Sidebar on pg 502
Guidelines for journalism: responsibility, freedom of the press, independence, sincerity, truthfulness, accuracy, impartiality, fair play, and decency.
pg 506-522
This information is all similar to what many of us have learned in our media ethics class. When first skimming through the chapter I thought everything would be identical information, but it was not at all.
Potter Box? Never seen it. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with Harry Potter. I'm tired. I think that's fairly obvious. Anyways, the box looks rather simple but once you start following the arrows I realized it can be a little confusing. But...it still is simple...it can go any way it wants to. Maybe it's confusing in the way in which it's so simple. I need to stop overthinking.
The green box about Kelly McBride was insightful. It's nice to know that there is someone out there to help people with their ethical decisions. The book offering her e-mail address and information about her column was a great addition to the chapter.
The section on freebies got to me. I love free things, yet I know as a journalist you are not supposed to accept gifts. I would have such a hard time turning down something given to me, and it seems as if I am not the only one. As humans in a buy buy buy world, we will take almost anything given to us for free. Well, I guess as journalists we should not. I like how some news agencies will accept gifts then auction them off and give the money to charities.
The withholding information portion of the chapter also intrigued me. The comparison of doctors to journalists was well put.
"If you work as a journalist, are you ever off-duty? A doctor isn't. Doctors take an oath to treat the sick. If you witness something at a friend's house or at a party, do you tell your news director about it?"
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Candidates using e-mail
When I receive an e-mail with the subject line as "Hey" I usually think it's an e-mail from a friend or family member. I open it immediately. This tactic, the "Hey" tactic I'll call it, is what some candidates are using to catch their supporters attention.
Michelle Obama e-mailed supporters of her husband with this subject line. Unlike the "Hey" e-mails I receive from friends to keep in touch, this e-mail was looking for donations. They generally have a conversational tone as they are attempting to squeeze every last penny from the e-mail recipients.
"Such e-mails are a key to fundraising in this election -- Clinton raised $8 million online in the last quarter, while her closest rival, Obama, has collected a record of nearly $26 million online so far for the year -- and are central to organizing volunteers, especially a new generation of Web-savvy young activists."
I never realized how much energy, and money, went into e-mails. Clinton is said to have the largest e-mail list. Over one million addresses. That is crazy crazy crazy.
Michelle Obama e-mailed supporters of her husband with this subject line. Unlike the "Hey" e-mails I receive from friends to keep in touch, this e-mail was looking for donations. They generally have a conversational tone as they are attempting to squeeze every last penny from the e-mail recipients.
"Such e-mails are a key to fundraising in this election -- Clinton raised $8 million online in the last quarter, while her closest rival, Obama, has collected a record of nearly $26 million online so far for the year -- and are central to organizing volunteers, especially a new generation of Web-savvy young activists."
I never realized how much energy, and money, went into e-mails. Clinton is said to have the largest e-mail list. Over one million addresses. That is crazy crazy crazy.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
So washingtonpost.com has this really cool thing called "Issue Coverage Tracker." There are two columns, one for issues on the left and one with candidates on the right. When you scroll your mouse over specific issues some candidates pictures get larger, depending on how important that issue is to them. For example, when you scroll over health care Hillary Clinton's face gets larger than everyone else's. In a like way, when you scroll over a specific candidate the text of certain issues can get larger. For Tom Tancredo abortion is double the size of all the other issues. The bottom has a date range so you can select a time period for the issues and candidates.
You can also click on the candidate and you learn how many times a candidate mentions a specific issue. Did you know that John Edwards has mentioned globalization 8 times in the month of November? Well, know you do.
This is mainly just fun to play with. It's very aesthetically pleasing.
You can also click on the candidate and you learn how many times a candidate mentions a specific issue. Did you know that John Edwards has mentioned globalization 8 times in the month of November? Well, know you do.
This is mainly just fun to play with. It's very aesthetically pleasing.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
chaptah 19
Okay, so this chapter is about "Writing News for Radio and Television." It begins with using 9/11 as an example. I remember hearing about 9/11 for the first time. I had just came back from learning about the student handbook, in 8th grade. My teachers all turned on the tvs and radios so we could hear about the updates about the incident in our country. My friends were running around screaming that they thought the Backstreet Boys were "trading" day in the World Trade Center. It was quite the day. I remember that news that day wasn't so certain but tried their hardest to give all they could. The only images I remember from those broadcasts are the Twin Towers falling. I feel like that is pretty normal though.
