Last year, my most commented and memorable article for the DTH was "Art or Vandalism?" about stencil art around campus. Fifteen people commented on it, primarily because readers felt the need to answer the question in the headline.
My first story earning me a byline for CNN has 149 comments, and 1,549 people have recommended it on Facebook. It's about the implications of a highly active hurricane season with the oil spill, and a little about Haiti, less so after a few edits.
Today I wrote an article titled "Pacific submarine volcano issues 'big burp'" about a volcano eruption on an uninhabited island-- the headline was the most intriguing thing about it. I didn't realize it until I read the reader's comments, but this awful phrase lies in the second sentence of the story: "the vent..issued a cloud 40,000 reaching feet in the air."
That typo, which would make my skin to crawl whether I produced it or not, is reaching thousands of readers who are deceived by the headline into thinking this is a more interesting story than it is.
One of the stencil artists whose work I wrote about for the DTH very nastily corrected what he perceived were errors in my story and said in his final email to me, "I hate you as a journalist and a person." I don't know who that person is, but I don't believe he would ever say those things to me in person. Even for the DTH, estimated readership 35,000, I was just a name on a that paper someone felt comfortable to rip me apart. Working for a brand whose site has more online hits than any other news site in the world, there is no hope for reader sympathy for mistakes.
It goes the other way too. My first "anonymous" CNN article (it doesn't have my name on it because I didn't conduct the interviews in the story) is about investigators identifying the body of a 12-year-old girl who went missing in March on her way to a birthday party. Watching the press conference, I was concentrating on catching every word for quotes. Looking at the finished product online, I was enchanted by the CNN logo on top of the page. I wasn't thinking about the little girl's family or the community whose lives would never be the same.
Media, as essential as it is for people to stay globally knowledgeable, sterilizes news for both the reader and reporter. We get so distant that we forget living beings lie at the other end of a story.
The subjects of news, particularly national news, are usually enduring life-altering times in the public eye. We as news consumers and reporters need to stay globally conscious, not just knowledgeable, and see the faces among the crowds in stories. If we see the little pictures within the picture in the product, then maybe we producers and consumers can tolerate each other a little more as well.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Where the crap is my crap?
Today I managed to lose my debit card when I took it out of my wallet to scrape lint off the lint catcher. No more than fifteen minutes went by between when I removed my debit card from my wallet and when I was heading out the door to go to the grocery store and realized my debit card wasn't in its usual place, nor any other visible place. My room is uncharacteristically organized, and I spent close to an hour checking every possible crevice, every bin or drawer, anything that I might spacily put my card.
For the first time in my life, I have nested in a place for more than a week, and I don't think my mom would be disgusted with my room or outward appearance. I cancel a debit card about every three months, head to Walmart and pick up a Go Phone, or check out a key to get back into my dorm room (damn you Cobb and your swinging, automatic lock doors) because I'm missing a brain function that takes note of the location of really important things.
For the first time in my life, there's no one who would take particular notice of my general livelihood or what I'm doing with my stuff. While I've learned small lessons about responsibility along the way, I have never had full responsibility for myself. At school, my good friends could help me out whe I forgot things, particularly Catherine, and the school and my friends wouldn't let me disappear for too long without sending out an SOS. Every trip I've taken there are adults who planned the trip, and I thoughtlessly follow their lead. Even in Alaska, where I only had bare essentials backpacking and kayaking for 30 days, losing stuff sucked, but I had experienced outdoorsmen leading me who wouldn't let me disappear forever.
Despite the fact that I don't really have anyone who has my back, being a responsible human being isn't too hard. Keeping my room clean, planning what to bring to work, hanging my clothes back up when I get home is a lot easier than I thought, plus it makes everything else easier. I look clean and put together every day at work. In any other place, I might look polished a few times a month. I almost had this fear of looking nice because I made an effort so rarely that if I looked nice it signaled that an occasion was important to me, plus it's arduous to plan an outfit and do my hair. I'm accessorizing without thinking now. It's not nearly as daunting when I know I have to. In fact, it's a little fun.
I haven't met many college students in Atlanta. I've met a few grad students, but the majority of the people I talk to at work or hang out with in my free time so far have full-time jobs and have mortgages and car payments. I feel like I've jumped ahead 5 to 10 years in my life. Sometimes I miss the carefree college atmosphere, but I think having this glimpse into the future is the best thing for me. No one should cancel as many debit cards as I have.
Today's debit fiasco was frustrating and, considering my current lifestyle, I think an unexplainable accident. It's fun playing grown-up for now, plus a great learning experience for when I don't have a joint bank account with my parents.
For the first time in my life, I have nested in a place for more than a week, and I don't think my mom would be disgusted with my room or outward appearance. I cancel a debit card about every three months, head to Walmart and pick up a Go Phone, or check out a key to get back into my dorm room (damn you Cobb and your swinging, automatic lock doors) because I'm missing a brain function that takes note of the location of really important things.
For the first time in my life, there's no one who would take particular notice of my general livelihood or what I'm doing with my stuff. While I've learned small lessons about responsibility along the way, I have never had full responsibility for myself. At school, my good friends could help me out whe I forgot things, particularly Catherine, and the school and my friends wouldn't let me disappear for too long without sending out an SOS. Every trip I've taken there are adults who planned the trip, and I thoughtlessly follow their lead. Even in Alaska, where I only had bare essentials backpacking and kayaking for 30 days, losing stuff sucked, but I had experienced outdoorsmen leading me who wouldn't let me disappear forever.
