Yup. Playoffs. The only team in D.C. to consistently make the playoffs in recent memory, the Washington Capitals have hosted three hockey games so far in their first round series against the Montreal Canadians. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend two, with a fancy and expensive video camera in tow. It’s been useful practice for me, and even better for my portfolio, since CSNwashington.com dumps all the video on their website!

Shout out to Michelle Scalise. Without her, none of this would be possible.

All video is from Game 5, which the Capitals lost 2-1.

| Category Online Journalism

I’ve been using video cameras a lot lately. I think I’m starting to like it.

This video is from CSNwashington.com. It’s their first crack at a weekly online show called Caps OT. I helped with shooting some of the video, including the shots of Caps analyst Alan May and the stand-up by Michelle Scalise at the Capitals game in segment three.

Tags: Capitals, CSNwashington, video | Category Clips

As you can see, I’ve been busy lately, but since I have a few days off for Spring Break, I took some time to update the Clips section of the site. Now all articles I’ve written in the past few months have been posted to the site, including things published at CSNwashington, The Gazette, and The Washington Examiner.

There’s also a new section in Clips for Capital News Service. There’s not much there yet, but in the next few weeks, that should start to change. I’m preparing for a strong finish to the school year and my time with CNS, because I’d like to have a few more clips to show for my time spent working there this semester.

It’s not that I haven’t been working hard, though. About the first month of the program was spent learning HTML and CSS coding so I could redesign the Maryland Newsline website. Check out the before and after pages. Big improvement.

Tags: Capital News Service, Maryland Newsline, Tea Party | Category Clips

Photo courtesy CSNwashington.com

New years typically mean new jobs for me. This year isn’t too different. After a brief hiatus and road trip with some college friends, I’m officially back at school.

But it’s the last semester of my journalism program, which means it’s time for me to get a more practical education in reporting. To earn six of my 12 total credits this semester, I’ll be working four days a week out of the new Knight Hall, a very expensive building the University of Maryland built just for journalism.

The school runs a wire service called Capital News Service. I’ll be writing stories for the wire and also producing interactive multimedia packages for the web for Maryland Newsline, a website that I’ll be helping to redesign during the semester.

On my off days, I’m interning at CSNwashington.com, the newly redesigned website for Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic. They have a new digital media department that’s only six months old, for which I work as a editor/digital producer/writer.

One niche I’ve found for myself recently at Comcast is covering the Washington Capitals at home games. Keep checking back here for links to my stories. Hopefully I’ll start producing some video for the web from post-game interviews soon.

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[Photo courtesy Doug88888]

This site was created as a part of a graduate class assignment. Up to this time, all post have been made to complete homework assignments.

Boooring.

Now the class is over, and I’m left with a website that I don’t know yet know what to do with it. In the next few weeks, I promise to think this over, and come up with something.

In the meantime, I will still update the site regularly as my work is published and my resume grows.

| Category Online Journalism

{flickr/Shovelling Son}

The title is just a personal gripe of mine. I just think there should be a more concrete reason for calling it Twitter. They could do it, but have a mute option.

But I digress.

The topic of Twitter is indeed at hand, and today, it coincides with the topic of star power. There are many, many famous individuals on Twitter, but I would argue that a certain demographic’s use of Twitter has made for some of the most powerful and interesting tweets of all. They are professional athletes, and they love this website (Twitter, not mine).

Shaq has it. Dwight Howard has it. Lance Armstrong has it. Serena Williams has it. The list goes on.

All these athletes are reaching out to regular people, like you and me, in a way that was never really possible before. Twitter is definitely the place to be for fun, breaking news on your favorite players.

Which is why the Washington Post wants to the place to be for all athletes’ Twitter accounts, and in doing so, circumvent Twitter.

It’s the Post’s latest in a series of “innovations in news.” The new feature is a part of the sport’s page, in a section called The League, a section strictly on football that relies heavily on user interaction for its success. The Twitter Aggregator attempts to follow any and all NFL players who are on Twitter and put them all in one place for you.

At the main page, you see the latest tweets from players across the league, but with the search bar, you can narrow down the tweets by team or position. It’s a pretty fun tool for fans, and it might clue you into an athlete who you didn’t know had a Twitter account.

My only gripe with this is that the Post has, for now at least, limited this feature to football. It’s a scientific fact that basketball players have far more interesting tweets. Where’s “The League” for the NBA? I hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Tags: Blogs, NFL, Post, Twitter | Category Online Journalism

{flickr/Ben Sheperd}

The Washington Post has finally completed a month’s worth of voting to reveal the winner of their new competition, “America’s Next Great Pundit.” Kevin Huffman, a Teach for American executive from the District, won the finally round of voting by beating runner up Zeba Kahn by a few hundred votes.

