Current Movies

Earlier in the week I was reading an article in the Boston Globe by Ty Burr, its movie critic.  In the article he was linking together recent movies via a common theme, which is the idea of independence or having to work through situations on your own.  He said this theme of isolation can be found in recent successes like Gravity and Captain Phillips.  Both of the heroes from these movies are basically abandoned and have to work alone to get out of the tight spots they are in, whether it's being cut loose from your ship out in space, or being taken hostage by pirates.  Burr was bringing up the idea that the success of movies like these, both critically and at the box office, might illustrate something about our times, like perhaps we're shifting from a group mentality to more individualism at the moment, or maybe in a time when government seems incompetent to most Americans, it is nice to see heroes making it on their own.  I thoroughly enjoy reading articles like these because I love film and, after watching a really good movie, connecting ideas from it with issues in everyday life.  My dream job as a journalist would be a movie critic as I already enjoy discussing and criticizing movies with my family and friends.  So it was very interesting to see Burr's perspective and how he linked a handful of excellent films together to show how they do indeed relate with what's going on in our country today. 

The War Tapes

In one of my journalism classes this week, we watched the documentary entitled The War Tapes.  It followed four National Guardsmen deployed in Iraq right around 2003-2004 who were given cameras to document their experience while fighting in the Middle East.  The end product was spell-binding and fascinating; it was really an amazing little snippet of storytelling in a war zone.  Each of the three men that the documentary followed were very unique in their political views, their outlooks on life, their backgrounds, and how they dealt personally with the effects of war.  While not a traditional piece of war journalism, the woman who edited and put the film together, Deborah Scranton, was really clever in how she decided to go about this.  The product shows us a prospective not normally seen by many Americans who, after a while, probably began to tune out the war because it became so normal, such an average part of everyday life.  As the war continued to push on throughout the years, segments about the war airing on the news seemed to all run together.  This documentary, however, brings us up close and personal to the real lives, real feelings and real thoughts of three men fighting for their country, something a short news segment simply cannot illustrate that well to the audience.  This movie illustrated to me that there are many different styles of journalism, and while the quick updates are important, bringing emotions and life into journalistic story telling about wars and all other sorts of genres of reporting is essential in order to make the public understand and care.

Tragedy in Danvers

Friday morning I read an article in the Boston Globe that said classes at Danvers High School were finally resuming after the tragedy that occurred there just a few days before resulting in the loss of young math teacher.  I had been following this story quite closely throughout the week because it was relatively close to home and it has been a pretty major story on the national news in general.  This tragedy, which came so soon after the shooting in Nevada, illustrates a lack of security in high schools and once again brings to mind what role the media plays in these instances.  Especially with mass shootings, people argue that the media's coverage spends too much time talking about the perpetrators and that this celebrity and coverage provoke more violence because copy cats see the celebrity they can become if they cause havoc.  While this specific tragedy in Danvers didn't have much to do with that, as the boy in question didn't seem to want to cause as much damage as possible, situations like these beg various questions like what is the media's role in society? Is there another way the media could cover tragedies? Should the media tone down its coverage of mass shooters to prevent further tragedies? Is there a link between media coverage and violence?  I believe all these questions need to be pondered as our society progresses and we try to create a safer country in the future.

Sisters in Step

Tonight I went to the practice of the student organization here on campus called Sisters in Step.  They are going to be "stepping" in their first competition in November.  I'm going to be writing about them for The New Hampshire, which will be interesting for me.  I will want to try to capture some of what I saw during their practice in my article, but I haven't had much practice describing movement in my writing before.  I do mainly academic writing, so it will be intriguing trying to accurately depict the intensity I felt while they were practicing their choreography at the Whit tonight.  The thing about this group is that they are "steppers," which means they do a very specific kind of dance that includes a lot of clapping and stomping as opposed to a more smooth, melodic dance that one might associate with ballerinas.  I have a very basic idea about dancing in general, so although I am kind of clueless about all this, I am excited to write this article because I will push myself out of my comfort zone and in the process learn about a niche expression of art that probably not a lot of people on campus even know about.  Hopefully through my article, I will open other students' eyes on campus to this form of dance and to this sassy group of girls who love what they do and are excited to compete for the first time.

