The Eye of the Storm

This past weekend, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Southern Texas, most notably in the city of Houston. A hurricane, that at one point was thought to dissipate, categorized as a category 4 hurricane and one the world hasn’t seen the likes of since Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana in 2005. Hurricane Harvey has devastated much of the Houston area and many parts that make up Southern Texas. In a time like this, journalism and communication as a whole are integral at saving the lives of all the creatures affected by this disaster.

Since President Trump’s inauguration, and essentially prior to him winning the election, we have seen a startling phase of public figures, many of whom are right wing politicians such as President Trump himself, denounce news journalism as it pertains to them. We’ve seen our President attack modern journalism and defame the integrity of journalism with great effect due to his platform. The one institution that is not tied to the government but has the power to oversee it and divulge truths is coming under fire, and this has essentially influenced many citizens in this country to have a distrust of journalism.

In Houston and the surrounding areas, we have seen nothing short of not only prototypical journalism as visioned by philosophers such as Walter Williams, but we’ve seen something that I would describe as heroic journalism. The journalists, reporters and  news distributors that dwell in these affected areas have been nothing short of a miracle for those who have been affected by Hurricane Harvey. News outlets distributing meaningful information regarding shelters and water levels, broadcasters doling out contacts for good samaritans who may be of service to those affected, even reporters flagging down authorities to save people in dire need of help, as seen this past weekend in Houston. The journalism brought forth during this time of desperation has been nothing short of life-saving and unifying.

In the discourse of America, its not the majority, but many people are distrustful of journalism. Journalism’s sole purpose is to the truth, and to the public. I wish to see that journalism is viewed as a partner, friend to the people rather than a relationship that is adversarial. I believe the efforts of the journalists involved in Hurricane Harvey have at least begun the process of changing the popular narrative that has defined journalism for this past year.

Changes on the Blog

For the start of the fall semester here at Mizzou, I will be repurposing an old blog that was created for use in J2150, and I will convert this blog into a blog strictly for J4450 under Professor Reed. From here on out, this blog will cover personal experiences and topics of discussion and importance throughout the word of Journalism.

Thank you!!

NPR v. Breitbart

For this week’s prompt, I have had a lot of discussions on this topic with many people close to me. The topic, of course, is the appointment of former Breitbart executive Steve Bannon to President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet. This discussion, primarily with my mother, has admittedly always taken a more liberal approach. When it comes to NPR discussing this topic, they need to try their best to maintain objectivity, in the name of journalism and their audience demographics. I believe NPR handled this situation to the best of their abilities, considering the fact that they’re one of the largest journalistic firms in the world and easily one of the most important things that pertains to journalism is objectivity. I believe their portrayal was accurate of the man that was the subject, and I believe attaching him to the “Alt-Right” demographic was justifiably correct. However, I do not agree with how they normalized the man to appease a portion of their audience. I do believe that the way they covered him in their stories was the smart way of handling this topic and story, however, I do not believe it is the right thing to do. I understand that journalistic firms need to maintain a sense of objectivity so they are not perceived as leaning towards any direction, however, I believe that when it comes to racist, anti-semitic and misogynistic rhetoric, one needs to “call a spade a spade.” That sort of talk and belief should not be tolerated, regardless of political views and other demographic categories. I wholly understand the way a hub like NPR would present this story, but at what point does a journalist abandon some of the traditional journalistic values to do what’s right? I believe that NPR did what they had to do, but every time a firm like NPR has a chance to do the right thing, they do what’s in the best interest of journalism and that allows people to continuously normalize and sensationalize subjects like this. The “Alt-Right” movement is predicated in bigotry, and the public needs to know that.

Oysters

This week, I gave James Morrison’s NPR piece, The Oyster’s Mighty Comeback Is Creating Cleaner U.S. Waterways, a listen. Morrison’s piece describes different oyster farms and shops manufacture their product. The piece also conveys to the audience how consumers consume the oysters and how important oysters are to their ecosystems. I believe this piece from Morrison was exceptionally done. I believe that the piece is aesthetically pleasing to the ear of the audience, maintaining a sense of presence with the ambient sound continually playing throughout the piece. I also believe he achieves this sense of pleasing the ear by successfully matching the actions/natural sound occurring in the video with the actions mentioned in the interviews with the subjects. I also feel his transitions in the piece were extremely smooth and perfected the flow of his story. I feel as though Morrison completely executed those two areas, and I believe the piece as a whole, absent of story, was exceptionally constructed. I believe this piece has inspired me to focus on putting more effort in the two areas he excelled in: matching the natural sound with verbal actions and an ever-present ambient sound. The Oyster’s Mighty Comeback Is Creating Cleaner U.S. Waterways by James Morrison is nothing short of brilliance.

