The Shortest Meeting Ever

On Tuesday May 1, 2012, I went to the shortest meeting I’ve ever attended that lasted for 8 minutes literally. What was supposed to be the last gathering of the semester for all Presidential Honors Society members started at approximately 8:00 PM and ended at 8:08 PM sharp. I was looking forward to engaging in a special activity like maybe a raffle and a slideshow with pictures and music in the background from what the society has accomplished thus far or even a pizza and donut party. As a Presidential Honor Society member who has completed all of her required community service hours and has attended all of the meetings, I am disappointed with the content of this meeting. To say it could have been better is an understatement.

From hard news to opinions – Jay Jochnowitz

“If you want to be a writer; read what you want to write. For those individuals looking become opinions writers; read a lot of opinion; good or bad,” said Jay Jochnowitz, the editorial page editor at the Times Union Newspaper. He and the other employees on the editorial board come together at 10 am to take news stories of the day and discuss what should make the editorial page based on the opinions of each individual on the board. Their aim is to find stories that have a problem and a solution; a fun merging of commercial and discourse. What goes into the making of an editorial is that “you’ve got be honest” he said.

Jochnowitz earned his bachelors degree in english at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. He has had 10 years of experience as a city beat writer, worked for a republican community paper, covered village board meetings, and had the opportunity to report on an exciting rat experiment conducted at the Albany Medical Center. The experiment was made possible by a 4.0 million dollar grant exploring how rats respond to music. Do rats respond to cocaine or Miles Davis? Hues are created in the lab to see how the rats respond when they are taken off the drug. “The research was all about trying to find real world experiences and where research goes from there,” he said.

He describes himself as a naturally shy person who previously had a very hard time talking to strangers. According to a newspaper editor, he was the kind of writer who wrote opinons like a newspaper; discussing what an article was about and then fitting his opinion somwhere along the last two paragraphs. This critique aided him in building up his confidence and made him realize that he had tried for so long to hide his opinions that he would put them at the end of a story as if they were insignificant. This realization marked his shift from news to opinions. It is admirable that despite his shy nature, he didn’t allow it to prevent him from expressing himself whether is opinion was negative or positive. Sometimes doing things we are uncomfortable with helps us get over our fears and ends up making us better.

Soundtracks of my life ♫

Recently I was thinking about songs that have really impacted me. You all know what I am talking about, those songs that aren’t just background noise but actually touch. I figured I’d shared them with you and just why they mean anything to me.

Guest Speakers- Anayansi Díaz-Cortes & Eric Pearse Chávez

In the new age of technological innovations where does radio fit? Beepers have been replaced by iPhones, computers with macs and iPads, and radios by iPods. Who needs a radio when you can turn on your laptop and listen to a desired song on YouTube; and if you’re like me and don’t have a car then what are the chances you’ll be tuned in regularly to radio programming?

If you ask Anayansi Diaz-Cortes, radio has staying power. She is an independent producer of over 12 documentaries for NPR, organizer of educational and public outreach programs which include a global speaking tour for HIV/AIDS, and designer and initiator of an audience development action that has broadened the reach of broadcasts into new markets for students and educators, as well as international and non-English speaking audiences. “In all your journalism work of the first person is very important. If you ask your mother and father about their lives they will be great storytellers. First person gives you the heart of your story,” said Cortes as she addressed Armao’s news writing and reporting class about the aspects of her career in radio. She and her husband, Eric Pearse Chavez are independent producers for radio programming and work for national public radio. They started off doing narrative work and shifted toward radio diaries consisting of them following people such as the daughter of a Nazi and an African girl who was HIV positive around through their everyday lives for a 3-6 month time period.

One of Cortes and Chavez’s most prized pieces during their radio careers was covering the 1968 Mexico Massacre, the most covered massacre of all time. The Mexico City massacre which took place 10 days before the scheduling of the Olympics,  involved a gunfire eruption in Tlatelolco Square, where hundreds of student demonstrators, fighting against greater democracy rallied up to protest the non- authoritarian government. Their 21 minute radio piece covering the 48th anniversary of the Mexican Massacre featured interviews from former student protestors and witnesses of the massacre who were looking back on the their experience during the 1968 event. These first person audio accounts provided the listener with a visual and mental sense of what the speaker was feeling inside and made them more identifiable as an individual.

