The Day After Reading by Ludovic Balland

JANUARY 13 — 19, 2014 SAN FRANCISCO

ISSUE N° 1

the day after reading ™

T

he editorial project the day ­after reading created by Ludovic Balland, is part of the “All Possible Futures” exhi­ bition running January 14 to February 13, 2014 at SOMArts Gallery in San Francisco, California. The project deals with how people remember information perceived in the daily media and aims to find out

january 13 2014

about personal reading habits. It illu­ strates remembered “leftovers” of the ev­ eryday consume of newspapers and visu­ alises individual processing of published, written “facts.”

One San Francisco personality was in­ terviewed on each of the first seven days of the exhibition. Seven people were

asked about their impressions and what details they remember from all of the news they had read the day before. The memories of the people portrayed were recorded and directly transcribed. The transcript served as the material to design and typeset one individual news­ paper page to be printed on a large-scale

Sunday’s news remembered by

Jeremy Tooker :

january 14 2014

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Tuesday’s news remembered by

Lulu Ezekiel:

january 16 2014

Artist, in San Francisco since 1956

“ You know if the third World War breaks out it will be on page seven.”

Continue on page 4

january 17 2014

january 19 2014

Continue on page 3

Wednesday’s news remembered by known as Drag Queen “ peaches christ ”

“I like reading, ­because sometimes you just don’t know what’s ­going on right in your backyard.”

Continue on page 5

january 18 2014

writer, Digital curator and founder of Axl Agency

“The filter is me.

I’m the curator of the news I receive.”

Professor for New Media, Indus­trial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR), artist

“ Here’s the idea: robots will no longer be isolated. They will start communicating, as people do, via the Internet.”

Joshua Grannell:

Thursday’s news remembered by

Axelle Tessandier :

Continue on page 6

Friday ’s news remembered by

Ana Teresa Fernández :

Painter, sculpturer, video-artist

“For the overall lay-­ out of the newspaper, they should have an artist look at it.”

Continue on page 7

Saturday’s news remembered by

Aaron Britt :

Francisco readers and illustrates their perception of everyday media.

The layout structure in five parts allows for the comparison of memories about stories, visual details, and advertise­ ments, as well as individual reading prac­ tices and personal contexts. A documen­ tation about readers.

Monday’s news remembered by

Ken Goldberg :

Owner, Four Barrel Coffee Shop

“ I don’t read the short articles all the way through. I just skim them. Bigger articles have better writing.” january 15 2014

format the very same day. Each of these pages were put on display at the exhibi­ tion venue the next morning, creating a series of seven different pages, which evolved during a one-week period.

This newspaper has been printed and distributed in San Francisco. Each page presents one personal view of San

typegazette issue n°4: THE DAY AFTER READING editorial CONCEPT ©ludovic balland Design Ludovic Balland and gregor schreiter www.ludovic-balland.ch INTERVIEWS Ludovic Balland, Sophie lamparter, GREGOR SCHREITER photographs Ludovic Balland COPY EDITING JENN VIRšKUS typeface stanley available at www.optimo.ch printed in san Francisco, CA at San Francisco Newspaper Printing Company

Senior Editor ideo.org, Freelance writer for the SAN FRANCISCO Chronicle, Pocket Square, Dwell

“You need to bring the readers into the process a lot more ­because that’s where they want to be. ­They can be very useful.”

PART OF THE EXHIBITION ALL POSSIBLE FUTURE AT SOMARTS GALLERY CURATED BY JON SUEDA JANUARY 14TH – FEBRUARY 13TH 2000 copies supported by

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The Day After Reading Sunday’s news remembered by Jeremy Tooker

january 13, 2014 Age 35 Lives in San Francisco since 2003 Started reading the news regularly around 2003 First news remembered the fall of the Berlin Wall

stories

“I laughed about the stretch limo.

I almost cried about the seven-seater suv.”

Reads news daily yes Average time used on reading news daily half an hour to 45 minutes for the newspaper every morning, another half hour to 45 minutes online troughout the day. Listening to news in the car about an hour a day.

reading about the Congo, DRC, and how bers—it’s my thing.

What do you first read on the page, things are not so good there ­either. ­captions, quotes, headlines, titles?

Do you proof the news you read by using different sources Titles. If there’s a summation some­ of information? where in the article in bold then I’ll read Yes, well, I try. I don’t think it’s very well that, and then I’ll go through. Captions. rounded, I’d like to find some more ex­ Obviously I like the pictures so of course treme views of it. I read The New York I read the caption.

Times, obviously, and I go to BBC News Is there any image you remember online, and I see the same articles and from yesterday? they usually have different background. On the BBC online, the images from the For the Middle Eastern topics, Al Jazeera— CAR. From the Central African Republic it’s a good source for that I believe. The there was a picture of a bunch of Chris­ local topics—I don’t know why I get the tians holding up machetes and knives.

Wall Street Journal still. Somebody in my They were apparently on their way to find life paid for it and I keep getting it so I flip the Muslim driver. What was funny was through it sometimes. The Chronicle, I flip they all had these rusty machetes, except through that sometimes if I’m in the cafe. for one guy who had this brand new Ram­ I’m actually trying to find some newspa­ bo knife.

Do you care about typefaces in per sticks to put in the cafe, to have more. the newspaper, is there a type you Are you using any filters to especially like? get ­information?

Twitter and my Instagram account, The type they use in the BBC, I particu­ mostly for marketing and also just for fun. larly don’t like. I love The New York Times.

They are usually full of self-deprecating The New York Times, that’s one of the most comments. I use the opposite technique, beautiful fonts.

So you care how the text looks? if somebody points at somebody then they say there are three fingers pointing Yes, that’s one of the reasons I try to back at you—I like to point at myself and read the hard copy newspaper too. It’s a then point at everybody else more. Most­ beautiful thing. ly about coffee industry topics.

Do you pay attention to the layout?

Do you always read the whole Not consciously I guess. I guess I article until the end? could know a good layout if I was asked, Not always. Either if it’s not engaging but I don’t consciously think about it.

Do you mind if everything is or if I can just skim it and it’s a very short article. Mostly I don’t read the short arti­ black and white?

I love it. I prefer it. cles all the way through. I can just skim Is it easier to remember in them. The bigger articles usually have black and white? better writing. It’s more engaging.

It’s just more dramatic.

Did you read the news yesterday?

Yesterday was my day with my boy, so I don’t actually read much on Sundays, but Monday mornings I do. During the week I do.

Any good or bad news?

Ah, let’s see. I know that there are peace talks and now a cease fire in Syria.

[U.S. Secretary of State John] Kerry and [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov, they’re talking about opening some cor­ridors for humanitarian aid in East Ghouta and Damascus as well. So that’s good news. Potentially.

Bad news?

Looks like Volkswagen is making a sev­ en-seater suv just for the American mar­ ket. That’s bad news! [Laughing] This is just for fun—I like to read these things just because it’s funny U.S. news, like the stretch limo, there’s a stretch scooter. A stretch scooter went into the Guinness Book of World Records. It’s 10 feet long, it has a top speed of four miles per hour, a mini-bar, a sound system, and a chauffeur.

Anything you read that made you change your opinion?

I guess some of the more gruesome de­ tails came out about one of the fights in the Central African Republic, about one of the Christian guys eating the Muslim guy’s leg. And then there was a guy named Mad Dog who stabbed—because the Muslims killed, I think, his pregnant wife and his sister—he stabbed the guy in the head and poured gasoline on him and lit him on fire. So that’s tough. Religious fighting is just disturbing in any context, especially in Africa where they can take it to a whole new level.

So you read every day about Africa?

This is a topic you are following?

Are there any particular keywords, Yes, I pay attention to mostly the coun­ quotes, headlines you remember from yesterday? tries that I buy from. Unfortunately, there aren’t ­a lot of good resources for daily up­ Numbers usually get my attention. Yes­ dates, but at least weekly there’s some up­ terday it was seven billion from Volkswa­ date from somewhere. Recently I was gen, $13.6 billion from Suntory. Num­

visuals

practice

“ Numbers usually get my attention. Yesterday “I don’t usually read the entire article online. it was seven billion Better on paper.” from Volkswagen, $13.6 billion from Suntory.” Do you feel your way of reading has

changed since the introduction of online newspapers?

Definitely. I also listen to NPR on my way in to work. I live in the Sunset so I have a 15- to 30-minute drive depending on traffic. So I’ve always used that and it’s been very nice because it’s convenient. It

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Media used regularly The New York Times, The New York Times online, BBC online, Al Jazeera online, KALW, KQED

keeps me company, keeps me thinking.

With some of the online media it’s made it more accessible but I think that—I don’t know maybe it’s just me—but when you asked about reading all the way through articles, I don’t have patients for it when I’m looking at the computer.

Maybe it’s just that association with the media and the online media, my associa­ tion is supposed to be very quick. [Snaps fingers] I don’t usually read the entire ar­ ticle if it’s online. Better on paper.

So you don’t mind if there are always two options?

My relationship with paper is a little bit different. I’d like to see people using more recycled papers obviously, and FSC-certified. It’s more sustainable than corn plastic for sure.

Should news be for free?

No. I don’t think so. I mean, some­ body’s got to pay for it. And if it makes it better. I don’t know how it is in Europe, but I know that Americans have a very in­ teresting relationship with what they call the basic rights of things—hardly anyone in America pays attention to the real cost of food for instance, let alone do they have a perspective to journalists and what that means for society. From my end, I really dislike getting calls from newspapers all the time trying to sell me advertising space, but it’s necessary be­ cause otherwise where does the news come from? We’ve done advertisements in the past as Four Barrel, but we don’t ever do it for Four Barrel. We just do weird ads that have nothing to do with us.

It might have something to do with coffee.

Did you discuss any news with anybody yesterday?

No, I was with my son all day and he’s only five years old. Sometimes we will talk about what I experienced abroad.

I’m trying to take him to Kenya with me next month.

Did somebody/something disturb you from reading?

Well, my son. All day. That’s the other part about why I like the newspaper so much because I do that at home when I’m by myself. I make coffee, I make breakfast, and I read the newspaper. When I get to work and if I’m in between things, I get dis­ turbed a lot. This morning I was doing some emails and checking the news and

Jeremy Tooker sitting in the storage room of his coffee shop Four Barrel at 375 Valencia Street, in San Francisco.

then two people got sick from my other company and I had to coordinate every­ body to go over there and pick up all the coffee and bring it over here to roast it all.

That took up about a half hour of my time and I was right in the middle of reading about the peace talks.

Did you laugh/cry while reading some articles?

I laughed about the stretch limo. I al­ most cried about the seven-seater suv.

adverts

Are you consciously looking at ads in newspapers?

No, I have a very bad reaction to ad­ vertisements. I don’t look for them. Al­ though I do understand the importance of it. Mostly billboards—those I hate.

When I see them it’s a benefit for the newspapers. I do know that they are very successful though so at some point I may just not be angry at it any more. That’s why people should pay for news more. I regularly contribute to KALW. We donate coffee to them and to KQED to keep them going. For how much time I spend with it, it’s very little investment.

context

“Usually the newspapers in our cafe disappear pretty fast, ­within a couple hours.”

Which newspapers do you hang in the cafe?

We get two copies of The New York Times in the cafe. We get the Chronicle.

