Archive for the ‘journalism’ Category

Visiting a newspaper press

Newspaper printing presses are big-machine loud and inky-greasy dirty. Up close, they look like steam-punk contraptions out of an earlier industrial age. And for me, when I first saw one, magic made out of metal.

I’d like to say my reaction stemmed from something philosophical, say based on the realization of the role a free press plays in a democracy. I’d like to have been thinking of a turn on that phrase Woody Guthrie put on his guitar: “This machine kills fascists.”

read the rest of my column at Pelham Elementary Students Hear, Smell and See the Magic in a Newspaper Press – Pelham, NY Patch.

Fun with journalism

I began my adventure in teaching online newspapering to fourth and fifth grade kids back in January at Pelham’s Colonial Elementary School and added the second, Hutchinson Elementary School, last month. I’m having more fun in journalism than I’ve had in 2o years.

You see, being the jaded journalist is a bit of pose. How can you have the one thing a great journalist needs— curiosity—and be jaded? The kids bring this incredible curiosity to the job, plus energy, and no jade.

One of my favorite moments is when the kids launch their new paper. I have each one type in a few letters of the URL, and then they count down, 5-4-3-2-1, and one of them pushes the enter button. I watch them, not the screen. Up comes the paper and eyes go wide. A couple whisper “cool.” The kids at Hutch did that two weeks ago with the Hutchinson Bear. Check out Pelham’s newest online newspaper.

Any day a newspaper starts up—even one reported and written by nine- and ten-year-olds—is a special one. What’s been started is going to get the news out for months and years to come. The kids don’t know to give up on that good work. And I’m not going to give them reasons to.

Superman vs Rupert Murdoch

I’m still reading DC Comic’s No. 1s. In the first “Superman” in the restarted series, Clark Kent is furious the Daily Planet has been bought by mogul Morgan Edge, owner of the Globe and all sorts of nasty TV and Internet news outlets. Here’s what’s in the speech bubble over Clark’s head as he argues with Lois Lane: “You covered the stories dealing with the Globe’s illegal tactics–wiretaps, extortion, out-and-out lies. Is that the type of newspaper you want the Planet to be? Just another scandal-mongering rag?”

It’s clear to me Rupert needs to do more than sic the “Fox & Friends” crew on Superman. Sure, they can point out his form-fitting costume—what real men wear any sort of costume, really?—and the flouncy red cape and red boots that are worse than Ugg ripoffs. But this demands a greater response, something massive. News Corp. needs to buy Marvel Comics from Disney and start the real war. Bring the Red Hulk pain—no cape or boots there—and Wolverine, who’s got enough anger to fuel an entire Tea Party convention. Plus, Rupert adds the Daily Bugle and all of Tony Stark’s weapons factories into his empire.

As part of the deal, for only a considerable sum, I will throw in my not-so-mint copy of “Superman vs the Amazing Spider-Man.” Back in 1976, it was billed as “The Greatest Superhero Team-Up of all Time!” as well as “The Battle of the Century” (funny how these team ups always meet-cute-fight, then work together).

The war I’m talking about will be one for millenium and won’t have any namby-pamby liberal teaming up halfway through.

Steve Jobs and me

Steve Jobs changed my life. I know, I know. You’ve already heard it and from every other journalist on the planet. An entire issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek turned into instant biography. The cover of the Economist. Articles in the New York Times showing up two Sundays after the man’s death. People and the Poughkeepsie Journal. I expect Showdog Monthly and Boy’s Life to chime in.

Let’s face it. Steve Jobs lived an amazing life that is an incredible story. Americans love the chance of a comeback. (Fitzgerald was wrong; there are second acts in American lives.) And so it’s hard for editors and reporters to stay away.

There is another reason for the attention being paid. Jobs revolutionized journalism, hell all of publishing, long before upending the music, cell phone and consumer electronics industries.

In 1984, I was intrigued by Apple’s slick “1984” TV spot because of the sci-fi look, not the Macintosh computer it introduced. I was two years into my career in journalism, not in the market for a personal computer, and couldn’t afford one anyway. A year later, I was reading a very unslick newspaper trade publication, an ugly magazine that was all text—arcane, jargony text at that—topped by long obtuse headlines in ALL CAPS. The article was about Apple’s Macintosh computer, LaserWriter printer and the Postscript language built into both that this dense piece seemed to be suggesting turned the Macintosh into a typesetting machine. If so, I knew then, this would change everything.

Two or three months later, I bought the earliest Macintosh, a squat, friendly little box with two floppy disc drives (no hard drive yet). My partners and I started the Peekskill Herald using the little thing as our entire production system. And that newspaper would never have happened without the Mac. Paying a job shop to typeset the Herald would have cost twice as much as our actual printing bill. We would have run out of money in weeks.

