The work done that day allows EarthCorps to remove the invasives and return in the fall to plant native plants in it’s place. Every six months or so for the next couple years EarthCorps will return to the site to remove new growth of invasive species. Only after the newly planted native species grow large enough, will they be able to prevent the growth of the Himalayan Blackberries and restore the park back to its natural ecosystem.

Click the picture below to enjoy the soundslide!

Seward Park Restoration Project | Invasive Species Removal

Thanks to EarthCorps, Bastyr University’s volunteer group and other volunteers

Twitter was then reintroduced to me again during my blogging class. I used it a bit, but still didn’t understand the reason to have one. It wasn’t until this journalism class that I fully understood the benefits of using twitter. The problem the entire time was I was trying to take twitter and apply what I knew about social networking from Facebook. My failure was not using a new approach with Twitter. The approach that I found necessary is using Twitter as a networking tool among people in your industry or field of interest. Instead of using it as a closed social networking tool, like Facebook where you are only friends with people in your inner social network, you should use it as an open social networking tool. This means allowing all twitter users to be a part of your social network. The difference in this approach is that you can now receive the industry updates or even status updates from those who may not necessarily be your friend in person, or even know who you are, but you are still “in the know” because you are friends with them on twitter. By following people outside of your closed social network but in a larger network within your industry or interests you are creating a larger network of people who can provide valuable information or opportunity.

Taking this idea and applying it to the future of Twitter as a tool for journalists there are many benefits. Many journalists believe that using twitter enhances reporting. Jason DeRusha (@derushaj) is a reporter at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis who uses Twitter daily as part of his job. Others find Twitter an amazing tool that allows them to conduct interviews with the public in a matter of minutes. Instead of spending the time placing phone calls, they can send out a tweet and have instant feedback. In addition to those, Twitter now is more popularly know for a journalistic tool used for breaking news. This is also a place where a shift in journalism where journalism is not only up to news organizations or journalists, anyone can now be a part of journalism.

Mainly with the idea of breaking news, we now see people playing an increasingly larger role with this specific reporting type. Not only is the average daily person now capable of spreading news to thousands of recipients in seconds, they are exercising this ability. News stations are now quoting people’s twitters and even journalist agree they do rely on people’s tweets every now and then. However, the problem of creditably also comes into play. But when hundreds of people are tweeting the same thing, I’m pretty sure that tells the news organization that something important is happening.

Twitter overall has already changed the world of journalism. It gives the power to citizens, it also gives makes more information available to all journalists/organizations, plus it creates a journalistic network of people and news. It’s hard to predict the role of twitter in the future but I see it as an intense network of ordinary individuals who will be the primary “on the ground” type reporters. Organizations with then rely on those individuals to provide them instantaneous updates, up-to-the-second (which breaks down news to a new level as we are currently at “up to the minute” news). The downside with up-to-the-second news reporting style is similar to what I stated before—this excess of information. But more is better right?

[Draft]

[Final]

My goals setting out on this was to get some good footage from the vendors and some of the market goers. I knew they would be able to paint a good picture and summarize the vibe in their own words. During my time at the Ballard Market, I was able to interview some pretty cool people who were perfect for expressing the emotions of the market. The problem was that these people were trying to sell their products so we were being interrupted by customers. On top of that the market is pretty hectic which made interviewing very hard. The sound was drowned out by background noise and the footage was hard to grab without people getting in the way (there wasn’t much room). However, everyone was awesome! Although I have a lot of learning to do when shooting on the go.

From this project, I learned that shooting video on the spot is hard. Looking at my footage I wish I had a better camera and tried harder to be more artistic. Normally, I can get in there and grab some nice shots but because I was shooting video, I seem to have forgot about my photography way of shooting. I wish I spent more time grabbing interesting shots from more angles. I know my final project will not be as good as what I was hoping to accomplish, but I think it will be a decent testament to the market vibe.

