Moving into the Fourth Estate

A vital Disconnection is made

2011-01-30T12:27:00.003-05:00

Much as I love being a creature of the Internet and the constant flood of information at my fingertips, I sometimes feel like I'm drowning in data. Last year, I made a pledge to myself that I would spend at least one week per year out of the www-dot waters. No email, no blogging, no Google searches, no tweets. Smartphone is turned off and stays off.

Last year, I took my Internet-free vacation in August in St. John in the Virgin Islands. This year, it was taken in January in Jamaica. The Caribbean turns out to be a nice distraction from the call of the digital wilds.

Though, on both trips, I cheated one time and snuck a peek at my email. Perhaps punishment for that should be to take another Internet-free vacation this year. At the moment, I could accomplish that by hopping on a flight to Cairo. Though I prefer making the choice to abstain from the Internet rather than having it forcibly taken away.

Apparently, people still read this blog...

2010-10-28T15:02:00.002-04:00

...As evidenced by a recent comment from a real live reader. I thought that only my mom kept up with this blog. (Hi, Mom!)

A career update for any other readers that might be out there. I'm over at Forbes these days writing about life on the Internet. You can find me here.

What Saul Bellow Thought About the Fourth Estate

2010-07-30T16:30:00.005-04:00

‎"I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists; we can only hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August."

-Saul Bellow, in a 1984 letter to Philip Roth, after a "crooked little slut" at People interviewed him and "turned my opinions inside out, cut out the praises and made it all sound like a disavowal, denunciation, and excommunication" of Roth. The journalist is now a director at NYU. (Via The New Yorker)

Note to self: Strive never to choose quotes from an interview that will make any of my sources feel how the author of Mr. Sammler's Planet felt while writing this letter.

Music obsession of the month

2010-07-05T23:01:00.002-04:00

Via my New Zealand-wandering sister:

Journalistic June Round-up

2010-06-15T21:17:00.003-04:00

Midway through June, it's been an eventful month. I...

Was the victim of a Craigslist Casual Encounters prank;
Wrote a piece on the ubiquity of surveillance cameras for Next American City (Sorry, non-subscribers);
Proposed that Justice Clarence Thomas consider a presidential run in the Washington Post;
And admitted to some not-so-casual digital lurking in the Assembly Journal.

And now I'm off to LA tomorrow for journalism law school.

A Master of Journalism

2010-05-30T17:13:00.005-04:00

May marked the end of my graduate studies at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. I am now officially a "master" of the craft.

I'm glad I decided to go to journalism school -- it helped me move definitively into journalism, and my Portfolio project led to the creation of the Not-So Private Parts. The only downside is that I now have student loan debt for the first time in my life.

Though finished with NYU, I'm already heading back to school: Loyola Law School, to be exact.

(Dramatic pause)

Not for my JD. I'm just attending for four days. Loyola has a Journalist Law School program, for reporters who cover the legal world but lack law degrees. I'm looking forward to a very abbreviated version of law school, a week in Los Angeles, and to not having to take any actual law school exams.

Other big happenings in June: I'm emceeing the Electronic Privacy Information Center's "Champion of Freedoms Award Dinner." EPIC is a non-profit devoted to bringing public attention to emerging privacy and civil liberties issues (image at right courtesy of their site). Given my contrarian views on privacy, this will be an interesting night. Anybody know any good privacy jokes?

Following the dinner, I'll be attending a Privacy Law Scholars Conference at GWU Law School.

So lots of law and lots of privacy next month. A big lesson I learned in journalism school: The mastery of subject areas never ends. Get as far into your niche as you can.

Foolish April

2010-04-02T12:54:00.005-04:00

April may be my least favorite month of the year. Though it usually marks the long-awaited arrival of true spring weather, it starts with April 1. April Fools' Day. Aka Everyone-has-an-excuse-to-be-a-jerk day.

I'm not really a prankster type -- my allegiance to sincerity is too strong -- but I do love holidays. So I usually take the lead in coming up with some kind of joke for Above the Law. This year, I presented a racy date between two lawyers. I prefer pranks that contain the reveal, so that you're only fooled if you neglect to read all the way through or to click on a stray link (e.g., TechCrunch's foolery).

But Above the Law played a small part in a massive prank yesterday: a legal blogger claiming to have been chosen by the White House to man a new national law blog. Though some recognized it as an April Fools' joke, the venerable New York Times fell for it.

Though it made Gawker laugh, I feel badly about the Grey Lady's slip and fall. My heart is just not totally into pulling the wool over people's eyes.

I'm in journalism because I want to provide people with information they can rely on. I realize April Fools' Day is an escapist holiday, but pranks that involve the spread of misinformation happen too often in the blogosphere already (e.g., Anyone remember John Roberts's retirement?)

Humans seem to have some innate tendency to believe one another. A day of the year that makes a mockery of that sad, beautiful human condition makes me feel foolishly despairing.

Happy April 2.

Twenty nine of my favorite songs...

2010-03-06T12:58:00.007-05:00

...To mark the occasion.

Here are my favorites of 2009/2010:

1) Phoenix - 1901, performed as a La Blogotheque Take Away show in Paris

Phoenix - 1901 - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque.

2) Dirty Projectors - No Intention, performed live in the XM/Sirius studios

3) Bill Callahan - Too Many Birds

4) Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA

5) Kid Cudi - Day n' Nite

6) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hysteric

7) TV on the Radio - Stork and Owl

8) The xx - Islands

Here are some from 2008 (and earlier) that I discovered or listened to a lot in 2009/2010:

9) The Raincoats - No One's Little Girl

10) Nick Cave - Into My Arms

11) The Kills - Tape Song

12) Interpol - Rest My Chemistry

13) Why? - Brook and Waxing

14) The Knux - Daddy's Little Girl

15) Band of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You

16) Band of Horses - Cigarettes & Wedding Bands

17) m83 - you, appearing

18) Digitalism - Pogo

19) Matthew Dear - Deserter

20) Girl Talk - Minute by Minute

And some of my all time favorites:

21) Modest Mouse - Dramamine

22) Mazzy Star - Fade into You

23) John Frusciante - Untitled

24) Pixies - Where is my Mind?

25) Ani DiFranco - Not a Pretty Girl

26) Johnny Cash - Hurt

27) Liz Phair - Fuck and Run

28) Ben Harper - Another Lonely Day

29) Led Zeppelin - Tangerine

I also love this song, but it felt hokey to put it on the list...

The new year brings a not-so new job

2010-01-06T11:40:00.004-05:00

At the end of the month, I'm going to be switching from associate editor to editor at Above The Law. Which means I'll be writing a bit more there.

I'll continue to write The Not-So Private Parts. And continue to freelance. (Speaking of, the Washingtonian cover story is now online. And the New York Times asked me to weigh in again at the Room for Debate.) And I have one more class to complete this semester to finish my masters degree -- the "long personal essay" with Perri Klass.

So life is not actually changing that much. But I will be spending more time at the Above The Law office.

In other news, New York is really, really cold.

Why lawyers make so much money [Washingtonian Magazine]

Your boss and your BlackBerry [Room for Debate/New York Times]

The whole world is obsessed with Facebook...

2009-12-14T09:16:00.007-05:00

... so my story about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's privacy settings fiasco is making the rounds. I'm seeing traffic flowing in from:

-- Germany: "Facebook-Chef Zuckerberg gibt Privatbilder frei" in Golem

-- France: "Le créateur de Facebook s'expose sur son profil" in Figaro Blog's TechNotes and "Le fondateur de Facebook piégé par les nouveaux paramètres "vie privée" du site" in Le Monde

-- England: "Zuckerberg pictures exposed by Facebook privacy roll-back" in the Register

-- Australia: "Privacy overhaul catches Facebook boss" in the Sydney Morning Herald
-- Italia: "Il fondatore di Facebook si mette in piazza, con le sue foto" in Il Corriere

-- Finland: "Facebook-uudistus oli liian sekava jopa Zuckerbergille?" in a publication with a title I can't even read.

The Italian headline is the only one I can confidently translate. It reads, "The founder of Facebook is put in his place, with photos."

And here's a link to the BBC interview I did. Facebook is at 19:00 minute mark.

I'm still waiting for some hits from Asia...

The Newshour [BBC Radio]

Washingtonian Magazine, NYT.com, and BBC's Newshour

2009-12-13T14:32:00.005-05:00

The latest (and longest) "real ink" project: the cover story for Washingtonian Magazine's December issue. David Lat and I answered the question: Why do lawyers make so much money?

Though I'm definitely more comfortable in the role of reporter, I'm starting to be asked to play privacy pundit. In November, the New York Times asked me to write a mini op-ed about Tiger Woods and the right to privacy for its Room for Debate blog.

This month, BBC radio asked me to talk about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook privacy settings for its Newshour, based on this True/Slant post. A Facebook friend reports: "Heard you on the Beeb/NPR yesterday, talking about Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook page, all the way down here in Houston."

I'm Accounting Down the Days to the End of the Recession

2009-11-17T17:05:00.005-05:00

Well, I never thought I would have a byline in the UK magazine Accountancy Age. But my law expertise takes me to strange places. I did a piece for them on forensic accounting as it relates to billionaire scammer Allen Stanford's trial:

Allen Stanford may still be grabbing headlines as he awaits trial on charges of fraud worth $8.5bn but it is forensic accountants who will play a prominent role in readying the case for both sides and testifying as expert witnesses.

Forensic accountants’ involvement in American criminal and civil litigation has become more visible because of the sensational nature of recent financial scandals, according to 30-year industry veteran Ronald L. Durkin, senior managing director of specialist accounting firm Durkin Forensic.

Read on at Accountancy Age.

Warning: In case its being in a magazine called "Accountancy Age" didn't give it away, it's a bit drier than my usual stuff.

In other news, this e-mail from the NYU journalism school internship coordinator made me want to throw up in my mouth:

Newsday’s features section, ExploreLI, is looking for a full-time two-year intern interested in reporting Long Island entertainment, nightlife, events and other lifestyle features for the daily section, as well as creating multimedia for Newsday.com and ExploreLI.com. Newsday is one of the nation's largest daily newspapers, serving New York's Long Island area.

A two-year long, full-time internship??? In my crazy world, that's called "a job." Where you pay someone a "real salary" and "health benefits."

I can't wait for the recession to end and for journalists to start having self respect again.

The pain of a BlackBerry-induced sprain is soothed by new bylines

2009-10-03T18:10:00.004-04:00

When I was in high school, I used to sprain my ankle quite often. Usually in an embarrassing way. For instance, one time I sprained it playing the very politically-incorrectly-named game, 'Smear the Queer.' A favorite game in my neighborhood, one person ran around with a football while everyone else tried to tackle that person. Unlike the game of football, you could not throw the ball to someone else.

For some reason, the Hill family owned a pair of crutches, so I would hobble around on those for a few days, and it would heal. I also invested in a serious ankle brace for the recovery periods -- it has velcro, shoe laces, and lots of straps.

I had to dig it out this week, because I have sprained my ankle again for the first time in 10 years or so. And in a very embarrassing way. I was walking to work on Wednesday reading through my e-mail on my BlackBerry, and I stepped off the curb and turned my ankle. It's now all swollen and painful, though the embarrassment over the way I sprained it is almost worse than the sprain itself: I was engrossed in an article about Sarah Palin's speaker fees.

Ah well. The week improved with two pieces I've written being published by new outlets for me: The Washington Post and Time Out New York. Here are the leads:

"Educational? You Be the Judge." in the Washington Post, written with David Lat

Meet Supreme Court Justice Irene Waters. With her pursed lips and dark hair pulled back in a bun, she bears a passing resemblance to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In her jurisprudence, however, Waters may be more like Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who cast the swing vote in many key cases before retiring in 2006. Waters is more animated than either of those two justices, and even more so than Justice Antonin Scalia.

Summer Updates

2009-08-05T12:10:00.003-04:00

Well.... July went by without an entry. This either means summer laziness has set in, or that I have been incredibly busy. Or both.

It's definitely been busy. I moved to the East Village -- I'm much happier in this neighborhood and about living on my own again. I am blogging my head off at Above The Law and True/Slant. Check out my most recent T/S post for the story behind my Scalia scoop and my thoughts on the future of journalism: The Evolution of Journalism (Or: How The New York Times Stole My Blog Story).

For something a little more fun, check out my post on the comment meme on Above The Law that will not die: How my ass lobster got into the Urban Dictionary.

My great friend/managing editor on Above The Law, David Lat, invited me to his family's lake house a few weekends back. His mother, who reads the blog regularly, paid me the greatest compliment: that she can't tell the difference between my and Lat's posts. To our great surprise and amusement, Lat's mother had made a huge lobster. We took a few photos and uploaded them to Facebook.

The Above The Law readers among our Facebook friends suggested we do a post on them. We did: Kash and the Big-Ass Lobster.

It generated 50,000 page clicks! Who knew journalism would lead to a career in lobster porn for me?

Big moves

2009-06-29T12:10:00.007-04:00

It has been a busy month. Some of the big happenings:

I moved from Gramercy to Alphabet City. I am now an East Villager!

My employer since March, True/Slant is doing quite well. We 'beta launched' at the beginning of the month and have had over 500,000 visitors to the site since June 1. Pretty fantastic for a brand new online magazine. My site, The Not-So Private Parts, attracted 10,000 readers. Check it out.

My first magazine piece, on the Justice Scalia privacy invasion, appeared in the June issue of Washingtonian Magazine:

Pick up the issue on newsstands in D.C., or you can be 'new school' and read it online.

Day break

2009-06-02T23:56:00.004-04:00

Lately, I've been experimenting with a crazy morning schedule. I'll wake up at 5 a.m., drink coffee and work for an hour and a half, then go running. Then shower and start the normal work day. Amazingly, it's just 9:30 a.m. at that point.

I kind of like it, but it's hard to do after a night like this (notice time stamp). My wild night involved working out, a vegan ice cream excursion, and much surfing of the Internets.

While re-reading today's content on Above The Law, I came across a comment that made me smile. But that made me worried -- should I actually be creeped out by this... or creeped out by the fact that it made me smile?

My co-editor, Elie Mystal, wrote a post about a law firm that wants its associates to be at the office promptly and not to wander in at 10 a.m. or later. Elie opined:

My day starts at 8:30. Kash's day starts at dawn. Lat never sleeps. But aren't young professionals more than capable of starting their day based on the work they have to do?

A very Gen Y observation. The information about ATL editors' sleep schedules led one of our readers to make this comment:

i'll start kash's day at dawn. god she's beautiful.

Which is the comment that made me smile, and then made me wonder whether I'm too dependent on ATL readers for affection...

