JO 303: Competency #2 with Brian Lombardo
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JO 303: Competency #1 with Brian Lombardo
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A Dangerous Game
BOSTON – At around 10:30 p.m., while driving on Interstate 95 North with his two sons Skylar, 15, and Shawn, 6, Shawn Springs hit a parked car.
Everyone walked away without injuries. The safety of Shawn’s car seat, designed to absorb and dissipate energy simultaneously, prompted his father’s thinking.
“If it can protect that well with car seats, maybe, just maybe, it can protect that well with other products,” Springs said.
Springs, a Pro-Bowl cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks, Washington Redskins, and New England Patriots, took the accident as the impetus to start Windpact, his corporation that makes force-reducing helmet padding for all sports and professions — including cycling, equestrian, and the military.
“Anybody who wears a helmet, we can sell to them,” Springs said.
After 13 years in the National Football League, Springs retired from football in 2009. The Seattle Seahawks drafted him third overall in 1997. He played there for seven years before joining the Washington Redskins for five, then the New England Patriots for his last year.
He ended his career with 33 interceptions, 6 forced fumbles, 8 1/2 sacks, and, by his estimate, 10 to 15 concussions.
Four were diagnosed.
“The longer you play, the technology became better, the game became faster,” Springs said in a phone interview. In 2005, he says the league started to address head injuries with more fervor.
This coincides with Dr. Bennet Omalu’s study on the brain of former NFL lineman Mike Webster, leading to a new diagnosis: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Dr. Robert Stern, director of clinical research for the Boston University CTE Center, saw CTE was a bigger problem than first imagined when the center diagnosed Tom McHale’s brain with the disease in 2008.
McHale, a nine-year pro, played defensive end and never had a reported concussion. His wife, Lisa McHale, contacted the center thinking McHale’s brain would be a control – a brain that went through football and did not develop CTE.
“As a lineman, every play of every game and every practice, you are hitting your head, and so there is this type of sub-concussive trauma,” Stern said. “We did not really think about that at that point.”
After McHale’s diagnosis, the center received brains from players of other sports, and those who never played professionally.
“What we are learning,” Stern said, “is the total exposure to these repetitive hits, and perhaps starting off early, when the brain is going through this vulnerable period of development, seems to be the greatest risks for later-life neurodegenerative disease.”
Head injuries are nothing new to sports. Both the NFL and the National Hockey League are in the middle of lawsuits with former players, who are seeking damages for negligence regarding the long-term issues of traumatic brain injuries. Both the NFL and NHL deny the claims made in the suits.
If concussions, Stern said, are the tip of the iceberg, “what about all of those other hits that don’t result in concussion, that happen much, much more frequently, and that seem to be the big underlying issue when it comes to CTE?”
A grant from the National Institutes of Health is funding the center’s new research, the Diagnose CTE Project. The CTE Center is working with the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center in Las Vegas, Nevada; the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona; and NYU Medical School to diagnose CTE while athletes are alive.
To get his technology ready for sale, Springs approached Jeff Champagne and his team at engineering company MPR — Mandil, Panoff, and Rockwell.
Champagne is the director of business development at MPR. Craig Mauch is the director of product design. Their jobs are to take products pitched to MPR – like Springs’s helmet padding – and get them ready for sale.
The padding uses Crash Cloud technology: Impact Vents to dissipate energy and Wind Springs to allow air an escape through 1/32-inch holes. The design and utility are patent protected.
“You would be shocked at how many engineers it takes to make a hole in a piece of plastic,” Champagne said in an interview at his Chelmsford office. “If it is done incorrectly, it breaks down completely.”
Right now, the technology is available in girls’ and women’s lacrosse helmets sold through Hummingbird Sports — a lacrosse gear site — for $139 at most retailers. According to Hummingbird’s site, the helmet works with existing lacrosse goggles, is up to headgear safety standards, and has a back opening for a pony tail.
The lacrosse helmet passed American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards before it went to market.
“Not many can pass that,” Springs said, “and we passed it.”
