University of Maine Woodsmen Host Home Meet

Ryan Spencer

April 15, 2010

ORONO, MAINE - Saturday March 27, the University of Maine Woodsmen team hosted the yearly home meet. Teams from the University of New Hampshire and Unity Collegecame to compete against the UMaine Men's and Women's teams.

The teams compete in a variety of woods related events. The events are based on how lumberjacks used to cut wood. Overall at the competition The University of Maine Men's team A finished in first place with the B team finishing in second place, University of New Hampshire's first team finished in third place. For the women's competitions UMaine finished in first place, Unity finished in second place and UNH finished in third place.

Some of the competitions that the UMaine teams placed first in were single buck, ax throw, fire build, pulp pit and cross cut. The meet went from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and took place on the field near York Village.

University of Maine alumni team members were also present to compete in some events for fun. Alumi Matthew Galambos demonstrated how to do a standing block cut. Alumni also competed in underhand cut and fire build.


Fire build was the final event of the day which is a team event made up of two people. The object is to build a fire and to be the first team to make a can of water boil. UMaine men's team finished first with this event and the women's team also did.

The team will next compete at Paul Smith College in New York on April 24. The meet at Paul Smith will be the final meet of the year for the team.

Mark Feeney visits University of Maine

Ryan Spencer

April 2, 2010

ORONO, MAINE - On Thursday April 1, Boston Globe Arts writer Mark Feeney spoke at the University of Maine as the Alan Miller guest journalist. Feeney spoke on a range of topics from his recent book to the internet’s impact on culture journalism.

Feeney won the Pulitzer for criticism in 2008 for his work at the Boston Globe. In 2004 Feeney wrote the book Nixon at the Movies: a Book about Belief. In the book Feeney looks at how the President Nixon was inspired by and also inspired Hollywood.

Feeney visited the University as the second Alan Miller guest journalist. The fund was set up in memory of the late University of Maine Journalism professor who believed students should get the opportunity to learn from a journalist in the field.



A reception was held for Feeney at the Buchanan Alumni House. Communication and Journalism Paul Grosswiler introduced the Alan Miller Vistiting Journalist Program and Feeney. Professor Grosswiler was pleased to announce that Mobile Maine News was there to cover the speech.

Journalism Professor Michael Socolow spoke next about organizing the event and Feeney's work. Professor Socolow spoke about Feeney's book Nixon at the Movies and some of the famous names that have inspired Feeney and his work.

Nixon at the Movies took Feeney ten years to write. He told the audience that he got the idea for the book while talking to a friend of his shortly after President Nixon died. Feeney told his friend, " you should write a book about Nixon and film." His friend told Feeney, "No you should." That began the process for Feeney's first book.



When asked if he would write a second book, Feeney stated that first he needed an idea before he could begin planning another book. He also encouraged the audience to share any book ideas that they had with him after he was done speaking.

Feeney also spent time discussing the internets impact on journalism, often stating that his own age has left him slightly out of the loop in the push towards the internet age.

Feeney offered advice to students in attendance saying that often luck is one of the most important aspects in becoming a successful journalist. Persistence is another quality that Feeney told students was important to becoming a journalist. He also said that ability is necessary but often hard to determine at a young age.



Feeney graduated from Harvard University in 1979. He got started at the Boston Globe in the Globe's library and moved up from there. He became involved in the arts department and has worked as a culture critic. Feeney is also a professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

After his speech University of Maine student Sam Danis interviewed Mark Feeney about his book and his work at the Boston Globe.

Deer Living Amongst the People on Marsh Island

ORONO, MAINE -- Orono is not only home to college students, but also to a large deer population. The town is set up as a no-hunt zone, causing the local deer to not be afraid of humans. It is common to see deer standing in neighborhood yards eating grass.

The deer frequently cross the road without worrying about traffic. Orono Police Captain Josh Ewing says this has not caused as many traffic accidents as one would expect, as there were only nine reported car accidents involving deer in 2008. That number more than doubled in 2009, when there were twenty deer-related car accidents, but so far in 2010 there have only been two reports.

Captain Ewing speculates that one reason for these low numbers is the dramatic difference in traffic from May to September when University of Maine students leave for summer break. The deer are most active in the area during this time.

Captain Ewing stressed the need for drivers to be mindful of the deer population to avoid further accidents.

The Digital Bangor Daily News

The profession of journalism is changing. Newspapers around the country are adopting stronger internet bases and this is in order to reach more people in a timelier manner.

Newspapers in Maine are no different. This includes the Bangor Daily News which has its own webpage to provide quick news coverage. The Bangor Daily News also has a Twitter and Facebook account. Maineville can also be found on Facebook. The bangor Daily News also has a Youtube account where news stories can be watched.



This move towards embracing new media has caused new jobs to be created in journalism. Eryk Salvaggio is an example of this. He works at the Bangor Daily News as part of the new media department.

The Bangor Daily News has six different people in their new media department. There are two assistants, two coders and two managers. All of the new media department also has other responsibilities in the newspaper.

Salvaggio’s job is to post stories from the newspaper to the website. He needs to update the stories that are on the front page of the website regularly. He is also responsible for monitoring the comments that people post to news stories.

The ability to post news stories can be both positive and negative for the public discussion. Posts must be edited for lies, libel, obvious promotion and general profanity.

The Bangor Daily News also aims to have a civil community on its webpage. Posts will be edited for antagonistic comments, but they do not enforce this as rigidly to promote healthy discussions.



The newspaper is legally only responsible to take content down if it has been complained about.

The Bangor Daily News is looking for ways to facilitate debate on its website and still reward the more relevant posts by readers. One idea that Salvaggio said is being considered is moving a user post to the top if it is the most useful to readers.

This plan would move the most relevant stuff to the top and provide more information to a news story. The plan would also give the people who want to argue a place to do it further down on the webpage.

Twitter is used to post the headline of breaking news and provide a link to the story on the website. This allows the newspaper to quickly reach the 1,250 followers. The Facebook page provides a similar purpose, linking to the main website with headlines and descriptions of the stories.

Salvaggio speculates that print journalism will stay around for longer than people expect but that newspapers will have to reconsider their business model. He also anticipates that the future of journalism is to become much more immediate and that because of the internet reporting itself will change.



Salvaggio also anticipates problems with the fact delivery model that is being used with Twitter. He states that with just facts the reader is unable to get the real context of the story.