August/September 2016 Archives - Outdoor Writers Association of America

Destination Duluth

OWAA Developer — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 00:51:55 +0000

Miles of forested trails meet stretches of sandy beach in Duluth, Minnesota, home to OWAA’s 2017 conference. Mark your calendars for June 24-26, 2017, when OWAA returns to Duluth, where it hosted conferences in 1969 and 1996.
Whether you prefer kicking back with a pale ale or kicking up dust on the Superior Hiking Trail, Duluth is a renowned destination for accommodating every kind of pace in a stunning natural setting.
There’s a reason Outside magazine named Duluth winner of its annual “Best Town Ever” contest in 2014, and the town has produced more than 150 Olympians. Situated on the shore of Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world, Duluth is a thriving community that values recreation, with almost 7,000 acres of parkland, 178 miles of wooded trails and 16 designated trout streams in the city limits.
Visitors and locals alike flock to the water. They fish on it, swim in it, admire the views of it, and, of course, drink beverages created from it. Perhaps more than any other city in Minnesota, Duluth has embraced the craft beer craze, with many of the state’s more than 100 breweries flourishing in the immediate area.
Nestled in North America’s midsection in the heart of the Upper Midwest, Duluth is home to the largest shipping port along the entire 2,400-mile Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway. Canal Park, adjacent to the Duluth Harbor, is a perfect spot to watch, and listen to, the massive cargo ships measuring more than three football fields in length.
But the adventure goes beyond the shores.
Mountain bikers know Duluth as home to some of the best maintained trails and beautiful scenery anywhere, designated as one of just six gold-level ride centers in the world by the International Mountain Biking Association. Pedal pumpers of all abilities descend in droves upon the expansive trail system that includes 45 miles of single track. The Duluth Traverse, 100 miles of purpose-built trails scheduled to be 80 percent complete by 2017, will be one of the largest urban mountain-bike trail systems in the world.
Duluth blends its natural features and burgeoning urban scene like few places in the world. Visitors can comfortably explore one of Duluth’s many art galleries, catch an entertaining show downtown in the emerging historic arts and theater district, indulge in the finest cuisine in the area, or listen to music on the waterfront.
The result is the perfect place to host OWAA’s conference. We hope to see you there.
For more information visit visitduluth.com.

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Welcome to OWAA

OWAA Developer — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 00:44:31 +0000

New Members

Bob Baldwin became an avid bowhunter at 12 years old. He founded bowhuntinginfo.com in 1998. It was one of the earliest websites dedicated to archery. Baldwin’s goal is to get closer to wildlife, something bowhunting allows. He also takes photographs and video of wild game. Baldwin loves telling stories around a campfire. He is collaborating with his huntin’ buddy, Jay Ledbetter, to chronicle some of their hunting escapades through their website Bob N’ Jay Adventures. There is a kernel of truth to all their stories — some of the things that happen when hunting with good buddies just can’t be made up, but according to Baldwin, any embellishments are solely the responsibility of Ledbetter. Baldwin lives with his bride of 45 years in the state of Michigan.

Dacia Meneguzzo was born and raised in upper Michigan’s rugged and beautiful Keweenaw Peninsula. Her love of the outdoors led her to study forestry at Michigan Technological University. A job with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service brought her to Minnesota. She earned a master’s degree in natural resources science and management at the University of Minnesota where she is currently a doctoral candidate in the same program. While working as a research forester with the U.S. Forest Service, she created presentations and wrote a variety of reports, papers and scientific journal articles on forestry-related research and natural resource issues. She is an avid bowhunter and spends most of her vacation time hanging out in a tree. Her love of outdoor adventures, photography and writing prompted her to create www.daciaadventuress.com where she shares photos and blogs about her outdoor experiences.

Bobby Whitescarver is a watershed restoration scientist, farmer, award-winning writer and educator. He retired from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service with 31 years of field experience. He and his wife run a commercial cow calf operation in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with 120 brood cows. He is president of Whitescarver Natural Resources Management LLC, an environmental consulting firm, and is under contract with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Bay Journal News Service. He teaches natural resource management at James Madison University and is a freelance writer. He has written for Virginia Wildlife Magazine, the Bay Journal and several newspapers throughout the country. He has a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree from James Madison University in public administration. In 2002, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation chose him as the Conservationist of the Year. He can be reached through his website at http://www.gettingmoreontheground.com.

