Joey Joining the NewsTrust Team
I will be joining the NewsTrust team this summer as the Communications Intern. I’m very excited to be working with NewsTrust which is a non-profit that works to find and evaluate quality journalism and promote media literacy.
My job description for the summer:
Assist with editorial (articles and multimedia), community and marketing projects, and help develop our nonprofit social news network because NewsTrust wants to expand the quantity and quality of users on the site so that the site can become the community platform to promote quality journalism and increase media literacy.
I'm looking forward to starting in June!
3.5 Years of College… Over?
I took a leave of absence from Syracuse University today. I’m a senior with 1.5 semesters of school left.
The whole experience was … weird. I looked up the process online and found that I had to go to my home college to get the correct paperwork. I appeared, and asked for an academic advisor. After 20 min, or so, I was politely escorted into an office of the only advisor available, only to be told she could of no assistance.
I’ve been to academic advisors at least five times in the past, and have had the same encounter. Each time, I’ve been told that I should have seen a ‘recorder’ instead of of an 'advisor.'
A bit frustrated, I asked why the Recorders seemed to have all the answers, and the advisors couldn’t seem to do anything. It seemed to me, that the title 'recorder,' was more administrative, and the advisor was more … advisory. Apparently, I was wrong. Recorders are for “anything to do with paperwork.”
Still rather mystified as to what an academic advisor actually does, I put my name on the list to see a Recorder.
When I sat down, to explain for the second time, that I wanted to take a leave of absence, the Recorder in front of me complained that my recorder (last name beginning with letters: A-G) wasn’t in today. But, she could take care of me.
The Recorder pulled the correct, half-sheet, in-triplicate, form out of the top drawer of her desk, and had me fill out my name, ID number, phone number, and check off the reasons why I was taking the leave. I checked off “personal/family” and “other.”
Her paperwork competed, she told me she'd have to make a copy of the triplicate form, but the phone rang and the Recorder had me wait while she finished the call. I waited a few more minutes, during witch time I grabbed the business card of "my" Recorder.
Once it was copied, I took the triplicate form back, and continued to the next building to turn the form over to the office of the Dean of Student Affairs.
After taking the stairs to the third floow, I handed my form to the secretary, who said that she thought she could get someone to talk to me directly. I patiently had a seat in the lobby, and patiently denied the kind offer for water or coffee from the secretary (administrative assistant?).
I picked up the only magazine that remotely interested me on the side table – Contact Sheet – put together by the on campus, non-profit, photo lab. I had just enough time to flip through it and determine that it was by-and-large graphics of words like “peace” and “love” and in no way resembled a contact sheet of photos, when I heard my name called.
I was politely ushered into the bare-walled, narrow office and offered a seat on a couch flush to the same wall as the woman’s desk. She already had my half-sheet form, and explained that the university liked to conduct a brief interview with students taking a leave. Right away, she found that the form wasn’t signed by my home college. Though not yet exasperated, I slowly explained that I had just been to that office, and that they were the ones that had given my the form. She asked who I had seen at the other office, and I played a guessing game between two similar sounding names that began with ‘M.’
I guessed wrong as it turns out, but all was straightened out after a phone call that consisted more of gossip than enquiring if I had actually been seen by the sole person who could give me the from I had presented to the woman in front of me.
Hanging up the phone, the woman from the office of Student Affairs looked down at the form, noted my check-off reasons for taking a leave, and enquired for more details. I explained that my family had determined that I was better off focusing on my extra-curricular activities for a semester and that I intended to return to school soon.
A few more details, and we shook hands. I walked out of her office with wishes of ‘good luck’ and ‘we hope to see you back.’
I walked out the office with the following train of though:
- That was really, really, easy to do. Granted, I had to go to two offices, and talk with five different people, but that only took an hour. It’s hard to believe that getting out of school, and receiving at $15,000 tuition refund was really that easy.
- The one thing that I kept hearing from each person I talked to was they hoped to see me back. It seems that college students taking a leave of absence is a frequent enough occurrence that the staff has become resigned to it. They're used to it enough that the form has check boxes that read something to the effect of ‘school isn’t right for me,’ or ‘my grades aren’t to my satisfaction.’
- What does this suggest about the education system? Advisors don’t advise, paperwork is paramount, and a students leaving school is far too common. At no point was I asked not to leave, it wasn’t even a hard process — they just had me fill out paperwork. My ‘exit interview’ was a joke. All they asked me was if I’d be coming back … not that it mattered outside of the box they’d have to check.
