This is a bit of a sidetrack from this story and it will make sense in a second, but have you ever been to the website TVTropes.org? Basically its a wiki for the various plot lines and jokes you see in TV and movies over and over again. One such trope is the “And The Winner Is” gag, where an award is being announced and an over-confident favorite assumes he or she has won and just as they’re standing up, the name called by the presenter is someone else’s (sometimes an unlikely underdog).

Okay, so this exact thing didn’t happen to me, but it was eerily similar. See, it turns out my school had won two awards in this category so a fellow student who worked on another project was there also, as well as a few faculty and staff from the school.

Names were not associated with the awards as they were announced (class names were used instead), and when my award was announced, something got mixed up between the other student and one of the faculty members and they wound up jumping up and accepting the award. She also happened to be sitting at the end of the aisle, which made their trip to the front of the room quick.

My ass was quite literally an inch off my seat to stand up and go get the award when I saw the other student jump up and hustle to the front. Then her award was announced next and she got up again.

Later on after the small ceremony was over, everyone realized the mistake and a few apologies were extended, but I really didn’t care to be honest. Sure, the award is a fine accomplishment, and it will find a nice comfortable spot on my resume and portfolio, but I wasn’t distraught over not getting to walk up, shake some stranger’s hand, and snag a box of plaques (which were immediately handed over to school faculty).

To be honest the “ceremony”, if you can call it that, was pretty lame. It was one session in a long series of awards events, and thus it was in a tiny room the size of a schoolroom, and about a dozen people were actually there. Woopity doo. It was scheduled for 2:45-4:30, and the thing was done by 2:55, so I’m not upset that the actual 10 minutes of this trip that I came for didn’t go as planned. No big deal, whatsoever.

I’ve seen and done so much more interesting things while I’ve been here. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you saw me mention seeing a pair of street-dwellers argue iPad vs. Kindle, and just tonight I passed a lounge in Bally’s where a decent sized band and sexy gogo dancers were pumping up their pittance of an audience with only the sexiest, funkiest, rockin’est song out there — that’s right, “Party in the U.S.A.” by Ms. Miley Cyrus.

I also got to see the Cirque du Soleil Beatles “LOVE” show at The Mirage tonight, and I must say that it is quite honestly the most amazing production of any sort I have ever witnessed. It was also the closest thing to a live Beatles concert I will ever get the chance to see. By that I mean I got to listen to the best songs of The Beatles with a large energetic crowd (not as many screaming girls, though the sounds were pumped in at one point), smoke machines, lazers, lighting effects, projections, dancing, and of course, at a loud volume in an intimate setting.

Aside from the Beatles side of the show, the visual production was absolutely stunning. I’m sure the other CdS shows are equally mind-blowing, but I think having this one set to popular music with well known themes (World War II, The 60s and hallucinogenic drugs to name a few) made this even more enjoyable. That being said, the dancers, actors, acrobats, gymnasts and everyone else involved in the show were ridiculously amazing to watch perform.

What I liked best about the show was the variety of activities going on from song to song. There was acting going on with basic choreography, there was elegant traditional dancing, modern dancers, break dancers, athletic balancing acts, gymnastic performers twirling and bouncing around, free running style choreography that was very much like Parkour, roller-skaters doing half-pipe style tricks (give those X-Games kids a job!), trampoline tricks, arial acrobatics, bungee rope dancing, guys on stilts, prop artists, rope climbers (many of which are clearly risking their lives each night to perform these feats of balance and acrobatics), and SO SO SO SO much more.

Every few songs there were projected video interludes featuring silhouettes of the Fab Four being their usual joking self which often included off-the-record recordings from studio sessions in which they joked around and riffed on their songs. And the other major amazement from the show was the amazing feats of set design. The floor had various portions that would raise or lower (several feat below the main level, you couldn’t see the bottom from where I was (which was almost in the last row), and there were intricate props that made the show even more stunning than just the performers.

At one point, a dream is symbolized by four kids (young versions of the Beatles) riding a bed through the clouds. The bed was on wires and the sheets of the bed were pulled out by other cast members and seemed to go on forever (like a cloun pulling a kerchief from his pocket). They ran up the aisles of the round theater and covered half the audience and waved the sheets to symbolize the clouds as the bed floated around. It was amazing.

