new gig

You're looking at the newest intern for High Speed Productions, Inc.

HSP produces three magazines: Thrasher, Juxtapoz, and Slap. Today was my first day, and I spent the entire time transcribing an artist interview that will appear in Slap. I may be developing carpal tunnel syndrom. But I couldn't be happier.

:)

With great power comes great responsibility

So last week I had my first great big genuine journalistic fuck-up.

The story: the USF Faculty Association was holding "informational picketing" sessions last Monday and Wednesday to raise awareness about their ongoing contract negotiations with the administration.

I got in touch with the president of the USFFA and had a phone interview with him over the weekend. Then I figured I could get in touch with the rest of my sources on Monday as the picketing was going on.

The Foghorn does layout Monday night. I had Monday afternoon (my only free time after three classes) to gather the majority of my sources and write the entire 600+ word article. I quickly spoke to as many people as I could who were outside at the event, and then scrambled into the Foghorn office to get my words onto paper, fast.

The story was, I thought, a success. It was long. There were a lot of quotes. My grammar was superb and the story flowed quite nicely. A+ work, I thought.

Sometime around Tuesday, I got a nagging feeling in my stomach. There was something not right about my story. By Wednesday, it was quite clear: my story only presented one side of the issue. Only USFFA picketers and supportive students were quoted. There was no representation from the administration, nor any dissenting faculty or student voices. Oh. Shit.

Sure enough, Thursday morning, after the paper had been on the newsstands no more than 12 hours, Fr. Stephen Privett, USF president, sent the Foghorn an extremely angry e-mail. I'll quote for you some of Privett's more stinging insults:

• "The article is a classic case of 'Fox' journalism where one and only one perspective is passed it off as 'news.'"

• "How can anyone with a brain think that the University 'has run economic surpluses of $40 million a year for the last three years?'"

• "Had your reporter taken the time to at least review my convocation address, she might have had a clue about the University’s overall financial situation."

• "The Foghorn’s passing off such a one-sided, partisan discussion of a very complex situation as a 'new' article is inexcusable."

Etc. etc.

Ouch.

I definitely regret not spending more time gathering interviews to create a balanced article. It's true that the article was "biased." Not in the sense that I included my own opinions in the piece, but in the sense that I only interviewed people on one side of the issue. Was this based on my own feelings about the faculty contract negotiations? Hardly! It was simply a matter of a busy student journalist trying to do too much in too little time.

I realize now that when one has the great responsibility of covering a story that actually MATTERS to a lot of people, a reporter has to be extremely fair to each and every side -- and if I was too busy to cover the story responsibly, I should have held it for the next week's issue or asked for help from another reporter.

Though I think Fr. Privett's e-mail was a tad harsh, I definitely feel remorseful. Cheesy as it sounds, I learned a valuable lesson from this experience.

Please, read the story for yourself and tell me what you think. And this goes back to my last week's blog post: how do you go about defining bias? And is it always such a horrible thing? Anyway, things to ponder...

A question of objectivity

When my journalism and media studies professors lecture on the idea of objectivity, neutrality, or bias in journalism, it always leaves me deep in thought. Most people go about reading their news assuming it is neutral, unless there is an overt slant. If such a slant does exist, they usually become turned off. "This is so BIASED!" like it's a dirty word.

Is bias a bad thing? Usually the conclusion we draw in my classes is that everyone is biased, everyone has their own sets of beliefs, everyone cannot help but feel the things they feel, and so -- even in journalism -- it is impossible for anyone to be entirely 100% neutral.

For many consumers of news, neutrality is considered the golden standard, but I'm not sure that is always best. Should one really be neutral about issues of genocide, racism, murder or torture? Or a harder question: should one be neutral about fighting in unjust wars or passing discriminatory propositions if doing so would contradict personal convictions?

Most importantly: is neutrality really the way to lead readers to the truth?

Talking Politics with Speaker Pelosi

Oh boy, have you ever had something so amazing happen that you just can't find the words to do it justice? Because that is exactly how I feel about the last few days I spent in DC for the filming of an interview with Nancy Pelosi for mtvU's Editorial Board.

I've only been gone for three days, but it feels like a lifetime of experiences have occurred. First of all, it was my first time in the nation's capital, and that was just huge for me. When I arrived Sunday night, I called up my friend Josh and he took me for a two hour walking tour of all the monuments and statues and important buildings.


Good thing we did that, because starting Monday morning, I didn't have any time to sight-see at all.

