Reviving the Talossan Journalism Awards

[Sevastáin Pinátsch]

Once upon a time, in a place not very far away, The Talossan Press Association encouraged media excellence within the RT by recognizing its very best with ‘Journalist of the Year’, ‘Best Article of the Year’ and ‘The Saint Maximilian Kolbe Award for Fine Writing’.  

Or so I read somewhere.

I'd like to revive these awards this year, perhaps in April, and maybe broaden the net to include other types of media IF I can get enough participation over the next month or so.

The Kolbe award obviously has no time limit, but maybe we could set the timer for this year's journalist/story to include material published from April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014?  (Meaning: you could still write something brilliant, just under the wire).

Any interest in this?  I'd like to hear suggestions and nominations from anyone.

[Lüc da Schir]

Have you been enrolled into the TPA?

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I just wish that we had MORE Talossan journalism, and that our current journalists would write more. BRENDAN! is great and so is tO, but they come out too infrequently!

[Lüc da Schir]

*sighs*

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I guess you have a good problem - you're in too high of demand!

[Sevastáin Pinátsch]

Mar 8, 2014 13:41:31 GMT -6 Lüc da Schir said:

Have you been enrolled into the TPA?

Yep. Dien gave me a shiny title and everything.

[Munditenens Tresplet]

I'm pleased to announce that Sevastáin is the TPA's Vice-Chairman of Digital Media, and is currently working on the TPA's website (which will be officially announced soon), where the first meeting of the TPA will commence!

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Mar 8, 2014 13:42:36 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

I just wish that we had MORE Talossan journalism, and that our current journalists would write more. BRENDAN! is great and so is tO, but they come out too infrequently!

Well, life has many facets, and Talossa isn't always standing in the front row. What more can I say about the doldrums that ¡BRENDAN! will be going through. On the bright side, there's the word art. I'm beginning to flap my wings again. On the even brighter side, I should whisper the word love. Yeah right. Miracles happen. But then, coincidentally, there's also something with some minor health troubles, hopefully by the end of the next week I'll know that it's all just some stuff that many aging bears have to endure and that can be kept in check by means of some meds.

Last but not least, inspiring things have to happen in Talossa to make me want to sit in my virtual editorial department for days to write and compile a new edition of a magazine. In the editorial for the unfinished March edition of ¡BRENDAN! I wrote something along the lines that ESB deserves to be knighted, because he created some drama that gave us hours, months, even a year of discussion and the inspiration for articles and what not galore. That's cynical to some extent, but on the other hand we would all be in limbo if our little nationette didn't generate its little controversies every now and then. Where would we be without the founder of our nationette, what if he'd been a good and rational micronational King for all the time? What would Talossa be without revolutions, radicals, dreamers, etc.?

[Sevastáin Pinátsch]

Mar 8, 2014 15:27:59 GMT -6 D. N. Vercáriâ said:

In the editorial for the unfinished March edition of ¡BRENDAN! I wrote something along the lines that ESB deserves to be knighted, because he created some drama that gave us hours, months, even a year of discussion and the inspiration for articles and what not galore. That's cynical to some extent, but on the other hand we would all be in limbo if our little nationette didn't generate its little controversies every now and then. Where would we be without the founder of our nationette, what if he'd been a good and rational micronational King for all the time? What would Talossa be without revolutions, radicals, dreamers, etc.?

Knighted, no. Yes he is responsible for getting us focused, excited even, in the management of our state... but I think it speaks poorly of us as a society if we depend on negativity to remain attached and passionate about what we've built here.  

And even with ESB fading into the background noise, there's been plenty of replacement drama recently regarding other former citizens, former-former citizens, and citizens who might eventually become former citizens, albeit temporarily, due to the stressful interactions they are having with the aforementioned former and formerly-former citizens. (Don't ask me to name names, the names are flying everywhere—legal names, Talossan names, nicknames, dirty names).  Hell, we can't keep an A-G in power for longer than 11 minutes. I wish people would write about it.  

