Life after Program Cuts

In the fall semester of 2010, the Faculty and Students at the University at Albany began to hear inklings of extensive budgets to the State University of New York public system of higher education. By October of this semester, it was announced that the University would be deactivating five humanities degree programs: French, Russian, Italian, Theatre, and Classics. Despite outrage and protest from students and faculty, the University has retained the suspension of these programs. However, the university has agreed to re-instate minor programs in French and Russian for the time being.

The deactivation of these programs has meant major layoffs throughout the suspended departments, time caps on the finishing of degree programs for undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students, and a drastic change of plans for many adjunct and tenured professors. Still for many, these program cuts signify a change of academic ideals within public education that may signify a larger change within the ideals of the country itself. For many, the cuts have demanded the question: What does life look like after program cuts?

Olivia Barone, a 34 year old Linguistics PhD student at the University at Albany, has an answer to this question. Barone is no stranger to budget cuts, “I was a high school teacher in Galway, New York before I decided to go back to school,” says Barone, “My school, because of budget cuts, had to cut the program I taught for so I decided to pursue my PhD fulltime.” For Barone, it seems that these cuts have followed her throughout her career.

After attending PhD classes and working as an assistant instructor for a year and a half she was notified of the program cuts at UAlbany, “its bad luck I guess,” Says Barone, “I thought a University valued academics more in our culture.”

Barone is short with long red-brown hair. She wears a cream and brown summer dress, brown boots, thick rimmed glasses, and a necklace of large cream and brown beads.  She is sitting in the teaching assistant offices on the second floor of the humanities building. This floor has perhaps taken the largest hit from budget cuts—the bulletin board displays protest articles and e-mails. Almost everyone responds to questions about the cuts with a roll of the eyes or an exasperated shrug.

A receptionist in the program office openly wonders if she will be able to find a new job, “who’s going to want someone with a graduate degree in Russian from a University that no longer offers it,” she demands.

Speaking in a soft tone, Barone apologizes for being caught on an ‘introspective’ day, “I’m from the SUNY system,” she laments (she graduated from SUNY Fredonia), “It was a system originally created so there would be one college in every county in New York. The idea was to bring education to the people. That’s why I came here; the core philosophy is a diversity of subjects for everyone.”

For Barone the deactivation has begged a larger question of the values of our society, “This whole thing is existential for me. There needs to be a place set aside for people to do work in areas that are not necessarily practical or profitable.” She contends, “everything is viewed in relativity to the individual an ‘I’ll help you if it helps me’ mentality. We value people who can get away with things. We need to reconsider who we are as people.”

On their website, the University at Albany has maintained that although the degree programs will no longer be offered, students can still take classes in these subjects. To make their decision the university sites small class size and low enrollment as justification for cuts. However, as French professor Eloise Briere contends, it is the nature of language classes to be taught in small groups with close interactions between the students and the professor.

The issue has become for many a series of contradictions. “They’re taking away classics but every degree is written in Latin” notes Barone. In maintaining minors in the deactivated program areas, a certain number of tenured faculty will have to remain to teach the higher level classes required. Barone views this as a temporary concession that will soon be phased out, “mark my words, they are going to drop the minor. Once they see what’s entailed they will drop it.”

At the same time, although students have been given caps on dates by which they must complete their degrees (2014 for PhD students, 2012 for Undergraduates) the administration is  not actually allowed to enforce this  cap and students who are enrolled can technically take as long as they’d like to finish (although classes may no longer be available).

Most importantly, Barone believes, is that the University will lose the specialization areas that are expected of major research institutions, “The quality is going to go down in expertise areas. Some of our tenured professors are world renowned. You are no longer going to have that, you’ll have people like me who hope to one day be world renown but are still developing their areas of concentration.”

Eloise Briere is an example of such a professor.  Briere’s credentials are too extensive to list completely. Originally from East Hampton, MA she has been with the University since 1984, she has taught at university in Dakar, Senegal, and she has instructed over 20 different courses at the University at Albany (including summer programs abroad). She is also considered a central figuring in the developing Francophone Studies discipline and was awarded the 2010 president’s award for excellence at teaching at the University at Albany.

