Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

In both of those cities there are many many more women – and therefore more single women – than men. The supply and demand of this means that men are able to be either more selective or much more poorly groomed and do quite well for themselves. It means that we can be slack and indulgent in a land of plenty while the other team gets vicious on a barren gaming field.

In both cities the reason might have to do with migration patterns. American women who are better educated these day then their male counterparts, flock to cities for jobs and husbands. They want guys of comparable education and earning potential, say Richard Florida, author of the Creative Class. According to Florida’s singles map there are 210,000 thousand more single girls than guys in the New York-Northern Jersey area.

When their are fewer options those options start looking a lot better. Some people will even eat at Mcdonald’s when that’s the only thing open.

In Bangkok this situation is even more wonderful (from a guy’s perspective). There are 547,000 more women than men in the marriage year between 20 and 44 – that’s a huge number when the group we are talking about has less than 3 million.

This enormous gap (500,000!) is due to a massive in-migration of women into the city and a flight out of BKK by the men according to a report from the Economic Institute at Kobe University. Bangkok is a service economy of finance, hotels, and restaurants – all areas where women are thought to better employees in Thai eyes.

Bangkok’s men (who like American men are less educated than their female peers) often leave the city to work in heavy industry and manufacturing.

This leaves the city incredibly gender lopsided – walking around Bangkok ourists often wonder – where did all the men go? The images of the protests were so female dominated that it felt like you were looking at a women’s liberation movement instead of an anti-goverment rally.

But that’s just Bangkok.

Did I come to the wrong rally?

And its for that reason that you hear the same complaint from women there that you do here in big NYC – all the good ones are taken and the rest aren’t too good.

Walk into the Village Chess Shop on Thompson Street and you will see graying men huddled over a game and hear classical music in the background.

Until midnight regulars strategize on how to protect their king, throw the dice for a game of backgammon, or stop the clock during a move in speed chess.

Located a few blocks from the boards at Washington Square Park, the Village Chess Shop opened in 1972, the same year Bobby Fischer became World Champion.

Owner Larry Nash describes his shop as peaceful and apart of “old” New York, but admits every once in a while a competitor might leave with a bloody nose.

Also known as a “chess museum” because of the novelty chess sets displayed in the window, Nash says, “Even in the best of circumstances, it’s hard to be a business like this.”

Listen to why people have been going to the Village Chess Shop for over 35 years.

It’s Christmas down at Union Square! Or is it? The 13th annual Holiday Market with it’s candy cain colored tent tops and bright lights scream Christmas, but inside the booths retailers are singing the holiday blues. They say there’s traffic, but the bells on the cash registers just aren’t ringing often enough.

Book people are maybe antiquarians by nature. The mere mention of an e-book is greeted in the publishing world with jeers of something overhyped.  And despite the advent of the Kindle, for book people, the physical object of a book is as sacrosanct as the words written on it.

Various publishers, such as Ugly Duckling Presse, have experimented with online only books, but few looked to the digital future as a replacement rather than a supplement for paper books. The book world, if many publishers had their way, would not go quietly into that digital good night. Far less than newspapers, books seemed ill -adapted to becoming paperless.

Last weekend the New York Center for Independent Publishing held its 21st annual bookfair and addressed the possibility of publishing in the digital age. These talks occurred against the backdrop of layoffs in that touched the highest reaches of the corporate publishing world at Simon and Schuster, Houghton Mifflin, and Thomas Nelson, as reported by the Times and elsewhere.

 So while addressing their long term survival in the face of changing technology, publishers were also facing the more immediate question of survival. But for independent companies, the news was somewhat mixed.

“Things are really grim out there. With what’s going on with the large companies it might be good for independents, so there may be an opportunity for independent presses to step into the breach. But what I worry about is how many independent presses will not be able to survive if people don’t buy books,” said Karin Taylor, executive director of the center.

Johnny Temple, publisher of New York based independent publisher Akashic Books  echoed Taylor’s sentiments. Asked whether the corporate shake up created opportunities for independent houses he was hopeful  that the size of independent companies might offer some advantage.  Nonetheless he cautioned that these companies would face real threats to their survival in the marketplace. Hear an interview with Johnny_Temple_here.

Opportunity in crisis. This mantra of globalizing free-marketeers has apparently not lost all of its power, even as the architects of a deregulatory system are chastened to admit the reckless deregulation of their heyday has led to a global financial catastrophe. (For the likes of former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, the flaw in the system of market self-regulation has led to a sort of cognitive dissonance.)  

So even as the grim news of the Chicago Tribune’s filing for Chapter 11 came in on Monday, while more than 15,000 newspaper jobs were cut in 2008 according to the web site Papercuts, members of a new generation were not as entirely shaken as their professional elders.