During the Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds portion, the room went pitch black and wires with a string lights on them lowered throughout the theater. A light production which played out to emphasize parts of the music appeared using the strands of lights (kinda like Christmas tree lights), and since they had been lowered all around, it was like seeing stars in the sky in 3D.

The music is amazing too, not just because its The Beatles, but because of the job the producers did of mixing, blending and breaking down the tunes. They were also digitally remastered, and they sound amazing. I’ve had the soundtrack for a few years now, but it was great to hear it on a huge sound system with the visual presentation.

To sum up, the show had be saying “Wow” every time I wasn’t signing along to the songs. I’ve seen a lot of cool shit in my life, and this show ranks up there with the best of it all. I highly recommend it to anyone, it is certainly worth every penny of the high-priced tickets.

That being said, it’s summer time again in the desert, and I just wrapped up the second semester of my three semester masters program.  I worked the majority of this semester in the New Media Innovation Lab, which takes on tasks from various media clients to think-tank ideas and come up with ideas for solutions to their problems.  I had a lot of fun because I basically got paid to be the geek that I am while getting experience and exposure making website mock-ups, flash utilities and other fun things.

This summer is chock-full of great experiences for me.  I am part of the News21 program, which is a nationally funded program that promotes the creating of unique, innovative multimedia journalism.  Arizona State is one of several “incubator” schools, and our groups is focusing on Latino issues in America.

My partner and I are beginning a story this Monday on Latinos in the military, specifically in regard to service as a path to citizenship. Since it is well funded, the program allows for a lot of traveling, so I will be travelling across the nation gathering sources for our story.

In addition to the News21 program, I am also working as a research intern for the popular social media and web technology blog, ReadWriteWeb.  I just began this week and so far it is going great.  I am assisting with some short term and long term research projects, and I hope to expand my role as the summer evolves.  Who knows, it could turn into a full time position later on.

That should do it for now, just a quick update on me and the coming summer.  I will make a point not to neglect the blog all summer long.  I will likely be inserting posts about the progress of News21, the RWW internship and other big news and ideas I have.  Enjoy the summer!

Lacy has her own blog on BusinessWeek called “Valley Girl”, co-hosts Yahoo’s Tech Ticker, has published a book, is halfway through her second book, and on top of all that now she writes for TechCrunch. Aside from the business stuff, she’s living my dream.

And apparently, she’s living several journalism students’ dreams.

Today, Lacy wrote a terrific and bold article on TechCrunch called “Who the Hell Is Enrolling in Journalism School Right Now?” which caught my eye on my RSS feed and made me think, “uh oh”.

In the article, Lacy says “I’ve gotten farther in ten years than I thought I would in fifty” while a friend of hers who chose journalism school is not even in the industry. She then launches into a powerful affront on why journalism school is a bad idea, including this gem:

“Journalism schools are like foot-binding. They force you into a style that a bunch of dinosaurs all agreed was acceptable a zillion years ago. So in an age of blogging, you have no voice. In fact, if I were in J-school now, I’d have my knuckles rapped for using the rhetorical “you” in those last two sentences.”

If I weren’t on a crowded train at the time, I would have started a slow-clap for Lacy. That paragraph pretty succinctly sums up part of the reason I do not like traditional reporting and why I do not want to find myself in a traditional journalism setting. To close her article, Lacy hits it out the park:

“Journalism isn’t dying; it’s just in a period of extreme volatility. And in any time of volatility, there’s huge room for opportunity. But you’re not going to learn how to exploit it in a stuffy classroom taught by people who got there by working at newspapers.”

The funny thing is a graduate journalism student like myself should be offended by this article, but instead I’m feeling more assured about my position. I do feel the urge, however, to explain that not all journalism schools are alike, and that The Cronkite School is encouraging this non-traditional path as well.

I read this article on my iPhone while riding the train home from journalism grad school and just after, I noticed that Lacy had posted this on her Twitter account:

She of course is referring to her BuisnessWeek article also written today called “AP and News Corp.: Wrong About Google” in which she wags her finger and warns that “asking web companies to pay up for content won’t fix a business model that Old Media should have remedied a long time ago”.

Two amazing articles published within hours of eachother? This girl is my hero for the day. Call me a fan-boy, but she has a hell of a silver tongue:

“The AP’s rant followed News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch telling Forbes that Google should have to start paying for linking to News Corp. content. What’s next? Charging Twitter for the privilege of all those editors and reporters who try to drum up interest in their articles via Tweets? …

Once you’re reduced to legal threats and whining, you’re one step away from admitting total defeat. Just ask the music industry. What’s next, suing our own readers for clicking on Google links?”

