SoundSlides project

Every day students studying, working and going to class in the Murrow Complex inadvertantly leave trash, dirt and general disarray. Custodian Mike Miller makes sure it's all back in order before they return the next day.

I wanted to do this topic because most people don't even think about how their building is clean every morning. It's not magic, it's someone's work. Those of us who spend late hours at the Murrow Complex usually say hello and goodbye to the custodians, sometimes share cigarettes, but we still know relatively little about who they are or what their job is like.

I didn't do much color correcting with the photos because I thought the overwhelming beige was appropriate for the theme, and I liked the juxtaposition with the colorful cleaning details. My audio was not so great, but it was more authentic (and less of an inconvenience to Mike) to interview him while he was on the job. It would have been way too corny to add in music or something.

Watching it again now, I think I should have pared down the images. I was worried about not having enough, but it's a little jumpy.

Citizen journalism: overhyped or underused?

In response to the Frontline show about the news industry, I want to focus on the idea of citizen journalism that they talked about.

I loved it when Nick Lemann said citizen journalism is like a church newsletter.
"Yes, I am belittling them," he said.

I'm all about empowering the people and democritizing the means of production, but citizen journalism is not as great as people would like to think. The one guy who mentioned how citizen bloggers don't just report, but also do agenda-setting, did have a good point. It reminded me of the Jena 6 story that became national news through the perseverance of a few bloggers.

So there are people out there who act like journalists without working for a media outlet, but those bright exceptions do not mean most people have the interest orhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif ability to be good journalists. I go to school with dozens of people who want to be journalists and go to classes for it and still haven't figured out how to put together a credible story with the proper sources and no holes. I don't trust ordinary people to write well, but that can be fixed by editors to a certain extent. What worries me is the ethics. Journalists who know the rules and have their careers on the line still make stupid ethics decisions (see Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair, Allan Detrich).

So while I think newspapers can foster intelligent forums and learn important tips that way, relying on citizens to do your work is a bad gamble with the future of the industry. Now, more than ever, professional papers need to set themselves apart with credibility that ordinary people aren't capable to provide.

Daily Evergreen 101

After making several news-type videos this year(1,2,3), I wanted to try something a little different. That turned out to be a little more (I can't believe I'm saying this) PR-style. You answer some of the same questions over and over when you're an editor at the Evergreen, so I wanted to create a video that would answer all those questions in a really short amount of time so people don't lose interest. I wanted an emphasis on how to get involved and apply, and video was a good format for that because it's often little things like not knowing exactly where the newsroom is located that keep students from stopping by to apply, especially as freshmen.

I went into the project wanting it to really show what it's like at the Evergreen, inconsistent lighting and all. After finishing it and watching it again, I think if I did it again I would sacrifice a little authenticity for higher quality video.

I also was really challenged by the computer screens that look so awful in the video. I looked it up and still couldn't figure out a great way to avoid it, so I hoped it just wouldn't be that bad. In retrospect it really is distracting, so I would be more creative to avoid getting computer screens in the video in the first place.

UPDATE: I'm also not sure why the embed looks funny, though it seems to play fine.

Lessons from the war in Iraq

(cross-posted here)

This is a little late, but it's still worth extra credit and I still wanted to mention this one thought.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post, author of "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," came to WSU last Friday to give a talk about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, especially about relations with Pakistan. Earlier in the day, he met for an hour with communication students to answer questions, and he spoke about his experiences covering Iraq in the early days of the war when no one expected it to go on very long. He also talked about what it's like to be covering this campaign season.

At one point he was talking about trying to get through Baghdad the day Saddam fell, and how he and a fellow journalist were stopped at a checkpost. They convinced the marine on duty not only to let them pass, but to radio ahead and tell the other checkpoint guards to let them move freely.

I've been reading a lot about journalists in war zones, and this proves things haven't changed that much at all since WWII. That is, the main skill in covering wars is tricking your way into places journalists aren't supposed to be. And not dying.

475 skills exam

And here's a little poll about whether you prefer this blog or the newer one I've been using.

Adios, Blogger

As I previously threatened, I'm leaving this joint.

I decided I'm using this blog enough to get it the way I like, plus making a snazzy new graphic was a good use of time I had reserved for my thesis and ethics paper.

Fortunately the new blog will be easy to find, if you know me well enough to spell my last name: lisawaananen.wordpress.com.
Not the pinnacle of creativity, but sometimes functionality is more important.

References That Are No Longer Clever list

Today the New York Times presents a whole slew of related letters in which distinguished readers want to point out they know their Orwell better than columnist William Kristol, who used an essay by Orwell about Rudyard Kipling to explain why Democrats don't know how to get anything done. It actually is that unnecessarily complicated; read it yourself.

Gag. Having read "1984" is not really worthy of snobbish pride. It should just be embarrassing if you haven't read it. Shame on the NYT for perpetuating the self-perceived cleverness of these people.

I started my References That Are No Longer Clever list a while ago with this one. I try to keep from one-upping them in pretentiousness by keeping the rest of my list fairly short:

• any reference to Bob Dylan singing "the times they are a-changin'"
  
• quoting Murrow's fear comment ("We will not walk in
  fear ... ")
  
• referencing Warhol's 15 minutes of fame, especially when commenting on internet memes or phenomenons
  

To make it clear, I think these are all fine references and certainly relevant in discussions of today's world. But relevant is not the same as clever, and they've been trotted out a few too many times to be used in a self-congratulatory way.

Personally I think Kristol's argument is a weak one - I'm not so far removed from high school that I can't recognize desperate stretches for literary synthesis - but I do respect his attempt to invoke Orwell for something beyond the most obvious.