Megan Hirt

Before I mention today's shift, I'd like to say I think KUJH-TV and the Kansan did a remarkable job with election coverage this year. Not only was our coverage strong, but it was so much fun to work election night and to be in the newsroom environment for such a historical moment. I'll always remember it.

Now for zee shift report. I had three stories to post, plus the KUJH News Break. I had a cool story about Elden Tefft, the sculptor who made the Moses statue in front of Smith Hall and the Jayhawk in front of Strong Hall, who is now making a sculpture of James Naismith. It was an inspiring package, and it made me more interested in him. I think he'd make a great in-depth profile story.

Kendra, the reporter, had made an extra Web element, which added a lot to the story and to the page. Bryan showed me how to upload it using the WebEx feature on Moveable Type.
 
The evening had a diverse group of stories. The bee story gave me the heeby jeebies, and the sports story felt like one big non sequitur to me, but that could just be because I don't understand how the athletics department works.

Something else I've been doing during my shift for the past few weeks is capturing the weather broadcast and sending it to the weatherman, Nick. He said his mom hasn't been able to see him do the weather because she doesn't live in Lawrence, and therefore doesn't get KUJH-TV.

So I don't mind capturing the weather at all. I just wish Nick would forecast about six more weeks of warm, sunny weather.

The election is so close that, by this time, every joke has been made, every avenue of humor traversed, and we've effectively roasted each presidential candidate so that he's burned beyond recognition, in a metaphorical sense.

But before we put election 2008 behind us for good, I'd like to pass along one last funny, as it reminded me of the most important quality I'm looking for in a presidential candidate.

My friend Jerome, who lives in Paris, was enlightening me earlier this week as to why most French people aren't fond of John McCain. He listed off some legitimate reasons, and then added that, above all, the French dislike John McCain because he shares the name of a brand of frozen French fries.

Yes, "McCain" is synonymous with frozen French fries in France. McCain also makes other ready-to-eat frozen delights as pizza and fajitas. One of the company's latest products is a line of French fries cut in the shape of smiley faces.

In a country that takes great pride in fine cuisine and four-hour meals, frozen French fries aren't exactly à la mode, and this fact makes John McCain an almost too-easy target for the French.

It's an incredibly stupid joke, but it took me back five years to the start of the war in Iraq and the start of modern French-hating in America, the latter of which, oddly enough, also had to do with French fries.

Back in 2003, shortly before the United States' March 20 invasion of Iraq, France announced its opposition to the war and our intentions in the Middle East. France was not our only ally to refuse support -- Russia and France's fellow EU member Germany were among those who also opposed the war -- but for some reason, France received the most ferocious backlash from the United States.

Soon after France's announcement, two Republican representatives had a stroke of genius and decided to rename French fries "freedom fries" in all restaurants run by the House of Representatives. The proposal was spearheaded by Ohio Rep. Bob Ney, who -- flash forward -- would resign in 2006 because of his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

All the brains behind the renaming maintained that it was simply an act of patriotism, nothing more than a way to invigorate the home base. Yeah, nobody bought that line.

The "freedom fries" name change came across as a blatantly petty and childish attempt to bash France and the French during what should have been an incredibly serious and somber time on Capitol Hill.

"Freedom fries" were, in my opinion, one of our stupidest and most embarrassing patriotism games, and we've had quite a few in recent years.

Never mind the fact that the name change didn't make any sense because French fries aren't really French, which most people know as a point of trivia or can at least find out with a few spare seconds and Internet access.

The renaming was most embarrassing because it showed the United States' reckless arrogance. Just because another country didn't agree with our (hasty, uninformed and regrettable) decision to go to war, we could no longer stoop to eating a greasy, floppy potato slice as long as it had the dissenting country's name attached to it. Quelle bêtise.  

Here's hoping our next prez, be it Obama or French fries, will make it a priority to bridge the gap that exists between us and France and between us and so many other countries. This is what I hope for, and this is what I vote for.

I can't help but think that, if we could cool it with our wacky attempts to somehow prove our patriotism, international relations would improve a hundredfold.

Happy Halloween, KUJH-TV!

