Kirtan update

I know I just posted the one below, but I thought this definitely deserved an update: since the last time I posted (approximately fifteen minutes ago) this woman emailed me again, TWICE. Once, she asked to see the article before it is published, and again to request the publishing date be pushed until mid-June, which is apparently closer to her event. I didn't really know how to handle the situation, so I asked my editor for help--he said to email her back and say no, she can't see the story (that I knew even from working on The Independent: you never, ever let anyone bully you into seeing the story before it is published - if it gets out of control, you simply divert to Ms. Buckley Harmon, our faculty advisor). The main point behind this is that in the end, newspapers are a business: if we release stories before they are printed, then why would people want to pay for articles in an actual newspaper that they got for free AND ahead of time? Anyway, the same thing happened here -- but it was worse, because this woman is also a journalist/writer, so she knows the rules of the newspaper and tried that anyway. That makes me really angry, because she knows that I am an intern, and I think she is trying to take advantage of the fact that I might not know very much about newspapers and thus, I would naively send her the story without even asking if it was an okay thing to do. Well, she was wrong: even if I didn't know that sending an unpublished story was a big no-no, I am smart enough to run something like that by an editor or at least someone more experienced when it seems like something shady like that. I sent that woman an email telling her to call my editor, because I am not going to deal with her trying to bully me anymore!

Kirtan

Yesterday, I started working on this article about Kirtan, one of the eight types of yoga. A woman is doing a "kirtan" on June 19. Specifically, Kirtan is this type of yoga that does not involve any type of movement or exercise - in reality, it is basically sitting around on the floor while a sitar and drummers play to create a "drone." Everyone chants along with the drone, and this apparently sends you into an immediate state of relaxation and realigns your spirit. I guess the main idea behind this is stress relief, not exercise. Personally, this definitely does NOT sound like something I would ever be interested in doing - personally, I just don't think I would ever be able to take it seriously - but I think that some people would definitely enjoy it. Personally, I could never get over the obvious hilarity of sitting around in a circle singing "the names of the Divine" and I think that in order for it to create that meditative state, you really have to actually commit yourself.
You would think that interviewing a yoga teacher would be the easiest thing in the world: stereotypically, they should be fairly calm and relaxed. But no, this is yoga teacher is also a New Yorker: she was on the ball, and actually sort of called one of my questions ridiculous in a backhanded sort of way. She then proceeded to email me four emails worth of attachments and statements about kirtan, emphasizing "the healing powers of vowels" and such. I chose to do two things. One: I did not tell that woman that the story was set at approximately 325 words and therefore there was NOT enough space to include everything she wanted to say. Two: I chose not to include that stuff about "clearing physical blockages" and how vowels can heal your ailments simply because it is my job as a reporter to actually take this seriously and make the readers take it seriously: basically, if she wants people to actually go and try it out, she can't sound like she's out in outer space. This was actually kind of a challenging article, but I think it was a good experience because not everyone is going to be nice to me and it's good to learn how to deal with difficult people in a controlled setting.

My kirtan article will be published after SCORE is over, but look for it on gloucestertimes.com sometime in early June!!

Trad and the Parks

Today, I sat in on a meeting about a new park. The Cape Ann Museum is planning on putting in a park in the place of an old, decrepit building and a weedy parking lot. I saw the plans and they are very promising: one of the men in there said that it was a nice way to break up the "urban sprawl" that is downtown Gloucester. While I wouldn't characterize Gloucester in any way as "urban sprawl," I definitely think that a park in place of a run down building and parking lot is a good idea. It seems like lately, parks have been taking over the unused space in Gloucester. Most notably, the notoriously controversial I-4, C-2 lot on Rogers Street as finally been taken over by the city after fifty years of debate. I drive past it every day, and it is definitely an improvement over the disgusting, weedy lot that it was before - now, there are trees and grass is starting to grow a little bit. I think that the farmer's market is actually going to move into the I-4, C-2 lot, which is nice. When the market isn't using it, it will be a public park space.
On another note, I just finished up a story about a play at the Gloucester Stage Company. They will be debuting a new play, titled "Trad," at the beginning of September. This was notable because they actually removed a play from the summer season so that they could run the play. Apparently, it had an extremely successful but extremely short run in Boston before it had to close prematurely due to the actors having other work to do. It is about these really old Irish men who are on a journey across the world looking for one of the guys' long lost son. The idea is that it is a parody of Irish storytelling and culture, and got really rave reviews from the people who actually did get to see it. I hope I will be able to get tickets and come home from college to see it, because it definitely seems like it is worth the time.

