The nerdiest beat you'll ever see

My beat can be summed up pretty much in one word: nerd.

Seeing as I am one myself (it's a severe case) and I know about the culture surrounding it, I figured it'd be the best beat I could do that wasn't baseball. Topics that will be discussed and covered will include anime, cosplay, video games, model building and more. This will give me a nice wide range of things to cover. The big event I'll actually be reporting on will be Katsucon, an anime convention in D.C. taking place Valentine's Day weekend.

Now I know what you're thinking.
"Oh jeez... anime. She must be one of those couch kids." or "Man, this girl must not get out at all, she must spend all of her time watching Japanese cartoons and playing video games."
No, I'm not a couch kid. Yes, I have a life. I also have a nice set of social skills.

To wrap things up, here's a photo of a model kit I constructed last semester:

The exact model is MS-14S Char Aznable Custom Gelgoog
I've made about a half-dozen of these kits. They take about three hours to build but they're nice to have around to build on a rainy day.


Next post: "Axis Powers Hetalia" anime canceled before it even airs.

Who is Carrie Wood?

My name's Carrie Wood (you may already know this) and I'm currently the arts editor and baseball beat reporter for The Towerlight. I'm usually pretty busy during the semester because of this, especially Sundays and Wednesdays (production day). At first it was a little difficult to get used to, but I've gotten myself into a routine.

When I'm not writing or in class, I'm likely either at a sporting event of some kind or playing video games.
I've grown up around sports. Baseball is essentially my lifeblood, though I'm a pretty big Washington Capitals fan as well. Once the season starts, I'm at almost every Towson University baseball game up in the press box (which is fortunately fully enclosed and heated this year, woohoo!). I'm a bigger Nationals fan than I am an Orioles fan, but I like both teams and once the MLB season kicks off, I'm at a game - either in DC or in Baltimore - on average once a week.
Video games are something my parents tried to prevent from entering my life, but to no avail. Once Pokemon got popular when I was in fourth grade, there was no stopping me. I had my Game Boy Color and my copy of Pokemon Red and I was set. My addiction to Nintendo grew from there - I discovered The Legend of Zelda, then River City Ransom, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun... you get the gist. Unfortunately, I'm not the one with the tech/geek column at the paper, so I have no outlet to unleash my inner nerd rage when I need it.
To add to the whole nerd thing, I go to anime conventions and yes, I cosplay. Maybe I'll go more in-depth on that whole thing another time.

I hope to learn from this course the same skills I learned from 257, but more in-depth. Reporting and editing skills as well as all of the new media stuff - audio, video, photography - are all things I hope to gain. I'm taking three different mass communications courses this semester: this, news editing and sportswriting. Hopefully, after finishing all three, I'll be a much better journalist and editor.

I'm not sure what I want to be once I've graduated. If I can get a job at a newspaper, that'd be great, but I'll only take the job if I get to cover baseball. The guy who's in charge of marketing for the Nationals has apparently been following my work at the newspaper and is interested in having me work there (so I hear), so I'm actually going to start taking marketing classes next semester to make myself more market-able to him and the franchise. As long as I'm in baseball (the Nationals, especially), I'll be happy.

That's it for now. I hoped to be able to stretch this post out a lot more so that I wouldn't have to sit around for 50 minutes before my next class starts, but alas.

Journalistic issues

It is always difficult to choose just a few ethical and legal issues to discuss as being the "most important." In my mind, they are equally as important and as severe when compared to each other. However, there are three issues listed in "All the News" that have always stuck out to me.

1. Plagiarism and Fabricaton: To me, there is nothing worse than making stuff up. The fact of the matter is, if someone commits either of them they shouldn't be allowed to really call themselves journalists. Fabrication is writing something that isn't true, such as coming up with fake quotes. Fabrication is writing fiction. If you prefer to fabricate information, you should be writing fiction novels and not articles for a news source. Plagarizing is taking someone else's quotes or writing and using them as your own, which is essentially stealing. Both of these are ethically despicable for journalists to try and pull and it disturbs me that writers at major newspapers try to pull it off today.

