Final Blog

 Blogging originally started as a sort of online diary, which is like a day in the life—events that happened, personal conversations, thoughts, etc. It was like writing in a journal, but online and with a small audience. But in the 2000s, popularity slowly but surely started to rise, and webmasters started to add features like “add comments” and “link back”—people could now respond to stranger’s blogs and link them within their own site.

Blogging continued to gain popularity, and these days, blogging is used for almost anything:  as an online diary, a political checker, or a breaking news source. Lately, blog sites have even been making the news with the topics discussed in them… whether it is a political stance, a celebrity rant, or a gripping account of a small town event.

Look back into my blog entries, for example. I’ve made multiple political rants, like this one about media bias, and have also shared at home story, like this one about a conversation with a friend. The best part about a blog is that it can be diverse, and it’s yours, so you can do whatever you want with it! Here are a few rules I came up to help you if you want to start a blog:

1. Make the blog original to yourself. It’s yours, so write about things you like or want to see. But please, don’t copy off from JustJared.com or something—this is your blog, use your words!
2. Use links! If you’re going to be writing about something, try to link out to that specific source. It benefits the original author of the piece. And ALWAYS give credit to the source. 
3. Use images/lists/tables/graphs to help get your point across. Visual aids always help your audience understand better. 
4. Remember that you are writing for a global audience, so keep the words understandable and try not to use slang if you don’t have to. Also, lengthen out abbreviations so readers understand what you’re talking about. Instead of the FCA, say the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
5. Go back and update your blog is a story is continued or if you want to respond to a reader’s comment. Consistently keeping up with events and spending more than one day on a specific topic. Updating helps you keep a loyal audience. 

Good luck! Don’t stress. Blogging comes naturally for most.

The shape of things to come.

She called me late at night, asking me to meet her. Again. She was having another crisis. We met at Denny’s… the neon lights are becoming more and more familiar these days. The coffee burnt our tongues.

I feel lame, she said.

You’re not lame, I responded.

I guess I’m just frustrated with where I’m at in life right now, she relented. I didn’t think the transition from college would be so hard. I really didn’t expect all of the heartache either. I know we all have our own stories and we all have different strengths and the struggles that we go through may not seem hard to others but obviously are hard for us… gaaah.

It’s okay. You’re fine. You’ll get through this, I assured her.

I know God won’t give us anything we can’t handle. I just didn’t think I’d miss my friends so much. I didn’t think about it and I didn’t want to, she said, anxiously toying with her hair. My friends got me through a lot and I don’t know if they know how much I relied on them and how much they encouraged and helped keep me going.

You miss them. That’s okay. That’s normal.

I miss being a part of something bigger than myself. I miss having a purpose or feeling like I was at least doing something important. I miss being a part of a community. I miss being needed, accepted, appreciated, wanted…

You’ll get through this, I assured her again. I’m always reassuring her.

I’m sorry I’m depressing. And I’m really trying not to have a pity party for myself but I can’t help how I feel. I know I’m blessed and I’m thankful for the times I’ve gotten to spend with people… I just wish that it could be longer. Nothing is bad. I’m living well. I am doing things… but it’s just not filling me up, she said as she finished her coffee in one large gulp.

You’re making me dread growing up.

Good, because it’s awful.

Mid-Term Portfolio

This quarter has been full of crazy! It’s hard to believe that we’re halfway through the last quarter of the school year, and nearly over with the J2 class. We’ve had a lot of ups, and certainly a lot of downs, but as a class, we’ve managed fairly well.

McCallum had this insane idea one day to have us perform a thirty minute layout challenge, and to spice it up a little, he forced us to meet some requirements. My finished project is below, on the left. It was my first time using drop caps, my first time using an effect on a photo, and my first time truly manipulating the shape of an image. In class, we voted for our favorites, and mine was lucky enough make it into the top four. The reaction from the class inspired me in my work, and I’ve come to actually enjoy making layouts… and I feel that I’ve moved up in the design area.

My most recent finished “layout” was for the partner project McCallum assigned:  we had to make a layout based solely on a friend. We had to use their pictures, their personal facts, and we had to make it unique.  I chose Emily M., who I had previously known the most about. Below, on the right, is the finished project.  I worked a lot with overlapping in this layout, and made an effort to best present Emily as I could by using her favorite colors. I also added effects to all of the pictures. Overall, I like the layout, but feel I could have worked better eliminating white space.