Usually they disappear pretty fast, within a couple hours. We separate all the cate­ gories out, and we put them all down, and then they just disappear. They float around the cafe for a few hours. Inevita­ bly by 10 or 11 o’clock they’re all gone.

You have no Wi-Fi in your coffee shops?

I’d like to put more newspapers in all the cafes. We’re actually going to turn this space—for my employees to start with and see how it goes—this space over here into a little library, mostly for coffee ref­ erence but also for other beverages and environmental topics. And one of our goals for our space in Portola is to cater to these things. To have neighborhood meetings there, and to do some talks.

We’re trying to turn that place in a year in­ to a completely off-the-grid coffee shop.

You are also a big collector of vintage audio? Do you think it’s easier to ­remember a story through audio than through reading?

I have an easy time with that, that’s why I love NPR so much. I listen to KQED and KALW, two local stations. They’re both good. KQED is world class. They have a good news program. KALW is a lot more local topics as well. They have a lot of snippets. Between programs they throw out 10 pieces of news, which is usually what I end up looking more when I come to work. I’ll look it up to get more details.

What is your vision of journalism for the future?

There’s a good opportunity for someone to incorporate like what we do with Twit­ ter or what we do with Instagram, but more news ­focused. So you can go online and find articles that you like and share them. That would be especially helpful for some of the local news, smaller things, things that most people would just skip over or don’t have much time for, if they see it a couple of times they will pay atten­ tion to it more. Like the chemical water in West Virginia.

If there was a newspaper focused only on San Francisco and no international ­headlines, would you read it?

Yes, definitely. I would probably skim over it and find the best ones that would be interesting to me, but that would be good.

Do you ever dream about the news you read?

All the time! [Laughs] Usually it’s about conflict. I think that integrates itself with a lot of fears when I’m traveling, of being caught in the middle of it. In fact, recent­ ly somebody pretty famous, a beauty queen was on vacation with her husband in Brazil and got killed by some squatters in a particular town. I’m always in weird towns. So that’s always a fear of mine, like I’ll hop in the wrong cab and they’ll take me somewhere. Especially when I’m by myself. When I’m traveling with some­ body I’ve got no fear. You know you’re distracted, but when you’re by yourself and you’re the only one who speaks Eng­ lish it gets very lonely and you play sce­ narios out in your head all the time. I have nightmares about that. ×

january 14, 2014

The Day After Reading Monday’s news remembered by Ken Goldberg

Age 52 Lives in San Francisco since 1995 Started reading the news regularly in highschool First news remembered my dad reading The Sunday New York Times

Reads news daily yes Average time used on reading news daily half an hour to an hour

What do you first read on the page?

The caption, the title, the quotes?

The headline.

Sure?

Yes. Well, it’s an interesting question.

The New York Times for example they have sometimes videos or a slide show. Ariel Sharon died. So that was one case where I’ve followed him over the years, so when My name is Ken Goldberg. I’m a profes­ I saw that, I went immediately to the slide sor at Berkeley, I’m also an artist. My re­ show first. It was fascinating, they had search work is involved with robotics and him as a young man—his trajectory. It social media. The social media aspect is, was the perfect thing. I didn’t want to go we use ideas from robotics, in particular, and read his whole life story again.

Is there any image you remember ideas about geometric algorithms and statistical analysis. So we develop web­ from yesterday? sites that use things like dimentionality, Well the Sharon image was very power­ production, collaborative filtering, tools ful. There was a picture of him from the like that, to facilitate new interfaces in the Six Day War, when he had been wounded. media. I use robots in my work—and my He had a bandage around his head, but he wife is a filmmaker so I’m working with also looked like a movie star. It was a very her on some films. important moment for him. It was a real­ Any good or bad news yesterday? ly interesting image.

Yes! Lots of news yesterday! I was actu­ Do you care about type faces ally thinking about the question because in news­papers? Is there a type yesterday a big piece of news was Google you especially like? acquiring Nest. That was announced I do actually care about typefaces. The probably, late in the afternoon. I heard New York Times, which is one I touch base about it through a whole bunch of sourc­ with at least once or twice per day, just es—Twitter, email, then I went online did a redesign two or three days ago. That and saw bunch of information about it on is interesting because I have to get used The New York Times, etc. I’m friends with to this—it’s a little more spread out, but I the CTO there, so I was happy to see it, and like it. It’s cleaner, it has a nicer feel.

Do you pay attention to the layout? it’s a fascinating company.

Consciously?

Bad news?

Most of it’s good news I have to say. Yes, especially lately, because, for Twit­ There was something about Nigeria. I’m ter, they’ve also changed the layout, from Nigeria, so I pay attention to Nigeri­ changed the fonts a little bit. It’s really in­ an information. They just decided to ban teresting because on a screen like this all same-sex relationships. Not only mar­ you have a really limited amount of space. riage, but the whole thing. It’s a new law So you have to be really smart about how or something like that. That was bad news. you use it. If you start using the resolu­ tion of a screen to get more nuanced Is there any specific news that fonts, that have gray-scale tones and you’re following?

Yes, well, here’s one thing that was real­ things like that, they pop out more.

Do you mind if everything is black ly interesting: The film Her, which came and white? The text, but also images, out—if you haven’t seen it yet it was the whole design. amazing. It’s one of the best films—Spike Jonze did this and I recommend it. It is For reading I prefer it to be black and white. I find that color—for example probably the best film.

Wired magazine—I don’t like. It’s very He falls in love with a robot?

Yes, and it’s so well done. It’s so smart. bright. And it’s probably their style, but He does the future but it’s very subtle. It’s they’ll put in blue on green or something, not science fiction. It doesn’t feel like Star so I can’t read it. Just give me black and Wars. It has very cool, subtle differences. white. Actually, another pet peeve is It’s the idea that Siri basically becomes so gray—gray on white. Some places do this sufficiently good that you can actually and they think it’s stylish, just the other start having a relationship with it. And it day I had an article I wanted to read and I makes a great case and it’s very well bent. tried to print it and it came out gray on All these reviews have started coming in white. So then I had to drag it into Word, about it and I’ve been following this be­ and enter it as just text to return it to black cause I saw the movie when it first came and white. It took five minutes, but it was out. I actually saw Spike Jonze’s earlier worth it. It was a long article, I didn’t want film that’s about robots called I’m Here— to read it in gray. that set the stage for this one. So I’ve been following it for a while. As far as new de­ velopments, a lot of reviews and analysis have come out about this new one. And I have to say, it’s fascinating. I don’t want to give it away, but there’s a twist that occurs toward the end, it’s absolutely brilliant.

Do you proof the news you read by using different sources of information?

Do you feel your way of reading Yes. For example, the big sources, Twit­ has changed since the introduction of online media? ter—things that will come up there, I’ll see something, but I’ll check it on multi­ For me, yes. I still don’t like close read­ ple sources. For example Slashdot is a very ing on a screen. If it’s something that I re­ reliable source. There was an interesting ally want to pay attention to, like reading thing, my friend who lives in Las Vegas, papers or an article that I really want to there was an article on him that he’s buy­ focus on, then I print it. I still do. I realize ing more robot companies. That was on it’s not great for the environment.

Should news be for free?

Slashdot. So then I was digging around trying to find other references to that, I No. Journalism is a profession, like found something that was in The New York others, just like music, the ones who cre­ Times that collaborated it. Same with Nest. ate it deserve to be compensated, for sure.

When I see it one place, I want to under­ Something like the model of The New York stand it from different sources.

Times online is an interesting one, they So do you compare information and give you 10 articles or so for free, then if do you trust the journalists? you want more then you pay. I’m also in­ Never! [Laughing] It’s an interesting volved with a journal, I edit a journal on question because my experience is that automation, I’m thinking about this be­ almost any article that I know the real cause people expect information to be topic, is hugely distorted over what the free but there’s a lot of work that goes in­ reality is. It’s amazing. But at the same to it—both editing and organizing and time, some sources are very consistently everything else. One thing I’m interested reasonable—not perfect. The New York in is, to get it timely, you pay, but then lat­ Times for example is pretty good but I’ve er, it becomes freely available. So then seen some really egregious examples of there’s a way to have both. Everybody can mistakes there. get access, but you’re willing to pay to be Are you using any filters to get infor- up to date, for the timeliness of informa­ mation, and if yes, which ones? tion. Usually people who want that have So, with Twitter, you might say it’s who the resources to pay.

I’m following, I know where they’re com­ That’s a good idea.

I can even imagine, The New York Times ing from. Like John Perry Barlow is someone I really trust, I like his perspec­ doing something like this, where there’s tives. Someone like William Gibson I fol­ an advance news, you get everything two low too, he’s a really interesting science minutes earlier than everyone else. fiction writer. That’s kind of a way I’ve set There’s a bunch of people who will pay for up filters just in terms of who I want to that. And then maybe it’s five minutes early, so then you get on a sliding scale. hear from.

But after an hour, it’s kind of like any­ Do you always read the whole article to the end? body’s news so then it’s free.

Did you discuss any news with No, because I never have enough time. anyone yesterday?

I don’t have a ritual, like some people who sit down and read the newspaper I talked about Google’s acquisition and read it cover to cover, I can’t. Every with my colleagues and my students, day I seek out useful information from a because we’ve been following that whole variety of sources. Another source by the direction. way is emails from friends. Recommen­ Did somebody somehow disturb dations, they’ll say, “You have to see this,” you from your reading? or “You have to check this out.” They’re Always, yes! That’s a great question. I from friends because they know that I’m have a four-year-old and a 10-year-old. following things in robotics and certain My daughter had a play date and she came flying into my office yesterday. I other topics, so that’s how I’ll find out. was in the middle of something, and she just started frantically climbing over me.

She was playing hide-and-seek and she had to hide very quickly. So that was a to­ tal interruption.

Did you laugh or cry while reading any articles?

I don’t cry too often, I didn’t cry yester­ Is there any particular quote day. I laughed at a few things. Also on or headline that you remember Twitter, there’s a few people that I follow from yesterday? like Albert Brooks and The Onion, that I’ll That’s a good question. There was a big smile if not laugh.

If there was a newspaper focused deal, Berkeley has a new provost. So that only on San Francisco, without was a very major deal. Claude Steele. That any international headlines, would came as an email, and it was also a big you read it? banner headline on the Berkeley website.

stories

“ Every day I seek out useful information from a variety of sources.”

practice

“Journalism is a profession… the ones who create it deserve to be compensated.”

visuals

“Actually, another pet peeve is gray— gray on white.”

Probably not. We have a newspaper here that’s just for Mill Valley, just for this little town. I’m not excited about that. I like things that are focused on the inter­ national perspective.

adverts

Do you consciously look at the ads in the newspaper?

No. In fact, my nephew who is 13, told me about this software that blocks ads. I wasn’t using it before but now I’m using it all the time! The New York Times comes up with no ads on it, it’s amazing! It works so well. So that just changed in the last two weeks. Before that I just tuned them out.

context

“I’m thinking of a holographic way of thinking of the news.”

How do robots read?

Very fast. That’s actually one interest­ ing thing that a machine can process vast amounts of data. To your point earlier, about do you trust any single author, a machine can take a topic that comes out, and analyze hundreds of articles at the same time, and pull out keywords, pat­ terns, start to look for correlations.

How do robots differentiate between an image and a letter? Does it see the whole page as an image?

