AshleyWelker

Christmas on the Hill Pictures.

If this does not work email me at luthien9@hotmail.com and I can then email them to you.

Blogging Portfolio 4

I really do enjoy blogging I wish I had more time though. One of these days maybe during finals week I am going to try to blog on my overall expirence with blogging and the class in general.

WTM Chapter 2: Coverage and Depth
WTM Chapter 4:Coverage and Depth
WTM chapter 7:Coverage and Depth
WTM Chapter 10:Coverage and Depth
WTM Chapter 11 (informal presentation): :Coverage, Depth, Timliness, Discusion
XenoBlogging: Jay Pugh's
Wildcard: Informal Presentation (I really had fun with the presentations, they were fast and fun. I wish we could have done that more often but we have such a big class.)

WTM Chapter 10

"It was a reminder that the Net is a medium that grants great freedom, it doesn�t exist in a vacuum. Law applies online and off..."(191).
Finally we get to the stuff dealing with the LAW; big word. The book up to this point was cheerful and telling us how great blogging is, and it really is. and this is the "BUT" chapter. I am sure many people to this day still think that the internet and their blogs is a place where they can say anything they darn well please. Well Gillmor tells us that we can't do that. Online sources are now just as liable as regular print media. Just because we type our thoughts in cyber space does not mean that we are floating outside the jurisdiction of the law. I enjoyed the chapter because it was really informative. This chapter, and other chapters in the book on law and copyright issues, definitely need to be in the book. As a bloggers we need to know the dangers and consequences faced with what we blog about.

WTD Chapter 7

"The coverage of important events by nonprofessional journalists is only part of the story. What also matters is the fact that people are having their say."
I liked how Gillmor opened this chapter by discussing the story of an Iraqi citizen who blogged about the war and protests going on in Iraq. This person was not a journalists but he was able to cover an important event as well as talk about how he felt. I will admit that it is awesome that blogs have created this atmosphere. The average person can now have their voice heard by people who read their blogs. As we know as well going into google and typing your name will pull up some of your blog entries. This spreads this phenomenon. I am glad that we have blogging. Every single person has their own opinion and personally I enjoy reading other peoples opinion. Not only do we get to voice our thoughts but we are able to be the journalists. Our blogs may not be "print news" but we cover the stories as well now in our own way. That is really cool. I blogged back a couple months about on the night that I heard that Chief Justice Rehnquist died; I was covering the major story and lending in my opinion to the subject. No one can admit they don't like doing this.

WTM Chapter 4

I really enjoyed this chapter. It was interesting yet funny. I don't surf the web much so it was interesting to see that even no corporations have their own blogs! That is interesting. I am sure, as he does say in this chapter, they don't tell us everything, but who wants to "air their dirty laundry" on the internet, so that is understandable. He goes on in the chapter to say that blogs for corporations is a good PR tool. I agree with that. It gets the consumer closer than ever to the thoughts of a company or even a CEO blog. Also consumers are able to comment on these blogs, thus feeling like they have a say in what happens in a multi million dollar company.
Also this chapter was funny talking about celebrity blogs. After Jenna did her presentation I definitely went on the web later that night to see what celebrity blogs I could fine. That is cool in a way that now we get to see what the "bug stars" are thinking, again as consumers we like that.
Lastly I wanted to end with the ending of his chapter. I enjoyed that he had 10 rules for marketing and PR people who use blogs. I liked this rule that goes back to my original paragraph some what:
"Help out by offering more, not less. Make sure your website has everything a journalist might need. That includes picture, audio, video, charts, and plain old text- and make sure it's easy to find. If journalists can find, costumers can, too" (86.) Now he is not saying put out your dirty laundry but do put out stuff. Don't make the content bland and boring or no one would want to read it or visit the blog site. Blogging itself like this is a great PR tool. It would be more beneficial to companies who did this because like he said consumers will be able to see the information too.

WTM Chapter 2

"They said the web needed to be writeable, not just readable..." (24).

Thus blogging was born! I wish I had more time to blog and then maybe I would have more time to connect with the phenomenon of it. I totally understand the wave though. I like this quote because I think it sums up the book even though it is in chapter 2. The book discusses a lot of issues concerning blogging. I think it is good that the internet became "writable" to the average person. This allows for "us" to have a say in matters on things like our blogs. It is a good outlet to express ourselves and it is giving a little bit of the power back to the people. Thanks Al Gore! Haha...just kidding.

Chapter 11 Oral Presentation

Governments Get Nervous; Big Business Gets Nosy

As time passed by after the creation of the internet governments started to censor the information their citizens saw and big businesses started to track their consumers.

The Great Firewall: "2003, the government of China flipped a switch, figuratively speaking, and indiscriminately turned off access to thousands of weblogs. The Great Firewall, already in use to block specific news and information sites the government didn't want its people to see..."(210).

