Lincoln City

Here are the results from our survey of Lincoln City High School students. We had 43 responses. Click here to take the survey yourself.

Some interesting results include:

• When asked what media they use first each day, not a single student said newspapers.
• The first thing they said they used each day was their cell phones.
• Most internet access came through a shared, family computer
• Desktops were more common than laptops
• Students said they were were most willing to give up video games.

Andrew and I just wanted to take a break from packing to make sure we gave shout outs to all those people who’ve helped us during our time in Lincoln City. You’ve made it incredibly successful and educational for us. I hope I don’t leave anybody out of this list:

Christy, Dave, Heather, Barton, Allyson, Roger, Kip, Kaity, Kira, Lori, Jordan, Mark, Brian, Jim, Casey, Jace, Susan, Majalise, Seth, Dee, Dale, The Lunch Bunch, Scott, Taft High School, Career Tech High School, Chinook Winds, Kiwanis, Tsunami Coffee, The News Guard, and everybody at the beach from all over the country.

Thanks again!

Sunset Over Pacific (Phil took that one! Hurray for his one DSLR picture that worked)

But this is not the end… Andrew and I will keep on posting as we get our content edited down and our stories perfected. We also hope to keep in touch with most of you, and invite any of you to contribute your thoughts to our blog. We both believe that our interaction over the past 11 days has been more than that of journalist-subject. We have become friends.

Our return interview with Roger Robertson in the morning, on KBCH 1400 AM.
(If media player does not load, try refreshing, our apologies)

Andrew and I are spending our last day on the Oregon coast trying to gather the last bits of content we will need to complete our stories. Currently we are outside Taft high school waiting for the end of a Safety “code yellow” and drug dog search so that we might go in and finish photography and videography of two of our high school subjects.
Sitting here blogging from our mobile devices and in real time reminds me that I am very much a part of the story we are covering. It is as interesting as it is unorthodox. Journalism usually preaches separation, but this two-faced project requires as much performance as it does reporting. Twittering, blogging, posting our dreams for the future of journalism all the while sheding light on the topic.

What was your last text message?

During our prep/training for News 21, one of the ideas that continued to get kicked-around, but eventually hit the cutting room floor, was asking people, “What is your most recent text message?”

We decided to re-kindle that idea and spent Taft high school’s lunch hour asking students. Here are our findings.

This image and it’s description is from the girl mentioned in my post called “Making Lemonade.”

“I was about to fall asleep when out of no where an idea popped into my head: a self-portrait of me pulling back my scalp to reveal a bees’ hive. I quickly got up and hashed out a few rough sketches before the image eluded me. I woke up the next morning, dusted off my color pencils, and got to work.”

Here also is an image from Kaity’s memory of what our interview looked like. Yeah, that is a picture of us asking her questions. And the quote is right on.

Kaity's memory of the interview

Today our amount of content has surpassed our abilty to edit it, probably because today we split up to cover more ground.
We have been working to continue editing on the piece from Kaity Curry, as well as following a family from the casino whose patriarch repairs slot machines. Later in the day we worked to gather more b-roll for the story about tech punishments in the adopted family and another family sit down interview.
We promise to post more dynmic content tomorrrow as we wade through the fifty gigs of camera cards and 2 hours of tape from today.

Today was an encouraging day to be reporters.

(I had briefly considered saying it was a “…great day to be a reporter” but realized that was a little to strong. The task laying ahead of us is a big one and it is big enough to make us constantly question our every action. I also considered saying “…rewarding…” but without a final product I shy away from the implications of that. But I digress…)

Today was the kind of day that makes us feel encouraged about the whole News21 project. Our calendar has been pretty full over the past week in Lincoln City, but today was the first day where every one of those appointments led to some sort of usable content. We’ve zeroed into our stories, and although we’ve not quite decided on their final form we have begun to really delve deeply beneath their surfaces.

(more…)

Here are Prescilla Sweitz’s top 5 hopes and fears for her children growing up in the netGeneration:

Top 5 Fears
I fear Online Child Predators.
I fear Connor being bullied by friends online.
I fear Connor may become too involved with video games or the internet and ignore other fun past times like sports or exploring the outdoors.
I fear Connor not having that person to person contact with friends and family.
I fear Connor finding adult material while online.

Top 5 Hopes
I hope that I am able to keep up with the technology and be able to understand what Connor is doing.
I hope Connor can learn to use technology to succeed in school, while also knowing how to write, spell and use math without the help of technology.
I hope Connor will have more job opportunities because of the future of technology.
I hope Connor will find it easier to keep in touch with family and friends using technology.
I hope Connor can adapt to the ever changing technology.

Priscilla Sweitz is 32 years old. She has been married for 3 years and has a 2 year old son, Connor.  She works at Chinook Winds Casino Resort in Lincoln City, where she has been for 14 years. She says she uses some sort of Technology every day!

They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I think today’s video speaks well to that old saying, as well as to the collective character of our team.

After 2 appointments canceled on us, we pulled together an interview with Kaity Curry, and it was one of the most interesting so far. Above is what we edited together using only a handful of her images and having reviewed only a portion of the interview with her.

Kaity is a cartoon blogger who tells stories about her life. She says she calls her blog Frankensteinbeck because she enjoyes Frankenstein, the name Frank, Steinbeck, and the musician Beck. More on Kaity is sure to come.

As for how we will plan to follow up on this interview, here is a quote from Kaity’s blog about today’s interview, but for her whole post, click here:

“The Tech-Youth interview will continue tomorrow at lunch in Mr. Howe’s J-Lab… where a camera will probably be set up to observe me drawing in my natural habitat. Oh, how I love journalism. I hope that one day, in the not-too-distant future I’ll be inspired to embark on such a noble journey. This summer, perhaps? I’ll have my D60, my dad’s HD Camcorder, and my super-fine writin’ skills. It could happen. My theme: Otis and Oregon Sub(merged) Culture. Yeah. That’s just off the top of my head, too.”