Several weeks ago, I volunteered with the Connecticut Forest and Park Association (CTFPA). We were blazing a trail in Berlin across a town owned park, Bicentennial Park. Covering this event for the local newspaper, I brought along my camera and captured these shots. Enjoy.
Volunteers Clearing The Trail at Bicentenial Park
Volunteers Swarming Over the Boardwalk and Bridge
Building the Bridge Across Hatchery Brook
Painting the Blue-Blazes Along the Trail. Every Five Years Blazes Need To Be Repainted
Residents in Berlin Gather to Pray at the National Day of Prayer
About 30 people gathered at the Worthington Ridge War memorial Thursday evening to simply pray.
The event brought together four churches in Berlin; Bethany Covenant Church; Berlin Congregational Church; Kensington Congregational Church; and Wellspring Church. Members of the congregations were observing the National Day of Prayer.
The participants prayed for seven areas of American life. There were prayers offered up for the well being of the three distinct institutions in America today: Government, Churches and Families. Guidance was sought for the areas of life which influenced those institutions: the military, the media, education, and business.
When asked about the importance of the National Day of Prayer, Bob Switzer, a pastor at Wellspring Church who led the prayers for the media and churches said, “For me, it’s about relationships. There are the relationships with the churches; we are standing together and publicly saying we’re desiring a relationship.” Switzer also pointed out that in the act of praying for culture and government; the people are recognizing the relationship they have with those areas and institutions. Finally, he said that “It’s publicly showing the relationship we have with God.”
The prayer group was a part of a national gathering of prayer services which have been officially occurring for the last sixty years.
In 1952, President Harry Truman signed a measure declaring a National Day of Prayer. Later, in 1988, Ronald Reagan made the National Day of Prayer the first Thursday of the month of May.
This year, Governor Jodi Rell signed an official statement regarding the National Day of Prayer. It read, “It is fitting that we should give thanks for the freedom and prosperity enjoyed by this State and our Nation and pray for continued guidance and comfort, which has been graciously bestowed upon this Nation since its inception.” It continued, “I, M. Jodi Rell, Governor of the State of Connecticut… …urge all citizens to observe this day in ways appropriate to its importance and significance.”
Note: This was my first time attending my town's prayer event; in past years, I have attended the event at the State Capitol. My town's service was so much better than the one at the Capitol. It's eloquence was in its simplicity. Having brought along my camera and notebooks, I covered the event. This piece may be published in my town newspaper, however, I didn't get paid for it, hence the publication on here.
A list of Journalism pointers, learned through the school of hard knocks.
A poker face should also be called a journalist's face.
Being interviewed is as scary as hell. It's a stranger listening to every word you say and any of it may be taken and printed in a place your mom, your neighbor and your neighbor's parrot will read it. A journalist must constantly remember that fact.
Better pictures and interviews take place when the interviewee is relaxed.
A journalist must soffen the interviewee's defenses and get them to open up at the begining of the interview.
During an interview, a journalist must be honest, impartial, probing and reassuring. This is a contradiction. This is why they call interviewing an art.
"Talking to a reporter is a matter of trust"~My Editor
Roger Shermon, the famous Civil War general, once remarked "war is hell." This was slammed into me today by the news story today. It's a collision of Journalism, civilian deaths, and difficult decisions. A word of caution, it's a graphic set of videos.
Here is the story as Al Jazeera told it:
CNN had a different take on this story told here. Thankfully, it add balance to this situation. On a side note, it's interesting to see how they each presented a different set of facts to paint the situation how they wanted you to see it.
I really don't have much analysis about this situation, except that war is much, much more complicated than what I used to think was. I knew it was complicated before, but it is something about actually seeing it that brings it all into focus.
I would love to hear your comments on this situation. Please comment below.
Two airplane pilots are waiting to land their plane at an airport:
Copilot: Look how the ice is just hanging on his, ah, back, back there, see that?
There is no response from the Captain. He tries again.
Copilot: See all those icicles on the back there and everything?
Captain: Yeah...
Copilot: Boy, this is a, this is a losing battle here on trying to de-ice these things....
A minute or two passes and then he speaks again.
Copilot: Let's check these tops again since we've been here awhile.
Captain: I think we get to go here in a minute.
But they didn't go in a minute. The ice was too thick and the plane crashed.
In this true-life situation, cited in a McGraw-Hill Communication text book, both pilots were trained and competent, however an urgent problem was ignored because the copilot watered down his message to his superior. This is an extreme example of a persistent problem in our culture.
When we speak, we beat around the bush; we add doubt to our words with statements such as ‘I guess’ and ‘maybe’; and we fill our listener’s ears with “ums”, ‘likes” and “uhs”. We hesitate and don’t commit to what we say, and we ask our listeners to do the same. We don’t speak with conviction.