It's crazy that one half-hour newscast has only 22 minutes of news, which equals half of a front page in newspaper. What's even crazier is how many people get their news solely from broadcast news.
The audio and visual aspect of broadcast news is now being used in print news, that is in online forms. I think that makes broadcast news have to work even harder to use their other forms of media in the best way possible.
"You can't shoot video of an issue." It is necessary to have people in a broadcast news story. Without a living, breathing person there would be essentially no story.
I like the sections on using "conversation style" and "tight phrasing" in writing for television and radio. It says to avoid the passive voice and to use transitive verbs in the active voice. It also says that people rarely talk in the passive voice...it's funny because I think I talk in the passive voice a lot. It sucks because it transfers to my writing. I'm catching it more now though. It also says to not be wordy...another one of my faults in speaking and writing. I am SO wordy. I never know the most direct way to say something. It's like I stumble over words and mash them up to try to make something comprehensible.
The last thing I found important in this chapter was how to structure the story. That whole section was helpful.
It's crazy that one half-hour newscast has only 22 minutes of news, which equals half of a front page in newspaper. What's even crazier is how many people get their news solely from broadcast news.
The audio and visual aspect of broadcast news is now being used in print news, that is in online forms. I think that makes broadcast news have to work even harder to use their other forms of media in the best way possible.
"You can't shoot video of an issue." It is necessary to have people in a broadcast news story. Without a living, breathing person there would be essentially no story.
I like the sections on using "conversation style" and "tight phrasing" in writing for television and radio. It says to avoid the passive voice and to use transitive verbs in the active voice. It also says that people rarely talk in the passive voice...it's funny because I think I talk in the passive voice a lot. It sucks because it transfers to my writing. I'm catching it more now though. It also says to not be wordy...another one of my faults in speaking and writing. I am SO wordy. I never know the most direct way to say something. It's like I stumble over words and mash them up to try to make something comprehensible.
The last thing I found important in this chapter was how to structure the story. That whole section was helpful.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Chapter 18: Investigative Reporting
I think this chapter would have been very helpful had it been assigned before watching the McWane video. I was absolutely amazed with how much work went into that case and how PBS put everything they used online. I have seen many things like it before but I had never watched them from a journalistic perspective.
I thought it was good that this chapter mentioned that investigative reporting doesn't always involve crime and corruption. The public service aspect is often brushed over and forgotten about.
The chapter stresses the use of technology in investigative reporting many times. The amount of data that comes from technology is immense. You can find almost any data you need on the Internet today. And if it's not right there you can find where to get it elsewhere.
I think it's good that it says that you should be open to disproof to your hypothesis. I'm sure it's hard for many journalists to see that what they've been trying to prove is in fact not true. They may go for ways to make it seem true but this isn't right. The reporting is not a waste and if the reporter is good enough they can come up with another story from what they have uncovered.
"Many reporters take a kind of perverse pride in their illegible notebooks and cluttered desks."
This is great and it describes me very well. Last night I went on my ride along and wrote all my notes in the dark for the most part. I can still read everything I wrote but the words are all over the place. And my desk...wow. At the moment, my desk has approximately two post-it sized empty areas on it. The rest of the three-foot long desk is cluttered with life necessities. These life necessities include a large bottle of ibuprofen, an empty box of Snowcaps, a reporter’s notepad, a headband with leopard ears, a plastic margarita glass filled with bobby pins, my cable bill, two deodorants (one empty), two Halloween cards, a Nalgene water bottle with two bumper stickers, a TV remote, nail strengthener, and a hermit crab cage with two, hopefully living, hermit crabs.
It would suck to do great reporting and then have it be poorly written. "The best reporting in the world is wasted unless it is read." So true, and so upsetting.
The description of sources was helpful, but at the same time self-explanatory.
Lastly, there's a typo on page 390. Last time I checked "un1derstanding" was not a word. I give the textbook an F for misspelling.
http://www.ire.org/extraextra/
This is fun. Lots of stories. I liked this one: "Investigation finds animal corpses in Colorado Humane Society trash." Everyone loves dead animals, no?
http://www.ire.org/inthenews_archive/
More stories! I really don't know what to say about them in my blog though.
http://www.ire.org/resourcecenter/initial-search-beat.html
Even more stories...again, I don't know what to right about. Reading all of these is terrifying though. I feel as though I may die in mere seconds due to a volcano eruption or my room catching on fire.