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Nomadic newshound

OWAA Developer — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 00:36:25 +0000

Taylor plans to visit all 59 national parks

BY TAYLOR WYLLIE
The sun was setting over the white sands. Light pinks, faded blues and hazy oranges cast a shimmery glow on the dunes.
Danielle Taylor stood in the center of it all soaking in the silent beauty of the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. She felt content. Finally.
“Last year I was really not a happy person,” Taylor said.
Last year was 80-hour work weeks and backaches from sitting in a desk chair all day. Last year was telling herself she would pursue freelancing — eventually, meanwhile writing the same types of articles for the same publication for the same people day in and day out.
An editor at a magazine covering parks and recreation, she was burnt out from the daily grind that comes with full-time work at a publication.
“In some sense, I loved the job,” Taylor said. “I was writing about parks and recreation. I felt like I was supporting the field.” But in other ways Taylor knew things had to change.
Last summer, at 29 years old, Taylor realized if ever there was a time to gamble with her career, now was it.
“I don’t even have a boyfriend, I don’t have kids, I don’t have a mortgage,” Taylor said. “This is the perfect time in my life to take a risk like this.”
She left her rental and moved her belongings to a family home in Pennsylvania.
With nothing holding her back, in the fall of 2015 Taylor decided for the next year (or two or three) she’d live out of her car and travel across the United States, visiting all 59 national parks and at least some of the other 352 public lands managed by the National Park Service, including the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. She planned to sell stories about her journey
and the parks she visited, using the park service’s Centennial in August as a news hook.
It was a way to live out a dream of exploring the outdoors and writing about it she’d harbored since she was a child growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Taylor always loved words, her mother Sue Taylor said. She learned to read by the time she was 4 years old. She won her first writing contest with a poem she wrote in second grade. In middle school she’d read the local newspaper and point out punctuation errors — for fun.
Her father Bob Taylor often found his only daughter 12 to 15 feet up in a tree reading. She spent her summer nights beneath a tarp in her backyard, preferring the feel of the grass and sight of the stars to four concrete walls and a mattress.
Outside magazine, which Taylor subscribed to as a teenager, inspired her efforts to be an outdoor journalist. It was king of all jobs. She could write, recreate and travel. And get paid for it.
Always itching to be somewhere else, Taylor went out-of-state for school, attending the University of Maryland where as a junior she participated in the Semester at Sea program. She visited about a dozen countries in three months.
She felt odd when she returned. At 22, she’d been across the world, but seen little of her own country.
Taylor graduated in 2009 with degrees in English and magazine journalism and human geography, a resume including four internships and strong grades and no job offers as the global economy destructed.
She decided to spend her savings on a cross-country road trip and loaded her dog, Paxton, an 80-pound retriever mix, into her dad’s old pickup truck.
She made it to Idaho, saw Yellowstone National Park and herds of wild bison for the first time and was about to head south when an emergency with a good friend forced her back home weeks before she’d planned to return.
For years, she tried to finish her road trip to the Southwest. But only two weeks of vacation time a year didn’t allow her the flexibility she needed.
This year she finally had the opportunity to finish that trip and see even more.
She’s paddled down the Mississippi River, hiked 750 feet into the Earth at Carlsbad Caverns National Park and stood alone on a trail near Guadalupe Mountain, watching a heard of mule deer roam nearby.
She works from the homes of friends, at coffee shops and even in her Subaru Outback. One time, while pulled over in a veterinary clinic parking lot in small-town Iowa, a police officer approached her after she’d tripped a silent alarm of some sort. He worried she was staking out the place. He now follows her adventures on her blog.
She’s written listacles for Alamo’s website about the parks. Blue Ridge Outdoors has her writing 60 blog posts for its website on her experiences.
But she’s not limiting herself to national park stories. In early June, she biked and walked along a 240-mile-long trail in a Missouri state park for a story for Rails to Trails magazine.
Amy Knapp, editor at Rails to Trails, said it’s essential for people like Taylor to tell these parks’ and trails’ stories after actually experiencing them. It gives them needed insight on the culture of that particular area.
Taylor has written for Knapp multiple times.
“Danielle has already proven to me that she can be successful at the freelance life,” Knapp said.
And the freelance life isn’t easy, Knapp said. Reporters need drive, networking skills, the ability to hear the word “no” all while pitching new, creative stories. In Taylor’s case she also needs the flexibility to live on the road: the capacity to face an unsteady income, showers at truck stops and strangers peering into her car windows while she sleeps.
While trying to figure out where to lay her head for the night during her trip at White Sands, Taylor met a fellow solo-female traveler. Before the sun set, the two new friends slid down the slick, bleach-white dunes on their sleds, whooping and laughing in the otherwise quiet park.
It was the sort of night that Taylor said makes her really happy.
“It’s kinda like when you’re outside all day and you have to pee in the woods,” Taylor said. “To me that always makes me happy — it’s like I’ve actually been outside and exploring for so long, I can’t just hold it until I’m back in civilization.”
To follow Taylor’s journey, head to her website www.adventureeditorial.com.
— Taylor Wyllie is an OWAA intern and student at the University of Montana, pursuing a degree in both journalism and environmental studies. She’s reported and edited for the independent student newspaper, The Montana Kaimin, for two years and her work has appeared on Montana PBS, Montana Public Radio and in the Missoulian.

