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IU / photo / running / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off on And now, some notes about my day
1
Mar 17

And now, some notes about my day

A know a guy who works on reaching new audiences. Basically, he gets hired to talk to people in new ways as efficiently as possible. I asked him one time, suppose I wanted to hire you to talk to high school juniors and seniors, what would you do?

He said he wouldn’t try talking to the juniors and seniors of 2017, but he’d be thinking about the juniors and seniors of 2022 and 2023. I think about that answer when I read things like this:A new study says young Americans have a broad definition of news

Younger Americans have a broad definition of news that expands beyond the output of traditional news organizations and includes information gleaned from social media and user-generated content, according to a report out Wednesday from the Data & Society Research Institute.

[…]

“I think you have to really just listen to everything, and then pick out what you believe and what you think is really truthful,” said a 22-year-old African-American female who participated in

[…]

“If I don’t see it on social media, I’m not going to hear it,” a 17-year-old African-American said.

However, many of the participants said they were reluctant to share news and their thoughts on the news on social platforms publicly. Instead, many said that they will send links or screenshots to friends in messaging apps or other more private channels.

[…]

The study says “the most striking point of consensus across the groups was their shared lack of trust in the news media.”

“Even if it’s factual, it may be sort of tainted,” a 23-year-old Hispanic and African-American female said.

This morning I ran seven miles, my last run before the weekend. And then I went to work and it was all about work for about 10 solid hours. Here’s a show the students shot tonight. They posed for this, somehow mustering up a flair for the dramatic they otherwise surely didn’t know they had:

Also, this show launched today. I watched them tape the first episode last Friday night, and it is pretty clever stuff:

I work in a place that lets students develop and create their own shows. You have an idea you want to try? Feel like experimenting? Want to realize your dream? You show up, put some skin in the game and you’re doing that here. And it is part of my job to oversee the television station that helps you do that. I get to help students do that. We’ve launched three new shows this year, in addition to moving into a multi-million dollar studio.

Also, there is movie night, like tonight:

We make original content and we are serious about journalism.

Friday / IU / memories / photo — Comments Off on 11-hour Fridays
24
Feb 17

11-hour Fridays

Morning show this morning. Everyone arrived early. One of the students brought donuts for our engineer. He and I realized none of them knew the songs “I Can’t Drive 55” or “I Wanna Rock” or “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)”

That sorta dampened the moment, donuts or no. They produced their show, the very famous Ed, from one of the popular nearby restaurants was their guest:

He’s a New Yorker who has been here for 30 years. He’s had that restaurant for 10 years. He says he’s doing the same thing he did in college, which was acting as the party host. And, most days, if you go into his store, that’s not that far off.

After the show I retired to do more editing. I’m reducing a lengthy, but not-entirely-dense technical document to create what will essentially be a piece of brief marketing material. Today I turned 26 pages of great notes written by a colleague into about one page of language.

In junior high and high school I had the same English teacher for four of six years. Mrs. Newman was sharp and intimating to teens, but she was hard and fair. Every Friday, for all of those four years, she made us write a one-page précis, or a brief summary, of a Newsweek article of her choosing. As we progressed, the articles became more demanding, the summaries more challenging and her expectations grew as the selections became more complex. It never got easier, but we maybe got better at it. She graded those on a scale of one to nine for some reason. I don’t remember every article I read or every grade I got on them, but I do recall one where she noted I could do better. That stuck with me because it stung me. On days like today, with a lot of editing, I think those précis were as valuable as any aspect of my formal training or years of professional experience.

So I thought of Mrs. Newman today. Oh, looks like she and her husband have a beach home now. Good for her. She retired a good while back, I wonder if he’s still practicing law.

We did some practice in the studio. One of our shows had auditions for next year’s hosts. So that was the afternoon. Also the sun came out, glorious and brilliant, acting like it had forgotten what to do with us after such a long time behind the clouds. Of course the cloud cover returned. Of course it’ll be another week before the sun is seen again.

In another studio, in another building, we also launched a brand new late night show. I went over to watch it get underway:

Rob is the guy on the right. He’s actually studying standup comedy as a major. We had a nice chat about it. He’s a smart young man. Going to be a great show.