On a stuffy spring afternoon “a la fin de sa journée” in her office on the second floor of the humanities building, Briere remains an outspoken critic of the program cuts. “It was a shock to the solar plexus,” she remembers of being informed of the cuts in October, “the dean and provost were sitting there and informed us of the decision with very little consultation. The suggestion was strong that we should be thinking of other options.” Such options include early retirement or looking for teaching positions at other schools within the next two years as the major programs are phased out.

Briere has been involved in protest of the cuts since their instatement, “We get a lot of conflicting information,” she contends, “The faculty senate has a democratic structure and a committee for activating and deactivating programs which usually looks at a program in depth before it is deactivated. These things weren’t considered because it was a budgetary and financial decision.”

From the beginning, Briere notes that there has been poor communication between the administration and the faculty, “we had a petition with over 13,000 signatures from all over the world. We spoke with the president saying that if there was a deficit that perhaps academics shouldn’t be looked at for cuts. He said he would look it over,” she remembers, “then five months of silence followed.”

For these reasons, Madame Briere (as she is known to her students) has decided remain as long as possible at the University to ‘dig her feet into the ground’ and fight the cuts. As a tenured professor, Briere has a certain amount of job protection and more time to make the decision on her next career move. “We want to be here for the students who are trying to finish their degree programs and who still value this area of education. I also feel responsible to many of our younger staff whom I personally encouraged to accept positions at UAlbany,” She adds.Briere has become extremely active in the United University Professionals, the union that represents University professionals throughout New York.  She ran for president of the Albany chapter and lost the race despite garnering 47.3 percent of vote. “The percentage is a mandate for me to speak up, especially for untenured professors who are perhaps afraid of jeopardizing their position by doing so,” says Briere.

  She also contends that the decisions made are a direct and unforgivable example of poor leadership at the administrative level. She believes that these poor decisions are resounding on a national and global level, “It’s a removal of accountability; no one is taking responsibility for their acts. Students and their parents are being short-changed,” adds Briere, “It’s not Kegs and Eggs that will stick to what people identify with a diminished value in their degree. It’s the diminished faculty. People on the cutting edge of their field will be going else-where.”

  Olivia Barone gives a similar admonishment of the administration, “You date somebody because they’re rich and gorgeous. You marry them because they have value. Good institutions are a long relationship. The minute you turn an institution into a money maker you lose this value.”

   Briere admits to being biased on this subject but she offers an important antidote. At a convention in southern Switzerland she remembers hearing two women talking about the American school system in discussing the financial and ideological changes.  In this discussion Briere remembers being floored to hear one of the women mention the program cuts at the University at Albany. As Briere contends, this is not just a locally relevant occurrence.

For Eloise Briere and Olivia Barone, it is clear that program cuts have cast a shadow of uncertainty upon their professional and personal lives. As Briere acknowledges, “Right now, It’s a big question mark.”

A Profile on a Town Father: Lester Smith

At 83, Lester Smith is still enthusiastic about community. In fact, he believes he is more involved than ever, “I can’t carry as many boxes of books, but I can do a lot of things, be a lot of places,” Says Smith. Lester Smith has been a resident of Suffield Connecticut for 57 years. He and his wife originally moved to Suffield in 1953 where they raised their three sons.

If you happen to take a stroll through the center of Suffield you might bump into Smith. The same goes for attendance any of the towns public events—the book sale at “Suffield on the Green”, the re-opening of an antique barn, a high school pageant, or any town meeting. Chances are you’ll see a man with cotton white hair wearing slacks, a light colored long sleeve button down shirt (probably blue) and thick rimmed glasses. He will be ready to snap a picture with the camera that seems to always be hanging around his neck. He will also be ready to talk history, specifically Suffield history.

                Tobacco Barn, Suffield CT

After working for 37 years as an engineer at Hamilton Standard Smith retired, “Actually, my retirement answered my big question, I’d see things happenings around town, and I wondered what was going on, and I realized a lot of things are going on during the week while people are at work, I’ve become aware that this is a very active town”

Today Smith is the Town historian of Suffield. He has earned this title through his work with various volunteer projects throughout the small suburban and farming town: he is a member of the Historical Society of Suffield a committee that over-sees the up-keep of the historical sites in Suffield, He has remained on the board of directors for Boy Scouts even after his own children moved out, and he has seen the town newspaper the Suffield Observer grow from a family project into its current place of circulating monthly to every house in Suffield. “He’s someone you’ll see everywhere,” says middle school English teacher and volunteer for the Suffield Observer Anne Smartez, “everything that happens in this town, from politics to community events, he’s usually around somewhere.”