There’s something called OCR—optical character recognition. This has been de­ veloped over the last 20 years now, and it’s extremely good. Even with your cell phone you can do this. You point it at something, it will find the letters, and translate them into characters, and then it can do a Google search. I was just at a conference where we were talking about the ability to recognize handwritten characters, and computers are getting ex­ tremely good at this too. For example, when you send mail, almost all of that is done with a computer, not with a human reading the address. It’s amazing what they can do. A machine will often just take an image of the environment and then it will just infer the text.

How will the screen be able to follow our eyes, and decide what should be in bold or not?

The NSA I’m sure is doing this. But that will change. Because one thing they’re in­ terested in doing is monitoring you. Talk­ ing about Google, monitoring what you’re doing in your car and in your home. This will be an incredible source because they’ll be able to look at your face and find out all kinds of interesting things from your perspectives, what you look at and how long you spend looking at each thing. The New York Times will cer­ tainly be doing this, if they’re not already experimenting. Right now they do a little

3

Media used regularly The New York Times, Huffington Post, Slashdot.org, spectrum.ieee.org, rhizome.org, boingboing.net, theonion.com, Twitter: William Gibson, Evgeny Morozov; NPR: Laura Sydell, Leah Garchik, John Perry Barlow, Susan Mactavish

bit of monitoring, they know when you’re scrolling, what you’re clicking on. What if they can start actually seeing where your eyes are focused? It’s fairly easy for them to start doing that.

Will it change the way they edit information?

Sure. But then there’s the issue of the news becoming customized. There’s al­ ways a danger, you don’t want to go in this filter bubble where everything is custom­ ized and then you have these blinders.

You just start focusing in on certain sub­ topics. But the idea of trying to under­ stand what people are paying attention to, what catches their eye, and more impor­ tantly, what the reaction is, because there will be microscopic increases in your iris.

Your face has an incredible amount of muscles and information that is transmit­ ted that we pick up subconsciously, so there’s been some great work. This guy Eckman, he can tell when people are ly­ ing by what he calls “microexpressions.”

Computers can pick this up because they’re fast. That will inevitably happen.

How do robots manage mistakes?

Do they produce mistakes?

Sure, robots always make mistakes.

They never actually do the same thing twice. There’s always a slight error in the way the robot moves and the way the ro­ bot perceives, so mistakes are extremely common. One of the things I’m really in­ terested in is how the Cloud can be used in this way. I’m working with people at Google on this idea of Cloud robotics.

Here’s the idea: Robots are not isolated.

They all start communicating in the same way that we all do with the Internet. So they’re sharing information. When a ro­ bot drops something, and it picks it up and its hand smashes into the table, it will immediately share that experience with all the other robots on the Internet, so they’ll learn collectively. We as humans don’t share our mistakes that well. We don’t like to talk about them. We just put on Facebook all the great things we do, we don’t say anything about the stupid things. But learning from mistakes is re­ ally important, so if we could collectively do it, that would be really interesting.

Will copyright still exist in an open-source world?

The journal have this model of open ac­ cess. It’s really important to give credit.

In academia, the big thing is you want to be cited. I’m happy to have everybody us­ ing anything I’ve done, any image or text, but I want to get an attribution. If they just take it and they don’t give credit than that’s frustrating. Authors, anybody that’s creating something, wants some way of getting that acknowledgment.

Copyright is where you control it, and limit it. I don’t know if that’s going to ulti­ mately be successful. But I do think there’s a way to give credit for where something originated, and I hope that doesn’t go away.

Ken Goldberg at his Marin County home.

How will algorithms change, but also control our perception, and how can you resist?

We have this film that Tiffany and I did called Why We Love Robots. It’s five min­ utes. One of the things we learn from ro­ bots is what makes us human—what’s uniquely human. So it helps us under­ stand the things that we are really good at.

Those are things like emotion, creativity, the ability to not be efficient. We need that to sometimes be reminded that those are important qualities. Playfulness. Ro­ bots don’t play. There’s a great quote, a friend of mine Brad Templeton said, “A robot will be truly autonomous when you instruct it to drive to work and it decides to go to the beach instead.”

What is your vision of journalism for the future?

There will be this idea of citizen jour­ nalism. Rather than just the experts, peo­ ple will be directly sharing their own in­ formation. It’s something like Twitter and Facebook and all the social media, people are reporting on what they’re see­ ing directly. I also like this idea that the people will be able to have their own voice. One of the things that I’ve always found difficult is, that you as a subject agree to the interview, and then you have no control whatsoever about what quotes, how you are represented—you relin­ quish any control over that. I see the pur­ pose, often times you want to get at the truth, not to have the person have an edi­ torial say in that, buy often times it’s dis­ torted. When the few times I’ve been able to give feedback on an article, the article gets better. And the other thing about journalism, which would be really inter­ esting, would be if there’s a way to hear the other side right at the same time. So you could say, here’s the version that the reporter wrote, here’s the version as it was edited, the version that the subject of the article would have written. So you can have a rebuttal on all those things. That you could have multiple versions in one article. There will be many perspectives on a topic, even within a single article.

I’m thinking of a holographic way of thinking of the news. You look over here, and you see behind. To see that the differ­ ence of where you’re looking from chang­ es what you see.

Do you ever dream about the news you read?

I do. Film has definitely influenced me a lot. Like this film I mentioned earlier, Her, it came into my dreams because it was a fascinating perspective. It’s all about how the future will change the way we re­ late to each other and to the world. ×

Ken Goldberg at his Marin County home.

january 15, 2014

The Day After Reading Tuesday’s news remembered by Lulu Ezekiel

Age 79 Lives in San Francisco since 1957 Started reading the news regularly For a long time we didn’t have money for newspapers. We did go to a café and read a newspaper.

Reads news daily yes First news remembered we left Austria in ’38 and spent a year in France, and then spent a year in Canada. So all during that time our lives must have been dominated by the news.

4

Average time used on reading news daily probably the Chronicle takes about 20 minutes. Then I read The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker Media used regularly the Chronicle, The New York Times, NPR, Link TV, The New York Review of Books

it hasn’t for me, but I think it has. Every­ are. And you know—if you come to see these people and it just… I have a Macy’s at three o’clock in the morning friend who’s going out with Mr. Eighteen. thing is jumpier and shorter. then everything will be 10% off. They’re Also in the printed news do you Do you ever feel that because extending the hours and all these gim­ you’re not using online and social think it’s changed? media that you don’t get the Yes. [There’s] more about celebrities… micks to have you go and buy stuff. It’s news as fast as others or that you [it’s] mainly about personalities and not pretty much caused me to never go are somehow excluded? about context or movements or anything. downtown anymore. [Laughs] You know that movie, the Dallas Buyer’s I’m not sure that that information is Club. It’s about a guy, he’s a cowboy who even of any interest to me, the informa­ get’s AIDS, and he figures out how to bring tion that they’re getting. I mean, what am in medicines from all over the world that I missing? That Lady Gaga fell down? I don’t know—or she didn’t fall down?

I was born in Vienna, grew up in Vancou­ are not yet legal in the States. You see There’s so much of that —it’s not my about two minutes of political action of ver, British Columbia, Canada, and did a world. My world shrinks daily, and get’s hundreds of people in the street, but the lot of things but ended up at Reed Col­ lege, which is in Oregon. So, for people movie would have you believe it’s one guy. deeper, and less peripheral. from Reed, San Francisco is the next So that’s also happening with And this is a real trend, in the newspaper place. It’s just, downhill. A lot of people your news? You’re most interested too. And then all this stuff about the Gold­ from San Francisco had been there— what’s happening locally rather en Globes and the who-cares-what. Once Gary Snyder, [Jack] Kerouac, [Allen] than globally? you get to my age, you don’t know the In the sixties, they used to do posters about the news. Do you remember Ginsberg—all these guys, they went back names of any of these people and they all Locally, yes. And if Monsieur Whatev­ and forth. So in 1956, I went to College of look alike. You haven’t seen their mov­ reading news on posters? er-his-name-is in Paris has his wife go to Arts and Crafts, it was still called, in Oak­ ies—you probably never will—and that’s The thing about those posters is they the hospital because he’s taking a mis­ half the newspaper that day. were pretty illegible. You couldn’t read tress, this is funny, but I don’t’ really care land. And then when I was finished I Should news be for free? moved to this city. At first I lived in Chi­ them. You had to be stoned to read them. a lot. I’m not sure I ever did, but I used to natown, which was pretty fun, and then It used to be. In the sixties we had some They were very beautiful graphically. feel like I needed to know. That’s the dif­ almost all the rest of my adult life I’ve ference. In terms of the culture, too—I really good free newspapers. The Chroni- In the sixties writing was a political act for free expression and created used to feel like I needed to know who lived in North Beach. For a while when I Is there any particular keyword, cle is definitely not worth what you pay for amazing documentation of that were the hot artists, and what’s the hot quote, or headline that you rememwas married we had a house in Potrero it. I mean it is amazing. I just think of it as time. Social media and Twitter Hill, which is now a very hot neighbor­ ber from yesterday? an addiction and I just have to give in to it. music, and so on. make publishing possible for everyGarage? [Laughs] Would you like to talk about the hood but at that time it was so boring. The Did you discuss any news with body today. Do you think this is a What do you first read on the page, Beat Generation and some writers anybody yesterday? neighborhood was one of the big causes good development of publishing and the caption, the quote, the headline, like Jack Kerouac in San Francisco. of the divorce. [Laughs] From the newspaper? I might have free expression? the titles?

Did they have any influence on Did you read the newspaper talked about the garage.

Probably the caption. the daily press? yesterday?

Did somebody or something Try and I guess whether I think it’s So is there any image that I did. disturb your reading? good! [Laughs] No. There are very few You know the thing that was interest­ you remember?

Any bad or good news?

The garage! [Laughs] The height limit— people my age that like all of these things. ing about the fifties, is that the journalists, Nope.

Good news, I’d have to think… I can’t that’s a really big thing. They’re trying to For us, really important things are being the artists, the poets, the musicians, were Do you care about typefaces in remember any good news. For someone manipulate how much, what they’re call­ lost—and you hear it everywhere— all kind of the same. So this guy has a gig the newspaper? who’s been here as long as I have, I can’t ing low-cost housing, which is way more which is community and neighborhood writing for the newspaper, this guy has a remember any good news.

I do. I do, I’m very upset aboutThe New than most of us can afford. I mean, I’m topics. We used to go into the café and gig making music, and so on and so forth.

Any bad news? here because I got this in 1980. I could there would be people to talk to and you But they weren’t different kinds of people.

