Posted by
JoB
at
4:11 PMTuesday, September 25, 2012
Twitter...'tweeting'...the 'Twitter-verse'...if you are currently involved in any kind of media-related activity, you cannot shun this micro-blogging phenomenon that has attracted over 500 million users and produces over 340 million updates daily. Started in 2006, the allure of this service is in its brevity--all 'tweets' must be 140 characters or less. While the user can attach photos or embed hyperlinks to provide some subject context, that self-imposed limit supposedly allows for more spontaneous submissions and simulates a public 'chat' among a group of individuals who 'follow' each other's postings.
I joined Twitter a little over a year ago and have 'tweeted' 149 150 times (my 150th 151st will be announcing this blog posting). Along the way, I have acquired 24 'followers' whom I became acquainted with during my pursuit of my lifelong dream either directly, through others already subscribed to my feed, or complete strangers who were merely attracted by my content. I follow 78 other 'Twitizens' who hail from the world of journalism, the media, my UMass classes, or were the subjects/settings for my published pieces.
I will honestly admit that I do not keep as current with this account as I do with my personal Facebook page but I do receive notifications when I get a new 'follower' or when I am mentioned in someone else's 'tweet'. When such an email hits my in-box, I log in to check on that activity (and some very interesting people have tried to befriend me which resulted in 'spam' notifications to the service). This is a rather mundane process for someone who only interacts with two dozen others on an irregular basis so I cannot imagine how someone with 10,000 times more 'followers' handles the deluge of daily comments, 'retweets', and direct messages that might be generated. And this dilemma is what has me posting today.
Posted by
JoB
at
12:48 PMThursday, September 20, 2012
President Barack Obama greets supports at the conclusion of the "Grassroots Event" held at Cincinnati's Eden Park on Monday afternoon.
CINCINNATI, OH -- President Barack Obama made his twelfth trip to Ohio on Monday with a "Grassroots Event" stop in Cincinnati early Monday afternoon in the city's Mount Adams neighborhood area. Addressing a crowd of approximately 4,500 supporters at the Seasongood Pavilion in Eden Park, Obama stressed the stark differences between his campaign and that of his opponent, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and the decision voters will have to make over the next 50 days concerning the direction the country takes for the next four years. He told the gathering that "it's not just between two candidates or two political parties, but it is a choice between two fundamentally different visions on how we move forward as a country."
Posted by
JoB
at
12:24 AMSunday, September 16, 2012
Vice President Joe Biden addresses the "Grassroots Event" held at Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio on Wednesday afternoon.
FAIRBORN, OH -- The Obama 2012 presidential campaign paid another visit to Ohio when Vice President Joe Biden addressed a "grassroots" gathering of several hundred enthusiastic supporters Wednesday afternoon at Wright State University, located just outside Dayton. Air Force Two arrived at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base just after 12PM, and he was greeted by a military delegation headed by General Janet Wolfenbarger, the Air Force's first four-star general and commander of the Air Force Material Command. The vice president's motorcade made the short trip to the campus and passed several demonstrators expressing their dissatisfaction with the Obama administration from a location just across the street from the venue. Before coming into the main hall, Biden visited with folks who were in the event's overflow area to express his thanks for their turn-out for his appearance.
Posted by
JoB
at
12:37 PMMonday, September 10, 2012
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and President Obama making their acceptance speeches at their respective nominating conventions
With the banging of a gavel at 11:18pm last Thursday night, the Democratic National Convention came to a close, ending their three-day gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina to nominate President Barack Obama to represent their party and seek a second term in the Oval Office. Just one week before, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney received the Republican party's approval to stand for them at their weather-shortened event in Tampa, Florida. Both men, along with their respective running mates, have begun a 60-day sprint in which they must entice more of their voters to show up at the polls than their opponents for the November 6 general election. In addition to general campaigning, there will be three presidential debates as well as one for the two vice-presidential contenders to give any undecided people a few last opportunities to weigh their options.
If you are a reader of my blog, you will know that this is only the second time that I have used "In Memorium" in the title of a post. Many others have deserved such recognition in the period between that November 2011 item on Andy Rooney and this piece on the passing of American astronaut Neil Armstrong and I apologize for not being as vigilant as I should concerning my submissions.
In that previous post, I said I would use that slug individuals "deserving thanks for their contributions to journalism and/or the media." You might be scratching your head right now trying to see the connection between the Ohio astronaut and those two areas but, for me and scores of millions of people around the world, his July 1969 achievement was the first news story that we can actually remember happening in our lifetimes.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of Journalism or Bust!, the online documentation of the actions taken in my quest of achieving a lifelong dream of becoming a journalist. Over that span, I've upload 78 items here about a wide variety of subjects and personal experiences with the intent of showing an evolutionary improvement in my skills and overall journalistic perspective. I've completed three classes in my UMass program and will be taking a journalism ethics course in the fall term.
