Wondering about the Internet got me thinking about deadlines. So did all the “advice to aspiring journalists” I was reading, especially in columns either on or linked to by the Poynter Institute.  Two strands of thought led me to the same conclusion: the idea of deadlines might be dead.

For online publications, the deadline is every minute, or as soon as a story is ready to put online. There is no press that needs to be turned on at 1:30 a.m. and the red “on air” light doesn’t flash at 6 p.m. The website is just there, waiting, always ready for more. I stopped seeing the sense in ordering a deadline of, say 3 p.m. Thursday, for a new set of stories.

Online editors and others in the news business seem to value  entrepreneurship, self direction and motivation, new ways of thinking, presenting,  or approaching stories and subjects, and personal responsibility. More content than ever, it seems, will be provided by freelancers, or as they are now euphemistically called, “private contractors.”   Truth, accuracy,  and very high quality  writing, audio, video, or photography are all assumed. Objectivity, not so much anymore. Also assumed is that an individual must work hard and produce a lot to make a living in today’s multifaceted journalism world.

So my experiment consists of giving Border Beat students, in effect, a quota of work that they are expected to produce before the end of the semester at the beginning of May, 2010. But no specific deadlines. Here’s what you’re expected to do. I’m here to help you get it done. Now, do it.

I hope they will take advantage of the freedom and produce a wide variety of stories that they might not have done if they were required to file say, one story a week, due on Thursday. Hopefully some will get going quickly and get a good part of the work done toward the first half of the semester. Others might work on larger, multiple part projects that might not get posted until April. Others might take more time getting comfortable with new multimedia applications and then jump into real reporting. We’ll see.

During our discussion, students seemed to have mixed feelings. A few of them said they needed “a gun to their heads” to make them get anything done. Others thought the freedom to work at their own paces would be good practice in discipline.  The members of the editing team, for their collective sanity, wanted more structure, not less. The decision we came to was that reporters would choose stories and set and commit to deadlines they selected.  But they would be held accountable for those deadlines. The editing team agreed to work  three evenings a week and they would accept copy for editing that night only up until 5 p.m. those evenings.

So, in light of all that, it was great today to receive this semester’s first stories to put online. Five of them kicked off the semester. Good first efforts, all.

Amanda Portillo is already a skilled newswoman. She covered a voter registration kickoff at Rudy Garcia Park in South Tucson.  Her story included good information, links, and a slideshow. Well done. In class tomorrow I will show it to everyone.  The only thing I will point out about how it could have been better is  adding audio in her slideshow.  Natural sound would have been fine as would snippets of sound from people who were working the event or registering to vote, some for the first time.

Mateo Alvarez wrote a great story introducing us to soccer phenom, University of Arizona sophomore Renae Cuellar.  Nicky, Jocelyn, and Jackie rounded out the reporters who have new material up.

We’re off to a good start.

There are also 12 new blog posts.  I was especially impressed with the posts put up by Mattie, Jocelyn, Christina and Nickki. Not that there was anything wrong with the others.

I really hope some of tour Border Beat staffers will add their say to this blog and let you know what the inside of Border Beat looks like from their perspectives.

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.

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

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.

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”

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