By Daniel Victor

I intend to always keep this blog on-topic. I created a side blog in case I felt the need to write about non-journalism stuff, though I haven’t been good about writing in it.

But I’ve been tagged by Sara Bozich to participate in this trendy meme, and I planned to ignore it. Then I thought: Why not keep it on-topic, but still let you all learn a little more about your beloved author?

So here are seven journalism-related things you may not know about me:

1) My passion for journalism was ignited when a news article I wrote for my high school newspaper was censored. It was about condom distribution in schools, and our principal decided that it and another story about birth control options were inappropriate for the audience. Some brought the paper home, and it would be read by smaller children, he argued.

In the process of a lengthy and painful back-and-forth with the school administration, I did a lot of research and thinking about the value of journalism. I wrote a research paper about the chilling effect of the Hazelwood court case on high school journalists (that was the first Web site I ever made, so forgive the crappiness). I learned why journalism matters.

2) At the same time, my high school newspaper was really freaking good. During my senior year we were named the Most Outstanding Newspaper for 2002 by the American Scholastic Press Association. Our state association graded us at 985/1000 (and 5 of those points were deducted because of a printing problem that wasn’t our fault, and I remember disputing the other two deductions, too). One judge wrote that “There is nothing I can think of to improve this paper.”

3) At Penn State, I was widely known as “Dan the Fan.” I wrote a weekly column for Blue, a youth tabloid produced by the Centre Daily Times that was geared toward college students, from the passionate perspective of a blue-blooded football and basketball fan. It was occasionally good, occasionally juvenile. I’m really not too proud of it. The many, many times I had a blank Word document staring at me an hour before deadline made me realize I’m not cut out to be a columnist. I couldn’t keep up with my own demand to be proud of everything I put my name on every single week.

4) I’m very, very critical of my own writing. Whenever I read a story the next morning I usually find a few things that I wish I would have done differently, and this causes me to rarely read my story the next morning. This also makes it very difficult to choose my best clips, because I dwell on that which I could have done better rather than that which I had done well.

5) To counter that negativity: Since I started at The Patriot-News in May 2006, I’ve had the most A1 stories of any reporter on staff outside of the D.C. and Capitol bureaus. Seeing my byline on the front page, unless it’s a story I really like, hasn’t carried any feeling for me in a long time.

6) The most fun I’ve ever had on assignment came during my internship for The Wichita Eagle when I had the honor of chasing tornadoes with staff photographer Travis Heying. We dangerously sped through unmarked country roads and slammed on the brakes when we ended up on a road that was full of cows. The grave disappointment was that I didn’t actually get to see a tornado land — it was forecast to be one of the bigger storms in years, and ended up being very tame — but chasing the clouds that looked like they’d develop into tornadoes was an adrenaline junkie’s dream.

7) I have the second-messiest desk at The Patriot-News, behind only John Luciew, who is running away with the title. I usually have a large stack of newspapers, way too many notebooks, as many as a dozen bottled waters or other soda bottles, a little Dilbert guy, and several Philadelphia and Penn State bobbleheads, including a hilariously misspelled “Donavan McNabb.” The best thing on the wall is easily the New York Post cover featuring a crying little Mets fan from the peak of their wonderful 2007 collapse.

Visual evidence:

Cleaner than usual

Journalism

Run up the Score, in my humble opinion, is the best of the many Penn State football-themed blogs out there. Though my particular newspaper, in my humble opinion, offers the best Penn State football coverage out there, RUTS has become required reading.

I swept the pigeons away from my typewriter long enough to e-mail the author some questions. He was kind enough to answer those questions, mid-air, while doing some kind of trick on his skateboard. (Try Fire Joe Morgan or Deadspin for an explanation of that ridiculous image.)

It was an effort to show that bloggers aren’t the inherently evil, newspaper-reader-stealing, ethics-depraved leeches that some newsroom dwellers paint them to be. A lot of thought and passion goes into their craft, and the sooner journalists understand that, the better.

(Any italics are my own, to emphasize what I believe are key points. I cut out parts of his answers just so it wasn’t too long; if anyone is interested in reading the full Q&A, I’d be happy to forward it to you.)