China is not the only country that censors at times what its citizens see. Other countries who do this are Saudi Arabia, France, and Singapore. A good point at the end of this section on "The Great Firewall" is that even the United States is pushing for "surveillance capabilities that would surely have a chilling effect on politically off-center speech" (210).

This is as scary thought! Is the privacy and freedom we thought we got from the internet disappearing?

Cookies: The "supreme irony", as Gillmor puts it, is that right now the ones doing the surveillance in the US are the big businesses. How do they do this? Many people who don't have a clue that they are being tracked ask this question, and it is such a simple answer; 'Cookies'.

In the mid 1990's Netscape created 'cookies'. Cookies allow the owner of a website to see where and when you have been on their website. 'Cookies' are actually little text files that imbed themselves in your internet or hard drive. I like the quote from Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig that they should be named "Network Spy". Here is a good website that explains, more in depth, what cookies are. Also here is a Microsoft (big business) website explaining what cookies are.

Now there are two sides to the cookie in this case, no pun intended ;) Cookies memorize how you have personalized a page. For example if you customize your 'My Yahoo' page. Cookies make sure that the page is just like you designed it when you come back to it time and again. Yes I am sure you see the downfall of cookies, a little infringement of privacy. The information cookies store and gather about how you surf the web can be subpoenaed.

You can actually view and set the filter of 'cookies' by opening a browser and going to 'Tools' and the 'Internet Options'. Depending on what version browser you have you can go to 'Privacy' and set the filter. As well as you can go to 'General' and then view all the cookies on your computer. Here is a sample of what is on my computer:
EBay, Google, Ticketmaster, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Hotmail, Facebook, and the list goes on and on. Try going to 'General' then 'settings' in temporary internet files, and then 'view files' on your own computer and see how long the list is.

In conclusion this section in Chapter 11 expresses that the internet is starting to be controlled like many other things in our lives; by both the government and big business (so what�s new?). When the internet was first created people thought that this was finally their outlet of free expression. Not only can you look up whatever you want on the internet but you can express your opinions on the internet. People thought that this would be a totally free thing. Apparently now this is not the case. Some countries censor what their citizens see and we are losing our freedom of privacy and free speech by being tracked; scary thoughts in this age of technology.

Cover Entry Portfolio III

This portfolio is short. I have not found much time to blog because I have so many class. I will try harder on the next one to keep up with everything. For all my readers I apologize and I will try to keep up for these next couple weeks.

It Ain't Neccesarlity So: Coveragve, Depth
Gertrude: Coverage, Depth, Timeliness
Media Law: Coverage, Depth
Ap Guide: Coverage, Depth
Crime: Coverage, Depth

Xenoblogging:
Ashlee L.: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AshleeLupchinsky/2005/11/pseudocolor_cli.html (it has not shown up yet)

Crime

I liked that Dr. Jerz gave us those handouts on Crime and Crime reporting. It is funny now to watch Law and Order and I am like, "Oh there are in this stage of the process" or when they say arraignment part 20 I actually know what and where arraignment is in the process. I really enjoyed the exercise where we were given a bunch of facts and told to write a story. Personally I did not have as hard of a time on this as I thought I would and I though I got a pretty decent story out. It is hard to work under time constraints though. Crime reporting, as I have found out with many things in this class, is just another way of reporting but it is different from what we have learned thus far. I have enjoyed crime reporting the most so far in this class. I don't know why but I find it easier to write and more interesting at times. I wish we could take a field trip to like a court room and see a trial or something :)I look forward to the lab on crime in today's class.

AP Guide Chapter 9-10

I like how simple the AP Guide is. The chapters are short and to the point. These are great chapters because they discuss important issues in when we write a news article. First we need to be "colorful". This means that we need to use imagery and description to add color to our stories but they do warn do NOT go over board with color or then the story does not turn out right. Next we are not supposed to use clich�s that often. I understand the point of this chapter totally. I myself am a clich� freak, I admit it. I am sure I use some everyday when I speak. I do not use them in my writing though because they just don't fit there. Now the book doesn�t state never ever use a clich� but it says only use one in a story or avoid them if you can. Also I so understand the section on how it is better to use clich�s in sports because you can only say strike or win so much before people will get bored of it. When I think about using clich�s in sports I always think of the announcer for the penguins on TV. He always says great little things instead of saying Goal! I also noticed on Monday night football this past Monday Al Michales used a lot of clich�s because there are only so many words for the term sacked. These are good chapter to focus on when writing a news story. You don't want to be to colorful but you want to use color and then try to avoid using a lot of clich�s.

Media Law

I really liked this chapter in the AP stylebook on Media Law. Now I myself am not a journalism major but I really do like the AP Stylebook. It is really helpful and not only does it have definitions and terms but it also has the section on sports writing and media law. It is funny after I read the chapter on media law I can't stop using it in every day life. If I see on the news or on a TV show some one using slander that they could be liable for or a fictional court case of law and order because of media law I think to myself "I read about that!" Also now I understand when things like that come up. At first when I saw the media law chapter I was like this will be boring because it will just be a bunch of laws. But it was not boring and it gave great information in an easy way to understand. As for the AP stylebook I may actually keep the book because it is so helpful.

