Over the course of this term, I have done a few articles here and there and learned some things about the interview process.
The journal beat that I did was fun. I found it interesting to look at what other area newspapers, including school newspapers, have written about the Beavers and their surprising success this basketball season. I have found that if I could get on somewhere and cover a sports beat I might be successful. The "Behind the Beat" articles from the Oregonian were the best, and it's inclusion of humor and personality are what me feel like I may be able to do that professionally and enjoy it.
The event story was a bit more difficult for me. Because of my schedule with work, family and school I found it hard to get to an event on campus. Eventually I settled on a press conference from baseball coach Pat Casey. It was interesting, but I learned more about the timing of these things more than anything. So, I will most likely (never say never) not be late to a press conference again - I will always be 30 minutes early if possible.
The profile I wrote about Veteran's Service Officer, Don Johnson, was fun for me. He is such an interesting guy and does so much for the veterans in the community.
All in all it was a good term, although I have to say that the class being on Wednesday night was my most "unfavorite" part of the class.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Blog From Eric Eldon's Talk In Class
Tonight's class was spent mostly talking about blogging how-to's, do's and don'ts. We were able to have Eric Eldon (pictured) from VentureBeat.com come to class and speak about how he does his blogging and how he has gotten to be successful in the field.
After working for the student newspaper at Stanford University in Palo Alto and graduating with a degree in International Affairs, Eldon was living a life familiar to most twenty-somethings trying to get started after college. Eldon was interested in beginning his own media business that would bring media together online, named - aptly enough -Unimedia.
After receiving only $20,000 for a year (for three guys) he wasn't sure if Unimedia was the direction he was going to go in. Matt Marshall, an ex-bay area journalist, started VentureBeat.com - originally valleybeat.com - and enlisted the help of Eldon to write a technical blog. Eldon's blogs are written about the developing technologies of Google and Yahoo, to name a couple.
His beat now is Facebook/MySpace and other social networks. He also serves as the Editor for the Digital Media division of the company. Although he has been told his work is done well, he knows that writing a technical blog is much different, and collaborative, than some others.
"Technical blogs are usually a conglomerate of bloggers from all different types of fields," Eldon said. He went on to say that technical blogs are becoming a "mix of more traditional trained journalists."
Even though technical blogging may be a team effort with ideas brought together by many different branches of the tree, Eldon did confess that the blogging field is becoming more and more cut throat every day.
Because of the harshness of this budding field, Eldon warned us to be especially wary of the possibility of instant success. That, he says, is most likely not going to happen.
Patience is the strongest virtue a future, successful blogger will have to employ. "To be a professional writer online these days, you have to stay at it for years," Eldon said.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Process Memo for Profile Story
I was having a hard time figuring out who I was going to do my profile on for the first few weeks of the class. I tried to get an interview with Coach Pat Casey and got denied. I then turned to his son, thinking he would have more time for an interview. I got denied again.
I then turned my attention to anyone I could think of in the community. It dawned on me that Don Johnson is the only Service Officer in Benton County for veterans. He was willing to do the interview so I went forward with that.
After pitching the story to Peter – and subsequently hearing that he had actually heard of Don – I realized that Don does a lot for more people than I know.
It’s not just the veterans that he helps. He has a wife who has beaten cancer within the last year, too. He just seems like a very supportive guy. So, with some luck, it seemed that the profile may actually write itself.
Through talking to his secretary, another veteran and Don himself that is exactly what happened.
Hopefully I’m able to portray that through the profile, but probably not to the extent to which it is deserved.
I then turned my attention to anyone I could think of in the community. It dawned on me that Don Johnson is the only Service Officer in Benton County for veterans. He was willing to do the interview so I went forward with that.
After pitching the story to Peter – and subsequently hearing that he had actually heard of Don – I realized that Don does a lot for more people than I know.
It’s not just the veterans that he helps. He has a wife who has beaten cancer within the last year, too. He just seems like a very supportive guy. So, with some luck, it seemed that the profile may actually write itself.
Through talking to his secretary, another veteran and Don himself that is exactly what happened.
Hopefully I’m able to portray that through the profile, but probably not to the extent to which it is deserved.
Beat Journal #6
The last time I did a beat journal about the Beavers playing the northern California schools, I looked at the coverage in the local commercial newspapers and ESPN.com. This time, I decided to look at the student papers (including The Daily Barometer) and their coverage of what turned out to be another weekend sweep for the Beavers.
First, last Thursday the Beavers beat Stanford 66-54. They were in control the whole game, led by 17 in the first half and really never looked back. The game was almost the same script as the last time they played back in January.