Look for my Gloucester Stage article in tomorrow's (May 20) paper!

Diving and other things

Today, my article on the diving convention was published. What I did today was finish up the GHS stock market article (which will be published in the Saturday paper) and then listened in on some stuff that's happening around the office. There is something going on concerning a local organization that I'm not really sure I am allowed to discuss, so I am going to be VERY vague about this. But, in short, I believe that there was some information withheld from the paper that legally shouldn't have been. In any event, I think that these people have definitely learned their lesson with this one: I heard the legal guy leave a very scary / threatening message on this guy's voice mail. I do not think this will be happening any time soon. Tangling with the press can sometimes get ugly, apparently. In other news, I wrote my first press release as a favor to a friend this week. Ruby Allen, who is planning an open house for the business she is interning at, wanted me to help her write a press release in order to gain publicity for the event. It was good experience for me, because press release writing is actually a little different then AP style and journalistic writing, and I've never actually done it before. I kind of copied the ones that had come across my desk, and I think I did pretty well for my first time. It is the exact kind of article that I would get assigned - not particularly urgent, about something cute and nice and involving teenagers - so it might be funny if I end up writing from my own press release!

HERE is the link to my diver's article!
Look for my article about the stock competition in tomorrow's paper!

Stock Market

To be honest, this is kind of a slow day--half of the staff isn't here today and I'm pretty much working on the same things that I have been all week. Nobody can come up with anything particularly interesting, so we are all just working on these slightly tedious pieces. I'm currently working on a story about the kids at Gloucester High School who won this huge stock market competition. Apparently, the idea was that schools were given an imaginary $500,000 and were told to invest it in order to accrue the most amount of revenue over 10 weeks. Whoever ended with the most amount of money won cash prizes for their school and individual awards for the highest earners. A group of three girls from AP economics ended up winning the top awards, and Gloucester High School won out overall. I'm having some trouble getting in contact with the director of Business education at the high school because of AP exams this week--economics is an afternoon exam and is TODAY, so she's basically unreachable because the high school doesn't allow people to be paged during exam hours. I'll probably end up talking to her at some point tomorrow. I've already synthesized the press release into article format, but I don't really understand the stock market that well, so I do need the teacher to clarify some things for me. In the mean time, I have this weird article about a SCUBA convention sponsored by some California based company that's happening at Stage Fort Park this weekend.


UPDATE: HERE is the link to my stocks article!

The Empty Bowl Dinner

On Monday, I had kind of a lot of work to do when I got in. I had to finish up an article about three plays that were being translated from German and performed at the Blackburn Theater by talking to the translator / director, as well as writing an article about the annual Empty Bowl Dinner that the Open Door hosts every year. I was really glad to be able to write about this fundraiser, mostly because I go every year and my mom is a really big advocate for reducing hunger. The director is also a mom of a sophomore at Manchester Essex and works with my mom all the time, so talking to her felt very personal. The interview was easy and I was able to get the article done fairly quickly after reformulating a press release. I am always glad when I write about this stuff, mostly because I like when the paper gives publicity to and supports local organizations that are making a HUGE difference in our communities. The proceeds from the fundraiser this year are going directly towards funding the Summer lunch program and the farmer's market program. Summer Lunch feeds kids ages 1 to 18 during the 10 week summer break, when school lunch isn't available, and the farmer's market program sets up a free farmer's market in public housing neighborhoods around the North Shore. It is nice to write about something I really care about. For me, ending hunger and simultaneously giving people a chance to get fresh and locally grown vegetables is one of the best things that can be done in this area. So many times, people are prevented from eating in a healthy way simply because healthy, fresh food is so much more expensive then prepackaged, processed foods. But with this program, people are actually able to get food that is good for them without having to sacrifice on the amount of food they are able to buy.

Click HERE to read my Empty Bowl Dinner article! The fundraiser is at the Cruiseport off Rogers Street in Gloucester, from 4 to 8 p.m. tomorrow, Thursday May 13!

