My artist statement refers to the skies, quoting Willa Cather. I don't know how you can live in the Great Plains and not be enthralled.
And like others, terrified. Like my blogging friend Alan Bates of Tulsa http://www.yogis-den.com/ I was "thrown for a loop" by this weeks' storm...silenced, and depressed. Only by going back to what I know--media and teaching and art, could I finally try to write something of relevance. Then Nathan Gunther of Oklahoma Today, one of my editors, wrote this piece for CNN. Nathan nails it. Read it.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/21/opinion/gunter-okies-tornadoes/index.html?sr=sharebar_facebook
Thursday, May 23, 2013
The blog at 104
I'm pretty good at geography, but I had to look this one up to make sure...
Mauritius...in the Indian Ocean, 1,200 miles east of Madagascar. For some reason, someone from that pleasant little island clicked in.
Here's what I found out...
The island was uninhabited when discovered in 1507 by the Portuguese.It was the only home of the Dodo bird, which went extinct in 80 years. The Dutch settled it in 1598 and abandoned it in 1710. The French took over in 1715, renaming it Isle de France, and imported African slaves to run the sugar plantations. After Napoleon, the British took over, and abolished slavery in 1835, paying landowners two million pounds for the loss of slaves. They then imported a half million indentured workers from India to work ...gotta have slave labor, even if you call it minimum wage.
Thanks for visiting reader, and introducing me to another place in the world.
Tornadoes and media critics
Disasters, whether natural like our tornadoes and hurricanes like Sandy, or man-made, like Newtown, 911, or the OKC bombing, cause an eruption of instant and continuing media coverage. And immediately also, a deluge of media criticism.
That's how it should be.
My students, and social media like Facebook, are almost instantly alive with discussions, mostly negative, with how media, especially TV, is covering what has happened. It is the most likely lightning rod, though increased use of social media, especially twitter, also comes under attack, usually for inaccuracy and insensitively.
I'm no exception, and two days after the tornadoes simply could not watch. I'm usually ranting and raving about broadcast peoples use of words, like "violent tornado." (Ever see a non-violent tornado?) And I cringe even more as the event wears on about interviewing little children, and asking parents stupid questions with no regard for their situation. The demands of the minute-to-minute news cycle is much to blame of course, and in disasters, much early information becomes inaccurate because of the chaos involved. It's not a lot different than pre-digital times, only in much more quantity and much more obvious.
Much of this comes from my association and work with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma http://dartcenter.org/ which tries to train journalists on how to work with victims and to help journalists with PTSD. This relationship began following the OKC bombing when we received a grant to start a Victims and Media course at UCO. It continues today. And we've held workshops to help journalists as well. Check out their site. The Moore tornado is at the toe of their page.
So I'm super sensitive, but contrary to much media criticism today, mine is not politically oriented. Following disasters like ours, politics have no place, and everybody in the state knows it, I hope.
That's why I could praise a national Fox news journalist Shepard Smith, for his solemn, calming narrative about the tragedy the first and second day. No hyperbole, no yucky emotions or trite sayings. Good journalism always stands out.
I also continue to contend that local newspapers are critical to coverage in these times. I see that in Oklahoma this week, saw it in New Orleans in Katrina, after 911, in OKC after the bombing, and in many other places. They give people a source, an assurance that there is still a normal world, a standard of hope and humanity that victims can cling to in their devastated communities.
So while we're all media critics, and usually negative, tragedies like this bring out the best in journalism as well.
That's how it should be.
My students, and social media like Facebook, are almost instantly alive with discussions, mostly negative, with how media, especially TV, is covering what has happened. It is the most likely lightning rod, though increased use of social media, especially twitter, also comes under attack, usually for inaccuracy and insensitively.
I'm no exception, and two days after the tornadoes simply could not watch. I'm usually ranting and raving about broadcast peoples use of words, like "violent tornado." (Ever see a non-violent tornado?) And I cringe even more as the event wears on about interviewing little children, and asking parents stupid questions with no regard for their situation. The demands of the minute-to-minute news cycle is much to blame of course, and in disasters, much early information becomes inaccurate because of the chaos involved. It's not a lot different than pre-digital times, only in much more quantity and much more obvious.
We're all media critics
So I'm super sensitive, but contrary to much media criticism today, mine is not politically oriented. Following disasters like ours, politics have no place, and everybody in the state knows it, I hope.
That's why I could praise a national Fox news journalist Shepard Smith, for his solemn, calming narrative about the tragedy the first and second day. No hyperbole, no yucky emotions or trite sayings. Good journalism always stands out.
I also continue to contend that local newspapers are critical to coverage in these times. I see that in Oklahoma this week, saw it in New Orleans in Katrina, after 911, in OKC after the bombing, and in many other places. They give people a source, an assurance that there is still a normal world, a standard of hope and humanity that victims can cling to in their devastated communities.
So while we're all media critics, and usually negative, tragedies like this bring out the best in journalism as well.
Tornadoes and twitter
Tornadoes take a terrible toll, physically and emotionally, more than can be measured. It is not enough to say there will be billions of dollars of damage. You can't put a price tag on the suffering, the shock, the trauma, the grief, the misery.
This week's tragedy in Oklahoma is only hinted at in photographs and videos. I've refrained from writing because I didn't think there was anything relevant or meaningful to say. Everyone has stories, everyone knows someone affected.
This is also the week that my twitter for journalists intersession class meets for two weeks, of intensive study. Much of the topic of the conversations in class with these 24 students has centered on the tornadoes this week. We've had speakers in, trying to emphasize the professional uses of the social media, but as one speaker said yesterday, my former student and media person for the Good Egg Restaurant group Sherry Guyse, @MyJRNY, the line between professional and personal blurs in social media.
