Political coverage

After a semester of actively following the news of the upcoming elections, I still don’t like politics. But, at least, I know now that political stories can be fun and interesting. Another thing that I learned was that anything can make a headline at CNN or the NYT.

Now, that I’m reading my older postings on political coverage, I see an interesting tendency: I almost never wrote about the “political” sides of candidates. I never really discussed who supports what and what their plans are. I wrote mostly about those typical “anythings” that make headlines. And, for people like me, who are absolutely not interested in politics because they think politicians are boring, corrupt and tend to lie, so, for these people, only those funny, interesting or shocking stories are compelling.

For example, what do voters’ brain functions, candidates’ diets or Obama’s acting skills have to do with how the country is governed? Exactly: nothing. But that’s what the NYT offers to its readers as news besides those highly political articles with headlines that turn down an average reader with having big bald words like “legislation,” “endorsement,” “immigration” and “criticize.” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t read news with such headlines.

I think my generation has developed immunity against political news. Maybe even against news in general. I don’t know anyone (except for those geeky journalism majors at Park) who’d read the news. I mean entire articles every day. And this is terrible. Our future lies, sort of, in the news. The problem with the elections is hat people will vote for those candidates they saw a lot on TV without knowing what their programs are.

Another problem that I realized back at home, in Hungary, was that people voted “just because.” Of course, this has a lot to do at home with out history and what kind of family a person was born into. But as I heard people speaking about elections both here and at home, I realized that no matter what they see on TV or read in the newspapers, they will vote for the person they had decided to vote for in the very beginning.

So, is it worth writing about politics at all?? Yes, it is! First of all, journalists are there to help the public by monitoring those nasty politicians. And, of course, there are several people from older generations out there who do read the news and do think about issues. I guess journalists should just figure out something to involve young readers, too.

Those “anythings” I mentioned earlier are good teasers to at least inform people on who the candidates are and sort of what they want. If I ever end up having to report on politics, I’ll try to find interesting and new angles. I guess one way is to make politics personal. For example, if an article talks about higher taxes or lower interest rates, my eyes are moving along the lines, but after a while I’ll probably start thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner or how I could do my hair tomorrow. But, if the article starts out by stating that I’ll have to pay $1000 more in taxes and I’ll get $100 less after my savings, well, I guess I wouldn’t start thinking about what I’m having for dinner but whether I’m having dinner at all!!
So when the NYT article talks about Hillary going on a diet, I can be like: “Yeah, I feel you.”

Poynter Online: Places Journalists Should Go for Politics

Well, this list was rather amazing. What would journalists do without the Internet, seriously?? I guess in 50 years, candidates won’t even have to give public speeches and talk about themselves and their views, because journalists will the job for them. If I were interested in politics, which I’m not, I’d be really excited now. If a journalist has a free day or two, he or she can just go through all the sites and gather a tremendous amount of information.

I think OpenSecrets.org was rather interesting. Did you know for example that Obama started out with $516,500 on his Senate account and then raised more than $79 million from individuals??

And then the Tyndall Report. Well, that is pretty intense. I don’t understand how that site is able to monitor all the news, but it’s awesome. I mean, looking back 20 years from now and analyzing all the data. That’d make an interesting article!! Journalists are writing history! It’s so cool. Mostly with the Internet… I’m so excited about how the knowledge and thinking of people will change in the next 100 years.

Missouri Professors: Merrill's Offense Was Plagiarism

This article was really interesting, and it made me ask questions that I just simply can't find the answer for. Why did John Merrill steal those quotes?? First, I thought he was a loser and he needed last minute quotes. But then I read that he was 80 something years old and a real pro, so I had to drop this explanation.
Then, I figured he was lazy, and it was easier to lift those quotes. But no... that's not what such a guy would do. So the next thing that came into my mind was that he must think that just because he's a famous journalist, he can just take the quotes from the little journalism student. And then I read his argument that he views quotes as public property, which just added to my confusion.

So, these are my finalized thoughts on the question:
1. Quotes are not public property, only people are who give the quotes. Getting quotes is a journalist's job, so stealing equals to not doing your job.
2. Journalists should be humble. If a journalist has anything to write, that's not because he or she's sooo damn good but because some nice people devoted minutes or even hours of their lives to talk to the journalist. I think this is what Merrill forgot.

When I read Merrill's answer to the claims, I got sort of disgusted. He started the article with his resume!! "I did this and that, I've been a journalist for 60 years, I'm so awesome, I have the right to do anything, and anyways, I stand so much above all of you people. Oh, and I stole only quotes because my writing is so much better than anyone else's." Well, after this "theme paragraph," I decided that this guy was not only guilty in plagiarism but he was also a terrible terrible person and I'm not sorry for him at all!!

Hostage drama at Hillary's place

Last Friday, a man went into one of Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign office and said he had a bomb on him. The story ended well, because no one was hurt and the "bomb" turned out to be road flares and duct tape.

However, the story doesn't end here. Leeland Eisenberg, the suspect of the case, is supposedly a heavy drinker and her wife had just filed for divorce last Tuesday. Also, Eisenberg, who admitted he needed mental health, told reporters why he took hostages: he wanted attention. He wanted to let people know about his lawsuit against a priest who allegedly raped him.

This story is just startling. I can't believe such things happen. And Eisenberg used Hillary Clinton's office thinking that taking hostages there would draw people's attention. And he was right. If he had done it in a mall, local newspapers might have wrote about it, but I doubt that the NYT and CNN would have it among their top headlines.

I wonder if the case will affect Hillary Clinton. Is she just a victim herself? I guess she is. But can we say that she's innocent in a case where someone used her fame to draw public attention by almost hurting people? Okay, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Clinton had anything to do with this guy. But now we know that publicity has its tolls, and "evil" people can take advantage of it.

On the other hand, I'm not sure whether Eisenberg is the ultimate bad guy. I'd say he was the victim of his circumstances. So, whose fault is this? How about the media that's always ready to report on terror attacks and hostage dramas?

I don't really know what to think about this case. I wonder what's going to happen to the guy.

Poynter

Poynter

Well, I really liked reading about the inventor of Soundslides. He must be an amazing guy. I admire people who are good professionals and at the same time they see the big picture. In this case, Joe Weiss saw the importance of integrating modern technology into photojournalism.

I liked the point he made that video is not necessarily better than still photos. I like when people appreciate "traditional" things and can also explain why they do it so.

However, Weiss said a couple things about the down side of slideshows: they take four or five times longer to make than putting together a simple visual assignment and you need good photos. L

On the other hand the web enables photojournalists to publish as many pictures as they like without limits.

And the reason why I really liked this guy was his idea of seeing journalism as a tool to connect “humans to humans.”

Tutorials

iMovie Tutorial

I hate tutorials. I think they are dull and it takes a lot of time to read them. I went through this one, though. And what I said proved to be true...

The thing is I've used iMovie a couple times before. As a filmmaker wanna-be, I started out with Final Cut Pro when I was 16, so using iMovie wasn't that big of a deal.

The news things I "learned" from the tutorials was the difference between cropping and cutting. Also, I sort of forgot that iMovie had some cool video FX, I'll check those out.

And yeah, I had no idea what Magic iMovie meant, so I know that now, too.



Garageband Tutorial

As a Journalism professor, I guess you don't really know the musical sides of your students. Well, let me tell you, I'm a musical talent and my first CD came out this summer. No, seriously. I already sold one copy to my sister. Actually, it was rather a gift... Anyways, the title of my CD is "The Debuting Album of a Born Genius." And I created it with Garage Band. It was rather fun. So that’s how I got to get familiar with this amazing program.

However, I don’t think it’s the very tool I’d use to record audio for slide shows or videos. To me, it seems more of a music maker tool. As a Journalist, all I have to use is the record button and then edit it.

I like the podcast function, though. The only thing is: I’d be careful with using prerecorded sound effects. I just wrote a research paper on Welles’ “War of the Worlds,” and trust me people believe what they hear…

So, the “Enhanced Podcast” function is basically identical to making an audio slideshow. Interesting…

Presidential candidates on diet… they only wish!