Yorker’s new design. never afford to buy this house now. So would go every morning and talk to your Now I have a feeling that they are being Well, I’ve thought about it, because at What are you upset about? first I thought I was going to relate to to­ It’s not proper. It’s readable—it’s just they’re trying to say that if you build your friends. It was wonderful. I remember sit­ manufactured to be different kinds of day’s paper, but I haven’t read it. Because ugly. It doesn’t look the way it should. It building 200 units more, all you have to ting in a café in North Beach and a friend people. You know, in the fifties the big is­ when you said yesterday’s, I thought I was fine—if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. I do is give a little bit of money to the city of mine said, “All these people are jealous sue was “ban the bomb.” We had parades better not mess up my mind with any new mean you could spend an hour talking fund for low-cost housing. They’re even of us.” And I said, “Why is that? I haven’t in North Beach—and all over the world— news. But it seems as though the San about what’s wrong with it, but the fact is, trying to make sure—because Charlotte noticed, it seems like they’re very satis­ of artists carrying big signs, “ban the Francisco Chronicle is a very local paper. it’s just all wrong. And it represents and I went out and gave away leaflets— fied.” And he said, “Were talking about art bomb.” Bruce Conner did some of his You know if the third World War breaks what’s going wrong with the magazine, you don’t even have to have the medium- and ideas and they don’t now how.” It just most interesting work as things to be car­ out it will be on page seven, because it’s but I’m not sure what all those things are. priced housing in that building. You can feels like everybody—you know you go ried in the parades. It was a very small Do you pay attention to the layout? really just a local paper. put them somewhere else. You give it to into cafes and there aren’t places where generation. We were the children of the You read the Chronicle everyday?

I’m an artist, and I pay attention to the the city, and the city will put them where two people can sit. There’s one person. depression. So our parents had one or All this is really, really sad to me. No so­ two kids—except for some Catholics— Yes. layout, and also what’s on the front— they decide somewhere.

So what was on page one? what they think that’s important. That There’s a little theatre called the Marsh cial interaction. It happens online, it’s so for the most part it was a really small On page one they had the issue of kind of layout. And what they put on the in the Mission, and they do—it’s not not physical anymore. generation. And then the big culture was height limits, which is important to me, back page. These things are important. avant-garde, but it’s cutting edge—the­ Do you think that’s changed the way looming all around. Now, because of the atre. A very cheap, humble little place. people talk to each other in general? Internet, the culture is so much more ho­ Do you mind if everything is because I like my view. On one page, I’m in black and white? not sure where it was, the thing about And they’re wanting to build a place next Well, it seems like all they say is “like.” mogenized, but not in any way that is in­ No, I’m fine with that. door to it, which would be very noisy, etc. Like, I’m going downtown, like—but you teresting to me. Beatniks were pretty in­ whether you’re allowed to have things in your garage other than your car—this is And just the fight—the way they try to ma­ know the ultimate irony is, you see a tellectual, and then hippies came along a big issue. Especially since I’ve put my nipulate that—it will destroy this theatre. woman, and a man, and they’re both on and that was not so much. But one of the studio in my basement.

Once this theatre has to move, like every­ their computer, and they’re both on a dat­ things was, you could get published. City Anything that made you particularly thing else there’s nowhere to move, be­ ing site, OK Cupid. And they’re sitting Lights is still right here, and you could go happy, anxious, or confused? cause everything has gotten so expensive. next to each other. They’re relating to the and get published. Everybody knew ev­ Almost everything makes me angry That kind of thing sticks in my craw. is contrivance, which if they would just erybody else. It was not competitive be­ and anxious. It’s been all along, in every open their eyes they might fall in love cause the stakes were so low. There was city in the world, but the speed that things with this person next to them, and at least nothing to be gained. It’s not like if you are changing in this city—there’s a new Do you think the way of reading has they’d see that he was lying on his OK Cu­ cut everybody else’s throat you could culture coming in that’s just so… disre­ changed since the introduction of Do you look at the ads in the pid statement, and that he doesn’t look have a show and make millions of dollars. spectful of what’s here. And, you know, online media? newspaper? Does this disturb you? like that picture. They’d save themselves Nobody was making millions of dollars. some if it’s just normal, but the speed is I’m just amazed at how many ads there some time. It happens so often that you So that was very different. You know, I Well, since I never look at online media was in a group of artists, and we went to just amazing. the beach every afternoon and played Was there anything you read that made you change your opinion? cards. It was very friendly, and then we’d Lulu Ezekiel showing the view from her terrace she she has enjoyed for 30 years.

Do I ever change my opinion? [Laugh­ go to our studios and do some work. It ing] I’m pretty fixed! I get obsessed, and wasn’t about, how could I get a show, you know, look around there’s nothing where. The most important galleries were very new. little storefronts. Those people now have Is there any specific news that made millions, but it took a while. you’re following?

What’s your vision for the journalism of tomorrow?

Well, we’re all following the governor of New Jersey, that’s such a great story.

I would like to see more depth. The Why? center is so far to the right, I would like to Well you know about it? see that come back a little bit, and not No. I’m not from here. have everything labeled left wing that is Oh, well, the governor of New Jersey is not very left wing. For instance, Obama, is not very left wing at all. He’s not—he a very large man, and New Jersey is never said he was. If we get what he was known as a very corrupt state. That’s why offering, we’ll be about where Bismarck all these mafia movies—they’re all from was. It’s not new what he’s trying to do, New Jersey. This guy had an election and Europe’s had it forever. But they’re say­ he won and he became governor. There were some people who voted against him, ing he’s a Communist. It’s crazy.

Have you ever dreamed and in that part of New Jersey, he had the about the news? turnpike—the freeway—closed. So traf­ I don’t dream much, so probably not. I fic stopped! For I don’t know how long, but it messed it up for like three days—in mean I have my dreams… I read The New revenge, for these people who voted York Review of Books and it’s big, and the ar­ against him. Really. And at first of course, ticles are long. So when you’ve finished you feel like you’ve learned something. he said, “Oh no, this didn’t happen,” and The New Yorker also sometimes, but you then he said—how did that go? “It didn’t never feel like you’ve learned anything happen, and I’m sorry, and I’ll never do it from the Chronicle. [Laughs] I mean, again.” It was one of those, he kind of con­ you’ve learned something where you fessed. He fired the woman he said was responsible. It’s a great story because this would have to go look somewhere else to guy could have become president. He was find out. My idea of a really good time? A trying to become president. It’s Shakes­ bathtub and a New Yorker. × pearian—that he is his own undoing. It just makes you laugh on so many levels.

Do you proof the news you read by using different sources?

Yes. The Chronicle is the only paper I read regularly. I see The New York Times, but I don’t get it—mainly because I’m in­ terested in the local topics. But I do listen to NPR and I watch Link TV, which is a left-wing TV station. It’s national, but it started here. They have Democracy Now, and various left-wing—what we call leftwing, which in Europe would be conser­ vative—you know, they have Amy Good­ man and people like that.

Do you trust the journalists?

Some more than others. The quality of journalism has gone south because of the economics. They don’t have time to write, they don’t have time to do the research, the corporations own the news media, all the things that everybody talks about— it’s hard to trust them.

Do you always read articles to the end?

No not always, sometimes I get mad and don’t read it. I just skim it, looking for the things that make me angry! [Laughs] Little things will stick in your head too, like one of the things that people who live here are so upset about is how much the city is given over to tourism. So there’s this big story about putting Chinese teen­ agers on the ferry boats so they can tell Chinese tourists what to do while hey’re

stories

“Do I ever change my opinion?

[Laughing] I’m pretty fixed by now!”

in San Francisco. So I’m reading this, and I’m thinking, are these kids getting paid a living—you know, minimum wage? The gist of the story is that this is so good be­ cause they’re immigrant children and this way they’ll assimilate, and they’ll be ready for work. But you know there are so many situations now where in order to get a job you have to work as an intern—an unpaid worker, for who knows how long. So this is another example of that. So that stayed in my mind more than a lot of much more important news. Just because, well, I live in Chinatown, this is pretty much China­ town here.

context

“ … in the fifties the journalists, the artists, the poets, the musicians, were all kind of the same.”

visuals

“ I’m an artist, I pay attention to the layout, and also what’s on the front—what they think is important.”

practice

“In the sixties we had some really good free newspapers.”

adverts

january 16, 2014

The Day After Reading Wednesday’s news remembered by Joshua Grannell

Age 40 Lives in San Francisco since 1996 Started reading the news regularly in college, 1992 First news remembered when the space shuttle Challenger exploded

Reads news daily no, approximately five days weekly Average time used on reading news daily used to be half an hour now approximately 90 minutes, but not in one part

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Media used regularly primarily from the internet, Facebook, Twitter, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Guardian Weekly, The Bay Area Reporter, CNN, NPR, local alternative weeklies

International Film Festival; Mansfield was here as an invited guest of the festival and ended up causing a scene and actually went to meet Anton LaVey at the Church of Satan and it blew up. It was a whole news story. It was so interesting to read these old news reports.

Did you laugh or cry while reading some article?

Yes, for sure. Definitely laugh. The whole Church of Satan thing, I really re­ lated to, and the more I was looking at it, I was like, this is more of a circus, than it is a religion. Almost entertainment, more than anything spiritual per se. Rejecting religion, and flying in the face of orga­ nized religion. It was really making me chuckle.

context

“So as a Catholic, of course I grew up loving horror movies and drag.”

Joshua Grannell as his drag queen alter ego Peaches Christ. ( Photo by Jose Guzman Colon )

them—whether I agree or disagree— part of a group of people who politically I what the critics have to say about a movie supported, but also in a country that can coming out. be really problematic.

Did anything in particular make you Do you proof the news you read? angry, happy, anxious, or confused?

Yes, I do, a lot more now. With the From yesterday? No, I don’t think so. I Internet it’s a lot easier to compare and mean, I was encouraged by the news contrast. about Iran. I’ve noticed that the older I Do you always read the whole get, the more I’m invested in what’s hap­ article to the end? pening in the rest of the world. A news No, I mean I’m really guilty of just tak­ story can really affect my mood. ing a snapshot and moving on. You know I grew up in Maryland, in Annapolis. I It’s kind of why I don’t read the horo­ I have CNN, and if you watch CNN for like, went to Catholic school my whole life un­ scopes—I don’t want someone to tell me an hour, you’ve got it. They just rehash the til I went to college—I studied film pro­ what kind of day I’m going to have. I’ve same things over and over again. Some­ duction at Penn State University in Penn­ noticed that if I’m not careful—even log­ times they’ll mention something that’s of sylvania. I moved to San Francisco the ging into Facebook you’re inundated interest to me, but they only mention it. week I graduated, which was probably with information. I remember when Something’s going on in this other coun­ not a smart thing to do, but I was young Syria was being covered a lot. I would try, or you see it scrolling, and then I’ll go and dumb, and I got on a plane with no start my day looking at what was going on money and no job and no place to live, in Syria, and then have a really kind of and I’ve been here ever since. Almost 18 hideous day. Because it was there, it was years ago. in the back of your head. I’m trying to Now I kind of juggle a bunch of things. latch on to positive things versus nega­ One is filmmaking—I’m a writer and di­ tive things. rector; I’m an event producer and per­ Anything you read that made you former, so I create events here locally— change your opinion? that’s how I pay my bills—and I perform No I don’t think so, not yesterday. I’m as Peaches Christ, and then I’m an instruc­ not sure if this is relevant to your project tor at the San Francisco Art Institute. but this documentary that I was being in­ Did you read the newspaper terviewed for as Peaches is specifically What do you first read on the page? yesterday?

