One-Word Wit

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

nihilarian

PRONUNCIATION:

(nih-i-LAR-ee-uhn)

MEANING:

noun: One who does useless work.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin nihil (nothing).

USAGE:

"You may find yourself worrying that you're turning into a nihilarian."
Sian Prior; Ineffable; The Age (Melbourne, Australia); Dec 16, 2002.

Our Own James Tedford, Legendary Foghorn Editor

He's been working on his doctorate at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, while working as a course developer in their Distance Learning unit. He writes:

In case you haven’t heard already, Julie and I are moving to Bakersfield. Actually, she has already moved and, as usual, I am trying to catch up. She was hired three weeks ago by a non-profit group, Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance, that provides free legal services to the poor. Julie will be the attorney in charge of a new unit that serves victims of domestic violence. Before law school, Julie managed a battered women’s shelter; ever since, family law has been one of her top interests.

And it's the fulfillment of a dream for both of us. Since we started dating in 2001, we have intended to commit our lives to advocacy for the marginalized. Before we met, each of us had been convicted by the Bible’s preoccupation with justice for the poor and oppressed. Now we are at a point where, as a couple, we are prepared to take significant action.

And also at a point where I need to finish my dissertation.

Amanda Van West is Alive, Well, Blogging in the UK

Let's go visit. She says there will be pictures of her next to England's historical treasures.

(Day of the Dead at the British Museum. Who would have thunk?)

Our Own Anthony Congi

I was nominated for Rookie of the Year from the Idaho Press Club. The guy who won was more of a producer and editor who made these documentary type stories about skiing. So as far as reporters went, I guess I did the best. It was nice to be nominated.

-AC


http://idahopressclub.org/Website/Best-of-2008-Awards.html

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

1st Greg Schaefer – Plum-TV, Sun Valley
2nd Anthony Congi – KIDK Channel 3

Our Own Niall Adler

Niall Adler, a 1998 media studies graduate, was hired in the Summer of 2009 as the assistant communications director at Stanford University after a brief stint working professional sports in Melbourne, Australia and eight years at Long Beach State. Adler will be the secondary media contact for the Cardinal football team and the primary contact for the national caliber baseball and swimming programs. Overall, Adler has worked with 75 professional athletes, including Major Leaguers Evan Longoria, Troy Tulowitzki and Jered Weaver, and worked at sporting events on four continents.

Finn Christian Nerboe: Good Job, Sunny

From Singapore:

hi everyone,

Staale and I are proud to announce the arrival of our baby boy - Finn Christian Nerboe.
He was born on September 4th at 1:14am weighing 3.4 kg and 53 cms tall.

cheers,

Sunny and Staale

Pat Lagreid is Now a Fashion Maven

Up there in Seattle at examiner.com. We didn't see this coming.

Toan's Latest at HuffPost

Here's the link.

Joe and Julianna Walters and Their Little Dividends

Jules took reporting! Both she and Joe were Comm Arts majors back in the day.

Kate Elston's Travel Blog is Up and Running: Off to South America

Here it is. Bookmark soonest.

Toan Lam's Latest GoInspireGo.com video

Here's the blog post that goes with the story.

So I take the class out to the little six-block enclave between upper and lower campus and explain this is our beat for the semester. A friend from Communication strides by. I intercept him, and he kindly agrees to be interviewed. You will notice my sly and subtle pedagogical methods.

Toan Lam's Latest GoInspireGo Video

Kate Elston off to Chile for Print Internship

Thanks for the recommendation for the Adelante program in Valparaiso, Chile! I got accepted and will be interning for a newspaper or magazine (still to be seen) for the month of October. On either side of that internship, I'm going to Ecuador and Argentina to do some volunteering and traveling. Super excited.

Here is the website of the program: http://www.adelanteabroad.com/Chile/chile_intern.cfm, in case you're interested or want to pass on more information to others about it. It seems really awesome so far. I'll tell you more about it as I'm there (I'll be blogging, of course) and when I finish.

Congi and the Big Marijuana Bust

from Facebook:

Anthony T.C. Congi Covering the biggest marijuana bust in Idaho history. Details to come

about an hour ago · Comment · Like

$47K to Attend Columbia J: A Guy Wonders If He Should've

A friend sent the Gawker link.

Last week, the University of Georgia journalism school published a report about the horrible employment prospects and salaries awaiting j-school grads. As anyone reading this site knows, for the last few years media outlets have constantly been folding, firing people, and slashing pay. Things have gotten so bad in the media industry that some observers now say j-schools should be closed altogether. So, what are we all doing here?


But he's going to stick. The comments are interesting.

