For my Wikipedia revisions I chose to revise/add to things that I had a lot of knowledge about. The first thing I chose of course had to deal with the New York Jets since they I basically know everything about them. The first thing I chose to do was to revise a few sentences under the 2010: Meadowlands Stadium section of the main entry of "New York Jets". In this section I just clarified that the Giants will be playing the first regular season game in the new stadium while the Jets will be playing the first pre-season game and first Monday Night game. Here is what I wrote: "The Giants will play the first ever regular season game at Meadowlands Stadium on September 12, while the Jets will play the first ever pre season game and host the first Monday night game..." I also added a sentence at the end that said "The stadium has a seating capacity of 82,500." As of now both edits are left untouched.
The other page I chose to revise/add to was the rap group Atmosphere. On his page they left out the fact that he also has 5 studio EP's to go along with his 7 studio albums. So I created a little section under "Studio Discography" with the title of "EP's" and listed his 5 EP's with their titles and dates. As of now that still remains unchanged as well.
It took me a little while to figure out what I intially wanted to write about, but once the idea hit me that I should write about something I'm knowledgeable about it only took a few minutes. It was a good experience, and now that I've created an account I will probably revise and edit a few more pages in the future.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
My First Radio Experience
I called in to my friend Dan Kirk's radio show "Chilling Briefly" on 90.3 the core. It is an independent radio station shared by Piscataway High School of New Jersey and Rutgers University. Piscataway owns the rights to the station but Rutgers runs it. Kirk has a 2 hour radio show every Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. where he plays mostly music but does solicit calls from viewers who request songs and briefly chat. He doesn't get many calls needless to say because it is a small, unfamiliar show, but I figured I would give him a surprise call anyway. I wasn't able to tape the call but I will give a quick overview of what transpired.
I called in during commercial and his partner Ryan answered the phone who acted as the screening producer so to speak. He asked me my name, where I was calling from, and what about. I told him I was a friend of Dan's from home and just wanted to say what's up and request a song. He said "ok, hold on, I'll put you through in a second." Then I heard Kirk's voice and we greeted each other and said hello. He asked me what song I wanted to request and I told him "Three Weeks" by Perpetual Groove. He responded with "good choice" and I said thank you and then we said our goodbyes.
I wanted to keep the call short and sweet because I wasn't quite sure what the nature of his show was because I had never previously listened. I didn't know if he preferred to just have his voice heard and play music or if he enjoyed having other people talk. So for better or worse, I kept it short and sweet.
Overall, it was a quick experience as it didn't take much time for me to reach the station due to its relative anonymity. This was my first call in to a radio show ever and I have to say that I definitely enjoyed the experience. It was especially cool because it was my friend's show but it was also neat because I got to hear my voice on air shortly after. I definitely plan on calling in again either to his show or perhaps to a bigger station.
Calling in to a radio show is like nothing else I have experienced. The closest thing came when I was 13 and sat in the car and listened to my mom called into WDHA 105.5 and win lunch with the band Default at the studio; but this was more personal. It was my voice that I heard on the radio, not my mom's. I think that after this project I will attempt to listen to my friend's radio show more often because I doubt that many people have friends with their own show and this is something that I now plan to not take for granted.
Kirk's show can be heard from http://thecore.fm/public/shows/people/dkrl.htm every Friday from 11-1. He plays a variety of music ranging from jam to reggae.
I called in during commercial and his partner Ryan answered the phone who acted as the screening producer so to speak. He asked me my name, where I was calling from, and what about. I told him I was a friend of Dan's from home and just wanted to say what's up and request a song. He said "ok, hold on, I'll put you through in a second." Then I heard Kirk's voice and we greeted each other and said hello. He asked me what song I wanted to request and I told him "Three Weeks" by Perpetual Groove. He responded with "good choice" and I said thank you and then we said our goodbyes.
I wanted to keep the call short and sweet because I wasn't quite sure what the nature of his show was because I had never previously listened. I didn't know if he preferred to just have his voice heard and play music or if he enjoyed having other people talk. So for better or worse, I kept it short and sweet.
Overall, it was a quick experience as it didn't take much time for me to reach the station due to its relative anonymity. This was my first call in to a radio show ever and I have to say that I definitely enjoyed the experience. It was especially cool because it was my friend's show but it was also neat because I got to hear my voice on air shortly after. I definitely plan on calling in again either to his show or perhaps to a bigger station.
Calling in to a radio show is like nothing else I have experienced. The closest thing came when I was 13 and sat in the car and listened to my mom called into WDHA 105.5 and win lunch with the band Default at the studio; but this was more personal. It was my voice that I heard on the radio, not my mom's. I think that after this project I will attempt to listen to my friend's radio show more often because I doubt that many people have friends with their own show and this is something that I now plan to not take for granted.
