news writing vs magazine writing

I have found that I don't like the style of writing that is found in newspapers. The inverted pyramid style is not my strong point and I don't feel like it is a good way to spread information or tell a story, other than the convenience factor. It's like reading a book starting at the end, where the conclusion lays and where the "most important" news is. I, instead, like to read and write in a more informal, story-telling manor. Today I wrote a long email to one of my dad's old climbing buddies about a trip that my brother and I took in the sierras this summer. It is really informal, and rambly, but I really enjoyed writing it. Here it is:

It was a trip to remember. My legs were sore for 4 days afterwards. It took about 15 hours and Galen had some major blisters to speak of. And we went through more "how much would someone have to pay you to______ *fill in blank*" scenarios than I thought was possible. We both decided that not speaking a word for an entire year would indeed be impossible, and that if one of us becomes insanely rich while the other became poor and hurting for money, we are going to pay the poor one to do embarrassing and dehumanizing things such as eating poop for $453. Also, Galen is going to have a child that he locks up the closet until it’s 10 years old and the only thing he’s going to say to it is “fudge” and “Gary,” which won’t be the kid’s name. In doing this, when he sends the kid to elementary school, it will be completely crazy. Which is the point of the experiment. I, on the other hand, am going to have a child that is successful in everything, who only gets praise, never gets grounded, and never has anything go wrong in his or her life. My other child will be a reject of society: dumb, weird looking, and without social skills or friends. I will yell at the reject kid and they will slide further and further into depression and self-loathing. The point of this will be that the “good” kid will always feel good about himself and have an excess of self esteem. We came up with a lot of these scenarios while on the hike.
The hike:
We got up first at 4AM, but quickly decided to rethink our start time, opting for another 30 minutes of sleep. 30 minutes later it was still cold and the only light came from the stars and moon. We set the alarm for another 30 minutes of sleep. So by the third time the alarm went off it was 5:00 and we decided we had better get up. I lit up the stove and poured a couple cups of water into a massive quantity of oats. We ate the first batch and made a second. I barely finished my second helping and Galen refused to finish his second helping. I kept telling him that he needed to finish it and that he would be super hungry later on in the day, but I think he was on the point of vomiting from being so full. So Thomas got a midnight treat of oats.

We headed off at 5:30 with our head lamps to Ralston, which was the quickest and easiest of the 4 summits. We took turns carrying the backpack, but I ended up wearing it for most of the day. In it we brought about 6 liters of water, 8 peanut butter and jam bagel sandwiches, a big bag of pancakes, a bigger bag of trail mix, 3 protein bars, and a bag of whey protein mix. Needless to say, we didn't plan on going hungry, although we ended up eating everything except for a little bit of the whey protein and some of the trail mix. We also brought a water pump, sweat shirts, a first aid kit, map, survival blanket, knife, camera, action.

By the time it was light out, we had almost reached the summit of Ralston. It was going to be a warm, cloudless day. We put our lights away just as going noticed he was getting blisters on his feet. We stopped for a minute while he put some tape over the hot spots.

After reaching the top of Ralston, instead of heading back down the trail that we came up we decided to go cross country on the way down. It took us almost 2 hours doing this because it turned out to be very steep and the bushes were neck high and very sharp and painful. I still have a scar on my shin from the brambles.

Our plan was to on top of Pyramid Peak by 11:30, and we made it. Galen just about killed himself with effort. We went up the steep gully side near horsetail, which we decided was one of the hardest parts of the day. We were going pretty fast at this point and took only 1 break after getting up and out of the gully. We now had a clear sight to the top and started off again, passing a group of firemen from Sacramento (they were just hiking, no fireman apparel). We got to the top and talked to the firemen and had some more food (we had stopped to eat after getting down from Ralston earlier). There eyes bulged in amazement as they watched us pull out our huge pile of food, and also when we told them our plans for the day. They didn't think we could do it, but thought it sounded like an epic trip and offered some encouragement and advice on how to approach Dick's and Harry's peaks.

We headed down the steep north side of Pyramid at a little after noon and got down to a small lake that sits between Pyramid and the peak that sits just north of Pyramid, I forget the name now. There, we refilled our water bottles and took our shoes off and put our feet in the water.

After the break, which turned out to last about 30 minutes because the water pump was going very slow, we continued to head down to lake Aloha. after a long decent, we were finally there, and we started to make our way around the west side of the lake, scrambling over truck-sized boulders that overhung the lake's icy blue water. Galen fell behind and I could tell that his blood sugar was dropping, and we still had the majority of the hike ahead of us. So we stopped again to eat and fill up the water bottles when we got around to the base of Jack's.

There were two options for heading up Jack's peak: #1 was to head straight up, which would require climbing some vertical sections. This option looked to be the fastest and most fun, so we didn't even consider the other option, which was to go around the side and go up the rock scree.

It didn't take us too long to get to the top. I had gone ahead of Galen and was standing on the summit, when I realized that I was not, in fact, standing on the summit. The top was over to my right, so I climbed down the false summit and climbed over to the true summit, where Galen meet me and we ate some more sandwiches (I ate my last one). Then, after looking at the map for a few minutes, we realized we were still not on the true summit. Slightly annoyed now, we packed up our things and carefully made our way along the razor-edge rim that connected this false summit with jack's true summit. THEN we were on the top.

