The Hidden Homeless
09 May 2011 1 Comment
A single mother of two becomes homeless and can only stay on friends and families couches for so long. Being homeless is not a new issue. The recession has made the face of homelessness become families. CBS reported that, “The government considers a family of four to be impoverished if they take in less than $22,000 a year. Based on that standard, and government projections of unemployment, it is estimated the poverty rate for kids in this country will soon hit 25 percent. Those children would be the largest American generation to be raised in hard times since the Great Depression.” The recession is hitting way to close to home and its leaving mothers and children left stranded on the streets or shelters lined with hundreds of people sleeping on the floor or on a cold cot. CBS also reported that, “Nationwide, 14 million children were in poverty before the Great Recession. Now, the U.S. Census tells us its 16 million – up two million in two years. That is the fastest fall for the middle class since the government started counting 51 years ago.”
Janine a mother of two had become homeless in 2008 she had gotten laid off from her job at Silverman Law Firm in Colorado leaving her one paycheck left and two years of moving from one friends house to the next available shelter.
Janine isn’t the only family that had to face the possibility of living on the streets. So why are so many homeless people stereotyped as a person who is an alcoholic or lazy? When in fact these homeless families are often hidden. A person may not even know that they are actually homeless? Janine mentioned that, “being homeless is crazy because people didn’t even know that I was homeless no one knew except my girlfriend and my kids. Even my kids just thought that we where in transition.”
The question is what is homeless, is it when a person lives on the street or a person who stays in a run down motel? Many homeless families will pile in a one room motel room where three children share a bed, and the stress a child should not bear. Reported by the New York Times a Wally Gonzales director of the Project Dignity said, “The motels have become the de facto low-income housing of Orange County.” They also mentioned that, “Motel families exist by the hundreds in Denver, along freeway-bypassed Route 1 on the Eastern Seaboard, and in other cities from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Portland…”
The majority of people view homeless as lazy people who must have an addiction or a mental illness, yes the numbers are high of individuals that have these conditions. Reported by the State of Homeless in America in 2009 over four hundred thousand individuals where homeless. It is hard to look at these numbers without looking at it with a grin of salt. Those numbers do not tell you who is addicted to drugs or has a mental illness. However, a person needs to become educated about the individuals that are homeless and the ones that work hard to survive. A multi millionaire CEO is able to buy their 4 year old a 5,000 dollar bed but a middle-low class person can’t buy their child a blanket. Americans need to fully look at the homeless crisis of 2011. In order to fully concept this debacle we need to view the hardship of a struggling mother like Janine.
Before being laid-off Janine lived in a low-income apartment where she and her girlfriend had noticed that everyone was getting really sick. She assumed that it was possibly her child’s allergies but everyone began to get really sick. They knew that they couldn’t live there anymore and began to sue the apartment complex and lived at friends and her girlfriend’s mother’s house. Then an unexpected lay-off made Janine one paycheck to becoming broke. The proceedings of the law suit went on for an exceptional long time and they had no choice but to stay at a shelter which was a motel on Colfax and King in Denver. She said, “It’s a motel on Colfax so it is obliviously nasty but they have rooms for homeless people.” She had to go to social services to be put on a waiting list for section 8. She said, “There is always a waiting list for everything when you are homeless. It’s like ‘I am homeless I can’t wait you know what I am saying.’”
The Equal Housing Opportunity reports that, “The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program is a government subsidized housing assistance program for a low income family or individual. The tenant will pay about 30% of their monthly income for rent.”
Janine and her family stayed at the motel for three days before being accepted at the Family Homestead a transitional housing program. Family Homestead reports that they are not a shelter but yet a “home” for families to get back on their feet and overcome homelessness. Another reason is that many people do not see a high range of families on the side of the street panhandling for money. The programs that exist in fact provide a program to allow parents to get back in the work force and the children still go to school. Janine explained that her children still went to school and her son was on a basketball team they continued doing activities. She said, “We tried to make their lives as normal as possible even though it wasn’t stable.” These transitional houses strive to keep children’s lives as stable as possible at The Crossings a motel that is a transitional house located on smith road two blocks from I-70 will pick up children in a bus or van to take them to school.
Like Family Homestead, The Crossings has a program in order to get individuals back on their feet. They have two programs at that The Crossings. One is for single males (which some do not live in the facility) and the other is for families. Looking at the building you would think that it could have been a hotel that would have room service and a possible year round pool. But in the parking lot was a police car and the lot held three cars and the silence that could scare a cricket. Though this is a transitional house many poverty stricken individuals flock to motels to keep their families together.
Reported by CBS news, Parents David and Theresa believed that they had no choice but to live out of their van since shelters wanted to split the family up, “boy and girls”. They eventually moved into a two bedroom motel.
The Crossings is a transitional house they do have requirements for people who apply. First is that the individual needs to have an income of 500 dollars a month either if that is unemployment, social security or a job. And the cost of living there is 200 dollars a month. This is one of the reasons Janine was unable to live at this facility. Their program was set up like the Family Homestead that each person has a case manager that will go through the motions of getting back into the work force. While living at this facility each person is served three meals a day. This facility is drug-free with random testing to clutch onto their rehabilitation program. When volunteering at The Crossings, a young gentleman who will remain nameless for his protection had walked up to the breakfast buffet with a slouched posture and said, “Today has been a long day and it is only 6” the volunteer asked him why he had such a bad day and he replied, “my kids are going to be homeless…I got woken up in the middle of the night because my wife was drunk sitting outside of the door.” The gentleman was fearful for his children shelter because of the strict rules that The Crossings has for rehabilitation.
