Author: Dan Oshinsky

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Why I Look Happily Towards The Future of Missouri Football, and What Exactly I Mean By That.

There is a very strange realization I came to tonight:

Fans of my alma mater believe that who we were define who we are.

And I do not.

I was with this girl tonight. She is Missouri-born and a Tiger fan through and through. She loves this team. She actually understands football.

And tonight, when the Mizzou-Arizona State game went to overtime, she immediately said: “We’re going to choke.”

I asked her why, and she said, “Because Mizzou always does.”

And that’s thinking I used to be able to get behind. But lately, something’s changed.

See, when I showed up at this school, Mizzou wasn’t very good at sports. We lost. Always. And usually in rip-your-heart-out fashion.

But since I’ve been here: We’ve won far more than we’ve lost. We’ve beaten the #1 team in the country. Been ranked #1. Been to two Big 12 title games. Won a New Year’s Day bowl.

Longtime Mizzou fans forget this, though. Because in their minds, we’ve always been bad, and we always will be. Even when we’re winning. Even when we’re beating the #1 team in the country.

For them, past is present.

I don’t think like that anymore. I’ve rooted for a lot of bad teams. I’ve seen a Maryland football team get dominated by Ohio. Not Ohio State. OHIO University. I’ve seen teams like American and William & Mary beat my beloved Terps basketball team. I’ve seen the Redskins falter and falter. I’ve seen my Caps fall again and again.

My hometown of Washington, D.C., is closing in on Cleveland as America’s worst sports town. This is not a good thing.

But what I am certain of is this: It is the hard times that make the big wins that much sweeter. As a fan, we need losses like tonight’s. We need to be demolished sometimes.

Because one of these days, a win will come along that reminds us of why we watch in the first place. And it will be all the sweeter because of it.

I believe in the future of Missouri football. I believe there will be heartbreak, and I believe there will be greatness.

And I am damn sure that I will be out at a bar rooting hard for those Tigers every Saturday. I’ll be watching because I believe: Good things come this way.

I hope next Saturday brings better things for my Tigers. I really do.

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re: The Catskills. (Or: What I Mean When I Talk About Undercovered Issues in Undercovered Areas.)

Old Black River Produce

The catchphrase at Stry last year was simple: Stry covers undercovered issues in undercovered areas. And any time I mentioned that line, I brought up another.

It’s from a conversation I had with a local when I was down in Biloxi last year, covering the aftermath of Katrina. We were talking about local issues, and she said:

“It’s five years after Katrina, Dan. We’ve still got problems. Why isn’t anyone talking to us about what we’re going through?”

Then came the pause, of course. There is always a pause.

“Is it because we’re from the South?”

And I told her: No. This is the kind of story that gets ignored everywhere. If it happened in Maine or Montana, it’d get forgotten, too, just like Katrina.

I bring that up because just now, I went walking through the lobby here at the Missouri School of Journalism. CNN was on one of the TVs. The governor of the state of Vermont was speaking. And the caption at the bottom of the screen read: “Vermont sees worst flooding since 1927.”

Now, I’d read about the flooding the day before. A lone paper up in the Catskills was trying to cover it. The big papers were completely silent. CNN, to their great credit, did get a reporter up on the scene.

But now it’s 24+ hours since the flooding began — and we’re talking about massive, historic flooding happening just hours from the biggest media market in the galaxy — and the coverage is just beginning to come in.

When I’m talking about undercovered issues in undercovered areas, the Catskills don’t always come to mind. But they’re exactly the kind of place I’m thinking of.

They’re exactly the kind of place I want Stry to cover.

photo at top of flooding in Proctorsville, Vt., via Flickr

[ois skin=”Tools for Reporters”]

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Why I’m Starting The #BergChat

The Heidelberg
Dear University of Missouri J-Schooler,

I remember when I was but a wee undergrad. The year was 2009. A young man named Barack Obama had taken stewardship of our country. The economy was in the crapper. I drove around in a Chevy TrailBlazer with vanity plates.

