Professor Evaluations

Note: The following will only be interesting to my parents (Hi Mim, Hi Dad). But I want to blog them for future nostalgia purposes (and because this blog is all about my ego). Plus one joke that professor Porter made in his evaluation just made me drop on the floor and laugh: He got the last word.

From Sree Sreevanisan — New Media Issues

David Cohn was one of 19 students in the New Media Issues course, a Fall
elective.

David came to the class with an unfair advantage: He already knew a lot
about new media; was a prolific "Digg-er;" and basically lived in the
heart of the online world in a way that almost no other student at the
Journalism School did. He even had a job as a writer for the highly-
anticipated new site, NewAssignment.net.

He could have used all this background knowledge to either blow off the class or to show off, but he did neither. He embraced the assignments and worked hard throughout. He was humble and asked the right questions and pushed the whole class in new directions when appropriate.

I really enjoyed having him in the class as he added a lot to it – something
the other students recognized. They turned to him as a colleague for ideas and assistance.

His two stories were excellent – reflecting his expertise and freelance writing

experience. His piece on Digg was particularly insightful. His concluding para shows some of the tension intrinsic to this new world: "Regardless of how well these attempts at cheating Digg work, the self-policing reality is troubling, especially in light of Digg.s policy of keeping the identity of users private. It fosters a sense of freedom in what people are willing to submit, but it also creates a void of accountability. While I can stand firm that trading Diggs for money is wrong, I have to admit it comes eerily close to what I do when I submit stories that I have been paid to write."

For his other story, he wrote about distractions hitting folks who work/use the Internet and he did it in a compelling, funny way – with a clear voice.

In recognition of his outstanding work in the course, David will receive the
"honors in class" designation.

I wish him well in the Spring semester and look forward to working with him the rest of his time at Columbia. I have high expectations of him and look forward to watching him build a successful career.

From Professor Porter — Columbia News Service

Mr. Cohn is a very likable, personable, savvy, sharp, energeteic
student, an unusually quick study when it comes to thinking up good
ideas. His piece on National Writers’ Week beat the NYTimes, which did
it after CNS, and his stories on weird museums and people who tinker
with artificial limbs to accommodate them to people’s special needs
were unique stories that I haven’t seen anywhere else. He’s got a great
eye for the unusual and a reporter’s knack of getting people to
cooperate in giving him what he needs.  The thing he has to work on
some is interweaving color and descriptions through his pieces so we
can see his characters as well as hear them. And in his reporting he
needs to be conscious of having to come up with interesting stories to
illustrate points he wants to make, things he wants to bring alive in
the final piece. But that will all come with practice. Have no doubt
we’ll be hearing interesting things from this quarter in the not too
far off.

PS–A coat and tie will do wonders to relax subjects in the interview situation. (emphasis added).

NOTE: Bruce Porter once told me that I looked like Huckelberry Fin and
asked what I looked like when I did interviews. I told him "I clean up
nice." The beatnik in me took it as a compliment, but I think he was trying to tell me something.

From Barry Bearak (I spelled his name Bearack the whole semester!)

Dave misspelled my name the entire term, and though I badly wanted to hold this against him, I found it impossible. He is an extraordinarily nice fellow with a very sharp mind. And he has great potential in new media. Dave spends about six hours a day surfing the net. Watching him function in front of a computer is like observing a virtuoso on the piano, the world at his fingertips, a seemingly effortlessly glide.

The main purpose of RW1 is to teach the basics of news and news features. In Daveâ??s case, some of the lessons sank in and some did not. Since heâ??s a guitar player, Iâ??ll return to a music metaphor. Often, Dave seemed incapable of following the sheet music. He preferred to jam. On drills, this meant his ledes often were explorations instead of well-stated themes, and when the themes were stated, not all the notes were played in the right sequence. Dave has yet to master the by-the-book news story. As he reads good deadline writing on the web, heâ??d do well to slow down and study what he sees.

Features are something of a different matter for Dave. Here he profits well from solid reporting skills and acute powers of observation. Most of all, Dave has an excellent eye for a good story. He was the only student in the class to get a piece published in The New York Times. This was a story about Pastor Ann Kansfield, a lesbian whose father, the Rev. Norman Kansfield, was defrocked because he presided at her same-sex marriage. He has written several very good features for Seed Magazine. That said, Daveâ??s eye is not unerring. For his education story, he profiled a teenaged student at a charter school that focuses on automobile repairs. Would he have been better off focusing on the school itself? Its female principal? Its female students?

Daveâ??s stories invariably arrive with good quotes and compelling facts. But they also have a hurried quality about them. Dave ought to suffer more. Good writing does not come easily. It requires painstaking choices. How should the story be structured? What needs to go in and what needs to be left out? What are the best words to use?

All in all, Iâ??m very excited about Daveâ??s future. He has more potential than most of his classmates. This has as much do to with enthusiasm as brainpower. Dave loves journalismâ??loves being out there, loves talking to people, loves information. He also has a strong social conscience, which is a rare commodity.

Journalism is undergoing some extraordinary changes, and Dave will be well-positioned to find a place for himself in the media of the 21st Century.