congratulations to my wonderful friend laura, whose article on walt disney's fingerprinting collection was published recently as part of the news 21 initiative on the future of journalism (read more about the program here). boing boing even picked it up, and you know that's when you've made it! anyway, i encourage you all to read it.

it's been decided - i will be covering congress and all affairs political for both the Yo/rk Da/ily Re/cord and the Han/over Eveni/ng S/un come this september. those ARE in pennsylvania, right? anyway, don't doubt it - i'm going to be coming to all my savvy media friends for insider political quotes. you know who you are. also, do i have any savvy pennsylvani in-the-know friends? cause, uh, i could use your help.

time to research! and try to convince both papers to redo their web sites! because, oi.

my days lately:

aforementioned bear suits...yup.

pretty sailboats.

sand on the beach.

rehearsals in the forum.

trying on found necklaces.

packing.

being incredibly, incredibly sad about leaving chicago.

sigh.

if you were to look up the phrase "work hard, play hard," i think this weekend thus far would be its definition.

index thus far -

hours worked since friday: dozens
hours of sleep: maybe 10
hours actually spent at my apartment in lakeview: one
pool games played: like, eight? (i'm getting better!)
times photoshop, dreamweaver and pretty much every application on my computer has made me their bitch: at least 17
beers drank: innumerable
temperature today: 90
planned swims in the lake: one if not more

happy memorial day weekend!

UPDATE: some photos.

the northwestern ladies soccer team, um, hazes. (not really SFW.) and is suspended. via.

the cleaning lady hates me.

my life is sad.

as many of you know, i am a big water drinker. i can't imagine the actual ounces of water i go through in a day. my water bottle is my savior. otherwise, i would be paying $1.25 every time i wanted a new bottle. as it is, i save my water bottle and refill it constantly at the fountain. it is important to me. i am saving the environment along with money.

but the cleaning folks always throw my water bottle away in this classroom. this is in spite of the fact that: 1) i put it on the little shelf above my computer, which to me designates DO NOT TOUCH and 2) stuff it in my mug so tightly that you could not extract it without a lot of effort.

last night i grew weary. i had been in the classroom from 8:30 until 8:30, and if my effing water bottle got thrown away again, i was going to lose it. my friend suggested taking one of the little placards that rests on the table and says "DO NOT THROW AWAY: NIE ODRZUCA" (polish version) and wrapping my water bottle in it. which i proceeded to do. with tape. so, to recap: my water bottle was on my little shelf, stuffed in my mug, AND wrapped in a note that said do not throw away in multiple languages. how else to make it clearer?

of course, when i arrived this morning, the bottle, it was gone. i can't imagine this was done out of anything other than spite. cleaning lady, IT IS ON. my next step: glueing my water bottle to ceiling. try to throw that away, biatch!

what happens when some medill folks head to the sketchiest bar in evanston on cinco de mayo? well, actually, not that much. mostly they drink a ton of beer and play pool badly.

for those of you who have been reading for a while, you may recall my invective against the evils of powerpoint. it's something i still sort of vaguely stand by, but mostly because i really suck at powerpoint, not because of any particular reason. however, in our media management class, we've been forced to create powerpoint presentations no less than four or five times already, and the application will be a major part of our final presentation to the star tribune. so, you know, you suck it up.

i've also already become a more skilled powerpointer in part thanks to my friend andrew, whose partner cliff is a powerpoint guru. he literally wrote the book on powerpoint. apparently, since this quarter started, cliff was getting a bit miffed at andrew all of the sudden asking millions of powerpoint questions when he had never showed a real interest in his work before. so andrew did what any loving boyfriend would do: he called up all his media contacts on a friday afternoon, and voila: yesterday, the la times wrote a major business section article on cliff and his skills (which have of late been shown off in the vioxx trial). pretty sweet, no? it's actually a pretty interesting read, no matter what you think of powerpoint. the article was also the most emailed one on the site yesterday, and get this as an additional bonus: cliff's book shot up to #4 on amazon. not too shabby!

