User:Doncudd

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[edit] Hello from Corpus Christi, Texas USA

I am very new to Wikipedia (as a contributor anyway, I've been reading -- and using -- information from the site for years), so I'm not entirely certain of the protocal for a user page, but I'm gathering it's pretty much a whatever-you-think-people-ought-to-know-about-you section. So here goes:

The first thing you should know is that I'm new to Wikipedia and hope to make (mostly asthetic) improvements to this page as I learn the various tools better. Anything odd that you see me do on wikipedia is probably related to my inexperience. Please kindly let me know if I should overstep my bounds somehow and rest assured that the infraction was probably caused entirely by ignorance. I have a great respect for the ethics behind wikipedia's policies and will never intentionally do anything to violate their spirit.

[edit] My Potential Biases

So that you may adequately judge my potential conflicts, here's more about my activist activities and my professional connections:

Media: I have been a long-time critic of typical "commercial" media -- particularly the local media in my hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas. In 2004 I startedThe Corpus Christi Examiner, as, I'd hoped, an outlet for "Citizen Reporters" to for local issues in my city much of the same thing that editors do on Wikipedia. That project has, I admit, not has a great deal of success to date (and in fact, the website is currently sorely in need of updating), but I have not yet given up entirely. The trouble I've run into with this project is that most participants end up leaving in frustration after a few weeks when they discover that I am serious about insisting on journalistic fairness and thoroughness in the website's content. Such traits are not, it seems, a common part of human nature.

I have been active in the commercial media as a radio DJ, newspaper reporter, and many other positions at various outlets across Texas for about 20 years. After years of working for media-reform from the inside, I have finally struck out on my own. My independent commercial venture these days is my Internet radio station at HossTheBoss.com which highlights high quality "Independent" music that has significant trouble finding airplay on other outlets. I'm attempting to prove to the media industry (and particularly to the radio sector, which is the most corrupt part of business) that it is, in fact, possible to have a profitable media venture while also being committed to high ethical standards, honesty, and common courtesy. The radio station is slowly-but-surely building a good sized audience. Once it becomes solidly profitable, I intend to expand into other ventures -- such as a better financed version of the Corpus Christi Examiner -- that are of a more serious nature. (To keep in line with wikipedia's great journalistic spirit, I will not be writing an article about HossTheBoss.com, but, while I am biased, I do think it's worthy of a wikipedia article. Hint, hint anyone?)

Memorial Industry: While I am working at making HossTheBoss.com profitable, I am also building a freelance writing and media consulting business. My most consistent client to date is the owner of Prestige Memorials, an on-line retailer of cremation urns, headstones and other memorial products. Through doing public relations work -- along with other routine website maintenance work --- for that company for the past year, I have become fairly well versed in the memorial products industry. Specifically, I have become a bit of an activist against the tactics that some funeral homes and cemeteries use to discourag customers from buying memorial products from outside dealers like Prestige Memorials, thereby keeping their profits artifically high.

Education: Finally, I am former high school and college teacher and a critic of education in America (but aren't we all?). Since my last nightmare experience in secondary education ( in 2003-2004 at Marshall High School in Fairfax County, Virginia), I have been trying to piece together a team of other talented-but-ignored former and current teachers to write a book of education reform proposals. I have also been routinely disillusioned in the last 20 years with what I consider to be corruption-run-wild in Higher Education in America. My various experiences will be enough for an eventual book in itself.

[edit] Summing up my life on Wikipedia

Okay, I guess that's about it as far as my potential conflicts go. Most of my expertise is in the media, education, and, as of last year, the memorial products industry. So, most of my involvement on wikipedia will be related to those topics. While I promise to strive for fairness and journalistic accuracy in all that I may do on wikipedia, I hope you will keep my potential biases in mind. Please do not be bashful about holding me accountable for any transgressions (which, I assure you, will be inadvertent).

Don Cudd 18:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)