SF and facial hair

Right, I'm spectacularly tired, so a quick one, I suppose. 

I've just got back from seeing Ben Taylor and his band at the Independent in SF. Not necessarily my type of music, but good fun nonetheless. 

Actually his support Eion Harrington was even better. Again, not my stuff particularly, but you could tell both he and the headliner were spectacularly talented and knew how to work a crowd.

The beard/moustache growing continues, with me looking more like a sex-offender by the day, but I quite enjoy wearing a beard, so if I can get through the bristly stage, I'll stick with.

OK, that's about all I've got at this point. More to come.

Apture

OK, built a sprout this week, which was surprisingly successful, apart from being unable to upload the thing. 

I chose to do mine on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, the BBC's antidote to panel games, which gave me an opportunity to listen to a load of clips and chuckle away to myself. It's a bit like having an awkward friend though - I want to explain to my American mates that it's really funny once you've listened to a few of them and know that it's just silly fun. But I imagine listening to Mornington Crescent for the first time would just be baffling and weird. Somehow I need to instill the radio culture of daft gags and piss-taking here. 

Another good thing was meeting the chap who set up Apture, a handy-dandy site which lets you check links without navigating away from the page you're on. Tristan Harris was his name, and basically it was like looking into the future; Minority Report or something. It's pretty amazing - I'll try to load up the next post with a few examples.

Other than that, little to report. I'm a bit concerned about the whole financial situation (mine, selfishly, not the world's). But I'm having a word with the financial people here tomorrow to see if we can work something out. Might be a bit of belt-tightening on the horizon, but I'm a big boy, and I'm sure I can deal with it.

Also lots of job applications coming up. Somewhat worrying considering the woeful state of journalism and the amount of people who're being binned from their jobs, but hopefully I can sort something out. If not, I'm sure I can work out a few back-up plans by the summer.

KZSU and public issues reporting

Quick post before I turn in. I'm still no nearer to finding my corrupt politician for one of my articles, but I'm hoping a day googling around tomorrow will yield something.

Friday was spent half in the KZSU studio and half tracking down the bad apples of Washington, DC. It seems that virtually every congressman and representative out there is in the pocket of special interest groups, but as long as they sit on committees that examine those groups' areas, they're laughing. I keep coming up with what I think is journalistic gold, and then having it shot down by my tutor, as their integrity remains intact as long as they're on the right committees. Seems like an odd system to me, but apparently it's all above board.

KZSU was fun as always. Fewer callers than last week, but still good. I'd be happier with a two-hour show, but there you go, you can't have everything. Three hours it just a bit of a stretch at this point when I've got so much on my plate, and as there are apparently all kinds of people clamouring for shows, it seems a bit mean that we've all got three-hour slots, when I'd certainly be happy to sacrifice an hour to someone else. 

Lots of good tunes though, and I managed to play out some requests over youtube, which I've never done before, so a nice little bit of progress. My sister Charmian tells me that my radio style is bizarrely unreflective of my own personality. I actually kind of know this, but it's interesting to hear it from someone else. I tend to let music be the focus, and only speak when I'm announcing what's coming up or what's playing out. So my task for next week is to make sure I talk properly for a good few minutes every couple of links. Not necessarily in a cheesy 'I'm so funny' way, but just a bit more than I'm giving out at the moment.

At some point I'll start putting the playlists up on this thing, as well maybe in another section.

OK I'm gonna hit the sack; lots of stuff to do tomorrow, including getting my stuff in gear for an NPR application, and later on the Beerlympics. Should be fun.

On PR

PR guru Corey duBrowa from Weggener Edstrom was speaking at Stanford today. Interesting chap, especially as he's essentially 'the enemy' for many journalists. Essentially he explained the game between public relations fellow and journos from his side. 

And much as it seemed he'd drunk the Kool-Aid of his industry, he seemed happier and more fulfilled than most journos I know. This might be because he's almost certainly paid about 10 times what your average reporter earns, and he's a laid-back fellow based in Portland. But it also seemed that he actually enjoyed his job, and felt he was performing a valuable service.

This is totally contrary to everything I've ever assumed about PR types. My take (which is obviously skewed) has always been that the industry is made up of frustrated journalists who've sold out and are now protecting the sinister bigwigs against the good.