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Spain ski area offers untold stories

OWAA Developer — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 00:31:10 +0000

BY PETER SCHROEDER
Most Americans think skiing in Europe means the Alps. But the Pyrenees on the Spanish-French border hold more than 30 ski resorts.
Last year, my wife Risa Wyatt and I skied at Baqueira-Beret, Spain’s largest ski resort, in the northern Pyrenees. Compared with Europe’s better-known ski resorts in Austria, Italy and France,
Baqueira-Beret offers distinct differences.
Located in the Catalonian Pyrenees, where the Catalonian culture and language have made a proud resurgence, you’ll find no signs in English, French, German or even Spanish at the ski area and surrounding villages. A world atlas shows a neat line dividing France from Spain, but nothing could be further from reality. Catalonia is in the process of trying to gain its independence from Spain. To its east sits Andorra, an independent country. To the west is the Basque region, which although technically part of Spain, is nevertheless autonomous. Few people in these mountainous regions even speak Spanish, which is considered their third language.
All postings are in Catalan, although staff at large hotels, restaurants and ski-rental shops speak English.
Chairlift names, with titles such as Blanhblar or Costarjas, are neither pronounceable nor memorable, with the possible exception of the double-diamond-plus run, Escornacrabes (which translates as “where goats fall”). But the area offers an experience you won’t forget.
The magnificent skiing includes almost 100 miles of trails, 3,500 vertical feet, spectacular views of 8,000- to 10,000-foot peaks, and limitless off-piste opportunities. From each of the three peaks that define the resort, one can look down on snowfields that seem to go on forever. It’s easy to imagine Mammoth, Breckenridge and several other Colorado resorts fitting comfortably within the area’s boundaries.
In the evening we hit the lively nightclub scene, where the sangria flowed continuously and foods of the region catered to every appetite. Whether you call them tapas (the Spanish word) or pintxos (Basque), they’re delicious and hit the spot après ski. For wine pairing, think bubbles: Catalonia is the home of cava, Spain’s signature sparkling wine.
Only 2 percent of the visitors to the Pyrenees are from the U.S., and local tourism organizers are eager to increase that number. They offered us story ideas beyond just the skiing, from the 12th-Century Romanesque churches and frescoes in the region to numerous well-stocked alpine fishing lakes.
Local tourism representatives in Baqueira-Beret expressed interest in hosting members of OWAA in their professional capacity. In addition to skiing and snowboarding, outdoors adventures throughout the year in the region include lake fishing, hunting, camping, mountain biking, birding, hiking and more. The gateway to the region is either Barcelona or Toulouse, France, which are in themselves worth a stopover for a few days. Information about Baqueira-Beret is found at http://www.baqueira.es.
[box size=”large”]The Ski Club of International Journalists
The Ski Club of International Journalists is com – posed of 2,000 journalists working in broadcast, print and digital media from 46 countries. OWAA mem – bers interested in learning more about the Ski Club of International Journalists should visit www.scij.info or email U.S.Team Captain Risa Wyatt at words@ risawyatt.com.[/box]
— Peter Schroeder is a freelance writer and photographer specializing in recreational boating, cruising under sail, scuba diving, snow skiing and worldwide adventure travel.

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Opinion: Minnesota should ban lead shot

OWAA Developer — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 21:14:33 +0000

