Robert Niles

to Robert Niles.

Robert Niles' work in online journalism has been called "pathbreaking" by noted columnist Dan Gillmor. Robert's "Accident Watch" feature on ThemeParkInsider.com won the 2001 Online Journalism Award for Service Journalism, presented by the Online News Association and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. It was the first example of a "crowdsourced" online report, built on reader-contributed content, to win a major journalism award.

Robert is a native of Los Angeles, and today lives in nearby Pasadena, California. He graduated from Northwestern University, where he majored in the school's program in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences, as well as in Political Science. He also holds a master's degree in journalism from Indiana University.

Along the way, Robert has worked as a Pirate of the Caribbean and Tom Sawyer Island raft driver (at Walt Disney World) as well as for the (Bloomington, Indiana) Herald-Times, the Omaha World-Herald, the Rocky Mountain News, the Los Angeles Times and the University of Southern California.

Today, Robert runs SensibleTalk.com, ThemeParkInsider.com and (with his wife, Laurie) Violinist.com.

I had a dream last night. (No, not that I would begin an entry with a wretched cliche - just indulge me on that, okay?) Laurie and I were going to throw a dinner party with another family, and Laurie had just left for the store to pick up a few final items.

Our guests arrived early, but they weren't the close friends I'd expected. Instead, they were college friends of Laurie's, who just happened to be in town, I guessed. Then the doorbell rang again. It was a high school friend of mine, with her children. But where were my kids? Were they upstairs with their friends? I realized that I didn't know where they were, only that they were not at the party.

More people arrived: People who worked with former colleagues, but whom I hadn't met. High-school classmates of Laurie's, whom I'd met at a reunion. Someone who'd been reading my website and wanted to say hi.
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Here's the long version of an essay that I wrote for the American Youth Soccer Association, which appeared it is Whistle Stop national e-mail newsletter for youth soccer referees.

It's got some good stuff in it for youth sports officials, I hope. Full piece after the jump
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FWIW, This is how you follow a story.

And this is not.
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I think many journalists and analysts are missing the core story underlying the populist revolt over the Bush administration's proposed Wall Street bailout.

People aren't merely upset with the idea of their tax money going to prop up rich Wall Street businesses and investors. They're disgusted with an American economy that increasingly values gambling over work. Not only that, many of these Americans are perfectly willing, even eager, to watch this gamblers' economy fail.

In many neighborhoods across the country, families can no longer afford to buy a home and anticipate a comfortable retirement on the money that they make working. Salaries and wages just don't provide enough cash.

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Laurie and I have put our home and cell phone numbers on the U.S. federal Do-Not-Call list, but that hasn't stopped solicitors from calling. Curiously, though, the sales calls we've been getting tend to come in clumps (more pronounced that your typical Poisson distribution) and often ask for the same wrong name.

Clearly, our numbers have gotten on some list, associated with a variety of wrong names. Given that we tend to get a new string of calls every month, we figured this isn't random chance resulting from someone writing down a wrong number on an application someplace. Furthermore, the folks who call us rarely have any idea what the do-not-call list is (tipping us that they don't work for large, established call center firms), and often will keep going with their pitch even after we tell them that there's no one by that name here.

What's up? By talking with some of these callers, combined with some online sleuthing and a little deduction, here's what we've figured out.
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I've been a bit quiet on the blog in recent weeks, as I have been working on launching several new projects.

I will announce each one here, as it launches. After that flurry, though, I will continue to blog here, from time on time, on topics that do not fit well into any of these other projects. So sub the RSS feed to keep up with the new posts, when they happen.
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So, let's sum it up....

John McCain's pick for Vice President is someone who:

Used of the office of governor to carry out a personal vendetta, fired a high level state official for legally and appropriately standing up to her, then lied about it.

Is a social conservative whose 17-year-old, unmarried daughter is pregnant.

Wants creationism taught in the public schools.

Thinks the Pledge of Allegiance was written in the late 1700s.

Is connected to a political party in Alaska that wants that state to secede from the United States.

Hey, Republicans, don't forget that, technically, she isn't the VP nominee yet. It's not too late to give Mitt a call.

On the subject of the GOP convention, let's not let this fall down the memory hole:
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