our class spent today at the chicago tribune building, talking to the folks of Red Eye (the chicagoan version of express, for you d.c. folks), chicagotribune.com, and tribune interactive. everyone there was lovely and smart, of course, but what was really great was seeing the inside of this gorgeous building. even better was the office space for tribune interactive, which was in the basement, where the printing presses used to be!!1!! i found that really cool, for some reason. it's very sleek and modern and loft-like down there - not your typical basement office. certainly a space where i wouldn't mind working. apparently it's won all sorts of awards. check it out.

i should also mention that we got to check out the printing plant of the daily herald last week, and for all i think of print papers, that is one impressive piece of machinery. check out some images of the press (not the DH's; a german company, i believe) here. though the daily herald is the third largest paper in illinois, it's still what many consider a suburban paper, but its printing presses are some of the newest and most sophisticated in the country. they also have scary machine forklift type robots that load the enormous 20-ton rolls of paper and i almost got run over by one. or, like, it came within 20 feet of me.

printing presses. i know! exciting! alright, more voyeurism - you can check out the pretty faces of some of my classmates here.

well, well. i was strolling along this morning towards the journalism building, coffee in hand, when one of many of the taped-to-the-ground fliers advertising various student activities caught my eye.

"STEPHEN MALKMUS" it read, in huge block letters. in smaller type it went on, kind of weirdly i thought, "acclaimed singer, songwriter, formerly of pavement."

hmm. i would go see malkmus again, i thought. i've seen him twice, once in charlottesville and once in milan, and he put on a pretty decent show both times.

then, in even smaller letters at the bottom, it read: "with new pornographers and my morning jacket."

$10. the best part? they're playing in northwestern's crappy ancient gym that can't hold more than 1,000 people on a good day. i'm so going saturday night, after an excursion with classmates to a brewers game in milwaukee. first minneapolis, now milwaukee. that's right. when will my midwestern adventures end?

in the spirit of congeniality, and also throwing out a few interesting links, i thought i should do a round-up of medillian blogs, near and far, written by friends and acquaintances (and in one case a stranger). yes, even old-school j-school folks have learned this here blogging technology.

phew! i'm back from a whirlwind trip to minneapolis, mn with my media management classmates to visit the star tribune. and oh my god, y'all, can you guess what i did: i visited the mothereffing mall of america. i'm just a little girl from washington d.c. i never thought i'd make it out there.

photos here. my hands are rubbed raw from dragging my carry on everywhere, and my skin is dry from too much airplane air, and now i sleep.

...sort of. rather, my last legal reporting assignment for the quarter was to visit, with my class and instructor, the metropolitan correctional center in chicago, the federal facility right downtown (next to the sears tower, in fact). it's designed to hold inmates before and while they need to appear in federal courts before their acquittal or sentencing. we all went on a funtimes tour with the warden, and i learned several interesting things. lucky for you, i will now relay them in educational bullet points. yes, you get catherine's wise lesson on federal prisons for the day:

i was thinking about writing a cover letter for a potential thingy-thing this summer. and then i stabbed myself in the eye. because, really, is there anything more ridiculous out there than a cover letter? of course, i say this as somebody who's never been in a hiring position. i suppose it's possible that people find these things useful. i can't imagine why, though. though i generally tailor my cover letters to the position, they generally seem like wastes of time. can anyone out there who's been in a position to hire people speak as to how important they find a cover letter, and what might be good tips to include in one?

for those of you vaguely interested in the media management project i'll be doing this spring at medill, (not many of you i imagine, so i'll put the details behind the cut) we've received the info:

editor's note: anyone who prefers to think that girls do not actually urinate, and instead have their bladder transform the pee into golden fluff, which is then extracted by angels while they sleep and sent to line the beds of newborn pups, had better not read this post.