My day does start at dawn. Sometimes earlier. I was amused to read another humorous piece in last week's New Yorker touching on this: My Quiet Time by Andy Borowitz. Here's the intro of the piece making fun of Disney C.E.O. Robert Iger's definition of quiet time:

Q. What are some things you do to manage your time effectively?
A. I get up at 4:30 every morning. I like the quiet time. It’s a time I can recharge my batteries a bit. I exercise and I clear my head and I catch up on the world. I read papers. I look at e-mail. I surf the Web. I watch a little TV, all at the same time. I call it my quiet time but I’m already multitasking. I love listening to music, so I’ll do that in the morning, too, when I’m exercising and watching the news.
—An interview with Robert Iger, the C.E.O. of Disney, in the Times.

Whoever said that the early bird gets the worm could have been talking about me, only I’m a person, not a bird, and I’m not interested in getting worms, more like getting things done. But I do get up early. In fact, the secret to my success could be boiled down to three little words: my quiet time. It begins at 1 A.M., when I get out of bed, check my e-mail, brush my teeth, scan some documents, and floss. Then I’ll surf the Web, maybe order a sectional couch or trade zloty futures. Last week, I bought a Swiss chalet and sold it at a twenty-per-cent profit while I was still in my pajamas. I wanted to high-five someone, but no one else was awake.

It goes on to address multi-tasking. I particularly enjoyed this, since at the time of reading, I was on an elliptical at NYU gym, listening to my music, occasionally glancing up at the news on the wall of TVs, and of course, flipping through the New Yorker.

By 1:03, I’ve had two cups of coffee, I’m down in my basement on the elliptical, and my heart is pounding like a cheetah’s. I know that cheetahs have a fast heart rate because I often watch Animal Planet while I’m on the elliptical, although sometimes I’ll do the picture-in-picture thing so I can watch CNBC Asia while I’m watching the thing about the cheetahs. It isn’t always about cheetahs; it’s about other animals, too, like meerkats. I just said cheetahs as a for instance. I do the elliptical naked. One time when I was on the elliptical, I patched myself into a conference call in Jakarta and accidentally hit the camera thing on my phone, so everyone wound up seeing me in the buff, all flopping around and everything. Another time when I was on the elliptical, I saw an amazing documentary about cheetahs.

While I’m on the elliptical and maybe ordering a hovercraft online, I’ll drain a six-pack of Red Bull.

Read the full piece.

When someone is on the elliptical, reading and laughing out loud, is that kind of cool? Or do you rather think to yourself, "What a weirdo. That girl must be suffering from some serious sleep deprivation"?

Aren't you glad you chose journalism school?

2009-06-01T10:59:00.003-04:00

An uplifting graduation speech from Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, for the journalism grads at UC-Berkeley. Apparently, things aren't any better on the West Coast:

You are going to be trying to carve out a career in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. You are furthermore going to be trying to do so within what appears to be a dying industry. You have abundant skills and talents - it's just not clear that anyone wants to pay you for them.

That's what everyone loves to hear while sitting with an unnecessary master's degree in one hand and tens of thousands of dollars in student loans in the other hand. Thanks, Babs!

It ends on a upbeat note. Kind of. We journalists do what we do because we're on a mission. Transcript of the speech provided by the spiritually-fulfilled but monetarily-deprived editors at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Welcome to a dying industry, journalism grads [San Fran Chronicle]

New Yorker gets Buzzed

2009-05-10T10:50:00.005-04:00

Noah Baumbach wrote the funniest thing I've seen in print in a long time for The New Yorker. The piece is called Buzzed and is a first-person narrative from a bee on cocaine.

Check it out. It's a MUST READ. I read it aloud to my roommate. I suggest you do the same thing if you can find someone around to listen to you.

Baumbach's name may be familiar to you. He's the screenwriter behind The Squid and The Whale.

Here's the intro, explaining what inspired the piece:

To learn more about the biochemistry of addiction, scientists in Australia dropped liquefied freebase cocaine on bees’ backs, so it entered the circulatory system and brain.

The scientists found that bees react much like humans do: cocaine alters their judgment, stimulates their behavior and makes them exaggeratedly enthusiastic about things that might not otherwise excite them.
—The Times.

Oh, my God, get over here . . . hurry . . . come on come on come on. Taste this nectar, taste it, taste it. . . . Slurp. . . . Is that not, is that not the best fucking thing you’ve ever had? Like nectar of the fucking Gods!

Read on.

My baby has found a home

2009-05-09T16:12:00.004-04:00

Well, summer plans are set. I'll be splitting my time between Above The Law and True/Slant. I'm very excited about this. And about not having to go to classes.

I feel a juvenile urge to chant "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks." Except I heart my professors at NYU and have already sought them out since the semester ended. I visited Meryl Gordon down at the courthouse -- she's covering the Astor Trial for Vanity Fair. And Ted Conover met up with the small group of students in our Portfolio class last week for dinner at expensive-vegan-fare-West-Village restaurant, Gobo.

Speaking of Portfolio, back in February, I blogged the birth announcement of my blog for the course: The Not-So Private Parts. Well, my little blog baby has grown up and found a new home. It's now living at True/Slant.

Check out my musings on the erosion of privacy in the digital age, and sign up to follow me!

The Not-So Private Parts [True/Slant]

"Summer break" and a Supreme message

2009-05-04T11:34:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I turned in my last piece of the second semester and am now officially on "summer break." So far, it looks like summer break will involve lots of working. In this economy, that's great news for me!

Last week was an exciting one. After having written that story on the Fordham dossier on Justice Antonin Scalia, I called the Supreme Court to see if Justice Scalia might have a comment on the story.

He did!

He sent me a message through the Supreme Court's public information officer. We published it here. David Lat, ATL's formidable founder, is out of the country at the moment so it's not possible to ask him if this is a first for Above The Law (getting an exclusive quote from a Supreme Court Justice).

It's definitely a first for me.

Justice Scalia Responds to Fordham Privacy Invasion! [Above The Law]

Magazine Recession Watch: Portfolio Folds

2009-04-27T14:48:00.006-04:00

Another magazine bites the dust. R.I.P. Portfolio. We hardly knew ye. Seriously. The only time I ever read Portfolio was to read David Margolick's work, because his stories are usually interesting and he was one of my professors in the fall (I blogged about an article he wrote on online gossip on Above The Law).

But for the most part, I didn't read Portfolio. So I was one of the many un-readers who contributed to its folding.

Employees found out today from the big guy at Condé Nast, S.I. Newhouse Jr. Word is that Wednesday is the last day for everyone on the magazine. Two days' notice. That sucks.

According to the NYT, the "upscale business publication," "failed to gain traction with advertisers and readers, in part because it was confronted by a historic recession in ad spending in its first few years of existence."

The magazine was just 2 years old.

There's nothing more depressing than watching magazines shutter their doors while one is in the midst of racking up debt to get a pricey degree in magazine writing.

Update: There's an excellent dissection of Portfolio's failure by James Ledbetter at Slate's The Big Money: Could Portfolio Have Survived?. And if you're curious, a little Google search leads me to believe that the Portfolio writer who refused to take his bet was likely Felix Salmon, who recently left Portfolio for Reuters.

Condé Nast Closes Portfolio Magazine [New York Times via Romenesko]
Conde Nast Closing 'Portfolio' [Portfolio.com]

Writings this week

2009-04-24T10:38:00.003-04:00

My latest post on True/Slant is up, about U.S. News & World Report rankings for grad schools. Unfortunately, there is no ranking for journalism schools. So I can just pretend NYU is #1... at least within the confines of lower Manhattan.

I had fun with this story for Above The Law. It's a bit of a scoop, thanks to my being virtually the only journalist attendee at a privacy conference this week. It's about a Fordham Law class invading the privacy of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

That's all for now, folks. Just one week left of this semester. Then the summer o' many jobs begins. More on that later.

Grad schools put in their place [True/Slant]
What Fordham Knows About Justice Scalia [Above The Law]

Magazine Recession Watch: GOOD is having issues... or rather, less issues.

2009-04-20T12:14:00.005-04:00

As noted back in January, I recently resubscribed to GOOD, "a magazine for people who give a damn." In February, I received a "recession issue" -- a little brochure really -- explaining that GOOD was in difficult financial straits and would be pubbing online only that month. It did include a coupon for a manicure, but I think I lost it.

This month, I received a real issue. On transportation issues. I was distinctly underwhelmed. It's not that I don't give a damn. I love public transportation, but I just don't find it sexy. Ah well, I hope future issues bring more of what I love, like last year's Travel Issue, which sent one correspondent to Paraguay for drug-and-gun-running tourism.

But future issues will be far and few between. Folio reports that GOOD is scaling back to be a quarterly magazine. On the upside, subscriptions are up from 25,000 to 60,000 people.

Good Scales Back Frequency [Folio]

The Latest Journalistic Venture: True/Slant

2009-04-14T19:56:00.006-04:00

A new online magazine "alpha" launched Wednesday, called True/Slant. Newspapers and magazines may be folding left and right, but the Web is the Wild West and there's still lots of land there for those who want to settle it. At least I hope so. I must admit that the rise and rapid fall of conservative online mag Culture11 scared me.

But I've signed on with the True/Slant team and I hope the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg is right in predicting a bright future for the site. Here's a screenshot:

True/Slant bills itself as the "digital home for the 'New Journalist,'" and will make it easy for users to follow the stories and voices of individual writers. I think that's a cool idea, and I hope readers do too.

I'm a contributor on the site. You can check out my page, Degrees of Recession, about pursuing higher education when hiring prospects are bleak-- a subject with which I am intimately familiar. One of my first posts on the student loan movement going viral got lots of traffic (Thanks, Above The Law!), making me one of the most popular contributors this week. If you look closely at the screen grab above, you'll see that I'm just two pegs less popular than Matt Taibbi.

Which is awesome. As those who know me know, I'm a big fan of the vitriolic Rolling Stone writer.

True/Slant Tests Another Model Of Web Journalism [Wall Street Journal]
Culture Shock [Washington Monthly]

Pained Metaphors

2009-04-09T06:51:00.007-04:00

Sometimes metaphors are painful because they are mixed, tortured, over-used, or overly elaborate. Like when a metaphor has as many references as there are characters on "Heroes," basically throwing in everything but the kitchen sink, then putting it all in a blender, followed by a trash compactor, and then dumping it all into landfill.

Get my drift? Maybe not. You may have lost your way upon those tortuous metaphoric paths. Metaphors should not distract from what is written about-- they should serve to illuminate ideas and make them clearer.

Packing in too much can cause the reader's mind to wander away from your point. In other instances of a metaphor gone wrong, the timing of the metaphor is just bad. So is the case with the current issue of the New Yorker (April 13, 2009). I opened it up to the first section, Talk of the Town. George Packer's Comment starts off the magazine with:

Another week, another earthquake.

My mind immediately went to Italy and the devastating quake that rocked the town of L'Aquila, outside of Rome, on Monday.

But no, Packer crafted this pre-Rome, and goes on in the column to talk about the new financial crises that President Obama is rocked with each week. The automobile industry takeover being the latest example.

I can't really absorb it though because I am still thinking about earthquakes, collapsing building, and post-natural disaster despair around the world. Whoops.

If You Want to Skip Journalism School...

2009-04-07T12:11:00.001-04:00

I am at approximately the halfway point in my year-and-a-half long program at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. There's a month left in this semester. Then I am on "summer break" followed by the third and final semester of my master's degree program in magazine writing.

Hopefully, in January, there will be a job out there for me. Hopefully. Or at least editors willing to buy my stuff freelance.

I've been speaking to lots of prospective students in the past few months, about journalism, journalism school, and the graduate student experience at NYU. I'm generally positive about the decision to go to NYU (for myself and others). The professors (Ted Conover, Meryl Gordon, Lawrence Weschler, Rob Boynton, etc. etc.) are amazing-- I love getting to spend hours with them each week in class, having them read my work, and having ready access to them via office hours and e-mails. They're amazing people and journalists, and it's kind of mind-blowing to get to monopolize their time.

Other good things: my fellow students (especially my four favorites-- not naming names); not being in the job market right now; having an excuse to live in New York; and being the possessor of a master's degree by the end of the year.

So those are the positive things. These are the not-so-positive things: accumulating student loan debt; writing long pieces that don't get published (freelancing stinks right now); the ego deflation that is part of "being a student"; not being taken seriously by sources; and the fear that spending time getting a master's degree in a profession in which it is not required is silly.

Being a writer and editor at Above The Law helps balance out some of the negatives. I am fully engaged in the news cycle and it's good to be doing writing and reporting that's actually being read daily by people who need it.

A lot of journalism school is studying great pieces of non-fiction. I would likely be too lazy to do that systematically on my own. But if you're less lazy than me and want to simulate the journalism school experience, read the following:

The John McPhee reader. McPhee, a long time New Yorker writer, is the journalistic God to many of us in the craft.

Gay Talese magazine pieces, notably "Frank Sinatra Has A Cold."

The New Yorker

(If you live in New York) New York Magazine

The New York Times

Optional, but recommended: The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Wired

Joan Didion

Ian Frazier. (Lawrence Weschler: "Frazier is the best journalist of my generation." And Weschler's work is pretty friggin' amazing.)

William Finnegan, notably Cold New World

The New New Journalism, by Rob Boynton. Interviewing, reporting, and writing techniques from the "new new journalists."

Joseph Mitchell, notably Up In The Old Hotel

David Foster Wallace, notably A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

There's more, but I'm tired of typing. So, yeah, for a do-it-yourself-master's-degree-in-journalism, read all that stuff, and write/report a lot. Voila! I've saved you $40K or so.

Spring Break(!!!) Part Two: Berkeley, San Fran, and Napa.... and Founding One's Own Magazine

2009-03-31T13:55:00.005-04:00

Well, spring break is starting to seem like a distant memory, but a fond one. I love California. Coming back to cold, rainy New York, I started to wonder why we don't all just pack our belongings and head west. But spring is beginning to bloom in the city that never sleeps and I am feeling happier.

Hmmm.... to quickly sum up Berkeley/Northern California: running past cows at Inspiration Point, running past strangely gopher-like squirrels at the Berkeley Marina, running past students on Berkeley's campus (I ran a lot over spring break), inadvertently watching burlesque at El Rio in The Mission, hiking in Napa Valley (photo at right), and ~~thrift store~~ vintage apparel shopping in Santa Cruz.