Cascade, a competitor, offers a similar energy dissipation technology in their Cascade R for $30 more at most retailers. The R is the official helmet of Major League Lacrosse and USA Lacrosse.
New helmet technology goes through a battery of tests to ensure its safety. While a football prototype went through testing at Virginia Tech, Windpact cannot publish the results until the helmet is ready for commercial sale.
Windpact collaborated with the same people who designed the helmets for the band Daft Punk, known for their high-tech set-up.
“This could be the best tech in the world, but if it does not look cool, nobody will buy it,” Champagne said.
The hope is to sell at prices similar to those currently on the market. Adult helmets range in price from $50 to $439 online.
While Springs and Champagne are confident Windpact technology is better than what is currently available, both understand some consumers will not be able to afford the first issue of the helmets.
“D.C. cannot afford the same things that Loudon, P.G [Prince George’s], and Montgomery County can,” Springs said.
There is still an urgency to get the helmets on the shelves soon.
“We do not know if [head injuries] are as bad, or worse than, smoking,” Mauch said.
“Our goal is to reduce force to the head,” Springs said. “I do not think anybody in our lifetime will prevent concussions.”
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JO 304: Why is this News? Journalism under President Trump
There I sat in northern Maine, on a road trip to call a hockey game. I was behind on my favorite podcast — the Steve Dangle Podcast — and trying to catch up episodes from the previous week.
This is a podcast about hockey. Though the three Canadian hosts are known for flying off with certain topics (like Pokemon), hardly ever do they mention politics.
It was November 12, 2016, just four days after Donald Trump won in a shocking end to a seemingly-never-ending election year. To end their show on November 8, Steve Dangle said “the world might end tonight.” Two days later, there they are reading messages from listeners that, now more than ever before, they need shows like this in their life.
LIFE UNDER TRUMP
From the Ziegfeld Follies campaign to his continued rallies after Inauguration Day, is there anything that happens to him that is not news?
Every tweet is news. Every word uttered by a surrogate is news. Every major world event (even the ones that do not happen) comes back to what Trump has to say.
I want to help you, a writer like me, understand the landscape we are in today. Journalists need to understand the following eight realities when covering news in Trumpland.
1. @realDonaldTrump is a must follow
In the interest of full disclosure, I blocked Donald Trump on Twitter shortly after he announced his candidacy for president. I did not want the drama and commentary clogging my sports-oriented timeline. Too bad.
I read somewhere early in the campaign that history students 50 years in the future will see chapters in their textbooks devoted to tweets from the 45th president. Given how the news is covering his timeline, that sounds about right.
Whether his tweets are the story, or they supplement the story, Twitter is now the direct mouth-piece of the President of the United States. So long, fireside chats.
This also offers direct access to someone powerful, as emphasized by athletes who took to Twitter when the “Access Hollywood” tape was labeled “locker-room talk.”
2. Non-politics writers are not safe
Other industries cannot ignore the president.
During the campaign, Tic Tacs and Skittles were unaffectionately dragged into the political arena with comments from Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
Remember when he tweeted about Carrier and his effort to keep jobs in Indianapolis? Carrier could not ignore that.
Sports cannot escape the shadow of the U.S. president, either.
While still in the campaign, The Toronto Star asked Toronto Maple Leafs forward Nazem Kadri — one of two active Muslims (Nail Yakupov) in the National Hockey League — about Trump’s proposed temporary immigration restrictions for Muslims. He did not mince words.
Once the New England Patriots won the 2017 Super Bowl, it became talk-radio fodder when players announced they would not go to the White House. Some were for political differences (not the first time that has happened), others were for personal reasons. It was a strange day in Boston sports on the whole.
Even if Trump is not an active part of the story, his policies could be.
Early in the campaign, BBC Sports ran an analysis piece about how Trump’s “America First” policies could affect the U.S in bids for sporting tournaments. Los Angeles is one of two cities under consideration to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, and there is a joint bid between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to host the 2026 World Cup.
A Cinco De Mayo weekend boxing fight between Saul Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., boxers of Mexican descent, ran a commercial featuring both boxers running through a wall. Promoter and former world champion Oscar De La Hoya said in a New York Times article about the commerical that, “the idea of a wall was a direct hit to Donald Trump.”