The Herald was one of the first 20 or so newspapers in the country typeset using the Mac, Microsoft Word 1.0 and layout software called Aldus Pagemaker. Dozens, then hundreds more newspapers and magazines followed, some junking conventional typesetting equipment, while others were startups empowered by the computer that took out a dictator (well, in commercials at least). Desktop publishing was born, a revolution so complete we don’t use the term much anymore. All publishing is done on the desktop. We expect to have 50 or 100 typefaces at our disposal on a home computer and create documents that would have cost hundreds or thousands of dollars in typesetting costs.

Everything that’s happened in my life since 1985 happened because of my experiences co-founding and co-owning a newspaper built on the fundamental technological shift ushered in by Steve Jobs. Not that it was all business. There was the magic. I’m a techie and love to play with all the toys. Being honest, most are a disappointment. Rarely do I switch on a box and feel the magic. That’s why techies are techies. We go from box to box hoping it will happen again.

Switching on the first Mac was a magic moment. Things we take for granted were all new: the mouse that miraculously  moved the arrow around the screen. The windows and icons and virtual desktop. A graphical environment rather than c:  awaiting our turgid DOS commands.

From 1985 until now, I’ve bought Apple computers to use at home, even during the desert years when Jobs was gone and Apple tried to be a sort-of Microsoft, an almost IBM. I’ve only felt that magic three times since 1985 and Apple was responsible twice more: when I got my iPhone three years ago and the iPad last year. (If you’re wondering about the non-Apple event: 1994, when I first clicked a hyperlink on the world wide web, and the world wide world changed again.)

I’m writing this on the iPad, typing it into the Safari browser, music playing via the iPod app, using open-source blogging software called WordPress that’s all about a graphical interface. Steve Jobs is in all of it.

Secret of their success

One of my occupations is adviser to the student newspaper at my son’s elementary school, the Colonial Times. Our local Patch interviewed the fifth-grade editors of the paper to find out the secrets of their success:

Eight months after it successfully launched the district’s first online newspaper, the Colonial Times’ staff continues to provide cutting-edge journalism.

via Secret of My Success: Staff of the Colonial Times – Pelham, NY Patch.

What I love is how simple and direct are their answers. And I mean simple in a good way. They get right to the heart of the matter. What turns us into such wordy monsters?

Sorkin does CNN for HBO

Here’s another one I’ll watch. He did sports news (“Sports Night”) and succeeded with national politics (“West Wing”) and now Aaron Sorkin will provide his special POV for a series on cable news for HBO. The untitled hour-long drama doesn’t have an air date yet, according to Broadcasting & Cable.

The series will portray staffers at a fictional cable news network “as they set out on a patriotic and quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal entanglements,” the HBO release says. I like that patriotic and quixotic turn. Wonder which network that is?

Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston and Olivia Munn are in the cast.

Step right up

I marked the end of summer the same way I did as a kid, with a trip last week to the Dutchess County Fair in Rhinebeck. I’ve been to the giant Ohio State Fair, and our own New York edition in Syracuse, and I can promise that you don’t need to go any farther then two counties north for a top-drawer cows-ice cream-and-rides experience.

The Dutchess County Fair remains, after 160-plus years, a wonderful combination of an agricultural exposition, an ad-hoc shopping mall for things you really don’t need, and a giant carnival. My siblings and I wax nostalgic about how much it’s changed since we were kids, what’s missing and what we miss. But to be honest, much remains that makes it a true county fair, the nearest such to us here in Pelham, and well worth a visit during its six-day run.

via Step Right Up: The Real and True County Fair Experience is a Short Drive Away – Pelham, NY Patch.

My Rip Van Winkle tale

I have for you a tale in the Rip Van Winkle line, though this one is true, and rather than being about one man disappearing for 20 years, it’s about a local town losing its founding Dutch family for 300. I was reminded of it while stopping off in Amsterdam last week following our visits to the Russian baby home where we first met our son Patrick and tours of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tyumen.

via A Real Life Rip Van Winkle Tale: City Got Peak at Past – Pelham, NY Patch.

Almost done

I teach the fourth and fifth graders at Colonial School some of journalism’s old traditions, not because they’ll be useful someday. They won’t. After all, these kids are publishing their school paper as a news blog, using WordPress. It’s more for the fun of it, and sharing the history, before that history is forgotten.

One thing I make them do is put -30- at the end of a story. This is the old code once used on newspaper copy to indicate a story is finished. As it turns out, it actually helps in my work with the Colonial kids because they file using Google Apps, and if they write the story at home, it’s often the only way I know they’re done. Many of them don’t have email yet.

So I’ve invited them to write stories over the summer. They get a pizza party if they do. And one of my reporters, Francesca, is filing from Italy, on the disappearing beaches. When I checked the story yesterday, I found this at the end:

-29- (almost done)

Now that’s adapting an old code to a new use. I wished I’d thought of that when I was late for deadline in my newspaper days.

-30-