Productive weekend, ready for the final push.

It turned out that I didn't have nearly as much free time this weekend as I thought I would, which is why I didn't post more on here. I actually spent pretty much all day yesterday and today working on various things. I had gotten behind on reading the news for a few days, so I was catching up on that, which is quite time-consuming. Try reading a newspaper front to back sometime, not just skimming articles and only reading the ones you're interested in, but really trying to absorb all the information in the paper. It takes a surprisingly long time. Especially with those thick Sunday papers.

Anyway, I was also doing more work on the Bruce Coville story. Thankfully, the two sources that I still needed to complete the article got back to me. I spoke with one of them yesterday, and just finished the interview with the other one a few minutes ago. So now I just need to organize my notes, figure out what material I'm going to use (and I have a TON of material) and then I'll be ready to write. I was planning on writing a first draft of the story tonight (and my first drafts usually bear a striking resemblance to my final ones) but now I'm not sure I'll actually get through the draft. It's already 8:30, I need to look over the notes quite a bit, and I'm distracted by the return of the NFL. Yes, it's the Hall of Fame game, and it's completely meaningless and not even that interesting, and Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison aren't even stepping on the field for the Colts, but still... it's the NFL! Anyway, even if I don't write the draft tonight, the story's not due until Wednesday morning, and they're giving us the afternoon off tomorrow and Tuesday to work on our stories, so I've got oodles of time. And I'm not a man who uses the word "oodles" often or lightly.

There's been a lot of interesting stuff in the news lately. The guy who was probably the anthrax mailer killed himself as the feds were closing in, the presidential campaigns are starting to get down and dirty, the oil companies are reporting record-breaking profits while automakers are reporting devastating losses (wrap your minds around that one), but this was the story that interested me most over the weekend. When I've got some time to write more about it, I will, but for now just read the story and ponder the implications. Okay, that's all for now. Still got some work to do tonight.

-Nick

Magazine project, job possibility

Okay, so here's my magazine project that I did in my graphics class this week. For an explanation of what the assignment was and exactly what I had to do, see previous posts. I think there's also a link to the original Esquire article in the post before this one. These images are JPEGs, so the resolution isn't great and it might be difficult to read some of the smaller print on the second spread. If you want to see it in greater detail, let me know and I can email you a PDF.

The other piece of news I have right now is that I got a call yesterday from a professor about one of the graduate assistant jobs I applied for a couple weeks ago. I knew they had already filled more than half of the jobs, and I hadn't been contacted by anyone, so I just assumed I wasn't getting a job and I was thinking about other options for making money during the school year that I could look into. So this call really took me by surprise, especially since this was one of the jobs I thought I had the least chance of getting when I applied. It's one of the highest-paying jobs that was available, and also one of the more time-consuming ones, but I've sort of learned to get along without free time or much sleep this summer. So I really want to get this job, but it's no sure thing at this point. The professor told me I'm one of four people that they're looking at, and I have an interview for the job next Friday. So I'll just do my best to impress them when I do my interview, and hope for the best from there.

Okay, not going to write any more now, although there are some other things I'd like to comment on (a lot of sports stuff-- the Manny trade, how the Bills are looking so far, the crazy Brett Favre situation, etc.). I'll probably be back to write more later this weekend, maybe even later today.

-Nick

Progress Update

So things are still going really well. As discussed in previous posts, I did the interview with Bruce Coville on Monday evening. In order to finish the story, I need to get a total of 6 sources, so Coville gave me the contact info for a bunch of people I could speak with. I've spoken with a few of them over the past couple of days, so I'm up to four sources. I'm hoping to contact two more either tomorrow or Saturday, so that I can write the article on Sunday, and essentially I wouldn't have to do anything for news writing in the final week. I am slightly concerned because I've made efforts to contact my other sources and they haven't returned my messages yet, but it's only been a couple of days, and in a pinch I could probably find some other people to talk to, or call/email Bruce himself and ask him to recommend some other sources. Anyway, I'm in good shape. Six days away from my deadline, and I'm much further along than I thought I would be.

