Making Sense of the Media

The tweet from Wall Street Journal reporter Jason Gay  -- sent from a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament game at Madison Square Garden -- read as follows:

"NCAA has very strict rules for NCAA-only cups at March Madness. I have brought my cat mug. Stay tuned."

Be advised. This story may seem to have a high nerd potential.  But it really does have a lot of significance to news consumers in the digital age.

A furor was unleashed recently when the Associated Press announced to a convention of newspaper copy editors that its stylebook -- the usage bible for editors everywhere -- was going to allow the use of both "over" and "more than" to describe an amount.

Believe it or not, this change cut deep for the men and women who spend their working hours trying to be precise in their use of language.

So which super power should you have? Which U.S. President are you?  Which member of the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials are you?

Seriously, there's actually a quiz for all of those questions on the internet.

There's no real answer as to why anyone would actually want to know these things, but Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute's "Sense-Making Project" does have some answers about why there are all these online quizzes.

President Barack Obama has been leaving no stone unturned in his search for signups to the Affordable Care Act ahead of the March 31st deadline. 

To get his message to the younger crowd, the President even made an appearance on "funnyordie.com's" fake cable access show, "Between Two Ferns," hosted by comedian Zack Galifianakis.

Former assistant Penn State football coach Mike McQueary is a hero to some for revealing that he saw former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually assault a young boy in a Penn State locker room in 2001.

That got Sandusky sent to prison... but it also led to the resignation of Penn State's beloved head football coach Joe Paterno.

McQueary had said he told Paterno about the abuse but nothing was ever done about it.

"House of Cards - Season Two" premiered on "Netflix" Friday, February 21.      

By that Sunday,  two percent of Netflix customers -- that's 634,000 households -- had watched all 13 episodes.

That's 13 hours of one TV show.

That is what we're now calling "binge watching!"

Some reports say that the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics ratings are down compared to the 2010 games in Vancouver.  But NBC is disputing that.

Whatever the ratings, millions are still watching the games -- and reacting in a much different way because of social media.

It was a tragic, horrific car crash on I-275 in Tampa.  A driver was going south in the northbound lanes on an early Sunday morning.

He ran head-on into a car carrying four University of South Florida students.

The fiery crash killed all five.

Even though it is a huge part of a lot of people's lives these days, Facebook turned just 10 years old this week.

In honor of its 10th birthday, Facebook came up with a program that generates a video from the things you've written and the photos you've posted since you joined the social networking site.

To Facebook users, this is either the greatest thing since sliced bread or evidence that Facebook has jumped the shark and is on its way out.

The Super Bowl has become more than just a football game. It's now America's annual media orgy. 

After the big game, people are talking as much about the commercials as they are the score.

Why? Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute's "Sense-Making Project" said it's because commercials in the big game have become a product unto themselves.

Two states have now legalized the recreational use of marijuana -- Washington and Colorado. 

And for journalists -- that means covering pot in a whole new way.

No longer is marijuana the beat of crime reporters. It's a consumer item now.

And newspapers in Washington and Colorado have named marijuana editors and even marijuana critics to cover the marijuana trade.

When long-time congressmen Bill Young died last year, the tributes were as expected for such a Tampa Bay area political icon.

The Speaker of the House attended the funeral. So did other members of the Congress Young served for so many years.

Young's family was a also a major topic of discussion.

But not his whole family.

Young had a whole other family with his first wife, who he divorced in order to marry his then-pregnant former secretary.

Florida was back in the national headlines  when a man in a Tampa-area movie theater was shot and killed  in an argument over texting during the previews.      

The incident put Florida front-and-center nationally as a state where -- well -- strange things seem to happen... a lot.

Where did Florida get the reputation of being the go to state for weird news?  And does Florida deserve that rep?

It's a year-end tradition that appears to not only be surviving -- but thriving in the new media

environment.

It's Time magazine's  "Person Of The Year."

This year's Person of the Year is Pope Francis, with NSA leaker Edward Snowden reportedly coming in second.

Agreeing to an Associated Press request,  Connecticut authorities have released the 911 tapes of calls made to the police on Dec. 14, 2012, the day a gunman shot and killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Some people want to hear them. Some don't.

But the real question is do they really add anything to the reporting on this tragedy?

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has finally admitted what has been rumored for months. That he has, at least, tried crack cocaine.

His excuse? He was in a drunken stupor.

And, the first thing Mayor Ford did after admitting to crack cocaine use was to announce he will be running for re-election.

As far as political scandals go, this is a pretty weird one.

But the way this scandal broke in the media is a little out-of-the-ordinary, too.

There was no shortage of stories reporting on the arrests of a 12-year-old girl and 14-year-old girl in Polk County in connection with the suicide of 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick.

But Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute's "Sense-Making Project" has cautioned reporters about reporting a direct link between bullying and a suicide.

The day before Tampa Bay-area Congressman C.W. Bill Young died, he was inaccurately reported dead in the news media.

Several news organizations prematurely reported the death of the longest-serving Republican member of the House of Representatives.

Among the first was St. Petersburg's Peter Schorsch, editor of "SaintPetersblog."