Being a journalist can be stressful, but at least in the U.S. most of us don't have to worry about this:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116554586173144220-SGzZDPen_os_85AmpbRiTTZEkBE_20061215.html?mod=blogs
A muckracking Russian newspaper where three of the reporters were murdered in the last six years. The story starts w/ the editor in chief wondering if he should shut down the paper - "I felt no profession was worth dying for."
Man.
I heard a talk from an investigative journalist at UC Berkeley who reported on some Mob stories. He said he wasn't really afraid of getting whacked, he was more afraid of getting sued and having his house taken.
December 9, 2006
Bringing sexy back
My god, could I resume entries in this blog after ten months with a more lame pop culture reference?
Well, I'm sad to say that, yes, it's been way too long I've posted to W.D. and with ideas floating around my head the entire time, nonetheless.
A quick catch-up on the life, then:
I've been at my new job at Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers for about 10 months. I live in Port St. Lucie, FL. I've been covering City Council meetings, political shananigans, the November elections, neighborhood issues, the Planning & Zoning board, and generally all things related to peoples' tax dollars. It's been a little slow lately. We just got a new metro editor who seems really good, just the kind of person that I think should quarterback the coverage of 10 reporters.
I have a lovely girlfriend, Susie, who I met at the Sun-Sentinel. We've been together almost a year.
I had to change my California license plate to a Florida plate last month. Yikes. I want to frame/mount the old plate somewhere.
But since my idea for this blog is to focus primarily on various media-related topics rather than be a social dissemination tool, I'll bring it back to the top.
Well, I'm sad to say that, yes, it's been way too long I've posted to W.D. and with ideas floating around my head the entire time, nonetheless.
A quick catch-up on the life, then:
I've been at my new job at Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers for about 10 months. I live in Port St. Lucie, FL. I've been covering City Council meetings, political shananigans, the November elections, neighborhood issues, the Planning & Zoning board, and generally all things related to peoples' tax dollars. It's been a little slow lately. We just got a new metro editor who seems really good, just the kind of person that I think should quarterback the coverage of 10 reporters.
I have a lovely girlfriend, Susie, who I met at the Sun-Sentinel. We've been together almost a year.
I had to change my California license plate to a Florida plate last month. Yikes. I want to frame/mount the old plate somewhere.
But since my idea for this blog is to focus primarily on various media-related topics rather than be a social dissemination tool, I'll bring it back to the top.
February 13, 2006
EMPLOYMENT VICTORY
Though this post is a little late in coming b/c I've been so busy the last couple of weeks, I'm happy to announce that I am again GAINFULLY EMPLOYED at a newspaper!!!
I accepted a job last week at the Scripps Treasure Coast newspaper covering city hall in Port St. Lucie, a city north of Miami about 2.5 hrs. It's the fastest growing in the state or close to it, and the housing market is booming still. Developments are springing up like weeds, which appears to be the quality of the infrastructure as well. I actually had two job offers, one at a paper in on the gulf coast of Florida about the same size as Scripps and more resources but I'd be covering a much smaller city and different issues. It was a really hard decision to make but I think I made the right choice. More on that later.
I'm psyched to get started, my first day is Feb 27. I'll be trying to delve into city hall issues- the crime, developments, neighborhood relations w/ city hall, parks, growth of a downtown district (right now there is none), you name it.
Right now i'm in a Holiday Inn that the paper put me up at, looking for a place to live. Had to pass up a killer apt a stone's throw from the Intracoastal and Hutchinson Island, like a narrow Miami Beach but much quieter and less crowded. It was too expensive for my salary. Today is my last day to look before I fly back to Cali tomorrow to pick up some stuff and hang out w/ peeps. I fly back next Tuesday to keep looking or just relax for a few days before the job starts.
I'll post more l8r. jeez this thing isn't even remotely like a blog right now.
I accepted a job last week at the Scripps Treasure Coast newspaper covering city hall in Port St. Lucie, a city north of Miami about 2.5 hrs. It's the fastest growing in the state or close to it, and the housing market is booming still. Developments are springing up like weeds, which appears to be the quality of the infrastructure as well. I actually had two job offers, one at a paper in on the gulf coast of Florida about the same size as Scripps and more resources but I'd be covering a much smaller city and different issues. It was a really hard decision to make but I think I made the right choice. More on that later.