I encourage everyone to read both of these articles, because they are flat out amazing. Lacy has written some things that some would hesitate to say, but the truth is a lot of people share her opinions.

Brady regaled the group with stories of when WashingtonPost.com was on its first servers, which were so old you could literally hear them start creaking, causing people to shout “Everybody save!” as a warning to the newsroom.  Today, the technology has advanced, but a lack of open-mindedness to the web has persisted.

Thanks to people like Brady, over 160 reporters at the Washington Post also know how to shoot video to supplement their reporting online, but Brady still feels that multimedia and web content is not at the forefront of reporters minds enough.

“The web is a medium in its own right, not just a platform,” Brady added.

Brady said that he has always “pushed and pushed and pushed” to get the web into reporter’s journalistic thought process, and not just as an afterthought.  Brady said reporters need to be thinking how a story could be interactive or include a database at the story conception stage, not after the story has been written.

Of the hardest tasks to accomplish with online media, Brady puts engaging the readership at the very top.  He mentioned that it was a struggle to convince management to allow for commenting on stories because at that time no one was allowing it.  Because of Brady’s lobbying to create a user community on WashingtonPost.com, the paper became one of the first to allow comments on their stories.

Brady said that building that community of users is key to creating a loyal user base.  He mentions that 80 per cent of the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal is commoditized, meaning people can read about that story anywhere.  To get users coming back to your site to read it means creating a sense of community for the users.

This ties into the fact that Brady is adamantly opposed to calculating “unique visitors” for site metrics.  Brady is much more concerned with having a strong loyal user base than a huge population of users that come by once a month.

As for the plight of newspapers, Brady offered a unique perspective on big media’s inability to see the coming storm.  The problem, he said, is that the web came around at a time when newspaper execs had never learned to change.  The newspaper business model had worked lucratively for so many years that it wasn’t that they were unwilling to change, it was that they didn’t know how to change.

To wrap up, Brady offered some unique advice to aspiring journalists and media employees.  While previous visitors have advised students to learn as much as possible, Brady said not to overwhelm yourself with too many skills.  He said skills are secondary to having a strong understanding of how media has changed in recent years and how it will change in the years to come.

“Skills are one thing, but you gotta know how things are changing… Some people just don’t get it.”

Earlier today at the Cronkite School, Bill Gannon, director of online media for LucasFilm, spoke to students and faculty about his career and his ideas for the future of media.  Following an extensive career as a newspaper journalist, Gannon worked for four years at Yahoo before moving to LucasFilm.  At Yahoo, Gannon captained the home page for Yahoo News, and was responsible for some of the site’s accomplishments in reporting on Hurricane Katrina.  Yahoo managed to launch a Red Cross donation widget on their site within minutes of the levees breaking, and gathered $20 million in the first twelve hours (an eventually two-thirds of all Red Cross donations for Katrina).

But Gannon’s not one to toot his own horn, instead he is always challenging himself to learn something new.  In taking the job at LucasFilm, Gannon not only joined an enormously wealthy franchise, but challenged himself to learn how to market products.  When he started at Yahoo, Gannon brought his journalism skill set into the online realm and created a content management system at Yahoo that allowed for greater productivity than an ordinary newsroom.

During the Q&A session, Gannon took questions ranging from LucasArt’s upcoming video games, to the future of print journalism.  Gannon shrugged off the idea that journalism and online gaming could find some common ground, but this is an issue that myself and colleague may be looking into as the semester moves along.

“It’s too late,” Gannon retorted when asked if there was anything newspapers could do to save themselves.  He likened the newspaper decline to “the slowest, longest running freight train thats’s been seen coming for years”.

In 2000 after the dot-com bust, Gannon recalled that newspapers sunk further into overconfidence and said “told ya so” to the Internet.  According to Gannon, instead of using the bust to buy themselves more time to fix their problems, newspapers continued down the same path to destruction where they find themselves today.

But now that the newspaper crisis is upon us, Gannon believes this is the “golden age of news innovation”.  This seems obvious enough, as newspapers are scratching for any sort of traction, you HAVE to innovate to stay alive.  It’s a neccessity to innovate now.