3. Your favorite shows are no longer an escape
From House of Cards and Veep to Scandal and Madame Secretary, television feeds off political drama. For years, shows were a safe spot to put the wildest possibilities that writers can think of.
When writers of TV shows met with the New York Times for a roundtable in the Sunday paper, they lamented how tough it is to not mirror the news.
Scripted television has a pressing question: do they play it safe, or do they push the boundaries?
When you wind down at the end of the day with your favorite drama, be on guard. The show you watch could be news the next morning.
4. Does “non-partisan” exist anymore?
The March for Science coincides with Earth Day. It is normally a day for scientists to tout their findings and their work, and environmentalists to promote sustainable living.
2017’s march had a decidedly anti-Trump tilt.
Trump did not help his approval ratings with this crowd by issuing an Earth Day statement emphasizing economic growth.
Reddit users are familiar with “The Hitler Rule of One”: if someone says something controversial, it can and will be brought back to Adolf Hitler. Today, there is a “Trump Rule of One”: either he agrees, or it is fake news.
With this kind of polarization, previously non-aligned parties will be forced to pick sides.
5. At least SNL is funny again
A common complaint with this cast of “Saturday Night Live,” as with many casts before it, was its lack of humor. Jokes did not click, sketches were hardly gut-busters, and there was a lack of recurring characters people enjoyed.
Enter Donald Trump and his Merry Band of Misfits, suddenly that changes.
Alec Baldwin comes on to play the president, Kate McKinnon plays a slew of characters from Kellyanne Conway to Jeff Sessions, Melissa McCarthy drives Sean Spicer’s podium, and Beck Bennet lays on the Russian accent for his Vladimir Putin impression.
With Jimmy Fallon hosting a few weeks ago, SNL went live coast-to-coast for the first time in its 41-year history. Ratings are so good, in fact, that “Weekend Update” will be produced as a show of its own throughout the summer — normally a break for SNL.
6. Satire is back (for now)
There are two groups of people who cannot get enough of Trump, for different reasons: his supporters, and comedians.
CBS’s “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” got a massive boost with the arrival of Trump. Colbert occasionally brings back his previous persona from his Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report,” to present the news. Trump and his staff are the subject of Colbert’s gesture-heavy monologue most nights, with many earning funny alter egos.
Comedy Central’s newest show, “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” does not hold back on The Donald. Bee attacks just about everything like she does here.
“The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” is having as much fun as it can, with such segments as “Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That” and “Who is the Real President?”
The cable network debuted a new show in its lineup, “The President Show,” April 27. The permise is that Trump is so upset with how late-night comedy portrays him, that he will host his own show.
Despite his early insistence in not covering Donald Trump, John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” on HBO succumbed to pressure to a smashing success. Unlike the other shows, Oliver is not limited by commercial advertisers, meaning his big stories can go for 10 minutes, or 30.
With more and more people disillusioned by the political world, comedy became the great escape. The relief could only temporary, as one analyst at the Washington Post points out.
7. Expect More “Doom-and-Gloom” Content
It seems every day on the Washington Post Twitter, a writer offers a new prespective or analysis on what is actually happening inside the Beltway.
This one from April 22 is about Nathaniel Persily’s article in the Journal of Democracy titled, “Can Democracy Survive the Internet?”
Another one from that same day, describes Trump’s political strategy as “open-mic-night-at-the-improv rehtoric of quarter-baked promises and vows carried over into the presidency and foreign policy.”
The Trump name carries easy web traffic. Of the most read articles on the Post that day, the top-three carried “Trump” either in the headline or in the picture.
The Post even has a regular podcast devoted to the president’s actions: “Can He Do That?”
The Washington Post is just the example I use here. Pick your favorite major news source and see their coverage of Washington. One theme seems to ring in each outlet: this sucks.
It might suck, but the people still need their news. These new policies have real affects on real people, and journalists are at the forefront of information-gathering.
8. Canadian sympathy
In finding a way to finish this, I thought back to a few years ago.
