Dave Maass

Dearest Santa Fe:

I’m leaving you. I’m moving west and filling up my border state bingo card. It’s an economy thing, a weather thing, a move-close-to-close-friends thing. Lest you think I’ll forget you, I’ve put together this list of places, people, issues that will always stick with me. And I’ll also tell you what I never got to do, but wish I had and will haunt me until I return.

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That’s the end of Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole, one of the best films about journalism, ever, and the only one of its kind set in New Mexico. Kirk Douglas plays a hot shot reporter from the north east forced to into temporary exile in the southwest. Along comes a mine disaster: Where does storytelling stop and exploitation begin…or is it all just part of the job? That’s my teaser. You can watch the whole film on YouTube here.

I’ve used a still from the film as the temporary logo for the New Mexico Web Journalism Awards competition a few of us are starting. Our first open planning meeting, completely virtual, will be July 16 at 6pm.

Here’s the facebook group link. I’ll post more details as the date approaches.

So, at the annual Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, the Santa Fe Reporter took home the most awards in the AltWeeklies Contest than any other paper in our division. Of those, two projects I worked on took First Place: SwingStateofMind.com won in the blog category and “Things to Do in Santa Fe When You’re Undead” won in the Innovation category.

I’m pretty stoked. I didn’t win in news or features, which was a little bit of a disappointment, but in the end I think it says a lot about where I am, and our paper is, as media evolves.

I’d put one in the side bar too, but I’ve gotta keep my regular Twitter account running, too.

This Saturday, I’ll be Tweeting from the Dustball 500, a 500-mile gimmick rally leaving from El Paso and going god knows where.Team New Mex Express, two guys (Matt Ruybal, John Paul Gonzales) with a sweet ‘95 Ford Mustang Cobra have invited me to fold myself into the back seat.

So yeah, follow us on Twitter: @dustballdave.

What’s a gimmick rally? Here’s how TNME navigator John Paul Gonzales explained it in an interview a few months back:

SFR: Is it a race or not?
JG: The saying goes: ‘It’s a rally, not a race.’ What we get at the beginning of the rally is a sheet of paper with ‘gimmicks’ on it. These are clues to items that you’ll see as you’re driving along the highways. So you’ll have a picture of a sign and you’ll be asked to identify the location of the sign or you’ll have to pick out the fourth letter of the third word of a street sign on the left of mile marker 20, and you string these together to answer a question. The competition is who is able to solve those questions the fastest and the most accurately and basically make the best time over the distance.

So, really this is competitive road tripping?
I wouldn’t say it’s just a road trip, unless you also you want to boil Formula One racing to just guys in cars driving around in a circle.

Still unclear? Me too! It sounds rad. It also looks like we might have a sponsorship for an aircard to use the net from the road whenever we get a signal.

Crossposted at SFReeper.com.

Of the seven men sitting in this row, only one was born male. Can you tell which?

This FTMazing image was shot by MaryEllen Broderick at the LGBT Summit in Albuquerque, which I attended today to gather background info for an upcoming story.

(LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and FTM stands for Female-to-Male. FTMazing is just an adjective I made up. For more on “transguys” check this WIkipedia page out.)

KOB-TV’s Jeremy Jojola reported on my story this week in which I reveal the names and relative locations of potential medical marijuana growhouses.

I’m absolutely fascinated how they translated it from the page to television.

I hear that Pete St. Cyr, a reporter for KKOB radio, has a follow-up interview with a grower I couldn’t get on the horn. I’m looking forward to hearing it.

I just found out that SFR’s SwingStateofMind.com, the blog I built and coordinated during last year’s election has also been named a finalist in the blog category for the 2009 Association of Alternative Newsweeklies awards.

This means that, in the smaller division for alternative newspapers, SFR is leading in number of finalists. It also means that I’m guaranteed to win two awards this year, both of which are for untraditional journalism.

I was really proud of this blog, though, even now, the template seems outdated. We had polls and a Twitter feed and little scrolling widgets and the Web o Power. During the Democratic National Convention, we live blogged (with live streaming and chat) and captured some priceless footage of the protests. We laid into Jerome Block Jr. and covered even the most fringe candidates. We even interviewed the guy who put the phrase “Cunts for Eyes” in Hillary Clinton’s mouth.

It was a good year at SSOM. I predict we’ll take second.

So, yeah….I was a guest on the KNME current events show In-Focus, specifically the panel discussion, “The Line”:

You’ll want to skip to 8:50 to get to the good stuff. The first segment is about Albuquerque ditches and ditch boards and, as you might imagine, I had absolutely nothing to say about either.

I did however jabber on LGBT rights, reverse racism, the Chinese and the death penalty.
Sometimes, though, watching these embedded things, I wonder about my internal filter. I never took that poke at Joe Monahan, but I did get to correct Whitney Cheshire.

Props to Kathy Wimmer at KNME, host Gene Grant and the rest of the fine regular panel. A special terrorist fist jab to Jim Scarantino and Gene for giving me lifts to and from the station.

Cross-posted at SFReeper.com

KNME’s public policy news show, New Mexico In-Focus, has invited me to serve as a guest panelist again. We’re shooting today in Albuquerque, but the show runs Friday night at 7pm on TV. You can also check back here over the weekend for the embedded clip.

Tentatively, “The Line” panel will discuss issues including the new Supreme Court appointee, Sonia Sontemayor, the effect of Prop 8 on New Mexico, the lingering issue of the death penalty, China’s ties to New Mexico, and whether Gov. Bill Richardson will come to the rescue of those journalists imprisoned in North Korea. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to share that list, but hey–it can’t be bad to build up the hype, such as it is, for televised public policy debates.

For those following my fashion style, I will not be wearing my guyabera today, nor my one, single tie. Instead, I’ve donned my one another nice, button down shirt, grey with vertical stripes. I have, however, used my roommate’s styling gunk in my hair.

The main goal of tonight’s appearance, for me, is to not let Republican strategist Whitney Cheshire derail my train of thought. Damn, that woman’s clever on a panel. Remind me never to join her on Weakest Link.

The secondary goal is to sneak in a sideways jab at Joe Monahan, who announced his paranoid obsession with my appearances on the show a few weeks back during the miniature blog war.

Cross-posted at SFReeper.com