"In a tragedy, never ask a victim's family, "How do you feel?" Learn something positive about the victim before you approach family and friends. The family will respect you more if you are able to say up front that you knew the victim was "a history major and a real leader for the field hockey team." (The Student Newspaper Survival Guide, page 34)
Thank you Mike Donoghue. I HATE when I see TV reporters go up to a victim's family and ask this question. Like honestly, what are you expecting them to say? "Oh well, my son just got into a major car accident and might not make it through, but I really would just like to go order a pizza and watch Sports Center, I had a long day at work." Uhhh, yeah I don't think any parent would give a response like that...just guessing though. I think I'd do that just to be a jerk if something bad happened and I was being interviewed. Then I'd give them that, "I think you're stupid," face. Maybe then people would stop asking this question. Maybe.
I chose two for this one. Both are from The Student Newspaper Survival Guide, page 20.
"Beat coverage involves a lot of talking that isn't formal interviewing," says Parks. "Part of your work is not just reporting specific stories but looking for your next story, or your next scoop."
AND...
"Keep in mind, journalism is a two-way street. You want story ideas; many of your sources want the publicity only you can offer."
I chose these two quotes because I like that they say a lot of the work we do is not just taking the interviews and then writing out the articles. If you do that well then fine, but it's better to be able to pick up a conversation with anyone and be able to get stories you can pitch from those conversations. This is the main reason why I feel it is so important for people on The Setonian staff to get involved and to get to know people and to really be out there, so that story ideas and these types of conversations are easier to come by.
Though it's not always easy and I personally feel run down by being in so much sometimes, I think it's the best way to not only put yourself out there and make as many friends and connections as possible, but to really know what is going on around campus, and by doing that, you make the paper have an easier time coming up with stories and filling the pages.
I remember getting troll dolls for every occasion as a small child. I don't even understand why, but I looooooved those things. (There is one pictured at left.) This is nothing like that. These trolls scare me. Is it even safe to say that? Do I really have to blog about this? I really just don't understand why people would go about doing this and really hurting people online. I never really understood why people hurt other people in the first place, let alone why/how people find it even more enjoyable online.
Though I must admit that it was a fascinating article and was really interesting how people go about doing this and how they rack up points or "lulz" for it all, it kind of made me nervous about what this world is coming to, and made me think twice before posting this blog.
I mean it all seems interesting and could possibly be useful if used in certain situations, but is it really healthy to sit around and ruin other people's lives all day? Is that even fair if you're the hacker and you know so much more than your prey does about the internet? I think that's like being the big sixth grader picking on the first grader during recess. Why am I relating everything back to childhood...maybe that's where it all gets started?
Cough, ummm...wow. I thought this only happened in the classy town that I come from. But according to the Washington Post Article it's happening more and more often.
The part that I have to say that I enjoyed the most is that these young teachers didn't think their pages would be found. (Honestly, are you dumb?) There's a way to get around anything on the web, lame excuse...come up with something more creative please. I don't understand how people will just post ANYTHING on the web either. I know that if my name is on something I'm making sure that if anyone that wouldn't normally stop by my site doesn't think that I'm just another "stupid teenager."
It said in this article that during an interview, the teachers were asked if they had a Facebook of Myspace profile and if they did the interviewer brought it up right there. This actually happened to me at my most recent job interview. When I was at the interview to become a camp counselor at Jumonville for the summer, they asked each of us what they would find if they went to our Facebook pages. Most of the kids gave they "Oh crap" face and others said they didn't have a Facebook profile (Even though I'm sure that's not true for the majority of those kids.) while I said the truth. You'll find a lot of pictures of me being a ham. (Because you will.) There are MANY pictures of me making weird faces, being obnoxious and giving that peace sign/winky face thing that everyone does. But NEVER will anyone find something that could make me lose my job or to make someone even think about not hiring me over. Because it's not there. I'm a fun kid, but I'm not wild, and even if I was, I wouldn't be dumb enough to display it on my Facebook page.
After reading the Writing Effective Email list, I feel like I knew all of these things but the part that stood out to me the most was number five; Be kind. Don't flame.
