Just a sentence

Welcome back to the blog!

I know that I should have turned this in earlier but for some reason the sentence plagued me. I watched Daniel Pink’s video and tried to think how I was going to be explained by just a sentence. While in class I thought that I had worked out most of what I had to say, but I could not seem to push the sentence and keep it simple at the same time.

There are a lot of things that can go into a sentence: nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., etc. but I wanted mine to be special and just me. That was where it got a little more interesting.

This summer while I was in the Dominican Republic, I was part of a team that helped shoot, edit and craft a film to document the life of a deacon in Cien Fuegos, one of the poorest slums. I found out a lot about myself and saw myself challenged and tested during this time. This was also the time that I found out what I wanted to do with my life and the sentence was something of an afterthought.

My life’s purpose is to hear and capture the stories that need to be heard, and share them with the world.

Whether through print or digital mediums, I am called (or at least so I think) to share stories with the world. I am blessed with talents and skills in video and other creative forms and I need to use them. No matter if that makes a ton of money, for doing the work I should be doing, I most likely won’t be earning very much. I feel that the cost is to me and the reward is hopefully anyone who sees my work.

Being in the Dominican Republic shocked me. There is one story that stood out in my mind as a new backpack journalist, and that was when my teacher, another student and myself were in the back of a truck filming behind the dump that gave the city of Cien Fuegos its name. I found myself not wanting to film the suffering of the people in front of me. I could see the hate or dislike or misunderstanding of the people who were living without anything at all and they did not know why I was pointing a camera at them. I wanted to put my camera down and stop shooting but my teacher reminded me that in order to accurately tell the story of the people in front of us, we had to show how they were living. This was a very tough moment for me. I summoned up some courage and pointed the camera back out and did the best I could. The day this happened was when I realized what I really wanted to do with my life. I wanted to tell stories and I wanted to tell those stories right.

Here I am filming in the Dominican Republic, using Peter Freeze's shoulders

I’ll keep you posted on how this turns out. I have a lot of life left in me and I see many stories that need telling in my future. While my sentence may change as I do, the stories still need telling, and I will hopefully be there to do my best and hopefully this will be enough to make the little change in the world that I think is necessary.

Here goes nothing…

In the beginning, there were two… Blogs that is.

First off, hello. It is nice to see you all here and I am glad you could make it. I finally looked through some of the news-flavored blogs and found a few that I may actually follow in the future. The first is a blog named 10,000 Words, and is a blog focused on the news industry and journalism and technology. I rather liked this blog right off the bat because one of the first posts was about job searching, which is right about where I am in my life. Looking right at the top I saw one that made perfect sense, I just hadn’t really ever thought about it: “Know the day’s news.” Why hadn’t I thought of that one? Who knows…

And continuing down the page, I learned more and more about interview techniques and moved on to new media consumption. I liked the short article about TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) and a new service that shortens articles to be easily read online. So far, I am not sure how I feel about it but maybe it has a place in the field. Another post about media consumption caught my eye, and that was the one on transferring social media into hardcopy forms. On one there was a Facebook book and another with all of your Twitter updates put into print on pages in a book. Interesting things to see when writing a blog about social media. How new age am I?

The next blog that I clicked onto that I liked was lost remote. Being a college student I find myself not watching as much television but wanting to, so it seemed to fit. It also helps that I would love to get a job in the television industry somewhere, whether it be news or otherwise.

I really liked the article on social media and its effect on driving traffic to major news sources whether through posting or through retweeting. The story on MySpace and the News Corp buyout and then decline was intriguing to me. It just occurred to me that I haven’t thought about MySpace in a very long time, and I even had an account back in the day. The last article that snagged my interest was about disconnecting television service and trying to live on Netflix and Hulu Plus and the like. Turns out this may be something I might do in the future.

The writers of both blogs are professional and are aimed at professional interests but keep a slightly irreverent tone. I like the fact that the social medium of blogs is still new enough that a lot will go up on the web. There seem to be actual reporters behind the scenes but they are allowed to have their own voice and maybe the slant of an opinion. Not a problem when it is on the web.

Both lost remote and 10,000 Words were most likely marked as blogs to follow because of their relevancy and content. They are reporting on the breaking news of social media and since it is still somewhat of an unknown in the long run, they are relevant and timely. I liked the topics and writing style and I hope to continue hitting up these blogs as I continue into the semester. Keep fighting the good fight, merry reader.

Check out this keyboard, most likely similar to one that people blog on.