The University of Blog

My schedule includes the wonderful absence of class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is one of the best scheduling decisions that I’ve made in my college career. Also, I don’t start until nine or ten. On Wednesdays, I had my Intermediate Writing class. I am really excited. I am going to learn about long form, narrative journalism and it will have an arts focus. We will get information on characters, dialog and development of a story. This is a perspective that so far, I have not received from any of my journalism classes. It will be a lot of work, but it is worth it. For the first time in a long time, I am actually excited about a journalism class.

Welcome back Mizzou students. It’s  really exciting to see all of the freshman still carrying their Mizzou maps. Thinking about the fact that I was there two years ago made me feel kind of old. I’ve had a lot of great experiences in those two years, and it’s fun to see all of the new students.

I went to the new Reynolds Journalism Institute. What a building! I will be having class in the futures lab which is  a multimedia newsroom. The building is unparalleled. I am just happy that it is finally done in time for the centennial. My convergence class met there, and it will be exciting. I will be spending time in two newsrooms– Kbia a well as Current TV or the Columbia Missourian. I am excited to do some individual reporting as well as editing and producing.

My other two classes today were Hispanic Lit II and Communications Law. Spanish will be challenging since we will have a lot of essays and in class paper. It seems like my professor knows a lot about analyzing literature, which will be an interesting perspective. Com Law will include a lot of studying, which is totally manageable. For now, I’ll know more about my workload a week or two into classes. So we’ll see.

I am completing my last week at KBIA, NPR affiliate, this week. I have really enjoyed my time there. I am thinking that I would like to work there as part of my editing class next semester. Just the atmosphere is greatly different from KOMU (the NBC affiliate). It has a laid-back nature, but everyone is working on what they need to. It is a smaller newsroom with more opportunities to work on stories. In the coming months, I would like to work on longer-form stories with tons of natural sound.
Yesterday I worked on a story out of Boonville about a development issue. It was more complicated than most stories that I work on just because I have no background knowledge of development issues. I read a previous article 3 times to try to comprehend the issues. A reporter needs to know about a lot, or at least learn how to understand… I LEARNED how to understand more about development. Listen to it here

I love public radio. I have always loved public radio from listening to Morning Edition before school to Car Talk on Saturday Mornings. The dial was always tuned into NPR, and I continue to love it and wake up to it. That is why I was super excited for my shift at KBIA as part of the convergence reporting class.

The first shift, I worked on a day turn story. The most challenging part was figuring out how to record a phone conversation on the phones. It is fairly simple if you push record. I didn’t. Needless to say, I had to do the interview again. Not the most pleasant experience, but good for me to learn. I feel like I learn by mistakes more than anything else.

Also, I pitched another idea about the volunteers for True/False Film Festival and was able to work on it. The most important thing about this class is coming up with solid story ideas (and a lot of them). I really enjoyed working on this story and talking to the volunteers. I got some killer natural sound (nat sound as they say in the radio world) and some interesting characters to highlight. The piece turned out well. Give it a listen.

I completed my last KOMU shift. It was so much better than spending ten hours on a flash graphic. I went out with a reporter for what was originally going to be a salt truck ride-along. It turned out that on route WW, a salt truck actually turned over and we went to cover that—in the ice storm. It was very cold to say the least. My photos suffered because of it. I learned first hand that I do not want to be a spot-news reporter. I would love to work in the television medium, just not with regards to broadcast news.

Once I could feel my fingers again, I wrote a story for KOMU.com and edited the photos.
And I am very glad that I am done with my news shift this week. Free time for me at last.

Last night, I completed my first shift at KOMU. For the convergence sequence, we have to complete shifts at each of the news stations and KOMU was the first one. It was a complete learning experience. Mondays are generally slow news days (compared to today when both Edwards and Huckabee are coming to Jefferson City to campaign). Thus, I searched and asked producers and news directors what I should work on for KOMU.com.
Once I had an idea of what they needed (a map tracing Edwards’ and Huckabee’s campaign, I was set. Or so I thought. When I got there at 1 p.m., there was a news meeting at 1:30 and it was not until 2:30 that I got my assignment. I worked on a map in Flash from 2:30 until 11 p.m. It was quite daunting and I am not even sure if they will use it, but it was a good exercise in Flash. And just being in the newsroom gave me a good feeling for what it is like at a broadcast station.

The beginning of the semester started with a bang. It is always overwhelming to look at a semester’s work from the beginning. Receiving syllabuses in each class and discussing tests, papers and work can be challenging to keep into perspective. However, I am trying to keep my schedule in perspective.