Looking back, I’ve never been into college. I recognize that I’ve had senioritise since freshman year…
…of high school. I’ve been saying since then that college was about the experience more than the ‘education.’ It’s not that I haven’t learned anything from class. I have. But, I’ve learned far more from my experience of college, than from sitting in a classroom. I plan to go back to school. I plan to get my degree — even if it’s just so I can get a piece of paper that shows I’m ‘educated.’ This experience though, has caused me to question the value of the degree more than ever.
If an education system is so used to seeing failure, what faith do I put in it? Is a piece of paper worth all the aggravation, and expense to achieve? Could I be better off going to work on topics that fascinate me, that need the help of my generation?
I'm "young man with my whole life" in front of me according to the academic advisor I saw today. Here's hoping she's right.
You’ve Noticed the ‘Links’
If you've read this blog with any regularity, (or even if not) you might have noticed the obtrusive number of "These are my links for…" posts.
I recently stopped piping my tumblr posts to my twitter account so I've been looking for a solution. In the mean time, the best I can come up with is to have delicious auto-post links to this blog via postalicious.
Apologies for it not working or over-working, I'm still working out the kinks.
Your up:
- If anyone has a good way to get tumblr to auto-post a digest to wordpress. That would be insanely useful.
- How do you like the links living here as opposed to twitter?
- Anyone know a good micro-brewery in the upstate New York area that isn't Saranac or Middle Ages?
‘Backpacker Responder’
I've officially set gmail's 'vacation responder.' I'm off for a week of backpacking in Death Valley – the lowest altitude in North America!
It will be a much needed break from the internets. I've been dying for a backpacking trip for months now, and I can't recommend it enough to all of us who spend our lives living and dying by wifi access.
To celebrate I'm (finally) publishing part of my take from my last excursion on flickr – which I've now adopted as my means of publishing photos. Combined with the flickr export plugin for Lightroom, putting up photos immediately after a take is really easy, and the online interface rocks!
Fair warning: uploading through the plugin failed on me for the first time on this take. …Meh, I'll deal with it when I get back.
One other note: I've been working a lot (and officially taken over "Business Development") with CoPress recently. We're working very hard to see to it that college media has a future in this internet evolution. Please come check us out!
I'll end by saying this: I've been trying to check more and more items off my seemingly endless todo list, and finally got around to compiling this monstrosity. Try not to laugh at my poor sense of 'nifty' or hair too hard.
Newspaper Clippings Time Lapse from Joey Baker on Vimeo.
I've got a new year's resolution to get back to blogging more, so expect to see less of this stupid I-feel-obligatied-to-post-this-housekeeping-BS-just-to-have-something-up-there. And more real content.
I'm working on a piece that has the working title: "Print isn't dead, It's a luxury good."
Merry New Year's!
Best Practices
This is a little old now, but worth mentioning: I've won an awarded a 'best practices' recognition from the Poynter Institute for the Light the Night audio slideshow above.
I'm not really accustom to positive re-inforcement, but it did feel good to be told "good job." Especially from an organization like Poynter. I'm grateful, thank you.
Now let me bite the hand that feeds me. I would never have put this particular show up for 'best practices.' I think that it's a really poor example of an audio slideshow. The photos have nothing to do with the audio, the audio is poor, the interview is poor, and the whole thing is too short for the story involved.
But, I'll use one of my favorite words here: meh… whatever. Cheers to the recognition, and let's hope someone looks at the article and finds it helpful.
Yes, “It Is Our Fault”
A few weeks ago, I as I was sitting down in my 'office'* in The Daily Orange 'newsroom,'† I noticed a book sitting next to my curmudgeon office-mate, Andy. Noting the rather dilapidated state of his paperback, I read the title: The Powers that Be.
My curiosity piqued, I flipped through it, read a summary (a review of the "good ol' times" of journalism) and the copyright date (sometime in the 70s). What choice did I have but to mock Andy for reading out-dated literature about a now-dead job while wishing for the return of drinking on the job. I told him to do like me: read a few blogs instead.
Andy's a great guy – we get along really well, even if we disagree on… everything. His focus (both personally, and as the Enterprise Editor) is on improving the quality of writing and reporting around the paper. The rants about ledes and grammar Andy goes off on would make Wooward cry.
My job, as the Exponent of the Evolution, is on expanding the use of 'new media.' It's all about the blogging, podcasting, videos, tweeting… I'm also not the quality hound that Andy is. It's all about the 'version 1' for me; if we can just get something online: we've made progress. We can worry about improving the next version.