Presidential candidates have a hard time keeping their shapes during the campaign. As they tour around, they HAVE to eat the traditional meals of all locations, which means that they can’t stick to their diets. Poor Hillary even prays to God to help her lose weight, wrote an article in the NYT.

Having a look at a video showing what things that candidates have to eat made me understand their problem!! Greasy meat, hot dog, soda, etc. I guess I would get sick after a couple days of “campaigning.”

So, why is it so important to keep fit but also eat traditional food??

“If you’re really overweight, some people just look at you and immediately sort of write you off,” Mr. Huckabee said for the NYT. “They just assume you’re undisciplined.”

But at the same time, if a candidate chooses not to eat the local specialties, it means he or she is not worthy for the vote of the local people.

Well, this problem is pretty typical to the 21^st century USA. It’s not that in Europe we wouldn’t care about how our candidates look, but when it comes to voting, what they eat and how they look don’t really count. At home, I guess because of the history, there are fewer people who are in the middle. People usually know what they believe in and who they’re voting for. And even if they’re undecided, what convince them are usually promises and arguments, not the candidate’s eating habits.

Of course, I’m not saying that Americans decide just based on appearance and whether the candidate stuffs him- or herself with local food. But if the issue makes it to the NYT’s front page, it should be important, right?

Anyways, I’m glad I’m not running for president. I hate when people make me eat out of courtesy!!

Chapter 23—Ethics

So, after a semester of Ethics, I’d like to think that I’m ready for solving ethical dilemmas, but as I was reading this chapter, I just realized that I’m not. And I’ll never be!

The first thing that came to my mind was who I should be loyal to. To the editor? To the newspaper? To the audience? To the source? The problem is that the moment I choose one of these, I deny my loyalty from the others. This means that I either lose my job (in case I’m ignoring the benefits of the newspaper) or I can’t sleep at night (if I do chose to serve the newspaper instead of the source or my readers).

Then: Freebies. Well, I don’t think I can be “bought” with presents and stuff, so I don’t think that part would be a problem for me. But what about business travels? Right now, I’m thinking of a case when I’m sent to a gorgeous island to cover something. Can I take a couple days off and just enjoy the sunshine and the beach? Of course, only when I’m done with my work…I mean this would save me the price of the flight and maybe the hotel. Well, okay staying at a nice hotel at the expenses of the newspaper is not nice. But how about the flight??

I’m sort of startled that checkbook journalism actually exists. But on the other hand, I understand that journalists make money of what sources tell them for free. But at the same time, when a source buys a newspaper, what he or she really pays for is the price of printing and paper, not the actual reporting… So if they benefit from my work for free, why shouldn’t I use them for free??

And the last two things: participation in news and advertising pressure. So, I’m not allowed to join any religious or political groups in my free time as a private citizen, but at the same time, I’m almost required to promote the advertiser. So which one is unethical?? Also, it’s my responsibility to write objectively, right? So, as long as I can distance myself from the issue and cover it without putting personal views in my articles, why couldn’t I do whatever I want in my private life?? This is just so unjust!!!

The issue of withholding information is also hard. I think in such cases, the question a journalist should consider is whether it’s absolutely essential to publish a story. But of course, you never know what publishing certain information will cause. For example, I was to argue that airing the message that made the meteorologist guy kill himself was unethical… But then I figured that it wasn’t. I thought it was only after I read that he committed suicide after it.

Four Articles

Online Storytelling Forms


"Online is about showing, telling, demonstrating and interacting."
I think I’m really lucky Journalism student to be living in this very era where new opportunities are opening up through the Internet. It was just fascinating to read about the different forms of online journalism.

I found these principles helpful:
Use print to explain. Use multimedia to show. Use interactives to demonstrate and engage.

It’s just amazing what Journalists can do with a single digital camera (it doesn’t even have to be some high-tech camcorder). Also, I liked “clickable interactives,” even though the Market Map was sort of confusing.

The article made the point that slide shows are not just random pics thrown next to each other, but they are a means of telling a cohesive story.

I’m a bit confused about what interactive webcasts are. I open all the links, but none of them worked, so I didn’t really see an example of that kind of video.

Oh, and the multimedia interactives: I just loved them! Especially the one about U Street. I just liked the design and the content and that I could choose whether I want to listen to the audio commentary or not. That piece was just fascinating, and the thing is, I could also go out and do something similar! Awesome!



What Journalism Can’t Do


This article was really interesting. I think it’s rather sad that people are numb to massive suffering.

Suddenly, Youssif, the boy who was set on fire, came into my mind. When I first saw his story, how he was set on fire, and how his face was damaged, I was deeply touched. He is the face of the Iraqi children who are affected by the terror surrounding them.

As human beings, I think it’s easier to sympathize with an individual, than to understand what the big concepts and statistics mean, and how they affect people.



Teaching Online Journalism


In this article, there were a couple things that just hit me. Here they are:

1. I should always find a new angle, something that answers my questions. I think this means that I have to treat the audience as intelligent human beings. If I think that I know everything about the topic because I have reported on it earlier, that doesn’t mean that the audience is totally ignorant and so I have to report on the basic things. The questions I find interesting may be the ones that the readers find interesting, too. Of course, I have to include fundamental stuff to make sure that even a 3 year old understands the big picture. It’s kind of hard to produce a piece that’s equally interesting to all sorts of people.

2. When working with audio or video, it’s basically the footage that decides the focus of the story. This is frightening. If I don’t have the appropriate visuals to back up my story, there’s very little I can do…


3. Making a connection between the video and the viewer’s real life is important. The other day, I was watching one of Travis Fox’s videos made in Aceh, Indonesia. The video was about people living in tents for a year then, after the Tsunami destroyed their homes and flooded their villages. For the first sight, I couldn’t relate to those people, because they are so far from me. But then I saw a footage showing the tents while the rain was just pouring (it was the monsoon season). I imagined what it would be like to live in a tent set up on mud and rain puddles. Suddenly, I felt a lot more empathy towards those people. It was just a 10-second part of the clip, but after it I understood why they want to live in houses so desperately.



You Must Be Streaming


Newspapers with good online videos rock!
While CNN.com offers good video and not-so-good articles, NYT.com offers good video with outstanding articles. Honestly, I prefer both. CNN is easy to read and gives the basic information on issues. The NYT, however, is really fancy and in-depth, but it needs a lot of attention. But if I were to choose which one to work for, I think I’d go with the NYT, provided that I’m given a camcorder.

It’s so true that documentaries are good on the web. When I was younger, I wanted to be a filmmaker, and I seriously considered shooting documentaries. The reality is much more dramatic than fiction.

Also, the videos shot for the web are a lot more realistic than the ones made in studios with sets and stuff. I’m wondering if this will change the TV landscape. Will people want to see gigantic sets in the future? Or will they prefer a more realistic, down to earth representation of news? We’ll see…

And I loved Travis Fox saying, “If a reporter wants to be on camera, that’s probably a good reason not to put him on camera.”

Brain functions for the mentioning of politicians

A bunch of brain doctors from different colleges wrote a study on a research they conducted monitoring brain functions of swing voters on showing pictures of presidential candidates.

The NYT web site has a slide show with pictures of the parts of the brain being active while certain images are presented.

Some of the findings:

1. Hillary Clinton inducts mixed feeling in people. The part of the brain activated by viewing images of Clinton was the one known as an emotional center. It's usually active when dealing with hard to decide questions. According to the article, this means that Clinton has the potential to engage swing voters if she can soften negative responses to her.

2. Mitt Romney's speech was the one creating the highest brain activity. Initially, seeing Romney made the research subjects anxious, but as time went on, they became more and more comfortable. This means that Romney has a chance to be popular, if people see him more.

3. Thompson evokes more empathy when compared to Giuliani.

4. Barack Obama and John McCain had no powerful effect on people. These two candidates failed to engage people and create reactions in swing voter. They have to work on affecting these people.

If politicians take this research seriously and change their campaign tactics now, they might be able to win a few swing voters.

I think modern technology is both amazing and frightening. Just think of it: they scan our brains to find out how we feel, then analyze the results and come up an answer for the candidate on how to reach out to certain groups of people. This is really utopia-like! … and creeppyyy!!