After getting accepted at The Family Homestead Janine and her family was relocated to the projects. The projects are located on Decatur in Denver. When first entering the home Janine was disgusted with how the house was so filthy she cried for awhile and then composed her self and took out the bleach and water and scrubbed the house down. Janine looks back at that moment in her life and she said, “The projects are nasty as hell but they are free.” Her and her family lived there for two months. When they were able to be put in a more stable house for six months and the rent was for 125 dollars a month. Janine explained that, “during that six months they have monthly meetings with you and how your jobs are going and they give you all these resources about how to find permanent housing and put you on all these waiting lists for lower income housing.” Today Janine is no longer homeless therefore she remains an advocate of the homeless, “I think its sad that people just assume that if you are homeless then you are just nothing.” she continues by saying that, “Why be ignorant when you can be informed.”
Information about the new face of homelessness is important because it is leaving families on the street and hungry. The next time that you are in the presence of person that you can tell has no home, don’t ignore them actually the best thing to do is to acknowledge their presence and say hello. According to David from the CBS report, who was living in the motel was in desperate need to pay for his motel room for his family and he said, “So as embarrassing as it was, I sat down with a magic marker, and I’ve seen these people on the road with these signs before, and I wrote a sign out,” he told Pelley. [CBS reporter] “It said, ‘Please help, family of five.” It’s important to know that not all homeless people holding a cardboard sign are lazy and drug addicts in fact the new face of homelessness are families in need of work. Also a homeless person can be anybody it can be the person next to you on the light rail or bus as you make your daily commute.
One thing is for sure, the recession has caused one thing in common for Americans and that is that everyone is looking for a job. Janine said when she was homeless, “I was walking up and down Colfax looking for a job in every little shop store crook and cranny anything you can think of looking for a job and I couldn’t find one and I wasn’t the only one looking for a job.”
Feature Analysis: The Cost Conumdrum
20 Apr 2011 1 Comment
I was asked to write a feature analysis on a trend and issue article called “Annals of Medicine, The Cost Conundrum” by Atul Gawande. The analysis is to see if this article had the four essentials to make it a good feature, anecdote, angle, action, and capturing audience and yes it did but I didn’t know that it would have such an impact on me. In my past I worked for a Hospital for five years and saw first hand some of these sticky situations that the uninsured or underinsured patients had to go through but I had no idea that some hospitals actually could be so corrupt and have such greed like these that Gawande spoke of. So now that my rant is done for now, lets start the analysis of his feature.
In this article Gawande’s angle is that the problem with the health care is not the Medicare and Medicaid and or the uninsured but in-fact some for-profit hospitals that make their patients a way of revenue. He was able to use many situations to pinpoint this angle. In one instance he explained that in El Paso, some doctors actually earn some of their income in other ways by owning strip malls, apartment complexes, imaging centers, surgery centers, “or another part of the hospital they direct patients to”. By mentioning this example it shows that these doctors use their patients as a way of marketing their own business. I find this shocking I wonder if this is a conflict of interest. How can this be legal? Anyways, rant over. Another example is when Gawande wrote “Then there are the physicians who see their practice primarily as a revenue stream.” then he followed by stating that they would buy their own Doppler machine and do the test’s themselves that way the insurance money goes straight to them instead of the hospital. Gawande uses several examples and quotes from experts to make his angle quite clear. This brings me to my next point interviews.
By having many interviews Gawande was able to set a tone with anecdotes. In one instance he mentions that he walked into a boardroom of a Hospital at Renaissance. He met several managers of this hospital where all are pleasant and polite except the CEO. By doing this you could feel the smugness of this person and you knew at that moment, no matter what Gawande asked him he would be defensive. This is what he ended up getting. This person listed four reasons why America’s health care was in trouble. And in the end he was defensive for sure, “But not in McAllen. The clinicians here, at least at Doctors Hospital at Renaissance, “are providing necessary, essential health care,…We don’t invent patients” This situation is also another example of action that Gawande continues to provide.
Though his feature wasn’t like a Sylvester Stallion action packed movie it was full of moments that wowed me, which I define as action. I could list 10-15 of them but instead I am going to provide a couple. One was when he wrote,
“In a few cases, the hospital executive told me, he’d seen the behavior cross over into what seemed like outright fraud. ‘I’ve had doctors here come up to me and say, ‘You want me to admit patients to your hospital, you’re going have to pay me’.”’
He defiantly got my attention there. Now yes he had many examples of how these for-profit hospitals are fraudulent so I’m also going to mention some alternatives for the other side of possible treatment as a patient, that got my attention which I imagine was what he was trying to do. He started by talking about the Mayo clinic in Minnesota. The second attention grabber was when he wrote,
“It pooled all the money the doctors and the hospital system received and began paying everyone a salary.”
Wow, that amazed me which I believe was his intention.
By using all of these factors Gawande, was able to capture his 35-65 year old audience. Not only for these reasons but because of the timely issue. With the health-care reform still fresh off the governments table it is a fresh issue that everyone is concerned about. Now the reason I said it is between 35-65 is because this article came out of The New Yorker but I believe that this article needs to be presented to as many people as possible, age should not be a factor.