There's plenty of n00bie energy and positive stuff going on just now, if you're open to appreciating it. People who want to start micronations (not me), people who want to create new ministries (also not me), people who have created wiki tools and useful articles and multiple websites and who are trying to help rewrite their provincial constitution (these latter things: totally me).

And now I'm going to use this tool I made to capture everything you've written in the last year and give out some awards with Dien, and make sure that those are published to the wiki and the TPA website. Then I'm going to try to keep being positive and involved so that the next time these awards come around the competition will be neck deep and people will be really looking forward to it.

I loved the last two BRENDAN issues and hope your health gets better.

~ SP

P.S. We should knight some journalists, especially the ones who write about ESB and KR1 fairly and accurately, neither deifying nor vilifying them.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I'd like to actually do some journalism, since I won't be offering a uni course. Alas, most of the press is fairly to the left these days. Dien, is Pengo still publishing and just on a temporary hiatus?

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Did you think that ¡BRENDAN! was / is a strongly biased magazine? I know I am strongly leaning towards the left, inside and outside of Talossa, but I tried to offer a mainly unbiased platform for Talossan issues. For instance, that's why I enjoyed having your articles aboard, and why I didn't even think of wrapping them into a layer of comments that would have been reflecting my opinion. But then, if you perceived ¡BRENDAN! as a leftist rag, it may be so that I didn't go down a completely wrong way in all my editorial neutrality.

[Munditenens Tresplet]

Mar 8, 2014 16:14:56 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

Dien, is Pengo still publishing and just on a temporary hiatus?

We're still publishing, yeah. I've just been too busy with other things to get to it regularly. If you'd like to write for the Times, I can set you up with a user id and password to publish.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Mar 8, 2014 16:37:15 GMT -6 D. N. Vercáriâ said:

Did you think that ¡BRENDAN! was / is a strongly biased magazine? I know I am strongly leaning towards the left, inside and outside of Talossa, but I tried to offer a mainly unbiased platform for Talossan issues. For instance, that's why I enjoyed having your articles aboard, and why I didn't even think of wrapping them into a layer of comments that would have been reflecting my opinion. But then, if you perceived ¡BRENDAN! as a leftist rag, it may be so that I didn't go down a completely wrong way in all my editorial neutrality.

I wouldn't have written for it a second time if I thought it was a leftist rag! I certainly didn't mean to disparage it... as you can tell from my comments before, I love it and just want more of it!

But that said, it did have a slight left lean. Not bad, but evident.

Mar 8, 2014 16:54:00 GMT -6 Munditenens Tresplet said:

We're still publishing, yeah. I've just been too busy with other things to get to it regularly. If you'd like to write for the Times, I can set you up with a user id and password to publish.

I'd like that! You'll have to let me know guidelines on content and whatnot.

[Trotxâ]

Mar 8, 2014 16:37:15 GMT -6 D. N. Vercáriâ said:

Did you think that ¡BRENDAN! was / is a strongly biased magazine? I know I am strongly leaning towards the left, inside and outside of Talossa, but I tried to offer a mainly unbiased platform for Talossan issues. For instance, that's why I enjoyed having your articles aboard, and why I didn't even think of wrapping them into a layer of comments that would have been reflecting my opinion. But then, if you perceived ¡BRENDAN! as a leftist rag, it may be so that I didn't go down a completely wrong way in all my editorial neutrality.

The First Rule of Journalism: "There is no unbiased journalism."

T

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Okay, forget unbiased. What I really meant is that ¡BRENDAN! is not supposed to be(come) a propaganda rag; it's for an open societal debate, and therefor open for various opinions. I'd like to brag with a word like "uncensored" now, but that's not completely true, insomuch as I'm reserving me the right to refuse to accept contributions that would possibly drag down the standard of the magazine, whatever this may mean. For instance, the magazine wouldn't be a good platform for flaming hatred of which kind ever.