True story

So here's today's installment: This morning I downloaded audacity and the LAME (what a name) MP3 key to my newsroom PC, plugged in a microphone/headset combo and recorded a companion podcast for tomorrow's podcast story in the paper. After editing in clips from three other podcasts, the thing clocked in at about 17 minutes.

The only thing left: hosting it with a feed.

Without naming names or burning bridges, let me just say that at this hour it does not look like our newspaper web site will be the host. I started talking about this a couple weeks ago. My boss and I met with the web guy last week. But this morning? Crickets. Like starting from scratch.

My solution, with just minutes before the press start, was to upload the podcast to our personal libsyn account... only Janet has the password, and she's out touring the new bridge. With the clock ticking down and J not answering her cell, I reset her libsyn password and started refreshing my mailbox every few seconds.

Nothing.

So, with the deadline's hot breath on my neck, I had the bright idea: Start a new blog at blogger and use that to point to the link/feed, whether it winds up being at libsyn or on our paper's website. The blog went up quickly and I e-mailed the link to a very stressed out page designer. Immediate crisis averted.

Now I just have to figure out the hosting problem by the time this thing hits the street Thursday morning.

I know a lot of you out there think everybody inside the MSM is a hack. It's not true. We have creative people just like other industries. But trying to do ANYTHING outside the norm is always a hassle.

The irony: Yesterday management sent out a thing about how the new standard was that newspapers have to become innovative to survive.

Well, y'all have a nice day.

Your pal,

Sisyphus