Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Columbia Journalism School: Thanksgiving Check-in
I am popping at the seams. I find myself listening to The Fame Monster by Lady Gaga on repeat, staring out dark subway windows on the 1. Half the time I'm just staring at myself in the window wondering whether I made the right choice to come, to be here, to pursue this profession.
I'm not the best in my class, in fact I'm far behind many of classmates in both reporting and writing. Whatever relative prowess or ability I thought I had with writing before has gotten mostly, if not almost entirely, swiped from my hands. Not to be a whiny pain in the ass, but my tail is in between my legs and for the last two weeks my self-esteem has been dragged through the muddy, sewage ridden New York gutters. A good analogy would be me as Peter Pan (circa Disney's 1953 animated release) and my self-esteem as his skittish, unattainable shadow running the hell away. I've attempted to re-attach my self-esteem but, like Peter, I've found that soap (or perky "you can do it!" chants in my case) just aren't cutting it to keep that sucker tacked to me. Who has a sewing kit I can borrow?
RW1 is the basic reporting class each of us has to go through before we can finish our Fall term. It is the largest, most demanding time and emotional suck of a class I have ever had. RW1 requires that you pick a beat to cover for the entirety of the semester -- a topic (food, money, health) or a physical neighborhood (Astoria, Harlem, LES, or in my case, Hell's Kitchen) and find stories for the duration of your time as a cub reporter there. This is how old-school daily print reporters have been trained for many, many years. You learn basic news writing style, how to structure a story, and get the shoe-leather reporting skills that generations before you have perfected. Ask the right questions. Find the leads. Get the story. Before we arrive, it's what we're all looking to learn at some level otherwise we wouldn't be here. We want that real world experience when so many of us have come from a reporting background of desk phone calls, press-releases or googling. Or, we have no experience at all.
The reality is you knock on doors and get rejected time and time and time again. You get laughed at when you tell people you're a student, you feel like an ass because you aren't publishing the work you're getting people to give their time up for, and everything you inevitably find out is about 50 percent less than you actually need. But really, these are all very good lessons that you learn. Every time you don't get what you want gives you a smack on the butt to get up and get it right the next time. Every failure feels terrible, but oh the successes, those sweet successes that come few and far between, are worth every terrible story idea or interview before it. The time you got that source to talk when no one else could, when you find the story that you've always known was there and everyone missed. It feels like you have been vindicated more, better, than you have been in years. Goddammit, you were right.
They tell you it's going to be hard when you get here. Actually, they tell you before you get here, when you get here, and while you're going through it. But lately that often doesn't seem like enough.
Almost all of the young journalists I've talked in the last few weeks, especially my classmates, have begun to voice questions, doubts, and concerns over whether we should be pursuing journalism. Are we built for this? Is our writing good enough? Is our reporting strong enough? Should we really be following this path? The industry is tough right now, tougher than before, and as the previous generation of journalists continues to get booted from newsrooms around the country, we're catching the trickle down of their messy company breakups. People are bitter, terrified, and often still cling to a model or ideal of journalism that doesn't match up with the world our class is seeing today.
We're being taught a standard of journalism that worked for more than a century, primarily based around daily newspaper production and writing. But we're also constantly confronted with these points: the industry is structurally changing, newspapers need to consider what content they're going to be good at cause, uh, people get most of that info elsewhere now (for free!), magazines no longer have ad pages coming in, and online journalism isn't yet generating enough revenue to be a feasible business model even with millions of followers. So, young reporters, what do we do?
There's no answer to that question right now. All I have are these curiosities sitting in the back of my head that need to be fleshed out, "unpacked" as so many professors here love to say. What I do know is that I feel like I've gotten smacked and kicked around a decent amount in the last four months. Speared, roasted, flambéed ... but I can't deny that I haven't learned a ton. I do feel infinitely better at reporting than when I entered (hmm, what does that say for how well I used to report if I'm still not good?), I'm reading more voraciously than before and I'm producing work I never thought I'd produce. I guess it's working the magic it's supposed to work, but goodness it's been a slog. I don't know if it was entirely worth it just yet.