Much has changed since then. (The Blazer no longer has vanity plates.) But one thing hasn’t:

At our alma mater, the University of Missouri, there exist two distinct sectors of our esteemed School of Journalism: the school itself, and the Reynolds Journalism Institute.[1. I should note here: Counsel has advised me to cease and desist referring to them as my personal Daddy Warbucks.] The J-school is doing some awesome stuff. So is RJI.

Problem is, we’re not always doing great stuff together.

Even though these clusters exist within the same damn building, there’s still a gap between the two. Young J-schoolers dare not venture into RJI. Us RJIers would rather not wander off into the J-school.[2. Except on occasions when there’s free food over in Walter Williams.]

Here’s the point: there’s some pretty incredible Journalism Stuff™[3. Trademark of Oshinsky, Inc., 2011.] going on in Columbia, MO, and there need not be a gap between RJI and the J-school.

So I’m launching a new thing this year: The #BergChat. It’s a weekly session in which I’ll invite anyone from the J-school community to sit down with me for 30 minutes to talk about… well, whatever you want. An idea you’ve got. A question you’ve been afraid to ask. A resume you’d like an extra pair of eyes on.

And while we’re chatting, I’ll buy you a beer.[4. For free. Free, as in: no purchase necessary. Cash value of said beer must be less than or equal to $5. The #BergChat will end immediately if the #BergChat-ee attempts to buy a Natural Light with his/her free beer. These are my terms.]

Now, the fine print:

1. Every #BergChat must take place at the World Famous Heidelberg Restaurant. It’s tricky to find, so here are the Google Maps directions from the J-school for those who’ve never been:


View Larger Map

2. The #BergChat will last 30 minutes.

3. During said #BergChat, I will buy you a beer, or, if you’re not inclined/able, a drink of your choice.

4. To schedule a #BergChat, follow me on Twitter at @danoshinsky. Each week, I’ll be tweeting out times when I’ll be holding a #BergChat. I’ll open up a handful of half-hour slots. The first (pre-specified number) of folks to respond will be given a timeslot. All you have to do is show up and chat.

5. Each J-schooler gets exactly one #BergChat with me. After that, you’ll just have to stop by my office if you’d like to continue the conversation. Or agree to buy me lunch.[5. Hint: I’m a Noodles and Co. fan.]

6. The #BergChat can just be one-on-one, or it can be a group of students chatting. But I won’t take on a group that doesn’t fit in a Heidelberg booth. So essentially, it’s got to be a group of three or less.

Point is: I’m reaching out to you, the J-school population. It’s up to you to make the next step and get involved with what we’re doing at RJI.

See you at the Berg.

-Dan

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The $1,000 Father-Son Belly Challenge.

This is the kind of thing that I shouldn’t go doing. It’s not nice of me to take an old man’s money.

And yet, that’s just what I intend to do.

The old man in question just happens to be my old man, Bill Oshinsky (he’s the little fella you see in the photo below). And he’s got it fixed into that bald skull of his that he can get into better shape than me.

Day 1.

So we’ve made this bet: We’re going to spend a year getting into shape. And on Aug. 1, 2012, we’ll rendezvous to decide who’s got the better belly. Winner gets $1,000. Loser pays.

I’m not going to waste valuable kilowhatevers here on danoshinsky.com with this sort of nonsense, so we’ve set up one of them Tumblrs for you to follow along. Check out bellychallenge.com for more.

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A Question From Me, The Professional Question Asker.


I went to see NBC News’ David Gregory speak tonight in a little auditorium on Nantucket Island. He spoke for an hour, mostly about the failures of our political system and our economy and our media, and then he closed by reminding everyone that we were on a little island 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, and that everything probably isn’t as bad as it seems.

When that was over, Gregory opened up the floor to questions.

