JRN 200: Your Homework For Monday 10/31

Now that your second out-of-class story and blog/tweets assignments are in, I'll start going over them. Here's some work to keep you busy until then:

First, start working on your third and optional fourth out-of-class story pitches. Use the same formats as before. If you choose to do a fourth story, it will replace your worst grade from your other three stories. Your pitch deadline is no later than 9 a.m. Monday, Nov. 7 to omars@msu.edu.

Second, we now have a video story assignment. For this assignment, you will be asked to create a news video no shorter than 1 minute long and no longer than 2 minutes long, on the subject of, what have people been up to this semester? Your interview subjects can be working or going to classes or hanging out; whatever. 

You will be required to interview at least two people on-camera and shoot b-roll (a video camera would be great, but a simple Flip cam or a good smart phone will suffice); edit the raw video using iMovie or FinalCut Pro or some other comparable video editing software; create an edited news video with a lede and attribution and such; upload the video to the YouTube account you were supposed to create for this class; make sure that the YouTube account is set to a public setting (and not private); and then email me a link to the video to omars@msu.edu, with  a subject line of video #1.

As long as you meet the basic parameters of this assignment, I will give you a 4.0 equal to that of a practice story. Those parameters include:

-- staying within the 1-2 minute range and on-topic
-- containing at least two human interviews on tape
-- containing B-roll
-- showing signs of editing; that is, not simply pasting entirely unedited tape onto YouTube. You want to create a video story using raw video as a base to be edited and moved around, in the same way we want to write a text story using raw information as a base to be edited and moved around.
-- containing NO fatals

The penalty for failing to meet these parameters is 0.5 of your grade, per error. In addition, a fatal resulted in a 1.0 grade. And failure to turn it in, of course, is a 0.0. Please review the video links provided in the earlier blog post to get an idea of what this assignment may look like, in finished form.

These same deductions will apply on all future multimedia assignments. But future assignments WILL include consideration of content and journalistic value.

The deadline for this assignment will be no later than 9 a.m. Monday, Nov. 7 via email to omars@msu.edu. Again, you should be emailing me links to your YouTube account, and not an attached video file.

If you are unsure about your topic or fuzzy on some of these concepts like B-roll or captions or whatever, or if you have any questions whatsoever, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

Third, I will have your graded out-of-class stories back to you later this week. Your rewrite deadline will be no later than 9 a.m. Monday, Nov. 14  to omars@msu.edu.

Now, how do you do the video assignment? Follow along in the following posts, and good luck, everyone! 

Video #1: What Are You Doing?

For the first video assignment, I am asking you to do a news video on the topic of, what are people doing with their semester?

For this assignment, you will have to interview at least two people on-camera about what they've been up to this semester.

The videos must run between 1 and 2 minutes long. Each must start out with some sort of a title caption (sort of like a lede), so that the audience knows what the story is going to be about. The story should include video of your interview subjects talking (sort of like quotes in a story), and those subject shots should include captions identifying the people who are speaking (sort of like attribution).

Of course, the stories should have no fatals -- not in terms of what people are saying (it must be true), and captions should have proper spellings and titles. All because it's video doesn't mean we operate at a lower standard than print. Be sure you do thorough double-checking of the information you gather.

(See? Lots of concepts we worked on are true regardless of medium.) 

Also, the videos should contain B-roll. What is b-roll, you ask? It is video showing what your story is about, that you use to break up segments of the video.

For example, let's say you are interviewing people about what they're doing this semester, and one interview subject is making burgers at McDonald's, and the other is going to the club every day. B-roll would be showing what they're doing: shots of one person flipping greasy burgers, and of the other person clubbing it up on the dance floor, etc.

Then, we would use some of that b-roll to break up the interview segments. For example, you know that standard shot of someone talking in a video interview, where you just see their head and they're talking blah-blah-blah? You would start a segment with that, then while they're still talking, you roll some b-roll over the sound, so that people can see what the person is talking about at the same time they're talking about it.

(That goes back to a print concept: show the audience; don't just tell them. At the same time, it breaks up that monotonous shot of someone just talking).

Then, you return to the head shot and end the segment.

Also, B-roll can be used during transitions between segments, to help illustrate those transitions.

Some good b-roll examples can be found in the following videos from some past classes, where the topic was, "What have you learned sofar in JRN 200?" Classmates were used as interview subjects. Like your assignment, it required two human sources on tape per video. 

Off we go:

Andrea 

Shanin T.