Gannon uses this “golden age” theory to encourage students like myself.  Aside from networing with faculty and colleagues, Gannon suggests the best thing any graduating student can do is master as many technical skills as possible.  HTML, CSS, content management, etc.  This seems to be a theme among anyone who speaks to us at the Cronkite School.  Learn as many technical skills as possible because it will make you golden.

I sure hope so.

Telegraphs, the printing press, typewriters, and computers – the technology of journalism has been transformed extensively over history.  Today, in the twenty-first century, computers, smart phones and other devices communicate instantaneously across the globe for minimal cost.  Web 2.0, a phrase thrown around in today’s fast-paced Internet world, refers to the plethora of online applications billions of people use each day to communicate, share ideas and learn.  With the world becoming “flatter” as telecommunications technology advances at lighting speed, these online services become increasingly popular worldwide.  Journalism has been transformed by the instantaneous ubiquity that is the Internet.  Notable newspapers that once boasted large print readership now instead pride themselves on websites that are fully integrated into their news production.  Some of these popular Web 2.0 services have even made their mark on the modern newsroom.  Of the most significant of these services, Twitter has emerged as a powerful tool for the gathering and transmitting of news.  By examining Twitter and its current uses in journalism, perhaps a clearer understanding of the role of technology in news will be achieved.

Twitter is, to put it simply, a short message service, much like text messaging on a cell phone, for the Internet.  Officially, at Twitter.com, the creators define it as “a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices.”   Unofficially, Twitter is a micro-blogging and social-networking service that allows users to read and post what are known as “tweets” of text up to 140 characters in length.  Users can log in to Twitter.com and post via the website, send in tweets from their cell phone via text message, or use a third-party application on their computer or smart phone.  They then follow and are followed by other users so that they have a stream of updates delivered to them and their followers.   Due to the 140-character limit and the streamlined user interface at Twitter.com, the simplicity of the service is its most popular and appealing feature.  Far too many Web 2.0 applications bewilder users with hoards of features while Twitter is a smash hit with its ingenious simplicity.

Because Twitter is so easy to use and update – either on the site itself, through a text message, or a third-party application – users have been able to scoop news services in reporting breaking news.  On April 13 of 2007, an earthquake shook Mexico City, and the first reports of it were found on Twitter.  Following the earthquake, American blogger and Twitter user Robert Scoble wrote, “as soon as people started reporting [the earthquake] on Twitter, I looked at the [United States Geological Survey] maps. The Twitterers beat the USGS by several minutes.”

Twitter is being used extensively right now in many modern newsrooms, but today, what is a modern newsroom anyway?  With the rapid expansion of the “blogosphere,” successful blogs – or “web logs” – have become a brand of online newspaper.  At the site ReadWriteWeb.com, “a blog that provides Web Technology news, reviews and analysis,” they have begun using Twitter as an everyday part of their newsgathering procedures.   The writers at the site discover breaking news regularly on Twitter, and also use the service to conduct interviews and solicit interview questions.  In addition, they use the Twitter user base to crowd-source opinions and thoughts from their viewing public: “Some Twitter users reply to our questions with single line answers, others with a few tweets in a row and still others send us paragraphs by email when they see we’ve asked an interesting question.” Vice President of Content Development and Lead Writer at ReadWriteWeb Marshall Kirkpatrick says that he even takes corrections to stories and does “quality assurance” via Tweets.

But how is Twitter being used in more traditional journalism fields, such as newspapers, magazines, television and radio?  In terms of embracing technology, traditional media tends to lack behind the vanguard of progress; however, the use of Twitter has been so viral that even the most traditional of news organizations are jumping on board.  It is no doubt that other organizations are taking the approach that ReadWriteWeb is by utilizing Twitter to gather news, conduct interviews, and accept feedback.  There are just too many users to not pay attention to what is being said.  According to TwitDir.com, a third-party service which lets users search for fellow Twitterers, there are approximately over 3.3 million users currently on Twitter.   Responsible news organizations have chosen not to ignore this massive amount of people, and are instead taking advantage of it.  Virtually every reputable news organization – from the New York Times, to the Washington Post, to FoxNews, and to CNN – has created a Twitter account through which they push their news out to the Twitter community.  A Twitter user can chose to follow CNN’s Twitter feed (@cnn) to receive the lastest breaking news headlines to their home screen or cell phone.   Similar services are available for other news organizations as well.  CNN and the New York Times may not be using Twitter as extensively as ReadWriteWeb is, but the fact that they have created accounts and regularly “tweet” their news shows a willingness to embrace the ever-expanding technology sphere.