But the real surprise of this week is in regards to my graphics class. First of all, I thought the project I turned in last week sucked, because it took me almost all day on Friday to come up with a decent idea, and then once I had the idea I had to rush through the actual design. So I was feeling pretty pessimistic about it. But then something odd started happening-- some classmates started telling me how much they liked my design, and some others made positive comments about it on the blog where all the students in the class post their projects and discuss them. Apparently, my professor also liked the design. Got it back on Wednesday, and I got an A on it. In a turn of events I would have literally never expected, I'm pulling straight A's in graphic design. And the news gets better:

Our project this week is to design a layout for a feature article for a magazine. They told us how time-consuming this would be, and said that it would be the most difficult project we were assigned in the class. So I actually started on it early (something I didn't do with any of my other projects), and it went really well right off the bat. It certainly is the most complex and time-consuming project we've done so far, but somehow it's also the easiest (in my opinion). I think it's because the other assignments all called for us to create something completely new. There weren't many rules or restrictions, you could more or less do what you wanted, and since I'd never done this kind of stuff before, I had no idea where to start. This project is different because everybody knows what a magazine article is supposed to look like. You're just supposed to make one that looks really good. And so far I think I'm doing that. I'm pretty close to being done with the project already, so tomorrow shouldn't be too stressful, and I think it's going to come out great. I'll probably post it up here tomorrow night so you can all take a look at it.

Oh, one other thing. For this magazine project, we don't have to write the article. We were supposed to pick an article out of an existing magazine, and then just redesign that article (we're also supposed to make up a new title, use different pictures, basically change everything except the subject of the story and the text itself). Since I have recently become a huge fan of Esquire, I chose an article from their August issue (the one with Stephen Colbert on the cover. And, no, that was not a misprint when I said the August issue. The August issue was on shelves around the second week of July. There are things I will never understand about the magazine industry). Anyway, the article is about the guy who killed five people and wounded 16 others in a shooting spree at Northern Illinois University back in February. The article is fantastic, exactly the kind of journalism I could see myself doing someday. It's very long, but well worth your time. Click here to read it.

Okay, that's all for now. I'll probably be back tomorrow night or over the weekend.

-Nick

The Cigarette Tax Article, more

A few days ago I promised to post the cigarette tax article on the blog once I got it back from my professor. Well, I got it back in class today, and the news was good-- I got an A on it, keeping my string of A's in this class intact.

In other good news, my professor told me today that he thinks I would be able to sell the Coville article to a publication of some kind "in a second," since Coville is a pretty big deal in the world of children's literature (he also said he was impressed I landed this interview). Once I have actually written the story (it's due Wednesday the 6th, but I'm going to finish it early if I can, make that last week of classes as easy as possible) I might shop it around and see if anyone is interested. After all, publishing is the name of the game.

Had some free time today after class, so I got started on the magazine layout project for my graphics class. It's definitely going to be time-consuming, but I don't think it will be as bad as I originally feared, and I've already got a good head start on it.

I realized that I have not yet answered an unanswerable question this week, so I'll try to get on that at some point. Tonight I'm going to take it easy. I mean, I have enough to do that I'm probably going to be working on something productive all night, but since I don't have any looming deadlines and I'm not under much pressure at the moment I'll just work at a leisurely pace, maybe watch a movie at the same time. Anyway, without further ado, here comes the cigarette tax article. It has no title or headline, because it turns out that newspaper writers do not write their own headlines. I believe that's part of the copy editor's job. So yeah, I guess you can feel free to make up your own headline if it makes you feel better:

June 3 was not a good day for Kathie Hartnagle, 58, who has owned and operated Mallard Tobacconist in Armory Square since 1991.

“I sold one pack of cigarettes all day,” she said.

That was the day New York’s new cigarette tax went into effect, raising the cost of a pack of cigarettes by $1.25. The state taxes on cigarettes in New York now total $2.75, the highest in the nation. The tax increase is expected to generate $265 million in revenue for the state this year. The tax is also meant to deter people from smoking, and to encourage current smokers to quit.

The tax revenue will be used to battle health care costs, which are skyrocketing as a result of tobacco-related illnesses. According to a report from the New York State Tobacco Control Program, smoking kills 25,500 New Yorkers each year and accounts for $8 billion in medical expenses.

The state government has attempted to deter smoking with legislation in the past. In 2003, the Clean Indoor Air Act banned smoking in bars, restaurants and other public places. In 2002, cigarette taxes went up from $1.11 per pack to $1.50, and taxes on other tobacco products increased to 37% of the wholesale price. That was one of the worst hits for Hartnagle. Cigars and pipe tobacco account for the largest portion of her sales.