In a recent round of blog posts (1, 2, 3) responding to a Washington Post article on the victimization of the press, Jeff Jarvis writes:
The reason to take responsibility for the fall of journalism is to take responsibility for the fate of journalism. Who’s going to try to save it if not for journalists? We are indeed responsible for the future of journalism and we have about one minute to grab that bull by its horns.
-BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » It is our fault
Realization strikes: Andy and I aren't that philosophically far apart. We're both trying to 'save journalism' – through different routes.
Though I firmly believe that newspapers are the only medium that is doing true journalism nowadays (broadcast TV sure isn't), I think that the future lies in the ability of newspapers to adapt to the internet age. They've got to realize that blogging, the link, multimedia, commenting, and an unlimited newshole have forever changed the business.
Andy would rather focus on the basics – good reporting. He argues that the bar is constantly being lowered (an example) and saving journalism means raising it back up through better sourcing, good writing, etc.
I'm still think that reporting is the most important service a newspaper provides (sounds obvious, but tell that to the bean counters), and Andy is one of my premiere video podcasters. We're willing to recognize the strength of the other's arguement-–we just have different approaches to journalism.
Saving journalism is not just about moving a newspaper online, it's not about figuring out a new revenue model, it's not about multimedia, it's about finding the balance of all three to ensure the future of the media information industry.
And that future is… us. The current generation of college graduates who are aware of the what the internet can do, who aren't biased by the way things used to be (Andy possibly excluded). There is a gap of understanding between generation X & Y on the use of the web. With a younger, more tech savvy generation coming into the industry it's up to us to figure out how to meld the nutty world that the interweb has become into the the sphere of journalism.
The problems that the newspaper industry face right now can largely be overcome by realizing that we're not in the newspaper business, we're in the media information business. Those of us young'ins who are just starting in this industry have an idea of how to reinvent journalism to survive in the internet age.
If you've got a computer problem, who do you look to for a fix? You're nearest 15 year old who has already forgotten more about computers than you ever cared to know? Journalism has a computer-problem right now. Take a look at us young folks for a fix.
* My 'office' is more of a conference room. † The Daily Orange 'newsroom' is a converted house. So there is no real newsroom floor, there are no real offices, we mostly consider ourselves lucky to have a desk and a roof.
About
Joey Baker is 'new media' advocate. He recently served as the communications intern for NewsTrust, a non-profit centered around evaluating journalism and promoting media literacy.
A self proclaimed geek, Baker grew up on the web and first began working in the dotcom industry by designing user-experience and user interface customization for a small web design firm.
As a student at Syracuse University, Baker served at The Daily Orange as photo editor for a year. Where he transitioned the department to a first-class workflow, and tripled the size of the department. The following year, Joey served in the newly created position of Exponent of the Evolution, where he led The Daily Orange in the creation of a blog network, established a video journalism department, and brought the DO into the social media world.
In 2008 he went on to be a founding-member of CoPress, a new, national, non-profit organization centered around the creation of a technical ecosystem for college media. As the business manager, he has personally witnessed the response around the nation. CoPress is expanding rapidly and plans to be supporting 35 colleges by the end of this summer.
Joey is an avid consumer and debater in the new media revolution. His acclaimed and convincing blog posts and tweets have been recognized by many. He is equally interested in the creation of good content as he is with sustainable web-business models which will restore the journalism industry.
In his other life, Joey is an EMT, an active backpacker (a throwback to his Eagle Scout days) and has excellent taste in beer. He is available for consultation regarding the evolution of towards ‘new media’.
He would also like you to know that he did not write his own bio, and is a little uncomfortable having so many kind words said about himself.
Find me
Wow, That Took a While.
So I finally decided to finish (mostly) my blog theme – let me just say that it took a really long time to get that nav bar up there. A really long time. I had to partially redo the way I do tabs on my main site, had to change a bunch of CSS both on my main site and here. All of which was made even harder because I don't have PHP installed on my laptop, so I had to update the live site to see if the darn thing worked. That, let me tell you, is a pain in the but when you're doing a lot of trial and error.
The good news is that I've actually made things more efficient in the process. I cut out some unnecessary code, made my tab system better, and slimed down the size of the main logo that I use. I suppose I learned a thing or two about CSS in the process too.
Thank god that's done.
Oh yea, I know my 'buy' page is now really messed up as a result of my fiddling. I'll fix that shortly.