Chapter 19: Writing News for Radio and Television

When it comes to tv and radio, timeliness is the most important. So many times, I'm just amazed that I turn on the TV and see what's happening right now on the other side of the world. Just the fact of getting to know that something's going on is so cool.

Tv and radio are more about WHAT is happening, while newspaper is to analyze why something has happened. So basically, the nutgraf (the theme paragraph) is what could be read out at a newscast and the rest of an article is in-depth analysis.

Another idea that sort of hit me while reading the book was the importance of visually appealing materials. No matter how important a topic is, if the pictures are not fascinating enough, the viewers will change channel. I guess that's exactly why millions of dollars are spent each year on spectacular sets and micro cameras showing the inside of a brain and such fancy things.

Both tv and radio tends to concentrate more on human stories rather than big concepts, which is really awesome, I think. So many times, I'm tempted to involve anecdotes in news articles, but I never know where to put them, so I just decide to save them for feature articles later on.

The language used for TV and radio differs in many aspects from the one used in newspapers: it is in present tense, the style is conversational and easily understandable. I think using conversational style is pretty cool because the audience perceives the anchor friendly and gradually trustworthy. A faceless newspaper journalist has very few opportunity to have such a relationship with the readers.

Repetition of words is not only acceptable but essential in tv and radio news. YAYY!!

But unfortunately the technical details of writing broadcast news is not that fun. I'm thinking of the formatting and symbols. I guess learning all the formatting things must be pretty much like AP Style for print j's.

The Best Actor Playing Himself

I’m convinced Obama’s going to be nominated for Oscar in the above-mentioned category. And due to the lack of competitors, he’d win!

Obama had his debut as an actor at last week’s Saturday Night Live. In a skit about Hillary Clinton having a Halloween party, Obama appears in the scene. After taking off his Obama mask, he says, “You know, Hillary, I have nothing to hide. I enjoy being myself. I’m not gonna change who I am just because it’s Halloween.”

Ouch! The show must have been given lots and lots of money for this.
The skit starts out to be funny, mocking all Democratic candidates, and then Obama comes and ruins everything! I think the situation is pretty unfair with Hillary Clinton and the others. The makers of show said that the show is always equally offending everyone. Yeah, right.

And btw, Obama is a terrible actor. No, actually, the problem is he’s not acting. He’s being himself.

Well, let's have the video speak for itself:

Extra! Extra!

The basic topics of the stories are health, corruption in the government and crime.

As I was scrolling through the little snippets from the stories, I found that the ones starting like “In a town south from X city in Y state,” it just became hard to concentrate on what I’m reading. I though a little and figured that global stories with the potential of affecting ME are a lot more interesting than the ones happening far far away. However, I think readers are still interested in stories like the one with the workers in China, because knowing that such terrible things happen to others but not to them is pleasing. But that’s just my theory. They might also want to help those people. So, the point is there is a huge difference between local and global findings.

The three stories stood out for me on the main page: the football players, the dangerous toys and the Chinese workers. Maybe it's because they're more global and I have more general knowledge on the stories. (By the way, a person with a BMI over 30 is considered obese, so those big football player guys are far from healthy.)

In the archive section, there is a really big variety of stories. Most of the topics are common, we hear about them every day, like wild fires or terrorism. And there were a couple ones that seemed just random to me, like “Club safety resources,” which is about fire safety in nightclubs. (Then it turns out that the main topic is fire hazard and safety in general.)

Chapter 18: Investigative Reporting

After the police ride-along and reading this chapter, I feel like James Bond with a notebook and pen!

Investigative reporting sounds cool!

So, the book mentions Theodore Dreiser as one of the famous muckrakers. I happen to love his book An American Tragedy, so I did a little research on him. According to an online article, Dreiser was the “leading sensationalist or 'naturalist' journalist in the country.” Then later on he stopped working as journalist and became a novelist famous for his powerful and cruse writing style. It seems to me that Dreiser did a lot of reporting and then just decided to give up and go into fiction, but even in his novels he goes back to what he experienced during his years as an investigative reporter.

So, there are the two questions I need to ask before plunging into a long investigation: 1. “Is there a story here?” and 2. “Am I going to be able to get it?” What if the answers are yes and no. What if I know there is something going on, but I also know there’s no way I can get the evidence I need. I guess the editor would tell me just to give up on the story. And that’s sad! Someone should start a paper or magazine just for investigative reporting, and the editors of that paper should never say no!

“There is no good excuse for an error.” True.

Reporters love to suggest solutions for problems. I don’t know. I mean not that I wouldn’t have solutions for everything, but I feel it has the potential of editorializing. I think I’d rather get my sources, who have more insight to the problem, to suggest something.

Human sources:
1. Enemies. They are “usually the best sources,” says the book. “And the most biased ones, too,” says Em.
2. People in trouble. I think it’s not true that reporters can’t offer things to such sources. First of all, they usually feel remorse over what had happened, and this could be an opportunity to make things somewhat better. I think that’s pretty cool. Also, we can offer the sources anonymity, which gives them the freedom to speak their minds. I mean, what can be better than speaking without responsibility?
3. The world of Harry Potter is a journalist’s dream. Just think of the pensieve (it’s that stone pool where Dumbledore preserves his memories). We could just go back into someone’s memory and could be absolutely sure that what we see is true and accurate. Or not. Because some magicians can change and censor their memories, but the thing is they still have the original memories, too, a journalist just needs to find it. Anyways, the point is, HP rocks!

FOIA. So, every time there is a question that can possibly involve official documents, the first thing poping into the minds of little journalism students is: “I would file a FOIA request!” Well, the book mentions this possibility as the last one, when all the other methods have failed, because it’s so time consuming. Sad. I always though FOIA is the Jolly Joker in journalism, and now it turns out I was wrong!

Investigative reporting needs time and money. This is true, but if the journalist finds something really interesting, I think it can be sold as an individual news package. For example, CNN’s Planet in Peril must have cost a lot, but it can be downloaded from iTunes for $4. That’s a pretty good deal, I guess. So, I believe there must be ways to make investigative reporting profitable. The book recommends that journalists can do it in part time. Maybe that’s even better, because then it becomes a passion or a hobby.

Journalism student against Edwards

A journalism professor at the University of North Carolina said that Edwards’s aides were pressuring him to remove a YouTube video made by one of his student criticizing Edwards.
The journalism student Carla Babb went to the Edwards headquarters to make an interview with a student intern. However, after seeing the headquarters, her focus changed to the contrast between Edwards’ message to erase poverty and setting of Edwards’ center in an affluent part of Chapel Hill.
After the video was published, Babb’s journalism professor was called by Edwards’ people demanding explanations for why the focus changed and saying that they felt, “blind-sided by the way the reporter presented the piece in the pitch,” reported a NYT article.

So, as a student journalist, I think this is a pretty nice case for me to think about. First of all, it shows that student journalists are not treated as real journalists in the political world. Politicians think they can call up the professor and tell them to scold the student, which they couldn’t do in case of an editor.
Also, politics at college is a swampy area. What if the professor had been a hard-core Edwards-supporter? Again, the question of objectivity comes up. Apparently, politics can’t be kept outside of colleges, but at the same time, both students and professors have to be cautious about what they say and they react to others’ opinions.

Book Chapter 14: Covering a Beat

Beats. If there’s one that I’d love to cover, that would be: SHOPPING MALLS!! Em would love to hang out and socialize in malls. I could make friends with the sales people at H&M, get acquainted with the “system” like when new collections come and become part of the community!! For me, the “Be there” part would go perfectly.

The primarily purpose of beats is to get people in involved, which sounds cool. This looks really a community building service.

So, I start researching the newspaper library, which is understandable, cause I wanna know about news in the past, not academic stuff. Yeah, knowing history: the good old Mr. Fisk keeps coming up all the time. And he is right!

But knowing history seems to mean that I have to stalk my sources. I can’t ask “Are you married?” because I already know it: I checked the guy’s MySpace. Instead, I should ask: “I understand you spent your honeymoon at Barbados, how was the Jacuzzi in your hotel room? You know, the one you took of picture of!” Okay, just kidding…

Beats require persistence. I can’t really comment on this, since I don’t really have it yet. But I’m gonna get one soon! I saw they’re on sale at Amazon!

