Media Participation Project

For my media participation project I wrote a story for Unwind! Magazine. It was really fun going to the meeting to listen to the story pitches and choose which story you wanted to write. Unwind! Assigns stories based on who raises their hands first during the meeting. This process is exhilarating and stressful at the same time, if you see the story you want you have to shoot your hand up and make it clear that that story is yours. When I was listening to the pitches by topic I found them all to be interesting, but I was holding out for the music section because I wanted to see if music-journalism is the career for me. When the time came I shot my hand up in the most passive aggressive way I could and snagged a story on holiday music.

My assignment was somewhat vague but it revolved around holiday music: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I took this direction and moved it towards discussing how holiday music today can be rather provocative and sometimes miss the bar for family themes and holiday spirit. I thought that this assignment was really fun, I loved talking about music with the people I interviewed and it was cool to see what their thoughts were on something that I’m so passionate about. I am a little nervous to know what my editor thinks since I took it in a more extreme direction; but I’m definitely going to write again for Unwind! I really enjoyed writing my first “music-journalism” piece and I want to continue writing different music related pieces because it combines my two passions: writing, and talking about music.

I also decided to make a short holiday playlist myself as an extra without knowing if it’d be used as part of the story. My editor told me that she liked the playlist idea and said she would create the playlist on either Spotify or 8Tracks and add a link to the online edition!

Helen Thomas

            Helen Thomas was most well known for her work as a White House press corps and opinion columnist. She worked for the United Press and wrote a column for Hearst Newspapers from 2000-2010. She was the first female officer for the National Press club, as well as the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. She was a pioneer for women writers and paved the way for women writers.

            Thomas was born in 1920, and she remained active in the business until 2010, when she retired after controversial comments she made about Israel and Jews. She became a household name while serving as correspondent for John Kennedy. She fought for women’s equality and she proved to be a force in journalism. She was the only female journalist to travel with Nixon, and she traveled with each president after him, including Obama.

            Thomas was arguably the most influential woman in all of journalism. She was active for 70 years, and was known for asking harsh but important questions. In 2010, her career took a sharp turn for the worst. A reporter asked her for a comment on Israel, and she defended the Palestinian view. She was slammed as anti-Semitic and against Israel, and consequentially, she resigned. Nearly every news organization was delighted in her resignation, and Obama agreed that she made “the right decision.” After her remarks, her company dropped her, she was stripped of some awards, and her name became a joke. Some scholarships in her honor dissipated and she never regained her reputation.

            Thomas wrote until her death in 2013, and some of her previous standing was restored as reporters named her a trailblazer who redefined the limits of journalism. Her legacy will live on forever, but unfortunately, so will the stigma attached to her name.

Additional sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/media/helen-thomas-who-broke-down-barriers-as-white-house-reporter-is-dead-at-92.html?_r=0

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/helen-thomas-jfk-went-on-date-97883.html

http://www.biography.com/people/helen-thomas-38119

Cokie Roberts

Cokie Roberts was born in New Orleans in 1943 to Hale Boggs, US Congressmen and later Democratic majority leader of the House of Representatives. Because of his career, Cokie and her siblings were required to live half of the year in Washington DC rather than their hometown. This allowed her to become familiar with all of the political buildings and prominent politicians of Washington DC. Cokie majored in political science at Wellesley College.

She worked for Altman Productions, a television production company, after graduation, hosting a regular Sunday afternoon public affairs program on local TV. After she met her husband, Steven Roberts, she quit her job and moved to New York City where her new husband reported for the New York Times. After finding difficult in her job search in the city because of her gender, Cokie and Steven moved to Los Angeles for Steven’s work and Cokie began the production of a children’s television program called “Serendipity.”

Hale Boggs, Cokie’s father, disappeared in 1972 when flying to Alaska to campaign. Lindy, Cokie’s mother, was encouraged to run in his place. She won and was in Congress for the next 20 years. During that time, the New York Times sent Cokie and Steven to Greece to report from abroad. Cokie reported occasionally for CBS radio and television. Rather than transferring the couple to Thailand, where they expected to be next, they were brought back to the Washington DC area. Cokie bought her childhood home from her parents.

Cokie was told about possible job opportunities at National Public Radio (NPR), who hired many women reporters. She was hired, and impressed the team on her first major assignment. Soon after she was sent to cover Congress, where she impressed NPR with her intimate understanding of the structure. She had family connections within the government, so important news would reach her first. Cokie was one of three women to start a union within NPR for better working conditions and pay. They achieved first a new headquarters for NPR, in a better building.

Roberts produced a show for PBS called “The Lawmakers” after public approval of her reporting on Congress caught the attention of the company. She worked with two other women on the show, making it the first show on television made up of an all-women news team. She transitioned to television well.