BY MICHAEL FURTMAN
Anyone who hunts in the southern and western parts of Minnesota knows there are two types of public land ownership — those acquired by the Duck Stamp and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as waterfowl production areas, and those purchased by similar state stamps or other Minnesota funding that are managed as state wildlife management areas by the Department of Natural Resources.
These parcels are virtually identical except for signage, and when adjacent to each other, the land complex is sometimes managed as a whole by the two partner organizations. But there’s one big difference. On federal waterfowl protection areas, hunters must use nontoxic shot for hunting any upland species. To comply with federal law which requires the use of nontoxic shot for waterfowl, they use it when duck hunting on wildlife management areas as well. But if you were shooting a pheasant on these lands managed by the Department of Natural Resources, you can shoot lead.
Right now, if your target is a mallard, you must use steel. If it is a rooster pheasant, you can shoot lead. What sense does that make, considering you’re standing in practically the same spot, spewing shot out over the same marsh?
While it’s a given waterfowl production areas have wetlands for waterfowl production, almost every wildlife management area also contains wetlands, and waterfowl production and hunting are two major uses. In much of what the Department of Natural Resources classifies as the “farmland zone,” these wildlife management areas also provide critical habitat for pheasants and sharp-tailed grouse.
So it made sense to everyone managing these lands that given the toxicity of lead to waterfowl and other birds, the use of nontoxic shot should be required for all small game on wildlife management areas. By far the largest number of upland hunters using these lands are those chasing pheasants. Since the best pheasant cover is near wetlands, the majority of those birds are bagged nearby.
Wishing to avoid more lead in the few remaining wetlands in the state’s prairie region, the Department of Natural Resources announced its proposal in October 2015 to require nontoxic shot for upland hunting on these particular wildlife management areas near wetlands. It would not be applied to bullets or slugs or big game hunting.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation and Safari Club International organized their constituents to oppose this proposal. They also sent official letters to the department during the comment period.
Ryan Burt, president of the Minnesota chapter of the Safari Club wrote to the Department of Natural Resources, “… it is disturbing that the DNR is attempting to accomplish through administrative rulemaking what radical anti-hunting groups have largely been unable to do through litigation or legislation — pricing hunters out of hunting.” Steel, he asserted, is far more expensive, and all one needs to do is go to a sporting goods store to see that Safari Club International is right.
But they aren’t right. Depending upon where and when you buy your shotshells, steel is often as cheap, or cheaper, than lead. Since shot weights and speeds are different in lead loads than steel, apple-to-apple comparisons are not easy. But a simple online search for loads suitable for pheasant hunting reveals that Rogers Sporting Goods sells a case of lead Federal Wing-Shok 12-gauge 2¾ shells for $129.99, and the similar steel Speed-Shok for $119.99. If you move up to 3-inch shells and into premium ammo designed specifically for pheasant hunting (Federal Prairie Storm), Cabela’s sells a case of steel for $199.99, with the lead version priced at $214.99. Clearly, nontoxic loads are not going to price anyone out of hunting.
Then there are the comments of Jake McGuigan of the National Shooting Sports Foundation to the Department of Natural Resources, who said, “This legislation seeks to use lead as a means to end hunting in Minnesota.”
Seriously? This would come as shocking news to the numerous pheasant hunters (myself among them) who using steel, love to prowl the federal waterfowl protection areas. Even more baffling was endless information about the California Condor, the lack of evidence of health risks to humans, how wildlife management should focus on species population health and not that of individuals. It was not much more than a “traditional ammo” form letter which could be sent to any agency or region considering restricting the use of lead shot, little of which had anything to do with the proposal in Minnesota.
Apparently the Safari Club and the National Shooting Sports Foundation still see bogeyman, anti-hunters under every bed. They act as if hunters were being asked to make a sacrifice akin to abandoning cars to travel by bike, when in fact the sacrifice — if any — is more like asking them to change brands of cars.
The proposal in Minnesota was simply to avoid the risk of soil and water contamination to ensure these remaining pockets of habitat stay healthy. The wildlife management areas proposed for the ban on lead shot frequently contain wetlands which are just as important to waterfowl production, staging and migration as their federal counterparts. The impacts on waterfowl by lead shot are well documented, and if these groups want to reopen that debate, they best be prepared for a serious ass-whooping. In a sea of soybeans and corn, these parcels are critical habitat not only to waterfowl and upland game birds, but every grassland passerine and wetland wading species native to the region. And lead is deadly to them all.
Just as the ban on lead did not end duck hunting — but did save millions of ducks — a limited ban on it for important wildlife lands in Minnesota won’t end upland hunting, but will save the lives of birds.
— Circle of Chiefs articles are written by those who have received the Circle of Chiefs Award for conservation reporting and coverage. The Circle of Chiefs are considered OWAA’s conservation council. The article reflects the opinion of the author. If you’d like to add to the discussion, please send a letter to the editor.
— Michael Furtman joined OWAA in 1986. He received the Circle of Chiefs Award in 2001, and is the only writer to ever receive the highest conservation communicator awards from both Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited. A passionate pheasant hunter, he’s used only steel shot on roosters for over a decade.

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Ask an expert: Tim Cahill on adventure writing

OWAA Developer — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 21:04:54 +0000

