Pirates Baseball 2011: The Year That Wasn't

Thanks for breaking my heart this year, boys.  At least you made a compelling narrative.

Twitter follows

This week I started following:
@jtaillon19- Pittsburgh Pirates 2010 draft pick
@Dejan_Kovacevic- Trib Sports Columnist
@jprutherford- St. Louis Blues Beat writer
@STUHACKEL- hockey writer for Sports Illustrated
@Kurkijan_ESPN- Reporter for ESPN's Baseball Tonight
@jaysonst- ESPN writer
@JayBilias- ESPN analyst
@PRI- Public Radio International
@davikenflik- NPR media correspondent
@ThisAmerLife- This American Life.  Narrative at its best, right?
@iraglass- I mean, it's Ira Glass. What else needs to be said?

TV to Web success

ESPN is an example of a media outlet that has successfully made the leap from television to truly hybrid.  During programs, they share tweets from users as well as national poll responses made on their website.  I think what truly makes this a hybrid is the way that the experience of using one enhances the other.

Source Time!

One source I plan to bring to the table is The University's Residence Life Staff which would mean interviewing Resident Directors as well as possibly administrators.  The website and other resources associated with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board could also be potentially really useful (because their website is actually good for more than figuring out how much a handle of vodka costs!)  This article which ran in Pittsburgh City Paper argues that LCB is an absurd idea, so that might be an interesting idea to explore.  This site gives the specifics of underage drinking laws in Pennsylvania, although I'd also like to work in how drinking laws affect those of us who are grown ups as well.  Some of us do choose to binge drink, so this might be an interesting angle.  Overall, I'm just really excited to get to work on such an interesting project.

Reading is Believing

Blogs are terrifying.  Thanks to recent hacking scandals, even television news companies are obviously vulnerable via social media. I try to follow certain rules when decided what to trust and how much to trust in general.


No matter how much we all trust wikipedia, no one trusts wikipedia in the slightest.  We know better.  Some stuff online we know needs to be double checked.  Tweets, comments, wikianything... we know better.  Blogs fall into that grey area though.  What they’re saying is usually true, but what if today’s the day?


My mentor at my internship was discussing how to go about finding sources for a piece he’d assigned me.  “Check out blogs, but remember:  Blogs are just blogs.  They’re, you know, blogs.”  And I do know blogs.  But what does that even mean?  I have a blog.  I’m pretty trustworthy, but I’m not actually. And I know every site isn't either. So here are the aforementioned rules.:

Rule #1:  If it requests that a user “likes/dislikes” something as the gimmick of site, I think it warrants a double check.

Rule #2: If it seems ridiculous, it warrants a double check.  My favorite example of this is cracked.com. I love cracked. It's hilarious. Sometimes it's right. Sometimes it's ridiculous.

Rule #3: If it's a news site that exists in other spheres, I'll be more likely to trust it. NPR has a lot to lose giving me news that isn't credible.

So those are the basics. I'm afraid to dig any deeper, because conspiracy theories terrify me. I'm not saying I'm right, and I'm definitely not saying these rules are timeless. This is just what works for me right now. You can't believe everything you read, but why read if you won't believe anything?

(While we're on the topic of what online we can actually trust when we read it, The Atlantic posted this. I think I trust The Atlantic enough to buy it.)

One more for the list

I'd like to add A.J. Jacobs to the list of nonfiction writers I absolutely adore.  He's hilarious but manages to treat some really touchy issues very well.

Introduction

My name's Samantha Bertocchi and I'm a 22 year-old senior at the University of Pittsburgh studying nonfiction writing.  After  finish school I'd like to go on to be a sports writer.  Through this course I hope to develop skills that will make me valuable to potential employers.

As far as nonfiction writing goes, I fell in love with it in junior high when I read My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber.  I thought it was hilarious.  He created the best stories out of seemingly normal things.  That excitement in the ordinary is what got  me first interested in nonfiction as a genre.

I also love Bill Bryson similarly for his ability to make anything more interesting than it originally appeared.  Most nonfiction I read and write is narrative based and I'm also looking forward to being exposed to a variety of types of writing this semester.