Category Archive

Nick has been really bored recently, but I’m not envious. It sounds nice at first, but it’s like walking home freezing in the middle of winter and thinking how those really, really hot summer days would be pretty nice. And then you remember sweating all the time and sunburns and how it’s not really that nice at all. Neither extreme is fun, and I’ve always preferred to be too cold than too hot anyway.

Today I decided work and stress should follow an ice-cube tray model. A certain amount of work gets poured onto each person, but it spills over to other people before anyone gets over-filled. I’ve been right up to the brim and relying on surface tension for like the past month. It’s just stupid and inefficient to have some people completely overworked and while other people have nothing to do.

It would be like communism, I guess, but only with the smart people you like and trust to do work well. Like a responsibility commune.

This SoundSlides project, which I made for class, is about how our buildings are magically clean every morning when we return to class. Hint: It’s not magic. And those of us who work late know Mike and appreciate his work even while we take it for granted. 

I’ll figure out how to embed it here later. But for now I have way too much else to do, so you can view it along with some more commentary about the project at my old/class blog.

Today in my 475 class we were looking at the inner workings of Wikipedia and definitely the most interesting part (aside from late-night rambles through entries on obscure writers’ lives and archaic technology) is the history tab on each entry. Naturally I looked up our Daily Evergreen entry, and found evidence of this risible sabotage.

It’s also kind of silly, because we’ve had more conservative columnists this year than anytime in my memory of the Evergreen.

This is for my J475 class, in response to parts of the Frontline “News War” story that we watched.

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 or 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.

Admittedly I was also scanning Romenesko while we watched the Frontline piece in class. I came across “When I hear the term ‘citizen journalist,’ I reach for my pistol,” which I think sums up the argument well.

Here’s a nice little PR-type video for The Daily Evergreen, which I made for a class. I did not spend much time on it because I am so overwhelmed with everything in the past few weeks, but it’s not a bad idea to have a video answering commonly asked questions so editors don’t have to do it all the time.

My apologies to Christina, who was a very good sport about participating and not particularly pleased by the results. Later I might post the segment with uncooperative Brian. I probably wouldn’t be thrilled about being on video, though, I don’t blame him much. I did get over the “sound of my voice” thing and it’s decent enough I can actually listen to it without cringing.

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.

Yesterday I caught the bus home from campus at 10 p.m. after interviewing bartenders and bouncers around the hill. Late-night weekend bus service rightfully gets called the “drunk bus,” but this was pretty outrageous. A group in garish ’80s garb sang from the stereotypical ’80s repertoire all the way to ’80s night at Valhalla, and I recorded them singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” for your listening, er, pleasure.

I can’t figure out how to embed it for now, so click here.
(Listen closely for when the one guy in mullet says, “F— the bars, let’s just ride the bus!”)

The bus driver was really amused. He said goodbye as the group disembarked: “Enjoy the ’80s. Listen to lots of Journey tonight.”

I just finished taking a rather unconventional exam for J475 that required me to do minor audio editing, make an online press release, put together a little poll for a bonus, and post it all online. I put it up on my old blog to avoid muddling this one, and just look at me writing about it anyway.

Here it is. Coming soon

I was going to make a shorter version to actually comply with the two-minute limit, but then I decided it just wasn’t worth fighting with Audacity any longer than necessary.

“Welcome to the Evergreen podcast for the second week of February, 1927.An unusually small number of WSC students failed during the past semester, registrar Frank T. Barnard announced. He said two weeks will be allowed for making up incompletes. Although final registration reports are not in, it is estimated that enrollment this semester will be approximately the same as last semester.

The Husky five will come across the Cascades to meet the Cougar hoop aggregation Saturday night in the second cross-state match-up of this basketball season.
The dope favors the Washington squad after they won the first tilt 39 to 16. There is hope, however, that the crimson and gray will emerge from its slump for an upset like the one against Idaho before the disastrous Coast tour.
Remember to wear your rooters cap to support our valiant boys of the hardwood …”

Thanks to Victor Graf, Christina Watts, Nick Eaton, Mike Feigen, Dan Herman and Brian Everstine for their vocal talents. An additional thanks to Victor and Nick for their technical support.

Audacity decided my podcast file no longer existed when I was about three minutes from being finished. I cursed a bit and snapped rather more than usual at the rest of the newsroom that “reoccuring” is not a word while editing tonight’s final story.

Then I started over.

The actual audio isn’t finished since we got an extension, but here’s the graphic I’m putting together for it. Blending interests, I’m doing my required 475 podcast as if it’s an Evergreen podcast from 1927.

Fun was more important than historical accuracy – it’s more like how we like to imagine 1927. However, all the stories and much of the text* is authentically from February 1927 issues of the Evergreen.

Why 1927? Because it was the oldest book in the archives room that I could reach without difficulty.

The actual 1927 Evergreen staff looks like kind of a dour bunch, though the women had awesome names: Theda Lomax, Lyla Appel, Georgia Grimes, Lucille Weatherstone.

*UPDATE: I want to specifically mention that the Lucky Strike advertisement is entirely authentic, and not meant to glorify smoking. Those who know me, especially from the Evergreen, know how I feel about that. The logo does look cool in the graphic, though, and some weeks it seems like Lucky Strike cigarettes were entirely responsible for the financial health of this newspaper. Cigarettes and men’s suits dominated printed Evergreen ads back then, and there were always a bunch for typewriters at the beginning of a semester.

After braving the wind, ice and snow while walking to campus the past few days, this is a question that’s been on my mind. For the record, I prefer peppermint tea or soy chai. How about you?

There are two local blogs I read regularly that balance each other well.

The first, f-words, focuses on “feminism, food, fact and fiction.” It’s written by Moscow resident Sara Anderson with a generally liberal view. The posts about feminism in real news events are the most thought-provoking.

The second, Palousitics, is a local conservative political blog started by Pullman resident Tom Forbes and now joined by a number contributors. The well-written arguments sometimes posted are unfortunately overshadowed by anti-Democrat polemics, but it’s still interesting and creates a community for like-minded residents.

Both these blogs have led to actual social gatherings in some form, which raises interesting questions about the effect of online communities on traditional ones.