31 March 2009

Insanity v. Brainwashing

One of the first things that I did after sitting down today was browse a little for an interesting story to comment on. Lucky for me, the first headline I saw not only provides adequate material for this endeavor, it also is such a story that I think everyone will be able to join me in a little

"WHAT?"

How about everyone takes a moment to look at the story about a Maryland mother who joined a cult and starved her son to death? Here are a couple of different versions:

CNN,
Washington Post,
Associated Press.

It's difficult for so many reporters to get the same story differently, but just in case you don't like one organisation, well, there you go.

What I would like to know is, how are we defining insane nowadays? I was talking about this "event" with the head copy editor, and we were trying to decide if this lady was really insane or not. My first impulse is to maintain that while I wouldn't necessarily say that the woman is insane (I go more for brainwashed), I believe this "Queen Antoinette" person probably is insane. I mean, who else would take on a name like that? Not to mention convince her followers that a member's baby was a demon because he wasn't old enough to handle saying "Amen" after meals...

On the other hand, "insanity" seems to have a much broader definition than I had previously thought, according to Merriam-Webster's Online Medical Dictionary:
Main Entry: in·san·i·ty
Pronunciation: in-primarystresssan-schwat-emacron
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
1 : a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder (as paranoid schizophrenia)
2 : unsoundness of mind or lack of the ability to understand that prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or that releases one from criminal or civil responsibility

Some officials are saying that Ms. Ramkissoon is not, in fact, insane; and I would like to agree with them. However, can insanity be taught, as through being brainwashed? Isn't that what brainwashing is? Creating a "severely disordered state of the mind"? Maybe that's the reason they're still sentencing her, because of the ambiguity of the definition.

If this is how the dictionary defines "brainwashing":
Main Entry: brain·wash·ing
Pronunciation: primarystressbramacrn-secondarystresswodotsh-ieng, -secondarystresswäsh-
Function: noun
: a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas

Then perhaps it really is possible to induce insanity, if the "contrasting regimented ideas" mess so much with a person's head that it is impossible for them to understand things going on around them. Read that as saying: That it is impossible for them to understand that murder, no matter what sort of resurrection you're waiting for, is wrong.

Is forced homicide insanity or brainwashing? And does it matter?

25 March 2009

A list of amusing things

It's rather amusing:

1. When I use spellcheck on Quark, it wants to change internet addresses that end in ".org" to "orgy."

2. Hearing a reporter on her phone behind me ask a source, "So...let me get this right: The dog was just sitting on the floor?"

3. Being able to hit the keys for spellcheck (Shift+Option+Apple+L) all with fingers on my right hand.

4. Watching Eric Bellamy, one of the photographers, pantomime Salazar's signature (read: only) photo pose. "What's that? A photographer? I must put my foot up on this chair, lean forward, and tip up the brim of my cowboy hat. And smile."

5. Reading the "Good News/Bad News" article in the business section of the Tribune for tomorrow's paper. It lists all the good things that are taking place in the economy, and then reminds us how the numbers are still worse than forty years ago.

6. Hearing that same advertising girl from last night still complaining about her life. Did you know that her biggest pet peeve is people who leave dishes in the sink? I do, now.

7. Finding out about The Greeley Report. They tout themselves as the Tribune's even-handed competitor. Half of the copy desk didn't even know they existed until five minutes ago.

8. Watching hockey on the TV across the desk but only being able to hear the sound from the Leno show from the TV on the sports desk.

9. Getting to work on my first-ever wire page! OK, so Ryan sat next to me and guided me through a good chunk of it, but I still put most of it together myself! And worked on trimming stories by myself!

10. How excited I am to work on a single page (A5, check it out in tomorrow's Tribune), even though it took me about two hours. So...much....reading.....

24 March 2009

Tick-Tock Clickety Klack

I am such an amazing person. I'm spending my spring break....at work!
OK, so I'm not spending the entire break here, I'm just doing the same number of hours at the desk as any other week while all of my peers are lounging on the beach and pretending that they don't have papers to write and textbooks to read.

I can't pretend. Life moves too quickly for me to forget about those papers. Oh well.

Time has really been flying by tonight; that is, up until about two minutes ago, when I caught up to everyone else at the desk. I started out earlier doing some editing for a project called "Panorama," a review of really awesome Weld County residents who spend a good chunk of their time volunteering and just generally helping other people. There are about 15-20 profiles in the whole conglomeration, and while the pages were done being put together, Ryan needed me to check styles and stuff and fix a couple of headlines.

It took almost two hours. That's the only reason it takes so long to put together a newspaper (ignoring, of course, the fact that you have to research stories. Psh, who researches stories, anyway? Kidding, kidding...); we spend so much time clicking between programs, checking photographers' names, reporters' names, cutlines, frames on the photos, page numbers, jumps.....that's not even the entire list!

