oxycontin express

Current TV.

Founded in 2005 by Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt, the 24-hour TV network incorporates viewer-created content into much of its programming.

VANGUARD is Current’s investigate news outlet, featuring 30-minute (sometimes an hour) documentaries on stories that are not being reported by everyone else. You hear the same regurgitation of news through the excessive modern media outlets; online, in the newspaper, in your e-mail, on TV, and maybe even from your friends.

Vanguard takes the time to consider everything else that’s going on in the world that most of us Americans have no idea about. And they do in an invigorating way that is both informative and entertaining.

The new season debuts Oct. 14 on Current’s TV station, which you can find through your cable listings.

However, the season premiere, “OxyContin Express” is available for streaming on Hulu already. It’s the seventh one over if you scroll through the featured shows.

….and right now, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two captured journalists that made headlines upon their high-profile return a couple months ago, are in the Vanguard office doing a shoot for a Glamour magazine piece.

screenshot from iambrandx.com

In two weeks and less than five hours from the time of this blog post, the fourth season of Current TV‘s “Vanguard” returns.

Interestingly enough, I have been interning with the team of about 14 for about two weeks as well. The duties have ranged from transcribing to researching and assisting the correspondents, and should hopefully flourish into something more participatory where I can really dig my nails in and get into these amazing international stories that the team covers.

Last season, they covered the recession in a three-part series, guns in America, robots in Japan, and war in Iran. This season, more breathtaking documentary episodes to come.

And in the next two weeks we will hopefully be amping up Vanguard’s online presence through social media. While plenty have written off Twitter and Facebook as wastes of time, they still prove their worth  interesting new ways — it’s all about connecting. And man that online world is crazy these days. I could spend a whole day on the Internet just exploring what’s out there, and I’d still be missing tons of awesome stuff. 

Gotta be careful not to become obsessed though. Too much digitalia can rot your brain! Or reduce your sperm count! Or was that Mountain Dew…

Either way, the first episode of the new season, premiering Oct. 14, is called OxyContin Express. It’s about prescription drug abuse and how Florida plays a vital role in supplying pills.

HERE’S THE LINEUP:

Current has also been picking up some steam and notoriety here and there, which is really cool to see. While the Gore/Clinton Korea rescue propelled Current into public eyes, others have been noticing too (see above from iambrandx) — Rolling Stone even made mention of a brand new [mini]series Current is launching called “Embedded.”

Now that looks sweet: exclusive shows on Mos Def, Common, Ben Harper, Silversun Pickups, Thievery Corporation, and The Decemberists. Cannot wait for this. And it debuts right after Vanguard on the 14th.

Rolling Stone says this about EMBEDDED in reason #47 to watch TV this season (more on that later! cable looks like its pulling up it’s pants)

“If Animal Planet had a show that captured musicians in their natural habitats, it would look like this refreshingly raw documentary series. Ben harper gives a tour of his instrument shop in California; Mos Def roams the streets of Osaka, Japan. It’s artists in their everyday lives, free of the crowds.”

Check out some cool videos from today in the Current SF office (Vanguard’s in LA). See Adam Yamaguchi, Mariana Van Zeller and Christof Putzel give a presentation on the new season.

Oh yeah, and Vanguard’s blog tells us that Mariana made her way onto Dr. Phil for an episode about drug abuse airing, yep you guessed it, Oct. 14.

That’s all for now. More to come from inside the Vanguard office, and reviews from a slew of shows I saw in the past week: Portugal. The Man @ The Glasshouse, !!! @ The Troubadour, and Wallpaper @ Cinespace. Phew.

one of current tv's hollywood buildings

Started my first week interning at Current TV, with the Vanguard journalism dept.

A radical group of people for sure…I hope to get in the know.

As expected, a laid-back, hip, young office vibe. But they’re true to their work and are on top of their game.

And on day 2, I got to watch porn….while eating donuts! The thanks goes to Christof, the Current correspondent working on a documentary on the porn industry for the new season of Vanguard, starting Oct. 22.

[Emmy-nominated investigative documentary series, it seems is what we call Vanguard]

I watched — well, fast forwarded through the explicit scenes and slowed down for the dialogue — “Space Nuts” and “Curse Eternal,” two “big” budget pornographic flicks. I say “big” because I’m not sure the size of the budgets nor the comparison to Hollywood films….I didn’t realize there was really a story here until today. Makes sense though – the “real” acting and art that goes into porno DVDs is being undercut by Internet profiteers in the porn biz and gonzo porn stuff.

Sex aside, being behind the scenes a very interesting company that puts out really excellent documentaries and media for the 18-34 demographic should prove quite awesome and hopefully fruitful.

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IN MUSIC THIS WEEK: Because I can’t blog enough about all the artists I want to, you need to check out the latest from Mute Math, Muse, Imogen Heap and Bat For Lashes.