First of all, my Tuesdays and Thursdays will be manageable. I have one class (History of American Journalism and the starting time is 12:30. History of American Journalism is a required class for Journalism majors and will cover the history and trends of modern Journalism.

However, my MWF will be harder. I start at 8 a.m. I have never before had a class this early. On my walk to class, the street was empty. And cold. Today I had my Convergence Reporting class. This will probably take the most time. We rotate among the three news stations (KBIA, KOMU and The Missourian). My first shift will be at KOMU next week. Every other week we will work on group projects. I am looking forward to seeing the inner workings of all the newsrooms.

I went to a one-man show Wednesday night and wrote an article for my news class about it:

The audience gasped, clapped and laughed as they traveled on Fosberg’s journey of self-discovery.
Freelance actor Fosberg opened his one-hour, one-man show “Incognito” Wednesday night at Jesse Hall. The show presents issues of race and identity against a sparse set and asks the audience to confront those issues.
After spending 32 years in a white middle-class family, Fosberg began to search for his biological father. His journey ended with the discovery that his father was black.
“I grew up white, thinking I was white and found out that I’m not,” Michael Sidney Fosberg said.
His play chronicles the experiences of finding and meeting his new family. He plays himself and 12 other characters.
Fosberg began touring schools two years after the show opened in Chicago in 2001. The number of schools that he visits has doubled every year since then.
What started as a one man show has become a cross-country journey of identity and race issues for Fosberg, who is always on the quest, as well as the audience who may just be learning about these issues.
“I make my living to provoke profound discoveries about race,” Fosberg said. “I feel like I’m really contributing by provoking questions about race. It is those moments that I love what I do.”
When Fosberg reveals the truth about his ethnicity, the audience is introduced to complicated issues of identity, race and stereotypes.
“It is at that point that people start to look at me differently,” Fosburg said. “People start to look for signs, and at the end of the show, I confront people. Perhaps there is a different way to look at race. I challenge people on those issues.”
Fosburg created a one-man play around his experiences to provoke profound discoveries about race. After reading aloud excerpts from his unfinished book, audience reactions influenced Foster to take his story to the stage.
With the support of the Mizzou Alumni Association, Counseling Center and Division of Student Affairs sponsored the event.
“It brought a greater awareness of identity,” junior Devona Moore said. “To find out who you are is difficult when you are from two different ethnic backgrounds.”
Counseling Center Psychologist Anne Meyer said the center helped bring this program to campus because it speaks to the university’s mission of diversity.
“I was so blown away by his story,” Meyer said. “Identity is such a complex topic, and it is performed in such an engaging way to challenge your own thoughts on who you are.”
Foster raises unanswered questions and opens the discussion about race by using his personal story as a springboard.
“What if we could be entertained and think about society,” Fosberg says about his performance. “I want people to have a good time and be provoked about questions of race and stereotypes.”
One member of the audience asked how Fosberg’s life has changed as a result of doing the show.
“My life has become richer and fuller,” Fosberg said. “I am in a place to provoke change.”

Goodness, what a busy day!

It began with my News Writing lab course. We started with a classmate interview and our story is due on Thursday. It will be a lot of hands-on work, but that is the best way to learn. That is the definition of the “Missouri Method.” Then, I had my Fundamentals of TV, Radio and Photojournalism class. I will begin researching three story ideas that I will spend a majority of the class exploring. Then I had my Introduction to Film Analysis class and we discussed Mise en scene (everything that goes on in the film) in The Graduate.

Also, I filled out my paperwork for my new job at Sycamore, a contemporary American restaurant. I will begin as a busser and go from there. I will be there every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. This means that I will need to record Grey’s Anatomy and be an avid multitasker (which I am anyway).

Today was my first day and I am ready to start the semester!

My first class was in the maze of Lafferre. I think that my Advanced Spanish Composition class will be really worthwhile. A lot of Spanish reading, but at least it will be an opportunity to improve my Spanish skills. I am pursuing a Spanish minor to give me a few more options in journalism.

The next class I had was my humanities course, The Ancient Era through the Honors College. I think it will be really satisfying learning more about Virgil, Plato, Aristotle and Homer because it seems like so much is based off of the Greeks. The humanities course is similar to a “Great Books” course. After that I had a mini- break until my News Writing lecture where we discussed the importance of news.

My last class of today was my Introduction to Film Analysis. We watched The Graduate and tomorrow we will discuss it. Tomorrow I will know more about how my semester will look. I do, however, know it will be busy!