I have to admit that while I'm familiar with many things on the internet and in general with technology, digital cameras frighten me.
I don't own one. I don't have a desire to own one soon. The seemingly endless amount of buttons and switches on them makes me yearn for the simplicity of the disposable cameras I used back when I was a wee sprout, going to school dances and on summer trips. They were easy to use and all I had to do was go to a Walgreen's and get them developed.
Sadly, the amount of time it would take to do that, get the pictures developed, take them home and scan them with my printer (another piece of equipment that has way too many buttons for its own good), and then find an image-hosting site to post to in order to link it to a story just doesn't cut it for today's digital era. It probably never cut it.
Pictures, unlike videos, are the easiest things to post next to a story, but they also demand more from them. In a video, you can cover multiple areas of the story over the course of a minute or two. In a photo, the reader demands to know what the picture says and why it's important enough to make it to the screen, often with a little a caption description as possible.
You don't want just a mug shot of a person referenced in the story. You want an action! And moreover, you want an action that doesn't have to be explained too much, debated, or an action that is meaningless.
(Now, if I were smarter, I would have remembered about copyright laws and never posted a picture that I wasn't supposed to at all...but since I did and subsequently took it down...here's what it was: Jon Lovitz from The Wedding Singer in a picture that looks just like Steven Schucker.
Apologies, Mike.)
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
It's the Most Wonderful Time...of the Year!
Many of you are waking up this morning with a sense of unease and fear. After all, today is that dreaded unlucky Friday the Thirteenth—with a Hollywood horror movie premiering to boot!
However fear not friend, because today is the most joyous of days. Today is better than any holiday, birthday, or liberation day combined.
Today is the start of the baseball season.
Happy-Pitchers-and-Catchers-Report-Day!
Yes, for teams like the Chicago Cubs, today signals the start of spring training, even if it’s really just a glorified arrival and physical-taking day. Still, what can be better than knowing your favorite team is slowly starting to assemble in Arizona for a little under two months of preparation and work for the long beautiful grind that is Major League Baseball?
The Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan reported yesterday that manager Lou Pinella had arrived a day early to settle in, and he was joined by a handful of pitchers and catchers on Thursday as well.
Antoher reason why today is above all other days? Today, you can honestly think to yourself that your team will be playing still in eight months—that’s October for all of you out there that came to Columbia so you wouldn’t have to do math.
You can sit back, and dream of the what-ifs and what-have-you’s, about browning leaves and cold breath while under the lights of a grand stadium—that is unless you are a White Sox fan, and Tribune and most other media outlet experts pick you to finish dead-last…again.
But I digress.
Today is a day for celebration, not agitation. A day to toast, not roast. And above all, today is a day to smile.
Yes, smile.
Baseball is back—and it will be at least two months before the ever-present pains of the season return and leave you gasping for air.
And do wish your neighbor of very merry merry happy-pitchers-and-catchers-report-day.
However fear not friend, because today is the most joyous of days. Today is better than any holiday, birthday, or liberation day combined.
Today is the start of the baseball season.
Happy-Pitchers-and-Catchers-Report-Day!
Yes, for teams like the Chicago Cubs, today signals the start of spring training, even if it’s really just a glorified arrival and physical-taking day. Still, what can be better than knowing your favorite team is slowly starting to assemble in Arizona for a little under two months of preparation and work for the long beautiful grind that is Major League Baseball?
The Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan reported yesterday that manager Lou Pinella had arrived a day early to settle in, and he was joined by a handful of pitchers and catchers on Thursday as well.
Antoher reason why today is above all other days? Today, you can honestly think to yourself that your team will be playing still in eight months—that’s October for all of you out there that came to Columbia so you wouldn’t have to do math.
You can sit back, and dream of the what-ifs and what-have-you’s, about browning leaves and cold breath while under the lights of a grand stadium—that is unless you are a White Sox fan, and Tribune and most other media outlet experts pick you to finish dead-last…again.
But I digress.
Today is a day for celebration, not agitation. A day to toast, not roast. And above all, today is a day to smile.
Yes, smile.