As is anything in Washington, the winner is not without controversy. Earlier this week, the Washington City Paper reported that Huffman is the ex-husband of D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, leaving some well-informed citizens to wonder: was the competition rigged?

According to a reliable source (a reporter I sit next to when I intern at the Washington Examiner), the Post strongly supports Rhee’s aggressive and often controversial decisions about D.C. public schools. Rhee has been given a mandate, so to speak, by Mayor Adrian Fenty to fix the broken school system. But the D.C. Council has constantly objected to Rhee’s tactics.

It could just be a loose, coincidental connection. Who really knows how close Huffman and Rhee remain, although I’m sure the Post knew about the marriage going in and asked Huffman before he was entered into the competition. It’s just funny how these things are. It’s like D.C.’s own, highly-politicized version of Access Hollywood. Oh the drama.

What remains to be seen is if Huffman sticks. As a reward for winning he signed a 13 week contract to write weekly editorial’s for the Post. If the columns are good enough, they may get published in the paper and online. Huffman’s true test will be the response for a greater variety of readers, many of whom didn’t pay attention to the competition. I’ll be following Huffman’s career for the next few months with great interest. Let’s see where this part time gig takes him.

Tags: contest, Post | Category Online Journalism

(flickr/RedHerring1Up)

I’ve wanted to write this bit for a long time, but couldn’t. I had yet to receive the elusive Google Wave invite.

Yesterday, it finally happened.

Hopefully you’ve heard of Google’s latest invention, a real-time communication tool via the Internet that’s got everyone excited, partly because it is potentially awesome and partly due to its limited release.  You practically have to apply to Google to get an invite.

My tech-savvy friend Taylor finally sent me an invite, but not before filling me in on the basic concept of Google Wave about two weeks ago. Even then, I was excited. “This could revolutionize journalism,” I told him.

Really, I swear.

I wanted to clarify that point so you know that this was my idea, and I had it first. I don’t care that this lady wrote this article before I got around to typing this post. My idea. Not hers.

She does, however, hit on a few of the major points I would have wanted to make, as well as give me hope. In her article, she points out that many media organizations are already using the Wave for a variety of purposes.

Most people seem to focus on the community building aspect of Google Wave. It’s a bit like Twitter in the sense that things are updated in real time. But with the Wave, everybody sees everything, not just what someone else wants you to see (in 140 characters or less). Essentially, an unlimited amount of people can all be working in the same window at the same time. It’s almost like and AIM chat, except with more people.

The thing that sets the Wave apart from its similar predecessors is what you can do inside a Wave besides talk to one another. Beyond conversations, projects, documents, etc. can all be worked on in a Wave. Everyone sees updates in real time. If I was typing this in Google Wave, you’d see the words and phrases form letter by letter.

The best thing? If this was in the Wave, you could go back, delete my last paragraph, and retype it to your choosing.

This was the aspect that floored me: the ability to change any content inside the wave, even stuff that you did not directly produce. My mind immediately flashed to writing a news story. How big of a pain are double bylines? Not anymore. With the Wave, to reporters could actually, literally write a story together. Or how much time could be trimmed off the editing process if a story is copy edited as it’s written? Nobody likes an editor reading over their shoulder, but maybe it would be acceptable if he/she is reading it from across the room.

The Wave could, essentially, be a massive time-saver that could quicken the process of breaking news stories while simultaneously making sure that the story is well written, without error, and factual.

I’m drooling thinking about this right now. So cool.

Apparently some folks at the LA Times are thinking of the same things I am. Which is good, because hopefully people will actually follow through with these ideas, but sad, because I wanted to revolutionize the game (of journalism, that is).

It seems the Post hasn’t really picked on on this phenomenon, except for a small tech article. Maybe they’re off their game.

Tags: Google, LA Times, Twitter | Category Online Journalism

Courtesy Bling$Bling

What happened at Fort Hood on Thursday was a senseless tragedy, and clearly resonates with everyone. Yet in most tragedies, the reporters roll seems to be to find some motive, some reason behind the act, however odd and random it may seem.

In the case of Maj. Nidal Hasam, D.C. news outlets had a rare opportunity to exam a killer from a local perspective. It’s typical to try and localize a story for the readers; it’s an oft used method to connect people to stories, however many miles away they may be from the actual events. Since Hasam was stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a number of years before his recent transfer to Fort Hood. He worshiped at a mosque in Silver Spring, Md.