BY KATY SPENCE
Tim Cahill dangled on the rope, about halfway into the pitch-black 500-foot-deep cave. The only light came from his headlamp, but he hung so far from the cave wall, it only illuminated the steam rising from his body in the chilly air. As the rope slowly started to spin, Cahill had one thought: how would he best describe this to his readers?
Cahill grew up in Wisconsin and became a competitive swimmer, so he didn’t have time to learn to ski or hike. It wasn’t until he started writing about outdoor adventure that Cahill began mastering the skills needed for assignments that have taken him up technical rock faces, to the tops of remote mountain peaks and below the surface diving and caving. The prolific adventure writer and founder of Outside magazine shared some tips of the trade — which in his case includes survival skills as well as reporting across cultures in swamps, deserts and even jungle treehouses.
What’s one of the most memorable assignments you’ve had and why?
We contacted a group of people called the Korowai. They hadn’t seen people from the outside. It was like travelling back in time. You could actually see people living a Stone Age existence and imagine that your ancestors, your very ancient ancestors, lived a great deal like them.
These people did not want to be contacted by the outside world, so they lived far into the swamp off the river … and they lived in trees about 50 feet up. I found out very quickly why that was the case, because down below there were swarms and swarms of mosquitoes.
They eventually let us climb up to their tree and their treehouse. They had arranged a lot of stones that they carried up, and they could have a fire on these stones because the treehouse was just kind of like a wooden deck spread across these trees.
They fed us. They didn’t have much, but that was what they wanted to do. So we decided that we would feed them. So we made some rice for these folks and put some salt and pepper and a squeeze from one of those plastic lemon bottles and gave it to them. One of the young men was eating it. There were tears running down his face, and I thought, “Oh, now what did I do?” What it turned out through the three different levels of translation was he’d never eaten anything so good in his life. And he was just crying for the joy of eating that rice.
Adventures like that are huge. How do you pick which details to include?
It’s all in service to the story. I did a story once where my next door neighbor was an Episcopal priest. He was not much of an adventurer really, he wasn’t particularly in good shape, but his great desire, one bucket list thing was to climb the Grand, the Grand Teton. And he asked me if I would go. So I took him to the mountain and we got a guide and climbed the mountain and made it to the top. Now I’m sure that my priest friend was utterly exhausted, and yet he said a prayer on top of the mountain. It was a very pretty prayer for all the people that couldn’t be there for reasons of physical challenges. And he prayed for most kinds of people and he blessed us on the mountain and although he was utterly exhausted, the real story was that prayer on top of that mountain and that kind of exaltation. So the feeling of great happiness and blessedness was what I emphasized, and not his obvious exhaustion. That’s how you pick things for the story.
How do you approach and write about the people you encounter?
We make sense out of the world through the vehicle of story, so I want find out what their story is. I want them to tell me stories of their life. I ask them some questions and they’ll give me some answers, and when I get an answer that reminds me of something that happened in my life, I’ll give them a quick story. The world over, you tell somebody a story, it’s likely that they will respond with another story, and that’s the way I work with people.
How do you balance being a writer and an adventurer?
I don’t. I’m a writer. I wrote about adventure because it was a subject that seemed to come more easily to me than certain other things might be.
Most of the places I go, there’s not going to be electricity … I take notes in a reporter’s notebook. I typically fill up about three notebooks … which I carry with me generally in my back pocket — and if it’s going to be wet you need Ziploc bags — and then I translate it to the big notebook, and I actually start writing. Occasionally some things that I wrote in the field in the big notebook have gone almost word-for-word into the finished story. It’s amazing. But you have to take notes on literally everything.
You’ve mentioned self-deprecation as a writing tool. Can you talk a little more about that?
I tried at all costs to avoid gratuitous chest-beating. I would mention the mistakes that I made, and that’s often an opportunity for humor. But it also was a situation in which the subtext in my stories — at least I hope — in (the) reader’s mind might be something like this, “Well, gee, Tim climbed that mountain. If that clown can do it, so can I.” So I use self-deprecation as a tool to encourage the reader to take on various challenges, and I think that’s why a lot of my stories were very popular.
How do you work in first-person experience without making the story about you?
You’re taking the reader on a trip. You’re showing the reader what you saw and they are following you. You don’t necessarily have to say, “And then I felt this way.” If you tell the story properly, it will make them feel what you felt. You take me as the reader by the hand and introduce me slowly to all the things that make this topic exciting to you.
If you’re telling a story, people want to find out how it ends. Often I will go on a quest and sometimes, I don’t succeed in doing what I’m trying to do. It turns out that failure’s as good a story as success. If you do what I’ve done for so many years, you begin to know that the obstacles you have to overcome in order to do your work, that’s not only part of the job, it’s going to be a good part of the story. The more things went wrong, the more I would say, “Yes! Yes, this story is forming.” That’s the dirty little secret of adventure writing: Something’s gotta go wrong.
Would you say there’s a connection between adventure writing and being an outdoors advocate?
I don’t write about issues. I don’t write argumentative essays. I write stories about a place in such a way that I hope that the reader says, “I want to go there, I want to experience this.” What I want to do is get them to love the place as I do. I take them by the hand and show them what I saw, and I would like to think that I’m enlisting them in what I call a gentle conspiracy of caring. Sometimes I’m criticized … for exposing these wonderful, hidden, remote places. My response to that has always been: there’s not a place on Earth that is not coveted by some timbering company, some petrochemical company, some land developer of some sort. The more people that have climbed the mountain or descended the river or climbed the trail, the more people that are personally invested in the place and personally invested in keeping it that way.
Is there a moment when you’ve really been scared for your life?
I fell off a cliff in Queen Charlotte Islands, and I realized that I’d hurt myself pretty badly and I was bleeding pretty badly. So I ripped up some cloth from my shirt and bandaged up my head where I was bleeding. I was by myself, and I tried to walk back to our camp. Because I was so banged up, I wasn’t able to walk through the forest very well. It was a kayaking trip. I got to get down to the shore. (I thought), “What I’ll do is get some sticks and wood, get out onto a promontory and build a fire. It’s going to get dark soon, and these folks are going to be looking for me in the kayaks, and they’ll see the fire.” Indeed that’s what happened. And that’s another one that I was medivaced out of. But at no point was I scared. You just do what you have to do.
Panic is something that can happen to you that can kill you. But if you know what to do, you can say, “Well I gotta do this.” That’s what goes through your mind. Fear … really doesn’t enter into the equation because you don’t have time to think about it.
There’s an old expression: It’s not an adventure while it’s happening. You only realize it was an adventure afterwards, when you think about it.
— Katy Spence is an OWAA intern and journalism graduate student at the University of Montana. She enjoys new recipes, new places and old souls.