Smith has seen Suffield change from a small farming town into the suburban developmental sprawl of modern day. Smith notes with a sigh, “Suffield changed—we’ve become a suburb, that’s a big change from being a rural town, we’d like to call ourselves a rural town, but we have so many developments”

As a member of the historical society, Smith has seen the restoration of the Alexander King House Museum which has grown from a run-down apartment building to the historical monument of Suffield it is today. Smith was also member of the re-building project after a mal-functioning furnace caused a tragic fire within the historical mansion in 1983.
He remembers, “At a meeting of the trustees that I attended in May of 1983 we discussed that the mansion has a burglar alarm but not a fire alarm. We decided that we should have a fire alarm but we never acted on it. An important thing when you talk about something is figuring out what you’ll do about it. In December a person driving by saw flames in the window.”

During the rebuilding, Smith began documenting the progress through photography, “I had a camera and I enjoyed taking pictures” says Smith, who is now the unofficial photographer of the Suffield Observer. Smith also writes a column called “100 years ago in Suffield” in which he highlights what was prominent news that month, a hundred years ago.

                                                 Alexander King House
In talking to Lester, you might realize he is a man of quiet attention to his surroundings and an advocate of a meticulous observation of detail, “Mark twain wrote advice on good English: Eschew Surplusity” Lester adds (which he follows by explaining why this comment is funny).

He speaks in a deliberate tone and apologizes for “babbling”. After giving no more than a few sentences of clear, thought-out observation, he apologizes and adds, “Well it’s on your nickel”. He then explains that this term refers to the price of a pay-phone call in the “olden times”.

Lester is quick to respond to questions and usually follows with several of his own—at one point noting somewhat admonishingly, “A story like this would usually be accompanied with illustrations.”

His passion for detail is surely what lead him antique maps, “Since I’m an engineer I’ve enjoyed the U.S. geo-topographical maps” explains Lester, “I enjoy understanding the whole concept of how things on the ground get rendered on maps, which is usually quite bad at first and progressively gets better throughout history—with aerial views and what not. There is a degree of artistic judgment that goes into a map, something about a map appeals to me.”

After the new library opened in the Center of Suffield in 1972 Lester antique maps became the second exhibit ever to be featured in the gallery.

                               Suffield Library

“When I went on a business trip I would take time to go to libraries and look for old Maps of Connecticut” he remembers, recounting a story of a trip to Paris in which he found himself in the Bibliothèque Nationale discovering a hand-written manuscript by a Dutch Seaman from the 1600’s that detailed the coast of Connecticut. He copied this find and gave it to several historical societies throughout the state.

Navina Bemuri, a former student of Suffield High school, remembers of Lester, “When I was a senior I took an environmental science class and an assignment was to go to the Suffield Library, find this guy named Lester Smith and ask him to show us a map of this river in Suffield. I thought it was so strange, we weren’t given any other directions and he wasn’t listed as an employee of the Library. But I went after school and sure enough there was Lester, wearing a train engineer’s hat, looking over some documents in the reading room of the library. I guess he’s always somewhere around that place.”

This is a recurrent trend. If you happen to call the office of the Suffield Observer, odds are you’ll hear Lester voice on the other end. If he’s not in the office working on the layout of this month’s edition, but is out pursuing an event in town, his voice on the answering machine will kindly inform you that this is a volunteer paper that does not keep regular hours, but please leave a message. Lester finally adds, “One of the big disappointments in my life is I’ve become so busy that I don’t have time to work on my collection of maps like I used to. Oh well.”

                                             Lester Smith working at the Alexander King House Museum

Related Articles:

http://suffield.patch.com/articles/suffield-middle-schooler-takes-top-prize-in-national-video-contest

http://www.suffieldhistoricalsociety.org/

http://articles.courant.com/keyword/lester-smith

Student Loans: Know What You’re Getting Into

 

Over the past decade, the cost of higher education, both private and public, has increased considerably. With this increase, more and more students are seeking loans to pay for school. According to the New York Times, in the 2008 to 2009 academic year, American college students took out more than 95 billion dollars in federally granted and private loans.
Many student, like Matt Wardson*, a senior at UAlbany, find themselves facing a mountain of debt upon their graduation. “I didn’t really think about loans as a freshman, just free money. I was a student loan millionaire. But the reality is beginning to set in” says Wardson, who pays out of state tuition.
 