dear medill newsroom bathroom,

hi. first off, i just wanted to let you know that i'm a big fan. it must be said that you are nicer than any other office-environment bathroom that i have ever used. you have four roomy stalls; you are decorated simply but elegantly (i especially admire the marble sink counters and the shade of beige on your walls); your lighting is perfection - none of the blaring flourescent nastiness for you - the dim glow of your sophisticated lightbulbs always makes me look wonderful in the mirror; you've got nice touches, like a close-up mirror for applying make up in the mornings and a never-ending supply of aveeno hand lotion to moisturize after washing with your pleasant-scented soap.

we have to talk.

you need to know that your toilets are the bane of the existence every single female in the newsroom. your commodes, while equipped with fairly modern-looking automatic flushing devices, actually hail from the backwaters of azerbaijin. or possibly rural communist china. i know, i was surprised too. they're nice, and clean, and the first time i used them, i thought, "what nice, clean toilets." i should have noticed the 52 signs plastered inside each stall that implored you to "PLEASE FLUSH!!!! DON'T FORGET!!!!" in some grating, squiggly microsoft font. "why ever would we need to be reminded to flush when there are such lovely automatic motion-sensor devices equipped here?" i queried myself innocently. but i thought no more of it.

until the toilet automatically flushed all its nasty toilet bowl water upwards with the force of a fire hose into my special area whilst i was in the middle of, well, you know. and it has continued to do so nearly every time i use the toilet. in fact, your motion sensor is an eager one. it flushes when i enter the stall; it flushes when i sit down; it flushes when i go. in fact, it flushes almost every time i so much blink an eye at it.

EXCEPT WHEN I ACTUALLY FINISH. YOU KNOW, THE ONLY TIME IT SHOULD BE FLUSHING AT ALL, YOU MOFO.

going to the bathroom has become a deadly game of mental tug-and-war between me and the toilets' sensors. i approach the entire act of peeing with dedicated stealth and thought-planning. i really shouldn't have to expand so much mental energy on peeing. i'm a journalist, people. i'm working here. except when i'm peeing. then i'm slipping in the door, closing it with the softness of patting a baby's head, attempting stuff like trying to sit down on the toilet from the side so the sensor doesn't, um, sense me, and holding so goddamn still while i pee that you could balance a freaking book on my head. it almost never works, but every once in a while it does, and then i go have a beer, because that is a serious accomplishemnt. every time the toilet doesn't flush on me is a victory for the entire goddamn gender.

of course, after the beer i need to pee again, and we're back at the beginning.

meanwhile, post-pee, i've tried everything in my right mind to get the sensor to work. i dodge. i weave. i do little up and down dances. i flick it with my thumb. but does the sensor see me? does it even ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I'M RIGHT THERE, trying to get it to flush? no. the sensor, it is a cold, unfeeling bastard. so on the rare occasions that i haven't already been flushed on, i must press the button on the sensor, therefore rendering the whole "automatic" thing moot.

i was in the bathroom the other day and a friend walked in. we were chatting to each other through the stalls, when, you guessed, i got flushed on. normally i would retain some decorum and pretend like it didn't happen, but that was, like, the 8th time it'd gone on that day, and i just could not take it any more.

"FUCK." i exclaimed. "this goddamn motherfucking toilet won't stop flushing on me."

"oh i know," my friend, a lovely, demure southern belle replied. "that middle stall is the worst. i almost always try to avoid it if possible."

we are now strategizing our toilet use. middle toilet? 88% chance you'll get flushed on. first stall? maaaaybe 70%, if you're lucky. and the handicapped stall. don't get me started on that dirty whore.

do you see what you have reduced us to, medill toilets? instead of writing meaningful, educational and revealing articles, i am now wondering how many times i'm going to get toilet water sprayed on me that day. it's a near obsession. i feel twinges of hyperventilation whenever i enter the bathroom. so, you need to stop. if not for me, then for the sake of the entire profession of journalism.