It was very windy up there and the sun was getting lower, we estimated we had a little less than 4 and a half hours of sunlight left. We used the hand held at an arm-length away method for estimating the time since we forgot to bring a watch. At first we decide that we didn't have time to do Dick's, but then we decide "the hell with it" and headed down the north side of Jack's to the ridge that separated the two peaks. This was probably my favorite section because of the exposure and steepness of the cliffs that we carefully straddled as we made our way to the base of Dick's.

At last we stood on top of the final peak, where we posed for many pictures and ate the last of the sandwiches and pancakes. We were down to about 2 liters of water by now, which we finished off by about 2 hours later. The trip down, back to lake aloha took a long time.

We traversed back to the top of Jack’s peak and headed down its eastern side, coming upon a snow bank, followed by an endless scree field. The scree eventually turned into boulders, and it got steeper and steeper. We stopped for a rest on a big flat boulder to eat some trail mix and drink the last of the water. When we stood back up, we both groaned as our stiff and tired legs complained at the never ending decent. It took another hour to get to the bottom, where we climbed around some huge boulders, bigger than houses. We pondered going into some caves underneath the boulders, but decided we better get back before it got dark.

Finally we were back on a trail, having been traveling off country since Ralston peak. There is something to be said for walking on flat, even ground, and we sped around the lake in 30 minutes, getting back at 8PM, just as it was getting dark, and just in time for some hot chili and chocolate pudding. Dad said that in another 15 minutes, he was going to go out looking for us, although he admitted that he didn’t have a clue where he would begin searching.

-Kennett

I would really like to start writing like this more often, and I wouldn't mind seeing more articles in the paper more like this. I think that people would get more involved in news stories if they put in more emotion. They don't have to be as informal as this, but if some more emotion were put into the Myanmar issue or the crap that we're doing in iraq, I think people would have different reactions than they do with the current media structure.

new york times article on Myanmar

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/asia/28myanmar.html

The article discusses the tragic events that have been unfolding over the past few days in Myanmar. The thousands of protesters, frustrated with their suppressive military government and rising fuel prices, have been temporally dispersed due to automatic gunfire. Myanmar officials have declared only 9 dead, but other outside sources claim the death tole is higher. Among the dead, a Japanese journalist: Kenji Nagai. I read this and then looked up the footage on youtube, which is disturbing to watch as Nagai flops onto his back like a limp doll after being shot at point blank with an automatic rifle. He continues photographing his killer as he dies in the street. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUUQi1ooEAs

The US has discontinued doing business with Myanmar due to the violent reactions that the government has been taking towards the peaceful monks and their followers. Other nations, such as China and Japan are continuing to give financial aid and are continuing trade with the country. Outside communication, such as the Internet, are being banned by the government.

I read this article and looked up some youtube videos about it and got pretty pissed off. Then I began typing in "iraq" and "beatings" or "killings" into the search engine. I hadn't seen the terrible things that our military has been doing over there, although I have known about them. But seeing them is even more terrifying and makes me even more ashamed to be an American. I look at Myanmar and say "at least its their own country doing this to them. And at least they aren't killing their citizens by the tens or hundreds of thousands, like we are doing in Iraq." I feel like people reading and hearing about Myanmar are saying to themselves "oh, what a terrible country. That's what they get with a communist/military government." We are quick to find fault in others, but no one wants to read about hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians we have murdered in Iraq. Im tired of complaining about the war and our government, but I find myself thinking about it more and more. I would like to actually DO something about it. Goddamn it.

Mission Statement

What I want to get out of the UofO journalism department: I want to become a more concise and accurate writer. I feel like I have a difficult time getting my thoughts turned into words that others will understand. It seems like my ideas are usualy good, but my writing tends to be unorganized and rambly, probably much like this blog post. I need to work on getting my ideas on paper to flow more smoothly. Another thing that I want to get out of the program is the ability to do research and become an expert on the subject quickly. I feel like I have improved over the years, but there is much to be learned. As a journalist, one of the goals to writing a piece is to convince the reader about whatever it is that you are writing about. I want to improve my "convincing skills," while writing and during conversations. While writing and trying to get others interested or involved in a subject, or to change their point of view, I need to focus on what other people think is important and see my argument from their eyes. These are all things that I hope to accomplish, or get better at, by the end of the year.

In five years I have no clue what I'll be doing. It may not have anything to do with journalism. Right now, I am pretty into bike racing and I am training to get onto a sponsored team. I would really love to race in Europe, or even just live in Europe. When I finish chasing the dream of being a bike racer, I would like to get into photojournalism. I have always been interested in photography, and I am taking a photojournalism class right now that I think will be very interesting. I don't really have an interest to write in a newspaper, but things always change and I wouldn't be opposed to trying it out.

first impressions

I also have a little bit of a cold, so don't worry about it. In fact, I think I might have a sinus infection because it hasn't gone away yet and I have had it for like 3 weeks. Anyways, my first impression of the class today was good. Except, for the weird seating arrangement that occured for some reason (all the guys on one side and all the girls on the other). It felt a little like a middle school dance.

I really enjoyed the first assignment today. I hadn't done anything like that before, and I felt like it was a great way to get to know you. But, the one flaw that I saw was that our group did not work together. After the interviewing session ended, we split up and began furiously typing on our own. If you do this assignment again, you should probably have the students work alone and ask their own questions, either that or give the groups 10 minutes after the interview to let them discuss their notes before writing.

Wow, when you said you were a photographer for Climbing, I was shocked. That is exactly what I wanted to do when I first came to the UO. I used to really be into climbing and I wanted to write for them and travel around and climb. I bet it was awesome.

It sounds like it's going to be a fun class.

kennett