Listen...and Know

Chances are you are a member of RTN 311-364.3 from fall 2007, a parent or friend of a student or a faculty member. Whoever you are, welcome to a semester's worth of work, progress and angst. This is our on-line supplement to the radio newscasts hardly anyone hears, even though they often have the best content in the Syracuse market.

Listen and Know.mp...

NCC News Staff: (l-r) Matt Cohen, Amy Johnson, Noel Aliseo, Jameson Fleming, Lara Bryn Greenberg, Faith Holland, A.J. Donatoni, Andrew Africk, Ranbir Boyal, John Nicholson (News Director), Tyler Condit, Gino Wang, Jordan Upmalis, Jon Erwin, Annie Kozakiewicz, Mura Gichane, Richard Zussman (World's Greatest TA & Engineer), Katie Alexander (Captain)

They should have the best content. We have the largest reporting staff (eight) as well as four producers and four anchors all working at once and they're aiming for four late afternoon newscasts. You can hear some of the newscasts and newswraps by playing the widgets that go with the blogs/stories below.

The fact is that I asked these women and men to take a chance with me and go get the news in our area - to "kick *** and take names. They did and they did it without complaining. I am as proud of this news team as I have been of any team I've been associated with in 39 years in broadcasting. The product is not perfect. But it IS the result of intelligence, hard work and collaboration. If the future of broadcast news is in the hands of these folks, I'm not worried.

I'm leaving a song for them and for whoever reads this site. It's from a Christmas album by John Denver and the Muppets.



It says a lot about what I believe in general and what I believe especially about these folks. And yes, Richard, you are the man.

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It's been a real pleasure

I wanted to get my message in here so Prof. Nicholson could have the last word. It has been a great pleasure working with all of you. I looked forward to Thursdays every week and each and every one of you made my experience as a TA even better. I am loved watching all of you get better. Looking back to the first newscast it is amazing how far all of you have come. I also think I learned a little bit along the way as well. Thanks to all of you and I hope to see you all soon.

Richard

Yet again Gino wasn't there when everybody else heard the instruction "No personal angst"

That's my final project.

OHGODTHISISIT.mp3

Honestly, I can't be anymore disappointed in myself. I've caused a lot of trouble in class, but I told myself it's ok, because I will redeem myself. And what better chance to do that than making my final project a blast? I've put so much effort into this project that when I say I TRIED MY BEST, I mean it this time. I skipped all of my classes on Monday to go down to Cornell to do interviews, and that night I stayed at School of Management until 3 am to log the interviews. Tuesday I pulled an all-nighter at Newhouse II again doing more loggin. Wednesday I stayed in our classroom from 1 o'clock in the afternoon until 4 o'clock in the morning on Thursday, and the reason I left was because somebody told me to leave because Newhouse closes at 4 a.m. Then I went home, took a shower, then I went to the library. And at 10 I went back to Newhouse and continued working on the project. With all this time, anybody could have easily finished not just one, but two or even more projects. I honestly do not understand why I couldn't finish it. I kept working on it until literally the last minute. I mean when everybody was in the hallway laughing and chatting, I was in the booth, putting my pieces together, and getting it on my thumb drive. After my piece was played in class, I felt like the last bit of my adrenaline got used up, my last bit of energy was used up, and I almost just fainted in my chair.
Initially I was going to talk about how things have changed for the past 15 years, but it seemed that although everybody felt there has been a change, very few of them could actually pin point "this is what it was like 15 years ago, and this is what it's like today." Instead, they all seemed way more interested in what's going on right now such as the self-selected racial segregation, DIversity is a broad topic. There were a thousand ways this project could have been done very well because the topic covers such a wide array of issues. There was only one way it could have been done bad by losing your focus. Surprise surprise, THAT was the way Gino went with this project, and he did that well.
All that said, I enjoyed the process of doing this project. It was totally worth it. Not only because I was doing something I was truly interested in and learned a lot about my topic, but also because I felt like a professional reporter. There I was at Cornell, going from one unfamiliar building to another, asking random people questions. I enjoyed that. It was kind of scary, especially when I thought I was going to be trapped there because there was no shuttle bus coming back to Syracuse Airport. But it was all fun. I enjoy being a reporter.
I love our class. This is going to sound totally cliche but we really are a freaking family. Everyone gave me support no matter how messed up I am; Richard is everybody's guardian angel and has been 100% reliable for the entire course of the semester, and professor Nicholson? He's everything. He's going ridicule you and challenge you and make you feel like you're the biggest idiot that's ever existed in the history of mankind, but then you realize you're learning so much, and he cares too much about you to ever let you drown, and in the end you realize this is all tough love.
Alright now, so much for my brown nosing. I just want to say thank you guys for being such wonderful people. This is the class that I'm going to remember 10 years from now when I chat with my friends, "Yeah, I remember when I was in college there was this one class..."
Happy holidays. I love you all.

And So It Is

My final project was a profile of several schools around the country who were given the highest marks for environmental sustainability by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. I interviewed reps from Dartmouth, Stanford and Harvard, but due to time constraints, I was only able to include the first two in the final cut. There was a good amount of info I wanted to include, so I was a bit frustrated with the final result. Nonetheless, it was a fun report to work on, and it certainly taught me how to manage time, set up interviews way ahead of schedule and edit precisely to make sure music flowed with the project.