And then, right after I finished that project, I had four pages to check the copy on. And now...silence. Hallelujah. About an hour ago, it was anything but silent, and oh man, I was about to go crazy with Theresa's stapler. Or the phonebook. Something heavy. One of the girls from the little advertising (at least, I think that's what it is) area was on her phone for a good half of an hour complaining to who-knows-who about someone telling her to fix things but not being specific.

I can still hear her whining voice in my head. One of the copyeditors (I won't divulge his or her name) sitting across from me slapped his/her fingers down in front of her keyboard at one point, growled, "That's it, I can't take it any more," and pulled his/her earbuds out of his/her pen drawer/purse. So much for no personal calls at work.

So, yes, this silence is golden, for it is the simple non-silence of a newsroom at work. I've come to love this, hearing at least two or three different TV channels on, along with the police scanner, and people clicking their mice and tapping on their keyboards like rain falling on a skylight. It's funny what sorts of sounds become soothing for you once you get used to them. I used to hate my alarm clock--it tick-tocked so loudly at night that I almost went insane the first two weeks I owned it. Now that I use my cellphone as an alarm, I still leave my old alarm clock on my bedside table. The battery is dying and it never stays on the correct time, but the constant clicking of the minute and hour hands somehow reminds me to relax.

Or maybe the clock is creepier than I think. Maybe it's just saying, "I'm-Watch-Ing-You. I'm Watch-Ing-You." Great. Now I have a stalker alarm clock.

I've run out of projects to do. Two and a half hours left in my "day" and now I can only sit and wait for someone to finish something so that I can look at it. I'm still not cool enough to do much besides putting together the obits page, writing brief headlines, and making minor changes to pages. Someday, someday. I must be getting tired: I just spent a good thirty seconds poking my fingers into Theresa's squisky wrist rest. Wow.

I'm sorry I'm not very copyedit-y tonight. I really thought I would be, since I don't hate being here. But sometimes I pull up my blog page, place my fingertips on the keyboard, and can't think of a single new thing to say. Time it takes to put together pages? Check. Sounds and environment? Check. Current project status? Check.

I could give a play-by-play of the women's basketball game that's going on on the TV across from me. That is, I could do that if I knew the rules of basketball. Now, if it were a soccer game, that I could do. In class last week, the girl next to me was watching a NCAA game on a live feed on her laptop (No, she wasn't supposed to be doing that. That's rude to the teacher. And very distracting, of course), and the guy sitting next to me nudged my shoulder and told me to whisper him the play-by-play in French.

Not until this moment did I realize how creepy that sounded. Interesting. Anyway, I laughed. I don't know any French sports terms, which is too bad. I should have paid better attention. Or maybe sportscasters should stop using "GO-AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!" as a word for every language.

19 March 2009

On building a page

No, the paper's not going under; but apparently Greeley's mayor does hope that it folds, just as the Rocky Mountain News crumpled a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't look like anything like that will happen to the Trib any time soon, so I guess Mayor Ed Clark will have to wait a while before it happens.

I wish I had been at the Trib for a longer period of time (maybe I should be careful what I say, hm?), so that I could offer a better perspective on all of this. Clark says that the Tribune is biased and hates him and is no good for the city as a whole. Well, ok. The newspaper, I am beginning to discover, does lean a little to the liberal side, at least in terms of what stance the editorial pages take. One of the copydesk people said today that if there's anything we've done wrong in relation to the Mayor and reporting on him, it's that we haven't reported on enough good things that he's made happen in City Council meetings.

Yet, I wonder, how many of those things are there? I have no idea. People have no idea exactly how much goes into making a newspaper. It's insane. Just building a page, for a complete beginner like me, takes about an hour. It's probably safe to say that when you know exactly what you're doing, it probably takes about half of an hour. But then, there are so many pages to put together, and that's only putting them together. That's not planning on the advance stories, the surprise briefs and wire stories from around the nation.

You know, there's a huge running list of mini articles compiled by The Associated Press and some other news organizations that details, minute-by-minute, what's happening around the world? And when we put pages together, we don't look at those lists first? First the ads go on the page--newspapers are, after all, built on advertising--and then we format the articles and all the things that might go with them. You may have heard about "new media" and "alternative story forms" if you have a journalistic background. "New media" really just means using the internet to its full potential (videos, photos, sound clips); "alternative story forms" means that editors are suddenly realizing that people are bored with normal inverted pyramid writing styles.

There are even studies proving that when the page is pretty, and uses pulled-out quotes and boxes with condensed information, the reader retains more information. What a surprise. But when you use all these separate boxes, they take up even more room. So it's only after all the fancy, "necessary" stuff is on the page that we look for what we call "filler."

