Writers & Readers

I'll be writing reviews and covering the festival for The Lumière Reader again this year, so I've got a frantic but interesting weekend coming up. 

My main assignments are Paul Gilding, former head of Greenpeace International whom I interviewed last month; Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish from Palestine, whose book I really ought to start reading; and my biggest challenge, Fatima Bhutto from Pakistan, who has some opinions about America's foreign policy that she'd like to discuss. I'll probably try to sit in on a couple of the panel discussions as well. 

One day I'll do stuff like this for a living.

Katie Couric Interviews Rachel Maddow

Dammit, Couric and Maddow, why did you make me go to the Glamour Magazine website for this interview? I almost died of pink in there.

Still good stuff from Rachel, though. Some women have TV boyfriends; I have a TV media studies professor/girlfriend. Which is a bit of an issue for her apparently.

[W]hat’s weird about cable is that people get really engaged with news hosts as brands. ... No matter what you’re talking about, people wanted to know more about what you thought about it, because they are interested in you as a person. ... And I don’t want to insert myself into the story. I just want to give a useful analysis of it to help people come to their own conclusions. It’s why I have a conveyor belt of gray blazers — I try to look exactly the same every day. Don’t focus on what I’m wearing. Focus on what’s coming out of my face.

I try, I really do.

Journalism in the Age of Branding

In my efforts to figure out the media landscape and where I might end up, I keep coming back to a great (and long) article by Maureen Tkacik in the Columbia Journalism Review - "Look at Me! A writer's search for journalism in the age of branding." 

Tkacik's experiences as a woman journalist covering issues like the phone sex industry and the hiring practices of American Apparel are worth a read, and I love her perspective on the new culture of self-centred, entertaining/obnoxious political blogs like Gawker and Wonkette. (Speaking of, Ana Marie Cox, where are you?)

More broadly, there's her take on the debate over objectivity in journalism, which I enjoy digging into whenever I get the chance. 

Privilege in Politics: The NRA Convention

Yesterday TRMS devoted most of the show to the 2011 NRA Convention in Pittsburgh. It's good TV (look, it's Rachel Maddow surrounded by conservatives with guns!) and a stark example of what we mean when we talk about social privilege.

John McCain's daughter Meghan, a proud NRA member, invited Maddow on a "date" to this year's convention in an effort to give a fresh perspective on gun culture. Maddow is a vocal critic of the NRA who happens to enjoy hanging out at the shooting range, so they had plenty to talk about.

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At this point, just to be fair, I should say that there were probably many people at that convention who could have debated this more effectively than Meghan McCain. ("I don't think that's necessarily true, but... You're arguing very well, Rachel.")  That being said, compare her perspective to that of Rev Ricky Burgess, City Councilman for Pittsburgh's poorest and most crime-infested district.

Remember Where You Were

I was at the office on a slow Monday afternoon when the news broke of Osama bin Laden's death. More importantly, I was on Twitter.

My Twitter feed is full of reporters, pundits, newsroom staffers, bloggers and everyday political wonks, so when the White House announced that the President was making a statement with almost no warning we all dropped what we were doing and started speculating. I was one of the people who guessed it had something to do with Libya. Others thought it might be the tornadoes in Alabama – but why wait until late on a Sunday night in the US to speak about that? Just to interrupt Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” on TV, someone joked. We all laughed and retweeted it.

Then we heard it had something to do about national security. “Gaddafi stepping down? Bin Laden dead?” a blogger guessed, and I replied “Wouldn’t that last one be something.”

Lara Logan Speaks Out

CBS journalist Lara Logan speaks out about the brutal sexual assault she endured in Tahrir Square, Egypt. This interview is one of the most courageous things I've ever seen anyone do.

Blog revamp

Since I'm going to be studying for my National Diploma in Journalism at Whitireia in a month, I thought it was time to change the focus of the blog a bit. "Travel & Books" are still interests of mine, but 1) I doubt I'll have much time or money for either while I'm at school, and 2) I spend most of my time online talking about the news anyway.  This ought to be a good way to keep track of what I'm learning, discuss politics and current events at greater length, and get some additional writing practice.

Or, you know, I might leave the blog untouched for months at a time. That's possible too.