Today, I started working on an article that I've kind of had on the back burner for a while. It is about this guy, a lawyer, actually, from Rockport, who also happens to be a play director. He translated three short plays -- one by Chekov and two by Strindberg -- titled "Cigarettes, Coffee, and Suicide" that will open next week. The plays actually only have three actors throughout the production -- one in the first play, two in the second, and three in the third. Currently, I've been spending my time assimilating the press release into article format. Since the article is actually due by the end of business Monday, I am planning on conducting the necessary interviews Monday afternoon. My goal for the rest of today is to continue to and eventually synthesize all the information from the press release into article form (a feat, considering it is four single spaced pages long!), then give the guy who directed and translated the plays a call on Monday. Ideally, I'd also like to talk to at least one of the actors -- I know one of them is probably in Germany right now, but the other two might be available if I ask for a contact number from the director.
On another note, something fairly interesting happened with the Essex police. Apparently, a flagger in a construction site whacked a woman's car with his flag. Crazy! It always astounds me what some people do in certain situations. I look forward to finding out more when more information comes in.

JROTC and Darrell Nulisch

Yesterday, I finished up a week long project on blues and soul musician Darrell Nulisch. I finally managed to set up a time through email with his publicist--who is actually based out of Atlanta, Georgia--so it was kind of weird for me to have to jump through so many hoops to talk to someone, since most people I talk to are locals who are familiar with the paper. After I talked to him on Monday--he was just getting back from Europe from being on tour--I did some background research. From what I gathered, he seems to be kind of a big deal in the world of soul/blues music, so that was kind of cool to talk to him. He apparently played with Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters, and will be playing several dates with James Cotton in New York at Lincoln Center, as well as at the National Blues and Soul Festival. He's also nominated for a bunch of awards at the National Blues Awards.
On another note, The JROTC got back from their trip to Daytona Beach, and they did fairly well. Most of the divisions and teams came in fifth/sixth, and ninth overall. The Physical Fitness Team is headed for San Diego, CA, in the middle of this month. Their coach was extremely proud of them--apparently, the entire team was composed of mostly sophomores and freshman. That turnout for awards is pretty good, comparatively, because none of the kids have a lot of experience.

Look out for my Darrell Nulisch article and my article about Cape Ann TV in tomorrow's (May 6th) paper!

UPDATE: HERE is the link to my Darrell Nulisch article!

UPDATE: HERE is the link to my JROTC update!

Cape Ann TV and the Rockport Override

Yesterday, I started out with a new assignment before I continued my article about the blues musician from the previous week. The executive director of Cape Ann TV, Sinikka Nogelo, is retiring from the station after 30 years working with public access TV. In her honor, the people at Cape Ann TV are throwing her a farewell gala. At her request, it will also function as an auction with the proceeds benefitting Cape Ann TV.
While I was doing the interviews and research for this article, I kind of realized what a culture Gloucester has. There are a few people in town who literally EVERYONE knows--Sinikka being one of them, along with Stacy Randell (who I work with at Cape Ann Families) and this woman Ruth Pino. All of the stuff with Gloucester politics is fairly interesting, too--I like gaining new understanding about how everything works in regional and local government.
Take, for instance, the Rockport override. On the surface, almost anyone would vote for it: who wants the school to lose music programs? That's terrible! But when you look below the surface, administrators and budget makers can be tricky. It is my understanding that sometimes, when it comes to overrides, they pick the issues that will "tug at the heartstrings" of the community. Couldn't they simply cut one of the administrative or upper-management positions in the school district instead of chopping off music programs? Well, they could, but they choose not to. Instead, it appears to me that Rockport teachers will take the hit if the override passes--which, when you consider the importance of a teacher to the school compared to that of an upper level management administrator, really doesn't make sense. A teacher absolutely can't teach two classes at once: administrators, on the other hand, seem significantly less important. I think, overall, that schools need to reevaluate what kind of people they want to cut the salaries of. Every Rockport citizen should think about that before they vote for or against the override.

UPDATE: HERE is my article about Cape Ann TV!

Author/Actor article and the beginnings of the blues artist

Yesterday, I wrote an article about a guy who goes into schools and reads a children's book he wrote about a purple "grape" ape from outer space. He also gives the presentation dressed up like the ape. This guy was very interesting to talk to: I like hearing from people who are kind of different, and he definitely was. I mean, it takes a special kind of person to walk into an elementary school in a homemade purple space monkey costume and claim to be an alien from the planet grape. The books are actually cute, though, and they definitely seem like they'd be very interesting for kids to read. Besides being an author, this guy is also an actor, and has done a TON of theater work. I think its cute that instead of pursuing a strictly acting career, he chose to also teach at preschools around the area--he must really like kids!
Today, I started what will be a longer piece about a blues musician who will be performing in Gloucester next week. This is giving me great real world experience, because I can't communicate directly with the musician--he is on tour in Europe and won't be back until Monday. Moreover, there is virtually no contact information available on the Internet--the only source I have is his publicist's website. I sent them an email, and have been communicating with a woman from that organization who directly represents the musician. I will probably talk to her a little bit, then work on getting an actual interview with the performer when he returns from Europe.

