You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October, 2008.
Obviously I haven’t posted in a while…and it’s gonna be a while longer before I can resurface to do much. The Basics of Videojournalism, my not-quite-an-epic is sucking up all my time. It is taking shape from a core workbook, pages and pages of notes and comments, onto something clearer and cleaner.
In organizing, we are adding more material…as Larry and I perused the posting on backpedding, we realized we needed a chapter on camera and personal safety. The material for the teacher’s edition is growing. We plan to shoot many of the illustrations in early November.
Hopefully I’ll be back by Christmas (please let it be sooner).
What’s a rumor? Usually something spicy. Juicy. We love to hear them and share them.
The official definition, from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary is
1: talk or opinion widely disseminated with no discernible source
2: a statement or report current without known authority for its truth
3: archaic : talk or report of a notable person or event
By now you’ve probably figured out I’ve got a rumor! And it is one I am checking on because, if true, there’s a story here.
Now the trick to turning a rumor into a story is to first, decide if there is a story there and second, would writing this story benefit the public? Yeah, just running with it cause it is interesting isn’t enough for me; sorry.
This rumor came to me by way of a very casual acquaintance and involves an attempt to ban books in a small school district. I’m calling this a rumor because it was passed along as part of a conversation where we were chewing the fat and generally complaining about what is wrong with education today.
Now how can I check on this to see if it is true? Well first off, I tend to trust the source. I see no vendetta…no reason for this to be false. I do know, from past experience, that often frustration leads to folks wanting to believe half-truths, which are repeated – but this does not seem to be the case.
So I know who the major players are and I know the location. Once I make a few calls to verify, I’ll move on.
Just a warning about the dangers of rumors. A rumor repeated publicly can not only destroy lives, as in livelihoods – it can also cause loss of life, as in suicide. For many people, loss of reputation is loss of self-esteem and loss of reason to go on with life.
When I was working at KOVR we got a call from a woman who claimed a local high school vice-principal had inappropriately touched her granddaughter. Great story – but, hey this could have been a looney-toon or someone with a grudge. Reporter Craig Prosser sat on the story as it progressed through the investigation until the cops actually charged the VP. To act sooner might have ruined a life of an innocent man had the charge been false.
I’ll let ya know how this goes if it takes wing and flies.
Update: hey, before even publishing this I gave a heads up to my source and she took my advice and will be meeting w/her local news agency today. More next week.
Updated on October 19, 2008
The English teachers at the small Central Valley high school met with their local newspaper editor this past Friday. The issue: a parent complaining that Bless Me, Ultima (by Rudolfo Anaya) had obscene language and was inappropriate for students to read. A quick web search shows that this book is on the American Library Association’s 100 most challenged books.
Now the teachers who are upset about this attempt to ban the book did not require the dissenter’s child to read it – they offered alternatives, realizing that some books may not be appropriate to every child.
No – what they are upset about is (1) their superintendent formed a secret committee to study whether to ban it and (2) he admits he hasn’t even read the book – he apparently is relying solely on what the complaining parent alleges.
Now let’s hear it for the local newspaper editor, who is reading the book this weekend to see what all the hoopla is about.
The school board meeting is this week and the teachers intend to be there to support their side.
Stay tuned to see how this develops.
Don’t ya love it when companies decide they know what’s best for you?
I bring this up cause after six months of sitting in a box, I decided my middle daughter’s cell phone should be service-less. So I went online to take it off the plan. And wouldn’t ya know it – that is NOT an option offered by our full-service wireless company, which shall remain nameless. I’ll just call them “V.”
I just called “V” and and asked to remove the phone from service…turns out I can’t do that until the contract expires in February. Did have the text messaging and insurance removed, thus saving over seven bucks a month. Will pull the phone from service asap on the expiration date.
But when questioned, the “V” rep said that they do not offer online cancellation because people often don’t know what they want…they may have bad information about what the phone company offers, so they have to disconnect via phone with a company rep.
WHAT?
