Common in Montreal

Common was in town and I was super up-close. Loved it!

Final project

Last week I pitched a story about sleep but after much thought, I realized I really wouldn’t have enough time before the end of term to do all the research, including sleeping at sleep clinics. But I did come up with a great idea.

On Monday, there was the anti-police brutality march and I was there from beginning to end, shooting photos for my photojournalism class. I took about a hundred photos and some of them are actually ok! After learning a lot about sound slides with Lisa Lynch in class, I was thinking my final project could be a soundslide of the march. I have my eyewitness account of the events that took place, I got the phone number of a protestor who was there and couldn’t give me an interview right away because he was busy getting arrested. I also have some ambient noise, as in the crowd.

I really think this could make a great soundslide. While the beginning of the march was relatively peaceful, it got a bit crazier and crazier until shit hit the fan. I was a bit careless about getting too close and had several confrontations with policeman. They didn’t care if I was student, a journalist or a protestor…everybody was the same to them. I’m looking forward to.

Original photographs, original sound bites, original editing. Looks exciting.

Multimedia story pitch

Next week in class is “story pitchfest” which involves, you guessed it, pitching a story to the class. But this isn’t a regular, “I have a story to pitch for your magazine”, pitch. It’s for online class and involves pitching a multimedia package, such as the one above (Globe and Mail’s Talking to the Taliban…hey, a png file!). My pitch won’t be as extreme as  that, I’m not going to do a “My one-night-stand with Osama Bin Laden” (although would be hilarious and gross and widely read about). But as you can see, a multimedia package involves written articles, videos, discussions, perhaps a podcast and photos. It tells a whole story from conflict to resolution. I want to pitch a story that I could actually do, not a war story or a natural disaster thing. So what should I do?

Things I like: reading (not so exciting), playing video games (could find a potential angle there), playing sports (ooohhh, following a team? Been done), sleeping (boring). BUT there is a story in everything! I might find just a multimedia package about me sleeping boring but it’s not entirely boring. I could uncover the science of sleep with me as the subject. I could go to a sleep clinic and get footage of my sleeping (a little creepy) with the signals overlayed on the screen (in fast forward) of the various stages of sleep I go through. THAT would be cool. Hmm. I like this idea. Things to keep in mind (quoting directly from Webs: “Remember to think about what equipment you might need, and include that in your pitch, as well as possible sources, possible further avenues of research, and possible hurdles. How might you build interactivity into your piece? Who is your target audience? Are there any legal issues you can think of?”

I’m excited. From one-night-stands to actually sleeping. I think that’s my story pitch idea right there.

THIS is Canada!

Canadian hockey player Gillian Apps celebrates on-ice after winning gold. Apart from the underage drinking of Agosta, PARTY HARDY!

Multi-Platform Journalism

So for my online magazine course, another prof in the journalism department, Lisa Lynch, came in to talk to us about Multi-Platform Journalism. It’s basically what all journalists will have to get used to: working across many platforms.

What does that mean exactly? Well, let’s use a local example. Frank Cavallaro is the weatherman for CBC Montreal. Of course, weather people are becoming more and more than just somebody to let you know if it’s going to rain or not. They interact with the hosts, and if you actually watch CBC News from 5:30 to 7:00, you’ll see more of Frank than any other reporter or anchor! But Frank is a multi-platform weatherman. He is not only seen on your television, but he is heard on the radio as well. Frank is always on the go. That’s multi-platform, sort of. Radio to Television is still broadcast but Frank also occasionally writes for local papers…about the weather. He is a versatile man, that Frank.

Journalists are going to have to do this more and more. If  you’re a print journalist, be ready to write for the Internet (vrery different than how it’s written in a newspaper), upload your interviews to a site and sometimes even film. My week at the CBC showed me that, you may be known as a reporter for CBC News Radio, but at the same time, you are grabbing a cameraman and feeding back to the TV news, or writing something for the CBC website.

