How to use a Zoom H4 digital recorder

Writing ledes

Here are links to some of the ledes/stories we discussed in class:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/recap;_ylt=AnZJ9cVtR1EXl4Tu_gkx438isLYF?gid=20091004017&prov=ap

http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_13485845

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/football/wires/story/1185412.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Olympics/idUSPEK32492120080816

The City's Eight Road Warriors
Never Bring Them Back Alive;

By: JOHN M. GLIONNA
TIMES STAFF WRITER

Robert Hadnot considered the dead dog's body, examined its
thousand-yard stare and the teeth clenched in an eternal snarl.

"Looks like another homicide," he said.

With a sigh, Hadnot jumped from his truck and pointed to the telltale
tire tracks spun into the dusty shoulder of the Pacoima side street. He
gazed down at the hefty mixed-breed still wearing its tags and kicked the
dust: "Sorry big man, but somebody done you wrong."

Hadnot is a talkative man with a cow-catcher goatee, a former forest
service firefighter who now spends his days driving the streets of the
industrial east San Fernando Valley in search of things that make most
motorists wince and turn away.

He looks for road kills. He inspects them, pokes at them, sometimes
talks to them. And then, one by one, without fanfare, he carries them
away.

At 35, Hadnot is one of the city's eight dead animal collectors,
weighted with the thankless job of annually removing tens of thousands of
bloodied animal remains from city streets. Last year, he and co-collector
Curtis Fontenot disposed of 8,100 carcasses from the East Valley alone.

That averages two dozen bodies a day each, not counting their
twice-daily visits to local animal shelters. It's a cold cargo of dogs,
cats, possums, deer, coyotes, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, monkeys,
snakes, pigs, skunks. Even a gorilla.

Seven of 10 are domestic pets, luckless animals who made one last
ill-timed move onto some Tarmac thoroughfare. All are trucked to a
rendering plant in the bowels of Los Angeles where they are boiled into
ingredients for things like fertilizer and soap.

Hadnot knows his job commands little respect from the general
public--unless, of course, it's their pet he's carting away.
"This job is not important to people," he said, "so I make it important
to myself."

He sees himself as a canine coroner of sorts, an expert investigator
who questions the deaths no one else cares about. He talks in cop jargon,
refers to the animal corpses as his cases. He responds to calls about
anxious pets who have accidentally hanged themselves with their own
leashes, who have been mysteriously shot or beaten with 2-by-4s, animals
dumped at lonely locations in plastic garbage bags. Talking to himself,
he says things like: "This doesn't look right."

And then there are the road kills--not DOA (dead on arrival) but DOR
(dead on road).

Each morning, he arrives at his sanitation department garage in
Sunland and consults the daily dead animal report, which on a recent day
listed some one dozen victims, including a lamb, a goat, three dogs and a
question mark--an animal John Doe.

Two hours and a dozen stops later, his emerald green city truck begins
to reek of death. Hadnot sniffs the air: "This is nothing. Wait until
August."

Veteran road kill collectors trade war stories about the smell that
lingers in the brain, settles rudely onto the tongue, making some
trainees quit after only one day.

"If you could turn that stink into perfume, it would sell for $500 a
ounce, it's that potent," said supervisor and former dead animal
collector C. W. Perkins.

Motorists run red lights when they get a whiff of the collector
trucks. Steely-eyed motorcycle cops back off, return their ticket books
to their pockets. Said Perkins: "A pile of 2-day-old dead animals and a
skunk carcass will drive even the flies away."

At first, Perkins says, the job made him unable to eat ketchup or any
red food. Finally, it turned him into a vegetarian. "I picked up so many
road stiffs that looked like hamburger meat, that when I went to the meat
counter and looked at the real thing, I said to myself, 'Uh-uh. Never
again.' "

Veterans tell of the collector who removed so many dead animals that
he had nightmares about being chased by dogs. "Every morning," Perkins
said, "he woke up tired."

Others have encountered panicked possums who aren't quite dead,
venomous snakes with one last bite in them, cats sacrificed in ritual
killings. Then there was the dead 400-pound pig stuck in the mud and the
gorilla killed by a fall in its cage.

Worse, perhaps, are the distraught pet owners. Like the woman who
cried so violently, her angered husband finally said: "You won't even cry
that hard at my funeral!"

One weeping pet owner asked Perkins what would happen to her dog's
body. He gave no answer. "I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was
going to take her dog to the rendering plant where they would grind it
up, that she would probably be washing her face with her dog one day."

Time was, Vietnam veteran Fontenot could not comprehend the agony
suffered by grown men and women over some dead pet. But five years on the
job have taught him compassion.

