Journey of a Journalist

It’s true: social media has effectively penetrated nearly every aspect of our lives.

Personal life? Check.

Social life? Obviously. Check.

Professional life? Check.

Sites like LinkedIn create avenues for individuals to connect with other professionals and obtain an advantage over fellow applicants when it comes to finding a job. (As they say, it’s not what you know, but who you know.)

But as a former aspiring actress, the auditioning process seems to be a sacred and untouchable aspect of landing a performance role. You sit outside the auditioning room in uncomfortable chairs and survey your competition, rehearsing your lines and anxiously tapping your feet. You are called in, one-by-one, and meticulously analyzed on your appearance and performance. You leave. You wait.

No longer.

Benedict Cumberbatch recently made Mashable headlines by landing a role on the new Star Trek sequel. It wasn’t the fact that he was hired that garnered press, but the avenue through which he obtained the offer.

Cumberbatch, who was on vacation during the auditions, simply recorded a video of himself reading the script on his iPhone. He then sent the video to Director J. J. Abrams and was offered the part.

In ways, this should not be surprising, as new technology paves the way for “citizen filmmaking” as well as citizen journalism. But it does astonish me that a high-budget film would hire a newly-established actor without actually seeing them perform in person.

I suppose that this could be a positive development. Perhaps in the near future, entire movies will be cast and filmed without the majority of the actors even meeting in person.

In my last post, I described the inspirational lecture William Nack shared with my feature writing class.

After looking through my notes (as I attempted to take his advice and use it to become a better writer), I thought I should focus on his words of wisdom regarding poetry.

Become comfortable with iambic pentameter.

Reading Nack‘s profiles is equivalent to reading poetry. It is truly a beautiful style. Perhaps the most important thing I took away from his lecture was that this does not occur on accident; he writes in iambic pentameter, making the words flow rhythmically in your mind’s voice. I had never considered writing this way, but it is something I am attempting to become comfortable with.

I must admit: I vaguely remember learning about this type of prose in a high school English class, but as Nack was discussing it I was tempted to Google what it meant, exactly. (I decided not to for two reasons: it would be rude, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.) I saved the Google-ing for later. Here’s what I learned:

The technical way to describe this type of English prose is that it is a pattern of five unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. An unstressed syllable is essentially a “short” syllable while a stressed syllable is essentially a “long” one. Take, for example, the word “trapeze” — the “tra” is unstressed, while the “peze” is stressed. Tra-PEZE.

I was still a little confused.

In laymen’s terms, think of a human heartbeat, or the sound “da-DUM.” The “da” is unstressed while the “DUM” is stressed. A line of traditional iambic pentameter looks like this:

da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM

A perfect example can be found in a sonnet from John Donne.

Your force | to break | blow, burn | and make | me new.

Now an example from Nack’s “My Turf,” which defers from traditional pentameter only by the number of syllables in the pattern.

Mur-phy | knew what | had to | be done.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

I’ll try | to write | this way | for good.

My experience with Late Night Patriot continues to be overwhelmingly positive.

I am extremely impressed by the quality and dedication that Director Jake McLernon and the rest of the team bring each week to our broadcasts. While we certainly are still undergoing growing pains, every session there is something new and exciting in our studio that makes our little experiment even better.

Personally, the hardest part of giving the “Mason Nation” its weekly source of information (other than getting over my insecurities) has been getting used to the teleprompter. As I previously discussed, we use McLernon’s iPad to slowly scroll through our weekly script. In the beginning, it was difficult matching up my sentences to the pace set by the screen. I found that some words took longer for me to articulate while at other points in the script I needed to take long pauses to make up for my rapid speech.

Thankfully, this is another eccentricity that we’ve overcome!

We are currently capable of syncing the iPad’s teleprompter with McLernon‘s cell phone. As our team continued to grow, it became possible to have a staff member slowly scroll through the text at the pace Britt, Jeremy and I were reading at. This has made me increasingly confident reading the script and allows for a much more natural wordplay.

Rumor has it that we will soon be moving to a new and improved studio, as well.

Stay tuned!

This past Tuesday, I had the opportunity to speak with one of the greatest journalistic legends in my lifetime: William Nack.

The former Sports Illustrated writer and renowned author of “Secretariat” (yes, that Secretariat) came to my feature writing class and regaled us with tales of stalking his subjects across the country and meeting with mob bosses in prison.

While I had not heard of him before, after reading several of his stories from “My Turf” I was in awe. In fact, I think I had a little crush. I have never read anything before that flowed so beautifully, like poetry, with vivid imagery and the kind of quotes that make you feel like you actually know someone. Two of his stories, particularly Sonny Liston‘s, made me cry.

I listened, literally on the edge of my seat, for nearly three hours. When it was over I didn’t want it to end.

In addition to exciting us with stories of his past and the characters he had the opportunity to get to now, he gave us some extremely valuable pointers in terms of being  journalist.

“I always like a dramatic lede,” Nack said. “Where’s the drama? Put that first. Make people want to keep reading. Then I’ve got you.”

Perfect advice, really. Writing a lede is always the hardest part for me when I’m not writing a news story, because I don’t know how to grab the reader’s attention. But drama? That’ll do.

Nack also gave us some unconventional advice that I’ve never heard from other professors: memorize poetry. He recited about fifteen minutes worth of poems for us and clearly could have kept going.

