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