This is the part of the lecture I hate.

Not the idea of Q&A. That I love. We need more Q&A in our lives, and not just at big fancy lectures involving salt-and-pepper-haired reporters in nice blazers. We need lots of thoughtful questions and lots of thoughtful answers in our day-to-day lives. And we need everyone to be asking and thinking and listening in order to be part of this nice little experiment in domestic living that we’ve got going on here in America.

Participation is a very, very good thing, and I encourage it highly.

What I dislike is that I ever since I got my degree from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, something’s changed for me. I’ll be at a lecture like I was tonight. I’ll be there with someone else. Let’s call this man, for the sake of accuracy, my father. The moderator will open up the floor to questions. And I will sit back in my chair and listen to questions being asked.

Dad does not like this.

See, my father does not see me as a reporter. Or a journalist. Or a writer. He sees me as a Professional Question Asker. That’s what he believes I earned a degree in out in ol’ Columbia, Mo. And when an opportunity to use my Professional Question Asking skills passes without me asking a question… well, he sees it as an invalidation of my college degree.

And I find this funny. Because I am most definitely not a Professional Question Asker. If there’s anything my Mizzou degree certifies, it’s that I’m a Professional Listener. My job is, if at all possible, to shut up and listen. And then report what I’ve learned. That’s why I’m usually in the back of the room scribbling notes on the lecture program.

At these Q&As, I do this quite well.

Dad does not like this.

Sorry, pops.

But here’s what I’m thinking: Pilots don’t get asked to fly planes on their day off. Bobby Flay doesn’t get thrown behind the grill every time he goes out to eat. Librarians don’t just show up at random libraries and start implementing the Dewey Decimal System.

So I suppose it’s with several years of Professional Question Asking behind me that I ask this: Why do I keep getting picked on?

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Why I Do Not Have a Smartphone.

I am finding that lately, I have had to defend my choice of telephone. I find this strange, as my telephone does exactly what I want it to do: It places and receives phone calls anywhere in America.

The fact that it does this, and that I pay about $35 per month for such services, seems like a good deal to me.

And here’s what I really like. My telephone does more than just handle phone calls. It can also send and receive text messages, which are growing on me as a legitimate tool for communication. It features voicemail, which is quite a bit more affordable than hiring a secretary to handle similar message-taking duties, and it has a few spiffy additional features, such as a tip calculator and alarm clock. The calendar function is especially useful, and can be used for such purposes as finding out what day it is.

Again, I thought this was a lot for a cell phone to offer.

The good folks at CNET had this to say about my phone:

“In any case, the SGH-A137 isn’t too much to get excited about. The simple flip phone is so basic that it doesn’t even offer an external display.”

Oh.

What I am discovering is that my colleagues agree with the editors at CNET. They tell me that more than my clothes, or my choice of automobile, or my chosen profession, my phone indicates what kind of human I am.

I thought my phone indicated that I was both sensible and uncomplicated.

Not even close.

Not even in a million, billion years. Just NO, Dan.

What my phone apparently signals to others is that I am, at best, uncool, and at worst, a lost cause. There is only one remedy for someone like me:

A smartphone.

A smartphone like the iPhone, or the Blackberry, or something that runs on Android. A phone capable of listening to a song on the radio, determining what song I’m listening to and then automatically downloading said song to the phone’s very hard drive. A phone capable of taking a photo and then rendering it in sepia. A phone capable of booking reservations at a nearby restaurant, testing my food for any toxins, chewing my food, paying my bill, getting me a taxi home, tucking me into bed and telling me a bedtime story.

A phone like that, or something.

I do not like that sound of that. Not at all.

See, I have a very simple mind. I actually like dividing up my devices into specific silos. I like reading on my Kindle. I like typing on my laptop. I like rocking out on my iPod. I like calling on my phone. This system works nicely for me.

