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The long day

Last week we had the board members from the Alabama Press Association on campus. Today, it is Gene Policinski, the vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center in Washington D.C.

Things are hoping around here.

Policinski met with student-journalists at the Crimson this morning. I treated him to a mid-morning snack after that and he told me how he got in the business, where he’s been and his upcoming projects. Very interesting — and nice — guy.

The department took him and a few students to lunch at The Rotunda Club, the exclusive dining arrangement on campus. We ate in a beautiful wood-paneled room with monogramed plates and personal attention.

I hope whatever organization that normally dines there was able to make do with vending machines.

We had a student media committee meeting, electing next year’s editors for the literary arts magazine, Sojourn, the yearbook, Entre Nous, and The Samford Crimson.

This evening Policinski was the featured guest at the Timothy Sumner Robinson Forum. This is a Samford program named for a 1965 alumnus. The Robinson family hosts the event each year in honor of Timothy, who was a veteran of The Washington Post and the National Law Journal.

At the Post Robinson had more Watergate front page stories than anyone. He’d go on to work at NYU, and then head west to pioneer much of the first online media work.

Here’s Policinski speaking in Bolding Studio about the constitutionally “unique role” of journalists in the political and legal system:

He notes “We have turned to an era where we talk to people directly.”

He applaud bloggers and citizen journalists, but notes a difference between what they might do and what a committed court reporter could offer as coverage. He’s right, and it isn’t about the journalism, but about the legal system. There’s a need, he says, for more legal training, which is part of a big project he has coming up soon with his many professional affiliations.

The state of legal reporting is in decline, but not because of the people covering it, but by volume. Meanwhile, he says, the journalism profession is “if not walking away from it is turning away because of other pressing issues.”

Great to have him on campus, though it made for a long day (and after that there was still the newspaper). It was worth it. You can follow him on Twitter @genefac.

Don’t forget: Tumblr and Twitter.

Auburn / football / history / iPhone / links / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
21
Apr 12

The three Heisman statues

Finally got to see these today. They’re quite impressive. And at a reported $100,000, they better be.

(A statue of a living person is unfortunate, but we’ve already crossed that bridge.)

The unveiling, last weekend, with Pat Sullivan, Bo Jackson and Cam Newton all in attendance:

Wish they’d used an Auburn sculptor — remember what Shug said — but the Ken Bjorge from Montana did fine work. (Here he is working on the Heisman bust which is a bit of disembodied creepiness.)

Maybe the best part is the strategic positioning, with the official Heisman portrait of each man looking over the statue. Nice touch.

iPhone / journalism / links / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
19
Apr 12

Just because you read it

Board members from the Alabama Press Association were at Samford today talking to JMC students. Their advice: journalists are generalists, don’t limit yourself to print or video but get a bit of both, separate yourself from your competition.

The board members were passionate, optimistic and dedicated to helping their community and their industry. They gave good advice for students, both in the Crimson office, and in Dr. Jones’ print practicum class.

Dr. Jones got the ball rolling: “What skills do these students need?”

The consensus response? “Everything.”

Sounds familiar. We talk about that all the time at Samford, where our program endorses a broad-based approach. It helps make interns and graduates look more valuable to potential employers.

After that, the students have to take it upon themselves, but to get that encouragement from the faculty, to hear it from the pros — and to see how the industry is coming around to that reality, is a great thing. We’re doing it right.

And then there’s the latest from Pew.

The report goes on to say that 32 percent of these people say the disappearance of their local paper would have a major impact on their lives. Among people who aren’t that interested in local news, about half say their lives wouldn’t change at all if they didn’t have a local paper. Good, for newspapers, right?

But look at it another way: That means 68 percent of local news enthusiasts don’t believe the disappearance of their local paper would affect their lives in a major way. And 34 percent of such enthusiasts say the disappearance wouldn’t affect their lives at all.

This likely reflects local news enthusiasts’ reliance on TV; Pew reports that 80 percent of them use broadcast TV on a weekly basis, compared to 48 percent for newspapers, 52 percent for radio and 57 percent for “word of mouth.” TV was also the preferred source for weather and breaking news, the two issues local news enthusiasts follow most closely.

Believe being the key word. Look, the more media the better, and not just for our students’ sake. If I may return to my watchdog roots for a moment, someone has to watch the politicians and agencies and the occasional white collar bad guys.