Here at the journalism school, among next week’s graduates, the mood is far from uniform.  The crisis of the old guard and the industry more generally is seen as an opportunity for the digitally armed, who might just find themselves in the right place at the right time. The death of the newspaper merely clears the way for the bright digital future. Carl Winfield of the class of 08 was was ready to embrace the promise of that future.

Hear an interview with Carl.

But not so for all his cohort. For some the crisis in newspapers is just that–a crisis. So while Damian Ghigliotty doesn’t fear that he will  not find work, he sees the crisis largely as limiting rather than expanding his options. For him, a failing company’s preference for new recruits to replace senior staffer is hardly a draw, he said.

Hear an interview with Damian.

The Christmas melodies of Gavin deGraw and Aretha Franklin were two of the main attractions at the New York Stock Exchange’s annual tree lighting ceremony this year. Beyond the glitz of Rockefeller Plaza, Wall Street’s celebration has the distinction of being organized by New Yorkers for New Yorkers, with plenty of holiday cheer permeating the gloom that become a familiar part of our days.

Hundreds of New Yorkers past and present gathered downtown for an evening of celebration, rumination and time with family before facing a new year and uncertain economic times.

Larry Lampiasi came downtown to watch his granddaughter sing with her schoolmates in Brick, New Jersey’s Monsignor Donovan Choir. As a self-employed salesman, he says he’s felt the economic pinch, but thinks the holiday season will help.

Jack Ruppenthar, also present to support his grandson in the choir, agreed, noting that the current economic recession would hurt those with financial investments and retirement savings and 401Ks.  But with the holiday season upon us, he thinks it “will make people think more, being a little more frugal … putting more thought into the quality of gifts over the quantity of gifts.”

The ceremony outside the NYSE building on Broad Street between Wall Street and Exchange Place is quite possibly the most personal, meaningful and even oldest of all the high-profile holiday events in New York City, as it takes place in the heart of old New York and has been a tradition since 1923.

This year, while Mr. DeGraw and Ms. Franklin’s drew audience members who recognize their music and name, the evening’s entertainment and festive atmosphere also catered to the younger generation.  Performances from local teen musicians were featured: Long Island rock band Push Play and 14-year-old Tiffany Giardina – her music is included in an upcoming movie, “Another Cinderella Story” – who grew up in New York.

Also on hand was 25-year-old jazz pianist and singer Peter Cincotti, whose blend of traditional jazz and classic styles with rock and pop made his song “December Boys” and his Christmas-themed melodies transfix crowd members of all ages.

Alceste, a New Jersey native and former retirement center COO who moved to Florida several years ago, noted the impact of the current economic crisis on both the younger and older generations.

The personal blog is dead and this is before much of the public understood what is was used for. Most college students and especially graduate school of journalism students understand what the publishing tool offers, but many people are just now being exposed to blogging though mainstream media. It is practically a requirement that professionals in the media now have a blog. (more…)

Sunset Park – Prostitutes have long plied their trade along the Gowanus Expressway’s southern end in Brooklyn, coexisting quietly with their working class neighbors and largely ignored by police. But when residents began complaining in late September that men had begun soliciting sex from young girls and teachers at a nearby elementary school, the cops took fast action.

A series of morning crackdowns over three weeks resulted in 39 arrests along 56th and 57th streets between Second and Third Avenues, according to Deputy Inspector Jesus R. Pintos, of the 72nd Precinct. But the prostitution busts were only part of a larger effort that shows how local law enforcement can involve community organizations to find long-term solutions for neighborhood crimes.

The campaign began with getting the offenders off the streets. In what Inspector Pintos described as “precinct-based enforcement,” officers arrested 21 johns – the term used to describe the predominantly male clientele of prostitutes – and eight prostitutes.  They also arrested nine others for related crimes of car theft (cars used by those arrested) and drug use or sales. Five vehicles were also confiscated at the scene.

Within days, the only signs that illegal activity had taken place were used condoms and other debris scattered on the sidewalk.  The Brooklyn D.A.’s office lent several hands to deal with that. Kings County District Attorney Charles J. Hynes assigned individuals sentenced to community service hours in the neighborhood to assist the precinct in sidewalk clean-up.

To maintain the quality of life in the area and prevent the problem from simply relocating, police increased surveillance.  First they installed Sky Watch – a surveillance tower that extends via mini-crane atop an NYPD car, traveling between high crime areas in the city – along the main intersection on Third Avenue and 56th Street during the two weeks following the arrests.  Precinct officers were also assigned to conduct regular sweeps of the problem corridor, making arrests when necessary.

