State of Play

Having already seen the BBC mini-series also titled State of Play, it is immediately obvious that the American filmmakers paid considerable homage to their British counterparts. Very minute details of the six-part television series are reproduced quite intentionally, from the opening chase scene in the back alleys to the tear-stained press conference to the snippy editor who only begrudgingly keeps investigative journalist Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) on staff. Of course, we just saw the first fifteen minutes of this movie, so it's really hard to form a concrete opinion. It will be interesting to see how the movie will condense the rest of the plot into two hours (down from the six-hour total running time of the mini-series) when they are pretty much matching the pilot episode blow-by-blow at this point.

But one thing is for sure: the image of McAffrey driving around on his beat while warbling to country radio and shoving Cheetos down his gullet can't help but make me wonder if this is the sort of character I am destined to become.

As the plot continues, however, Crowe's character becomes more and more likable, not in spite of but because of his blunt mannerisms combined with his blue-collar expertise on the D.C. beat.

Foundations Bureau of Investigation

Although we all spend significant portions of our days talking with other people—people we like, people we don’t like, people we want to like us—there are hairs inside my little freshman journalism student brain that stand on end when it is time to “interview” somebody. It feels like an entirely different species of conversation; it feels more tense and exponentially more awkward than straight-up talking, and a little bit like I am a door-to-door salesman who is inconveniencing somebody with my pitch. All of these problems are only magnified when there is no scheduling or forewarning or maybe comfortable chairs to sit in, and I am instead approaching a random stranger for a brisk conversation about campus in the middle of an already-quick 50-minute class. Ironically, it is in this pressed need to get this interview over with as quick and efficiently as possible—to get a sentence, to get something from this person—that the primary reason for conducting the interview in the first place is thrown out the window: to listen. There is such an inherent desire to cut off elaborations or stifle tangents in the conversation and simply move on that it is difficult to keep your original intentions in mind—that you are there to listen and just to sort of sit there and see what happens, what’s on this person’s mind, instead of plotting their quote within the scheme of your article like a pawn on a chessboard, where there are only two yes/no or good/bad sides, with no room in the middle for individuals or stories or the real world to actually be as it is.

It is also rather evident, when working as a one-day bureau, why writing is done by one person (excepting your oddball Woodward/Bernstein duo). There wasn’t really any contention within our group (and, collectively, we had more synonyms than we knew what to do with), but, if you are working to write one item as a group of five people, then maybe two of them at maximum can actually put their own fingerprints on the project and call it their own. I find that I feel I simply compromise everything when I write with somebody else, because I personally tend to rely on such unorthodox things as parenthesis, the dash (which has its own distinct usage that is wholly separate from a comma, parenthesis, or semicolon), and the run-on sentence. And also the very short sentence. But it’s good to work with other people.

The Census Bureau is similar to our mini-bureau because the bulk of its information is gathered out on the proverbial field and then sent back to a sort of headquarters, where it is all assembled, organized, made sense of, and eventually published. However, unlike our class, the Census Bureau is in not in the business of reporting events, as they are only interested in things like demographics and how many people live in your house. Also they only work once every ten years.

Guess What?

Guess what Austin just said to me right now? You'll never believe it. He asked, "Miles, are you blogging right now?" The answer is yes.

The Christian Century

Compared to, say, Christianity Today, The Christian Century is not an incredibly evangelical publication. Christianity Today is filled with ads about mainstream Christian products and has articles about mainstream Christian figures like Steven Curtis Chapman. The Christian Century has articles that are more open-minded, including one essayists personal journey between Christianity and Buddhism. There are also ads for the Princeton Theological Seminary, which is more or less liberal.

LATimes.com v. NYTimes.com v. The Real New York Times

On this day, Friday November 6th 2009, the New York Times, nytimes.com, and latimes.com all have front-page stories focusing on yesterday’s shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. Since it is about 14-16 hours older than its constantly refreshed electronic brethren, the print NYT has articles that focus more on the “what” or the straight-up facts of what happened, identifying basic things like who the suspected shooter was and those who were injured or killed. Over the course of the day, both websites wrote and posted stories that explored the story deeper, with stories focusing on the motives and biography of the shooter, and also about the gunman (technically gunwoman) who ended up shooting the suspect. Nytimes.com even has a sort of motion graphic slideshow that diagrams how the entire incident went down. The print version dedicates considerable front-page space to the story—undeniably the biggest national news item of the day, perhaps even the biggest piece of international news—including two articles and the standard one-photo-above-the-fold. The online NYT dedicates even more space to the story, as there is an entire front-and-center section of the homepage that is dedicated exclusively to stories about the Fort Hood shooting. Because there is less of a focus on national news at the LA Times and more of a focus on local news, there is only one Fort Hood story on the front page, and the main photograph is actually focused on “the peril of Africa’s elephants.”

It is obvious that the LA Times has far more local news and pictures on their website than the New York Times, which in fact has both a U.S. and a Global edition, with the Global edition as its default. There are far more stories being put on nytimes.com, so the headlines are all in itty-bitty text, with no room for any pictures to be put alongside. For instance, Latimes.com has three stories (with three pictures) about the Los Angeles Lakers, who are currently about a week into the very long NBA regular season, and Nytimes.com has only one mention of the Yankees just a couple days after they won their first World Series in nearly a decade, and it’s buried way down underneath the Book Review. The LA Times even has features on high school football games in the area, while nytimes.com has different sections that feature news from the different continents. There is also a much larger emphasis on entertainment with latimes.com, as there is an entertainment sidebar up at the very top of the website, and the current most-viewed story is not about Fort Hood but instead about Michael Jackson.