The ultimate multi-platform journalist? One that writes a story for the paper, for the website, records interviews for radio, videotapes the event for TV, tweets, Facebooks and YouTubes, as well as eating, going to the bathroom and sleeping…ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It’s possible, I’m sure. There’s a YouTube video of that stunt somewhere.

The iPad and similar gadgets’ role in journalism

The Apple iPad came out last week and all over the journalism world, people are asking what effect this while have on our jobs. The Kindle, the Sony Reader, and the iPad are all available to the public, will this help print journalism or cause problems? Well, depends on what you mean by print journalism. Emphasis on print? Well, obviously the readers won’t help there. But when it comes to distribution, I think more people will be reading thanks to these puppies and that can only mean good things for the newspapers that offer subscriptions.

Many professionals have their own opinions. Read about it here and here. My take on it is simple: We are constantly adapting. Every minute, some new technology is created and we adjust to it. Journalism is not dying, folks. Every couple years, journalism has to re-adapt to what’s going on around it. When radio was created, nobody thought we’d still be reading newspapers. When TV arrived, radio was dying…decades later, radio is still around. So maybe print journalism has hit a rough patch, yes. And maybe the future does not include a tangible, recyclable paper in our hands. But journalism—the distribution of news—will not die. People need it. We just can’t be stuck in the past. We have to less stubborn and constantly changing to keep up with the faster world that is technology. The iPad (with it’s dumbass feminine hygiene-esque name) will not KILL journalism. Well, unless it mutates and grows hairy arms and legs and kills every living human alive. Then yes, if the earth is no longer, neither is journalism.

News package

Natalie and I had a week to put together a package, which is generous because CBC or CTV reporters usually have less than five hours! Nonetheless, I still managed to complain, haha. Here is the end product, no supers included as it will be made into a newscast and production does that. As our prof said, it needs work, ha!

Australian Open women predictions

Alright so now that the Australian Open, the first of the Slams, is in the semis, I’m making my official predictions for the Final. (Note: I did make an initial prediction, I admit. It was for Cljisters…sigh)

Women’s: I think this is a relatively simple prediction. Yes, the Chinese players are the up-and-comers but I really don’t think it’s their time yet. S. Williams (#1), a 5’10 mass of muscle, will be playing Na Li (#17), a 5’4 waif. Li has beat a lot of great players in her run (from third round): Hantuchova (#25) in a three-setter, Wozniaki (#4) in two, and V. Williams (#6) in three. The game against Venus was brutal. The average break point conversion was 54 per cent and the match featured a combined 110 unforced errors. Wow. Venus had 11 double faults, five alone in the third set. Both players did a bad job. Now Li has to face the bigger and badder version of Venus in her sister, Serena. Game over. Serena hasn’t had it as easy as no doubt she wishes. The quarterfinal game against Azarenka (#7) looked to be lost but it’s never over for Serena. She fought back to win in three sets. Her other opponents were relatively easy two-setters. She won the Australian Open last year, can she do it again? On the other side, the comeback kid, Henin (unranked) is playing Jie Zheng (#35). Henin is hungry after coming out of retirement. It’s clear in the way she has been playing. I really don’t know much about Zheng but the last two rounds (quarters and fourth round) she won in two sets. She hasn’t had to work as much as, say, Cilic. Henin is fresh off her win against Petrova (#19) whose rank doesn’t give her justice. I just have a gut feeling and it’s going with Henin.

Serena vs. Henin? Well, I prefer Henin. I really can’t stand the way Serena plays tennis, too much force and no delicate, jaw-dropping shots. Henin is more the artiste—the style I enjoy watching. Henin also looks a lot smaller than she actually is. Sites range her height from 5’4 to 5’6, which is small for tennis but she just looks so tiny out there. If she can make Serena move, that’s key. Azarenka, when she was in the lead, had Serena moving all over the court and, with her size, it’s to her disadvantage. But you don’t want to make Serena mad. Somehow, her anger makes her better. She’s like a bull with smoke coming out the nose, I would not want to be on the other side of the court at that point. Will delicate play defeat brawn and power? I don’t think so. I think Serena will win, but it’ll be a three-setter with Henin winning the first set.

