Journal Entry VIII

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 8: Oakway Center

One more neighborhood entry. I wanted to talk about the Oakway Center (and by extension much of Coburg Road and the Valley River Center to the West), because it is an interesting element of the Cal Young Neighborhood. These two major economic areas bound the neighborhood by either side to the Southeast and Southwest, and comprise the highest level of contact between the neighborhood and the rest of Eugene. Most Eugene residents have visited one, if not both, of these sites, but few have ventured northward to explore the rest of the neighborhood. While talking with people in the Oakway Center, I found customers who had travelled from as far as Junction City so that they could shop at some of the stores. The VRC attracts shoppers from all over the region, from as far away as Albany or Cottage Grove.

To me, these economic centers of the neighborhood have a lot to say about the values of the community. The influx of nonresidents certainly has an impact on the openness and trust of the residents. The heavy commercialization of the South is reflected in the insular residential districts and the relative lightness of commercial businesses in the residential areas. Another thing to note is that the area provides an in between Eugene and Springfield. Eugene’s preference for small and local business is contrasted with Springfield’s wont for chain stores. Cal Young achieves the happy mean of the yuppie community-conscious chain store, meaning something like a Borders bookstore.

Air Force Retardation Indeed

Recent American media coverage has focused on the primaries, but other news proceeds apace.

A senior Air Force general has publicly disagreed with Bush administration comptrollers who want to shut down the F-22 Raptor production program to save money. About 110 of the air superiority jets have been produced, with a research and development cost of about $60 billion.

Gen. Bruce Carlson disagrees:

The general, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said the Air Force was "committed to funding 380" F-22s regardless of the Bush administration's budget policies. "We're building a program right now to do that. It's going to be incredibly difficult ... but we've done this before."

Carlson's comments came as Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England was testifying before congressional committees. In an exchange during a Senate Budget Committee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, asked whether the Pentagon would buy F-22s to replace aging F-15s, some of which have been grounded because of structural defects.

"I do not believe the F-22 will be the replacement for the F-15," England said. "I would expect instead to try and accelerate the [F-35] joint strike fighter," which he called a capable and far less costly replacement.

The office of the Air Force quickly back-pedaled after Carlson's statements, but they have already raised controversy. Some supporters believe that the Air Force's plans should be looked at separately from the costs of the war in Iraq, while their critics lambaste the F-22s as an unnecessarily complex and expensive aircraft built for a war that will never occur.

In my opinion, it is important to see the issue in context. The Air Force has responsibilities that extend far beyond the Middle East. They can't keep on using old aircraft, and they can't fulfill those responsibilities with only 180 air superiority fighters (the number of aircraft that have been funded). F-15Cs are a 30-year old platform, while F-35 Lightning IIs are at best a distant second replacement for the role of F-22s, and are pretty expensive as well (~$75 million per, compared to ~$125 million per).

Once you factor in the extended lifetime of the aircraft (at least 40 years), the decreased maintenance and personnel costs and the added capability that this aircraft provides, this isn't that hard of a sell. Adding another 300 aircraft to the existing 112 (meeting the Air Force's goal of ~400, or a 1 to 1 replacement of the F-15C) would mean an additional $1 billion cost per year for the lifetime of the aircraft - equivalent to the B-2 Spirit Bomber program. This price would further decrease if future advances extended lifetime of the F-22. Funding the fighters is a smart decision, and one that needs to be made.

Journal Entry VII

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 7: Harrower Text

I found the course text, Tim Harrower's Inside Reporting, to be an interesting read. Certainly the layout was refreshing, if a little gimmicky. While I could have dealt with a more academic style, it seemed to suit the topic of the book quite nicely. The book was well organized and easy to read. I found myself pulled from one headlined subject to another as the author intended, though I also thought it was easier to skip from nut graf to nut graf.

I liked the addition of an extensive reference library at the back of the book, even though I did not take advantage of it like I should. This format seemed much more accessible than a CD, which often drives up the price and is too awkward to use. Flipping to the back of a book I’m already reading is much more palatable than findinga computer and putting in a CD and navigating through a dozen menus just to find something I’m probably not interested in anyways. The morgue was definitely a good call.

Similarly, Harrower provided a wealth of information on writing methods, note-taking methods etc. that were truly valuable, but I did feel that it was unfortunate that such a comprehensive book would neglect to include information on covering international news, war, or how to interact with world presses like the AP or Reuters. However, this lack seems to be mirrored in the other texts that I am reading, leaving me to think that most authors find that kind of information unnecessary.

Second update

I made my second major update in a while. I'm hoping to put some more work into this site and transform it into more of a portfolio quality showpiece as well as its original intent as a blog / journal of my thoughts. With that in mind I've added several things, including a link to my photography page. Most importantly, however, I've changed the name of the blog, which has included changing the web address. I'd be more concerned about losing readers if I thought many people were reading this blog. As it is ... not too worried.