So what should I steal from Gawande’s writing style? I think the question should be, are you going to steal everything from his writing style? And the answer is yes. Gawande did a wonderful job at getting several interviews, using anecdotes to entice the reader and being able to keep his sources anonymous. I found that his sources is what made is story real and believable. I know that his sources would not have talked as much as they did if they were not anonymous. Like I said before I worked at a hospital and first hand it is true physicians would get upset if they had to do surgery on a Medicaid or Medicare patient because they, “didn’t get paid enough”. This story was remarkable and it makes me think that the health-care crisis can be fixed, just if people worked as a team.
Home at Last
18 Apr 2011 5 Comments
Just imagine you are driving your car, listening to your favorite CD, while eating your favorite treat and you come to a stop light and a man is standing at the corner holding a sign that says, “Homeless. Anything helps”. What are you compelled to do in this situation? Do you give the man money? Food? Do you drive on by and regretfully forget about him after a few minutes? John Alexander is not a person to forget. Also, he wouldn’t be a man holding a sign; actually he is holding a newspaper called the Denver Voice, a work program and advocate for the poverty ridden and homeless.
John who likes to be called Johnnie, wasn’t always homeless in-fact 20 years ago he lived the American dream, he had a wife, three children, a mortgage and his own business. He never even had a cigarette or an alcoholic drink. Then life changed for Johnnie when he tried crack cocaine.
“The road of drugs was an expressway and I was in the fastest lane…Everything that happened occurred within a four-month period. After traveling on the road of drugs it only took 120 days for me to reach the road of homelessness.” said Johnnie.
Within those four months Johnnie’s wife and children moved to California. Johnnie had lost his family, his house and his business. Johnnie doesn’t talk much about the 20 year stretch when he was homeless, except that he traveled all over America,
“…because I was trying to run away from everything and start my life all over. You know, run away from myself.”
The Denver Voice a salvation for many and for Johnnie a lifesavor. A year and a half ago Johnnie spent most of his days selling his art-work to pay for his drug addiction. One day while trying to sell his art-work and running low on money he ran into his brother, Jerome walked up to Johnnie with a stack of the Denver Voice cradled between his arm and his chest. Jerome told Johnnie that all he would have to do is show up and go through orientation and they will give him 10 free papers to start. Then after that he needed to purchase the papers at 25 cents a piece and sell them for a dollar donation. Johnnie looked at his brother and back at the papers compeletly speechless, he knew after looking at how happy his brother was that this may be a way to go.
The Denver Voice is a work program whose mission is to inform the public about poverty. Amanda who is the vendor program coordinator of the Denver Voice explained street papers like the Denver Voice publish work from the homeless community so that the public are able to see, “that human side of the people and have everyone’s voice be heard instead of being ignored.” said Amanda.
Denver Voice has been in existence for 10 years. However, in the spring of 2006 it stopped publication until June of 2007 when Rick Barnes rescued the paper. Johnnie is very thankful for what Rick has done for him and fellow vendors.
On September 26th, 2008 Johnnie started at the Denver Voice, although he hadn’t broken his dependency on drugs and his real battle began. He would sell the newspapers during the day and then do drugs at night. Some nights he wouldn’t sleep either because of the high or because of his guilt of being high when he knew that he had become close to the people who picked up the Denver Voice from him. He said, “I felt like a deceiver, a liar in the lowest form. I felt guilt, shame. I felt like I betrayed all the people that I had met.”
Johnnie is sober today and has been for a year and a half.
Johnnie spends about 9 to 15 hours a day on the Auraria campus vending the paper at the Colfax and Auraria light-rail station. Johnnie struggled with getting this spotand it took a year for him to be able to vend there without being pestered by security or police. Now he is the only vendor that has a permit to vend at the Auraria campus. An accomplishment that has made it possible for him to be one of the top vendors in Denver. Johnnie constantly is approached by people who come by to give him hugs, handshakes, and hello’s.
One student in particular, Robbie, had a huge impact on Johnnie selling at the Auraria campus. When Johnnie first started vending at the Auraria campus he was getting discouraged when people weren’t responding to his, “Dollar Donation, help the homeless program”
Then, Robbie came right up to him and asked “what do have there?”
And a friendship was built and Johnnie knew this was the right place for him. Now an hour doesn’t go by without someone coming by to see him.
One day a young man, that Johnnie had become very close to, handed him a blackberry phone and a note(which was from the young man’s mother). The note read,
“I think you are doing great and great things and I hear you are always having problems with your phone, so I want to give you this phone and it’s free for you as long as you want it. I’m going to pay for it. And that includes text messaging surfing the web all the things you can do on a smart phone these days.”
Johnnie showed off that phone with such pride and described the gift as two blessing, one for the phone and the other was the note (the note was soft and wrinkled as if it had been read over a hundred times).
Johnnie has had a following of sorts and receives gifts often. The gifts can range from a blackberry phone to an expensive drink from starbucks. He joked by saying,
“People are looking at me saying you have a fourteen dollar ice tea in your hand and you’re asking me for a dollar…you can see it in their eyes what they are saying.”
Johnnie is no longer homeless, in-fact he has two homes an apartment in Capital Hill and the Auraria campus. Five months ago John got an apartment in Capitol Hill where he said, “It’s the first time I have had a key to my own place in 20 years.”
