A Student Journalist Growing Up In The So Called “Death Of Journalism”

My grandfather was a broadcast journalist, he started first as a Disc Jockey becoming a local celebrity (to his surprise) and then turned to the beginning of television to anchor news

When something is associated with old men, aka newspapers, it's pretty much doomed.

stories, host game shows and events. My father tells me that he was a new junkie addict, after a long day at the station he would come home, mumble a hello, sit in his favorite chair with reading glasses and watch the late night news through a newspaper. He was a journalist in a time where journalism wasn’t questioned, if you were a journalist you either were on TV or a writer for print. The internet didn’t exist, everyone waited upon the evening paper and 6 o’clock news for breaking stories. Some call those the glory days of Journalism.

My Grandfather died never knowing that one day I would dream of following in his footsteps, anchoring, filming, writing and designing my way into journalism. I always regret that I never had the time to talk to him and learn from him, as although I was 16 when he died we lived on two different continents.

My desire to become a journalist began in France, my English teachers (professeurs in French) told me that I had a talent in writing, to this I came curious, what could I do with my new found talent? Writing novels never really appealed to me as spending a year on one manuscript was a little too much for me.

But when my school decided it needed a Newspaper and asked for applications I realized that journalism was perfect, I applied for Editor and Chief (the only person that did) and started up Fenelon’s first newspaper in it’s history. It wasn’t much, a few  pieces of  stapled paper featuring stories written by students that I’m sure would kill any editor at the sight of them. But

Grasse, France the parfume capital of the world, where I grew up.

it did sprout a desire inside me, and earned me an internship at the Nice Matin (pronounced “Neece”), the largest paper in Southern France.

The funny thing is, through all of this I never really had any real desire to become a print journalist I was a part of the Youtube generation and made a series of Youtube videos with one gaining over 7,000 hits, which was the talk of our school that anyone other than our friends would want to watch a video made by a bunch of French kids. This feeling of fame, though small made me dream of one day reporting around the world in front of a camera as a journalist.

From France I abruptly moved to Southern California where I would go to High School for the first time ever at La Costa Canyon, a D1 school of 2,500 students. There, even though I had a love of videography I would enroll in the print journalism program, one of the best decisions I would ever make. There I learned pretty much everything I know today, cultivating my dream of Journalism into a reality.

If you want to doom something, doom newspapers, leave Journalism alone.

At a journalism conference in San Diego I landed a job as a videographeur at the North County Times, one of San Diego’s two bignewspapers. It always amused me when I, a High School Sophomore, (Now a Junior) would film sporting events and other happenings to see the many middle aged professionals with journo degrees under their belts would be pretty much doing the same thing I was doing with my small little home hand held camera from my Youtube years.

To me, it gave me an idea of what Journalism would be in the future, no big cameras, camera men, flashy lights or studios, it would be just me and a camera facing the world, one lone wanderer traveling the earth with a camera as company and the eyes of nations . To me, the future doesn’t look grim.

The age of journalism is changing, aging professionals depict and prophesize  the end of Journalism. It angers me whenever I read their long drawls of text, moaning about their demise. What did they expect? That their cushy desk job editing stories would last in the speed of the internet age?

Don’t spell out the  end of journalism. We, the new generation of journalists have it under control, it’s about time that the journalists of old learn to adapt and instead of discussing the end of journalism, nurture the new beginning. Don’t waste your time and experience complaining, help us out, because all I can see in my future is  journalism, and a bunch of vintage, aged wrinkled journalists dooming my dream isn’t going to stop me.

Oh and by the way, sorry about the long drawling text. I’m just paying a little homage to all of the other news stories that need to  adapt to the 21 century.

Back In Business

I’m back for the starting of the year now that summer is ending. Prepare for great content on the way! I’m deciding to focus the blog on Tech/Web/Journalism so we’ll see how this goes. Plus, new logo:

Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter Profile More Popular than his Movies…

With all the media organizations going crazy over Twitter, all that was needed was for a celebrity or public figure to start up something interesting for it to become a frenzy. If you haven’t heard actor Ashton Kutcher, known for Punk’d TV show is now competing with CNN in the race to a million followers.