I think this chapter would have been very helpful had it been assigned before watching the McWane video. I was absolutely amazed with how much work went into that case and how PBS put everything they used online. I have seen many things like it before but I had never watched them from a journalistic perspective.
I thought it was good that this chapter mentioned that investigative reporting doesn't always involve crime and corruption. The public service aspect is often brushed over and forgotten about.
The chapter stresses the use of technology in investigative reporting many times. The amount of data that comes from technology is immense. You can find almost any data you need on the Internet today. And if it's not right there you can find where to get it elsewhere.
I think it's good that it says that you should be open to disproof to your hypothesis. I'm sure it's hard for many journalists to see that what they've been trying to prove is in fact not true. They may go for ways to make it seem true but this isn't right. The reporting is not a waste and if the reporter is good enough they can come up with another story from what they have uncovered.
"Many reporters take a kind of perverse pride in their illegible notebooks and cluttered desks."
This is great and it describes me very well. Last night I went on my ride along and wrote all my notes in the dark for the most part. I can still read everything I wrote but the words are all over the place. And my desk...wow. At the moment, my desk has approximately two post-it sized empty areas on it. The rest of the three-foot long desk is cluttered with life necessities. These life necessities include a large bottle of ibuprofen, an empty box of Snowcaps, a reporter’s notepad, a headband with leopard ears, a plastic margarita glass filled with bobby pins, my cable bill, two deodorants (one empty), two Halloween cards, a Nalgene water bottle with two bumper stickers, a TV remote, nail strengthener, and a hermit crab cage with two, hopefully living, hermit crabs.
It would suck to do great reporting and then have it be poorly written. "The best reporting in the world is wasted unless it is read." So true, and so upsetting.
The description of sources was helpful, but at the same time self-explanatory.
Lastly, there's a typo on page 390. Last time I checked "un1derstanding" was not a word. I give the textbook an F for misspelling.
http://www.ire.org/extraextra/
This is fun. Lots of stories. I liked this one: "Investigation finds animal corpses in Colorado Humane Society trash." Everyone loves dead animals, no?
http://www.ire.org/inthenews_archive/
More stories! I really don't know what to say about them in my blog though.
http://www.ire.org/resourcecenter/initial-search-beat.html
Even more stories...again, I don't know what to right about. Reading all of these is terrifying though. I feel as though I may die in mere seconds due to a volcano eruption or my room catching on fire.
Want to talk to a presidential candidate? Go back into time and be 5 again.
Apparently, Obama has a thing for 5-year-olds. No, not in that way fools.
At first the campaign denied questions from reporters to Obama while he was in Durham, North Carolina. Then Hadassah Jones, 5, showed some tears and the presidential candidate decided to let her interview him.
Jones is one of the youngest correspondents probably ever. Working for brandnewz.com, the 5-year-old was the only reporter that Obama would talk to. Tears can go a long way my friends. Also, being under 4 feet tall can help.
In the interview, Obama mentioned his goals of providing health insurance to everyone and improving schools. He explained his beliefs to the first grader by saying, ""We've got to make sure that people who have more money help the people who have less money. If you had a whole pizza, and your friend had no pizza, would you give him a slice?"
Note to self: If I ever want to be a successful reporter, shrink a few feet, start weeping, and ask simple questions that a 5-year-old could understand.
At first the campaign denied questions from reporters to Obama while he was in Durham, North Carolina. Then Hadassah Jones, 5, showed some tears and the presidential candidate decided to let her interview him.
Jones is one of the youngest correspondents probably ever. Working for brandnewz.com, the 5-year-old was the only reporter that Obama would talk to. Tears can go a long way my friends. Also, being under 4 feet tall can help.
In the interview, Obama mentioned his goals of providing health insurance to everyone and improving schools. He explained his beliefs to the first grader by saying, ""We've got to make sure that people who have more money help the people who have less money. If you had a whole pizza, and your friend had no pizza, would you give him a slice?"
Note to self: If I ever want to be a successful reporter, shrink a few feet, start weeping, and ask simple questions that a 5-year-old could understand.
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