The LA Times has given more attention to a clean and uncluttered design, with photographs commanding the front and center of article pages, while nytimes.com sticks thumbnails in the sidebar, requiring the reader to click on it in order to view a full-size image. Even though it has a considerably smaller audience, this sleek design makes latimes.com a far more appealing website, in my opinion.

The Boring Made Interesting

Unless it's Zoe Bartlett on The West Wing, tales of the President's family are not incredibly interesting. Okay, some of Michelle Obama's ancestors were slaves. Chelsea Clinton goes to Stanford. Whatever. But this New York Times story about President Barack Obama's half-brother was incredibly interesting because this man (1) lives in China, (2) is also publishing a biographical book about his confused identity due to his mixed race, and (3) actually looks to separate himself from the Obama name, preferring to go by the name Mr. Ndesandjo.

That Gray Area Between Christian and Secular Music

In theory, Christian musicians could (and maybe even should) occupy the cutting edge of popular music, since Christianity and music have been oh so tightly woven together throughout the whole history of the church. In reality, bands featuring Christian members and a Christian message are merely look-alikes of more popular sounds, and none have achieved any significant milestones in the musical world as groundbreaking artists. Their audience exists not because these bands are creating outstanding music, but rather because they are promoting a message that parents who do things like subscribe to ratings-hound PluggedIn will let their kids listen to. When discussing a recent documentary on the subject, respected indie rock producer Steve Albini took a critical view of the Christian music scene, saying: "Like, if we just say these things that people have been saying for a few thousand years, but if we say it with a spiky hairdo and some bouncy music, then we'll get the kids to listen. That aspect of it, that it's being used as a tool by the church as a larger force, that bugs people."

There are some Christian artists who have gained respect in the secular music community. But, if you want to find them, you have to look underground. David Bazan--currently a solo artist but formerly the lead singer of the band Pedro the Lion--is known for his frank lyrics that aim to test his Christian faith. So even though he has done things like include "Be Thou My Vision" on his albums, he has a respected audience with believers and non-believers alike. Like, look, here's John Krasinski of The Office kissing him! Bazan caused a lot of controversy amongst Christian circles by including an expletive on his albums Control and Achilles Heel, which he decided to do because he thought it was a more honest depiction of how he actually talks. It's evident in interviews that he has done and that his bandmates have done that he is accomplishing his goal--to get people to think.

Observing Biola Radio

I thought the process of running a radio show--where you're live and broadcasting 100% of the time--would be an incredibly stressful, high-tension process. Instead, after being in the studio of Biola's on-campus, student-run radio station for a couple hours, I found that being a DJ could actually be an incredibly relaxing experience, especially in the low-pressure laboratory of Biola's student practicum. Although it was clear that getting a handle on the radio equipment could be pretty tricky for a first-timer, you can make significant progress in finding your voice as a DJ after just a couple weeks. But, however enjoyable it is to be in the Biola Radio studio, the station lacks both an audience and relevancy due to the stale music selection that does not line up at all with what students listen to today.

It's Not Just for Fruitcakes.

I understand what you are thinking: Andreas Vollenweider looks like a little bit like a fruitcake. You are thinking that because he pads around in his bare feet with his harp and names his band Andreas Vollenweider and Friends and names his albums things like Dancing With the Lion and White Winds and you are thinking that him, his fellow musicians, and the people who listen to his New Age music are all fruitcakes, are all hippies who sit cross-legged in circles in loose-fitting robes and discuss things like oneness and being vegans.

But that would be a severely misguided opinion. While my mother was pregnant with me, my parents bought a whole bundle of New Age albums in an attempt to have some calming music to play around the house. And so while many kids discovered The Beatles or some other classic rock band from their parents' record collection in their childhood, I instead discovered the lengthy discographies of New Age heavyweights Narada Records and Windham Hill Records, as well as other artists like Ray Lynch and Mars Lasar...but none of them look, at first glance, as tremendously fruity as Andreas Vollenweider. So maybe it is because this is the music that I heard as I went to sleep as a wee little babe and it has seeped so deep into my subconscious that I cannot help but associate it with some sort of blissful dreamlike state; but I still love this music nonetheless, even as I have personally grown to appreciate all sorts of hip-hop, indie rock, jazz, and dance music. It is especially Vollenweider's album Down to the Moon that stands out to me as an exemplary work of art, 30-35 minutes of celestial and otherworldly music, with all 12 songs segued together, a trademark of Vollenweider's style. I've listened to it, consciously and unconsciously, for all 18 years of my life, and it is always welcoming like comfort food or coming back home after a long journey is welcoming--in fact, no matter where I am or will be, I will suspect that this album will always feel like home.

In record stores, the New Age section is a little bit like the red-headed stepchild in the midst of a charismatic family consisting of other genres that are actually popular, with artists that people have actually heard of. In larger stores, this means they are marooned somewhere in a back room alongside jazz and classical, and in smaller stores, they can be not much more than a cardboard box of un-alphabetized records dropped on the ground underneath an actual display. But no matter the case, the albums are always dirt-cheap, and there is such a high standard of quality amongst the Narada and Windham Hill artists (and amongst other [relatively] big names like Vollenweider or Enya or Patrick O'Hearn) that one can buy for the sake of quantity and inevitably end up with a whole bunch of quality as well. So please don't call Andreas Vollenweider a fruitcake, because if you do not listen to more tranquil, quieter artists like him, so much popular music--however good it my be--just washes out into noise.