Emily

Julia

Video #1: How A Past Semester's Bunch Did It

Okay, so here's a recap of some of the videos from a past semester's first assignment, which was for a summer class and sought to find out what people were doing that summer. Overall, I thought they did very, very well on this assignment, espcially considering it was a first-time video in this class. Lots of good B-roll, good story flows, ect. Certainly some things that can be tweaked, but that's to be expected.

Let's look for what worked and what didn't and what you could borrow. Here we go:

Julie: This one is a lot of fun. Notice the home-made graphics, which help tell the story textually, but in a visual manner. More good B-roll ideas here for an otherwise hard-to-illustrate story, by showing screen grabs of weather forecasts. Other B-roll ideas could have come from getting generic video of people doing summer activities: hanging out at a pool or the beach, people jogging and sweating, ect. That's B-roll any of us can shoot, and at any time. 

Aaron: Want to see an example of lots of varied B-roll? This video got a bunch. See if you can get some ideas on how a simple topic can have varied B-roll, showing all aspects of something routine.

Kristen: More good use of B-roll, with the B-roll matching what the person is talking about at that particular moment. We want to be sure to match the sound to the visual when mating B-roll to audio.


Also, again we had redundancy in having a caption naming the speaker, and the speaker saying their own name. Ideally, just let the caption do the identifying, and save air time for the substance of what the person is actually talking about.


Daniella: This vid used still photos as B-roll, which is totally acceptable. Note how she fades in and out of the still images, to create a sense of movement within the video. Nice job.

But we're missing captions to tell us who we're talking to -- just like attribution in a written story -- and the vid is well short of the 1-minute minimum. We could have filled more time in a meaningful way by extending the interview segments.

Robert: We're missing a title slide, but there's other things executed well here. Note the captions identifying the speaker; it helps with attribution without the speaker having to name himself and waste air time doing so. And this is how B-roll is best used: to roll in the middle of the interview, while the interview is still going on. But make sure that the B-roll matches what the interview subject is talking about at that moment. In the second interview, the speaker is talking about out-of-state trips and the B-roll was of a campus building. Better B-roll would have been something representative of out-of-state vacationing.

Khadija:  Here, we are heavy on the use of a narrator to help move the story along, and that's fine. Whether you use narration or not depends on which ways are best to tell a particular story. Like in print, we pick presentation style not based on our preferences, but by what better and best tells the given story. Also, the first interview segment better uses B-roll, with the B-roll being specific to exactly what the speaker is talking about at the moment.

Speaking of speakers, not the audio is uneven. I'm not gonna ding you for that, because you're working with pretty basic equipment. But it's something we need to be aware of as we get experience and better resources; bad audio can make great video irrelevant. Let's make sure we get mics as close as we can to our subjects, and get clear audio.

Danielle: Nice array of interviews, but we sorely needed B-roll to show the actions of what people were talking about, and to break up those long interview segments. Also, like with print attribution, on first attribution in captions we need first AND last names. 

Brittany: Again, we need B-roll. In a video format that emphasizes activity and action, it's not enough to have people telling us what they're doing; we need to see what they are doing, as they are doing it.

In the second of two interviews, the image is upside-down. Did I ding you for that? Not on this first one. I'm letting go a lot of technical problems just on this first one so you can get used to shooting and editing and the problems that can ensue, and at the same time allow you to get the hang of technical aspects like B-roll and captioning and such, while giving all of us some things to look at, build off of, emulate and/or avoid in the future.

Covering The Elections: An Extra Credit Opportunity Reminder

For the upcoming presidential election, the MSU School of Journalism is going all-out!

All JRN clases are offering some sort of opportunities to get involved in election coverage (with some classes making it the focal point of what they will be doing in and out of class o0ver the next few weeks).

You can see some of that work on a special public Web site that has been set up to post the classwork by clicking right here.

For our class, we will have an extra credit opportunity on Election Day, which is on Tuesday,  Nov. 8. Students may sign up to work four-hour blocks starting between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. and help report the elections from the new multimedia newsroom that's on the first floor of the Communications Sciences & Arts (CAS) building.

Students are needed to both help write stories on deadline that night, and to go out and do interviews around town with students on their voting choices. You can do whatever you feel most comfortable doing on that night.

This is a great opportunity for you to build work samples that will be available publicly online that you can use to help support applications for internships and work in both student and professional media. 

And that's no small thing; journalism and media are very much fields of demonstrated ability, which means future employers want to see not just your grades, but what you actually have produced in terms of content.

To participate, you must sign up ahead of Election Day! To do so, please email Professor L.A. Dickerson at dicker22@msu.edu or call her on her cell at 248-894-5518. 

To get extra credit, you must provide me proof of your work that night! If you write a story, I need to get a link to your bylined story from the MSU election site. If you contributed to a story, I must get a link to the same.