"Filler" isn't bad, it isn't ostracized. It is, on the other hand, filler. If we happen to have a little space left on the page, there's a sort of backlog of information that we go to in order to fill the spot. Since Greeley is such a locally-focused paper, the short articles (briefs) used for filler are usually national and international issues.

This list of filler.....is huge. The amount of information out there is amazing. It astounds me. And even the bigger newspapers don't use half of it. Why not? Space? I actually don't know. The internet can hold just about anything. Maybe that's the problem.

17 March 2009

Even more to remember

Even more to remember and think about. I think that's the pseudo-description I would give the past 12 hours. The day began, like most Tuesdays, much earlier than I wanted it to. Why a Journalism class can't just meet by videofeed is beyond me. That would be amazing. Just stay in bed, turn on my laptop, and participate online. Sounds like "new media" to me.

I'm only half joking.

Our guest speaker today was Peter Eichstaedt, author of First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resisance Army. He's been working as a freelance reporter for many years, and currently works for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in The Hague, Netherlands. Obviously, he has spent a lot of time in Africa.

What struck me once again was the underlying theme of most journalists admitting that not enough reporting is done in the world. "Everyone knows about Darfur," Eichstaedt said at one time, just before stating that no one really knows about the fighting going on in Northern Uganda. While that is true, I would also like to point out that until a year or two ago, no one I knew had any idea that Darfur was experiencing genocide. I hope this doesn't mean that it's only a matter of time before people know about it and produce a long-reaching outcry.

Only after I knew what to look for, did I find anything. This, while seeming to be an obvious statement, shows how little information there is about the subject. CNN.com has current stories listed for Darfur, Madagascar and Zimbabwe. BBC.com mentions Madagascar, Darfur, Gambia, Nigeria, Uganda...Perhaps the most amusing thing is that on cnn.com right now, the most popular story to view is "Actress Richardson Hurt Skiiing." Or is that not funny at all? I'm sorry, my news judgment seems to be fading.

Maybe I'm just biased. I should give the American press another chance to prove itself. Perhaps it's the economy. CNN and ABC can't afford anymore to send good reporters to the middle of nowhere. Those poor companies, they probably don't even have enough to give out bonuses!

I am, however, heartened by the attention Africa is getting since the pope is in town. Not everyone may agree on his views on lifting the ban on condoms in Africa, but the way I see it, the more attention African countries get from nations who are not themselves enduring genocide and child soldiers, the better.

Here's an idea: All those bonuses? Let's send them to African children. Pay for health care, education, clean water and healthy food. Get the countries devastated by the innappropriately-drawn boundaries of colonization back on their feet.

05 March 2009

Recording the records

I got to take my first shot at designing pages today!

WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Like I pseudo-prophesied on Tuesday night, I forgot almost everything that Sandra showed me during our little learning session. Well, let me be a little more specific. I remembered most of it, meaning that I remembered that it happened and I remembered what to do once something happened; but as for opening certain templates...

I wasn't too great at that part. To add to the difficulty, the page I got apparently had a very strange ad stack (the composition of the advertisements) on it. I'm not familiar enough with ads and how they usually look to be able to know how weird it was, but in the end, Sandra had to help me out with making things fit (ie. adding some filler).

That's another thing that makes it hard for interns -- one of the things you learn while becoming a veteran at a paper is where everything is. I, only having been here since late January, know where almost nothing is. It took me about forty-five minutes to do the obits page earlier, but the biggest reason for that was my wandering around the editorial folders trying to remember where templates and mugs were. Yeah, I know, it would be a lot easier and a lot faster to simply ask.

But if I don't figure it out myself, or get made a fool of in the process, I won't remember anything. That's why I will always remember where to find the initial pages, which have the ad stacks on them and are just waiting for stories and pictures. I tried to find it for about six minutes, then I gave out a little sigh and asked. Theresa came over, set her hand on the mouse, and showed me where to find it. She did it very kindly, and without any sarcasm or teasing.

I still felt silly.

On the other hand, I'm pretty happy with myself for having been able to manage most of the rest of the page. I just kept reminding myself that it was the first time I'd ever used Quark, and the first time I'd ever created a page for a working newspaper. I may never have all of the magic keystrokes memorized, but at least I can figure things out the long way!

In other news, I recognize everybody's initials now, so after I've given a first or second look to a page, I know who should be looking at it next. I know where the box is to put pages to be read, and I'm finally getting the hang of how far apart things need to be on the page. There's actually quite a long list of things I now feel very comfortable with, save a single thing.

Remember how I hated getting to work before the building closed at 5 p.m.?

