I chose this story from SLR because I thought the idea of a sad hotel room was interesting and would be a story full of emotion and depth. The lead definitely introduced that idea of melancholy depth.
Author: Katie
Audio Profile of Rachel Cohen
Here’s my profile of Rachel
Photo Package: Solar System
I chose this package because I’ve always been fascinated by outer space and the solar systems, and new detailed photos of such are really exciting to me. I really liked the format of the photos in the package and how the slideshow was seamless with short and detailed captions. I also thoroughly enjoyed the crispness of a lot of the photos. However, where I feel like it fell short was in the overall abundant quantity. With 73 photos and a lack of real structured organization, it was hard to get the most out of the photo experience.
2016 Election Forecast Infographic
I am in a public opinions class based around the 2016 election with Barry Hollander, so I am very familiar with fivethirtyeight.com. When I read the assignment, I immediately thought of an interactive, infographic-filled story on the forecast of the election. Because the story is made entirely up of infographics, I decided to choose two that really explained the current election in a matter of seconds.
This infographic shows the map of the US, colored in with states each candidate is predicted to win. We’ve all seen this map in practically every election story put out, but what I think confuses a lot of readers (including me) is how it seems like there could be so much red for Trump, and yet Hillary is still winning? Enter infographic #2…
This second infographic helped me to quickly understand and interpret the confusing message of the first, far more common infographic. This graphic, though wonky, is still a map, just laid out as an interpretive guide to electoral votes. By giving each state, no matter how big or small the same size vote, but showing how many votes each state is represented by, readers are able to see more definitively how a confusing concept like electoral votes matter to an election.
These infographic pieces use Tufte’s Principal of Integration of Evidence– including not only words, but images, interactives, diagrams, and symbolic representations of data.
The Handsome Family Podcast
I chose to listen to “The Handsome Family” podcast on NPR’s website. I chose this podcast from the Fresh Air segment of NPR because I have listened to NPR since I was little, riding around in the car with my dad and waking up to it in the mornings and Fresh Air was always the most interesting to me. As a kid, of course, I was never interested in the current events and political discussions on NPR, but the calm, unhurried voices discussing art and culture in artistic detail always appealed to me, even as a child. The first podcast to pop up was also what seemed the most interesting to me.
The description talked about the married couple Rennie and Brett Sparks who write music and the influence of their desert life on their songs. I could already tell that I would enjoy the segment and its detailed topic. The Handsome Family exceeded my expectations, discussing not only their musical sound, but also their individual mental illnesses, religious influences, and life as a couple. The interview was incredibly well-rounded and kept me extremely interested. Afterwards, I was ready to look up the band and download a few songs!
Voiceovers:
- Terri Gross– NPR’s Fresh Air, interviewer
- Rennie Sparks– vocalist and musician of The Handsome Family
- Brett Sparks– vocalist and musician of The Handsome Family
Brainstorming Ideas
20 Story Ideas
- Community Events
– Local shops sponsoring events around town to help themselves and each other
- Farmers Markets
– Exploration of the multiple farmers markets around Athens
- Coffee shop lifestyle
– What’s the fascination with local coffee shops? Why are they any better than Starbucks?
- Local, Local, Local
– Co-ops, farm to table, farmers markets, small businesses; a millennial trend that isn’t really a trend at all – the return to local-based economy
- Hipsters
– What does it mean to be hipster? Is there a definitive point at which you achieve ‘hipster status’ or is it what you make of it?
- Having it All
– The “having it all” lifestyle phenomenon—a woman is no longer permitted to just work or just be a stay at home mom, she has to try and have it all or is seen as lazy. What kind of lifestyle does this expectation entail?
- Trend Alerts
– How are trends established? Where is the black market of ideas from which trendy stores receive their insider info? How do they catch on in time to stay relevant?
- Big bad Outfitters
– How are small town boutiques surviving in the face of massively funded stores like Gap and Urban Outfitters sneaking into downtown turf?