Amanda lives in capital hill so on occasion she will see him while she is walking her dogs. She mentioned that sometimes she will see John carrying a lot of things and he once said to her, “Look-it I got a down comforter and I got all these pillows and I got them for like two bucks.” She continued to say, “…he is carrying all this stuff and you know [he had] like that proud first apartment walk.”
However, he doesn’t need a key to his other home at the Auraria campus. Johnnie feels that,
“Now I have a big family”, when it comes to the students and faculty at Auraria.
Since being at the campus Johnnie has been approached by professors who have asked him to speak for students about his life and his experience with the Denver Voice. This isn’t the only time that Johnnie has been asked to speak in front of a crowd. Last year, the Denver Voice had their annual fair where they asked Johnnie to speak in regards to him being one of the top vendors in Denver. Speaking isn’t Johnnie’s only frame of expertise he has also been published in the Denver Voice three times. One of his stories “ All Roads Can Lead to Home(lessness)” was awarded by the North American Street Newspaper Association(NASNA) as best vendor essay in 2010. NASNA is street paper industry in America and Canada. However, street papers also in Europe and various locations around the world. NASNA said that Johnnie,
“looks at his own situation as a homeless VOICE vendor with the detachment and honesty of a professional journalist”
These skills have ultimately encouraged Johnnie to go to college for public speaking and creative writing. Johnnie hopes to enroll into college in the upcoming fall semester pending on financial assistance. When asked what part of Johnnie’s day is the best he replied,
“When the thought hits me that ‘hey, you really enjoy what your doing and where you are at in life and where you are headed to.’ And its just whenever that thought hits me it reminds me. …I think I might go home that’s really something after 20 something years I haven’t been able to say that. That’s a good part of the day.”
Feature Response: The Gospel According to Regas Christou
30 Mar 2011 2 Comments
Before reading the Article The Gospel According to Regas Christou by Patrick Doyle I had only heard gossip that Christou was part of a Greek mafia. But after reading Doyle’s compelling profile of Christou I am still on the fence about his mafia involvement. Doyle did an astonishing job at capturing Christou’s personality. Doyle maintained a two sided argument about how clubs should be ran.
Anecdote
In Doyle’s introduction, “ THIS LITTLE GREEK GUY is going to kill me. We’re dashing through The Church, his best-known nightclub, and I’m desperately trying to keep up.” was a great anecdote it made me feel like I was in the club with him and exhausted. This wasn’t the only time that Doyle used a anecdote, he used several within the feature which helped the reader get a full picture of what Christou does on a daily basis.
Action:
This whole article is full of action. Doyle is able to capture this by using examples of police reports, and or the vulgar quotes from Christou. You can’t help but read more to find out what Christou is going to say next. A lot of people who live in Denver know who Christou is and how he is a conterversal person and Doyle did an amazing job at highlighting that.
Angle:
At first I was assuming that this was going to be a story just about Christou’s life. But infact Doyles angle is the lack of undercover police in Christou’s clubs. He used quotes to show both sides of why there isn’t any police help in these clubs. I found this interesting because many people don’t know that or at least I didn’t know that. Doyle writes, “Gerald Whitman sent a memo to Sanchez, which told the chief that off-duty officers would be prohibited from working at any clubs owned by the Christou family.”
Audience:
The main audience is for people who live in Denver. However, the audience that he is specifically trying to reach are the people who where impacted by any killings that happened at clubs in general. This can be the police or citizens that where upset about the Darrent Williams killing or any other killing that happened because of a gun man.
What can I steal from this feature:
In many ways I can steal from this article. I can steal the way Doyle uses sarcasm through quotes. For example when he quoted Christou who said, “Everything I’m telling you, you can double-check,triple-check. If you ever catch me lying, call me a fucking asshole.” I found this brilliant because he not only got the attention of the reader but he got the attention Christou.
Become A Football Star, But It Will Cost You Your Childhood
28 Mar 2011 1 Comment
By Ursula Romaine
When it comes to captivating a profile feature what does it in tell? In order to achieve this a story needs to keep its audiences attention while maintaining a voice that is so loud that you can’t help but listen. Mike Sager who wrote Todd Marinovich: The Man Who Never Was achieves this captivating story by using anecdotes of Marinovich’s life while foreshadowing specific events that will entrige the reader to continue throughout the article. Todd Marinovich: The Man Who Never Was is a profile feature about a ex-professional football player who is a recovering drug addict. Sager explains Marinovich’s life in an eighteen page feature.
Sager does a remarkable job at foreshadowing in order to keep his male audiences attention throughout the feature. On the first page of the feature Sager writes this:
“…loose limbed and physically confident, seemingly unconcerned, revealing nothing of the long and tortured trail he’s left behind.”
By doing this Sager is letting the reader know that he is going to explain what “tortured trail” Marinovich has traveled.
In the beginning of the story Sager uses an anecdote of a little league football game of eighth graders. Marinovich talks to the youngsters to give them a pep talk. Sager did this to contrast Marinovich’s own experience with little league as an eighth grader.
Knowing that Marinovich played as an eighth grader Sager was also able to show that Marinovich was a special football kid. He was able to show that Marinovich was pushed to the limit. By showing that Marinovich had a lack of childhood due to sports and training with his father Marv, Sager used this as his angle to point out that Marinovich was a junkie because of football and his father. He showed this at the very end of the article where he wrote:
“How much effect do you think that Marv and sports and all contributed to you turning to drugs?…‘I don’t know how to answer that,’ Todd says at last. ‘I really have very few answers.’