ABC News hired her for a better salary than NPR in 1988 to report for one show, occasionally host another, and to offer commentary on a third. She did all of this while still working as a senior news analyst for NPR. This brought her much respect because she was able to handle and excel in both jobs, without falling behind in either.

Media Participation Project

For my Media Participation Project, I observed two recordings of UMTV's "Maryland Newsline." For the first recording, I wasn't sure what to expect. When I first arrived, I walked around the newsroom/studio, watching all of the processes that go into making an episode. Students were sitting at computers, editing clips of footage that would be incorporated into the episode. The students that were anchoring the episode were in a room fixing their hair and doing their make up. About 10 minutes before show time, the anchors sat at the news desk and started rehearsing their lines. The camera men and women stood behind the cameras, figuring out which camera would be on which anchor at what time. Throughout the episode, there was an assistant behind the cameras, directing the anchors which camera to look at, at which time. While one anchor was speaking, the camera would focus solely on him or her. The other anchor would look toward the assistant for direction on where to look next. During commercial breaks, the anchors would have up to a minute and 30 seconds to decide if they needed anything such as a touch up on makeup, a review of their lines, etc.  From the studio, I got to watch the episode as it was being filmed in the newsroom, and also on a television screen, which showed how it actually looked when it was all put together. Before I came to the show, I was under the impression that they recorded it in bits and pieces so it would be perfectly filmed and put together. However, they film live, so if something goes wrong during the show, they have to fix it quickly without making it apparent that something is up.
This was very obvious on the second day I observed, because this time I observed from the control room. This is where all the piecing together happens. There's a student who is directing the cameras, a student in charge of the music and how it fades out and in during the episode, a student who switches the screen to commercial, a student who puts captions on the screen at certain times, and a student making sure the teleprompter is in line with the episode. All together, this is a very confusing process, and there is one person making sure everything os going according to plan. It was a very stressful atmosphere compared to the environment of the newsroom/studio. At one point, a student from the control room put the wrong camera angle on the show at the wrong time, and we could see an anchor fixing her hair instead of the anchor that was giving the news. It was quickly adjusted, and as an audience member watching from home, I might not be able to notice, but from the control room it was very apparent that there was an error. At another point, the intro music was too loud and you couldn't hear the anchors, so the student in control of the music had to turn it down noticeably. Also, the teleprompter randomly disappeared during one of the commercial breaks, so the student in charge had a minute and 30 seconds to get it up and running before the show came back on, or else the anchors would have to improvise their lines. These students work in a very stressful environment, and they have to be able to think on their feet during the 30 minute episode.
Overall, I learned a lot about the backstage processes that go into making an episode of "Maryland Newsline." I don't know if I personally would want to be a part of UMTV, at least not in the control room. I don't work well under pressure and I would be too nervous that something might go wrong. However, I did take an interest in the cutting and editing of news clips. This process goes on before the episode is actually shot, and then the news clips are inserted throughout the episode. I would like to learn more about this process and maybe even do it myself in the future.

Media Participation Project

For my media participation project I initially ran into a lot of trouble trying to set up meetings or attend assignment meetings for several of the publications on campus. I ended up pitching a story to Her Magazine and Unwind Magazine, but unfortunately the idea had already been taken for Unwind and the people at Her Magazine never got back to me. With little time left to do the project I ended up emailing the Editor in Chief of the Diamondback and asking for some assistance. Luckily he set me up with one of his editors, Jenny Hottle, and I was able to spend some time in the Diamondback newsroom to see how the whole editing and layout process worked.
I had never been to the Diamondback newsroom before, let alone any newsroom, so just seeing what it looked like and how everyone was working was pretty interesting in and of itself. There were four copy editors, one managing editor, a page layout editor, a photo editor, and the two main editors. Every story that is written for the Diamondback has to go through each of these people before it goes to print. In the final layout stage of the publication four people read over everything once again to ensure that there are no mistakes.
While I was there Jenny was writing and editing a story about the Barking Dog closing in College Park. She was telling me that as a writer sometimes you will not get the information you want to hear, so you have to be crafty in how you phrase something or go about obtaining the information. In the case of her story, the manager of the Barking Dog refused to comment on why or even if they were closing the establishment down. In order to publish the story Jenny needed to be sure that they were in fact closing, so she called the Barking Dog at a different location and asked for the hours of the College Park Barking Dog, to which the person on the phone replied "uhh, the College Park location is closed." This was all the information she needed to complete her story, and now it is expected to go to print relatively soon.
Just from spending some time in the Diamondback newsroom and talking to Jenny and some of the other editors I learned some valuable information about journalism. The first thing was how the entire process of printing a newspaper works from start to finish. I did not realize how many components went into printing just one issue of a newspaper. The second thing was how to be a good journalist by not publishing false or misleading information. It is essential to wait for the correct information or be sly in how you obtain the correct information in order to maintain the integrity of the publication and yourself. Overall I really enjoyed being around some of the journalists and editors here on campus and listening to and reading over their stories and their take on certain issues. It was a great learning experience and I hope to go back again and maybe even pitch a story sometime.