For residents and schoolchildren, the effect of the changes was immediate. “Where did the prostitutes go, Mommy?” one grade-schooler asked her mother on the way to school a week following the first arrests.  The grateful mother shared the story with Deputy Inspector Pintos at the monthly Community Council meeting. Says Pintos, “We’re making headway, but we’ll continue to monitor the problem.”

Others are trying to help those arrested in the busts. The Red Hook Justice Center, in collaboration with the 72nd precinct, is offering first-time offenders an alternative to trials and jail.  Instead they have to attend “Project Respect,” often called the Brooklyn John School. The six-year-old program puts offenders face-to-face with former prostitutes, videos of sexually abused children and images of the diseases inflicted on them.

EPIC (Ending Prostitution In our Communities) and “Saving Teens at Risk” are two programs targeting prostitutes above age 21 and younger girls, respectively. They offer educational and rehabilitative services to help these women find other options and to deal with the issues that originally caused them to turn to the streets.  Kings County DA statistics note that 80 to 90 percent of the women prostituting themselves have been sexually abused.  The U.S. Dept. of Justice says that girls enter prostitution at an average age of 13.

According to Gerianne Abriano, Bureau Chief at the Brooklyn D.A.’s office, “the vast majority [of offenders] that come to Red Hook go through these programs. Anyone with a prior record, we try to get them drug [or other] treatment. [And as for] the prostitutes, they tend to be the most accessible. We have good results with them.”

If you live in a neighborhood with too many “for sale” signs, boarded up homes, and unkempt lawns, you would likely also see ads nailed to telephone poles and lampposts promising to rescue troubled homeowners from foreclosure. Not only are the ads illegal, but the companies behind them may also be bogus.

One local elected official is aware of the problem…

…As are community organizations. The Chhaya Community Development Corporation (Chhaya CDC) helps homeowners understand the housing scams:

When asked for details on the business practices of 1-888-HELP-161, a representative refused to explain the extent to which the company evaluates the credit history of potential clients. I was asked to provide my email if I wanted further information. The representative provided his company’s name as the “Save My Home Program.” A search on the Better Business Bureau site for the Hempstead-based Save My Home Corp. revealed a phone number that was no longer in service.

What kind of people would be likely to respond ot an illegal pole ad? South Jamaica activist and 2009 City Council candidate Joseph Marthone (D), believes that in certain situations, people may not know where to turn. “Some people might not be thinking in a moment of desperation,” said Marthone.

The book took more than two years to be put together. Phantom Students focus on the experience of New York City author, Charlton D’souza, on what he and other students faced while attending Marymount Manhattan College Community Leadership Program (CLP). The program was designed to reach out to students in communities that have been overlooked by institutions of higher education. 

The program began in 1993, with 15 students enrolled, D’souza had discovered. When the year was over, only one student graduated from it. By a very slim margin, the entire class dropped out.

In 1999, 17 students out of a class of 27 graduated, making it the highest number of students to complete the program. In total, 156 students were enrolled in the program.

The program itself is no longer in existence. The last class enrolled documented thus on a chart in Phantom Students was in 2001. His colleague and long time friend since high school, Brandon C. Jennings, was in the program at the time it was cut along with D’souza in early 2004. In addition, he is still paying a loan to this date. 

Nationally, D’souza researched that one of the reason why students were dropping out of school was due to economic issues. He went to the U.S Census website and saw that “In 2005, the average tuition was $13,425 for room and board (for in-state students) at the nation’s four-year public colleges and universities. In 2008, that number has increased to $15,372.”

For private institutions, in 2005, tuition, room and board was $36,510. In 2008, the number increased to $41,000 a year.

D’souza was in the program on a full academic scholarship, but on February 21, 2004, he did not get to see it last. It was in the evening when he was leaving school. One of the security guards handed him a letter. Inside, it was a statement that said he was “no longer a student and had been discharged from the university.”  

When he was in transition of wanting to transfer to another school, D’souza could not get a transcript or speak with any members of the administration. So he protested “outside the college and held a press conference seeking help. He also began to file complaints to the United States Department of Education and the Attorney Generals office, and the person holding the position was former governor, Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer also has a connection with the institution as well.  

The young man is very driven and determined. Even his former Marymount professor Americo Casiano believes in him. Casiano currently works for the Bronx Council on the Arts, a private non-profit organization that provides “cultural services and arts programs” for community oriented organizations throughout the Bronx.

The book is almost ready to print. It has only 176 pages. And he has a website where he is trying to reach out to schools to speak about his story. He came up with the name Phantom Students because he  ”wanted to bring attention to the students who weren’t graduating from college.” Pretty soon the book will be up on the website to be viewed chapter by chapter. Later this month, a book signing party will take place.

Visit the website at http://www.phantomstudentsacrossamerica.com/