If you have any questions about what you'd do that night, please contact L.A. If you have any questions about extra credit, please contact me ASAP. And if this is something you would like to do, please sign up sooner rather than later via L.A.

Good luck, everyone!

JRN 200: Your Wednesday 10/26 Homework

What is due will be:

-- At least 12 tweets regarding a happening or event you are observing; and,
-- Two breaking news blog posts on the same event, with one post previewing the event, and the other recapping it.
  Parameters of that content include:

-- Each breaking news entry being about the SAME topic, being covered as a preview and then a recap of what happened;
-- Each breaking news story staying between 100 and 200 words each, with each being no shorter than 100 words;
-- The breaking news stories being written in a journalistic style, as opposed to a first-person blog-like style;
-- Each breaking news item containing two working hyperlinks, inserted onto text;
-- A minimum of 12 tweets on the same subject as the breaking news topic; and,
-- Each tweet having a consistent unique hash tag, to allow the tweets to be chained together.

Now, on these assignments, everyone will get a 4.0 as long as long as we meet the basic parameters of the assignment.

The penalty for failing to meet these parameters is 0.5 of your grade, per error. So, if your tweets lacked a consistent unique hashtag, you got a 3.5. If your breaking news stories lacked topic consistency AND the minimum hyperlinks, you got a 3.0.

In addition, a fatal resulted in a 1.0 grade. And failure to turn it in, of course, is a 0.0.

These same deductions will apply on all future multimedia assignments. But future assignments WILL include consideration of content and journalistic value.

Your deadline will be no later than 9 a.m. Monday, Oct. 31 by email to omars@msu.edu. Again, you should be emailing me links to your Twitter and Blogger accounts, and not actual text.

Now, how are you supposed to do this assignment? Please follow the latest blog updates below to get that straightened out. This assignment isn't a hard one; you'll see.

If you are unsure about your topic or fuzzy on some of these concepts like hashtags or hyperlinks or whatever, or if you have any questions whatsoever, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

Plus, don't forget you still have your second out-of-class story is also due no later than 9 a.m. Monday, Oct. 31 via email to omars@msu.edu. 

Blog/Tweets #1: Something New!

Today, we will begin our shift from telling stories in a traditional print medium, to telling stories in new mediums like social media, online media and video.

For our opening assignment in using social media and writing about breaking news, what I will ask you to do is to pick out anything you observe as part of your daily routine for which to write an online breaking news preview story, an online breaking news follow-up story, and a live tweet stream as the event is unfolding.

When I say I want you to do anything in your daily routine, I do mean anything. Cover your watching  your favorite TV show. Or your roommate making breakfast. Or a game on TV you're watching. Really, anything.

(I want these to be observations, not something you're participating in. For example, you can cover your roommate making breakfast, but not a first-person account of you making breakfast yourself. Just like with a news story, don't use first-person references.) 

The reason for that is that I simply want you to get used to the technical process, without having to do any real and time-consuming reporting. We will incorporate reporting in latter versions of this assignment.

Then, what you will do is cover the activity of your choice, in two ways:

First, via social media, specifically Twitter. You will have to create a tweet stream of at least 12 tweets, each with a consistent unique hash tag, describing the event as it unfolds.

Second, you will have to create two online breaking news blog posts, with one post being a preview and the next being a recap of the event. Each post must be at least 100 words and no more than 200 words, and each should include at least two relevant hyperlinks. 

Okay, Omar, so how the hell am I supposed to do this? you may be asking right about now.

Well, the next few blog posts should spell that out for you.

Tweets #1: Tweets Are Easy!

But that's less of a challenge than you may think.

That's because you're not limited to just one tweet. You can do as many tweets as you'd like!

So a single tweet is not a single story. Rather, a collection of tweets are. One tweet may be like sort of a lede, where it sums up the main point. following tweets are like the body of a story, with one tweet offering an update and another some relevant stats, and yet another a quote.

And that's the most basic value of Twitter -- it's another way to relay events live and as they happen to an audience who may not be near a TV or radio or whatever. You can essentially "broadcast" live, just using text sent to mobile devices of readers.

A collection of related tweets are unified by a hashtag; that is, the hashtag symbol on your keyboard (the thing that looks like a criss-cross fry; it's the number 3 key when under shift lock) followed by a unique phrase. For example, tweets at a convention I went to a few years ago were joined by the hashtag #ncmc13 (short for National College Media Convention 2013).

(That's what hash tags are really for, not simply so you can add a #snarky comment.)
You can supplement your tweets with photos, which can help tell the story beyond the 140 characters allowed in a tweet, and beyond simple words.

