October 2007 Archives

Ok, so heres my first portfolio.  I'm a bit slow with this whole new computer thing.  It's all very new however I'm trying to compile all this new information into one tiny little space so that everyone can see what I've learned.  I think just this little paragraph being posted would be a far significant amout to show what I've learned, but here goes nothing!

Heres something I learned!!!

1.  What is Journalese?

 

As far as commenting on my peers blogs, I guess I really didn't at the beginning with me being new to this whole blogging thing.  I commented comments on the sight some times, but that was only out of confusion I guess.

Are reporters too pushy?

 

Wow this portfolio sucks...I sure hope i do better with the next one!

"Nevertheless, for all of its flaws, what Churchill said of democracy can also be said applied to peer review: it is the worst system for judging research, except for all of the other alternatives that have ever been tried."

    Unlike what churchill states in this quote, i find peer reviews to be a great aset to all papers.  Not only as a writer, but also as reporter, and student, i think this is very important.  We need to take into concideration however that just because one person is right, the other is not always wrong.  People interpret things in different ways, and I belive this reflects how we look and evaluate things.

"Drama, of course, is most compelling when there are heroes and villans.  Thus reserachers have found that 'risks tend to be perceived as more serious when there is someone to blame'."

   This quote is like woah!  This is warning from all parents to there children about being careful when they play outside.  It like don't push, don't run, don't play...?  As a child my cousin and I used to, as my mother or aunt would put it 'rough house' you know causing trouble getting hurt...taking risks.  As a girl doing this i was always the one that tended to take the risks, and then get hurt, therefore it was always my cousin to blame...he was the boy beating up on the girl, cause i was too much of a wimp to fight back, well not even that he was just always a lot stronger...It was just the idea however that if we were wrestling around i would get hurt, and he would be the one to get in trouble for it, even if it was my fault, or I started the 'match'.  Therefore, I also perceived that in my atempt to cause plenty of drama over the scene that I had started, my cousin always looked like the bad guy and my dad was usually always the hero. 

   This kind of a scene is always the best to read about in any type of situation.  There interesting and always draw in the reader.  I love even a good novel that has some time of dramatic effect.  This type of element is exactly what every story needs.  News story, book, movie, anything thats why i found this quote so significant.

Chapter 5 was very interesting.  A tab bit confusing in ways, but very interesting.  I never took the time to realize how different and how the same a census could be.  This chapter goes into depth of how the same census or survey can say two different things, but have the same information.  It really is crazy the way you can read these types of things.  Chapter 6 however is the total opposite.  It goes into detail of how the same idea gets many different reponses.  With the issue about school choice, two totally differnt articles had the same poll and got all kinds of responses.  It never occured to me how articles with this type of informative information could be taken and broken down in so many ways.

"inside each of us, reporter and newspaper reader alike, is an Alice B. Toklas demanding to know the answer; but she very much needs to be balcance by a Gertrude Stein inquiring about the question." 

This quote is incredibly significant to every person.  We all need to break things down when reading them, first inquire about the question, while also demanding to know the answer at the same time.

I had a great time in class yesturday.  I thought it was a fun interactive way to be able to feel what a real press conference was like.  I liked the interactive idea of how things work and being able to ask our own questions.  I thought the way everything went was nice and smooth sort of like I had imagined a real press conference would run.  I had a great time, and learned quite a few new things about the school.  I'm excited to see how many of the ideas president boyle talked about really go through.  and again I really really enjoyed the activity.

"Because of that omission, readers perhaps unaware of the range of incidents that can be squeezed to fit under the definitions of these terms, might well have s upposed that the alarmingly high numbers referred to the narrow definitions that apply only to the most serious incidents."

Chapters 2 and 3 stuck out to me the most.  Both chapters talk about important mistakes that happen with all kinds of news stories.  We have a tendency to make a huge deal out of something so small.  Even in an everyday conversation we over exagerate, sometimes to a point where its almost fake.  Chapter 3 concerns us with the idea that more rapes, kidnappings, and abuse happen that we think, however the numbers are off.  This also refers back to the idea from our class speaker the other day.  He talked about how statistics can say whatever we want them to.  There were many different surveys all showing different numbers so how do we really know what to belive?  There is no TRUE proof of what is really going on in the world today.  I could do my own personal survey and come up with a statistic of say 5 out of every 20 college students are raped before they gradudate, and technically it would be correct for my survey, but how does that give us a large nation-wide statistic? It doesn't and thats were news articles go wrong.  Everything can change and starts making no sense at all b/c it just carried away sometimes.

    After reading the Gomez story, I realized how much I hate bicyclists.  As a hypocrite though for the time being...I am a bicyclist.  Maria Velasquez, had nothing at fault here.  She obviously tried not to hit the boy.

    "The driver attempted to veer left, but struck the boy and ran over his bicycle" (Gomez).

    At one point or another every single one of us has drove past someone on a bike and silently said to ourselves. Damn they drive me nuts they ride so close to the road, or gees how bout we hog up the road a little more.  People on there bikes unconvienlently ride to close to road, or ride on the road, or cause us as drivers many fears as we drive past.  The idea that one little rock under there tire could cause the bicyclist to swere onto the road, right in front of us.  Fears like this give us drivers a short nerve when it comes to bicyclists.

    On the other hand as a bicyclist, we have another fear.  Being hit by a car.  After I totalled my car this summer, I had no other means of transportation back and forth from work during the day.  So I rode my bike 2 miles to work and 2 miles back.  Where I'm from there are tar and chipped roads, which means loose gravel, hills, and sharp turns; all dangers to someone on a bike.  You just never know what your going to run into.  You go over a hill as a speeding car passes on the other side, or while your going around a turn a car comes up behind you and speeds past.  These are things that terrify me when i'm on my bike.  You worry about falling off, swerving, anything that would cause you to move infront of these vehicles, especially when theres no burm, and you have to ride right on the road.  Its scary.

    So whether your an angressive driver that gets annoyed by bicyclists, or just the average joe out for a nice ride.  Just remember to show courtisy either way.  Whether its by staying to the side of the road, or slowing down as you pass, just be careful.

The videos we watched today in class were a prime example of everything a reporer should not do.  Although the news reporter was quite funny, and  comical to watch, the report itself was terrible.  The man she was interviewing had many sides to his story and I believe had many different views himself.  The idea that different things could happen during an interview like that is very possible, however this was just unreal.  The story didn't make sense and too many things were going on.  I just seemed all out fake.