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Promote your work through radio

OWAA Developer — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 20:14:31 +0000

BY JOHN KRUSE
Your book just came out in print. Your photo essay just appeared in a major national magazine. Your article just received an Excellence in Craft award. Your company is rolling out a new initiative. In all of these cases, you want to share this news with the world. But how do you go about doing it?
You can speak to service clubs. You can share the news on your Facebook page, website or blog. You can even send out a press release. All of these will help, but you probably won’t reach a very large audience. So consider promoting it on the radio.
As the host and producer of two weekly outdoors radio shows, I’m always hunting for guests who are experts in a certain field or have an interesting story to share.
Let’s say you wrote a book about fishing destinations in Oregon or hiking in Colorado or where to paddle a kayak or canoe in Maine. Don’t you think audiences throughout the state you featured and the region would be interested in knowing “the best places” you described in your book? Radio show hosts like myself would be, and you’ll get free exposure reaching hundreds to thousands of listeners, which is a lot more than you’ll likely see at local bookstore signings.
To land a spot on a radio show, you’ll need to market yourself. Let’s say you specialize in wildlife photography. You can market yourself as an expert on wildlife behavior as it relates to getting memorable photos, photography equipment or simply creating better wildlife photos.
You can work with a public relations firm to contact radio show hosts and producers. I am contacted all the time by public relation firms hoping to get their clients on the air, but of the 50 or more pitches that hit my inbox, maybe one has a topic relevant to the outdoors. It’s easy for hosts and producers to overlook public relations company pitches when they are swamped with work, but when I am contacted directly by an individual I tend to pay attention. You just have to convince me it’s something my listeners will want to hear on the air.
Sending a review copy of your book or a sample of your product helps. Consider offering the same as a giveaway on the show, too. Every time the host or station promotes the giveaway, it’s more publicity for you.
Once you book your interview, figure out if it’s going to be in-studio or over the phone. If it’s a phone interview, remember landline phones work best. Only use a cell phone in places with excellent reception and no background noise.
Ask the host ahead of time what the conversation will cover and how long you have to chat. This can help you craft your message to an appropriate length. There’s a big difference between a 30-minute interview where you can speak in-depth and one that is only five minutes long where you have time to cover only one or two points.
No matter the length, make sure you plug where listeners can find out more information about you after the show. Phone numbers are easily forgotten and not everyone uses Facebook, so give your website and try to repeat it if you can.
Radio is a great way to get your message out to a wide audience and do so for little to no cost. Take advantage of it and become the guest every host wants on their show.
— John Kruse is the host and producer of two syndicated shows, Northwestern Outdoors Radio, www.northwesternoutdoors.com and America Outdoors Radio, www.americaoutdoorsradio.com.

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The evolution of the #hashtag

OWAA Developer — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 20:07:58 +0000

And how to keep up with ever-changing social media

BY TAYLOR WYLLIE

In August of 2007, then-Google designer Chris Messina suggested Twitter use hashtags as a way create groups and categorize conversations.
Twitter rejected the idea. Its users did not.

As hashtags grew in popularity, they jumped from Twitter, to both Facebook and Instagram, to people’s speech (as a millennial I’ve witnessed many a colleague ending a sentence with “#Blessed”).

But since its inception, Twitter has sharpened its search function so you can follow events using keywords. All you have to do is type in whatever it is you’re looking for — say the National Park Service Centennial — and it’ll pull any Tweet the subject’s mentioned in. Essentially, Twitter’s current search function stole the adopted role of any hashtag.

Keywords are trending now and the reign of the hashtag is over.

But don’t rejoice (or mourn) just yet. Hashtags are still an essential part of succeeding on social media, both in reaching your audience and following your beat.

Here’s a few things reporters should keep in mind each time they send out a Tweet:

Don’t make up a hashtag on your own.

Chances are, if you randomly decide on a hashtag, no one else will pick up on it. You may end up following the wrong conversation, and your Tweet will be filed away where people won’t find it. If you’re not sure if you’ve made it up or not, search your hashtag. If nothing comes up, scrap it.

But if you notice a hashtag that organically becomes popular, use it.

Sometimes a hashtag will naturally emerge — particularly surrounding bigger events. Monitor the conversation and you’ll likely be able to see what people are using, although 100 percent hashtag consensus is rare. Begin by searching the name of the event or business.

If there is no user-generated hashtag for the event you’re covering, and if you’re one of the only media members covering it, send out a Tweet sans hashtag.

Use hashtags sparingly.

Gone are the days when news agencies use multiple hashtags per Tweet, or even a hashtag with every Tweet. So-called “clean Tweets” can get more views than their hashtagged counterparts.

Remember to maintain objective reporting, even when tweeting.

