Where did the summer go?

Next week I head back to campus for another semester at Hofstra, after experiencing my first summer in academia, which meant time back in California with the family.

I did some writing and some groundwork for a possible documentary, as well as supervising a couple of students’ summer internships. But, for the most part, the summer felt like what it must be like to be retired (except for having a 6 and 8 year old around).

Probably the most monumental thing I did this summer was shave off my beard, which has been part of my face for the past 36 years.

Why did I do it? Mostly because there were one too many incidents of people thinking I was my children’s grandfather. I figured the lack of a gray beard could help dispel that image. (A recent poll showed the number of people who thought I was the kids’ grandfather had gone up from 11% to 18%, thanks mainly to conservative commentators and bloggers spreading that false information).

I got a chance to get a lot of reading done. My favorite read of the summer was a recently translated book from the 1940s German author Hans Fallada titled Every Man Dies Alone. It’s loosely based on a real life story and examines how everyday Germans coped with living under the Nazi regime.

I became more and more disheartened with the political rhetoric in this nation. There have always been differences between the political parties, but the extent to which politicians and pundits feel it is alright to lie, use false logic, and simply make things up is depressing (and I am talking both sides of the aisle here). I think the biggest challenge that journalists have today is to figure out a way to bring people back to a mainstream center of information that looks at what all sides are doing and saying and sort out the truth for people.  I guess that is part of what I need to do as I head back to Hofstra,

I hope you all had a great summer. On to the fall……..

As many of you probably read, veteran journalist Daniel Schorr died today. He was 93.

I had the pleasure of working with Schorr during my early years in the business, while a producer at the CNN Washington bureau.

There will be lots of stories about Schorr over the next few days, and I just wanted to throw in a couple of my personal ones.

The first thing I remember about my Dan Schorr experiences  is his picture in an advertisement in Time magazine when CNN was first starting up. The ad was aimed at drumming up advertisers for the new network (this was months before CNN went on the air). The ad was the first time I had heard of CNN and, because I saw it and saw that Schorr was involved, I wrote to them looking for a job. So, that is how I wound up working at CNN, my first job in TV news.

The second story I remember was when I was working at CNN headquarters in Atlanta and the power went out. Apparently, Georgia Power couldn’t handle the electrical needs of our operation and we blew a giant fuse somewhere.  Keep in mind, this was the very early days of CNN. The engineering guys somehow were able to route the DC bureau directly to the satellite uplink to keep us on the air. I heard someone shout, “Get Dan Schorr in front of a camera”, and for the next 3 hours, Schorr sat in front of a camera in the DC bureau, talking about what was going on in Washington, not skipping a beat, until the network could get some other material together.

And, my third story about Dan Schorr happened a year after I left CNN. I was driving down Wisconsin Avenue, going to my job at WJLA. It was pouring rain and I was stopped at a red light, when someone started knocking on my car window. It was Dan Schorr. I rolled down the window and he said “Geoff, can you give me a ride to the bureau?”. I replied, “Dan, you know I haven’t worked there for a year.”, and he responded, “Oh, I guess that’s why I haven’t seen you around.” I gave him a ride to the bureau.

What Dan Schorr taught me while I worked at the CNN Washington bureau was not to be intimidated by powerful people, and always strive to tell the truth. He could be a bit cantankerous at times, but you never minded because he was so darn good at what he did.

The week-long forecast for Fresno calls for sunny and hot, with temps hitting 105+ over the weekend. Time to make some gazpacho!

Gazpacho is one of those simple, delicious, cool summer meals that I put in my “Easy To Make – Guaranteed To Impress” category of recipes.

It’s origins trace back to a cold and simple meal for field hands in the south of Spain. So, what could be more perfect for a summertime meal in Fresno, an agrarian region where the summer weather mimics that of southern Spain?

The great thing about gazpacho is that you can make it in an infinite number of ways, depending on your mood, taste, and the availability of fresh veggies. And, what could be more simple? Chop, chop, mix, mix, blend, blend, stick it in the refrigerator overnight and voila – gazpacho.

This is my first homemade batch of the summer. It’s a “California Style” variety, not completely blended so it is chunky, and sans bread in the mix of ingredients.

There’s a fruit and vegetable store just up the street from us called Bella Fruita that sells whatever has just been picked. The food is ultra-fresh and inexpensive. So, when I walk up the street, the mix of ingredients for my summer gazpachos will change with whatever is fresh and available.

