a sweet pair of new headphones from buy.com today. Well, actually I can't tell how good they're going to be, but they were only $9.99 and I was getting tired of having to hold the wire from my old set of ear buds between my teeth at just the right angle in order to get sound out of both earpieces at my desk at work.

I should be clear that the only reason I hadn't bought new headphones long ago is that I'm cheap. I see the exorbitant prices for some of the new headphones, and I just can't do it. Purchasing these beauts for $9.99 with free shipping should have been a no-brainer. Unfortunately, when I went to check out, the default option it gave me was not free shipping. In fact, it was very expensive shipping, almost as much as the price of the headphones themselves.

Well, me, being the... err, economical shopper that I am, I moved the delivery option back to free shipping, which they say will take 7-9 business days, instead of 2-3.

Seven to nine business days??!?? That's two, maybe three weeks. Are they shipping it by horse and buggy? It's a set of headphones, not a car. It seems like they would have to go our of their way to make it take that long.

Maybe they are. Perhaps their gig is to lure people in with an offer of free shipping, then make the free option take so ridiculously long that no one in their right mind would choose it.

Well, they forgot that they're not dealing with someone in his right mind. They're dealing with me. I chose the free shipping option and now I'll wait, old headphone cord clenched between my teeth until I get that sweet, sweet set of $9.99 headphones sometime in October. 

Take that, Buy.com. You'll never get that extra $7 in shipping from me! At least not until you discount your price on the Freaks and Geeks box set.

Pete Carroll wants Will Ferrell to join Twitter

Pete Carroll keeps cool on Twitter.

Being from Alabama, it's easy to think being a successful football coach means being as hard-nosed and singularly-focused as Nick Saban. After all, love him or hate him, he is probably the most recognizable person in the state.

Thankfully, the Internet and Pete Carroll have reminded me that it can be done differently. While Saban is busy verbally abusing anyone within a 10-foot radius, Carroll is on a different kind of mission: to get Will Ferrell to join Twitter.

The USC football coach has been tweeting since Inauguration Day, using his social media prowess to welcome our new President, show some love for the Trojans' other athletic programs, and now to entice fellow celebs to embrace social media. It started with this tweet:

"Had dinner with Will Ferrell last night... he's not on Twitter... that must change... Join the campaign to turn him into a tweeter!"

Amusing on its face, but Carroll wouldn't leave a good idea unexplored. He was determined to use his new-found tweeple (Twitter people) to convince Will that the Tweeting bandwagon had room for one more big, hairy, American winning machine.

"Let's campaign to get Will Ferrell on Twitter! Email: wewantwillfer[email protected] and I'll pass it along to him."