Test, test (taps mike) ... oh no, we're live

All the books and tip sheets I've been reading on how to start a web log say to write an introductory post ... one where you set out what you're going to do, just sort of introduce yourself. Which seems like a good idea, and I do plan to try it sometime.

But in the meantime, it looks like I've started posting. Inadvertently.

No telling how *that* happened. I'm just trying to figure out how to work the software. But here, apparently, we are ... live on the internet, and I don't have anything to introduce. Not yet. I want to use the blog to direct my journalism students to current media analysis and real-world examples of the stories and techniques we read about in our textbooks. But that comes later.

Besides, this is a beta version. No telling what it'll develop into.

In the meantime, here's the story that got the most hits last year on The Seattle Times' website. It's a odd tale about what might be described best as an unnatural sex act. No fewer than five of The Times' top 20 local stories in 2005 dealt with this incident involving a 45-year-old man, a horse and, apparently, a video camera. Local news columnist Danny Westneat observed:

... a lot of the stories on the list are what we serious-minded media professionals would imperiously call 'soft.' There's an article on a vanity license plate that showed the chemical formula for meth. A judge deciding a cat's life is worth exactly $45,480. Congressman Jim McDermott [D-Wash.] being featured in the book '100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.'

There's not much on the so-called 'issues' we're always implored to focus on, such as transportation or education. Nothing on the big campaign topics of the year, such as the [Seattle] monorail or gas tax. And nothing on this paper's major investigations or in-depth series.

No doubt with tongue in cheek, Westneat concluded with some advice:

So we in the news business enter 2006 with one eye on the future and, whether we admit it or not, one eye fixed firmly on our Web stats. It could lead to some schizophrenia, like that old Saturday Night Live skit on subliminal news:

'The state Legislature convened today in Olympia (horse sex), and Seattle officials (bestiality) requested funds for a new viaduct (perforated colon).'

Well, that's one way to leave bait for the search engines!