Defining Peyton's impact

From the Jan. 27, 2011 edition of the Indianapolis Star, I wrote: "Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has surpassed golfer Tiger Woods and NBA star LeBron James as the most powerful person in sports in a news organization's ranking. Though Manning didn't make it to this year's Super Bowl, he led the Colts there in two of the past four seasons, winning Super Bowl XLI and maintaining an all-American image, Bloomberg Businessweek says in its newest rankings out today."

Mark Patrick, host of a drive-time sports show on Indianapolis radio station WNDE-1260 AM, talked to me [listen to the podcast here] about Manning being ranked the most powerful athlete in sports, and who he beat out to come in at No. 1.

This is the news story in its entirety, courtesy of Pacers Digest.

Up, up and away

Batman, Superman souvenirs auctioned in Indianapolis

A story regarding the 1,000 mementos from a now-defunct Indianapolis museum honoring Superman and Batman sold as part of an auction process made the cover of USA Today's

web site.

Mighty temblor!

Evon Wainscott's morning started with a "pair of booms" that tilted the homemade crafts on her walls and left up to 100 cracks in her snow-covered yard.

The 61-year-old woman lives east of Kokomo -- a few miles from the epicenter of a 3.8 magnitude earthquake that lasted only a few seconds Thursday morning but was strong enough to be felt in six states. Here was the IndyStar story.

We told the story early on by use of Twitter. Here's one: #IndianaQuake 4.2 earthquake, Indiana. Dec 30 7:55am EST (13m ago, 9km SE of Greentown, depth 4.9km) see it yourself-> http://bit.ly/ftVPK3

A social (media) setting

A journalist has to be grounded in tradition but willing to step up at storytime. In this case, being platform-nimble. Journalism can be practiced within the tactile grip of a newspaper, the boundless vehicle that is the web and the short blurb of 140 characters. That's where this post comes in. I was honored to join WTHR (Channel 13) meteorologist Nicole Misencik on state at the studios of WFYI in Indianapolis to deliver a talk about Twitter for the Indy Social Media Breakfast. It was a real treat to talk about tweets. Here is the video replay of the chat on UStream.

Getting the jump

Drama began unfolding about 3:25 p.m. in Indianapolis when shots echoed around Downtown buildings. A man standing on the top floor of the eight-story Denison Parking Garage, just north of Maryland Street on Meridian Street, fired two shots into the air followed by one into his head.

Almost immediately, eyewitnesses began to tweet. And refer us to other tweets. Here's my thread.

@indystar #indyshots Here is what we know so far about the Downtown shooting on Meridian and Washington: http://tinyurl.com/2dgccvg 2:47 PM
@tigergixxer: Just saw a guy across from 30 S Meridian commit suicide & fall off parking garage. Was shooting guns in the air prior to that 2:50 PM
@BillRuthhart At the scene of an apparent shooting Downtown. Paramedics just picked a body off the sidewalk just south of Washington and Meridian streets 2:58 PM
@spaldobusiness http://bit.ly/988dUq --> Latest on #Indy shooting. @amybartner @billruthhart @kristoferkarol @kingdaviddogs + tweeps big help in reporting 3:32 PM
@BillRuthhart Suicide shooter fell from top of 8-story parking garage, nearly missing man walking below on sidewalk, wearing headphones. #Indy
@spaldobusiness Working with @indystar photogs Sam Riche and Matt Kryger, they are working up amazing pics from the scene of #indy shooting. On web soon. 3:47 PM
@MegFlyn This article shows power of twitter for receiving news: http://bit.ly/cmTdEG cc: @SpaldoBusiness @kristoferkarol #indy -- such sad news 3:48 PM
@spaldobusiness More on #Indy suicide; just talked with a witness, a CapGrille server who eyed the shooter as he pulled the trigger-> http://bit.ly/aUXIBe 5:43 PM

Witness: Tony Salamone (right), 39, a server at The Capitol Grill, says he saw the gunman in the last moments of his life. Salamone was interviewed this afternoon near the suicide scene by Jeremy Brilliant of WTHR (Channel 13), The Star's news-gathering partner. Photo by Tom Spalding.

Here is a screenshot of a first-person eyewitness account that I got later in the the day.

Twittering & Gen Con

On Aug. 4-6 some 28,000 people descended onto Indianapolis for the annual Gen Con convention. I was assigned to write up lite profiles of the gamer event. Factoring the hip, tech-savvy crowd was probably using social-media network Twitter to communicate, I tapped into that thread.

A pic I took of #gencon foam-pool noodle battle garnered over 200 clicks to Twit-pic.

Gen Con provided the first of jolt of the day not inside the Indiana Convention Center, but at a coffeehouse on Monument Circle. Au Bon Pain actually ran out of coffee early this morning, and gamers also formed long lines at nearby Dunkin' Donuts and at the java station inside Borders in Downtown. Guests and exhibitors are using the keyword #GenCon as a unified way to communicate via the social media website.

Gold-digging in Indiana

With gold prices peaking this summer at more than $1,200 an ounce, some people are seeking their fortunes in Indiana's streams. They're panning for gold. Hoosier gold.

I wrote a full feature in the Indianapolis Star, entitled Hoosiers Go Looking For Gold, a surprise hit!

Here was a slide show of the photos of gold prospectors.

The Associated Press picked up the story, as did The Kentucky "Courier-Journal", The Greencastle "Banner Graphic" and "Daily World", "Jconline" from Lafayette, "The mining Industry Today", USA Today, WIBC radio 93.1, "Indiatimes", "UPI", Topix, and RoadRunner. It was also on the Fox-59 news web site, WNDU-16 website, and The Mining Industry today.