Special K

The End of the End of the End

The day has finally come: this is my last blogging portfolio...ever. Wow, I feel old.

Coverage and Timeliness- Not only do I cover things well, but I also do them on time

There's a lot of Crime in Chicago- and everywhere else
Don't Mess Up- no one likes people who make mistakes
The Best Stories are the Bad Ones- because who wants to read about anything good?
Newspapers are Unfair...- apparently always
Not a Classic for Me- I go against the standard
The Amazing One Sentence Article- not a sideshow attraction, I promise
A Newspaper Novella- can't anyone just write a normal article?
Yes! The Inverted Pyramid is Back, Baby!- after reading this, you'll be just as excited about it too
The "Deep" Stuff- the Ethics of Journalism- you always have to do the right thing

Depth- Diving deep and sinking in

Don't Mess Up
Not a Classic for Me
Yes! The Inverted Pyramid is Back, Baby!

Interaction- What's the fun if we can't interact?

Don't Mess Up

Discussions- Where people talk about how amazing my entries are...or, um, something like that...

There's a lot of Crime in Chicago
The "Deep" Stuff- the Ethics of Journalism

Xenoblogging- totally made up word

Comment Primo
Bethany- Creative Crime Report, Morrie's Man
Dani- http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DaniellaChoynowski/2007/11/just_the_factsand_then_some.html
Mitch- Like a Pilot Episdoe of Some Court Drama, Creative- Maybe. Chaucer- No!

Comment Grande
Mitch- Queens on the Diamond
Maddie- This is So a Story!!

Wildcard
Nostalgia- reach for the tissues

El fin.

Nostalgia

As I was working to prepare the latest installment of the blogging portfolio, I was hit with an overwhelming realization- this will be the last change I have to blog. I'm a senior graduating in May and will not have another class with Dr. Jerz next semester. So not only will this upcoming portfolio be my last (I'm not too sad about that part), but also these will be my last class entries for, well, ever. Unless the master's in popular fiction program here requires me to blog. In that case, maybe I'll go for my master's elsewhere...(kidding Dr. Jerz, only kidding).

Upon this realization, I started to feel a little nostalgic. While I wasn't part of the class the pioneered blogging at SHU (that was the class of 2007), I am in the group that has blogged the longest. For four years I've turned to Moveable Type to express my like, dislike, or all and all hate of classroom readings. I've written completely random entries about all sorts of topics, from driving to "Gilmore Girls." I have interacted with classmates, shared ideas, argued, and formed weird blogging friendships. For four years, I have to say blogging has taken up a lot of my time.

In honor of my last official entries, I am taking a look back at my first: Look at Me, I have a Blog! Wow was it bad (and yet for some reason was cited in a grad student's paper). A lot of my first entries were pretty sad, a little over eager, and sometimes not even very informative. However, they were still distinctly me. I am proud to say I have maintained my sarcastic and hopefully somewhat witty tone throughout my time blogging. I developed a "blogging personality," if you will. Out of it came a tone and a blogging name- "Special K" (which is not a drug reference, geez. It's a play on the cereal name because my last name starts with K. I always thought that'd be obvious until I realized it really wasn't). I have also developed my skills as a blogger. My entries are no longer the ones written by the freshman of four years ago. No, I have progressed, dug deeper, explored more, and have come out a well seasoned blogging senior.

This isn't a good bye to blogging. I'm sure I'll start up when the mood hits or whenever I have something particularly snarky or interesting I need to share with the world. But until then, it's been fun.

The "Deep" Stuff- the Ethics of Journalism

Finally, my Senior Sem class came in handy. For our class, we had to give a presentation on the ethics of our chosen field, so I picked journalism and researched the ethics (there are more than you'd think, which surprised me for some reason). Chapter 11 of ABNW is like a nice condensed version of the Journalism Code of Ethics.

While most of the chapter was just a restatement of the Code of Ethics (summary: be honest and fair when reporting), I liked the section on plagiarism, creatively titled "Plagiarism: The Unoriginal Sin". Within this section were reporting standards by Robert Steele that outline all the questions journalists should ask themselves when reporting on and then writing an article. It is a pretty standard checklist for a news story, yet I can see it being helpful as well. "What is my purpose?" and "How reliable are my sources?" are great questions when writing-- sometimes, under deadline, I could see a reporter quickly composing a story in order to finish it on time, without realizing they are using unreliable sources or even having a real angle or purpose for writing. Take some time out and go through the checklist in your head-- the article will only be better because of it.

