October 2007 Archives

Rescheduled from Sep 26 and retitled.

Compile steps 1-3 into a single word processor file, and upload it to the appropriate slot on Turnitin.com before today's class sometime on Wednesday.  Steps 4 and 5 are for the in-class activity, and steps 6 and 7 are follow-ups after class.

This one was originally scheduled for Oct 24, but I'm moving it up to the 22nd, since I moved WB5 to Oct 24 and I don't want you to have two workbooks due on the same day.

On this page this workbook it is listed as being due on Monday, but the deadline is actually Wednesday morning.

WB8 is on JWeb, but you will also need the Stats Ptich Notes (a few pages of notes that are too long for me to put into the JWeb question form. They are visible below.)

You can either print this information out, or have it open in another window while you are doing the JWeb exercise.

I have poked fun at the weaknesses of TV news, but this book might give you the false impression that all journalists are morons, since the authors of It Ain't Necessarily So provide example after example of cases in which journalists seem to fail in their goal of presenting the news objectively and fairly.

I don't think that we need to ascribe sinister motives to every instance where a journalist makes a mistake, but IANS has a good discussion about the gate-keeping function of the traditional suppliers of news. You guys have already heard me talk about how the blogosphere has changed the role of the gate-keepers, who used to be able to bury a story by not following up on it. Now, bloggers who get upset about a small news item can make it big.

Consider that Newsweek spiked the story that broke big news about Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, but Matt Drudge went ahead with the story on his blog. Or, consider that Trent Lott made comments that were decried as racially insensitive during a 100 year birthday party for Strom Thurmond, and that The Washington Post and other members of the established press did not publish the remarks in question (in which Lott noted that Thurmond once ran for the presidency on a pro-segregation, and suggested the country would be better off if he had in fact won).  But bloggers who heard about it made a fuss, which resulted in Lott's resignation form a high-profile spokesman position in the Senate though he stayed on as a senator).

• Scandalous scoop breaks online (Drudge breaking Monicagate)
• Bloggers catch what Washington Post missed (Trent Lott story)

Rescheduled from 01 Oct.

If you have been keeping up with your blogging, this should only take you a few minutes to compile. If you've fallen behind, this assignment is a chance for you to catch up.

Dr. Joshua Sasmor, Mathematics (Seton Hill University)

Something Happening in Haiti -- The Onion

Wolf Blitzer parodied on Saturday Night Live

They smiled at the good and frowned at the bad and sometimes they were very sad. -- Ludwig Bemelmans, Madeline

For the peer review assignment (listed in the syllabus as "Workbook 7"), I have provided these 12 peer review tips (not substantially different from the printout I gave you in class, just edited slightly).  Your grade for the peer-review exercise depends on the quantity and quality of the constructive feedback you provide to your peer. (So smile at the good and frown at the bad, but don't make your peer feel very sad.)

In the process, you will get specific, concrete peer feedback, which you can use to revise your paper (and perhaps raise your final grade). But for me, the real value of the exercise is that the experience of hunting for and fixing problems in a peer's paper will help you develop self-editing skills that you can apply to any writing situation.

It's one thing for you hear me say "The people you want to interview are all as busy as you are," but it's quite another thing to make the third or fourth or tenth phone call to try to catch somebody between meetings.  Much of what you previously knew only by studying new vocabulary terms or hunting for fill-in-the-blank answers has only now become more concrete.

We've covered a lot of material already, but now that you have had this field experience, we're really ready to learn about journalism.

As I noted in class, since we have rearranged some of the course, and are only now getting to the AP Stylebook in earnest, I'm going to reschedule this quiz. (I'm not sure when, but I'll give you advanced notice.)