BDV: At what point, and why, did you decide you wanted to blog?

RUTS: Personally, Run Up The Score started as a general sports blog with a moderate concentration on college football. It didn’t take long for it to become a college football blog with a heavy Penn State concentration. Now it’s a Penn State blog that occasionally dabbles in other areas. Nobody succeeds with a blog, certainly not on a personal satisfaction level, if they only passively care about the subject. That’s why so many blogs pop up and disappear after a month. The writer finally says to himself, “wait, why the hell am I doing this?” and quits.

I think anyone who takes the time to start a blog and maintain it on a consistent basis feels that the entire story isn’t being told. It doesn’t matter if the chosen topic is college football, politics, or baking. Blogging gives a potentially loud voice to people who don’t have access, and there’s certainly a place for writers who don’t get too intimate with the people and subjects they cover. The best blogs fill in the gaps that newspapers, television, and radio can’t always cover for whatever reason. They can’t be everywhere. The Associated Press is never going to pick up a Joe Paterno road rage story unless he kills somebody. Why would they? But if you type “Joe Paterno road rage” into Google, I guarantee that 95% of the stories on the topic are written on blogs, and they did it with an informality and sense of humor you can’t get from traditional media sources.

That’s also part of why blogs published by established news outlets are often so awkward — there’s often an editing process and the writer doesn’t get to write stories predicting Anthony Morelli’s performance on the Wonderlic Test at the NFL Combine. They’ll state that he’s in Indianapolis with three other players for the NFL Combine, which is something that 80% of Penn State fans already knew. Newspaper blogs usually end up being exactly what they shouldn’t be — another source of the same news found elsewhere, not to mention there’s hardly ever any evident joy in the writing.

Credibility issues iron themselves out in the blogosphere, especially because the best bloggers are sensitive to the constant, uninformed criticism that all blogs are written by people with no regard for fact (especially because newspapers so often bungle or conceal significant parts of a story). Sure, some sites are like that, but who reads them on a consistent basis? If I posted tomorrow morning that I had an inside source in Old Main stating that Joe Paterno will resign on Thursday morning and Jay Paterno will take over as head coach, it won’t take many more of those mistakes before I squander whatever readership I’ve built up over the past two years. In a weird sense, this is my baby. If I blatantly plagiarized or fabricated something, I’d eventually be called on it in a very real, public fashion. Consumers of traditional media don’t often get the opportunity to lash out at reporters, at least not for the whole world to see.

In defense of bloggers

BY DANIEL VICTOR
Of The Patriot-News

Could the key to saving lives come 120 characters at a time on a tiny screen?

That tiny screen — that of a cell phone — is usually on hand for an estimated 90 percent of college students. E-mails might be quick, but the shootings at Virginia Tech showed they won’t be able to give vital information to students in classrooms or in cars on their way to campus.

You could try landlines and answering machines, but those are so 1998. College students are using them sparingly, having moved toward the constant connectedness of cell phones.

“This is everyday life to those individuals,” said Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre, who introduced a resolution yesterday urging colleges to implement text-messaging alert systems. “This is what they do.”

Conklin urges Pennsylvania schools to adopt alert systems similar to Penn State University’s.

The school’s public information office runs PSUTXT, which students opt into for updates on emergencies, school closings, sports scores and concert announcements. The service, launched in August 2006, sends short messages to students’ cell phone screens.

A renewed awareness effort, buoyed by the shootings at Virginia Tech, boosted subscribers from 4,055 Monday morning to 6,749 at noon yesterday, school spokeswoman Annemarie Mountz said. During a 10-minute phone conversation, 25 more people enrolled.

It is one of several tools used to reach the 43,000 students at State College, she said, “because there is no one good way to reach everybody.”

“In the past, we were thinking more along the lines of school closings because of snow,” Mountz said. “But we were always aware that in an emergency, we would have this available.”

The service is provided by E2Campus, which claims about 30 colleges as customers. The service can send out 18,000 text messages per minute, and students can get updates in four to eight seconds, company spokesman Bryan Crum.

