Advances change news, delivery
Editor’s note: Nancy Goodspeed handles marketing and communications for the City of Spokane Parks and Recreation Department.
When I launched my broadcast career at KHQ-TV in 1975 it meant working in a smoky newsroom, plugging away on a manual typewriter, waiting for much of the news to come in via the Associated Press and United Press International teletype machines, and then broadcasting to a market that had only four over-the-air TV stations.
What a change from today, with digital editing, networked systems, satellite trucks and the growth of competition via cable.
With a news background I’m continually intrigued by not only advances in technical journalism, but also by regressions in content journalism. The line between “news” and “entertainment” has blurred completely, driven by hours of time to fill. Why else would the entire world not only wait and wonder about the paternity of Anna Nicole’s baby (www.annanicole.com) or know that Paris Hilton might be going to jail?
My computer-driven career began using Apple computers, and for everyone who has come up through the ranks, you either become a dedicated Apple person or you “go over to the dark side.” That conversion actually wasn’t as difficult as I’d imagined, although I get a kick out of the Apple TV ads with the actors as “Mac” and “PC” at www.apple.com/getamac/ads.
Public Relations
As a public relations professional, I have always been a stickler for adopting a writing style and then sticking to it. From my days as a TV reporter, the “bible” was and is the Associated Press Style Guide. The abbreviated version is on my desktop and I refer to it almost daily at www.bu.edu/com/writingprgm/ ap_styleguide1.pdf.
High Tech
Working for local Gigabit Ethernet guru Bernard Daines resulted in a solid technical background and I continue to check out his broadband company, World Wide Packets, wwp.com. For the latest high-speed Net news see the resourceful online magazine, Light Reading at lightreading.com.
Books
I am an avid reader, collector, and lover of books, everything from retro bestsellers (found at Bowker’s Annual/Publisher’s Weekly — www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~unsworth/ courses/bestsellers/best50.cgi) to Nancy Drew (nancy-drew.mysterynet.com) and Tom Swift (actually my brother’s favorite) at duntemann.com/tomswift.htm.
I also love and collect old 1950s Better Homes and Garden cookbooks, with their comfort food recipes and “Father Knows Best” lifestyle tips. A great local source, with a complete inventory online is 2nd Look Books on Spokane’s South Hill, at 2ndlookbooks.com.
Shopping & Bargains
If you’ve got lots of airline mileage and credit card points scattered over various programs you can trade and consolidate points from many programs at points.com. I’ve traded airline and American Express points there for Starbucks coffee cards, Macy’s gift cards, and best of all, Amazon.com credit.
And if you’ve been away for awhile on a distant planet, you must visit eBay.com where I’ve both sold and purchased items ranging from Leapfrog transmitter/receivers (to wirelessly send audio and video from a TV up to 150 feet away), to highly collectible ceramic Norcrest Blue Bird salt and pepper shakers.
Just for fun at the end of the day (but only at home and not at work), check out N-Storm at nstorm.com for lots of innovative online games.