Tuesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Tuesday

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.

music / Tuesday / 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:

Thing I saw today

Driving in today, I passed the largest bathtub in the world:

It won’t fit our master bathroom, yet, but I can knock out a wall. I will also need to knock out a wall in the neighbor’s place, but I’m sure he won’t mind if I pitch him the idea just right.

The key is in the delivery.

Speaking of deliveries, I discovered tonight that my phone won’t take a picture fast enough to catch Trey Cochran-Gill’s baseball in flight:

It is in there somewhere, as Auburn pitches to Samford late in this evening’s game. If you find it, do let me know.

Auburn won 7-5, by the way.

Had a big media meeting on campus today, which will set up another big meeting in a few weeks. And now I have to pack. We’re taking a conference trip this week. I have to figure out how to get four days worth of clothes, including a suit, in a carryon.

The good news is there will be pudding for all of our Alabama expat friends. Stopped by Dreamland this evening to get just enough to make me the most popular boy at the conference.

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.

Auburn / baseball / Samford / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
27
Mar 12

“Hit hard! Left field!”

On the occasions that Auburn and Samford play each other in some sport — as they did in football last year, as they occasionally meet in the non-revenue sports and as they do in every year in baseball — my loyalties are not torn. There’s my alma mater and there’s my employer. I’d like for both of them to win.

But since everyone doesn’t get a trophy in collegiate sports, I hold out for a good finish.

Auburn was at Samford tonight. They’d trailed for most of the game, but took a 5-4 lead in the eighth inning. In the bottom of the ninth the Tigers’ Justin Bryant was on in relief. He hit a batter. Then he allowed two singles, so the bases were loaded.

Sophomore Phillip Ervin walked to the plate for Samford:

Samford wins 8-5. The Bulldogs are now 17-8, the Tigers 15-10.

More here.