Captions, quotes, headlines, titles? about Jayne Mansfield’s relationship with I did, but I was very distracted—I was Anton LaVey. Anton LaVey was the head Headlines, and also the photography being interviewed for a documentary last and founder of the Church of Satan here will draw me in. night, and I had not done my research in San Francisco. So my entire day yester­ Is there any image that you remember from yesterday? that I needed to do. So I spent yesterday day was all Church of Satan, all history of actually pouring through old news arti­ San Francisco, watching Jayne Mansfield From yesterday, no I don’t. I can’t re­ cles to prepare for the documentary. But movies, and trying to understand this member anything specifically. Isn’t that through that, especially on the Internet, unique and bizarre relationship. And weird? I mean, maybe because I really fo­ then getting into drag and going and do­ cused in on the Iranian situation. The I was getting some of the day’s news.

Any good or bad news yesterday? only image I really remember is the flag. ing the interview.

And that’s the news story I really came For me, the thing I remember the most, Is there any specific news or story away with. Again, it goes back to my that you’re following? was trying to wrap my head around what’s going on with Iran, and the dis­ My brother lives in Tel Aviv—he’s a U.S. brother, because lets face it: If Iran was mantling of some nuclear weapons—that diplomat—so I’m constantly looking at going to nuclear detonate a country, if seemed to dominate the international the situation in Israel. It can turn so they’re going to destroy a country, it’s the news. I didn’t have the time to really ded­ quickly. one my brother’s living in. I really latched Have you ever performed in Tel Aviv? on to that story and was really reading it icate to understanding it, you know I guess sanctions are being lifted and Iran I did, yes. It was very strange, because I and looking for the positive message in it. seems to be cooperating in ways that they was there as part of the Queer Film Festi­ Do you care about typefaces? haven’t in the recent past. That’s about all val. Peaches was brought there to enter­ Is there a type you especially like? that I gathered. tain folks. The Queer Film Festival tends Not really. I guess I think of the type­ When you open a newspaper, what’s to be provocative, in a way that Israel faces as being pretty standard here. Or the first thing you read? doesn’t like. They showed a whole day of maybe I just haven’t noticed the difference.

Movie reviews. [Laughing] I mean if Arab movies, they had a Turkey day, and Do you pay attention to the layout?

I’m being totally honest, I love reading they were loosing their funding. So I was A little bit. More now than I used to. I

stories

“ … if I’m being totally honest, I love reading what the critics have to say about a movie coming out.”

visuals

“I’m definitely drawn more to color images but I take the oldschool news coverage more seriously.”

don’t think the papers here are particu­ larly good.

Do you mind if everything is black and white?

No, I don’t think so. But I definitely think that color probably helps.

But your shows, when you perform, are very colorful?

Yes, I’m definitely drawn more to color images. But I take the old-school news coverage maybe more seriously.

practice

“I try hard not to be too political as Peaches.”

Do you feel your way of reading has changed since the introduction of online media?

Yes, sure.

How would you describe how you read today?

I read in bits and pieces through­out the day. Whereas it used to be—when I was running a movie theatre for years I would go to work, and the paper would be here, and I would pick up the paper, and I would take 30 minutes and that would be kind of, news reading time. I’d look through it and I’d read anything that in­ terested me. And I probably wouldn’t come back to it later that day. I’d be done.

Whereas now, I feel like I’m getting news all day long, because I’m online. As much as I hate to admit it, when I’m on my com­ puter, I’m checking things like Facebook and Twitter probably—oh, God, it’s em­ barrassing!—probably every 20 or 30 minutes. Maybe more.

Should news be for free?

Yes, if the news can be sustained through advertisers and people can get news and not have to pay for it, that’s a great thing.

Did you discuss any news with anybody yesterday?

Yes, but it was all old news. It was all historical, but a lot of it was new to me.

Through digging and researching Jayne Mansfield, I was coming across these old news stories. A lot of it happened here in San Francisco at the 1966 San Francisco

Joshua Grannell talking in front of posters from one of his movie sets in his San Francisco apartment.

America is the only country turning religion into entertainment?

Yes, well, I don’t know enough about the religions around the world but cer­ tainly, having grown up Catholic, I really relate to a lot of the drag of it, the gore, and the horror. When you look at it, you think, this is the first horror movie, nail­ ing this guy to a cross, and these build­ ings, and blood everywhere, and a crown of thorns, this is like a modern-day hor­ ror movie. People are completely revel­ ing in the gore of it all. So as a Catholic, of course I grew up loving horror movies and drag. You look at what they’re wear­ ing and it’s all sort of this ornate drag— the priests and the dresses, there’s so much theatre to it.

If a newspaper was focused only on San Francisco, would you read it?

I think entertainment of the city, local politics of the city. Like, I read The Guardian specifically as a San Francisco news source. The entertainment, the politics, also this is such a dense city in terms of how the breakdown of neighborhoods goes, we’re all right on top of each other.

What I experience isn’t necessarily the experience of people three or four blocks away. I like reading, because sometimes you just don’t know what’s going on right in your backyard.

Does Peaches read different news than Joshua?

I would say Peaches doesn’t really read the news. Her best news source is Joshua.

Does everyday news inspire you for your stage performance and movies?

Most artists, whether we know it or not, we’re all part of the zeitgeist of what’s happening in the world. We’re taking it all in and then spitting it back out. For sure, it’s ­affected my work over the years. But like everyone, I would hope.

Do you think the physical or online stage is a place for you to criticize or provoke discussions?

It’s funny because I have a page as Peaches, which is sort of a public page, and then I have a Joshua page. And the Joshua page is more about me, but be­ cause I’m also Peaches, I use that page to express two sides of myself. Whereas the Peaches page I really only use to be in the voice of Peaches. I try hard not to be too political as Peaches in a way that’s overt.

So how do drag queens share information?

Well, certainly the Internet has linked people together in a way that we never were before. But still a lot of it’s shared through performing together. And also it’s this idea of having a chosen family. A lot of drag performers are attracted to drag because they didn’t feel like they fit in, as entertainers or performers or art­ ists, or as people. Alternative identity was a more unique and true expression of who they were, so when you find other people like that, they tend to be not only the people you work with, but who you go to dinner with and go to the movies with and go to the gym with—they become your family in a way. That way, it’s maybe just through old-fashioned talking, or as drag queens would say, kee-kee’ing.

What would be your vision of journalism in the future?

It might be one of those things, where your news is delivered to you based on what your interests are, what you’re tracking or what you’re following, in­ stead of somebody else deciding. For ex­ ample if we watch CNN, we’re really be­ ing delivered five stories out of 5,000. So maybe in the future it will be easier to ac­ cess the news we want, without having to go to give different sources. Maybe there would be algorithms that would deliver a newspaper to me, that’s specific to Josh­ ua’s daily news.

Do you ever dream about the news you’ve read?

Yes, for sure. I’ve realized that not only do I become emotionally affected by the news, but it’s very much in my head and I’ll dream about it. I haven’t figured out how to focus more on the positive topics, I tend to dwell more on the negative things, or go more towards a fearful place in the news. ×

january 17, 2014

The Day After Reading Thursday’s news remembered by Axelle Tessandier

Age 32 Lives in San Francisco since 2010 First news remembered the trial of Nikolaus Barbie

Reads news daily yes Average time used on reading news daily two hours minimum

6

Media used regularly Twitter, The New York Times, The Verge, The New Yorker, etc. “I am reading everything”

time it’s very interesting. Crisis is a tran­ No I do, but smart people can change than before. To keep my attention right sition. I have access to any information in their mind. People think I’m very opin­ now, you just have to be very good.

From an information point of view the the world I want. Bad news, is not on me ionated, but finally I’m very open. that I would be depressed, but it’s knowl­ Any specific news you are following? piece the “Invisible Child” in The New edge as well, and how you act when you I love the climate, I love everything re­ York Times was really remarkable. It’s a have it. When I wake up, I separate bad lated to brands and sustainability. So three-hour article to read until the end. It and good news, it’s just information. And I follow everything related to sustainabil­ follows this poor child in Brooklyn, for I decide what’s in for me as a consumer, ity, responsibility of business and brands. more than one year. There was video, pic­ but also as a citizen. Information, is about So for instance, I love to follow every­ tures—this article was viral. It was a very I have been in San Francisco since three being a citizen. It’s not only about receiv­ thing that Patagonia is doing, all the long read. Because it was so good, all of years. I used to be a writer, about tech ing—but what you do with that. initiatives like the “B Team” from Ariana us went until the end. trends, innovation, and augmented real­ What’s the first thing you Huffington, and Richard Branson about ity. I was hired by a start up to be the mar­ read in the news?

“B Plan for Business.” Everything re­lat­ keting director, during one year. I quit, Oh, I am THE horoscope addict! I’m a ed to brand, and a new way of doing, and I started my own company called Axl smart person and I’m influenced by my creating and building—I follow that all Is there any particular keyword, quote, headline you remember?

Agency. Axl Agency is very hard to define context. Nature, the planet, is a context the time.

No. Do you proof the news you read? because I created my own job. I’m a digi­ that I want to know about. When it’s a full What do you first read on the page? tal creator, I write. I go to conferences to moon, I check my horoscope. I have an For instance, if there is something on Captions, quotes, headlines, titles? talk about the digital generation and our app for that!

Twitter—I love Twitter, but I don’t know Titles and headlines. new behavior. This is who I am. I read a On Twitter, it’s not only journalists that if I trust Twitter 100%. If there is a fact, I Is there any image you remember? lot. I love it, that’s why I created a job I follow. It’s also people. The news now need to double check sometimes when it No. where I have to read a lot. This is me. comes from anybody. Not only from the seems serious. An article they share, but Do you care about typefaces Did you read the news this morning? newspaper or the authority. when it’s a fact about somebody dying, in newspapers? Is there a type you Was there anything that made you Yes, I read the news—when I wake up my first reaction will be to Google it or to especially like? angry, happy, anxious, or confused? go on Agence France-Presse, to check if it’s at six a.m.—it’s so Californian of me! And it’s bad, but like many, many people, I It’s funny, because I really have a very true, if he’s really dead. But then if you I’m not a designer, so I don’t know the have my phone next to me, in my bed­ human reaction, like many of us actually, see that Mandela is dead, everyone is typ­ name of the typeface, but yes, I care.

Do you pay attention to the layout? room. Like so many others, so I don’t feel it’s all the news about climate change. I ing it every nine or 10 seconds, then it’s guilty about that anymore, but it’s my first start to read the article, it depresses me probably true. If it’s a big news, or a big Now design is for the snobs of Silicon reflection when I wake up, almost imme­ too much, and I stop. We fucked up this thing—especially for deaths of celebri­ Valley. Everybody cares about design, all diately, I go to Twitter. It’s my press re­ planet so much, it’s a big problem with ties or political leaders—I check, I go on of us care, because again we can have in­ formation everywhere. Keep it cool, view, I scroll, like what did happen during the environment. The problem is so de­ Google search.

So you have some filters? my sleep. It’s even addictive like that—­ pressing that people don’t want to know. beautiful, and ficitonless to read.

The filter is me. I’m responsible for the I don’t stop at six a.m., I want to know At the same time, if you are in denial, you Do you mind if everything is what happened when I was asleep. So I cannot do anything. They have a big prob­ creation I do. I’m the curator of the news black and white? do that when I wake up, and I have my fa­ lem to make people focus on the change, I receive. It’s like a good or bad documen­ No, it could be very simple, and still vorite blog. I’m a little ashamed, but the because this is the top one priority, even tary. For me a good documentary is the very appealing. What I really love in the big news for me, even though I’m here, as before education. To do something for opposite of the last film of Michael “Invisible Child” story, it’s multimedia, French, something is going on for us our planet, for us, right now. But it’s very Moore. He had an editor, he had a goal, but not fancy. Just to read the article, then right now—the president. I have to call it hard because it’s very depressing, and he really wanted to make you think as he a little video of two or three minutes to news, [laughs] but it is in a way! I was even me, knowing that, when I read news does. That is the opposite of what a docu­ watch, then go back to the article, then reading about that, about François about climate change, and the smog in mentary, or news, should be. When you maybe a slide show of pictures.

