Iowa State Daily—Seeing the New Newspaper

ISU uses the second floor of this building, located across Lincoln Way from the main part of campus. In my day, that area was called "dog town," although my sons who went to ISU tell me nobody calls it that now.

I was at the Iowa College Media Association meeting in Ames today, and as part of the meeting, got to tour the nice new site of the Iowa State Daily and hear some interesting thoughts from Lawrence Cunningham, the general manager.

The Daily has seen some tough days, and a bit more than a year ago came within a fortnight of folding. Since then, the paper has become a more multi-media organization and has started to gain revenue by selling communication services as a media agency.

It can’t be a development that makes journalists comfortable—but, then again, the world has irrevocably changed, and journalism has to find a way to generate revenue.

People seem hungry for information—but in today’s internet environment, they also expect information to be free. That’s not a sustainable expectation, so the Daily is among the media outlets trying all kinds of new news strategies.

Anyway, the Daily has moved into a new site in a building right across the street from Lake Laverne. It is engaged in a metamorphosis that I’ll watch with eager interest.

Entrance area to ISU Daily part of second floor.

At Mount Mercy, I’m hoping to get the media staff at the MMU Times to adopt a more internet-first strategy. We’ve also used social media, but need to do more in a more consistent, frequent, intentional and controlled manner.

We’re behind the Daily in development—but are inevitably on a similar path. Over the next year, figuring out that path is one of our major challenges.

At least, knock on wood, we aren’t a fortnight from folding. But the world has changed for all media outlets.

Trump? Media Creature Squirms in Media Spotlight

Flag I fly on my front porch. I want America first, too, Donald. It's also my flag.

Much has been written by wiser people about Donald Trump’s surprising rise to presumptive GOP nominee.

It’s been an event I’ve watched with more than a touch of trepidation. Trump seems clearly to be one of the most ill-informed, inexperienced, walking-talking disasters to ever run for president. The established political rules, such as they are, are clearly off in this election cycle, and that creates a clear sense of unease in the media.

Leave behind the trope about the “liberal media,” which was always a bit too simplistic anyway, and is less true in a media landscape where the Wall Street Journal and Fox News are wildly popular. The media indeed have some biases built into them, but the political one isn’t necessarily the most important.

The media in America are creatures of large corporations that are both hated and loved by their employees. Two competing biases can be seen in the media—that business is evil (perhaps reflecting the actual experience of severely underpaid and insecure media employees), and that the only viable, “correct” form of economics is free-market capitalism.

That second economic bias reflects a strong pro status-quo bias in American media that is not always recognized. And some of what is happening in the media now is status-quo panic.

Let me join in. EEEEEK!

Whatever else you can say about Donald Trump, he clearly is not status quo—but not in some coherent, offers-a-clear-alternative, way. Trump is the inarticulate rage candidate, the burn-the-house-down candidate. And while I can understand the impetus for that feeling, its irrational expression doesn’t say anything positive about the body politics’ ability to think clearly.

Take facts, for example. Although people diss Hillary Clinton as being a habitual liar, on political issues and claims, it’s clearly Trump who is the champion liar, and the competition isn’t very close. See the Politifact ratings of both. For Donald Trump, 77 percent of his statements are rated mostly false, false or pants-on-fire lies. For Hillary Clinton, 73 percent of her statements are rated half true, mostly true and true. When Trump talks, you know he lies because his lips are moving. When Hillary Clinton talks, you can easily disagree with her policy positions, but she is usually citing facts, not wild conspiracy theories or internet hoaxes.

I am a bit worried about a Hillary Clinton presidency. The Bill Clinton years, fondly remembered as they are, also featured a dark underside, a Machiavellian political machine that Hillary was a key part of. Its return to power doesn’t fill me with glee. But Clinton, flawed as she is, is not Trump. And Trump is a genuinely dangerous character, a man whose thin skin and shoot-from-the-hip style would be disastrous if he is elected. Clinton may not be the fairy princess, but she does understand government and is a cautious, wily politician. As a president, we’re far better off with a cautious, wily politician than an ignorant egomaniac.

I know, that’s opinion, not fact, but I’m being honest about where I stand.

Trump promotes a false “Americanism” that isn’t really very American at all. And he is partly a media-created creature—a reality TV star whose political rise has been largely fueled by his greatest talent, which is to draw attention to himself. He may be a policy idiot, but he’s a self-aggrandizing genius. He’s a salesman who knows how to suck all of the media oxygen away from anybody else.

