LOOKING AHEAD

I've always been the type that has a really hard time picturing what things will be like in the future. It always seems so far away with so many things to take into consideration...how can I possibly guess what things will be like? Well, luckily my saving grace is that I'm pretty good about setting goals for myself and doing all that I can to achieve them. I don't expect every one of them to come true, but the least I can do is try.

I've lived my entire life in Southern California and I wouldn't have spent the last 21 years anywhere else. This is where my friends are, where my family is, and the fact that it's pretty darn beautiful here doesn't hurt either. That having been said, I'd love to be able to work in the place that I grew up in. I know it's very difficult to break into the Southern California market so I don't plan on sticking around here immediately after graduation, but if I can eventually work my way back to L.A. or San Diego once my job crusade has settled down a little bit I'd be living the high life.

I realize that there is much more to be seen and learned outside of California. Working on the east coast presents tremendous opportunities and having a job that works internationally holds potential that I almost cannot even comprehend. I never want to rule out any of those kinds of jobs...in fact I welcome the opportunities! I'm sure it would be invaluable for me to get out there and expand my skills in places that are foreign to me. But what it really gets back down to is the honing my abilities as a journalist that so I can apply them in a happy (and hopefully lucrative) career back home in SoCal.

So whether I'm the next Chuck Henry out in the field all over Southern California or Ron Burgundy having a good time in San Diego, I welcome the future and look forward to what it holds for me. I know there will be good times and bad times, but all I can do is close my eyes, hold my breath and dive in, hoping that when I surface I'll be exactly where I want to be.

SIN CITY

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Well, for my spring break one thing that happened in Vegas was a little gambling and what stayed there was my money.

To kick off our spring break a couple of my friends and I decided to pack things up and head out to good ol' Sin City for a few days. We'd all been there before...the only thing that made this trip special was that we were all finally 21. Now, I'm sure I'll look back on this trip when I'm 65 years old and laugh at how young and immature I was, but please bear with me for the time being and expect to hear a lot more not-so-subtle hints at awesome it is to be in Vegas as a 21 year old.

Leaving out the grisly details of my interpretation of Vegas' open container law and how this factored into my subsequent gambling, I want to take a minute to discuss my apparently inherent misunderstanding of the workings of video poker machines. My friends and I stayed at the Aladdin hotel, which happens to have a fine collection of these machines. We experimented with a few groups of them but after a while decided to keep coming back to the same set of three machines over the course of our trip. I kind of liked going to the same three machines as it made me feel like I (maybe) had a bit more a personal connection with the device I was endlessly feeding my money into. Even so, that didn't help me figure out the difference between the "place bet" button and the "place bet and go all in" button. I can't tell you how many times I caught myself laying down $20 dollars on a single hand (high rollers need not read this...if you do understand I'm a college student with very little money who knows nothing about gambling).

By several repeated acts of God I managed to lose very little money on any of these hands and sometimes actually make a little cash. By the time my friends and I finally made our way home I think I was $35 dollars in the hole...not bad when you take my horrible gambling habits into consideration. Still, it was a little irritating to see my friends walk up to a roulette table, put some money on a single number, and walk away with $200 dollars on a single spin. I guess that's Vegas for you.

Regardless of my losses, Vegas was still tons of fun and I'm counting the days until I can go back there and act like an idiot again. I mean sure, I'm a college student, but I can't ALWAYS be expected to act smart!

A FEW THOUGHTS

I've thought about a lot of different subjects for my final project but it seems like I always keep coming back to one in particular. Ever since moving to L.A. I've had a sort of weird fascination with downtown, particularly the old Historic Core and eastside that has been undergoing a sort of gentrification-fueled cultural renaissance over the past few years. I'm no city planner, but I can't help but notice the pricey lofts and apartments that are appearing in old warehouses and department stores throughout the district as well as the new restaurants and trendy bars that seem to be popping up on a daily basis.