Kirk's show can be heard from http://thecore.fm/public/shows/people/dkrl.htm every Friday from 11-1. He plays a variety of music ranging from jam to reggae.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
His Job is to Stimulate
"The fact of the matter is that it is not John Ziegler’s job to be responsible, or nuanced, or to think about whether his on-air comments are productive or dangerous, or cogent, or even defensible. That is not to say that the host would not defend his “we’re better”—strenuously—or that he does not believe it’s true. It is to say that he has exactly one on-air job, and that is to be stimulating." -Foster
As I discussed in my previous post, John Ziegler's job as a radio host is to be stimulating and to incite debate and controversy. As Foster describes, it is not his job to be a journalist and comply with the rules of fairness and responsibility, and it is not his job to merely discuss the day's events and give an unbiased account of what happened. Ziegler's job as a good host is to captivate his audience with heated and opinionated claims about controversial topics. Being a talk show host is a job, it's a business, and you are not going to make money if your host simply discusses what has happened. If people want a daily account of the world's events then they can watch the news.
Besides that fact that Ziegler has to talk for about 40 minutes, he seems to have a pretty easy job. And what I mean by easy it that he doesn't have to mince his words since his show is based around his opinions. He doesn't have to worry about losing his job or infuriating his bosses; he simply has to speak into his microphone with the ease of mind knowing that he doesn't have to think about censoring his speech. Many talk radio hosts have been fired (including Ziegler) for inciting gossip and controversy, but it must be a comforting thought for Ziegler knowing that this is his show, and that what he says goes, and his show certainly benefits from this.
As I discussed in my previous post, John Ziegler's job as a radio host is to be stimulating and to incite debate and controversy. As Foster describes, it is not his job to be a journalist and comply with the rules of fairness and responsibility, and it is not his job to merely discuss the day's events and give an unbiased account of what happened. Ziegler's job as a good host is to captivate his audience with heated and opinionated claims about controversial topics. Being a talk show host is a job, it's a business, and you are not going to make money if your host simply discusses what has happened. If people want a daily account of the world's events then they can watch the news.
Besides that fact that Ziegler has to talk for about 40 minutes, he seems to have a pretty easy job. And what I mean by easy it that he doesn't have to mince his words since his show is based around his opinions. He doesn't have to worry about losing his job or infuriating his bosses; he simply has to speak into his microphone with the ease of mind knowing that he doesn't have to think about censoring his speech. Many talk radio hosts have been fired (including Ziegler) for inciting gossip and controversy, but it must be a comforting thought for Ziegler knowing that this is his show, and that what he says goes, and his show certainly benefits from this.
"Host"
I don't really listen to the radio at all, let alone talk radio, so I don't have many people to compare John Zeigler to. If I do listen to talk radio, it's usually the televised versions of the show such as "Mike and Mike in the Morning" or "Fox Football Fone In". The only actual radio show I've ever listened to is "Mike and the Mad Dog" because my dad always had it on in the car when I was younger. David Foster, author of the article "Host" characterizes Mr. Ziegler as a stimulating host, and an entertainer, two characteristics that I figured most radio talk show hosts should have. So in this sense, Ziegler doesn't differ much from the other talk show hosts that I have listened to. Ziegler was hired to give his biased opinions and not to tip-toe around sensitive topics and be politically correct. In this sense, he is a little different from the talk show hosts that I am familiar with. Maybe this is because the talk shows that I have listened to all deal with sports and not politics, so there is less of an opportunity for hosts to talk about their favorite teams and athletes because they have to cater to a national audience who is interested in hearing what they have to say about all of the teams in the league as well as their favorite team. Ziegler's show consists of just his opinons, which he fuses with the day's events. There is a greater possibility for this talk show to be controversial than the sports shows that I listen to, and there in lies the biggest difference.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Not a Fan of Twitter
I'll be honest, I don't like twitter, and if it wasn't for this class I would have never created an account. I just do not see the appeal of following the every day activities of celebrities and high profile people. Even after being on the account for a few days I never checked it, and I could only find 8 people worthy enough of me even following (the bulk of them being athletes and Jets players). I made a vow to my dad that I would never go on this site, but of course I had to break that for the benefit of my grade, sorry dad.
But I do have to admit that it is pretty cool to see how other athletes and famous people interact with each other on a regular basis, because without twitter I don't think they would "talk" as much. For example, I am following Chad Ochocinco because I think he is a riot and a really entertaining guy, and on his home page are tweets between him and another NFL star Shawn Merriman engaging in some competitive banter. This is kind of entertaining because you don't rarely see to high profile NFL players communicating off of the football field.
However, Twitter is a very good way for these celebrities to market themselves and their other blogs, websites, tv shows, or whatever else they are involved in. The only other aspect about Twitter that I appreciate is how sports shows incorporate the athletes tweets into their productions. At times the athletes do have some insightful things to say about their respective sport.
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