The coverage from the Stanford Daily was a bit amateur, but not horrible. The first thing that got me though was the fact that the accompanying photo for the game was not actually from the game. It was from a Stanford-Cal game, I know because you can actually see the Cal player that’s defending Stanford’s Anthony Goods.
I understand that they wanted to feature Goods because he’s a senior and one of their best players. But, if you don’t have a photo of him from the game you are reporting on then it’s time to look in a different direction with your accompanying photo. That’s just one man’s opinion.
Additionally, there wasn’t a single quote from any Beavers players or coaches in the article. That stuns me. I know it’s the Stanford newspaper, but a little neutrality in quotes would be nice.
The Daily Cal did a much better job of covering the Beavers 65-54 win over Cal on Saturday. They included multiple quotes from both teams and coaches and – I thought – did a very professional job of covering the game and it’s ramifications for both teams.
Having no photo at all is a big downer though. I would say that I fall on the Daily Cal’s side of the “no photo or photo of another game” question. Maybe they didn’t have any photos to use and decided, unlike the Stanford Daily, to not run one at all. If that’s the case then I believe they made the right decision.
However, from my experience just at the LBCC paper as the editor I know that colleges usually work together to trade photos since we don’t normally have budgets that allow our reporters to travel to road games. That may have been an avenue they didn’t explore.
As far as the Daily Barometer goes, they failed to place a photo as well. The story that Terry Horstman wrote was not bad, and it centered around both the fact that it was senior day and the fact that the Beavers swept the season series from both bay area schools. It was informative but not great.
First, last Thursday the Beavers beat Stanford 66-54. They were in control the whole game, led by 17 in the first half and really never looked back. The game was almost the same script as the last time they played back in January.
The coverage from the Stanford Daily was a bit amateur, but not horrible. The first thing that got me though was the fact that the accompanying photo for the game was not actually from the game. It was from a Stanford-Cal game, I know because you can actually see the Cal player that’s defending Stanford’s Anthony Goods.
I understand that they wanted to feature Goods because he’s a senior and one of their best players. But, if you don’t have a photo of him from the game you are reporting on then it’s time to look in a different direction with your accompanying photo. That’s just one man’s opinion.
Additionally, there wasn’t a single quote from any Beavers players or coaches in the article. That stuns me. I know it’s the Stanford newspaper, but a little neutrality in quotes would be nice.
The Daily Cal did a much better job of covering the Beavers 65-54 win over Cal on Saturday. They included multiple quotes from both teams and coaches and – I thought – did a very professional job of covering the game and it’s ramifications for both teams.
Having no photo at all is a big downer though. I would say that I fall on the Daily Cal’s side of the “no photo or photo of another game” question. Maybe they didn’t have any photos to use and decided, unlike the Stanford Daily, to not run one at all. If that’s the case then I believe they made the right decision.
However, from my experience just at the LBCC paper as the editor I know that colleges usually work together to trade photos since we don’t normally have budgets that allow our reporters to travel to road games. That may have been an avenue they didn’t explore.
As far as the Daily Barometer goes, they failed to place a photo as well. The story that Terry Horstman wrote was not bad, and it centered around both the fact that it was senior day and the fact that the Beavers swept the season series from both bay area schools. It was informative but not great.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Beat Journal #5
After getting beat down by Washington – again – the Beavers staged a second-half rally to beat Washington State on Saturday night in Pullman.
Christian Caple of the “The UWDaily” had an interesting take on the 79-60 Husky win last Thursday night. It seems that, even though the final score was not close, Husky fans were a bit nervous as halftime approached with the Beavers leading 29-25.
He spent over half the article talking about an alley-oop pass that Quincy Dentmon threw down to bring Washington to 29-27 late in the first half. Apparently, that was the play that woke the Huskies up and they never looked back.
The article is very well written. In fact, it’s seems good enough to not be just for a college paper. It was good stuff, using good quotes and really getting the feel for a game that, if you just looked at the score, would have seemed like a mundane 19-point win for the first place team in the Pac-10.
It was Kevin Dudley of the Daily Evergreen in Pullman that wrote about the Beavers’ comeback win on Saturday. His article is not nearly as strong at Caple’s in Seattle. The lead was wordy and it didn’t seem to get to the heart of the game – the comeback – until over halfway through the story.
He suffered from “Timeline –itis.” His story does start at the end of the game, but then goes back to the start of the game and is a chronological look at how the Beavers came back with a 18-1 run, turning an 11-point deficit into a six-point lead.
Their website did something cool though. The photo that accompanies the story is placed at the top left corner of the screen. When you roll the mouse over the photo, the caption appears. Kind of a cool way to present it I thought.
