Tag: news

Trusting the messenger

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I find it interesting, that when you talk to people about news and where they get their news from, most people remain fairly loyal to their brand of choice.

Some will swear by a local news stations — especially their investigative reports.

Some will swear by CNN or MSNBC.

Others will swear about CNN and MSNBC and swear by FOX News.

Some will rave about their local daily paper, while others will curse their local daily paper.

Either way, we’ve found a source we can trust and only rarely look elsewhere.
Continue reading Trusting the messenger

Open mic

Sun Studios Microphone

From time to time I like to check in and find out who my readers are and why they come to my little spot on the Interwebs.

So its open mic blog.

Tell me a little bit about yourself. Who are you? What do you like doing?

Mic check – one two, one two.

This is your chance to tell the world whatever you so choose… express yourself, share a passion, plug your band, etc.
Continue reading Open mic

Monday Briefs

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highlight(s) of the week ::
We paid off our credit card debt this week! WOOT WOOT! Thanks to Uncle Sam for saving some of our money this year. We made our annual withdrawal and put it towards closing out our credit card balance as well as paying off a CT scan. Now we just need to finish paying off the rest of our medical and parental debt and we’ll have met our goal. We’re thinking we can get there in 10 months or less (maybe a lot sooner if folks want to have more freelance web work done or folks will start buying stuff from our Amazon store! :-)).

Friday night we made a trip to Frisco to see Baby Ben. Had a great time with his mom, dad and big sister.

Also, last night we had a planning meeting to discuss JustOneDallas – a very cool initiative that I’m looking forward to being a part of (I’ll write more soon). But just for now, save the date :: May 16. That’s the scheduled launch/kick-off date for the Dallas hub. And for a little more background you can check out our podcast chat with Max Fincher.

music i’m digging ::
In between listening to U2’s No Line On The Horizon, I’ve also been digging The Damnwells’ album “One Last Century.” Downloaded the album for free last week and hope to feature some of the tracks on some upcoming podcasts.
And two weeks later, I still can’t get enough of U2’s No Line On The Horizon
right now. Having them on Letterman all week probably didn’t help matters either.

podcast i’m digging ::
I finally took the time to listen to the Mars Hill 10th anniversary podcast this morning. Good stuff. Encouraging stuff as well.

new web hack/trick ::
I figured out how to build a “table” using unordered lists in HTML and CSS. Boy did that make updating the CWF bio page a breeze. Was worried I’d have to rebuild the whole table to insert seven new bios.

freelance work ::
Part of filling our our withdrawal from Uncle Sam this year (aka our IRS taxes) meant filing the income I’ve made from freelance work this year. I think this is the first year I’ve had anything over $100 or so. Once I totaled it all up, I made just over $2,000 doing freelance work this year. That’s just a mere drop in the bucket of most people – but it makes that $100 seem like even more of a drop in the bucket. I’m trying to do what I can to move away from “freebies” for folks and only doing work I can bill out. Not that money is “everything” but it sure makes doing the work that much more enjoyable when you know the client’s really appreciate your work enough to pay you for it.

misc ::
I bought a new webcam this week with birthday money (thanks mom, dad, dan and martha). So I’ve been enjoying using video chat via Skype and Tokbox. If you’ve got a webcam look me up (jdblundell as always) and lets chat.

looking forward to ::
I get a day off of work on the 20th for “Spring Break.” Sure wish I got the whole week, but one day is better than no days.

Jeff Brady in Brad Hawkins out at WFAA Channel 8’s Daybreak

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Jeff Brady

Jeff Brady is taking over for Brad Hawkins now on WFAA’s Daybreak.


Brad Hawkins

Brad Hawkins has left Daybreak for “corporate America” and former 5 p.m. anchor, Jeff Brady is taking his slot alongside Cynthia Izaguirre “for the time being.”

Hawkins posted a video blog on WFAA explaining the switch and seemed to really put an emphasis on “this is not permanent.” Sounded like perhaps he’s not too happy with the switch.

Been a crazy 12 months for the Daybreak team. First was the change of bringing in Izaguirre, next was the departure of Justin Farmer, who was replaced by Brad Hawkins, and now Hawkin’s departure. Will be interesting to see what happens next.

It’ll also be interesting to see what kind of reaction this gets – the original announcement about Justin Farmer remains one of the #1 blog posts on my site. Crazy!

Brady Media Group

UPDATE (11/13/09): Jeff Brady has left WFAA as well. As of March 12, 2009, he left the station to start his own new media/PR consulting company – Brady Media Group.

In a Tweet from June 27, he suggests that folks aren’t interested in “appointment TV” anymore. We don’t rush home to watch the news at 5,6 and 10 anymore. He’s right – probably why I hadn’t noticed he was no longer with the station.

From his site:

My name is Jeff L. Brady. I’m the CEO of a new media advocacy agency called the Brady Media Group. We are journalists, photographers, creative digital architects and – in the end – professional storytellers. We have not formed an ad agency, production house or a traditional PR firm. We approach commercial marketing from several new directions. All focused on authentic, value-driven media content. All of them focused on the future.

So good luck to Jeff and his new venture! Hopefully he’ll start Tweeting again as he continues on this new journey.

new community group news

A new issue of the weekly community group newsletter is online.

I try and publish it each Monday — running a little late this week. (of course it’s naturally geared more towards encounter peeps – but hope it’s useful for you as well.