News21 Honor
I’m honored to report that my News21 fellowship project has been honored with an award in the AEJMC Best of The Web 2010 contest: We were named second place in the Team Journalism category.
While being in second place does not make us eligible for the overall Best of The Web award, it is still a high honor – especially considering the other amazing projects against which we were judged in this contest.
“Pay dirt”
Christopher Connell‘s featured article in the most recent edition of the Carnegie Reporter was a long awaited look at the News21 Fellowship program from a third party. Indeed, the Carnegie foundation was one of our sponsors, but Mr. Connell is a freelancer and wrote fairly of our successes and our dreams.
I am also flattered to announce that I am mentioned significantly on two pages of the article, on the first page as the lede anecdote and on the 8th as part of a sidebar.
Here is a quote from the lede anecdote:
“We are trying to study youth and technology and tell the stories in ways that will also help inspire the future of journalism.” That may sound presumptuous for someone ten days out of college, he allowed, but given the parlous state of the economy and the news business, ‘you can’t avoid it.’
“Tenser and partner Andrew Burton aren’t just being interviewed. They are filming Robertson and the KBCH studio with a flip cam and taking photographs, all the while soliciting listeners to contact them with stories. Before the sun sets over the Pacific, they will have posted on the Internet a blog, pictures, video and sound from their 25 minutes on air with the Larry King of this stretch of coastal Oregon. And they were not alone. They were part of a larger army of 93 News21 fellows who fanned out across the country.”
Kaity the Cartoon Blogger
This post and the 11 others preceding it are embeds of the final News21 stories from my 2009 summer fellowship. These videos are being both hosted on Vimeo and on the project’s website.
I also want to make sure I share credit on these 11 videos with my partner, Andrew Burton, whose work ethic and multimedia skills helped make our team the most prolific and – in my opinion- successful.
In Lincoln City, Oregon, the coolest kid in school isn’t the quarterback or a cheerleader. It’s an artist. Students and teachers alike from Taft High School routinely visit Kaity Curry’s Web site to see if they made it into her “doodle diary.” Her cartoons capture moments in her life that she wants to remember. She posts her favorites to her blog: Frankensteinbeck. She explains: “I like Frankenstein, Steinbeck… oh and the musician, Beck.”
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Last Text Message
We asked high school students at Taft High School what their last text message was while taking their portraits. We edited their responses into a video montage.
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
One Text Ahead of the Cops | Sioux County, IA
For generations, most every teenager in Sioux County, Iowa, has cruised Highway 75 on Sunday nights. They gather to hook up, show off, and hang out. The cops can still remember cruising as kids themselves, but now they’re enforcers, cracking down at the urging of shop owners angry with the litter and crowds. The cruisers have adapted. When they’re shooed along, they use text messages to reorganize and regroup at new locations on the fly.
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Yesterday’s Mayor, Today’s Neighbor
Eighteen new computers are in the hands of Wally Bryan’s friends in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Actually, these friends are neighbors, too. Five years ago, Wally used to be their mayor. But he gave it up to help them – and to live where they live. He’s grown his charity out of an apartment and into two homes, with two more to come.
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Games of War
The earliest video games by the Atari Company laid down a rule: No player could ever harm a “human” character. Things have changed. Halo and Call of Duty simulate war and killing, and they sell millions of copies a month. The U.S. Army has adopted many video game-style technologies to train soldiers in battlefield procedures and rules of engagement. Soldiers at Fort Campbell in Hopkinsville, Ky., told us that while these simulators look like games they’ve played, it’s very different for them now.
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Change the World | Lincoln City, OR
Asking our national question in Lincoln City, OR on Memorial Day brought us answers from all over the state. Beachgoers who could stay their desire for surf and swim long enough to answer our question about changing the world shared with us a wide range of dreams for the future. Medical improvements, environmental dreams, and even a money machine were proposed that day on the Pacific shore.
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Change the World | Hopkinsville, KY
Asking our national question in Hopkinsville, Kentucky during the annual soap box derby. Yet fast cars and ice-cream cones weren’t the only excitement to fill the day.
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Gen Lap | Hopkinsville, KY
Her assignment was to define shapes and lines. She was already late for school, and her assignment was nearly past due. Jalea Grubbs ran next door to the Challenge House charity run by a man she knows by the southern affection: Mr. Wally. He let her and her mother Latoya into the Challenge House to use his personal computer, and was gratified to see them leave for school armed with smiles and an armful of printouts.
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Kiera
As a young child, Kiera Haun suffered physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse in her biological parents’ house. For more than five years, she was moved among seven foster homes; she finally landed with the Hauns two years ago.
The family quickly ran into trouble when Kiera began attracting the attention of men much older than her on the Internet. Her new parents took action, limiting her online life to teach her how to be responsible. Today, Kiera says she will do anything to stay in their house, and she says she understands why they had to take drastic action.
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Gen Lap | Lincoln City, OR
Mthr Tlks 2 Sn Abt Txting
Two people, mother and son, share with us three different views on text messaging. One likes it; one doesn’t, and then changes their mind. Watch this Gen Lap installment and try to figure out, who is lapping whom?