Of course the actual experience of taking part in a professional TV news show and meeting one of the most important women in the world was the most impressive of all.

So here's what happened in a nutshell.

All day Monday was spent figuring out what questions we would ask, how we would ask them, and how we would follow up if she tried to give us a "smooth" or "politician" response. We met with Charlie Mahtesian, national politics editor of Politico.com, to help us ask the tough questions the right way. As a journalist, I have never had to think so hard about my questions. I definitely learned a lot.

I was working with three amazing college students from around the country: Lily Lamboy from Smith College, Micheal O'Brien from U of Michigan, and Jake Sherman from George Washington. These three are really brilliant and I felt honored to be working with them. I was also working with mtvU people, who were all really cool, and I got to meet some folks who are pretty high up in the chain of command. I even met some Viacom people, as Viacom owns MTV. It was really exciting meeting all these important people, and they seemed excited to meet us as this is only the second episode of Editorial Board, and it is still an exciting and unpredictable project for them.

Tuesday was the big day. We woke up super early, grabbed breakfast, and met in the GW Gelman Library where we were shooting. We rehearsed our questions again, discussed follow-ups, got make-up touched up, and joked nervously to calm ourselves. The room was chaotic with lots of cameras, bright lights, tons of people from mtvU, Viacom, politco.com, even the AP.

Suddenly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, Speaker Pelosi entered the room. She greeted us warmly, we shook hands, and sat down. Lily asked her about a small pin she was wearing, which she said was from Tibet. No more than a minute or so after she sat down, it was time for the interview to commence.

All in all it went smoothly. We got into some interesting conversations about China and Tibet, the war in Iraq, and the Democratic primaries. She was pretty smooth, and didn't say anything that would get her into trouble, but it was still interesting conversation. Sadly, we ran out of time way before we ran out of questions, but that's journalism.


Look at us! We even made the news!
Washington Post - Pelosi: Reduce number of superdelegates
Politico - Pelosi at odds with Petraeus at mtvU forum
Politic0 - Pelosi: Petraeus kicking the can

Blogs from my fellow panelists:
GW Hatchet Blog - MTV, The Hatchet and Nancy Pelosi
Christian Science Monitor - Speaking with Speaker Pelosi

Arriving home last night was odd. There is still so much on my mind from the whole experience; I am kind of overwhelmed by it all. This was something I will always remember, and will probably have to look at the pictures and video clips to make sure I didn't imagine it all.

Going to D.C.!

So it is official: I am going to Washington D.C. on Sunday to participate in an mtvU program called Editorial Board. The premise of the show is for four college journalists to interview a political figure to get him or her to answer to the issues that are important to young people. There has only been one episode so far, in which the students interviewed Bill Clinton. You can watch it on the Editorial Board web site.


I am one of the lucky four who gets to interview Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for the show's second episode.

I fly out to D.C. on Sunday, rehearse Monday, and the interview takes place Tuesday. I fly back to San Francisco Tuesday night. Somewhere between all that I hope to see some of the sights our nation's capital has to offer -- I've never been! -- but I won't be heartbroken if that doesn't happen.

All in all, free trip to D.C., opportunity to meet one of my political heroines, invaluable journalistic experience -- not a bad deal.

New York, New York

Over Spring Break I was given the invaluable opportunity to attend a three-day journalism conference in New York City with three other editors of The Foghorn. We were in conferences from about 8 am to 3 pm, and then the afternoons and evenings were free for exploring. Needless to say, I had the time of my life.

The conferences were incredibly fascinating. It came to little surprise to me that many of the speakers emphasized the importance of new media for college newspapers, and newspapers in general.

Blogs. Podcasts. Videos. Comments. Sound familiar, digital journalism classmates?

I am really excited to start incorporating these story-telling technologies into the Foghorn's online platform, which is embarrassingly behind the times. Some of my co-editors seem hesitant to incorporate these changes, in part because they don't know how and in part because they don't know why it is important. Hopefully I can start changing that soon -- I know this conference definitely got me pumped to start taking some action.

I really enjoyed hearing from the professional journalists as well. A lot of them talked about how to get a job and what to expect when you do get one. It's funny how in all of my media studies classes, we rarely get any information about what an actual job in the media industry entails.

* * * * *

As much as I learned inside the conference rooms, I learned almost as much by exploring the great city of New York. What an experience.

First of all, the food! Oh goodness, I have never eaten so well (or so poorly, from a nutritional standpoint). In my few days in the city, I enjoyed a cheesy roast beef sandwich from Connolly's Pub, a thick slab of chocolate cake from Junior's, and delicious Latin American cuisine from Boca Chica.