On another note, do people realize that the headline of every post has a link to something semi-related to the post? I've always wondered if anyone noticed.

Finally, anyone reading should check out my roommate Dustin's website 'Un.dfine'. He is a truly talented artist and web designer. I put up a permanent link up on the side menu. Enjoy. If you or someone you know has their own creative (or not really) website, I'd love to see it and link others to it. Please let me know if you'd like something shared.

Journal Entry VI

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 6: Photojournalism vs. Reporting

As I am taking both writing and photography courses, I have made a couple of observations. Both take a good amount of skill, time and observation. They both have ethical dilemmas that concern them, and remain to be solved. When a reporter enters the scene, they take a moment to write down their notes on the area, then proceed to speak with witnesses or contacts, etc. When a photographer enters a scene, they take general shots of the setting to situate themselves, then starts chatting with their subjects while they work their way into doing close-up portraits. Not too different.

Yet I have found that there is a real disconnect between reporters and photographers. Writers don’t seem to think much about the multimedia that will accompany their text, even though this is widely-acknowledged (in the vaguest of ways) as the future of the media. They seem comfortable in their chairs writing articles for text-filled newspapers that don’t really exist anymore.

Conversely, photographers feel their work is largely secondary to that of the reporters, despite studies that suggest images are far more significant. They feel in competition with the writers, and pen in long captions so that the writers can’t screw up their work. Of course, at the same time, neither group is doing particularly well right now outside of magazines. More students are going into television news, or getting out of news altogether, in lieu of entering the fracas that is the newspaper industry.

Photographers would do well to improve their writing skills, some of whose are abysmally low, so that they can do better to interface with the writers they contend with. But the writers need to exercise their visual acuity as well, or risk becoming side-lined in an ever-changing industry.

Perverse and Often Baffling

I was listening to NPR on my way home tonight*, and I caught the end of an amusing series of anecdotes by Malcolm Gladwell about his beginning days as a journalist for the Washington Post. You might get a kick out of listening to its online rebroadcast on This American Life. My favorite part was his contest with his co-worker to use the phrase "raises new and troubling questions" in their articles as many times as possible.

The episode's audio podcast can be found here.

Just click on the link "Full Episode" below the title graphic, and skip ahead to 45:25. The segment runs for 14 minutes.

Hope you enjoy it. If you are interested, the beginning of the episode features the humorous writing room of The Onion, which was also quite amusing.

*Before writing this post, I sent this as an e-mail over to my reporting professors at the University - only to realize that I had begun the e-mail "I was listening to NPR on my home tonight," and came across either as a a complete idiot or a bizarre roof-dwelling radio fan. How embarrassing.

Journal Entry V

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 5: VFSA Interviews

Meeting with the Veteran’s association was interesting on several levels. They were good people with complex histories and opinions. Their community was purpose-driven but also difficult to penetrate, and their story was equally difficult to understand and tell.

All told, I spent about two hours or so interviewing various members of the group in their EMU meeting room. The co-director, Shane Addis, was my first interview. He provided some good information, but was also very issue driven. I went back to talk with the members to try and get a more human face on their issues, which also gave me some of the best quotations.

Speaking with military folk comes pretty naturally to me after spending so much time with them, but the real trick for me was finding a good way to write down what was being said. While I only sat down with one person, a bull session quickly developed that had my pen racing across the page in a near illiterate fashion. Three people chatting are difficult to cover, even though I managed to retain their attention on me and my questions. While I managed to attribute just about everything, I was constantly worried about getting a great quote and not know who said it.

I later went back and covered their meeting with the PFC funding committee, which ended in disappointment for the VFSA members. I found myself wishing that I could write up a follow-up article on the group and on the meeting itself, which I thought was very interesting in how the personal dynamics played out. Clearly there was more story to tell, and I wasn’t surprised to see a follow-up in the Emerald the following Monday.

On a personal note, after seeing the funding committee, I’d agree with an unnamed interviewee who thought that the PFC seemed like, “a bunch of kids playing government.”

Journal Entry IV

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 4: Neighborhood Meetings II

Continuing from my previous entries, I wanted to talk about the meetings themselves. The first meeting was the city-wide Neighborhood Leader’s Council meeting, mentioned earlier. Assuming the neighborhood reps were a good demographic stereotype, it was a valuable comparison between the neighborhoods. Cal Young reminded me of my Hewlett-Packard neighbors from Corvallis, with the liberal values of the valley but the money (and glasses) of an engineer.

