J202 Student Blogs

Students in my J202 class have all been publishing blog posts this week for a “personal brand” assignment. Here are a few posts I found interesting:

1. Eunice Oh wrote about the Falling Whistles campaign for peace in Congo. The website is definitely worth checking out, and I think it’s a great model for using new media for raising awareness about world problems. View my comment below the post.

2. Clint Jenson wrote about the recent campus scandal when the Badger Herald published an article about “The Worst People on Campus,” in which they named every student they could find who sold their Rose Bowl tickets. But in the midst of the controversy, the campus seemed to lose track of the real cause of the mayhem: “The Worst Policy on Campus.” View my comment below his post.

3. Monica Hickey wrote about Toyota’s recent advertisements, and their usage of the word “lame” to insult people who buy other cars. She makes a great point that using the word lame in this way stigmatizes people who are physically lame. View my comment below her post.

4. Sam Witthuhn wrote about a recent documentary by VBS about prostitution in India, and an angry response made on YouTube by some of the women in the documentary who felt misrepresented. I agree with what Sam argues, though, that the documentarian did a fair job, backing her arguments with direct quotes from sources. View my comment below her post.

5. Colie Torborg wrote about a viral video produced with the intention of it spreading virally to a band member’s girlfriend across the country without anyone actually telling her about it. I thought it was a very heartening way to use media to strengthen relationships and bring people together. View my comment below her post.

Excentric

Check out this video about the story of the nativity, told as if the characters had access to the latest technology and social media. The message at the end: “Times change, feelings remain the same. Happy digital Christmas.”

I searched the video’s creator, Excentric, on Google and found their website (click on English in the upper right corner). Maybe it has something to do with the fact that during my first few minutes on the site I couldn’t get the guy to speak English instead of Portuguese, but it’s all very mysterious and intriguing.

Turns out, Excentric is a digital media branding firm based in Lisbon, Portugal, that urges brands to accept a new era of digital media that goes beyond the dimensions of the internet. They advertise services like virtual reality, holograms, 4D, augmented reality and emotion recognition. They claim to have developed an emotion-detecting kiosk that reads the emotion of the consumer and sells a product to them with a strategy based on that emotion.

The nativity video was funny. Excentric is scary. Personally I’m unnerved by the idea of King Melchlor buying gold for baby Jesus on amazon.com. And I don’t buy their message of “times change, feelings remain the same.” Feelings do change when media allows people to disconnect and disengage. Buying things from amazon.com, for example, often implies a lack of human or emotional connection between the maker of the item and the buyer. Belongings start to lose meaning, and relationships degrade. And an emotion-detecting kiosk– really? It seems that Excentric is trying to void all human interaction in the buying and selling transaction.

We’re living in a time of globalization and conglomeration where we barely know what it is we’re buying– a time when buying sneakers can mean funding sweat shops, buying a can of beans can mean buying estrogenic BPA, and buying an engagement ring can mean supporting a “blood-diamond” industry. What we need now is people connecting with the products they buy, where they come from, and who made them. Digital media can be a useful tool for educating people about these things, but when it’s used in ways like Excentric proposes, we risk losing the world to fantasy.

Young Journalists, New Media

I just came across a great website created and run by young people across the country: Campus Progress, “young people working for progressive change.” As you can probably tell from previous blog posts, I’ve been very interested lately in how advocacy can relate to journalism. This website is an example of an arena where both can play. As young people enter the worlds of community organizing and social justice with unprecedented new-media communication skills, the line between journalism and advocacy will continue to be blurred.

I found the website because my friend posted a link to this article about a local woman who has been advocating for LGBTQ-identified people for years. The article sits right on that blurry line. The writer only interviews the source and people who have worked alongside her. But then again, it’s not easy to find much opposition to a good-hearted woman doing volunteer work in her community, and it’s a very informative and insightful article.

Madison is bursting with other examples of young people using the media for advocacy work. Alison Brooks, a recent UW graduate who I’ve interviewed many times about her work in social justice in Madison, posts videos to her YouTube channel about advocacy work she engages in. Her videos are a great example of the role citizen journalists can play that big media cannot.

However, while citizen journalists and advocates offer great new perspectives, they also pose a threat. If people decide to only consume media that is aligned with their own views, they will miss a lot of the bigger picture and become polarized. I think it’s important that we preserve spaces for more traditional news outlets that employ fact-checkers, public editors and ombudsmen to ensure that the public interest is the media’s interest. It’s important to have media sources you can rely on to at least make the effort to get all sides of a story without pushing an agenda.

The Power of a Story

I just finished reading The Soloist by Steve Lopez. The book is about LA Times Columnist Steve Lopez’s friendship with Nathanial Ayers, a homeless musician who dropped out of Julliard due to the onset of paranoid schizophrenia. Lopez wrote a series of columns about Ayers, beginning in 2006. He published the book in 2008 which was made into a movie in 2009.

