Posts tagged ‘Twitter’
Curley, Schultz Headed to Court
Several of us on the magazine staff just spent most of our Friday editing page proofs for the January-February issue while keeping a constant eye on Twitter.
Twitter was pretty much the only way to follow, in real time, today’s preliminary hearing for Tim Curley ’76, ’78g and Gary Schultz ’71, ’75g, who face charges of perjury and failure-to-report in connection with the child-sex-abuse case against former Nittany Lion defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky ’66, ’71g.
Farrell: Give me an accurate height of the boy. McQueary: I would need a measuring tape for that, sir. (@annaorso)
A district magisterial judge in Harrisburg listened to 4-1/2 hours’ worth of testimony today, then ruled that there’s enough evidence to send both Curley (the Penn State athletic director, currently on administrative leave) and Schultz (now-retired VP for finance and administration) to trial on the charges.
Many of the reporters who attended the hearing in the Dauphin County Courthouse were tweeting constantly from the proceedings, and the result was a virtual play-by-play of the testimony. Through their tweets—easily numbering in the hundreds—we essentially watched as a series of five witnesses (more…)
An Unexpected Celebration in Beaver Canyon
My wife and I were about to turn off the TV late Sunday when I saw the news scrolling across the bottom of the screen on ESPN: Osama bin Laden was dead. I watched President Obama’s speech confirming the news on TV, but if I’d opened a window, I might have heard the noise of a celebration downtown.
A scroll through Twitter brought up a number of photos from Penn Staters celebrating the news in downtown State College. The impromptu gathering was centered on Beaver Avenue, and it looks like something those students won’t forget.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Khloe Kardashian is a THON Fan
Penn State’s THON, the world’s largest student-run philanthropy, is getting a lot of buzz on Twitter today — thanks to celebrity/socialite Khloe Kardashian. Khloe stars on the reality TV show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”
Today, she wrote a blog entry promoting THON.
A friend of mine told me about a charity called the Penn State Dance Marathon (THON) where students rally together each school year to raise money for the fight against Pediatric cancer. It’s the biggest student run philanthropy in the world, having raised over $61 million in the past 35 years. Each year culminates in a 46-hour no sitting, no sleeping dance marathon involving over 15,000 student volunteers. It’s comforting and truly inspiring to know that because of these students’ devotion, families have received the support they need, both financially and emotionally.
She then Tweeted about it, and a Twitterfest got rollin’.
Khloe promised to try to respond to any of her 914,950 (and growing) followers who donated to THON. If you know anything about celebrity Twitters, then you know that’s a huge deal for most followers — it’s like getting a personalized autograph, but better. So her 914,950 (and growing) followers started tweeting about THON and Khloe started tweeting about everyone tweeting about THON and — well, check out the progress at her Twitter.
When Penn State student Sandryy21 thanked her for the support and told her she had a ton of fans at Penn State, Khloe responded: “Well now that I’ve learned about THON I’m a fan of Penn State LOL”
THON even sent her a “thank you” video on Twitvid — a Twitter video, for those less-versed in the Twitterverse.
Wonder if any other celebs will pick it up? Keep checking THON’s Twitter for updates.
Amy Guyer, associate editor
Snow Joke: The Best Student Section in America Speaks Up
I had plenty of leg room Saturday in section NAU, row 90, the nosebleed section above Beaver Stadium’s north end zone. And I wasn’t the only one: There were plenty of open seats throughout the stadium, the freak weather keeping many returning alumni from an actual homecoming, and keeping many locals from venturing into the stands.
The section that looked the emptiest, of course, was in the opposite corner of the field from mine: the student section, where the first-come, first-served seating arrangement makes it obvious when the students don’t all show up. Disappointingly for a 3:30, nationally televised Homecoming game, the student section never filled up last week. Seeing how many seats sat empty throughout the stadium, I couldn’t be too annoyed at the students; but then, remembering that none of those students had to fly in from out of town or brave the mountains on Route 322 — and that more than a few of them spent part of the first half chucking snowballs at their own cheerleaders — I couldn’t help thinking otherwise.
All of which led me, when I got back to the office Monday morning, to “tweet” sophomore John Tecce, the Paternoville vice president, with a 140-character version of the following: Is it harsh to ask if “The Best Student Section in College Football” only applies to 8 p.m. kickoffs that the students deem to be “big” games?
