The Internet—it's here

There was once a time when finding free food just meant following your nose. Not so, in this Internet age. We at Bwog make it our mission to post every free food offer that comes our way, and this event is no exception. If you’ve got a craving for unidentified “refreshments,” hop on over to Held Auditorium (304 Barnard) at 7:30 pm to check out ”On the Trail of Dictators: Watchdog Journalism in the Internet Age,” hosted by the Philolexian Society. They’ll be chatting about all the ways investigative reporters, bloggers, plane spotters, WikiLeakers, and citizen journalists promote free food government accountability through the media.

Homemade street sign via Wikimedia Commons

Nate Silver on Journalism Day

Allow us to take advantage of our ability to post at leisure, and direct your attention to the Henry Pringle Lecture, delivered by Nate Silver to the graduating class of the Journalism School early last week. Yes, Bwog may be more likely to prick up our ears at the title “Advice for Young Journalists in the Digital Age” than the average undergrad, but Silver provided much nuanced commentary on the changing ways we read and write, that is applicable to all students. We have unprecedented privilege in our access to news, and have a duty to be responsible consumers of it, if not producers.

Silver licensed his politics blog, FiveThirtyEight, to the New York Times last year. His career path leading up to this, involving a miserable consulting gig, baseball predictions, and poker, is interesting enough in itself. However, his main advice was the following:

• Read anything and everything
• Be entrepreneurial
• Learn how to make an argument
• Understand how to work with data and statistics

Hopefully this has piqued your interest enough to check out his full speech. And as for those last two points, you may want to look at opportunities to get involved in debate; and at the Statistics course offerings (they count for the science requirement,) and of course their CULPA listings. Now that there is extra wiggle room in course registration, you might find yourself interested in dipping a toe in the water.

Photo via Columbia Journalism

Here we go again: the Spectator is currently planning an overhaul of their website (for those curious, it’ll be the third such overhaul in four years). An email to Spec staff reveals that the new homepage will squash all of their current Splogs (check out our coverage here) into one giant mega-Splog to supplement the print edition–you know, a Voltron/Megazord kind of deal. Onward, new media!

Howard French

On Monday evening, Bwog’s Claire Sabel joined Columbia International Relations Council and Association (CIRCA) to hear journalist, author, photographer and most recent addition to J-School faculty Professor Howard French talk about his life and work. French has had a fascinating career in journalism, spent predominantly working for the perennial Columbia favorite, the New York Times. French accurately inferred that the handful of listeners present were those interested in careers in journalism, and thus spoke mainly of his work.

Having graduated college French did what many students do, go home. For him this meant joining his family in the Ivory Coast, where his father was working for the World Health Organization. His experiences there were to launch both his fascination with the African continent, which in his opinion is still the region least intensively, and least well-covered in the world. French set out helping his father, but soon, by virtue of his fluency in French, found himself working with a French writer helping to translate her novel. Subsequently engaging in some freelance translation and local reporting, he eventually became acquainted with the Washington Post’s Bureau Chief. When the Post correspondent had to unexpectedly return to the U.S., French took his place.

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What does our fearless leader do when he’s not, um, doing whatever he does everyday? He watches Dean Quigley buy soup and he appears on public television. Last night, Bwog stayed up past our bedtime to catch PrezBo on Charlie Rose.

Bollinger and the nearly equally dapper Mr. Rose spent most of El Presidente’s half hour cameo talking about PrezBo’s new book, Uninhibited, Robust and Wide-Open (sexy!), about the role and future of the free press. Bollinger expressed his concern about the “contraction of coverage of foreign news” that the economic crisis has wrought on the American press. He also agreed with Rose that the “blogosphere is not a sufficient substitute” for the major journalistic institutions in the U.S, though PrezBo praised the influx of voice and opinion that teh Internetz allows.

The conversation then veered into more Columbia-specific territory: the endowment and Manhattanville. PrezBo spoke to the Columbia tradition of “academic freedom and the pursuit of curiosity,” and went on to talk about how we actually need money to allow that to continue. On Columbia’s endowment: “we proudly say that we lost only 16%, which was actually terrific in the context…” Now, what could PrezBo be referring to when he said: “one of the things we know about our great universities is that they have to grow.” Ohh, right, that! Bollinger briefly laid out the plan for Manhattanville, spoke about the “years of working with the community” that CU has done and referred to eminent domain as the “one remaining issue.”

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Did you know that times are tough for journalists? Fear not, though, for, as The New York Times reported yesterday, the Journalism School has issued a rallying cry to save struggling newspapers across the country.  

In the J-School commissioned report, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of the Washington Post (and no relation to Bwog editor James Downie), and Michael Schudson, a professor at the J-School, argue that since current advertising models fail to support “so-called accountability journalism,” drastic new steps should be taken. Their six recommendations not only include involving philathropists, nonprofits, and universities in news gathering, but also getting the government to support the business, particularly local news. And to think people already call Obama a socialist.