My Sudden Interest in Baseball

I don't come from a very sports-centric family; my dad, the only male, could care less about watching any kind of sports game.  The only sport I have become fond of is European football (soccer), but that isn't very American of me.  However, occasionally I begin to perk up when the Boston sports teams get far in their respective competitions and I become one of those ephemeral fans, who suddenly becomes interested only when it's exciting to do so.  So this morning when I read an article in the Boston Globe about the Red Sox improbably making it to the World Series, I decided, hey maybe I'll actually watch a baseball game on Wednesday (the first night of the World Series at Fenway).  It's hard not to get excited about a team like the Red Sox winning; they are the heart and soul of Boston, a city I love, and they make up the definition of an underdog story.  However, what also interested me about this news story is the fact that the owner of of the Red Sox, John Henry, recently bought the Boston Globe.  There was some concern originally that this might present conflict of interest in the Globe's coverage of the Sox, as the Globe had traditionally been known for not shying away from criticisms of the Sox.  In this particular article obviously the tone was in favor of the Sox because they had just won a place in the Word Series.  I would need to read more of the Globe's coverage of the Sox to accurately make a determination as to how this transition worked out, but Henry's purchase of the Globe in general reveals an all too common tension in the news industry today of conflict of interest and the growth of corporations.

Skyping with a Peace Corps Volunteer

Today I got the opportunity to Skype with a Peace Corps volunteer living in Lesotho, Africa... who just happened to be my sister!  Just a week ago, my older sister, a recent graduate of UNH, began her journey as part of the Peace Corps.  She will be living for the next two years in Lesotho, Africa, a country that is completely surrounded by South Africa.  It was amazing getting to talk to her finally after a week of no news, and she told us all about how she was adjusting to life in a third world country, including having to use a pit in the ground as a bathroom, bathing without running water, and eating mainly starches for all her meals.  An experience like that is certainly life changing and when she begins teaching math to high school kids at a local school, I'm sure she will have countless stories to tell of her challenges and successes as a teacher.  I personally don't think I could ever be as courageous as my sister and go off to Africa for two years, so I really admire her bravery.  I have traveled to Morocco and Costa Rica before, two third world countries, but I don't think I could ever leave the comfort of American civilization for so long.  She's someone I really admire, and, if she wasn't my sister, I would totally write a profile about her.  She is a quiet individual, but she possesses a strong sense of purpose, and this combined with her determination will certainly help her to succeed in her teaching.  Suffice to say I'm so proud of my sister and I can't wait to hear more about her adventures in Africa.

New Hampshire Foliage

This Friday of no classes proved to be an absolutely gorgeous fall day in New England.  The sun provided enough warmth for me to be able to walk around in short sleeves, but a crisp breeze cooled the temperature down and made it feel like a true October day.  I wandered around the empty campus this afternoon snapping photos with my iPhone of some of the foliage that is starting to turn truly spectacular in brilliant shades of fire red, luminous yellow, and pumpkin orange.  After taking these pictures I started to wonder if there was a story idea behind the changing of the leaves.  We all know New Hampshire is an ideal place to go leaf peeping, but I was wondering if past students or faculty of UNH might remember a time when the foliage around campus was even more breathtaking.  I know climate change has certainly made the color of leaves less potent, and I was wondering if this could be illustrated on our campus as well.  Even if this little adventure doesn't produce a story idea, it was fun going around and looking at our campus from a different point of view.  When you are taking pictures and looking through a camera, you notice things that don't normally capture your attention, and this afternoon I got to do just that through capturing some beautiful aspects of the natural world here in Durham.

What Makes the Best Quote?

Inserting a quote into a news story is really an art-form.  The quote can't be too long, however you want to capture the spark of what the person was saying.  When quotes get too clunky, the really awesome parts of what that person said get lost.  That's why picking out exactly what a person has said that struck you the most, no more and no less, is so important.  If you add too much of the periphery around that moment into the quote, then you take away from the impact.  This has been a bit hard for me just because I am inspired by a lot of what people say.  However, that one, cut-down nugget of a quote of pure journalistic goodness is what makes readers interested in what you are writing.
The intriguing thing is that earlier in the semester, when we had specific word counts that we couldn't go over, I feel that I was more selective with my quotes and only picked the exact parts that were striking to me, which made them more powerful.  Now that I don't have a world limit, I've found that my quotes tend to be a bit too long even in the profile piece I did where the nature of feature writing allows for longer quotes.  I just need to continue to try to cull the quotes I pick out and act as if I am still under those word count limits in order to make my articles the most interesting and easy to read as possible.