I heard “Backfire” from Mute Math @ The Press in Claremont tonight, which was surprising but awesome. Saw these guys open for Mae freshman year of college at The Glasshouse in Pomona. Only caught the end of their set, but I was immediately impressed: weird noises, a proggy Radiohead feel, melodic verses, fast-paced beats, catchy keyboard and guitar riffs, with a soothing Coldplay-esque voice that can lull you to sleep and get you dancing all at the same time.

>>download the title track, “Armistice,” from the widget on the right! Listen more on LaLa or Myspace

Imogen Heap and Bat For Lashes are my latest lady obsessions, both creating definitively unique sounds through synthesizer manipulation contrasting organic instrumentation like ethnic drums and chimes. I highly, highly recommend. Especially if you’re looking for something. They’re eye-openers. Also caught BfL @ Outside Lands San Francisco a few weeks ago. Couldn’t tell if the girl was hot or not! Girlfriend and I couldn’t quite figure her out. See for yourself below:

Whenever a culture evolves, the media are the first to evolve with it.

We, especially journalists, have to see what is working, what is changing and change with it. Everyone knows the new medium is online, but the concept isn’t as simple as it sounds.

It’s a migration of a physical publication to a digital, interactive, multimedia Web site that features more than just online replications of what’s in print. The print will always exist, for the iPhoneless will need something to read at the coffee shop and students will need something to pick up on the way to class.

But education is having a hard time catching up, especially many college journalism programs. From the Associated Collegiate Press Journalism Convention I attended over the weekend, I took away two key ideals: we cannot look back and professors need to start learning from students.

There are many new forms of writing that have come up in the last few years, and each one is important. Students must be able to write for print, broadcast, online, blogs , local and national. As leading newspapers are folding, local publications, online startups and semi-professional media blogs are thriving.

Well, maybe not thriving, but at least surviving. Smaller newspapers have an advantage because we market to a niche audience: no one covers the Cal Poly beat with as much effort and enthusiasm for Bronco pride as we do here – just take a look at this week’s front page (why my column is here).

In fact, The Poly Post was just awarded fourth place in the ACP Best of Show competition for four-year college weekly broadsheet publications at the new media convention. The convention hosted more than 900 college journalists in San Diego. The Post maintains student interests at all costs, differing from the public relations take of the PolyCentric articles on the campus Web site.

We provide insight, objectivity, and the ability to keep an eye on campus organizations and questionable activities. However, we are held back by three major problems: education, apathy, and resources.

Education

Our writers come in with little training, despite the numerous prerequisites we are often forced to override just to get enough support. A year of writing for The Post will help your skills more than many reporting classes, because you learn each week by writing about something new and getting out into the field.

Apathy

While student bodies at universities like UC Berkeley are infamous for their activism, commuter schools like ours face a lack of overall enthusiasm and motivation on a daily basis.

Most students seem to be here simply because they got in or because Cal Poly was close to home. The communication students don’t even seem to care about published work or their student newspaper, when these are the most critical elements for job experience.

Resources

The total editorial staff of The Poly Post includes less than 20 students, and half of us spend hours upon hours every weekend in an office that looks like it hasn’t changed since 1965.

While we broke down the cubicles just last summer, the only signs of modernism are tucked away in the three silver and black iMacs used for production. Our resources force us to work hard, but hinder our abilities to thrive in the changing generation of journalism .

We focus so much effort on the print publication you may (or may not) put your hands on each week, we’re left with little energy or time to spend on the podcasts, videos, slideshows, and interactivity we are slowly incorporating into our Web site. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t expect to see continuous updates, like the re-launching of the Web site next quarter, news videos from broadcast journalism students at thepolypost.com/cppvideos, and online coverage of the men’s basketball team all week long as they enter playoffs.

So what are we left with? While the communication department is not completely behind the times here, the print-centric mindset still dominates and students see online as second-fiddle to what should be the priority if any of us are looking to get hired in a job(less) market that just surpassed 10 percent unemployment in California, and is leaving more than 80,000 without jobs nationally.

Does that even matter?

Most of us need to make it on our own. Journalists can no longer market themselves as simply a reporter: we have to be multimedia journalists, bloggers, designers, photographers, and Twitterers.

The systems must continue to evolve and if that means setting free a tenured department head to bring in a cheaper, younger and energetic chair, we should be looking to do that anyway. Isn’t the students’ education more important than one teacher’s job?

Professors who employ blue book writing tests should also take note: have us type our essays, and you’ll get better work. Extensive handwriting is tiresome and old-fashioned. There’s stripped-down word processing software available, so don’t think it’s not possible. There is no direct conclusion here because things will keep changing.

This newfangled technology is not something to be scared of, Luddites. It’s a testament to human ingenuity and creation that we keep inventing new ways to increase productivity and better ourselves.

My single greatest discovery at the convention was something that’s been right under my nose: Google . The mail, documents, and applications features have so much worth looking into for organizing, editing, and creating that any idiot can get savvy without sophistication.

This is a must-see blog