Now, for my final rant, I will reflect on the past three and a half months. Back in August, I was terrified of Professor Nicholson. He was a towering, intimidating figure who carried himself with a certain arrogance and bravado that made me feel knee-high (literally). I knew he was a professional who was very accomplished in the field and therefore was probably very demanding of the students he taught. So I was scared. But as the semester progressed, I learned more and more that he was somebody who understood students' worries, who took time to make sure his students improved in their writing, and who was a wise-cracking, laid-back and easy-going guy. Not to mention he knows everything about everything. His teaching method, I believe, allowed me to progress in my writing ability. He made sure I knew how to write an interesting lead, how to produce a newscast, how to improve my voice projection, etc. I could go on for a while about how much I appreciated his guidance, so I'll stop here and say I hope every teacher I have in Newhouse is as caring, smart and easy to get along with as Prof. Nicholson.

Of course, the other part that made the classes so enjoyable were the students. I don't think there's any other class in Newhouse, or perhaps at SU, that really allows you to get know your fellow students during class time. You learn to work with people (especially on Thursdays) under pressure, cooperating with them and doing your part to help a team succeed. And I don't think I could have worked with a better, more impressive group of students. Each one of us, in my opinion, brought a different aspect to class each day which made every class exciting, fun and even unpredictable. And I was humbled by the amount of talent in this class. I will truly miss hearing the newscasts every Tuesday, because I think they really proved how much we can accomplish in the future. I'm going to miss getting together with all of you twice a week, that's for damn sure. And I have no doubt that all of us, as long as we continue to work at it, will have the opportunity to do this as a living one day. And so ends my sappy rant along with my favorite class of all time.

Not to mention we got to meet Bob Costas, which is nice.

Long live RTN 311.3/364.3! Rock and Roll is King!

Donatoni's Grand F...

Communication Breakdown

My story was about communication barriers in Syracuse between the Police and Fire Departments and deaf and Spanish residents. I talked about how the police work with the West Side Learning Center in a program called Cross Cultural Connections. In it, Latino youths teach police basic Spanish and the nuances of Latino culture. I also talked about how the Fire Departments only attempt to break down communication barriers is a few presentations here and there. The head of the SAL told me that isn't enough, and like the police, they should learn basic Spanish.

What didn't really get into my story is what both the Fire and Police Departments are doing to overcome communication issues involving the deaf. That is because the person I was trying to interview at AUROA, a deaf advocacy group, did not get back to me until this morning, past my deadline. Of course, she gave me the best interview out of all the ones I got, and it is lost to the far reaches of time now. She basically told me that the police department does nothing to really break down communication barriers with the deaf. She told me that they think writing things down is essentially enough to get them to undertand, and that they are naive in their approach. Had she gotten back to me earlier in the week, my story would have certaintly sounded different in the end.

I did learn a lot though about what is and what is not being done. The Police Department's relationship with the WLC is young, but it is a step in the right direction. 36 officers have completed the training. More needs to be done though, because in an emergency, a basic understanding of Spanish, or techniques to communicate with the deaf can come in handy. There is a lot more that did not get into my piece, and I would mention it, but this is a blog, not a novel. So with that said, I congratulate everyone on their great final projects, and making this class the most worthwile and enjoyable of my college experience.

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Warning: The Internet is taking over

RTN FINAL LONG FOR...

For my final project, I wanted to do something that really interested me. I thought that online use would be a good start, especially as it becomes more prevalent in today's Internet-obsessed world. So I did my story about online predators on social networking Web sites like Facebook and MySpace.

I'm really happy with the way my story turned out. I spoke with Lieutenant Joe Donahue, who works for the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) unit of the New York State Police, David Canfield, the director of the Youth Advocates Program in Oswego County, Joon Park, a professor and online security expert at SU, an SU senior who has a Facebook and Officers Jim Thompson and C.J. McCurty from SU's Department of Public Safety.

The best interview I got were with Lieutenant Donahue and SU senior Stephanie Rivetz. Donahue spoke to me for 25 minutes about how children are unsafe on the Internet. The best suggestion he came up with for safer use was to have parents check and see what their kids are doing online. He also told me about specific instances of sexual predation that have occurred recently, and you can hear about that in my story. The interview with Rivetz was good too because as a Facebook user, she was passionate about the positive and negative sides of the Web site.

For the project, I also tried to get in touch with Rick Woody, who's a police officer in Arkansas. He has a daughter who was a victim of a MySpace predator, but he never got back to me. I also tried to speak with the Attorney General's of New York and Connecticut, who have recently been really involved in working with Facebook to create better privacy policies, but couldn't get in touch with them either. I was surprised that neither Facebook or MySpace helped me either. Though they responded quickly, they just sent me e-mails, linking me to their privacy policy sites, which was kind of disappointing. I guess for them, not all publicity is good publicity.