I think I already knew the answer, but I was really happy to see both Tecce and senior Patrick McDermott confirm it, both for me and their fellow students. On Tuesday, The Daily Collegian ran a letter to the editor from Tecce chastising the minority of his classmates who showed up late (or not at all) for the game against Minnesota, as well as those who spent more time flinging hard-packed snowballs at each other and onto the field than they did actually watching the game.
Today came a column from McDermott, making many of the same points, and reminding me how many of these students take their responsibility — both as representatives of the University to a nation-wide audience, and as supporters of the team — incredibly seriously. (The organization and commitment that goes into running Paternoville, which I experienced first hand last fall, is ample proof of that.) It also offered a nice dose of perspective: as a Collegian sportswriter 15 years ago, I was fired up enough to write this silly little column offering behavioral advice to students whose fandom didn’t meet my standards.
At the same time, I was also one of those student-ticket holders who threw his share of marshmallows at Beaver Stadium before that sort of thing was outlawed…
My point? Ice-chucking no-shows aside, Tecce, McDermott, and most of the rest of these kids are alright. And I have no doubt that when Ohio State rolls into town in a couple of weeks, they’ll be at their best.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Joe Paterno Checks Out Twitter (well, a forerunner)
The folks at espn.com got to thinking about what would happen if our favorite luddite, Joe Paterno, decided to embrace Twitter. Or, actually, a technology that predates Twitter by a few years. Check it out—you’ll get a chuckle out of it.
(Hat tip: onwardstate.com)
Tina Hay, editor
Joe Paterno on Family & Politics
The Big Ten’s annual preseason media days took place a week ago in Chicago, but the guys at the Daily Collegian were holding onto a gem, which they shared yesterday on their PSU Footblog. Titled “A Brief History Lesson With Mr. Paterno,” the post recounts a question one of the Collegian writers (not sure which) asked Joe Paterno near the end of the media session: What did he think of his son (and assistant coach) Jay’s possible political future? His answer, a cool bit of Paterno family history, begins like this:
When I was a kid growing up, a teenager, after Mass on Sunday, my mother would start cooking and all Sunday we sat around and ate. My old man would get a bottle of homemade wine, put it on the table and everybody, all the kids in the neighborhood, would come in. They taste it, sit around and my dad would agitate everybody. ‘What do you think of what Roosevelt is gonna do? What do you think about this?’ He was always trying to get us to think, what’s going on.
Check out the link to read the rest. And for the Twitter-savvy among you, you can follow the Collegian Footblog here, and Jay Paterno’s Twitter page here.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Bringing Web 2.0—to Iraq?
You’d think Iraq has more important things to worry about than Twitter and Facebook, but in fact that country has almost zero Internet infrastructure—and developing that infrastructure could play a big role in getting Iraq back on its feet. At least that’s the idea behind a State Department-sponsored trip that’s in progress over there right now. A delegation that includes representatives from Google, YouTube, and Twitter, among others, is wrapping up its visit today.
The one and only embedded reporter in the delegation is Penn State grad Steven Levy ’74g, who is a writer for Wired magazine. You can read his initial report from Iraq, filed yesterday, here and another Wired story on the trip here.
Tina Hay, editor
A Little Face Time with Meredith Vieira
On the one hand, Farnoosh Torabi ’02 lost her job last month. On the other hand, she got to talk to Meredith Vieira about it on the Today show yesterday.
We first learned about Farnoosh last year when she wrote a book called You’re So Money: Live Rich, Even When You’re Not (Three Rivers Press) and was working as a correspondent for TheStreet.com. I picked her to be the moderator for our roundtable on the economy, which ran in the July-August issue of our magazine. I hadn’t been in touch with her after that, until yesterday, when a friend on Facebook posted a link to her interview on the Today show. Turns out Farnoosh was laid off from TheStreet.com about a month ago. She talked with Meredith Vieira as part of the show’s “Get a Job” series, offering some good suggestions for her peers—younger workers—about how to make use of things like Twitter and Facebook to network your way back into a job.
Here’s the video clip of the Today interview.
Tina Hay, editor
Jay Paterno on Twitter
I’m not a Twitter guy, but as I’ve finally given up trying to pretend it doesn’t exist, I’ll swallow my distaste for the medium and give a plug to Jay Paterno’s (relatively) new Twitter page. If you’re a Nittany Lion football fanatic, it’s worth checking out.
Is that too many characters? Anyone?
Ryan Jones, senior editor
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