“I just realized I have … 842,550 people that are following my Twitter feed which is kind of scary to me now,” he said. “Like I didn’t realize that there were that many people following. That’s kind of crazy.” Ashton Kutcher, said in a Youtube video.

One of the most amazing things I noticed when visiting his Twitter feed is that if you refresh his page he will gain 1-5 followers. Considering I have yet to reach 100 that’s unbelievable (and slightly heart breaking).

According to his Twitter feed he has been asked by Larry King and Opera to talk about his Twitter race on their shows. The question I’m still asking is why he has so many followers in the first place? Celebrities like Shaq, Tony Hawk and Lance Armstrong all have over a hundred thousand hits lower than him. When was the last time he received any buzz at all?

Perhaps it’s that Kutcher is a a younger celebrity that can still affiliate himself with younger, Tech-Savy and Twitter friendly generations. That and the content he posts on twitter is actually quite good.

It’s a good day when a young celebrity can actually take on media giants such as CNN, help Kutcher receive a million hits so we can all witness him get quickly apprehended by security on Ted Tuner’s mansion!

And why you’re at it why not follow this blog on twitter as well!

Sprint Gets in Gear

Sprint Mobile, which has often been looked upon as the phone service for the people who can’t get Verizion or AT&T has recently put out an extremely innovating and eye grabbing advertisement, take a look:

Now when I saw this I was expecting Verizon or AT&T to pop up, they’re usually the ones with the marketing mantra (Can you hear me now? and Deadzone commercials). Sprint must be taking a hit because usually when companies are going under they desperately try to revamp their marketing . Well whatever Sprint was looking for, they got it with this one. The ad talks almost directly to the new generation of techies providing immensely interesting facts of the tech world, apparently happening right as you read this.

What Sprint has finally understood is that good advertising is when you either  make the audience laugh (Bud light and Go Daddy), familiarize themselves with a cute animal (Geico) or inform and immerse them with  very interesting tidbits of information that involve them. If Sprint can keep this up, I’m predicting a boost in sales in no time.

A great example of marketing is Verizon’s “Can you hear me now? Guy” the American audience is bombarded with his image at every commercial break that he is now immediately recognizable, enough to show up in New York and be recognized:

iTunes Finally Changes, Hopefully more to come

iTunes was true to its word today and has now implemented the $1.29 on most of the popular songs. While it has brought an outcry and general dismay among the internet world, in essence I’m wondering why iTunes hasn’t done this before now.

iTunes is becoming more and more the only market for songs. The age of CD’s died years ago and slowly but surely CD stores are closing down. Everyone has an iPod, does anything thing else even come close? iTunes now has so much power that they really can do whatever they want with no competition.

Music artists take constant bad hits from iTunes as the $0.99 per song rate gives the artist a fraction of what they made back in the CD era. With iTunes augmenting their prices on popular songs maybe artists will be a little more willing to pre-release their albums on iTunes and foregoing launching a CD.

Also, as almost anyone can put their music on iTunes why are the rates for the songs the same? What iTunes should do is charge less for unknowns and more for the top hits.

As illegal downloading and sharing is alive and thriving iTunes really has to be careful on what they do. Better deals and marketing techniques are needed to insure their survival.

“Wierd Al” Yankovic puts it perfectly, maybe iTunes needs better marketing…

Changes needed…

The days of long  scrolling text and short story size new scripts are over. We’re in a new age and era where the reader won’t sit around for over 5 minutes to read more than 8 paragraphs. It’s time to move past the “Journalism is Dead” stage and look and prepare for the coming times.

The key to this new generation of journalism is the Internet. It sounds obvious but newpapers are still struggling to maintain their overcrowded sites which often see the worst writing of the news room. You’ll find only text, which averages at least 3 page lengths on each story.