Anyway, I'm really happy with how my project came out, though I wish I had been more creative with my music throughout. When I was picking NAT sound, I found two other songs that I really wanted to use, but since my project already went over, I left them out. I would have put them in, had I thought to let them play underneath my tracks like so many other people in the class did. I also wish I let my last song play longer, instead of cutting it at the end as soon as I tagged out. But if that's the thing I'm most upset about with my report, then I think I did a pretty good job.

...Sorry this post was so long. But I tried not to be "angsty," so there.

I Don't Know What I Bin Told

My final project was about the Army ROTC. I pretty much did the whole thing in a day (Tuesday) and looking back it seems like a blur. Pretty much everything you need to know is in the wrap. What I didn't like about my project was that at times, it could probably pass for an army recruitment commercial. I wanted to talk to some graduates of the program rather than just the program director here and a few cadets, and that way I could have gotten a lot more prospective. I spoke to a few cadets at other schools and a recruitment officer, but I wasn't really successful at expanding my idea to a national idea.

Final Project.mp3

It's not REALLY over... Right?

FINAL FINAL.mp3

Really? This semester and this class is over? I can't say that I'm not slightly relieved, but I can honestly say also that I'm very sad about it. This class was hard work, but it was the best class that I've taken at Syracuse. I can't believe looking back now at all I accomplished, because when I first came to this class I was so intimidated and unsure. If someone had told me at the beginning of the class that by the end I could go to a venue for a report and interview and talk to people almost effortlessly, I wouldn't have believed them.
My final project was like my child. Blood, sweat, and tears. I am very proud of it, and also of all the interviews that I conducted for it. I met some wonderful people with some fabulous insight on the topic, and on a more personal note, it really gave me a chance to look again at the tragedy of Virginia Tech. Talking to Kelly McCarthy, the sophomore at VT, was emotional. Clearly she was incredibly impacted by the event, and it was evident during our conversation.
The Director of Security at LeMoyne was a wonderful man, who knew a lot and had a lot of opinions on the subject. Talking to him was great, and he really challenged me to look at the bigger picture. I let the fact that he was a Steelers fan slide because of his help. :)
Doing longform was a great experience because it allowed me to expand on ideas more than the usual wraps. It was also challenging because I had SO much information from so many sources, and I couldn't fit it all in. But overall I think I did a pretty good job of representing the main points, letting the soundbites do most of the talking.

Fan-tastic....

As an SU student, a Orange fan, and a cheerleader, it really bugs me that people do not go to football games. I get it, we are not the best (understatement) but these are our college years and some of the only chances we will get to participate in events like we have at our school. This is why I dove into my topic.

I was not too sure where I was going to go with the project but as I spoke to people it became clear. My piece ended up focusing on the effects of a lack of fan support. I really enjoyed working on my final project because I spoke to a lot of people who are really interested in what they do. Sports fans are great because they are some of the most passionate people.

Some interesting things I learned but did not include in my piece are...
1. I spoke to people at West Virginia and learned that they have a lottery system for student football tickets. They work the tickets into tuition and students have to apply for tickets to go each game. There are only around 12,000 tickets reserved for students and once they are gone, that's it. Penn State sells their tickets on a lottery system as well.
2. Notre Dame has sold out every game for the past forty two years except for one. That one game was an afternoon game on Thanksgiving... and it was raining.
3. Otto's Army includes anyone who has SU season tickets but only around fifty active members.

Final Project.mp3

On a sentimental note:
To my classmates, Riiiichard and Professor Nicholson... our little RTN familia! I just want you all to know this class has been one of the best experiences so far in my college career. Not only did I get to have hands on experience in something I hope to make my future career, but I got to do it with some of the most interesting, genuine, amazing people I have met here at SU. This class has taught me so much outside of academia. I loved that everyone was so different but so real. Never change and stay true to yourselves because you all are incredible.

And now it's time... to say goodbye... to all our company

AFRICK- 364 FINAL ...

(Picture below from SUAthletics.com; from left to right: Roy Simmons Jr., Gary Gait, Dr. Daryl Gross and John Desko... all coaches are SU alums)
M-I-C... See you real soon... You can finish the rest.

Going into this project, once I suggested the topic in my pitch, I knew it would be a daunting task. The SU Athletics Communication Department hasn’t been very accommodating to many of the media outlets around campus that I work at (CitrusTV, z89, WAER), so what made me think that they would even give me the time of day? There were times throughout the process of the project where I wanted to quit, thinking that my story would turn out awful. Going into last night, I was wary about how my project would turn out. But talking to one of my senior friends, she said that one of her regrets was that she didn’t do enough work she could be proud of as an underclassman. That opened my eyes to the fact that I really had nothing yet that I could be proud of. That changed with this project.