Many students are awarded “federally guaranteed” loans. These loans are given directly from the Department of Education, have a specific interest cap (around 6 percent), and don’t begin to accrue interest until after the student has graduated.
The most common form of this loan, a Stafford loan, is limited from 5,500 to 7,500 dollars per year with a maximum of 31,000 dollars total.

“The Stafford loans aren’t that bad” says Wardson, who has surpassed this limit, “it’s the private loans that get you.”
Private loans begin to accrue debt immediately. They have higher interest rates and are far less forgiving than federally granted loans. “I tried to pay the interest off my private loans monthly, but I couldn’t make enough while still in school,” says Wardson who has taken out an additional 20,000 in private loans, “The private loans have a really predatory interest rate—almost like a credit card. But they got you right where they want you.”

Wardson’s unrest mirrors thousands of students who have voiced their personal stories of debt online. On these sites, students lament not paying more attention to the possible repercussions of loans before entering college. One blog, yourmoneymogul.com calls student loans “the next financial crisis”. Many feel that they were given poor guidance, a claim that is not unfounded considering that in 2007 the federal government investigated several colleges suspected of receiving kickbacks from private banks in return for a preferred referral to students.
Many believe that major loan issues only exist for students who attend over-priced private colleges. Although these schools are more competitive they often offer more scholarship and financial aid. Saint Rose Senior Allie Ella has only accumulated 7,000 dollars in federal loans even though she has received no financial support from her parents.

Public universities are less expensive but tend to offer less in financial aid and scholarship. For a student like Wardson, this still leaves a lot of debt, “The fact is, UAlbany’s cheap comparatively*, but I still feel like I’m getting a bad deal”. Wardson is now considering enlisting in the Navy when he graduates because of their loan repayment plan, “I could have enlisted in high school. I don’t consider it a step forward.”
Although Wardson is not the majority, he is not alone. In 2009 to 2010 school year around 80 percent of University at Albany undergraduates applied for financial aid and around 40 percent of graduate students. Of these, around 6 and a half percent borrow outside of federal loans.
Diane Corbett is the Director of the Office of Financial aid at UAlbany. She advises students to be aware that they are borrowing and to make the financial services office aware of their particular situation.

“We have seen parents’ financial situations change dramatically in the last year,” says Corbett, “this creates a lot of special financial issues for students.”

Corbett notes that every student accepting federally backed loans must first go through a twenty minute informational program online, but she believes the government could do more to raise awareness in high school and even as early as middle school. She adds that heightened governmental default awareness and protection would be most helpful to students, “Students will often take out several loans through several banks, which is difficult to monitor.”

Corbett visits high schools every year to discuss the best way to approach loans, but because every family has a different situation and different principles regarding loans, it is hard to create a definite program, “There are so many things that students are dealing with, it’s part of the process” says Corbett, “It’s challenging for students especially when they are concerned with jobs after graduation.”
To reduce loans, Corbett advises exploring all scholarship, grant, and deferment options. She observes that returning students tend to borrow more carelessly than freshmen, advising budgeting and only essential spending, “Borrow only what you need, don’t borrow the maximum. Always question direct mailing from private lenders” says Corbett.

Concerning private loans, she advises “Do your homework. Be proactive and know who you owe and when you owe them,” she mentions also that a beneficial site for loan management is www.NSLDS.ed.gov.

But even with this advice, there is no guarantee that’s loans will pay off, “I’ve managed my loans as well as I could, but it really does sneak up on you,” adds Wardson, “I think I’ll one day earn back the value of my degree. But right now, it looks a little bleak.”

*Wardson asked that his name be changed for the article.
*Compared to state schools in his home state of Maine.

Construction at the University at Albany

In an Investigative Project I recently did for Professor Armao’s Investigative Journalism Class, I took a look at the University at Albany’s construction of a 500 bed dorm facility. The University is working in collaboration with the Dormitory Authority of the state of New York (DASNY) to build this new facility on the South East Portion of campus. The construction is set to be finished from April to August 2012.

