NEW URL: BROADCASTBRIAN.COM

Hey folks, especially my B2 buds, www.broadcastbrian.com is up and running.  I’ll complete the import of the blogroll so y’all get shout-outs on the new fancy personalized, bought via godaddy, hosted en familia url.

Brian!

Tompkins on Pakistan

Sorry for the delay, but I’m attempting to export this blog to www.broadcastbrian.com and godaddy.com seems to not want to give up control for some reason.

Anyway, my point about injecting what Tompkins calls “subjectivity” into the standup when one is accompanying the viewer through a computer-assisted technical and geographic lesson is the same reason that professors crack jokes and weathermen/women amp up their personalities.  A raised eyebrow at an approaching low pressure front can communicate as much to viewers as ten minutes of meteorological theory.  Sharing one’s honest emotional response to something unfamiliar to the viewer can guide them toward forming their own opinion about the subject matter.  It needn’t agree with yours, of course.  But, it clues people in on the fact that if they read as much as you probably have while preparing a story, they’d have an honest emotional reaction to seeing that Pakistan’s got no freaking roads, despite the fact they received $390 Million in aid from the U.S. last year, and we’re still having to drop para-troopers with night-vision into the hills.  It’s consternating for an informed Westerner to see how topography and ethnography have seemingly triumphed over indoor plumbing, women’s health and road-building science – and that’s what my face showed when I was embedded into Google for those 30 seconds or so.

Aid to Pakistan

My third news package for Broadcast II class is a mile-a-minute run-through of the strategy of fighting terrorism in the hinterlands of Pakistan by developing the infrastructure in that area.

Shoot 1 – Mexico, Mo.

The Chairman of Pakistan’s Senate, Muhammad Soomro, who stepped in as President following the departure Gen. Musharraf, visited Kit Bond’s hometown of Mexico, Mo., so I headed to Audrain County, “Biofuel Capital of Missouri”, to capture the moment on video.  Problem was, when I got there, the luncheon (hosted by the local Rotary chapter) was underway and media weren’t allowed in.  Not that there were any other media in attendance.

So, I waited.  Then, people began streaming out of the country club.  I hadn’t seen any official Pakistani vehicles, so I went inside.  There I found Sen. Bond shaking hands of attendees on their way out.  Somehow I’d missed the Chairman!  I figured I’d better get in line, and when it was my turn to shake the Senator’s hand, I asked if he could spare 5 minutes for three questions on his way out.  He looked at his watch, and I said “I’ll go set up next to your car.”  He said, “That’ll be fine, see you there.”

So, I interviewed the Senator, as well as a very knowledgeable oncologist from Pakistan who I met in line to greet the Senator.  Straight talking-head interviews.  My camera time allotment had run out, so I high-tailed it back to Columbia to turn it back in.

Shoot 2 – Mexico, Mo.

The next day, I grabbed a camera and went back to Mexico, thinking that I could develop the theme of rural innovation being what Missouri could offer Pakistan.  That was the theme of many of Bond’s comments, and so I focused on getting some nice visuals of innovation at work.  The problem was that not so much was going on around Mexico on the weekend.  I found a bunch of great signs of innovation – a cattle ranch with “GENETICS” all over the buildings, which I found a strange selling point for beef in an organic age.  The cows were all resting on the ground, though, which made them look sort of sickly, and I later decided it was distracting as a sequence.  The Advanced Technology Center that I was wedded to shooting because Bond had made mention of it by ATC in the middle of one of his quotes (brilliant tactic, btw) was all scary government architecture set amidst an empty parking lot.  Nice sign, where I did a short standup explaining what the ATC did and led into the second part of the story where I thought, at the time, I’d introduce the idea that poverty and terrorism are linked.

Also, I attempted a cool zoom-out scene setter that I’ll upload to YouTube and link to soon.  I had to edit it out of the package for lab because I ended up getting another interview, which I’ll talk about in a bit.

So, time was coming up, and I still hadn’t gotten any great shots to illustrate the story I think I need to tell.  I headed back to C0lumbia.

Shoot 3 – Broadcast Lab

I’d already put out calls and emails trying to secure an interview with someone, anyone, qualified to speak about the situation in Pakistan with any authority.  Professors, professionals, students and friends thereof had all replied with regrets.  Some due to scheduling, others due to a distaste for MSM portrayals of Islam.  As I was sitting forlorn trying to write, I received a tip on a student who would be a great interview.  I emailed, but got to writing because I didn’t want to count on it.

