My Trip to DC; or, Why Barack and I Will Never Be Neighbors

The bookstores in DC are different. I wandered in tonight, after coffee with a friend I hadn’t seen in two years, and before my train ride back up the coast, and knew immediately that I was in a DC-version of B. Dalton.

You might think, “Well, of course they’ll have more political books in DC.” And you’d be right. But it wasn’t just that. There were whole sections of the bookstore–a train station bookstore–devoted to cultural studies, African American studies, historical & biographical books, and current events. It was like a college library trying to be cool.

The bookstore was a lot like the people I met down there, in a city I’ve never really had much love for but, I think, also never really understood.  Now, I think I get it: everyone is there because they are deeply interested in one or more of those issues above: politics, history, policy, identity. And this is the place you come to be a professional in them.

Election Night from the Trenches

There was a moment tonight, when I walking down the marbled hallway of a banquet hall echoing with the cheers of politicians who had won the race, when I got bit by the bug: this kind of news can be cool.

It was the party for the county-level and local candidates; Christie and Corzine were nowhere near it. And yet the rooms hummed with importance, and I was a part of it. That was a first. And, ooh, I liked that feeling.

It has been a long and mostly-miserable election season for me. In my first six months as a reporter, I’ve had a mayor, a town lawyer, and and entire party openly scorn the work I tried to do. That’s a tough blow for a rookie, or maybe just for me. I had a support system in my newsroom that helped put everything into perspective, but the relentless comments, conversations, and conflict from that party were exhausting.

When I watched the votes come in tonight, I was nowhere near the party politicians. But for the first time in over a decade, the town elected someone from the other party to Council. An incumbent was voted out. The race was tight: 15 votes stood between first and second, and 25 between second and third. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

For six weeks, all anyone told me was that the incumbents would be reelected, and the work I was doing to create a debate was pointless because voters in town always voted along party lines. But the voting tonight–that came about without the debate–showed otherwise. The citizens are engaged in local politics, and whatever it was that made them change their voting patterns, I am dying to find out. National politics? Obama? Corzine? Local issues? Conversation on my site? I wish I could ask all 4,000; I wish we had had that debate.

Go Long! (Or, Will Hyperlocal Always Be Hypershort?)

Last week, I went up to Maplewood to listen to a panel of four bloggers trying to figure out the hyperlocal scene up there. Most hyperlocals are new enough that they have compelte dominance in the online news arena for that specific little place, but not in Maplewood.

One question all four editors on the panel kept getting was about the quality of journalism on their sites. The well-educated M-Woodians wanted to know if these news websites could replace print news organizations in terms of good, solid, watch-dog journalism; or whether theyw ould simply be fluff, PR, and breaking news.

The editors were quick to assure everyone that investigative journalism was on their minds. They wanted to find the time to look into school budgets and council bids and contracts, but, well, they each have a staff of one person.

1 Part Hangover, 1 Part Pig, 1 Part Idiot

Welp, I caught it.

It was a cold and stormy Homecoming weekend, and I never expected what was right before my eyes. On a regular Sunday morning– the sun shone & church bells played–my chest was phlegmy and I had a hangover.

Nothing unusual. I moaned about having severe diseases and forced my friends to look them up on their iPhones. A cross between swine flu, diverticulitis, pregnancy, and cancer, it seemed. Someone even made a joke about me being the sickliest person they knew for someone who never actually does get sick. And I don’t.

My hands shook all the way home from college to my couch, where I curled in a ball underneath a blanket and cursed Bacchus. I tossed and turned in my bed all night, I was hot and cold and shaky and achey, and I never even suspected a thing. I just swore never to drink for 12 hours straight again.

The Future of News and The Rachel Zoe Project

So here’s a new media rant post that might not bore as many people as usual, because it’s entirely centered around my ambition to be a Rachel Zoe/Taylor supercombo of the media world.

I’ll explain.

Old media crumbled last fall. We all witnessed it and quaked in our boots, and those older than me lost their jobs and those younger than me switched majors. Which left me in perfect position to just suck it up and enter the wreckage to see what would happen.

Now, everyone is trying to figure out what will come next (ie, how the hell do we make money off our writing because it’s the only skill we have???): non-profit? government run? niche blogs?

No one knows the answer, but I disagree with all of the above.

I think the media world is destined to finally, officially become cool, and thus, profitable. All we need is a reality show.