Neighborhood Networking and Nagging

If you live in New York or San Francisco you might be close enough to your neighbors that you can yell out the window to have a conversation. But it ends up there are other communication options for cities with multiple neighborhoods and personalities.

EveryBlock is a neighborhood social networking site for major cities, including New York, Chicago, Washington D.C. and multiple others. This site gives community members a platform to connect with each other by city, by neighborhood and even down to the block level. This is especially important in big cities because multiple neighborhoods make up one city and a different livelihoods exists on each block in a given neighborhood.

Neighborhood news and talk is fairly easy to plug into on this site. You can filter what kind of information you want to receive in your newsfeed. That information can include crime reports, business openings, restaurant inspections and new homes that are on sale, all specific to an area of your choice. This site also allows users to communicate with each other. You can join conversations and start your own. You can also create an event calendar for your area for things as big as store openings, to events as small as a birthday or block party. And if you choose, EveryBlock will email you news updates on your area.

This seems like a great way to digitally connect with a community. Of course, right now this site is only available to big cities, and I suppose I can understand why. However, I think something like this could work in Columbia, Missouri. Right now, Columbia does not have a great events calendar. Something similar to EveryBlock could solve that problem. It’s also really important for community members to talk with each other and right now there isn’t a platform for that. There are different Facebook and Yahoo groups in Columbia that are separated by interest groups or factions. But, Everyblock is unique in that the subject matter is divided within the site.

Whether it’s EveryBlock or some other neighborhood networking site, smaller to middle-size towns in American (that have a decent amount of things going on!) could greatly benefit from something like this. What will it take to make an EveryBlock (or a version of it) for small towns?

Food Food Food

My delicious mocha from Kaldi’s in Columbia

Anyone who knows me even a little bit can see that I love food. And let’s be honest, that can get me into trouble sometimes. I do my best to be healthy and eat foods that are good for me, but I have a hard time saying no to greasy foods and sugary desserts.

Because I’m young I don’t really worry about what the food I’m eating is doing to me. But it’s certainly something I should be thinking about. What I eat will determine my energy level, skin tone, weight and overall attitude towards life. I’m a firm believer that food matters and all to often i’m putting processed chemicals and extra fats into my mouth that will ultimately affect my behavior and attitude.

It ends up I’m not the only one with this belief. In fact multiple studies have been released just this week that link certain food consumption with positive and negative consequences. I was absolutely delighted in some of the findings. As it turns out my addiction to coffee may be a good thing. A new study found that coffee drinkers are more likely to live longer. Go figure! Turns out all that talk about coffee being bad for you isn’t exactly right. Let’s break it down.

This study involved 400,000 participants and it was the largest study ever one on coffee. In this study about 40,000 people didn’t drink coffee. Amongst the cafe consumers, the majority of people drank 2 to 3 cups a day. About 15,000 participants drank 6 or more cups a day. Results show that by 2008, 52,000 participants had died and compared to those who drank no coffee, men who had two or three cups a day were 10 percent less likely to die at any age. For women, it was 13 percent.

Here’s what’s even more amazing. The more participants drank, the lower their risk of death. The study showed that even a single cup a day lowered the risk of death. Women who had four or five cups a day were at a 16 percent lower risk of death.

Not that I’m complaining – But why is this? And what’s with all the people harping on you for being dependent on coffee. Well it ends up that coffee contains a thousand different things that can affect health, ranging from antioxidants, to caffeine to substances that have been linked to cancer. It is important to mention though that this study is not implying that drinking coffee will make you live longer. There’s just some unexplained correlation.

Well, to be honest that’s quite enough to convince me. Doctors suggest to take it easy on the cream and sugar – those are where the extra calories come into play. Great! I drink my coffee black. Also it’s better to drink filtered coffee rather than boiled because that process removes compounds that raised LDL (a bad cholesterol).

To be honest this is great news to me. I pretty much know I’m addicted to coffee. Which is fine because now it will decrease my risk of death – whatever that means.

Reporting on the Titanic 100 years later

The sinking of the Titanic – a story that has endured 1oo years. It still pulls at our heartstrings and captures our intrigue.

But why? Why has this story lasted such a long time? One might say the mystery of it – at the time the Titanic was known the to be “unsinkable ship.” Now we know better. We know that towers can fall from the sky, whole cities can be wiped away by water and yes, even with all the technology we have cruise ships can still indeed sink.