2. Libel: Libel is always a touchy subject. People who become the subject of bad or negative news will sometimes call out "libel!" to try to defend themselves. However, the definition of libel itself is difficult to really spell out sometimes. When something is negative it's not usually libel. Real libel is essentially lying in order to deface someone in a newspaper. To me, when libel really happens, it appears to be the result of some kind of personal grudge the writer or the newspaper has against the person who is being defamation. Real libel just shouldn't even be happening in the first place, but if it doesthe people responsible need to admit what happened.

3. Conflicts of interest: Journalists are human. Humans have relationships with other humans. But when these relationships get in the way of journalistic integrity, they can cause conflicts of interest. For example, if a woman is the head of the school board, and that woman's husband is a journalist at a local paper, he probably shouldn't be covering school board meetings. If he did, it would not only look bad on his part - because he likely wouldn't be able to objectively cover anything the board did - but it would make the paper look bad as well for letting him do so.

Energy activism

I've chosen to do more of a feature story for Multimedia Story #2. The Towson Energy Activists (TEA) will be my subject - one of my friends at The Towerlight is a member and she'll be my source for the other sources (if that makes sense). I'll be talking to various people involved with the group in order to spotlight TEA.
As far as questions, I'll be talking to the TEA members about their positions and stances, what they think the Universty is doing well and what they could improve on to really go green, if they have any upcoming events, etc.
Photo opportunities would probably be shots of them at their meeting or at an event (if they have one soon). Audio opportunities would include mostly interviews, hopefully with some of the higher-ups in the organization.

Go Go Power Rangercast

My associate, Tyler Waldman, runs a podcast called "Rangercast" which revolves around discussion and analysis of Tokusatsu and Sentai (more commonly known in the United States as Power Rangers).

His website is a blog of podcasts and YouTube videos. Practically the entire website is audio files, but it's pulled off well. Listeners can download episodes or listen to them straight from the website after reading a quick text summary of what each episode is about. I'd like to see more blog posts and text instead of just audio, however.



(PS: I know I posted it late - totally slipped my mind.)

Prowling for Tigers

What I tried to do with the shot of the Tiger statue was to make it look as alive as I possibly could. By getting down in the reeds, I was able to get an angle to make it look - at least I hope the readers get this impression - as if it is roaring while out on the hunt.



Blake's mugshot is the result of my trying to get a very casual, candid shot of him. I'm pleased with the result; he looks very focused on the photo he's taking.



Cutline: Leaves on the trees turn a golden color to match the Tiger footprints seen around Towson University. Students have recently been seen sporting heavier clothing, such as sweaters and hoodies, to adapt to the cooler weather.



How to improve:
There is always room for improvement. I need to try to use some of the rules of photography, such as the rule of thirds, as well as trying to fill more of the frame with a single focus. I also wish I had a steadier hand so that my photos would be a little crisper - I turned off the flash so that I could use the natural light (and so the subjects wouldnt look like they were on the surface of the sun) but as a result, they came out a little bit fuzzy.

At least I won't have to sing...

I've chosen to cover the "Karaoke for a Cause" event, being held in Paws on Nov. 6. From what I can gather from the posting in the Daily Digest, it should be your standard karaoke party. The organizers for the event added a twist - you can be kicked off the stage if people in the audience don't think you're doing the song justice. It costs money to both sing and get someone to stop singing, so all of the proceeds are going to the Arc of Baltimore.
An e-mail was listed at the end of the post, so I will likely be contacting her as my main source of information. As far as other sources, I may contact Arc of Baltimore or see if there's a representative there at the event. I'll also be chatting with some of the participants at the event to see what they think about it.
Questions will include why the event was held, why the proceeds are going to Arc of Baltimore, why they chose to do a karaoke event as opposed to something else, etc.
Photos will probably be crowd reactions to the people singing as well as the people singing themselves.