Making Succinct, Newsworthy Stories

I have found that another challenge in writing stories for me is cutting down the material I have collected into a short, succinct newsworthy story.  Indeed, often I get lots of really interesting quotes from my sources, so, when I sit down to write the story, it is difficult to cut out parts in order to get down to the juicy center, so to speak.  For example, this week I wrote my article about a lecture given by Jonathan Rosa and I recorded the whole talk while taking notes.  I came out of the talk completely amazed by all of what Rosa had said about Latino identities in America, so it was really tough to cut down his quotes to just the ones that illustrated his main points and connected the best to the narrative of my story.  While I believe as journalists we have every right to write long stories in order to produce a complete narrative, we also don't want to bore our readers and that probably would have happened if I had plopped too many quotes by Rosa into my story.  I think its tough to find this balance between too much information and too little, but it's a skill that I've been practicing this semester and that I believe can be seen in my article, which illustrates many of his points in without being superfluous.

Looking like a language, sounding like a race

For this week, I decided to cover a talk by professor Jonathan Rosa about Latino identities in the United States.  I was really excited to attend this talk because it is a topic that interests me especially because I am a Spanish major.  I've noticed that many of the topics of my articles have been centered around language and the Spanish speaking world.  I have almost inserted myself into my own sort of "beat."  Indeed, one of my articles was about a foreign film festival at UNH that featured Spanish films and another one of my articles was about a UNH student who went to Costa Rica to study sustainable energy.  That is what I appreciate about this class; although it is at times difficult to come up with story ideas, we are not held down by certain subjects we have to cover.  I get to cover material I already know something about and through my stories I expand my knowledge of that subject even further.  So while covering the Jonathan Rosa talk not only did I get some awesome quotes for an article I'm about to write, I also learned some really interesting points about Latino anxieties regarding their identity in modern America, and I can carry that knowledge with me as I continue my Spanish studies.

The Interviewing Process Part 2

Another aspect to the learning curve of interviewing is relying on sources.  In order to get responses from sources, it's necessary to seek them out and basically keep bothering them until they get back to you.  But sometimes it simply is not possible to get a source before an article's deadline.  For example, recently I was given the chance to write an article for The New Hampshire about a student here at UNH.  However, the student did not return my calls or emails for almost a week and I had to get my deadline pushed back because I simply could not write the article without talking to this student.  One of the hardest parts of journalism for me is being a dogged person with possible sources.  Sometimes at this level of journalism, people do not take you very seriously and do not return your requests for comment.  If this does happen, I've found that I just have to keep going forward and try to find someone else to whom I can speak.  Interestingly, I've had the least luck with professors as resources.  Although I've often looked forward to hearing a professor's experience with or ideas on a topic I am covering, they often either do not respond to my requests or get back to me past my deadline.  I realize that they have very busy lives and, therefore, I do not resent this.  However, it does create a difficulty for a journalist like me, especially when I am trying to write thorough articles that include as many sides of the story as possible. 

Sources in my Stories

In my planning board article I believe my sources were well picked.  I got quotes from various board members as well as seeking interviews from three of the people directly involved in this issue, two of which presented concerns about the planned construction for the Mathes Terrace neighborhood and one of which was the man behind the plans for the construction.  I think overall I did ask the right questions of these sources because I got a good picture of their reasoning for holding the positions they did.  However, I know with one source, Jason Lenk, I could have delved further into what exactly he would want development to look like on these properties.  In my article I quoted him as saying "I'm in favor of something being done there," but I never expanded on this idea and I'm not sure if my notes from him were adequate enough to expand on this.  Therefore, I know next time I'm interviewing someone and they make a similar statement to Lenk's that kind of contradicts their concerns, I will know to come back to that point and ask exactly what they meant by it.  I believe all of my sources were correctly attributed because I included their names and where they are from and/or why they are pertinent to this story.