And, as the raucous, entertaining and rather scary primary campaigns are now ending, I’m worried that Trump’s media savvy might continue to make up for his total political incompetence. It feels as if a vast portion of the electorate lives in their own internet gated communities, where opposing views and facts are not welcome.

Still, I do take comfort that the future seems so hard to see. When, in May, Trump became the presumptive winner, my sense was that a terrorist attack and/or a Brexit vote to exit the EU would tip the general election in Trump’s favor. Well, thank goodness for the mouth of Trump. He has shown an amazing propensity to do what Democrats usually do—snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

In the wake of Orlando, a terror attack that highlights fears and thus plays to Trump, his self-congratulatory and inarticulate Tweets made him look looney.

In the 1980 election, the rise of Ronald Reagan was foreshadowed by the 1979 rise of Margaret Thatcher in the UK. But in 2016, when old people in the UK voted that young people deserved no sensible European future, and Brexit passed by a narrow margin, fate would have it that Trump was on hand to ignorantly and ignominiously gloat.

In Scotland for the opening of a Trump golf course, he lavishly praised the Brexit vote, seemingly unaware that he was in one of four countries that make up the UK--and in Scotland, the vote was a landslide victory for the EU so large that the Scottish independence movement is suddenly viable again.

And Trump's Brexit Tweet unleashed a Twitter storm. Nobody holds a candle to the Scots when it comes to name calling. Here is a Facebook graphic someone prepared of the Trump descriptions from anti-Trump Tweets that greeted the Donald's Tweet on the Brexit vote.

Not very PC, and not very good as political debate, either--but rather entertaining.

My worry has been that events would play into Trump’s hands. The fall election will probably be close, because the U.S. is a politically divided country and there are two wildly unpopular candidates chosen by our major parties.

Will Trump win? The Brexit vote suggests that a democracy can easily be hijacked by emotion and xenophobia. Perhaps, like the 1979 Thatcher election preceded the 1980 Reagan election, it could happen again.

Happily, there are reasons to think it may not:

• The U.S. electorate is way more diverse than the UK electorate. They are 87 percent white. We’re not. As a white male, I say, hallelujah. Our diversity may save us.
• The Brexit vote was on one issue. Immigration may be our Brexit issue—but it’s not quite as clear how it plays. It’s ironic that the Brits, who 100 years ago ruled a quarter of the world, want to turn away from that world. The U.S. has long been a land of immigrants who are hostile to newer immigrants, but it’s unclear how those competing cultural strains will play out. Important as immigration will be, it’s not the only issue in our election.
• Trump continues to be Trump. The bombastic Donald played well in the primaries, but so far has been a disaster in the general election campaign. Trump's over-active mouth and bad Twitter habits may yet lose the election for him.

Of course, I won’t take too much comfort from the final point. It’s too many months until the fall election, and Trump’s early summer lunacy will be forgotten. Hillary Clinton is savvy, but not always sensitive to her own shortcomings—Democrats have time to revert to form and blow it.

Anyway, has the media itself learned much? I am not sure. In the wake of Orlando and Brexit, the crazy stuff Trump said dominated the news cycles. What did Hillary think? Her post-Orlando speech was way more substantive and intelligent than anything Trump said—and didn’t echo in our current infotainment media environment.

The basic reason for a First Amendment to include freedom of speech and of the press is to promote a marketplace of ideas. I’m afraid that marketplace has degenerated into a carnival of flashy colors, sound and clowns who draw attention away from ideas and instead direct us to our basest fears.

Perhaps I’m wrong. I hope so. I do take comfort in the fact that I’ve been mostly wrong so far in this volatile year. I voted for Sanders in the January Iowa caucuses—I didn’t exactly pick the primary campaign winner. I thought Cruz would probably be the Republican nominee—and it says something when Crazy Ted was the “rational” Republican choice. So perhaps my fears of a close election and a Trump victory are overblown.

I can only hope so. “President Trump” are words I hope I never hear. “President Clinton.” No, those words don’t make me wildly ecstatic. But they don’t convince me that the body politic and the media have gone crazy, either.

Hats Off and On For Graduation 2016

Taylor Zumbach, final graduate of class of 2016, is congratulated by President Laurie Hamen.

The graduation hat, it seems is a new medium of communication.

Not that decorating hats is a brand new idea, but it seemed to really take off this year at Mount Mercy University, which held its 2016 graduation May 22.

Some hats were artistic and interesting.

Samantha Wilson is  under that interesting hat.

Some hats aimed for emotion or humor.