As a budding journalist myself, I have too found efficient and important uses for Twitter in my journalistic enterprises.  On election night in November of 2008, as a student at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, I was assigned to help the reporters for the school’s live newscast stay in contact with one another in the field.  Mark Lodato, director of Cronkite NewsWatch at the Cronkite School, and I set up a make-shift Twitter group for all of the correspondants and reporters in the field on election night.  Twitter itself does not support group functions, but other third-party applications attempt to create the feature.  None of the third-party applications seemed to suit our needs, so we simply had everyone create an account and only follow one another.  This way everyone would only be seeing the other peoples messages, but unfortunately, the messages, which were not terribly sensitive in content, were actually sent out to the entire Twitter community at large.  I sat with Mr. Lodato in the control room for NewsWatch that night, and every now and then he would lean over to me an say something along the lines of, “Okay, send out a Twitter, I want to remind everyone to get their microphones really close to people’s mouths, it’s really loud out there and it’s hard to hear their voices.”  This added line of communication between the news room, control room and field correspondants allowed everyone involved in the production to stay on the same page.  We also sent our messages of the latest breaking news, so that everyone in the field had up-to-the-minute information no matter where they were.

While Twitter is being used by millions of users as well as news organizations of all shapes and sizes, it has yet to gain a large amount of traction.  In an article titled, “For some reason, Twitter hasn’t yet taken the journalist community by storm,” Cnet.com news reporter Charles Cooper found that after surveying fifty-five technology journalists that only fifteen of them could be found on Twitter.   This phenomenon may be partly because of Twitter’s ease of use.  Twitter is used a lot by corporations and by older Web 2.0 fans, while younger web junkies find themselves involved with more complicated services like Facebook and MySpace.  It seems younger generations of Web 2.0 users are bored with the lack of features Twitter offers, while older users are drawn to Twitter because of its simplicity.  This is why Twitter is so successful, because it is not overrun with immature younger generation users, like other services are.  The majority of Twitter’s users are using it legitimately to conduct serious business and conversations, such as the journalists discussed in this essay.

Since Twitter has found a niche in more mature and professional groups, it is no surprise that journalism has started to utilize the services full potential.  But has the full potential of Twitter really been realized?  I still think there is much to learn from Twitter, and that we have not found it’s true meaning.  To me, Twitter is a great way not only to keep in touch with friends, but also to have chance communications with people I otherwise may never interact with.  I even used Twitter in researching this essay.  I asked my followers if anyone had any comments about Twitter’s use in journalism, and received a few interesting replies.  One follower recounted his experience with discovering breaking news through Twitter: “A couple months ago when Pelosi dismissed the House and the Republicans revolted and wanted to discuss drilling, most of what I learned of their activities was through Twitter.”  The responses I got were a little limited because I have a limited follower base, but this kind of research and polling is readily available to the more popular Twitterers and to news organizations with Twitter accounts.  This simple method is just further evidence that the role Twitter plays in journalism is changing every day as more and more professionals utilize the ease of Twitter to communicate their ideas and questions to a candid audience.

Sources:

Tiwtter.com, “About Us,” http://twitter.com/about.
Scobelizer.com, “Mexico City Reported on Twitter First,” http://scobleizer.com/2007/04/12/mexico-city-earthquake-reported-on-twitter-first/.
ReadWriteWeb.com, “About,” http://www.readwriteweb.com/about_readwriteweb.php.
ReadWriteWeb.com, “How We Use Twitter,” http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_for_journalists.php.
Twitdir.com, http://twitdir.com/.
CNN, http://www.tiwtter.com/cnn.
CNet.com, “Twitter Not Taking Journalism By Storm,” http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-9912520-60.html.

To some, however, open source is more than just a way to write and share software code; it is a way of life.  To live an “open source lifestyle” would mean to be transparent in everything you do; to share with the world how you do what you do and how you think about everything.

Students collaborating on an assignment are open source.  Companies sharing ideas to create better technology are open source.  Countries meeting to discuss ways to create world peace are open source.

When we think of open source in terms of new media, innovative ventures and entrepreneurial projects, we tend to think of the Dictionary.com definition.  When a new product requires software or web coding, making the code available to the public is the epitome of open source, or open source code (OSC).