"Now I find myself praying for these animals and their owners," he
said. "And when I pick up an animal, I always make a point to say 'I'm
sorry about your pet.' "

*

For his part, Hadnot shakes his head at unleashed pets allowed to run
the streets. Passing some smiley-faced dog running free, he mutters sadly
to himself, "I'll be back for you later."

But the worst part of his job are the visits to the animal shelter,
where he sometimes imagines that the ghosts of dead animals are waiting
for him along with the bodies.

On one recent visit, he tossed 40 carcasses from a holding cooler into
his truck, including the bodies of kittens he cradled in the palm of his
hand.

In one nearby cage sat a large dog ready to be put down. "He's a
biter, so nobody wants him," the attendant said, adding, "Kind of like
putting your grandmother to sleep because she yells at you. That's the
mentality."

Hadnot shakes his head, looks at the dog: "Yeah, I know. It's tough,
big man.

Journalism advice

Be sure to check out this link on tips for editing because it also helps reporters:

http://www.edbond.com/editing/grafs.html

Finding your lede

Look for the smallest element of the story that sums up what the essence of the story is.

Fewer words are better.

Run it through the “Why do I care?” filter.

Tell it to me the way you’d tell your mother.

Read your work aloud.

Layers of sources

Have a diversity of sources, not just on both sides of the story, but different levels of expertise. You should have at least three sources in a story, but some stories demand more sources. For example, an event with a large crowd, a public disaster, a complex, multilayered issue.

Layers of reporting

Surface reporting – source originated reporting

Second-level reporting – spontaneous events/ reportorial enterprise

In-depth reporting/investigative – interpretive and explanation.

Opinion vs. fact

Always attribute anything in a news story that is a matter of opinion

or a challengeable fact. Examples of what needed attribution:

… this is cause for celebration for many college students …

… has always looked for the best …

… are incredibly excited …

… anxiously awaiting …

…This is not only a logistical nightmare …

… making it appealing to local businesses[SC1] …

… it is more risky than ever to open a restaurant …

Advertisements find ways to tell the reader that something is beneficial.

Challenge anything dealing with something being called the best, the worst, etc.

But I can’t challenge this lede:

As It haca’s annual Apple Harvest Festival approaches this Friday, the deadline for construction on the 300 block of East State Street is still unclear, leaving businesses and the Downtown Ithaca Alliance confused and frustrated.

Word choices

Hopefully One of the most commonly misused words, in spite of what the dictionary may say. Hopefully should describe the way the subject feels. For instance:

"Hopefully, I shall present the plan to the president." (This means I will be hopeful when I do it) But it is something else again when you attribute hope to a non-person.

You may write: "Hopefully, the war will end soon." You mean you hope the war will end soon, but it is not what you are writing. Write "I hope the war will end soon."

See this link on common writing errors: http://www.edbond.com/editing/errors.html

she feels that, believes, thinks

… he believes ththat most of the changes have been for the better. …

… it’s apparent that …

located, currently

states vs. said

attribution:

“I adopted a cat,” he said.

“We need more people to adopt cats,” said Sherry Berger, associate vice president of the Tompkins County SPCA.

Unanswered questions

… one of many … one of a few …

Since you asked ...

Monday's AP Style Test will have about 54 multiple choice questions, using mostly sentences from actual news stories.

News II Web blogs

Here are the links to News II Web blogs, posted here to await discovery by the Googlebot and other search engines.

Ithacan Informer

http://ithacaninformer.wordpress.com/

Ithacourier

http://ithacourier.blogspot.com/

Ithaca Ink Slingers

http://ithacainkslingers.wordpress.com/

The Ithacan Inquirer

http://keenanslusher.wordpress.com/

Tompkins County Ledger

http://tompkinscountyledger.wordpress.com/

Eye See Newz

http://eyeseenewz.wordpress.com/

Google Webmaster Central

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Editing Flip Video in Final Cut Pro

In the 4 p.m. class, I neglected to mention one problem when importing Flip Video into Final Cut Pro.

The problem is that when you bring your clip into the timeline, it will sometimes show up as "unrendered." This means that it will not play properly in the canvas. You'll most likely hear an annoying beep, or you will only see the word "unrendered" on the screen.

You will also know that the clip is unrendered because a red line will appear across the top of the timeline where the clip is located.

There are ways to preview the clip without rendering it, but really the answer for us is that you need to render the clip. To render the clip, go to the SEQUENCE pull-down menu and look for RENDER, when you hit that, you will find different possibilities. Just look for the one that will render the selection needed, and you can render just the audio, just the audio or both.