Powerful Characters

Here’s the funny thing about stories: they need characters and they need emotion. Period.

Ricardo Lopez of the Miami Herald says that, “The power of character is something really, really simple,” but also incredibly important. Even with the most interesting angles, the greatest lighting imaginable, and flawless editing, if you don’t have emotion in a video you just don’t have anything at all.

Have you ever seen those artsy movies? The kind where everything is really pretty but in the end you just don’t know what’s going on. Or the poetry that is beautifully written, but says absolutely nothing. It is kind of like staring at a flower for a really long time, don’t get me wrong I’m very pro nature, love flowers…but I mean I appreciate them for what they are – something nice to look at and then kind of walk away from. You don’t become a better person, a more educated person, a more understanding person from staring at a flower. You just don’t.

Emotion comes from the character, not from the creator. Especially in journalism portraying the person as they are is so much more powerful than trying to glitz them up or make them into something they are not. The idea is to find a character that is so interesting that the emotion follows and all the journalist has to do is make sure that the audience receives an articulate image of the character and their story.

Things get messy and distorted and chaotic when a journalist detracts from the story with a lot of fancy nonsense. Like bizarre cuts, and editing decisions that completely dilute the story. Please pardon the reference back to my ever present internal struggle between journalist and creative writer, but I’ve always said the difference between the two is that creative writing is all about the words, how you piece them together and all that. Journalism is about the subject and putting as few words between the audience and the subject as possible. Both professions have their place, but when it comes to putting together a journalistic media package on a certain character it is best to be only as creative as you need to be.

The funny thing about being a journalist is you work your ass off and in the end, the best way to tell if you’re good at what you do is if no one remembers you at all. Bizarre I guess.

Technologically Advanced? Let’s try Dependent…

Technology is a funny, funny thing. I mean look around – how much of our tech-savvy lives need to be plugged into an outlet? House a battery? Soak up the sun’s rays? Everything we’ve created is contingent on an outside power source. I find it a little ironic, actually, that after praising the internet and online journalism so much, I started this blog on paper…you know, writing with a pen? An apparently more reliable form of communication, even if it can’t reach the masses.

Today at 1:00 PM the Miami area as well as other portions of Southern Florida and all the way up to Daytona, experienced a little over an hour long black out. I was stranded alone at work for a moment and am not too proud a person to admit that at one point, yes I was convinced this might be an alien attack…whatever I’m imaginative alright?

After a few minute of serious consideration, and a few out of area phone calls however, I figured that no, an alien invasion was not, for today, an immanent threat. Overreliance on technology, however, is another story.

After managing to settle myself down I realized, “Oh NO! I have a blog due for my class at 5:00PM!!!” Well I stared at the blank black computer screens all around me and was a little distraught – “now what?” definitely came to mind.

This all got me thinking and what did I come up with? The blog…has a flaw! It’s wonderful that what I write can reach a lot of people – but specific people, people hooked up to the internet, who have electricity and quick modems and blackberry’s and everything else. But what about when we lose connection, or worse still, never had it to begin with? Not a day goes by when I don’t see a computer, access my email, check my blog or other people’s blogs, but the truth is that’s just simply not the case for all of America.

So after some time in the dark to think of things other than aliens I reverted back to how I started writing, pen in hand. And what conclusion did I draw by the end of the page? Online is great – for some people, but newspapers, magazines, broadcast news, radio – its all necessary. Everyone needs to be able to access information in many different ways, because what do we do when it’s lights out for the greater portion of an entire state? I mean – we need options. The more ways to get the news the better!

So who knows – maybe its time I gave Mr. Newspaper another shot at wooing me, I’m skeptical, but we’ll see.

I'm sorry, HTMWhat?

From high school to now I have taken at least five computer courses that I can recall. And every single one has been different.

In my first class my wayward and slightly emotional teacher attempted to teach me how to write HTML code, needless to say the only reason I passed that one with flying colors was a good friend of mine dedicated a lot of time to assisting me. However being the dimwitted fourteen year old that I then was, I forgot it all a semester later. Senior year came around the bend and I found myself, oddly enough in another computer course. Computer design.

While this class let me be more artistic and creative there was just something about Flash that continually confused me. Not to mention everything I had learned in Freshmen year, whether I remembered it or not, had changed!

By the time I got to college I was pretty fed up, but alas someone had to teach us how to use all the Microsoft programs. I don’t know if you’ve realized this but now there’s a new Microsoft program since 2007, making what I learned three years ago outdated also.