think it over.

thanks,
catherine

me: omigod
jodi wilgoren who changed her name from the nytimes is in the newsroom
and she was just introduced as wilgoren
and she's all like, "actually, now it's RUDoren"

y'all, one of the things you are lucky about is the fact that you get to read this here blog, and you get to see the intimate workings of a Real Live Journalist. not THAT intimate, sicko. but you know, thought process, research, super interview tips (hint: super interview tips do not include dropping contents of purse on interviewee's floor including, ahem, lady things, and inadvertently yelling, "shit!", not that i do that kind of stuff).

i thought as, you know, an extra special treat for you all, i would document my inner monologue as i attempt to complete a 1200-word article that is due, uh, tomorrow.

start: sit down to computer, full of two homemade cappucinos, buzzed, elated, ready to CHANGE THE WORLD with my story because i am a Journalist and we can change the world and shit.

write lede.

word count: 42 words. shit.

think: hmm. most heinous lede ever? well, what am i going to do about it? it's already there. jeez.

add quote. wow. adding a quote adds, like, a lot of words. hmm.

cut and paste about 17 unrelated quotes from pages of typed-up interviews. word count: a lot more! jeez, i'm practically done! now all i have to do is construct some sort of coherent narrative, with flow and wisdom and insight. easy peasy. totally rocking the espresso. you can totally do this, Reporter Catherine!

hmm.

i really hope george didn't sleep with meredith. lordy. that would be bordering on, like, nasty incestuous, also, i would have to kill meredith. with a pointy stick. that had been rubbed with chili powder.

espresso really, really...starts to kick in. in a bad way. goddamn. write two or three paragraphs very quickly with laser-like intensity. no matter they barely make sense and, uh, could potentially be incorrect. libel schmibel! the editing comes later! hey, i think the computer screen is starting to shake for some reason.

beer would be good way to counter espresso buzz, no? yes, yes i think it would.

word count. has not change since the 37th time i've word counted. microsoft should really do something about that. i should also really do something about only having miller lite in my midget fridge.

write a couple of seriously lame sentences.

fuck.

fuckity fuck fuck.

give up to chat on IM and rewatch some veronica mars. story isn't due till 5pm tomorrow; only 800 words to go. totally doable, no?

see, y'all don't need to be worried about the future of journalism! you have bright young things like me to carry the torch forward!

just a note to mark the launching of beepcentral, a web site aimed at young chicago surburbanites published by the daily herald, a newspaper serving the areas northwest of chicago. beepcentral grew out of a recent medill media management project, one of the reasons i applied to medill in the first place.

every year, a group of students who select to do the project basically spend a full quarter working as a consulting group to a local newspaper or publishing company. essentially, the company says "we want _____"; the students design, build and market a product from the ground up to suit the company's needs. generally the companies want a) something designed to bring in younger readers and b) an online component.

i'll be doing the project this spring quarter. i've heard rumblings that the partner this time around will be the minneapolis star tribune. i'm really excited about it, even though i have no clue as to what the project could be this time around, but i'll keep you informed!

that's right, folks: the two articles i wrote last week for my legal affairs reporting class? the two genius pieces on samuel alito? they were sent out over the wire to our client papers and i received the honor of being published in the...(wait for it)

NORTHWEST INDIANA TIMES!

literally dozens of people have now read my name in print! HOORAH.

another day, another terrifying start to a hapless quarter at the medill school of journalism. this quarter promises to be a wee bit harder than the previous one. i've got three classes: new media storytelling, wherein i will learn how to make stuff for this "internet" thing; a legal RPA (reporting on public affairs) and a seminar to accompany the RPA.

when choosing amongst the urban, econ and legal RPA last quarter, my thought process went something vaguely like this: don't you dare do urban, because you know if you do, you are going to succumb to the arts & culture sub-beat, which you just had last quarter, and anyway, you've been reporting arts & culture stuff since you were, oh, five. LEARN NEW SHIT. hmm, econ? hmm, numbers? hmm, no fucking way? okay, legal. there we have it. reporting by process of elimination.