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Change the World | Sioux Center, Iowa
At the 500-person-strong Sandbulte Family reunion, we asked people, “How would you change the world with technology, in one way?”
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This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Cruise Night
In Sioux Center, Iowa for News21 I have recently stumbled upon the most “news-worthy” story of the Fellowship so far: “Cruise Night.” The Sunday-night hangout is a local tradition that has become a controversy, and it wonderfully fits our project: it is multi-generational, it is uniquely local, and it involves texting technology.
Perhaps this will be our home run on a news story that fits all of theyoungandthewireless’ criteria. I am excited to really start editing it together. Today we spoke to Chief Adkins who explained the methods of policing used to control Cruise Night, and their desired effects. We also had him answer, directly, the most interesting complaints and rumors from the youth we met last Sunday night. His answers were interesting.
Demolition Derby
Loud, dirty, Americana. Happy 4th of July.
Photos from my News21 trip to Iowa. Taken in the town of Inwood during their independence day celebration.
Simulator Stories Sneak Peak
Andrew and I are almost finished with a week of editing and logging here in Syracuse and even while we get geared up for our trip to Iowa, we wanted to share this with you: A sneak peak of the work we’ve done with our tours of simulators on Fort Campbell. We’re working on a larger comparison between these military training devices and the video games that people play at home.
The final story we are planning will include four chapters, one for each simulator that we visited.
- The Engagement Skills Trainer (featured in this sneak peak)
- The Blackhawk Helicopter Simulator
- The Vehicular Convoy Combat Trainer
- The Call for Fire (Artillery) Simulator
News21 iPhone photography
Now on my way back from Kentucky for a week of editing in Syracuse, I have looked through my phone and realized that I have gathered many decent photos for twitpics during our travels. Many of these photos include my partner Andrew, much to his chagrin, for obvious reasons. Here are my favorite iPhone photos from the first two News21 trips. I think they are a neat chronicle of all we have done.
(more…)
Challenge House Anecdote
Here is a quick story about we found from the Challenge House that really ties together youth and technology quite well. It is the story of a little girl with a math assignment that needs to be finished, and the way that the charity’s computer made that possible for her. The charity has recently been awarded a grant for 18 new computers and hopes that this kind of story will start to happen more often.
Frustrations of Journalism
Edited by Phil for Andrew Burton, News21 partner. Written by Andrew Burton.
(Despite my rant below, Phil and I did get to try out the Army’s Blackhawk simulator, used by the 101st Airborne for Training – it’s pretty cool. Surround-view screens, a complete pilot’s cockpit and full hydraulic motion leads to a very real experience. Add in simulated machine gun fire, heat seeking missles, other aircrafts, tanks and foot soldiers and a person gets into it. Our trainer told me I was a great flyer and did an amazing job landing the bird, but that I sucked at dodging heat seeking missles.)
Becoming the News
While we were out at the Hopkinsville Soap Box Derby, here is what happened: (WARNING, THIS VIDEO MAY BE UNSUITABLE FOR SENSITIVE VIEWERS)
I couldn’t tell the story any better than Andrew did, here is a copy of his tweets:
#theyoungandthewire @pstenser got taken out by a soapbox derby car, unresponsive and seizured for a few moments. at ER, getting cat scanabout 4 hours ago from txt (more…)
Hoptown How To
With his white monogrammed oxford and western-Kentucky accent, Wynn Radford in every way looks the part of the southern businessman. Selling insurance, however, isn’t his only venture. Radford is also a modern day community organizer as sole sponsor and contributor to hopkinsvillehowto.com, a repository for public information.
Radford says his website is not an attempt to save the world, but simply a product of his frustration with a lack of communication between people in his “Hoptown” home. “it is an attempt to level the playing field… A forum to share information,” he says. (more…)
Fort Campbell Simulator
Here is a short video package about the first of my 4 planned tours of Army combat simulators that I will be receiving over the next two weeks as part of the News21 Fellowship. Consider it a sneak peak at a much larger story comparing many of the military’s training technologies to entertainment technology like video games.
Southern Hospitality Extends to the Airwaves
Drew Wilson of WKDZ from Phil's Iphone
When we walked into radio station WKDZ in Cadiz, KY (15 miles from Hopkinsville, and right next to our hotel) we thought we would just be dropping off a business card. Instead, this is what happened.
Generation Lap Sneak Peak
Jace Schwartz and Susan Smith talk about the generation lap they experience as mother and son. In this special sneak peak of their conversation they are talking about text messaging.
Our week in Syracuse is almost over, and if you’ve been following our twitter feeds, you’ll already know that it has been very successful. Of the 5 videos and 1 multimedia gallery we have planned to produce from our trip to Lincoln City, we have brought 4 to the 99% complete mark. Now we wait just for our final branding and graphical design so that our projects will fit the final theme of the site when we publish.
On Monday morning we leave for Hopkinsville, KY. We will be doing many of the same things we did in Lincoln City while we are there, but with a new twist. Hopkinsville is a military community and we intend to find stories about youth and technology in that setting.
Much more to come. Keep checking our blogs and our homepage.