Upon my return to New York, I saw this article in the Times: Do-It-Yourself Magazines, Cheaply Slick . It's a California-based (of course) service that allows users to self-publish magazines:

With a new Web service called MagCloud, Hewlett-Packard hopes to make it easier and cheaper to crank out a magazine than running photocopies at the local copy shop.

Charging 20 cents a page, paid only when a customer orders a copy, H.P. dreams of turning MagCloud into vanity publishing’s equivalent of YouTube. The company, a leading maker of computers and printers, envisions people using their PCs to develop quick magazines commemorating their daughter’s volleyball season or chronicling the intricacies of the Arizona cactus business.

NYU should probably have a course on this at the Journalism Institute, since it's how we grad students may be most likely to see our words on the printed page.

Speaking of, yet another magazine has announced it's ceasing "real" publication, though it will live on in Web form. R.I.P. Blender. I kind of loved the US-Weeklified-Rolling-Stone imitator.

Do-It-Yourself Magazines, Cheaply Slick [New York Times]
Print Version of Blender Magazine Will Cease Publication [New York Times]

Spring Break(!!!) Part One: The City of Angels... and Doctors and Octuplets

2009-03-22T09:26:00.001-04:00

Radio silence has fallen on the blog due to my wandering over to the West Coast for spring break. There are many funny, youth-ifying things about going back to school, but having "spring break" and "summer vacation" make me feel the most like a kid again.

I spent the first half of the week in Los Angeles, visiting my best friend since middle school and her husband, who are both doctors. Since my friend will be specializing in fertility, a recurrent topic of conversation was Octo-mom, aka Nadya Suleman, the California woman who just popped out eight little ones after fertility treatments. My friends tell me that Suleman will be making over six figures per year thanks to California's generous welfare system. When babies are born to low-income Californians, the state provides a monthly stipend. If the babies are born premature (as all the octuplets were), the stipend is higher. Now that Suleman has a litter of over 10 kids (several preceded the octuplets), she'll be making close to $10K per month, per my friends' estimates. Maybe I should drop out of J school and sign up for baby-making school. Sounds like the money's much better.

(As an aside, most fellow doctors think poorly by Suleman's doctor for his willingness to implant her with a ridiculous number of embryos. If you were to play word association games with his name, the following would come up: Unethical, disgusting, shameful, a disgrace to the profession.)

In the course of the conversation, my friend raised an interesting question being discussed within the medical community -- what to do with unused embryos? When a couple decides to undergo fertility treatments, they usually stash away at least 10 embryos. Sometimes, people don't end up using them at all. Or the first two implanted take, and they don't need the rest. What do you do with the leftovers?

Other things in L.A.: Picked up LA City Beat, an alternative weekly, and recognized an NYU journalism grad among the bylines. Good to know a few of them have found employment... Saw my dad's best friend from high school who is now a screenwriter -- economy is bad for them too... Interviewed a professional matchmaker for my dating beat -- my favorite quote from her, regarding the difficulty in finding matches for babyboomer women: “If she was ever beautiful, she expects to be with a beautiful man. Even if she was only beautiful when she was in the 7th grade. And now she’s 55, and she’s lost her figure, and her face looks like it was run over by a truck.”

Stay tuned for San Francisco adventures.

Riding the Wave

2009-03-09T17:40:00.007-04:00

My inauguration stories are still getting picked up, so says my Livewire editor. Last week, she sent me a link to one of my stories in Wave JOURNEY's Travellers' Tales section.

This reminds me of two things:

1. Waves: Lawrence Weschler (my professor this semester and a man of wonder) encouraged our Fiction of Nonfiction class to read Bill Finnegan's excellent piece on surfing. It ran in two parts in the New Yorker in 1992. Beyond being a great exploration of the attraction of surfing, it uses surfing as a metaphor for writing. How we're all out in this dark soup of the ocean trying to figure out which stories are waves worth riding, and which ones are just going to peter out. I find myself thinking of this each time I dive into a new piece, desperately hoping it's the kind of story that will make me yell "Cowabunga" at some point.

2. This story: The first time this piece was picked up, the father of the little girl I interviewed and quoted at the end sent me the following e-mail. I thought it was adorable:

Please pass on my sincere thanks to Kashmir Hill for her inclusion of her interview of my eight-year-old daughter in her January 18th story about D.C. stores and vendors during President Obama's inauguration. Lelia will remember the event forever and was thrilled to be interviewed by a reporter. That the piece was featured in NYC Pavement Pieces is particularly gratifying to me. I am a graduate of Pratt Institute and for eight years lived in the West Village, seven of those years on Bleecker Street, a mere seven minute walk from the front door of NYU Law School (I timed the walk as part of my LSAT preparation). I have missed New York every day since leaving and would return in a New York Minute if the right opportunity arose.

As the grandson and son of newspapermen, I have a special appreciation for journalists. Please keep up the good work and let Ms. Hill know that I intend to check out her work at Above the Law, although I suspect it only will add to my current anxiousness about being a lawyer in 2009!

I was touched by this. I wrote back to him to thank him for the note, but warned him that Above The Law is a bit depressing these days. It seems like 80 percent of what we write about concerns layoffs nowadays, unfortunately.

Second Thoughts [Wave JOURNEY]

The latest byline: Interview with a professional matchmaker

2009-03-02T00:13:00.003-05:00

My latest published piece is up on Livewire, NYU's wire service. Hopefully, it'll be picked up and run by one of Livewire's subscribers. Here's the intro:

Lisa Clampitt married her husband within two months of meeting him. Six years ago, she spotted the City University of New York professor while getting coffee. She introduced herself, and after chatting for 20 minutes, he asked her to marry him. Two dates later, they sent out Evites for the wedding.

If finding love were that easy for everybody, Clampitt would be out of work.

Clampitt, 44, is a professional matchmaker. She’s president of the high-end New York City matchmaking service VIP Life, and co-founder of a school to train matchmakers, the Matchmaking Institute.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Yup, there's seriously a Matchmaker Institute here! New York has everything.

A Matchmaker Talks About What's Really Important [Livewire]

Getting animated

2009-02-25T17:59:00.005-05:00

Back in the 80s, and maybe even for a brief part of the 90s, my favorite clothes were skorts, my favorite accessory was the slap bracelet, and my favorite movies were animated-- the The Land Before Time perhaps topping the list. Even though I know animated films are all the rage these days -- with many of my friends in Hong Kong raving about Kung-Fu Panda this summer -- I still associate animated films with childhood, and tend to steer clear unless I have a child to entertain.

But in the past week, I've seen two animated features that are making me rethink my aversion to the cartoon set. On Saturday, I checked out a series of presentations that were part of The Wonder Cabinet, a series on "wondrous stuff" organized by the NYU Institute of the Humanities and its director Lawrence Weschler (who teaches me the Fiction of Nonfiction this semester). My favorite presentation from the day was an excerpt from Fears of the Dark, a creepy black-and-white animated short film. A robber creeps into a house in the dead of a snowy night, and ends up the victim rather than the victimizer. The film, with its suspenseful shadows and suggested dangers, was supremely creepy.

With the appetite for animation whetted, I checked out Waltz with Bashir, an Israeli animated film about the massacre in Beirut during Israel's war with Lebanon. It was a deeply disturbing movie in its exploration of the horror of war and its effects on the psyche of Israeli soldiers.

So, I'm coming around on animation, but only those animated films of the disturbing, horrifying, distressing variety.

Birth Announcement: A new blog has been born

2009-02-17T11:47:00.004-05:00

Well, it's already a month old, but I have a new blog. It's for one of my classes at NYU, which I have discussed before. The class is called Porfolio-- its tagline is "The Journalism of Ideas." It "brings young journalists together to harness their passions and ideas and develop a cohesive, thematically related body of work."

My body of work is called The Not-So Private Parts. Heh. The theme is that privacy is gradually fading away, due to security needs (surveillance cameras, etc); technology (data breaches, the amount of information we ourselves put online through social networks, etc.); and a culture that celebrates exhibitionism/exposure.

Take a look at my Porfolio profile here.

And take a look at my new baby: The Not-So Private Parts blog. If you have suggestions for improving the private parts, shoot me an e-mail. It feels a bit amorphous now, but I look forward to its developing over the next year. You know, learning to walk, eating solid foods, etc.

A little history of Gramercy Park (Or, getting to know my 'hood)

2009-02-10T15:14:00.000-05:00

While I was doing Proquest research on Kips Bay for my movie theater piece, I came across a New York Times article by Charles de Kay from 1905 about my neighborhood: Gramercy. I have to admit that I am not Gramercy's biggest fan. I don't really know any of the bars or restaurants near my place because I tend to seek out other neighborhoods for entertainment, notably the East Village, Williamsburg, and the Lower East Side. Apparently, I've written off everything to the north and west...

There is one little bar near my apartment, called Three Steps, that I've visited twice. The second time, the bartender told us about her acting career--the highlights being a topless appearance on an HBO show and an upcoming movie about a circus freak show--before offering to take us back to the bathroom for some illicit substances. Not exactly my scene, nor Gramercy's. With the exception of that incident, I would describe the neighborhood as a little bland, a little generic. A place for people who want to be in Manhattan close to the Village, but who don't want to pay monster-sized rents.

Anyway, I came across this old article on the neighborhood and discovered some interesting details about the 'hood and its private park, which looks beautiful from outside its gates-- only those living on its borders have keys to enter the fenced-in block-sized park and wander its paths. Even back in 1905, Gramercy had the last remaining private park in the City:

Outsiders are they, rank outsiders, and one can see on their faces a trace of indignation that they, too, cannot play about that splashing fountain, which seems so thin to us today, and disport themselves under the shade of the trees. For this private recreation ground is open only to the owners or occupiers of the houses round about who are compelled by the terms of their purchase or lease to contribute annually to a fund for the maintenance of the park...

[G]enerally speaking the exclusiveness that began fourscore years ago has been maintained, and Gramercy Park today is still a little haven of quiet.

Yes, and still today in 2009. In 1905, Gramercy was being invaded by clubs: the Players Club ("for actors and lovers of the drama"), Columbia University Alumni Club, and the National Arts Club. Columbia has since moved on to the university club cluster near Grand Central, but the other two remain in their mansion dwellings around the Park.

The article seeks to answer the question of the origins of "Gramercy," a corruption of the name given to it by the Dutch who settled the area. The area used to consist of a hill and stream that were called Crummashie Vly and Crummashie Kop. "Crummashie" morphed into "Gramercy" over time. The article says:

[T]here is in English the old word "cramesy" for red or crimson, a word that is known in French and Dutch; so that if the hill where the park now is was of red clay and in the Fall covered with crimson foliage it might have been called by the first settlers Cramesy Kop.

I like that image. It makes me like the neighborhood a wee bit more.

The area was first a 20-acre farm owned by James Duane in 1780, then was purchased by Bank of Commerce founder Samuel Ruggles, whose son divided the land into parcels and sold them off. The private park was landscaped, and the fountain (then valued at $3,000) placed there in 1851. That would be $75K in today's dollars.

These are the illustrations accompanying the article. Things really haven't changed much... well, maybe the hats.

Going to the Awards Dinner as a journalist... or at least as a blogger-journalism-student hybrid

2009-02-09T22:00:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow, I head down to D.C. for the NPF Annual Awards Dinner. A short trip, with less than 17 hours actually in the District. The Dinner will be different this year. It's switched from Thursday night to Tuesday night. They've instituted a new dress code: business attire, rather than black tie. And I'll be attending as a non-NPFer for the first time in four years.

A little school assignment

2009-02-06T09:50:00.005-05:00

In my Writing and Reporting class, Meryl Gordon asked us to spend two hours somewhere and write a 500-word piece on the place. It was a chance to exercise our descriptive writing muscles. I chose to hang out at a movie theater lobby, looking very much like a girl who had been stood up by her date. Here's the piece I came up with:

A Night At The Movies

Fade in: a massive Loews movie theater in Kips Bay, a little-known New York City neighborhood along the East River. Jacobus Kip, a first-generation Dutch farmer for whom the area is named, is long deceased, his bay filled and the land reclaimed for apartment buildings.

Actors and actresses stare down from faded movie posters at bundled people scurrying past on Second Avenue. A group of three passers-by look up to return the gaze.

Paul Newman wheels by with a brunette in white on his handlebars.
“Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid, right?”
A horse gallops by bearing Peter O’Toole, who wears a white kuffiya and has a sword in hand.
“That’s Lawrence of Arabia.”
A black silhouette of a bicycle against the moon…
“Easy. E.T.”

The theater’s entrance at 30th Street is framed by white lights that alternate between bright and dim for a pale imitation of Hollywood sparkle. The immense high-ceilinged lobby beckons Manhattanites accustomed to cramped apartments and shared offices.

Valentine’s Day candy hearts taped up in the glass entry doors taunt “He’s Just Not That Into You” as movie-seekers hurry in from the cold. Two ever-green potted palm trees flank the entrance, followed by an advertising assault for those making their way to the ticket counter at the lobby’s far end.

To the lobby’s right, a Goliath-sized red shopping bag promotes “Confessions of a Shopaholic;” a seven-foot red-haired actress peers out from the bag, a look of shock on her face. “All she ever wanted was a little credit” reads the tag line. To the left, a massive one-eyed blue gooey blob devours a Dreamworks Monsters vs. Aliens sign.

Sony televisions shout at each other across the room. A wall of six screens show a looping Sprint commercial—“Do more with the Blackberry Curve”—while two screens overhead sing out in support of the Metropolitan Opera.

Click-clack. Click-clack.

The sound of boots across the white-and-black tiled floors competes with the televisions and easy-listening station playing on overhead speakers. A dark theater with a singular movie soundtrack awaits grateful ears.

Those waiting for friends in the lobby perch on ledges, finding entertainment on the small screens of phones and PDAs. Couples wander in, some heading to electronic kiosks with movies already firmly in mind, while others linger in line for the human teller discussing the fifteen staggered options on the movie board in hushed tones.

The loud, deep voice of a 20-something in a hooded white sweatshirt rises above the noise.
“He started laughing hysterically. Just get out of my sight, he said.”
His female companion giggles, and then glances toward the movie board. “Uh oh. 7:05. Glad we got here early.”

Tickets in hand, the couple descend via escalator past Coke, popcorn, and pretzel bite ads to Theaters 11-15. A waterfall of freshly popped popcorn spills into a plastic bin, drenching the room with the smell of butter. Milk duds, Junior Mints, Butterfingers, and Whoppers sing their Siren song, tempting movie-goers before they reach the ticket-taker.

“Do you want anything?” a woman asks her pink-coated friend.
“Maybe…”

Moments later, carrying popcorn ($6.75), soda ($4.75), and a Dasani water bottle ($3.75), they hand their tickets ($12.50) to a red-shirted, bespectacled Loews ticket-taker.