One speaker, another former student, Heide Brandes, @HeideWrite, can't make it today because she's "stringing,"--freelancing for the Wall Street Journal--covering the funerals in Moore. That gig was set up in part through twitter.
Other speakers have been Mike Sherman, sports editor for The Oklahoman, @MikeSherman; Dave Rhea, managing editor and digital media guru for The Journal Record, @jdaverhea; Desiree Hill, broadcast professor, @DezHill; and Jessical Miller-Merrill, HR maven, @blogging4jobs.
Traditional journalists, like me, sometimes have trouble with the significance of twitter's 140-count messaging, but we've learned it's essential in so many ways in journalism, PR, advertising, and more in the professional communications world.
The tornadoes have added a grim illustration of practicality to the class. More on both later, but I'm asking class members to comment today, one thing they've learned about this infectious social media, twitter.
This week's tragedy in Oklahoma is only hinted at in photographs and videos. I've refrained from writing because I didn't think there was anything relevant or meaningful to say. Everyone has stories, everyone knows someone affected.
This is also the week that my twitter for journalists intersession class meets for two weeks, of intensive study. Much of the topic of the conversations in class with these 24 students has centered on the tornadoes this week. We've had speakers in, trying to emphasize the professional uses of the social media, but as one speaker said yesterday, my former student and media person for the Good Egg Restaurant group Sherry Guyse, @MyJRNY, the line between professional and personal blurs in social media.
One speaker, another former student, Heide Brandes, @HeideWrite, can't make it today because she's "stringing,"--freelancing for the Wall Street Journal--covering the funerals in Moore. That gig was set up in part through twitter.
Other speakers have been Mike Sherman, sports editor for The Oklahoman, @MikeSherman; Dave Rhea, managing editor and digital media guru for The Journal Record, @jdaverhea; Desiree Hill, broadcast professor, @DezHill; and Jessical Miller-Merrill, HR maven, @blogging4jobs.
Traditional journalists, like me, sometimes have trouble with the significance of twitter's 140-count messaging, but we've learned it's essential in so many ways in journalism, PR, advertising, and more in the professional communications world.
The tornadoes have added a grim illustration of practicality to the class. More on both later, but I'm asking class members to comment today, one thing they've learned about this infectious social media, twitter.
Friday, May 17, 2013
The blog at 103 countries--Africa again
About the time I think this blog has reached its limit geographically, readers from a different countries hit on it, and that happened twice this week, both from Africa. Earlier this week, someone from Ethiopia did so, and then yesterday, someone in Ethiopia's southern neighbor, Tanzania, scanned these posts, marking the 14th African nation to be counted.
Considering that there are about 196 "countries" in the world, with 192 as members of the UN, I'm fascinated. There's another blog post coming on the world's countries.
When I was growing up, the main part of Tanzania was called Tanganyika, and an island off the coast carried the exotic name of Zanzibar. With the gradual elimination of colonization in the 1960s, the two countries emerged from British control to become Tanzania in 1964, combining their names. Its flag is a combination of the two flags.
As with most African countries, the area lost independence to European countries. Imperial Germany conquered it to make it German East Africa along with Rwanda and Burundi, but after WWI, it became a British mandate from the League of Nations. British rule ended in 1961. Before the Europeans, under a sultan's control, it was the center for the Arab slave trade, with more than half the population sold into slavery in the 1800s.
But Tanzania is better known for two facts. It is the home of Africa's highest mountain, the volcanic Kilimanjaro, at 19,341 feet--which makes it the highest freestanding mountain in the world.
It is quite possibly the birthplace of mankind, according to fossil discoveries in Olduvai Gorge, where pre-human ancestors lived about 2 million years ago, and homo sapiens has been dated there to 17,000 years ago. The people are not primitive--about 2,000 years ago, they invented a type of steel from a blast furnace
Today the country has a population of more than 43 million, with 80 percent rural, and more than half under 15 years of age. It, like Nebraska, has a unicameral legislature, with 343 members. Interesting to me is that it has a five-level judiciary combining tribal, Islamic and English common law...proving they can work together, in spite of Americans', and some Oklahoma legislators', fears of Sharia law.
The flag--green for natural vegetation, yellow for rich minerals, black, the skin col, and blue the lakes, rivers and Indian Ocean.
As with all of these visitors from far away, I'd sure like to know more...so many stories. So much imagination. I so wish I could see Kilimanjaro, and Olduvai, and say I'd been to Zanzibar. Wouldn't you? Thanks reader.
Considering that there are about 196 "countries" in the world, with 192 as members of the UN, I'm fascinated. There's another blog post coming on the world's countries.
As with most African countries, the area lost independence to European countries. Imperial Germany conquered it to make it German East Africa along with Rwanda and Burundi, but after WWI, it became a British mandate from the League of Nations. British rule ended in 1961. Before the Europeans, under a sultan's control, it was the center for the Arab slave trade, with more than half the population sold into slavery in the 1800s.
But Tanzania is better known for two facts. It is the home of Africa's highest mountain, the volcanic Kilimanjaro, at 19,341 feet--which makes it the highest freestanding mountain in the world.
It is quite possibly the birthplace of mankind, according to fossil discoveries in Olduvai Gorge, where pre-human ancestors lived about 2 million years ago, and homo sapiens has been dated there to 17,000 years ago. The people are not primitive--about 2,000 years ago, they invented a type of steel from a blast furnace
The flag--green for natural vegetation, yellow for rich minerals, black, the skin col, and blue the lakes, rivers and Indian Ocean.
As with all of these visitors from far away, I'd sure like to know more...so many stories. So much imagination. I so wish I could see Kilimanjaro, and Olduvai, and say I'd been to Zanzibar. Wouldn't you? Thanks reader.
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