Here's what I'm hoping: first semester presents you with all of the background, all of the questions that are being asked, and all of the situations that you might shy away from if you didn't have an organization shoving them in your face. I'm praying that second term will bring some solutions, some answers and a clearer path. I still find journalism titillating and engaging in a way no other industry really strikes me. But working in a daily newsroom seems like drudgery and frustration to me right now. I like reporting, but I struggle when I'm not interested in the story I'm telling. Maybe that's normal, though, and I'm just being an epically big cry baby. I can't decide if the pull I feel to radio broadcasting and photography is something worth pursuing, or just another path that will lead to the depressing realization that I'm not cut out for this.
Get broke down before you get built up. Right? ... Right. If I have a fit of tourettes when you next see me, please know it's not meant to offend in any way. I'm just a little imbalanced right now. Happy Thanksgiving, peeps!
I'm not the best in my class, in fact I'm far behind many of classmates in both reporting and writing. Whatever relative prowess or ability I thought I had with writing before has gotten mostly, if not almost entirely, swiped from my hands. Not to be a whiny pain in the ass, but my tail is in between my legs and for the last two weeks my self-esteem has been dragged through the muddy, sewage ridden New York gutters. A good analogy would be me as Peter Pan (circa Disney's 1953 animated release) and my self-esteem as his skittish, unattainable shadow running the hell away. I've attempted to re-attach my self-esteem but, like Peter, I've found that soap (or perky "you can do it!" chants in my case) just aren't cutting it to keep that sucker tacked to me. Who has a sewing kit I can borrow?
RW1 is the basic reporting class each of us has to go through before we can finish our Fall term. It is the largest, most demanding time and emotional suck of a class I have ever had. RW1 requires that you pick a beat to cover for the entirety of the semester -- a topic (food, money, health) or a physical neighborhood (Astoria, Harlem, LES, or in my case, Hell's Kitchen) and find stories for the duration of your time as a cub reporter there. This is how old-school daily print reporters have been trained for many, many years. You learn basic news writing style, how to structure a story, and get the shoe-leather reporting skills that generations before you have perfected. Ask the right questions. Find the leads. Get the story. Before we arrive, it's what we're all looking to learn at some level otherwise we wouldn't be here. We want that real world experience when so many of us have come from a reporting background of desk phone calls, press-releases or googling. Or, we have no experience at all.
The reality is you knock on doors and get rejected time and time and time again. You get laughed at when you tell people you're a student, you feel like an ass because you aren't publishing the work you're getting people to give their time up for, and everything you inevitably find out is about 50 percent less than you actually need. But really, these are all very good lessons that you learn. Every time you don't get what you want gives you a smack on the butt to get up and get it right the next time. Every failure feels terrible, but oh the successes, those sweet successes that come few and far between, are worth every terrible story idea or interview before it. The time you got that source to talk when no one else could, when you find the story that you've always known was there and everyone missed. It feels like you have been vindicated more, better, than you have been in years. Goddammit, you were right.
They tell you it's going to be hard when you get here. Actually, they tell you before you get here, when you get here, and while you're going through it. But lately that often doesn't seem like enough.
Almost all of the young journalists I've talked in the last few weeks, especially my classmates, have begun to voice questions, doubts, and concerns over whether we should be pursuing journalism. Are we built for this? Is our writing good enough? Is our reporting strong enough? Should we really be following this path? The industry is tough right now, tougher than before, and as the previous generation of journalists continues to get booted from newsrooms around the country, we're catching the trickle down of their messy company breakups. People are bitter, terrified, and often still cling to a model or ideal of journalism that doesn't match up with the world our class is seeing today.
We're being taught a standard of journalism that worked for more than a century, primarily based around daily newspaper production and writing. But we're also constantly confronted with these points: the industry is structurally changing, newspapers need to consider what content they're going to be good at cause, uh, people get most of that info elsewhere now (for free!), magazines no longer have ad pages coming in, and online journalism isn't yet generating enough revenue to be a feasible business model even with millions of followers. So, young reporters, what do we do?