“Students have their cell phones with them wherever they go,” Crum said. “There’s a really good chance everyone on campus is going to get that alert. Even if they don’t, the person next to them will see.”

A campus of 2,000 people would pay $3,000 per year for the service, he said. A school with 50,000 would pay $27,500.

Conklin’s resolution, if passed, would urge, but not require, schools to use Penn State’s system as a model. He said he’d like to see compulsory participation from students, but he couldn’t imagine students not wanting the information.

“When you’re a student, you’re mandated to give your Social Security number,” he said. “Why not have colleges and universities say, ‘We want to have your phone number and your text messaging and your e-mail as well’?”

Crum said none of the schools using E2Campus requires students to participate. Students opt in to the service because of spam and telemarketing laws, he said.

Elizabethtown College, with 1,900 students, uses voice mail, e-mail and its Web site to contact students in emergencies, school spokeswoman Mary Dolheimer said.

The idea of text messaging is “something that we have looked at extensively in the past and will continue to look at,” she said. She sent copies of recent articles about text messaging to the school’s emergency management group, she said.

“Students do not utilize their landline phones,” Dolheimer said. “They really stick to their cell phone, especially when they’re in transit. They’re not logged into computers, and they’re not sitting in front of a TV.”

Clips

BY DANIEL VICTOR
Centre Daily Times

UNIVERSITY PARK — When highly touted football prospects such as quarterback Pat Devlin and wide receiver Vidal Hazelton visit campus, Penn State junior Brad Wilson does what he can to help urge them to become Nittany Lions.

But Wilson created an unfair advantage for Penn State when he distributed 40 hand-held signs cheering Devlin’s visit during a men’s basketball game, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The fans who roared with Wilson unknowingly repeated the offense Saturday, when Hazelton was spotted in the Bryce Jordan Center.

Based on rules that prevent schools from publicizing visits of high school prospects, Penn State is asking students to stop creating signs and chanting the names of visiting recruits during basketball and football games.

Penn State is not, however, in trouble with the NCAA for past chants and signs.

According to an NCAA staff interpretation from Feb. 27, 1991, when a school learns of the behavior, “the institution would be required to take affirmative steps to stop such an activity.”

John Bove, Penn State’s compliance director, has called several student leaders into his office to explain the NCAA rule to them.

“Now that the students have committed the action, we’re now responsible for making sure it doesn’t happen again in the future,” Bove said.

Fans learned that Devlin would visit the Bryce Jordan Center on Jan. 21 from Web sites that use sources outside the athletic department. With signs in hand, several dozen to a hundred students peppered Devlin with chants of “Patrick Devlin” and encouraged him to rise from his seat with a “Stand up, Devlin” cheer. He did.

During Saturday’s men’s basketball game, students were ready to chant Hazelton’s name. One female student held up a sign that read: “Hazelton — I’m single.”

Visiting prospects often walk in front of the student section to their seats during basketball games, a practice allowed by NCAA guidelines. Cheering or applauding is acceptable, Bove said, but using the prospects’ names is not.

Hazelton, who’s from Staten Island, N.Y., walked in front of the students to his seat, but Devlin, of Downingtown, sat in a section above the students.

Wilson, after meeting with Bove, said that he had no idea the NCAA disapproved of his actions and that he won’t do it again. In the past, he’s chanted the names of then-high-schoolers Derrick Williams and Justin King inside Beaver Stadium, he said.

“We wanted to promote Penn State and show them that the student body wanted them,” Wilson said.

As long as Penn State is working to educate them, the fans won’t get the school in trouble, NCAA spokesman Kent Barrett said.

“It sounds like (Penn State is) doing exactly the right thing,” he said. “As long as they’re doing that, I can’t imagine what a potential violation would be.”

Compliance officials at Ohio State and Michigan State said they haven’t had similar problems with students. At the University of Michigan, the compliance office meets each year with the basketball student group about recruiting guidelines, said Matt Stolberg, assistant athletic director for compliance at Michigan.