I realized that the problem with my stand-up, with the whole piece, was that all the visuals were from Missouri.  That makes sense, in terms of covering an event or working the Missouri industry and technology angle, but to show people why development aid is smart and pragmatic (which was a point Sen. Bond made over and over again in the course of our interview – he really was quite generous with his time) as a policy for the U.S., I needed to somehow illustrate what the government is dealing with along the frontier in Pakistan.  So, I remembered that I’d downloaded a demo of this cool little Mac app, iShowU.  The program captures a .mov movie of whatever you’re doing on-screen on your Mac.  It can even tap into your iSight and insert you into a little inset box in the corner.  I’d seen it used in inummerable “how-to” tube-casts, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

I went with a narration of looking at a GoogleMap of Pakistan, and led into Sen. Bond’s point about how the mountains west of Islamabad shield insurgents because the government can’t effectively govern without infrastructure like roads, electricity and cellphones.  Considering how comical my previous stand-up attempts had been, I thought that the result was generally positive.  It provided the necessary context at a critical point in the story development, and freed my later interviewee bites to address a more informed hypothetical viewer.

Again, link to video forthcoming as YouTube is the slowest and WordPress doesn’t support Vimeo embeds:(

Shoot 4

I wrapped the package after that, but then found out that I had the opportunity to interview the President of MU’s Muslim Student’s Association.  I couldn’t say no to that.  So, I met Ms Maqbool at the Black Cultural Center on campus, and played her the clips of Sen. Bond and Dr. Waheed, as well as my stand-up.  I wanted her commentary.  She provided it.  She should definitely go to law school.  I ended up with great, incisive sound, and absolutely no space for it.  So, as I drove back to the lab, I resolved to make space, at the price of the scene-setting.

I completely rewrote the script, laid down a spare, manic voice-over, pushed the time of the package to the absolute maximum, and wrote a barely functional intro and tag.  I think the piece was one interview bite heavy.  I should have removed Dr. Waheed’s summation or perhaps Sen. Bond’s first bite.  I really just wanted 20 extra seconds, when it comes down to it.

Evaluation

I didn’t have the visuals from Pakistan to tell the story of the need for development.  Nor did have action shots of the interviewees to develop them effectively as characters.  What I did have was graphics and a nifty browser video and great, intelligent sources, and a legitimate connection between Mid-Missouri and this place all the way on the other side of the world.  I avoided the sound problems I’d had on my previous package and generally feel good about what was bordering on art-filmic (yes that’s a word) experimentation in my opinion.  It may as well have been animated.

Tompkins

To return to the objective/subjective split I touched upon last week, I think that the subjectivity in this piece was provided completely by the standup, and even that was grounded in objective fact.  But, having my face floating there, accompanying the viewer on a little adventure around the globe via a potentially familiar visual interface.  Ok, hold on, more in a moment as I’ve got to change my nameserver for some reason.

Offered without comment

mostly because I’m typing away for Mike Fancher currently…

…but this post from gawker, entitled “The New Autograph” just hits it right.

G’night.

If only Congress drove a Hyundai

My esteemed colleague, Elyse Pickle, recently profiled the Hyundai Assurance incentive program.

The Hyundai offer promises that if you find yourself “upside down” in a car (i.e. responsible for payments that, collectively, vastly out-value the vehicle you’re paying for) due to certain, contractually specified, circumstances you get to walk away, credit intact.

They keep the car, but it rescues some consumers from a payment schedule jacked sky-high by late fees and penalties.

This program popped into my head tonight as I read this drudge-linked FT article about Obama’s notion to transform banks into IKEAs, or at least get a little Swedish in approach.

The ‘negative-equity‘ tie-in came from Lindsey Graham’s quote:

“Mr Graham says that people across the US accept his argument that it is untenable to keep throwing good money after bad into institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, which now have a lower net value than the amount of public funds they have received.“

It’s important, in view of this harrowing assessment of the book-value of those institutions we collectively ‘rescued’ to make sure that stimpak dollars are spent on capital improvements, not to pay salaries.

Also, note the URL suffix of the Hyundai program…”/walkawayusa” … wow.

Podcast – KBIA Newscast Self-Critique

I anchor the live Thursday afternoon newscasts for KBIA, the Columbia, Mo NPR affiliate.