For my project I'd like to look at that area of downtown and assess how it has changed, why it is changing, and what we can expect to see in the future. This would probably involve making multiple trips to downtown itself to talk with residents, store owners and visitors, as well as a little work tracking down the people that are behind the gentrification and growth. For the project website I hope to go beyond the standard set of interviews, articles, and links and provide the viewer with pictures, video, and sound. The goal is to provide a better sense of what downtown and the people that exist there are all about. All in all, I hope visiting the website will be a cultural experience in itself.

As I stated in the first day of class, I am not hugely technically minded. At this point in time I feel that I can get by with my basic html, photo editing, blogging, existing on the Internet etc. That having been said, there aren't too many things that I can think of that I would like to focus on in the second half of the class. One of the only things that comes to mind is working with Flash, although I am not sure if that is too advanced or time intensive for this particular course. I think Flash would make our final websites/project much more interesting, but if we are aiming for a more basic approach to the project then it might not be appropriate.

Thanks a lot and enjoy your Spring Break!

FLOW OF TRAFFIC

There are a few things that newspaper websites can do to both boost the traffic flow to their websites and improve news coverage through reader-contributed content.

The first possibility is simply providing links to popular blogs on newspaper websites. It has been found that over the past few years blogs such as the Drudge Report have boosted traffic to the sites of papers like the LA Times and the Washington Post. If a newspaper site links back to the blog that references it there's a good chance that user traffic will significantly increase for both websites.

Although this might still be in the early stages of development, another thing that could be done to increase traffic flow on newspaper sites is to allow users to socially bookmark or "tag" URLs from their websites. What this means is users would be able to store the URL in an online account for quick access and then would be able to share their bookmarks with other online users. They could also ask other users to submit links to stories they might be interested in. As I said before, this form of networking is not very widespread, only available on a handful of websites such as digg.com and Newsvine. However, if a major newspaper was to take advantage of this method we could see a new trend in online journalism.

Finally, websites could significantly improve their news coverage by creating open, yet moderated, forum-type pages in which users could both report and comment on stories they are interested in. This could prove to be significantly useful for local news reporting, as users would probably be able to report on local things from a first person perspective that the newspaper might not even know about. Forums could also work well for the opinion pages so that people might be able to easily share their thoughts on a variety of issues: local, national, and international. As I said earlier, these forums would have to be constantly monitored and moderated to make sure they stay on-topic and no objectionable material is posted. However, this might not be too much of a concern if the website can quickly establish the forums as a place for repectable, newsworthy, and intelligent conversation that is open to anyone.

A DAY AT THE BEACH

TONIGHT, TONIGHT

I'm not sure how many of you still take the time to brush the dust off your mid-90s alternative rock collection and bask in the glory that is the Smashing Pumpkins. If you do, I'm proud of you...and if not, you oughta try it sometime, it's therapeutic. It was actually during one of these little audio vacations that I came up with the idea for what wikipedia entry I was going to edit for this week's assignment.

I took at look at the wiki entry for the Pumpkins' song "Tonight, Tonight" and decided to add a little tidbit of information I know about the production of its music video. This was actually my first time ever editing a wiki but I didn't find it to be that difficult. Wikipedia has a pretty user-friendly interface when it comes to editing (ie: buttons that automatically drop in links, make text bold, italic etc.). Now that I know what wikis are all about I figure I'll be a lot more willing to go in and correct or add to wiki entries I find particularly interesting.

I want you to actually go look at what I did so I'm not going to provide you with any details about the change I made. I will however, provide you with the links to the pre-edited, edited, and current page of the wiki entry.

And for good measure, here's the music video for "Tonight, Tonight". Enjoy.

BIG MONEY

These days it seems like all the internet celebrity gossip blogs (Defamer anyone?) are talking about where the Hollywood bigwigs are throwing their money for the upcoming presidential election. Will it be Hillary or Obama...or maybe even a Republican candidate hiding in there somewhere? I checked out opensecrets.org to see where the big bucks in the entertainment industry have been going lately.