What the news companies need is to write quick 4 paragraph sum-ups accompanied with audio and video on EVERY story. In times where a 10 year old knows how to operate a camera a reporter should be able to balance a quick story and video at the same time.

Also, it seems that  when reporters actually shoot video they never find it necessary to do a voice over.  Voice overs are essential for the viewer to understand footage. Even a simple intro on what you’re seeing makes the video so much better. However, if your voice isn’t broadcast quality and the footage is extremely good make an exception.

Imagine if you went onto a top news site and under an article on a new revolution of ideas you found this:

Would you go back to the site for more?

How to Stay Stylish…and Bullet Proof

While traveling around the world I have been fortunate enough to not had to have worried about my safety. Of course there were alley ways in Eastern Europe that were a tad sketchy but nothing to the extent that I had to fear for my life whenI walked down the street. But I know that in my future war torn cities and fighting zones are fast approaching. Journalists today that report in the Middle East have to be constantly wary that they are targets which is why they wear bullet proof vests.

However, is it too much to ask to be both stylish and protected? Apparently not as a manufacturer from Bogota Colombia has created a line of clothing that stops bullets, and looks normal even stylish. Rumors even have it that’s what Obama used in the Inauguration Take a look.

Ever wanted to know how bullet proof vests work? Really interesting:

How Music Affects Us…

It’s amazing how music can make one think that something amazing, sad or happy is  happening based on the tone of the music in the background. Take a look:

The music in the background built momentum for the dunk, then when he missed it and the music came to an abrupt halt and you’re stunned for a second. Music should never be left behind when it comes to to the editing boards especially when you have free non copyrighted sites like creative commons.

What role does music have on your videos? Post links to share! Please Comment Below:

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Firefox over Chrome…

After recently moving back to the states I bought a new computer along with a top speed internet access that enabled me to search through the web a lot faster. With this gained time I was able to try out each main PC internet browser.

I began by using the recently created Google Chrome. I was at first amazed by how simple it was to use, due to the lack of clutter that I had become oh so use to in Internet Explorer. The all in one search bar and pre-opened tabs were a delight to someone who had to wait 15 seconds for my Yahoo! homepage to load.

Google Chrome is insanely fast, it beats every other web browser with its legs tied. I was really enjoying myself until I began to become more and more involved with the tech industry and blogging/Twitter. I found that Google Chrome was severely lacking in apps and was forced to maintain numerous amounts of tabs, cutting down my time to a computer. After opening so many tabs, Chrome began to feel more and more cluttered and would often shut down on bad days.

My friend, noticing my dilemma  suggested Firefox. At first I was hesitant because I had a special feeling towards Google Chrome as I was using it the first day it came out but after I became fed up when my tabs would repeatedly close up I downloaded Firefox. I wasn’t disappointed.

The amount of apps and helpful features that I can use astounded me, sure I noticed a slightly slower load time but the applications made up for that in no time.

Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Gmail suddenly became so much easier to use with the applications and I gained a ton of time to learn more and update my blog.

Chrome may be faster but in the end Firefox won the race.

I keep in mind however that Chrome is still in a beta stage, hopefully they’ll learn from the success Firefox has had and I’ll be the first one to return to it.

Here’s a video that times the two browsers for you to be the judge:

What is your favorite Browser? Please Comment Below:

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Wow, Apple you’ve done it again…

Now in a previous post I basically explained why it was a good idea to stay away from the iPhone. I still hold to that, but hey, that doesn’t mean I can’t marvel it. Check this out:

Apple should definitely pick this up for advertising only try to get the real MGMT to do it, that would benefit both sides tremendously.

It’s amazing how far technology has gone, only 25 years ago none of this could have ever been imagined.  A musical instrument on a cell phone that can actually recreate a song that sounds good, that’s a glimpse of the future for you. To think just a few years ago this came out:

Oh and another thing, when was the last time you saw a TV anchorman almost completely bald?

What do you think the next gen. of technology will be? Will we keep with the Internet? Please Comment Below

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