‘That’s kind of what it seems like. A little.’
Twenty seconds.
‘No thoughts?’[Sager asks Marinovich]
‘I think, more than anything, it’s genetic. I got that gene from the Fertigs — my uncle, the Chief. They were huge drinkers. And then the environment plays a part in it, for sure.’
He lights another Marlboro Red, sucks down the first sweet hit. He rides in silence the rest of the way home.”
As said earlier Sager used a lot of foreshadowing which I truly admired. I feel like that is something that I can take from this article. In my future profile articles I hope to foreshadow an event in order to keep the audiences attention. I will also use his technique of using a secondary source in order to get a different prospective of the profile individual.
Overall, I enjoyed this article and even though I wasn’t the key demographic audience I was still able to relate to it because my father was a high school football coach. And his famous pep talk for the players was, “Stay in the weight room and you will start.” Like Marv my father believed in training in order to achieve particular goals. However, my father wasn’t as overbearing like Marv was.
Snowboarding Is Dead, Go Fishing!
09 Mar 2011 2 Comments
Jill, a 28 year old woman ventures out of her comfortable Denver atmosphere to join the veteran ice fishers for a yearly Twin Lakes Fishing Tournament. For the last 28 years, Jill has gone to the brisk cold mountains, but she has never encountered an experience quite like this one.
Jill is one of many Coloradoans who gets pressured into spending hundreds of dollars on a day trip of snowboarding. But, what if we told you can have fun and not hurt your wallet. Let’s first live vicariously through Jill’s experience of ice fishing and learn how to become an experienced fisher in six easy steps.
She grabs the car seat tightly with her fingers when she sees the parked vehicles on the ice. Then she states, “We can drive on the ice?”
Being aware of the ice is very important. The Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) gives examples of where not to go on the ice, “Beware of ice around partially submerged objects such as trees, brush, embankments or structures.” According to Steve Sunday Lead Wilderness Ranger a person should not fish near a creek that leads into a lake, this sort of circulation makes the ice thinner. On the right is a look at how to measure the ice before attempting to ice fish.
- How to stay safe on the ice. Courtesy of CDOW
Uses a measuring stick while drilling holes along the way is the best way to measure the ice.
2 inches of ice stay off.
4 inches is safe for people to walk on ice.
6 inches is safe for a snowmobile or ATV
8-12 inches is safe for a small car or small truck
12-15 inches is safe for a medium pickup truck
They approach the check-in desk located in a mobile truck lined with foe fur for warmth, to be greeted by five men in their 50-to-60’s. The men are wearing fatigue attire as if in mid-hunt. After checking in Jill flings her pink scarf to cover her face before entering the frigid mountain air and searches for her fluffy mittens to only find one. She thinks to her-self “Do I know what I got myself into?”
Another step to becoming a successful ice fisher is to dress warm. Layers are a necessity at keeping warm throughout a fishing day. The first layer should be long underwear with your smart wool socks tucked over your pants. The next should be a warm sweater and pants. The final layer and key pieces; waterproof gloves, jacket, pants and boots.
As they roll down the boat ramp in a Chevy Tahoe she looks around the lake for some assurance that there are other females enjoying this long lived sport. She only sees tents on the ice and a few mini-houses.
She understands the use of tents but needs more answers so she asks, “What are those?”
Her boyfriend Vern replies, “There called shanty’s you can sit in there and fish over the hole.”
She replies back “huh” while, she scans the lake swiftly then thinking to herself “Where are the bathrooms?!”
Welcome to the wonderful outdoors, no bathrooms. Unfortunately no solving this problem in the wilderness, just bring toilet paper and hope for a secluded bush. However, if there isn’t a bush near by and you are in the middle of the lake Ineke Leer has some suggestions. Leer has been ice fishing since 1995, and tells us to, “bring a can with a lid, you can utilize that in your fish house(shanty).” The container, can be any kind even if it is an old laundry bottle. Leer continued to state if willing, “pee in the tide bucket.”
They park the truck where 15 other fishers are parked. Vern is eager to drop a line in so he jumps out of the car immediately after the ignition halts with eagerness. Jill on the other hand sits there for a second inhales and exhales while zipping, and buttoning to cover every inch of her body. She steps out of the car looking to Vern through a two inch opening for just her eyes.
He looks at her and chuckles “You think you are covered enough?”
“Do you need help?” she asks as she watch’s him use this metal thing that looks like a three foot long wine opener.
He says “actually I do, can you scoop the ice out?” She picks up a metal scoop to take out the remaining pieces of ice in the water.
When you ice fish it is important to bring all the right tools. The large wine opener mentioned earlier is called an auger. This can be either a gas auger that is less of a workout or a manual auger that you need to crank by hand. In either instance it needs to be drilled through the ice in order to pierce a hole to begin fishing. The metal scoop is to take out remainder pieces of ice so that your sitting line doesn’t get stuck. Also this will show the fisher if their pole moves, which is a sign that you have a bite.
Vern starts prepping for the day putting what looks to her like fish parts on a hook. “What is that?” she asks with complete curiosity.
He replies, “Sucker meat, a Lead head Jig, and a colored tube”.
“The Jig and tube are kind of cute.” she says with excitement.