The idea for a project about coaches who played and coach and their alma-mater actually started when Gary Gait was hired over the summer. I knew I had to talk to him so that was the first call I made. But after that, I spent a while trying to find good sources and simply making calls. One of the things about a sports project is that to interview coaches, you have to go through different channels like talking to SIDs. So to get one interview I would have to first call one of these people. That alone could take days. Luckily, I put out multiple calls at a time, so I got multiple calls back at once. Sourcing became very difficult because the big name coaches like Gary Williams, Ralph Friedgen and even Tony Gwynn were busy and declined (yes, I called all of them). So I had to resort to even lesser sports, but I called some of the best teams in the sport and eventually got two great sources in Dave Pietramala (Johns Hopkins MLAX) and Mike Fox (North Carolina Baseball)

Overall this story was phenomenally interesting. Talking to and meeting all of these people that everyone know, but so few actually get to talk to them. The most thrilling person to meet was definitely Mike Hopkins. He's a huge character and he's friendly to everyone. I wasn't even sure I'd be able to talk to him when I went to practice, but he said it was no problem. It was fascinating to listen to but probably the most interesting interview was Roy Simmons Jr. He has so much history and so many ties with SU. He went here, played under his father (who was a coach), then coached freshman lacrosse for years before he took over for his dad. He recruited John Desko, Roy Simmons III (his son), Kevin Donahue and Gary Gait. All of those players are now coaching at SU. He had some really interesting things to say about Gary Gait as well. He mentioned that he talked to former women's lacrosse Head Coach Lisa Miller and asked her what the difference was at Maryland when they won seven consecutive national championships. She didn't hesitate and said Gary Gait. I guess that bodes very well for the Syracuse women's lacrosse program here.

On a side note, this whole semester has been amazing. I'm not the best at being sentimental, but I will say that never has there been a class before in my life where I have liked every single person. In this class I can honestly say that I liked everyone and had a great time. I always looked forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays, even when we had a test or big project because we're all friends. Thanks for all the memories. I will never forget Professor Nicholson's RTN 311/364 class in the Fall of 2007.

More than Guns

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My final project evolved throughout the entire time I was putting it together. I got the idea while putting together my beat book, I covered police, fire, and S.U. Department of Public Safety. It was while I was getting my information on D.P.S. that I got my idea, I met with the media representative for the department and while he was answering my questions he mentioned that the department was looking into becoming a police department. I decided to do my story on that process. Once I started to put my interviews together I had trouble getting someone from D.P.S. to talk to me but decided to set up interviews with other schools that had police departments any way. Once I got back from break I talked to people from departments at Western Kentucky University, Cornell, SUNY ESF, UNH, a student at UNH, and I also contacted Bowling Green and the University of Texas at El Paso but they never got back to me. When I finally heard from someone from D.P.S I found out that the media rep. had been wrong, they weren't looking into becoming a police department but into getting accredited. I started looking for other schools that had accredited departments but I couldn't find any. The next day when I met with Mike Rathbun at S.U. D.P.S he explained that was because only about 5% of schools have accredited departments. Rathbun set me up with another interview with lieutenant Vernon Thompson later in the week to explain accreditation some more.
When we pitched our topics in class Andrew suggested that I try to do a ride-a-long with an officer, I thought this was a great idea so I set one up. The ride-a-long was a great experience and I got some great sound. I rode with officer John Day and couldn't have asked for a better officer. He was a member of the first class to complete the academy to get Peace Officer status which the department switched to in 2005 (thats the class in the picture). He talked about how hard it had been, both physically and academically, especially because he was older. He told me that two people didn't make it from his class. He went on to talk about all the advantages of the status and my story changed again, to a how are things going so far with peace officer status piece. Peace officer status was the focus of my interview on that Friday with Lieutenant Thompson. I started looking for other schools with peace officer status but was having trouble finding them and since it was the weekend I couldn't get in touch with anyone so I started writing.
I wasn't very happy with the story I gave to Prof. Nicholson to look over, it seemed kind of boring. He gave me the idea to have the story follow the ride-a-long. I loved the idea. He also wanted me to tie in more schools with peace officer status so I emailed Thompson and someone from the state to get some names. When they got back to me it was already Wednesday afternoon so I just started calling everyone on the lab phone. Unfortunately only one of the schools Lieutenant Thompson gave me actually had peace officer status and none of the schools the state gave me got back to me. I was out of time so I started to put it together.
I am really happy with the way the piece came together with the music, sound, and ride-a-long theme. I also hope that I got across that D.P.S. officers are more than rent-a-cops or "Barney Fifes" , they go through some pretty intense training and really care about the safety of the students.

Turn it up, turn it up, little bit higher, radio!!

I did my piece on HAVA compliant voting systems, and how New York has missed the most recent deadline to purchase a handicapped-accessible voting machine for the 2008 primary.

It was really interesting to talk to people about issues that really interest them. I spoke to Aaron Belisle of the Center for the Independence of the Disabled in New York (CIDNY), and he was telling me about all of the other hardships the disabled in New York face on election day. He was saying CIDNY published several reports about obstructions that alot of the non-handicapped accessible voting polling stations have. CIDNY goes to 5 polling stations per election day, and Belisle told me he found 8 obstructions in one polling station he visited. Obstructions consist of things like doorways that are too narrow for a wheelchair to pass through, or no signs that designate the Handicapped routes to the polls. Belisle said a lot of the times, the officials who run the polls don't change the obstructions because they don't see any handicapped people coming to vote in their polling stations. Belisle suspected this was because the polling stations were not accessible to the handicapped. It's a vicious cycle.

HAVA Voting in New...