This week I’m doubling up because I’m previously engaged this coming Thursday.

Here’s a link to the podcast of tonight’s 5:32 P.M. regional news update.

I wanted to mention three things about my performance:

1.  My main criticism of my live performance comes down to breathing at inopportune times.  It’s a concept we cover in class, and something I’m working to improve in practice.  The previous three broadcasts that night were markedly free of weird breathing breaks, though I did stumble at points, specifically over a particular sentence with about 6 hard “k’s” in sequence (my own oversight, but I’d managed to nail it in practice runs and was sort of up to the challenge…it just started to sound weird in my headphones).  I’m planning to take another voicing class before mid-semester to practice breathing big at the top and often at the periods, semi-colons and some commas only.

2.  I reported and wrote the lead story.  Instead of just reporting what the Trib was writing, I worked directly from the police report and took the question of a colleague “Why’d his friends get charged too?” as my angle.  I knew the answer from law school, but that did little good for the listener.  I put in a call to the assistant prosecutor, who got back to me just before I needed to write the 5:32 newscast.  I bumped another story, and wrote a narrative of what happened that night, trying to convert the police-report-ese to broadcast English.  The writing is just okay in my mind, maybe a bit wordy.

The prosecutor was very accomodating, and appreciated the fact that I was asking specific questions.  The interview lasted maybe three minutes.  The result is a newscast that provides the answer to the question that my colleague asked from the source who’s take on the legal proceedings matters.  It’s not feature-worthy or innovative, just solid.

3.  There was a cub scout troop visiting while I read that newscast and I’d really have liked to have been reporting just about anything else.

Reporting Reflection: Callaway II Reactor Addition

This week’s package is the result of an attempt to get inside the Callaway Nuclear Reactor Facility in Callaway County, Mo.

My initial goal with the project was to gain access to the control room and show how it’s operated, then interview people on both sides of the question of what sort of plant Ameren UE should build to meet the projected electricity consumption rate increases that they cite as the impetus for building a new reactor, and how to finance it.  I wanted to focus on technology, environmental impact, safety, demographic trends and alternatives to the financing strategy behind the proposed rate hikes.

My focus shifted, though, once I met with Mike Cleary, AmerenUE’s communication officer in Jefferson City.  I’d contacted him about three weeks ago by email, asking for access to the facility.  He responded enthusiastically , suggesting we meet and discuss such a project and that I interview him about the new reactor and the associated lobbying on behalf of Ameren going on at the State Legislature.  I agreed and met with Mike in his office, located just across the street from the Governor’s mansion.

There Mike and I spoke for about forty minutes about the issues surrounding nuclear power generation as a political, economic and environmental issue; we also discussed, in detail, the practicalities involved in providing power to Missourians, the level of sensitivity of the radiological detection sensors controlling access in and out of even the most tertiary buildings at the plant and Mike shared some great anecdotes about his time working on-site at Callaway.  After that, Mike passed along all sorts of fact sheets about the new reactor with artists renderings, and directed me to the Ameren Website, where the company was planning to set up a virtual tour to educate people about how the reactor makes electricity and its safety features.  He also suggested I contact a couple of MU professors to discuss some of the technical details and mis-apprehensions about nuclear power generation and associated danger and pollution levels.

He also explained that it was unlikely that I’d receive access to the facility due to heightened security that’d been in place since 2001, but told me that he had a plan:  He was going to work on getting me half-an-hour in the control room simulator, a 1:1 mock-up of the actual control room used to train operators.  He asked for some time, and I told him I wouldn’t bother him, and that I really appreciated the effort and that I would follow-up on the story from another angle in the meantime.  He closed our discussion with an explanation that it was really in the company’s best interest to grant me and other reporters as much access as possible right now, as it’s been proven that the more experience people have with nuclear energy generation, the more objective they are when considering arguments against it.

When I left Mike’s office, I saw that I had three options in terms of how to continue: 1. Focus on the legislative action (just in case I chose that, I did a quick stand-up while in Jeff), 2. Work the professor contacts Mike had provided and keep my fingers crossed that I’d get into the simulator so that I could illustrate what they were talking about, and 3. Find someone who’s affected by the proposal whose story hadn’t been told.