Audition

So far, using Audition from Adobe has not been as challenging as I thought it would be. After having to try and get used to using Premiere Pro and Photoshop, Audition is a lot more simple than those other two programs. For someone like me, Audition is the embodiment of simple and common sense when referring to the programs provided by Adobe. Audition seems similar to Premiere, however, it is not as difficult to use or try to comprehend because Audition lacks the video element of the editing program. The waveform and multitrack features make it a lot easier to edit and mix clips to create a nice, smooth audio file. I have high hopes for Audition.

Heyoon

The story provided by Alex Goldman about Heyoon was a beautiful piece of media. It is a form of media that I’m not too fond of, and it was enlightening to hear something so eloquent and smooth. With a project like this, I feel as though it would’ve been extremely tough to mix the sounds and edit the sound bites to the point where it all sounded natural and as if the audience were actually there with Goldman and his friends. He perfectly mixed the natural sounds of footsteps, such as the time they raced, and also was sort of able to transition that natural footstep sound into ambient sound, where you can hear the footsteps happening in the background as the friends walked and talked. I believe he beautifully captured the ambient sound of the outdoors that one can hear everyday: bugs whizzing through the air, a calm breeze, and grass being crushed under the weight of a person’s foot. It all came to ahead in the end when it was revealed that NPR had set up a reenactment of Goldman’s story to run simultaneously with his narration. I believe that this created the sense of the audience feeling as though they were actually part of the story and in attendance because the reenactment captured the essence of the Great Outdoors. I believe this piece was brilliant because of the reenactment because I feel that the reenactment enhanced Goldman’s story and made the audience more interested in the content of the story. The Heyoon piece from NPR is an example of exceptional and effective multimedia journalism.

The Process

Over the course of this whole course, it has been one of the more surreal experiences in my life. I never thought I would ever pick up cameras and create my own content, and this class has pushed me to do exactly that. It’s been an awesome experience, to say the least, to experience a new side of the journalism field that I necessarily didn’t know about, or even care about. That being said, this is easily the most difficult course that I have taken here at the University of Missouri-Columbia. As stated earlier in this piece, I had never thought that I would create my own multimedia content. The reason I believed this, is because I have never found myself to care for anything photography and videography-related. To simply put it, I’m just not artistic or creative, and I believe I never will find that side of myself. The reason I have found this class so difficult, outside the fact that it takes up a lot of time and my other courses have taken a backseat, is because I simply cannot think in the frame of a photojournalist and/or video journalist. I simply cannot find the way to correctly piece together multimedia content to create a story. Another reason as to why I find this class difficult is simply the fact that I lack interest in this course as a whole. I believe that this course will serve no purpose, specifically for me, in my future and for my prospective career. It’s hard for me to accomplish anything when I simply am uninterested. I find writing a lot simpler, which is something I thought I would never say in my 20 years of life. While this course doesn’t necessarily capture my interest as other classes would, it has given me a new experience in my life that I am grateful for. It has also given me a newfound respect for multimedia journalists and the work that they do. Multimedia journalism may not be a field that I would want to pursue, however, it is a fascinating field that only the talented and hardworking will achieve in. My interest has wained, but I respect journalists in this field more than I ever have.

5 Shot Experience

Over the past 10 days, I have been extremely worried on how the process of garnering enough, decent footage for this 5 Shot Sequence project. I have never done anything like trying to film a subject or interview that subject on film, and I was completely scared of having to do the two. See, the thing is, I have never had the desire to anything in the aspect of multimedia journalism, I simply have always wanted to just be a writer. When it came to enrolling in this course, I found it was going to be the course I struggled most in because I have never had any motivation to do any work in this specific journalistic field. I believed that maybe the class was not going to be as hard as I was completing the photojournalism section of the course, however, that sentiment dissipated when I came across the 5 Shot Sequence project in the video section. In my honest opinion, filming and editing are extremely more difficult than capturing moments on a DSLR camera. Not only did I see the project as one of the more challenging things I have done here at MU, I also had several things that just so happened to transpire as I was trying to work on the project, such as the fact I had two midterm exams on the day the project was due. Regarding the actual project, I believe I struggled mightily. I don’t think that the footage I captured was anything spectacular or anything that could be considered ‘decent’. I struggled with many small things, such as getting the tripod legs to stand at even length or finding where the port was to insert my SD card. All of these little things that I struggled with helped in me not getting the footage I wanted, since the footage I wanted and needed was time-sensitive(the footage I wanted was of someone trying to donate blood, and by the time I set everything up, my subject was done donating). I found it challenging to get great shots of the setting, and decent establishing shots were hard for me to capture. Even the editing aspect I found to be difficult and I sincerely think I didn’t edit well enough to convey a story or merely enhance the quality of my video. I believe wholeheartedly that I am not good at anything that deals with the video aspect of multimedia journalism, let alone anything that pertains to multimedia journalism. I would love to just get better at getting visually-appealing shots, learning how to properly use the cameras through repetitive usage, and enhance my skill level in the editing aspect. Essentially, I want and need to get better at everything that is involved in video journalism, for my own sake and the sake of my transcript. I definitely need to increase my skill overall in this course and work smarter, otherwise I will be looking at a drop in my GPA once the semester ends.