A balding man emerges from a theater, shaking his head.

The ticket-taker resumes a conversation that must have preceded the movie viewing. “I told you. She’s an A-list star, like Julia Roberts,” he says forlornly. “She doesn’t need to do this movie. The story is so bad.”

Checking the Journalist's Ego

2009-01-24T16:06:00.004-05:00

Being in D.C. for the Inauguration last weekend was a gratifying experience, personally and professionally. It was exciting to see my home of five years transformed into a destination for over a million people. Despite being the seat of power for one of the world's richest and strongest countries, the place is sometimes a bit sleepy-eyed. It really came alive this past weekend though.

Professionally, it was a chance for exercising those writing muscles. I churned out a number of pieces and sent them along to editors at NYU, and they wound up being published in a number of places. At the same time, it was a reminder to check the journalistic ego. Often, the finding of stories is not about a journalist's great instinct, but just the luck of the journalist placing herself where the story is happening. We are but chroniclers.

Being in the right place at the right time resulted in the following appearances for my pieces:

The Orange County Register: Cold, crowds and lack of cash dampen inaugural tourism

ABCNews.com: The Monetization of Obama [SLIDESHOW]

The New Black (an online magazine): Second Thoughts on Obama's Inauguration

Epoch Times: Second Thoughts [PDF]

WNYC: Inauguration Prep

Pavement Pieces: Various articles

The Woodstock of Washington

2009-01-18T20:57:00.003-05:00

I am in D.C. this weekend for the Inauguration festivities. I've been reporting on the Inauguration for some time on New Yorkers and the 2009 Inauguration, culminating in the Inauguration article that's been picked up by various publications, most recently in The New Black Magazine.

I'm blogging the Inauguration weekend over on my Inaugural blog. Here's my most recent post over there:

Though much of D.C. feels like business as usual in terms of the crowd levels, that was not the case on the National Mall today. What must have been hundreds of thousands of people poured through gates on Constitution and Independence Avenues to watch a series of musicians and speakers at the Lincoln memorial.

To get a prime spot around the reflecting pool, you had to get there quite early. On the chilly, gray, overcast day, we chose to arrive at 2 p.m., just before the concert's 2:30 p.m. start time. We stood near the Washington monument and watched on one of many big screens.

The highlights:

Bruce Springsteen starting off the concert with "The Rising"

Garth Brooks getting the crowd dancing and singing with renditions of "American Pie" and "Shout"

U2 singing "In the Name of Love" on the stage where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have A Dream" speech

The low points:

The terrible poetry reading by Tom Hanks. Laughably bad.

Challenger the Bald Eagle. I don't know who added this to the line-up, but it was very odd to see the eagle awkwardly flapping around while tethered to its holder's hand.

Not being able to get into the main Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool area because of the existence of just one heavy duty security checkpoint.

Some funny things:

When Will.i.am appeared with Herbie Hancock and Sheryl Crow to sing Bob Marley's "One Love," the man next to me yelled, "Yes, Wyclef!"

When Josh Groban appeared on stage, my friend asked who he was. I explained that he's an attractive singer who sings kind of bland songs that old women like. A woman in her 60s who overheard me started laughing, and said, "I love him. Seasoned women, my dear."

Everyone singing along with Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen to the anti-capitalist anthem "This Land is My Land."

Walking to the Lincoln memorial, I was struck by the dearth of music-themed goods. Today's concert featured Bruce Springsteen, U2, Bon Jovi, Beyonce, John Legend, Stevie Wonder, and many other huge names, but there was not a CD, rock t-shirt, or musician-themed souvenir to be found. Everything is Obama, Obama, Obama. He is the rock star this weekend. Here are some photos from downtown today:

The latest latest byline...

2009-01-16T08:24:00.005-05:00

NYU's Journalism Institute has a news wire service called LiveWire. Papers across the country can pick up student work for free. Nice deal for them! My article on the Inauguration went up there.

It was picked up by The Epoch Times, on A2 in today's paper, and by The Orange County Register:

Cold, crowds and lack of cash dampen inaugural tourism [Orange County Register]

I've never read The Epoch Times-- it's a New York-based "independent voice in print and media," says its website. Based on the name, having an article in their pages makes me feel like a biblical prophet.

My latest byline...

2009-01-15T01:00:00.001-05:00

On NYU's Pavement Pieces: Weather, Crowds, Cost Diminish Inauguration Enthusiasm.

I am not one of the unenthusiastic. I head down to D.C. on Friday to take part in the Inaugural mania.

Get GOOD for $1

2009-01-14T11:05:00.004-05:00

One of my goals for the break was to restart magazine subscriptions that I let lapse during my time in Hong Kong. My father did me the favor of renewing my Rolling Stone subscription for Christmas, while The Week, The New Yorker, and GOOD Magazine are my responsibilities.

GOOD is a fairly new magazine. Its motto: "GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward. Since 2006 we've been making a magazine, videos, and events for people who give a damn."

I began subscribing in 2007 due to an innovative marketing campaign. The magazine threw an after-dark party at the Hirshhorn Gallery of Modern Art in D.C., replete with an open vodka bar, a D.J., and a gallery viewing. The $20 entry fee included a donation to a nonprofit of your choosing and a subscription to the magazine. Sounded too GOOD to be true. It was a fun event and I was surprised to find that I loved the magazine. In this cutthroat journalism environment, this kind of creative marketing is to be admired.

They must be focused more on building a subscriber base than making money though, which makes sense for a new magazine. When I went to resubscribe today, I discovered that you can get the magazine for a $1000/year... or $1/year. From their subscription site:

Choose your price. Seriously.

Because we want to help do good, we contribute 100% of your subscription payment to the nonprofit of your choice. Since we don't keep any of it, we figured we'd let you pay what you want.

All amounts give you one year of our magazine, full web access to GOOD.is and event invites.

> Pay $20 or more and also get one year of free admission to Choose GOOD parties.
> Pay $100 or more and also get one year of free admission to Choose GOOD parties
and your name printed in the magazine.
> Pay $1000 and get a lifetime subscription to the magazine, lifetime free admission to Choose GOOD parties, your name printed in the magazine, and a signed, limited edition bound copy of GOOD.

Taking a page from the Radiohead playbook.

Much as I wanted to pay $1, I paid $20.

Break in Progress

2009-01-06T12:16:00.005-05:00

Winter break remains in effect. I enjoyed ten days at home in Florida over the holidays, and now I still have two weeks before classes resume. I forgot just how wonderful the student vacation schedule can be.

I do have some fun things planned--skiing in Vermont this weekend and a trip to D.C. for the Inauguration the following weekend--but I am also getting back to work. Over the next year, I am planning a series of stories around privacy issues for my Portfolio class.

I'm interested in the privacy backlash. I see this happening both in reaction to a desire for greater security--allowing surveillance cameras, wire tapping, profiling, etc. for a safer society--and as part of a culture that is embracing exhibitionism in the form of blogs, social networking sites, etc. To start forming a framework for thinking about privacy, I am reading some books in the field, starting with "Privacy: A Manifesto." Written by a German, of course.

At the same time, I have had a lot of time to work on Above The Law stories. It has been nice to be more involved in the breaking news stuff, as opposed to trying to catch up around classes. We're currently doing a 2008 in Review retrospective. This post on Law School Students of the Year has been especially well-trafficked. I created this nifty graphic. If the whole journalism thing doesn't work out, maybe I can just excel in some kind of Photoshopping career.

My other journalistic outlet is my Inauguration blog, which has growing traffic. Nearly 100 hits yesterday, which doesn't compare to the hundreds of thousands of hits we get on Above The Law, but still makes me feel like I am contributing something useful to my fellow denizens in cyberspace.

Talking about the Inauguration

2008-12-17T13:18:00.005-05:00

Brian Lehrer show is online. You can listen to me blather about New Yorkers and Inauguration travel here. Click on "Inauguration Prep."

Things I didn't say that I wish I had:

--That I was a NYU grad student!
--That there are still plenty of bus and plane tickets available, though morning Amtrak trains are starting to sell out
--That I had known where to send New Yorkers coordinating travel to D.C.

My First Radio "Appearance"

2008-12-16T17:27:00.006-05:00

My blog on New Yorkers and the Inauguration caught the eye of a producer at the Brian Lehrer show. It's an "under-reported story" and my blog is one of the few things out there on it. (Thanks be to my Writing and Reporting professor who forced the class to keep blogs to track their reporting on their final pieces). I shall be on the radio (WNYC-- 93.9 FM and AM 820) at 11:25 on Wednesday talking about New Yorkers and Inauguration enthusiasm waning. Stay tuned.

Would you call this a radio appearance, or a voice-pearance?

Finals... Busy... No time...

2008-12-10T00:33:00.003-05:00

Last week of the semester. So busy. Working on this project for my Writing and Reporting Class: New Yorkers and Inauguration 2009. I have to maintain a blog to accompany a feature story I am writing.

The stress of this week and last force me to ask the question, Why am I paying NYU to do this to me?

Attempting to Master the Art of the Profile

2008-11-23T15:43:00.006-05:00

Last year around this time, I was assigned one of my most challenging stories for The Washington Examiner: profiling a Virginia woman on her 100th birthday. I drove out to her house on a rainy morning the day before Thanksgiving, and spent two hours talking to her.

(My job was not made easier by the presence of the Examiner photographer who snapped away while she talked, making her visibly uncomfortable.)

When I got back to the office, I had pages and pages of notes about "Cornie" McGrath's life, and faced the difficult task of assembling them into a coherent narrative that didn't just go along the lines of she was born, she did this, she did that, she moved to Virginia, now she's 100.

With this in mind, I've been focusing on profile-writing in the first semester of journalism school. I have two in the works now, and recently finished one that I was able to use as a school assignment and a posting on Above The Law: Legal Profile: Nick 'Ultimate Fighting Lawyer' Thompson.

There seem to be a few tricks to writing profiles:

Research. Get background material to inform the questions you ask. Has the person been interviewed before? Has he written articles/books? Does she have a blog?
Extract an anecdote to provide color or insight into a person's character or story, and leading the piece with that.
Triangulation. It's tempting to write the profile based on one interview with the subject, and your impressions of the person. But it's best if you track down friends, colleagues, and other "experts" to lend insight and quotes to the piece.
Multiple interviews with your subject. Talk to him or her, then talk to others, then talk to him or her again. Try writing along the way to figure out what you've forgotten to ask about.
The phone just ain't as good. Interview your subject in person. If you can, follow your subject around for a few hours, or a day, to get a sense of how he or she interacts with others and how he or she behaves when not in "interview mode."
Creative narrative arc. Don't get stuck in a biographical/encyclopedic retelling of someone's life story, following the easy chronological path. (Write down everything, but figure out which details can be dropped. Most of the time, we probably don't need to know which high school he or she went to.)

Well, this was a form of procrastinating before tackling my current profile piece. Time to put the nose back to the grindstone.

Marathon Writing

2008-11-15T11:50:00.003-05:00

Life feels like a marathon these days. Grad school is not the laid back, sleeping-in, leisurely reading, lots of down time, cafe-spending experience that one would expect. But journalism school is rewarding, especially when the reporting brings me into contact with people like Bob and Susan Hammond.

One of my class assignments was to profile someone from my hometown running the New York City Marathon. I went through the list of entrants and chose to contact Bob Hammond due to his affiliation with the Natural Living Club. I thought that could provide a good news hook. I interviewed him twice by phone in the month before the marathon, and then met him and his wife in New York the weekend of the marathon.

I accompanied them to the Expo, had lunch with them at a vegan restaurant, and stood with Susan at mile 23 to cheer Bob on as he ran past about three hours into the race. The Hammonds were wonderful, inspiring people, and it was a joy to meet them. My profile piece ran in The Pelican Press this week.

Twenty years ago, newly minted dentist Robert Hammond was an avowed junk food lover, indulging frequently in "Twinkies, double dogs and Ring Dings." On the car radio one day he heard health guru Gary Null talking about holistic living and healthy eating.

Read the full article.

I had tried to pitch the piece to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, but they totally snubbed me, not responding to phone calls or e-mails. Grrr.

Running changed his diet and brought him love [The Pelican Press]

Elections and Meltdowns

2008-11-10T20:34:00.006-05:00

I am a bit late "filing" this blog post. I spent election day morning on the Staten Island ferry gathering quotes for this article, Political Families Go Head to Head in Staten Island, and spent a good portion of the evening at the Department of Journalism editing reporting done by undergrads on How Gen Y Voted. The reporting behind the political families story included coffee with Bob Straniere's spokeman, conversations with twenty Staten Islanders over a month period, a Congressional candidate's debate, four ferry rides, online research and phone conversations with political experts in New York and even Missouri. And now it's over.

Every time an article is "put to bed," written and published, it's like a little funeral. You hope that all of the reporting led to something informative, worthwhile, and maybe even thoughtful. Yet, at the same time, you know its life is likely to be incredibly short-lived. Just another small contribution to a vast sea of news and information being poured out into the Web. Sigh.

At this point, November 4 is a distant memory. Now all the talk is of January 20, and plans for the inauguration. There's definitely a part of me wishing I were still living in D.C. to witness history being made there this January. But in New York, at least I get to witness the financial meltdown firsthand. Woo hoo...

I spent this past weekend in Ohio. Friends and relatives talked about disappearing jobs and fear of the coming recession. Cities like New York and D.C. haven't truly been hit by the economic downturn yet. They chug along, mostly unscathed. Though the Wall Street Journal screams terrible economic news at me each morning, I feel the weight of the downturn most when I talk to family and friends in Cleveland, in Sarasota, and in Charlotte.

We can only hope that the new roster of political office holders does a better job with the economy than the last bunch.

Getting to chat with two of the best New York Times writers ever

2008-10-30T23:46:00.003-04:00

My press ethics class with David Margolick meets every Wednesday night at 5:30 p.m. I never know exactly what to expect, as the class tends to easily spin off onto free-wheeling ethical tangents. Such is the nature of ethics, I suppose-- slippery.

One of the best things about the class is Prof. Margolick's ability to put us in touch with some of the greatest journalists around. We talked to the Arkansas reporters who covered the Little Rock Nine and school desegregation. We talked to New Journalist Joe McGinniss who found himself under attack in Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and The Murderer, a seminal text on the parasitic relationship between journalists and their subjects.

This week, we had the incredible opportunity to talk with Gay Talese and John McCandlish Phillips, considered to be two of the best journalists ever to work at the New York Times. Talese is known for his books on the mafia, Americans' sex lives, and the building of Staten Island's Verrazano-Narrows bridge, as well as his magazine articles on Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Floyd Patterson, and Joe Louis. "Frank Sinatra Had A Cold," written for Esquire Magazine, is considered to be a perfect piece of magazine work.