As far as the Oregonian, Paul Buker writes what it called “Behind the Beat” for the Beavers every day. It’s a great read. I have commented on this before, but it’s great when a columnist decides to write about behind the scenes stuff and not just “game notes” before a game.
Buker writes in today’s Oregonian about the Beavers’ upcoming home game with Stanford. Remember, OSU went down there and took it to the Cardinal 77-62 last month. New Cardinal head coach Johnny Dawkins doesn’t want to see that again.
Buker feels that the Cardinal will make some necessary adjustments to the back-door cuts the Beavers beat the Cardinal with in January. However, his (and Coach Robinson’s) stance is that it’s too hard to change your way of play this far into the season.He’s probably right – look for a Beaver win tonight.
Christian Caple of the “The UWDaily” had an interesting take on the 79-60 Husky win last Thursday night. It seems that, even though the final score was not close, Husky fans were a bit nervous as halftime approached with the Beavers leading 29-25.
He spent over half the article talking about an alley-oop pass that Quincy Dentmon threw down to bring Washington to 29-27 late in the first half. Apparently, that was the play that woke the Huskies up and they never looked back.
The article is very well written. In fact, it’s seems good enough to not be just for a college paper. It was good stuff, using good quotes and really getting the feel for a game that, if you just looked at the score, would have seemed like a mundane 19-point win for the first place team in the Pac-10.
It was Kevin Dudley of the Daily Evergreen in Pullman that wrote about the Beavers’ comeback win on Saturday. His article is not nearly as strong at Caple’s in Seattle. The lead was wordy and it didn’t seem to get to the heart of the game – the comeback – until over halfway through the story.
He suffered from “Timeline –itis.” His story does start at the end of the game, but then goes back to the start of the game and is a chronological look at how the Beavers came back with a 18-1 run, turning an 11-point deficit into a six-point lead.
Their website did something cool though. The photo that accompanies the story is placed at the top left corner of the screen. When you roll the mouse over the photo, the caption appears. Kind of a cool way to present it I thought.
As far as the Oregonian, Paul Buker writes what it called “Behind the Beat” for the Beavers every day. It’s a great read. I have commented on this before, but it’s great when a columnist decides to write about behind the scenes stuff and not just “game notes” before a game.
Buker writes in today’s Oregonian about the Beavers’ upcoming home game with Stanford. Remember, OSU went down there and took it to the Cardinal 77-62 last month. New Cardinal head coach Johnny Dawkins doesn’t want to see that again.
Buker feels that the Cardinal will make some necessary adjustments to the back-door cuts the Beavers beat the Cardinal with in January. However, his (and Coach Robinson’s) stance is that it’s too hard to change your way of play this far into the season.He’s probably right – look for a Beaver win tonight.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Beat Journal #4
Beat Journal #4
The Beavers had a tough time of it last weekend. They lost two home games – to each of the Arizona schools. They were tough games, but the first one (the loss to Arizona) was marred by some bad referee calls.
The article recounting the game in the DailyWildcat.com (Arizona’s student paper) showed a sigh of relief that Arizona had finally won a road game – it was their first road win of the year. But, the referees and their calls (or miscalls) made up almost the entire story.
It didn’t take but three paragraphs for Lance Madden (the author) to delve into what the referees did and didn’t do. I think that is interesting because they won the game. The articles about the game in the Barometer should certainly mention that, but Madden almost seemed to be apologizing for the win. He was right, the refs were horrible. I was just surprised to see the paper from the winning side spend so much time on it.
The asuwebdevil.com – Arizona State’s student paper – was much harder to navigate. The game took place on Saturday, after the Arizona game, yet finding the story about the game was nearly impossible to find.
Once I found it, the majority of the story is written as a “lovefest” for Nate McMillan’s kid, Jamelle McMillan. The guy had a nice game but the article, written by Alex Espinoza, made the guy sound like the second coming of Magic Johnson. Also, he referred to each half as “periods.” This drives me crazy. In college basketball they play “halves” not periods. The majority of the story, I thought, was going to be written about how great the Sun Devils’ defense was (they only gave up 38 points), but it was mostly about McMillan. Disappointing.
Cliff Kirkpatrick of the Gazette-Times here in Corvallis does a much better job – albeit he has much more experience than the student authors I mentioned above. He basically compared the Beavers season to a road of recovery. The Beavers fell off the wagon on Saturday night, according to him. It’s a good analogy and I think that he is right on the button. This is improving, but there are still a lot of growing pains to be had before we have a really good team at OSU. They seem to be on the right path, though.
The Beavers had a tough time of it last weekend. They lost two home games – to each of the Arizona schools. They were tough games, but the first one (the loss to Arizona) was marred by some bad referee calls.
