Mark Whicker, a sports columnist with the Orange County Register, wrote a column (some are calling it the “worst sports column in history” and it has my vote) relating sports to the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping. It showed poor taste. Sometimes a journalist will come up with an idea that seems clever but it does not work; these misguided attempts at over-the-top gravity or immature humor usually only see the light of day in college newspapers or on blogs. At major daily newspapers there is usually a system in place to check stories, or at least there is the ability to run an article by a colleague. Whicker’s article should have been spiked. An editor looks after the integrity of the paper and tries his or her best to bring readers the most lucid coverage. With the implosion of the newspaper industry, there are fewer editors. Without good editing, newspaper writers do not always elevate the discussion, which is their mission, and there is a creeping sloppiness in our papers. Humor can be difficult to pull off, especially in a daily newspaper. So the Orange County Register ran the column, which really missed the mark in many ways, and readers were mad about it. They wrote outraged letters. Whicker apologized, kind of. In an interview with the Poynter Institute, he did not blame himself, bad editing, or weak judgment. It’s the Web’s fault! According to Poynter, “…in a phone interview, he defended the premise of his column and suggested that the fast-moving, quick-to-judge culture of the Web was behind the wave of criticism.”

In the column, Whicker noted all the sporting events and activities Dugard missed as she was confined to a shed behind her kidnapper’s house. “She was not allowed to spike a volleyball. Or pitch a softball. Or smack a forehand down the line. Or run in a 5-footer for double bogey,” wrote Whicker, who’s been in the business for 35 years. “Now, that’s deprivation.” And here is Whicker’s baseball-inspired kicker: “Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard.”

While the summer months are typically a slow time for significant technology announcements, the last several months brought some interesting, and key developments, in the tech arena. Some of the larger tech players jockeyed for position with new operating systems, search engines, smart phones, and ultracheap video cameras, all of which will get attention through the end of the year and beyond.

01: New operating system war. The July announcement of Google’s operating system, Chrome OS, sent some nervous chatter through Redmond. Chrome OS is targeted to run on low-cost portable computers known as netbooks, but Google says it will also run on PCs. The operating system is set to be released in 2010. In the Apple sphere, it released its Snow Leopard, a faster version of its operating system.

02: Ultracheap camcorders. Networking giant Cisco acquired Pure Digital Technologies, the maker of Flip Video, in March. Researchers at Cisco predict that video will account for 80% of Internet data traffic within four years–44 exabytes per month, the equivalent of 11 billion DVDs; thus, Cisco is anxious to control what it sees as an enormous market. But they are not without significant competition. Smartphones, including the Apple 3GS, includes video capabilities, and companies like Creative and Kodak have a line of pocket video cameras. Expect increasing noise in this area.

03: Decision engines. As search engine makers look for the next evolutionary step in the market, Microsoft unveiled Bing, its “decision engine,” to good reviews and public interest. Also, some smaller outfits released decision engines, most notably Hunch.com and Wolfram’s Alpha.

04: Smartphones. A lot of the technology news during the summer centered on smartphones: Apple released an updated one, Palm came out with the Pre, and new phones using the Android operating system have received attention. By the end of the year there will be 18 phones based on Google’s Android operating system on the market.

05: The return of original content? Much was made of the graying of FaceBook and how it has lost its cool factor, apparently. The newspaper and magazine industry continued to struggle as they try and best figure how to package and sell (or give away) content. Meanwhile, as local papers perish, bigger outlets are seeing an opportunity and muscling into regional markets. ESPN has a site dedicated to local sports in Chicago, and more cities will be on-line in the future. And The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal announced that it would publish local editions in San Francisco. AOL and Yahoo have made inroads by creating original content instead of simply aggregating news. Perhaps media companies are realizing that original content is important because it creates value and brand loyalty.

Before a recent trip to Chicago, my home computer network died and I was without DSL for a couple days. Since I now get my primary news and information from the Web, I went through a day of near panic, but it also made me reassess the time I spend on the computer. Many of us live a digital lifestyle. The Web has brought a lot more information and ways to connect for people, but in the dog days of summer I have been thinking about the way we spend our days. Information technology is about efficiency, not meaning; technology is a tool to deliver information. I spend eight hours a day on a computer: I write, exchange emails, go on social networking sites like FaceBook, and search for information on news sites, Twitter, and other voices. In some senses, the efficiency of the delivery should make us less prone to being on the computer, but the need for immediacy has had the opposite impact. Getting information and virtually connecting with people are not unpleasant experiences, per se, but am I (and millions of other people) gaining as much pleasure and knowledge from these experiences as we would hope? If I am spending eight hours, or more, a day on the computer, is that leaving enough time for other pursuits? I am a huge fan of technology, but is there enough value-add, as they say in Silicon Valley, to justify the amount of time we all spend on the Web?