Here a couple things that I found just soo true and so important:
1. Do favor when you can. YES! I hate asking favors. Every time I call someone for an interview, I feel I wasting their time and they’re doing a favor for me. So I’d feel soo much better if I could do something in return!
2. Don’t shun good news. YES! I like to think that I’m a positive person, so I’d love to transmit something good to people. I want my audience to put down that newspaper or switch of that TV with a smile thinking that they got something today. Something that might help them to have a bit nicer day.
3. Protect sources. Loyalty is important. But as the book mentions on the next page, journalists shouldn’t be influenced by what the sources feel, think or what their agendas are.

When it comes to online coverage, the only thing I can say is: RSS feed. Mostly in case of beats, that’s the ultimate invention!

Covering religion. I pretty much agree with what the book has to say about this topic. Actually, I just saw the other day Joel Osteen and his wife on Larry King Live. Osteen is the senior pastor of the largest U.S. congregation. It was interesting.

And environmental beats! They are sooo important. My vision is that one day all those local environment beat reporters will join together and create a global perspective. This way the local publics could be connected and global changes could be made. For example, I was amazed by CNN’s Planet In Peril. Honestly, I couldn’t watch the entire show, but it’s on my do-to-list to download it from iTunes. The point was to connect all those places with environmental problems and to give a big picture of what’s going on globally. I just loved it. If I were to work for CNN (which dream I hope will come true one day) I’d love to do such reporting!

Reading

Chapter 8: Covering Criminal Courts

When I think of criminal cases, the first things that pop into my mind are Chicago, the movie, and Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. I always thought that all crime cases involve lengthy investigations and gathering of evidence, then there’s always an extra smart defense lawyer. Apparently, I was wrong. The article says 95% of crime cases end with a guilty plea. Wow… And the cases that get media attention are probably way less than only 5% of all cases! I guess the media do create a somewhat unrealistic image about criminal court proceedings.

Then it turns out that prosecutors try to make a deal with the defendant so that they can avoid paper work. Hm… a bit pathetic, I guess. Yeah, I know it’s not just paper work but lots of time, effort, etc. that can be saved by a simple guilty plea. But what if an innocent person decides to give in to the prosecutors’ persuasion and go to jail because he thinks that proving his innocence would be impossible and long and tiring? I mean to me, the entire criminal justice system seems risky, aggressive and blurred.

The other thing that kind of struck me was this “proof beyond reasonable doubt” along with the “guilty or not guilty” thing. This is such a cynical standpoint. Just because no one can be 100% sure about the truth, that doesn’t mean that there is no truth. But thanks to the miraculous AP Style, I can write that the defendant was INNOCENT!

But being a criminal court journalist is I guess not always fun. I’m thinking of the 7 years in prison I get if I’m trying to contact a juror during the trial. I know that there is a logical reason behind it, but 7 years seem a lot to me. I might as well just kill someone and get 10 years in prison. It’s kind of like in Wegmans… You can get half a gallon milk for $3.30 or get one gallon for $3.80. I usually pick the one gallon bottle. So, if I want to go to jail, I guess I want to do if do for killing some dictator and not for talking to a juror.

I don’t agree with death penalty. I know, as a journalist, no one really cares what I agree with, but I really don’t agree with death penalty. First of all, I don’t think anybody has the right to take someone else’s life, even if that person had killed other people. And second, what’s the point of killing a criminal? That’s almost like rewarding them: instead of long years in prison, they get to die quickly and painlessly.


Chapter 9: Covering Civil Courts

While criminal courts seem cruel and frightening, civil courts look kind of loopy and exciting. Some of the cases mentioned just blew my mind, starting with “The lady, her lap and the hot McDonald’s coffee” story. People become extraordinarily smart when it comes to getting lots of money without working for it…

Of course, I understand that for many, “tort” cases are the last chance to get someone back on track, mostly if they got hurt really bad or something. I’m sorry for those people because they not only have to stop working but they also have to go through a lengthy trial to get compensation. Like those poor guys in that PBS video “A Dangerous Business.”

But also, I kind of understand that the government wants to cut down on class action suits. My dad’s aunt told me once that she was flying back from Hawaii when the plane got into turbulence and plummeted 300 feet. The passengers ended up suing the airline and everyone got $100 compensation. If there were let’s say 150 passengers on board, that means the airline had to pay about $15,000 for a single turbulence. That kinda sucks.

Burden of proof. This thing with the percentages… How can anyone say how many percent the evidence is? So, if I show a video of my boss beating me up in a case where I’m suing my company, is it 51% or 100%? It’s so subjective! I think the human factor plays such a big role in jurisdiction.

And finally those settlements. First of all, if a Roman Catholic priest molests children, shouldn’t that be a criminal case? Mostly, because he’s a priest! People tend to trust them more, so that’s why they should be judged more seriously. And then the workers who sell themselves to the company instead of suing and thus helping others… I would sue those workers for being antisocial and selfish!

Covering Crime and Justice

[In this posting, I’m using bullet points to list the things that stood out for me.]

Chapter 1

- A good crime reporter must have: “exceptional initiative and determination, an eye for accuracy and details, a knack for sourcing, and the ability to tell a story.”

- The difference between small-town reporters and big-city ones is that the first one needs to have good relationships with sources, because he or she will deal with the very same sources all the time. Having a good relationship with certain people is highlighted many, many times. I feel that journalism on this level is pretty much about knowing the right person and being able to contact them any time.

- The public became fascinated with crime reports only two centuries ago. Why did this happen? Does this show some sort of shift in the society? Journalists started write “entertaining, impolite stories about pretty lawbreakers,” and the public loved them, because they featured sex, violence, blood and scandal.

- Felony: more than one year in prison; misdemeanor: less than one year in jail; violation: lesser offence

- Robbery: larceny involving violence; burglary: unlawfully entering someone’s property

- Crime reporters (and I guess this applies to all sorts of reporters as well) shouldn’t take editorial suggestions and criticism personally. Also, the document suggests how to have a good relationship w/ the editor adding, “Consider personal component and dress appropriately,” and, “Don’t whine!” Interesting. So no mini skirts and hysterical crying.

- Question: “The 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling limited access to private property for tag-along journalists.” Does this apply to us during the upcoming police-ride alongs?

- Wording is import, again. Someone is arrested “on suspicion of,” “in connection with” or simply “in” something. NOT “for.”

- Journalists are humans, too. So, it’s nice reading about crimes and stuff, but I guess crime reporting is not as easy as it seems. Personal and human factors are involved in this sort of job, as well. I’m a really sensitive person, and I think crime reporting would just wear me out totally. I’d get emotionally involved, which would make it so hard to concentrate on writing and accuracy. Also, the article mentions that many times journalists suffer from port-traumatic stress disorder…

- Personal safety. So, basically the trunk of my car needs to be transformed into some surviving supplement storage. Flashlight, water, food, bad-weather clothing, first-aid kit and… of course… extra pens and notebooks! It’s also important to wear the MEDIA sign on my clothing, except when it becomes rather dangerous by making me a target. How comforting…

- When dealing victims, journalists must be really sensitive. I knew this before, but I never thought that in such cases it’s acceptable to allow the source to read the story before it’s published, which is never-ever done in news business.

- Keeping the distance with the police in important. Journalists shouldn’t seem pro-police in order to get the information they want from police officers.

- I found a line that I think is so true. “We pretend to be interested in thing we really aren’t. We do what we need to do to wheedle information out of people.” And so many thins pretending makes me sick. Even though I’m taking acting classes, there is a big difference between theatrical acting and journalistic acting. In theater, acting is not about putting something ON, but it’s about letting something out of ourselves. In journalism, I think it’s just the opposite. We put on the mask of being interested, but we do because the deadlines are coming up and we need x hundred word about the frozen microbes on the North Pole.

- I like the 12 additional questions when reporting. I guess I’ll make my extra-dozen-q list!

- Corruption among police officers. Well, that was a kind of stunning part. I think it all comes down to power-relationships. Just like in Orwell’s Animal Farm, the ones with more power thing that they can do whatever they want. And this is sad.