Written after the final: So, turns out I was pretty bang on. Williams won the championship, but Henin did take one set, just not the first one. The final score was 6-4, 3-6, 6-2. Looking at the match statistics, they are close. Serena had 90 total points won with Henin at 85. They had a combined unforced error of 69 (way better than the 110 between Li and Venus). I prefer Henin but I don’t make predictions based on preference. She is a force to be reckoned with coming back out of retirement and you’ll see her in more finals for sure. Now for Federer to dominate against Murray….PLEASE!

Learning da HTML

Ok, so. In my Online class, we’ve been learning the basics of HTML, and even though it’s the basics, I still get confused. I consider myself techno-savvy to a certain extent but not to the extent of knowing much more than anybody else. Haha. As I write this in WordPress, I switched from Visual to HTML and wrote in the code for everything. WordPress makes it easy for you and does everything. All you have to do is click a button. But I decided not to do it so easily and to make myself learn HTML. Hopefully this works. I will bold the following word —> BOLD! Hehe. Simple eh? Not if you didn’t know the code word (it’s “strong”). I went to this site: http://www.w3schools.com/ which is really helpful and has some great tutorials. Really practical. Ooooh added Italics…or “em.” Of course, why would you do this if WordPress does it all for you? I’d like to think it’s because you want to actually get down to the basics of how it’s done. Adding that wonderful picture of me above was mega hard. I tested it about a hundred times before I got it right. I compared another post that I had automatically added a photo and tried to do the same but with a different photo. The thing about HTML is that if you get ONE THING wrong, it looks like this –>

<img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-201" title="SL" src="http://leavittjschool.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/yearbookyourself_sl_1986

Ok, another lesson learned. WordPress gets it if you make a little mistake and fixes it, damn you! So I had to mess the HTML for the picture quite a bit for you to see it as code. But as you can see, the picture is left-justified. Too amateur to center it, believe me, I tried. I like writing my post under HTML, makes me feel smart. Now to work on a whole webpage…sigh.

Website Critique

The Huffington Post

 Organization:             14/20

 Ease of use:                13/20

 Aesthetics:                  12/20

 Content Richness:     17/20

 Content Style:            17/20

 TOTAL:                     73/100

 Critique – The Huffington Post is a sensationalist news website that attracts people through huge headlines and photos and using the techniques of both a newspaper and a blog. The organization of the site is fairly simple. It is divided by subject and features a sidebar showcasing the most frequented/popular stories. I gave it 14/20 however because the home page is way too busy. I can never read from this site because there is too many options to choose from, from the home page to subjects like politics. The ease of use is complicated because of this and because the Home page scrolls on forever. Meanwhile, the photos and massive amount of links makes it hard to look at. Where it succeeds is in content. The sensationalist headlines and photos attract readers and the home page only offers a glimpse into the article or post. I think the comment section of each article should be linked to and not at the bottom of the article because this makes for continuing scrolling. The writing is entertaining and attention-grabbing. Overall grade of 73 out of 100.

 Sympatico.ca

 Organization:             17/20

 Ease of use:                17/20

 Aesthetics:                  17/20

 Content Richness:     15/20

 Content Style:            16/20

 TOTAL:                     82/100

 Critique – My parents continue to use Sympatico as their homepage despite my many tries to change it to Google. Then I really looked at it. It is a very decent website. The overall organization of the site is crisp. Divided by subject as well as different news organizations, this site is an amalgamation of news, weather, online games, shopping…etc. Looking at it in a strictly news sense, it’s appealing. The home page offers a lot of information but does so neatly. The aesthetic is clean. The top of the page flashes from news story to the next without being too distracting. The writing of the headlines are key here since that’s all you see. Once linked to an article written for Sympatico (not CTV News or CBC), the writing is not too dull, however, not extraordinary. An article that runs longer than 500 words links to a second page, instead of taking up a page and scrolling forever. Some of the pictures that relate to the article, though, are just too small. The site, like the Huffington Post, has a sidebar of popular articles, an element I think is crucial in a news site. Overall grade: 82/100.