Toan Lam and the Ripple Effect

Entrepreneurial Grads Joe and Julianna Acken Walters

Just got this email:


Jules and I are really excited about our new business venture and we wanted to reach out to you because we value your support.

While living in LA, we successfully ran a bakery business. We really enjoyed working with each other - we complement each other well. A couple of months ago, we had a long discussion about what we could do together to support our growing family and put our talents to work in the service of others. We came up with the business model for Face Time Marketing.

Between my Agency experience managing marcom events and interactive projects for Fortune 1,000 clients and Jules' years of small business ownership, great writing skills and social media mastery, we have put together a business to provide Strategic Internet Marketing Planning and Consulting Services to small business clients.

Why Internet Marketing?

The ROI in Internet Marketing for small business is off the charts! There are so many free and affordable tools out there for small business owners. The Web 2.0 shift and the dawn of social media and mobile internet have changed the world of Marketing and Advertising, and leveled the playing field for small businesses. We want to help people to take advantage of this.

We begin with a free, one-hour consultation where we learn your needs and provide some advice to quickly improve Internet marketing. Then we conduct an extensive review of your existing Internet marketing initiatives and create a unique Internet Marketing Strategy for your business. After that, we offer a-la-carte implementation services including web design, search engine optimization, web analytics, copywriting, and training. Our rates are reasonable and affordable - for the cost of a monthly ad in a "Clip-It" magazine, we can get you on the road to effective online marketing.

We are confident in our value proposition. Our goal is to enable our clients to manage effective Internet marketing efforts themselves. We support Open Source technology and web applications like Wordpress and Drupal because we don't want our clients locked into solutions that they can't easily update or integrate. We are not here to sell websites, we're here to help create comprehensive and integrated Internet marketing strategy for our clients.

A Dispatch from Our Ambassador to Minnesota

Image via Wikipedia

Greetings from Minnesota! I've officially completed my first year of grad school and will begin my second (and last) year this September. I'm happy to report that my program of choice - Masters in Advocacy and Political Leadership at the University of MN Duluth - has been a great experience so far and has expanded quite a bit since I started. New cohorts have increased in size and various schools across the country have expressed an interest in implementing similar programs in their states. (In fact, the director told me that one of the reasons MAPL got the huge grant that they did a few months ago was due to the fact they could say someone from CA moved all the way to MN to participate. Ha!) It's a great program for studying politics in a more applied manner, rather than theoretical; the best way I've heard it described is that MAPL is to political science what entrepreneurial programs are to business school.

My current job has also been a great learning experience. I'm working on a gubernatorial campaign, and my desire to work in politics is actually one of the reasons I haven't kept my personal USF Journalism blog up-to-date. The last campaign I interned on (before getting this current job) requested that no one associated with the campaign put anything "out there" that could be considered controversial, and everyone was asked to be very conscious of what we put on social networking sites - Facebook, Myspace, etc. - as well as blogs, so just to be on the safe side I took a break, which I've kind of carried over into my new role. I don't have a personal objection to such discretion, but believe it to be an interesting topic of conversation considering how relevant and crucial such media outlets are to politics these days. I doubt there will be anyone running for office 5, 10, or 15 years from now who won't have a personal history that can be tracked on the Internet through such sites, but at the same time I see the value of moderation, and even limitation.

All in all, Minnesota has been an interesting ride. The weather is less than ideal but the people are gracious and welcoming. I'm learning how to cast a fishing pole and deal with my In-N-Out cravings, and if I could just find a decent place to get a haircut, things would be pretty darn good.

Kate Elston at KALW

I've been interning with KALW this summer, helping to produce their daily call-in show "Your Call" and it's been really awesome! I produced my first show last week!

Teresa Rochester Interviews the Survivor of a Partial Nuclear Meltdown 50 Years Later

Teresa says she found this story -- all 82-column inches of it -- particularly satisfying. Here's an excerpt:

An improvised cleanup

It’s also true, Pace said of a story that seems more lore than fact, that women’s sanitary napkins were used to wipe down contaminated surfaces with cleansers gathered from around the 2,850-acre Field Laboratory after the meltdown. The absorbent material was more effective and longer lasting than sponges. A secretary suggested using them, he said.

“It was brilliant,” Pace said. “When we were done we’d throw it in a plastic bag and throw it out back.”

It’s likewise true, Pace said, that radioactive gases were released. The night of the surge, the men — dressed in nothing more protective than cotton coveralls — worried about venting “hot” gases into the air.

“The big thing on their mind was which way the wind was blowing,” Pace said. “They released that (gas) and it went out over the San Fernando Valley where all their children and families were, and they couldn’t say a thing about it because it was top secret.”