Writing-wise, I’ve been cranking away on this here blog and as well on Hoofprint.net. My beat is our school’s class cabinets, which, although sometimes dull, always offers up new events. My most recent update, posted yesterday, can be found here. The beats are very helpful in improving “fast action” writing and in continuation writing—we have to update on a biweekly basis on the same topic each time.

For the final project of the quarter, Emily M. and I have yet again paired up to work. We’re writing articles and creating layouts for two topics:  the lunch ladies and their “Joke of the Day” and McCallum’s Classroom Forum. So far, we’ve done pre-writing for both stories, as well as general background and opinion interviews. Yesterday, we put out three surveys:  two for the lunch jokes, and one for the forum.  We have started both layouts, but they are still works in progress… we definitely don’t want to disappoint McCallum on a layout based off of his pride and joy! We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but as long as we keep truckin’, we’ll be good. 

Religion in school.

After being directed to the SPLC site by McCallum, I found a really interesting article dealing with the freedom of speech and religious beliefs in school. According to the article, a student referenced JOHN 3:16 in his artwork, and then was given an F by the teacher and had to report to detention twice.

The art teacher came forward and said that the student had signed a form stating that blood, sex, religious expressions, and violence were to be prohibited from all artwork. Which, to me, if he signed that form then yes, he deserves to be punished for violating that. But, it gets tricky: the teacher allowed other students to use Hindu, Greek, and even demonic symbols in their artwork. Why weren’t those students punished? I feel that the art teacher had the best of intentions, but she can’t pick and choose. There are two options here, (A) let the student mention the verse in his artwork or (B) give Fs and detentions to all of the other students that used religious symbols. I know your freedom of speech becomes limited once you walk into school, but so does everyone else’s—just because Christianity is more mainstream in America than Hinduism does not mean that you can punish the Christian student and pat the Hindu student on the back.

This reminds me of a topic on McCallum’s Classroom Forum, posing the question of whether wearing religious clothingl in school is acceptable. Many of the users agreed that wearing religious clothing is okay as long as it is not offensive towards others. I admit, I have quite a few of the theme religious shirts (loser, non-conformist, etc.) and I love them. I wear them to school because it expresses a pride in my religion, but because they also are not offensive towards students of different religions because the quotes/verses don’t criticize other religions and because they are quotes/verses that I feel those of a different religion (or even no religion at all) can relate to towards their own religion or to life in general—take the Christian theme shirt SOUL, for example, which poses the question, “What good is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul?” Even though it is a verse from the Bible, it can transcend many different religions and can inspire thought in nearly everyone.

To end this post, I’m throwing out two questions: Who’s right, the art teacher or the student? Is religion in school okay as long as it isn’t offensive?

We need a nice, happy story every once in a while.

 Last week in Washington D.C., the Newseum opened.   We have all been mesmerized with the website and the original Newseum in Arlington, but now it’s real, touchable, and is getting loads of attention.  And, man, it is amazing.

It’s a museum dedicated completely to news and journalism and the main goal of the Newseum is to bring the public and the media close together—to “help them understand one another better.”  Many critics have noted how the opening of the Newseum is a bit useless right now amidst large budget/employee cuts and shrinking revenues in major news organizations. As Sara brought up, just the other week Paul Douglas was fired from WCCO. Many consider the Newseum a waste of time and effort.

But after reading Tony Dokoupil’s new article published in Newsweek, “Why a Journalism Museum Makes Sense,” I had to disagree with the lack of faith that mainstream America has. The Newseum points out that journalists are heroes, newsgathering is sexy, and media matters—and it’s bringing in some massive crowds.  Could it be true?  Could journalism become popular again? Major news organizations think so, and are throwing out some major dough into the running of Newseum. Plus, it makes journalists seem like good guys again:  the public learns just how little journalists are paid, just how many have died doing their job, and how many never get the recognition they deserve.

It gives me hope to see something like this. Now, anyone want to make donations into the Emily Fund? I need money for a plane ticket to D.C.

Print media vs. The Internet

Continuously throughout the quarter, we’ve been talking about how traditional print media is going out the door and how digital media will be replacing it. Well, as sort of a prelude to it’s obituary, let’s look at two (of countless) ways that print media is still valuable and important to us.