I really loved this class. I learned so much. I think I have to agree with Tyler, and say the best part of this project was hanging out with everyone, and watching their stories progress from the planning stages to a final project.
But to put it another way, and at the risk of adding the angst Nicholson warned us against, i really loved this class. I consider all of you my friends. When I left today, it took about ten minutes, but I started crying on my way to my recitation. This class was like a small family, and I am going to miss you all. (especially Zussmania)

Poverty in Syracuse

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The above is a radio package concerning the economy in Syracuse, in particular what is being done to help the 30% poverty level in the city. The main themes throughout this wrap and the interviews are what is being done to help the poverty level, if poverty is the biggest problem in Syracuse and how attracting wealthier people to Syracuse will actually help the poor. Most interviewees focused more on the gorwing business in Syracuse rather than the depressing poverty level of 30% and per capita income of $15,000. This made me realize the economic picture is not best portrayed by only the poverty rate, even though this is the most alarming statistic. The number of jobs had increased over the past year according the to Chamber of Commerce and the unemployment rate was 3.8% in October. The unemployment rate is near a record low and Roger Evans of the New York State Department of labor expects Syracuse to reach the full employment level of 3% within the year. This led me to realize another problem facing Syracuse is the lack of workers. Kevin Schwab, the Director of Communications at the Metropolitan Development Association (MDA), said this was actually the biggest problem within the Syracuse economy. The MDA actually has steps in place to help this problem, as stated in the blog. The final theme through the interviews was how the lack of workers and poverty level are tied together and is there a solution for both of them. This came through the increased tax base that wealthier residents would bring to the city of Syracuse. If there is more tax revenue, the city will have more money to spend on helping the poor.

I Can't Believe It's Over

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For my final project, I wanted to find out what exactly the Onondaga Nation wants to achieve with its land rights action case. Commonly called "land claim rights", I learned that the Onondaga Nation calls it land rights action because for them it is not just about claiming land. I was able to talk to two son's of one of the Nation's fourteen chiefs, Chief Irving Powless. One of Powless's sons, Neal Powless, works for SU's Career Services Department and also works closely with the Native Students Department. Neal Powless says for the Onondaga Nation it is not about getting casinos or money.

The Onondaga Nation is suing the state of New York for illegally taking 4,000 square miles of land from them. This includes up to 40 miles of land running north to south from the St. Lawrence River to the Pennsylvania Line. New York wants the case to be dismissed because it says the Nation waiting too long to sue. I also interviewed Regina Jones, an assistant director of Multicultural Affairs at SU. Jones also works closely with the university's Native Studies Program and currently lives on the Nation's land. Jones says this is the courts and governments way of trying to stop the land rights action. "In reality we weren't allowed to go into the court system as sovereign nations much before this time," says Jones.

On October 11, 2007, there was a hearing in federal court in Albany. The case was argued in front of Senior U.S. District Judge Lawrence Kahn. Kahn reserved decision and no updates have been made since. Kahn will have to decide to dismiss the case or continue it.

From my sources, I learned that the Onondaga Nation does not want to take away people's land. The Nation wants to claim the land that they say was illegally taken away. The Nation also wants to clean up the land, which includes cleaning Onondaga Lake.

I really enjoyed doing this project. It was challenging but fun. But mostly, I really enjoyed this class. These last few months have been amazing. I feel as if you all are a part of my family. Thank you to my classmates for being supportive. Thank you to Richard for answering my annoying questions and always offering a helpful hand. And, thank you to Professor Nicholson for never letting me settle and pushing me to be better. I will miss this class.

Final Project - global warming

condit - final pro...

To start, I loved this class. At times it was too long or too stressful or too something, but it was still my favorite class. This group of people had better stay close or at the very least stay in touch with me because I like you guys and I pray you all can tolerate me.

As for the final project. I learned a lot about global warming. I BOUGHT An Inconvenient Truth off iTunes (don't ask me why.) I watched the entire movie and at times it scared the heck out of me, but it seemed mostly true, so I trusted the facts. I talked to a very knowledgeable person in Professor Don Siegel. He gave me most of the material for my wrap. I talked to a couple SU students, one of whom was very anti-Gore (which provided a nice SOT.)

I enjoyed doing this project because it meant I got to spend more than eight hours with some of my closest friends at SU. I will never regret taking this class, and I hope everyone feels the same way.

Mistuh Richard, you are the man!!!
Professor, you are a really sweet dude!!!

P.S. For some reason there was an error when I was uploading my wrap onto esnips, so I have to leave my post like this

Waiting on the world to change...