The couple fished for Lake trout. But, according to Brian Neufuss a veteran fisherman of 23 years uses: Jigs, minnows or leeches to catch a Walleye. His trophy catch: a Walleye which was six and half pounds. When using bait the important thing is to “lift-pause-drop” according to professional fishermen Chase Parsons who just recently placed second in the AIM (Anglers Insight Marketing) Angler of The Year. “Lift-pause-drop” means to lift the fishing pole, then pause and then drop the pole. Parsons’ explained this technique at the Spring Fishing Classic event on February 26 this year.
Hours pass as Jill waits for the fishes to bite, but nothing. She then goes to the cooler that is lined with lunchmeat, water, sodas, cheese and beer. She grabs a beer. Thinking to herself, “maybe this will help.” And just then she notices that the clouds have just risen over Mount Elbert and she grabs her camera and click.
To many veteran fishermen the entertainment is the fishing in itself. But to some newcomers it may seem a little tedious without a camera or beer. The best suggestion is to bring friends who know what they are doing, this way you have the entertainment and the wisdom. Leer suggests to, “bring a friend that you like to chit chat with.” When Leer goes fishing she likes to “lay on the ice and go sight fishing.” This is a way of looking through the ice to watch where the fish are.
Another hour passes, and just an hour before the tournament is over, Jill sees her pole drop she rushes over to it.
Vern yells, “set the hook!”
In her past experience of summer fishing she thankfully knows what that means, which is to pull up on the pole roughly. Unfortunately, she missed it and the fish grabbed her bait. Ten minutes pass and Vern Jumps out of his seat and runs to his pole. Jill watches and waits to see him pull the pole with a firm grip and starts to reel the line in.
Just then he looks over to Jill and smiles. She says, “Did you get it?”
He answers, “It’s a nice one”.
Jill learned what it takes to be an Ice fisherwoman because of the six helpful steps; knowledge of ice safety, what to wear, bathroom techniques, to come prepared, what bait to use and finally keeping entertained.
What would you do if a car accident were to present itself?
16 Feb 2011 1 Comment
Dead Man Driving by Oliver Broudy was about a man who is 38, married with four children who got into an accident and died. But what Broudy did was make this a feature that holds the five essentials to make this a good feature. And those essentials are that he had action, anecdotes, spoke to a specific audience, a specific angle and used a trend issue form. But as a writer what can I steal from his writing technique?
Wow! Broudy had such an outstanding byline. In this byline he wrote this:
“Car crashes happen to other guys, right? Maybe they don’t have your quick reaction time or uncanny ability to multitask behind the wheel. Or maybe they’re simply lesser drivers. If you believe that, let us introduce you to Adam Labar, 1970-2008. We suspect you’ll recognize we hope you’ll learn from him.”
This is a great byline because Broudy immediately captures his audience and grabs their attention. Since this magazine is titled Men’s Health we know that the audience is for men. But as a woman I know plenty of men who think that their driving doesn’t stink. So by Broudy asking “Car crashes happen to other guys, right?…” he is asking a tantalizing question to the men to keep them reading. This isn’t the only instance where Broudy kept the audience’s attention. Within the feature he would put a T-Minus then the time like this e.g.: 00:42:00|| 6:40pm EST. This keeps the reader connected to the situation. It felt like a movie or a like an episode of 24.
How did he portray the anecdotes? In the first instance of Broudy using the T-Minus he introduces LaBar which makes the reader feel connected to him. Broudy starts to explain that LaBar is leaving work for the day. He is a Car salesman and continues to explain how he got the job. By doing this you feel emotionally attached to him. This is what he wrote to signify that, “He was young and the job paid well.” This style continues through the feature. He writes T-Minus and then follows with an anecdote.
Who is reading this feature? We know that the magazine is Men’s Health, so that gives us a hint that the audience is for Men most likely from 30-50 years old. So did he capture their attention? Remember we mentioned the “car crashes happen to other guys, right?…” well we know that that probably got their attention in the beginning but what about the rest of the feature? In my findings I found that Broudy used a lot of things that men could relate to. One he mentioned that Labar was a fan of the known bachelor himself Jack Nicholson and the Pittsburgh Steelers. I don’t believe that we would read that in a Woman’s Health Magazine. So yes he kept his primary audience’s attention.
What was Broudy’s angle? This was my favorite part of the feature. Broudy took a story that would often be found in a Newspaper just written with the basic’s who, what, where, when and how. But Broudy took it way beyond that. He informed people nationally that people get into accidents but it can be prevented. He makes a List at the end of the feature of what to do if an accident where to present itself. Also, he used a lot of statistics or studies about specific driving situations. Broudy includes this, “And yet studies suggest that the better marked a road is, the faster we tend to drive. Researchers call this “risk homeostasis”-the tendency to adjust our behavior to preserve a preferred level of risk”.
Is this a Trend or Issue form? Absolutely, it’s a trend and an issue. How many of us as drivers think that we can multitask and talk on our phone while making a u-turn. Or have been in a situation when our car is on top of a sheet of ice. We all think that we will be fine. There’s not much more that we can say about this except that yes this is a trend and issue form.
What can I steal from this feature? First and for most I would like to steal his ability of using an anecdote and then immediately following it with a statistic or study quote. This makes the journalist keep his credibility. The reader believes the specific anecdote because it is followed with a quote to back it up. Also, I don’t know how I can use the T-Minus in one of my features this was different for me I have never seen anything like it. It really had my interest and yes I am not his particular audience so I was surprised that it got my attention. Overall, I was very impressed by this feature. But I was also, sad about LaBar who died.