Look out for my story on the children's book writer either tomorrow or Monday!

UPDATE: HERE is the link to my article!

Rockport Beaches and Notes on Confidentiality

Yesterday, I had a pretty easy day. I was assigned to help out the people who are working on the Cape Ann Summer Guide, which compiles information about things to do on Cape Ann during the summer for local residents. I called up someone at the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce and got all the information on the numerous beaches in Rockport. After that, I took a look at the beach rules for Rockport: turns out, some of them are pretty hilarious. Here are some of the highlights of that particular venture:

• No person is permitted to carry a spear and/or a spear gun between the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 15 through September 1.
• In accordance with local laws, no person shall be in possession of a lobster one half hour after sunset to one half hour before sunrise at any time.

On another note, I got to have a talk with my editor about the confidentiality rules of journalism. In my experience, most kids under 18 seems to be under the impression that if they get in trouble, the newspaper is not allowed to publish their names. That is actually incorrect. In reality, newspapers can publish whatever TRUE information they find out (freedom of speech also covers freedom of press, DUH!) and it is the police departments that aren't supposed to release information. Schools, on the other hand, are not bound by the same confidentiality laws and although they can't officially attest to whether or not a student has been arrested, they can say if students have been suspended or expelled from the school. In addition, any information that reaches the newspapers by accident--like an error where the police forget to take the name of a minor off of the police report, or someone comes in as a source to spill the information, newspapers can still publish it regardless if the information was obtained legally. If it was illegally obtained, unless an individual from the paper was directly involved in the actual illegal activity to GET the information, the newspapers are not at fault for publishing the information, the source is.

JROTC

Yesterday, I was assigned an article about the JROTC at Gloucester High School. Apparently, the team made it to the nationals. Because the team was actually practicing that day, I drove over to the high school with a photographer to interview some of the kids. While I was there, I talked to the instructor. JROTC is a very interesting program--the kids all really like it, but at the same time, they get upset when the instructors yell at them. After I talked to the instructor, a couple of kids came up to me almost immediately when they figured out I was with the press. One sophomore in particular REALLY wanted to be in the paper--he came right up to me and asked if I could say something, and then went over to the photographer I was with and asked if he could do some tricks with his rifle. I also talked to two different girls, one of which was the Commanding Officer (which I guess is kind of like being a captain) of the whole team, as well as a Physical Training (PT) champion. PT is basically a competition where people perform military drills and exercises (like push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, sprints, etc) FOR FUN. It sounded like torture to me, but this girl--who is about five feet tall and ninety pounds--absolutely loves it. She and the rest of the PT division are going to San Fransisco this summer in order to compete in the National PT Championships. The other girl I met was a really great example of how JROTC could potentially increase women's leadership opportunities. In the ROTC, there are two different divisions--armed and unarmed. The armed division obviously competes with drill rifles (and sometimes swords!), and the unarmed division competes with nothing or with flags during color guard. Generally, girls participate in the unarmed division and boys compete in the armed division. But this girl I met--who, I should mention, is only a sophomore--is not only competing in the armed division, she is the commander of the team! She started doing drill last year, and ended up loving the sport! She was obviously very good at it too, and so she progressed through the ranks very quickly.
After I got back to the office, I wrote the article and it was published in the next day's paper on 4/27. I got a taste of what it is like for reporters who have to get an idea, conduct interviews, and generate a story--all in one day! Some reporters here even have to do two, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It really gives me respect for journalists--they do a LOT of work that I think most people don't appreciate enough.
Here is the link to my article which was on the front page on 4/27!!!