Media Participation Project

For my Media Participation Project, I shadowed Amy Brittain at The Washington Post. She gave me a tour around the newsroom, pointing out the many Pulitzer Prizes, and then took me to her desk. Amy showed me the the different applications she uses to write and edit her stories, and how she sends them to the editors.

When I asked Amy about her job, I was surprised when she told me that she has a very unique position at the Post. Unlike many reporters, Amy doesn’t have a deadline and doesn’t write often; she spends most of her time out in the field getting information for her stories.

On the day that I shadowed, Amy spent her time in the newsroom coordinating with the photographer. The photographer knew he’d get the best shot if he took the picture while the woman was going into court; however, Amy knew that the woman would get “spooked” if she saw the picture being taken, and would either request a closed hearing or refuse to be interviewed after the hearing.

When we arrived at probate court, everyone - the security guards, the examiner, the lawyer - knew Amy by name and face. She told me she’d talked to all of them multiple times to get information and anything else that could help her with her story.

At 11 o’clock, we took our seats in the courtroom and waited for the hearing to start. The first request made by the defendant was the the hearing be closed because she didn’t want “the Washington Post reporter to be in attendance.” Amy and I left the courtroom and she immediately made a call to the Post’s lawyer, who said she should raise an objection. Calling on everything she learned from watching Law & Order, Amy went into the courtroom and objected that, since all of the files were public, we be allowed to sit in on the hearing. The objection didn’t go over and we were asked to leave for the second time.

Two hours later, the hearing was over. Amy and I talked to the defendant and even left court with her. When the defendant saw the photographer, she put a jacket over her head, preventing him from getting a sufficient picture.

I learned many things from shadowing Amy. By connecting her story to a similar one in San Diego, the story gained importance on a national level, earning a spot on the front page of The Washington Post. I learned that the two important questions to ask yourself about whether to use questionable information is if you obtained it legally, and if it’s ethical. I learned the importance of making and keeping connections.

Shadowing Amy further increased my interest in being an investigative journalist. She told me that other people in the newsroom have jobs that require them to sit at a desk and post 6-10 blogs each day, while she gets to go all over Washington D.C. in search of stories and information. I had a very beneficial experience at The Washington Post.

Media Participation Project

     For my media participation I chose to interview/shadow a journalist. Due to schedule conflict I was unable to shadow my journalist but was lucky enough to score an interview. On November 16, 2013, I met with Trina Williams the Associate Producer Newscast at National Public Radio (NPR) at Capital Teas at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill. On the misty Saturday the two of us sat at the tea bar where she drank a cup of tea per my treat, since after all I was the one conducting the interview, and we had a wonderful conversational interview.
     Right from the beginning me and Trina had a lot in common for she decided to settle as a journalist after initially being interested in acting. This was only the beginning though, Trina went to Howard University where she studied communication. She interned at places such as CBS, Department of Veteran Affairs, and the Pentagon as a part of the Speaker's Bureau and once out of school she realized how difficult working in the journalism field could be. Trina remained living at home while working for a small news station titled, WFXA FM in Falls Church where she worked the newscast, but did not earn enough money to live comfortably at this time.
      One day while working at WFXA a lady by the name of Stephanie mentioned to Trina that she should apply to be the administrative assistant to someone at NPR. Trina said, "hey why not," and looked at this opportunity to get her foot in the door. Consequently, Trina got the job and has been working at NPR for the past 20 years, something she didn't see coming.
     One of the most memorable moments Trina shares was covering the 9/11 tragedies. Being that she was a part of the newscast, news is planned by the hour, and on this day of these horrific events it all happened subsequently as she wast to be delivering the news of the hour, she found herself actually covering breaking news.
      The funniest moments that she recalls having on the show would be when anchors mispronounce words like their names because that is such a generic thing to know, yet still happens.
      One of the last things we spoke about was who was her favorite journalists and why, she says that she admires Oprah which is like my idol! I want to be Oprah and so did she so we connected on that aspect which brought the plane in for a landing.
      Overall I believe this was a successful interview and it gave me a little look into the professional journalism world as well as exposure to commonality that me and Trina have in many aspects which served to be comforting. With the comfort established in the beginning and the "real" information that I received while conducting this interview made this a great experience.