Cold War Returns to Foxborough

Much like the divorce of the Soviet Union and the United States after their World War II honeymoon, the split between New York Jets head coach Eric Mangini and his former mentor, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has grown cold.

The history between these two coaches is about as sour as the history between these two teams, which have shared much more together than you might think.

The current state of the rivalry can be dated to a very specific moment, in fact a day, January 4, 2000. It's truly a day that will go down in infamy for Jets fans. And a day that has remarkable ties to the Patriots.

It's the day that Belichick, then head coach of the Jets, resigned after less than 24 hours on the job. Belichick had been picked by Bill Parcells, former coach of the Jets AND Patriots, as his successor, but was afraid of the direction of the team, causing him to resign from his position, without making a single football move.

After the 1999 season, the two teams were on equal footing, so it seemed. Both teams finished the regular season with identical 8-8 records, they split the season series and were both at turning points for the franchise.

Belichick would eventually sign on to coach the Patriots, like Parcells had done before him, and the man he replaced in New England was current USC coach Pete Carroll, a former coach of the Jets.

So now you see the coaching links, but don't forget about the former players. Curtis Martin, once a draft pick and rookie of the year for the Patriots, went on to become one of the most well liked and most productive Jets of all time. Don't forget about the Ty Law's and Damien Woody's who spurned their former coach to come play for the Jets.

And while it's true that since Belichick left the Jets, the Patriots have had their way in the AFC East, all indications point to the Jets finally turning the tide on their misery of the last eight years.

Thursday night's game will draw as much attention as the NFL Network and Cable providers across the country will allow it. Jets fans everywhere see this game as a turning point in their season and the way the division looks going into it, that is probably an accurate destinction.

Going into the game, the Jets and Patriots are tied on top of the division with 6-3 records. Both teams have identical 2-1 division records, as well as 4-3 conference records. Whichever team wins will have a big advantage heading into the season's home stretch.

Since the Patriots won the first encounter, this matchup becomes crucial for the Jets, as a season series split would make the first tie-breaker for the division the division record, followed by the conference record.

Jets fans are excited and confident, and rightfully so. After the Jets' season was on the brink of failure, following an overtime loss to the lowly Raiders and a near disaster against the awful Chiefs, the Jets rebounded with a solid win at Buffalo, and then a blowout win over the Rams.

The Jets have scored the most points in the conference and their defense is really coming into its own. Meanwhile the Patriots have scored the fewest points in the division and despite also giving up the fewest, at some point the injuries to their defense will catch up with them.

What does it all mean? It means there's a possibility that the wind is blowing a different direction and maybe its the Jets that are causing the change...

At Home on the Range

Good vs. Cheap

In response to the debate we watched last class, I think it is more important at this stage in video journalism to begin with less expensive equipment. From what I understand, the business has not yet learned how to make money off video on its website. I don't know much about economics, but I can confidently make the claim that if something is not making you money, then it's probably not worth spending money on.
Because we are in the begining of this news revolution, I think it is important to supply reporters with cheap point and shoot cameras in an attempt to start putting the content up on the page. If, and only if someone can find a way to make money off of this, then some of the money can be used to supply reporters with better equipment.
I don't think the idea that better equipment will become cheaper is a real good one. Once the cost of "better" stuff goes down, it is usually because there is another expensive better thing out there. Sure you can probably get a polaroid camera cheaper than a digital camera, but that is only because the digital camera exists.

Natalie Jacobson

Down to Ascend

Down To Ascend Sound Story

In the Internet We Trust

After listening to Damon's lecture I have had some time to reflect on his thoughts. What I have realized is that this is a terrifying thing we have in the internet. But one of the things that struck strongest with me was the fact that everyone is contributing to the demise of the print paper. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that my primary source of news has quickly gone from The Boston Globe or the New York Times to cnn.com or various newspapers websites. More and more I see my friends getting blackberry's or organizers like them and they can get their news from any location in the world. Thinking about this makes me realize that as our generation becomes homeowners and starts families, the print newspaper is just going to get more obscure. I was thinking about ways that we might be able to save the newspaper, but I can't think of anything. At one point I thought that adding links for follow-up information in the newspaper to the website could help, but at the same time what happens if the links lead readers to only use the online source. Although I think I knew a lot of this already, considering that it is the primary reason I took this class, I think the lecture made me delve into it a little deeper.

"The Audacity I Hope"

This program was a little bit tough for me to figure out at first, but slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of it. I was having trouble at first getting the exact clip I wanted of my interview and was having trouble mixing in the music I need playing. After figuring it out a little bit everything is starting to come together.
One of the things that I really regret was not doing the interview in shorter clips. I have 20 minutes worth of interview and it is really tough to break down and pull out the good quotes. Along with that it'd be really nice if you could fast forward and rewind within a track, that would help me get to a section without guesswork.
I'm hoping to get a few more interviews on Saturday to supplement what I'm doing, that way I'll have a few different voices as well as different music and eventually pictures or POSSIBLY video. I think everything is starting to come along pretty nicely.
P.S. My title refers to the book written by Barack Obama, The Audacity OF Hope, as I watch the polls come in this evening.

What about the class?

I decided to take this class to gain an understanding of how to do online reporting. I considered taking feature writing instead, but decided it would be much more beneficial for me to take this as this is where I think the profession of journalism is going. One of my main interests is sports, and since I have not seen any real multimedia reporting on sports, I would be interested in seeing if there is a way to combine the two fields.
One of the multimedia stories that I really admire is called Final Salute (to see this follow the link and then click on the slide show to the right of the story) To me this is an exceptionally well done piece which does a good job of complimenting the written story.