Maybe it’s because of the Titanic’s pop culture appeal. Museums around the world readied exhibitions to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the event. James Cameron re-released Titanic in 3D and the Discovery and History Channels created multiple specials on the sunken ship – where is it now and what remains.

I suppose all of these things contributed to the Titanic’s lasting impact and eerie immortality. So let’s look back to the day that it happened – April 14, 1912. How did news outlets react.

The AP sent out this bulletin in the early hours of the morning: “At 10:25 o’clock tonight the White Star Line steamship Titanic called ‘CQD’ to the Marconi station here, and reported having struck an iceberg. The steamer said that immediate assistance was required.”

A Poynter article helps us examine the New York Times’ coverage of the event. Carr Vattel Van Anda lead the Times’ coverage of the Titanic and put reporters on the ground right away. Here is a an excerpt from a Times article published on April 15th:

“In a clear starlit night that showed a clear deep blue sea for miles and miles, the Titanic, an hour after she had struck a submerged iceberg at full speed, head-on, sank slowly to her ocean grave.

“Her band, lined on deck, was playing pleasant music as she sank in full view of the boatloads of her wretched survivors, and those left of her passengers and crew – fully two-thirds—stood quietly resigned on deck awaiting the final plunge.”

Here in lies the writing lesson according to Meyer Berger, the author who chronicled the Times’ beginnings in “The Story of The New York Times.” He says: “These subdued lines had incredible emotional impact, and most of the other stories were pitched in the same low-key. Stark fact, simply told, was more powerful than any purple writing.”

I think this is an important less. Berger is absolutely right. Stark facts are powerful and nothing will ever change that fact. As we report it’s important to get those key pieces of information and use them tactfully in writing. Readers can tell when a reporter doesn’t have information to work with. And that’s also when writers-block often encroaches. This one simple truth that Berger explains must be remembered in writing, especially in broadcast scripts. Don’t overthink it. The facts are what tell the most compelling story.

Study Says Beer Makes Men Smarter

Researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago have made an earth shattering discovery - Beer makes men smarter.

Wait, what? To say I’m skeptical about this discovery is a gross understatement. If anything I’d say, judging from my own experiences with men on beer, the drink takes men in the opposite direction. But in the spirit of fairness let’s look at the facts shall we?

The study involved a bar game in which participants received three words and had to find a fourth word to fit that pattern. The New York Daily News offers this example it it’s article: the word “cheese” could fit with words like “blue” or “cottage” or “Swiss.”

Forty men participated in the study. Half of the men had two pints of beer, the other half had nothing. The study found that men who drank during the activity solved 40% more problems than those who didn’t drink. AND drinkers finished problems faster. Those who drank finished problems in 12 seconds on average. It took not drinkers 15.5 seconds.

So, the findings of this study are said to debunk the myth that drinking hinders analytical thinking. Psychologist Jennifer Wiley said “we found at 0.07 blood alcohol, people were worse at working memory tasks,  but they were better at creative problem-solving tasks.”

What an interesting find! I would guess that many are cautious not to have a beer or glass of wine while doing work. Instead it might just be the thing to get the creative juices flowing! Do remember however that alcohol does nothing to help your memory so if you’re studying vocabulary you might want to stick to juice.

My main question/concern with this study: why weren’t woman included? I’m honestly wondering if the results would be any different for female drinkers. God knows I love me a few Blue Moons while blogging.

Going Live – What Can Happen

Going live = Going a little bit crazy.

No I take that back it’s not really all that bad. But of course, considering this was my first live shot I must admit I was a little bit nervous. Here’s a quick rundown of what happened.

I got to the station at 1:30 for the nightside story meeting. I pitched my story about the proposal to build new sidewalks along Fairview Road leading to the elementary school but I admitted I didn’t know how I could do it considering the City Council was voting on the proposal that night. The news director suggested that I “live front” the package, meaning I would put together a story about the proposal and then go live from city hall about the latest on the decision during the broadcast. It all sounds easy enough right?

Well, needless to say I learned a lot that night. There’s so much more to the live shot than meets the viewer’s eye and my simple (intro-package-tag) story didn’t really even scratch the surface. Here’s a few things I took away from that experience:

Plan accordingly! Have an idea of your story before you set out

Manage your time wisely! If you have to be at the live shot location at 8:45 you have to factor in how long it will take you to get there, how long it will take you to put your story together etc.

Know your live truck opperator and be in constant communication with them so you can easily find them at the location

Work as a team with producers

DON’T Memorize! And try to read and speak naturally

Keep going if you mess up! You’re live and there’s no redos

Know the main points of your story. Just in case something goes wrong.