John McCandlish Phillips is not a well-known name; he wrote for the New York Times for 21 years starting in the early 1950s. Among writers, he's considered to be one of the most talented to have graced the craft. Towering over us all at six feet, five inches, he was skeletally thin. His voice choked with age. He was there to talk to us about an article he wrote in 1965 where he revealed a Ku Klux Klan leader's Jewish background. The subject of the story killed himself the day the story ran on the New York Times' front page. In answer to our questions, Phillips said he was "not a deep thinker." He did stories as they were assigned to him and that was that.

Gay Talese has an incredibly powerful personality. Dressed to the hilt in a three piece suit, his presence seemed to fill the room from the moment he entered. He led the discussion off on all kinds of tangents, though he returned again and again to his disgust with the New York Times' present Washington bureau. He was emphatic about the need to eliminate anonymous sources from stories.

Talese named the three worst stories of the last few years: 1. The Los Alamos spy story; 2. the anthrax story; and 3. the Duke lacrosse scandal. "The Hester Primming of those boys was disgraceful."

An interesting point raised by Talese was the need for class differentiation between journalists and their sources. He said it was different for him and Phillips in the 50s and 60s. Talese went to the University of Alabama, while Phillips never went to college. They were on the outside looking in, and had a distance from their assumedly more elite and powerful sources. Journalists nowadays though often come from the same places and top schools as those in power. Talese objects to reporters' social lives being so intermingled with those of their sources. I definitely saw a lot of this in Washington.

In a really beautiful moment, Phillips read a story to us from City Notebook, a collection of 60 of his articles. All but one was published in The New York Times. This is the one he read to us. It recounts the artistry of a Ringling Brothers clown, Otto Griebling. Phillips tried for years to write about Griebling for the Times, but they would never approve it. In 1972, one editor finally agreed to run an article on the clown, but when Phillips called the circus, he discovered Griebling was in the hospital. The circus promised him access to Griebling as soon as he recovered, but Griebling died. Phillips' greatest regret is that the clown was never recognized for his artistry in the pages of The New York Times.

The Nation's Capital vs. The Nation's Cultural Capital

2008-10-26T14:00:00.004-04:00

Today marks my unofficial two month anniversary in New York City. I am not sold on the place yet, but I hear it takes time. It has until next December (when I complete my master's) to grow on me... Or for me to grow on it... Or some such thing.

Just a skip and a hop from the political mecca that is D.C., New York's character is utterly different. I've traded the banks of the Potomac for those of the Hudson. (Though the East River is my more frequent haunt-- I've put in quite a few miles on its shores during morning runs). At this point, I must admit that I kind of miss the old swampland of D.C.

A few differences between the places:

1. There are lots of crazies in NYC. At the last two panel events that I've attended (the Taibbi-Herzberg event and a "Future of Journalism" panel with Dan Rather, the New York Times' Jill Abramson, and AP's Tom Curley), the first people to approach the mike during Q&A use the opportunity as a platform to attack the speakers and air extreme views. In D.C., people tend to be more subdued and less confrontational. New York is not a place for subtlety.

2. New York media events are cooler. In D.C., most media events are held in the basement ballrooms of grand, but aging, hotels. You can usually count on an open bar, three-course meal featuring tilapia or sea bass, and a few recognizable political faces. I had the chance to attend Atlantic Magazine's relaunch party in New York earlier this month. It was at an art gallery. There were Flavin-esque flourescent light installations keyed to past Atlantic feature stories. There was popcorn and a screening room with film shorts created for the launch, posing Atlantic questions to people on New York's streets. Party attendees were encouraged to draw graffiti on blown up Atlantic photos on the walls. It was cool. D.C. is many things, but it's not very cool.

3. New York is professionally schizophrenic. In D.C., the city revolves around politics and the federal government. Almost everyone you meet is linked into politics in some way-- whether working on the Hill, for a law or lobbying firm, for a non-profit, in media, etc. That common thread does not exist in New York. Journalists, artists, bankers, lawyers, doctors, PR folks... there are tons of professional worlds here, with little overlap. It's harder to learn the "language of the city," since you really have to develop fluency in several languages if you want to move between groups.

Between Above The Law, working at The Week, grad school, and social engagements, life has been busy, busy, busy. I've been doing lots of fact-checking at The Week, and research for the Consumer and Arts pages. I wrote the copy for this little gem: Last-minute travel deals.

The highlight of last week was speaking with David Lat at Columbia Law School: ""Will Review Documents for Food: Law and the Economy." Even if it is depressing to talk about the economy right now...

Health Insurance, Bike Messengers, and my first NYU-published piece

2008-10-15T11:53:00.008-04:00

NYU's Pavement Pieces published a story that I wrote for my Reporting and Writing class. The assignment was to take a story on a national election issue and make it local. Health insurance is an issue close to my heart since my family lacked it growing up. I chose to focus on bike messengers in New York City. Here's the lead paragraph:

Eating a turkey burger and munching on French fries at the 7A diner in the East Village, bike messenger Austin Horse, 26, talks about the perils of working in a physically harrowing profession without health insurance. Last January a taxi swerved into his path and ran over his right leg.

Click here to read the full article.

Bike Couriers Without Coverage [Pavement Pieces]

Talking Shop with Hendrik Hertzberg and Matt Taibbi

2008-10-08T22:03:00.009-04:00

Matt Taibbi's political columns for Rolling Stone have become increasing vitriolic to the point of sounding like the rants of a misanthropic mad man. I love them though. His editors let him go where few professional journalists would be willing to stray, including the extended use of masturbatory metaphors. A sample quote from his recent column on "The Lies of Sarah Palin:"

Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV – And this country is going to eat her up, cheering every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

Tonight I attended a seminar featuring Matt Taibbi and Hendrik Hertzberg, political commentator for another of my favorite magazines The New Yorker, discussing the media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Impressions
Matt Taibbi is goofier and less angry than you would think based on his columns. Conveys his thoughts better on paper than in person. Most stinging quote came in his advice to journalism students: "Journalism school is the most useless thing in the world. Quit immediately." Most interesting life fact: Played pro for the Mongolia Basketball Association in the 1990s.

Hendrik Hertzberg, in a brown corduroy suit and yellow tie, goes by Rik. Is more in love with Obama than most journalists are willing to show. "Obama is potentially another Lincoln." But that's okay because what Hertzberg does is not "objective reporting. It's objective judgment reaching." Most stinging quote (from my perspective as a blogger): "Reporting is expensive. The web is feeding on the corpse of the mainstream media. Just adding snark and commentary."

The Election Coverage
Hertzberg and Taibbi agreed that election coverage is lacking. "TV has pushed politics into the direction of being a spectator's sport," said Taibbi. "Politics used to be about the exchange of ideas. Now it's about winning and numbers."

"But in sports, commentators don't get to decide who won," added Hertzberg, referring to the post-debate round-ups.

On Writing
After graduating from Harvard, Hertzberg passed up a job at the New Yorker to work for Newsweek in San Francisco, covering hippies and the summer of love. After a stint in the Navy, he went to the New Yorker, doing Talk of the Town pieces on music and sports, but he was growing bored with journalism. Left to be a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, and went back to journalism as editor of the New Republic with a new love of politics. "I didn't become a writer until I found a different passion."

Taibbi on his writing style (quotes are approximate): "I get an assignment. Then I will do nothing for a while. I will calculate the shortest time it will take me to write the piece if written in absolute high panic. Then I wait until the last minute and write in a state of sheer white terror."

Hertzberg: "I don't like writing. I like having written."

J School: A month in review

2008-10-05T13:57:00.009-04:00

It's a cold, gray, October Sunday, and I am curled up in my Gramercy apartment reading about Joe Louis as a middle-aged man. A month into the journalism master's program at NYU, the most frequent question I get from friends these days is, "How's journalism school?" The answer is, "Good."

That's a bit understated. I really like the program, the professors and my classmates. And I love being in grad school. Having been out in the working world for five years, I have a much greater appreciation for higher education than I had as a high school senior going to college. I no longer see a list of class assignments as a checklist, but as readings and experiences to be savored.

For those curious, here's the extended (and meandering) answer to "How's journalism school?":

Reading about New York in the 1920s through the eyes of New Yorker writers A.J. Liebling, Joe Mitchell, and Meyer Berger...

...discussing "press ethics" questions, like "is it okay to clean up quotes? how clean can you make them before you're doing something dirty ethically?"...

...a Saturday night at the Musician's Union Local in midtown Manhattan, interviewing lawyers, anti-war veterans and a 22-year-old Vietnamese woman who was born without legs, suffering from second-generation effects of Agent Orange...

...meeting up with uninsured bike messengers at an East Village diner and hearing about using super glue to treat wounds instead of getting stitches...

...falling in love with the work of Gay Talese and Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe(!!!)...

..watching the Biden-Palin debate with classmates, enjoying lots of wine and lots of heckling...

...listening to The Week editors digest the debate...

...writing writing writing and trying to master "color"...

...resisting grad school laziness by waking up at 7 a.m. each day to write Above The Law's Morning Docket...

...reading Village Voice articles from the 70s and having Karen Durbin's "On Being a Woman Alone" resonate too deeply...

...excursions with classmates to discuss journalism while indulging in falafel, bubble tea, vegan red velvet cupcakes, and coffee, coffee, coffee (but not all at the same time)...

Palimpsestual New York

2008-09-29T13:24:00.004-04:00

During my junior year of college I lived in a Renaissance villa in Sesto Fiorentino, outside of Florence. My two favorite things about the villa were its beautiful courtyard garden (where I spent many an hour struggling to read Dante's Inferno in Italian) and its proximity to hills full of olive groves where I would go running. My favorite course was on Italian film and literature with Professore Vincenzo Binetti. (Il mio corso preferito e' stato sugli filma e letteratura italiani con Professore Vincenzo Binetti.) That's when I fell in love with Bertolucci's Il Conformista, all things Fellini, and Italo Calvino.

Professor Binetti was always using the word "palimpsest." It was sprinkled in his vocabulary as if it were as common a word as "interesting." We students speculated that he had come across it in his Ph.D studies, and assumed it was a common word in English. The first time he used it, we had no idea what it meant. Through trying a variety of spellings on Google, we found its definition: "a manuscript page, whether from scroll or book that has been written on, scraped off, and used again."

I grew to love the word, and am reminded of it over and over again in New York. The city is like a page that has been rewritten many times. For me, for others, in our experiences, in our literature, in our movies. Standing on a corner, with steam rising from the street, cars and people hurrying about, and iconic buildings rising to touch the sky, the city can easily look like a movie set-- a scene from a Woody Allen film. Or it can take me back to a book's description of the city, as if Stingo should be standing near me watching Sophie. But it's also just a corner, that I need to cross, to get on the subway to head to class.

I don't know the city yet, and don't think I'll ever feel at ease with it the way I did with D.C. It's more challenging, more complex, and more hostile than D.C. Hostile sounds like a bad word. It may just be in my mind because there's a man living in earshot of our apartment who screams obscenities at random times throughout the day. Like right now. I am not sure who he is or if he's actually talking to anyone. There's never a response, though my roommate once yelled back at him to shut up. It didn't work.

This weekend, the independent theater Film Forum was showing a remastered version of The Godfather. I had not seen it in years and had forgotten just how good a movie it is. There is also some enhanced quality of immersion when seeing a film in the city where it is set. This week, that film will be the dominant one layered over my perceptions of the city. Though I hope my week entails much less violence.

I'm Just Not an Alluring Girl

2008-09-22T13:00:00.000-04:00

My first college job was way back when, in 1999. After attending Duke's work-study job fair for eager freshmen, I decided I would try my hand working at Duke Recycles. It sounded cool and idealistic, assisting in improving the university's recycling efforts. I lasted two days.

The assisting was a bit too hands on. My first day, I was outside in the hot sun in front of a huge mound of glass bottles and soda cans, hosing them down so they'd be clean enough to be recycled. My second day was spent in a garbage truck collecting the trash from recycling bins around campus. It may have been elitist, but I felt that I hadn't come to college to be a garbageman. After a brief flirtation with camera-work, taping Duke football practice sessions, I settled into a great three-year-long job at Duke Hospital, testing the hearing of newborn babies.

My first job in journalism school has been a similar flop. I started interning with Allure Magazine. Again, I lasted two days.

I had some doubts about a beauty magazine being the right fit for me. But the internship fell into my lap, so I went with it. The first day was quite interesting, with one editor walking around the office on a rampage, screaming and cursing. There were some choice expressions that I'd love to include here... but will choose not to out of a mixture of caution and fear. Very The Devil Wears Prada.

The second day, I was given a writing assignment for the December issue, which was awesome. But as I interviewed a beauty expert about manicure tips, it bothered me that hard-hitting journalism this was not.

So... onto the next thing. Interning at The Week! "All You Need to Know About Everything That Matters."

In other news, my journalism school is getting dinged for "backward thinking" by an undergraduate student on PBS Media Shift. I thought the merits of her original article were questionable. Poor sourcing, and written after just one meeting of the class. What kind of research is that?

But Romenesko picked it up and now it's getting quite a lot of buzz. We haven't discussed it much on campus, but I have a feeling a forum is coming soon. The general attitude among my friends in the graduate program is that the undergraduate student has poor judgment-- in a number of ways. And that we're at NYU J School to learn how to best tell stories, not how to Twitter. The cutting-edge fad stuff can be self-taught and has a limited shelf life. But the ability to craft a compelling narrative is an evergreen skill. That's what we're there for.

Now I'm Institutionalized, instead of Departmentalized?

2008-09-11T19:32:00.000-04:00

The journalism folks at NYU have announced a name change at the school. I applied and was admitted to NYU's Department of Journalism. But now it's the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
So, who's this Arthur L. Carter guy? A successful investment banker, he started publishing The New York Observer in 1987. He's an M.B.A., money guy, but he's also taught journalism and philosophy as an adjunct professor at NYU.

In a strange twist in the story, he sold The Observer in 2005 to Jared Kushner, a guy just two months older than me, for $10 million. Kushner is now pursuing his M.B.A. and J.D. at NYU.

I think it's cool to be studying at a "Journalism Institute" instead of just a Department. Sounds more serious and high-falutin'. And I love "high-falutin."

Today, Professor Quigley asked the Reporting and Writing class to start the day at the September 11 tribute in Zuccotti Park, next to the World Trade Center site. My Columbia j-school roommate and I managed to get press passes and access to the park, which was blocked off to everyone but family members and survivors.