- I don’t want to be arrested for doing my job!!


Chapter 5

- Victims: people who are affected by a crime, which includes family members, too. I think in case of 9/11, we can say that every American was a victim.

- High-, medium- and low-risk victims. A woman traveling alone at night is a high-risk victim. Why?! Isn’t the problem with the society? Just because it’s dark outside and I happen to be a woman, I become likely to be raped?

- Being sensitive. I like all the methods described in the article when it comes to interviewing victims. For example, standing apart from the crowd of journalists, and just handing a business card with a note on it. I think this is a really gentle way of approaching a victim. Also, triple-checking names and dates!

- Rape. I think this is the worst of all crimes. The article says that more than 350,000 people are raped each year. That means 3,500,000 in a decade. More than 1% of the U.S. population! Another stunning number: 84% of rape victims don’t report the crime to the police.


Chapter 7

- I felt so lost!

- Okay, so there are two court systems: federal and state. Within each, there are 3 levels: trial court, intermediate appeals and final appeals. The first is where the entire trail procedure is with a judgment at the end. The second only inspects the first one if all the procedures were lawful. And the final appeals level is the “supreme” court, which can change the judgment made by the court trial.

- A good court reporter is “part historian, part critic, part transcriber, part observer—and always a good listener, accurate note taker and critical thinker.” Anything else?!

- Trials are like a sports events. “Hey yo, I got tix for the O.J. game tonight. Wanna come?”

- Making friends with court people is important. The list is not that long: docket clerks, court clerks, court reporters (even though these guys don’t think just record information), law clerks, bailiffs and administrations people. And of course lawyers and the members of the jury. But with lawyers, journalists must be skeptical, because they are cunning!

- Journalists have access to every document. The only problem is that I’d get so confused by a huge pile of files. So… do court reporters sleep at all? If I had to go through lots and lots of papers, I wouldn’t…

Others' blogs

http://thestorysofar-jt.blogspot.com/
“Don’t judge others”
“Hillary, Hillary, Hillary”

http://reporterandrea.blogspot.com/
“08-10/14/07”

http://amusante123.blogspot.com/
"Colbert, Kucinich's Deep Pockets"

http://fallingfornews2007.blogspot.com/
“I'm glad you realized who you are, Guiliani!”

http://lvpdnews-lara.blogspot.com/
"Booming Baby Bonds!"
"Health Care, who needs it?"

http://seagullatemycheetos.blogspot.com/
"Political Blogging"

The truest Republican of the Republican wing of the Republican Party… or something like that

So, it seems some of the Republican candidates fight over who is the “real Republican.” Mitt Romney said in an Oct 12 speech that he was the only true Republican candidate. Answers came from John McCain and Fred Thompson the very next day.

Silly story with tons of good quotes. For example, Romney said that he represented the “Republican wing of the Republican Party.” So, who represents then the Democratic wing of the Republican Party or the Republican wing of the Democratic Party or the Republican-Democratic wing of the Anarchist Party? Yeah, exactly, I don’t get it either.

But as I said, all articles are full of quotes, which makes them easier to read. It’s also kind of amusing to read candidates throwing mud at each other.

Oddly enough, only one out of three articles quote Romney’s spokesperson defending him, the others mention only Romney’s infamous “Republicanest Republican” quotes.

I think this whole thing is ridiculous. Seriously, why do candidates have to say stupid things? Romney could have waited until the public says, “Wow, this guy is the real Republican!” but no, he couldn’t. Probably, he should have waited for such a comment forever, anyways.

A search in Google News brings up 123 articles written on the issue. This is just… Do people really care who is the true Republican?!

Chatper 13: Other Types of Basic Stories

“Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap. Tap. Tap.” Best lede ever! But how does the story end? Who was murderer???

Police reports are inaccurate. Ouch! Police officers lie to cover up shortcomings and misconduct. Man, I think I’m just too naïve to be a journalist. Seriously. Who can we trust after all? I don’t want to end up as a bitter person who thinks everybody is suspicious and no one can be trusted.

It’s good to know that in crime stories, both inverted pyramid style and chronological order works. Even though, I think these two structures are mixed many times. Obviously, when a reporter uses chronological order, the story won’t start like this: “Jack and Jill woke up in the morning and decided to go for a ride,” and then end like: “And then Jack suddenly pushed Jill over the cliff. She died immediately.” The news that someone was killed always goes to the top of the story in some form.

I realized that I don’t want to cover accidents, because I can’t really take blood. I can’t even watch ER. And the worst is that in such a situation I have to keep looking for sources and push people to talk about what happened…

Oh, something funny. No, actually it’s rather ridiculous. In the middle of a disaster, when people are losing their relatives and homes, and firefighters are risking their lives, a journalist’s biggest problem is: “I can’t obtain the quotes I need to improve my story!” Ridiculous!! If I were a firefighter, I’d be really mad at journalists…

It was important to learn what’s the difference between being arrested and being charged. And again, this thing with really cautious wording! In print, the demand for accurate wording is acceptable. But how about broadcast, for example? What if libelous things just slip out when I’m reporting?

And finally: how can an editorial get to the front-page in case of a murder trial?

Romney's water race adventures

Mitt Romney attended the New Hampshire Grass Drags and Water Crossing yesterday. On this event, snowmobiles were racing on water or grass. Apparently, Romney’s goal was to meet the average people. The articles written about the event are good examples of sensory writing.

There’s not much news value to the story. All Romney was doing was engaging in conversations with both adults and children.

The stories describe the surroundings, the people who showed up and how they reacted to the presence of the candidate. There are also a couple good quotes, mostly from children or young adults. Parent are also quoted in connection with their children and how excited they were to meet a man who might be the president one day.

I think the articles are examples of a laid-back style. Journalists probably enjoyed writing these pieces and aimed them to be entertaining for the audience, as well.

Chapter 8—Writing to Be Read

Many of Orwell’s thoughts about clear writing showed up in this chapter.

When I read that a study had found that novels had become easier read while just the opposite had happened to newspapers and magazines, I wasn’t surprised. If I just think of my summer: I read the last 3 volumes of Harry Potter, altogether 2000 pages, while at the same time I could hardly get myself to sit down and read through a couple NYT articles. Harry Potter was easier to read and also more enjoyable. But I guess, any topic can be enjoyable, even stock market news and stuff, if it’s written in a good way.

Just as Orwell noted in his essay that good writing should include many images, the book also highlights that a story should include all kinds of sensory experiences. An article should take the reader right to the scene of the story.

I guess this should be the same with numbers and sizes. I actually like numbers because I was a nerd in high school, so oddly enough I love finding out comparisons to give dimensions to numbers that otherwise mean almost nothing.

I think I have problems with being coherent. First of all, when I’m using inverted pyramid style, I always feel that it’s more of a list in the order of importance. For example, when covering a speech, I try to figure out what the important things are, and when I finally have them, it turns out that they are not connected at all. But at the same time I want all the information to be in my article. What do I do?

And finally being specific: when writing a story, it’s so much easier to use abstractions than to write detailed information on everything. Even 1000 words would not be enough to describe just the circumstances of a meeting.

Chapter 22—Rights and Responsibilities

I’m glad I’m not a Legal Studies major.
Of course, as a Journalist I also have to know a couple laws that affect my job, such as the open-meeting laws or the shield laws.

Actually, I don’t think that Journalists think about their rights and responsibilities on a daily basis. It happens only when they get into conflict with the law. Yes, I’m thinking of Libel… I’m a bit worried about it, because many times libel can come from inaccurate reporting. And inaccurate reporting can come from tricky sources giving deliberately ambiguous answers.

I know that the best defense against libel is truth. But in so many cases, no one really knows what the truth is because of the way a person words something or because sources don’t give proper information (as in case of TMI). I think journalists aren’t writing defamatory articles because they are determined to ruin somebody’s reputation. It’s rather a choice between the public’s right to know and the risk that something might not be true. For example, I think I’d report on something alleged that can possibly harm many people than not warn anyone because I’m not 100% sure. But I also want to be accurate. This is just so complicated. Maybe I should try thinking less as a person and more of a professional.