The Agony and the Ecstacy, or Do I Mean More Agony?

Corinna Halloran is not only running the NYC Marathon -- and quite properly asking for donations to fight childhood obesity -- she's blogging her prep day by day.

Will she twitter the race itself?

Toan Lam Back Up at Huffington Post

His previous post led the Living section in hits. Here's the new one.

Adjunct Extraordinaire Sam Green Loves USF

A FILMMAKER'S GLAMOROUS LIFE: SAM GREEN

In "A Filmmaker's Glamorous Life," online and in our latest print edition, Esther Robinson surveyed a number of filmmakers about the jobs they've taken to support themselves when they are not making films. In this blog series we'll run the unedited responses we received that were then condensed for the piece. Below: Sam Green.

Filmmaker: How did you support yourself during the production of your last movie/movies? And what was good/not good about these jobs?

Green: I've done a bunch of different things to support myself while making films. I started off doing freelance editing. I did some terrible outdoors/nature shows when I was getting started. The worst was an outdoor cooking show. In other words, some shmoe cooking over a campfire. The guy was terrible. It was quite an editing challenge to come up w/ good takes.

For a while, I edited docs for the History Channel. Also, pretty low quality stuff. America's Psychic Past — one of my masterworks. This was actually really good work — I would crunch on a project for six or eight weeks and make what was for me a lot of money. Then I could not work for two or three months and edit my own stuff.

After a while, I started teaching at universities, and that I actually love. It doesn't pay great, but I really do enjoy working with the kids.

I think it's a balance between making money that will allow you to do your own work, but also not completely sapping your spirit or creativity or integrity. I now direct commercial stuff from time to time and that's the challenge.

Sam Green is a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker. Green received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied documentary with acclaimed filmmaker Marlon Riggs. His film The Weather Underground was nominated for an Academy Award in 2004, broadcast nationally on PBS, and included in the Whitney Biennial. His other award-winning documentaries include lot 63, grave c, The Rainbow Man/John 3:16, N-Judah 5:30, and Pie Fight ’69. Mr. Green currently teaches at the University of San Francisco and the San Francisco Art Institute. He has received grants from the Creative Capital, Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts. He has been a resident at the MacDowell Colony, the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Marin Headlands Center for the Arts. www.samgreen.to

USF's Own Corinna Halloran, Marathoner

Hello!
How goes it? I’ve decided to make things a little interesting this summer and fall by starting a new journey. From now until November 1, I’m turning from a casual runner into a marathoner... yup, that’s right I’m running a marathon! And not just any marathon... the NYC Marathon! I’m going from running 3 miles every 3 days to confidentially running a 26.2 miles, no worries-- WHOA!

More importantly, I’ll be running to raise money for Team for Kids, a charity that fights childhood obesity nationally and internationally. Team for Kids is ending the obesity epidemic by creating and funding running-based fitness and health programs. Team for Kids sees that children who have intertwined running and daily exercise into their lives improves health, self-discipline, self-esteem, and their performance in school. Team for Kids hopes that by 2010, 100,000 children will be touched by the TFK program-- and you can help them achieve this goal!

Let’s work together to fight childhood obesity and help children have a happy, healthy, better future by donating to Team for Kids.

To donate please go to:
https://www.nyrrc.org/cgi-bin/start.cgi/mar-programs/nyrrf/team/2009/donations.htm

My NYC Marathon entry # is: 427186
My last name is: Halloran

Oh! And if you want to stay up to date on the NYC Marathon journey I’ve started a blog:
http://corinnarunsnyc.wordpress.com/

Thanks so much!!!
Corinna

Toan Lam Debuts as Regular HuffPost Blogger

His video goes viral, and Arianna recruits him.

From ToanLam TV: Who Says Good News is an Oxymoron?

A Summer Exercise from Young Brian Brause

View Local Newspapers in San Francisco in a larger map

Sam Blackburn is Off to Culinary School

Sam promises once school begins she will blog it sauce by sauce. We'll be linking over there on the left.

Pat Bhoolsuwan is in DC

She writes:

Yes I moved to Obamaville and frankly I'm loving it! What a fun town... The big reason I moved here...my boyfriend's got a great promotion with the coast guard and is now working in the DC office. I am hoping to start working in this market, despite the tough market. But like most places, this market is slowly going one man band which is really sad. When you pay your dues for many years and see this in a top 10 market, it kinda sucks...but working here would be fun...so we'll see where it takes me

Carly Perez is Off to the Peace Corps

Professor Robertson,

The only specifics I've been given about PC is that I'll be an IT tech teacher in either the Caribbean, or Central or South America in a spanish speaking country. Exciting! I will be sure to keep you updated on the experience, keep an eye on my blog (carlyspostscript.blogspot.com)!