There's no answer to that question right now. All I have are these curiosities sitting in the back of my head that need to be fleshed out, "unpacked" as so many professors here love to say. What I do know is that I feel like I've gotten smacked and kicked around a decent amount in the last four months. Speared, roasted, flambéed ... but I can't deny that I haven't learned a ton. I do feel infinitely better at reporting than when I entered (hmm, what does that say for how well I used to report if I'm still not good?), I'm reading more voraciously than before and I'm producing work I never thought I'd produce. I guess it's working the magic it's supposed to work, but goodness it's been a slog. I don't know if it was entirely worth it just yet.
Here's what I'm hoping: first semester presents you with all of the background, all of the questions that are being asked, and all of the situations that you might shy away from if you didn't have an organization shoving them in your face. I'm praying that second term will bring some solutions, some answers and a clearer path. I still find journalism titillating and engaging in a way no other industry really strikes me. But working in a daily newsroom seems like drudgery and frustration to me right now. I like reporting, but I struggle when I'm not interested in the story I'm telling. Maybe that's normal, though, and I'm just being an epically big cry baby. I can't decide if the pull I feel to radio broadcasting and photography is something worth pursuing, or just another path that will lead to the depressing realization that I'm not cut out for this.
Get broke down before you get built up. Right? ... Right. If I have a fit of tourettes when you next see me, please know it's not meant to offend in any way. I'm just a little imbalanced right now. Happy Thanksgiving, peeps!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Central Park in October
Fall finally started to hit New York City this weekend. The leaves are changing now and the air snaps you awake in the morning with its vibrant crispness. I've only felt that energy on the East Coast in the Fall, which is one of the reasons I'm always excited to experience it again.
J was here visiting for the weekend, so the usual suspects including Rysiebops and Shwow popped out of their respective work hiding places and took her about town for a couple of nights.
The next day, D convinced me away from one of my finals for a quick walk in Central Park. Seeing that many families together, couples strolling the park, or kids frolicking, is strangely invigorating. I'll be sad to see it go when winter hits.
It's funny, the more photos I take, the less I feel I have any concept of it. Hopefully the next few months of staring at photos, and watching serious editors discuss them, will help me out. Till next post.
xoxo,
See
J was here visiting for the weekend, so the usual suspects including Rysiebops and Shwow popped out of their respective work hiding places and took her about town for a couple of nights.
The next day, D convinced me away from one of my finals for a quick walk in Central Park. Seeing that many families together, couples strolling the park, or kids frolicking, is strangely invigorating. I'll be sad to see it go when winter hits.
It's funny, the more photos I take, the less I feel I have any concept of it. Hopefully the next few months of staring at photos, and watching serious editors discuss them, will help me out. Till next post.
xoxo,
See
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Riverside Park + Puppy Encounters
In an attempt to avoid my third 700 word story yesterday, I took a quick spin to Riverside Park to snap some shots. I spent a lot of time taking pictures of, uh, scenery and landscapes. Primarily because I don't really have the gumption just yet to go up and take pictures of random people.
For example:
However, this gentleman saw me taking photos of that shoe stuck to a fence -- it's practice! -- and asked if I would take some photographs of him with his dogs. His two viszlas Lucky and Coby will departing in the near future, along with his soon to be ex-wife. Sadness!
But hopefully the few pictures I took will be a reminder of all the love between them. Keep on keeping on, sir.
Till tomorrow!
xoxo,
See
For example:
However, this gentleman saw me taking photos of that shoe stuck to a fence -- it's practice! -- and asked if I would take some photographs of him with his dogs. His two viszlas Lucky and Coby will departing in the near future, along with his soon to be ex-wife. Sadness!
But hopefully the few pictures I took will be a reminder of all the love between them. Keep on keeping on, sir.
Till tomorrow!
xoxo,
See
Monday, October 5, 2009
Photo of the Day
I don't really have a ton of time to be writing here, so I'm just going to start posting a few photos that I've been taking for school. (I stole this idea from D since he started posting pics on his blog.) But, I figure it'll be a nice way to track what's changing as I'm doing more at school. Hopefully these photos get better over time. Or rather, they BEST be getting better.
<3 D90.
