Fort Vancouver 6 from NIcholas Rudy on Vimeo.
C-TRAN offers a great parking alternative for WSUV students!
Posted: February 21, 2013 in UncategorizedThis is an image-based news story I did about a service available to students at Washington State University Vancouver. The service is an alternative to expensive, sometimes limited parking on campus. C-TRAN offers a student BackPASS which provides students with a discounted, unlimited access to the public bus system in Vancouver. The five images are meant to pose the problem faced by students, a solution to that problem, some convenient and enjoyable facts about the service and additional information about the times and locations where the service is available.
[View the story “C-Tran offers a great parking alternative at WSUV!” on Storify]
Nouspace Gallery
Nicholas Rudy
2-14-13
3:00
IN: Ambient noise: downtown street noise
RUNS: 11.3
Vancouver Washington is a city not generally known for its bustling industry or cutting edge excitement. Amidst the relative quiet, an extremely unique art gallery, known as Nouspace Gallery, is displaying tomorrow’s art today. Founding director Dr. Dene Grigar explains just what the Nouspace Gallery is.
IN: Nouspace Gallery…
RUNS: 16.6
OUT: …and experiential.”
Focusing strictly on interactive digital media art, Nouspace Gallery is one of only four galleries worldwide that offers such an alternative to traditional fine arts galleries.
IN: We want to focus…
RUNS: 8.3
OUT: …looking at them.”
In addition to expanding the way Vancouver thinks about art and creating strong community connections, Nouspace Gallery fosters the digital art production and curation skills of students in the creative media and digital culture program at Washington State University Vancouver. Dr. John Barber elaborates.
IN: This is not just…
RUNS: 35.2
OUT: …associated with the various shows.”
IN: Ambient noise: Dene in her office
RUNS: 7.2
IN: My name is…
RUNS: 25.1
OUT: …media art in general.”
Along with introducing Vancouver residents to new and exciting art forms, the curators and founding directors are also very passionate about emphasizing community involvement.
IN: One of the things…
RUNS: 7.6
OUT: …civic engagement.”
IN: I’m going to be…
RUNS: 12.8
OUT: …and across the nation.”
Nouspace Gallery is located at 1005 Main Street in the heart of downtown Vancouver. Nick Rudy reporting, Koug Radio.
For the audio 3 radio broadcast project, I chose to report on the Nouspace Gallery and media lounge in downtown Vancouver. I chose this topic for several reasons. First, it is an extremely unique gallery that is unlike almost every other art gallery. The nature of the material shown in the Nouspace Gallery and the ways in which it is displayed qualifies in my mind as unusual. Second, I felt as though if this piece were to actually air on Koug Radio it would be newsworthy to Washington State University Vancouver students in that it would inform them about an interesting extension of their campus which they may not have otherwise known about. Lastly, I think the fact that such a unique gallery exists and is a part of the CMDC program makes this is an important, impactful story to anyone who is a student at our school or a member of our community.
Another reason why I chose this topic is that I knew there would be a wealth of good information and interview opportunities readily available to me.
In the process of putting this piece together, I also learned a lot about the history of the gallery, those involved in creating it and the driving forces behind making the gallery what it is today.
Something valuable that I learned while making this piece was how important it is to prepare properly when going out to record in an interview or in the field. I quickly realized how important it is to have and bring a proper wind shield if you plan to record outdoors. Especially with a good microphone, the slightest bit of wind will all but ruin your overall recording quality. I also learned that being set up correctly indoors is equally important and just as easy to mess up. I set my microphone up on a table when I did my interviews. This led to several times during the recordings where the table was bumped in some way and loud thuds came through in the recording. In the future, I plan to use a tripod and/or some sort of shock absorbing material in order to avoid this problem.
Expanded school week
Nicholas Rudy
2-5-13
2:00
Beginning in the fall of 2013, Washington State University Vancouver will be switching from its current four-day week to an expanded five-day week. According to a report by the Associated Students of Washington State University Vancouver, the new schedule will allow for some classes to remain meeting twice a week while some classes will meet three times a week for only 50 minutes instead of the campus’ traditional 75 minute class meetings.
