Happenstance journalism

"The citizen journalism stuff is pretty much a passion," Steve Garfield from SteveGarfield.com said in his presentation in class on Wednesday.

Garfield, a video journalist, practices what he calls "happenstance journalism" much of the time. He carries his Nokia N95 around with him looking for stories to walk into.

Or he takes the opportunity for stories to walk up to him, as happened in his coverage of the electric volt car. As we discussed in class the woman who in the video, whatever her state might have been, seemed to want to be seen and heard. Her questions weren't bad ones either.

When asked about how she was depicted in the video, Garfield said, "This was the best interview I've ever had. I don't think I was holding her up to ridicule. She gave me her name, she was pretty lucid, and she was in public."

This kind of coverage is very different from Garfield's piece on the debate reaction that was featured on the BBC. Garfield and his wife, Carol, record their reactions on the presidential debate from the comfort of their living room couch.

"It was fun to see the next day the BBC featuring us," Garfield said.

Garfield told us on Wednesday that Carol helps him out a lot when he's on the job. "She's used to it. Totally goes with it all the time," he said.

And finally, Garfield even meets and interviews stars on his adventures as a video journalist, such as Dane Cook.

Each of these videos delivers news from three totally different venues. But Garfield practices the advice he gave to our class in all three of these videos: keep the camera as steady as possible, make sure the microphone is where it needs to be to hear who is talking, and include your own unique tag line.

The Head of the Charles Regatta

Rachel Rosselli
Click here or on the picture to see the slide show of the Regatta

The Head of the Charles, the world's largest two day rowing event sponsored by The Boston Globe among other companies, was hosted this weekend, Oct. 18-19 on the Charles River near Harvard University.

The Regatta was started by the Cambridge Boat Club members D'Arcy MacMahon, Howard McIntyre, and Jack Vincent, with the advice of Harvard University sculling instructor Ernest Arlett, according to the event's Web site.

According to the history of the Regatta, "Winners of each race receive the honorary title of 'Head of the River' or, in this case, 'Head Of The Charles.'"

I visited Reunion Village on Saturday. Reunion Village is set on the Boston side of the Charles, where alumni from different prep schools and colleges can watch the event and "share in the weekend's racing and festivities."

Admittance to Reunion Village required donating a dollar, and the proceeds go to HOCR charities. When I walked into the Village, my first thought was that it looked a lot like a tailgating event: people walking around in jeans and sweaters eating hot dogs and drinking beer and wine. The smell of barbecue from the tents permeated the air. Children ran around playing and dogs dressed up in small doggie sweaters happily trotted along beside their owners.

I entered Reunion Village looking for a specific tent. My friend Dru Carter, a native of Conn., had attended Ethel Walker's preparatory school for girls in Conn. and told me that they would be setting up a tent for their alums at the event. Dru has talked about her Alma mater so much, and having gone to an all girls' high school myself, I decided to stop by and say hello to her friend Rachael Rosselli, who was directing the alumnae gathering at the regatta.

When I found her, Rachael was super nice and cooperative in answering some of my questions about Ethel Walker's attendance at the Regatta. She is the acting Director of alumnae relations at Walker's.

Rachael said that Walker's decided to make the Regatta an alum event last year, when they began attending, on the suggestion of the Vice Presidential Board. "We thought it would be a great opportunity to gather alums, network with alums at other schools, and a chance for marketing."

The Regatta attracts a lot of families, so it's a great opportunity for schools to advertise. "We want to become a household name like Miss Porter's." Miss Porter's is one of Walker's competition.

I also talked to Glen Schwitter, Director of development at Walker's, but admittedly not about Walker's or the Regatta. I spent 30 minutes discussing politics and the debates with Mr. Schwitter, because it was just one of those events: people socialize and talk about present day goings-on.

While I was milling around, 5 alumnae who graduated in 2003 and 2004 walked up to the tent. It gave me the perfect opportunity to interview some of Walker's own.

Three of the girls live in the Boston area, and "spread the good word" as Rachael said she had hoped they would to their two friends still living in Conn.

We had a conversation about their memories at Walker's, one of their best being their "two hour lunches" according to Breanne Evans who just graduated from BU and the "living room" at Walker's said Katherine Hypolite.

As to who she was cheering for in the race, Rachael said, "I'm hoping Yale will win-- they're better."

Oktoberfest in Harvard Square

Let the pictures speak for themselves...