Kent German, Tactile Keys and the New York Times

Our illustrious grad gets snarked at.

You know you've arrived when a New York Times writer takes notice of your work, even if it's to make a snarky remark about it. CNET got such an honor Monday when David Pogue, the newspaper's tech and gadget columnist, included us in a tweet about one of his pet peeves.

Here's what Pogue twittered: "CNET writes 'All the keys feel tactile.' HELLO? 'Tactile' means 'You can feel it.' What the hell is a 'tactile feel'!?"

Kent German is a senior editor for cell phone reviews at CNET. When he's not testing the newest handsets on the market, he's blogging about cell phone news for Crave. In his On Call column, he answers reader questions and gives his take on the rapidly changing mobile industry.

Good Wikipedia, Bad Wikipedia

Wikipedia for Journalists & Bloggers

View more presentations from StevenWalling.

A Graduate on the Perils of Naked Ambition

Make that "Naked Ambition." You really need the quotes.

Grad Katie Crozier Has the Political Bug

She worked for Biden in Iowa. Now she's working for Paul Thissen, who is running for governor in Minnesota.

She writes:

I'll begin work on his campaign next month, which is very exciting for me since I've never gotten to do campaign work from such an early start in a primary -- many people who are expected to also run for Governor here have not yet even announced, so I'm getting a great head-start with all of it. I don't yet have an official "title," but am one of the few people to be put on payroll at the moment. I'm excited!

Grads are Invited to Critique the Current USF Website and Suggest What the New One Should Look Like

Image by Denis Collette...!!! via Flickr

Oakland-based White Whale is doing us up a new one. Here's a page where you can leave comments on what you 'formers' want in the new site. After all, USF is something you will never get out of your rear view mirror, so it makes sense to improve the view.

News of Meghedi (Melody) Nazarian Over at Darwin's Cat

As I said, optimizing your journalism skills via a new platform makes darn good sense in today's journalism market.

Check Out Toan Lam's Blog

Go Inspire Go...

Friday, March 13, 2009
I've created a movement!!!
Hi Everyone!

I've created a movement! I am very humbled, and inspired to have had such a tremendous response to my new YouTube webchannel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ToanLamTV
(I set up this little corner of cyberspace where people could go to and share/upload/e-mail in/ inspiring stories, a quick pick-me-up -- the goal: To UPLIFT and INSPIRE others through their amazing stories.)

So I've decided to create a blog so my subscribers and viewers could be updated on the latest and greatest, inspiring stories in my queue. So much has transpired since I've gotten laid off from my TV Reporting job, which pushed me to create this space to share stories of ordinary people, with extraordinary stories. What I didn't expect was a huge domino effect.

1.) First, off, I've been receiving so many awesome e-mails, maybe I'll select some and share it on this blog soon. After hearing about the heart wrenching story of what's known as "Tent Cities" or the new face of homelessness during this economic crisis spring up across America and in my hometown of Sacramento, I was inspired by a viewer to go inside one of these homeless encampments and meet some of these middle class Americans, who have lost their jobs and home and are pitching up tent encampments and creating their own communities. You may be asking, how is this inspiring? Let me tell you, the stories of the unbreakable human spirit gave me chills, made me teary eyed and gave me so much hope for humanity.
I'll upload the story today, so stay tuned...

2.)While shooting the story of Tent City Sacramento, I ran into an old highschool friend Erika Duran, while on my way to dinner -- call it serendipity, coincedence or fate-- but something amazing happened. I told her what I was doing with this webchannel and she was so inspired that she asked me if she could use my site as a tool to teach her social studies class a lesson about civic duty and how to be a good citizen. She will document it and upload the video to my webchannel. What will the class be doing? Well, they're going to break up into groups and go from class to class to make presentations on how they can help the homeless people living in Sacramento's Tent City. They'll talk about their cause, what they need to make it happen and how the other students can help.

3.) Several media outlets are going to feature my webchannel, and one of the shows I used to report and field produce for, (Pacific Fusion, an internationally syndicated magazine show that focuses on Asian-American lifestyles is going to give me a free commercial spot. We're working on it as I speak...or write.

4.) Stories have been coming in from around the world. I just uploaded a story sent in from Africa, titled A-to-Z. Keely Stevenson, a social entrepreneur e-mailed the story to me. It shows how one little idea can save so many lives, lost by a preventable disease, malaria. It also shows what they did to help!

