First-Half Highlights

My classmates and I are nearing the midpoint of the semester and next week will receive a couple of well-earned days off. It’s the All-Star Break, if you will. In that spirit, here are some first-half highlights of what I’ve covered in this space to date:

The Art of Failure

There’s a grade school art piece of mine, a watercolor, I like to reference to illustrate — pardon the pun — why one should never be afraid of mistakes.

Manage Technology Before It Manages You

Don’t check your text messages, e-mail or Twitter until you’re done reading this blog post. If your phone buzzes or Outlook or Tweetdeck flashes an alert, ignore it. If the prospect of this bothers you, you’ll want to read on.

The World Wide Web, a Wonderland of Words

The Web was built for conversation. Kind of funny, then, it can be so tricky to talk about.

Its lexicon is a mish-mash of new words, repurposed words, and, well, mish-mashed words.

Like Pictures? This Post’s For You.

Scalpel, Stat! Hold On a Second.

Not three weeks into my fall semester studies, the mantra, “Let the story dictate the tool,” has been popping up a lot. It’s been nearly as ubiquitous as commentary on Kanye West’s VMA outburst. (Heck, even my favorite football team is weighing in on that.) OK, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but, in the iMedia world, this is a kind of a big deal. It’s being reinforced at every turn:

What I’m Doing Here

Just another WordPress.com weblog. WP’s default tagline says what we’re all thinking, doesn’t it? “Yawn, another blog.” Here’s why I’m joining this exclusive 133-million-member club and why, I hope, it won’t put you to sleep:

Well, it’s for school. Elon University’s brand-spanking-new interactive media master’s program to be exact. My 36 classmates and I will be filing regular dispatches from the front lines of this emerging field. We’ll be responding to class discussions, chronicling our futures-oriented research and posting whatever else we find interesting. 

Before we get going, I thought I’d share my admissions essay. Written in February, it offers as good an overview as any as to how I arrived here and where I want to go next. My about page fills in the rest.

Why do you wish to pursue a graduate degree in Interactive Media at Elon?

A year ago, with not quite four years of community newspaper reporting and copy editing under my belt, I foresaw answering a similar prompt for a business school or law school application. My heart resisted leaving journalism, but my head worried about earning a comfortable living.

With media companies hemorrhaging money, jobs and audience members, few would have blamed me for fleeing to another field. My dad, as devoted a newspaper reader as you’ll find who cherished my choice of vocation, even encouraged my search for greener pastures.

I weighed my professional future against the backdrop of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, the first where candidates and those covering them fully embraced interactive media. Somewhere in between an animated snowman querying candidates about global warming and the president-elect texting supporters as he began his victory speech, I realized I’d be a fool to leave journalism now. The old model of gathering and delivering news may be dying, but the new model is just coming to life – and today’s practitioners are the ones who will define it. Elon’s interactive media program offers me the exciting opportunity to be among these pioneers.

Its flashy technology alone makes interactive media an enticing field. Just ask any of the millions of full-grown adults who drooled over the iPhone 3G last summer. But, what captivates me most is interactive media’s capacity to improve the quality of journalism. Readers can scour public documents for irregularities a lone reporter missed. Citizen bloggers can call out mainstream outlets when their reporting isn’t up to snuff. Mobile phone users can send and receive breaking news as it happens. Given all journalists have accomplished without these tools, there’s no telling what they’ll accomplish with them.

A master’s degree in interactive media from Elon would prepare me to navigate this new landscape as a manager at a community newspaper, a position I’ve long aspired to. At the same time, it would provide me skills that, if need be, could be easily transferred to a more lucrative field.