I'm not sure I've changed my mind about that yet, but it was interesting to hear from the other side and step away from the exchange without the lingering thought that 'there goes someone who's well and truly ditched their principles.'

Other than that I spent most of the day catching up on sleep after another week of non-stop work. It's encouraging to think that David Cohn had the same drowning sensation when he was at Columbia, but it's still a bit of a bugger that the work never seems to stop.

I'm feeling a bit more comfortable with Final Cut Pro, though, after a couple of productive hours being walked through it by the ever-patient Dai Sugano. The next step is to make something I enjoy, so the whole process doesn't just seem like a slow and painful torture for the sake of it.

Which brings me onto Dr. Gurnalism; hopefully coming to a screen near you soon. The idea sloshing around is a slasher pic based on a disgruntled and psychopathic ex-journalist, who's picking off new media types in a particularly gory fashion. We're hoping to film it next quarter. But even if we never make the thing, I'm enjoying the process of brainstorming we've got going on at the moment - basically drinking beer and coming up with ridiculous scenarios. I love it.

Spotus, prisoners and professors

Howdy everyone. So here's what I got up to today: I went to an interesting talk from David Cohn, the chap who set up Spotus. 

Despite the fact that he's sickeningly young (26), he seems to have his head screwed on. We all know traditional journalism is going down the swanney, and there's a lot of hand-wringing going on from everyone who's worked in print media for the last 30 years, or anyone, like me and most of my programme, who hope to have some sort of job in the coming years.

So this is what Cohn's suggesting: a non-profit model where people pitch stories, others chip in for the funding, and after the story's been researched and written, it goes up on the site. The idea is that we get to choose with our wallets what goes up, the journalists get paid and to some degree justice gets done (if you subscribe to the idea that journos should be some sort of moral conscience, exposing injustices wherever they go).

I'm all for it. Not as a journalist (I'm not a big fan of the investigative stuff; I prefer breaking news very quickly), but as a consumer. How great would it be to think you have some input into what is covered, and you're not just a pawn in the big advertisers' game. 

It doesn't work for all stories, as Cohn admits, but it's great for the long-form stuff that America feels journalist should be doing; showing who's being screwed over and who's the bad guy. Power to him, I say. Seemed like he was doing it for all the right reasons as well - wanting to make the world a better place, rather than just line his pockets.

I also spent a good hour or so brainstorming my design project. Looks like the prison rehabilitation idea isn't a goer, as there's not enough time left in the term to implement it and get the requisite feedback. 

But we've still got some other ideas in the pan: either something for gamers who spend too much time at the console, or something for professors who are crap at public speaking. Not sure yet which one we'll go for, but we've got a week or so before we start prototyping, so a bit of grace. I'm swinging towards the gamer thingamy. I reckon there are loads of people who'd be happy to see the gaming world put to better use, and it'll be quite fun to mess around with the format.

I'm thinking of something along the lines of a murder mystery party at the moment: an interaction between social exchange, a bit of problem solving, and a smattering of physical activity as well (maybe even something like geocaching to get people out in the open). Could be fun. If you've any ideas on any of this, let me know.

OK then, here we go...

OK folks, it's time to start blogging. 

To kick off, here's a quick introduction: My name's Dan Walker Smith, I'm a British journalist based in the States for a year on a Fulbright Scholarship. I've been a print journo and broadcaster for a couple of years, and I thought this was probably the time to get my teeth into blogging.

Right now I'm at Stanford, doing an MA in communications - mainly journalism, to be honest, but a healthy slice of design and digital stuff as well, which makes things more interesting. In fact, the design element is probably the most interesting bit of the course, so I'm looking into making that a bigger part of my life (or career - seem to be interchangable right now).

I like comedy, radio, ceramics, breakdancing, music with beats, laughing, cracking weak puns, cooking, cycling, travel and very spicy food. Way back in the day I used to like writing as well, but three years of journalism kicked that out of me, so hopefully this blog will re-ignite the fire.

I also present a couple of radio shows on KZSU in Stanford: The Beaten Track, 9 'til 12 on Friday mornings, Pacific time, and Speakeasy, which is a show where we talk a load of bollocks on any topic that springs to mind. That one's on at 12.30pm on Wednesdays. Tune in if you get the chance - there should be podcasts soon, as well.