Well a few courses of confusion and a very shifty website later I think I’ve had it. I’m just going to have to sit down at a computer for unnatural amounts of time and harness this strange talent people call web design.

When people say DreamWhat? I’d like to respond with a heart felt “DreamWeaver,” and another “Oh yes I do understand that program, actually.”

Remember when you learned something and you just knew it? Reading, writing and Arithmetic, you learned them and they were there to stay. If you struggled with any of them, well then you had the pleasure of knowing that once you mastered their trickiness you were going to have it for life.

Well things are differnet now. Now I sit down at a computer and stare at its monitor for hours only to be told that what I’m learning could be useless in a year, six months, tomorrow, whenever! It’s a hard pill to swallow, I’m not going to lie.

However, the internet is so important and understanding it, at a very basic level at the very least, is critical in the job market these days. I recently found out people no longer want written resumes, but rather a website designed by you and about you, showing that you can pull out all the stops when it comes to those crazy things people call websites. An online resume, try taking that one back in time and see the looks you get. Especially in a field like journalism staying up to date on different technologies is as important as staying up to date with the news itself.

Its not about just the writing any more, note the look of surprise on this print journalism and creative writing major’s face, its about so much more than that. Getting on this crazy journalism train is difficult and once you’ve jumped on there are about ten thousand people just waiting to push you off again, it’s not easy at all. In fact it’s very difficult. It is not a field for someone who wants to sit back, relax and enjoy a cocktail. It requires constant attention, dedication and aggression. The new technologies that pertain to journalism, after all, are only useful if they are understood.

So there you have it. It’s called HTML, and it stands for HyperText Markup Language – just incase you were wondering. Online here I come, maybe a little slowly, but surely...for sure!

Old Man Mr.Newspaper

In one of my classes today someone gave a speech about how and why newspapers are dying. The journalist in me immediately got offended and defensive all at once. How ridiculous, newspapers, dying ha! That’s going to be years from now. I was really worked up about it until I got to work at the student newspaper and had to send out subscriptions.

With ink all over my hands I realized…maybe I haven’t had such a great relationship with Mr. Newspaper. Maybe I haven’t had one at all…

I’ve never really liked reading newspapers, as a journalist looking to write for a magazine the writing style isn’t even a great passion of mine. I am not someone that likes to wake up in the morning sipping coffee, another friend I have not yet officially made, and get ink all over my hands. Even as a kid I was never into the cartoons. Quite frankly the paper Mr. Newspaper is printed on has always rubbed me the wrong way. It’s just a weird texture if you ask me. So I really think I started to have a journalistic crisis.

With so many later and greater ways to get our news, what keeps us holding onto something that involves killing trees, is out of date before it’s even printed in comparison to its online counterpart, and biggest sin of all, makes my hands all filthy? What makes us keep defending him?

I have often associated writing with dating…I don’t know why maybe I’m crazy... or just like writing too much, I can’t be sure. But when it comes to dating, I would never want to see Mr.Newspaper. Magazine is at least sleek and sexy, he’s sometimes out of touch but at least he’s unique. Mr.Book, please there’s just no getting rid of him. He’s a classic good looking guy. And Online…wow…he’s pretty much just the next big thing. The newest and freshest celebrity on the market, up to date, in style and constantly keeping you on your toes. How can Mr.Newspaper even stand a chance?

I think of Newspaper as an old guy, grey, a little (maybe a lot ) out of shape. Intelligent, wise, but not always entirely with it and sometimes a little sloppy. He’s like Sean Connery, in his prime he was great, everyone wanted him, but his audience is getting smaller… well okay unlike Sean, at least I can understand what Mr. Newspaper is trying to articulate. On the whole, however, I find myself agreeing with the idea that maybe his lifespan is coming to a close. Okay I realize we all knew this was going to happen, maybe I’m just a little late in catching on, but it does seem the end of an era…the only thing is I feel like its not my era.

I’m still inspired to feel a fit of nostalgia in this time of journalistic change – but really, to be entirely honest, I never really had a love affair or even a date with Mr. Newspaper. He’s getting old and I’ll respect what I can learn from him while he is around. But to be frank, his time is almost up.

Now if you’ll excuse me that’s Online at the door.

The New Journalist’s Expanding Hat Stand

According to Ricardo Lopez of the Miami Herald, current and upcoming journalists are required to “wear many hats.” The time when a pen and paper cutting it is over and done with as we are launched fervently into tech savvy time period.