The No Fun League

The National Football League’s current regular season is in full effect, as the season is currently in its week 5 schedule of games. As short of a season as it has been so far, it has been quite the roller coaster ride already compared to other seasons of the league. The headlines this year are nothing short of bizarre, to say the least: it is the first season since 1997 to not have Peyton Manning on a roster, the Broncos are starting a quarterback from NORTHWESTERN(crazy, right?), the Browns have already lost two quarterbacks due to injury(oh, and Josh Gordon still has not played a game since 2013), and the Eagles, Rams, and Falcons all lead their divisions after week 4. Another headline that was included at the start of the season was the fact that week 1 would be the first week since week 1 of the 2001 NFL season(prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11 and Drew Bledsoe’s injury against the Jets in week 3) that neither Peyton Manning nor Tom Brady would be starting a regular season game. The reason for Manning’s disappearance was of course his retirement following his Super Bowl victory as part of the Denver Broncos. The reason for Brady’s disappearance was the fact that he was serving the first of a 4-game suspension due to his involvement in the infamous Deflategate debacle during the 2014 postseason. His suspension was for his refusal to cooperate in the investigation and his likely role in deflating footballs prior to the New England Patriots’ monstrous victory over the Indianapolis Colts in January 2015. Roger Goodell, the National Football League commissioner, oversaw the investigation involving the Deflategate case. Here’s where things get somewhat murky: the investigate itself was more of a manhunt or witch hunt shall you, akin to the happenings in Salem centuries ago. From many people’s perspectives regarding the case, including my own, it seemed as if Goodell was trying to get punish Brady and the Patriots for alleged illegal activity(by the NFL guidelines) they may have done over the years and had gone unpunished for. It seemed as if Goodell was fed up with the actions of the team, and was trying to punish them for past “crimes” and a potentially new one. He was doing everything in his power to try and prove Brady’s guilt, it seemed as if the NFL was looking at the case as if Brady was guilty until proven innocent. The NFL went to new extremes over this case, new heights they have never gone before for an internal league investigation, including trying to pry Brady of information he may have known of via demanding for usage of his cellphone. Of course, like any sane, rational human being, Brady of course said no. This was not a police or federal investigation, therefore Brady did not have to comply if he believed that he was having his right to privacy infringed upon. As well as not turning over his phone as evidence, a field worker who had access to the equipment, had confessed to the illegal act of deflating the balls under a mandatory, league-imposed level. Even after all of this, Goodell was persistent and insistent that Brady was guilty of any wrongdoing. He tried to impose an initial suspension, where Brady of course fought for his innocence and took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Brady. Goodell, who is trying to save face and still prove he was right/Brady was guilty, went to an arbitrary court, which in turn ruled in favor of Goodell, allowing him to institute a 4-game suspension for Brady. After an almost two year process, Brady gave up on trying to fight for his innocence, and simply accepted his punishment for not complying with the league during their Deflategate investigation. Goodell finally gets his victory, right? He finally sticks it to the untouchable New England Patriots? Well, as seen through the first four weeks of the season, the Patriots were just fine. Bill Belichick, arguably the greatest coach ever, started backup Jimmy Garoppolo for the first two weeks and then rookie quarterback from North Carolina State, Jacoby Brissett(the first African-American to start at quarterback for the Patriots ever), for the second half of Brady’s suspension. Even without future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady at the helm, the Patriots still managed to obtain a 3-1 record during those four weeks, and are atop their division. Goodell ran that investigation off of his own emotion and personal vendetta against the Patriots, and it inevitably backfired in his face. He has, for years now, ran this league subjectively to the point where he easily can be considered the worst commissioner in the four major American professional sports leagues, and in my eyes, he most definitely is. He’s essentially taken the right of celebration away from the game, fining players such as Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders for simply “twerking”. He has also been very inconsistent on his pursuit to enhance player safety, not punishing some players that have done illegal hits and not implementing a fool-proof concussion/injury protocol for players. Players like Cam Newton have been the target of many illegal hits to the head, which is also preventing Newton from playing in the Carolina Panthers’ week 5 game, and many of the players who dole out these illegal hits are not being reprimanded in any form. Hell, he even tried to cover up the effects that concussions have on the brain for years! As well as the aforementioned atrocities, Goodell has now implemented a rule that bars any team from sending out video highlights of their games on their social media pages during the actual playing of the game. Teams are not allowed to send out video highlights of a game until at least 60 minutes after the game. In week 1, Denver Broncos defensive back Darian Stewart was fined about $24,000 for his helmet-to-helmet hit on Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton. After the new rule implemented by the league regarding a team’s use of video highlights on their social media webpages, if a team were to break the rule, they could be fined a minimum of $25,000 for their first offense. By comparing the two circumstances, the league now values its content more than it values the safety of the actual human beings that it employs to play the game. Goodell has done everything in his power to lessen the interest of the league during his time as commissioner over the past 10 years. Young fans will never be able to see celebrations like the ones from Joe Horn or Jimmy Graham, players still have to be weary of their own safety, and teams now have to make sure they don’t accidentally tweet a video of an exciting touchdown during the game. The league does not exude the sense of fun it once used to, and it is because of Roger Goodell, the worst commissioner in the history of commissioning anything. Even if Goodell believes he won the Deflategate case, he stills stands as the biggest loser in all of professional sports.

