How About Some International Reporting?

Today in class Whitney invited folks to join her on a trip to Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico for a long weekend to cover a Tucson Rotary club going down there to administer vaccines to people who couldn’t otherwise afford them. It would be a great chance for a few students to get some international reporting under their belts. Hermosillo is only about five hours away from Tucson by car.

But not to be outdone, Josh told the class his church was sponsoring an aid mission to Haiti to help earthquake victims and members of the class are invited to sign up to cover the work. That trip would be over Spring Break in March and students would have to pay for their own air travel, I expect via charter. Josh is planning on going for sure and hopes to post stories on Border Beat from there.

In addition to those ambitious announcements, we had another good class. John DeDios gave a quick tutorial about how to put together a SoundSlides presentation. Everyone followed his talk nicely all the way through how to preview the actual show. Once he got into how to actually put the finished show online, almost everybody glazed over and got lost. Jocelyn was the most expressive about that. We’ll almost certainly have to go over that again and resurrect a written version of the directions about how to get that done. By the way, Jocelyn is going to take fun pictures of everyone on Wednesday while Matt is collecting bio info on the staff. All that should be online in a week  so you and the world will get to meet our intrepid border reporters.

Most of the class members have good ideas in the works but Jocelyn, Nicky, and Jackie got out of the blocks first by posting drafts of their stories on the site’s administrative section. They have lots of work to do, but are up and running. It will be great once new stories start churning through Border Beat again — kind of like turning on its blood.

Whitney and Christina will be co-editors this semester. Hopefully, they will post some thoughts here to give you some insight into what Border Beat looks like from their perspectives.

A Great Second Session

Border Beat is cranking up.  We had our second session yesterday and it seems  like a great group of people are going to produce a very interesting publication.

Staff members have already selected and named blog topics for the semester. They sound interesting. Some serious. Some fun. Some yummy.   Hopefully many of the Border Beat reporters  will post over the weekend. A couple already have.

Check out Maty Cantereo’s blog.  It’s called “A Peso for your Thoughts.”  Maty is going to explore all kind of wacky or charming ways folks who are not from here perceive our borderlands. I love this idea for several reasons.  One is that I grew up in Nogales, Ariz., just like Maty did and I know exactly where she is coming from with this idea. But another reason is that, being from here, one of my regrets is that I will never be able to see a giant saguaro cactus for the first time. I don’t know, but I imagine that saguaros look pretty strange or other worldly to folks from, say Norway or Green Bay. To me they look normal. I wish I could appreciate how weird they must seem to others. Maty will help me do that.

Also, Jocelyn Bresnick will be teaching us all about Tequila. Right now, all she has posted is kind of a teaser and preview, but it is worth clicking in just to see the excellent photo she took and included.

This class so far is exciting, from a teacher’s perspective, because of how willing folks seem to be to step up and volunteer to get things done. I asked for volunteers to take on specific tasks such as to shoot photos for press badges, coordinate and organize the bio section of Border Beat, and write a new “about us” section. Several students volunteered for each job. And some who didn’t get asked, indicated to me that if they were still needed for that or any other task, just ask. After class (an hour and a half) I asked for people who might be interested in a leadership position to stick around so we could talk about organization. Nearly half of the class did. That’s never happened and was great.

In the next couple of days, probably by Monday, we’ll have two editors-in-chief selected.  In the meantime, Matt Alvarez volunteered to head up the copy editing team. He will be joined by Jeremy Hawkes, Nicky Hamila, and Jocelyn (our Tequila writer who will not edit copy while conducting research for her blog).  Matt is also putting together the staff bios and Jocelyn will be taking photos so you will get to know everyone who will be putting a whole lot of work into this site during the next three months or so. Jocelyn will be taking pictures starting Monday, so hopefully the bio pages will be up later in the week.

During class Mike McKisson gave students a quick lesson about how to get into the back end of Border Beat and how to post and edit stories. Plenty of glassy eyes and only a few gasps of terror. There is a lot to take in these first couple of weeks. On Monday, John DeDios will give a brief tutorial on a program called Soundslides. Hopefully you will see some shows produced using Soundslides quickly.

Keep checking back here. I’ll post regularly, but hopefully, the reporters on the street, on both sides of the border, will have some really interesting “back stories” to share about what they are seeing and learning and they will be willing to tell you about some of their adventures.

And finally, if you’re curious, I took the photo of the three saguaros at Sabino Canyon just outside of Tucson right before dusk with a tiny minox camera. It uses 8×11 mm film and was manufactured in 1954.

– Jay Rochlin

Amanda’s Blog

Hi, I’m Amanda Portillo.

The blog I’ll be working on this semester will look into and follow the research on the borderlands and border culture, by universities like our own, and others across the U.S. (especially universities in border states).

The area of study has different names-Mexican American, Raza, Chicana/o, Latina/o- and teaches history as well as more contemporary, social and political issues in Mexican American communities. In addition, professors in the field are well-known researchers and authors.

My blog will explore the culture and science of these studies. I think I’ll call it Studying the Border… but I’m still working on the title.

Blog Idea

Hi, this is Christina Stymfal.

My idea for a blog is to update people on entertainment on the Arizona-Mexico border. This means I will give my viewers information on what to do in Nogales and a couple other border cities on the weekends. This could be parks, clubs, concerts, art galleries or even museums. This weekend guide could be for residents or people visiting the border. For those visiting I will also including great places to stay for the weekend such as a ranch or bed and breakfast.

The title of my blog will be “Weekend Warriors on the Border”

Good Blog Ideas Already

Border Beat’s second meeting is tomorrow and students have already presented some very good ideas for their blogs. Here’s just a sample:

Josh Schaa’s blog is going to be about photographers who specialize on images from the borderlands. It called “Shots Fired on the Border.

Samantha Easter is going to do “Border Biz.”

Two (so far) will be about education. Jacquelyn Smith’s blog will be “Studying Below the Border” and Marcy Jones will be creating “Conocimiento: Education on the Border.

And “Whitney’s Spot” by Whitney Misenhimer will be all about food and how to prepare delicious Mexian dishes.

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We are also getting going on revising our staff box (so you can learn a little about the staff and see what they look, and possibly sound like. And the “about us” section is due for a revision. it’s great that Matt, Jeremy, Jocelyn, and Bridgett have already volunteered to help out with that.

Also, look for members of the Border Beat staff to start posting updates to this post.

— Jay Rochlin

Welcome to Border Beat Insider

Border Beat is an online publication produced by students at the University of Arizona School of Journalism. This blog is intended to let you get behind the pixels and get a feel for what it’s like to produce a publication that is taking on the U.S. – Mexico Border. Hopefully everyone on the staff will post and give you updates on what they are working on, and sometimes the “stories behind the stories” that you will read on Border Beat.