During the time Lopez spent with Ayers, he helped him move off the streets into LAMP, a non-profit organization in L.A. that offers housing to people with severe mental illnesses. Lopez has commented on multiple occasions that his intent with the columns and book was to humanize Ayers and and destigmatize mental illness. To do this, he focused more on Ayers’ musical talent and wit rather than his mental illness.

I’ve never related to an author as much as I did with Lopez. I read this book at just the right time, as I’ve been thinking a lot about whether journalism is right for me. Often when I’m working on a story I really care about, I find myself wanting to get involved in the issue more deeply then I can as a writer. I want to get involved, volunteer, advocate, fundraise, lobby, make things move. It was cathartic to hear these same desires from Lopez as he became more entangled in Ayers’s life:

“… I’m doing things I’ve never done before, and breaking my own standards of journalistic distance and objectivity in the process. Even a columnist, with a license to advocate for one thing or another, generally stops short of personal involvement in the life of a subject. It’s important to keep your judgment sharp and your motives pure. But I’ve been an advocate in the cases of Adams and Nathaniel. I’ve been a social worker for both, and a friend to Nathanial…. After thirty years of fulminating about this or that, I want to do something more, even if it involves the risk of failure…. I envy the doctors who saved Adam’s Life. I admire the musicians who can hear and appreciate Nathaniel’s genius” (p. 196).

Lopez even considered quitting the Times to take a job advocating for Prop. 63 (Mental Health Services Act). He shared the same concerns that I wrote about last week about exploiting intimate details of sources’ lives to get a story. But in the end he was reminded that there is power in storytelling that can’t be found anywhere else.

“Everything I’ve written about Nathaniel is extremely personal, and yet I’ve shared it with thousands of readers. Have I exploited him? Is it possible for me to keep writing about him without doing so? I’ve asked myself the question before, and the answer remains the same. I’m telling the story of his courage, his challenge and his humanity, and I believe there’s a benefit to him, to me and to the public” (231-2).

I couldn’t agree more. The benefits of good journalism can be far less direct and visible than advocacy work. But both are important, and each has its own strength. Journalism has the power to change the way people perceive the world and their communities, and motivate people to act compassionately. By honoring traditional values like objectivity and transparency, journalists can earn the trust of the public and give people the information they need to do what is in the best interest of themselves and their communities.

Annual Report: My Life

Slate recently posted this video about Nicholas Felton, a graphic designer who caught public attention in 2006 after he created an annual report on his own life. He has continued to publish a by-the-numbers account of his life every year.

As he said in the Slate video, he now records what he eats and drinks, where he goes and how he gets there, what he reads and how much he reads, and other details in a calendar synched with his phone and computer.

What I find significant about this is he’s not alone. He co-created daytum.com to allow others to efficiently count things they do in their own lives. Users create categories and add items with amounts to those categories. All that the website does is organize and count the data.

I wanted to try it out, so I signed up (free and easy) and started counting my sleep hours. It could be a good way to really learn how much sleep I get without wishful thinking getting or good intentions getting in the way.

Others have taken it to incredible levels. Clicking around the sight, I found Tiff’s page. She keeps track of the time she spends on different projects, where she sends mail, what days she draws on, and her latest ideas for new drawings. Others keep track of celebrity sightings, number of pages read, amount of coffee consumed, miles driven and miles run.

All of this goes to illustrate a new era of highly-personalized media creation and consumption. People were interested in Felton’s enumerated life because they saw in it the same things they do every day in their own lives.

“Something that has been surprising to me—people have wanted to read about my life,” Felton said in the Slate video. “And I think one of the reasons behind this is not particularly because they’re interested in my life but because the stories I examine are things that they can reflect upon and how they relate to their life… a mirror that they can look into and find insight or gain curiosity about their own activities behaviors.”

Daytum takes it a step further and allows users to examine their own lives with a more accurate, personalized picture. The website certainly isn’t booming yet, but I suspect it and other similar websites will become increasingly popular as people seek personal attention from their media.

Felton’s story offers a lesson to more traditional media on the importance of offering their audiences the opportunity to personalize their experiences. Daytum is an extreme example, but even features as simple as the “Latest in My Network” feed on the New York Times help readers feel more connected to the media they consume.

How do you think other media outlets could individualize consumer experiences?

“You will never understand.”

Photo by Conner Wild

A few weeks ago I went on a three-day retreat with Bethel Lutheran Church’s Homeless Spiritual Support Group, as a reporter. I wrote an article about the retreat for Street Pulse.