Recently they produced a piece on the the Bosnian War, regarded as the most horrific genocidal barbarism in Europe since World War II. Between 7,000-8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed by the Serbs at the UN “Safe Zone” in Srebrenica. The audio consisted of stories from survivors of the war and the loved ones of the deceased. Their biggest challenge was “knocking on doors and finding men and women who could speak English to conduct their interviews.” They even went as far as stopping a random guy who was coming out of an exercise class. The most inspiring story was from a woman who lost her 16 year old son and husband in the massacre. You can literally feel her pain and visualize her son staring at her with “his deep blue eyes full of tears”. All she had left were contents of the pouch she ripped off of his clothing which contain his broken pair of glasses, two dire straight cassettes, and the trace of his finger in a Nivea cream container that she has stored in her refrigerator.

 

 

Guest Speaker: Brown University Graduate

“If you like to read books all day then you will enjoy publishing. You will work will smart people in the academics, professors, and produce work available to the public that can be around for a long time,” said Rafael Chaiken, a 2011 graduate of the history program at Brown University.

Chaiken was already prepared for the demands of working at the SUNY Press, serving as copy editor at his high school paper and at the Brown Daily Herald, fact checking and googling stories on topics to make sure they weren’t plagiarized. “The job of a copy editor is underappreciated because there are a smaller number of them due to an increase in layoffs,” he said. His major, history also assisted him in writing in a more academic and literary style. During his senior year at Brown University, he was faced with a decision on whether he should pursue a master’s degree. At the time of his decision-making,  he was given an opportunity to work as the acquisitions editorial assistant at the SUNY Press, where he had interned 2 years prior as an indexer and editor for copy editors in the production department. The SUNY Press is an internationally acclaimed publisher of distinguished research and notable works of general interest since 1966, publishing 100-150 books a year. It supports the goal of the State University of New York to instructing, researching, and public service.  Most of the books are academics and written by professors. Then they are peer-reviewed  before publication. Libraries will look through them and see which ones they want for their libraries. Some of the topics featured in the books are  philosophy, religious studies, indigenous, hispanic and african american studies. He recently created an edition on Obama and his note as president in the areas of foreign policy, economics, health care and what he has accomplished.

He also has great knowledge of Wikipedia and how it works. “Wikipedia, he explained, was originally created without references. Later on when people realized it wasn’t working, they started attributed information with footnotes. It was built for people who want to edit.There is a lot of pop culture on Wikipedia and featured content where you can vote on an article with the best content. When you google results for a famous person it will bring you to the most reviewed site on that person and Wikipedia will come up as the first legitimate entry. Wikipedia manual style which is similar to AP style helped me with my writing. Featured articles have a lot of guidelines “Shining Pro”, very widely referenced and attributing to a reliable source. If anyone is interested in editing, writing and photography, Wikipedia can be a useful tool.

Chaiken stressed the importance of interning and said that “Internships are mostly unpaid, but are beneficial if you want to be a journalist or get into the publishing industry. Look for these internships and be aware you can apply for jobs in areas where you have interned prior. Have a well written resume in pdf form as well as a cover page. There are a few graduate programs in publishing and summer publishing courses at NYU and jobs available with NYC publishing, but it’s very competitive. Most books aren’t best sellers; only some make a big impact.

Journalism Professor’s class discussion causes controversy

Mark Tatge, a Pullian distinguished visiting journalism professor at DePauw University recently found himself in a bind after distributing a seventeen page public record on a sophomore, basketball player, and sorority member Alison Stephens who was arrested for public intoxication, minor in consumption, resisting law enforcement and criminal mischief on January 27, 2012 after banging on the door of a neighboring fraternity. In the effort to demonstrate to students what is accessible to the public, Tatge exposed Stephen’s  public record which included her court proceedings, Facebook and Twitter accounts, and police incident report. Stephens whose sorority sisters were students in Tatge’s journalism class informed her of the public record exposure. Tatge stated “I used a public record in a classroom to teach students about public records,” he says, “and some students were upset that I did this because they know the student. The students acted emotionally, which I expected; they’re 19 and 20-year-old kids, but I’m a little concerned about the tone and tenor of university’s response. The school has reacted rather emotionally, too, and is trying to recall all of the records I gave to the students.”

Personally I think Mark Tatge had a right to use Alison Stephens public records. If Stephens didn’t want something like this to happen, she should have never got intoxicated and made of a fool of herself publicly. People tend to make unwise decisions under the influence of alcohol and must accept the consciences of their choices. It’s just like when an individual sends someone an inappropriate picture of themselves on Facebook and then gets upset because the person they sent it to repost it or sends it to other people. Everyone must take responsiblity. Had Stephens made the right choice not to act a fool and drink to the point of intoxication, Tatge wouldn’t have used her as an example of a public record for his class. I respect Tatge for being real and making his journalism class interesting. Now maybe those same students in his class will think twice before they drink or think about doing something with negative consequences involved.

Student Portraits- Ashley Okonkwo