I'm psyched to get started, my first day is Feb 27. I'll be trying to delve into city hall issues- the crime, developments, neighborhood relations w/ city hall, parks, growth of a downtown district (right now there is none), you name it.
Right now i'm in a Holiday Inn that the paper put me up at, looking for a place to live. Had to pass up a killer apt a stone's throw from the Intracoastal and Hutchinson Island, like a narrow Miami Beach but much quieter and less crowded. It was too expensive for my salary. Today is my last day to look before I fly back to Cali tomorrow to pick up some stuff and hang out w/ peeps. I fly back next Tuesday to keep looking or just relax for a few days before the job starts.
I'll post more l8r. jeez this thing isn't even remotely like a blog right now.
January 19, 2006
amazon.com to do TV - well the commercials at least
http://www.southflorida.com/news/sfl-119amazon.com,0,3577898.story?coll=sfla-entertainment-headlines
amazon.com said it was going to start in June streaming webcasts w/ Bill Maher as host. the 30-min webcasts are basically advertisements for products on the site, w/ guests talking about the products and where you can buy them instantly, of course. some cross btw QVC, E!, and those infomercials for exercise machines at 3a.m.
I wonder if people will come to the site to watch. article says there will be celebrity guests like Stephen King and Rob Thomas. Would you go to amazon.com to watch an infomercial? hmmmm
I guess it'll depend on the star power of the guests, the products they're hawking, and the cheesiness of the delivery. I doubt Maher will throw in political commentary.
amazon.com said it was going to start in June streaming webcasts w/ Bill Maher as host. the 30-min webcasts are basically advertisements for products on the site, w/ guests talking about the products and where you can buy them instantly, of course. some cross btw QVC, E!, and those infomercials for exercise machines at 3a.m.
I wonder if people will come to the site to watch. article says there will be celebrity guests like Stephen King and Rob Thomas. Would you go to amazon.com to watch an infomercial? hmmmm
I guess it'll depend on the star power of the guests, the products they're hawking, and the cheesiness of the delivery. I doubt Maher will throw in political commentary.
January 18, 2006
multimedia - homeless man killed
The video from the sun-sentinel web site of the homeless guy getting beaten with a bat was viewed over 100,000 times in the first couple of days. I'm sure the other news operations saw similar activity. Crazy.
you could make a pretty good ethical case for putting the video out there for everyone to see. It really got peoples' attention. It capitalized on this gawker tendency we have towards something we know we shouldn't really be watching but can't look away either. Some people, perhaps the family of the man killed, might be angry with the way their loved one is all over the media when they just want to be out of the spotlight and grieve privately. But here's where we media outlets make the argument that if it wasn't for the video, the community wouldn't have been in such an uproar and this issue of beatings of the homeless wouldn't be out there in the spotlight.
We have to ask - is this loss of privacy for a few worth the knowledge it brought to the many? I think so. The thing about these beatings was- they were homeless men. Not housewives. not senators. people on the fringe of society, who we only think about when they ask us for change or during the holidays. Without that video, the beatings would be sooner forgotten from our minds.
Actually my bigger question is about something else entirely- with the power to find news you want to know about, being able to select it and download it off the Internet, when you want it- what does this access and power mean for us? I look to Google, who is steadily making available any information a person could possibly want, anywhere in the world. Google doesn't really create that information or analysis, but provides a better way to get it to the people who want it. Now there's a lot of overlap in information gathering we in the media do, and forgetting of work that has been done in the past, and redundant replication of stories. Will Google or the internet of the future join all our collective knowledge so we can advance faster in all areas of human endeavor?
you could make a pretty good ethical case for putting the video out there for everyone to see. It really got peoples' attention. It capitalized on this gawker tendency we have towards something we know we shouldn't really be watching but can't look away either. Some people, perhaps the family of the man killed, might be angry with the way their loved one is all over the media when they just want to be out of the spotlight and grieve privately. But here's where we media outlets make the argument that if it wasn't for the video, the community wouldn't have been in such an uproar and this issue of beatings of the homeless wouldn't be out there in the spotlight.
We have to ask - is this loss of privacy for a few worth the knowledge it brought to the many? I think so. The thing about these beatings was- they were homeless men. Not housewives. not senators. people on the fringe of society, who we only think about when they ask us for change or during the holidays. Without that video, the beatings would be sooner forgotten from our minds.