The article recounting the game in the DailyWildcat.com (Arizona’s student paper) showed a sigh of relief that Arizona had finally won a road game – it was their first road win of the year. But, the referees and their calls (or miscalls) made up almost the entire story.
It didn’t take but three paragraphs for Lance Madden (the author) to delve into what the referees did and didn’t do. I think that is interesting because they won the game. The articles about the game in the Barometer should certainly mention that, but Madden almost seemed to be apologizing for the win. He was right, the refs were horrible. I was just surprised to see the paper from the winning side spend so much time on it.
The asuwebdevil.com – Arizona State’s student paper – was much harder to navigate. The game took place on Saturday, after the Arizona game, yet finding the story about the game was nearly impossible to find.
Once I found it, the majority of the story is written as a “lovefest” for Nate McMillan’s kid, Jamelle McMillan. The guy had a nice game but the article, written by Alex Espinoza, made the guy sound like the second coming of Magic Johnson. Also, he referred to each half as “periods.” This drives me crazy. In college basketball they play “halves” not periods. The majority of the story, I thought, was going to be written about how great the Sun Devils’ defense was (they only gave up 38 points), but it was mostly about McMillan. Disappointing.
Cliff Kirkpatrick of the Gazette-Times here in Corvallis does a much better job – albeit he has much more experience than the student authors I mentioned above. He basically compared the Beavers season to a road of recovery. The Beavers fell off the wagon on Saturday night, according to him. It’s a good analogy and I think that he is right on the button. This is improving, but there are still a lot of growing pains to be had before we have a really good team at OSU. They seem to be on the right path, though.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Beat Journal #3
The Beavers have only played one game since my last post. That one game, though, was a big one around here – the hoops version of the “Civil War.”
With the 57-54 win, the Beavers reached the .500 mark at 10-10 overall and are now 4-5 in the Pac-10.
The Register-Guard’s story about the game was surprisingly straight forward. No “homer” stuff, just straight reporting.
I have to say that I expected to see some real rah, rah stuff. It was written as if the game was any other game and not the Civil War – not that two under .500 teams should make it bigger than it is. I just thought that, in true Duck style, there would more “we are still better than them” attitude. It wasn’t there – a credit to the author, Bob Clark.
ESPN.com was certainly on top of the fact that it wasn’t a big game on the national level. Just one week after having the Beavers on their front page as the “National Team of the Week”, the story about a very competitive and close game was a mere 113 words. This just proves that Andy Katz got caught up in the whirlwind surrounding coach Robinson last week and that they really aren’t paying attention to the Beavers the way they presented last week.
Paul Buker of the Oregonian wrote today that coach Robinson may be working with Andy Katz on a book entitled, “A Game of Character.” It’s a title that coach Robinson says he didn’t come up with. Buker’s blog goes on to talk about how the coach doesn’t have access to the President’s blackberry, for fear that he would end up sending text messages like, ”Holy cripe! We just beat UCLA!”
I think that is hilarious. It’s refreshing to see a blog, in the heart of college basketball season, that isn’t completely just bogged down with stats about the games past and near-future opponents. It’s geared towards keeping fans informed, while letting them in on some of the stuff that makes sports great, the personalities involved.
With the 57-54 win, the Beavers reached the .500 mark at 10-10 overall and are now 4-5 in the Pac-10.
The Register-Guard’s story about the game was surprisingly straight forward. No “homer” stuff, just straight reporting.
I have to say that I expected to see some real rah, rah stuff. It was written as if the game was any other game and not the Civil War – not that two under .500 teams should make it bigger than it is. I just thought that, in true Duck style, there would more “we are still better than them” attitude. It wasn’t there – a credit to the author, Bob Clark.
ESPN.com was certainly on top of the fact that it wasn’t a big game on the national level. Just one week after having the Beavers on their front page as the “National Team of the Week”, the story about a very competitive and close game was a mere 113 words. This just proves that Andy Katz got caught up in the whirlwind surrounding coach Robinson last week and that they really aren’t paying attention to the Beavers the way they presented last week.
Paul Buker of the Oregonian wrote today that coach Robinson may be working with Andy Katz on a book entitled, “A Game of Character.” It’s a title that coach Robinson says he didn’t come up with. Buker’s blog goes on to talk about how the coach doesn’t have access to the President’s blackberry, for fear that he would end up sending text messages like, ”Holy cripe! We just beat UCLA!”
I think that is hilarious. It’s refreshing to see a blog, in the heart of college basketball season, that isn’t completely just bogged down with stats about the games past and near-future opponents. It’s geared towards keeping fans informed, while letting them in on some of the stuff that makes sports great, the personalities involved.
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