A Flickr surprise

I've admittedly been neglectful of my my Flickr account in recent weeks, however, it was a nice surprise to see that someone named Mick T. posted one of my photos - a quiet street at dusk in Donegal, Ireland - on his blog, Donegal Friends. I took that photo during the summer of 2006 while visiting family in Ireland.

Roleplaying

The end of 2008 marked the beginning of a new phase of my sojourn at NHPR. Last week, I produced a couple of segments for Word of Mouth on a freelance basis: on new testing laws that threaten micro-manufacturers and on eco-interventionism, which is a new breed of environmentalism. Tomorrow - Inauguration Day - I begin my 3-week stint as a fill-in producer for Word of Mouth. And February 6th, I'll bid NHPR and 27 Holly Street goodbye, pack my bags, and drive to Portland, ME, where I have an apartment waiting and where I begin classes on February 9th.

My radio education continues.

#105

So much for being original. Word of Mouth host Virginia Prescott shattered my illusions today when she sent along a link to Stuff White People Like #105: Unpaid Internships. According to SWPL, "White people view the internship as their foot into the door to such high-profile low-paying career fields as journalism, film, politics, art, non-profits, and anything associated with a museum." Got me on that one.

For the record, this is my last "official" week as an unpaid intern at NHPR, as noted by Laura Knoy in the final moments of The Exchange yesterday.

Fast Advertising

Today at Word of Mouth, my mission was to nail down Tom Farber, a calculus teacher in San Diego who sells ad space on the bottom of his tests and quizzes cover his class photocopying costs. I called Mr. Farber at his home in San Diego this morning for a quick pre-interview, but before we got very far, he said, "Hey! I'm on TV! I'll call you back." Mr. Farber didn't call back, but that's not surprising given how much media attention this teacher's story has generated in the past 48-hours. He's been a busy guy.

The San Diego Union Tribune and other area papers broke the story before Thanksgiving, though it seems to have gone relatively unnoticed by the national media until Monday, when USA Today ran a story on Farber's advertising scheme. Since then, Farber has been under the media microscope. He was interviewed on As It Happens yesterday and CNN this morning. Some bloggers dissed the concept of advertising on student tests, but others, like the Daily Kos, devoured it, calling Farber's bottom-of-the-test ads "brilliant".


Mr. Farber kindly took a day off of teaching to humor the media. I tracked him down again, booked an interview for several hours later, wrote a script and Virginia handled the rest in front of the mic. Our interview with Tom Farber will air on Monday.

Mapping success, posting failure

This morning, I spent a couple of hours on mapbuilder.net mapping the places, from Kodiak, AK to Birmingham, AL, where I've sent applications this fall--for kicks. Map-building went well, but I couldn't figure out how to embed my creation in the blog. I can fumble through the most basic html writing, but Google Maps API codes are beyond me. I'll have to wait for Brady, NHPR's new media guru, to help me on Monday.

November Visit to Franconia

Election Day Redux

It's been a whirlwind 48-hours at NHPR and in newsrooms across the country in preparation for the myriad unknowns and inevitable craziness of election night coverage.

Americans went to the polls yesterday, and even those infamous undecided voters--whom, it turns out, were perhaps not so undecided--chose their candidate.











I crunched numbers for the New Hampshire State Senate races, last night, while national electoral college results were tallied and the state's Democratic candidates declared winners of all U.S. Senate and House seats, as well as the governor's post. Today, my election night partner Dan Gorenstein reported that Democrats retained control of the State House, though the top of the ticket wins for the party didn't translate into sweeping victories in the lower races, as some had projected.

I left NHPR at 11:30 pm--late, but earlier than anticipated. Driving home along the quiet streets of Concord, I heard the official news of Barack Obama's election, and of John McCain's concession. Once home, I carried my laptop around the apartment as I made lunch and laid out clothes for the morning, not wanting to miss a word or a beat. And just before turning out the lights, I watched Obama speak to an excited downtown Chicago and to millions of Americans across the country, like me, glued to their television screens.
















My alarm sounded at 5:15 this morning. Post-shower and post-espresso I hit the streets, coffee shops, and gas stations of Concord with my microphone to talk to Granite State voters about the emotional aftermath of this hard-fought election. We heard one McCain supporter's grievances on Word of Mouth today and I also produced a montage of my conversations with voters that aired later on, during a local break from All Things Considered.