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.