For my final project I did a story on the Myanmar refugees who arrived in Syracuse during the beginning of the school year. Over 400 refugees resettled in Syracuse in a matter of months and this sudden influx left assistance programs scrambling to shelter and feed them.
For my story I wanted to focus in on one particular family and to make it a personal piece about hope and courage amidst times of great peril. I attended the Syracuse Myanmar Baptist Church last Sunday and if I said I wasn't nervous I'd be lying. "Would anyone there be able to speak coherent English? Would they feel that my presence during their sacred time of worship was offensive? Would my questions intimidate them? Or was I the one being intimidated?" All these questions raced through my mind before I got to the church, and to my great relief the church, especially the pastor, embraced me and did everything in his power to make sure my story came out great.
The hardest thing that I found about doing such a long radio piece was choosing 5 or 6 good soundbites out of the dozens I had recorded. All my sound came out pretty great, and although the English was a little rough in some soundbites, it added to the authenticity of my piece. If refugees from Burma who arrived in this country a couple of months ago were speaking fluent English, it'd be quite odd and most importantly the listeners probably wouldn't buy it. I wanted to add more dialogue from the refugees but many of their sentences didn't make sense or sound enough like English. I also got sound from workers at various refugee programs in NY, but many of them said the same thing. The new information they did share didn't really fit into the story about Rebeca and her family so I opted to leave those out. I also wanted to interview John Dau, one of the Sudanese lost boys who came over to Syracuse in 2001. The day I went to his house to interview him (his house is right by the Myanmar Church) he'd just left for Africa. I don't think I would have been able to fit him into the story so I'm just glad it didn't end up hurting the piece.
What I tried to do for the story was to start with the head of the church (the pastor and his wife). From there, I went into Rebecca's story and stuck Ioana Balint comment about refugees being critical to a community right in the middle. At the end, I tied things together by highlighting her children who are the future for the refugees. The story went a little longer then I would have liked, but I think I used enough sounds and music to keep people awake and listening. I'm sure that everyone in the class could have done several dozen different stories with the amount of sound they had, but the real challenge is doing the right one...and doing it well. I think the class did a great job and the great work exhibited in these pieces is a testament to the great teaching done by Professor John Nicholson. Thank you for a great semester and I wish everyone the best of luck! N-C-C News, Mura Gichane. (had to do it one last time)

Gichane refugees F...

Ethanol: AMERICA'S renewable fuel

This has really been a great opportunity for me to learn how to do long format. As always there are things that I know I could have done better, but again, as always, it was really the experience that mattered to me anyway.

My story was about whether or not ethanol is really as good as everyone makes it out to be. The answer: I don't know. And apparently neither does anyone else--or at least no one agrees about it.

What they do seem to agree on is that, as it stands, ethanol is better for the environment in terms of emissions, but worse for the environment in terms of how much energy it takes to make it. Several of my sources agreed that it helped end America's dependence on foreign oil.

ETHANOL FINAL.mp3

I collected an abundance of information about ethanol and other alternative energies, but in the end, four minutes (or in my case four and a half minutes) isn't as long as it seems, so I had to find a direction and take it.

Among other things not included, Sal Graven told me all about Spitzer's 15 by 15 plan, in which he wants to reduce electricity consumption by 15 percent by the year 2015.

As far as the direction I took, however, I really wish I could have included more information about different types of ethanol, specifically Fieschko's whey ethanol.

Like I said in the story, Fieschko received a $400,000 grant to study ethanol made from cheese whey. He said it was an ideal source to work with. What I didn't have time to explain was why he thought it was so great.

He said that it's a great material because unlike corn or cellulose, it's the waste product of another operation. He said usually cheese manufacturers throw out whey, even though it is a very expensive material of which to dispose.

He further thought it was great because, unlike cellulose, it was very simple to use to make ethanol. Cellulose has to go through several complicated steps to be broken down into sugars that can be digested by yeast to make ethanol.

Whey is made of only protein and lactose. Cheese companies extract the protein to sell it as powder for protein shakes leaving only concentrated lactose, or milk sugar. He said it only needs to be fermented and concentrated, and then it's ready to be used as fuel.

Unfortunately, Pimentel said the concentration takes a ton of energy to do. He also said the yeast can only handle certain levels (12 percent) of concentrated sugars before they die of intoxication. He reminded me that making ethanol uses a very similar process as making beer--they are both fermented using yeast. Furthermore, ethanol is basically the same thing as grain alcohol.

Sports Bloggers

I did my story on the emergence of sports bloggers in the media. I talked to a variety of sources from the Syracuse blogging community, Syracuse media, and the national blogging community. There were some aspects of blogging and the relationship between bloggers and the main stream media I was unable to get into my story. I talked with many of my sources about the rift between the MSM and bloggers and both the strengths and weaknesses of the MSM and bloggers. Many of my sources agreed that bloggers are finally beginning to gain respect from the MSM because most of the popular blogs are gaining high levels of credibility. Some of the strengths of the MSM mentioned were its reputation and current large audience. Some weaknesses: a failure to address stories that don't fit in their style of journalism and a lack of willingness to work with the internet community. Some strengths of blogs mentioned were the ability to produce updates rapidly and produce opinionated articles the MSM tends to shy away from.

I also asked many of my sources about the future of sports journalism. A couple give responses along the line "it's hard to tell or anytime I make a prediction, things change so quickly, I'm completely wrong." Also, many of the bloggers say it's not too far in the future where bloggers might be able to gain press passes to major events. The New York Islanders already allow bloggers to come in and live blog games.

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Here are the websites of all the bloggers and members of the media I interviewed for this project.