what makes it even worse is that now i will be reporting for Real News, instead of just submitting articles to my kindly instructors for a grade in class. we've got the medill news service, which sends out dozens of articles every day to local publications, with a hearty number of them getting published, fo' real. so my legal reporting this quarter promises to be entertaining for everybody involved: for my instructors, who will no doubt snicker at my astounding lack of knowledge of our fine legal system; for you all, as i recount errors after hysterical errors, possibly ending in jail time for me and my wackily libelous articles; and for me, because this entire process can only increase my alcohol input.

so, yeah. if you've got knowledge of the law, or tips, or bourbon, lemme know. fun times, fun times.

today is the last day of classes! i am delirious with typing stupid papers! i dribble coffee down my chin every morning because my lips go numb! and as soon as i turn this awful paper in at noon, i will go mad with beer.

things that have made the past three days bearable:

-the presence of my co-author, andrew, who has gone just as loopy as i have so we find each other very entertaining.
-the presence of julie and jamie, who just left this morning (sad face) after visiting me on their expedition to denver.
-the fact that julie and jamie's trip was less about chicago and more about apparently seeing as much pride & prejudice as possible. we went to the theater to see the new version (despite me having seen it twice already, once with classmates and once with kriston on a near-empty late-night showing on thanksgiving evening), then jamie had never seen the six-hour version, so we watched at least 2/3 of that while drinking spiked hot chocolate.
-the trip to the liquor store to buy the mint schnapps for the hot chocolate, where the cashier asked us what movie we were watching, and somehow took the cue of us saying "pride & prejudice" to launch into his retelling of the story of jane eyre, which went something like this: "girl is poor. girl meets guy. girl leaves guy. girl gets rich, goes back, now guy loves her." i was like, uh, you might have missed some subtle plot points there.
-72 pumpkin spice lattes. starbucks owns my soul.
-the fact that tommy scored me A BUTTERSTICK TICKET FOR WHEN I GO HOME NEXT WEEK. and you know what? I'M GOING TO EAT HIM. BECAUSE I AM PART CHINESE. SERIOUSLY. YUM.

if there's one thing the folks here at northwestern are very good at, it is instilling the ever-loving fear of god into you. mostly fear that you, despite attending a top-notch journalism school, will never obtain a job outside of licking the boots of some magazine editor or, barring that, serving up the delicious will-be-the-death-of-me pumpkin spice lattes at starbucks. i still have two weeks left in my very first quarter and i. am. already. terrified. so i do what i usually do when i am scurred: turn to the internets. internets, will you help me get a job or, at the very least, a prestigious summer internship? i feel like an idiot asking for a summer internship, since that is so very junior year of college circa 2001, but my advisor recommends it if possible and if i feel like taking a quarter off of school.

ideally, internets, i would like a job/internship at an online news site. if i'm going to get all specific, i would like a job at washingtonpost.com or chicagotribune.com. a job that is queen of everything. or, whatever. i'm flexible. i'm also open to consulting positions for new media companies. my full resume is on my dead-monitor computer, but i will post some suckily-formatted basic qualifications behind the cut, and if my dead-monitor computer is ever fixed, i'll upload a real resume. if you have any contacts, or friends, or ideas, or alcohol, send me an email. thanks!

zunta.org: asking for your job help since november 2005.

for you voyeurs out there (i.e. all of you) here's a picture of my newswriting lab from yesterday in the medill broadcast studio (i am looking bizarrely off into the distance, probably at something pretty and shiny). we spent most of the week writing broadcast scripts on particular stories, and then went in front of the camera to record live spots/be anchors/run the cameras/sounds/teleprompter. i have to say, it was kind of nifty. the broadcast supervisor told me i have a great tv reporter voice. which i found weird, since i HATE my voice and always thought it was too low/husky to translate well in any sort of medium. but now, screw medill! 11 o'clock news, here i come.

