There is this giant filing cabinet drawer sitting in one corner of my office. I rescued it some time back from a nearby room. That office space was once the home of Entre Nous, the Samford yearbook. When they moved elsewhere it seemed to become a storage space, mostly forgotten. Finally someone came along and made plans to use it for another department and we were kindly asked to move all of our old stuff out of that room.
So I moved all of our old journalism department things and all of our old newspaper things out of there. It was a multi-day process and helped proved where my time goes.
Anyway, one of the things I discovered in there was this giant drawer of newspaper clippings. Instead of moving it to another storage space I just put it in my space because the clips would be fun and because this joker was heavy.
And now I am going through some of the clips. This was in a folder titled “Computers.” I’ll just leave this here for you to note the dates yourself.
From November of 1979:
From September of 1987:
From December of 1987:
Also from December 1987:
And you could apparently check your email in March of 1988:
I love two tidbits in that last story:
“Students often find creative ways to send messages to friends. Charles Dunlap, a pharmacy major from Tullahoma, Tenn., sometimes sends graphics and computer art through the system.
[…]
Although most students feel positive about the use of E-mail, some have expressed complaints that communicating electronically causes some people to avoid one-on-one communication.
So some things are the same, no matter your connection speeds, eh?
The people writing those stories, or pictured in the photographs, are ministers, educators and work in the software industry. Our alumni turn up in all manner of interesting places.
Things to read … because reading takes you to interesting places.
There is this football game this weekend, perhaps you’ve heard of it? Here are three stories looking back on last year’s game. Each has their own merit. One of them is mine. I present them to you in order of importance:
Jon Solomon’s Remembering “Kick Six”
My piece, The Iron Bowl
Thomas Lake’s Looking back at historic Iron Bowl a year later
Solomon’s piece is the one I’d excerpt, but it defies excerpting. If you read one sports piece today, that should be it. It is simply one of the best non-sports-masquerading-as-sports stories you’re likely to read this year. Superb copy. High marks, Jon Solomon, high marks.
Here are a few quick journalism and PR links:
Will be sharing this in class next week, 7 ways to ensure your press release won’t get covered
I wish I had more places to share this, Visual journalism: Virtual reality graphics technology
A one-page photo essay from 2013, still worth seeing, if only for shots 23 and 36, On the Border
One to make you mad, Social worker charged with smoking crack while driving on I-65 with child in car
And three really nice stories to end on. The first one has an aww, an oops and a neighbors-helping-neighbors theme. The second one is a superbly touching kindness of strangers tale and the last one is part of the great Gabby Giffords comeback.
Sheriff’s dive team recovers engagement ring dropped in Noccalula Falls
Former newspaper vendor Charles Graham receives the birthday surprise of a lifetime
That sounds like a great ride to me.
Have a nice one today and come back for more tomorrow.