Shoot 1

I decided to go for #3.  I figured that simulator access would take a while to get, and that there wasn’t going to be anything other than “people in a room arguing” events from then until due date, so I thought I’d get a little enterprise on this one.  Consequently, the next day I had a chance, I grabbed a buddy who has some technical knowledge of atomic energy, hopped in my car and drove with great haste (3 hours is way too short!) to a little town near Fulton, Mo called Reform.

My friend and I stopped a couple times along the way to capture the way the reactor cooling tower loomed larger and larger on the horizon.  We recorded standups (sans tie, unfortunately, as I’d been rushed when packing for the trip – I now just keep one in my car) at several spots, as we didn’t know how close we could get to the site.  My goal was to record three different stand-ups depending on the content I was going to bridge.  The version presented in class will be the aesthetic effect upon the landscape of two additional cooling towers appearing.

I was inspired to pursue this route by the ruckus caused by Ted Kennedy’s out-of-character opposition to a wind generation plant on a federally owned island off the coast of Cape Cod.  Residents of the Cape had complained that the uniformly white windmills would extend 2 inches above the horizon and lower their property values by degrading the vista.  In comparison, the citizens of Mid-Missouri within eye-shot of Callaway are going to be treated to years of construction and then two addition steam-spewing iconic cooling towers rising to nearly the height of the Gateway Arch.  Because nuclear energy really is cleaner when everything’s working right, they’ll probably be the only people to actually experience a tangible degration in their everyday experience as a result of a Callaway II option.  That hasn’t been covered in-depth in the press, even though the contrast between the two projects impact on the vista is so huge that it practically jumped off the page as soon as I’d read of the Cape Cod controversy.  The reason I learned to that issues is that people on Cape Cod have a booming voice that resounds through national media organs, so their feelings get a priority that others’ don’t.

Anyway, so, back to the first day of shooting in Callaway.  We drove closer and closer.  We took little roads without names or numbers, made great use of the iPhone’s GPS, and eventually found ourselves on an unmarked gravel road seemingly used by hunters (judging from the trail markings and hand carved signage).  The road led right up to the cooling tower.  We continued.  No guards…no razor wire…though, off to our sides we’d now and again see floodlight banks.  Then we came to a set of signs…we were maybe 500 yards from the base of the tower.  The signs were set about 10 yards off the side of the road.  They simply said “End Public Use”.  We pulled up to the imaginary line they marked…then reversed about 10 yards in a show of deference, in case the imagined snipers were watching.

Very quick stand-up complete, we grabbed some zoom footage of the steam pouring off the top of the tower, with a guardrail as tall as a nickle is thick ringing it to provide scale.  Big, I tell you.

Then we high-tailed it out of dodge and didn’t congratulate each other until we were drinking beer back in Columbia.  Shoot 1 accomplished.

Shoot 2

After exhausting my patience for political talking-head interviews by watching too much TV news, I decided that with the time remaining, I was going to go find a CCC who had a stake in the construction beyond constituency, beyond even an earnestly held belief in what was right.  I wanted to find somebody who’d be affected directly, and not just in the wallet or politically.

So, I checked out another camera, drove again like a bat out of heck to Reform, and started knocking on doors and honking in long gravel driveways at every farmhouse I could find with a direct view of the cooling tower.  Some people weren’t home.  Then, my first seeming bit of luck:  I pulled into this house on a rise with a great view of the tower from base to cloud.  The owners had a huge above ground pool and lived in one of those houses built into the earth like a Hobbit.  As I rounded the bend in their drive I saw a man with a great handlebar mustache wearing work boots.  I parked, got out, and let out a friendly “Howdy!”

He waved back and I walked to meet him, hand extended.  I introduced myself and explained that I was an MU journalism student doing a story about people who live near the Callaway plant and what they think of the plans to maybe expand the reactor and build two new towers.  After a little friendly discussion, the man told me that he didn’t own the place, but that he’d check with the owner really quick.  He disappeared, and I played with the cats.  The man came back and apologized, saying the owner didn’t want to talk on camera, but that it certainly was an eyesore.  He also complained that they’d never been allowed into the facility, even just to look around.  I asked if I could come back on another day.  He said to check back later the next week.  I thanked him for his time and got some quick intel on who amongst his neighbors might be home.

A couple stops later, and with time dwindling, I drove into the drive-way of Hank L.  He answered the door before I’d even managed to get to the front porch, and agreed to be interviewed and invited me in before I’d even completed my pitch.