Actually my bigger question is about something else entirely- with the power to find news you want to know about, being able to select it and download it off the Internet, when you want it- what does this access and power mean for us? I look to Google, who is steadily making available any information a person could possibly want, anywhere in the world. Google doesn't really create that information or analysis, but provides a better way to get it to the people who want it. Now there's a lot of overlap in information gathering we in the media do, and forgetting of work that has been done in the past, and redundant replication of stories. Will Google or the internet of the future join all our collective knowledge so we can advance faster in all areas of human endeavor?
January 12, 2006
Homeless men beaten by teens w/ bats
On the Web site of my newspaper about an hour and a half ago this story appeared at the top, w/ video and pictures:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-112homelessbeating,0,3435973.story
It's a story about three homeless men who were beaten by young men w/ bats. One of them died at the hospital. What caught me even more from the brutality of it all was the fact we had video footage (and pics) of the beatings on the site too.
Of course I watched the video, like probably most ppl who will happen to look at the site today and see the story. After seeing the grainy security camera footage, I wondered, is this voyeurism? The police give us the footage so of course we're running it; i'm sure it's on TV too. Reminds me of ethics discussions we had in journalism school.
hmmmm, the Sun-Sentinel, which didn't run a story we had exclusively of a little girl w/ a facial tumor b/c the accompanying photo was too startling, but we post the video of this guy getting the crap beaten out of him. inconsistencies, inconsistencies.
I wonder how many times the video will be watched/emailed. i should be able to get #'s tomorrow.
it's interesting to see the power of the internet at work; the fact that we can access this stuff in the first place, that it's instant, and available from anywhere in the world.
well, back to work. The possibilities and implications of online media is something I'll be writing about more to be sure.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-112homelessbeating,0,3435973.story
It's a story about three homeless men who were beaten by young men w/ bats. One of them died at the hospital. What caught me even more from the brutality of it all was the fact we had video footage (and pics) of the beatings on the site too.
Of course I watched the video, like probably most ppl who will happen to look at the site today and see the story. After seeing the grainy security camera footage, I wondered, is this voyeurism? The police give us the footage so of course we're running it; i'm sure it's on TV too. Reminds me of ethics discussions we had in journalism school.
hmmmm, the Sun-Sentinel, which didn't run a story we had exclusively of a little girl w/ a facial tumor b/c the accompanying photo was too startling, but we post the video of this guy getting the crap beaten out of him. inconsistencies, inconsistencies.
I wonder how many times the video will be watched/emailed. i should be able to get #'s tomorrow.
it's interesting to see the power of the internet at work; the fact that we can access this stuff in the first place, that it's instant, and available from anywhere in the world.
well, back to work. The possibilities and implications of online media is something I'll be writing about more to be sure.
January 2, 2006
Party with the beautiful people
I celebrated New Year's by going to an "A-List" party at a swank hotel in South Beach.
This is partying at a new level.
General admission tickets sold for $200.
Those two benjamins got you all you could drink at the bar til midnight, if you could fight through the insane lines at the bar.
Fortunately I went with my cousin Darin who went in w/ some friends from his work. They got a cabana with bottle service, the works. Of course we had to dress big too.
The theme of the party at the hotel, the Raleigh, was about circuses or mardi gras. There were dancers and allegedly fire breathers and other such performers though I never saw them, because I was hanging out at the cabana around midnight.
I kept wondering what kind of people just shell out this kind of money for a night's worth of partying. Well, some really beautiful people did. Some average people. Tourists, locals, people visiting friends in town. Yuppies. Traveling nurses. Businessmen. Hey Craig David showed up too.Joe sang a couple tunes at a tent next to the pool with pink inflatable balloons in the shape of giant jacks or those metal objects the Germans laid on the beach to obstruct the Allies on D-Day.
Yes, I'd say a good time was had by all.
The next morning, or afternoon rather, after robotically eating a couple slices of Pizza Rustica that I bought on the way home to my cousin's hotel, I went to the beach. Bought a Sunday Miami Herald.
I took a swim in the water, which was actually fairly cold. Cold by South Florida standards was in the low 70's. At Atlantic City it's about 43 degrees. hah.
I'd like to say that going in the ocean that bright January 1st afternoon symbolized a rebirth or cleansing or some metaphorical crap, but basically it felt good and now, on the 2nd, I appear to have a headcold.
New Years Resolutions to come soon.
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