Zane died in a car accident weeks before graduation and memorialized on this hat. Next one aims for humor.

Some hats were id badges or had poignant messages.

"Can you read my hat?" Taylor Zumbach asked. Yes, I could. Other hat is in honor of two basketball players who died in car accidents in recent years.

Some hats sported headlines.

I think this graduate is going to school to become a PA, a physician's assistant. I don't think she is going to Pennsylvania.

Some hats were decorated under the mortar board.

Flowers under the board.

Anyway, I thought graduation went well, as those things go. It is a bit of an ordeal, and the chairs were packed really, really tightly for no discernible reason. The sound system played a bit of havoc, especially with the student speech, which might as well have been in Greek for all that I could make out due to the out of synch audio coming from different spots. Usually, the U.S. Cellular Center has pretty good sound. Not sure what happened this year. I hope I was just in a bad spot, and most people could experience what the speakers were saying.

At Mount mercy, we had our largest graduating class, something that was noted in The Gazette.

Besides the commencement ceremony itself, graduation weekend has lots of symbolic events. There is a nursing pinning, a master’s hooding and an honors convocation.

Some scenes from the honors convocation.

In addition, because MMU is a Catholic school, there is a graduation Mass, which is a nice event that I think is a bit under-attended. It seems to really have an impact on those who go—the blessing of the graduates and the giving of roses at the end is always emotional.

Graduates being blessed and other scenes from graduation Mass.

As a medium of communication, a commencement and it attendant other events is an interesting ritual. It serves many constituencies, which explains why it can get tedious, at times.

I used my extra time partly to shoot images—and one of my former students on Facebook said that mine were better than the official photographer’s. I don’t think that’s true—I was stuck in one spot at the main ceremony and the official crew moved around and got many interesting images from many angles

Maybe it’s a more personal comment, that the student liked my photos of her more than the official ones. That could be more accurate, but then again, the official photographer had close to 600 students to try to record, and I had only a handful that I knew and was watching for, which makes some difference. Also, they were taking hundreds of “graduate standing with the president” portraits—that kind of formal, repetitive image is bound to seem a bit wooden, while I was free to time my photos based on vignettes I wanted to capture.

Also, I can freely choose what to shoot and what to post--I don't have to carry the burden of "official" communication. That, and the fact that I'm senior enough be be sitting in the front row, probably aids my pictures.

Anyway, as I noted, the ceremony inevitably drags, a bit. That says nothing negative about those who planned this year’s event—it’s the nature of the beast. So, I say hats off to the class of 2016 and their classy hats for finding a new bit of bling to bring to this year’s event. A few more images from the graduation ceremony:

A Visit to Morning TV Land

Rachael Faust, promotion coordinator for KGAN/KFXA speaks to Mount Mercy students April 26.

I unfortunately didn’t take her photograph or write down her name (since I didn’t write down anything), but for me a highlight of a tour of KGAN CBS2/KFXA Fox28 in Cedar Rapids was a chat with a news producer.

She explained that her job is mostly to write—and it  highlighted a message I often tell students. In any media work—journalism, PR, web, etc.—there are always writers.

In TV, there are many people behind the scenes who make the programs happen.

MMU CO 120 class tours TV studio. Can you spot the news anchor?

KGAN/KFXA kindly hosted a tour by my Introduction to Journalism class from Mount Mercy on April 26. Rachael Faust, the stations’ promotion coordinator, was our guide. Along the way, morning anchor Kelly D’Ambrosio and morning reporter Stephanie Johnson also chatted with the class.

News Anchor Kelly D'Ambrosio talks in TV studio.

It was, I hope, an eye opening visit for students. For one thing, even a small market TV station is a pretty substantial operation, and that spells opportunity for the motivated student. For another thing, if they listened as I did, they heard many pieces of advice that echo messages Joe has said before: For instance, learn all the media basic skills you can. Know InDesign, PhotoShop and basic video editing. In any communication career, flexible, basic skills are important. That was one message Rachael spoke about.

It was also interesting to speak to all several people whose days begin at 3:30 a.m. New Anchor Kelly was just back from lunch at 10 a.m. when she spoke with my class.

A TV studio looks a little like your crazy Uncle Ed's attic.

It was an interesting tour, and I’m glad that local media companies are willing to allow my students to poke around a bit.

And in a recycling bin in the news studio, I had to show several students the discarded scrips. They were done in split format, video on the left, audio on the right, what is meant to be spoken in ALL CAPS.

It looked just like the format students are using for their current video stories.