Hollande and the scandal.

Shanghai, on Twitter—all those pictures. read a column, you read and accept an Any good or bad news?

There was smog even inside the airport. opinion. Because information is every­ where and want to be challenged. I just Oh… François Hollande, I would say This makes me super anxious.

Is there anything that you read that it’s bad news! He is just a reflection of my want the facts. I am smart. I will decide. I will be the filter. country right now that’s why he’s inter­ made you change your opinion? esting, because if there are any leaders or All the time. And I’m a very opinionat­ Do you read the whole article to the end? leadership crisis, it is a crisis for our soci­ ed person. I saw one time, that actually ety collectively. They just represent our­ we go to read only the news that reinforc­ No. Since the Internet, we always say selves. We are so despair, we are so sad, es our opinions. We never try to find con­ we only have one minute of attention. we are so scared. France is really scared tradictory opinions. That’s why, if you’re I was doing the same before with the long about the future. Optimism can be really from the right, you will read right news­ newspaper—Le Monde, it was so big! I annoying, but pessimism on the collec­ papers. I really love to be challenged—on could never read it to the end. I’m going Should news be for free? to the end of an article on the Internet tive level is straining, for a country. So, Twitter, I change my mind.

It’s good to pay, to be behind the pay way more than before. I read even more wall and have the news. I’m really speech­ this is bad news for me, but at the same So you don’t have an opinion?

stories

“ Information, is about being a citizen.

It’s not only about receiving.”

visuals

practice

“If advertising and pay walls are the only ways to make money, journalism will be killed by the future.”

Axelle Tessandier checking social media in a San Francisco garden café.

less that such a smart community as jour­ nalism and information, for them mak­ ing money is either advertising or a pay wall. I’m surprised there isn’t more cre­ ativity in the area. Look at what Vice Media is doing. They are doing a creator project with Intel, to have Intel and Vice together. The only condition is that they have to use Intel software, or Intel tech­ nology. Vice is making money with cre­ ator projects and with events or other production studios. I don’t know if you have to pay for news, but of course media companies have to survive, we need them! I can write, but it’s not my job. You blame them, but you have to pay for the news. I can be a reporter, but I’m not a journalist. But if they really believe that advertising and pay walls are the only ways to make money, they will be killed by the future. Just because they’re not creative enough. You have to disrupt yourself all the time. This machine is go­ ing fast!

Did you discuss any news with anybody yesterday?

Yes, of course. I discussed the news, like you send text messages, a lot. This morning, my husband left and 20 min­ utes later he sent me an NPR show—he was listening in the car. So we were al­ ready discussing the news, even at seven a.m. in the morning.

Did somebody disrupt you from reading?

No, except me again. Because me, I can have three screens open at the same time—it’s ridiculous! Or I can have the radio, the TV, and then a friend on What­ sapp—sometimes I’m a bit scared. Time to meditate.

Did you laugh or cry while reading some article?

It’s very rare to cry when you read the news. I was really moved by a piece yes­ terday—it’s not news, it’s on Medium— it’s the wife of a guy that I know, she shared how she coped with the death of her mom. So it was not news, but she shared it on Facebook, so I clicked and it was the first blog that I read yesterday. It was so emotional. On Medium, she was really sharing the grief of loosing her mom. It’s not news, it’s about sharing.

That’s why the Internet is not only about news, it’s also about stories. That’s why it’s very appealing. Being a person is like having a story to tell. So all of us on the Internet, behind the screen, we are a per­ son and we have a story to tell. This is even more appealing than pure news sometimes.

Storytelling replaces news?

I don’t know, but stories are ruling the world for ages—since Plato. If you want to attract people, resonate people, and engage them, it will be about stories.

Journalism is also about storytelling for sure.

adverts

Do you look at ads in the newspaper?

Never! You know Flipboard? The appli­ cation on the iPad? I’m in a big rush when I get my September Vogue, but then when you get it, it’s only advertising. But it’s part of the content. So for us, with Flip­ board, we really want the advertising to be as good as the article. In The New York Times with the new design that’s what they want, to try to make the advertising as good as the articles. They don’t care about sponsored articles—if it’s informa­ tion, it’s not noise any more. Even if it’s a company, a brand, you call it advertising, I don’t care, it just has to be something valuable. If it’s just a dress with “Gucci” on it I don’t care. Chanel is doing a story behind the camera, the director, finally I look at the seven-minute video and finally I learn something about Coco Chanel and the first dress. It’s informa­ tion. There’s too much bad advertising.

context

“Because when you share, it’s says something about who you are.”

What will be the disease of Generation Y? We don’t need to have a disease. Maybe no disease. The biggest problem for me is the leadership. The disease is about crisis in leadership. For Generation Y, it’s about starting to do.

How can a reader learn to select information?

Quality I guess. For me this is always quality. You can have a bad movie that’s doing well at the box office, but I really believe that most of the time we have a good-quality filter. I only share things that are good. Because now when you share, it’s says something about who you are. You don’t want to look bad for people on social media—if I share shitty stuff, I’m a shitty person, a superficial person.

So people have a little bit more pressure, because you believe that what you share defines who you are. At the same time I want people to trust me as a curator, as a person, who can be inspired by the things that I love. Everywhere it’s the quality.

Do you ever dream about the news you read?

I dream a lot, and I remember them very well. But it’s not about the news. It’s more about things 10 years ago than things that happened yesterday. The only thing I have to say is, if I see a celeb­ rity in the news, the ce­lebrity will be in my dream. Kanye West was a lot in my dreams! I had Angelina Jolie and Rihanna too! × Image Caption

january 18, 2014

The Day After Reading Friday’s news remembered by Ana Teresa Fernández

Age 32 Lives in San Francisco since for the past 12 years Started reading the news regularly approximately at 23

stories

“ It constantly changes depending on where you stand.”

I’m a conceptual artist, I’m originally from Tampico, Mexico. I’ve lived in San Francisco for the last 12 years. My visual work involves mostly painting, but they’re documentation of performance, so I’m trying to change the trajectory, from going from a more fictive history, toward a more non-fiction history.

Did you read the news yesterday?

I didn’t! I don’t read the newspaper, I don’t get a newspaper—that’s not how I take news in.

You read some news online?

I listened to NPR, on the radio, be­ cause in San Francisco I drive my car ev­ erywhere. I’m in the car for a large amount of time, in the morning, the after­ noon, and the evening.

Did you hear any good or bad news?

They were talking about the budget, not going over the fiscal cliff again. So it’s mostly bad and about how Obama is han­ dling—how they’re wanting to reform healthcare and the site, and where the money’s being consolidated. So it’s more of a criticism about how the Democrats have been handling the budget.

Is this a story that you follow?

I’ve been following it; it’s quite fre­ quent on the radio. How he’s been deal­ ing with Obamacare has been quite a big controversy for the last three months.

What someone thinks about it, the tech­ nicalities of how unsuccessful it’s been, how many problems it’s had. Especially Republicans love pointing out how diffi­ cult it is to access. The Democrats have been trying to push the fact that a lot of people who didn’t have a healthcare now have access to it.

It’s phenomenal. It’s something that I’ve watched in Europe. I’ve traveled to Cuba and one of the most amazing things that I’ve seen there is just the amount of education and health attention that ev­ eryone has. Being in such a rich country here in the States, how hard it is to get both assistance and education—how ex­ pensive and out of reach it is for a lot of people. It’s important.

Anything specific that made you angry, happy, anxious, or confused?

The perspective on how people tend to pick up on the news and focus on the neg­ ative, is something that tends to enrage me quite a bit. Education is something that needs to be more focused on, in terms of where the money gets allocat­ ed—I get pretty frustrated. I don’t think I’ve heard anything quite funny, recently, where I blurted out laughing. I’ve been a little bit more frustrated and sad lately, with the recent news.

First news remembered can’t remember Reads news daily listens to news on the radio everyday

When you do have a newspaper, what’s the first thing you read?

Headlines. And I look at the pictures.

That’s the first thing I do. I also look at the caption.

Did you read or hear anything that made you change your opinion?

To be honest, the most amount of news reading that I do is because I follow cer­ tain people on Facebook quite a bit, so they’re always posting really interesting articles. I follow Rebecca Solnit on Face­ book a lot, Martha Rosler, who’s also an artist, I happen to be friends with her. But I tend to follow what artists are posting in terms of the news. And also the Google Bus seems to be a recent discussion topic, and the gentrification of San Francisco.

In terms of more local news, that’s some­ thing that I’ve been following quite a bit, because they are changing the demo­ graphic of the city quite intensely. I have friends in the tech world and I have friends in the art world, and they seem to have very different opinions.

Do you proof the news you hear?

I don’t know, it’s not like the Ten Commandments—it’s not set in stone for me. I hear it for what it is and I choose to agree or disagree with it. But I don’t—it’s so hard to prove anything these days! Es­ pecially in the news these days, it tends to be sort of a one-point perspective in terms of who it will benefit.

So you miss a larger view?

Especially these topics of where mon­ ey should go or what should happen to the city or the redevelopment—depend­ ing on what angle you view it, it has a 360 degree way on which I can choose to stand on it from here, or at a 90 degree angle, or 180. It constantly changes de­ pending on where you stand. Who it ben­ efits or who it doesn’t benefit—that’s what makes people angry or happy about it.

Do you always read or listen to the whole article or discussion until the end?

No, it depends on where my ride starts!

I tend to come here to my studio when it’s philosophy talk, so there’s times where I’m just like, wrap it up so I can finish the point so I can hear it! So I’ll just sit in the car. If it’s really interesting I’ll stay for a couple more minutes, but usually I’m on the go. I try to get it online if I’m really in­ terested in something.

So what you cut out depends on your traveling?

It’s very impressionistic. I get on at Obamacare, leave on some philosophical thematic, and then get back on at some bluegrass composer that’s being inter­ viewed. So what I hear about the day changes quite drastically.

visuals

“How awesome would it be to have a blue font with yellow headings, or orange or pink.”

From the news the day before, or this morning, can you remember an image?

On NPR they were interviewing one of the Cohen brothers. I was trying to pic­ ture that, and what he might look like, and I remember at the Grammy’s—I was visiting my parents—and they showed a couple clips of the movie they just came out with… Inside Llewyn Davis. For some reason, I kept picturing Cohen dressed in the style, with the suspenders and the more Amish-y looking—and obviously, I’m sure they don’t look like that. I have a really fun time imagining what people might look like. It’s almost like when you’re reading a novel. Singers, we’re so inundated with images of pop icons, of what they look like. They’re images are in­ grained. With the news, unless it’s the president or someone on the newspaper images a lot, these people are completely blank. Like fiction books, you can make them up. So the different people that do most of the interviews, I’ve never seen them. What does she look like? So I work with images in terms of that.

Do you remember any specific sentences that were said?

