Dana Buckley

Yesterday the New York times featured an article by Brooks Barnes discussing the recent phenomenon of A-list movie stars who seem to be unable to bring in an audience.  While this has been an ongoing point of discussion in media and entertainment journalism this article brings up the idea that social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook may have a hand in the declining number of audiences for these studio films.  Films like State of Play, Duplicity, The Taking of Pelham 123--these are all major studio films with A-list actors, a formula (especially in the summer) that guarentees the big bucks.  However, their lack of success has prompted studios to wonder--what's the deal?

"No hanging, no banging, and no slanging," is the motto at Homeboy Industries in downtown LA, an intervention program for men and women who were previously involved with gangs or gang-related activity.  No, I can't articulately explain what the motto means for these individuals.  But Homeboy founder Father Gregory Boyle had a lot to say about his methods and why he thinks facilities such as this one are so important to the community at large.

5 Shot Video:



Interview

The first week of journalism school has produced an interesting phenomenon--it seems as though I am not the only one who feels the strain of a plethora of new forms of technology.  Being rather young, at times I feel it is my duty to be technologically savvy and naturally aware of these various forms of new media.  Yes, I have a Facebook and a Blackberry that never leaves my side, and I've dabbed in video editing.  But blogging, website coding, RSS feeds--these are all new to me.

Wednesday morning's presentation by Robert Hernandez brought about an interesting topic of discussion in regards to the video of a woman trying to break the world record for crawling a mile.  A healthy debate seems to exist in regards to the caliber of stories that today's newspapers, networks, or online publications decide to cover.