Subscriptions. I don’t know how you guys feel, but when I receive my county’s newspaper each week, my day is always brightened a little. Same feeling I get when Time, Newsweek, and yes, UsWeekly, arrives in my mailbox. I don’t need to worry about my internet connection or if sources are accurate when these little babies come to my door—well, okay, maybe for UsWeekly, but that’s my guilty pleasure—because the articles within these print news are well thought out and are credible sources. Not to mention subscriptions are more convenient and cheaper. If I had to go out and buy Newsweek every week for a year, it would be a waste of time and money. A subscription to Newsweek is only $20 and requires you to walk out to your mailbox. If you bought Newsweek every week for a year, and Newsweek is what, around $2-$3 a pop, that’s around $102-$156 a year, PLUS the gas money you waste to go out and buy it.

And some of you may be saying, “Well, internet news is free!” Which I get. But, internet news isn’t necessarily accurate news, and when you’re looking news up for free instead of buying it, you’re really shafting reporters and journalists, which in turn is shafting yourself. You wonder why our economy is in the toilet? The slump of print media and suckers who get all of their information from the internet are a big part of why.

Intelligence. As mentioned above, online news sources aren’t necessarily accurate. We as readers need to keep in mind sources and citations and believability when reading. It was an online news source that broke the story of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt having a secret wedding, when in reality they didn’t. At school the next day, a friend ran up to me and asked, “Did you hear? Did you hear? Brangelina got married!” You’re only as smart as your source. If you’re constantly being fed lies from Perez Hilton or are basing all of your information off of iReport, than you may want to verify your facts before you shout it out to the entire world.  As discussed in J2 class the other day, “Wikipedia is a good starting point, but it is not the ending point.”

And, speaking of Perez Hilton, it reminded me of something: you are what you read. If I only clicked on links that related to, say, sports… would I be knowledgeable about the election or the economy? I’m not putting down people who blatantly disregard election news or talks of the “R” word, but in most cases, I wouldn’t know the difference between Nancy Pelosi and Nancy O’Dell. Print media gives the advantage of everything being right there. You won’t have to read it, but you’ll notice the headline or the picture, and that counts for something. Our jobs as readers in this digital age is to be able to be good readers—look for bias, make sure there are sources, analyze statistics. Otherwise we’re all misinformed in some way.

And remember, is you don’t want to read print news, then at least use it for packaging fragile items. Give it some use. But, please, don’t use it as a hamster’s pee-rug, because that’s disgraceful and disrespectful. We owe our lives to print media.

The way my brain feels right now must be the same feeling my brain would have if it were on drugs.

I’m back to blogging. Which, I was excited about for a little while, and then I saw this week’s topic: dissect “The Internet Effect on News,” a piece from blogger Michael Scherer, Time correspondent. I’ve reread this article multiple times, and my head is still spinning My brain actually hurts.

Scherer talks about how the the increase of online articles and news stories has made newspapers less valuable, and stable internet connection more valuable—because, let’s face it, no one wants a connection failure right when they’re in the middle of an article. People these days have easy access to news stories all over the world, and it’s FREE for them. All you have to do is point and click. The news organizations get their income mainly from money from advertisers. The more hits on one story, the more money the advertisers put out.

Which also poses another issue: How do you make your story more popular? Because, let’s face it, we have dozens upon dozens of articles related about the same thing—say, the Iraq war—daily, all saying the same thing. Which one brings in the most money? Organizations have to pick and choose based on writing alone. Journalists and bloggers are becoming better writers because of it, but this new obstacle for them to succeed also brings in some problems: distortion of truth and line-crossing. Reporters potentially speak in half-truths in this type of business, and exaggerate or falsify certain aspects of a story just so their story sells (one commenter hits the nail on the head when he says journalists in this day and age are like “used car salesmen”). “Mr. Dawson fell down the stairs,” could become “Mr. Dawson may have been pushed down the stairs by a ghost and it could have been his dead brother, whom he betrayed as young adult.” Which story would you rather read? The second one, obviously. And I’m not going to doubt Mr. Dawson unfortunately went down the stairs in an unpleasant manner, but…. I will doubt the media. What ever happened to be absolute truths? Do those even exist anymore? Is it ever okay for a journalist/blogger to add their own little details and vague opinions into a story? This reeks of iReport.

There are a lot of things still circling around my head about this article, and I know I’ll probably be updating this later with more of my thoughts. This is such a challenging topic, and it’s one we’ve been discussing all throughout J2. Hopefully by the end of the year I will be able to understand the issue a bit more.

It’s the end of an era… or a quarter, or something.