I loved being the evening Web producer on Halloween and getting to see Lara's tooth fairy costume! I had no Halloween plans myself, except to dress up in my pajamas and be a sleep zombie after I finished my shift.

There seem to be more and more stories every week, which is awesome, although it's usually all I can do to get everything captured, written and posted before it's time to skedaddle. I didn't think any of the stories had the potential for separate Web elements this time, though, so I didn't feel too bad about skedaddling at 8 p.m. 

My favorite story o' the evening was the one about natural pet food. I liked the video capture of the cute but confused-looking dog, and the video package was nicely put together, informative and fun to watch. We ran a story in Jayplay three weeks ago about natural pet food, so it was interesting to see this story's angle and the different info it offered. I feel suddenly very well-versed in natural pet food.
 
The evening's stories also included trick-or-treating tots on campus, a used cell phone drive for a domestic violence shelter and a brochure on the presidential candidates' tax proposals created by KU accounting students.
 
After I finished up, I had an interesting walk home through campus, as a troop of about 100 costumed bicyclists sped past me on Jayhawk Boulevard. I spotted Where's Waldo, the Joker, a sheep, a robot, Jesus, Michael Phelps and Santa Claus. Love it.

All in all, a good last Halloween on the Hill.

When I arrived at the newsroom, everyone was abuzz over the visit from Phoenix the American Gladiator on Wescoe Beach earlier that day. Bryan had a photo of himself taken with her to forever document the event. I was just impressed the girl braved the chilly temperature in her skimpy Gladiator gear.

I uploaded five stories to the Web site, and just getting all the videos and stories up took me until 8 p.m. One of the stories didn't have a script, either, so I had to squeeze something out of the video and "fake it," for lack of a better phrase. All turned out well, though.

The Homecoming story was my favorite of the evening, just because it had the most text and I was able to have some fun with the writing. The page was also very colorful because Yelena had made a photo slideshow of the chalk murals on Wescoe Beach. Colors make me happy.

During my shift, there was breaking news from the Lawrence Police Department about two bodies found near the train station, so John went out and shot b-roll of the scene. We decided to still put the story up on the Web site sans real video for the moment. However, the Web site's framework won't allow stories without videos, so, once again in a moment of "faking it," I decided to simply put up a video capture where the video would normally go so the story would post. Not my proudest moment as a Web producer, but probably the best solution for the moment.

Standing in a Paris bank last June, I knew something wasn't right. I had just swapped the $500 cash I'd brought from home -- money earned through many grueling hours in the Stauffer-Flint newsroom -- for just around 300 euro.

I had expected $500 to last me for at least one week of sightseeing, dining, public transportation and shopping in Paris. I ended up using my credit card by the fourth day.

It was a surreal experience, watching the value of my money arbitrarily evaporate within seconds and being able to do nothing but stand there, dumbfounded and awkward. I had no idea the American dollar was so weak in Europe. I look back on it now and can't help but think this experience was probably very much like what a lot of people faced in the recent economic collapse.

But just as the dollar's fall from grace in Europe couldn't have happened overnight, the country's recent economic woes could not all have unfurled overnight, or even over just a few months, for that matter.

I did a quick Google search for 2008 economy warning signs, and it turns out the mainstream media reported many warnings about the possibility of an economic crisis. A December 2007 article on the Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch.com made me feel outrageously out-of-touch, as it flat-out states, "Everyone knows the U.S. economy is teetering on the edge of recession in the next year, but no one knows if it will tip."

I suspect many Americans were like me, and didn't take notice of our country's economic situation until it hit painfully home. Not to say the blame for this mess rests on the people who lost their nest eggs, or that the outcome would have been miraculously different had we all been religious readers of MarketWatch.com. We just might not have felt as dumb because we were caught thinking everything was peachy keen.

My ignorance regarding the economy was the most recent reminder of a flaw I've known about myself for a long time: I don't pay attention to news that doesn't appeal to my superficial interests, no matter how relevant it is to my life.