So – go ahead and give it a try. You’ll have a great summer meal, and impress your friends at the same time.

..or at least one of the thousands of reasons. This reason: When you want to teach yourself how to do something, you can usually find what you need on the net.

So, the GM of my former station, Matt Rosenfeld, starts posting these cool photos on Facebook that are in black and white with only one part highlighted in color. He did it using photos on his iPad and an app called ColorSplash. Not having an iPad, and wanting to be able to do this to my photos on a larger scale on my computer, I did a Google search of “color popping photos” and came up with several instructional videos on how to get the same effect using Photoshop.

It turns out that it is pretty simple. You just create a black and white version of a photo, layer it over the original, and use a brush tool to “paint” over the parts of the black and white photo where you want the colors to come out.

Within an hour, I was creating color popped photos with ease. Thank you Internet (and Google). Below are a couple of examples (warning, if you follow my posts on Facebook, you have already seen these).

This is going to be a short post, as I am mostly doing this to test out the WordPress mobile app that I just put on my iTouch. Mobile is where it is at these days. I just read an article about the philosophy at the Hearst TV stations. They are junking all the fancy new names and just calling their reporters “reporters” but changing the expectations of what those reporters have to do on the job. They are all equipped with iPhones and laptops with video editing and FTP software to send in video. They are expected to file photos and copy to their websites as soon as possible from the scenes of stories. Often they will work with photogs and ENG trucks, but are expected to file stories on their own if they get to a story before those other resources show up.

So, now I can blog with the little piece of equipment I carry around that is also my mobile newspaper, banking center, book library, etc.

See you on the road.

With every dark cloud, there is a silver lining. As you could tell from the past couple of posts, having my new camera stolen out of my checked baggage did not sit well with me. But, United Airlines eventually decided to do the right thing and reimburse me. While I was waiting to get the check, I started doing some research and decided to take some of the $$ from my freelance work and throw it in with the reimbursement check from United and upgrade a bit.

I had my eyes on the Canon 5D, but couldn’t bring myself to drop $3,500 on a new camera. But, as I did my reserach, I discovered Canon’s newest entry into the DSLR world, the T2i. It had many of the features of the 5D, including 1080 HD video and an external mic input, but with a somewhat smaller sensor chip, it costs a quarter of the 5D.

I had to hunt to find one. It was so popular right out of the gate that just about every online store was out of stock. So, using my resourcefulness, I started looking at smaller camera stores that had online sales and found Bel Air Camera in Los Angeles.

They had some good deals on the camera, I placed my order, and had the camera 6 days later. A couple of words about the experience. While I got what I had ordered, the store is not great on keeping you informed on the status of your order. They ignored two emails I sent to them and I finally had to call to find out the order had been shipped and get a tracking number. In fact, when I log on to their website and look at my account, it still says my order is being processed. Also, the only way to pay for your order with them is through PayPal.

I’ve become very interested in the use of DSLRs for news and documentary work. They seem like a great multi-media tool, allowing both high quality still and motion photography.  On my last weekend in New York before heading back to California, I came across a crew that was shooting a Snapple commercial using the D5 – and I took a few minutes to interview the photographer. (I shot this with my now stolen Nikon P100):

I also came across this website that looks at news and documentary work that is being shot with DSLRs (mostly souped up Canon cameras):

http://www.dslrnewsshooter.com/

So, check some of this out and start thinking about the fact you can shoot some pretty professional looking video these days with less than a couple thousand dollars worth of gear.

The moral of today’s story, dear readers, is, when you want to get something accomplished, take it to the top. The is the final chapter in the United Airlines Saga, and it has a happy ending.

As you may remember from my last post, a United Airlines baggage claim representative sent me a letter which I received on Saturday denying my claim for my camera which was stolen out of a carry-on bag I was asked to check by a United gate agent.

Saturday evening, I sent an email to Glenn Tilton, the CEO of United Airlines, explaining in very measured terms why I felt the decision was unfair, and asking him if it was truly worth alienating a customer by being unfair.

Well,  just two days later,  on Monday morning, I received an email from another United Airlines baggage claim representative telling me she was responding to my email to Mr. Tilton, and after reviewing my claim, United was going to fully reimburse me for my loss.

So, there you go. A lesson I learned a long time ago from my many years in the news business is not to be intimidated or be fearful of people at the top.