Go figure that last week, the Tribune changed its opening hours to finish at 4:30 p.m. Now, no matter what time I get here, I have to ring the doorbell. At least nothing funny happens when I press on the little white rectangle. I just have to stand and wait for a kind person to get up from their desk and open the doors for me from the inside. I wonder how long it'll be before they're so tired of getting up for the interns that they just decide to get keys made for us.

Nevermind, that will probably never happen. It's not on the same priority list as getting a gas stipend (which I have gotten, thank you, God). I suppose I will just have to keep ringing the bell and smiling sweetly when someone comes to get me.

03 March 2009

Moving forward (?) to whiteness

I have learned a lot of things today.

I'm afraid that I won't remember any of them tomorrow.

That's how I'll forever think about my first day of training to use Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. I've used all but Illustrator before, but it's been a while.

Maybe I should mention now that I have earned the right to begin to learn page design (cue the cheers). I know my lack of exclamation points may be deceiving, but I really am very excited. This evening I spent a couple of hours watching Sandra design and asking her lots of questions.

It seems easy enough. I mean, besides the point that everything she could do, she did at breakneck speed, and had to stop every once in a while and undo what she had done so that I could see the process. Even then, holy canoli, there are so many keystrokes. Let's see...there's...AppleEKLOptionAltFunction48AppleApple Pear Fruitcake. Yes. Fruitcake.

Like I said, I'm afraid I'm not going to remember any of it tomorrow. Luckily, this doesn't seem to phase me. I know that no matter how many times someone tells me where to find the library of editorial templates, I'm never going to remember it alone until I'm sitting in front of my computer, staring into the abyss of the screen. Sometimes inspiration strikes, and I suddenly remember which database to search to find (ie.) the correct mug shots. Other times, I spend such silent moments contemplating the least plaintive way to ask for help.

But I am nearly thrilled for Thursday now, the day Sandra said I get to put together the obits page.
It doesn't sound nearly as interesting and cool when I type it out like that. The obits page is definitely a special page. It's the page seasoned designers feel safe giving to the intern, if that says anything else about it. If you're not familiar with what you're doing, it could take a very long time to do. You have to give different styles to each of the following: names, ages/residences, first paragraphs....etc. Other pages are easier to do; you only have a couple of stories to format. But the obits page can get up to five or six stories (depending on length), and that means you end up doing a lot of highlighting and clicking on formatting styles.

I didn't do a very good job of describing the monotony and difficulties, but they do exist, I promise you. It should be interesting to see how long it takes me to put together a page that takes Sandra about ten minutes to do. One hour? Half of an hour?
------------------------------------
"Time for news!"

That's something my grandpa says when we're at my grandparents' apartment and my grandpa decides he's tired of watching Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends or What Not To Wear. I wish I could do the voice, but I can't. Just picture an 85-year old Dutch man trying to be mischievous and sneaky, and you can do without the voice.

And it is time for news. I've been doing research for a French project, which I'm presenting tomorrow afternoon, and I've discovered something very alarming. Currently in the class, we're reading Frantz Fanon's Peau noire, masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks). The chapter I'm focusing on is titled "La femme de couleur et le blanc" (The Woman of Color and the White Man).

Fanon's objective was to see if real love can exist between a black woman and a white man, considering all the history that moves to keep them separate. I started my research with nearly the same objective, but I wanted to focus on how badly some black women wanted to be white.

I know most of you don't read or speak French, but here is one site that just amazes me. I unfortunately can only figure out how to translate it from the google.fr search page, but hopefully some of you others will be successful. The article even mentions Fanon and his book.

On another site, I found a statistic saying that today, 20% of people of African descent living in the Parisian area try to whiten their skin. Products used range from acne medication to steroids. Fanon says it stems from an inferiority complex, and all I can think about is Michael Jackson and plastic surgery.

The most interesting thing, for me, is that all I have to do to find information in French is enter (in French) the words "whiten the skin." Almost everything after that includes news sources, random blogs, articles... almost everything is directed at black women and the effort they put into lightening their skin.

On the other hand, when I do the search in English, I have to say "black women who whiten their skin" to get any results even minutely related to what I want. There were a few entries at first on yahoo.answers.com of fair-skinned women looking to have the classic translucent white skin, and I suppose that IS nearly what I was looking for, but I feel like it had less to do with inferiority and more to do with beauty images.

Maybe I'm wrong about that last statement, but it just makes me so sad that women would do this to themselves. Here's an article from the British paper The Guardian. I think this is probably the best English article I've found about the issue. It borders between a rant and a serious article, I feel, but I believe it's very pertinent.

Also, this video from ABC looks like it should be really good (I can't watch it with the sound on). I'll have to look at it tomorrow morning before my presentation.