Yes, USA Today has a Money section, but it's just the one that always comes before the Life section. Just as I didn't bother to look up the dollar to euro exchange rate before going to France and instead researched trendy Paris hangouts, I also never bothered to pay attention to money -- something that, for better or for worse, permeates every aspect of our lives -- and instead read about Nicole Richie's baby bump and Yoda, the four-eared cat.

So where do I go from here? I'm one of the lucky ones graduating in December, and although everyone's in a panic over how December grads are going to find jobs amidst this crisis, that's not really what I'm worried about. I'm worried about how I'm going to finally shake this Midwest scene as I've been planning to do since, oh, about age 14.

The disastrous economy undoubtedly hinders my ability to just pack up and go, especially because where I want to go is a bit pricey. I know there are jobs there. It's just a matter of getting/being there.

I crave sunshine, warmth, a new beginning. But when icy, confining January comes, I will be in Kansas still, a prisoner to immobility like every year before.

The best solution just might be a one-way ticket back to Paris. Wherever I end up, one thing is certain: I'll at least be skimming the Money section of the newspaper from now on.

Our class Wiki has been really helpful for my last two Web producing shifts. Even though I haven't used it to make a separate Web element, having time to think about the stories beforehand has allowed me to make some cool additions to the print versions of the stories. 

 

For example, I found some interesting stats on voter turnout among young people to go with the voter registration story, as well as an interactive-y site to link to from the story on fuel-efficient cars. Baby steps, right?

 

I enjoy doing the shifts, and they've been going well. I come in a half-hour early at 3:30 to get organized. First, I capture and post the 4 p.m. update. Then, for the news broadcast, I capture, cut and post the videos, rewrite the stories, add links, add extra info, copyedit the stories, and write headlines and teases.

 

During my Oct. 10 shift, the story about the Time/Frame mixed art exhibit at the Spencer Museum of Art really piqued my interest. I've always been a little obsessed with time, fascinated by its simultaneous speed and sluggishness, its arbitrary yet inescapable hold on life. I don't think I would've found out about the exhibit had it not been for working on this story, and now I'm planning on swingin' by the Spence to check it out.

 

KUJH-TV Web producing: Enriching my life in ways I never thought possible.

 

Yet for every one of these ads, there always seems to be an ad for a diet -- the Acai Diet, the Kim Kardashian Diet, the Supermodel Diet -- even though I have nothing on my profile about dieting, weight, food, fitness or appearance.

 

Why, then, am I getting such ads? The only reason I can fathom is this: Under sex, I identify myself as female.

 

I'm probably a bit more sensitive to/interested in body image issues than the average person is. And I'll admit that it's too simple to blame this whole thing on advertising. No, it goes much deeper than that, down to our culture's basic views and expectations of women. 

 

It's a general societal assumption that all women want to lose weight. It's practically what unites us as women: a desire to be thin, delicate, refined, controlled, needless. Women talk about diet and weight as casually as one might talk about the weather, as a point of connection even among total strangers.

 

I'm always amazed when a female I barely know feels at liberty to comment on the caloric content of something I'm eating, babbles to me about how little she's eaten today or how she like, totally needs to go on a diet because she's like, totally fat.

 

According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), more than one in three normal dieters progresses to pathological dieting, and of those, 20 to 25 percent progress to partial or full-symptom eating disorders. NEDA estimates that nearly 10 million females and one million males in the United States have eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia.

 

I understand how narrow-minded and inaccurate it is to blame the media for all the ills of society. But I find it unlikely that the 91 percent of college-age women who feel the need to be on diets (NEDA) all just adopted the notion on a whim.   

 

I don't mind personalized ads. I'm not bothered that Facebook knows I get giddy about argyle shoelaces. I am bothered that the people behind the Facebook personalized ads assume that, just because I am a young female in college, wanting to lose weight is an inherent part of my identity.

Come again, Monsieur Sarkozy?

 

After spending the summer in France and enduring hostility/mockery/disgust at my English accent and the typical "what were you thinking?" questions about the last eight years -- and only three varieties of Coca-Cola at the grocery store -- I'd venture to say most French people aren't too wild about Americans.

 

They do, however, love them some Obama.

