Sydney Blocker's Blog Post

When reading Sydney's blog post about the new underground beginning on the internet, I very clearly understood what she meant and agreed. her post really made me think about this new underground that I had never thought about before. In our classroom discussion, we talked about how the underground was fading, but after reading Sydney's post I realized that it's not fading, it's been reintroduced into digital form. Most people don't know about this internet underground though, because it's the underground. What i mean is that what belongs in the "underground" category is there because it's not viewed by many people and they just don't know about it.

CNN Fairness

In this article about the Affordable Care Act and Obama apologizing, they only quote and cover the democratic side of the story. They never once talk about a republicans opinion on what Obama had to say. Although this article isn't about them, you need to cover every side of the story. One of the 7 yardsticks is fairness. This guidelines for journalists measures whether they cover all sides of a story or not. Especially when writing about politics, they need to get every possible side o the story which they rarely do. News stations never talk to liberals or conservatives, unless they're supporting that specific party. On other stories however, they usually do a good job. There is still room for improvement though, so they need to make sure they always cover every side of the story and stay unbiased.

WHAS News Story

There are many unimportant news stories out there, and this is one. WHAS has reported on this news story about a woman bringing an alligator onto a train. The 7th principle of journalism has told us that "it (journalism) must balance what readers know they want with what they cannot anticipate but need. What this means is that journalists need to give their audience information that is important and that will have an affect on them. This story of an alligator is not important. It's just an interesting, eye-catching story. WHAS should not even allow this story to be reported on. This story of the woman and the alligator is very weird and peculiar indeed but the readers don't need to know this information which is the opposite making the important interesting.

Response to Ginny

Ginny's blog about the Camm trial is both spot on true, and a little humorous. I love the pictures she uses to demonstrate what she is saying in her critique of the news stations. I totally agree with her about this news story and how over reported it was. Yes there is some importance to the story but reporting on it everyday is a little too much. I think Ginny did a good job with this critique and she makes valid arguments on what they did wrong and how they could have done better.

TV lecture

Television had a huge impact on radio. In fact, Radio wouldn't be what it was today if it weren't for TV. During our lecture about TV, I learned that television took all of radio's performers because they realized that now the audience could put a face with their voice and they could become more popular. This mass exodus of radio's performers leaving caused the audience to leave also. This in return made radio demassify and to change its content to strictly music or some talk shows. this is why today, we mainly hear music on the radio. I think this was cool  to learn about because i have always wanted a radio station that played ALL the music I like instead of one genre.

Wave 3 Southern Drawl Article

The WAVE website contains this article (http://www.wave3.com/story/23970405/well-shut-my-mouth-southern-drawl-voted-most-attractive) about a recent survey of which accent people find most attractive. This story does not abide by the first yardstick of newsworthiness which states that news stories need to have a "direct and lasting impact on a wide audience." The story WAVE has reported on does not have a direct and lasting impact on people. The fact that a survey showed a southern drawl  was the most attractive does not need to be reported on. People can give their opinion on the survey yes, but it doesn't impact anyone. WAVE needs to stick to reporting on other more important topics and news stories. If they could have changed the story to show an impact on people then it would have been fine, but they didn't.

The Internet

The lecture on the internet has truly been my favorite so far. The discussion was about how the internet has changed our world and the effects it has had on media. We talked about how everything you do on the internet stays there and you can't get it back. I learned that the internet has made media companies change their old ways to new internet friendly ways. For example, newspapers have now put their content online for you to see, some even being totally online with no hard copy. I think it will be interesting moving forward to see how news media and organizations adapt to keep their companies running. I certainly know that as we continue to advance technology everyday, media will need to think of new ways to get their audience to spend money.

Media Critique - NBC Treasure Story

The other day NBC posted an article on their website about treasure being found at the site of a plane wreck in the French Alps. Here is the link: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/26/20707001-frozen-treasure-found-amid-plane-wreckage-in-the-french-alps?lite. This story lacks the newsworthiness and local relevance qualities of good journalism stated in the seven yardsticks. Yes, someone found treasure but how does that affect other people? The yardstick of newsworthiness states that journalism should have a direct and lasting (six months or more) informational impact on a wide audience (at least 10,000 people). This article written by NBC does not fit this description of newsworthiness. The article also violates local relevance. Like I said earlier how does this impact anyone here in Louisville? It doesn't! There's really nothing the journalists could have done to fix this story because it really just should not have been reported on at all. Maybe in a local newspaper in France this story would be okay but not with such a well known media organization such as NBC. The fact that a guy found treasure in the French Alps is just not important enough.

Music

I feel like our music lesson got cut short for some reason and that we didn't get to finish it. We spent most the time talking about what they did before the day of being able to record music. Aside from that, I learned some very insightful things about music. Most people don't realize that music can actually contain messages and ideas. When we were finally able to record music these messages and ideas could be heard all around the world. Today we can access music on our iPod, MP3, or other music devices in just a click of a button or two. Music has been the basis of social change and revolutions in certain areas of the world.

Newspapers

During our newspaper lecture we learned about a man named John Peter Zenger. This man published an article accusing the king of unfair actions. He was sent to court where the ruling was that the press had the right to say what they wanted if it were true. This is very important to journalists because it is the first case that established freedom of the press from the first amendment. Then we went on to talk about why we still read newspapers. I thought this was an interesting topic as I have always wondered what keeps them around because I've always felt like my family was the only one who got the paper. It turns out many tings keep them around including tradition, affordability, and the fact that it's a physical object and not virtual.

Response to Grayson

While looking at Grayson's blog, http://graysonsmit.blogspot.com/, I happened to see his media critique of Fox News and I thought it was great! The fact that he found that story is hilarious and that it violated so many principles. I can't believe that such a large industry would even report on something so irrelevant as to a guy giving his car a funeral. This is a great find and he did a great job critiquing the story.

Sydney's Response to Current Events

I was looking at my classmate's blogs when I came across Sydney's blog about current events http://sydneyblocker.blogspot.com/. She makes a great point when she says we never talk about what relevance this has to us. When I look over the news everyday I see plenty of news articles obviously but do I necessarily remember them? No, because unless it is relevant to me, it very easily goes in one ear and out the other. I understand that it's part of our grade to watch, listen, and read the news, but it would certainly be great to know how some of the news affects us like she mentioned.

9 Principles and 7 Yardsticks

This was probably one of our most important lessons in my opinion so far. Because I learned about the 9 principles and 7 yardsticks, I now notice what is good journalism and what is not. When watching the news I am able to tell what they are doing right and I can pick out the stories that are irrelevant. This is very important and I love being able to critique journalism.

Conglomeration Lecture

I really liked our lecture on conglomeration. I thought it was interesting to learn how one company can buy many companies so that there is less competition. I found this very insightful since in the real world big companies buy smaller ones all the time. One such example is Microsoft buying Nokia.