I cited above the extreme example of the copilot in the introduction, but the everyday harms of speaking without conviction surround us.
The listener has to make more effort listening to make up for a wishy-washy speaker. The listener needs to decide whether the message is important. And sometimes, the listener needs to figure out what the speaker is trying to communicate. If the listener doesn’t put more effort into receiving the communication, the message will be lost.
If the speaker does not speak with conviction, they hurt themselves and their message. Speaking with doubt will leave their ideas open to be challenged or dismissed. If every phrase is pithy and passionate, the speaker will be listened to and respected.
There is a question in Journalism; to what extent can you edit the quotes of your interviewees? Oftentimes, you have to edit regardless. If you were to write down exactly what an interviewee said, even the most learned, cultured person sounds like this: "well, uh, we've taken steps in that area, and, and well for example, we have a, have made a committee to oversee that step in the project. Does that make sense?"
A good journalist will edit the clip down to: "We have taken steps in that area; for example, we have made a committee to oversee that step in the project." Now the gentleman sounds like he deserves to wear his suit to work. By why couldn’t he speak like that in the first place?
The way the culture speaks today hinders. Speak with conviction. Rise above the noise.
Last Saturday I attended an event called “Faith, Film and Philosophy,” a daylong conference discussing art, faith, philosophy, and how that all relates to film. Many good ideas came from the afternoon, and they will probably pop up in future posts, but this post has to do with Christian journalism. The lecturer, Dr. Douglas Geivett, professor of Philosophy at Biola University, was answering questions and expanding on the topic on the need for Christians in Hollywood. He told the story of a Christian worker in the industry; she felt God was leading into her into a particular job she had been praying for and miraculously, she got it. The job was, quite simply, to conduct interviews of famous people. In the meeting to decide on the first person to interview, she suggested Billy Graham, but that subject was dismissed and they settled on Hugh Hefner. What was a Christian supposed to do? She trusted God and went ahead and interviewed Mr. Hefner. The interview brought out the early life of the adult-industry mogul and showed why he made the decisions he did—it showed the man behind the actions. Hugh Hefner was also touched by the interview. He wrote a note thanking the interview team for conducting such a good interview. Somehow, the interview spoke to Hugh’s soul, and his aides said that it was like a therapy session for him. There is no place a Christian cannot go to minister. Sure, only a few Christians can go into a situation like that—not all Christians belong everywhere—but a Christian was able to interact with a very un-Christian man, and produce a good work. Who should interview Hugh Hefner? Christians, with love in their hearts and a desire for truth are able to reach out with love and touch even the most broken.
Over the weekend, I traveled to Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee. Bryan is one of the schools I am considering attending for my degree in Journalism and there, I got the opportunity to visit with the Journalism professor. Over the course of two days, I asked him several questions about how to become a journalist. He had several good responses. Question 1: How to Get A Good Job In Journalism According to John Carpenter, there are two ways to get a good journalism job, the one that pays the comfortable sum of a dollar a word and adoring fans devour every phrase ever scrambled from your keyboard and published in the New York Times, USA Today, or Times Magazine. The first is to go to a college, such as Bryan, get your bachelor’s in Journalism, and work hard and long to reach the top. Your first job will probably be at the village weekly, the small publication where all four of you work long hours for little pay. “We were almost starving,” recalls Professor Carpenter “but God always provided. When four kids came along, I said I had to stop. I wouldn’t see them from Sunday night to Wednesday because I was working at the newspaper.” The second option is to go onto graduate school, get your masters in Journalism, and go straight to the cushy job. The only consolation the poorer journalists have is that people who go this route probably have huge school loans to pay off. Question 2: Developing Your Writing It occurred to me to ask Professor Carpenter how much daily writing I should do if I want to become a professional writer. I had heard many different answers to the question. I had heard advice such as “write 1000 words a day” to “4 hours every day.” As you can probably guess, it looked like this could be the question where everyone has their own opinion. John Carpenter’s take on it was practice writing well. Sure, you could blast off 1000 words everyday in a journal, but the writing would lack thought and you wouldn’t have practiced good writing. He told me that posting regularly to my blog should be fine, because, with this blog, I am attempting to communicate and think. He continued and said that this idea also carries over to reading. He told me we should read deeply, slowly and with our whole mind. This is reading so that we understand what the writer said and also how he said it. This makes sense to me. If you are practicing good writing, eventually you will get good writing. The method of writing less but with more content is how I got my start in writing. In the beginning, I took a week to write a 500 word essay because I was focusing on what I was saying. This method of improving my writing will take effort, especially the reading habits. Reading with your whole mind is hard work. It is a much easier task to watch TV. But it will be worth it. What do you think? Comment below.