On my plane ride to Chicago I decided to write down the top ten experiences during the week. I decided to exclude anything that I had done with my children and wife because they would obviously dominate the list. It was a relatively slow week as summer winds down, but here were my top ten events:

Drinking a well-made Sidecar; going through some old photographs; browsing for books at my local bookstore; talking football with my father; preparing a complicated meal; finding a difficult-to-find book on the Los Angeles Public Library Website; chatting, and laughing with, the airport shoeshine guy about the evolution of the shoeshine business; reading the first 100 pages of John Le Carre’s A Most Wanted Man; playing pick-up soccer with a multicultural crowd and thinking about how soccer defines the world; interviewing some sources for an article.

Throughout the week I spent time on the computer and was satisfied with the information I found, and it was nice to connect with friends virtually. But none of the computer experiences made the top ten, except when I found a book on the LAPL Website; I had been searching for the book for more than year.

Being on the computer is a big part of my workday, but based on my own personal meaning assessment, it would be reasonable to cut down my computer time by half. (Write down your own top ten important events and see if I am wrong.) Web 2.0’s cultural hierarchy can be defined by speed and one-upsmanship, in which people who know something a couple minutes before everyone else, or visit the coolest sites, or provide the most clever lines on a social networking site become the tribe leaders. Not being on the computer will leave you out of many conversations. Perhaps we have gone overboard, and the pursuit of speed has created a loss of meaning on and off-line. I don’t think the satisfaction level matches the time spent staring at a computer.

I have been pondering the Microsoft-Yahoo deal announced today. It has many fascinating business machinations, but it mostly comes down to you, dear Web surfer. Both companies are vying to know your search proclivities so they can target information and, therefore advertising, to you. This deal will bring a more heated battle between Google and Microsoft-Yahoo to sell you different wares.

Microsoft has made its living out of resilence, and its partnership with Yahoo is a classic example of its ability to partner with another company to make a run on a more innovative rival. Partnering with other companies is a difficult skill (just ask the auto industry), but Microsoft has been good at it. It made this deal at a low-point in the history of Yahoo, which has been clobbered, in a variety of ways, by Google. It will be interesting to see if this 10-year deal, which still needs federal approval, will elevate Yahoo and help Microsoft re-brand its own search technology, Bing, which is one of the best products to come out of Redmond for a long time. But search engines are really a way toward greater desktop dominance. Google is working on a free operating system, which threatens Microsoft’s core product, Windows. All of this back-and-forth between the companies will mean more innovative search engines, and probably better operating systems, because the companies are so desperate to track and understand you. With this deal, Microsoft is trying to nudge itself into the new era of computing. Since Google has not had significant competition for awhile it will be good news for consumers.

Technology has altered many industries in the last several years, but the media has taken some of the biggest hits of late. The Web, and now social networking sites, like Twitter, have made consumers into real-time news junkies. In some ways it feels like a Golden Age of information dissemination, but one with troubling consequences. We still have newspaper reporters feeding us old fashion journalism. We also have access to source material through government (and other) organizations and we can access this information on demand. We really have the best of both worlds–for now.

People are thrilled about the access to information, but over the last several months I have noticed a changing mood. Friends and strangers keep asking me about the future of journalism. I think there is a growing uneasiness. People are worried because they are sensing an information age disaster: they are picking up their newspapers and seeing thinner products, weaker reporting and writing, and more mistakes in the pages. And the mistakes and lack of quality in print are starting to seep onto newspaper Websites. Massive layoffs in the editorial ranks have left reporters scrambling to cover their beats, and experienced journalists are been fazed out, meaning newspapers are ruining their credibility with substandard products in print and on-line. I was on vacation for a couple weeks and and everywhere I went people were complaining about their local newspapers. (“Should I bother to subscribe anymore?”)

Even the elite newspapers are suffering. The result? Boots-on-the-ground reporting is often being left to individuals and foundation-funded sites like ProPublica. Citizens can do interesting journalism, and ProPublica and other sites continue to break stories, but why hasn’t the The New York Times’ Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. or The Washington Post’s Katharine Weymouth or News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch come to the forefront with innovative ideas on how to do great journalism and make it pay? While organizations like the Fair Syndication Consortium are fine, the lack of leadership among the big three is astounding. Newspaper publishers were once bold iconoclasts who were ready for a fight, but these men and women have done a profoundly poor job. Business journalists will spend a lot of time questioning the capabilities of business leaders, but they should turn a sharp gaze toward their own industry. Of course the circumstances are different, but just like auto executives, newspaper publishers should be called before Congress. Newspaper publishers have let a national treasure go to waste. The whole industry is dithering and it will be ruined without action. I am convinced that with ideas and leadership, positive change can come about. Remember ten years ago when Napster held the music industry hostage. Much of the world felt (for some reason) that ripping off artists was acceptable. Of course, iTunes changed the course of the music industry 99 cents at a time, and stealing music lost its allure.

I think the public senses that the end of journalism, as we know it, will bring corruption and disinformation. People want quality reporting and analysis; the true innovation is not coming from publishers but out-of-work reporters. It is important for an informed society that The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other dailies thrive. Newspapers are on the ropes. Which publisher will ensure his or her legacy as a savior?