Privilege: while it is good for journalists, I think this is a weapon of the government against the public. Why can a state official say things that aren’t true?

The Actual Malice Test: so, as a journalist, I can write anything about an officeholder or candidate unless I know it’s false or I’m ignorant about what the truth is. Sounds good. But again: how do I know if something is true? Just because someone says so? I have the feeling that no one is really required to tell the truth. Everyone can find some law to be protected.

And then of course the invasion of privacy: even if I finally find out something that is true, I can’t write it because it’s private. But the thing is, if I’m about to write a story on a person’s private affairs, I do it so because I think that the public is affected by it, so it should knows about it. So is it a private or a public issue? If I get to know that there’s a man with AIDS raping women in his house: do I have the right to write about it? Can I enter his private property? (Let’s say that this man is rich enough to have contacts at the local police station, so I can’t call the police. What do I do?)

I just hope I won’t have to deal with such issues later on. I feel that laws are just so ambiguous. If I think of the language used in legal issues… It’s just so hard to understand and lawyers always find a way to get around laws.

Assessment of Media Performance

Reading this report was astonishing. A nuclear accident happens, and neither the media nor the public knows anything about what’s going on. I have no idea how I would have reported this story.

What I found the worst about the situation was that officials intentionally withheld information. How can such a thing happen? Not knowing anything is pretty much a theme that comes up in at every point of the story: this is why so many outside sources were quoted, there’s confusion about almost everything, officials saying contradicting things, etc.

While reading the report, I had the feeling that sometimes it blamed the journalists for the general confusion. But then it also makes it clear that they were officials who gave inconsistent and false information many times. On one hand, I understand that quoting officials saying contradicting things makes the public worried, but on the other hand, what else could the media do?

Apparently, the biggest problem was that journalists were at all not familiar with the topic. Well, who is? I guess that’s when clear and accurate writing comes up: if a journalist doesn’t know what he or she wants to say, how could he/she write an accurate story?

On pg. 190 the report says, “The media surveyed failed to include some of the information needed to understand fully the events.” Well, I guess with some more background research, journalists could have given more accurate description of the current situation, but they didn’t have much time to do it. Again, I think it’s not the journalist’s task to “translate” what a source said, but the interviewee should be clear about what his/her statements.

A question: when a nuclear plant declares general emergency, which is the highest level of radiation emergency, isn’t it required by law to explain the public what is going on and how dangerous the situation is?

Another question: isn’t lying to the media against the law? Those officials from Met Ed and NRC said that the accident happened due to equipment malfunction, but that wasn’t the case. Also, they gave conflicting information on the level of radiation. How can they get away with that??

It seems the government wasn’t helping the public at all either: the White House was trying to prevent journalists from getting to good sources. I don’t really get how they had the right to do that.

But of course the way media handled the story wasn’t perfect either. This was a nuclear catastrophe. Every journalist dreams of such a story with millions of people dying and big radioactive explosions. That’s why of course many journalists got on sidetracks with the “what if?” questions. I guess I would have done that, too. The report says, “Reporters as a group were putting a somewhat more alarming face on the accident than were their sources” (205). Well, I kind of understand why journalists did that: first of all, they had n credible sources, and second of all, it’s better to fear than to be frightened (as an old Hungarian proverb goes).

The airtime given to the coverage of the accident was 30-50% of news programs. I think that’s pretty impressive.

After reading the report, I’m angry and also frightened. How come that people just withhold information that when it comes to such a serious question? Ambiguity is the worst thing ever.

Politics And The English Language

I just love Orwell. I think the points he makes in this article are really important. I realized that I do all those stupid mistakes all the time, when I’m just too lazy to think of what would be the best way to express myself. Honestly, many times I use those terrible metaphors and “verbal false limbs” to make my writing look more professional. I feel other journalists out there use such complicated language that I feel I also have to make my articles seem more educated I guess.

So basically what Orwell says is that we have no idea what the words MEAN. And he’s right.

Also, from now on I’m going to try using simple words, active voice and gerunds.

No foreign words. This is actually a funny thing. I mean, we all know a couple foreign words, like deus ex machina or status quo, and we think that using them makes us look smart, but the fact is that almost all people knows these words and uses them with the same intention. So these words become terrible commonplaces besides making the text ambiguous.

Another important point: a text has to be like a film. People reading an article should see pictures in their heads, which can be achieved by good metaphors. I loved Orwell giving a lesson on this with the metaphor of “stale phrases” that “choke [the writer] like tea-leaves blocking a sink.” This was just awesome and really vivid. [I was actually cleaning the kitchen sink just yesterday.]

Orwell also talks about vagueness and bluntness. So, is it because authors are lazy to say things right? Or because they don’t dare to write down clear statements? I remember that in Intro to Mass Media class we learned that heavy TV viewers are more likely to have “moderate” political views than light viewers. Maybe it’s because of the blunt language used in TV. Yeah, again, I’m back at the topic of being objective. But not making clear statements about either side is not objectivity! It’s worse than not saying anything at all!

I loved the 6 rules at the end of the essay. They’re so sarcastic!! I mean Orwell talks about how authors should think instead of using “ready-made phrases” and then he gives a list of how an author should write?! But even if the rules he subscribes are right, the point is that without thinking we’re all bad writers. (Rule vi. “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.” = THINK!)

5 Characteristics of Academic or Scholarly Prose

So, if I’m not supposed to use academic writing style in journalism that means I should:

1. use the verb form instead of nominalization
2. use active verbs instead of passive voice
3. use very easy language avoiding inflation and embellishment
4. avoid long and complex sentences

What I don’t understand is why people use the academic style at all? I mean if I were some professor figuring out something really important, I would want people to understand my findings. If scholarly writing makes things ambiguous, what’s the point?

Christian group considers running a third-party candidate

A “powerful group of Christian leaders” agreed yesterday that if the Republican Party runs the pro-abortion Giuliani, they will consider nominating a third-party candidate.

In my News Releases posting, I was writing about how actions are sometime less important than getting media coverage, and I think the situation is this now. All articles written on the topic highlight that this mysterious group of Christian leaders, who actually discussed this question at a secret meeting, are considering running a new candidate, and they don’t even who that would be. All they wanted was to get the issue out to the public and see what happens. I don’t think that Giuliani will be nominated after this, so they basically achieved their goal without taking any actions.

The reporting is also a bit weird. All news articles mention that this was a top secret meeting and only anonymous sources are quoted, which makes the story a bit blunt. Also, a “powerful group of Christian leaders” sounds like some secret freemason society.

And I found something interesting: what The Moderate Voice did on its website was that they simply copied and pasted the story from Salon.com. Is it legal? I mean, for example, in case of our second assignment, could I just write a lede and then say: “this is how The Ithaca Journal wrote about the meeting,” and then copy and paste? If a news article is out, can just quote it? Or be like, “quote,” said John Doe in an interview he gave to the NYT? (So basically I’m stealing only the quote ☺)

Speeches, News Conferences and Meetings

Okay, I guess I'll just start right away with my questions:

1. How can I get information about the person who's going to speak/has just spoken? Obviously, I'm not thinking of a famous person but more like Average Joe who happens to be a board member of a committee in some small town. So many times, the person is not famous enough that I could find info on him/her on the Internet. But at the same time, I just can't go up to him/her after the meeting because, you know, you just can't go up to someone asking "How do you spell your name?" or "What's your middle initial?" Or maybe the problem is with me? I mean I'm kind of shy. I just don't like asking questions that I think are derogatory for me to ask. What should I do? (Wow, this sounded like a Q&A posting in some teenage magazine.)

2. Is there some kind of list of abbreviations? Every time I'm about to cover a speech, I make up abbreviations, but I usually forget them after 10 mins. And also, I abbreviate words that look obvious then, but later on... man, I have no idea what those 3 letters stand for. So I would love to have some kind of list I could learn, and then use it consequently.

3. There's the "Describing the Participants" part when the book writes about how important facial impressions, etc. are. How can I put those in my story? I guess I can't write, "...he said with sarcasm."