Despite the fact that I don't really have anyone who has my back, being a responsible human being isn't too hard. Keeping my room clean, planning what to bring to work, hanging my clothes back up when I get home is a lot easier than I thought, plus it makes everything else easier. I look clean and put together every day at work. In any other place, I might look polished a few times a month. I almost had this fear of looking nice because I made an effort so rarely that if I looked nice it signaled that an occasion was important to me, plus it's arduous to plan an outfit and do my hair. I'm accessorizing without thinking now. It's not nearly as daunting when I know I have to. In fact, it's a little fun.
I haven't met many college students in Atlanta. I've met a few grad students, but the majority of the people I talk to at work or hang out with in my free time so far have full-time jobs and have mortgages and car payments. I feel like I've jumped ahead 5 to 10 years in my life. Sometimes I miss the carefree college atmosphere, but I think having this glimpse into the future is the best thing for me. No one should cancel as many debit cards as I have.
Today's debit fiasco was frustrating and, considering my current lifestyle, I think an unexplainable accident. It's fun playing grown-up for now, plus a great learning experience for when I don't have a joint bank account with my parents.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The birth of the blog
I created this blog primarily for my family and me. We’re the ones who care the most about my thoughts. Maybe the only ones. This is also for the entertainment and education of friends who tire of long and inconvenient phone tag matches, and those friends who might want to know what’s going on with me in more detail than Facebook or Twitter supplies but don’t really want to interact with me—I can empathize.
Another reason is that, as a young person majoring in journalism in the 20th century, it seems like a must. I have to utilize my assumed advantage in the workforce of being "with it" technologically and have my thoughts displayed on every free media platform possible, no matter how few might consume it.
I am a Wilmingtonian at heart attending UNC and majoring in journalism. I am interning at CNN in the Wire department in Atlanta.
Coming from NC where people sometimes identify their hometowns by county, I really thought I was somewhat urban-acclimated coming from Wilmington, a place everyone in the state knows. Plus I'd been to Raleigh regularly and visited New York a few times.
When I drove into a city with double-digit story buildings on a seven-lane highway, when I rode the MARTA to work and it occurred to me that the only other times I had purposefully ridden a transit was in an airport, I realized suburban ain't urban. People walk a lot faster here. That's not just my notoriously relaxed and slow lifestyle talking.
Traces of school hang on my wall in the creased dorm posters I hastily packed last minute, and the quilt that I fell in love with dorm-shopping. I found a bit of home when I packed pool necessities in a tote bag without realizing it was filled with sand at the bottom and jammed my phone keys with Wrightsville grit temporarily. Overall though, not much is the same.
I'm adjusting to living in an area by myself where I don't know a soul and watching 30 or so tourists peer down at me every 20 minutes in the CNN newsroom at work. I'm trying to play it cool. I pretend like these are predictable successes that I earned, that my asking the trilingual editor who's updating the WORLD about the Thai revolts or Korean conflicts at the computer beside me how to open a program is perfectly natural and normal. My social life, work life, living situation, even my wardrobe is different. I had to buy a purse from Target after my first day at work because I didn't own one that was purchased in the past three years.
I've never been afraid of change and am for the most part loving this new environment. I can't wait to let ATL to continue to treat me well and challenge me in many areas for the next few months. I'll keep you updated on my "purposeful wanderings," as I abstractly titled this blog, in the intimidating yet hospitable new life as I go.
Another reason is that, as a young person majoring in journalism in the 20th century, it seems like a must. I have to utilize my assumed advantage in the workforce of being "with it" technologically and have my thoughts displayed on every free media platform possible, no matter how few might consume it.
I am a Wilmingtonian at heart attending UNC and majoring in journalism. I am interning at CNN in the Wire department in Atlanta.
Coming from NC where people sometimes identify their hometowns by county, I really thought I was somewhat urban-acclimated coming from Wilmington, a place everyone in the state knows. Plus I'd been to Raleigh regularly and visited New York a few times.
When I drove into a city with double-digit story buildings on a seven-lane highway, when I rode the MARTA to work and it occurred to me that the only other times I had purposefully ridden a transit was in an airport, I realized suburban ain't urban. People walk a lot faster here. That's not just my notoriously relaxed and slow lifestyle talking.
Traces of school hang on my wall in the creased dorm posters I hastily packed last minute, and the quilt that I fell in love with dorm-shopping. I found a bit of home when I packed pool necessities in a tote bag without realizing it was filled with sand at the bottom and jammed my phone keys with Wrightsville grit temporarily. Overall though, not much is the same.
I'm adjusting to living in an area by myself where I don't know a soul and watching 30 or so tourists peer down at me every 20 minutes in the CNN newsroom at work. I'm trying to play it cool. I pretend like these are predictable successes that I earned, that my asking the trilingual editor who's updating the WORLD about the Thai revolts or Korean conflicts at the computer beside me how to open a program is perfectly natural and normal. My social life, work life, living situation, even my wardrobe is different. I had to buy a purse from Target after my first day at work because I didn't own one that was purchased in the past three years.
I've never been afraid of change and am for the most part loving this new environment. I can't wait to let ATL to continue to treat me well and challenge me in many areas for the next few months. I'll keep you updated on my "purposeful wanderings," as I abstractly titled this blog, in the intimidating yet hospitable new life as I go.
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