Wandering Muse: December 2007 Archives

Covering the Works!

By MadelynGillespie on December 6, 2007 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Everyone has to make a best work portfolio once in their lifetime (yeah right! tons of times!), so here's one that covers my recent blogging. Now complete with introductions!

I have created a blog for each assignment and throughout these blogs I have attempted to communicate my own thoughts and ideas about the classes assigned reading. A list of said blogs are as follows:

Depth is often required inorder to get one's point across and some of my entries displayed this:

We're terribly sorry for the mistakes, but we'll be sure to keep your complaints anonymous This blog is three larg paragrphs long and goes into detail on my thoughts about mistakes in journalistic mediums.
The Conclusion of IANS This particular blog discussed my opinion on the conclusion of our assigned readings book, It Ain't Neccessarily So.

Interaction. It's the word that scares the crap outta shy little kids and is the lifeblood of bloggers. Everyone wants their ideas to be heard (or read) by others and leaving a comment is a great way to do just that.

I left a comment on Chelsea Oliver's blog, Ewww...those crappy journalists, that tied in another blogger's blog to Chelsea's and then added my own two cents about McDonald's coffee cups, old lady's, and how you just gotta keep going after you mess up.

Discussions Feedback is an important and helpful tool when attempting to better oneself. Thus, receiving comments on your blogs can help you improve on your blooging and discussion skills. That can be seen in the two examples below:

This is so a story! This blog has three comments on it from Jackie Johns, Nessa Kolberg, and Chelsea Oliver. All of them liked my explanation of this topic in additin to generating new ideas that would go along with my chosen topic.
I've heard of the language of love, not so much the language of journalism... This blog also received three comments on my topic, a quote and its explanation on the language of journalism as defined in America's Best News Writing. Nessa Kolberg thought that I had a good point, but Jeremy Barrick showed me an opposing view that really gave me a moments pause.

Timeliness This is an important factor in the sparkage of discussions. The two blogs mentioned above were one of the first blogs to show on the course web site and these enabled discussions to be built around them.

Xenoblogging Surely a creative and unique term. The three links below demonstrate my willingness to contribute to the blogs and ideas of others.

Comment Primo: On Maria Pezzuti's blog, Are you a bad news bear?, I was the first, and only person to comment. I really liked what she chose to write on!

Comment Primo: I was the first to comment on Chelsea Oliver's blog, Eight deadly sins?, covering the section on plagiarism in America's Best News Writing.

Comment Grande: I know that it was a while ago, but I really liked the comment that I left on Nessa's blog: Creating Optimism. I thought that this little tidbit was laughable.

Wildcard Every great hand of Rummy 500 needs a wildcard that you can whip out in a pinch. For me, you'll find it on a page that I created for my Media Lab class, Quotations. I believe that this page displays that I have expanded my blogging skills to new areas and am continuing to improve upon them.

O' Ethics my Ethics!

By MadelynGillespie on December 4, 2007 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

"Report and write with humility. This virtue teaches us that Truth - with a capital "T" - is unattainable. But even though you can never get it, with hard work, you can get at it, you can gain on it."

These sentences really spoke to me. Not only is this an important concept in journalism, but this is also a foundation for life. There is always something bigger and better than ourselves out there, but that simply means that we should strive to reach those same lofty heights. There is ever room for improvement. No one, by any means is a pure as freshly fallen snow, except maybe babies, but that's beside the point. Journalists need to be able to recognize unhealthy and bad influences. Stick to the truth, it might not necessarily be safer 100% of the time, but you'll be able to tell yourself that you stuck to your principles throughout it all.