IU / journalism / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Soon to be open for business
10
Sep 19

Soon to be open for business

Today we had the ribbon cutting for a new center, an investigative journalism program, in our school. It’ll start operations next spring. We had a day of panelists! And there was an actual ribbon that was actually cut!

The keynote was the terrific Scott Pelley. You might have heard of him from CBS or 60 Minutes. You might have heard of those from television.

Don’t pretend like you don’t know what a television is. You aren’t that hip. And people that do that aren’t hip, either. Pelley did a great job. I had student crews recording the keynote. You can click the image below to see his speech:

There were four other panels, as well, which we produced as two live videos. This one includes “Investigative Sports Journalism in a Multimedia World,” and then “Investigative Journalism’s New Golden Age? The Rise of the Nonprofits.”

Perhaps you’d prefer a variation on that last theme, and a panel on professional skill development. You can see those panels right here:

I also had a night in the television studio, as well. It was a long, busy day. And we managed to get everything in, as well.

cycling / football / IU / Monday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Just some videos to fill the day
09
Sep 19

Just some videos to fill the day

It is the rare day indeed, this year, that I get out in front of The Yankee. The closer I got to the end of yesterday’s ride, the more I felt like this:

I just knew she would pip me before the end, and so I pushed and pushed as hard as I could, and somehow I managed to stay away, but only just.

And if you’re here for a different sort of video, this is the funniest one of the weekend:

And this is a cool little bit of something cool the Indiana athletic department cooked up:

But there’s something important in there:

George Taliaferro’s story defies excerpting, but let’s try:

As the first day of school approached, Taliaferro asked the football coaches when he was going to be moved on campus. He was told black students didn’t live in dorms.

“I called my father and told him I didn’t want to be in a place where I couldn’t live on campus, where I couldn’t swim in the pool and where I couldn’t sit in the bottom section of the movie theater,” Taliaferro said. “My father told me there were other reasons I was there, and then he hung up the phone on me. I was never so hurt because I thought the one person who could understand being discriminated against was him.”

That tough love stemmed from two things his parents, neither of whom went past sixth grade, told him every day as he grew up. “They’d say, ‘We love you,'” he recalled. “And, ‘You must be educated.'”

And then:

He played seven seasons of pro football, six in the NFL with New York, Dallas, Baltimore and Philadelphia, three times making the Pro Bowl. He became a volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Baltimore, advised prisoners adjusting to society upon their release, got his master’s in social work at Howard University, taught at Maryland, was dean of students at Morgan State, returned to Indiana as a professor and special assistant to IU president John Ryan, and helped start Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Central Indiana in Bloomington.

You can’t put that in a gif or a football video, but you certainly oughta try.

football / Friday / IU / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Sports in spite of ourselves
06
Sep 19

Sports in spite of ourselves

Here’s the other show the sports guys produced last night. It’s a talk show, and this episode follows the traditional format, but I hear things may be getting changed as we progress through the year. There’s a new host and new producers eager to stretch their legs.

The guy that hosted that show for the better part of the last two years graduated this spring and just started working as a sports reporter for a television station down on the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone that comes through our little station gets hired. For good reason, too. If you stick around these parts for too long, this is bound to happen:

For the last several years, I’ve been trying to find ways to pay less attention to football. It’s grown less important, the older I get. And yet, where I’m from, there are heavy duty cultural implications. Of course, I’m not there anymore, sadly, so that helps. But there’s plenty on television. And it’s good television.

There’s also the safety aspect. It’s become more difficult to enjoy watching people do these things that could potentially be so self-detrimental. But, I’ll watch. Because it is fun. And it isn’t all bad. Way up and way out and all that. Tribal joys

Plus, the ethos. Look at the guys from this school in Indianapolis doing all the right things:

How can you not be romantic about football? How could you not want to be a Marian Knight?

IU / photo / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Show – show – show, here we go!
05
Sep 19

Show – show – show, here we go!

Back to it tonight. The gang at IUSTV kicked off their 2019-2020 production schedule today, and up first was the award-winning IUSTV sports crew. Here’s the control room view:

Last year one of their on-air folks won a statewide anchor of the year honor. A different statewide contest saw the sports gang sweep a particular sports reporting category. And now they are back to improve on where they left off last spring.

The opportunities here are big ones, and they take advantage of them with great effect. Staying at work late is only fun because they get so much out of it.

Here’s one of the shows they produced tonight:

Looks like the other will be uploaded tomorrow.

cycling / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on The gain-bi is mightier than the jian
04
Sep 19

The gain-bi is mightier than the jian

There is this little multipurpose path joining two parks, bridging a creek and generally being one of the nicer treats in the area. Today I went down it slowly on my bike, because being responsible is more important than gaining segment points, Strava. There might be people. They may have dogs! And you just can’t see around every fun little corner on this path:

I usually try to come up it quickly, because that is the time to try to improve your segment times, but today was not one of those days. Good thing, too. I got about halfway up the thing and I noticed the light was perfect.

That’s the thing about having a camera on you at all times. There’s always the temptation to stop, backtrack and get that shot. Avail yourself of that opportunity as much as possible; there may be dogs!

But that’s a different challenge when you’re on a bike ride. You have to make the value judgment, and quickly too: Do I stop, turn my rig around and go back for that shot? Am I working on a schedule? For speed? To set a personal best? Is keeping my heart rate elevated important today? Will this photograph take a long time? Will my legs still work when I get started once again? What’s the terrain we’re talking about? Do I want to go up that hill again?

All of that has to be fast, because if you wait too long the decision will be made for you. And of course, there’s the issue of the sun during those golden hours. Will the light hold, or did you see the last, fleeting, moment of the day’s brilliance?

So it worked out for me, above. I went back. It was the right choice. Avail yourself.

I mentioned yesterday how to make sure you you must never let your shadow win a bike ride:

Do you know how you never let the shadow win? Always pedal home from the east. The evening sun will be in front of you and your shadow behind.

Today, I rode back to the house from the west. The sun behind me, the shadow wins:

We had Chinese tonight. I wandered from my usual, because some other random thing on the menu sounded good, and the description I found online seemed one worth trying. We might not have Chinese again for a while. Not because the meal was bad. No. It was fine. It could have been better, but it both served its purpose and didn’t send you spiraling into a dinner of regret. No, that was not why I might be off Chinese for a while.

This fortune cookie, however:

I sound like I’m a knight on a great quest, according to that bit of script. That’s an awful lot to put into a fortune-less fortune cookie. You don’t even know me, cookie. And non one else knew you. Admittedly, that’s an error on my part. If I hadn’t eaten the thing I could have carried both the fortune, and the cookie around — surely the one gives the other some credibility — and people, having heard the good word of the fortune-less fortune, would treat you accordingly.

You hope the fortune cookie process, somewhere in a factory in Michigan, I’m sure, is automated. But what if there is a personal touch? What if there are two or three disenchanted people working second shift reading the little slips of paper.

Yeah, this one will show ’em. Some guy will carry this thing to work tomorrow and try to parlay this into a raise.

Not me, mind you. Like I’m the only person that got the heart/mind/soul cookie special this week.

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