Mayor Bloomberg spoke at the beginning. After a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. marking the time of first impact, family members and students started reading names of the victims. The press was restricted to a walled off area to the side of the park, and we could only talk to people standing near the wall. I wrote this post for Above The Law, based on that. But I felt uncomfortable and intrusive interviewing family members, so left after about an hour to talk to those who had gathered outside the fences.

There was a serenely beautiful woman standing across the street from the park, holding a "Where is Osama bin Laden?" sign. One man walking by commented that it was a good question.

Cheryl Stewart is a sculptor; she has created art for the films Love & Lyrics and Across the Universe. She has a similar sign in her yard in Brooklyn, with numbers she changes every morning to count the days that have gone by since 9-11-01. The sign in her yard "is not huge, but as large as it could be without a permit."

While she knows people who died in September 11, her anger stems more from "the attack on the city."

"Everything changed after that," she said.

J School: Week one in review

2008-09-06T11:02:00.002-04:00

I had my first week of classes. "Week" this semester means Wednesday and Thursday. I'll be taking all 12 hours of courses in a 26-hour period. Here's the line-up:

Writing and Reporting-- the journalistic technique boot camp. We'll be pitching stories, researching, reporting, and writing. Our first assignment is profiling a fellow student. Next week, our class is scheduled for September 11, so we are going to the New York memorial service to cover the event. Led by Mary Quigley, a former Newsday reporter. (Most of the profs prefer to be called by first name, but she is Professor Quigley to us. Which sounds a little like a Hogwarts teacher from a Harry Potter book.)

Journalistic Traditions-- this is a reading course with the dean of the department, Rob Boynton. We'll be looking back at magazine articles from the ages, starting with The New Yorker articles from the 1920s and 30s, in order to develop a magazine sensibility. And to start seeing magazines as institutions.

Press Ethics-- this is a free-wheeling course on ethical questions in the practice of journalism. Led by former Vanity Fair and now Portfolio writer, David Margolick. He seems to like tangents and an improvisational syllabus.

I am excited for the semester-- I'll be balancing the classes with my continued writing for Above The Law and an internship at Allure magazine.

Fun stuff this week included seeing The Veils and Liam Finn at Bowery Ballroom with my sis and her bf, a wine and cheese reception for grad school students, and a faint smell of gas in my Gramercy apartment that led to two fire trucks paying us a visit.

The J School Journey Begins

2008-08-28T11:53:00.007-04:00

Monday marked the close of the HK chapter of my life and the beginning of the journalism school short novella. I took the Bolt Bus to New York on Tuesday. (I must note that the Bolt Bus is amazing-- big leather seats, electrical outlets, wireless internet, and $17 roundtrip! I am happily blogging away on the bus back to D.C. at this very moment.)

I had student orientation yesterday. There are approximately 200 students starting NYU's journalism program this year, with a little over twenty in the magazine journalism track. Our magazine group gathered in the morning. Dean Rob Boynton started out by talking about the journalism industry being in flux. Though entering an industry in mild crisis is a bit scary, it may offer interesting opportunities to those who are adaptable.

The orientation wisdom that resonated with me:

Being a good j school student means letting go of the regurgitation that makes a good undergrad student, and being aggressive, "nagging," independently-minded, and getting out of the classroom and into the city.

A sign of a good story is actually wanting to talk about it with your friends.

In j school, you're sheltered from workplace pressures, and can take more risks.

Going back to school feels really strange. There's this weird mixture of apprehension, skepticism, excitement, insecurity, and loss of authority. In my work at the National Press Foundation, I had reached a certain level of autonomy/seniority. In embracing the student identity, I am admitting that I have a lot to learn and am letting my professors determine the pace and principles. It's humbling and vaguely discomforting.

Classes start Wednesday. In the meantime, I have to move from D.C. to NYC. Ugh.

Last week in Hong Kong

2008-08-20T00:15:00.002-04:00

My summer in Hong Kong is winding down, though work has winded up, up, up. The Olympics are keeping me incredibly busy these days. The most time-consuming of my IHT tasks is the creation of the "Olympics Scoreboard." It runs in the Olympics section of the paper, and lists all of the event results from the day, along with the medal winners and country standings. I compile the information from the wires and lay it out.

I often wonder how many people actually use this section of the paper given the ability to get all this information so easily online. But last week, in the country standings table that I had selected, the AP had made a mistake and given France a gold medal. Some reader in Paris sent an e-mail pointing out the mistake, and we issued a correction. So now I know that there is at least one guy in Paris who looks at the Scoreboard. I am greatly relieved.

I found this video from BBC News kind of hilarious. A BBC TV pundit is the recipient of misplaced adoration from Michael Phelps fans in Tiananmen Square. "My name is Steve."

Video - Fans mob Parry thinking he is Phelps (BBC News)

Kash appreciates the write-in votes, but…

2008-08-16T13:43:00.006-04:00

There are big changes afoot at Above The Law, the legal tabloid blog where Kash holds the title of associate editor. [FN1] Above The Law editor-in-chief David Lat is leaving behind the pajamas-til-noon life of a full-time blogger for a managing role at Breaking Media, the blog’s publisher.

During a brainstorming session on one of their many runs, David and Kash came up with an “American Idol”-inspired plan to identify the new editor-in-chief. After calling for applications for the position, David chose six finalists to compete to be the next "ATL Idol." The contest has been running for the last few weeks, and it’s down to two contestants—the winner will be announced Monday.

During the contest, Kash received some write-in votes, which warmed her little heart. Someone even created a shadow poll that included her. Very snarky. This is the love part of the love-hate relationship with the ATL commentators. She greatly appreciates the support from ye anonymous readers… and the Pacific Reporter.

However, as others have pointed out, she is not the ideal candidate. Though Tom Goldstein objects to lists as the tool of the lazy, here are the top ten reasons why Kash would not make a good ATL EIC:

1. She’s not a lawyer. While fully capable of poking fun at judges and attorneys, she’s not up to the task of nitty-gritty legal analysis.

2. She hasn’t been to law school. LSAT insight- yes, did that. Law school insight- no.

3. She does not even have a law-related degree. She majored in Italian and European Studies. Seriously. She did take International Law as a Duke undergrad, but as Sophist concluded, that course is a big ole waste of time.

4. David’s shoes are way too big for her.

Having lots of lawyerly friends has provided a good amount of legal insight useful in writing for ATL, but per reasons one, two, and three, she doesn’t have the legal cred that the new EIC needs. As for more personal reasons:

5. She’s heading to journalism school in the fall. New York University and grad school life await her.

6. She has been hooked up with fellowship money. Many commentators suggest that journalism school is a waste of time and money. Kash agrees that this is possible. But thanks to NYU’s generosity, the loans she takes out should amount to less than the salary of her first real journalism job. Hopefully.

7. She wants the degree. Another true-to-life stereotype from the Stuff White People Like blog.

8. She fears getting sucked into the trade journalism world and never escaping. She likes writing about non-legal stuff too. Important stuff. You know, the really pressing matters. Like a Boy Scout troop’s stolen Christmas trees and chocolate tasting.

9. Within trade journalism, she fears getting sucked even further into the salacious legal beat niche. How many posts with the word “fellate” in the title before she ruins her chances of being a serious-for-realz journalist?

10. She likes the title of Ass. Editor.

[FN1] Kash uses the royal “we” on Above The Law, and the first person on Moving into the Fourth Estate. Since this post bridges the two worlds, she’s chosen the third person voice for the occasion.

Remembering Nicole

2008-08-13T23:31:00.007-04:00

I've received news today that a friend of mine from D.C. was murdered in Afghanistan. I met Nicole Dial in the summer of 2006. It was a difficult time for me—many of my friends were leaving D.C. to go on to grad school, and I was breaking up with my boyfriend of three years. It felt like I was starting out anew in D.C., despite having lived there for three years at that point.

There is a bar called Wonderland in Columbia Heights, a developing/gentrifying neighborhood in D.C. In 2006, Wonderland was this cool, unknown dive bar frequented mostly by the neighborhood crowd. Nicole was there for "Balkan music night," which involved lots of dancing in circles. We had fun folk-dancing together, and I sought her out at an Irish band's concert at Fado in Chinatown the next week. Thus began our friendship. She helped me re-discover D.C.

Nicole was a save-the-world type. In D.C., she was working on child soldier projects. Trying to prevent the enlistment of children into third-world militaries, and rehabilitate children scarred by war. I often felt that my professional pursuits were so frivolous by comparison. Nicole was always weighed down by the ills of the world, and the desire to make it a better place. I admired her for that, but also wished she could let go of it sometimes and enjoy the privileged life we had in the States.

That was not her way though. She was dissatisfied with D.C. and wanted to be doing more to change the world. And as a Trinidadian-born American, she had the desire for international living in her blood. She traveled often-- to Liberia, for work; to Canada, for conferences; to Tibet, with her mother... We had vague plans to go hiking in Tibet together, but those plans will never come to fruition.

She found an opportunity to work abroad and moved to Indonesia last year. We were in infrequent communication-- there were monsoon rains on her 31st birthday on February 14th. (The year before, D.C. nearly shut down on her 30th birthday due to a good amount of snow, though a bunch of us managed to find an open bar on U Street. We joked about nasty weather being a necessity for her birth celebration.) In June, she sent me an e-mail saying she had moved to Kabul to work for the International Rescue Committee.

I was concerned when I got that e-mail, with the continuing instability and violence in Afghanistan. But I thought she would manage to steer clear of the violence. She was an aid worker. Why would anyone target her? I don't know why, but they did: "Three aid workers killed in Afghan attack."

I keep thinking about Nicole-- remembering the times we spent together, and imagining her life and death in Afghanistan. The photos of the coffins that accompany the articles online haunt me. I know that what is left of Nicole is in one of those wooden boxes, and that it's a symbol for an online reader of the terrible violence of Afghanistan. But for me, it's my friend. The girl with whom I went on walking tours of D.C. The girl that I helped move from Mt. Pleasant to Dupont Circle on a snowy day. The girl with whom I watched the season finale of Grey's Anatomy, before we decided that the show had turned too horrible to watch.

Her death is too horrible. And senseless. She wanted to save the world, but she was in a country with some people who don't want to be saved.

All eyes on Beijing

2008-08-10T00:03:00.009-04:00

The Olympics kicked off on Friday (8-8-08). It was a crazy day in the IHT newsroom, as we geared up for two weeks of sports coverage mayhem. Sports are not exactly the IHT forte-- the regular Sports page tends to be a bit haphazard. But during the Olympics, IHT is quite serious about the sports coverage, with thirty or so journalists in Beijing.

I watched the opening ceremony on Friday night from the newsroom. It ran from 8 p.m. to midnight, Beijing time. (I think it was embargoed in the States til Friday night EST-- I am amazed NBC managed to block access online for the most part.) Everyone was appropriately "wowed." China put on quite a show for their debut on the world stage.

At the same time, it seemed a bit over the top. So many performers, so many moving parts, and SO many fireworks. My favorite part was near the beginning with fireworks in the shape of giant footprints going off across Beijing, as if an invisible giant were walking through the city toward the National Stadium, or Bird's Nest. Update: But now I read that was partly faked.

I left the newsroom during the parade of Olympic teams through the stadium. The roads of HK were eerily empty for 10 p.m. on a Friday night. Everyone was inside watching the ceremony! For the first time, I saw people really excited about the Games, and proud to be in China during the Olympics. So, mission accomplished with the ceremony, China!

I found this article in China Daily very illuminating, in terms of China's hyper-awareness of the eyes of the world: Opening ceremony draws worldwide attention. It's all about how the ceremony was received by the international press:

The British press spoke in praise of the spectacular Beijing Olympics opening ceremony unanimously, calling it the best ever and a stunning display of China's rising confidence...

A presenter with Eurosport hailed the Games as "bigger than anything imaginable", calling the ceremony an "extraordinary" and "extravagant" presentation.

The Financial Times said "the most certain victory of the Olympic Games was duly ratified on Friday night when China won the gold medal in the opening ceremony competition - presumably for all time".

The paper noted that no country in the world ever has - or will - match the Chinese in effort, human power, synchronicity, and ingenuity...

The Guardian said the ceremony that opened the 29th Olympic Games on Friday night outdid all of its predecessors in numbers, color, demonstrating to the world that the new China intends to make its presence felt...

The tabloid Daily Mail said Hollywood "will study the DVD of the performances for years to come and plunder Beijing's visual tricks".
Have I mentioned that China's really, really proud? Xinhua News Service is claiming the ceremony was watched by "4 billion eyes." Maybe if you count each eye and glasses... The far-fetched audience number reminds me of the Oscars and the one-billion viewers myth.

The day was darkened though by the news of a suicide attack on an American couple in Beijing that left the father-in-law of an Olympic volleyball coach dead, as well as weekend bombings in Xinjiang, the same city where suspected terrorists killed 16 policemen last week.

My life will be all Olympics all the time for the next two weeks. I'll be working 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sunday through Friday. Does that count as an endurance event? Can I get a medal?

I survived an HK typhoon

2008-08-06T11:47:00.004-04:00

Today was a typhoon day in Hong Kong. Tropical storm Kammuri passed by Hong Kong on its way toward western Guangdong.

IHT's deputy managing editor told me that if the storm was "level 8," HK would shut down. It wouldn't be worth going to work, because they shutter the building and won't let people in. When I woke up this morning, the Hong Kong Observatory reported that "No. 8 Southeast Gale or Storm Signal is in force." It stayed in force until about 3 p.m. so no work for me today.

All the shops in the area were indeed closed, and the HK streets were uncharacteristically empty. Indian Village restaurant opened at 2 p.m., thankfully, as I hadn't stocked up on groceries. Saag paneer and naan saved me from typhoon starvation.

Weather-wise: it was a little rainy and a little windy. It was reminiscent of hurricane days in Sarasota and snow days in D.C. Unnecessary hype leading to an unexpected (and appreciated) day off. A couple of snowflakes in D.C. shuts the whole city down!

Highlights of the day were a long nap and a foot massage at Happy Feet, when the city came back to life after the storm rating dropped to "strong wind signal, no. 3."

Weekend excursion: Singapore

2008-08-04T12:59:00.000-04:00

Coming to Hong Kong, I told many people that I was sick of traveling-- after Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Canada, Jamaica, Australia, China, New Zealand, and Mexico, all in the last two years, I thought that my travel lust had been quenched... Now that I'm here though, my biggest regret is not building in more time for traveling. There are so many southeast Asian countries just a plane hop away!

