Brian D. Pellot

IJNR Reflections

briandpellot — Mon, 03 May 2010 03:55:33 +0000

I’m in the air en route to Columbia for my final week of undergrad after a phenomenal week+ circumnavigating the Lake Ontario watershed with the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources. Although I don’t plan to report directly from this area in the next few years (my schedule’s full through June 2012), I look forward to applying the principles I learned about environmental journalism to my work in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The region is severely lacking quality environmental reporting that goes beyond oil and geopolitics, so I hope to fill this niche after learning more about the region in my master’s work. IJNR’s founder Frank Allen and I sat down for about an hour one afternoon near the end of the trip brainstorming how I can take what I learned around Lake Ontario and apply it to MENA. The four pages I scrawled out make me more eager than ever before to dive back into the region as a journalist. I would recount the week’s countless wonderful memories, but my plane is about to land and I’ve got a million things to do this week if I want to graduate. Expect a few detailed Facebook albums sometime next week.

IJNR Tweeting

briandpellot — Mon, 03 May 2010 03:54:43 +0000

I plan to document my upcoming Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources expedition across the Lake Ontario watershed with #IJNR10. If you would like to follow the trip, my handle is @briandpellot.

Personal PR Control

briandpellot — Mon, 03 May 2010 03:53:23 +0000

Fresh from Miami (…exhausted actually), I gave a campus-wide presentation titled “Demystifying the Middle East: How I Became a Marshall Scholar — and what I plan to do”. The presentation went surprisingly well considering I only finished putting it together the morning of (I’m busy!). My favorite part as with any presentation was the 20-minute Q&A session that followed. I survived countless interview gauntlets during the Marshall and Rhodes process this Fall, so a roomful of inquisitive friends rather than probing adversaries was a pleasant change of pace. The camera lurking in the back of Fred Smith Forum forced me to evade several questions, especially where foreign policy is concerned. We all have opinions concerning how best to move forward in the Middle East, but as a journalist, I had to bite my tongue. I’ve learned over the years that anything I do or say in public could haunt me for decades on the Internet, so I’m always careful to choose my words wisely and to avoid inopportune photo-ops. I hope minimizing public regrets will serve me well in the long-term.

CGIU in Miami

briandpellot — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:11:56 +0000

Less than 24 hours after returning to Columbia (enough time to attend my Thursday classes!), I left again for the Clinton Global Initiative University summit in Miami. There I represented the Clinton Scholars and American University in Dubai’s International Aid Club. The conference was filled with journalists including NPR’s Michele Norris, NYT’s Andrew Revkin and MSNBC’s Luke Russert, all of whom were gracious enough to speak to students about their work. Equally beneficial were the working sessions. I attended one headed by Philipe Cousteau Jr. on green public transportation and another on how Twitter can positively affect democracy and human rights around the world. This was the first conference I documented with Twitter (#CGIU10), a task I was glad to assume for my group. I’m a rabid NPR fan, but Michele Norris’ questions at the closing plenary session on Haiti left much to be desire. She asked three broad questions to the four panelists (including Bill Clinton and a student who had survived the recent earthquake). One question was solid, the other two (eight answers with the four panelists keep in mind) revolved around a metaphorical empty bowl. I’m not a big fan of symbolism, especially when it comes from a journalist. I wanted to hear more concrete facts and plans moving forward in Haiti, not just pleasant rhetoric about hopes for the future.

Overall, the conference was a wonderful experience and I hope to make it to CGIU11 If I’m in the U.S. when it’s scheduled next Spring.

RTDNA @ NAB in Vegas

briandpellot — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:11:14 +0000

Erica and I spent a few days earlier this month demonstrating Vericorder’s audio slideshow application Showcase and video app First Video at the RTDNA/NAB summit in Vegas. We interviewed reps at dozens of booths featuring innovative technologies that make our jobs easier and more enjoyable. These clips were used for the official NAB Podcast produced by Daily Production Buzz. The booths I found most interesting were located in the Worship Pavillion. A live Christian rock band performed while faithful techies showed off how they’re spreading their religious message with technology. Ministry App creates iPhone applications for local congregations, alerting followers about news and social events and allowing them to listen to or view archived sermons. Another exhibitor creates Web sites for churches and shows its clients how best to reach followers on Twitter and Facebook. Having just read Michael D. Lindsay’s “Faith in the Halls of Power”, which chronicles the rise of Evangelicalism in the U.S., these companies provided interesting evidence as to how Evangelicals are emerging from sub-culture status and entering the mainstream with the help of technology.

First Video

briandpellot — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:10:23 +0000

I finally stumbled upon a free hour (7 a.m. at the Memphis airport between flights to Toronto). This has been an insanely busy month rich for blog-post entries but lacking the time to write them. I’ll break this up into a few entries…to catch up on missed posts for 4992…and to document the dozen states I’ve touched down in April.

First Video:

VeriCorder recently provisioned me and Erica with their newest app, First Video. Surprise, surprise…it’s fantastic. In just a few hours one morning, we were able to learn the software, shoot a demo video using it, edit the clips into a package with VOs, and show it to a roomful of journalism students and educators at Stephen Quinn’s mobile journalism Brownbag. Once you know how to edit using AudioPro or Showcase, First Video is a breeze. As with any new technology, there were some blips (mainly syncing issues), but the folks at VC had an updated version to us within days that resolved the problem. I feel so fortunate to be on the ‘bleeding edge’ of this journalism technology, especially so close to graduation. I love showing it off to unacquainted journalists who ooh and aah as though I’m holding an iPod in the 90s. Thanks to the Missouri School of Journalism’s Convergence program and VC for such an incredible learning and working opportunity.