Producer and Imagine Entertainment co-founder Brian Grazer has been a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, pouring money into the campaigns of John Kerry, John Edwards, Barbara Boxer and the Democratic National Committee Services Corp. Another interesting thing to note is the presence of donations to Republican Senator John McCain, although there is a chance that this is a different Brian Grazer since the address corresponding to these donations is one in Beverly Hills (as opposed to the Encino address used for most of the other donations). So either Grazer decided to give a Republican a shot at one point in time or there's another Brian Grazer who makes his living as a (Republican-leaning) producer living in Beverly Hills.

Steven Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, both made significant contributions the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates. Mr. Spielberg has dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into a Democratic National Committee non-federal individual account while his wife has put money forth for candidates like Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton and Walter Mondale.

Disney CEO Bob Iger has made some interesting contributions in his time. Following the trend of his fellow Tinseltown bigwigs, he donated $5,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2005. He's also put money towards California Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Hillary Clinton. Iger must love his own company (or has some ulterior motives here) because there are several instances of him donating money to the Walt Disney Company. Debts to pay off? Trying to win someone over? Who knows...when you're throwing bundles of $5,000 like that around you have to wonder a little bit.

It's still too early to tell whether Obama or Hillary is going going to win over the entertainment industry. Even so, taking a look at where Hollywood has donated to in the past might give us a better idea of who's going to get the backing of Tinseltown in 2008.

PROS VS. JOES

I'm not going to deny the fact that, as a broadcast journalism major, I might be slightly biased when it comes to comparing a professional news broadcast to any video you might find on the internet. But that isn't to say that I don't have an appreciation for the kind of video work people like you and I are able to produce from the comfort of their own homes.

The other day I stumbled across an intriguing short documentary piece on youtube.com about the history and use of a particular drum beat that has been featured and sampled in everything from commercials to jungle club songs. I'd venture to say that anyone who has done so much as watched TV or listened to the radio for more than a day has heard this particular beat but never really given much thought to where it actually came from. The 18 minute mini-documentary is chock-full of well researched facts and audio samples of the drum beat in its many different forms. What it lacks, however, is the visual appeal that can be found in most professionally made documentaries. Most shots revolve around a close up of a record on a turntable and the narrator (whose face is unseen during the whole piece) walking around a sparsely decorated room. I suppose it does have its artistic value but for me it didn't have the kind of visually grabbing appeal I like to see in a piece like this.

I still have to remind myself that visual appeal isn't everything when it comes to making a good video. Another film I happened to come across on youtube was a person's recording of their blues home performance on a slide guitar. There was no dialogue in the piece and the camera stayed stationary the whole time, fixed on the neck of the guitar looking down towards the fingers of the player. But the music in the video and the almost hypnotic motions of the player's fingers sliding along the guitar strings were enough to keep me watching/listening the whole way through. The video exists only on the most basic levels technically. However, in my eyes this is perfectly acceptable, mainly because without videos like this one, many talented individuals would never never be able to share their fascinating abilities with the rest of the world.

Of course, I had to compare my analysis of internet videos with those of a professional news broadcast and for that I turned to my favorite network, NBC, to watch their nightly news program. While some people might say TV news can get impersonal and stuffy I have to disagree with them. When done right, the TV news story can be one of the most emotionally appealing and informative things you'll ever see on television. Two of NBC's stories caught my attention because of the way they exemplified the versatility of broadcast news. Reporter Mike Taibbi covered the difficult subject of more troops heading to Iraq by tracking the story of three soldiers heading to Iraq. Taibbi provides insightful and interesting narration, the NBC camera crews do a great job of showing the viewer the ins and outs of these soldiers' lives through creative shots and camera angles, and direct SOT quotes from the soldiers themselves provide the viewer with the kind of emotional pull a story like this needs. It is easy for me as a viewer to stay interested in the stories of these soldiers' lives. This piece is the first part of a series and although the second installment has yet to come out, I will be sure to try and watch it when it does.

Another story I happened to catch on NBC was a feature about a whiskey distillery George Washington opened at his home in Mt. Vernon after he retired from politics. The fact that I didn't realize that Washington had ever done this was enough to make me want to watch the piece but even still, NBC did a good job of keeping me interested. They shot the story at the distillery itself (which has been recreated by representatives from the liquor industry) and were able to talk to many master distillers about the impact Washington's business actually continues to have on the liquor industry today. NBC's ability to find stories such as this one and do an excellent job of reporting on them is enough to keep me watching the network day after day.