well, i've reached about the halfway point in my first quarter at northwestern, and i feel like i should have something meaningful to say about the experience thus far. but, shocking no one, i'm sure, i, uh, don't. it's had its ups and downs. the first quarter of the first quarter was undeniably exciting and new, as it always is, i think, with most experiences; the second quarter of the quarter has been a slow realization to the fact that a lot of what i'm learning is really kind of a pain in the ass. this quarter is essentially journalism 101, and there's a reason some people try to opt out of it if they can: it's boooorrrrring. it's all AP style and skimming ethics and bullshit papers and some kind of bullshitty articles. some of the stuff i've written and reported on has been genuinely fun and quality; i think i've churned out a bunch of decent articles. other times i think i'm just spinning my wheels. most of all i think: i REALLY don't want to be a reporter!

but am i feeling this way because i think i am so awesome and above it all that i shouldn't even have to suffer through the indignities of learning the basics? and the answer is yes. totally. so i'm just shutting up and finishing up the rest of the quarter and looking with much anticipation towards the next three, where i really think i'll be getting into more interesting stuff.

on the plus side, all my professors and classmates are truly wonderful, so i'm having a great time there. on the minus side, NUN has discovered the joys of techno music in the afternoons, so i'm about to kill myself. not that he has anything to do with jschool, but he sure does make it difficult to read me some 80 pages of media law. so i've been taking to the coffee shops. something i NEVER thought i would do. and all i can say is, caribou coffee, why the fuck are you so popular? you serve shitty drinks, you look like a log cabin threw up all over your inside, and THERE IS NEVER A SEAT FOR ME AND MY PILE OF BOOKS AND SHINY LAPTOP. my other option is a cute if tiny cafe down on broadway run by a nice but leering eastern european man, and to get to the bathroom you have to go behind the counter, with his permission, into the dank inner bowels of the store where mops and buckets and presumably dead bodies and rats rein supreme to pee in a 2x2 space where the door doesn't even latch shut properly. but he makes yummy cappucinos and has free wifi. so i shall return.

also, if anyone has brilliant insights on if bloggers should be protected under a federal shield law, leave 'em here. i have a bullshitty research paper to write. the brilliant matthew yglesias has already contributed his thoughts; YOU TOO CAN BE IMMORTALIZED.

this will be of no interest to pretty much anyone but i thought i would ask anyways:

i was assigned to the arts&culture beat for my reporting class. we're writing exclusively about the far north side - rogers park, andersonville, etc (i think - my geography of the city is still shady). soooo if you have any tips on stories or good contacts in those areas, i beg of you, please email me! i will IMMORTALIZE YOU IN THE PAGES OF MY CLASS'S NEWS WEB SITE. fame and fortune, i tell you, fame and fortune.

just wanted to say that it is frankly embarrassing and humiliating to be attending a premiere journalism school at the same time that a person like judith miller is breathing and living and calling herself a journalist. and everybody, EVERYBODY, at medill knows it.

also have had like 10 beers at the time of writing this, but still. screw her.

more lessons from j-school: i am apparently quite the natural at coming up with headlines. who knew? i'm going to take pride in this accomplishment because a) no one else is good at it and b) i suck donkey balls at everything else.

continued update on my spinning classes, since you're all so fascinated: since the original class disaster, where we barely broke a sweat while spinning uselessly in the dark in a black hole of twangy 70s rock, i've been to a bunch more classes and they are all excellent. i nearly fell down the stairs after the last one. not being able to walk is a badge of workout honor, i guess.

the bad news: since i've started working out again, i've gone down a half cup size. in my boobs, in case that was unclear. i discovered this during a totally humiliating trip to victorias secret this weekend to buy a new bra. i was all like, hey saleslady, i'll take this size! she's all like, uh, looking doubtful, are you sure? i'm like yeah, i've been this size forever! five minutes later i pop out of the dressing room and sheepishly inform her i need something smaller. the shame of my shrinking boobs.

