Tag Archives: journalism

President Cabrera’s AMA

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Earlier today, George Mason University President Angel Cabrera hosted an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on reddit.com

The new president of GMU was available to answer any question posed by a reddit.com user from 3-4pm. The session was full of a diverse set of questions for Cabrera. Ranging anywhere from questions about educational funding to questions about Cabrera’s personal involvement with GMU, the AMA session was informational, to say the least.

One user asked Cabrera if GMU is making an effort to distance itself rom its reputation as a commuter school. Cabrera responded by stating, “Can’t fit us in an easy category!”

“Any chance you could show us a picture of what your individual office looks like?” one user asked. Cabrera answered with a link to a twitpic of his office. This was a nice gesture from our president — showing us his modest workspace.

President Cabrera's Office -- Mason Hall

President Cabrera’s Office — Mason Hall

When asked why he chose GMU, Cabrera explained that our campus is, “awesome, diverse, innovative and in a perfect location.” Although his answers were mostly ambiguous, the information he conveyed was highly informative — mostly of his personality.

A seemingly upset user asked Cabrera why he didn’t support the sports here at Mason, only to feel the power of the president’s sarcastic side.

“I go to all the games! Where were you? Don’t you support athletics?” Cabrera said.

It was a novel idea to get the input of our new school president in a public forum where anyone could ask anything. Cabrera sure gave us some insight on a personal level.

News As a Collaborative Effort

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Chapter 3 of Mark Brigg’s JournalismNext discusses the ideas of news as a collaborative effort between journalists and their audiences.

Crowdsourcing: According to Briggs “harnesses the sustained power of community to improve a service or information base.” In a sense, it uses the power of the many readers to aid with the few journalists. Crowdsourcing allows for a more efficient way to report on news in a more insightful manner

  • Firefox uses a volunteer team under the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation (giving Microsoft a run for its money)
  • Wikipedia allows for users to post on individual pages (Encyclopedia Britannica can not keep up with updating articles and information)

Open-Source Reporting: A form of transparent, distributed news reporting used to benefit the audience while acquiring benefits from the audience. While a news story is being formulated, bits of pertinent information can be posted.

Types of Open-Source Reporting

  • Beatblogging: A method of forming a network on a traditional beat then leading a discussion in order to provide more in-depth coverage on a story
  • Link Curation: Linking to other news outlets (news organizations used to think that if they sent readers somewhere else, they wouldn’t return…Google sends readers away but they come right back)

Pro-Am Journalism: Allows an audience to publish directly to the same platform as professional journalists, thus sharing news and making it interactive

  • Neighborsgo.com allows for Dallas, Texas citizens to post small news items (A newspaper staff can’t get to every single event in a community)
  • MyCommunityNOW uses the same concept but in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It uses the best submissions for local print editions

Parking An Ongoing Issue at Mason

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Even after construction has ended around the Patriot Center, parking at George Mason still seems to agitate students.

Over the Fall 2012 semester construction was being done around the Braddock Road entrance to campus. Now, in the Spring 2013 semester, the construction has concluded. Parking, however, is still an issue among commuting students. There seems to be too little spots in the lots around campus. Of course, if you get here at certain times throughout the day parking is easier to find.

Parking

“Now I have an early morning class and I’m one of the first people here,” says Jose Lechuga. “Last year I had later classes so all the spots were filled.” Lechuga has been commuting to Mason for a year now and still finding the same issues with parking.

If you’re early there are enough spots. If you’re late the lots are full. Unfortunately for Mason commuters, many of them have later classes.