I was sitting next to a fellow grad student, Tiffany March, as she read stories about the shooting when a look of shock struck her face. The mosque that Hasam had attended was within walking distance from her house.

There are most likely hundreds of people who have some real connection, like Tiffany’s, to Hasam and the tragedy. These connections could easily be found in any one of the 19 stories the Washington Post has written covering the shooting since it occurred; that figure doesn’t even include the up-to-date accounts that were posted as news of the event leaked, or the photo and video galleries, or the page with profiles of each victim.

A part of me says this is overkill. I wonder when enough is enough, and when a story has been hashed out to its entirety.

On the other hand, this is wholly rare opportunity for the paper to explore a topic with such local meaning that is also in such high demand. As shocking as it may be to discover that some part of your life is linked to this killer, it’s kind of what people are looking for when they go and read these stories.

I just don’t know how I feel about all this. I understand it’s a cop out to say that, but I just wanted to get the ball rolling and see how other people feel about this coverage. I do appreciate that much of the coverage has been positive: stories about the victims are kind and helpful, and profiles of the civilian cop who risked her life to stop Hasam is inspiring, and perhaps the story with the most enduring value.

Tags: Ft. Hood, Muslim Extremist, Post | Category Online Journalism

Courtesy Scott Ableman

The horror.

Being a Redskins fan is a terrible existence right now. In fact, I can’t think of a time in my life when being a Redskins fan has been rewarding, fun, or something to be proud of.

Full disclosure time. My career as a Redskins fans had the unfortunate luck of beginning around the time Daniel Snyder bought the team. And I, like many other fans, have begun to feel that so long as Snyder owns this team, they will continue to be one of the worst-run franchises  in the NFL.

I’m quite calm about the whole situation, actually. But that’s because I’ve stopped investing time in the Redskins. And god knows I’ve never invested any money in that team. If I had, I’d be much more furious.

Like these people.

Fear the Fish.

In the past two weeks, the D.C. Sports Bog, written by the immaculately bald Dan Steinberg, has relentlessly blogged on ever egregious action taken by Redskin’s gameday management at FedEx Field. This involves fans being threatened by security, removed from games for inciting chants aimed at the ownership, having signs and shirts confiscated for saying not nice things about management, and just being bullied in general. These are in fact fans of the team, and paying customers, so one would think it’d be wise to treat them with love and respect, but what do I know about good business practices.

This photo caught my attention because the girl on the far right, holding the Ovechkin poster, is Liz Angevine, a graduate of  Virginia Wesleyan College. That’s my alma mater.  She’s just a friend of a friend, but Wesleyan was small school, so rarely do I not recognize a fellow grad.

Her story, posted in photo and anecdotal form over at the D.C. Sports Bog, is that she went to the game with this sign in tow, and like many others, had in trashed by security when she entered the stadium.

End of story? Hardly.

Liz took the opportunity to voice the matter on the blogosphere by emailing her photo and anecdote to the Post. Sure enough, her story is making local headlines the next day.

When I read her story, it was like flipping a switch in my brain. A key buzzword for online journalism is interactivity. The web provides a platform that at its core connects people. Journalists are striving to use interactivity in web features to get news consumers to stay at their sites, drive up traffic, and all-in-all, make the news experience better for a reader.

But this type of interactivity is on a whole other level.

At a basic level, this is a classic example of a source. Journalists gets information from source, quotes them, then turns around and writes about it.

In an internet age, though, the process has been streamlined. Liz did as much journalistic work as Steinberg in the production of this story. She took the photo. She was there when the sign was stolen from her. She went home to write about it. All Steinberg did was rip it out of his inbox and post it online.

There’s a subtle expectation of interactivity that is truly amazing. The idea that Liz thought to write this down and send it the Washington Post implies that she expected it to be used and placed on the web. And to me, the thought that it’s so easy, as a citizen, to connect with a reporter, is astounding. Sure, it’s not like people couldn’t write a letter or two back in the day, but now the process is so fast and intimate. I feel like Liz would have been both surprised and disappointed had her story not been used in Steinz’s blog.

I’m sure most people have grasped this concept to some extent already, but I guess this is the first time I realized the power and intensity of the connections that can be created thanks to the web. I’m not going to forget this story anytime soon, and when I think ahead to my own journalism career, I can now imagine reporting like this.

Tags: Agent Steinz, Blogs, Post, Redskins | Category Online Journalism