National Blogs:
Deadspin, The Big Lead, Awful Announcing, Storming the Floor, Kissing Suzy Kolber
Syracuse Athletics related Blogs:
Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician, Orange 44, House of Orange
Writers for Syracuse.com
Brent Axe or the "Axeman" and Mike Waters

Really late election day blog

This was a crazy day. I woke up early and went to Goldstein Student Center. I was talking to this volunteer with my mic off and simply resting on the table when another volunteer came outside and yelled at me. She said it was illegal to talk politics outside a polling place. Later that day I went back to Goldstein and talked to a nice young lady. She was a first time voter who registered in Syracuse even though she is from Brooklyn. This time the volunteer did not get mad at me, which was good.

Property Taxes

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Above is a radio wrap concerning the increase of property taxes and what local citizens are doing about it. All the most important information is in the wrap. The best point Professor Waylenko made was that the same amount of taxes would have to be collected no matter if it was through property tax or income tax, so it doesn't really matter if they change them.

When Gino anchors you know what happens

Let me start this off with an apology.
What happened four weeks ago when I anchored was a disaster. I never thought it could get any worse but it did this week, and I just want to tell my producer I feel so sorry that it was a great piece of newscast she put together, but I pretty much completely ruined it. I'm really sorry Noel, and thank you for putting up with me.
What I found interesting when I did my foner today was that there was a discrepancy between people's beliefs. While 1) analysts' pessimistic predictions for retail sales turned out inaccurate and 2) merchants say they were somewhat surprised by their sales over the past weekend, spokesperson of the Retail Council of New York State says the council has never lost faith in the Black Friday weekend, and she doesn't understand why some people thought this year was going to be any different than the previous years.
The cool thing about this foner was that at the end of our conversation the spokesperson asked me which news organization I am with, and I said NCC at Syracuse University. She said guessed what, and I was like NO WAY! And she said yep she is also from Newhouse. So in the end, despite the fact that she didn't call me back until absolutely the last minute (3:30pm), I enjoyed our conversation not only because she was super friendly on the phone, but also because she is a Newhouse graduate also.

The end of an era

Thursday was very interesting. Before the newscast I don't think I was even on Team A so this was a very new experience. Overall, I think it could have been better. Our timing was a bit off, but it seems like everyone says the same thing week-in and week-out so I'll put that one behind me. As far as the anchor and reporters, things went off well. Annie did a great job as usual. It took her a while to find a phoner but she never gave up and I'm very grateful for that because the doctor she eventually found made for a good bite.

My main criticism from Professor Nicholson last time I produced was that I needed to stay on my reporters more so that things got finished and carted early so that the newscast could sound as best as possible. I tried to do that this week. I made a soft deadline for 3 p.m. and Matt worked really hard to explain a confusing story to get it in on time and carted. By the soft deadline, we actually had three of four carts ready to go. Faith dealt with a lot yesterday. Between talking to people about AIDS testing (not exactly the easiest thing to talk about) and dealing with me constantly asking if her story was done or how close she was, she could have easily lost it. She stayed calm though, and her wrap turned out great. We ended up getting everything done and printed with just a few seconds to spare and our newscast was pretty good. It definitely wasn't the best newscast ever, but it was a great way to end the semester.

internet mining

condit-state troop...

I found a great back-up and tried to pass it off for my story this afternoon to Professor Nicholson. It was my classic lean-to story, I was going to interview Sarah Short about some nutritional carrot study before it was denied. I was told to do a wrap on the recruitment of State Troopers. I couldn't find anyone to talk to because they didn't call me back and eventually took the Professor's advice and did the entire wrap from the internet site.
This was not as easy as it might seem. I had trouble finding a good bite, but I eventually settled on something and I think it works to some extent. Anyway, here is the result

Bitter Sweet Ending...

Our last news cast!! So sweet but so sad...

This week I was the producer of team C. I had no trouble putting together a newscast. I even had time to do an interview for an anchor act. My team helped a lot with writing and extra stories and carting sound. This week I was able to delegate responsibility which helped a lot. We ran into a little trouble with timing during the newscast but all and all I am not disappointed with my teams performance. It probably would have been better if we had timed the cast prior to going into the sound booth and if Gino and I had better communication.

Lessons learned:
1.There is no I in team! Teamwork makes everything run sooo much smoother!
2. Have clear communication set up ahead of time for while you are in the sound booth.

I am going to miss everyone in this class and everything has been such a great experience! Much love for our class! xo

The Last Broadcast of RTN 364

I went down to the Sheraton today for what they were calling their first Green Day. They wanted to get certification as a green facility in Onondaga County by OCRRA. Today they were going to have a small presentation for their employees about how they can go green at home. The Sheraton also gave out prizes to their employees for the ones that came up with the best ways the hotel can become even more environmentally friendly. One of the winning ideas is motion sensors in different places that don't have ones already. The sensors would detect whether someone is the vicinity. If no one is around, lights would go off as would air conditioners and heaters to conserve energy. The hotel plans on giving employees more tips in the future on how to be more environmentally conscience. The Sheraton would also like to expand this project to their guests as well in the future.

Sheraton Green.mp3

parachute over me....

It's the last newscast blog. It's sad really.

I did my story on a study that came out of the New England Journal of Medicine that suggested CT scans caused cancer up to 2% of cancer patients.

