CMW's Steve Franklin (in blue shirt) and others learned about a new multilingual emergency warning system this morning at NAM conference

(you know it’s bad when your computer no longer remembers the exact address of your Wordpress login page. I apologize for an extended social media absence and promise to do better!)

The Workshop’s Thom Clark and Steve Franklin are at the New America Media (NAM) National Ethnic Media Expo & Awards in Atlanta today and tomorrow. Thom reports learning this morning about an emergency warning system NAM is launching:

Whether it’s e-coli in spinach or H1N1 flu, public health messages are largely distributed in English-only traditional media outlets. NAM founder Sandy Close announced today at the opening session of their 2009 Expo a new emergency hotline to send critical public health messages in multiple languages to etnic media outlets. The overflow crowd saw a demonstration of the system and commented on its usefulness.

Emergency messaging would be distributed via the web and mobile communications including a closed loop feedback system to determine which outlets got the message and how they used it. Geo-targeting will allow specific emergencies for, say, hurricanes to include specific evacuation routes or other assistance.

(I know I am going to regret not forcing him to post this to the blog himself). Check Steve’s blog for more from the event, bet he is going to have a few more comments.

In a  week with a bankruptcy, a corrupt governor, a global story about workers and the financial bailout, where do you start? It’s almost too good to be true!

Tribune Co. bankruptcy is bizarre… but it’s more about the news business than the news. Yes, we may quibble about what it looks like and what stories end up in the paper (my personal least favorite from my local Tribune this week is a magazine article noting that Logan Square is “hot.” Still? Just now? Again?) Anyway, we may not always agree with our editors’ choices but would still lose big time  if pro journalists, who go find stuff that they think we all need to know, to fade away.

As Vincent Duffy, news director of Michigan Radio, said at a panel discussion in Flint last week, “You can’t yet get a computer to actually stick a microphone in [Flint] Mayor Williamson’s face … I don’t know how you’re going to hear the news in the future but you are going to hear us [journalists] reporting.” Also on the bankruptcy, remember that the Chicago Reader declared bankruptcy a few months back and they are still publishing fine.

A quick side note on the news business, crucial to remember when you think about the model: ethnic and community news outlets are doing fine! So before we go to thinking about the death of news, let’s celebrate the kind of journalism that makes a governor try to knock out a Tribune editorial board member (if John McCormick does not get a raise out of this, it’s a shame–bankruptcy or no) and raise up our community and ethnic news outlets, like this morning’s story (quoting, ahem, me).