They were interviewing a guy that just finished a novel and he’s from Sierra Leone. They asked him about how he mea­ sures success. He said, “Well, I think con­ sciousness. If it reaches into peoples’ consciousness, that’s success.” That was such a poignant line for me. Literally there’s no ruler for consciousness, but if I visualize it, it’s something that takes over your brain and wraps it like a gift. Con­ sciousness is something that permeates your entire body.

It’s interesting you say that because radio is an abstract medium.

It’s the most abstract, because you have a tone to begin with. With newspaper, there could be a tone indicated in how the phrases are mentioned. But in radio, you do have a tone and you can provide an emphasis on something, whether you want to do it subtly, or more obviously.

People can give you their opinion on how they choose to emphasize things. It’s more on the skin, even though it’s sup­ posed to be more objective.

In our printed newspapers, do you care about the typeface?

Of course! The layout, the types—it’s one of the less appealing formats for me to read. Growing up in Mexico, newspa­ pers, they’re just so ugly. There’s so much

Ana Teresa Fernández on the porch of her studio at Hunters Point, San Francisco.

7

Average time used on listening news daily three to four hours Media used regularly bbc, NPR, The Huffington Post

about the drama, and the glorification of the violence. I remember just being com­ pletely scared of the newspaper. Because it’s so gory. In Mexico they gravitate to­ ward goriness a lot. I remember when I moved to San Francisco, it’s so patriotic and it was so nationalistic. There was an introduction to this goriness, they try to scare people. But the overall layout of the newspaper—they should have an artist look at it.

Can you imagine a newspaper only with painting?

No, you know it’s one of those things that’s been the same forever, that really hasn’t been explored more fully. Media online has gotten more clever and it’s so much more interesting to look at.

Do you mind if everything is in black and white?

Yes, of course. I like color! How awe­ some would it be to have a blue font with yellow headings, or orange or pink. The world is not in black and white. It started out in black and white because that’s what we had access to. But now that we have access to more, it’s like it’s stuck in a certain time frame.

practice

adverts

“It’s almost like a mirror of yourself online, of your consciousness, this is what you’ve been buying.”

Do you look at ads in magazines?

In passing. I don’t get any subscrip­ tions. I look at ads all the time on the web.

Consciously? Or by accident?

Well, now they’re being geared to me.

Because I feel like if I’m looking for tennis shoes—I was looking for Supergas, these are falling apart. So I went online to try and find Supergas. All of a sudden, every time I tried to click on something, the Supergas thing comes up online. I feel like, it’s a mirror of yourself. If I happen to click on something by mistake, then that comes up. It’s a weird reminder—it’s al­ most like a mirror of yourself online, of your consciousness—this is what you’ve been buying, what you’ve been looking at.

It’s very strange.

context

“For an artist to survive “You can’t erase they need to earn someperspective.

Especially thing. It’s the same through history.” thing for journalists, writers, photographers.” Do you think journalistic Do you feel the way of reading has changed since the introduction of online media?

Yes, of course. So much. Before I was such a book worm, I could just sit and read books. And now I have—unless I’m on a plane, my attention is so scattered. I click on something, and think, oh, that’s so interesting, and then I click some­ where else. I’ve gone half way around the world in four different subjects. I guess, I allow myself to also read what really in­ teresting intellectuals who have a lot of knowledge—I let myself be influenced by that. Versus just letting the media tell me what to read, I allow certain individuals to influence what I access.

Should news be for free?

That’s such a hard question. Because coming from an artist perspective, a lot of people expect art to be free. But for an art­ ist to survive they need to earn something.

It’s the same thing for journalists, writers, photographers. I guess I don’t think it should be free. I’m just thinking in terms of the people that provide it. They should def­ initely get paid for it.

Did you discuss any news with anyone yesterday?

It was with my mother. I was doing a project based on the boat that sunk off the coast of southern Italy. And there was another one that recently sank from Haiti.

So she was informing me about that. Be­ cause I’ve been really interested in doing work about race, and opportunity, and journey, and people that risk their lives— what does that look like, what does their body as a vessel look like, what the skin tone that is. So she was telling me about that. She was like, “Oh, did you know about that boat off of Haiti?” And I said, “No, I didn’t hear about that.”

Was there something that interrupted you from listening?

Probably a phone call. In the car.

Did you laugh or cry while reading some article?

I’ve definitely busted out crying in the car. There was this beautiful article that was being done on drones—the drone us­ age in Pakistan. A couple of journalists were following these kids. That were not rebels, they were just young kids that were suspected of doing terrorist acts. So they followed them for a while. By the end of the article, three of the kids had been killed by drones. They took you through this whole journey, of some of the inter­ views that they had done, and they them­ selves five years before, then three years ago, and then a year. So it was this kind of backwards history and their experience and their relationship to drones, of hav­ ing drones kill family members that they knew. Their optimism going into despair, and then they themselves finally being killed. By the time I got here, I was crying, completely crying. The voice and the sounds just puts you there. I wasn’t in my car driving anymore, but I was present where the journalist was.

Would you read a newspaper only about San Francisco?

I would, yes. The magazines that are San Francisco, 7 x 7 and San Francisco magazine, I pick it up once in a while.

They talk about food, and what’s trendy.

So I get a little more of a perspective of how things are shifted. How San Francis­ co is being viewed, either from the out­ side and the inside—both. If there’s a newspaper only on San Francisco then there might be more information, history, background, things that are otherwise missing.

It would definitely add, if it was fo­ cused on San Francisco. It would have to be more amplified to all the subjects that are around. The things providing infor­ mation on San Francisco, tend to be very curated. It should be really amplified and expanded to all sectors of San Francisco.

documentation influences your work?

It’s very interesting how historically in­ formation has been portrayed, especially with non-fiction, whether via news or books—biographies, or documentaries.

Historically it’s been predominantly very male-focused, and very much geared to a sector or a class, and how that’s slowly been changing. You can’t erase perspec­ tive. Especially through history, you see it so clearly—they’re unapologetic about what perspective they were gearing to and where it was coming from. Even I can trace back in Mexico to when I was very young, how obviously and blatantly racist people of upper-middle classes and up­ per classes are, and how news gets devot­ ed. So that’s why I’m really interested with my work in terms of documentation, bringing a non-fiction, documentarian point of view, which took place in real time when it’s based, even though some­ thing might appear really magical and surrealist. That’s part of what I like to do: Highlight something so mundane but in this really kind of magical split second. To play with people’s mind and have them question reality for a second. Changing the context. What news tends to do is in­ grain us with a context. So we forget to question the norm—what is the norm?

Who sets the norm? If you change the context a little bit, then people will actual­ ly start thinking more. I once heard the line that a broom isn’t dirty when it’s placed on the floor, but it becomes dirty when you place it on a pillow. So context really shifts and changes. This is the beau­ tiful thing about information— if a writer comes in with perspective to be infiltrat­ ed by a different type of consciousness, that can be really eye-opening. That’s where education comes in.

Do you follow the Mexican news regularly?

Yes, my mother is the best—she listens to the Mexican radio and she gets the newspaper a lot there in San Diego. She’s constantly giving me sound bites of the Mexican news. But do I read it? I’ll read a couple articles on Facebook as well. I fol­ low it very lightly. Partly, because like I said it’s so overly dramatic and gory.

What is your vision of journalism for the future?

Today it’s a really exciting place, be­ cause of blogging and because of the open source—the availability of informa­ tion. I can’t say for other countries, they have all these limitations, these restric­ tions of access to information, but for us here it’s really exciting. How much it’s re­ ally changed communication and access to—Egypt, what happened there it’s be­ cause of access to information. The abili­ ty to get people together with informa­ tion and how much access of informa­ tion can actually exit places and get dis­ seminated internationally at a rapid speed. So it’s super exciting. It continues to get better that way. It becomes more accessible to people that don’t have it.

Do you ever dream about the news you’ve read?

I have actually. I tend to have a lot of work dreams in terms of the things that I need to do. I think about it so much that it starts infiltrating my dreams and con­ necting to my life in weird, funny ways.

You don’t wake up reading Facebook?

No, I ease myself into the news. I need to be awake for about 30 minutes before I can start ingesting information. The first 30 minutes when I wake up, it’s just fum­ bling around making tea. ×

january 19, 2014

The Day After Reading Saturday’s news remembered by Aaron Britt

Age 32 Lives in San Francisco for seven and a half years Started reading the news regularly in middle school / highschool

stories

“ The copy could be, ‘corporate, corporate, corporate, synergy, business, profit.’”

I’m a 32-year old San Franciscan. I live in the Mission district. I’m married, I have a small son. And I work for the design con­ sultancy, IDEO.org. I work as an editor and writer. That’s the field I’ve been in for the last 10 years.

Did you read the news yesterday?

Yes. I read the news yesterday.

Any good or bad news?

Bad news is that California is now offi­ cially in a drought. I saw that on the front page of the Chronicle. I was walking down the street with my son, and we saw a news­ paper box. I always stop and look at the headlines. So that’s the headline. This was the Saturday morning newspaper—but I actually learned the information on Fri­ day. This information had been in the works for a long time. It was kind of a con­ firmation of something that we knew was coming. But when I actually knew it was an official drought, was when my wife posted something on Facebook on Friday.

What’s the first thing you read in the news?

The front page, simply because it’s right there in front of me. I get most of my news from The Washington Post’s website. That’s my homepage. So I’ll look at The Post, the lead stories. They tend to be national, in­ ternational politics stories. That’s what I look at first.

Was there anything in particular that made you angry, happy, anxious?

For angry, I’ve been following the Chris Christie story, he’s the governor of New Jersey. And it’s a big one because, you’ll find that in San Francisco I would bet, because there’s a bunch of lefties who are worried about Chris Christie, be­ cause he’s the sort of Republican that you have to like to a degree, but you also think could be a threat in the 2016 presidential election. It feels like if we keep getting these really far right guys running, than the middle of the country and the left will end up voting for a Democrat. But Christie, he appeals to a lot of people. He looks like he could be a great candidate in 2016. I’ve been interested in the story. I’m also curious to see his reaction. The Post wrote a story about officials in New Jersey, mayors saying that they often felt compelled to go along with Chris Chris­ tie, especially because if they did, they might be brought into the process. And if they didn’t, they might be shut out of the process. The process, even including post-Sandy reconstruction funds.

Anything you read that made you change your opinion?

Serena Williams lost in the third round of the Australian open. She lost to Ana Ivanovic, and I really thought Serena had a great chance. She’s a great Australian champion, she looked like she was in great shape. Ana Ivanovic is also a great tennis player, but, the way that Serena flamed out made me think that perhaps some of her dominance is coming to an end.

Any specific news you are following?

The Chris Christie story is one I’m fol­ lowing. Then general international news.

There was a suicide bombing in Kabul yesterday, killed 21 people. I would say generally speaking, the “war on terror” is of interest to me.

Do you proof the news you read?

I’m often curious to see other people’s take on something. If something rings a little false, I’ll look up how someone else is covering it. And often a good way to do that is to look from the American news, to see what the BBC reports, to see what the news in another country might report. I didn’t read The Economist yesterday, but that’s my favorite magazine. That’s the one that is a nice benchmark. My views very often align with The Economist, which makes me one of those terrible news read­ ers who isn’t that interested in challeng­ ing himself, but only hearing what it is he might already believe. Which is no good way to be a citizen. I recently read a FOX News story. My wife works for a company that just got sold to this corporation— their website is completely opaque. You have no idea what this company does. The copy could just be like, “corporate, corpo­ rate, corporate, synergy, business, profit.”

