My semester in JMC 410

I enjoyed the work I did in my Advanced News and Feature Writing course. It helped me understand more about being a journalist. I believe that I became a better writer from participating in the course. This is also the first time that I have written a news story as long as the revised investigative article.
I also learned that it is much harder to get people to talk to you if you are not affiliated with a publication. Through my work at The Mirror, I rarely had any trouble getting people to talk. “This is Ken from The Mirror” was all I had to say and people were usually pretty eager to share with me. I guess people don’t want to share with one person unless it gets published so they can share with everyone.
I would still like to go into journalism after graduation, but I am not sure of the specifics. I would rather work for a magazine than a newspaper, but I don’t know what kind of magazine. Fortunately there are plenty to choose from. I plan on researching many different publications during the summer in order to narrow down my choices.
I have one year of school left before entering the big, bad world of the work force, so by this time next year I plan to have everything figured out.



To read more from me

greeleytrib!

Bloggers are not jepordizing journalism

The world of journalism is not being hurt by all these blogs floating around on the Internet.

Granted, people who are not journalists write most of these blogs, but most readers know that. People don’t read blogs to find out what’s going on in the news, they read blogs to find out what a certain person thinks about what’s going on in the news. It doesn’t matter whether that person is their best friend or some celebrity whom they admire, most people know that blogs are merely the opinion of the blogger.

I’ll use Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban as an example. He has a blog Web site that discusses several issues not limited to basketball. Some of his other topics include the YouTube lawsuit, the NBC/NewsCorp video venture and the future of TV programming. I don’t think very many people see Cuban as a journalist. He is a businessman with enough time on his hands to write a blog and he may or may not know what he’s talking about. Think of it this way: If Cuban was meant to be taken seriously, wouldn’t the San Antonio Spurs have taken legal action against him when he insulted individual Spurs players, Spurs fans and even a dirty river in San Antonio during the Spurs and Mavericks 2006 playoff series?

If there is a problem with blogging, it is people who read blogs as if they are factual information published by a credible source. Reading blogs this way will probably lead to the reader being misinformed, but that is not the fault of the blogger. Even the best newspaper columnist’s stories should not be read as fact. It is only one man or woman’s opinion based on fact. Most blogger’s stories should be taken with a grain of salt because their ideas aren’t necessarily based on fact.

Poynter’s Steve Outing mentions how bloggers and journalists can learn from each other. This is true. Bloggers can learn better reporting from journalists, and journalists can learn how to appeal to a wider audience from bloggers. If bloggers and journalists make an honest attempt to learn from one another, both of these fields will be better in the long run.
The most important thing that bloggers have to learn from journalists is editing. Every published work needs to have at least one experienced editor proofread it before sending it to the public.

The bottom line is that blogs can be an attractive thing to read and to write, but until journalists decide to sit at home and write blogs about news instead of being employed by a credible publication, blogs are not harming journalism whatsoever. So let the bloggers have their fun.

Here is Steve Outing's article on blogging
Poynter


Here is Mark Cuban's blog site
Maverick

Writing feature stories

In my advanced news and feature writing class so far I have written two feature stories. The second story was a revision of the first. My biggest problem with writing the story was getting a topic. I had originally planned to profile a professor on campus, but He was unavailable. I then decided to write a feature on a Valentine's Day concert, but I was unable to make it. Finally I Decided to cover the Taiwanese Student Association's Chinese New Year celebration.
Although I was very sick while attending the event, I did enjoy it (plus free food is always motivation). It was good to experience a different culture in a fun way like that, but their dialects made it hard to understand some of the people I wanted to quote.
Writing the story wasn't very hard once I had all of the information I needed. I started with a summary of what happened, then I added the quotes from the sources. After that all I needed to do was a little research and got some additional quotes, then I put it all together.
The best part about the research was finding out about the Chinese zodiac. I read a lot about the year of the pig (the current year in the Chinese zodiac cycle). Many places had different information, but I just used their consistancies in the story. I also enjoyed finding out what year I was born in (the year of the rat).
Overall I enjoyed the experience of writing this feature story. It was both fun and informative. I hope that the stories I write in the future can be as useful as these were.

You're not the one I want

Will I offend anyone if I go on the record to say that I wish for the slow, torturous destruction of reality television?
I recently read a article by Denver Post’s John Moore about NBC’s “You’re the One That I Want,” a reality show about Broadway hopefuls auditioning for the leading roles for “Grease.” The article also mentions the success of “American Idol” which is another show that I’m all too sick of. What’s really sad about “American Idol” is that, even though 37 million people watch the show, most of the people with whom I discuss it say they don’t like it either, so I know I’m not alone here. Even some people who do watch it don’t really like it — or at least they admit that the show has fallen dramatically from its first season. Bottom line: America would be fine without its “Idol.”
“You’re the One That I Want” is hoping for success like “American Idol” while I am praying for an end to this reality trend I’ve had to endure for far too long. What bugs many of Moore’s sources is that it is denigrating to the whole theater process. I agree. People with real Broadway talent have no business auditioning for 8 million people on national television.
What really bugs me is that there is no end in sight. I could have dealt with one season of “American Idol,” and I could deal with one season of “You’re the One That I Want,” but if history holds true for the Brits (creators of both shows), We’ll have to put up with this for a long time. The show is a spin-off of BBC’s “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria” — why not do that in America? After that there are many more musicals to exploit. Do me a favor, if you want theater, go to UNC’s production of “Titanic: The Musical.” It’s running right now in Langworthy Theatre, Not having seen it, I can almost guarantee you will see more talent there than you will on television these days.

Read John Moore's story here

"Grease" gets real

Oscar Movies

My name is Ken Johnson. For this blog, I work hard in my classes and at my job, but I spend most of my spare time as a couch potato. I could be watching prime time television or cable, I could also be watching one of the many DVDs in my collection or I may just play video games. Whatever it is, you can bet a T.V. is involved, so that is what I have decided to write about.
Before the Academy Awards buzz completely died down, I wanted to watch a couple of the nominated movies that I missed. Yesterday I watched “Little Miss Sunshine” and “The Departed.”
“Little Miss Sunshine” was a decent film, unfortunately it wasn’t nearly as funny as I was led to believe. It certainly had its moments, and the cast did a fine job of portraying the dysfunctional family. It was not enough to impress me. I was disappointed with the plot more than anything else though. If the story was more interesting, the film could have gotten away with not being all that funny.
“The Departed” was a very different movie. The all-star cast did a top-notch job, but even lesser-known, mediocre actors probably could have succeeded with the plot of this film. Although not terribly original, the plot was interesting enough to keep my attention. The funny thing about “The Departed” was that it was one of the few movies that I liked even though I didn’t like any of the characters. From the cops/gangers to the two-timing girlfriend all of the characters were poor human beings.