this is the last thing on the election, I swear

So I finally talked the special sections editor into letting me something on Nader for the election section... but then she said if I was going to write up one 3rd party candidate, I'd have to do them all. Fuck.... Abby, remember that guy from the Constitution Party? Yeah, he's pretty creepy. I posted my little package I did for page four of the section below... somehow the Qs got off kilter when I transferred it over to PDF it, but you get the idea.

In conclusion, congratulations Bob Barr, you fucking nutcase, for getting your name in the paper.



Click here for a good time.

My best story

Written for an internship application:

She was still in high school, living with her baby in a trailer without electricity in a rural area of the Mississippi Delta. How did I, a middle-class white intern from a Jesuit university in Omaha find myself interviewing this woman? Simple. I was writing a series on infant mortality that eventually won the Louisiana-Mississippi AP Managing Editors award for interpretive writing. It was an indelible growing experience for a reporter.

It was part of my first internship at the Vicksburg Post, where I covered everything from a trial of a Ku Klux Klansman to dog shows. At the Post, I wrote my best story: “Hope Amid Despair,” a three-part series on infant mortality in Mississippi. While writing daily news stories, I was given six weeks to work on this on the side. I spent hours interviewing people who were all in different situations trying to find out why the babies died, and if anyone was at fault.

This story taught me how to tell individual stories to point out a bigger concern. I collected information on agencies helping low income families find assistance and highlighted efforts to combat the epidemic.

Mississippi is accustomed to being last in many categories: last in healthcare, last in income, first in diabetes and infant mortality. In this story I was able to point out a problem while highlighting the steps that state government was taking steps to make it better.

Writing this series was also a lesson in time management and organization. Agencies gave me binders of information about case studies and statistics, and I made sure I could rapidly find what I needed. While I was writing this story, I was also driving 60 miles every day to Jackson to cover a murder trial. I had to find time in the day to report on the trial while setting up interviews and researching infant mortality.

Since then, I interned at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer writing arts and feature stories. I also spent a semester working on a multimedia piece on Creighton in 1968, where I interviewed former students and professors on the 40th anniversary of the year Bobby Kennedy made a historic speech on campus, George Wallace caused a riot in downtown Omaha and Creighton students were arrested in the streets of Chicago. I wrote the story and edited video clips for the Internet.

“Hope Amid Despair” only strengthened my resolve to be a reporter. I hope to do more in-depth coverage and investigative reporting and I’ll work every day to write good, solid stories.

Vote your hopes, not your fears

That title was a sign I saw on the way to work everyday in Seattle. It was spray painted under a bridge. For everything that Seattle lacks, its graffiti was better than ours.

That said, I figure I'll share this with you. I sent an email to 30 different news rganizatons to tell them what I think about blacking out third party candidates.

Here's what I said:

"Dear Editor,

My name is Molly Mullen. I am a journalism major at Creighton, and I love the media more than anything. I fight in support of it on a daily basis, standing up for us journalists for doing to the right thing and having outstanding morals.

It saddens me, then, to think of what has been happening this election season to third party candidates. For my college paper I have been working to interview every candidate on the ballot in Nebraska, not just the ones involved in the debates.

If I can do it, a student with two majors, 50 hours of work a week and the news editor of her paper, so can you.

We are the people's people. We work to give voices to the voiceless. We can change the world. Remember? All those reasons you became a journalist? Keeping the focus off third party candidates goes against our beliefs as reporters of truth.

As for your audience, the American public would love to see things get shaken up. They would love to see coverage and read reports of these candidates. That too, would force the two main candidates to answer harder questions, to look at their real differences and similarities.

As a newswoman, I urge you in these final weeks to give coverage to all candidates for the presidency, so the American voter can make an informed decision in the voting booth."


Sure I'm biased. I want Nader to get votes. But don't you think it's wrong that we're not allowed to make our own decision? Sunday will be a debate for third party candidates at Columbia University (McCain and Obama are also invited) but no news station other than C-Span will pick it up.

Roaches have infested my life

Remember the days when I could come home from a hard day's work, crawl onto my nice, warm air mattress and kick back to a little Doogie Howser and Mario? Well those dreams have died. Now when I come home I have go roach hunting, finding them in m drawers, all over the kitchen... I even hound a dead one in my bed just now.

I hope we can start a circus act, or else they aren't allowed to stay here anymore.

A little something to tickle your tastebuds

Abby and company made this for me while staying with me in Vicksburg two summers ago. I found it in my documents while I was looking for newspaper clips for my portfolio. It's been a Mississippi kind of day.

Photos that sadly will not become prints

So it was another fun-filled week in my print photos class. I took some that I liked, but for one reason or another I'm not going to take the time to turn into prints. Either I didn't shoot it right, I effed up the developer or they just don't fit the assignment. Bee Tee Dubs, I'm going to make my very first print this week, so wish me luck.

This one I took while eating my tasty Chuck Berry pancakes at the diner. I just turned around and practically has an All-American orgasm. These two guys, both in great hats, wearing blue jeans and suspenders, reading the paper and drinking their coffee in a diner on Friday morning. Perfection. Unfortunately, the assignment was for portraits. In fact, my teacher is more or less against taking people's photos without their permission, and is pretty anti-newspaper, so we're already butting heads.

This was at B & G's because apparently I eat out at diners too much. Cute little kids eating at a counter, but I don't think the cuteness translated when it printed. I just didn't want anyone to see me snap the shot of the little kids and get ideas about what i was up to...

This is all kids of wrong, photography speaking. but also... all kinds of right.

Baby love, ooh ooh baby love

So these are two of the three that actually were published in the Creightonian. I have about 90 more that will make you vomit they're so cute. VOMIT. I might put up more later, because I have been slow on the whole producing anything artistic lately.

These were taken at Precious Memories day care. We did a story on Verna the owner, and how Creighton students help her keep the place up and running.




To answer Abby's questions:
1. I definately saw Chuck Berry. I didn't see him from inside the venue, I saw him from the parking garage next to the venue. Free. Legal. Wonderful.
2. Yes He's black. He was born that way.
3. His signature dance step is the duck walk, which you can witness here.
4. My hair is up in a pony tail and hadn't been washed in a duck walk. You can cut it for me when you come home
5. Chuck Berry pancakes are pancakes with fresh blueberries topped with raspberry sauce. They are so real and so delicious.

Anybody who lives in or near Omaha can feel free to come over and have a Chuck Berry party with me this weekend. It could get freaky.