University at Albany Overview

This project has generated both concern and support accross campus and the communities surrounding it. This concern generally centers around the increased population and traffic in the area, the rain-water and sewage area, and the clearing of natural forests on the University.

The S/L/A/M Collaborative firm was hired by the University at Albany to conduct a feasibility study of the project in November 2008. Based on an assessment of future population demands and remodeling, the firm identified a potential bed deficit of 916 beds in the future. Their report cited the four following reasons to construct the new dorm facility, “1. Provide sufficient swing space to allow for a more aggressive renovation program of the existing residence halls, 2. Replace beds lost permanently due to scheduled residence hall accessibility upgrades, 3. Add beds in order to allow the University to increase enrollment while maintaining the current undergraduate housing capture rate of approximately 58%, 4. Add beds in order to provide 100 new beds for graduate students.”

According to the S/L/A/M executive summary, the Southeast site was chosen because of its size (leaving room for future expansion), because it was the only site that did not displace a large amount of existing parking spaces, it was the “lowest cost” site, and the site has less vehicular traffic concerns than the west. The back-up locations were designated as Dutch Quad West and State Quad East.

According to a 1996 on campus traffic study presented in the 2008 University at Albany Master plan, the West side of campus experienced 10,000 vehicles per day, while the East Side of Campus 4,000. Approximately 1400 vehicles enter and 300 vehicles exit the uptown campus during the morning peak hour (7 am to 9 am), during the evening peak hour approximately 1,200 vehicles 1,200 vehicles enter and 1,600 exit the campus. 18 percent of vehicular traffic enters the University from western and University drive west has more accidents.

In this podcast, four UAlbany students (Joe, Jamie, Mike, and Amanda) discuss these concerns. However this discussion quickly moves beyond the specific details surrounding the dormitories and into the students perceptions of how the University is run as a whole, mainly if the university should concentrate on growth or sustainability.

Podcast

Donald Reeb, a 12 year retired Professor of Economics at the University at Albany and the President of the Neighborhood Association of Guilderland, which represents over 1,000 homes and businesses in Guilderland, continues to harbor some concerns over the new construction, “There is still some concern about the increase in traffic on western avenue and the impact on near-by neighbors to the University,” said Reeb, “It’s never clear what’s going to happen when you move 500 students into an area, what affect it will have on the bars and restaurants.”

Times Union Article

Karl Luntta adds that the University has tried to accommodate these concerns, “We have had public meetings with various groups, including publishing our environmental impact community,” said Luntta, “the project was brought before the Albany city council and there have been numerous public meetings. We have addressed all of those issues with the community, they publicly commented on them as well.”

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105395667616610194816.000496e95e952a85b48a0&ll=42.677829,-73.819348&spn=0.004228,0.004935&output=embed&w=425&h=350%5D

The 1998 University at Albany Master Plan states that “there are neither any New York State department of Environmental Conservation Freshwater Wetlands or any flood zones mapped on the Uptown campus.” However, some environmental concerns have been raised about the new housing project including the clearing of more than a dozen wooded acres.

“One of the sad things is most people have a very limited understanding of the difference between planted trees and natural forests. Virtually no one understands anything about natural systems” said George Robinson, Associate Professor of Biological Studies at the University, “we have a deforestation rate on this campus that is greater than any developing country.”

The housing project is also planned to be an LEED Gold facility. According to the U.S. Green Building Council’s website, “LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.”

However, Robinson believes this is not enough to off-set the damage done, “The planning committee did a terrible job. The idea is not bad, Empire Commons wasted a lot of space. There was nothing environmental about it. A more environmentally friendly building is great but there needs to be more incentive to use power and heat less,” Said Robinson, who suggested payment of heat and power based on use, “I can’t blame just the University, we are part of a state system that is run by not the most creative people.”

“We expect to make this a LEED gold facility, there will be ground source heat pump system, heating. This will reduce the University’s impact by 25%. There will be green vegetation roofs, the project will be irrigated with ponds. There will be high efficiency water fixtures and permeable pavement which will reduce runoff,” said Karl Luntta “The benefits are twofold, one the university has a commitment to sustainability, mitigating are impact, we have at times 18,000 students and 5,000 faculty on campus, that’s a lot of use of our resources. We are trying to reduce that. And it will also reduce the cost, it’s good for our environment, for the university, and for the budget.”