My final conclusion about internet and television news videos is what can be expected...I like the TV ones better, simple as that. A lot has to do with their professional look and reporting and also the fact that a major network like NBC has incredible resources to make their stories look that way on a consistent basis. But that isn't to discount all internet videos. As we have seen in the past, sometimes a video that originates in the most obscure corner of the internet can generate enough buzz to land it a spot in the evening broadcasts of all the major networks. That just goes to show that when you get down to it we're all going after the same thing: telling stories that people will understand, enjoy, and take to heart. It's just up to you to decide how you want to do it.

A LOOK AROUND

Thanks to the Super Bowl I'm back home in San Juan Capistrano this weekend visiting friends, family, and testing my body's intake limits for nachos, bean dip, and er, various beverages. Tonight I decided to hang around my backyard and snap some shots of a stunning sunset over Dana Point harbor. Well, as you can see I got a little carried away and decided to give the entirety of my back yard some photo shoot action. The results can be seen right here...enjoy!

ANACHRONISM

For anyone who's ever spent any significant amount of time in L.A. it doesn't take long to realize that roads, cars, and gridlock traffic are a fact of life in this city. Long gone are the days when you could hop a Red Car and get from Pasadena to Long Beach without so much as getting on a freeway. But that isn't to say that the days of the railroad aren't still alive and thriving here in L.A.

This past Friday afternoon I decided head to the east side of downtown and spend some time in good ol' Union Station. It's not just the hub of L.A.'s bus and rail lines but also a fantastically preserved shrine to America's Golden Age of Travel. There's no mistaking this when you're actually inside the station. The only thing reminding me that I hadn't been suddenly warped back to the 1930s in an episode of The Twilight Zone were the clothes of the people strolling through the Art Deco architecture of the vintage building. Oh...there was a stand selling DVDs in one corner of the waiting room but its retro stylings hardly made it look out of the ordinary. In other words, it didn't interrupt my little time traveling excursion.

The kinds of people making their way through the station were just about what you would expect...everyone from your typical stressed-out-looking businessman to the family of tourists in Mickey Mouse sweatshirts, antsy kids in tow. Also shuffling through were some haggard looking backpackers, a couple of young men in short sleeved dress shirts and ties (who I assumed to be Mormon missionaries) and those that fall in the catch-all category, the regular people. As weird as it sounds I've always found that last group to be the most fascinating. Yeah, they might just be everyday people in a train station but I always find myself wondering "why are they here?", "where are they going?", or even "why take the train?" Sure, it probably isn't any of my business and yes, you might even call it creepy that I even read into these people that much but hey, that's why I'm a journalist, isn't it? I did my best not to get security called on me when I tried to listen in on some of their conversations. Most of what I heard was typical travel talk: "Wait, what time does the train leave again?" "Which platform for Simi Valley?" "Should I call Aunt Denise and tell her when to pick us up?".

The only meaningful talk I really heard was when a man approached me and proceeded to explain how he needed money to catch a bus down to Long Beach. Apparently he had an emergency and was in a rush to meet his pregnant wife there. Being a nice guy I gave him a dollar and wished him well, even though I'd met the same man and heard that same story at least twice before. This past summer when I commuted every week from south Orange County to Universal City via Union Station I happened to run into this gentleman several times while walking through the waiting room. I guess it's the thought that counts.

I finally decided to head back to SC when the announcer over the intercom reminded me that the 4:05 PM Pacific Surfliner to San Juan Capistrano, my hometown, was leaving the platform. Naturally, I drove my car to and from the station and I found myself caught in traffic as I made my way home on the 110 freeway...a nice dose of L.A. transportation, 2007 style. But hey, if for any reason I ever want to sit down and soak in some nostalgia instead of sitting down and soaking in some gridlock, I know just the place to go.