I'd like to thank the folks from all around the globe who have come by here either by accident or perhaps on purpose. A few of my posts have been very popular (the Obama rally in Columbus last May, the Santorium event outside Cincinnati back in March) and Blogger is showing that over 5,000 pageviews have occurred over the past 12 months. Granted, this is just a drop in the bucket when compared to the volume of visits The Huffington Post, The New York Times and other media "giants" see on a daily (or even hourly) basis but I'm not doing this for the exposure (or any revenue). Right now, this blog is a labor of love that I will look back at in a few years' time to help me gauge just how far I really advanced towards my goal.
[NOTE: I listened to Frank Rich this morning during the last half hour of The Bill Press Show on Current TV and that reminded me that I just wrote about him during my recently completed Intro to Online Journalism course. I was to find and analyze the online channels used by my favorite writer and detail how they use them to capture audience attention and create conversations. Just thought that I should share the assignment, which was written in the middle of July, with my readership.]
If given the choice of any writer I would aspire to be (or one that would require a natural disaster for me to miss their latest work), the hands-down choice would be Frank Rich. A one-time theater critic turned op/ed columnist, Rich has been one of the leading progressive voices in America’s ‘mediascape’ for the past decade who came into his own during the country’s lead-up to the Iraq War and the later years of the George W. Bush administration. On a weekly basis, he penned hard-hitting 1,500-word columns on politics, current events and culture which anchored The New York Times’ expanded ‘Week in Review’ section in their Sunday editions from 2005 until early 2011 when he left to join New York Magazine. Rich has slowed down just a tad at his new employer (he now does a monthly column and weekly ‘interview’ sessions with editor-in-chief Adam Moss) but this new tempo has not diminished his veracity nor his desire to seek out the truth from among the multitude of media outlets and political operatives. While already a devoted weekly reader, his 2006 book The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth and its blistering expose of how Bush and his team ‘rolled out’ a campaign to coerce the American public to sanction a war with Iraq cemented his place as my favorite writer.
[NOTE: this article addresses what I experienced last weekend, not the current one. I really have to start focusing on my deadline "issues".]
From top clockwise, the closing ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics, the unveiling of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's vice-presidential nominee, and a promotional graphic for the movie The Campaign
After a week of getting reacquainted with my job and completing the final project for my Intro to Online Journalism course, I had the chance to relax a bit and take in some television and movie watching and get back into my regular routine of sampling the many media sources I have access to.
Posted by
JoB
at
12:17 AMSaturday, August 11, 2012
(NOTE: this is my final project for JOURNAL 397W, Intro to Online Journalism. I was tasked to create a comprehensive profile on a subject of my choosing and present it as a multimedia feature through pre-selected online tools--I relied upon Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, and the Google News data aggregator. Once compiled, I was to then use Storify to bring those images, videos, quotes, and tweets together and display them in a blog setting. Luckily, that site provided a code that allows me to embed the piece here just like it appears at the original location. Unfortunately, I cannot insert a "jump break" within the Storify item so you will have to scroll through the entire posting when navigating on my page.)
(UPDATE: while I was finishing the project and preparing it for posting, it appears that Mitt Romney announced that he will introduce Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential pick at a campaign event this morning in Norfolk, Virginia. The Storify piece was updated at 1:30AM on the 11th to reflect this information.)
(FOR MY INSTRUCTOR: when prompted for the embed code, I opted for the "HTML for SEO" option. I hope that will give me some extra credit points ;-) )
As you've probably noticed, I haven't posted here in a little while. Part of the reason is due to the compressed nature of my current college course and another is a lingering bout of bronchitis that I can't seem to shake. One last cause for this absence has been the preparation for a summer vacation I've been planning since the spring. My high school class is having a get-together this weekend and I have traveled by car back to Pennsylvania to attend. It's been many years since I've seen many of these folks and I'm looking forward to meeting them and talking about the 'good old days'.
[NOTE: this is the second of a five-part series critiquing morning news offerings from US broadcast and cable news providers. It has taken me quite a while to get this piece up but I'm hoping that the other three will follow on a much quicker pace.]
FLOW: the show started promptly at 7AM with urgent music to highlight the pending tease of the days news events. Roberts and Stephanopoulos traded 'teasers' for highlighted stories (wildfires in western US, a yacht hoax off the New Jersey coast, a mysterious hit-and-run incident in Los Angeles, dangers in spray tanning products) as well as updates on Commerce secretary Bryson's erratic driving over the weekend and Roberts' announcement on Monday's program that she is suffering from myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS.
After a two-month hiatus from formal studies, I am back on the scholastic calendar with the start of my Intro to Online Journalism course (JOURNAL 397W). While it officially begins today, I have been on the school's website since last Friday to be fully prepared for the first day of the term and to introduce myself to my fellow classmates. It looks to be a fast-paced block of instruction and student interaction (it ends August 14th) and I'm hoping that I will be able to apply some of the things I learn to this website and to others in the future. I'll be sure to let you all know when those changes will start to happen.
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