And I suppose that, yes, I could get a singular device that could allow me to do all of those things. But I type slowly on a phone. I don’t like reading something on a three-inch screen. I like going for a jog and not having my music device start vibrating from an incoming text.

More than anything, I love disappearing. When I am at my computer, I respond to email. I write. I’m busy.

But away from that screen? I shut down. Work ends. I go out, and I enjoy life in this rather nice world of ours. If you need me, call me. I’ll pick up. But that email of yours will have to wait.

Give me a smartphone and I’d be in a state of perpetual Google. I’d be walking down the street and see a Curly W hat and ask myself, Who was it who hit 3rd for the Nationals in 2006?, and then I’d lose myself in the lifetime statistics of Jose Vidro, and then I’d pour over numbers on Baseball Reference, and then I’d find myself wondering what just happened to the previous 35 minutes. I know, because this is what happens at work. I take a thought, and connect it to another, and another, and then the time just disappears. I am good at wasting time, and on a smartphone, I would waste an awful lot of it.

My current phone? I don’t get lost in it. I make my call. I send my text. I move on. I leave myself time to stop and stare.

It is a phone that allows me to focus completely on what I am doing.

Of course, now that I’ve said all that: I’m going to get lost on the way downtown tonight. I’m going to need directions. A song will come on the radio, and I’ll want to download it. I’ll forget to make reservations at the place I’m headed. I’ll see something that demands to be sepia-ized. I’ll have an urgent email to send out.

And I’ll understand why everyone else has that thing in their pocket.

But me? No. Not yet. Not ever, I hope.

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From the Dept. of Things I Want: The Kid’s Menu of Wine Lists.

I went out to dinner last night with this girl. She was about my age. From upstate New York. We met via kickball, and I asked her out. Nothing too formal. Kickball romances typically aren’t, I’m told.

But we were on this patio, and it was a nice night, and she had gone through the post-work motions of getting all dressed up, and I suggested we get a bottle of wine. The waiter brought us the wine list.

It was, front to back, no fewer than 15 pages. It must’ve featured 200 wines. Maybe more.

We were lost.

Both of us like wine. Both of us wanted a red wine. And neither of us could figure out if any of the hundred-something red wines available were right for us.

We asked the waiter for help. He spent a full 60 seconds looking through the list before getting flustered and calling in some backup. To find a red wine that wouldn’t max out my credit card, we needed the assistance of the restaurant’s sommelier.

Shouldn’t there have been an easier way?

❡❡❡

What we really needed were fewer choices. We needed a list tailored to the needs of the wine-drinking 24-year-old on a semi-fixed income.

Here’s what a young wine drinker wants:

1. Red or white
2. For under $40

That’s the entire list of characteristics[1. And no screw off tops — it makes us feel like we’re buying a $5 bottle.].

So that eliminates half the wines from last night’s menu. But don’t stop there. I don’t need six malbecs on the menu. I don’t need three pages of cabernet sauvignons.

I want the Kid’s Menu of Wine Lists.

❡❡❡

Wine Pairings

Here’s what I’m offering you, sommeliers of America: the chance to make a customer for life.

Because I don’t understand wine. I don’t appreciate its subtleties. I like wine, and I’ll happily pay $25 or $30 at a restaurant for nice bottle to share with a date. But when I’m at the liquor store, I buy wine based on how colorful the bottle is. I don’t remember names or tastes or blends.

I remember that I tried the wine with the penguin on the bottle.

But there’s an opportunity here. Because there are lots of young people like me who simply do not know how to order wine. We don’t drink it that often. But we like to seem cultured, and, ideally, there will come a time when I’m on a date and I’d like to be able to point to the menu and say, “Oh, yes! This one! I had this a few months back at _______! This is the one we want.” And she’ll be impressed, and I’ll be happy, and we’ll both end up drunk, and that’s all I can really ask for from a bottle of wine.