Fun with the green wall--Logan, above, and Connor, below, at TV studio.

Seeing the Gazette Again in its New, Old Home

Zack Kucharski, executive editor of The Gazette, speaks with MMU students Thursday.

He wasn’t unexpected—in fact I invited him—but Donald Trump’s appearance wasn’t entirely welcome.

Each spring, my Introduction to Journalism class from Mount Mercy University visits several sites. Thursday was our annual Gazette visit. I usually bike there, but drove this year due to cool, wet weather. We were hosted by Zack Kucharski, executive editor. In addition, we spoke with from Diana Nollen, arts and entertainment writer, and observed a daily meeting of other editors.

In the past, we’ve toured the building and then sat down with Zack and some members of his staff—but The Gazette recently sold KCRG and moved back into its old building, so there is a bit less to see on a tour. No matter, we saw and heard plenty while staying in one room. Zack gave very informative opening remarks. Then Diana came in and shared some anecdotes from her career.

Zack has been with the paper for 16 years, so has quite a memory, but Diana’s history dates back to the year I graduated from college and got my first full-time job as a sports editor for a daily paper in Missouri—1982.

As always, she had interesting anecdotes to share about singers and other celebrities she has interviewed, and some reporting tips for students, such as go ahead and record interviews, but never depend on a recorder. You always need to take notes.

Zack pointed out that you often need those notes not just for when the sound or recording fails, but also to explain the recording—maybe you’ll capture audio of a source saying “this project here is my most complicated work,” and you need the notes to know what she was pointing to when she said “this.”

From www.newseum.org,
 front page of today's paper.

After an interesting chat, the students were allowed to sit in on the morning editors’ news budget meeting. The lively give-and-take was great for students to observe. Afterwards, one of the editors mentioned that things often change in the news business, and it would be a good idea for students to check the Gazette this morning to see how it had evolved from what was discussed.

As it happened, this was not one of those days when a lot changed after the meeting—yet it was kind of cool over my cereal and banana nut bread breakfast this morning to flip through the paper and think, “I remember when they spoke about this story.”

After the meeting, students had an additional chance to ask questions. I posted one to Zack abut Donald Trump—partly, I think, the fact that his campaign manager was charged with assaulting a reporter put the man on my mind, but mostly it’s because Trump supporters seem so deeply distrustful of all the news media.

Zack agreed that the Trump phenomenon represents a challenge to journalists—and a sign that building and keeping trust with the audience is a growing issue. He seemed a bit surprised and taken aback by the whole Trump thing, but I kind of share that same reaction.

Someone shot this man in Reno, just to
watch me cry. commons.wikimedia.org, image of
Trump from Reno, 20156, posted by
Darron Birgenheier on flickr.

Sadly, I neither recorded nor took notes on his thoughtful response, which I should have because it would make this blog post a bit more meaningful.

Anyway, it was, as always, an entertaining visit. I’ve spoken with several students from the class after the fact, and they all seemed to enjoy the visit, too. One of the better writers from the class was just in my office, and, like, me, she really enjoyed sitting in on the meeting, even if she didn’t imagine an action movie. As a class, we’ll debrief at out next session.

So, thanks, once again, Gazette and Zack and Diana. It was fun!

Struggling to Name That Series

Images on this post from National Park Service.

At Mount Mercy University, we’re getting a minor lesson in the importance of names. In an earlier post, I wrote of my disdain for the president of Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland—and recently, a fellow faculty member at my university posted a link to a news story reporting that the embattled president of Mount St. Mary’s has been drowned and shot with a Glock. Or something like that.

Right away, one of his Facebook friends posted: “Oh No! I had no idea this was going on at your university.” (That’s a paraphrase, by the way, despite the punctuation for effect.)

Well, it was neither my friend’s university nor mine. Although both the Maryland university where the controversy rages and the Iowa university where I teach are Catholic and use the word “Mount” in their name, they are totally different schools—different places, different cultures, different presidents and differing in attitude, apparently, about the appropriateness of drowning or shooting freshman bunnies.

It was ironic to me that, when looking up news stories about the Maryland University while I was working on the earlier post, the ads that Google placed on my page were for Mount Mercy University, my school. Maybe name confusion isn’t that surprising.

Anyway, the school that I do teach at, MMU, has an annual Fall Faculty Series that I volunteered to coordinate. This is our third series: The first in 2014 was about the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I; the second in 2015 was about the 50th and 40th anniversaries of the first big U.S. troop surge in Vietnam, and the end of that war.