Baseball is back—and it will be at least two months before the ever-present pains of the season return and leave you gasping for air.
And do wish your neighbor of very merry merry happy-pitchers-and-catchers-report-day.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
New Storytelling Techniques Are Your Friend
It amazes me still how media has changed over the course of my lifetime. It used to be where I saw a baseball game on television and thought how cool it was to just be able to view a sporting event. I used to fill out scorecards at home while watching, like I would at the game (I wasn't very popular...I was kind of a weird kid).
Now, in advance of a tournament, journalists or readers can get a preview of the course, tips on how to play it, and even what most tour players can do on the hole.
The Arizona Star evidenced this and used it to perfection in advance of the 2008 Accenture Match Play Championships. The map allows a reader to zoom in on any of the 18 holes, and then take an in-depth look at the hole.
On the right, a map of the hole is present with geographic notations and levels with it too. It gives the hole distance and the par score with it, as well as a video above for each hole that explains how a golfer would want to play it. For example, on the first hole from the tee, the golf pro suggests that players drive the ball to the left-center of the fairway, as the right side of the fairway drops down and a ball could wind up in the rough if it fell far enough.
With the availability of these features, when reporting on the event later, it will be easier for a viewer or reader to follow along with the words. It gives an image for a reader to see in their minds.
Visual aids, when done well, can make any piece of writing exponentially better. We can take note of this fact and try to make our visual companion pieces so that they can better pair and strengthen our print efforts.
Now, in advance of a tournament, journalists or readers can get a preview of the course, tips on how to play it, and even what most tour players can do on the hole.
The Arizona Star evidenced this and used it to perfection in advance of the 2008 Accenture Match Play Championships. The map allows a reader to zoom in on any of the 18 holes, and then take an in-depth look at the hole.
On the right, a map of the hole is present with geographic notations and levels with it too. It gives the hole distance and the par score with it, as well as a video above for each hole that explains how a golfer would want to play it. For example, on the first hole from the tee, the golf pro suggests that players drive the ball to the left-center of the fairway, as the right side of the fairway drops down and a ball could wind up in the rough if it fell far enough.
With the availability of these features, when reporting on the event later, it will be easier for a viewer or reader to follow along with the words. It gives an image for a reader to see in their minds.
Visual aids, when done well, can make any piece of writing exponentially better. We can take note of this fact and try to make our visual companion pieces so that they can better pair and strengthen our print efforts.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
First Impressions
Question: how would you respond to being told you are in the first class in a department’s history to converge two different aspects of the same field for a particular class and goal?
Well, if your name were Steve Schucker, most likely you’d respond with some sort of joke about how last night Larry Hughes made his first attempt to pass the ball to a teammate.
Though I think the punch line to that joke would be negative and not at all the feeling you’d want to have with a daunting task like the one this sports journalism course is undertaking.
It’s hard enough just to get taken seriously in a program that pretentiously looks down on sportswriters as being frivolous or unimportant.
Yet, here we are, given the first chance at combining two separate areas of our desired field into an experience unlike anything else being offered in the Columbia journalism department.
The challenge, although one that might seem a little challenging from the outset, looks to be well worth any difficulty that goes along with it, and I know I for one will be looking forward to learning more about a broadcast side to journalism I avoided like Schucker after a game of pick-up in the summer.
Oh, how I hope Steve never sees this.
Well, if your name were Steve Schucker, most likely you’d respond with some sort of joke about how last night Larry Hughes made his first attempt to pass the ball to a teammate.
Though I think the punch line to that joke would be negative and not at all the feeling you’d want to have with a daunting task like the one this sports journalism course is undertaking.
It’s hard enough just to get taken seriously in a program that pretentiously looks down on sportswriters as being frivolous or unimportant.
Yet, here we are, given the first chance at combining two separate areas of our desired field into an experience unlike anything else being offered in the Columbia journalism department.
The challenge, although one that might seem a little challenging from the outset, looks to be well worth any difficulty that goes along with it, and I know I for one will be looking forward to learning more about a broadcast side to journalism I avoided like Schucker after a game of pick-up in the summer.
Oh, how I hope Steve never sees this.
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