News of the switch has traveled fast and has been the catalyst for some controversy and concern among the student body. Being a campus with a relatively large non-traditional student population, worries on the part of the student body aren’t entirely unfounded. Students such as Melissa Fuger worry that the extra school day might cut too far into their valuable, off campus time.
IN: Well…
RUNS: :23.5
OUT: …harder to deal with.”
Yet with an ever-growing student population, the need for additional state-funded resources is certainly on the horizon. Dr. John Barber points out that without the mandated schedule change, those funds may prove hard to come by.
IN: With an impression…
RUNS: :18.5
OUT: …resources that we have.”
Regardless of whether or not students agree with the new policy, the change is certainly coming. In the short term, some current students may be unhappy. However in the long term, the university stands to potentially gain new funding and open doors to exciting new opportunities.
IN: So in that sense…
RUNS: :8.8
OUT: …the five day work week.”
Nick Rudy reporting, Koug Radio.
I chose to do my second audio news piece on the upcoming campus switch from a four-day week to a full, five-day week schedule. I thought this would be an interesting topic to explore and report on because I have heard a lot of people talking about it recently. It seems to satisfy enough of the TOPICAL requirements in order for it to qualify for being a legitimate news story. It is a subject that definitely impacts a large number of people, being relevant to any student or faculty member on campus. It is timely because it is happening at the start of the upcoming fall semester. There is surely quite a bit of controversy involved in the matter. Lastly, I would say that it involves somewhat of a larger issue in the following way. While the schedule change itself is only that, there are a wide range of impacts and benefits to both the student body as well as the university that most likely will not be fully understood until quite some time after the change has taken place.
After having done a bit of research and conducted a few interviews, I feel as though this was a great topic to have picked after all. There is a lot more to it than I had thought previous to doing this project. My opinion about the whole situation has definitely changed since before I put this audio piece together.
The biggest thing that I have learned from this project on a technical level is that I need to be better prepared with my interview questions. I found that it might be helpful to ask more direct questions in an effort to get more concise answers. I think that if I prepare my questions and information better prior to doing interviews, I might get shorter, more concise answers to my questions. In the editing process, this will make it far easier to edit to certain points of information.
This is an excellent example of an audio news package. It was produced by CNN for their Sound Waves audio news series. I listened to a handful of the entries on the iTunes page for this podcast series. The one that I thought most fully exemplified the qualities talked about in the reading was the entry from 2/5/13 titled, “Can Religion Prevent Violence?”
First, every entry in this series begins with someone saying CNN, a noise that sounds like a bell ringing once and then someone saying radio. This creates a branding on all pieces in this series, which indicates to the regular listener that they are in a familiar, trustworthy news source.
This particular news entry begins with a captivating sound bite of a phone call coming from the scene of the Sandy Hook school shooting. A gripping clip like this pulls the listener in and probably increases the chances that they will listen to the entire piece.
This piece also briefly explores several sides of the issue by presenting interview material from people with different points of view on the subject.
There wasn’t an overwhelming amount of ambient noise in this piece, but I don’t think there really needed to be. Most of the content was interview material that wasn’t in any particular setting.
All things considered, I think this was a good audio news package mostly for the way it treated the story. It is a fairly comprehensive look at a complicated subject in a rather short period of time. The interviews were all very relevant and informative, and treated the issue fairly from both of the substantial points of view.
Link:
https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/cnn-radio-soundwaves/id376428343?mt=2
This is a short piece made for radio broadcast. It highlights the writing center at Washington State University Vancouver. The writing center is a free resource available to students that aims to improve the writing skills of any student. For any discipline, the writing center offers advice on technical, content, flow or any other aspects of writing.
It seems to me as though many students don’t know that the writing center even exists. Furthermore, some who do know that it is there don’t realize the wide range of writing instruction that the writing center offers.
