Bob Ross

About a year ago Bob Ross was victim to the Media General layoffs. He is a well known movie critic and wrote for the Tampa Tribune for 21 years.

When Mr. Thelen told us we were going to hear from a movie critic, I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought of the stereotypical, mean, recluse. I thought he would be stuck on his opinions, thought it would he his way or no way. But I was wrong…

He definitely has his opinions about movies but he is very grounded and knows that everyone has a right to their own opinion.

“I had a position of false power,” said Ross, “Just because I write for a newspaper doesn’t mean my opinion is the only one or the best one.”

It was definitely interesting to listen to Ross talk about the future of movies. Since it is easy to download movies and watch them at their home theater with a wide screen T.V. and surround sound people are not inclined to pay for a ticket.

“3D IMAX version could save the theater from the online medium,” said Ross.

Before he left, he left us with one reminder,

“Anyone who writes for a newspaper and thinks they have power is delusional.”

Best of blogs

Blogs are everywhere and are about literally everything. No matter what subject matter you are looking for, I am sure someone somewhere is blogging about it. In fact blogs relate to Manjoo’s book Ture Enough. In it he talks about selective exposure, and the blogosphere feeds just that.

Here are some of the Blogs I like to follow;

Pajamas Media- I am actually new to reading this blog but it is hilarious and I now read it every day. It takes popular on many different fronts and stains them with sarcasm and humor. You can find world and U.S. news, Technology and Science, Money and Lifestyle. There is even a section dedicated to conservatives and all of the editorials they could ask for. While the stories are written in a conservative tone, they do lay out some serious facts. Politically I stand in the middle, but I really enjoy reading Pajamas Media.

Dumb Little Man- Another blog I like to read is Dumb Little Man. It is a pretty random blog with tips and how to articles on everything from how to lose weight and save money to what search engines are the best. I like the blog because it is completely random. They do break it down to categories if you prefer but the randomness is part of what makes “Dumb Little Man” appealing. It is also interesting because they write about things I don’t usually have the time to think about.

Then of course there is my favorite blog, Mets Blog. My whole reason for jumping into Broadcast Media and Reporting is because of the New York Mets. I follow them religiously and it might be a silly thing to be obsessed with but for me it is baseball and the Mets. Living in Florida and having been in Florida my whole life I always had to actively look for Mets information. With Mets Blog, Matt Cerrone updates the site multiple times a day so I am never behind on anything. Another thing I love about his blog is he usually links to New York Daily News reporter Adam Ruben’s Surfing the Mets blog. And one of the best features, Matt is live at all Mets games so as soon as the Press is given the line-ups (which is hours before the game starts) Matt posts it for all his loyal followers. But I do caution you, if you do not care about baseball, you will certainly hate his blog!

And I know we are only supposed to have 3 blogs, but I had to mention Fail Blog. It is great, if you ever thing our society is GREAT and on top of the world…look at this blog. It is great to see though pictures and videos how stupid people really are!

Political Reporting at its finest-Walter Mears

Deadlines. Instant News. 24-hour news cycle. Journalist in the newspaper and television industry are calling this process “new.” More so than that, there is also a “new” concern for credibility and truthiness in such a fast turn-around news environment.

But they couldn’t be more wrong. Walter Mears, now retired, worked in just that fashion for over 40 years as an Associated Press Reporter.

“In fact, Mears said [truthiness] is not new, it just exploded in the internet age.”

Thinking about it is overwhelming really. Here is this man standing in front of our Critical Writing class at 6:00 at night talking about all things journalism. I am listening to him and his stories and thoughts about newspapers and reporting and my thought started to wander a bit.

But then it hit me, I was sitting in front of a great man, a pioneer journalist. Mears covered 11 Presidential campaigns from 1960 to 2000. He even won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Carter-Ford race. This man is political reporting.

And with all that he is, and all that he represents I was most amused by his anecdotal stories about how newspapers used to be.

“There was a time when newspapers would plaster play by play of the World Series on the windows because no one could see it,” said Mears

That is astonishing to me. Today, forget about television, there are many avenues you can take to watch the World Series. You can get version of the old-style play-by-play plastering thought a countless amount of websites. You can get a video feed though mlb.com, you can even sit in on a live blog from a writer at the game. It is amazing how much things have advanced in just 50 years.

Mears also spoke a lot about the AP and its place in the newspaper world today as opposed to the 1950’s and 60’s when he first got his start.

He brought up things I never thought about. I read AP stories every day in the newspapers, but it never occurred to me that with the dying newspapers, AP would also be hurting. The wire does provide a valuable service to newspapers though.

“At one point there were close to 20 people from AP in Iraq,” said Mears, “No newspaper can afford to do that.”

AP is not going to disappear. Sure newspapers are in trouble but AP found a way to grow with the technology that has many journalist sacred for their jobs. It is easy. Move to the internet, that is where everyone seems to go for their news anyway.

“AP has figured out how to charge for the news,” Mears said. “They deliver to yahoo and google,” 2 of the biggest search engines.

But what I really took away from Walter Mears’ visit; journalism and reporting is here to stay. As Mears says, “News is disciplined information, striped away and boiled down.”

And that is not going anywhere.

Martin Fennelly

Martin Fennelly was by far the most enjoyable visitor all semester. When I started my Broadcast major, I wanted to be a sports reporter. That was it, nothing else.


Then the more involved I got with news and reporting in general, the more I came to love reporting of any kind, especially news. I loved that I could produce stories that meant something to someone somewhere.


I liked knowing that I could make a difference though storytelling, something I never had the pleasure of experiencing in sports.


So as I went though the classes I began to fight a battle, would I pursue sports reporting, which is fun and light and really has no importance or would it be news, where I could maybe make a difference?


Last semester being heavily involved in news, that was the path I was going to take, but this semester I swung back to sports and I know I will change my mind 1000 more times before I actually land a job.


It was great listening to Martin speak.


Yes he is a sports columnist but he says he just tells stories.


While talking about sports he said, “It doesn’t matter that much- but people matter.” That was important for me because telling sports stories is what I love but I sometimes talk myself out of it because it is not important and it does not matter.


What I took away from Martin’s comment was, no, sports don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things but the people, the athlete, and the story does matter. Martin said, “The great stuff in this business is the people stuff.”


I also found it interesting when he spoke about the persona of many athletes.


Fennelly said, “They are just people, but they are no way connected to reality.”


His anecdote about the ball players knowing he could have sex with every woman in the bar he was in was perfect for that point.


I have had some experience with this very notion, and the hardest part about admiring certain players that you loved all your life is covering them because you learn more about who they are, and most times they are not the stand out, great people you built them up to be.


I related to everything Fennelly discussed and my attention didn’t waver for the entire time he was on display. Usually my thoughts race and I can’t help but make to-do list after to-do list in my head, but not this time.


One more thing I absolutely loved about Martin Fennelly, he feels no need to conform! I love that he doesn’t follow the “dress code.” Slacks and ties are overrated. If I could land job reporting on television in jeans and a beat up hoodie, I would never wear a suit jacket another day in my life.