All of It Ain't Necessarily So.

It has been awhile since I have blogged. I apologize. I have been sick and I have 8 classes and it is so hard to keep up on everything. For freshman and others reading this take my advice NEVER take 8 classes, even if it seems like it is the only was to graduate on time. So here is an entry on the whole of It Ain�t Necessarily So.

]]> Prologue/Introduction/Chapter One:
Personally I liked this book. Many people had problems with it saying it was bias. I can understand that point but never the less I really enjoyed the book. These chapters were a good set up to what we were going to read these past 2-3 weeks. I liked in chapter one how they discussed �stories that aren�t covered�. This is a good point. Yes the book may be biased but isn�t this a good point? The media gives us the statistics that they want us to see. Thus some stories are not told.

Chapter 2 and 3:
�Readers ignorant of the operative definitions would have misinterpreted the results to make them seem worse than they really were; thus they would have been victimized by manipulation of the numbers� (58). I really like this quote. It really is true but people don�t even realize this. I admit I don�t even realize when I am manipulated by numbers. They give the example that poll questions are made to be answered one way or another and that can skew the numbers.

Chapter 4 and 5:
�It�s not that the same bit of data can be read in (at least) two ways� (86). I enjoyed chapter 5 a lot and their examples they use in chapter 5. Reading this book has really opened my mind to statistics and this chapter is a big reason. For example the statistics of the cases of diagnosed AIDS in women. The CDC only gave a percentage of women and not the raw data. If you actually look at the raw data you find that the raw data shows a different story about what the percentage seen in the news said. The raw data shows that the actually number of cases of women diagnosed went down, but also did the whole number of case men and women went down, because of this the percentage went up because the women�s decrease in raw data was not as much as the raw data of all the cases.

Chapter 6 and 7:
I blogged on this entry before on the day we did not have class.

Chapter 8 and 9:
�In other words, statistical information is inevitably one level removed from reality. We don�t learn directly about the subject of interest; instead we receive indirect information concerning reports about that subject�(134). I never realized this before when I was reading statistics in the news. It makes good sense though. They used the example that the rate of people reporting crimes has gone up but that doesn�t mean that crime has actually gone up. Yes the report is real but in a sense it is also like a half truth. I belief Kevin Hinton did his presentation and discussed half truths. I totally agree with him that at times we only get half truths.

Chapter 10 and Conclusion:
Like I stated earlier personally I enjoyed this book and I learned many things. Usually when I read statistics I don�t give them a second thought and I belief them. A lot of readers do this, but this book tries to separate the �good� facts vs. the �bad�. The book gave several great examples on how at times statistics are skewed. They can be skewed because the wording of the question is not good or because they give us a half truth. I never realized before that statistics weren�t at times a good measure of actual raw data but we are never given raw data. Many people did not like this book because they thought it was biased. I don�t think they were trying to be biased, when statistics are skewed they are skewed.

Chapter 6: Gertrude

I really enjoyed this chapter. I listen and read different results from polls each day and reading this chapter it hit me that, Yes I may not actually know the question the poll asked. How blind have I been? They say in the chapter, "the answers are seldom very meaningful unless you also know about the questions that elicited them" (98). I think as readers and consumers or the news that we are blind to the fact that sometimes people misinterpret the question and that can change the outcome of a poll, or maybe some people just don't understand the question at all and just check a box which can screw the results of a poll. Also it comes down to the fact of how the questions are written. The question may be written so that it is answered how they want it to be. I think we put our faith blindly into polls. After reading this chapter I am going to try to pay more attention to what exactly was the question, and how was it worded, before I make my judgments.

Cover Blogging Portfolio II

Here is my Cover Entry for my blogging portfolio number two. I think I am getting a better grasp on blogging.

1.) Coverage
Morgan Spurlock Lecture
Morgan Spurlock Article
October 11th Trib.
The Elements of Journalism 6-8
Chapter 9
My Editorial

2.)Depth
Morgan Spurlock Lecture
October 11th Trib.
The Elements of Journalism 6-8
Chapter 9

3.)Interaction/ Discussion
Breast Cancer Awareness
Morgan Spurlock Article
Just an Observation

4.)Timeliness
Morgan Spurlock Lecture
Mogan Spurlock Article
October 11th Trib.
Chapter 9

5.)Xenobloging
Johanna D. Editorial?
Ashlee L. Quarintine
Jenna O. Speed
Katie A. AP 5-7
Jay P. Morgan Spurlock
Leslie R. October 11 Trib.
Lou G. Editorial

6.)Wildcard
Just an Observation

My Editorial

I choose to do my editorial on an issue that I am very passionate about and that is Breast Cancer Awareness. Feel free to take a look at my article and I am going to submit it to the Setonian.
Download file