And for the year so far that makes three new shows we’ve launched. These are full time students, and all of the productions are entirely student run. We’ve assembled three new crews and put together three new shows, in addition to three pre-existing shows. Not bad for being in a new facility and the students having to deal with me and every other thing.

IU / journalism / photo / Thursday / Twitter — Comments Off on Talking about the cyber
23
Feb 17

Talking about the cyber

Among the other parts of my day, editing a big document, watching students produce a sports show, handling the various comings and goings of emailing and scheduling and so on, I had the opportunity to hang out at an important panel this evening. And I took notes.

Also, even if you aren’t interested in cybersecurity as a journalist or in your own professional role, this slideshow that gets mentioned people is accessible and worth your while. Check that out. Anyway, on to the tweets …

IU / photo / running / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Live! From earlier tonight … and also this morning …
21
Feb 17

Live! From earlier tonight … and also this morning …

I ran five miles this morning before work. I’m not a morning runner. Wait. Let me start over.

I jogged five miles this morning before work. I’m not a morning jogger. I’m barely a jogger, but it certainly isn’t the thing I wake up and think “Oh, boy! Let’s get out there and pound some pavement!”

I’m much more of a pound the snooze button sort. I mean, sure, I can stretch, get in five miles and walk a cool down back home in an hour, or I could sleep for another hour in nine-minute increments. That’s what I am, a morning snoozer.

Nevertheless, I jogged.

There is a walking path out back of our house, and if you do the full length and go up and down the access paths to the road in front of the house you can almost get in a full mile in just over one complete trip. So I did that twice and then jogged out of the neighborhood and up the hill to the big intersection and then back down hill for a mile and a third. Then I turned and jogged back uphill to finish my course, five miles, just entering the neighborhood. It was damp and chilly and foggy and I had a full sweat. Some people were walking dogs and I found a few more signs of spring:

Of course the temperatures will fall through the floor by the weekend again, and you can’t see any sky for the clouds therein just now, but we’re in the 60s. We’ll hit the 70s on Thursday, for a day. And spring:

Anyway, in the studio tonight, I thought I’d take a picture to show you what the on-camera folks see. This is the corner where our interview area is. We have four red chairs for a more casual sit-down segment or, as seen here, the prep for one of entertainment shows.

What is weird, to me, is that I should show up in the monitors attached to the cameras. I’m standing right behind both of the hosts. And yet, you can’t really see me. I zoomed in to the original, just to be sure.

Funny, I don’t feel any different.

After What’s Up Weekly they taped their news show. I stood in between the cameras and did a brief video of my own, because I suddenly remembered I could do that.

Status: getting ready for another installment of Hoosier News Source on @iustv.

A post shared by Kenny Smith (@kennydsmith) on

I should plan those things better.

cycling / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off on Signs of spring
20
Feb 17

Signs of spring

We had a beautiful weekend here, how about you? When the clouds finally moved out on Saturday it got up into the 60s. And it stayed sunny on Sunday, too. Early spring? I’ll take it.

I had a nice medium-sized run. It should have been longer, but that’s the way of it sometimes. I did seven miles and then got hungry. I guess I needed more than a bowl of cereal. So I went inside and had a sandwich and went back out. By then, though, I’d cooled off, so I only did three more miles.

So this means I ran 10 miles and that was disappointed.

I do not know what is happening.

But! I saw the first new green stuff of the year:

Just behind that, was this:

Now, you can walk or run parallel to that fence and it just … ends. There’s no corner, no gate, no extra posts where the wire should be. It just stops. So I’m not sure how this is supposed to keep anyone in or out.

Down the other way, about a half mile, was this handsome old American sycamore:

In a few more weeks, maybe, the trees will be in bloom. Won’t that be a sight?

On Sunday I rode my bike to campus. I’d forgotten to bring something home on Friday and I needed it and it was such a beautiful day and so I slow-pedaled for about an hour and that was delightful. Just a beautiful day. I shot some video on my bike ride that is now on the front page of the site. I like that path, and I like the scenery, but I was trying to be sure I didn’t hit a few walkers while I was shooting that. I’ll have to go back and try again when there’s something on the trees.

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