And yeah, one more thing. On pg. 256 the book describes how I should number the participants and draw a sketch of where members are sitting. I did that when I was reporting on the city council meeting. What happened was that I kept turning pages to go back and see what the number of speaker was. Also, a meeting is not about reciting monologues. So, by the time I put down what number 1 was speaking about, I realize that uppsss, the last 2 sentences came actually from number ugghhh, I don't know, I have to turn pages to go back to my little sketch...

So, the ultimate conclusion is: I don't like speeches and public meetings!

News Releases

Yayyy, finally, something that’s absolutely not trying to seem objective! News releases are full of sloppy self-promotion, and they’re just disgustingly subjective. But I wouldn’t say I like this extreme as opposed to the hypocritical objectivity of mainstream press.

The book was really, really sarcastic when discussing news releases. The authors pointed out that news releases are basically free ads. This actually made me think about why organizations make public events. Do they have them to promote themselves or to have something to send out to the press in form of a news release? For example, a company has a promotion night with 200 people showing up. Then the next day they send out a news release saying that there was this event hosted by this or that organization that promotes whatever. Which one was more successful? Organizing an event with 200 guests? Or getting thousands of people read about it in a newspaper?

Also, the book made a point that I found interesting, namely that after reading a news release I have to finish the reporting. So, I guess I should treat information coming from PR people as half of a story, right?

Oh, and then the book talks about what I should if I want to go into PR. That was terrific. I almost stared to cry! Even if I went into writing news releases, I couldn’t get rid of AP style and the accuracy! Are these two going to haunt me all my life?! Maybe I should be a dogcatcher instead of a journalist. Then I would have a higher starting salary than a teacher (according to a news release.) But that news release was not accurate. Man, accuracy affects even dogcatchers!

Edwards’ School and Education Plan

John Edwards announced his plan concerning education on Friday, Sep 21, 2007.
He wants to raise the standard of education while also making it available for everyone.

Oddly enough, President Bush’s No Child Left Behind act comes up in every article written on the topic. The point every journalist makes is that, while Edwards voted in favor of the act back a couple years ago, he had no idea that Bush wouldn’t make fund available for the program. However, when it comes to how he, Edwards, wants to finance the full funding of his plan, he avoids answering the question. No, actually, this is not true, because MSNBC’s report quotes one of Edwards’ spokeswoman saying that he wants to “close off-shore tax havens and collect unpaid taxes,” in order to get the money needed for the plan.

The MSNBC story also mentions that Edwards’ program also has a personal aspect: he started thinking about a new educational model when his daughter, Emma Clair (that’s a cool name!) started school. Yeah, this is a bit tabloid-like, because I guess the next story will come out about Emma Clair’s love life, but whatever…

Oh, and the best! A New England news channel put a story online about Edwards’ plan without quoting him at least once. And whom do they quote? Edwards’ wife! I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Chapter 10, Obituaries

I actually liked this chapter of the book. I think this has been the only topic so far that kind of reflects my way of seeing journalism. I really like “human stories,” which are about noble deeds, feelings and thoughts of average people.
I especially liked the journalist who said, “I don’t write about death, I write about life.” I don’t say I’d enjoy writing obituaries all the time, but I think I’d surely love to write about people who lived worthy lives. I was always drawn to the literature of realism, because it made me see that ordinary people can become main characters of extraordinary stories. I value praising the lives of small people, because they are not media star and actors, not even politicians who influence my life, your life or other’s lives but everyday men and women: our parents, friends, teachers, etc.

I actually have a couple technical questions in connection with obituaries.

1. How do reporters get to know that someone just died?

2. Who gets an obituary? I mean thousands of people die every day in big cities. How do reporters decide on whom to write about? Or is it the family who calls the newspaper and says that this relative of ours died and we want you to write about him/her?

3. How can reporters possibly get enough information about the life a person within a really limited timeframe? There are so many people who die. How can reporters dig up the family and friends of these people?

4. How can someone spot that the person who just died was the local “broom man?”

5. On page 220, there’s a citation of an article about the 12-year-old girl. The second paragraph goes like, “Although they knew it was coming, the end came suddenly for Sarah’s family…” Shouldn’t it be “unexpectedly” instead of “suddenly?”


I have actually never obituaries before. I think in Hungary, we don’t really have such sections in daily newspapers. I’m not sure, though. I know that when a famous person dies, journalists write about them, but they definitely don’t write about “small people,” at least not in big newspapers. I think I’ll read the Obituaries section in The New York Times tomorrow.

Quotes

Using quotes is supposed to be fun, right? Making the article colorful, showing the personality of the interviewee and helping readers see the story from interesting angels: these are what quotes are for. But again… when it comes to figuring out what quotes to use: just another pain.

I’m really starting to hate this textbook. It talks so easily about what a good quote should be: unique, colloquial, said by an important person, accurate, has to have a clear meaning and if possible, nothing should be removed or added to it. Yeah, right. Why don’t the authors of the book go out and get quotes for me?

But it’s really comforting to see that I’m not the only one struggling. Every time I open up The New York Times, it’s for sure that I’ll find a couple terrible quotes. Seriously. Getting quotes is about having luck. I mean, why would a military officer use unique expressions when talking about a war and killing people?

It’s also hard to get quotes accurately. I hate relying on voice recorders, because knowing that they do the reporting for me makes me zone out during speeches, and also, the battery usually goes down in the middle of the coolest quote. So, I usually take notes and try to look for quotes, even though I don’t even know what the angle of my story will be. And then I hear the perfect quote, and people laugh, and I try to write it down, and the speaker keeps talking, and bammm, the quote’s GONE! “I should have brought my voice recorder!” Too late…

And also, so many time the speaker just rambles, he starts a sentence and then goes on to another one without finishing it… How am I supposed to get quotes then?!

But I once I have the quote, I like attributing them. I know it sounds geeky, but I like the punctuation and the attribution around quotes, it’s a bit like doing the final touches on a nice cake, you know, putting on the frosting and the candles. They’re so to say the fun part.

Hillary Clinton’s new health-care system

Hillary Clinton’s going to announce the details of her new health care plan on Monday, Sep 17. Even though the articles discussing the Clinton’s plan don’t go into details, one thing is sure: Clinton wants to make health care available for everyone.

The author of a news article on NYT.com tries to stay objective and not criticize Clinton’s plan. The author only reminds the readers of the Clintons’ attempt in 1993-94 to reform health care.

Another article in The Washington Post quotes Mitt Romney, who is, of course, not praising Hillary and her plan.

Other articles only mention Hillary in connection with other candidates’ positions on health care and insurance system. But one thing is common: somehow the fact that Hillary Clinton’s attempts failed back in 1993-94 seems to show up in every article.

I think this is far from objectivity. I mean, people are waiting for Clinton’s proposal on how to make health care better, but before knowing what she wants, the media kind of hits it down by saying, “Yeah, health coverage for everyone sounds good, but do you guys remember her plan 15 years ago? She must have the same concept this time as back then.”

Okay, I’m saying this as an outsider. I have no idea if her plans are good or not. The journalists being skeptical about her plan might be right, and this case they absolutely fulfill the media’s watchdog role. The point I want to make is simply that objectivity is not always good, and it doesn’t really exist in the form read about it in textbooks.

Maybe the articles mean to be objective by not only praising Clinton but to show her failed attempts, too. But this is not objectivity! This is only showing both sides. (Even though, in The Washington Post article reporting only on what Romney had to say I don’t see both sides.)

I think there’s difference between being objective and fair. Objectivity can give opportunity for some hidden sarcasm. Fairness is more about presenting the truth and the entire story in a way that the reader can choose what to think.

After reading the articles on Clinton’s upcoming announcement regarding a new health system, I’m already biased against it. If the articles didn’t mention her earlier failed attempt, I would have a better opinion about her. And the worst thing is, I don’t even know what her plans are she’s about to announce.

RSS, Bikers and Recycling

In my Sep 5 post, I wrote that people are more interested in local news than in international news. The tendency is similar in case of people’s fields of interest. People like to read about what interests them, in which case RSS feeds can be really important and helpful. Again, what we see is that people try to differentiate between news and find the ones that affect or interest them.