Hank and his wife have lived in Reform for 46 years, since Hank returned from the Army.  They invited me into their home and we talked about all sorts of things, soybean prices, bio-diesel, the economy, planes, California, their family, ice storms.  It was great, and Hank’s take on the whole question of additional cooling towers was certainly not what I’d expected.  You can see in the package for yourself.

In the end, I found the access I got with Hank and his wife much more of a triumph than I’d have expected.  I learned about their church, which has a fascinating history deserving of a complete story all it’s own.  I’m still going to pursue the simulator room access, because I think the technical side of the story deserves exploration.  Mike Cleary interviewed that it’s been proven that attitudes change as people become more accustomed to nuclear technology, especially through direct experience.  I think that one of the most important responsibilities of journalists in regards the democratic proces is to foster objectivity in others, not just to seek objectivity in themselves.

Additional Question for Full Coverage

That said, the Callaway II question demands coverage that can best be accomplished multi-medially  Increasing electrical generation capacity in Missouri is an issue with many facets, among them:

• Is there a real need to increase capacity for power generation?
• What are the options for increasing capacity?
• What factors need to be considered today, even though they won’t affect Missouri until around the time a new plant (of any type) comes online?
• How do the options stack up?
• What about the intangibles surround nuclear energy generation?
• What voices are being heard in the media right now?
• Who’s aren’t?

It takes years to get financing to build a new plant, years more to gain approval, yet longer to build it, and still longer to get it up and running.  We have time, but the questions raised now need to be considered in light of all factors.

Role of Television in Evolving Dialogue

Television news can best serve the process by focusing on conveying those aspects of the question that lend themselves to subjective interpretation.  Illustrate, characterize and transport.  Don’t rely on objective visuals like graphs of demographic trends and power loads to frame the story too wide, force the politicians to do their jobs and encapsulate the conundrum into a catch-22 or to defuse that potentiality…on-camera.  People talking to others in person is still the means of communication most people rely upon when shaping their own opinions based upon outside stimuli.  So, when you’re giving folks the second-best thing (or the best, depending on the quality of sourcing) make it count.

I think Hank isn’t the perfect source, but he was the best source I could get given the constraints of organization, resources, time and information.  The fact that he holds the opinion that he does about the whole project challenges everyone to be objective in their decision making.

Perhaps that point will get lost, but, in the end, my goal in this piece was to tee-up those who’d follow to consider the hard choices we’re having to make about the future of energy in Missouri.

Trivia: ‘Stimulus Package’ pushes to 1st!

A report from the trenches of the nerd wars.  The KBIA team, this week named “Stimulus Package”, managed to guess their way to an impressive tie for first place in Harpo’s weekly trivia tourney.

Guest genius, Jason Rosenbaum, resident Talking Politics commentor and formerly of the Columbia Tribune, assisted nobly.

This was yet another successful outing by the team that combines the skills of the news and music staff and students.

Obama and State Secrets

The New York Times is reporting in tomorrow’s print edition that Douglas N. Letter, a Justice Department attorney, has indicated to a panel of judges that the Obama Administration shall continue the practice of invoking the “State Secrets” doctrine to force dismissals in civil cases brought by foreign nationals sucked up into “extraordinary rendition” flights, and allegedly tortured once transport to less-legal jurisdictions was effected.

Some of the judges on the panel were surprised at the position.

Judge Schroeder asked, “The change in administration has no bearing?”

Once more, he said, “No, Your Honor.” The position he was taking in court on behalf of the government had been “thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration,” and “these are the authorized positions,” he said.

The most telling bit from the really excellently bite-sized but nutritious piece from The Times came here:

But Mr. Letter said that the lower court judge, James Ware, did receive classified information and came to the correct conclusion in dismissing the case last year. He urged the judges to pore over the same material, and predicted “you will understand precisely, as Judge Ware did, why this case can’t be litigated.”

I’m completely nonplussed by this argument and rhetoric.  It’s begging historians and journalists to FOIA up right now in preparation for the eventual declassification of whatever the heck it is that the judges get to see/read.  This, in my opinion, is not a tack taken by an attorney who’s operating under protest or for political cover; this sounds like a dude who’s got genuine pictures of JFK making out with an alien or something.

Photo Slide Show: Jay Nixon’s Inauguration Preparations

Here’s a link to a slide show of photographs I took on inauguration day, 2009, in Jefferson City, Mo for KBIA.org.