Compiling the best of the meta lists since 2006.

Monday

Paul Muldoon: The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet will read selections of his poetry, followed by an interview.  501 Schermerhorn @ 8:00 PM.

Tuesday

Adam Kirsch [pdf]: The senior editor of The New Republic will discuss the lives of Allen Ginsberg and Lionel Trilling.  501 Schermerhorn @ 8:00 PM.

Wednesday

Greenhouse Gases: They’re bad, yes, but how do we reduce emissions?  A focus group and panel.  David Aud. (CEPSR) @ 5:00 PM.

Thursday

Traditional Japanese Music:  Traditional instruments along with help from the CU Gagaku Instrumental Ensemble.  Followed by a reception.  Low Rotunda @ 6:00 PM.

It seems that Barnard’s new president, whose coronation inauguration tomorrow will effectively shut down campus west of Broadway, is a “Person of Interest” in the mind of Daily Beast, who published an interesting profile, calling her a gamble (but a good one) for a woman’s college, having never attended or taught at one. 

Kate Taylor thinks that she does, however, have invaluable experiences in being not only an academic (as Judith Shapiro no doubt is), but also an expert on the political economy from her time at Harvard Business who has the marketing know-how to restore Barnard’s standing among liberal arts colleges.  Only time will tell if she can make good on the predictions, but she has already been hob-knobbing with the all-important New York media, and they control the image of her fair institution.  Bwog is just hoping that she isn’t made into a Varsity Show character.

While B&W toils upstairs in Lerner, the staff of Spectator is taking their own turn at the West End, following their annual Blue Pencil Dinner and Lecture. After the elegantly attired ladies and gentlemen of the 130th and 131st managing boards filed out from behind Low Rotunda’s back curtain (having been feted on the company dime with high rolling alumni), the current Spectator pantheon arrayed itself on the dais behind retired Editor in Chief Steve Moncada, who gave a brief State of Spectator address.

Just so you know, the State of Spectator is great. The paper has turned a profit for the first time since going broadsheet, remained the “most popular extracurricular activity at Columbia,” and started a “huge success” of a weekly magazine. Lehman-bound Moncada encouraged the new guard to aggressively develop web content, which may involve “freeing ourselves from the handcuffs of Viacom’s CollegePublisher.” Yes! Fight the man!

This year’s speaker has also been hugely successful with her weekly magazine. Janice Min, Journalism ’90, is the youthful Editor-in-Chief of US Weekly, where she’s presided over a 2/3 jump in subscription numbers and some of the best Britney coverage in the nation (Min mentioned Spears at least 6 times in her 30-minute speech).

“Some of you may not approve of my particular corner of journalism,” Min started out, before embarking on an eloquent defense of celebrity gossip rags. While acknowledging the argument that her media genre may have contributed to the dumbing down of society, she pointed out that much of educated America spends more time decrying the tabloidization of the country than “the actions of a reckless administration.” Paris Hilton didn’t start any wars, you know.

Besides, it’s business, Min said. Entertainment in America is a $29 billion industry, and it makes sense to cover the titans in Hollywood as rigorously as we cover steroid scandals in sports or campaign finance reform.

“There does not seem to be a limit to what certain celebrities will do, and what the public–all of you in here included–will watch,” Min said. Even if it ends up in the National Enquirer.

The Spectator hits newsstands every weekday morning, and it’s easy to forget that actual people work around the clock making it happen. Last Thursday Bwog caught up with the News Editors, Josh Hirschland and Erin Durkin, to talk about riots, skipping class, and what makes it all worth it.

I know it’s kind of a strange request, but I thought the campus would appreciate knowing a little about how the news is made.

Josh: We’re happy to help Bwog.

Erin: [Laughs]

So, why would you want this job?

Josh: I, for one, love the organization. I think that Spectator is an incredible thing. I know that when I came into Columbia, I was a very different person than I am now, and it’s because of this organization. I’ve met some incredible people who have shaped me and helped me to become a better person. I believe that this organization can do some wonderful things and make for a wonderful college experience. And the opportunity to help a new group of reporters to do that was just a breathtaking opportunity. That’s what gets me excited every day.

Erin: I agree with what Josh said, and to me it’s really a privilege to be able to decide and shape what goes on a front page that the campus and the neighborhood is going to get their info from every day. It’s an important responsibility and it’s hard and I like that it’s hard, but to me it’s something that has to be done because I love the opportunity to find out something that no one knows and to tell them. And especially when it something that’s really important to their day-to-day lives, I like being able to do that on a larger scale by being in charge of a news section. I like intensity, I like things that are challenging and difficult, I need something to do. I like the feeling that I’m—I’m so inarticulate, I knew this was going to happen! Something that my training editor told me that I never realized how true it was until now was even if you didn’t want to be a reporter, even if you didn’t really like Spectator that much, it’s just a great way to be a students at Columbia University and a great way to be a resident of New York City because you’re so much more engaged with what’s going on around you. Read more…