Something I've learned about sources is that the most fleshed out stories are those that have the most variety of sources.  The planning board story I wrote came out really well and I think this is because I was able to get comments from multiple people representing multiple points of interest.  Perhaps I could have interviewed one more source to make it even more fleshed out, and that would have been a student or someone else who might benefit from the new development.  Even though there were no students at the meeting, they might approve of more student housing being built in downtown Durham, and if I had gotten a such a source, my article might have been a more even sided story.

I'm using what I have learned about sources as I go forward into writing a profile piece about one of my professors.  I am talking to her, a student in one of her classes, a friend of hers, and I am going to use online sources that have to do with breast cancer, since my professor is a survivor of breast cancer.  While I've been interviewing these people I've been sure to ask open ended questions like the NPR stories illustrate in order to get my sources talking and opening up in the fullest.  I've been trying to parse out the emotion and thoughtfulness from my sources because those kinds of answers are what make the best quotes.

Reaction to NPR story

The story about the beaver attack on NPR was hilarious, but it also illustrated a very good way to report.  The journalist kept the guy talking about his story by continually asking, "what happened next?" or "how did you get him off?"  These questions were great because they cleared up any parts in the story that were still fuzzy to the reporter but were broad enough to really get the guy going and didn't allow for simply yes or no answers.  Indeed, a lot of his questions weren't really questions at all but helped the man who was attacked to tell his story and remember exactly what happened.  You can see this when the journalist said, "so he was biting you?"  Through this question the journalist was prodding him to make sure that he had the facts right and also to make sure the guy would continue to talk.  Also, when the guy said something funny, the journalist reacted by laughing to illustrate he was actually listening and was interested in what the guy was saying.  These reactions continued throughout the questioning, like for example when he journalist said "ouch" at one point.  He acted just like a friend who actually cared for the well being of this guy.  Also, throughout the rest of the interview he continually asked "how" and "why" questions that facilitated thoughtful and opinionated responses.  This is exactly what we want out of sources.  We don't just want background information in quotations, we want their emotions and thoughts on a subject. 

Practice School Board Article

            Students with disciplinary problems in the Portsmouth School District may soon lose their ability to sleep in on Saturday mornings if the Portsmouth School Board approves a new policy requiring them to come to school for special weekend sessions. 
            After discussing the proposal to implement Saturday morning disciplinary sessions at Monday night’s Planning Board Meeting, the board decided to table voting on the issue until its next meeting on March 7. 
            “I know this isn’t good news for parents,” said School Board Member Tim Steele after making a motion to approve the new policy, “but I hope the threat of Saturday classes will make the students think twice before breaking the school rules.”
            Steele proposed the measure because it will help to reduce the number of in-house suspensions given to students who are caught smoking on the grounds of Portsmouth High School.
            In-house suspensions require a faculty member to supervise students in an empty classroom, and students miss class work during this time.  Steele told the board he believes this new policy would be positive for students because they wouldn’t miss class. 
            The Saturday morning session would run from 8 a.m. until noon several weekends during the school year, and, according to Steele, $3,000 per year would need to be allocated toward the program for staffing. 
            Peggy Bacon, a parent who attended the meeting, said during the discussion of the proposal that she did not like the idea. 
            “I work six days a week, including Saturday morning,” Bacon said, “and it’s bad enough to get my son off to school Monday through Friday.  Why should I have to worry about Saturday as well?”
            Bacon also complained about the increase in taxes this new program would create. 
            “The parents are going to pay for it in higher taxes as well as in ruined Saturdays,” Bacon said. 
            Lisa Gallagher, a senior at PHS who also attended the meeting, did not approve of the proposal either, even though in her long career as a student she had never attended an in-house suspension.
            “I think [this proposal is] just being done to make life easier for the faculty, so they don’t have to deal with detentions during the week,” she said.  “Anyway, what if someone skips the session?  What are they going to do, make them stay all weekend?”
            Steele responded that students who skip the Saturday sessions would not be allowed to return to school until the session was made up.
            Despite the concerns of some community members, Resident Bob Farley agreed with Steele’s reasoning. 
            “Parents can whine all they want about this,” Farley said, “but maybe it’s time parents in America were made to take a little responsibility for their kids.”