People don’t know what they want? As in – I have a phone sitting around we don’t use (she did admit that I had a case to cancel on that one…but tried to talk me into keeping it handy just in case).
So this particular company and probably others make it easy to add features and lines but not to cancel – they want one last chance to strong-arm customers into staying with them. Now I do like most of what my company offers, but I’d recommend they re-think their policy on this one. A happy customer has complete freedom of choice. If I have to hop through extra hoops, by the time I reach a customer rep I will be so thoroughly pissed I may just cancel the entire service just on principle.
Do you hear that “V”erizon?
I’ve been reviewing the court cases that define student media rights (Tinker, Hazelwood) and came across the following from the Center for Scholastic Journalism Blog: Federal appeals court rules middle school is not a public forum; more censorship ahead. Ouch. That plus a blurb an email from the Society of Professional Journalists about an attempt to define, and thus restrict, who are journalists and who may/may not be admitted to meetings as such.
To review. The first ruling refers to a situation where a middle school student brought some anti-abortion leaflets to school. The principal told the student he could not distribute them because he did not have prior approval. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that:
…a middle school was not a public forum and school officials could both require prior approval of student leaflets and prohibit their distribution in hallways.
The onus put on school officials is to require ALL material be submitted for prior approval AND either ban or approve ALL material.
At the same time, this is chilling…where Tinker stated that a student does not lose their First Amendment right when they cross over onto school property, this ruling seems in direct conflict.
The Oregon situation, as summarized on the SPJ email:
Is your media organization “institutionalized”? “Well-established”? Does it produce at least 25 percent news content? If you can’t answer “yes” to all three, you won’t be welcome to cover local government in Lake Oswego, Ore., if the local council adopts a policy that defines members of the news media. When an Oregon blogger demanded entry to cover an executive session, Lake Oswego council members challenged his claim that he is a journalist. The city devised the policy, not yet passed, that has generated heat from several media organizations who view it as arbitrary because it allows cities and counties to decide whom to admit and whom to exclude from meetings and executive sessions.
It seems almost as if journalists are involved in a war with public officials, who are hunkering down and drawing battle lines, both at the professional and pre-entry levels. There’s an old adage: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
If our prospective journalists face fire in order to even gain the rights needed to go through high school and then college and then enter the workforce, then we will have a cadre of journalists forged in fire, tough enough to protect not only their rights, but the rights of those too ignorant to realize what they are doing to our youngest citizens and themselves.
We can’t keep calling this “the high school textbook on videojournalism.” One – it has no personality. Two, it’s way to much to type. Here are a couple of thoughts.
The Basics of Videojournalism (Larry Nance)
Videojournalism: Thinking Visually (hmmm…sounds like a website I saw once)
VJ (only the initiated will buy this…and a lot of folks interested in Victory over Japan/VJ Day)
And YOUR suggestion is?
Bob Helmes was my first chief photog – 1974, KXTV in Sacramento (aka Sacra-tomato), California. He gave me (more than) a word of advice: “It doesn’t matter how pretty it is or how much time you spend on it if it doesn’t make air.”
Deadlines. They can kill ya. I recall missing two in 28 years. One I can be excused for – stuck in bumper to bumper traffic trying to get back from the high Sierra. Took us two hours to move a couple of miles in a snowstorm (the us was me and a VERY pregnant Rita Holman). Second time I was just plain stupid. Estimated drive time from the Stockton bureau to the live location in Modesto and didn’t check to see if there was any road construction on the way. There was. We could see the light on the live truck as the clock hit ten and we were three or four blocks from making it.
So I gotta include something about deadlines in the book. What brought this home is the fact a few of my students DID NOT LISTEN over the past few months when I said I do not accept completed assignments as iMovie files. All files must be “shared” or converted to full quality QuickTime files. So on the last day of school as I was downloading and grading, I left at least two files in computers and gave the offenders a “Z” for zero on the assignment. They didn’t take the final step.
Ouch for them – but a good reality check too. Do the work AND get it in properly. It don’t count if you didn’t make air.
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