A lot of these points I received in class, or learned from other students or faculty at the station, however, it’s a whole different story putting what you’ve learned into practice. These tips helped me out immensely during my first live shot and I plan to add to this list as I do more of them.

How To Write Someone’s Life

In my Literature of Journalism class I’m reading a book called Writing a Woman’s Life for my final project. I’ll be honest I haven’t finished it yet but so far it’s great. The introduction lays out the main concept: there are multiple ways to write a women’s life. The woman can write it, either as an autobiography or she can call it fiction. Or a biographer might write the woman’s life.

But the author, Carolyn Heilburn, says things are a little more complex than that. We have to wonder – how do we know the writing is a real portrayal of what things are?

I started thinking about this. A lot of times it’s hard to be honest with ourselves about our own lives – what’s really going on and how do we honestly feel about things? I try to journal as much as possible and have experienced this struggle myself. Sometimes I  censor things. At times it’s done unknowingly, while other times it’s intentional. I don’t really want to face how I’m feeling.

And this is me writing about me. How much more difficult is it when we’re writing about others? And how do we know what information is real and honest? This is hard enough when people are trying to be truthful. What happens when people are lying and purposely trying to deceive?

These are all the things I’ve been thinking about when going through the book  and while sitting in class. Right now we’re talking about interviewing skills and techniques. Obviously this is not a simple concept. As journalists we want to be able to tell an honest and true story. But it seems that sometimes, no matter how hard we try, that task is near impossible. And as I’ve been thinking about this I wonder – what would make a person trust me with their honest feelings, emotions and opinions when they may or may not be able to be honest with themselves?

This is what makes being a journalist so interesting and yet so intensely difficult. It’s important to know people and gain their trust. And it’s even more crucial to keep that trust and credibility even when the story’s been published. There are so many ways to write a life and so many ways to write any given story. It’s the job of the journalist to write it the way it should be written. And sometimes that will be different from the way the subject thought it should be written.

This surely must take practice and skill. And after sitting through weeks of interviewing lectures in Broadcast 2, I know it doesn’t come overnight. I’m going to continue practicing in everyday contexts.

Don’t be surprised if I start asking lots of well thought out questions in our casual conversations.

Downward facing dog? Or Economy?

A few summers back I was completely into Bikram yoga. This exercise is done in a hot room, usually over 100 degrees, where you perform 26 different poses and sweat out a ton of toxins from your body. There’s a lot of controversy over this form of yoga but I loved it. I became more flexible, lost weight and was able to get a grasp on a lot of unwanted stress in my life.

The reason I quit? It was way too expensive.

At home in New Hampshire I paid $10 for each session. While I was at school in New York each session cost $12. That adds up (especially when I can run outside for free). Well guess what? Yoga’s about to get a whole lot more expensive in New York City (one reason to be thankful I don’t live there anymore).

New York City has decided to categorize yoga studios as fitness centers. It may seem harmless, but this will make these studios subject to a 4.5% sales tax. This all started last year when New York State’s Education Department tried to  subject Yoga Studios to licensing regulation where fees from teaching yoga instructors would go to the state. But a “Yoga Bill” was passed that exempted yoga and martial arts studios from state educational certification.

When that didn’t fly the state devised another plan. The state is classifying these studios as fitness centers (subjecting them to the 4.5% sales tax and requiring them to licensing fees for their place of business), and  attempting to identify yoga teachers as employees instead of independent contractors (which is their current label). These attempts are not new. In fact, these proposals were revealed last April. But as tax season is rolling around reality is setting in as many businesses are doing their taxes.

So is this fair? New York City’s Kula Yoga Project sent this message to New York State. The group’s director, Schuyler Grant, was quoted by Bloomberg Business:  

“Our broke ass state is trying to squeeze money out of an industry that they see growing in these rough economic times. Namely … Yoga. If their various extortion schemes are successful, a lot of small yoga studios are going to go out of business. And your yoga classes are going to go up. Maybe a lot.”

But a spokesman for the Department of Taxation and Finance fights back.

“We do see this as a fairness issue,” said Edward Walsh told the Wall Street Journal. ”Businesses that provide similar services should be subject to the same taxes in the city.”

I guess I can see both sides of the argument. But as a former (rookie) yogi I find this sad. If prices go up, people might not be able to afford going to class. That’s discouraging. These businesses could suffer because of these new regulations and taxes.