The thing I learned that I couldn't really fit in my article, was an opinion that Mr. Gignac gave me about 3rd party influences on Medicine. The study showed that since 1970, the number of CT scan treatments had increased significantly, and more often than not, additional CT scans were ordered when they weren't necessarily needed. Mr. Gignac opined that he suspected insurance companies pressured hospitals into ordering another CT scan to do checkups on cancer patients instead of opting for other lab tests that would be more expensive. Mr. Gignac sais he wasn't sure if this was necessarily the case, but it was a trend he had noticed in the past few years.

Try, try again!

If at first you don't suceed, try, try again. That was pretty much the theme of finding a phoner today for me. I started off trying to contact the Food and Drug Administration about a public hearing they were holding on their policies on salt and salt in food prompted by a letter from sent from a citizens group. I called the main number for the agency but all I got was an endless chain of voice menus and no real person. I then tried the New York state division of the FDA but all I got was a voice mail, all three times I called. I got back on the FDA website and found the number for public relations, but when I called all four representatives were either in the hearing or out of the office. Katie had a back up phoner for me about the public works department in Akron, Ohio using beet juice and salt as a de-icer. I called the Akron public works department, but the manager who knew about the de-icer was at a doctors appointment. Then I called the department of transportation division that Akron is located in and got a voicemail, so I called the the Ohio State Department and got another voicemail. I was running out of time so I called all three again, and the FDA again just to try and got all the same results. I even tried to call Frito-Lay headquarters for their reaction to the public hearing on salt but couldn't get a really person. Finally I checked the run-down to see what other stories we had that I could turn into a phoner. I ended up calling the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerece to get their view on the Syracuse area economy and reaction to the White House's forcast of a poor economy in 2008. I ended up getting good sound about how positive things look for 2008 in Central New York. About ten minutes before we went on air my cell phone started ringing, all three of the people from Ohio called me back in those final minutes.

The Last Time

I covered Thursday Morning Roundtable today where Dominic Robinson (son of football coach Greg Robinson) spoke about the Assisi Movement which he is the director of. Basically the Assisi movement is a new program on the North Side of Syracuse that is aiming to improve the quality of life for the underprivileged.The Assisi movement is part of Franciscan Collaborative Ministries which is "a spiritually-oriented non-profit community renewal organization undertaking various social entrepreneurship initiatives in an effort to revitalize the North Side of the City of Syracuse." (http://www.franciscancm.org/about.php)

Robinson talked about how the new program is unlike charities and community building projects done in the past. The Assisi Movement is a more collaborative project - meaning it is combining the Franciscan Church of Assumption with Catholic charities, hospitals, businesses, and youth programs. Whereas these previous direct community building programs worked independently, the Assisi movement and the Franciscan Collaborative Ministries are bringing all these different organizations together.

I found the discussion very interesting because I had no idea such a comprehensive program in Syracuse existed. The Assisi movement also has programs that train volunteers for a whole year and then puts them in different social service organizations. The FCM recieves grants and federal money, although Robinson said they need more.

I'm also very said this is the last time we are doing a newscast this semester. I had a lot of fun, and learned so much.

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Chill Day

So yeah today was a really relaxed, easy day. It was really easy producing at this point in the semester. We got everything done pretty quickly. Jordan did a great job helping with the writing and made my job easy. The only difficulties I had with the newscast was putting together a rundown. As professor Nicholson noted at the beginning of the day, it's a very slow news day. I felt like I found good stories for the newscast that would keep listeners engaged, the problem was that the stories didn't really connect the way some rundowns do, so we were going from Bin Laden, to new school construction, to a hockey team crash, to Broadway.
Once we were in the booth, Jordan read excellently and things went pretty smooth. We were about 20 seconds over heading to the break, and I realized that was going to happen as I was listening, only I couldn't cut a copy story because we teased them both in the headlines (whoops!). So during the break I tried to help Jordan cut down the weather and kicker. I probably should have taken more out. Also I should have set up a system with Jordan so that I could let her know when the end was coming so she could cut it off. As producer it's definitely my fault that we ran over, but hey, it's a learning experience.

Two years and counting...

school constructio...

I went downtown to The Hotel Syracuse to cover the Joint Schools Construction Board meeting. After almost missing it entirely (since the meeting ended early, and I arrived late), I spoke with Christine Fix, the secretary of the board. She explained to me exactly what was discussed at the meeting and what the board's plans are.

For the past two years, the board has been talking about renovating seven Syracuse schools, including middle schools, high schools, and pre-K through 8th grade schools. The project is supposed to cost about $900 million, but construction hasn't even started yet. She said today's and next Thursday's meeting (the meetings are held every Thursday) are extremely important because the board is almost done picking the architect for the project. Once the architect is picked, designs will be made and construction will begin. She hopes construction will be done in three years.

Fix said they received 57 different proposals from 21 different architecture firms, which is why it's taken so long to decide which firms to use. She says they're trying to use as many different firms as possible for the different schools so construction may begin on all seven schools at the same time. The reason the schools are being renovated, she said, is because many of them are simply outdated. They're in desperate need of a change to improve the "environment" for students. She said some of the schools were built in the 1800s and don't even have windows!

The project seems promising, but like Destiny USA and the Connective Corridor, who knows what will happen?