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.