1. @gboy – Eric Maierson has produced more than two dozen projects, including work for National Geographic, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Open Society Institute
2. @rickgershon - Rick Gershon served as a multimedia photojournalist and staff photographer at Getty Images. Some of his clients include the Discovery Channel, History Channel, A&E, The Travel Channel, AOL.com, MediaStorm and MSNBC. His images of various news and political events have run in newspapers and news magazines around the world and he is currently a featured photographer with Reportage by Getty Images.
3. @suncomeupfilm – Jennifer is a director, producer, and writer. She has worked on programming for WGBH, WNET, the Discovery Networks, and independent productions. Most recently, she directed and produced Sun Come Up, an independent documentary about environmental refugees.
4. @chadastevens - Chad A. Stevens is an award-winning photographer and educator. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently he is working on a feature length documentary film on the conflict over energy extraction in Appalachia.
5. @bobsacha – Bob Sacha has over 25 years of experience as an award-winning photographer, traveling the world for dozens of publications, including National Geographic, Life, Time and Fortune. He has received many international awards, including the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography, Pictures of the Year and NPPA awards. Sacha is a renowned teacher at photographic workshops from Maine to Tuscany who also teaches at the International Center of Photography in NYC.

For more info on these people and to see the entire team at MediaStorm visit their About Page.

Walter Mossberg, on the other hand although old and boring, is organic. His video productions are raw, its himself take it the way he is or don’t watch. Although this aspect may not be as flashy, it comes across to the audience as relatable and trustworthy. His voice is real and allows people to relate to him on a personal level. As we talk more and more about the future of journalism—the reoccurring theme I repeatedly see is the shift in people to gravitate towards journalism that is transparent, organic and conversational. Combine these and I think you can develop a widely relatable and accepted piece of video production for the new world of journalism.

So my plan moving forward is to develop a story that takes bits and pieces of my video and combine them together to develop a compelling call to action—get yourself to the markets. I took a bunch of video of the happy people walking around and browsing while eating. Music was being played in the background and smoke being shot up into the air of delicious stir fry. I plan on taking these clips and arranging them together to achieve my goal of urging people to experiment with local markets, especially the Ballard Market.

[Addendum] Note to self

(3 words) – The Ballard Market Vibe

(seattle local markets a new way to shop and entertain)

The five-shot rule (watch BBC video).

1. An extreme close-up (detail) of action (movement)
2. Close-up of the face of the person doing the action
3. Medium shot, face and action together
4. Over-the-shoulder view of the action (gives viewer the point of view of the person doing the action)
5. Another (different) angle

Now here’s the video:

ATM Swaps Cash for Gold [VIDEO]

And this is what I found:

• First shot is up close at a gold curtain and as the curtain is pulled down the camera is also zooming out! Which is already breaks the rules
• The camera is obviously having to be held up by someones hand as there is a noticeable shake in the video
• Quick over the shoulder shot, then straight up close up of the ATM screen
• Then an unusual over the head shot? I guess it helps give us a new perspective of someone putting money into an ATM
• And of course they have to show a close up of the gold that is dispensed. (again you can tell that the camera is going by free hand)
• When they did their first interview you can also tell that the camera is now on a tripod, and then the next shot the camera remains on the tripod and does another zoom out!

Overall, considering the situation where many camera men are video tapping the same event I guess it would be very difficult to have a tripod. But if I remember correctly you shouldn’t include in your video a free standing clip with a stationary one (I could be wrong about that). But either way, the clip now comes across as very poorly done especially when using our 5 shot rules.

Among the similarities and differences, the first one that I must mention is that all of these sites have one image that dominates the homepage. This image is double the size of any other image found on the homepage and may even be a rotating slideshow. For CNN their main graphic is a video, and if you click play it plays it right there in the window.

News Tribune Home Graphic

CNN Home Graphic

PBS Home Graphic

The second thing I noticed is that their navigation bar is pretty similar in terms of its interface, however, it differs in the sense of content. Now the one thing I have to note is that in PBS being an outlier in terms of its focus and core concept of being a public non-profit, does not have the same content in it’s navigation bar—their content is focused their TV Programs, Videos [which is a new tab in the nav], Teacher Resources and “The Rundown”—while the other two news stations focus their nav bars on about 10 categories of news types. The interesting thing that was in the nav bar of both CNN and PBS is a tab called “Video” which takes you to a page filled with—lo and behold—videos galore.

