I’m happy to say that this is a post I’ve been waiting for. I have really enjoyed reading my classmate’s writing and I almost wish I could respond to everyone’s; to have a conversation with all the other J&C freshman. That made picking my last response harder to pick out who’s blog I’m going to conversate with. I went with my gut, and picked the person’s whose blog I read first; Kate Frey.

    Her blog post on the first couple of lectures was really interesting. It wasn’t just the way the blog was outlined, it was the interest that shown through the words. Kate obviously cared about what she was writing about. That kind of interest that I caught on to can only be passed on by pure passion from the author.

    Kate also made a clear connection about verification and context. I did not make that connection when listening to to lecture, but it does make sense. It’s interesting to see that connection made. I think, though, that we should still see those two elements as two separate things, but that’s not saying that they are no similar.

I also just love hearing about what other’s thought of something we all received. It gives you such a broader understanding of your peers and also helps you understand more.

http://enteringtheworldofjournalism.blogspot.com/

I was having a hard time finding out how to respond to a fellow classmate's blog. To solve this problem I just started to read other’s blogs. That's how I came across Patrick’s blog post on Print Journalism. I have already stated what I felt when listening to the lecture Mr. Miller gave and my thoughts on it, but I, of course, did not know Patrick's side. He, with his writing, said some things that caught my eye while reading.

The first thing that caught my eye was “One downsize of print journalism is that you do not receive the information or news as soon as it happens. With print journalism, you have to wait for breaking news for weeks or in many cases months.” This totally opened up my eyes. I had never even thought of that. I was so intertwined with my own little world that I’ve never gave a second glance to the fact that the print aspect of journalism is never an immediate resource to find out the very latest information.

Patrick also stated how he found that a lot of the lecture was date and history heavy, which I agree with. I do feel he put a more positive swing on that more than did. Overall, though, I really enjoyed reading Patrick’s blog post on Print Journalism, it really forced me to more open minded about topics.

http://patricksperceptions.blogspot.com/

Media Critiques

    We had already knew that were to be expected to write a media critique for this project, so I was very keen to know how. Obviously Mr. Miller lectured us on what they are and how a good one is written. Here are some of my lasting thoughts on the lesson.

    I think the thing that surprised me the most was the requirement of not being able to talk in first person when writing a media critique. I thought that since we were critiquing that we would need say, “This is why I find this article….” That’s not the case. I now know it’s a movement to being more objective, but I found it kind of surprising a first.

I also found the “No critiquing a review” a given. You can’t say someone’s opinion is wrong or it violates a Yardstick or Element. I did find the Inverted pyramid interesting, where we put the most important things on top. That makes sense; no one cares about all the added details before they know what happens. It was cool how that tied into with we were learning about in the lecture of print journalism. I love how all things tie together.

Overall, I found the lecture mediocre; it was very important and interesting, but I didn’t really give the lecture a second thought. It was cool to learn about, just not my favorite lecture ever given. Which, it doesn’t have to be. I’m not going to like everything we do in J1 and that’s okay. Just when I’m talking about lectures I loved, this one probably won’t make the list.

Media Critique

    An article was posted on CNN’s website on September tenth 2016 titled “Florida father arrested after toddler son dies in hot truck.” This article is not a newsworthy article for a couple of reasons, mainly it does not follow the ten Elements of Journalism or the seven yardsticks.

    The first Yardstick of Journalism is newsworthiness. The definition of newsworthiness is will it affect a large ammount for people for a long period of time. The answer for this article is no. A kid dying in Florida and his father getting arrested are not relevant to someone in Seattle Washington. It only affects the people involved. This story should only be on local news, or maybe not even that.

    This failure to meet the newsworthiness yardstick could have been avoided by simply not posting the article. It is not a story to be posted on national news, so therefore to not have posted the article they would have not violated the Seven Yardsticks of Journalism. Another fix would have been to give a “so what?” at the end of the article. Give a tie into something else that would have increased the affectance that the article had on people. If the purpose of the story was to make people more aware, it would have a higher newsworthiness. The article did not include such, so the media critique.