You can partly thank Donald Trump, or Drumpf as I prefer to think of him (thank you, John Oliver): In this current election year, immigration is a hot topic. We are planning a series of panels and presentations on the cultural meaning of immigration—how people of the U.S. have responded to the reality that most of us are descendants of immigrations, and yet as a culture we often don’t welcome new outsiders.

“Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses … as long as they aren’t Muslim and we know exactly what’s going on,” or something like that.

Anyway, the Sisters of Mercy, who founded MMU and have nothing to do with that other Mount on the East Coast, identify “immigration” as one of their critical social concerns.

Although I’m sure our series will reference the current heated political debate, that’s not really the point. We want to think a bit more about what immigration has meant and does mean in American culture.

And to do that, we need to name this thing.

At the first planning meeting, those who attended wanted to talk first about the vision of the series, which is, I think, a good discussion to have.

Here is my stab at a vision statement for the series: “The United States has always been a land that drew people from many cultures and countries. During waves of immigration in the 19th Century the idea of America as the ‘melting pot’ formed, but this metaphor implies giving up a cultural heritage for a new identity. For some groups and people, it’s not that easy to assimilate, and some suggest a mosaic or a salad—many distinct parts making a whole—as more inclusive symbols of the U.S.A. And there are those who lived here before the settlers, pioneers and slaves flooded onto these shores—Native Americans didn’t have to go anywhere for an immigrant nation to overtake their lands. What does immigration mean? What is the journey narrative of the peoples of the U.S.A., and how do we respond to and understand immigration? The 2016 Mount Mercy University Fall Faculty Series will examine these questions about the American experience.”

There is nothing official about that vision statement—it’s just my current thinking, my personal draft. I post it here mostly so you, dear blog reader, can understand when I ask you to “name that series” just what the series is.

Anyway, faculty, students and staff at the first meeting did have some ideas for names. What do you think? What should we call this series? Some of our initial ideas:

• “Who are the Americans? The U.S. Immigration Experience.”
• “Immigration America: Shunning or Embracing the Huddled Masses.”
• “I am America: U.S. Immigration Experience.”
• “U.S.A.: Immigrant Melting Pot or Mosaic?”
• “Strangers to our Shores: The U.S. Immigration Story.”
• “Building Walls And Building Bridges: The U.S. Immigration Experience.”

I’m not sure that’s an all-inclusive list, and at this point I welcome new ideas. But, I would like to get a name for this series soon.

Please chime in, as long as your ideas have neither bunnies nor Glocks in them.

Saying Goodbye to Scout

From New York Times, publisher's image of covers of Harper Lee's two novels.

If Truman Capote was the model for Dill, that would make Harper Lee Jean Louise Finch.

Well, goodbye, Scout. You lived life on your own terms. In an era of self-aggrandizing celebrity, it’s nice to recall a successful writer who preferred a more graceful, private life. From the obituaries I’ve read, you were not Boo Radley—you were never holed up, away from the world, you were not a recluse—but you preferred not to deal endlessly with reporters.

From New York Times:
Donald Uhbrock/The LIFE Images Collection,
via Getty Images, Lee and her dad, 1961.

I was a reporter, once, and I’m glad I was never assigned to do a story about you. But then again, you did media interviews in the wake of publishing “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and some time in the 1960s decided it was enough.

As a journalist, I almost feel guilty saying it. But, good for you.

Your second book did not touch me as your first one did. And I know some school kids forced to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” in class don’t enjoy it much. But for me, it was one of the defining books of my childhood.

It was a book I read that I did not have to read. And as a boy, I was quickly smitten by Scout.

There is something about a strong, fearless, honest female voice.

Last night, not knowing that sad news would come today from Alabama, I watched “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” for the first time—not the movie, but the first few episodes of the late 1990s TV show.

Man, it’s odd to look back at 1996. The “net” was something cool and new that a computer hacker used, but not a librarian. Factually, I think that’s false—I was using the net in a university library in 1989—but it’s still an interesting cultural artifact of its time.

Most of all, I was surprised at how much I liked Buffy. There’s a wry sense of humor there, a cute snide commentary on what life in a high school or a California town is “like” even if no town is actually a Hell Mouth.

While Buffy isn’t exactly Scout, and the librarian isn’t exactly Atticus Finch, I do see some parallels.

Most of all, tough girls rule.

We’ll miss you, Harper Lee, even if we’ll also always have you. Maybe only one of your books will be of enduring fame, but then again, what a book. Life was slower then. Yet, when we want to, we can always get back to Maycomb.