(Side note: why does "TK" stand for "To come"? Shouldn't it be "TC"?)

Yes! The Inverted Pyramid is Back, Baby!

Ok, so I kind of have a thing for the inverted pyramid structure. It's a healthy obsession, I assure you.

Chapter 10 of ABNW could also have been titled, "Vanessa's high school journalism classes". Yes, years and years ago I took several high school journalism classes that instilled in me the the same ideas as presented in the chapter. Also, experience has made the newswriting style almost inevitable (I didn't say I was good at it- just that I can do it). However, reviews are always good.

"Reporters fall into two categories: those who get assignments and those who generate ideas. And of those who get assignments, there are also two categories: those who do what they're told and those who expand the assignment and make the story their own" (290).

I loved this quote. Journalists should keep this phrase in mind when faced with a difficult (or even overly easy assignment). Who do you want to be- the easy way out writer or the dive right in and get the best story possible one? I think we're all trying for the latter here. However, deadlines can pose problems or a novice writer might be too afraid to "expand the assignment" since they are used to just doing what they are told (I would be that reporter). However, try to do the best assignment possible, no matter what the subject, and take a risk every now and then. It might just work *cough*Onesentencereporter*cough*.

A Newspaper Novella

Aside from the kind of disturbing title ("Metal to Bone"? Seriously? Sounds a little horror movie-ish to me), Anne Hull's article paints a vivid picture of the people involved in the story (I almost typed "characters" here, but remembered this wasn't prose, although it read like it) and gives the reader further insight than a regular article ever would.

Again, I find this to be another article that goes against the norm of regular journalism writing. Sure, it's a feature piece, and you can apparently do whatever you want in a feature piece, but the long sentences and witty quips ("Don't break a nail, honey") seem pretty different than the newswriting we are being taught. To make a reference to a class I'm currently taking, an article like this seems almost more like a personal essay, due to the description and tone of the work. Sometimes the reader just wants the stripped down information about an incident, but sometimes, we want to know the people behind the facts.

The Amazing One Sentence Article

Oh my God, that entire article was written in one sentence. Next time I have to write a review for the "Setonian", I'm writing it in one sentence and see how that goes. I'm going to assume not well.

"Maybe Ken Fuson is the next Geoffery Chaucer" (212).

No, he's not. I spent an entire semester in a class all about Chaucer and never once did he write like this. Everything the editors of ABNW said was so great about the article truly annoyed me. I'm sorry, but it's not the way I would ever write an article, even a little piece like this one. "Repeating 'by' creates parallels". No, what it does is seem overly repetative. "Semicolon breaks the sentence into manageable parts". So do periods. This just seems to go against all the journalism writing techniques I've learned thus far. When I try to get creative like this, it backfires and doesn't get published. Maybe I'll go work for "The Des Moines Register".

Not a Classic For Me

Um...what if none of the "Classics" really fit into what I'm doing my article on? The examples given are by far excellent pieces of journalism, but most are "hard" stories that doesn't really match the feature-ish article I'm doing. They all seem so serious, while my topic seems a bit frivolous.

If I have to chose an article though, I would say Dorothy Thompson's "Mr. Wells and Mass Delusion" works for me. While I am not writing an opinion piece, this was an article that wasn't too "hard" (like hard news). The technique I found useful was the tone of the piece. It wasn't too serious or commanding, even thought it was a persuasive essay, but read much like, and I hate to say it, a magazine piece. I've gotten used to this sort of short clipped get-it-all-in-as-few-words-as-humanly-possible style of newspaper writing that to see a longer more prose style clicked for me as something I could possibly use in my article. Since it would be more of a feature article, I could potentially have a little fun with it and use a similar style.

The part I especially liked was, "They have demonstrated...they have cast...they have shown...they have proved..." etc. (264). While I couldn't replicate this style in my article (plagerism=bad), the idea of a list of things seems like a good device to use, especially in an article like mine. A list of ways students feel they are unprepared, perhaps?