Magzalez’s eyes on media

It’s something that we all have to come to grips with. We are graduating at a terrible time. The economy is in a slump, and our industry is suffering. I recently wrote about South Florida’s newspaper industry and how it’s in the crapper.

South Florida isn’t the only place feeling the pinch. Thousands of journalism-related jobs are being eliminated around the country. People are getting laid off, and positions are being eliminated.

Erica Smith at graphic designr made a map showing some of the journalism-related layoffs across the country. It’s pretty well done, all be it incomplete. I’m sure there are much more jobs than this that have been lost, but it’s testament to our fears of a tougher and tougher job market.

Here’s to hoping things can take a turn for the better, sooner rather than later.

Link came via my buddy at The Miami Herald, M.T.

I am magzalez!

So I’ve recently climbed aboard the Twitter wave. Twitter is what I and others call microblogging. I had my reservations about it before, but I accept it as a fun social medium.

So without futher ado, here is a list of some of the people I follow on Twitter and why:

• Selfmadepsyche: Megan Taylor is a cool cat. She is a former classmate of mine and has been doing the Twitter thing for quite some time. It’s fun to know what she’s doing because she’s so damn zany. Mainly though, she just knows where this whole online journalism thing is heading.
• Schwanksta: Ken Schwencke is a smart guy. He knows his programming and how it can help journalism. He’s also the managing editor of online media at The Alligator.
• gotoPlanB: Dave Stanton is the coolest journalism teacher around. He’s keeping me filled in on what’s around the corner for online journalism.
• Greglinch: Greg Linch keeps in the know for online journalism. He also is a former co-intern with me and currently interning at The Miami Herald. Mainly I just like to see what’s coming out of there.
• UFWebAdmin cause that’s where I work.
• Wimbledon because tennis is what I love. I just found this one today.

The main thing I’ve seen with Twitter is that it is fun and useful so long as you keep it under control. Just like your RSS, only subscribe if you are going to read it or else you’ll be inundated. The other thing is that the whole microblogging idea, to me anyways, is like the new online note taker. You put your thoughts into Twitter, and you collect your thoughts in a blog post. It doesn’t have to be all business though, which is what makes it fun.

Soon I’ll do a post about who I WISH had Twitter.

This is the latest video I’ve shot. I did this on Father’s Day and edited it yesterday.

I give it a B- because I probably could have gotten better b-roll, then again, there’s always something that could have been done better.

The video seems to be broken on The Alligator site, but here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Let me know what you think.

Newspapers around the country are feeling the pinch of the same economic downturn that has gas prices going up and job availability going down.

My local connections:

• South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Managing editor retiring, position not being filled
• The Miami Herald: Miami Herald to reduce its staff by 250
• Blog Post from Bob Norman’s blog at The New (Broward-Palm Beach) Times 

Here is the video I shot at the Bo Diddley tribute here in Gainesville. Overall I give this video a C+.

I really liked the intro. That harmonica lick sets the mood for the rest of the video: fun and musical. The sound is pretty good considering I used the camera’s microphone for the music.

Let me know what you think.

You can also see this video on The Alligator’s multimedia page.