Global News Prism

briandpellot — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:40:00 +0000

I recently compared New York Times, ITAR-TASS (Russian news agency) and Kyiv Post (Ukrainian daily) coverage following Ukraine’s presidential run-off election in February. The post-election period has been particularly tumultuous and made for an interesting cross-cultural comparison. Each publication tailors stories to best inform its target audience. NYT’s broad context and Western references suit Western readers just as ITAR-TASS’s highly specific and localized coverage suit a Russian and Eastern European audience. Although the majority of Kyiv Post’s stories were written by international agencies, the Ukraine News story’s slight bias toward Tymoshenko emphasizes the same sort of political and national loyalties that likely led to ITAR-TASS’s pieces against her.

Send me a message if you’re interested in details from the comparison.

Music and Journalism Struggling to Stay Afloat

briandpellot — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:55:46 +0000

Last week’s “On the Media” Podcast (a rebroadcast from Fall 2009) outlined the recording industry’s battle to stay relevant in a viral marketplace. Before Napster, the industry made ~$13.5 billion/year. This number has fallen to ~$8 billion/year. The main drain? Youtube, Myspace, and of course, piracy. The glimmer of hope provided by paid sites like iTunes, Rhapsody and revamped Napster has been dashed by BitTorrenting. So what does this all have to do with journalism?

Music and journalism (along with most other industries) entered the Internet age with no clear strategy to monetize content. 10 years with virtually no regulation has instilled a sense of entitlement in consumers that has proved difficult to combat. Generations Y and Z have had free news and music at their fingertips for most of their lives. If free is the norm, how do we shift the culture toward paid content? Will journalism attempt the same user-end crusade the recording industry launched (and subsequently suspended) several years ago? Will print/paid news content shift toward exclusively covering issues that concern an elderly elite (…just as Susan Boyle and Bruce Springsteen have usurped Britney Spears and *NSYNC at the top of the charts)?

I believe the music industry has a clearer path toward financial renaissance than does journalism, but both face remarkably similar battles in their efforts to stay relevant (and profitable). Perhaps they should analyze their common ground and launch more concerted efforts toward financially viable solutions. Cross-industry efforts with common goals in mind may be the about-face needed to shift entitled generations back to their pocketbooks.

IJNR Expedition

briandpellot — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:41:22 +0000

I recently came across an exciting opportunity for journalists interested in environmental issues while visiting, surprise surprise, the Society for Environmental Journalists’ site.

Frank Allen, now President and Executive Director of the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources (http://www.ijnr.org/index.htm), started a program in 1995 to help journalists better understand the complexities of environmental reporting. I’ve worked on this beat in the past and have learned how challenging it is to convey the social, political, legal, scientific and economic implications of environmental issues to readers. IJNR helps journalists acquire an intimate understanding of these issues through immersive expeditions.

IJNR is organizing an expedition across the Lake Ontario watershed at the end of April to explore ecologically significant areas in Ontario and New York. I’m particularly interested in two themes the expedition plans to address. 1) A Major Water Challenge of Our Time: Managing Storm Runoff and Non-point Pollution in Metropolitan Areas. 2) Adapting to Climate Change: The Predicted Effects of Global Warming on Shallow-Water Ecosystems in the Great Lakes Basin.

Ultimately, this expedition is designed to create better storytellers. Readers, whether or not they realize it, are intimately connected to environmental issues. We as journalists need to engage audiences to bring about substantial awareness and understanding of these issues, but first we need to have a firm grasp on the issues for ourselves.

IJNR also has a mentoring program to help journalists better understand complexities of the environmental beat. If I’m not selected to join the upcoming Great Waters Institute, I hope to still become involved with IJNR through this program. Many of the most pressing political and social issues throughout the Middle East have deep environmental roots. Better understanding these geopolitical concerns will be key to understanding and reporting on the region.

Inspirational weekend @ NCC in Philly

briandpellot — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:40:42 +0000

Just flew in from Philadelphia where I spent the weekend with journalists, students, law professionals and justices at the 4th Annual Peter Jennings Project for Journalism and the Constitution gathering at the National Constitution Center. The perfect cap to an incredible February– HALF of which I spent outside Missouri (yes…I’m still a student).

Despite the typical grumblings about journalism’s financial future, I walked away from the conference with a renewed sense of enthusiasm for the profession and a better understanding of how central the U.S. Constitution remains to our watchdog role as journalists. If you don’t believe me, come take a look at the Constitution I tacked to my bedroom door 20 minutes after settling back into my apartment.

Faculty and fellow journalists at the session consistently stressed how so many social and legal issues we report on today have direct constitutional implications (overwhelmed public defenders, the right to an effective education, congressional gridlock, judicial independence, etc. etc. etc.). Moving forward, I plan to keep the text fresh in my mind and focus on specific constitutional issues in my reporting. Finally a defined sense of journalistic purpose.