- Thrift Stores
– The draw of trendy hipsters to thrift stores since Macklemore’s song came out
- Health Food
– How to maintain a trendy health food lifestyle on a college student’s budget
- Fun for Pennies
– How to find and attend the best events of the season on a college student’s budget
- Hip with the Youngsters
– The story of boomers and Gen-x-ers and how they stay adrift in a sea of ever changing tech and trends
- Grocery Underdogs
– EarthFare, Daily Co-op, and La-Z Shopper—how do they compete with stores like Kroger and Publix?
- Nesting in Athens
– How students establish a connection with Athens when they’re only here for 4 years (or a few more)—how they make Athens their home
- Music Scene
– Athens is known for its music scene, but how can fledgling musicians compete in such an intimidating music market? How do they get going? What is the process they go through to get a foothold?
- Grad Student among Children
– How is it being a grad student in a town full of undergraduates when every event is aimed at a younger crowd?
- Special Snowflake
– In a trendy town like Athens, only the fresh survive. How do the hippest places in town differentiate themselves to stay alive in a dog-eat-dog trend-focused town?
- The Plight of the GDI
– With the massive Greek population at UGA, it can sometimes feel difficult to feel apart of the action of the university and feel as if you’ve made a concrete group of friends—how do GDIs find a niche beyond the obvious Greek life?
- Technological Integration
– Apps, widgets, social media, and geocaching—how does evolving with technological innovation keep the Athens lifestyle fresh and moving forward?
- Bars vs. Pubs
– The advantages and disadvantages of pubs and bars—which style of social drinking atmosphere is better?
Profile Ideas:
- Hipsters– this is the perfect story for which to conduct a profile. In a hipster town like Athens, it wouldn’t take too much digging to find a hipster to profile– their personal style, what it means to them to be a hipster, etc. and apply it to the movement in general. Or better yet, find a sort of store that supplies fashion and trendy items to said hipsters and do a profile of the owner on what their motivations are and how they themselves contribute to the ‘hipster’ lifestyle.
- Community Events-– this would be another prime story to shape as a profile. The local boutiques for which Athens is known are constantly sponsoring and organizing events for the community. One example is the Cine Fashion Show from August. I could profile the coordinator for the event, Rachel Barnes of Dynamite. She is not only the event coordinator for Cine, but is also a manager at Dynamite Clothing. She would be the perfect person to do a profile on to cast a light on community events in Athens.
Trend Ideas:
- Thrift Stores — we all know of Macklemore’s wildly popular song ‘Thrift Shopping’ which called attention to a potentially massive new frontier for clothes shopping. After his song was released, though hipsters would argue that they always shopped at thrift stores, collecting the newly cool-again pieces from the 80s and 90s for dirt cheap prices at thrift shops became the coolest way of shopping for fashion. This is a cut and dry example of trends and simply talking to fashion merchandising majors and thrift store owners would provide adequate source material.
- Local, local, local— hip towns across the country are jumping aboard the buy local bandwagon and insisting that the best and only way to ensure merchandise and food products’ authenticity and quality is to locally source the products. Farmers’ Markets have always been founded on this principle, but in recent years, the backlash against big business has driven the masses to a new wave of cultivation. Small, local vendors are selling in bigger name stores, storefront family businesses are popping up everywhere, and even big name food corporations like Chipotle and Barberitos are being founded on the local farming principle. This is a perfect example of delving into a developing trend.
Pick’em Ideas:
- Behind the Scenes– Farmers Markets— it would be incredibly simple to go behind the scenes at a local farmers market in Athens. The Athens Farmers Market meets every Saturday in Bishops Park and is FULL of local vendors. I could get in contact with the lead coordinators of the market and find out not only how the market came to be but watch the day-to-day or hourly functioning of the market on Saturdays to explore the extent of the project and how it affects the community.
- Localizer– Big Bad Outfitters— a well known battle in our country is the fight between big and small business; the fight between capitalistic gain and local distinction. Small business Saturdays are a big movement in this fight between store types, for instance. To localize this issue, one needs to look no further than downtown Athens. Urban Outfitters has moved into a large commercial space downtown leaving controversy in its wake with townies and students decrying it for pushing out the ‘little guy’ boutiques and small businesses so ingrained in Athens’ downtown. An exploration into this smaller instance when compared to the larger issue in the nation would be an interesting perspective.