“Fortunately, I can pay all my bills. It’s a struggle, but I do it,” she said.

The tax increase presents new challenges for her, and many New Yorkers have different feelings on the issue.

Seve Robinson, 20, is a nonsmoker who works at Journeys and JB Robinson in Shoppingtown Mall. He supports the idea of using the tax as a deterrent.

“If it gets people to quit, I think it’s A-OK,” he said.

Robinson has “a lot of relatives” who smoke, including two aunts.

“They have babies in the house,” he said. “So hopefully the higher taxes will give them a reason to quit.”

Lindsay Nichols, a retail sales associate for Time Warner in Syracuse, started smoking at 16. Now 22, she smokes one or two packs a day.

Nichols called the tax “horrible” because of the added cost to smokers, but admitted that it might help people quit.

Nichols can already see the effects of smoking on her health. She now breathes heavily while working out and feels different when she gets up in the morning. Despite that, she has no plans to quit. To save money, she now buys her cigarettes at the Onondaga Nation Smoke Shop in Nedrow. Smoke shops on Native American reservations do not charge state taxes.

“Going and buying a pack a day at the store would cost a fortune,” Nichols said.

Smokers who take their business to the reservations are a major concern for legislators. The issue is particularly significant in Central New York because of the nearby Onondaga and Oneida reservations.

Assemblyman Bill Magee, D-Nelson, opposed the new tax because he feared “it would send people to the Indian operations and the Internet.”

Magee said that, as the law is written, the reservations can only sell tax-free cigarettes to Native Americans; everyone else is supposed to pay the taxes. This law has never been enforced, however.

Magee is critical of Governor Paterson and his predecessors, Governors Pataki and Spitzer, for their failure to enforce the law. He speculated that the government may fear resistance or even violence from Native Americans if the state attempted to enforce the law. Representatives from the Onondaga Nation Smoke Shop did not comment on this story, and failed to return several messages.

Magee believes many smokers will start buying their cigarettes online or at the reservations, or find other ways to avoid the tax. He thinks the new tax will generate much less revenue than the state expects. He also worries about the effects it will have on local businesses and the economy.

“It definitely would take more customers away from the taxpaying businesses,” he said.

Assemblywoman Joan Christensen, D-Syracuse, also has concerns about the tax, although she supports it.

“I have mixed feelings about a lot of taxes,” Christensen said, and later added, “I vote no on every single tax I can.”

Still, she believes the higher cigarette tax will change things for the better, if it helps to fund health care and deters people from smoking.

“Change is difficult, even good change,” she said.

Like Magee, Christensen worries about local businesses who may be negatively affected by the tax. “My heart goes out to those who rely on only one source of income,” she said.

Her advice to business owners is simple: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify.”

Smoking is a serious problem in New York, but it is even worse in some other states. According to health reports, the prevalence of smoking in New York is below the national average, and state smoking rates reached their lowest levels ever in 2006, having dropped about 24% since 1989. Yet the legislature still found it necessary to raise New York’s cigarette taxes to the highest in the country.

Assemblyman Al Stirpe, D-North Syracuse, says federal health care policy is to blame.

“As a nation, the biggest failure we have is a failure to address health care,” he said. “We’ve needed leadership at the national level, and we just haven’t gotten any.”

Stirpe expressed hope that the new administration, regardless of who wins the White House, will take a more “progressive” stance on health care. In the meantime, he strongly supports the cigarette tax and believes it is a good way to fund health care costs.

He called the tax “a great deterrent” and “a win-win,” saying it would raise money for the state and inspire people to quit smoking.

“The bottom line is it’s great for health policy,” he said.

Despite his passionate feelings about “the devastating effects of smoking cigarettes,” Stirpe said he would not be in favor of a movement to outlaw tobacco altogether.

“We normally support anything that provides choice,” he said, and other legislators echoed his sentiments.

“We have a right to our bad habits,” Assemblywoman Christensen said.

“It’s their choice,” said Assemblyman Magee.

Some smokers, like Kathie Hartnagle, look back on the past two decades of tax hikes and smoking bans, and find such statements difficult to believe.