You can also link to anything on the Web with the aid of a URL shortener, like bit.ly. What the service does is take a URL and replace it with a much shorter one. Using a bit.ly link here gives you more room to write text without the URL taking up so much space.

Ideally, the best tweet streams can be put in reverse order and read just like an inverted-pyramid news story, with (timewise) your first tweet summing up what happened, and the following tweets filling in   details and offering a chronology as something unfolds.

Here -- again, in reverse order, with the tweets in order of when they were posted -- is the State News' sports Tweet stream just before and from the press conference announcing a football coach's heart attack here a few years back:

Report: Football head coach Mark Dantonio suffered a heart attack but is OK.

There is a "important football-related press conference" scheduled for 1 p.m. It is unclear if it is related to reports of Dantonio's health

MSU: Dantonio will remain at the hospital for a few days for monitoring. Return to sidelines at a later date.

MSU: Offensive coordinator Don Treadwell will manage day-to-day responsibilities of head coach.

MSU: Dantonio had "symptoms consistent with a heart attack."

MSU: Dantonio had a cardiac catheterization procedure early Sunday morning.

AD Mark Hollis said Dantonio will not be on the sidelines for the Northern Colorado game Saturday.

Hollis: "This is a time for the Spartan nation to come together, to rally."

Dr. D'Haem of Sparrow Hospital said a full recover is expected.

Dr. D'Haem said procedure is very routine and happens often. Also said he expects no long-term negative impact. Return yet to be determined.

Dr. D'Haem said Dantonio began feeling symptoms around 12:30 a.m. Sunday.

Dr. D'Haem: Heart attacks are never good...but I would classify this as a rather small heart attack.

Hollis said he spent the night at the hospital until about 5:30, the returned to hospital this morning at 8.

Dr. D'Haem: "Stress doesn't cause coronary heart disease, but very stressful events can be a trigger."

Coach Treadwell on players' reaction: "They're handling it as well as they can. They love their head coach."

Hollis: "(Dantonio's) thoughts went immediately to his family and then to the football program."

Treadwell said the fact staff has been together for a number of years will make this process easier from a football point of view.

Dr. D'Haem said timetable for Dantonio's return will be taken week-by-week.

There's a lede. There's a nut graf. There's supporting details. There are quotes. There is background. It collectively qualifies as a journalistic story. And you did it within the confines of social media.

This is exactly how The Associated Press wire service has always filed breaking news stories as a story is breaking: line-by-line, with the idea the lines can be pasted together into a story. It allows the writer to push out a story (and an editor to edit copy) much faster than if he or she waited to have a mass of information combined into a story, and yet a reader still ends up with all the information they    need to consider the package in its totality.

So really, tweets are just a way of applying old journalistic skills in a new way.

Now, it's your turn. Your assignment is to live-tweet anything you are observing -- the latest episode of your favorite TV or radio show; a sporting event you're attending; your roommate eating dinner; whatever -- and send me a link to your Twitter account (which must be open to the public).

You will need to send a minimum of 12 tweets, with a unique hashtag applied to each. For this first assignment, I don't care what the news value is of your topic. I simply want to see your technical proficiency in live-tweeting something happening, as it happens.

Tweets #1: Tweeting For Non-Breaking News

Tweeting a breaking news story is easy, as you've learned. Just type what you see, as you see it. But how do you tweet something that isn't breaking? Like a trend story, or something about a topic without a specific time peg or an actual event associated with it?

Actually, that's easy, too!

That was a situation a student in one of my past JRN 200 classes faced. She was doing a story about a rash of concussions among student-athletes. And here's her tweet stream, which I reversed so that you see her first tweet first and her last tweet last; the opposite of how it would appear on Twitter. Here we go:

#concussedathletes Over 300,000 sports related concussions occur each year, according to the Brain Trauma Research Center.

#concussedathletes The NCAA, the nation's largest college athletic association, has no guidelines for treating athletes with head injuries.

#concussedathletes The Big Ten is trying to implement its own regulations to deal with concussed athletes.

#concussedathletes Michigan State University is not pushing for the Big Ten to have the regulations.

#concussedathletes MSU soccer goalkeeper Liz Watza has had five concussions and said "The NCAA should create guidelines."

#concussedathletes Sports Specialist Dr. Homer Linard said the main concern with letting injured athletes back in the game is brain injury.

#concussedathletes Suffering a second concussion shortly after the first one can be deadly, according to the Brain Trauma Research Center.

#concussedathletes Incoming freshmen athletes at MSU are given a specific concussion test, called ImPACT. impacttest.com

#concussedathletes Athletic Clinical Coordinator Brian Bratta said "ImPACT assesses memory, cognitive ability and function of the brain."