My warning to old school journalists: Watch out.

Call me crazy but I often get the feeling that older journalists like to look down their noses at us silly little “newbies,” even if just a little bit. They have, in the past, wanted to put the up and coming writers, photographers, and videographers in some assistant’s cubicle and forget about us for a few years. But we’re not having it.

The old cliché of a journalist being a guy in a trench with one of those goofy hats and a pencil behind his ear has changed a little bit. Now the current journalist wears sneakers, a backpack full of techie tools and approaches potential interviewees at a passionate jog, with release forms waving. Mid sentence we switch from photographer to videographer and back again. Our hats are a little goofier due to the fact that we’re probably wearing about five at a time.

No longer are we allowing ourselves to be forced into the cubicle, and be told to wait patiently for all the ones before us to die out or something – we’re taking to the streets. No longer is it necessary for us to start off in obits and hang out there for a few years while we wait for the story that’ll change our careers to just come along. Generation X – or are we Y? – is taking charge and taking the interviews.

U Tube, the internet in general and concepts like Current TV are allowing us the opportunity to tell the stories we want early on in our careers. We now have the chance to produce media packages of our own and let people actually see them. The time for suffering through ridiculous internships is over and done with as we take bigger steps over, around and above our older counterparts.

There’s been a bit of an upset in terms of the way things are done. We crazy rookies are refusing to “pay our dues” and are going right for the big time. We’re taking advantage of this online deal, and jamming all the latest and greatest hats on our heads all at once, with a ton of passion and for the simple reason: because we can.

Journalists are people too...

Voting journalists?!? Are you insane?

Please note my use of sarcasm.

Here's the thing about journalists...we're also people. I cannot tell you the number of times I have had the discussion with my sister about journalistic bias. She is convinced that we remain a group of party pushers who live only for one candidate, issue or for one side of the spectrum.

"How ridiculous," I tell her.

Has anyone considered that we have more depth then that?!

Journalists, despite our best efforts at times, are people. Regular people with opinions and thoughts and views...about everything. From what we like to wear to the candidates we support, we just can't help it...we're a part of the human race too. Sorry to shock and disapoint.

The important thing to note is the difference between journalists and good journalists. Until someone steps behind an anchor desk, microphone, or sits down at a keyboard to convey news to a group of people with the assumption of an unbiased view resting on their shoulders, then their just people. But once they have their "journalist cap" on, pardon the use of a ridiculous image, then their opinions need to be null, their position neutral and their first loyalty should be to their readers. Good journalists understand that no one cares about their opinion.

Some blame Fox for being too conservative, others CNN for being too liberal. I blame the journalist that doesn't understand their job.

According to the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review,

"If you are a writer promising them news, well then, the information that you deliver had better be accurate, complete and fresh to your audience."

Hit the nail on the head in my opinion.

What it comes down to is that people have opinions, journalists included. And until someone designs some journalistic robot to cruise around from interview to interview, we're just going to have to assume that there are journalists good enough to forget about their personal beliefs and present the news as it is meant to be. Unbiased, accurate and "fresh".

Taking away a journalists' right to vote is not only unconstitutional, in my opinion, but pointless. Refusing to let a journalist walk into the voting booth and cast a ballot is not going to stop them from presenting biased news to the public; only good training and a sense of integrity can do that.

Here's a thought, hire good journalists...and there we go.

...Awkward...

Does anyone remember when you had to actually interact with people? You would shop in malls. Have meetings in person. Go on real dates... And what ever happened to the letter by the way? Has it really been reduced to an impermanent totally intangible thing that floats around in cyberspace in the form of an email? What did people even do before eBay, and chat rooms and, perhaps most bizarre of all, online dating (yeesh)?

If the internet has one major downfall it is that it has made all of us a little socially handicapped. Am I the only one that has noticed a startlingly sharp increase in the use of the word awkward in the last few years? I'm not going to lie, I've fallen for it too, I'm the first to call myself awkward in any social situation. Awkward Turtle? What does that even mean?

Our culture is so technologically advanced we've socially exiled ourselves from one another. I can't tell you the number of people I know on Facebook and through emailing that I hardly speak to in person...its insane! The internet has literally become a little world where people can, creepily enough, be whoever it is they want to be.

What about reality?!?

But I digress...my point is it's important that journalists find a way to preserve the humanity of the internet. Keep things real, let people know that online interaction, while perhaps a little bizarre in the grand scheme of things, is actual human contact...in a new kind of way.

