Technology makes breaking news easy to report

In my Online Journalism course, I emphasize that one of the advantages of online media over print media is the ability to post news quickly and to update previous stories as new events unfold.
The advent of social media such as Twitter and Facebook has broadened the news-reporting process so that stories and photos are quickly available to various audiences.
Cell-phone cameras have made photojournalism more convenient, since journalists always have a camera with them now.
I used my mobile device last week while on a trip to Montana to take several photos that could be used as news or feature shots. I then uploaded them to my e-mail and also sent them to friends and family.
A fire broke out the morning after I arrived. (I am not a suspect). I walked downtown and shot several photos of the firefighting effort.
A few days later, I spotted a bassett hound with his head stuck in a catfood bag. The poor guy was running into fences and cars. I took a quick photo and then caught him and freed him from the bag. I hope he got a catfood snack for all his troubles.
Then we saw a Hutterite girl riding a horse across the prairie. She was dressed in a bonnet and a long dress with pants underneath. The scene was straight out of Little House on the Prairie, and I couldn't resist getting a photo of her.
The photos aren't as high resolution or in-focus as I would get with my old 35mm Nikon, but they work fine for publishing on the Web. And my mobile device is a lot easier to lug around.

Oregon is overcast, damp and beautiful

I just got back from Viscomm24 in Portland, Ore., where I presented a research paper: "Archetypes, Mandalas, Collective Unconscious: Jungian Analysis of Newspaper Flags." Yeah, it probably was as boring as it sounds.
However, I reunited with an old college friend who lives there, Michael Fellows, who drove me around after the conference ended.
We visited the Columbia Gorge and the Oregon Coast. We hit a lot of Oregon's wonderful breweries. In fact, I tried 27 different beers on the trip.
Even though it was cloudy, drizzly, cool and gloomy every single day, the lush beauty of the state still shined through.
I love the hypnotic quality of waterfalls, and we saw plenty along the Gorge. At the coast, I spotted a seal swimming in a bay. The trip to the coast actually saw some sunshine, too, although it was overcast and drizzly at times.
If you haven't been to Oregon, go. Allegedly, there are some spectacular mountains there, too, including views of volcanic peaks Mt. Rainier, Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens. That is, if you can see them through the drizzle.

The Ayers Affair: Embarrassment for UW

After all the controversy over former radical turned professor William Ayers' talk at the University of Wyoming, I have to wonder what was the big deal?

Ayers spoke last night at UW following Tuesday's federal court ruling that UW officials were wrong to cancel his speech. His speech did not try to indocrinate impressionable college students into a life of firebombing or anarchy. Rather, he rightly criticized the U.S. educational system and urged major reforms.

That's hardly radical thought for those of us in education who every day witness the weaknesses of a public education system that has failed to produce young people prepared for the rigors of college.

Some reflections on the whole messy affair:

I am proud of UW student Meg Lanker for pressing a freedom of speech civil case against the university. Lanker came to my office the day after UW canceled Ayers' speech soliciting donations to bring him to Laramie. I doubted she would succeed, but was impressed that she would take the initiative to raise funds in the name of protecting the First Amendment. Lanker also started a new campus organization, Students for Free Speech, and organized a rally last week. Few students have that kind of gumption any more. I hope her professors give her extra credit in some classes.

I am ashamed of UW officials for allowing their attorney, Tom Rice, to bring up Lanker's past during the trial. Her actions in the past were not on trial. UW's actions were. Rice's tactic is often used by sleazy defense lawyers in rape cases who attempt to put the victim on trial. UW should have more respect for its students than to subject them to unethical harassment.

I also am embarrassed by the president of UW's Conservatives, Brian Profaizer, who exercised his freedom of speech by making personal and insulting attacks against Lanker on Facebook, rather than sticking to the issue of UW canceling Ayers' speech. Profaizer has a future running attack campaigns for conservatives, but he has a lot to learn about becoming a citizen in a democracy.

UW also blew it by bending to the threats of donors. The court case revealed that one big donor, John Martin of Casper, threatened to stop giving money because he didn't want Ayers on campus. When I worked for newspapers, we received similar threats. For example, an advertiser threatened to pull his ads unless we would agree to not run the name of his son, who was arrested for drunken driving. Our response was that advertisers don't control our news coverage. Sometimes, businesses would cancel their advertising, but usually they didn't.

UW needs to use the same response with disgruntled donors. Their money cannot dictate the educational process at the state's only four-year university.

Finally, if UW hadn't cancelled the original appearance by Ayers, maybe 50 people would have shown up. Because of the national controversy that erupted over the cancellation, more than 1,100 people showed up last night. Ayers couldn't have bought that kind of publicity.

