Yes, the jury is still out on my skills as a businessman. I have only been working as country manager for Ringier, a Swiss publishing house, in Vietnam since July 2009. But after six months, I can’t tell you how often I refer back to core journalism techniques (in an attempt) to be a better [...] Read more – ‘How going to journalism school made me a better businessperson’.
This post started out rather ambitious. In fact, it was always intended to be several posts i.e. ” What I learned in:” RW1, NYC24, business and economics reporting, Ken Leher, etc. But I should have known better. I’m already in Vietnam, managing a new media startup by Ringier and it’s been impossible to find the [...] Read more – ‘In case you were wondering… What did I learn at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism?’.
My classmate Karn Dhingra passed this link along. I loved it. First, I work for a Swiss publishing house and relate closely to expanding into Eastern Europe/Asia. Second, I absolutely love redesigning magazines/newspapers/Web sites. I’ve had the pleasure to redesign several products while working with Stephane Carpentier, Ringier’s art director, at City Weekend. To see [...] Read more – ‘Can design save newspapers? Probably not, but I thought this work flow process could’.
I’ve always said that the best way to learn film editing would be to work in a course or company where the only objective would be to make cinematic trailers for hypothetical movies. It challenges you tremendously to condense a film down to a few compelling scenes and sounds. Personally, I’d love to make a [...] Read more – ‘Movie trailer to the documentary Hoop Knight’.
I can’t/won’t put my finger on what should pass as good or bad design or storytelling after just one month with Duy and Carla. But I will admit that I have a much better understanding of, “What is news?” now, an understanding that I frankly do not think I grasped well enough at my old [...] Read more – ‘This just in: What is news?’.
CMS presentation for magazines View more presentations from ctcrowell. One of the highlights of my time here at J-school has been meeting Cyndi Stivers, currently the managing editor of Entertainment Weekly. Stivers launched Time Out here in New York as publisher and is now teaching a class on magazine production at the J-school. We met [...] Read more – ‘This CMS is for you’.
Many new media students signed up for NYC24.com to work with Professor Duy and Carla Baranauckas on improving our video storytelling techniques. Few of us understood that the class was less video work and more multimedia production at the time. (Disclaimer: I missed a video technique class two weeks ago to report on a NYC|24 [...] Read more – ‘What passes for news these days’.
I filmed this video of my family’s backyard bonfire with a point n’ shoot while visiting home over the winter break. (Kate, here’s your shout out.) It features my girlfriend, Kate Drance, my father and some new and old friends who are traveling across the country on a luxury touring bus. (Thanks Aric, Tim and [...] Read more – ‘In case you weren’t listening, how to fix your crappy video, put a song over it!’.
It seems that since I started taking classes at the J-School last August, I’ve been excited about taking classes at the Columbia’s B (or Business) School this January. In fact, I keep telling people (erroneously) that I’m earning a master’s in new media publishing, as if that existed. To quote George Constanza, “It’s not a [...] Read more – ‘Uh, why does a Coke cost less at the B-School than the J-School?’.
Ten things I’ve learned so far making Hoop Knight (they are not in any order and there are certainly more to come) I’m lucky to work with Chris Kieffer. Really lucky. Works hard and knows his stuff better than most. (Chris, you need a Web site.) I can buy, host and manage my own domain [...] Read more – ‘Ten things I’ve learned so far making my master’s project: www.hoopknight.com’.
Whipped up this video asap before Columbia J-School’s Lucille Ball. My cousin Mark Burns, who is a freelance editor for shows like Barbara Walters, A&E docs, VH1 and more helped out. So I can’t take all the credit. Video cracks me up. But dunno about you. Mark did a great job deconstructing the Journalism doc [...] Read more – ‘Could this be the culmination of my fall semester’s video editing efforts?’.
I had this fancy new manifesto prepared to display here only a few short hours ago. But despite my best intention, today’s Critical Issues in Journalism lecture and its subsequent discussion ruined what surely would have resulted in a new dawn of journalism ethics. Instead, you’ll have to settle for another set of flawed (but [...] Read more – ‘10, no wait, 9 reasons to lie when you’re a journalist. Okay, not really.’.
After nearly five hours of photographing and recording the NYC bocce finals in Staten Island, I spent another eight hours+ editing the material down to create this two and half minute long slideshow. It’s still too long, in my opinion. [Post edit: Class review of slideshow was positive, however, everyone, including myself, agreed that there [...] Read more – ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure OR the importance of storyboarding’.
Duy (pronounced “doo”), began New Media Newsroom quickly today. We were in a hurry and had to go over Google Maps and each team’s profile assignments. He started with an example of crime statistics in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Crime rate in the neighborhood had doubled and many residents and rookie journalists were quick to assign [...] Read more – ‘Browsing the web does not make you a good reporter. Damn’.
Whoa, is that the website for the most prestigious award in journalism? For an industry struggling to reclaim its esteemed position as the champion of truth, freedom and the public good, the site, Pulitzer.org, which honors the most distinguished reporters and publishers in journalism, appears to be dramatically behind the digital times. Five major shortcomings [...] Read more – ‘Five reasons why the Pulitzer website fails to heed lessons in online publishing’.
Despite this impressive look at Biden in Congress, I am forecasting that Palin as McCain’s VP pick will prove to be the make or break for the GOP party in the coming election. (Thanks Emily for the Youtube find.) Biden may be energetic, knowledgeable and passionate but in terms of public perception, there’s no more [...] Read more – ‘Biden vs. Palin Debate – Who is not to be underestimated?’.
I’ll probably be skewered somehow for this, but before introducing Columbia’s new Dean of Academics, Bill Grueskin, Dean Lemann recounted that when the School of Journalism set out to revamp it’s famed School of Journalism six years, it failed to consider the role of the Internet. Yikes. Am I the only one that considers this [...] Read more – ‘Is Columbia Journalism playing catchup with the Internet?’.
This is my first foray into personal web publishing. I’m going to start with a video of a news report out of Oregon covering a dead whale washed up on shore. And yes, an ambitious beach clean up crew decide to blow it up with dynamite. Read more – ‘When good reporting and dead whales collide’.