By incorporating pictures, audio and video in online stories, journalists are letting their audience know that the places, events, and most importantly of all, people, in their stories are real. If a picture's worth a thousand words, and a video is essentially a lot of moving picture, and you add to that words and sometimes audio as well- I think its safe to say we're doing all we can to keep it as real as possible.

We're appealing to emotions and after all, even if each of us across the globe is locked in a room by ourselves with inaccurate and incredibly skewed perceptions of who we really are due to lack of social interaction - we still have emotion. As long as we can keep that consistent in our writing, stir passion and feeling within our readers, then we should be okay. Awkward...but okay.

My Major Problem with Journalism - Solved

Here's my thing about journalism. I love getting my information in a straight forward, no nonsense, just facts sort of way. I think it is, obviously, the most effective method of communicating to the masses: leave the personality out of it, just the skeleton, the minimalist approach.

However my writing, when it comes down to it, is anything but no nonsense. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I am one of the rare, or perhaps not so rare, hybrids. I am both a journalist and a creative writer - call me an oxymoron if you wish, I'm sure some journalists would even consider leaving that first bit - oxy - off entirely, but I can't help it. I happen to like playing with words, you know let them run a little free, make puns and jokes and even sometimes a, God forbid, run on sentence here or there? Punc.tuation in strange places. I kind of delight in the chaos of things like that. It makes me crack up a little bit.

So here's my problem, what if I want to be a different kind of journalist? What if I get bored of the inverted pyramid, and the formula, and the way things have been done since forever? What if I want to write intelligent things and still have fun with it?

THE BLOG!

It is a lot like the perfect combination. I can say anything I want, opinion or straight forward or a little of both. Alright I won't get paid for it. And okay no one is really getting hard news from me. But it sure is fun to write...and read!!!

"OK, ya'll get to decide whether Beltway Blogroll has been a good blog, but it is coming to an end," writes Danny Glover of Beltway Blogroll.

Hark what is this? A serious and intelligent writer using the term "ya'll"? How thrilling! I would love to use improper English in my writing. How sensationally edgy of him! He still seems smart, he still has a point. He is still entirely credible. But he is using slang? Well that would never fly outside the safe confines of a blog - or perhaps in an opinion piece. Still - haha - we've got them fooled now.

Blog: (noun) Denoting a safe haven for journalists, creative writers, and amateurs to let their words run wild; fun writing; intelligent and kooky.

I'm sold.

Taking the Reporter out of Reporting

I was watching the news this morning, and I have to go ahead and say I was little bit distracted by the person telling me what was going on. It was seven in the morning and all I wanted to know was if anything interesting was happening in the world while I ate my cereal...that was all. But I have to tell you I don't remember, as I was entirely distracted by the seafoam blue power suit the woman with the toothy grin was wearing while she tried to tell me what I wanted to know. My question is: If she wants me to listen to her why is her suit shouting at me so I can't hear?

"Edit yourselves. Think of your audience," that is what Suzanne Levinson, the Director of Site Operations, at the Miami Herald had to say.

What a novel idea. What a truly interesting and refreshing perspective. Think of your audience? But what about The Pulitzer? And the byline? And the front page?

WHAT ABOUT THE RECOGNITION???

"Online, we don't want to listen to someone's talking head," Levinson later commented.

And here we have it ladies and gentlemen, the answer to the shocking powersuit, toothy grin, and enormously inappropriate hairstyle. Online.

Imagine a way for people to get their information quickly and without the interuption of a journalist's ego? Imagine! A constantly changing, insistiantly updating form of communication that allows a reader to get to the information they need or want, as opposed to the information they are going to get whether they like it or not. A place where people can read about, hear about, and see about what's going on in the world at their leisure. They want to read? Let the people read! They want to listen to audio? Play away! Watch a short clip? There you have it, go ahead and watch! A slide show, you say? We'll even let you control it!

And the greatest part of all, an immediate opportunity to interact! Write on a message board, send an email to the writer, respond to another viewer's thoughts or comments. Levinson commented on the "amazing outpouring of legitimate conversation," that becomes available when people, not just journalists, get together online and respond to one another's thoughts and ideas. People start thinking as opposed to just listening, its amazing!!!

No more angry loud blue suits. No more insistent bylines and enlarged egos. Just the information the people need, available in the form they want it.

I've got to say, this online thing sounds as if it's worth the effort it will take to make the transition.

Oh and about the recognition? What about the recognition?