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A poorly flowing hodge podge (Or: Wednesday)

You might not be a journalist, Niemanlab says, but you play one on Twitter. True enough. There’s a lots of journalism being reported there. And a fair amount being poorly reported, as critics like to point out. Others might note, in response, that there’s a great deal of things underreported elsewhere that get attention on Twitter.

I prefer Twitter as an aggregation tool. I’ve talked with disbelieving journalism professors and working journalists and television producers about the quality of Twitter — they’re all using the tool these days, by the way — about that. I learn a great deal from Twitter that I wouldn’t get elsewhere.

Just today for example, a friend in Montgomery pointed out this story:

Alabama lawmakers gave final approval today to a watered-down version of legislation aimed at getting more insurance coverage for autism treatment.

The House of Representatives voted 96-0 for the bill, sending it to the governor for his signature.

The legislation requires insurance companies to offer coverage for the treatment of autism, including for a costly behavioral therapy that now is rarely covered. Businesses could choose whether to offer the coverage as part of their insurance options for employees.

A friend in Atlanta passed along this terrific Der Spiegel feature on East Berlin, before and after the Iron Curtain was pulled down.

Found this on Twitter today too, from a colleague in Arizona. Media Storm, which is journalism juggernaut that doesn’t work as a traditional newsroom, won three awards from the National Press Photographers Association.

Also wouldn’t have found this unfortunate error from the Lufkin Daily News:

And finally, we roast ourselves for mistakenly running a previously published editorial about Pearl Harbor Day in this space in Tuesday’s newspaper. Dec. 7, 1941, is a day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt aptly called “A day of infamy.” While our mistake pales in comparison, May 1, 2012, will go down as a dark hour in this newsroom.

Not to be pedantic, but The Lufkin Daily News is playing a bit fast and loose with the quote, too. That Texas paper is putting a paywall on their website next month. We wish them well.

And, if you’re thinking “Someone that says “Not to be pedantic means to, in fact, be pedantic” you are absolutely correct.

Rain, on my drive home:

There’s nothing spectacular about that video, but I do enjoy the sound.

Two posts on my Crimson blog: Tips for new journalists and Yesterdays are dead.

Also, check out my Twitter feed. Bookmark the Tumblr account.

Monday / Samford / history / movies / video — No Comments
30
Apr 12

An indoor picnic

Last field trip of the semester today. I took my class to meet the nice people at Hoffman Media, who runs an always-growing office not too far from campus. They just bought a new magazine last week, Louisiana Cooking. I believe that’s nine special interest magazines under their banner these days.

The students learned about layout, scheduling, food photography, menu prep, circulation strategies AND got a tour of some of their six test kitchens.

No wonder the students always think that’s one of the better trips of the year. You should see the food stored in those pantries. They test every recipe, and re-test it, before it goes in the magazines. They say the only downside is when their cooking fish, or Mexican first thing in the morning.

The journalism and mass communication department’s awards picnic was this evening. Some two dozen awards and honors were given to people I’ve had in class or worked with in the student media.

Some of them I had in their freshman classes, and now they’re getting set to graduate. They grow so fast …

Last night I watched a bit of Apollo 13 for the 478th time. Love that movie, even the parts where it diverges from history, it does so a bit apologetically. I can take that. It is one of the better film adaptations of a book — in this case the book — that I can recall seeing.

Up the dial a bit Forrest Gump was also on. It allowed me to tell the movie theater story, where a woman in an Apollo 13 screening was frightened for the crew’s safety. Her son said something like “Don’t worry mom, Forrest Gump will get them home.”

I mention all of this because that little tale is cute, but mostly because I wanted to post this video, which is one of the most deliberately underplayed, intense lines ever.

Turns out that’s Ron Howard’s mother playing the part. Jean Speegle Howard was still working until shortly before she died in 2000.

That quote isn’t from the Jim Lovell/Jeffrey Kluger book, but the real Blanch Lovell is in there, scroll down just a bit:

I bet she would have delivered that line with even greater elan.

Auburn / football / history / iPhone / links / photo / video / weekend — No Comments
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.

Samford / Wednesday / music / video — No Comments
18
Apr 12

The Rushton Memorial Carrilon

I took cookies to my students today, because everyone needs a cookie day.

Also, I stood outside and listened to Steve Knight play the Rushton Memorial Carillon above the Harwell Goodwin Davis Library. He’s been doing this for longer than I’ve been alive:

One of our students wrote a little story about him two years ago:

After studying organ under a blind organist in Paris in 1970, Knight’s interest in studying the carillon in Europe grew.

“I knew I wanted to get more involved in carillon, and I was interested in entering a composition contest,” he said. “I told myself that if I won the contest, I’d go over and study.”

With a friend writing down his composition, Knight composed “Pasacaglia Grave.”

He became the first blind American to win the contest, and a month later, was studying at the Royal Carillon School in Belgium.

Ten years later, in 1988, Knight played an organ recital in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. His parents had been encouraging him to play a recital in D.C. for a long time, so he made it happen.

Fascinating man, beautiful sound, lovely place.

Tuesday / music / video — 1 Comment
17
Apr 12

We get musical (Or: They don’t get any cooler than Levon Helm)

All Levon Helm has done is sing anthems, become an actor, get cancer, lose his voice, ignore doctors and start singing again. He also won, among his other awards, a Grammy for 2011′s Ramble at the Ryman — and you’re missing out if you don’t at least know this performance a little bit:

The rambler, his family announced today, is in the final stage of his battle with cancer.

He released Dirt Farmer in 2007, some quarter of a century after his last studio album — remember, he was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1990s. Dirt Farmer gives you the impression that everything was on his terms, because Levon Helm, that’s why:

There’s also some sort of Steinbeckian quality to it. And I don’t mean to overwrite this here, but he’s one of the last few balladeers of the South. It doesn’t matter that The Weight is set in Pennsylvania, that’s a boy from Arkansas sharing his pain and joy. The Band, at perhaps their peak:

And now I’d encourage you to listen to a man approaching 70 singing his absolute soul out:

video

A poorly flowing hodge podge (Or: Wednesday)

An indoor picnic

The three Heisman statues

The Rushton Memorial Carrilon

We get musical (Or: They don’t get any cooler than Levon Helm)

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