    To summarize, an article posted on CNN’s website was not newsworthy of being on national news. They could have added an explanation at the end of the article to make their article more relevant to national audiences.

Mass Communication

When Mr. Miller told my class that this was our next topic that we were going to learn about, I mentally groaned. I thought I knew how communication works, and I really took for granted the amount of impact it has on our lives. Nevertheless, pre lecture me was not looking forward to the class.

I have to admit that the first part of the lecture wasn't very intriguing. Looking back I know why; we were talking about the communication that we were already familiar with. After what seemed like thirty minutes, even though it was ten minutes tops, we were asked the question, “What is Mass Communication.” No one answered. After proving that group communication could reach huge audiences as long as they were present, no one knew what to say that could potentially be a correct answer.

Now, of course, I know. It was that moment though I realized never to believe I knew everything that was going to know everything Mr. Miller is going lecture, because I won't. None of this proves why I found the topic so interesting. The answer is fairly simple.

Mass communication is something we are so used to, yet it's something no one acknowledges. I think that's why I found the lecture so interesting, it was so natural to understand. I love it when that happens, it makes you feel smart, just by being simple. It's fascinating how the way the human mind works for things like this.

To wrap up, I liked this lecture because of its surprising amount of new knowledge, that was simple and intriguing. I’m, as always, ready for what we learn next.

Print Journalism

I was really looking forward to the lecture that was finally given to us today. I’ve always wanted to go into a career of writing, so print journalism was something that I was greatly looking forward too. When we sat down, I was ready to learn, and overall in a very attentive mood. What I got was not what I expected to get.

    The lecture today was very based on dates and facts. One of my favorite factors of journalism is the fact it is based in modern times. We don’t have to memorize dates to be a journalist. I understood the reason of going back to when the first printer press was created to understand the depths of print journalism, but it just didn’t catch my attention as much as the other lectures we’ve had.

    Another reason I found today’s class less interesting is I thought that we would have been going over how to write, not the backbone. This could definitely me just getting my hopes up, or expecting something that wasn’t there for me to expect.

    There could have been outside factors on why I wasn’t as attentive today. Little sleep, no food in my stomach ext. The final product though was me getting less out of the lecture than usual.

    Though, today was probably an introduction into basics of print journalism, I can say with confidence that that it did not catch my attention as I would have hoped. I am still looking forward to going deeper into this topic in future class, with a hope of being more attentive.

Today was the day we got our first lengthy lecture from Mr. Miller, about the Elements of Journalism, and I have to say that it absolutely met the standards the older students drew out for me. The class was not only interesting, but he also made the class an interactive environment.

Even though it was our first true lecture, Mr. Miller didn't make us feel like we knew nothing. He made sure to ask questions that we could answer, then bumping up the level of difficulty as we progressed. Using a PowerPoint, the whiteboard, and his own words, we were able to not only decode his message, but internalize it too. This doesn't just make the class interesting though, the message of the Elements of Journalism was interesting in itself.

I think the reason I found the Elements of Journalism so intriguing was the thought, “This is going to help me pursue my dream to become an author.” I was also constantly thinking about what I needed to do to stay attentive, but I never really dwelled on the fact that I was already giving my undivided attention to the lesson at hand. It is very difficult for me to get to that point; further proving my point that the lecture was interesting.

I think my final reason for finding the Elements of Journalism interesting hit me in the middle of class. I will use this for the next four years. I think that’s a big worry when you go into something new, “What if this isn’t for me?” I realized in the middle of the lecture, that this is interesting. That I didn’t make a mistake applying to Manual, all of the Elements made sense and intrigued me.

Overall I feel that after going through the first lecture, I am able to have confidence and my own standards of what I think class will be like in the future. I’m going to now and always be able to explain the Elements of Journalism and why they are important, because of the interesting lecture we had in class.