With the thought that more students should know about and be taking full advantage of the writing center, I chose to do my audio reporting piece about the writing center and what they are there to accomplish.
I interviewed several students around campus about their knowledge of the writing center. A couple people didn’t know that the writing center was there at all. Several knew it was there, but had never been. A couple people had been there and had found it very useful.
I also interviewed Kandi Robertson, the director of the writing center, about her involvement with the writing center. She offered a lot of good information that helped me to fit my story together.
As it turns out, sixty seconds is not a lot of time for an audio reporting piece. My goal for the next audio assignment will be to better focus the story into the informational value of the interviews, while still incorporating my voice over into the narrative.
Audio script:
Writing Center
Rudy
1-28-13
:60
Even before WSU Vancouver has had a campus, the university has been offering free writing tutoring services to it’s students. While this service is an incredibly invaluable resource, it seems to be only vaguely known by many students such as Katelynn Edwards.
IN: Well I know…
RUNS: 5.6 seconds
OUT: …writing a paper.”
Kandi Robertson, director of the writing center since 1999, wants students to know that the writing center is designed to help them become better writers as well as better students.
IN: I think the most important thing…
RUNS: 11.7 seconds
OUT:…more than once on one paper.”
The writing center is located in the library building in room 403 and operates Monday through Thursday from 9am to 5pm, Fridays from 9am to 3pm and Wednesdays and Sundays from 7 to 9pm.
IN: The more the writing center…
RUNS: 7.9 seconds
OUT:…we can help each other.”
Nick Rudy reporting, Koug Radio.
This is a thirty second radio broadcast news piece on tuition increases at four year universities in Washington State.
In follow up to my last post, this is a video that shows Glenn Beck’s “restoring honor” rally from a different perspective.
Is this journalism?
Posted: January 16, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: current-events, journalism, politics, reporting
Argument for:
The argument for this video being an example of journalism might start with the fact that this guy is actually out in the world conducting interviews and actually experiencing the event on which he was reporting. I feel as though this is an important element of any kind of journalism. It seems to me as though the more immersed a person is in the environment they are reporting on, the more informative the report ends up being.
At the time this video was made, there was a lot of debate over the state of the union and its leadership. This event (Glenn Beck’s “restoring Honor” rally) was held at the same location and on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. This made the rally a bit more controversial and newsworthy than it may have been otherwise. Especially with an upcoming election year, the subject of this video was extremely timely.
Since both the subjects of this video and the intended audience members both represent demographics that span the nation, I suppose an argument could be made that this video satisfies the proximity requirement as well.
I would also say that this video impacts, or at least involves, a very large number of people. There are a lot of people at the rally itself. In addition, there is also most likely a fairly large audience for the video that they made.
I feel like this video meets enough of the requirements we discussed in class in order to qualify it as a journalistic endeavor.
Argument against:
I think the most convincing argument against this video being a form of journalism would start with the way that they shot and edited the footage. Although it seems to be all legitimate interviews, it is also clearly intended to poke fun at the interviewees and the nature of the event they were attending. Even though the subject matter is pretty important and serious, videos that are intended to make fun of people are often taken as being more for entertainment than for their informational value.
This video isn’t about a prominent person, nor does the issue necessarily impact a large number of people.
There is not a clear larger issue being explored in this video. Not to say that there aren’t larger issues involved, because there are. It just seems like the video production seems to be more concerned with making the interviewees look foolish and less concerned with addressing those larger issues that may or may not be involved.
Also, this video isn’t really all that odd or unusual. There are always people somewhere protesting something. The fact that this rally happened was already being covered thoroughly by the major press outlets and I’m not sure that this video offered anything above and beyond what was supplied by those media sources.
In summation, I think my biggest problem with this video being an act of journalism is that it was clearly produced more for entertainment value than for its informational content. If it were edited to be less to that end of the spectrum I think I would look at it as more of a journalistic piece.
Reporting Across Platforms 