“We’re getting to be too much of a Big Brother country,” Hartnagle said. “We can’t do anything. It’s ridiculous.”

The interview, reporting fake news

So the Bruce Coville interview went pretty well. We actually talked for close to two hours, and it was a very good interview and a lot of fun. The only rough spot came after we finished the interview, when he asked me how long the story was going to be, and I told him 1,000 words. He didn't say much about it, but he sort of made a face that said, "Why the hell did I just spend two hours being interviewed by you when you're not going to be able to use 95% of what I said?" Which is a perfectly fair question, and I did feel a little bad about taking up so much of his time. Personally, I wish the length of the assignment were much longer.

The only other thing that might pose a problem is that Coville seemed reluctant to just give out phone numbers of people he knows so that I can contact them. One of the requirements for the story is I need to talk to a minimum of 5 people in addition to the interview subject. Which is completely excessive and ridiculous considering the brevity of the assignment, but hey, they're not my rules. He did give me the names and contact info for five or six people, but he only gave me phone numbers for a couple and email addresses for the rest. So I'll just have to hope that these people will respond to my emails and be willing to talk to me. If not, I guess I'll just have to get back in touch with Coville and ask him to give me names of other people who might be more open to a reporter asking them some questions.

In class today, we did this exercise where they staged a breaking news story for us to cover and sent us out into the field, then we had to come back to the labs in the afternoon and write a story about it by 5. The exercise was a pain in the ass, but it was also really cool. I couldn't believe how elaborate it was. They had actual officials from the fire department, the police department, the university, and the FBI on hand to talk to us. A van was set on fire. At one point a helicopter became involved. I was impressed. Granted, all of this was not done solely for the benefit of my class. All the law enforcement and safety officials involved use this as a training exercise/drill, and I imagine they would do this or something similar even if 80 or so aspiring journalists weren't covering it for an assignment. But, they still did us a huge favor by staging a press conference as if the crime had actually taken place, and interacted with us and answered our questions. It was very cool.

But, like I said, writing the story was a pain in the ass. It also didn't help that I seem to be growing increasingly more fatigued lately (getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night seems to be catching up to me), and I was having trouble concentrating because all I could think about was the interview with Coville I was going to right after class. Not to mention, after talking to state legislators and covering a real news story for the cigarette tax article I wrote last week, it was a lot harder to get excited about covering fake news. So, I will go ahead and admit that I sort of mailed this story in. It still read pretty well, and I won't be surprised if I get a good grade on it, but I won't be surprised if I get a bad grade on it, either. And I'm okay with that. Because, honestly, this class is almost over and I've been doing so well that I feel like I'm practically assured of an A. Especially if I did well on the cigarette tax story, which I will get back in class tomorrow. If it turns out I got a mediocre grade on that one, then I'll sort of feel like an idiot and will probably regret not working harder on today's story, but I guess I decided that was a risk I was willing to take.

All right, that's all the time I have for tonight. I still need to read today's news (we have near-daily current events quizzes in class), then I want to try to figure out what I'm going to do for my magazine layout project in graphics this week, and I might listen to some of the Coville interview, just to get a feel for the sound quality and to start making notes. So it will be a long night, and in all likelihood, an even longer day tomorrow. But it's almost over now, I keep telling myself. It's almost over, it's almost over, it's almost over, I don't need to sleep, it's almost over. (Note: it's really not that bad. I'm being melodramatic/facetious. I mean, I do have a lot of work to do, and I am tired, and I am stressed, but it's not all that bad. I'm really enjoying the work... except for graphics... and I think I may have finally found my calling. So yeah, things are all right. And, once again, it's almost over).

-Nick

The interview is on!

It's official--- the Bruce Coville interview is a go. I'm actually doing the interview tomorrow right after I get out of class. That's a little sooner than I would have preferred, since I'd like some more time to research and prepare questions, but I just went ahead and did all that today, and I actually think I have more questions written out than we'll possibly be able to cover in the amount of time we'll have. So hopefully it'll be a very good interview. I'll try to write something tomorrow night to let you know how it went.

-Nick

Microwave is back, some exciting news, more.

Just to update you on the previous post, my landlords got back to me and replaced my microwave. So all is well when it comes to kitchen appliances.