However, Robinson sights a need to change how the university approaches automobiles all together, “The project started started with more sensitivity. I’m not against the building design, but they could have avoided moving into the no impact zone. With better bike and pedestrian paths on Western and Washington, more incentive to use the buses, we could have filled the dorms with people willing to pay less rent and not have parking (not zero parking, but greatly reduced),” said Robinson, who walks to work every day down Washington, “It takes about two acres of forest to absorb the amount of CO2 a car produces—there are about 20 million people in the state of New York and about 20 Million acres of forest, we’re not compensating.”

The 1998 University Master Plan does not designate the “perimeter” area in which the new dorms are located as a no impact zone. However, in the introduction to University resources section, the Master Plan clearly states, “The Lake and the hilly, wooded area adjacent to it were mentioned frequently during the interviews as one of the nicest areas on the Campus. This area is used for teaching and is a pleasant place to walk or sit. Development should not be allowed to infringe on this area, and it is a good candidate for any natural restoration that it might require.”

“We had a “nature web” as a course, we can’t do it anymore. It was one little patch and it’s a shame, it’s embarrassing for me that we haven’t done better and it’s not for lack of trying,” said Robinson, “I knew about the original plan and I lobbied to cut it in half. Half of the plan is parking lots. It cost a lot to make a parking space—about 2 to 3 thousand dollars. We are not paying enough for our automobiles.”

The University at Albany Archivist and Campus record keeper Geoffrey P. Williams recounts that several suggestions have been made for parking underground, or above ground parking facilities, but all have been deemed too expensive, “There was supposed to be a lot more green on the University in the original plans, but over the years parking lots have been eating that green space up,” he notes.

How they are paying for it:
“The system uses bonds secured through the state, money that the university pays back through the state through the resident’s fees of students during their stay, eventually, residents halls pay for themselves,” said Karl Luntta.

However, the 2008 S/L/A/M executive summary found that the typical institutional DASNY housing projects, based on a “building assembly utilizing concrete plank construction with load-bearing concrete masonry walls with brick veneers” costing around $57, 080,669, would require a “substantial and unrealistic” increase in room rates—an increase that would need to be instated over all dorm residents on campus. To achieve sustainability, S/L/A/M recommended a medium-rise configuration, which although not financially self-sustaining, would come close to this goal and satisfies DASNY standards. However, the university has decided on a layout similar to the initially proposed, more expensive design. This design, as Luntta stated, will cost approximately 55 million dollars.

S/L/A/M Executive Summary
Karl Luntta said that after the initial state bond process, “residence halls pay for themselves.” Although the price of the dorms aligns with the average of similar east-coast University housing projects, the price quoted by Luntta will exceed the sustainability for the projected price of living in an apartment style dorm. So either these dorms will be “unreasonably” more expensive to live in or the price of all dorms on campus will increase to pay the difference.

Finally, here is video of some student reactions to the project.

Social Media Successes and Failures?

Social media is an extremely useful tool for winning support in almost any public arena. Actors, Athletes, and Politicians have used social media to speak directly to their fans. Young artists have become famous strictly through social media (the youtube sensation) and in many ways social media has set the standard for public performance. If you are an aspiring anything you should have the internet backing to support it “check us out on facebook”.

And this all works well when you are dealing with relatively “clear” goals, i.e. winning an election, mantaining fan favoritism, become famous (and subsequently wealthy). But is it ethical for politicians to use social media as a soap box after they have entered into office? Are politicians obviously marketing for a particular demographic–or is social media the new norm for which an informed constituent must constantly be aware.

Referencing a Poynter Institute Article , we can ponder that when running in an election, you are essentially rooting for a team and a brand. There is opposition, competition, and the desire to succeed. However, once accepted to office, you have become the pinnacle of this struggle and now you should have one responsibility–work. But even within this there are thousands more competitions based on policies, etc. that you must partake. Do politicians continue to keep their teams in these situations and use their brand to pass on a new piece of legislature? Do people continue to support politicians in the same way when they are running and when they are in office? Should a politicians work speak for itself?

Telling True Stories: Finding a Story

Part 2: Finding, Researching, and Reporting topics:

As a young not yet employed journalist, finding a story is a challenge that arises several times throughout a semester. It’s hard to decide if this would be easier if I were daily sitting in a news room, hearing story after story and being somewhat immersed in the society. However, a university becomes its own micro-chasm and can be isolated from the larger sense of the community that surrounds it.