Monday, September 21, 2009
J-School and All Its Terrors
6 weeks in. And, as such, I am on deadline for my (can't remember how many-eth) 700 word story. It's my second story in my "beat," or in non-school slang, the neighborhood I'm covering for the entirety of first semester. One story per week, every week till Christmas. My writing better improve, or I will be one sorely upset cub journalist.
More descriptions to follow about j-school life and all the tumult that it entails, but since I'm on deadline and I only JUST figured out the angle for my story that's due at 9am AND I'd like to get a fair amount of sleep tonight, I'm just going to leave you with my pump up song for the entire week.
It's a rediscovered fav, a song I haven't heard in months but caught in a bar somewhere recently. It touched a nerve. Holler at your girl.
xoxo,
See
More descriptions to follow about j-school life and all the tumult that it entails, but since I'm on deadline and I only JUST figured out the angle for my story that's due at 9am AND I'd like to get a fair amount of sleep tonight, I'm just going to leave you with my pump up song for the entire week.
It's a rediscovered fav, a song I haven't heard in months but caught in a bar somewhere recently. It touched a nerve. Holler at your girl.
xoxo,
See
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
High School: Round 2
What's painful about a past is usually nothing to do with what actually happened then. There were things you did, things you wish you'd done, things you really really wish you hadn't done. But any decisive action you took, or heart breaking decision you made then has disappeared into the ether never to be seen again. The hard part is figuring out how to bring it all forward, how to meld all of that junk and debris from before with the palpably vibrant present day -- while you try to prevent it all from exploding.
Memories are often so potent they can overpower your vision of a situation at hand. In my case, that means this entire post-work pre-school period since March has been a strange re-telling of my senior year in high school. (It hasn't helped to watch a show about the lavish, hyper-aggrandized high school experience on the Upper East Side of New York. Or that they just aired their big prom episode tonight). I hated and loved my senior year in high school -- and college at that. Nothing went how I wanted it. I didn't get to go to the school I wanted, my boyfriend was suddenly my ex-boyfriend before the pinnacle of our relationship could be reached by attending prom together, and I basically almost flunked out of school. Every piece of the puzzle I'd perfected and excruciatingly carved for myself, kept falling to the floor and dispersing into innumerable molecules of shittiness. I promised myself I would never come back to San Francisco for more than a short stint at my parents' house, and even further, I would never allow it to suck me into its sick, twisted plot where I would love this place and want to bring my eventual family here.
Flash forward to college graduation, and suddenly I'm relegated to a few months on a couch. I am quickly sensing that all of my worst fears are going to be played out in the HD version of California Real Life: This Sucks and have decided that in protest I will do absolutely nothing but review and re-live (but only in my head) the year I experienced prior to it. This, of course, will ensure that nothing in my actual reality can play itself out. Six months later, I find that this brings only greater heartache, a fat dollop of delusion, and a seriously bad case of "holy-crap-I-have-no-money-since-I-just-spent-everything-I-have-and-I-live-with-my-parents"-itis.
Flash forward again. Suddenly I find myself here for a year, moving into an apartment in San Francisco proper with two high school friends, and falling into the trappings of a relationship that supposedly came with a self-imposed expiration date. (Foiled yet again, brain.) Another year later, I'm just home from a whirlwind Eurotrip, planning for the last type of Grad School I expected to attend but whole-heartedly want to partake in, and moving to a city of curiosity which I've been ambivalent about since I left college. Somehow, while I tried my damnedest to disentangle myself from a city I was terrified of, I managed to unfold the exact existence I'd hoped for years ago. All out of a situation which, at the time, seemed abysmally unfavorable.
There's no picture perfect prom this time, there's no high school boyfriend to ask me in just the right way, or a beautiful backlit stairway to walk down. Not that those existed the first time around. In fact, none of them did -- maybe the perfect dress, but everything else was light years away. Which was almost the reason I was angry in the first place. However, there's also none of the unfortunate realities of the time that left me bitter, heartbroken and determined to leave behind anything remotely related in the first place. Or if there were, I think somewhere along the way I forgave them, accepted my responsibility there, and decided to watch my life actually happen the way it was going to -- not the way I wanted it to.