I managed to schedule one trip before the massive work explosion that is the Olympics (I found out yesterday that my hours will be 4:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. once the Games start!). This past weekend, my roommate and I went to Singapore.

Many call Singapore the other NYC of Asia. I think Hong Kong is safe in claiming rights to the title. Singapore is too clean to be an NYC contender. Little ladies kept appearing out of thin air to sweep up nonexistent trash in the MRT (Singapore's subway, not to be confused with the MTR, Hong Kong's subway).

Singapore was a nice break from HK. It had a cool breeze, less humidity, less pollution, trees, and wide avenues, so you're not constantly bumping into people on the sidewalks. And the food trumps HK's cuisine. It's a mix of Singaporean Chinese, Malay, and Indian food, and it's all super cheap. There are "hawker centers" all over the place, which are basically big food courts. Here's one in the Bedok neighborhood:

Singapore is a really interesting "nanny state." Seventy percent of the housing is government-subsidized. Priority is given to married couples for the subsidized apartments, in part because the government is trying to encourage people to get married and have kiddies. The replacement rate is something like 1.2 children per couple. The population of Singapore is currently just over four million, but the government is aiming for six million in the near future, which is difficult with that 1.2 child per couple rate.

The single friends I hung out with reported on some of the things the government is doing to try to boost the nation's numbers. One way is by sending expatriates "permanent resident invitations." (If you can't get your own to procreate, recruit!) Another way is by organizing events for singles, such as "marriage cruises." Government-sponsored mixers. Very cool. Interestingly, the government tends to organize different events for college grads and non-college grads.

We did lots of sight-seeing, exploring the Arab, Malay, and Indian districts and going on a night safari at the Singapore Zoo. Also stopped by the famous Raffles Hotel that dates back to the British colonial days:

Now, I am back in Hong Kong with just 20 days left. Time is flying. With the Olympics three days away, work is getting crazy. I've been managing much of the content on the IHT Olympics page. At this point, I still have time for non-Olympics stuff, but that will change soon. Here's a slideshow I made about President Bush's reception in South Korea.

Akon's "White Party"

2008-07-31T13:09:00.005-04:00

As promised, this is my report on Saturday's Akon concert at Hong Kong's AsiaExpo, a big convention hall. I hadn't really heard of Akon before, but was interested to see a concert here in HK, since I love music shows. In case you're similarly unacquainted with Akon, here's a link to one of his songs, Don't Matter.

I've never been to a concert with a theme before. This one was the "White Party," and the majority of attendees donned white attire, including my group. There were three ticket levels, $380 HKD (approx. $35 USD), $600 HKD, and $900 HKD. The room was divided by metal fences, with the high rollers in front of the stage. We were in the back, a.k.a. the cheap level.

Akon came on an hour late, and after the first song, the sound went out in the middle and back levels. We all raised our arms over our heads in an X shape to indicate our dissatisfaction, but we still went without sound for about 15 minutes.

Once the speakers were working again, it was a pretty good show. Akon seemed to feel badly about the sound problems though. With three or so songs left, he announced the concert was "for crazies." And that all the "crazies" should jump the fences and come to the front of the room. Thus ensued a mad rush of the crowd over the barriers-- people were running, tripping, and falling off the fences as they climbed over. It was definitely crazy.

I managed not to get hurt in the rush, though someone did somehow spill beer in my eye, and it kind of burned for a few seconds.

Before the last song, Akon made a little speech to the crowd that went something like this: "Hey all, I just want to say, I love you. And you know, when things get crazy, sometimes things go wrong. If any of you fell down or got hurt when things got crazy, I just want you to know I'm sorry."

I found this all utterly hilarious. I wonder if issuing a mass apology to concert-goers works to protect against litigation. Hey, it's working for doctors.

In other news, here's my latest IHT slide show creation: Earthquake in California.

More on the 'Cover Boys'... and why I've given up running

2008-07-29T23:06:00.007-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the U.S. presidential candidates' appearances on magazine covers (See Cover Boys). A recent Romenesko post pointed me to a New York Post article that helps explain Obama's popularity (beyond journalists going ga-ga over him).

From the New York Post:

Love him or hate him, Obama covers seem to be selling better than celebrities or rock stars.
And in most cases, his covers are selling better than those that feature his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain.

Said a spokeswoman for Time, "Of our five covers featuring Obama and/or Hillary [Clinton] . . . this year, they either sold significantly above average or above average. And the McCain cover this year sold just below average."...

For Us Weekly, which is owned by Obama supporter Jann Wenner, the cover featuring Obama and his wife sold a lot better than the average celebrity cover, with estimated newsstand sales between 900,000 and 1 million, far above the magazine's typical week of selling 800,000 copies.

(As an aside, Romenesko is a must-read blog for journalists and those interested in the media industry. A warning though: many of the posts of late are a bit depressing with their focus on newsroom layoffs and declining newspaper circulation.)

In other, more personal news, I gave up running this week because of Hong Kong's pollution. The South China Morning Post called Monday "the blackest day yet for air pollution." A haze has been sitting over the city for the last few days. I've never seen anything like this. And apparently, it's even worse in Beijing. Poor Olympic athletes.

A Weekend of Vice

2008-07-27T23:19:00.008-04:00

Weekends in Hong Kong tend to be more exhausting than the weekdays. This past one was no exception. Here's a rundown, along with a photo essay.

Though Hong Kong is a huge city, it tends to feel like a small one on the weekends, because everyone you know can be found in Lan Kwai Fong. (It's like 9th Street in Durham.) Yes, that would be the area that I said was "too heavily populated by expats for my taste." But, as all my friends are expats, I wind up there a lot.

Such was the case Friday night. I dragged my roommate out to Dragon I, where we met up with friends from last weekend's junk trip. In a night that went until the wee hour of 5 a.m., we also visited Volar and Prive. My roommate was laughing at me, remembering my first weekend here and my lamenting our being out past 2 a.m. as too late. HK changes your relationship with time fairly quickly. This is the scene at Dragon-I:

On Saturday, we woke up late, had delicious Korean food in Causeway Bay, and got foot massages at Happy Feet. On the way back up the midlevels escalator to our apartment, we spotted this commotion on Elgin Street. Check out the Mercedes fire trucks! And that would be a 7-Eleven to the right there. They are all over this city.

Saturday night, we saw Akon perform at AsiaExpo. I shall have to recount that experience in a different post.

Sunday, I went to Macau. Waiting in line for 2 hours to get through immigration processing made me hate the place initially, but seeing old Portuguese neighborhoods...

... and the ruins of St. Paul...

... and turning a profit on the craps table at the Grand Lisboa...

... made me like Macau more on the way out.

News to Amuse

2008-07-22T22:46:00.004-04:00

Working in a newsroom requires a hyper-awareness of current events. I've never felt quite this plugged in to what's going on in the world, from cambodia-thailand border negotiations to knife violence in england to street eats in seoul. I spend a lot of time surfing various news sites to see what's getting the most attention. I was amused to surf over to BBC News on Monday and see the bottom right corner:

The juxtaposition of "spiritual desert" and a review of the next Lara Croft videogame is kind of classic.

I continue to gather sports scores for the print edition of the International Herald Tribune. Yesterday, I had a true "web producer" assignment. My web boss asked if there were any good stories in the world of sports. I pulled this story on the Federer-Nadal rivalry from the AP, rewrote the headline, found photos of the two of them, created the split shot for the article, and then published to the web.

While it's interesting to have so much leverage in news judgment working on web production, I much prefer doing actual writing and reporting. It's good to find that out now.

Photo searches continue to be fun. Images are so powerful in conveying information. I wish there were a slideshow for almost every article posted. It's especially interesting to see the multitude of photos of world leaders. You get to see who looks stiff and uncomfortable all the time versus those who ham it up. Bush and Sarkozy are prime examples of the latter. I also don't mind going through tons of photos of hot athletes. Bring on the Olympic swimming events...

THE WEEKEND: This past weekend, I did the classic Hong Kong excursion-- the junk trip. Many of the expats head out to beaches via boats (junk=Chinese for boat). I went with an IHT colleague and a mix of lawyers and financial folks to a beach in Sai Kung. I even got to water ski, though we had to avoid huge jellyfish while in the water.

I also checked out HK's club scene. The dance club Prive was fun, though all the music was from three years ago. Saturday, I checked out Dragon-I, which is super-chique. I'd recommend visiting both if you're looking for a good time in Hong Kong.

Olympics are no big deal?

2008-07-21T09:49:00.010-04:00

Based on the countdown photo at right (taken in the MTR), you might think that Hong Hong is excited about the coming Olympics. In my experience, not so much. Part of the problem is that HK plays host to the equestrian events, and "dressage" and horse-jumping are not sports people get pumped about. They rank somewhere around speed-walking in terms of fan enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong: Horse-racing is super dramatic, but horse ballet not so much.

I think that another reason that HK is not super enthused is the disconnect between it and mainland China. Being in HK really does not feel like being in China most of the time, except for little hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Causeway Bay and walks through the northern/residential part of Kowloon. This is an international city with a very different culture from Beijing. HK observes Beijing from the perspective of other/outsider. People are not as excited about China's chance to shine as Olympics host, as about how well Beijing is going to handle the Games, the media, and any problems that arise.

Beijing has cracked down on visas, making it hard for people to get into the country, and has their police officers going through anti-riot drills in preparation for the Games. We hear that their hotels are only half-booked and that tons of cheap tickets remain for many events.

I was supposed to get a peek at the equestrian venue on Friday, but the media relations folks changed the media briefing from the afternoon to the morning. Apparently, IHT and the New York Times were the only media folks who did not get the message. I was a bit suspicious about that, but I may be seeing conspiracy where there is only incompetence.

My latest creation at the IHT is a slideshow: Beijing's preparation for the Olympics. I was seeing really incredible photos by Reuters from July 16's opening ceremony rehearsal. I ran the idea of an Olympics preview past my web producers, and they liked it.

Food victory of last week: The aforementioned hole-in-the-wall Shanghaiese restaurant in Causeway Bay, where I had Chinese doughnuts dipped in sweetened soy milk and some kind of preserved meat in sticky rice. All thanks to my food guru, W.L. She has been my guide to good eating in this town. Everyone needs a friend like W.L. in a new town-- someone who loves food and appreciates a delicious, cheap meal.

Cover Boys

2008-07-17T12:27:00.023-04:00

With the time difference, it's hard for me to track the rise and fall of controversies back in the States. Are people still talking about THE New Yorker cover there? IHT has this piece from NYT on the difficulties comics are having poking fun at Obama. Which led me to write this post to spark conversation on Above The Law.

If this cover were on the front of the National Review, it would never fly. But the New Yorker can get away with it (I think) due to the nature of their readers (a bunch of Obama supporters) and their history of satire. This is the same magazine that depicted the leader of Iran on its cover in a bathroom stall a la Larry Craig. The problem is with the reaction to the cover outside of the New Yorker's subscription base, now that it's no longer an inside joke.

It made me wonder how other magazines have portrayed the candidates on their covers. This is far from an exhaustive search, but it looks like Obama is definitely the preferred "cover boy:"

McCain missed out on the media TLC that results from a protracted, bitter, and ground-breaking battle for a party's nomination. Loving Time's Highlander "There can be only one" reference.

The Atlantic wins the artistic award. McCain may even be in there somewhere.

This is a nice feel-good cover. "Either way America votes, we're happy with it. Just as long as there's no more Bush."

Everybody loves that face...

...except for the National Review.

I wonder who Rolling Stone is voting for....

An (Expat) City That's Easy to Love

2008-07-15T21:33:00.004-04:00

Back when I was weighing the decision to come to Hong Kong, I was apprehensive about the possible isolation I might face going to a city where I knew no one and didn't speak the language. On the upside, I thought it would be good "cave time" for thinking and self-reflection before starting grad school, not unlike my 2-week hiking trip and 2 days of solo fasting during Project WILD pre-Duke.

I had some solo time my first weekend here, but since then, it's been a whirlwind of activity and new people. There are loads of English-speaking expats here. My neighborhood (the Midlevels) often feels more like Europe than Asia.

All the expats know the "new in town" feeling and are very welcoming. Before coming, I e-mailed every friend of a friend I could find in Hong Kong. Since most of my friends in the States are journalists and lawyers, many of the people I contacted through them tend to come from the same circles. However, my roommate has extended my network to friends in the hospitality industry.

Hong Kong is not a domestic city (perhaps due in part to the ridiculously small apartments). Everyone is always out on the town. So when you e-mail people and say, "I'm a HK newbie. Could you advise me on how to get settled into this crazy town?", they usually offer to meet up within the next few days (or even the same day). I already have a respectable network of friends here, and it's been less than two weeks.

I also got really lucky in terms of my roommate. We've spent a good amount of quality time together. Despite the fact that she leaves for work at 7:30 a.m. and I leave at 11:30 a.m., we tend to get home around the same time. I've lived alone in my D.C. studio for over two years now, and had almost forgotten how nice it is to have a great roommate, even if she does occasionally confuse me by calling a purse a bag, and a wallet a purse. (I know she reads the blog sometimes, but I swear I am not sucking up!)

Do I Really Want to Go Back to the States?

2008-07-14T12:08:00.004-04:00

From England's Daily Telegraph:

George Bush surprised world leaders with a joke about his poor record on the environment as he left the G8 summit in Japan.

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Photo Essay: Dim Sum, Causeway Bay and Kowloon

2008-07-13T23:26:00.014-04:00

I am happily coming off a weekend with (almost) no rain. With 4 a.m. nights on both Friday and Saturday, I think I am officially over my jetlag. Or at least no longer easily waking up at 7 a.m. On Friday night, I went with my IHT colleagues to Hong Kong's illustrious Foreign Correspondents Club. The oldest member is a woman who was on the Polish border when the German tanks started crossing, and essentially "broke" the story of WWII.

After that, I went to Wagyu Lounge with my roommate and her friends. We finished the night at the Flying Pan, an American diner. I had grits. In Hong Kong. Here's the rest of the weekend in a photo essay.

Dim sum Saturday morning at Dragon I with new HK friends:

Yummy dim sum. From left: soup dumplings, shumai, and steamed pork buns:

With very full tummies after brunch, my roommate and I went on a long walk from Lan Kwai Fong to Causeway Bay. We passed this Dark Knight poster on the way, with Batman looking out on Hong Kong. My roommate reports that the cast stayed at the Four Seasons while filming in HK. Comes out next week! I can't wait to see it.

Shopping in Causeway Bay. My roommate was amused by my looming above everyone else. I tried to buy shoes there. The shoe shop person took one look at my feet and said, "Too big. We only have Chinese sizes."