One of the largest open source companies is Google.  When Google released their brand new web browser “Chrome” earlier this year, they made the entire project open source.  This allowed the legions of coders on the web to begin tweaking and experimenting with the Chrome engine.

Having access to open source code is like having the blueprints to an automobile.  People who want to take their car and make it faster and built for speed can look at the blueprints and find ways to make the car better for their use.

The same thing is happening with programs and utilities on the web.  When Google released Chrome, they did so only for Windows users.  Because Google let Chrome’s code be open source, coders have already created basic Mac and Linux versions of the browser before Google had the chance to.  Open source makes these kinds of projects possible.

Another well-known open source entity is the Linux operating system.  Unlike Mac OS and Windows, Linux is completely open source and completely free.   Written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, Linux is a common solution for servers, but is gaining popularity among netbook companies.

Netbooks are small ultra-portable laptops with greater battery life than conventional notebooks.  Because Linux can be tweaked to custom fit any machine, netbook makers, such as ASUS, Acer and Lenovo, can form fit the Linux operating system to optimize the functionality of their products. Because Linux is open source, there are several different modified versions of the operating system, each with its own unique style, user interface and functionality.

In terms of new media ventures, open source is important because it creates transparency in your company.  When starting a new venture, it may be wise to inform the public of what it is you are trying to accomplish as you attempt to accomplish it.  By open sourcing the code and allowing outsiders to look over your shoulder as you create a product, you can extract crucial feedback from the people who are most likely to become your user base as well as from the expert coders who have experience with other products.

In today’s world, the most successful ventures are the ones who are open source and who share their ideas with the community before launching a product.  To better reach more people as well as create a better product before an initial launch, embracing the open source philosophy and methodology is a fundamental part of the process.

Matt Mullenweg, the creator and founder of Wordpress, participated in a panel discussion at ASU’s Cronkite School today.

Also on the panel was Lisa Stone, co-founder of BlogHer.com.

Opportunities like this are incredible for techie bloggonerds like me.  Very cool.

Today, a black president is a reality, and in a few months he will be sworn into office.  The most powerful man in the world will be a black man, and I think that is absolutely amazing.  Having done as much research into our nations past as I have, it impresses me at the ease at which Obama won this election.  

Can’t say I didn’t tell ya so.

I saw Barack Obama for the first time in 2004 when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention.  Even then I knew he had a presidential demeanor about him.  I could sense it in his voice and in the way he moved people with his words.  I said, along with a friend, that he would be the first black president.  I just knew it, because I saw that he believed it too.

So congratulations to Obama for fulfilling my prophecy from four years ago.

For me, election night was memorable enough besides the fact that the first black president was overwhelmingly elected to the presidency.  I spent the night assisting the Cronkite NewsWatch production team by Twittering messages to field reporters.  But for the most part, I was liveblogging on LIVElect, and blog that some classmates and I set up just for election night.

It was remarkably successful, with almost 1,000 unique hits on election night alone.  We had photos, blogs, tweets, and all sorts of content on it, and we had a blast.  The night was unforgettable, and liveblogging was a truly unique experience to see if we could trump the major news networks with stories.

I recently posted what will likely be the final entry on LIVElect which included a thank you to all who helped.

I would personally like to thank everyone who was involved in providing content to the site itself.  A big thanks to Elizabeth Shell and Sophia Fuka who wrote many of the actual entries and helped develop the concept for the site.  Thanks to Evan Wyloge and Carol Legg who provided breaking news live from the field, they were our “inside men” with the scoop.  Evan also provided photos on site at the Arizona Biltmore at McCain HQ.  Also, thank you to Jeremy Pennycook for providing photos as well.  And thanks to Bekah Parsons for running food to us starving bloggers.

November 4th, 2008 is not a day many will soon forget.  Thank you to all who helped it be one of the most memorable nights in my life.

Former CNN anchor and teacher at ASU Aaron Brown inteviewed legendary CBS anchor Dan Rather today at the Cronkite School.  That was cool in itself, but I was assuming some sort of live-via-satelite thing was going to happen, but I was way wrong.  Nope, they simply connected through Skype, a video/phone kinda chat program online.  Pretty amazing I think.  My how technology has changed.  

Rather spoke about a lot of interesting things, the war, how the media covers the war and things like that.  More on that later, I gotta go to class!