Police Notes

Yesterday, I went to the police station to get the police notes. In order for the press to get access to the arrest records, we have to wait in this tiny little room in the police station for up to 40 minutes. When I first got there, the reporter I was with picked up this phone attached to the wall and said "This is the reporter from the Gloucester Daily Times, I'm here for the (insert names of specific documents that I have no idea what they are called or what they meant)." We can't actually take any of the forms out of the police station--I guess for confidentiality reasons, since they have names, phone numbers, addresses, and social security numbers on them--so we had to sit there and copy all of the interesting things down into a notebook. The first thing we looked through was the arrests for today. The whole thing basically consisted of one guy who got pulled over, then picked up by the police for an unnamed outstanding warrant and one other guy who was arrested for what the reporters here call the "trifecta"--namely, operating on a suspended license, operating a motor vehicle without insurance, and operating a motor vehicle with an expired registration. We also noted that the man had a HUGE amount of money on him, which was suspicious. The next thing we looked at were all the 911 calls over the last 24 hours. To be honest, a LOT of them were to report "suspicious vehicles" or people who were driving erratically. Some highlights:

• A man who would identify himself only as "Glen" called in to report a suspicious vehicle. He provided a license plate number, which the officer ran: it came up with nothing.
• A woman called in to report her dogs, Rocco and Bruno, as missing. She left the house at 11 a.m. and when she returned at 11 p.m., the dogs were gone. Nothing else was reported missing.
• A man crashed his mother's car. He was heavily intoxicated.
• A woman called the police to request house checks during the day. She had received a call from someone claiming to be with ADT security a few days before, and the person had reportedly asked several questions about the home. A few days later, she called ADT and found that no one from the company had contacted her.
  

Update: the Docksiders Article

Today I actually went over to Gloucester High School with a photographer to get pictures of and talk to members of the concert jazz band The Docksiders. They are leaving for Hawaii at 3 a.m. on Friday and the editor wanted to get a picture of them packing up for the trip and getting ready to leave. Obviously, nobody is going to want to go to Gloucester High at 2:30 in the morning to get pictures of them leaving, so we went over today because they were receiving their new performance shirts. When we went over there, I heard them play a couple of songs--they are really good!--and then I talked to a couple of the kids to get their perspective. They all seem really excited. I couldn't believe it--they had been planning and fundraising for this trip for two years.. Through all the performances they have been doing, they managed to raise $65,000! They are doing three performances around the island of Oahu and then touring around to absorb the local culture.

Tomorrow, look out for my article on the front page!

UPDATE: My article was on the front page 4/15. HERE is the link!

Northeast Healthcare Systems and the Docksiders

Yesterday, I started working on a story I started to write a story about the Docksiders. The Docksiders are a jazz band from Gloucester High School who are going on a trip to Hawaii on Friday. I am going over there around 2:30 with a photographer to talk to some of the kids and get some quotes for the article, which will be published in tomorrow's paper. Yesterday, I also got to sit in on a press meeting with the editor-in-chief, a reporter, and the CEO of Northeast Healthcare Systems. I thought this was especially interesting because in light of the pregnancy scandal of 2008, this company has been part of an issue that very much pertains to teenagers. I don't really think I am supposed to say a lot about what was actually said in the meeting, but the meat of it was concerning primary care physicians in Gloucester and Addison Gilbert Hospital. It was really interesting for me to see this kind of meeting between the groups: the CEO brought three people with him, two of which said absolutely nothing during the meeting. I liked observing this kind of thing.
After I got out of the meeting, I started to write my article for the Docksiders. I called the musical director at the high school, David Adams, and interviewed him for a while. Then, I started working to type it out in InCopy. I really like this program--it makes it so much easier to see how long the article is in inches, not word count like in Microsoft Word. I think the school actually has the program, so I would like to see if we could eventually transfer from using QUARK to using the Adobe Suite.

Week 1

Last Thursday, I went in after school from 2:30 and stayed until 5. I was introduced to all of the staff. The floor of the newsroom is situated by sections: the editors all sit together in one part of the room, the reporters all sit together, and the photography staff all sit together. The marketing staff also sits together as a group on the other side of the room. I got situated at a desk and started learning how to use the Adobe suite that the paper uses. The main components of their operating system include a program called NewsEdit which allows the staff to quickly forward information to their editors, as well as see the stories in a layout form (the program also shows how many inches long the article will be once in print), InDesign (used to actually lay out the pages), Bridge (with synthesizes all of the information from NewsEdit and Photoshop so they are compatible) and Photoshop (to edit and prepare photographs so they are able to be inserted into InDesign). They do not use any form of the Microsoft Office Suite: instead, every article is written in NewsEdit and thereby eliminates the need for a word-processing system.

This week, I started working on an article for the Times about the changes to the Cape Ann Farmer's Market. It took me two days to write it and do the research for the article. The actual article was published in today's newspaper (April 13, in the Business News section). I will try to scan in a copy of the article as an image posting.

UPDATE: While I was working on the Farmer's Market article, I also did a brief article on an upcoming anti-drug presentation at Addison Gilbert Hospital. Click HERE to read it.