William Ayers cancellation tarnishes us all

The University of Wyoming should not have backed down after it invited controversial William Ayers to speak on campus about education reform. The Center for Social Justice should have known that Ayers, because of his radical Weatherman past and his flimsy connection with President Obama, would get conservatives and Tea Party types worked up.
Knowing this, UW administrators and Center officials needed to take steps to ensure everyone's safety after threats of violence surfaced last week, leading to the cancellation.
Initially, I didn't plan to attend Ayers' speech, particularly if there was something I liked on TV that night. But after his speech blew up into a front-page story, I would have gone out of curiosity and to support his and everyone at UW's right to free speech.
Here are some of the comments I got from friends that I e-mailed about the issue.
"Even in saner times his visit would have caused a lot of protest. If they didn't have the cojones to weather it, they shouldn't have invited him in the first place. ThugNation is starting to scare me," said a fellow telemark skier.
A Montana University System employee commented, "So much for university campuses being laboratories to test and question the merits of ideas."
A former UW employee, who added he didn't like Ayers because of his radical past, said, "If the University had to bring the National Guard down here to maintain order, that is exactly what they should have done. If every state patrol in Wyoming had to be on hand to provide security, then that is what should have been happened. Because THAT is what academic freedom is all about."
I agree. Unfortunately, when confronted with threats of violence, the best solution may be to respond with a show of brute force. To quote country songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, "Up against the wall, redneck mothers."

Denver Press Club: A trip to the past and present

Press clubs always appealed to me with the image of hard-boiled reporters sitting in overstuffed chairs, drinking, smoking, telling tall tales and stealing story ideas from each other.

But I never had the chance to go to a real press club until this week when I was invited to the Denver Press Club, one of the oldest press clubs remaining in the U.S.

The event was a presentation of Pronghorn Passage, a multimedia show produced by two UW students about the annual migration of antelope from Grand Teton National Park to winter range in the Red Desert. One of the students, Joe Riis, was funded by the Larsh Bristol Photojournalism Fellowship. I am on the committee that selects the annual award winner.

The press club had loads of atmosphere and history. A bookcase held Damon Runyon books. Plaques announced Pulitzer Prizes for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. On one wall were caricatures of Hall of Fame winners. There was a beautiful hardwood bar. A pool table was in the basement.

The Press Club was formed in 1877 and has been housed in the current building since 1925. The club has hosted numerous presidents, including the current one. Now, the club regularly schedules such events as book readings, music and other presentations.

I would join if I lived near Denver. I ran into one of our alums, Dan Haley, who is a member. I also met a Metro State photojournalism student whose father bought her a membership. Funding was raised to renovate the two stories of the club, but the club retains its 1920s charm.

If I ever go again, I hope to wear a smoking jacket and a green eye visor.

Welcome to Laramie, Kristen

Those of you who read my posting of Nov. 13, 2009, may be wondering what happened to the COJO job search for a new faculty member.

It is my pleasure to announce that the search was successful, and we hired Kristen Landreville as a new assistant professor in new media starting fall semester.

Kristen is finishing her dissertation from the Ohio State University and is living in Columbus, Ohio. Her undergraduate degrees are from the University of Florida.

According to her Web site, Kristen's research involves "the intersection of mass and interpersonal communication on political and social outcomes, especially how uncertainty, emotion, and engagement in political entertainment (e.g., documentaries, satire) influence political discussion."

She has published research articles in such journals as Mass Communication and Society and Communication Quarterly.

Next fall, she is scheduled to teach Online Journalism and Politics and the Media.

To find out more about Kristen, check her Web site.

Welcome back, sucker

In the immortal words of the great American actor Adam Sandler, in the film Billy Madison, "back to school."
I'm off to a tough start this semester. I started teaching a class named Online Journalism back in 2000 using a Microsoft program, FrontPage, to teach students how to create and manage web sites. I began building web pages by hand coding HTML back in the early '90s, but I have relied upon the simplicity of FrontPage for a long time.
So I was very surprised to find that FrontPage was no longer on the student computer lab machines this semester. In fact, the program was removed last fall when I wasn't using the computer labs.
Information Technology informed me, after I complained, that they had notified me via email in February 2009 that FrontPage would no longer be available in the labs starting fall semester. That gave me 11 months to forget about it - easy for me to do.
So I am scrambling to do a quick learn of the replacement program - another Microsoft product named Expression Web 2. Not surprisingly, it's a typical MS program with the same menus and look as most of their software. And it seems to be the same as FrontPage, but with a few new bells and whistles to justify a new program.
It seems like another example of "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
Meanwhile, I am rewriting all of the lab assignments for Online Journalism from FrontPage instructions to Expression instructions. I will probably miss a few things as I learn how to use Expression, so I hope students will show some patience with me this semester.
In the long run, though, it's probably good for this old dog to learn a new trick.