Journalists have a responsibility to be mindful of the hashtags they do use — noting any unintended bias in the language of their hashtag. That doesn’t mean reporters can’t use slanted hashtags, it simply means know why you’re using it and how you’re using it. There’s still a debate on what the best way to go about this is, but essentially, if a trending hashtag is using language you otherwise wouldn’t, use the hashtag at the end of the tweet as a way to enter the conversation, not as a way to describe the event.

Know where your audience is getting news.

It’s a smart idea to consider whether or not the people you write for are actually on Twitter.

According to an article on Forbes, Facebook has 1.3 billion monthly, active users, compared to Twitter’s 271 million. If your audience is older or rural, you may not be reaching them by sticking to Twitter. Think about creating a reporter’s Facebook page instead, and use Twitter only to stay on top of your beat.

Remember hashtags aren’t only a feature of Twitter anymore.

The same information applies to all forms of social media — Facebook and Instagram especially.

The social media world is an evolving one — what happens today could change tomorrow.

Continually keep an eye on emerging trends and the evolution of old functions to stay on top of your social media game.

— Author’s Note: this article was written with the help of the social media editor of The Washington Post, Ric Sanchez.

— Taylor Wyllie is an OWAA intern and student at the University of Montana, pursuing a degree in both journalism and environmental studies. She’s reported and edited for the independent student newspaper, The Montana Kaimin, for two years and her work has appeared on Montana PBS, Montana Public Radio and in the Missoulian.

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Crafting the Q & A

OWAA Developer — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 20:00:52 +0000

BY CHRISTINE PETERSON

Most of the time, people don’t speak unscripted as well as you write. You probably don’t speak as well as you write. That’s why most stories are heavy on prose and light on quotes. It allows the writer to skip over tangents, wanderings and broken sentences, while preserving the essence of the interview.
It also allows a writer to include multiple people and perspectives without confusing the reader.
But sometimes people want to hear exactly what a subject has to say in his or her own words. That’s where the question-and-answer format comes in.
The benefits vary. First, Q&As, as they’re often called, are typically easier than writing a narrative with multiple sources. Second, done well, they’re easy to read. And third, they can be more intimate, presenting a portrait of a person in his or her own words.

Before embarking on using the Q&A in your writing and reporting, here are a few questions (and answers) you should consider.

Q: How do I decide if I should tell a story using a Q&A format?

A: If time restraint is the best reason you can think of to write a Q&A, think about it some more. Question and answer stories shouldn’t be done because they can be easy. Their ease should be an ancillary benefit, not a primary reason. The best question and answers are often with people who are well known, or have had an impact on something important — people readers want to hear from directly. They should also, ideally, be with people who are relatively articulate. Before you decide to start one, ask yourself if this is a person you’d like to hear speak.

Q: How do you prepare for the interview?

A: Question-and-answer stories can be deceptive when it comes to time. Sure, you may not have to struggle over the perfect sentence, but you do have to do homework ahead of time. Make sure you’ve researched your subject before the interview. If the subject is a writer, read some of his or her work so you can ask about a piece. If the subject is a scientist, ask about specific parts of his or her research.

Q: What kinds of questions should you ask?

A: Don’t ask yes-or-no questions. This might seem obvious, but it’s easy to fall into the yes-or-no trap. Ask questions that will lead to stories. Instead of asking the bighorn sheep researcher if it’s scary to work on high-elevation exposed mountaintops, ask the scientist to describe what it is like to capture a sheep. Don’t stick to the basic “how did you get into this?” and “could you ever imagine you’d be this successful?” questions. Feel free to ask those — you never know what you might hear — but also ask more in-depth, specific questions. Stray from your script. You want these interviews to be conversational. As the person talks, feel free to respond with other questions you hadn’t planned. Keep the cadence like something you would see on an evening news show. You aren’t the center of the interview, but you are there, and should ask questions and respond as a reader might.

Q: How do I capture everything the subject says?

A: Record the interview. The most cumbersome part of a Q&A is certainly transcribing, but it’s also necessary. Unless you type or write as fast as a person talks, and can guarantee the accuracy of your skills for the length of an entire interview, you need to record it. This allows you to capture exactly what your subject says in the nuanced way he or she speaks. It also protects you should any of the interview be called into question later.

Q: How much of the interview should I include in the story?

A: Most of my Q&As start with basic questions to help the person feel more comfortable. I ask about job history or education. The information typically becomes part of an introduction I write, which slims a person’s biographical information from a list of schools, awards and positions into a couple of tight, clean sentences. From there, cut the least interesting questions and answers. You can also trim portions of their responses by using ellipses. You want to feature the most important and interesting portions of the interview, so don’t plan to simply dump the entire transcript on your reader. If you are growing bored with a long-winded response, chances are your reader will, too.

— Christine Peterson is an award-winning writer and the outdoor editor for the Casper Star-Tribune, Wyoming’s statewide newspaper. While she’s not tracking bears, wolves or elk on assignment, she’s chasing trout and wrangling her yellow Labrador.

