Lijam Blog

Former chief of staff to George W. Bush Andy Card held a C-SPAN interview on April 7 with political editor Steve Scully and students from George Mason University, Purdue University and the University of Denver.

Card spoke openly with the group of students and shared stories that gave insights to his duties when working with the Bush administration, an administration Card described as misunderstood.

“He made the tough decisions,” said Card about President Bush, “He had presidential courage.”

Card used the attacks on 9-11 to demonstrate pressure he dealt with during his time with Bush. He recalled when the attacks happened his dilemma whether or not to interrupt the President in a conference.

“After the second plane hit I knew it was Osama but I didn’t know if I should tell the President initially.” Card recalled. “But the main job of the chief of staff is to tell the President everything he needs to know not everything he wants.”

The next few days were very emotional. “My most memorable days at the Whitehouse,” is how Andy Card described the following days after the attacks. These days were marked by speeches by Bush, in churches, on television and on ground zero.

Card ended by stating that history will be kind to George Bush after realizing the challenges he overcame.

Mark Stencel visted our class on April 12 2011. A highly credential individual Professor Klein tells us he’s a pioneer in news reporting. Stencel is a digital editor for NPR.

Brad Kalbfeld visited our online journalism class at George Mason on April 5th. Brad Kalbfeld has been a writer, reporter, editor and news executive for more than 36 years, including 22 as Managing Editor/Broadcast for The Associated Press
He gave the history of journalism and reporting and his take on the future.
Brads takes:
Back in the day: You carried heavier equipment and info got across slowly. Type writers and tel x machines
Today: info moves faster, small items go a long way. Ex- the smart phone. Today, anyone can have access to information.

In the past new reporting went through up to five filter, reporter, section editor managing editor all the way up to the consumer
Today the reporter can surpass these filters straight to the consumer. Furthermore, anyone can report stories or events to the masses faster than news reporters who deal with filters. “Joe six Pack”
-Reporters now are using less filters, or even directly communicating with the consumers. The editors begin to lose more power. This gives the reader more power. Why?- Reporters and Joe six-packs have to worry about user consumption.
You have to be interesting. Readers have more options and outlets.

The news world has changed. Reporters are now appealing to different diverse niches. So readers can decide who they want to follow.
Dirty secret: “Professional journalists are scared of citizen journalists”:
Citizen journalists can have info pro journalists can’t get.
On the other hand: citizen journalists don’t understand how “the camera can lie”
They don’t have the background to understand getting all sides of a story.
-Ethical Journalism.

In summation: Reporting in the past moved more slowly and went through filters. The cause of this was a limited variety in reporting styles and views and the appeal to a small variety or niches.
Today news travels faster, and anyone can be the reporter. This gives the readers more options, which ultimately means more reporters appeal to more niches.
Either way reporting must be ethical, or consumers must be aware enough to understand the difference between ethical and unethical news telling.

Kevin Anderson spoke to our class Today March 24. He had a very interesting and different perspective compared to other speakers.  He gave the class good advice, and shared his own personal experiences which were fascinating.

First word of advice: Be knowledgeable of your sources

How he got where he is:

                1996: newspaper journalist. Online journalist.

                2 years later BBC journalist outside the UK. Washington correspondent.

Tools/ skill sets needed to have as a journalist:

• Build a clip file
• Early initiative
  • Set up blogs
  • Take pictures
    • Much easier to do these things this day and age.

Video Interviews:

• Natural sounds
  • I want to hear the games. (With regard to my groups project on the special needs hockey team
  • It puts you in the middle of the story

His take on storify: Can be dangerous without context. Make sure you bridge the social media with the story.

Role of social media in journalism today:  Network Journalism

1. Content on website must be taken to where people are congregating online (ex Facebook)
   1. Don’t expect them to come to your site
   2. Use networks to find sources (Ex. Twitter)

Student Question: What’s experience preparing for overseas

A. “I can demine a field with a Bic pen”————————-AWESOME

Steve Buttry

Reporting has changed with innovation.

                –Can’t just interview people. You need to gather sounds and video.

Many websites work on innovative ways to present stories.

Example

Example 2

-“You can sometimes tell a story with words in audio than written words”

Innovations give control to the users

“Thinking of all the possibilities on how to present a story changes the reporting of a story.”

Q: What makes a story important enough to take the time to create these kinds of stories?

A: For example the story in MN about the bridge was the towns story of the year. Now it is also important to understand creating these stories now makes it easier to recreate similar stories or formatting for the next stories. Next time around it will not take as long to create the story.

A lot of good information from Steve Buttry’s presentation. What is to be taken away is possibilities are endless. There are always interesting ways to present various types of stories. The goal is to interest the consumers, and tell the story with the most accuracy and detail as possible.

“Feeling uncomfortable should be a red flag which urges you to jump in it might be good for you”

Jim Ioveno

Most stories break on website. Developed story is given later that day in the newscast

                -purpose: immediacy.

                -information travels extremely fast- you want to break the story first.

Pat Collins– “Snow reporter”

                “Incredible reporter because he can get whoever he talks to say something interesting”

                                -Find an angle to a story you think no one else will have and own it.

“Chat with Pat”- new way to present news. Great form of social media. – Pat Collins makes himself available via video to answer questions from the viewership.

                -Connect with the audience.

• Good to standout
• Great to be interesting to the readers

Q: What’s more important breaking the story or finding the best angle:

1. A.      Both

“If you break the story people realize that and come back to you”

“If you find a new angle people appreciate the new perspective and come back”

Local news-  It is important to emphasize why the story is important to the readership/community

Raw footage- people love this stuff, just find impressive video and make it available. Doesn’t always have to be “storied” up.

Prediction for online journalism in the coming years:  It’s going to be a lot more mobile. “Mobile mobile mobile.”

This just popped into my head during class.. Does anyone else see the resemblance between gmu online journalism professor Steve Klien and Sean Connery?

Bloggers and journalists more and more are progressing to siliar ideaologies

technology and news– This slide demonstrates the benefits of technology in news.

• Newsgathering is much easier now.
• Consumers can be used as assets much easier. Meaning it is made easier to find out what the consumers want in their news.

Jon Denunzio held a lecture where he spoke of the benefits of social media and effective ways to use soical media.

• Social media is a valuable source for consumer feedback.
• It allows websites to build rapport with consumers and open dialouge.
• It’s always good to search for new ideas, social media allows for makes it easier to get abundant feedback.