On Sunday, I went to Kowloon, the island across the bay north of Hong Kong Island. This is a statue of Bruce Lee on the Avenue of the Stars. The Hong Kong Island skyline is in the background.

A "cute" panda. Maybe they should have chosen a different Olympics sport to illustrate visually...

Knick knacks in Kowloon's night market. Interesting assortment of folks depicted... yes, that's Hitler beneath Jesus.

Comment Control

2008-07-10T21:53:00.006-04:00

It's still raining here, but I got to see the sun briefly during my morning run. It was quite exciting.

New responsibility at IHT: creating discussions. I created this one about the U.S. response to Iran's missile test launch. We have to create a discussion in order to allow readers to comment on a story. The majority of stories do not have discussions, and thus do not allow comments. We also have to go through each comment, and approve it before it appears on the site.

Coming from the blogging world, this is strange to me. We allow comments on every post, and they're automatically published (though we do have to occasionally unpublish a comment if it's offensive). Comments allow readers to interact with the story and each other (and are also a great driver for web traffic). At the end of the day, journalism is all about sharing information and creating a community through the creation of common knowledge. Online news sites should embrace reader comments. But I'm a blogger... what do I know?

I know that the comments were hilarious on this post we did on Above The Law. A reader sent us to a North Carolina law firm's website, which has serious and fun bios for all of its attorneys. I did some photoshopping to combine the images (see left) and added some commentary, but the images really spoke for themselves. What a fun firm.

Though the comments on that post are mainly humorous/fun ones, there are some ATL posts where the comments contain really interesting debates and raise serious questions about the law and the legal industry. Comments are important for more than just building community.

Food victory of the day: I went to a grocery story in IFC mall and found mochi, one of my favorite foods in the world. It's a Japanese snack made of glutinous rice pounded into paste with a sweet red bean filling. So good.

Forecast: Rain, Rain and More Rain

2008-07-09T22:15:00.013-04:00

Today marks the elapse of one week spent in Hong Kong. It is also day five of almost-constant rain, with no end in sight. See the forecast from weather.com:

Apparently, 60% translates to "all the time" in Hong Kong.

My newest duty at IHT is laying out the scores for the sports section of the newspaper. This is bizarre to me, due to my relative lack of interest in sports and the expected death of the physical page in journalism. (I have noticed that the Tampa Bay Rays haven't been doing so well, Dad.)

It's kind of quaint though, and nice to catch the tail end of this form of journalism (assuming it is the tail end). It's good to have "I remember when" stories. Mine will include, "I remember when..." there was no e-mail or instant messenger, people didn't have cell phones, call waiting was a novelty, Facebook didn't exist, we had to register for classes in person (high school) and by phone (college), gas cost 99 cents per gallon, and there was such a paper as the International Herald Tribune and I worked there.

For the web part of my internship, I have moved from finding one image per article to finding lots of images and making slideshows. See this series on a new world heritage site in Cambodia. The Preah Vihear temple sits along the Cambodia-Thai border; Thailand originally backed Cambodia's application to UNESCO, but then changed its mind at the last minute due to internal pressures. Too bad for them. Update: Thailand's foreign minister has been forced to resign over the hullabaloo. (I tracked down the photo of Noppadon Pattama for that article.)

The internship doesn't have built-in writing opportunities, but I would like to work on a few pieces while I am here. Some folks back in the States expressed interest in my freelancing for them and the IHT is open to pitches for possible online publication. The problem is coming up with ideas. All I can think about at the moment is the incessant rain.

Traveler vs Tourist

2008-07-08T12:25:00.001-04:00

In preparation for NYU, I am reading The New New Journalism by Rob Boynton, my dean in NYU's magazine journalim program. He's a big part of the reason I chose NYU over Columbia and Northwestern. I received a personal e-mail from him back in February about my admission. We talked on the telephone in March and he answered all my questions about j school and whether it was a good move for me at this point in my career.

In contrast, Columbia and Northwestern were much colder, sending the standard "you've been admitted" letters in March/April and encouraging me to learn more through attending their open houses. Don't they realize that I'm Gen Y and expect to be loved and coddled? Columbia's initial admission e-mail was actually addressed to "firstname lastname" due to an administrator's misadventure with Microsoft mail merge. NYU's personal touch in the admissions process meant a lot to me, as an indicator of how I will be treated as a student there.

Anyway, so I am reading this book, which is a series of Boynton's interviews with "America's best nonfiction writers on their craft." The first conversation is with Ted Conover, a specialist in undercover journalism. For various books, he has ridden the rails with hoboes (Coyotes), worked as a Sing Sing prison guard for 10 months (Newjack), traveled around with Mexican illegal immigrants (Coyotes), and studied Aspen celebrities as a local cab driver (Whiteout). Boynton has since recruited Conover as a part-time professor; I met him when I visited NYU and found him inspiring and soft-spoken.

Boynton asked Conover about his need to live among and as the subjects of his stories, rather than gathering information solely from interviews. Given my current adventure in Hong Kong, I found this passage from his response particularly resonant:

I suppose what I am getting at is like the distinction between tourist and a traveler. The tourist experience is superficial and glancing. The traveler develops a deeper connection with her surroundings. She is more interested in them-- the traveler stays longer, makes her own plans, chooses her own destination, and usually travels alone: solo travel and solo participation, although the most difficult emotionally, seems the most likely to produce a good story.

I visited Hong Kong last summer for a few days, as a tourist. Settling into the city this time around feels very different, satisfying in that I expect it will become a comfortable place by the end of my two months here, but also intimidating as I don't have the luxury of breezing through without really getting to know it.

Being separated, emotionally and geographically, from friends and family is difficult, but I am appreciating the opportunity to leave my comfort zone. At least for a short period. I feel a sharpened awareness and increased sense of observation, as so many things are new and different, or, alternately, striking in their familiarity.

Speaking of my surrounding's familiarity, I met a friend this evening in Lan Kwai Fong, one of Hong Kong's nightspot districts. With people spilling out of its many bars and wandering the streets under the influence of alcohol, it bore a distinct resemblance to 18th Street in D.C.'s Adams Morgan. I've been known to compare 18th Street to one of Dante's circles; Lan Kwai Fong is not that bad-- it's just a little too heavily populated by expats for my taste.

Food victory of the day: Dim sum for lunch at Maxim in City Hall. My taste buds were in heaven. Fried taro, steamed pork buns, dumplings galore, some crazy ginger tofu soup... a dim sum dream come true.

Not Just Fetching Coffee and Dumplings

2008-07-07T09:16:00.007-04:00

I spotted another great public service announcement/directive today on a digital sign on the Hong Kong MTR (aka the Metro). "Live healthy. Make sure you get adequate rest and sleep." I found it amusing, but it's certainly sound advice.

Day 2 of the IHT internship. My hours are going to be 12:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. I'm excited for long morning runs, though I was thwarted today by rain. I met the two editors with whom I'll be working on Olympics coverage. I admitted to them that, in the past, the sports section has been the only part of the newspaper that I immediately discarded. They just laughed. I will still be admitted to the "Olympics pod--" we'll be claiming an area of the newsroom for our team. My hours may be pretty crazy come August, as we'll be working with a 1 a.m. deadline for the Hong Kong edition of the paper.

As for the web part of the internship, my main responsibility so far has been finding photos to accompany stories. It's pretty fun, and reminds me of image searching for Above The Law posts... without the opportunity for creative Photoshopping. I chose a migrant worker/pollution/Bird's Nest photo from Reuters for this story on the month countdown to the Olympics. My second choice was a bunch of industrial excavators scooping algae out of the sea near Qingdao for the Olympics sailing regatta (See the New York Times story on this).

Food victory of the day: I've discovered a tasty Indian restaurant around the corner from my apartment building: Indian Village. I introduced myself and let them know they'd be seeing me frequently in the next two months. I doubt I'll be doing much cooking on my little two-burner countertop plug-in. And yes, our fridge really is two feet tall.

"Stay safe and have fun"

2008-07-06T01:12:00.006-04:00

It's a rainy Sunday in Hong Kong. I went out for brunch (ricotta pancakes with strawberries and mango-pineapple juice) with my roommate, but am planning to stay in for the rest of the day. Brunch at the Peak Cafe was delicious, though I am definitely eating more Western food than I expected.

Being jetlagged has been good for my running. I woke up at 7 a.m. both days this weekend and went for loooong runs, as a result of ~~getting lost~~ a desire to explore. I found a great 5-mile route on Bowen Rd., with overlooks of the city and tons of other runners.

Yesterday, I hopped on a bus and went to Repulse Bay Beach. It was not repulsive at all! Haha-- bad joke. Hong Kong consists of over 200 islands, so there are lots of beaches for me to discover. I was very amused by announcements that came over loudspeakers in Cantonese and in English. One announcement encouraged people to check that their large umbrellas were firmly planted in the beach so they would not blow away and hurt people. Another gave instructions on safe swimming (e.g., stretch, don't rely on flotation devices, wait to swim after eating). It ended with "stay safe and have fun."

The announcements made me think about the idea of "careful cultures." I think the U.S. is often thought of as having excessive rules and procedures, due to a fear of litigation. Hong Kong and China seem to have a similar style; I am noticing that there often seem to be elaborate instructions and directions on how things should be done.

In contrast, I was thinking back on my 2001 Europe trip with Kate. In Interlaken, Switzerland, we went canyoning (think shallow canyon river, wet suits, big jumps and zip lines). I don't think the Aussies who ran the operation even had us sign a waiver of our right to sue if we got injured. As we drove up the mountain, without safety belts sitting on the floor in the back of a big van, the guides told us about a group that died the previous year when a storm came and the canyon was suddenly flooded. I asked if they worried about being sued. The guide said something like, "It's not like in America. Here, you assume the risk when you do something stupid."

So I guess my idea of a careful culture is one in which risk does not rest solely with the individual. So it's in the interest of those in power to issue lots of directives to help people protect themselves. It could be fun to put a bunch of countries on a "careful culture" spectrum. Which I would do if I were into that. Instead, I'll just show you a photo of HK dollars. I love the Monopoly money that other countries use.

Goodbye, D.C.; Hello, Hong Kong

2008-07-03T18:20:00.000-04:00

Happy Fourth of July from Hong Kong. After 29 hours (door-to-door) of travel, I have arrived at my little apartment in the mid-levels of Hong Kong. (That's my bedroom at right.) My summer roommate is a manager at the Four Seasons; her staff helped me out at the airport, assisting me in buying a SIM card and a train ticket. My Hong Kong cell is 6214 6693.

My roommate met me at the train station and walked me to the apartment on Peel Street-- it's just a block from the escalator and in the heart of a great restaurant and bar district. (The escalator=the world's longest outdoor escalator which runs from Central Station, up through the Mid-Levels).

The apartment is cute, though super-small. Our bathroom sink is in the shower (see photo); our refridgerator is smaller than the mini-one I had in my college dormroom; and the "stove" is a little countertop 2-burner plug-in. A NYC apartment is going to seem luxurious by comparison. But my bed is comfortable and I slept a good seven hours last night, waking up at 5 a.m. today. I consider sleeping in until 5 a.m. to be a sign of jetlag recovery (as opposed to waking up through the night).

I feel excited to be here, though it's strange to be so far away from all my loved ones. The week or so of farewell events in D.C. helped me mentally prepare for the departure. The reality of "Goodbye" eventually sank in. At the same time, the sad farewells were strange to me. In the E-age, even if you're on the other side of the world, you're still hyper-connected. I'll be keeping up with everyone via Facebook and likely chatting with folks frequently via e-mail, Google talk, Skype, etc. The distance seems imagined in a way. Though the 29 hours of travel made it seem all too real.

Time to get ready for my first day of work at the International Herald Tribune.

One Week Til Hong Kong

2008-06-25T12:02:00.000-04:00

I leave for Hong Kong on July 2. The "when to go to Hong Kong" section of my Lonely Planet guide warns against traveling there from May through September, due to the oppressive heat and humidity. A friend of mine there now reports that his sunglasses fog over when he steps outside. I guess I'll be giving up running outside.

As my start date at the International Herald Tribune approaches, I am starting to wonder exactly what I'll be doing there. Hopefully, lots of web-related stuff. I also know I'll be working closely with the sports editor on Olympics coverage. And laying out sports scores for the newspaper. Hopefully, I will develop an interest in sports this summer. At this point, it's the section of the newspaper that I immediately discard.

Unfortunately, I won't be getting anywhere near the Games in Beijing. I have noted that the equestrian events will be held in Hong Kong, so maybe I'll get out of the newsroom to help cover those.

One week til take-off!

Housing in Hong Kong

2008-06-15T18:32:00.000-04:00

Once I decided to take the internship in Hong Kong, the first challenge was to find housing. Having lived in D.C. for five years, I have come to see Craiglist as the go-to resource for everything, from an apartment to furniture to a roommate. Unfortunately, Craigslist Hong Kong hasn't really come into its own yet, so I had to look elsewhere.

I e-mailed the folks at the International Herald Tribune and every friend of a friend I could find in Hong Kong. They all pointed me to the same two websites: GeoExpat and AsiaXPat. The second yielded a sublet in the Midlevels in Hong Kong.

I am subletting from a freelance journalist who's heading to Beijing for the summer to work on her Mandarin. I'll have a roommate in a 2-bedroom apartment on Peel Street. I have to send my rent for the summer in advance via wire transfer which kind of freaks me out. But I have a good e-mail rapport with the two women... and I know where they work.

Midlevels are near Central and SoHo and are the place to be for expats. It's a more expensive neighborhood, but close to Hong Kong's hot spots. My monthly rent actually works out to less than I pay in Washington, D.C. Woo hoo!

For those looking to live somewhere cheaper, but stay on Hong Kong Island, check out Wan Chai or Causeway Bay. Now on to the next challenge... finding housing in New York City when I return to the States to start school!

Introduction

2008-06-11T15:11:00.000-04:00

My name is Kashmir Hill. This is the start of a blog marking my leap from D.C. non-profiteer to journalist-at-large. It all started at the National Press Foundation in Washington, D.C., where I managed educational programs for journalists around the world. Kenya, Canada, China, Australia.... there are great travel perks in the non-profit world.

I caught the journalism bug and did a short stint at The Washington Examiner. Then I started writing for the legal tabloid blog, Above The Law. And now I am bound for Hong Kong for the summer to intern with the International Herald Tribune. I do not know exactly what I'll be doing there, but it will involve the 2008 Olympics. And the eating of many dumplings.

In the fall, I start a masters program in magazine journalism at New York University. This is the place where I'll be charting the journalism journey.