So give me limited choices. Offer two wine menus: the Full Menu, and the Limited Selection[2. Please don’t insult us and call it the Young Drinker’s Selection, or the Kid’s Wine List. We do like being treated like semi-competent humans.]. Make it 10 wines. Make every bottle on the menu the same price — $30, $35, whatever. Otherwise, we’ll always choose the cheapest one. Eliminate that distraction.

Make the menu one page, and only one. Give us a full description of each wine. Offer tastings, if we’d like.

And at the end of the night, on the receipt, ask us if we’d like to leave our email addresses, so that you can shoot us details about what we’ve just enjoyed and where we can find it in our neighborhood. A coupon wouldn’t hurt, either.

Point is: Limit our options and make us fans of something new. We 20somethings are loyal. If we like something, we’ll stick with it. And we’ll come back to your restaurant and tell our friends about you, because we’ll have found a place that invited us to experience something new. We like feeling welcome, and we love it when people treat us seriously[3. This isn’t necessarily breaking news, but you’d be surprised at how many adults treat 24-year-olds like we’re 12.].

All we’re asking is for you to help us. We won’t be insulted by a limited wine menu. Hell, we’d probably order more wine if you presented it to us that way. The full menu can be intimidating.

Because I saw the 15-page-long wine menu last night. And on the back jacket cover, I saw the beer selection. There were four beers on it. I knew all their names.

That seemed like something that I could handle.

❡❡❡

You know what ended up happening last night? The sommelier came. He spent 45 seconds deliberating about his selection of red wines. He pointed to a wine on the menu. We ordered it.

It was, to be fair, delicious.

But today, I was relaying this story to my mother. And she asked me a simple question:

“So what wine did you end up getting?”

And I realized: I had absolutely no idea.

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Twitter’s Truth Squad.

Here is what happens when I hear about news indirectly — basically, when breaking news gets to me secondhand:

1. I run to a computer.

2. I open up the nearest Twitter client.

3. I search for the news that I’ve just heard and try to find confirmation that it is either true or false.

In short, Twitter is my first source for news verification. It usually has details on an event long before traditional news outlets can get a full story up online.

But consider what happened to me Saturday night. I see this Facebook update from a friend, a Springsteen fan. It says, “RIP Big Man.”

And I immediately log onto Twitter to search for news about Clarence Clemons.

Except — that’s exactly the wrong place to go for something like this. Twitter is where death hoaxes go to really get rolling. On Twitter, someone impersonating @CNN has announced Morgan Freeman’s death. On Twitter, we’ve seen Adam Sandler and Charlie Sheen and even Mick Jagger die, only to find out hours later that they’re actually still alive.

Death hoaxes aren’t even the worst of it. Sometimes, we’ve got news hoaxes going around. Like the one from real Washington Post columnist Mike Wise. Or a new hoax from a guy who claimed to be a college basketball recruiting expert with inside information. Turned out he wasn’t. Didn’t stop his fake news from getting real attention, though.

What I know is this: we need a way to verify these news-related tweets. Twitter took a big step forward when it introduced verified accounts. But it needs to go a leap beyond that, I believe.

So here’s an open call to the Twitter team: Want to make your corner of the Internet one that actually prides itself on accuracy? Want to make your product the thing that people actually trust?

Start verifying tweets.

Not Twitterers (or tweeple, or tweeps). Go verify individual tweets.

And you’re not going to like how I think we should do it:

With humans.

❡❡❡

Hear me out. I’m talking about Twitter, one of the biggest and most powerful news reporting tools on the planet, employing a team of real, actual humans. Humans who make phone calls. Humans who verify information independently, and don’t just Google something to find out if it could be true.

In the past, we called such humans “reporters.” I’d be okay with using that phrasing again.

