My Man Mahmoud
September 24, 2007
Protests are like carnivals without the fried food. Festivities of theoretical argument perfume air with the smell of heated exhalations. Today at Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus, the lawns were plush from last night’s rain. The sky was a crystal dome and the sun shone like God’s unblinking eye. And in that glorious bowl, […]
Walk in the Park
September 17, 2007
Morning finds me walking down the slim paths of Prospect Park, where the trees tower above and the pastures are verdant and everlasting. I am here to cover an event outlined in the AP Day Book, a daily posting of events by the Associated Press, with basic information regarding the event, like […]
Ahmadinejad is coming
The Iranian president is coming to Columbia and I heard about it from the New York Post. For all I can tell, I don’t think the Journalism School was involved in the administrative levels of this event. I delay posting an opinion because I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. […]
Unfinished business
September 16, 2007
This is how the schedule breaks down. Monday and Tuesday are reporting days, and belong to the class, RWI, which is Reporting and Writing I. This course holds the majority of credits and represents the most intense workload for the first semester. It takes at least three days a week, […]
Eared Grebe Waddling
September 10, 2007
The pedagogy at the J-School is directed towards personal development rather than rote. There is no firm direction, like “do this” and “do that.” Rather, the focus is on the negative space, the borders of appropriate journalistic practices, ethical behavior and accurate writing. We had a lecture the other week, delivered by Dean […]
Seagull Guano Blues
September 5, 2007
Labor Day was weird. Like the dull silence before the deluge. Classes begin in their full glory next week. Our second story assignment is to be “pitched” to our RWI professors tomorrow (Thursday, the 6th). This is the genesis of a sellable story, and a necessary function of anybody seeking to write for […]
Reporting & Writing, Meat & Bones
September 4, 2007
Two producers, Alice Pifer and Arlene Morgan, from ABC’s 20/20 were in this week to lecture about some sensitive racial pieces they produced for TV broadcast. Well, I shouldn’t so much say lecture, as ‘make themselves available.’ We watched about ten minutes of a piece called “The Family Secret,” a feature […]
Open House Reflection
August 13, 2007
A grandeur hangs over the crowd of almost three hundred people. New students eager; old students gather by the door, watching knowingly. They’ve been here before, just one year ago. They know what we don’t. And then a lineup of deans and guest speakers addresses the hushed crowd and we […]
Nothing Is True, Everything is Permitted
August 14, 2007
It’s the ethics that define journalism, isn’t it? The difference between telling a story and telling the truth is that trust gained by the transparency of the journalistic technique, that here one has delved into many records and minds of witnesses, victims, perpetrators, tourists; that here no lies are told for they’ll quickly […]