The 29th annual Oktoberfest and Honk! Festival in Harvard Square was on Sunday, October 12. It included a festival parade with bands from the surrounding area and down South, for example Atlanta, GA. The festivities started at noon and lasted until 6pm.

There were fall decorations, psychedelic costumes, picnics, and of course, lots of beer. This year, the festival included live entertainment on 6 performance stages, 50 international food vendors, and many other retail vendors out on the streets, according to the Harvard Square Web site. The world's longest couch was also a well-liked feature after hours of walking around.

We could here music all the time, wherever we went, and there were so many people, that we had to squeeze through the crowds.

What I was surprised to find was the amount of openly liberal people at this festival. I expected to see lederhosen, I did not expect to see drag queens.

College night at the aquarium

Click here or on the photo to see the slide show

Last Wednesday, October 8, was college night at the New England Aquarium, and it was free, so Huan and I decided to go. It is annual event, for which all college and graduate students are eligible as long as they bring their college IDs. It included admission into the entire aquarium, plus admission to an IMAX 3-d movie.

We arrived at the aquarium before sunset, and there was already a long line (it started at 5:30). There was a DJ from a popular radio station in Boston there, and lots of loud college kids. Once we got into the aquarium, we had to fight the masses of teens and 20-somethings to get around, all of them with cameras in hand, and flashes were going off everywhere.

We saw penguins, a multitude of different kinds of fish, jellyfish, sea horses, sea anemones, sharks, turtles, and other fauna. It was a small but still impressive aquarium.

After exploring the aquarium until our hearts' content, we made our way to the movie theatre, where we saw the movie Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk. The theatre was packed, and it smelled like popcorn, m&m's, and liquor (I think some of the kids decided to have happy hour before showing up).

The IMAX presentation, though it made me a little dizzy and nauseous, was incredible. It was a first for me, so I had no idea what to expect. Things literally seem like they are jumping off the screen. If you ever get a chance to see an IMAX in 3-d, I recommend taking it.

WBUR: Public radio experimentation

Just because radio is doing well over the airwaves, doesn't mean that public radio and new media can't "make beautiful music together," as Ken George puts it.

Because people enjoy listening to the "high quality" broadcasts of radio stations like WBUR, I think they would be more inclined to listen online while at work, casting a sense of loyalty to their favorite news stations. If they listen online as well as in their car, then the experiments of new media presentation that WBUR and Robin Lubbock, news media director, are trying, in my opinion, would do very well and provide more outlets for listeners to explore.

I believe that using such resources as Twitter and multimedia is key to radio's success in adapting to a new age, in other words, its survival and growth. Just as newspapers are finally adding new media to their Web sites, so too should radio reap the benefits of this endless amount of resources at their fingertips. Mr. Lubbock gave a perfect example as to why these new media sources are already helping radio stations... in California when forest fires were running rampant and took out a radio station there, the station used Twitter as a way to broadcast what was going on and where the fires were headed. In this way, listeners could contribute their own experience and stay informed and up-to-date on a serious threat.

As Mr. Lubbock put it, "What we need in this totally saturated news market is uniqueness." I think this sums up what local radio stations need to make sure they are doing in order to stand out and make an impression.

But WBUR is not the only radio station that is blazing a trail toward technological advancement and listener enlightenment. Minnesota Public Radio has now added to it's Web site a page called Your Voice: a chance for listeners to essentially become part of the staff by submitting opinions in discussions groups, pictures, and being able to contribute to an article stub, according to the Minnewiki.

It seems to me that the whole point of using new media is to reach out to the listeners. In North Carolina, WUNC puts it this way, ""You [the audience] have knowledge that can help us cover the news in greater depth and uncover stories we might not otherwise find."

As it stands now, pushing forward in the fast-forwarded world of technology, seems to be the trick. I don't know much about radio, but I do know that I see iPods every couple of steps I take, and I see everyone using laptops these days, surfing the web. News organizations in general should view this as a resource, not an encumbrance, and they should embrace the new age of media, in one newby's opinion.

Photography 101

I've always enjoyed taking pictures. There's just something about seeing people and things through a lens, especially if they don't know you are there...

This picture is of two journalism graduate students discussing the second presidential debate at a place called Sweetwater Cafe, where a bunch of J-school nerds decided to hang out, socialize, and debate about the debate!

The other photos I took were at the same place, but one of them was a posed picture of all the J-school kids letting their hair down and smiling for the picture, the other is of some Boston locals watching the debate nearby.