It’d work like this. Twitter would bring its own team of reporters in house. They’d monitor activity on Twitter. They’d see what’s trending and what’s bubbling just below the surface. And when something big breaks — say, an #RIPBobSaget hashtag — the reporting team would break into action. They’d make calls. They’d independently verify Mr. Saget’s status. If it turns out Mr. Saget was, in fact, not killed in an awful wakeboarding incident in the Swiss Alps, the Twitter team would move to quell the rumor by:

A. Posting a breaking news update at the top of the Twitter page devoted to the hashtag.

B. Creating a push notification specifically targeted to those using the hashtag — or discussing Bob Saget — to inform them of the truth.

That’s the starting place.

❡❡❡

But what if Twitter went further? What if Twitter created a specific channel for breaking news, where it could publish breaking news tweets in real time? Think the Google News homepage mixed with the instant refresh technology of TweetDeck, with all news curated by the Twitter reporters. Wouldn’t that be a must-bookmark?

Think of it this way: Why wouldn’t Twitter HQ want to better utilize Twitter as the breaking news service it already is? Give us headlines. Give us the news ticker, Twitter style. Give us a verified account with trusted, we-actually-made-a-call-and-know-this-to-be-true news. Call it @TruthSquad. Call it @VerifiedNews.[1. Just don’t try to combine Truth + Twitter, because you’ll end up with something like @truthitter. Not a flattering name.]

And don’t say it wouldn’t pay for itself. When an earthquake hits Los Angeles, and Twitter’s in-real-time news page is posting links and Twitpics, you don’t think the New York Post would pay $10,000 to get their quake story posted at the top of the Twitter breaking news page? You don’t think they’d like the extra million hits they’d get just from Twitter referrals?[2. Speaking of which: Celebrities would also be a great source of income for Twitter. When you crash your car, your insurance company pays to fix the damage. If someone starts a Bob Saget is Dead rumor, why can’t Saget get social media insurance to recoup the damages to his brand name? Pay Twitter a little, and Twitter insures that when false information gets out there, they’ll get the real information into the hands of users who care about celeb news.]

Now, do note: there is no way to verify off-the-record or on-deep-background information passed along from some reporters. If @ESPN says, “Sources tell @ESPN that Michael Jordan will be coming out retirement to play for the Miami Heat,” the Twitter team isn’t going to be able to confirm that. They don’t have ESPN’s sources. But they can confirm certain news.

An official Twitter team of reporters can stop hoaxes. They can get truthful information out to consumers.

They can make Twitter the place for trusted, breaking news.

Traditional media can’t necessarily serve this role as the gatekeeper for real-time truth. Tell me again why can’t Twitter do it itself?

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My Sister, the Graduate.

My little sister graduated from college this week. We went down to celebrate graduation with her. We filed into the school’s basketball arena on Thursday. We sat and watch the processional. An orchestra played. A Dean spoke. Hands clapped, and parents ‘Woo-Hoo!’-ed, and mostly, we just sat, unbelievably proud of my little sister.

Now, she didn’t think much of her graduation. We’re Jewish kids from the suburbs who get to go on week-long ski trips — we’re not exactly the kind of college graduates who’ve had to overcome long odds. I said it when I graduated, and my sister said the same thing after hers.

But I remember a conversation we had three years ago. My sister called me, in tears. She was having a tough semester. She’d felt resistance — from her classes, from her peers. She felt isolated and lost, and she called asking for help.

I remember feeling a tremendous responsibility. I’d been called upon for brotherly support, and I remember reaching back to a place I didn’t know I could go to give her the only advice I think I’ve ever really believed:

Go out and find the things you love and the people you love, and be with them as much as you can.

Fast forward to the close of the graduation ceremony on Thursday. I was holding the camera, and my sister started dragging me through the crowd. She wanted a photo with this friend, and that friend, and this family. Hugs and kisses. Some English, and some Spanish, and even a bit of Swahili. Enough moments to put a Kodak executive’s family through college.

My mother looked at me — my mother, the lady who knows everyone, the lady who can, has and will start conversations with complete strangers in the bathroom — and said, “Your sister knows everyone.”