My brother and I discovered this Candian comedian, Rick Mercer, when we got the CBC while vacationing in Vermont. At the end of his weekly program, he walks around Toronto to film his rant.
One video in particular comes to mind: Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to scrap the census in favor of a voluntary survey.
Mercer characterized Harper as a leader with questionable ideas, but a loyal following. Years later, Trump drew his ire.
See the similarity?
CONCLUSION
I finished that podcast while walking around Alfond Arena. In one hour, I would broadcast Boston University’s women’s hockey team’s rematch with the University of Maine. Players were taping sticks, playing pre-game soccer, and enjoying their time together.
The whole weekend, there was no mention of the election. As upset as we might have been, we all had other stuff to worry about.
When writing news pieces, I try to keep in mind two things: people do not have all day to read the news, and the news does not define their life — it is a small part of a larger picture.
That helps me cope with Donald Trump. He is a small part of the larger picture. Perhaps it will help you, dear writer, as well.
JO 304: 5 Mashable Final Observations
In tracking the technology site Mashable, many things stand out when they veer away from stories about new technology.
The site’s bread and butter remains stories like this one about Nintendo paying hackers to find problems with the Nintendo Switch.
However, when the site finds a way to report on a hot story, they will do it with little hesitation — especially if that story involves a celebrity. The five observations below are based on one of their favorite punching bags: the recently-fired Bill O’Reilly.
- Writers have an opinion (and are not shy about sharing it)
The main site story, the one each follow-up linked to in the first few paragraphs, is a feature piece. Rebecca Ruiz, a writer on issues of gender, sexuality, and equality, did detail O’Reilly’s denial of the accusations, which involved accusing “far-left organizations” of a conspiracy against him. Ruiz does not buy it.
“If Fox News — the bastion of anti-political correctness that it is — can’t tolerate an alleged serial sexual harasser in its midst anymore, that’s more than just a victory for O’Reilly’s accusers,” she wrote. “That’s a triumph for reasonable people everywhere who refuse to accept that sexual harassment at work is normal or defendable.”
After detailing the journalistic requirements (who, what, where, why, how), Ruiz uses sources that support her view as stated above: Karin Roland, chief campaigns officer at the advocacy organization UltraViolet; Maya Raghu, director of workplace equality for the National Women’s Law Center.
Even the video that accompanies the story follows the same overtures of “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” sentiment.
2. Stories about the story
Late-night comedians are a frequent fixture on the site’s coverage of a major news event.
When “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert brought back his persona from “The Colbert Report” to bid farewell to his idol, Mashable compared their ways of saying goodbye in a short description of the video.
New host of “The Daily Show” Trevor Noah compiled a “greatest hits” for O’Reilly’s show. The lede for this video starts “Yesterday was a beautiful, beautiful day for television.”
Comedy Central’s Samantha Bee, host of “Full Frontal,” took a red drawing tool and marked up O’Reilly’s statement with “corrections.”
3. Twitter persona
Here is how the Mashable Twitter account promoted the various stories. Click on the links. Notice how the headlines on the tweets differ from the site itself.
These tweets assume a certain audience, especially the third tweet to a story about how President Donald Trump and Fox News actually benefit from the firing of O’Reilly.
4. Social media is the story
The go-to joke online in the wake of O’Reilly’s firing went as follows: “I guess Bill O’Reilly is no longer a factor.”
An entire post was devoted to various people on Twitter, all with the same joke.
5. Sharing is Caring
Mashable is keyed in to getting their articles shared. This ties in with point four: if someone I know reads a story on Mashable which features my tweet, they might share the story with me — starting a cycle where I do the same, saying “hey, look where my tweet went.”
At the top of each article are three things: the total shares, share buttons for Facebook and Twitter (with an expandable option for Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pintrest, and StumbleUpon), and the “Mashable Velocity” chart to detail how frequently people share the article online.
CONCLUSION
Mashable targets a certain audience of young, liberal-minded women with their topics and style, while catering to young men through the hard-hitting technology news.
Instead of trying to branch out and incorporate new audiences, the site goes aggresively for their target demographic. They seem to believe that this audience is what will get them the most clicks, and the most social media activity.