Moving along, I have some pretty cool news. My final assignment for my news writing class, which is due in about a week and a half, is a personality profile piece on someone from the Syracuse-area community. At first, I wasn't sure who I wanted to write about, then a great idea occurred to me. If you've been following the blog, you'll remember that shortly after I arrived in Syracuse, I auditioned for a company that produces audiobooks. The company is owned and run by popular children's author Bruce Coville, who lives in Syracuse and is a personal favorite of mine from when I was a kid. I decided to get in touch with Dan, the guy from the audiobook company who was there when I did my audition, and he gave me Coville's email address.

I sent him an email this afternoon about possibly doing the interview, and he quickly wrote back, saying that he would do it. Unfortunately, there are still some wrinkles to work out, but it looks like it's going to happen. The problem is mainly a scheduling conflict. Coville is flying to the west coast on Wednesday and won't be back for a couple of weeks, so if we do the interview it will have to be Monday or Tuesday. We're currently aiming for Monday evening, after I get done with class, which should work. The only other hurdle is that I need official approval from my professor before I can move ahead, but I sent him an email about it tonight and I would expect him to get back to me tomorrow.

So, fingers crossed, I will probably be sitting down for an interview with Bruce Coville in a couple of days. I'm so excited about this, both because I'm a Coville fan and because this will probably make me look great to my professors, since I doubt very many people find such high-profile subjects for this assignment.

Things continue to go well in both my classes. This week's graphics project was a real bitch, though. We had to design a logo for ourselves and then apply it to a letterhead, a business card, and a business envelope. I had no problem coming up with ideas for a logo, but my professor kept shooting them down while we were in the lab working on the project on Friday. Some of them he just didn't like, while others simply would not work for various reasons (he explained to me that, since a logo should theoretically work on something very small like a business card or something very large like a billboard, it needs to be versatile. Some of my designs looked great on a letterhead, but didn't work very well when you shrunk them down to a much smaller size). So, anyway, it took me most of the day just to come up with a logo that satisfied the professor (and I don't even like it that much), and then I had to rush through the designs and layouts for the letterhead, business card, etc. At the end of the day my professor said he liked what I wound up doing, so I might get a decent grade on it, but it was just a huge pain in the ass. Horrible day. I hate the fact that my summer schedule calls for me to spend all day Friday in a computer lab working on that week's graphics project. I actually dread Fridays right now. That's not a good way to go through life.

And it's going to get a whole lot worse in regards to the graphics class this week. We have a very complex project, designing a magazine layout, due Friday, and we've been informed that there's no way we'll be able to finish it if we only work on it in class. So this week it looks like I'll be spending my days in class, then my evenings working in the computer lab until 8 or 9. It's going to suck out loud, but it will be over soon. Only two more weeks of summer classes, then a short break before the fall semester starts in late August.

I'm not going to write more about Obama's trip to Europe and the huge crowd he drew in Germany earlier this week, at least not right now, but I will get back to these subjects in the future. I'll probably write quite a bit about the presidential election as we get closer to November, as this is the first time I've ever become really interested in politics (hey, I might even vote!). So yeah, stay tuned for politics talk in the future, but not just yet.

Tomorrow will be a pretty full day. I'll still be working on setting up the Coville interview, and then, assuming we're ready to go ahead with the interview on Monday evening, I'll need to do some research and write some questions. I also want to start brainstorming for the magazine layout project, maybe even sketch out some ideas for that. I'm so slow and bad at working with the design software that I need to start as early as possible in order to ensure that I can finish in time and that it won't look like total shit.

Last item for tonight-- there's a new movie in the works called Red Sonja, produced by Robert Rodriguez and starring Rose McGowan. It's a sword and sorcery adventure story based on a Marvel comic (which I believe was originally a spin-off of Conan the Barbarian). Normally, that kind of thing is not my bag, but I do like Rodriguez and McGowan (if only because of the unbelievably awesome Grindhouse). Also, I saw the first promotional posters for the movie today, and I immediately thought, "I don't care if it sucks. I am seeing this movie and buying this poster as soon as possible." Check it out:


All right, that's all I've got for now. Take it easy. I'll keep you updated on what happens with the Coville interview. Wish me luck, as this is going to be a pretty intense and stressful week, but I'm coming into the home stretch of summer "boot camp" now, and just the idea of being done with it is giving me the energy and motivation I need.

-Nick