Pennsylvania Voters

On Wordcounts

"There are only two kinds of stories in the world: those about which I do not care to write as many as 600 words, and those about which I would like to write many more than 600 words. But there is nothing about which I would like to write exactly 600 words."

-- David Halberstam (1934-2007)

R.I.P Times Select

The Grey Lady may be skinnier, but now all of her online content is free.

(But I'm willing to bet that you still have to pay for the crossword...)

TimesSelect

The New York Times' online subscription to restricted and archived material is now free for all university students and faculty. Sweet!

Today's NYTimes

While it is not rare for me to be grossly irritated/distressed/exasperated with the NYTimes' daily photo & design judgments, I would just like to say that I thought today's front page was lovely, with a beautiful, timely, and relevant lead photo (spot news! what a concept!), an engaging feature piece on the Google empire, and a cute little "don't forget to turn your clocks forward" graphic at the bottom of the page.

It's unfortunate that the Times falls behind so frequently on local NYC coverage simply because it tries too hard to be quintessentially international in scope; but today's front page was a nice example of what a team of talented journalists & designers can do on a more regional scale.

On Photojournalism

A friend/co-Spectator photog remarked to me once that working in a newsroom inverts your moral compass. I think that may be a slightly extreme assessment -- but after working for (what feels like) so long in the office of a daily, almost-professional paper, I can't help but acknowledge that we newsfolk have a bit of an unhealthy desire for doom and gloom and all things disastrous.

Perhaps it's just part of the job; after all, human nature is such that happy, heart-warming, & cuddly stories are of far less interest than that Harvard grad who cut up his ex-wife into little bits and stored her julienned remains in his closet until the neighbors complained of a strange stench. Or maybe it's because people who go all-out, batshit insane are much more extreme than their benevolent, generous, kind counterparts (though admittedly Wesley Autrey could spearhead a pretty decent counter-argument).

But for whatever reason, journalists never wish for Wesley Autreys on slow news days. We wish for homicides and fires and scandals (on a more reasonable college scale, we wish for epic ideological battles between extreme leftists and nutcase speakers or taser attacks in the campus library). I can't count how many times I've heard an editor or reporter complain that there haven't been enough murders recently, or that someone should consider setting fire to Columbia's iconic administrative building, Low Library, in time to make deadline.

Does that make us bad people? Almost certainly not, but it certainly doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy about my internal ethics system. It doesn't really matter that we haven't actually torched President Bollinger's office to the ground -- the point is, we've weighed the negatives against the number of website hits we'd get the next day.

When I flipped through this year's World Press Photo winners, part of me was slightly sickened every time I realized that those photographers were actively and continually making a choice to stay uninvolved -- even when their assistance might have saved a life. Maintaining neutrality at the cost of empathy is simultaneously a noble and horrific choice to make.

In two weeks, I'm going to New Orleans along with my professor and classmates from a GSAPP class on rebuilding the city, and I'm not sure what I'm going to find or how I'm going to react. Clearly, New Orleans is not Israel or Afghanistan or the Sudan, but still ... I hope I can find a balance.

New York Times Ad

The first sign that print journalism is going to adapt to the web sooner than it would like:

That Guy on the Left is Definitely Asleep

Apparently, the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale's communications department posted the photo below on their website in some fit of bad marketing. An article on the photo in SIUC's student newspaper begins thus: "If SIUC's goal is to appear as a mind-numbing, third-rate university, the school's marketing machine hit a home run Thursday..."

No More Broadsheet?

I really don't know about the WSJ's new look...

(On a different note, News Designer is a pretty good blog, and features a nice selection of links to "Today's Front Pages.")

Far From a Slow News Week

I chose the worst time ever to leave upper Manhattan.

(Seriously! Both within 9 blocks of my dorm!)

It Should Have Gone To Kim Jong Il

Er, so, apparently Time Magazine's Person of the Year is, wait for it ...

You.

Yes, You.
You control the Information Age.
Welcome to your world.

Laaaaaame.

On Assignment

Affirmative Action at Issue
Scores of Student Protesters Gather at Court Before Dawn

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4-As the temperature spiraled into the low 20s and heavy winds whipped through Capitol Hill, a row of sleeping bags lined the Supreme Court's main entrance while students, professors, and activists waited to gain entry to the day's two oral arguments...

 



 

Taxi Crash

(More photos up in my Flickr account.)

Outsourcing Hits Journalism

Great. I have become completely superfluous.

(But I'm really going to be miffed when technology evolves to the point where photojournalists can be outsourced...)

It's A Bad Sign When Your Lawyer Tells You "There's No Point"

Saddam Hussein sentenced to death by hanging.

Farewell, Print Journalism, We Hardley Knew Ye

The New York Post now has a higher daily circulation than The Washington Post.

Excuse me while I go cry in a corner.

The NYPD Was Having A Slow Day

I mean, I'm all for locking this guy up, but isn't that entrapment?!

Next She'll Be Struck By Lightning

Good grief, this woman never catches a break.

On Assignment, Kind Of

It's been a big news month, to say the least.

Yesterday was no exception. When I heard that a small plane had crashed into a building in the Upper East Side, a fellow Spectator photographer and I grabbed our gear and rushed out the door into the pouring rain.

For the most part, massive amounts of water and cameras do not mix well, and thus my photos all turned out to be fairly blurry/waterlogged (I was initially really worried that water had even managed to get into my camera and mess with the sensor, but all appears to be back to normal now). Anyway, while none of my photos of the building on E. 72nd Street turned out particularly well, I liked this one salvageable shot of various media outlets gathered on 74th Street trying to find a line of sight to the building's 30th floor.

On Assignment

Minuteman Protestors Rush Stage
Columbia Daily Spectator

Protestors took the stage less than five minutes after Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, took the microphone in Roone Arledge Wednesday night, sparking a chaotic brawl involving more than 30 students, other attendees, and guests of the College Republicans.



And in the media orgy that has exploded since Wednesday:

NYTimes: Columbia Investigating Protest That Stopped Speaker

NYTimes: Silencing of a Speech Causes a Furor

LA Times: Minuteman Founder Forced From N.Y. Stage

Daily News: Minuteman College Talk Gets Violent

NY Sun: At Columbia, Students Attack Minuteman Founder

Original liveblogging of the event from the BWOG: Minuteman Mobbed

In addition, FOX News (on both the O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes), ABC, and MSNBC have also jumped on the bandwagon.