5.) And my friend, Nielma Bassig Hock, who has an incredible passion for fashion, owns a charming boutique, "The Firm," in San Francisco. Nielma says she's so inspired by this site, she is going to hold an event at her store to help the unemployed network and get out of the post-layoff-funk. I promise I'll keep you posted on this one.
Oh, and she wants to host an "Inspiring stories" launch party there too.

6.) To my delight and joy, I've been slammed with so many amazing stories, and e-mails of how so many people say this site made their day, and how this timely project helped them get through the day-- which is hard to do during these very uninspiring times... So I promise, I am going to definitely post some of the inspiring emails because they've generated some great stories ideas that I will go out and shoot, others who've sent me links, I promise I'll get around to posting them too!

I'm experiencing the true meaning of paying it forward and having it return 10 fold!
Thanks everyone, for your support and love... and for being a part of my dream, to inspire and uplift people one story, one conversation, and one connection at a time!

-TL

Nicole Zaloumis Update

And also a window into what passes for sports commentary in the world of sports blogs.

Nicole Zaloumis, FSN. A newbie when it comes to the area, Zaloumis first blessed us with her presence during telecasts of 2008 Mariners games. Making us forget all about her predecessors–the likes of Rich Waltz, Jim Watson, and Brad Adam–Zaloumis made it fun to watch a 100-loss team. I mean, do you really think fans were tuning in to watch Carlos Silva’s fat ass leave in the third?

Nicole Zaloumis

Zaloumis is in her late-20’s and grew up in Danville, CA (also home to ex-Mariner Randy Winn…one of the few things I took away from the players announcing their hometowns during intros back in 2005). She attended the University of San Francisco and was a member of the dance team there (nice poms). She’s trekked around the country looking for broadcasting gigs since graduation, but seems to have found a home (at least temporarily) at the Bellevue studios of FSN. I think we can all appreciate that.

Arts Reporting and Reviewing: The Twitter Reviews of Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Claire Yeo's Video: Singapore Fun

Teresa Moore's Aunt Thinks About Obama: TM Does an Interview

A moving contemplation -- and a fine example of how to do a Q&A!

This is the best thing that’s ever happened to black folks. I’m not saying that he’s just a president for black people but I never thought I’d see this happen. Slaves built up that White House and a black president has never lived there. And a growing family will be living there. I just pray for God to keep them and protect them. I think it’s wonderful that Michelle’s mother is moving in with them. She’s going to keep the grand kids in line. I just cannot wait to see them little black girls running around in that White House and on that lawn. They are going to be all over the place. And you know the Secret Service is going to have a time keeping track of them, especially that little one. She’s going to be everywhere.

I'd Like to be a Consultant. But About What?

Did I remember this or can I claim originality?

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't but don't realize they can't, consult.

(The image is from Despair.inc, whose wonderful calendars have comforted friends and family for years.)

A Connection at the Institute for Interactive Journalism

Rachel Sandor is the Project Manager at J-Lab. She grew up in Boulder, Colorado and earned her bachelor’s degree in media studies from The University of San Francisco. While attending USF, she was a film critic for the student newspaper, The San Francisco Foghorn. She is also a former editorial staff member of Rotten Tomatoes, a movie review Web site. Rachel enjoys traveling and lived in Budapest, Hungary for over a year. Her other interests include watching movies and exploring Washington with her fiancé, friends and dog.

How George Sanchez Spent New Year's Day at the LA Daily News

I was asking him about advice for our journalism students.


buenos dias doc

at work on the new years day shift -- first born babies, first murders of the year, rose parade, penn state fans, etc.

first of all:
The kids have to have multi-media skills. There is no way around that now.

Though editors don't understand the web or new media, they look for it on resumes now. Not basic stuff either -- blog experience is expected. Flash editing is good. Audio and video training is very attractive. Data base building is gaining popularity, though it's still largely underestimated by many editors. That being said, any student interested in investigative work needs to have a data base background now.

I was the representative at the California Chicano News Media Association job fair in October. Resumes without multi-media skills were placed aside by my editor.

know that poor papers (i.e. anything run by gannet or media news group) want multi-media skills but will not pay to train their staff. So we have to take advantage of training sessions by professional organizations like NICAR, CIR, the Knight Digital Media training place across the bay and anything else. Also, multi-media training could be the key to newspaper unions re-establishing their importantance. we'll see.

Yes, good story telling is still important. Basic news assembly, to put it crassly. But solid clips aren't enough anymore. Editors want to see multi-media presentations. Some fantastic examples are the L.A. Times Mexico Under Seige website, or, if you excuse me tooting my own horn, the Star's Social Achievement website.

all for now.
head to a bar to watch the rose bowl with lonely penn state fans in the san fernando valley
george