Alright

For this prompt, I was almost compelled to title this post, Da Art of Storytellin’, the title of one of legendary hip-hop group OutKast’s most iconic songs. It represented what I wanted to discuss in this post, the beauty and complexity that goes into storytelling in multimedia. In print media, storytelling may be difficult in some instances, but on average, at least in my opinion, it is much easier to tell a story through print rather than multimedia. As stated before, I was close to choosing the aforementioned title, however, I wanted to choose a title that represented the piece that I viewed as exceptional: Alright. Alright is a track off of Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy nominated 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly. The song itself was nominated for Song of the Year, and the music video that was released along with the song was nominated for Video of the Year. The video, directed by Colin Tilley, itself contains enough content to stand on its own, independent of the actual song. The video pertains mainly to the subject matter that is in the song, however, the video expands on that subject and conveys a sense of specificity not entirely stated in the song alone. The song conveys a sense that, no matter how much hardship we may face, no matter how much pain we may encounter, as long as we stick together and believe we are bigger than our problems, then inevitably we will be “alright”. The video perfectly conveys this sense, with the beginning displaying the many pains that come in life and the struggles of being a black male in the United States. After a scene where a man being arrested decides to run away from the officer and then the officer draws his weapon and fires seemingly at the off-screen suspect, the video takes a more jovial turn. Throughout the majority of the video, Kendrick Lamar and many other people convey a sense of joy and carelessness, with Lamar literally flying and many people dancing and throwing money. Even after the somewhat dark, morbid first 2 minutes of the video, it still conveys a sense of people pushing through their problems and conquering them by showing the people of the video coming together to have a good time. At the end of the video, with Lamar standing on a light pole with a beautiful backdrop of Los Angeles, a police car pulls into the scene and an officer exits his vehicle. He draws a “weapon” from his holster(the weapon just being his index and middle fingers in the form of a gun), aims at Lamar, and pulls the “trigger”. Lamar is hit, as seen with an explosion of blood from his chest and back, and he falls to the  dirt beneath him. Even after being shot and falling about 15 feet to the ground, the camera quickly flashes to Lamar’s face as you can see a smile strewn across his face as he lays in the ground still bloody. Kendrick Lamar’s video perfectly conveys that sense of always being victorious over one’s problems, and the video went more in-depth as it depicted what many would consider a problem with police brutality in the United States. The video conveys that, no matter how many people suffer at the hands of authority, people are strong enough to prevail and still conquer over their oppressors. I admire this certain piece of multimedia because it doesn’t display its own narrative, but rather it displays a narrative that is concurrently transpiring in the United States and the rest of the world. The video for Kendrick Lamar’s Alright is one of the most awe-inspiring, exceptional pieces of multimedia that I have seen in my short time here on Earth. Whether you subscribe to the message conveyed in this song-video combination or not, it is powerful and thought-provoking enough to make a person at least think.