if someone could market a drug wherein you work out and all the weight from your butt instead shoots itself through your veins to your chest, that would be awesome.

they're teaching kids poor journalism already! witness this article. it is hysterical. it is relentlessly upbeat. it makes an event sound like an amazing ocassion. it is about one of the worst days in my life. too long of a story. i love medill already, but that event was an effing disaster.

i did get an ethiopian dinner out of it, though. and for anyone who's worried that this blog will further devolve into me citing the ways in which chicago is superior to d.c., well, the district's tibs still hold first place by a long shot.

matt y. asks, what is the deal with new media, anyways?

and i say, i dunno. i mean, actually i can say what i think it means, or what i'm starting to think it means, or what i'm interested in, anyways, but that's still all just forming in my head and is probably best saved for a later post when i'm not just blathering all over the place.

but anyway, for now, these are the main points i think are important:

new media is RSS.

new media is citizen journalism (and this does, to me, include blogging). also google ohmynews for reference.

new media is new distribution devices for media (ie electronic devices, cells, pdas, ipods, MAYBE electronic paper but i dunno, and stuff that is yet to be invented).

new media is transparency (as cliche a buzzword as that has become, it's still true).

new media is niche marketing.

new media is not being SO EFFING AFRAID of change and innovation. i've only been in journalism school for two weeks, and i'm not going to lie to you: there are a million brilliant people here, but there are just as many people who can't see why print journalism might one day die out. why the newspaper in its current form is a pain in the ass, physically speaking, to read. why subscriptions are falling. why staff reporters are being cut. why doing the NYtimes select is a bad, very bad, worst idea, ever. why blogs are FUN and awesome and good and filled with great personalities. why this bullshit standard about newspaper "accuracy" compared to bloggers is such CRAP! hello, um, didn't the new york times make at least two major errors in the past week? the crap with geraldo and saying some memo was written by john roberts when it, uh, wasn't? how many people read the corrections pages newspapers? NO ONE WHO IS NOT 95 AND CANTANKEROUS. so you might never know an error was made unless the error itself makes the news. blogs make errors, it's true, but they're almost always immediately called out and corrected in such a way that the original error and the correction stand so that everyone can see the process.

new media is yahoo and google becoming content creators. seriously, yos. they are going to rival major newspapers within 10 years for content and news that they provide. think i lie? yahoo has already hired kevin sites to report for them on war zones, and hired a number of financial columnists to write for them. don't doubt that google maps is thinking about the day they can integrate their local search with some sort of entertainment database - you'll search an area for "bars", the options will come up, and you'll be able to click on the bar names to read google reviews about them. maybe they will integrate user content. probably. who knows. but yahoo and google are not just going to be leaping off points for the internet ; they will become major content creators, and major destinations.

new media is not:

trying to define what a blog, or blogging, is. IF ONE MORE PANEL IS HELD I WILL THROW 72-POUND MELONS AT EVERYONE'S HEAD. see jeff jarvis for more.

new media is not merely putting the content from print papers online and hoping that the act of putting it online with, like, a photo will make it hip and awesome and readable.

new media is not about overthrowing traditional media entities and having BLOGGERS RULE THE EARTH. seriously. trad media people are TERRIFIED, is what i have learned, about blogging. it is almost funny. hello, it is a complement to what yall are doing, and a way to enhance your product and draw more readers in.

new media is not about shitty blog reporting. good reporting will ALWAYS have a place in media, in my opinion. that's why the nytimes is fucked when it locks its pundits up in a pay-for-play castle - sorry, but anyone can say what they can say, since they are basically just bloviating out of their butts. i can hear that stuff from people for free, people who love and know so much about what they're writing that they do it for the joy of it. what i CANNOT get from bloggers is accounts from across the world or tips from major highup sources in the know. maybe one day, but not now. i need good, intelligent reporters for that.

