J students cover blood drive at CSUs

Fifty students from two Journalism 30 classes descended on the blood drive today in the university union to get information for a story...

Here are some fotos.



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CSU, Sacramento column writers take a whack at Occupy Wall Street

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The 25 or so columnistas of the Column Writing class at CSU, Sacramento have been busy penning columns about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Like most columnists around the nation trying to figure this out, they have had varying levels of success.

One writer though the entire movement was about to dry and blow away:
Arronicals' take on OWS

While this writer wants to rename it American Spring:
Put It In Writing

All of the posted columns are listed to the right of this posting... Check out some - and comment, please.

Occupy Sacramento in Cesar Chavez Park

How those 'ah-ha' moments can be so satisfying

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Two days and two major 'ah-ha' moments. Some kind of record, I suppose.

The most recent was a few hours ago, while stumped on how to explain the Occupy Wall Street movement in my Finger Lakes Times column. I'm in good company because just about everybody is stumped.

But I realized - as I donned my shoes to take a walk to clear my caffeinated brain - that media and everyone else is having trouble because we haven't seen anything exactly like this before. It's almost alien (as in not-of-this world, not the immigration type) in what we see.

And if what you see doesn't look like what you have seen before, well, you end up babbling like the airheads on Fox & Friends.

So my best shot in my column, and damn tricky to work in, is that the Occupy movement is a unicorn. It just can't be there, so we try to say it's a horse or a zebra or anything but what we can see right in front of us.

That's the way denial works.

And the other 'ah-ha' moment?

While having breakfast Sunday with an amigo, we chatted about our new iPads and how we needed some photographic equipment to go with them.

I'd say more, but a prototype is being put together and maybe coming to an Amazon.com near you sometime after a patent gets issued.

Quite the ah-ha moment because I told him I would buy one on the spot for a lot of money if he actually had started manufacturing.

In the meantime, I need to get back to writing about unicorns.

Almost putting my foot right in it - why double-checking is soooo important

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - There is never a good excuse for being inaccurate, but sometimes columnists, like all journalists, can walk right up to the cliff.

If they are lucky, they catch themselves before they fall over and break their necks.

This week in New York I was precipitously close to the edge, but caught myself - with the help of a friend - before catapulting into the darkness.

The near fall was in a column about a state-sponsored public hearing. At the outset of it, the administrative law judge running the show made a big pronouncement that no local public officials would be testifying. Unfortunately, that bit of info got translated by most of the audience into that there were no public officials present.

And, if true, that would have been a big deal. The public hearing was to get public testimony about a very controversial proposal to store liquid propane gas in salt caverns near a populated area and a beautiful lake.

So if local government types took a pass, well, that would be too good to be true for a columnist looking for an angle.

It was too good to be true, as such things almost always are.

As I sat starting my column, the good angel on my right shoulder said 'check out if there were any public officials there.' The bad angel, resting on my left shoulder, said 'No, no, no... it's too good to pass up.'

Luckily, the good angel won out, and I asked the mayor of Watkins Glen via email if there were any public officials there (him included). There were, he said - lots of folks, actually. He even sent me a list of who he saw. And so instead of lambasting uncaring public servants, I was able to simply comment on the proceeding and include their quiet participation among my other thoughts on the lengthy meeting and what it means for the area.

Had I laid into the same public officials with a snarky 'Why weren't you there?' kind of piece, it would have been just short of disaster.

Actually no, it would have been a disaster, for me.

As it was, the incident and my exchange with my mayoral amigo has given me a couple of good ideas for future columns about public participation, decorum at public meetings, and the role of public hearings in making decisions.

And, because I checked before I published, I can write them without having to withdraw a metaphorical foot from my mouth.

Another lesson re-learned, and lesson now passed on.


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Speciality columns on the way, magazine writers do 'how-to' stories

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The first set of columns based on the special areas of interest (chosen by the writers) are coming in by Wednesday noon. A second set will show up by Friday noon.

The specialities are all over the place: music, the arts, sports, cooking and a dozen others that I can't remember.

The first efforts are always interesting while the writers try to find their voices. Monday in class the writers got pretty animated about these columns. The hardest part is the research.

In magazine writing, the writers are starting on how-to stories. We have people writing about travel, tiling a countertop, selling and buying used clothes and even how to make tamales, menudo and a Thai soup. Quite the eclectic group.

One student has steadfastly insisted that he be able to write his how-to story on 'how to get through college with the least amount of work.' And the work he is talking about is college-work and studying. That one should be fascinating, but might require a few rewrites before it passes professional level muster - the class standard.

After the how-to stories, it's on to writing full length features and personality profiles for the magaziners. The column writers are now on task for one column per week for the balance of the semester - about 12 more columns by my count.