With the exception of my fellow students getting annoyed at the flash, I had fun taking these pictures. It was easy to see, through the lens of my camera, how interested and concerned everyone was about what was being shown on T.V. I love candid shots, they are by far superior, in my opinion, then posed pictures. People seem a lot more real when they don't know they are being watched. However, I thought it would be a good time to get everyone smiling, because we all know we have a stressful, bumpy road ahead.

Uploading the photos was easy, just like uploading photos on here, or on Facebook. The only thing I'm still kind of learning about is what the appropriate size is for a picture when you upload it. Other than trying to figure out the dimensions of the photos more accurately, I don't think I would necessarily "do anything different." It's a pretty simple process, in my opinion.

I like the idea behind Wired Journalists. Admittedly, I had never heard of it before Monday, but it seems to create a community for those of us who embrace the fact that online journalism is indeed here to stay and want to learn more about all aspects of the profession. Because of our assignment and because, as I mentioned earlier, I enjoy photography as a hobby, I joined the photography group to learn what to shoot and what not to shoot. I'm sure I'll be joining plenty more as I filter through the site.

What's the word in Boston?

As luck would have it, my immune system decided to putter out on me this weekend, and so I found myself cooped up in my apartment for most of it.

I entertained myself, naturally, by watching T.V.: The Daily Show. Jon Stewart has the healing powers of a shaman the way he makes me laugh. And lately, his target has been Sarah Palin.
Considering that I spent a good bit of my weekend with Mr. Stewart, and that he will be visiting Boston for Northeastern's Homecoming, I decided I would find out if Boston bloggers are talking about his reporting, or at least if they are reporting similar ideas to Stewart's in their blogs on Palin especially now after the first Vice President candidate debate.

For all those poor souls out there who have yet to experience the show, it runs on Comedy Central and goes by the mantra:

One anchor, five correspondents, zero credibility.
If you're tired of the stodginess of the evening newscasts and you can't bear to sit through the spinmeisters and shills on the 24-hour cable news network, don't miss The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the nightly half-hour series unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity or even accuracy.

One blog I found on Universalhub.com (Technorati authority 286) introduced a piece by Jon Stewart with witty rhetoric, but let the video in the post do most of the talking. The video, of course, talks about Palin and her pregnant teen daughter, on which Stewart comments sarcastically "Teen pregnancy is an issue for which judgement is personal and must be withheld." (Enter Jamie Lynn Spears in the video).

Stewart is known for his total disregard of political correctness, and where Palin is concerned, believes that Palin is not right for the job, which he makes clear daily in his show.

But Jon Stewart, though possibly and probably the funniest anchor talking about Palin, adds to the plethora of points about the first woman Vice Presidential candidate.

The author of PunditReview (Technorati authority 66) found something ineresting about Palin in reference to the debate last week. One post, on Friday Oct. 3, said that the author conducted a survey between a male and a female, both democrats. "Both were surprised by how well Palin did. I was surprised by how well everyone was saying Palin did, more than I was surprised by Palin’s performance."

In a post today, the PunditReview adds that, "John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin has generated such enthusiasm that some on the right are so giddy with excitement, they are spinning so fast and furious they forget what they have stood for or said previously."

In another avenue, the Boston Herald comments on Palin's recent problems with Katie Couric. A woman who compares herself to a pit bull should, one would think, be able to defend herself well and assert her opinions accurately and efficiently, but Palin seems to get tongue tied in every interview with Couric, almost as if she is intimidated. Who's the "lightweight" now?

Cynical-C (Technorati authority 398), a blog by a fellow living in Cambridge, refers to the newest skits on SNL. And with one question, he opens a can of worms, I think, that again questions Palin's experience. "The question is, who has met with the press more, Tina Fay as Sarah Palin or Sarah Palin?"

And finally, to add even more to poor Palin's humiliation, Steve Garfield, author of Offonatangent.com (Technorati authority 50), included in a recent post a reference to collegehumor.com. Hockey mom? I have a feeling Palin's never going to want to see a hockey puck again after this is all over. The video, despite its original source, does entertain a lot of concerns that the people of America have about Governor Palin. She's a really easy target, it seems.

Sarah Palin, for obvious reasons, has been under a good deal of scrutiny, but I think these reporters and bloggers show that in any case around election time, one has to weed out the unnecessary baggage that comes with campaigns and candidates to get to the crux of the issues. Where Palin is concerned, issues are a plenty, and a lot of Bostonians (and Jon Stewart) are worried about it.