...

wow. i went on a bit of a rant there. blame it on the drinks i had tonight at the medill happy hour. but anyway, it's what i think, for better or worse. and you?

UPDATE: the worst part about this post is that most of the people reading this site ALREADY KNOW all of this stuff. so i'm just rambling redundantly. and i know you all know it. but the fact is, i have been utterly amazed in the past two weeks about how little other people know about any of the stuff mentioned above. hardly anyone in my class, as far as i can tell, reads blogs or knows what RSS is. no one understands why it might be easier to read a paper in tabloid form or on a pda than in a normal modern newspaper. many, many people are worried about blogs and think they're ruining journalism. basically, i feel like up until medill i've been in this little perfect bubble where everyone gets all this new media stuff - even people who have no interest in studying it or creating it, but just use it as part of their day-to-day existence - and now i'm facing, oh, the other 97% of the world, and i need to explain everything. so humor me.

yet another thing to consider for the next year or so at medill: should i do the global journalism quarter? it's an optional fifth quarter next fall where you're sent to paris for a couple of weeks for seminars, then sent off to wherever in the world to do 10-12 weeks of reporting for real live newspapers and foreign bureaus (like the AP). there's a rome office...and a london one. not to mention much more exotic locations in south america, asia and africa. but i don't much like exiting my comfort zone, at least not THAT much. i know, i'm a pussy.

cons: it's an extra quarter of tuition.
pros: i'm not paying any tuition for THESE four quarters, so what's a few extra grand?
cons: it'd be that much longer before i'm back on the job market.
pros: but this might be the last time that i can live abroad, again, for the second time. i'm going to be popping out babies before i know it, and they sure as hell won't want to be reporting from prague. unless they are really awesome babies.
cons: it's a program all about enforcing your skills as a regular reporter, and, uh, i know i'm in journalism school, but i really don't want to be a reporter.
pros: paris! rome! london! i can fake it for a while, right?

but seriously, i need help deciding. it's not like i have to know tomorrow, but if you have any input, pass it along.

a brief article about a colloquium headed by my new media advisor. sounds like the stuff he spoke about was more or less the same as what he talked about in a lecture last week entitled "convergence." (i couldn't attend the colloquium today because of classes.)

people always laugh at me when i say shit like we will have electronic handheld newspaper reading devices in a couple of decades and that the print newspaper will be obsolete, BUT IT IS TRUE. give me 20 years and we'll see who's laughing then, print fogey. but first up: most newspapers will transform into tabloid style, a la guardian in england. i speak the bible truth.

if i were a straight 20-something male, i would be giving myself high fives all over the place.

not only is the ratio of women to men in the program something like 3:1, all the ladies are cute at the least, if not total stunners. and they're from a wide range of places - there are gorgeous women from canada (that exotic foreign land), palestine, india and ireland, just to name a few. the guys? are nice and smart. but to quote james, "the cute ones are usually gay."

another shocking insight: writing newspaper headlines is, like, totally hard. we had a two-hour project on it the other day (though part of it also involved copy editing articles), and my mind was just drawing complete blanks. at first, when i took a glance at a brief article about some chicago building possibly receiving a "chic" makeover, i was like, this is a snap! but then, as i tried to cram the relevant information in a pithy, smart manner within the confines (something like six columns, one line, 48 pt font, 45 counts per line, which is the number of counts alotted to the headline, including letters, punctuation and spaces) i slowly grew more and more despondent. by the end of the entire fucking process i was practically rolling around on the floor tearing my hair out and moaning, "Classic landmark to receive chic update....no, TOO LONG AND MUST MENTION NAME OF BUILDING....Stupid building to receive retarded makeover...sob."

so, yeah. be nice to your local headline writer. their job is harder than it looks. the exception: punny headline writers. i would say you can shoot them on sight.