Blog #1

Why a Personal Blog?

In addition to being able to update articles as needed -- which has to be frequently in this field -- one of the advantages of this type of totally independent medium is that we can say things without the fear that they could hurt textbook sales in certain parts of the country.

Things You Won't

Find In Textbooks

I got my feet wet in broadcasting (and started making my mistakes) doing on-air announcing for a local radio station while in high school.

Before I went into teaching many years later, I had worked full time in two countries for seven radio stations and three major TV stations.

I experienced many things that I occasionally talked about in class -- some would call them "war stories" -- that aren't appropriate for formal educational materials. Interestingly, these "war stories" tended to be what students remembered most from the class. That's okay, because they often carried an important lesson.

Back in the early days when radio and TV people fumbling their way along, mistakes were inevitable. This wasn't helped by the fact that equipment was notoriously unreliable. (The first TV stations regularly went off of the air for hours at a time when things broke down.)

Equipment is far more reliable today (believe it or not!), and young people starting out in radio and TV are expected to be better prepared than they were a few decades ago.

For one thing, "been-there-done-that people" like me are expected to educate them.

Part of that "education" is talking about things that certain people sometimes object to. The forum is a good example.