And I may have indulged in more pizza than one should in a three-day span. Oops.

* * * * *

Our hotel was in Times Square (check out the view from on of the conference rooms!)


But, just as Union Square does not give one an authentic taste of San Francisco, I am sure Times Square does not give much of an accurate portrayal of NYC, so my fellow travelers and I tried to branch out as much as we could in our short stay.

We went to the Laugh Lounge comedy club in the Lower East Side to see some local comedians.

On St. Patty's Day we hit up some Irish Pubs (and I'm pretty sure we saw a real life leprechaun, or else just a very short, red-haired, and intoxicated Irish man).

We checked out Ground Zero. That was humbling.


From there we walked through the Wall Street area to Battery Park, where I got to see the Statue of Liberty.


And we took a super touristy double decker bus ride that actually ended up giving me a good grasp of the city.

I took loads of pictures, so to see the madness firsthand, check out my Flickr set.

* * * * *

Incidentally, I was in the city in the midst of some pretty major breaking news: the embarassing Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal and the tragic construction mishap that left seven dead. It was interesting to hear all the buzz amongst locals about these major incidents. And there is something really cool about reading the New York Times when you're actually in New York City, a block or so away from its headquarters.

The only thing better than travel...

The only thing better than traveling is doing so on someone else's dime.

I have not one but two all-expense paid trips coming up. To answer your question, yes I do pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. Trust me, it's true.

The first trip is from San Francisco to New York City over spring break.


View Larger Map

I am going on this trip with three other editors from the Foghorn for a college journalism conference. During the days we'll get to learn all of the latest innovations in student journalism, and at night we'll peruse one of the few cities I would consider as cool as San Francisco.

The second free trip is to Israel over summer vacation.


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This trip is through the Birthright Israel program, which provides free trips to Israel for any young adult of Jewish descent to expose them to Israeli culture (and, I suspect, to try to convince them to move there). I have no idea what to expect -- the only place I've been outside of North America is Holland, where my brother-in-law is from -- and have a feeling that Israel will be quite a culture shock. I am really excited to be exposed to such a different way of life.

f*** this s***

As an editor for a Catholic university-funded newspaper, there are certain things we must be careful about. We get a lot of freedom from the administration, don't get me wrong, but there are certain subject matters that we are forced to be extremely sensitive about... abortion, birth control, alcohol and illegal substance use, etc.

Okay, so no frivolous pieces on the virtues of abortion. Duh.. no responsible journalist would do that anyway.

But one thing that was news to me was that the university has declared war on "naughty words." Two weeks ago, in an interview with Curb Your Enthusiasm's Susie Essman, staff writer Jim Taugher asked Essman for her thoughts on a comment posted on a fan message board that said "I would like to f*** the s*** out of her."

Turns out, this question, which was part of a really interesting interview full of good questions and colorful insights, was viewed by the university as being vulgar and offensive. The Foghorn immediately received e-mails from a prominent university official asking for an explanation and an apology.

Left with few options, we ran an apology the following week, and met with said official to grovel and gain back some of her affection. Shameless, I know.

The point is... what is the point? Oh yeah.. Profanity. The words used in the article were profane, especially in that context -- but that was the point. Besides, they really were implemented tastefully, as Taugher was using the quote to get at an interesting point: how can a strong woman in Hollywood, who doesn't portray herself as a sex toy by any means, deal with that kind of objectification? All in all, a really decent, smart question.

Moreover, these words were used in a direct quote, and they were asterisked out, all which is in line with the AP Style Guide.

Then...

On February 14, Jane Fonda appeared on the Today Show to talk about her involvement with the play The Vagina Monologues, and, low and behold, she used the "C-word." And America freaked. And NBC apologized profusely for her "slip-up." And people worried about the poor children who were exposed to this dirty, vulgar, disgusting word over their Cheerios.

The thing is, like The Foghorn incident (am I really comparing The Foghorn with The Today Show? meh...), it really wasn't a slip-up. At least I don't think it was. The word was used in the context of a famous feminist play, so it was obviously not being disrespectful toward women. In fact, one of the whole points of Monologues is to "reclaim" the word cunt from being what the Parents Television Council called "one of the most patently offensive words in the English language."

Bad words... isn't this all very juvenile? The very idea of certain words being "bad" reminds me of junior high school. I thought the stigma associated with these words would disintegrate after eighth grade.

It's things like this that make me want to move to Canada.