That’s all you can get. But FOX also did the best coverage of this sale.

Do you always read the whole article to the end?

No. For example, the story about the suicide bombing in Kabul. That was one where I read the first two paragraphs.

That’s the way hard news is in the newspa­ per, you can get most of the information in the first couple graphs. And some­ times I’ll just read the headlines too.

visuals

“Sometimes the ­headline is ­enormous, Obama wins.

It’s in 900 point.”

Is there any particular quote or headline you remember from yesterday?

The headline that I most remember: American Hustle won for best ensemble performance at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. I liked that movie quite a lot so I was happy to see it.

What’s the first thing you read on the page—captions, quotes, headlines, titles?

Headlines and pictures. Headline first, then I’ll look at the picture—that’s prob­

First news remembered during highschool there was a movement from people who thought that certain books in the library were too sexually graphic—that was in the newspaper Reads news daily yes

ably false. I’m sure I look at the picture first, then I read the headline. But I would say that type size is important. Some­ times the headline is enormous—Obama wins. It’s in 900 point font. Whereas the other topics, when it’s just an everyday— Dow Jones, down 15 points—that’s much smaller.

Is there any image you remember from yesterday?

I remember Serena Williams looking upset. The drought image was Governor Jerry Brown looking very stern and sad, about the drought.

Do you care about typefaces in newspapers? You said yes.

Certainly size. Definitely. And then, just in terms of readability and credibili­ ty. I’m not a graphic designer, but certain fonts just look more credible than others.

Have you seen the new New York Times website?

I do like it. It was definitely noticeable to me, but not crazy overkill. What is it?

It’s almost like the text is floating a little bit more in the center. Less lines—that was the first thing that I noticed. And more horizontal across the top. There’s more information moving across. It’s fine. Graphic designers wouldn’t be em­ ployed if you didn’t have to periodically refresh something. I say this now—I’m in the process of refreshing the IDEO.org website, working on the copy, the design­ er is doing something. And the truth is, after a while, it just looks old. It doesn’t mean that it’s bad, but things need to move with the times.

So you pay attention to the layout too?

That’s really important too because so much good, rich storytelling is happen­ ing online. The opportunities are way bet­ ter. So taking a little bit of care to fuss with margins and headlines, it has a huge affect.

Do you mind if everything is black and white?

No I don’t really mind but it feels a little antiquated.

practice

“ The newness of news can become more important than the importance of the news.”

Do you feel the way of reading has changed since the introduction of online media?

To me, it’s the immediacy. It goes back to the drought. I’d been following the sto­ ry, you know it’s coming. I learn about it first that it’s official from my wife on Facebook on Friday, then I see the official story in the newspaper on Saturday. So in terms of the way of reading, it’s easier to get old. The need to refresh content can keep the good and most important con­ tent from staying at the top because it has to get moved through so quickly. The newness of news can become more im­ portant than the importance of the news.

Should news be for fee?

Not always. Sometimes. News is a product like every other product. Online is usually free. It’s a hard balance to strike.

News should be really cheap. It should be accessible. Free is different than accessi­ ble. To be good citizens, to participate in our democracy, we have to know what’s going on. But that said, from the media company’s standpoint, if you’re produc­ ing something that’s good and worth­ while and costs money, it’s fine to charge for it.

Did you discuss any news with someone yesterday?

Yes, I talked about the drought with my wife. She said Governor Brown has asked Californians to try to cut water consump­ tion by 20%. What might we do as a household to achieve that? And then we talked about ways in which we use more water than we should and ways in which we could try to use less.

adverts

Do you look at ads in the newspaper or online?

Sure. You can’t help it. Even if you glimpse it for just a moment.

Consciously?

It would depend. If I were looking at the style section and I wanted to see cool clothes, than yes. Or if I’m looking in a city paper, and I want to see the concert listings. Those are ads. So I’m reading the music reviews and then look at the ads to see if a band I like is coming to town. I look at ads when I perceive that there might be a benefit to me. That benefit could be, 40% off—that’s a benefit.

You also write about menswear.

I do. So that’s true. That’s also part of the fashion industrial complex, is what’s in the advertisements.

context

“It’s going to be visual.

In a way that it hasn’t been, the way golden age of newspapers just couldn’t be.”

Did something disturb you in your reading?

Yes, that’s probably right. It made me think what sort of action I could take to make the situation better. But at the same time, I did what a lot of people do when they learn of a bad situation, instead of thinking about how they’re part of the problem, I immediately thought about

8

Average time used on reading news daily between half an hour and an hour Media used regularly The Washington Post, The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, npr, The Economist, espn

how I’m not part of the problem. I don’t pressionistic style. It would be more per­ wash my car every weekend, I don’t water sonal, as opposed to saying, “I met Aaron a lawn because I live in an apartment. We at 10:05. He drank a coffee, I drank a cof­ immediately think of the way in which fee, we talked about...” Just the facts. we’re not as bad as all those other Califor­ So today’s reader can comment and be part of the article. The reader and nians who are wasting tons and tons of the ­writer are on the same stage. water, which of course is silly. We should How do you handle this big change? all try to cut our water consumption by 20%. Or, take a shorter shower. But it’s You need to bring the readers into the funny, we both very quickly got to the process a lot more because that’s where they want to be. They can be very useful. place of we’re not that bad using water!

Did you laugh or cry during reading? They can prompt you and challenge you No, I didn’t laugh or cry reading the to do better. They can call you on your mistakes, they can also valorize you. news yesterday. Not that I can recall.

There’s a high degree of promotion If a newspaper was only focused on around. And that’s because clicks equal San Francisco would you read it?

Yes, but it would only satisfy a portion dollars. So much of what we see online has an ad-driven model. So the promo­ of what I want.

How should it be customized? tion of this content might not mean that A very custom news would probably you read it and find it interesting, but in align with the major ways in which news fact, the company that puts it up online is delivered to us. I would want to know gets more revenue each time it’s clicked about city politics, lifestyle, things that upon. So I would say that’s one massive are very relevant to a user of this city. I’d way in which readers are being encour­ want to know about restaurants, concerts aged to be involved is in the service of and art openings. I now have a much big­ business. It feels like The Washington Post ger interest in parenting topics. That’s an wants you because you have interesting element of my life that’s highly local. ideas, but they want your engagement be­ What park I take my kid to, what might he cause they use it to sell more ads. They say, want to go see. I would love if local life­ “Look at this story, we got nine million style catered really directly to citizens. At comments. That’s the sort of journalism the same time, just San Francisco news, we produce. That’s why people think that that would be so myopic. we’re a good source of news. And that’s So what’s the first rule for why I’m going to charge you another a good interview? $30,000 to put your ad on my website.”

It’s also true, that if I see a story and it’s It’s to spend the first few minutes just figuring out how you communicate. Ask­ got a lot of comments, that might encour­ ing a handful of questions of different age me to click on it in the first place. Be­ types and of different duration to try and fore I’ve even participated, I know every­ understand what sort of quote or infor­ one’s talking about this—I should read it mation you might be able to give me. so I can form an opinion. When you read Then I would focus in on the three of four the newspaper there are no metrics at­ questions I most want to hear from you. I tached. You have no idea what’s the most would ask them, then we would talk about popular. In fact, the people who layout something else. Then I would ask them in the paper just try to guess. So here’s an ex­ a slightly different way in the hope that ample: As I was looking at the front page you would have formulated your opinion of the Chronicle yesterday, I was thinking the first time I asked, and you would have about this question of what is news. I al­ been able to say it more interestingly or ways love the response to what is art, more succinctly the second time. I’m a which is, whatever’s in museums and gal­ big believer to returning in an interview leries. The context in which you see it is as to whatever the key points are. or maybe more important than the work Is fiction allowed in journalism? itself. That’s also true of news. What is Interesting. Essentially, the lie that re­ news? News is in the newspapers. Some veals the truth? That idea? You’d have to of which is reporting on what happened be really upfront about what you’re say­ yesterday, some of which is news product, ing. You wouldn’t want to just weave it in­ which the newspaper thinks it will get to a story, and suddenly we don’t know you to buy it by putting it on there. So the what’s real and what’s not real. That front page of the Chronicle yesterday was, would be bad. We want, at bottom, to be­ a story about the drought, the headline, lieve that journalism tells us what’s true. and then in the upper right, a 22-page ex­ Certainly in hard news. clusive feature on the 49’ers who are play­ People talking about how they read. ing in the NFC championship game today.

What would you call this form of in- That’s a perfect example of news and terview? news product, living above the fold, in I would call it storytelling, or creative high placement in the newspaper. Be­ reporting. This feels like it could be piec­ cause the Chronicle is a legitimate news­ es of a feature. You get a lot more leeway paper, the news piece goes first and big­ in feature reporting, feature stories, than ger, “Ah, you might not really care about hard news. In features you can insert the drought, but you definitely care about yourself, you can give a lot more of an im­ the 49’ers.” And you can see 22 pages of

photographs and interviews. But that al­ so has to count as news, because that’s what’s in the newspaper.

Is it easier to publish and write for a paper or online?

Online for sure, a friend of mine likes to say, “The Internet has no bottom.” You can just keep putting stuff there.

Does online change the quality and the way it’s edited?

I tend to believe that shorter is often better. Features get chopped, but news­ papers don’t really run many features these days. Maybe a big paper like The Times or the The Post will give a lot of space to something, but the best feature writing is in magazines. It has been for a long time. Or online.

How much time do you need to write an article for the Chronicle?

The reporting and writing—that really varies. I typically spend about 20 minutes per interview on the phone. Half an hour, depends on what I need. I like to go in un­ derstanding the architecture of my story and then finding the quotes that are go­ ing to make sense there. When it gets down to writing, I’ve done really good re­ search and reporting in an hour. The pay in newspapers is so bad, that if you’re not fast, you’re an idiot.

What makes an article good for you?

For a feature, something that gets deep and unexpected. That really explains something to me well. Like in Harper’s magazine. I subscribe to a lot of maga­ zines. I’m a big magazine reader. I was reading a feature in the current Harper’s about this high-end school for servants.

They train people to become household managers for billionaires. Managing the staff, the cooks, etc. The author went real­ ly deep. Harper’s gave it the space that it needs. The thing must be 15 pages long.

Part of what’s awesome about this story is what servants do is really dull, and he’s making it interesting.

Can you make a statement about the journalism of tomorrow?

It’s going to be highly interactive; large­ ly online; it’s got to take advantage of what the Internet, tablets, phones, can do.

There will always be a place for people who want to get the newsprint on their fingers and I like that as much as the next guy, but to me, when I think of next-level storytelling, it’s going to be really engag­ ing, it’s going to start from this place of discovery and wondering, as opposed to just delivering the facts and news. It’s go­ ing to be very visual. Visual in a way that it hasn’t been, the way golden age of news­ papers just couldn’t be.

Do you ever dream about the news you read?

I don’t think so. Not last night. I’m hav­ ing difficulty trying to remember my dreams last night.

Aaron Britt in front of one of the new cafés in the mission disctrict.