Reflecting on the trip now, I realize I learned more about myself as a journalist than anything about homelessness. A conversation I had with Susan Cotton illuminated something I had been struggling with as a journalist for years.

“When you’re homeless, your whole mindset is completely different than if you’re in the mainstream of society,” she said. “Unless you’re homeless, you cannot understand the mindset of a homeless person…. You’d actually have to be homeless, walk in our shoes, or we can’t possibly explain how it feels to be homeless. We can explain it ad infinitum but unless you’ve actually walked in our shoes you will never understand. And that’s the unfortunate thing.”

“I’d be interested in trying that,” I said.

I imagined spending a week without money on the streets, in the shelters, at free meals. I had imagined it before, but ethical dilemmas and shelter restrictions had always dampened my plans early. I hoped Susan could help. But she cut me off early.

“But you know unless you’re actually, jobless, homeless, you really wouldn’t…”

“So it would be impossible for me…”

“No, you couldn’t. You just cannot understand. You just can’t.”

At that point, at the peak of my frustration, I felt incredibly useless and stupid. I already felt invasive and voyeuristic for coming on the retreat in the first place, but I felt my work would justify my presence. I would spend three days in the woods with a group of homeless people, come to understand something significant about homelessness, and deliver this understanding to Madison. I would humanize homelessness and maybe influence a few people to do something about it.

Now it was clear I would never understand. And who was I to try? The closest I’ve ever come to homelessness was moving in with my grandparents in their upper-class suburban home. What right do I have to pull out my recorder, camera and notebook, and capture their humanity for all to see? They don’t need me. They don’t want me.

The next day, I brought my concerns back to Susan. She started to cry, sensing my desperation.

“Oh, honey, you have a purpose,” she said. “You are important.”

I did not take notes during this conversation, but I remember very clearly what she told me. She told me that my gift is writing. Everyone has an important story to tell the world, but not everyone knows how to tell it. It’s my job to translate stories to articles and action. It’s not my job to understand everything. It’s okay if I don’t understand everything. I never will understand everything.

I was surprised to feel a tear welling in my own eye. I needed someone to tell me that. I needed her to tell me that. Every journalism teacher or mentor I’ve had has always pushed me to understand more, and to write only what I know. And this is certainly a good principle. But like every principle that exists in academia, it is complicated in the real world. Sometimes you’re a white middle-class college student interviewing a black working-class homeless person, and you are simply not going to understand the barriers that person has faced. You can’t let that discourage you.

Remember your audience. Sometimes your limitations are your greatest asset as a journalist. If you’re writing something worthwhile, your audience will likely not understand the subject as well as your sources. Interviewing and writing from this perspective can help you introduce your readers to the subject in a way that is meaningful to them. The best you can do is listen as openly as you can, be transparent about what you don’t understand, and let your source’s voice speak as clearly as possible through your prose.

transition

Detainers (photo by Jonathan Kleiman)

I would like to use this blog for thoughts beyond Ethiopia, so it seems a transition is in order…

To wrap up my time in Ethiopia, the story of my detention and deportation is here: http://www.dailycardinal.com/features/captured-in-ethiopia-an-american-nightmare-1.326117

Memories of detention remind me of the work to be done in the word, while memories of the beautiful time I spent there remind me of why I do it.

cheek kisses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From early July…

My students are amazing. When I get to school they are lined up outside my classroom door waiting anxiously. There is pushing to get in but the older students help me read the names of the kids in my class and ensure that the right students are getting in. Every day there are new students, some even who’ve heard about us and travelled from other villages. My students know I always let in as many new students as will fit in the classroom. They shove in four to a two-person desk and make the best of the broken ones to allow as many students in as possible. As I prepare the chalkboard they sit silently, and when I begin class they stand to greet me. Outside kids throw rocks at the broken windows and yell into the classroom. My students’ attention is not broken. Other kids bang on the classroom door, eventually pushing hard enough to move the rock I have used as a barricade and tumbling inside. Unfazed, a few students calmly rise and shove them back outside, sliding the rock back in place. It seems these are the learning conditions they are used to.

Each day that I teach is better than the previous. A comfort settled in between my students and me that allows me to joke and make faces, to discipline and chastise, to congratulate and hug. Whereas on the first day of school I felt nailed to a spot on the floor, hands glued to my chalk and eraser, I am now confident imitating the verb “to skip” across the room, having conversations with myself as two characters, and shouting “THURRRRR” over the rows of students, lips pushed open wide to show how to pronounce Thursday and nose scrunched up for effect. The students have also loosened up. They are learning how to respond to open-ended questions without answers to choose from, to use their imagination, to answer a question wrong just for the sake of trying, to take risks and laugh at their mistakes.

