New camera

To make things easier for assignments instead of having to check out a camera and lens, I’m looking to buy one for my birthday.

I’m considering a few, between the Canon Rebel and the Nikon D40. Either way, I’ll probably look to get a 55-200mm or higher lens so I can use it for more detailed shots. What do you think?

Photos from the ACC Tournament

Check out some of the photos I took of Thursday’s University of Miami-Virginia Tech game in the first round of the ACC Tournament.

I used a Nikon D40 camera and an 80-200mm lens. I had some issues with the manual focus on the lens (it was rented and pretty old and loose) but I got a few shots I like.

Check them out. What do you think?

Discussion on new media in old institutions

A classmate pointed out this post on Columbia’s attempts to stay culturally relevant while retaining journalistic integrity.

The discussion is a valid one – whether Columbia Journalism School should be teaching its students new media practices or sticking to values, which it’s been so good at?

My question is, why not both?

Duy Linh Tu is quoted in the article as saying it’s an argument between the old and new schools of thought, but why should it have to be that way?

Why can’t you teach good reporting and ethics to a generation of journalists who already have the tech savvy to produce for online, while also helping them fit their digital skills to telling good stories?

To me, it’s a battle of two bull-headed groups in a machismo power struggle – one trying to hold on to the “golden days” and one trying to be true to its culture. But neither wins. And who loses?

The students.

I couldn’t agree more with the school’s dean, Nicholas Lemann, who said he doesn’t want to offer courses the Learning Annex can provide.

But I couldn’t disagree more with his implied sentiment that it’s impossible to teach new media techniques and ethics at the same time. Offer a class that teaches me in a practical way how to produce content for the Web in a way that stays true to the values you’re trying so hard to hold onto. Is that so hard?

Clearly, if Erica Orden is any indication of Columbia’s reporting ethics, Columbia has a lot to worry about. If they can’t even teach a writer not to include hearsay (the stuff the professor reportedly said in class, according to ONE student), without even getting the professor to admit whether he actually said it, they better take his alleged statement as a mantra and stay out of the new media business altogether.

Taking a couple days off to cover the ACC Tournament for The Miami Hurricane

I’m heading off to Atlanta for the ACC Tournament in a few hours to play in the basketball band and cover the Miami Hurricanes for The Miami Hurricane.

Follow my updates here.

I’ll be back after the Tournament.

Thoughts on a chapter from American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media

After reading the chapter, “Defending the News” from Neil Henry’s book American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media, I wanted to make a few comments.

I agree that in today’s 24-hour news cycle, truth and accuracy are often ignored in favor of the sensational and the immediate. But while these may be valid criticisms of TV news, I have a little trouble extending this term to all “new media,” whatever that hazy descriptor entails.

If Sports Illustrated really is suffering since it started trying to be multi-platform in its content, which caused the drop in standards – the drive to provide multimedia coverage, or a change in generations to one that has less time and interest in the story types of old?

I agree with the author’s overall point that journalists should still be instilled with good standards, especially with all the pressures that exist as the press has to provide for more and more platforms.

But his intended audience isn’t going to look up from their iPhones to notice his 336-page lecture. The book seems more like that gray-haired neighbor rocking away on his chair on his porch with his shotgun yelling at the kids to “turn that dern music down, ya hear?”. It doesn’t matter if he has a wealth of experience and insight into the industry if he can’t instruct those to whom he’s offering his advice.

Maybe offer it in downloadable, three-minute form and we’ll talk.