“We’ve gone down that road where students had signs, and we’ve acted in accordance with the interpretation and told them not to use the signs, or took them away if we had to,” he said.

Jennifer Owsiany, a leader of the Nittwits, Penn State’s basketball student group, said she’s skeptical that students will stop their chants. They see them as an effective way to help their football team, she said.

“If I was in high school and I had people chanting my name, I can only imagine what it would feel like,” she said. “Holy moly, I would love it.”

Clips

BY DANIEL VICTOR
For The Patriot-News

In a sparsely decorated basement room adorned only with a wall-sized banner of the Nittany Lion logo, eight friends aren’t watching television.

The stereo offers a mix of Billy Joel, Sublime and Jay-Z. But the music that matters to these Penn State University students and buddies — they hear it two or three nights a week — comes from the constant shuffling of poker chips.

At 1:30 a.m. Thursday, the game is going strong in Penn State junior Nathan Valchar’s basement. A few players smoke cigarettes, filling the room with a haze. Some drink sodas, some drink beers.

One player has class the next morning, so he forces himself from the green felt table, cashing out his chips after four hours of playing.

The others press on. They once played from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., they proudly recall. Tonight, they started at 9 p.m. Time flies when you’re playing poker with friends.

“If I have chips, I’m going to play until I don’t have any chips anymore,” says David Bowman, a junior from State College. “I don’t even care about winning. I just want to stay in as long as possible.”

The players are annoyed when someone doesn’t pay attention and hesitates to make his bet, but the conversation flows. They argue over the Eagles-Steelers game, trade stories about friends and discuss the first CD they bought.

A television in the next room broadcasts a pro basketball game, but no one pays attention.

On the table, it’s all business.

They’re playing Texas Hold ‘Em, and they all have their own strategies. Some are taken from their favorite players on “The World Series of Poker” on television.

With an ace and a two in his hand, Ben Kiggen, a junior from State College, feels confident. All eyes concentrate on the red Bicycle cards as the dealer hands out the flop (three cards that can be used by all players). As he watches an ace come out with a nine and a four, Kiggen puts on his best poker face for his high pair. He knows it’s a good hand.

He decides it’s as good a time as any to make his move. Like challenging someone — anyone — to a duel, he announces he’s going all in and pushes all his chips to the center of the table. He wants to see if anyone is gutsy enough to stay in, or maybe he’s trying to “buy the pot” by forcing everyone to fold.

But Derek Bledsoe has a good hand himself. He calls, setting up the showdown. With Kiggen unable to bet on the last two cards, both players reveal their cards so everyone can follow along. The players stand up from their chairs in anticipation.

Bledsoe flips over his ace and nine, and Kiggen’s heart sinks. Unless he draws a pair of twos on the final two cards, a very unlikely outcome, he’s been beat.

The dealer shows the final two cards: a six and a nine. Bledsoe wins.

“You’re lucky!” Kiggen shouts. “You’re so lucky!”

“I may be lucky,” Bledsoe shoots back, “but who has more chips?”

Kiggen reaches for his wallet to buy another $10 worth of chips.

“I’m buying back in for the sole purpose of taking out Derek,” he announces, partly in jest.

The trash-talking is usually limited, they say. They’ll razz each other when they feel it’s appropriate, but don’t get mad at the poker table.

It costs them $10 to enter the game, but they have the option to spend more money if they run out of chips. Matt Dougherty, a sophomore, lost his initial $10, bought $10 more in chips before winning his original $10 back — then lost all $20.

Dougherty says he rarely loses that much in a night, but it doesn’t concern him. He views it as an investment — or, at worst, no different than spending money at the bowling alley.

“I gamble with money that I know I can lose,” he says. “I’m not going to blow my life savings.”

Valchar, who won $5 on the night, says a bad night is nothing to worry about. “It seems to be, in our group of people, the money just flows from one person to another,” he says. “I might win tonight; someone else might win the next time.”

Around 3 a.m., Valchar calls it quits — he’s got work at 8 a.m.

“It’s a good time-waster,” he says. “It’s something to do for a couple of hours. Or a few more, if I’m playing well.”

Clips