And if papers go away, how will you get your comics?

One of the publishers today told the students he’s done everything in a newsroom, report, write, layout, copy editing, emptying garbage and writing the horoscope when it didn’t make it in on time.

So keep that in mind the next time you have a glance at Pisces.

Lessen’s tonight’s fortune somewhat, don’t you think?

I posted that on Facebook. A friend commented ” I got that one once. Three years later, I know my time is coming!”

Not everything you read is worth taking to heart.

adventures / history / iPhone / links / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
12
Apr 12

Signs of downtown San Antonio

Took part in a roundtable panel on the presidential primary season. I made a great Rick Perry joke.

“There were a couple of problems there. The back surgery, the painkillers and … well … I forget the other one.”

Brought down the house. If anyone remembers anything I said on that panel, it won’t be the analysis but the joke.

We got the chance to walk around downtown a bit. Here are a few signs from the area:

The Aztec opened in 1926. It cost $1.25 million, which would be something like $22.6 million today. You wonder what the owner thought a few years later when the Depression landed on him:

In response to competition from other theatres, a magnificent chandelier was commissioned and installed, in only 35 days, in the main lobby in 1929. Weighing over 2,000 pounds, this ornate, 2 story, 12 foot in diameter fixture was billed as “The largest chandelier in the largest state in the Union”.

This says something about the barber, or the client, or both:

We were trying to resolve the mystery when we noticed they also had a foosball table inside.

This sign isn’t old, but I love it like it was creaking from decades in the sun and wind:

This isn’t a sign, but I would like to point out that this is the level of ornamentation they’ve put into a parking garage:

This theatre, The Texas, competed with The Aztec:

Also built in 1926, in the Spanish Colonial and Rococo style, it cost $2 million. It closed in the 1970s and was razed a few years later. The facade, though, lives on as part of an office building. (More here and here and here.)

I love this, because it is a neon sign evocative of one of my favorite songs:

Today we had lunch at a place I’ll write about tomorrow. We had dinner on the River Walk, the touristy part. The enchiladas were good, though.

And now I must return to my notes. I have three panel sessions to participate in tomorrow.

journalism / links / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
3
Apr 12

Things to read

Just a bunch of links today, I’m afraid. But good links. So do check some of them, and the selected excerpts, out.

LinkedIn: Online publishing up 24%, newspapers down 28%

How has our economy evolved in the past five years? Which industries are shrinking or growing through these challenging economic times? These are some of the questions that the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) delves into each February in the “Economic Report of the President” (ERP). This year, the CEA worked with us to glean further insights into industry trends both during the recent recession and after its end in June 2009.

[…]

The fastest-growing industries include renewables (+49.2%), internet (+24.6%), online publishing (+24.3%), and e-learning (+15.9%). Fastest-shrinking industries were newspapers (-28.4%), retail (-15.5%), building materials (-14.2%), and automotive (-12.8%).

Since this great economic sorting out isn’t yet settled, I’m sure some of the industries in that terrific chart are still moving around.

Meanwhile.

C.S. Lewis, replying a letter to a young fan, on the what really matters in the craft of writing:

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

[…]

4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

You should read the full letter, which is full of masterful advice.

Steve Yelvington says “adaptive HTML5 layouts on the “everything just works” principle will eclipse smartphone, tablet apps.”

Two First Amendment stories.

My boss once observed that I was something of a First Amendment guy. As a journalist himself, he understands, though all of us should. Those stories are more than a little abhorrent. But if anyone needs to have that explained: the Founders thought it kind of important. They put it first.

Sports: Auburn hired a new women’s basketball coach, Terri Williams-Flournoy, late of Georgetown. On her first day in the new job she said “We want to cause havoc as much as we can.

Like the sound of that. Before she took the job she called Nell Fortner, who just resigned from the position. Fortner is the best. Flournoy, or others, might be better coaches, but the athletic department will never find anyone that loves the place as much as she does. This is what she said when the new coach called: “She knew that it would be a great place for me to bring my family and she just kept going on and on and on about the community.”

The new NFL uniforms, in poor photographs. I’m not sure if it is the imagery or the new gear that is underwhelming. And “fast is faster”? Ugh.