The post Crafting the Q & A appeared first on Outdoor Writers Association of America.

The significance of statistics

OWAA Developer — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 19:53:03 +0000

Understanding numbers key to crafting accurate stories

BY TAYLOR WYLLIE

We’ve all seen it: a story that seems too good — or too bizarre — to be true.
Red Wine: Cure for lung cancer? Pessimists live longer lives, according to a new study. Eat more and weigh less?
These stories are classic cases of misrepresented statistics.
Statistics are an essential tool for outdoor communicators. Numbers and studies give veracity to news, and searching databases can be an excellent way to find story ideas.
But using statistics and attempting to comprehend scientific articles when you aren’t trained as a scientist can be hard. Then regurgitating the information in an informative and easy-to-understand manner adds to the challenge.
But you can do it. Here’s how.
Say you stumble upon a report that claims if bison in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are fed jelly beans every day in July, they have a higher chance of surviving the winter.
Yes, this is a ridiculous example. But you should treat every report you find as though it is as ludicrous as my claim. It’ll be easier to find the leaps in logic.
There are two ways to go about reporting this story. You can write an article that says a group of scientists are studying the effects of jelly beans on the ecosystem’s bison. You’re not insinuating anything. It’s less a story about the bison and more about the jelly bean scientists.
Or you can report on the claim itself, think: Bison survive winters better on a jelly bean diet, new study says.
The latter will likely get you more clicks, but it’s also the story that can get you into trouble if you don’t understand statistics.
Let’s say the scientists fed 100 bison jelly beans every day throughout July and tracked the animals throughout the winter. The scientists found 92 out of the 100 bison alive in March, while the average survival rate for the area bison population is 90 percent.
First, look at your source. Is the report sponsored by a jelly bean company? Is it in a peer-reviewed journal?
Then think about the scope of the study and the results. How large is the sample size, or number of animals in the study? How long did the scientists test their theory? What do the results really mean?
It’s easy for researchers to force results of statistical significance, or make it seem like the outcome couldn’t have happened by chance, from increasing the sample size to decreasing variability in the sample.
You need to remember — statistical significance is different than practical significance. The latter concentrates on the studies’ applicability in the real world.
Maybe 92 of 100 bison survive a Yellowstone winter with the jelly bean diet, and that is statistically significant. But think about it. Do two bison actually make a difference here? Perhaps a group of tourists put one bison outside the study in the back of their car and park staff had to kill it. Maybe another bison was incredibly old and had a heart attack before winter even began. There are reasons outside diet that bison live and die, and when the numbers don’t increase or decrease enough to make you think something is going on, then probably nothing is going on.
Not to mention the study only took place over a year. Almost all natural science studies need to be studied over long periods of time because of the variability in the natural world. One year does not make a pattern. It could be an anomaly; maybe it was a rainy summer and warm winter so the bison had easy access to food, or maybe it was the opposite.
But say the study took place over 10 years and 98 or 99 of the 100 bison survived on the jelly bean diet every year. There isn’t any magic number for journalists that tells you when a study becomes practically significant, but again think about these results. It’s tough to account for eight or nine bison every year for 10 years. Something must be going on.
Now is the time to check if other studies have found the same results. If other studies haven’t replicated the findings, make sure to mention that in your article. It’s one of many things you need to consider as you start to write.
In this example, you probably don’t need help in making your story interesting. But if you’re writing a piece about the dissolved oxygen levels in a local stream, or the stress of warmer temperatures on a specific type of fungus, here are a few tips:
Talk about the significance
Even if the data appears to be boring, the context surrounding it may be anything but. Don’t focus on the numbers, focus on what the numbers mean. Take the bison example. Perhaps Yellowstone has outlawed bringing jelly beans into the park, as they don’t want to increase the longevity of park bison. That is a lot more interesting than listing numbers.
Be careful not to impose unfounded reasons for the study’s findings. We all know the phrase: correlation does not imply causation. Because there is an A and B, doesn’t mean A causes B. There could be a third factor at play.
Explain the process
Write conversationally and give plenty of examples. People are better at understanding stories than definitions and numbers. If it fits, you might even consider crafting a first-person narrative in the story or as a sidebar so you can explain how you analyzed the data set yourself, acting as a surrogate to the reader.
Use infographics
It’s easier to read numbers when they’re separated from blocks of text. Plus infographics allow for fun, interactive designs on pages that might otherwise be heavy on text.
While taking a step back and working with statistics may seem tedious and even overwhelming, in the end you’ll create a far stronger and more accurate article. And if you’re still confused? It’s okay to reach out and ask for help.
— Taylor Wyllie is an OWAA intern and student at the University of Montana, pursuing a degree in both journalism and environmental studies. She’s reported and edited for the independent student newspaper, The Montana Kaimin, for two years and her work has appeared on Montana PBS, Montana Public Radio and in the Missoulian.

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