It is the initial seed of a story that is most difficult to grasp. Finding a small starting point that will open up into several things—probably different from where you intended to go. What I’ve noticed personally from my investigative experience is that after a few interviews, the information starts to group around a particular subject (either organically, or subconsciously through me). It is at this point (usually far into the semester, right around finals unfortunately) that the real research for a story begins. In my experience with journalism, it is this preliminary research—or less specific research that is the most time consuming and frustrating, but if continued it inevitably leads to some sort of core—this is where the momentum begins. I think this is approached in Mark Kramer and Wendy Call’s introduction to part two of telling true stories.

The threat of narrative journalism
I think Degregory’s passage speaks of the most influential type of journalism—the reporting of immersion, a story that somehow depends upon your presence in it (although not explicitly). There are many ways to tell a story, and a story is based on facts, but in many ways it is the essence of these facts that truly make a story-a passage into someone else’s life, effective.

Is there a methodology to finding stories? As Jane Winburn discusses, there can be. Besides the basis of Windburn’s process, which asks “what are the universal issues of the day?” I think the most beneficial reflection is that the end of a story simply means the beginning of another—this strikes a resonant chord in almost everything, but it is a fluid perception of reporting that I think ensures for longevity of a reporter.

It is suprising the see the extent to which most of the writers involved are aware of their process. Perhaps this is only possible in retrospect (or for a writer who has had time to look back on larger projects they had done before). Throughout these passages, there seems to be a pattern of opening a story into what it later becomes. In many ways, it seems, just putting yourself in the right place is the basis for a narrative, to be able to recreate a scene with authenticity and thoughtfulness and shed something upon it that wasn’t seen before (for both the reader and the people involved). At the same time, the danger in narrative journalism becomes perception. How we percieve someone may not be how they percieve themselves, and even when trying to drop all biases, we cannot abandon are very base perceptions. IN fact, it is these perceptions, or filters, that transfrorms something from an occurence to a story. But assimilators, we must be careful.

Telling True Stories

To Tell A Story:

To tell a story, you must bring the reader with you—you must fins common language or place that you and the reader can exist together. This is a world that is separate from both of you. A world that you must discover with your reader—as Jacqui Banaszynski did when she was sent to the Sudan to cover Famine and mass exile of thousands of Sudanese. To tell a story, you must find connections that weave people together, minute details that attach the past and present-the present of the reader to the past of the story.

Telling a story is also about going into a subject’s private world. Although we have been taught to respect people’s privacy, stories rarely exist within the surface information—or the surface information is just the end or the beginning of several stories. In this, it is important to delve the story behind the basic news headline—to hang out with the people of the story and to get a feel of the details, passions, conflicts, that characterize their lives:

In Cold Blood.

As David Halberstam notes—the idea of the story is vital—What is the story about? What are the underlying motives, the larger pictures, the pieces that make the story? To tell a strong story, you must move past just recounting—this is only the first level of a story—but somewhere in the events, the words, and the actions, there is an idea that lurks. It is the story tellers job to coordinate without perverting this idea—to find a certain thematic thread that is not created but brought to life.

http://www.blogs.com/topten/top-10-user-generated-storytelling-blogs/
The Ethics of True Story Telling:

As a journalist, we must remember that we are bound by honest relationships with our subjects. Because of this, we must be willing to negotiate aspects of a story—to be willing to omit areas of speculation or things that could be harmful to the subject.

In the intimate relationship and portrayal by a narrative journalist, we must respect the information we are given about an individual—someone who might approach a friend. At the same time, we must convey an honest depiction—even if this means leaving out parts of the story of the larger story that are not clear, that we are not given the complete information.

A story teller must be aware that by entering the scene, they have in many ways already changed the story, but this is natural, the key is coordinating the story without destroying, changing or coloring it, letting it come out as it is to the story teller as it happens.

In this way, the story tellers emotions are very real in a story, they are as factual as the information being presented. But there must remain a solid line between fact and fiction—if something is being conducted unconventionally that may seem to alter this, it is important that the audience is made aware and can draw their own conclusion of the gray areas.

Ethics of Journalism (Poynter Institute)
But in reporting a story, remember you owe the truth to your subject (even if they don’t like it right away) your editor, and your readers.