The ultimate job of a CEO is to make a company successful, and the truly good ones will listen to the honest complaints of its customers and respond. Another lesson is, if you aren’t getting satisfaction from employees of a company, take it to the top.

Well, dear readers, another example of wonderful customer relations brought to you by United Airlines.

As you may remember from my last post, I was returning on a flight from Portland to Fresno at the end of May. A gate agent asked me if I would be willing to check my carry-on bag since the flight was full, and I agreed. When I got home I discovered that someone had opened my bag and stolen my brand new camera.

I filed a claim with UAL, and today received a letter, with no further contact information in it, denying my claim, based on the company’s policy of not being liable for photographic equipment placed into checked baggage. The fact that the camera was in a bag I intended to carry on to the plane and was asked by a United employee to check to help them out apparently had no bearing on their decision to make me take the loss for their negligence.

I am now writing to several corporate officers at UAL and attempting to get a phone number where I can talk to a human being to ask them to reconsider their decision. Until then – join me in boycotting United Airlines whenever possible and using other air carriers if there is an option.

To be continued……

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I was singing the praises of my new camera, a Nikon Coolpix P-100, which I had purchased to take the place of my trusty Casio point-and-shoot that had died after years of great service. I first used the Nikon to document my New York City pizza tour.

Well, my nice new camera is now who knows where – a pawn shop, on EBay, in the hands of a drug dealer.

Thanks to being a nice person and volunteering to have my carry-on bag checked on a packed United Airlines flight from Portland, I no longer possess the camera.

Somewhere between Portland and Fresno, with a stop and change of planes in San Francisco, someone opened up my bag, rummaged through it, and stole the camera. Over the next weeks, I will be updating my blog on my attempts to get reimbursed for the loss.

My first move was to call United Airlines, where I got an outsourced customer service representative somewhere in India who expressed sympathy for my plight and directed me to a part of United’s website where I could download a claim form, fill it out, and email it back.

I did that 4 days ago, and have yet to hear back from United.  The same day I filed my claim, I also emailed the Port of Portland police, who have jurisdiction over PDX, to report the theft. Today I go a call from a police officer who helped me file a police report on the incident, and get the serial number of the camera on the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database so it will be harder for whoever stole the camera to pawn it or sell it.

So – DAY 4 SINCE REPORTING THEFT: 

No Contact From United Airlines

Call from Portland Police – Serial # on NCIC database

Stay tuned!

Where were you on June 1, 1980?  Thirty years ago next week marks an anniversary for a news organization that changed the world of news, and changed my life.

On  June 1, 1980, CNN aired its first newscast. Ted Turner gave a short speech and husband-and-wife anchors Dave Walker and Lois Hart did the network’s first show. And, I was there.

Three months earlier, I had started my first job in TV news as a writer for CNN in Atlanta. When I got out of school, I got hired as a press secretary for U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton. But, after two years of doing that, I decided that I had spent several years in journalism school and I needed to give it a shot. I sent out resumes all across the country, including one to some new operation called the Cable News Network. After a few weeks, I got a call at my desk from a guy named Ted Kavanaugh who said he was the executive producer at CNN and wanted to talk to me about a writer’s job. I kept thinking “WCNN – where is that again?”.  After a few minutes I figured out what he was talking about. I asked him when he wanted me to come to Atlanta for an interview and he said, “There’s no interview. I’m offering you the job. If you are as good as you think you are, take it, and if you stink, we’ll fire you.” I took the job, and I guess I didn’t stink. Thirty years later, I’m teaching journalism after spending most of my life working in the news business.

Here’s a link to a video of that opening speech made by Turner and the start of that first newscast. 

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/howstuffworks/237-cnns-first-broadcast-video.htm

The guy with the big mustache who sits down behind Lois Hart is Ted Kavanaugh, the guy who hired me and taught me how to produce newscasts. He was a wild-man, and also one of my best mentors. I was one of those people standing in the crowd while Turner was giving his speech and after the speech I went down into the basement of the Turner Broadcasting building (CNN’s newsroom and studio were below the studios of WTBS), and went to work.

For better or for worse (and for the most part, I think is was for the better), CNN changed the way TV news, and for that matter, all news, is done. I still miss the days when Ted Turner’s and CNN’s philosophy was that The News was the star and not the personalities reading the news.

Happy anniversary CNN.