A Mile High City and a Magazine to Call its own, 5280
14 Feb 2011 1 Comment
A: The publisher is 5280 publishing incorporated located at 1515 Wazee St suite 400
Q: How often is it published?
A: Monthly and it is $19 a subscription
Q: How much of the content is produced by freelance writers?
A: There are 25 writing staff members. The contributor’s page includes an Editor and publisher, to contributor editors and writers. When looking at the contributors’ page there are no freelance writers printed. When I was looking at the entire magazine of the February 2011 issue only 33 percent of the magazine is written by writers that were not on the contributors’ page.
Q: Are there any special issues?
A: 5280 has three special issues. The first is the Top of the Town which is in the June issue, second is Denver’s Top Doctors in October, and third is the best Restaurant in Denver in the March.
Q: Who is the target audience for 5280?
A: I believe that the target audience is for females between the ages of 30-55 that travel within Colorado. I believe that their secondary audience could be men also from 30-55. They either live in, near, or want to live in Colorado. This group has a college education while having a higher income. While maintaining this status they also hike, mountain climb, and bike. This group is very in tuned with Colorado. They would be concerned if Colorado runs out of water. (April Issue 2010)Or where the reader can take their Valentine date in February. (Feb Issue 2011) In any of the magazines their ads consist of money and glamour. In one particular ad it is evident that the demographic is to the elite. (Feb Issue page 19) Between the Advertisements and the dinning guide this magazine focuses on posh locations like Cherry Creek, Vail, and Boulder.
The reason that I feel that this is the key audience is because in each magazine the focus is Colorado and me being a resident of Colorado I know where the ritzy places are. When I looked over the ads in this magazine I noticed that there are several ads that are focused in high-end places like The Cherry Creek shopping center and as a student I can only sip on my Orange Julius drink while walking by the Tiffany and Co store. One ad helps us pinpoint that audience which is in the February issue 2010 on page 21. This Ad has every example of what the audience wants a prestige hotel in Vail that caters to skiing and the full mountain experience for the person who wants to travel within Colorado. In the article Single in the city (February issue 2011) these individuals are between the ages of 28-55. Identifying the audience’s ages.
Q: What kind of formula does 5280 use?
A: 5280 uses several different forms. They use profiles for any up and coming restaurants. They use Q and A for their column called Life according to. They use trends and issues for their main feature which is usually a well researched article that is located at the center of the magazine.
Q: What regular features, columns and what types of articles does it publish?
A: The regular features are Atmosphere, Best bets, Calendar, Life according to…, in my kitchen, dining guide, eat cheap, and review of restaurant. Each of these sections are regular columns that readers turn to within 5280 to either find a good restaurant, or to find what new art exhibit is in town.
Q: How does the cover attract the attention of the intended audience?
A: 5280 uses headlines that include any of the cities in Colorado to catch their Colorado readers. For example Boulder’s tech boom, What the Cherry Creek Thaw Means for Denver, What’s Next for Stapleton’s Control Tower, Great Stuff Cheap Denver’s best Bargains. These specific cities could entice readers to want to know the scoop.
“special advertising section” label. The label is small and it makes you feel like it is another feature to the issue.
Single In The City online. When looking at this article online I noticed that there were more singles (compared to the printed version) and some where under the age of 30 which I believe the reason for this is that their audience is younger online. Also back issues are available online. The issues went back three years. It made it very easy to see the specialty issues like Denver’s Top Doctors and others. However, I prefer to read the magazine copy. The reason is that I like to open a magazine and feel like I am at ease almost on a break. However, using the internet is easier as a writer who would possible like to write for them in the future.
A: The writers seem to use anecdotes to get the readers attention either in the February 2011 issue when the author Robert Sanchez tells a story about when he was interviewing Tom Tancredo in his car on their way to hunt and Tom got pulled over by a police officer. Using this instance shows Tancredo as a real person. Also he used first person to write the article. This isn’t the first time that a 5280 writer used first person to tell their stories. Actually it is used quite often through out several issues. However, I noticed that when it comes to a trend or Issue form they usually don’t use first person. Which helps 5280 to keep their credibility.
Q: What topics do they cover?
A: They are local stories restaurant, politics, and tourist attractions. Any of these that could influence Colorado residents or it’s simply “I heart Denver” (Feb. 2011 pg 24) pieces.
Q: What angles do they seem to favor?
A: Entertainment, which could include food, travel, and art shows but they include anecdotes to leave the reader feeling emotionally closer to the author. For instance the feature in the January 2011 page 28 written by Jennie Doris a college professor describing her troubles of getting students to do their homework.
Q: How would you rate the quality of the writing?
A: A ten for sure. It is creative and funny. The articles are entertaining.
Q: What did you learn about the secret to success of magazines from this assignment?
A: The secret is to know your audience and build off that. 5280 is successful because it tends to look at Colorado and follow the trends. Also, they focus on there specific ads that would entice the readers to read their issue for the future.
Q:
writersmarket.com to find out how much they pay. (However, you have to subscribe) which is well worth it to know what this magazine requires and pays. However, on the 5280 website has a writer’s guidelines link that a writer can pay attention to. In this link is a quote that is important to pay attention to:
“Departments are generally 800 to 1,200 words and cover everything from travel to sports to politics.”