The next meeting was the quarterly Cal Young meeting with everyday citizens. It had about 30 people there, and I took copious notes of all the minutia that was covered there. Primarily they were focused on land-usage issues, like the building of the Delta Highway pedestrian bridge or the new Eugene-Springfield hospital (a real sore spot for them). Also of concern was the growing expansion of the neighborhood, where high-density housing was sprouting up around the Coburg road area and threatening the established neighborhood values.

While there was a showing of elderly citizens, most of the members appeared to be in their late 40s to early 50s, with a smattering of those above and below. Most were women, through there was a good showing of men in the positions of authority. Almost all were white and straight, though there was one trans-sexual who seemed to be meshing well with the community (they all seemed familiar with her and used her chosen pronouns, for example).

Altogether, the neighborhood meeting gave me a better perception of the community.

Journal Entry III

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 3: Spot News

I got in contact with the Neighborhood Leader’s Council the other day, and found that they were having a quarterly meeting Downtown on 10th Street near the library, so I decided to attend. I stayed for only about 40 minutes, at which point I realized that my time could be better spent doing just about anything else. Not to say that it wasn’t informative going there, but once I realize how ineffective their bureaucracy was there wasn’t much more to gain from staying.

As I was leaving the building, I noticed that there were a couple of police cruisers flashing their lights in the parking lot across the street from me. Having my camera on me, I decided I’d pull it out and find out what was going on. It seemed that there were a group of red-shirted security guards, two cruisers, a bike cop, and one small forlorn figure.

As I took photos, I realized that this girl in question was clearly quite young, as well as clearly drunk and in handcuffs. Sensing good photos in the making, I wanted to get closer and get my flash going, because the light was quite dark. Yet, I couldn’t get myself to come near. This was not my first spot news, but I couldn’t justify further embarrassing the girl.

I continued shooting with my long lens, as the girl waited for her mother to take custody of her. After the girl had left, I spoke with the police, who said that she had been 14 years old and had been publicly intoxicated and resisted arrest. While the photos I took were of a much poorer quality than I could have got, I still think that I did the right thing. Though I’m sure I’ll argue that when my spot news assignment comes due in week eight.

Journal Entry II

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 2: Snowden Program

When I spoke with Greg Kerber in the onset of this year, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to graduate with the rest of this year’s fourth-year students. I will have to wait until at least next fall. Still, I hoped to use that time in effective ways, and I think that I have. I converted my political science minor in a double major, began learning much more about photojournalism and multimedia, and found more time to succeed in the courses I was taking.

However, I also want to continue my education through the summer, in an attempt at wringing the most knowledge from my undergraduate education as I can. Kerber recommended that I look into getting a summer internship, preferably in my field of interest. While fulfilling my field of interest might be difficult, I know that many of the smaller newspapers here and around the area would give me valuable insight into the journalism industry – an industry I remain unsure about.

When the Snowden program was mentioned, it perked my interest. I looked into the program, and it seems to be what I was looking for. A mix of journalism skills, with opportunities for writing and photography, independence and mentorship. But, I feel that the program could be better advertised. While there are a variety of boards and e-mail lists available to students about activities around Allen Hall, they tend to be last minute affairs, with information being distributed shortly before it is obsolete.

It is very frustrating, and I complain only because I don’t know what else to do about it. For a school of communication, it seems to fair poorly when tasked to inform. This holds true for telling first- and second-year students about class availability, telling students about the role of the tech support office, or simply giving people notice about upcoming events in time for them to schedule time to attend.

Housekeeping

I updated the site design for the first time since I started this blog three years ago. It's hard to believe it has been that long. Apparently I'm only interested in blogging around election time, so expect to hear more from me in the future.

Journal Entry 1

The following is the first in a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 1: Neighborhood Meetings

In following the neighborhood coverage, I have travelled all over the Cal Young Neighborhood in an attempt at finding out what made the neighborhood tick. I went from Coburg to the VRC, North to the tip of Eugene, and East – deep into what I consider Springfield but is part of the neighborhood. But in addition to my exploration, I made contact with the neighborhood association in an attempt to find out more about the concerns of neighborhood members. The association president invited me to a couple of their meetings, which I gladly accepted.

As I drove into the heart of Cal Young, I could not help but make comparisons between the neighborhood and that of my home town of Corvallis. The populations are very similar demographically, with a predominate white, liberal, upper-middle class. They are educated, many professionally, and are willing to get motivated for causes they believe in (often local issues). Corvallis has many of the same little streets leading to big houses, with few big roads but lots of cul-de-sacs surrounded by two-story houses with front yards. The houses are neither old, nor young, and tend to be guarded by children’s toys instead of iron bars. It is very different from my expectations of a divided-class neighborhood.

Barack Obama

Yeah, I know that I usually try and come across as a cynical pragmatic spoilsport, but I have to admit that it looks like Obama finally got to me.

I'm going to try using their political blog for a while, see how far that gets me.

Check it out here:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/mojo