At the end of every class I stand by the door to shake hands with every student as they leave. About a week in the students adopted the more affectionate greeting that’s more like a hug. Today as Biftu approached me she looked extra smiley and bashful. When I grabbed her hand she suddenly lunged in, touching her small lips to my cheek, and hurried away into the protective circle of her giggling friends. Then it was all cheek kisses for everyone.

the servant

Well, I never received a host family, and it seems we will be staying put for the rest of the trip– not that I’m complaining. I am living with the Donald Trump of Haramaya. The first time I went out with him we took a Bajaaj (open taxi) for the equivalent of about two city blocks, got gaping stares and free qat from the market, and walked through the building he is having constructed “downtown.” He has a wife and four children. The way I just presented this family, I realize, seems awfully sexist. But that’s how they see things.

His children are wonderful, but my favorite child in the house is the servant, Mahdi. Often when I’m playing with the children I see him pause and watch from a distance. Sometimes I can talk with him. He is nine years old and very intelligent. When I teach him he listens intently and understands quickly.
The other day I allowed each child to listen to my CD player. When I tried to pass a headphone to Mahdi, the other children looked at each other and shook their heads at me as he sheeped away. I made him take a turn. A smile spread across his face, shy at first, but unstoppable. He tapped his fingers and nodded his head to the beat (BSS), appreciating it so much more than the others.

“Mahdi!”

My host mother was calling him. Suddenly his movements stopped. He yanked the headphone out of his ear. Brought back to reality, he looked at me wide-eyed, as if to see how I was judging him for his lapse in servitude.

“Mahdi!”

And he snapped to his feet, off to serve my host mother.

The servants here live in total subservience to the families they serve. One night I woke up in the middle of the night overwhelmed with nausea. I ran outside toward the toilet but before I made it I threw up on the rocks behind the house. The host mother came out and screamed, “Malia” over and over until a girl came running outside. My host mother returned to bed and I watched as Malia fetched a bucket of water and scrubbed my puke. I tried to ask to help but my Oromo was not good enough and she wouldn’t have let me anyway. I felt horrible watching her do it.

My host siblings are sweet and loving, but it is hard to see their good fortune juxtaposed with Mahdi’s hard work. I watch them drop gum wrappers on the ground one minute, and I watch Mahdi pick them up the next. It is unfair, but it is economics. I cannot blame the family because Mahdi is lucky to have the job.

This is where I believe education must enter as an equalizer. As the system exists in Ethiopia, my host siblings will receive a good private education and go on to study at a university or become a wealthy qat exporter like their father. Mahdi will receive a poor public education and will probably continue to be a servant like his parents. The problem is accessibility.

first day of school

From June 22…

When I first arrived at school with the two other American volunteers, we had around fifty students following us and hundreds waiting for us. As we made our way to the director’s office it was like we were running through a pool of drying concrete. Every step through the swarming children took concentration to avoid stepping on tumbling bodies, and it only got harder as they flocked around us. After a few minutes we reached the door and a skinny old man came out with a whip. Shouting in Oromo, he slapped the children away from the door so we could enter.
Inside, I felt relieved when we shook hands with three business-suited administrators who looked like they could bring order to the chaos. In broken English, they asked how many students we could each teach. Hoping not to turn anyone away, we decided to first see how many students wanted to sign up. We were given blank sheets of paper and the green light. It was up to us to coordinate the registration of thousands of Oromo children, of whom we could only reasonably teach a maximum of 500 among the three of us.

We stepped back out into the chaos. Monika took grades 1-4, I took 5-6, and Sam took 7-8. Using the little Oromo we had learned, we tried to get the right students to follow each of us. I stopped on top of the front steps to one of the school buildings and was immediately surrounded. Students were pulling my hair, pinching my skin, screaming English phrases like, “Teacher! How are you? Are you fine?” and laughing hysterically. I found an advanced tenth grader whom I had met earlier to record names for me and tried to make the students form a line. That was absolutely impossible. Instead I physically pushed all the students off the steps and let them up one at a time to sign up. The students knew there would not be room for all of them. It became a battle of force as they shoved each other to get to the front. I had been choosing students from the front to let through to sign up (literally by raising my arm for a second), but I realized that I was selecting my students based on how strong or aggressive they were. I began reaching out my hand to students in the back to pull to the front. But how to choose? I made eye contact with ten students for every one that I could select. I never found a good system. I went on like that, changing my mind every few minutes about how to choose students. A few hours later I had registered 160 students and decided I had to stop. I would teach four classes of forty students every day.

I headed home with my students on my tail. On the path to the school we must cross a river by stepping on small rocks that poke out of the water. The water is blood-red—from animal blood. Crossing that river on the tedious rocks with students jostling me on all sides was like a horrible Frogger-induced nightmare. Fortunately I made it across and finally arrived at home where I left the students yelling at me from behind the front gate.