I was about as proud as a brother could be. We started hearing stories about how my sister had met all these people. Turns out my sister had thrown herself into everything — clubs and sports and classes, and she’d made some incredible friends.

She’d figured out college.

Because there’s a little secret about undergraduate life. They don’t tell you this when you’re reaching for the Ivies, or when you’re cramming for SATs, or when you’re being schooled in the differences between early action and early decision.

College isn’t about the classes. If you’re lucky, for four years, it’s a place to try. College is four years to try things that you won’t have time to try once you’re old, four years to experiment, four years to grow. Four years to find the stuff you love and the people you love.

You’re right, El. We don’t have the Hollywood story. You’re right: we expected you to graduate from college.

But you found something else at college, El. And for finding it, we couldn’t be prouder.

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The Very Exciting Thing That Is About To Happen To Me (or: M-I-Z).

This post was originally published over on Stry. It’s actually a speech that I intended to give in Columbia, Mo., last week. I didn’t know I was supposed to give a speech, and then I decided to read the itinerary of events I’d been sent, and saw very clearly the words “Dan Oshinsky” and “five-minute speech” linked together, and suddenly, hastily, began writing. Turned out that they decided to not have me speak — wise move on their part, I should say — but I’ve regurgitated the vague outline of my would-be speech here:

Motion is kind of an amazing thing.

I feel like I should know. I went skydiving last week.

I’m not exactly the skydiving type. I’d never been skydiving before, or bungee jumping, or heliskiing, or anything that involved a significant amount of free fall. I’m also not a fan of heights. So you can guess how strange it must have been for me to be sitting on the floor of a four-seat Cessna, 10,000 feet above Warrenton, Va., strapped to a guy named Dave — white hair, white eyebrows, used-to-be-a-roadie-in-Joplin, Mo., Dave — when the door to the plane opened, and I looked down.

And I surrendered.

Surrendered to the overwhelming, crippling fear, for one. But also to Dave, because he was literally harnessed to my back, and he was going to throw me out of the plane whether I was ready or not, and he was also the guy who controlled the parachute, which meant that he would be deciding whether or not we landed.[1. Well, safely, at least.]

I surrendered. We jumped.

I was thinking about that last week. I think there are two types of media organizations out there: Those willing to surrender to the current media climate and move forward, and those that aren’t.

It is not enough to merely acknowledge that things have changed for newsrooms and news organizations. Some fight what’s happening, some fear it.

Some surrender.

That’s the smart choice.

One type of new media organization gets me especially excited these days: The startup. These are organizations that sense opportunity, chance, uncertainty — and are putting themselves in motion to chase their ambitions. I find that to be a remarkable thing.

So this year, I’m going to get a bit closer to them.

The University of Missouri’s Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) has invited me out to Columbia, Mo., in the fall to serve as a fellow.[3. The list of former fellows is long and distinguished, and I am not entirely sure how I now find myself among their ranks.] For a year, I’ll be studying news-centric startups, trying to catalog the choices, successes and failures made during their early stages. I’ll be applying those lessons to Stry, the startup I founded last fall in Biloxi, Miss.

Despite all the success I had in Biloxi, Stry has been idling since the fall. RJI is giving me the chance to kick-start Stry once again. During the course of my fellowship, I’m going to try to take Stry from concept to realization. The goal is to build out an organization that can begin reporting and syndicating stories starting in the spring of 2012.

Better yet is that I’m going to try to bring transparency to the process. I’m going to put Stry inside the fishbowl for others to watch and participate in the startup process. My successes, my failures — they’ll all be public.

My hope is that by opening up the process, we can give other could-be founders the chance to see how challenging the startup process can be. If we do it right, we’ll give them the chance to start their company at a place greater than zero.

Do that, and we give them the chance to put their company into motion faster.

And motion — motion is kind of an amazing thing.

photo at top by Dak Dillon

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