Another thing to look at as a freelance writer is that since this magazine is a local one its editors write a lot of the features. This could be a bad thing or a good thing for a writer. One could be that they look for freelance writers often because they could get burnt out. Or it could be a bad thing because they don’t often use freelance writers. However, in my findings they do use freelance writers and some of the issues actually use 33% of them.
Boston Review Finalist A Death in Texas Analysis.
07 Feb 2011 1 Comment
In order to analyses a feature or magazine article it is necessary to identify if the author used the five essentials. One is what is the angle? What action is there? Do they use an anecdote? Who is the audience and would this article reach them? And last but not least what form did they decide to use? A Death in Texas by Tom Barry had the five essential things to make it a compelling Magazine Article. So let’s get started.
What is the angle and how is it developed?
To sympathies with a prison inmate is a difficult task and Barry accomplishes this quite well. In his writing he is able to capture what it was like for some of the inmates at this Texas prison. Now, I believe that he used this to develop his angle. I say this because he is trying to tell his reader that medical care in prison’s are lacking and to be honest some people wouldn’t care about murderers and rapist having health care. This thinking doesn’t make it ok for people to die for negligence and Barry was able to identify that in the second paragraph.
“During that time, fellow inmates and his mother, who called the prison nearly every day, had warned authorities that [Jesus Manuel] Galindo needed daily medication for epilepsy and was suffering from severe seizures in the ‘security housing unit,’ which the inmates call the “hole”’.
He continues to bring this story about Galindo back up to make the reader feel the emotions that his mother and fellow inmates were feeling. The reason he used this story was to build his angle which was to show Americans that these for-profit prisons are in fact immoral. For instance:
“Inmates such as those in Pecos are technically in the custody of the federal government, but they are in fact in the custody of corporation with little or no federal supervision.”
What is the action?
From the book Feature and Magazine Writing (FaMG) they wrote “Strong, creative articles contain action.” In this article Barry using action at the beginning. He mentions in the first sentence what the county clerk Dianne Florez noticed “Plumes of smoke were rising outside the small West Texas town of Pecos. “The prison is burning again,”’. This gets the readers attention right away. Allowing the reader to have a feeling of what and where the action is. Not to mention that this book has an action word in the Title Death. According to the book FaMG a good article will have action in the title.
What anecdote did Barry use?
Again FaMG describes an anecdote as a real life experience and it will illustrate them in an article. In this instance Barry uses his developing angle as an anecdote. He uses Gilando’s story about dying, because of the prison’s negligence to his needs of having epilepsy. For instance he quotes Gilando’s father and in this quote it illustrates a father dealing with his loss of his son.
“We don’t understand how there can be so little humanity there in the prison. Animals aren’t even treated as badly as they treated our son, keeping him locked up in the hole so sick and without any company. It was so cruel, and he died sick and afraid.”
What form did Barry use?
There are several different forms that a writer can use and in this instance Barry uses the trends and issues form. According to FaMG this form focuses on an issue in which an expert needs to be interviewed and participants who give their opinion. In many instances Barry uses experts whether that would be Gilando’s attorney to the Justice department and few others to define his points. There for this article uses the Form of Trend or Issue.
Overall this article was informative and I do see why it was a finalist for the Boston Review. The reason is that Barry takes a difficult topic like prison’s and the treatment of inmates and defines what is right and wrong without using an opinion. Many good journalists strive for this through out their career. What I have learned from this article and what I may someday recycle into my own writing is to use many interviews (53 interviews in an average Pulitzer Prize article) and to include many anecdotes to retain my audiences’ attention. However I do need to critique one thing in this article is that there was an abundance of acronyms. This made it difficult to follow at times. I feel like a key was needed to identify each acronym.
Who is Ursula?
26 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment
Biography: Ursula Romaine
It’s time to enter the stimulating world of Ursula Romaine. Currently I’m a sophomore at the Community College of Denver earning my Associates Degree in Liberal Arts with a certificate in Journalism. After graduating, I will transfer to Metropolitan State College for my Bachelors Degree in Photojournalism to help me pursue my passion for photography.
My journey thus far has been exciting with a splash of accomplishment. When I was in high school I took an abundance of photography classes. Some said I was physically attached to my camera. I have always dreamed of becoming a photographer for National Geographic.
I’m not a traditional student in the fact that I didn’t go to college right out of high school. I decided to get a career instead. However, the real world was missing something: I couldn’t follow my dream of becoming a photojournalist.
As well as being a student, I am a part time employee for Lifetouch Portrait Studio. This allows me to gain experience with photography. Plus I am able to use my past experience with photography and incorporate it into portrait photography.
At this time, I am a photographer and writer for Campus Connection, CCD’s student newspaper. I have been working for CC since 2010. My articles have varied from writing about people who practice Islam in the United States to writing about a local band won the “Battle of the Bands” in Denver. During my time at Campus Connection, I have enjoyed seeing how a newspaper works. It’s also such a great feeling to see my work published. In fact I get an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment.
It’s an exciting time for me as a writer and photographer, and I can’t wait to see what my future holds. Someday I will become a photojournalist for National Geographic or a local news medium. In either instance, I will be thrilled, and I am trying to patiently wait. Look out world a determined individual is on the prowl.
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