What Readers Want

10,000 Words offers an article on the top 7 reasons why readers don’t like your blog:

They are:
1. You talk down to a reader
2. You don’t spell check
3. You go off topic
4. You don’t post very often
5. You don’t link
6. You turn off comments
7. You don’t offer RSS

Personally, I think a blog is weakest when it doesn’t have a unified point or special area of interest. The only time I really use a blog is to learn information about something more complicated that I don’t want to spend the time researching myself—something that a blogger has a personal passion for and would probably be writing their blog even if they only have a single reader.

I think it’s impossible to fake genuine interest in a subject—and there are many things in the world that can’t really be approached casually—someone somewhere has to commit a lot of time to these subjects and that is important.

However, Blogging is different for politics. Because almost all of politics is based on a very specific language and the discourse surrounding this language—I think it is hard for a news agency to report on this discourse in a way that makes sense.

Blogging, on the other hand, helps to organize what people are saying—where unrest lies and what other stuff they want to do. And I think that is important.

Print Writer and Blogger

Blogger No Longer:

Today I read on Poynter institute about the recent move of a long time blogger from online publications back to print.

The article is about Marc Ambinder who was one of the first journalists to be hired (by the Hotline and the Atlantic) and paid to write exclusively online. However, the Poynter article, by Bill Krueguer, sites some of the difficulties Ambinder faced as a solely blogging journalist.

He cites specifically that in the early days of blogging, a blogger was only respected as a journalist if their story appeared in print as well as on their blog.

On his final blog he writes:
“I still think that, despite the combined efforts of myself and dozens of others, “blogger” carries a stigma among high-level editors and the standard-setters of this business that needs to be erased. I’ve done my best over these past five years, but I confess a romantic attachment to print and magazines, which is one reason I clawed my way into the Atlantic and National Journal Magazine whenever possible.”

He also cites the difficulties of being stuck in constant loops of readers comments as well as the compulsion towards inserting his first person self into every post.

“I loved the freedom to write about whatever I wished, but I missed the discipline of learning to write about what needed to be written.”

As the first sentence of the final paragraph of his final post he writes:

“Notice the number of personal pronouns in the paragraph above. Enough of that!” and then proceeded to thank his readers over the years and the people that helped him along the way.

In the Poynter story, many journalists took aim at Ambinder’s depiction of online journalism as more “ego-extensive” then print journalism, arguing that every piece of journalism involves the insertion of the narrator in some sense.

I have to side with Ambinder on this one. Although I believe blogging can be a strong form of journalism, I do think print journalism still allows for a certain subtlety and master-working that online journalism does not quite reach. Although it’s all different and impossible to generalize, online journalism can often come across as yelling over the crowd—the linking out to other sites and the several voices on a subject are important, but they also appeal to a certain hyperactivity in the reader—a grab and move on type of reading that doesn’t give time for the reader to digest, or the writer to develop a story or scene beyond a certain point.

Although the journalist is always going to be involved in the narration of a story in some way, the print journalist is more like a director behind the production, the blogger tends to be more of the actor within the production—with both you get the same basic story but the perspective is vastly different—one form takes more time to develop and calls for more time from the reader—a thing that blogging just isn’t receptive to and what readers don’t go to a blog expecting.

Social Networking

There are a lot of people on Facebook. According to the Digital Buzz Blog, there are currently over 400 million Facebook users world wide, about as many people as there are in the United States. Half of these users are active on Facebook on a regular basis. 3 billion photos are uploaded to the site each month.

These statistics should be kind of scary if you think of them in perspective of how many people there are in the developed world. They are also a reflection of corporate trust (or ignorance). It has become common practice to subscribe to social networking and publish information online through a particular platform (a platform that then owns this information and which can be accessed through several different means). I personally overlook the threat of information that can be found through Facebook–pictures, statuses, basic informationt that I believe only my friends can see becasue of the privacy settings–but how secure is facebook as a whole–can it be hacked–can Facebook sell my information–this is not readily available information and because of this we tend to overlook it, or assume that it’s not possible.

In this video we interview some students about their Facebook uses and concerns–which brings to mind the a recent quote from the movie the Social Network after Mark Zuckerburg character publishes a rude comment about a girl he knows. Later, when confronted she attacks him with the severity of what he did, “You published it on the internet, in ink, for everyone to see.”