 

On the brink of our most significant presidential election in recent history, it was fascinating to see how the French media was covering our political process. Particularly fascinating was the fervor with which the French support Barack Obama.

 

So why does a country so notoriously critical of the United States have such a crush on Obama?

 

In a Salon.com article, TIME journalist Don Morrison, who lives in Paris, attributes the infatuation to certain personality qualities the French perceive in Obama.

 

"This is a country that takes culture seriously," Morrison said of France. "[Obama] appears to the French to be somebody who values intelligence, education and culture. That makes him one of those idealized Americans that the French have always treasured, the ones who share the Enlightenment values that France did much to invent."

 

The French Support Committee for Barack Obama states that, as president, Obama would not only be the symbol of a new America, but also the symbol of new leadership, new tolerance, new progress in the entire Western world, of which France is a part.

 

During the summer, I asked my Parisian friend Jerome if he thought a black man could be elected president of France. He laughed. Then he said no.

I see France's interest in Obama as a desire to share in our change, our step forward, because France is not yet capable of taking such a step itself.  

 

With Obama as president, the United States would be France's flagship, and the country is not afraid or ashamed to praise our advancement and our change as its own.

 

It's an exciting time to be in America on the precipice of so much possibility. I found it equally exciting to be in France to witness just how much our decision this November matters on an international level.

 

I just wish I could've stuck around France longer, if only just to see how "lipstick on a pit bull" would be rendered in the native tongue.

I had three stories to put on the Web site this time! A new record. And yet I think I still finished sooner than I did some of the previous weeks. Does that mean I'm improving? If improving means becoming more efficient, then I suppose so. Though I'm not sure the two are exactly synonyms. 

 

Yelena made a map to go with the story about Band Day, so I think that page turned out pretty spiffy.

 

I tried to add extra tidbits of info to all the print versions of the stories, even if the information wasn't mentioned in the video version. For instance, I added the time of the Band Day parade downtown and the time of the football game. I always think of the text surrounding the video as meant to offer additional info that perhaps couldn't fit so neatly in the video version, but that it doesn't hurt to have in the story. It's the ever-present paranoid copy editor in me.

 

While I was Web producing away, Bryan was giving the eHub tutorial to two batches of 415 students. Listening took me back to all those good times I had as a 415-er, and reminded me of how I loved doing the writing part of the class but hated doing the video and Web stuff.

 

And now, here I sit, doing video and Web stuff voluntarily. What's come over me?

 

I guess I see now that having these skills will greatly improve my chances of getting the job I want in journalism, even though that job is on the writing side of things. And -- dare I say it? -- I feel like I've come a long way.

 

Whoa there, 694-er.

The news media has hailed this presidential election as unprecedented. One for the history books. A huge step forward for America no matter how you slice it, Democratic ticket or Republican ticket. 

 

But in this fete of supposed progressive thinking, one archaic practice is still being tossed around by both the news media and by the politicians themselves: isms.

 

Racism. Sexism. Ageism. Fanaticism. Liberalism. Conservatism.

 

Isms are a quick fix for our brains -- a simple, tidy way of roping a group of people with related opinions together, setting them to one side and saying there. That's that. I get what you're about.

 

Yes, isms make us think we understand others when in fact they actually hinder our ability to truly do so. To use an ism is to generalize, and to in effect deny the diverse rationales that can lead people to hold the same opinion. We stoop to using isms either because we're too lazy or too narrow-minded to take time to think out these diverse rationales.

 

It's so much easier to argue that anyone who doesn't like Barack Obama is racist than it is to dig deeper, start a dialogue, find out what could really be behind this opinion.

 

A reporter can fit together an easy, crisp little story around the fact that Barack Obama is black, that Sarah Palin is a woman, and that these qualities attract and alienate certain voters. It would be difficult, however, to go beyond the "ism" buzzwords -- beyond this gross homogenizing of the American people -- to discuss why voters hold the opinions they do, why they value certain things in candidates, why other things don't appeal to them.

 

The sooner we step up to the task of discussing what's behind our differing opinions rather than ism-ing them away, the sooner we can really take that huge step forward that we've all been hearing about.