In the end, that is what every news site is after in the digital age: activity. The more it can attract, the better the payoff.
JO 304: Softball Live
BOSTON — Boston University is going for the sweep of in-state and conference rival Holy Cross at noon today.
The contest is part of the Turnpike Trophy, a year-long competition across all sports between BU and Holy Cross. BU won the trophy last year, SCORE.
For all news from today’s game, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@Max_Wolpoff) for updates.
JO 304: NEWSTRACK: Covering a Break
As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Monday, activist Malala Yousafzai will receive honorary Canadian citizenship in a ceremony next Wednesday.
Mashable covered the announcement with a post praising her previous work, and including various information about her current work.
The article itself came nearly a full day after the actual announcement by the Prime Minister’s office. The press release, and tweets from the CBC and Trudeau’s official account, is linked in the text of the story.
The House of Commons voted in October of 2014 to bestow honorary citizenship to Yousafzai. A shooting at the National War Memorial near Parliament Hill cancelled the initial awarding of citizenship.
The article uses the quotes provided in the press release, but does not acknowledge that is where they came from. In the last few paragraphs, the writer takes a not-so-subtle jab at American President Donald Trump for his policy on Syrian refugees while praising the efforts of Canada.
In the final sentence, the writer links to Yousafzai’s current project — the Malala Yousafzai All-Girls School, providing education to Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
Masahble writers do not pretend to be objective in their writing. Some articles, like this one revealing the release date for Netflix’s “The Defenders” series, uses the headline “Marvel’s ‘Defenders’ assemble in a perfect viral video teaser” on the homepage.
Another breaking story covered with clear bias came at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when the site confirmed The Purge, the movie series about all crime being legal for 12 hours, is now getting a television series.
The article included links to reports by other sites, comments from Blumhouse Television, and a specific request for a show similar to 24, covering a different hour of the purge each week.
The show will air on USA and Syfy, two cable networks held by NBCUniversal, who also distributed the films.
JO 304: Newstrack: Snapchat Stories
If you updated Snapchat in the last year, you may have noticed shift in how featured stories are marketed on the app.
With outlets from sports giant ESPN to British website and tabloid The Daily Mail, Snapchat features everything from listicles to that crazy buzzer-beater last night.
Below is an example of Mashable’s latest story, lead with the headline “The Most Controversial Phone is Back.”
The Samsung Note 7, notorious for their exploding batteries, will be resold in select markets. Notice, there is limited space on the above screen to say that. So, they put it on the next screen.
But wait, there is more to the story. Oh darn, an ad for Google.
There is a very good reason not to discard every Note 7 in existence, as detailed on the third screen of this story.
We are not done yet. Mashable follows the lead story with a few fun games to keep viewers engaged.
I did not get this right, but I can understand it in retrospect.
Next up is a crystal ball with a rotation of emojis. This screenshot does not promise anything, just like a “real” fortune teller.
Adding to the “creepy stalking” factor, how did Snapchat know that I recently purchased WWE Network on a free trial?
Returning to the stories, Mashable brings us up to speed on the latest technology ban on certain flights.
Mashable then alerts users on Google phones to a quietly-announced deal on the Google Play Store, only to show how Google might be in trouble with their advertising on YouTube videos.
The recent terror attack in London is drawing attention to WhatsApp, an app that functions like text messaging.
Following those stories, Mashable has a few reccomendations for you.
To end this installment on Snapchat, Mashable includes to text-driven stories you have to swipe up to read. One is about how Instagram will start blurring sensitive content, even if it does not violate their guidelines. The other is about the CIA leaks that allegedly exposed hacking programs from the intelligence agency.
Both stories appeared on Masahble’s website days prior to this Snapchat story.
JO 304: Rivalry in Action
As Boston University and Boston College get set to begin the NCAA Tournament this weekend, it is helpful to remember that they faced off last Saturday at TD Garden.
After a storming comeback from BU late in the final period, BC held on to win with a controversial tactic. The video below is my report from the stands.
Camera: my cell phone
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro
Voiceover: the booth on the third floor of COM
maxwolpoff 