"HAVING THE INSIDE SCOOP"

In this line of work it's all to easy for the one-on-one interview to lose its charm. Same old questions, same old answers...everyone just going through the motions. Well, I was lucky enough to catch a breath of fresh air this week in my interview of the ever-charming Carley Dryden. Where some people seem to lack the conviction to even tell me what they ate for breakfast, Carley was more than willing to divulge about her past, her future, and what it is that gives her the unrelenting willpower to accomplish her goals.

KC: Alright so what are the basics? Where are you from? Why did you come to SC?

CD: I'm from St. Charles, Missouri, it's a suburb of St. Louis, it's nice because it's very safe, a lot of older people, nice neighborhoods, etc. I came to SC because I was interested in journalism and Annenberg was such a well-known school. Also, when I came and visited SC I immediately fell in love. Everyone at Annenberg and USC seemed so well put together and so organized and everyone was really nice. I just immediately felt at home on the SC campus.

KC: So it sounds like you've had journalism on the mind for a while. What makes you want to pursue it? Where do you want to go with it?

CD: I have always loved writing and in high school I fell in love with journalism while working at the school paper. I love meeting new people, hearing their stories and also I love being the first one to know about something. Being a journalist is like having the inside scoop. You are always in the know. Since I've been in college I realized that my passion is feature writing so I see myself working for a magazine or freelancing for multiple fashion,entertainment and lifestyle magazines. I like to travel also so I would eventually love to do long-term projects for magazines, have them send me on assignments in various countries. In the distant future, I would like to start my own lifestyle/entertainment magazine.

KC: Looks like you're heading in the right direction. Even so, journalism can't be the only thing driving you right now. What else has influenced your life?

CD: I think I have been the most influenced through riding horses. My mom and grandma have ridden their whole lives, so it was inevitable that I would develop a passion for riding horses. Because I was away at horse shows every weekend, it was easy to stay out of trouble in high school. Also, as corny as it sounds, riding horses teaches you a lot of values- hard work, strong independence and extreme determination. I feel that riding horses made me who I am.

KC: Are there any specific ideas or words that you live your life by?

CD: There is no certain concept I live by, but I have just learned to not care what others think or to rely on others' judgment and to just live my life how I want (within reason) and go for the dreams and goals I have laid out for myself and not let others make me think I can not attain those goals.

KC: Alright, well I have a tradition of wrapping up one-on-ones with this simple request: explain to me why you are the way you are.

CD: This is a difficult one. I think I, like everyone, became who I am through outside influences- family, friends, activities. Those that are close to you help mold you into the person you are. Riding horses, a sport in which you can rely only on yourself, helped me gain my strong independence. My family instilled strong values and principles in me from childhood. The closer I got with my friends, the more comfortable I was in my personality and was able to open up and become very outgoing and talkative. So I think there are a lot of influences that form your identity.

KC: And what a distinct and memorable identity that is. Thanks a lot Carley!

THE FAVORITES

In the explosion of information that is the Internet there are a few websites that I find myself constantly visiting.

First off, there's the Drudge Report. If visiting the Drudge Report was my job, I'd already by the president of the company. Over the past few years I've become a hardcore news junkie and I've found no better site for getting the basic rundown on the top news stories of the day. All it takes is a simple click in my web browser and I have one of Drudge's screaming headlines telling me everything I need to know. Matt Drudge has perfected the simple, user-friendly news aggregate and I can't thank him more for it.

In a similar yet distinctly different vein than Drudge exists Fark.com, another aggregate that links to stories and discussion boards about them. The kicker about Fark is the fact that the stories linked vary from the weird and bizarre to the hardest of news. It's the only place I can go and see links to stories about nude skiing and U.S. airstrikes in Somalia right next to each other. As the title of the site says, "It's not news, it's Fark.com"

Finally there's the guilty pleasure: Defamer.com. As much as I really can't stand celebrity culture, being a resident of L.A. makes me feel immersed in it and I catch myself at this website more often than I should be. Maybe it's the sarcastic jabs the blog takes at high profile celebrities or links to the Internet's hottest viral videos that makes it so hard to resist. Whatever the case, I just can't keep away from L.A.'s self proclaimed internet "gossip rag".