If memorizing poetry will help me write even a tenth as poetically as him, I’m all for it.

He even signed my book. I’m keeping it forever.

I clearly remember Tuesday, April 20, 1999.

I’m sure the rest of the country does as well, but for me it was the marking of the first real tragedy I had ever witnessed firsthand. The only time I have ever been more afraid was on the morning of 9/11.

I grew up in Jefferson County, Colorado, a fairly safe and beautiful community which boasts the Coors Factory.

That day, I was working on something in the middle of my 5th-grade classroom when suddenly the principal rushed in — tears in her eyes, panicked, screaming something about getting away from the windows. We were all herded into the school’s auditorium, rightfully terrified, as the teachers padlocked the doors and huddled onstage. They were whispering frantically, crying hysterically, but would not say anything to us — children ranging from five years old to ten.

Eventually the adults composed themselves and attempted to calm us down. We were informed that our parents would be coming to get us immediately — school was done for the day. We played games uncertainly while children trickled out erratically, embraced by parents who looked like they’d never been so happy to see them in their lives.

Then: Columbine.

Part of what has terrifyingly become a pattern of truly tragic, needless violence. School massacres.

It took some time before news of the tragedy got out to the public. Adults working 9-to-5 jobs were not watching the news, and many news outlets did not regularly update their websites (nor did many citizens read them). By the end of the day, my mother and I were in a blood bank preparing to give blood. Dozens of people surrounded us then, the line was out the door, and all bleary eyes were watching the broadcast news for updates. There was no other topic of conversation. But this process took several hours. Most people found out through word of mouth.

Today: Oikos University.

Today was another tragic day. Around 10:30 this morning, a shooter in Oakland‘s Oikos University shot at least six people. My heart goes out to them, their families, and everyone who has been affected. It breaks my heart.

However, there is an interesting angle regarding how law enforcement successfully handled this needless catastrophe.

According to Mashable and Stephanie Haberman‘s article, the Oakland Police Department utilized its Twitter account to spread the word about the shooting, encourage people to evacuate, hunt down the shooter and update information regarding fatalities. When they had an idea of what the suspect looked like, people could keep their eyes peeled and tweet back any leads. The local news was utilizing Twitter as well, and citizen journalists took to Twitter to inform their friends and followers.

Technology is changing the way we communicate in such a rapid way. I learned about the most recent Virginia Tech shooting through Twitter last year. Clearly social media has evolved from simply a way to entertain ourselves. It is a way to educate ourselves, to protect ourselves, to arm ourselves.

My prayers are with all those whose lives changed today.

Much like Mark Briggs declared in his 6th chapter of Journalism Next, video photography is becoming increasingly important in the world of journalism. Visual storytelling often evokes emotions that text simply cannot replicate. A stunning picture can place readers directly into the heart of a story, deeming words unnecessary.

In terms of major news corporations, The New York Times is revered for its award-winning visual journalism. Lens, the corporation’s blog, regularly updates photos, videos and slideshows for the world to appreciate. In addition to serving as a showcase for Times photographers, the blog provides readers with up-to-the-minute visual content from around the globe.

But wait…there’s more.

According to Tuesday’s Mashable article by Sam Laird, the Times launched a new Tumblr account aptly titled The Lively Morgue. The site is dedicated to sharing  images from its newsroom archive, affectionately called the “morgue.” The blog will periodically bring spectacular images back to life — some dating back to the early 20th century — using social media as a defibrillator.

My father has been telling me for years that anything I put online will be there forever, and I need to be cognizant of the image I am projecting. He used to frequently search for me on Google — and let me know that he was doing it, as well as what he found. Once we became friends on Facebook, his comments became more frequent.

There’s a picture of you from 2009 at a party. It looks like the party was the kind that had alcohol. What do you think people think when they look at that?! They know your birthday! They can do the math!

I had to admit, he was right. In the crazy, collective world of the internet, people can tag you in photos that aren’t even on your profile. I was not too concerned, because nothing on my profile was too revealing or obscene. But I began thinking twice about even taking pictures, with his voice in the back of my head: “What do you think people think?!”

Every once in awhile I’ll get a call from him about comments other people put on my profile.

Peanut, profanity is disrespectful. You should tell him not to leave **** like that on your page.

The irony of that statement is not lost on me, by the way — but perhaps that’s the point.

My father was in the Navy for years and can have a bit of a potty-mouth sometimes. But he does not put those statements into the World Wide Web.

The conundrum of what is acceptable to say online becomes more important when you are a college student beginning your job search. There have been reports for years that employers check people’s Facebook pages before beginning the hiring process. But is this really true? And if so, does what they see really affect whether or not they’ll give you an interview?

According to an article by Mashable‘s Todd Wasserman, the answer to that question is yes. A recent study between three universities suggested that reviewing somebody’s Facebook page can accurately predict not only their GPA but also their future job performance. The researchers subjectively evaluated potential employees on five personality traits:

• Openness
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

My father was not completely right, however (but don’t tell him I said that). Wasserman states that in many cases photos of applicants drinking or partying will not disqualify them from a potential job. He also clarifies that more research needs to be done on this subject.

But still, companies are looking.

When you are job searching, you wouldn’t show up to an interview late or dressed unprofessionally. You want to make a good first impression.

So consider this: What if your Facebook profile is your first impression? Is there anything on it you wouldn’t want your boss to see?

If so…it’s probably best to remove it from your profile.