My layout is done, my story is done, my web updates are done… wooftah! This quarter has been insanely crazy, but I have managed to somehow survive all of the ups and downs and here I am, completely done. My layout is just a bit short of perfection, and I am glad I finally ended up with a result I like. Check it out. On the left is my rough draft, and on the right is my final draft.Diggin’ it, right? Me too. I think I made my layout interesting, with the intense pictures and the funky text for the word “Pressure.” It definitely makes you wonder what the story is about underneath. I could have done a bit better by incorporating fun, new shapes and a more creative design… but I tend to like things simple. Regardless of how well this layout is received, I know I’m proud of it and my work.

I taught myself (and others, like Emily M.) some new things in InDesign and in PhotoShop, and I’m glad I’ve reached a new level of nerd. McCallum would be proud, I think. Comparing it to my other layouts from earlier this quarter (seen: here and here), I felt like I’ve definitely made some progress… I’m quicker with the applications we use, and have warped my brain to figure out what designs look good and which ones don’t. I also stepped up in the “please-don’t-make-this-layout-look-grainy department.”My writing has improved leaps and bounds by the constant blogging and web updating along with the writing I have done on my big story. The readings, as well. They have helped me be more conscious about the reader’s thoughts and needs, and I’m not writing all for myself anymore… I realize now there is a much larger audience out there that could be/is reading my work. It’s a scary thought – I definitely need to improve further to meet all expectations.

So here’s to the end of third term, and to the beginning of fourth term – hopefully it just gets better and better! I can’t wait to incorporate a more digital side to journalism and to progress further in my writing.

Is the media truly fair?

There’s a tight race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic slot for the Presidential nominee, and in times like these, most people are getting their information on the heated duel from the news.  But shouldn’t this news be fair?  As a journalist, aren’t you supposed to remain unbiased on an occurrence?  Except for an editorial, of course.  Recently, the media has been accused of favoring Obama, and not just in the form of editorials – regular, everyday articles.  That doesn’t seem very fair.

Two weeks ago on Saturday Night Live, there was a parody done of the two candidates, showing the commentators and political gurus blatantly asking Obama ask if he was “okay,” if he “needed anything.”  Hillary Clinton said herself a little while later in the Texas Democratic Debate that yeah, the media is favoring him, and maybe we should “ask him if he needs a pillow” .  And America can’t help but agree with the accusations and the obvious promoting, saying the media focuses more on Clinton’s maniacal laugh than they do her track record, yet focus on Obama’s slogan for change and his amazing work in the slums.

I was always told that we need to be fair and unbiased, and our media is currently doing a terrible job. But is there anyway we could punish the media, or ensure/enforce that the media be unbiased?  What about newspaper endorsements? Is it right that certain newspapers choose to endorse certain candidates, especially when they have a wide variety of an audience?  What about celebrity endorsements?  God knows how many people are now endorsing Obama because Oprah is.  How can we ever get fair media back?  Is it even possible?  

Log #6: The Crossing

You learn something new everyday.

How many of you have ever heard about the 1961 bus collision with a passenger bus in Auburn, Colorado that killed 20 children? I never had. I was scoping out the Nieman Narrative Digest site again (I’m starting to become addicted, I swear) and came across The Crossing.

The Crossing gives us in-depth looks into the day the fatal event occurred. What the children had for breakfast. Where they sat. Where they lost their lives. We learn about Sherry Mitchell, who begs her mother to let her skip school so she can visit her father at the hospital. Her mother refuses as she carries the 6-year-old onto the bus with tears streaming down the girl’s face; a little while later, Sherry lies dead on the side of the road. And we learn about the little boy who died on his 10^th birthday.

We get visuals on where the surviving children are now. Bob Brantner lost his sister and brother in the crash, and exactly 31 years later, he kills his wife. He says that if the crash hadn’t happened, his “whole life could have been different.” We learn about the families who lost their only children, really lost everything; our about the families who lost some children, and could only stare at the surviving children with regret and guilt.

We also get to meet the bus driver, Duane Harms. He was suspected of not stopping and listening/looking for a train; the verdict was “not guilty.” He had to leave Auburn, he was nearly chased out. Now his wife and daughter suffer from mental illness, and he suffers from hatred.

Thirty-three chapters make up the entire story, and every single one of them is worth the read. The series is very similar to The Farmhouse Murders, though much more extensive. Your heart will break learning of all these innocent children, and you won’t be able to look at buses the same way anymore.