Budget Critiques
- I understand that the budget is probably about trends, but beyond that, I fail to see a connection between the stories. It would be more helpful to focus in a little more to be able to form a few good contacts that can be reused for multiple stories– someone to ask about social media, someone to ask about the trend in the community, someone to ask about the trend itself, etc.
- Some of the story ideas like the Barre fitness and wedding story fail to provide source ideas. How would the writer be able to find sources to interview about each? Perhaps narrowing the focus and establishing more specific ideas for an angle would help the writer establish better contacts who would be able to answer more tailored interview questions and put out a better story in general.
- Finally, I believe the first story idea is the most fleshed out and it is revealed to be the writer’s forte of sorts. Perhaps the theme of the first story, the connection of physical and mental fitness, is the theme through which to establish a connection between stories. This theme can be applied as a more specific angle for the Barre story and the CAPS story– create an underlying connective theme of the effect of physical activity on mental wellness and I believe the stories would more easily connect and shape themselves.
Organization sources
Old Stories– K. Cline
This article explores how Athfest brings the city together and cements the Athens music culture to our identity as a city. The article is interesting and relevant because Athfest is still a major festival each year, though the bands change. Music is a huge part of Athens lifestyle and entirely important to this beat.
This article is from the AJC and centers around a specific fashion boutique in Atlanta that dares to usurp the standard fashion motifs of the early 2000s. Though the article is about a specific store in a different city than Athens, it remains relevant as fashion and lifestyle is all about coming up with the new and daring and opposing the norm.
This somewhat comically written article from the AJC in 2005 is hitting on a then unknown trend of marking up common articles of clothing. A $100 tee shirt was unheard of when the article was put out, but is now common-place, if not still laughable, in today’s culture. With every celebrity starting their own fashion line and putting out exorbitantly priced basics, this article is a touchstone to the beginning of a major trend.
Interview with Rachel Barnes
Background: Rachel Barnes, coordinator of the Clueless Fashion Show at Cine (8/27), manager and “finder” of merchandise at Dynamite Clothing.
Me: “So I was told at Community that you were actually the one that started the idea of the fashion show. Is this the first year of it?”
Rachel: “Yeah, well, it’s probably not going to be a recurrent [sic] thing, necessarily. I am on the events committee at Cine. So for the last year and a half now– almost two years, I guess, I’ve been helping with different events. They get a fun movie in and I try and come up with awesome stuff to do with it… But my dream– what I’ve always wanted to do at Cine– was to get Clueless, the movie there for everyone to see and then have the fashion show to tie in with it. And some gift from the god[s] the last movie of the summer series this year is Clueless and I’m getting to do this!”
Me: “That’s great. So how long have you been wanting this?”
Rachel: “Well, probably from the first fashion show I ever did, which was like, 2007 maybe? Almost ten years ago. I had it in my head. I either wanted to do a photo shoot or a fashion show. It was my favorite film. It was probably the most influential film in my life, as far as fashion goes. So it was a no-brainer. And then to be able to tie it into a movie theater where they can actually play it– it was too perfect.”
Me: “What’s your role here at Dynamite?”
Rachel: “I am a manager and I sometimes help ‘find’ with the merchandise… and overall awesome employee. We all run the instagrams and social media.”
Me: “How do you come up with the looks for the fashion show?”
Rachel: “So I really wanted to include the community on this because the more people involved with Cine, the better. Cine is just such an awesome non-profit movie theater that Athens is so lucky to have. So I wanted more of the community to be involved, so in that sense, I decided to have multiple clothing stores or boutiques involved. Dynamite Clothing, Agora Vintage, Athens Atomic, Community, and Entourage are the five stores that we’re featuring. I’ve got five different local stylists in town that are just awesome fashionable people that are paired with the store and they are picking out the looks based on the characters’ outfits in the film. I’ve got models that look just like the characters, then we’re going to project the image of the character from the movie up on the wall while the models are walking down and there will be a panel of fashionistas, three local, fashionable ladies that grew up in a time when Clueless was an influential movie– they’re going to be talking about the comparisons of the outfits… I just wanted to do something a little more interactive. I’ve been doing fashion shows for so long now, I thought it’d be fun to have one where people are talking about what’s being worn as opposed to everyone just watching the models go down the runway.”