News Tribune Nav Bar

CNN Nav Bar

PBS Nav Bar

Before I get too carried away with distractions deep into the site, the homepage already does a good job of distracting your thoughts. Below is PBS’s ads for their supporters and CNN’s relatively small advertisement box; both of these are featured right next to their homepage graphic and are flash animated.

PBS Ad

CNN Ad

However, hands down, I have to give it to the News Tribune to give us the most distracting and by far most obnoxious advertisements. I hope they are charging Nissan of Puyallup a hefty fee for this ad space as it has driven me to never return to their website again. I would only speculate that others who browse news websites feel the same way when visiting TheNewsTribune.com. This advertisement is a mouse over that when moused over, expands about 8 times the original size and in the process pushes the entire homepage content past the breaking line on my scree, leaving me with a full screen of the Nissan of Puyallup advertisement. This is one you will have to check out on your own. But here’s the picture that somewhat justifies this annoyance. Oh, and on top of this advertisement there are still 9 more (same size as the CNN and PBS ads) along the right column of their homepage. Obviously, the News Tribune must really be strapped for money as they pollute their homepage with rubbish…

News Tribune Ad

Now in relation to the types of stories featured on their homepages there is an inconsistency among the three. I did notice that the recent Presidential choice in nominating Elena Kagan to fill a seat on the Supreme Court made the main home graphic of CNN and PBS, but only a line in the News Tribute’s homepage. This is 100% kosher considering The News Tribune is a local news station, yet this just makes me dislike local news even more. Although what is happening in your local neighborhoods is important, I feel like we should be looking at news with a larger scope and perspective—not about the story of how a car crashed into your local deli down the street. This just legitimizes in my own head how trivial and ridiculous local news is. That aside, I was actually take away by CNN and the stories featured on their homepage. My assumptions before looking into these stories on the homepages were definitely changed. I walked into this with a bias towards CNN and an apt to support our local news station and of course PBS. Yet after my evaluation, I don’t think I will visit the News Tribune’s website again unless I’m looking to be bombarded by advertisements and silly headliners. Notwithstanding, the articles found on the PBS News Hour were fairly similar to those found on CNN. Although I must admit I didn’t take the time to read through many of the article to try and compare the opinions within, I do think PBS as well as CNN is doing a good job of presenting valuable information up-front. Something that was lacking from our local new source. That doesn’t mean that CNN is off the hook—I did notice a good amount of soft news (including celebrity gossip) on the homepage of CNN which in my book is frownable.

These factors that I’ve examined have definitely let me to another conclusion and reaffirmed my preexisting notion about for-profit news sources. It also encouraged me to seek out non-profit news sources. And through my personal evaluation I have decided to turn to PBS more so than CNN and 10 fold more so than The News Tribune.

"What an oxymoron, a moron must have designed this"

So it only furthered my search in terms of the environment in red square. Another part of the story led me to the reconstruction of the bricks in front of Kane Hall. A team of people have been working on restructuring the bricks because they have been sinking into the ground. Since no one was a around, I got up close ad personal to try and capture work they’re doing to our square. After that part was done, I was lucky enough to have snuck onto a Kane Hall balcony which clearly stated “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY”…Hey I’m authorized right? I’ve paid my couple thousand in tuition this quarter. Anyways, that spot gave me another interesting angle to shoot the reconstruction as well as the people in Red Square, Yet it really was lacking something. I felt like the clouds only amplified the washed out colors making my pictures dark and dreary. But what the heck! That’s what photoshop is for…

From this experience I learned that having active people in your shots make them way more interesting if you’re trying to tell a story about Red Square. Since Red Square doesn’t have that much to offer other than interesting brick patterns—people make all the difference. Too bad I really didn’t capture many subjects in my shots. Since I’ve done photography before, I was very disappointed that I wasn’t able to turn boring subjects into interesting images. I feel like I didn’t create very many interesting perspectives and on a second whim I would definitely try and deliver Red Square from a perspective that we aren’t aware or even used to seeing.