My textbook for History of U.S. Mass Media class discusses the difference between the traditional mass communicational model and the new one created by the Internet. The book, called The Dynamics of Mass Communication, says that while earlier the so-called “push” model was used (“the sender pushes the information to the receiver” p. 20), now the “pull” model is in effect, which means that “the receiver pulls only the information that he or she wants.” (p. 20) I think RSS feeds are the perfect examples for this.

People with special concentrations can find exactly what they want to hear about, and then, as the article says, they can create forums around these feeds, which I find amazing!

The author, Dave K. Poulson, also writes, “We’re doing what journalists have always done: deliver the news.” Exactly. Journalism should deliver news. But—and now we’re come back to the good old discussion—in order to deliver news, most precisely, to be able to create RSS feeds, news sources should go ONLINE! Journalists should not only create news but also make sure that news reach the audience they were targeted to. So, going online is not optional: it’s a must!

I think I might specialize in some online journalism stuff. I feel that the Internet is such an amazing thing, mostly when it comes to news, and newspapers just miss out on this opportunity.

Timeline

I really like timelines! I’m a kind of person who loves to see things structured, so seeing a timeline gives me the basis of a story. Being able to follow the happenings in a chronological order helps me to understand the action-reaction aspects of a story, which also helps me to realize the underlying patterns.

In high school, I always thought History was a good subject, but a bit boring and confusing. However, as I was preparing for my finals in my senior year, I just fell in love with History. I loved that I could see the history of humanity from the very beginning till today, and I could put all the bits and pieces I got from hundreds of History classes into a big frame: a timeline! It was just such an amazing feeling.

So, going back to the timelines used in Journalism: I love them! Last semester, when I was making the Web-i-fy assignment for Intro to J, I just loved the process of figuring out an effective and easily understandable timeline.

The author of the blog, Mindy McAdams, uses the example “Atentados de Al Qaeda.” I like this timeline, however, I have a question: Why is it that when I click on “Nueva York” the first thing coming up is the 1993 attack, and no matter how many times I click on NYC the 2001 attacks don’t come up? Yeah, I realized that 9/11 pops up when I click on “Washington” or “Pensilvania” but why not for NYC?!

Anyways, I guess we all know that 9/11 happened mostly in the City…

And, the Spanish equivalents for city names are kind of funny!

Reading 2

Punctuation, yayy!

No, well, actually, I hate it. Seriously? Yes. I mean, no. I mean… Okay, let’s get down to what I found was important:

1. Apostrophe/Special Expressions: words followed by another word starting with “s,” e.g. for appearance’ sake. I would have never guessed this…
2. Apostrophe/Joint Possession: possessive form after only the last word if ownership is joint.
3. Commas. I’m still confused. I think I get the Essential-Non Essential thing. I have problem with rather long sentences, where there are many verbs and I never know if I should use a comma when I write two things that I feel both belong to one verb. Well, as I was trying to think of an example, I think I got it. So, it’s all about subjects in the sentence, right? I can put a comma, if that half-sentence could be a sentence on its own. Okay, I’ll keep this in mind.

Other than these, I think the English punctuation is pretty straightforward, even though, I’m sure I’ll have to come to the punctuation guide a couple times throughout the semester.

Reading from the book

In Chapter 1, the list of newsworthiness made me think a bit. Just from the top of my I could write a couple stories and I’m sure people in IC would be interested. For example, my housemate found a maggot in the living room today at 4 a.m. There you go, proximity and novelty (Yeah, we’re girls.) Or, I just heard a couple days ago that Lindsay Lohan’s brother goes to IC—prominence, absolutely. Poor guy, the press is full of his parents’ divorce and his sister’s rehab experiences. It’s really interesting to think about what events in my personal life would make good news stories.
Then, I found something cool in the vital functions of journalism part: “Journalists tell stories that delight and amaze.” This sounds a lot better than writing hard news. I guess the authors didn’t only mean tabloids, but normal newspapers, too, to fill in this function. I think I’d love to go into this direction, where I could write about the lives of extraordinary people. I would love this for the sake of being able to talk to such people.
Objectivity is a myth.

Chapter 2:
This chapter gave me the “map” of the news industry, which is important, but I have the feeling that, as online journalism spreads, the entire process of news creating and editing will change/has already changed. For example, in a couple years, I don’t think editors will send anything to a “typesetting machine in the composing room.”

Chapter 3
Interviewing. It was good to go through again the basics, like the importance of doing background research, establishing rapport, being honest, etc. All the principles of interviewing seem really easy and nice in the book, but I feel it’s better to go out and learn how to interview people. I mean, I always keep telling myself these rules, like “Ask open-ended questions!” but many times this makes my questions artificial. Maybe I should trust my inborn communication instincts when interviewing people. I feel that having a conversation with a person, instead of a Q&A session, has a lot more worth. I guess I need to go out there, and do a lot of reporting till I can figure out the “secret recipe.”

Thompson to run for presidency

Fred D. Thompson declared his candidacy last Wednesday (Sep 5) in “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” Even though this announcement had been in the air for months, it shocked many people that Thompson chose to go on the show instead of going to a debate in New Hampshire.
The NYT mentions the fact that Thompson announced running for president on the same forum as Arnold Schwarzenegger did once, which makes the story kind of light. As opposed to this, UnionLeader.com reports the event as a fatal mistake, quoting people condemning Thompson for not going to New Hampshire. It’s also worth noting that UnionLeader.com reports from the debate, which makes the opinions one-sided.
In his political blog, Michel Falcone also comments the story in a rather less serious way, mentioning (no, it’s actually more than just mentioning… highlighting) the fact that Thompson is a Hollywood actor.
Thompson’s video announcement can be watched online, where “Friends of Fred Thompson” can also waste lots of money in the Official Thompson Store and in the huge “Make It Happen” toolbox next to the video. (Hm… I might also make a video and then put the site full of links where people can donate me money. I need a new dress from Prada. No, you don’t understand it. I really need it!!)

The State of the News Media 2007

This was a pretty interesting reading, a bit long, though. I really appreciate their efforts to do research on the news media, because it’s a very ambiguous area in terms of defining it with statistical data. The following findings shocked me or made me think:

1. The Internet is not free. Wow! And it’s true! All the money goes to the Internet provider and nothing to the content creators!

2. Ethics are important in blogging. I already spent a semester with this issue, but I think I’ll need to think a lot more about it to come up with a solution or at least an own ethical standard for this type of journalism. I found it also interesting that young people don’t trust blogs. Is it actually a good thing that they get skeptical about the Internet so early? My answer is, “well…” Of course it’s not their fault that the Internet is not reliable, but they’ll have to “live” on the Internet, work with it. How can we use a system that we don’t trust?

3. Many news outlets are still hesitating when it comes to going online. WHY??? I just don’t get why they don’t go ahead and at least try it. The Internet is all about freedom. They could basically put out any type of Web site and change the concept, layout, whatever any time. If only timing matters, what are they waiting for?!

4. Online news: the number of incidental news consumers is high. This means that online news providers should try everything to attract people to news sites where they couldn’t avoid bumping into breaking news. Online news sources should put links all over the Internet to lead people to Web sites with those little “breaking news boxes.”

5. When it comes to online journalism, content-related skills are more appreciated then technical skills. Well, I guess everyone can take pictures and make videos. I was 13 when I edited my first videos. Our generation grew up with the modern technology, which also enables us to adopt new trends and technologies pretty fast. Our parents are happy to finally learn how to use their mobiles phones, then the iPhone comes out and they are lost again. Our problem is simply the lack of ability to do good journalism… So, who’s in worse situation, actually?

6. Why is local and ethnical press still flourishing, when everything else is in a decrease? Sometimes I have the feeling that the information coming from the news is simply too much. We only think that the world has become a “global village” thanks to the Internet, but forget the fact that it’s just as big as it used to be! We will never be able to read the personal blogs of all 6 billion people. Even though it might be out there, it doesn’t mean that we can consume any amount of information. I think the trend of concentrating on local news shows that people care rather about whether the workers of the local grocery store are on strike than how many people were killed in the Middle East. And this is not because they wouldn’t care about people dying there. It’s just that they need a priority when it comes to news.