Which means that suddenly the memories don't matter as much, and the everyday now matters a lot more. All there is, is a wonderful family, these amazing irreplaceable friends, and an incredible unexpected love. Though this may be one of the happiest times of my life, I can feel that it's also the end of a wonderful (but difficult) era. But even so, I couldn't be more grateful for the people and the place that has taught me so much.
Did it really only happen because I opened myself to it? Or was it all bound to happen in the first place? Even more, did it happen because I expected absolutely nothing, so have been caught off guard?
Maybe it totally pays to have nothing expected, to smash all pre-conceptions and just fly totally blind. And maybe it pays to read more books, see more art, go to more parties, and listen to more music. Cause even if you don't want to, you're still trying to take it all in.
Memories are often so potent they can overpower your vision of a situation at hand. In my case, that means this entire post-work pre-school period since March has been a strange re-telling of my senior year in high school. (It hasn't helped to watch a show about the lavish, hyper-aggrandized high school experience on the Upper East Side of New York. Or that they just aired their big prom episode tonight). I hated and loved my senior year in high school -- and college at that. Nothing went how I wanted it. I didn't get to go to the school I wanted, my boyfriend was suddenly my ex-boyfriend before the pinnacle of our relationship could be reached by attending prom together, and I basically almost flunked out of school. Every piece of the puzzle I'd perfected and excruciatingly carved for myself, kept falling to the floor and dispersing into innumerable molecules of shittiness. I promised myself I would never come back to San Francisco for more than a short stint at my parents' house, and even further, I would never allow it to suck me into its sick, twisted plot where I would love this place and want to bring my eventual family here.
Flash forward to college graduation, and suddenly I'm relegated to a few months on a couch. I am quickly sensing that all of my worst fears are going to be played out in the HD version of California Real Life: This Sucks and have decided that in protest I will do absolutely nothing but review and re-live (but only in my head) the year I experienced prior to it. This, of course, will ensure that nothing in my actual reality can play itself out. Six months later, I find that this brings only greater heartache, a fat dollop of delusion, and a seriously bad case of "holy-crap-I-have-no-money-since-I-just-spent-everything-I-have-and-I-live-with-my-parents"-itis.
Flash forward again. Suddenly I find myself here for a year, moving into an apartment in San Francisco proper with two high school friends, and falling into the trappings of a relationship that supposedly came with a self-imposed expiration date. (Foiled yet again, brain.) Another year later, I'm just home from a whirlwind Eurotrip, planning for the last type of Grad School I expected to attend but whole-heartedly want to partake in, and moving to a city of curiosity which I've been ambivalent about since I left college. Somehow, while I tried my damnedest to disentangle myself from a city I was terrified of, I managed to unfold the exact existence I'd hoped for years ago. All out of a situation which, at the time, seemed abysmally unfavorable.
There's no picture perfect prom this time, there's no high school boyfriend to ask me in just the right way, or a beautiful backlit stairway to walk down. Not that those existed the first time around. In fact, none of them did -- maybe the perfect dress, but everything else was light years away. Which was almost the reason I was angry in the first place. However, there's also none of the unfortunate realities of the time that left me bitter, heartbroken and determined to leave behind anything remotely related in the first place. Or if there were, I think somewhere along the way I forgave them, accepted my responsibility there, and decided to watch my life actually happen the way it was going to -- not the way I wanted it to.
Which means that suddenly the memories don't matter as much, and the everyday now matters a lot more. All there is, is a wonderful family, these amazing irreplaceable friends, and an incredible unexpected love. Though this may be one of the happiest times of my life, I can feel that it's also the end of a wonderful (but difficult) era. But even so, I couldn't be more grateful for the people and the place that has taught me so much.
Did it really only happen because I opened myself to it? Or was it all bound to happen in the first place? Even more, did it happen because I expected absolutely nothing, so have been caught off guard?
Maybe it totally pays to have nothing expected, to smash all pre-conceptions and just fly totally blind. And maybe it pays to read more books, see more art, go to more parties, and listen to more music. Cause even if you don't want to, you're still trying to take it all in.
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