'Step into my office'

'Need a light?'

Texan senior photographer Peyton McGee lights a cigarette for design editor Thu Vo. The two stepped outside from a party to smoke and chat.

circus

week off

Above: Thu Vo, Texan design editor, takes a smoke break before finishing up the final pages of the Welcome Back Edition.

So the Texan finished up print production for the summer last Friday, and printing starts up again tomorrow. Now, I know what you're thinking. But no, we didn't get the week off. The Welcome Back supplement, a compilation of summer stories filled most of our days. Today was in fact the only day I had off from office work. But I spent it shooting the circus for the Texan (pictures to follow later this week), which in no way am I complaining. I just think it's funny that my idea of a break is to take an assignment.

I miss reporting but I'm very optimistic about the upcoming semester as managing editor. There's a lot of talent coming back, and there will be many newsroom reforms. To break it down: more online presence and more investigative journalism.

Rolling...

Above: Will Maddox, station manager of Texas Student Television, wraps up filming on the set of the "Night Nite Show," which happens to be the TSM student managers office.

I know there has been some head butting this semester between The Daily Texan and KVRX, but I really do enjoy the prospect of sharing the same space with the other student media outlets, well at least temporarily. I think not only has it brought the Texan together, but it's allowed the student managers to actually interact and, dare I say, bond?

press

finally a post!

Ok, so I said I would post sometime this summer. It's been so long I had to guess the password for this account a couple times. Anyway, I'll try posting more often now. Here's some old photos from my trip to Galveston last semester. Actually, they're from Port Bolivar, which we visited on the last day of the trip, and was one of the hardest hit areas from Hurricane Ike.
Top: Tattered flags wave in the Gulf breeze. The flags were the only remains of a house about six months after Hurricane Ike.
Below: Ted Henley, whose home was reduced to a concrete slab, tells me about the insurance problems many of the residents encountered. There was a dispute between insurance companies on how much damage classified as "windstorm" damage coverage or "flood" damage coverage. Meanwhile, residents had to live out of trailers waiting for their insurance claims to go through so they could rebuild.
Here's the story Erin and I wrote on it, accompanied by an audio-slideshow report I made. http://budurl.com/866h