It might have been because the title was kind of catchy and I wanted to read on about it. But I paid the most attention to this section. I don't feel that I've ever sent an email that was rude or had terrible language in it, but I know that there are times when I want to. This section I think had cute ideas about how to hone in that anger before you find yourself sending an email that makes you look bad.
"Some student newspapers have a buddy system that links incoming reporters to more experiences staffers; others assign a senior staffer to act as a writing coach." (The Student Newspaper Survival Guide, page 13)
I wish The Setonian had enough kids on staff to be able to do this. Last year when I was given my first article; I went about my interviews without knowing what questions to ask and who to interview, I wrote that article without being trained in how to write a newspaper article and didn't even think they would put it in the paper...but there it showed up, along with my photos in the center spread, not to mention the front page. The first paper that came out while I was on staff and my pictures were on the front page and my article was right smack in the center of the paper.
That was fun...but I think I was so nervous to not do well that I went over the top to do what was needed. I think if I had a buddy I'd be a little more comfortable to ease into The Setonian. (Any freshmen that want a buddy - I got your back.)
"When the time comes for you to walk away from it all, I hope you leave secure in the knowledge that people ill continue to sweat and toil over keyboards and continue to produce good journalism night after night so your campus can read it morning after morning." -Ed Ronco (The Student Newspaper Survival Guide, page 7)
Even though The Setonian doesn't come out every morning it's still nice to know that even after all of the staff now is gone, people will still be stressing out about deadlines, using creative layouts, gray scaling pictures and Typecraft business every couple of times per month. I wish them luck. I hope their paper is large, colorful and fresh weekly.
Two things you need to know.
1. Someday after having my own, I want to adopt children; one of them will have to be Asian because I always thought they were the cutest.
2. I think I only appreciate The Beatles because they were my mother's Backstreet Boys and Hey Jude is my favorite song that I have heard from them.
Now let's put those two things together...thank you YouTube
Informal Style of Electronic Messaging Shows Up In School Work
"Nearly two-thirds of 700 students surveyed said their e-communication style sometimes bled into school assignments, according to the study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the College Board’s National Commission on Writing."
Honestly? I figured these numbers were high but I didn't think that it was that bad. Maybe it's because my majors' deal so deeply with writing and speaking and doing so properly that I'd put myself in the other one-third that actually writes correctly, or maybe it's that I actually care. IDK. (I don't know.)
I have to admit that I occasionally slip a "lol" (laugh out loud) or a "ttyl" (talk to you later) in some of my text messages, but really I prefer to write in complete sentences so people aren't trying to figure out what I'm saying through a text. I really hate when my friends overuse the abbreviations of things through a text because doing that plus the confusion of the wrong word coming up on T9 is just very annoying. But maybe it's just me; I like people to understand me when I'm talking to them...
I will say though, that I very much enjoy talking (out loud) to people with abbrevations. A common phrase I used this summer..."Don't be jeal when I tty in abbrivs." (Don't be jealous when I talk to you in abbreviations.) But I really do it to make fun of the text messaging style of writing. (I remember purposely slipping "deec" in class the other day while talking about how I'm DECENT at computer stuff.)
But I can say that I never slipped any kind of abbreviation during something formal like a speech or a paper that I would turn in of any kind...that'd be a pretty OMG moment.
"In another generation, these students would have simply been users of a computer," Dr. Jerz said. "Now, they are co-creators of the Internet."
I've read this article every time that we have come to the "learning the blogs" lesson in any of Jerz's classes and this is the first time I think I've ever actually saw this quote from our one and only.
I like it. (Thanks Jerz!) I like that we are becoming co-creators of the Internet, we're not just the generation that grew up with this technology; we're the generation that really made it into something. I never realized before this class, mostly today's discussion with Jackie, that we really grew up with computers at hand. I remember my older brother and I finding our first family computer one Christmas many years back and when my elementary school first got a large computer lab filled with brand new, blue Apple computers.
Growing up with a computer is one thing, helping create what everyone thinks of that computer seems very exciting and (yes I'm lame) cool to me.