#concussedathletes Once a concussion occurs at MSU, the athlete takes ImPACT again to gauge the severity of the injury.

#concussedathletes Despite new technology, the biggest indicator is the presence of symptoms, said Bratta.  http://tinyurl.com/6cq9dx

#concussedathletes When a head injury occurs, MSU athletes are immediately given SCAT, the Standardized Concussion Assessment Test.

#concussedathletes SCAT is a checklist of common symptoms and tests balance, said MSU Certified Athletic Trainer Yume Nakamura.

Now, please notice a few things. Look at the first four tweets. Each could be a lede, right? For many of you, in writing a story -- especially trend stories -- you may find that you have more than one good lede option, but you can only choose one lede. But in tweeting the news, each lede option can become its own tweet.

Second, the tweeter took telling quotes and made each a tweet, like that of the player giving her opinion on the subject. Just like a quote in a story, it's not YOUR opinion; it's what somebody who is a subject of your story thinks.

Third, interesting facts are offered as tweets, like those on what the effects of a concussion can be.

Fourth, a mini-series of tweets are used to explain a nuance of the story, like the half-dozen tweets that in total detail how MSU deals with concussed athletes.

Fifth, hyperlinks are offered via tweet. Notice the tweet that uses a bit.ly link. Bit.ly is a URL shortener that will take a long URL and convert it into a shorter one that better fits on a character-restricted service like Twitter.

Tweets #1: What NOT To Do

I received this query from one of youze last summer:

I was wondering if I could write my blog and tweet about a raft race/war I am participating in this week.

The answer was, no.

That's because we are trying to use Twitter as journalists. As journalists, we can be observers of something, but not participants. Being a participant would be a conflict of interest. Those standards don't go away just because we're tweeting.

So, the event should be something we are observing: a baseball game. Or your roommate making dinner. Or someone playing a video game. Or following your friends on an ice cream run.

It should not be something you are doing, like a baseball game in which you are playing. Or you making dinner. Or you describing a video game you're playing yourself, or your solo ice cream run.

The same person who wanted to tweet the raft race/war later suggested covering a game of "Capture The Flag," in which this person would not be participating. That's fine.

As long as we can simply observe and report, we can do our jobs as journalists. We can stay objective and can concentrate on reporting the story for our audience, as opposed to winning a race for ourselves, or boosting a race in which we're involved. 

Journalists are neutral observers, and never participants in what we report.

Blog #1: Hyperlinks Are Easy!

In traditional print journalism, we work in one dimension. That is, in the text story we put everything a person needs: a lede, quotes, data, background, ect.

But when we are writing online news, we can write in two dimensions: the literal text, and via hyperlink.

Hyperlinks are highlighted pieces of text that, when clicked on, takes the viewer to a new Web page. For example, this is a hyperlink. And it takes us to a Wikipedia entry about hyperlinks.

What hyperlinks do in an online story is allow you to offer background or quotes or video or other related content in a secondary dimension, so that your primary story can concentrate on conclusions and such.

If in print we try to show and tell readers, in online news hyperlinks allow us to tell in the main story, and then show through a hyperlink. Like in this ESPN.com story, where the hyperlinks let us know who is who, without that background overwhelming the text of the story.

In this blog post, hyperlinks include ones to earlier stories from the same Web site, and news stories from other Web sites (including one of my local favorites). See how it offers background in two dimensions?

And that gives the reader options. If they choose to trust your summary, they can leave it at that. If they want more info, all they have to do is click on a hyperlink and -- voila! -- they can get into as much detail as their little hearts desire.


Hyperlinks are real easy to make.

First, you want to highlight a section of text that is directly relevant to what you're hyperlinking to. For example, if you're writing an article about yourself and you want to hyperlink to your Facebook page so people can get background about you, a relevant place to hyperlink from would be a mention of your name.

After highlighting the next, look at your tools bar for wither a symbol that looks like linked chains, or the word "link." Click on that.

When you do, a box should pop up that asks for a URL, which is a fancy way of saying, Web address. Copy the URL and paste it into the box, and then hit "OK."

Then, save, close and publish your item. You should now have a working hyperlink.

And after posting your story, be sure to go to your item just as a reader would, and double-check your hyperlinks to make sure they work.

Blog/Tweets #1: What It Might Look Like

For our opening assignment in using social media and writing about breaking news, what I will ask you to do is to pick out anything you observe as part of your daily routine for which to write an online breaking news preview story, an online breaking news follow-up story, and a live tweet stream as the event is unfolding.

When I say I want you to do anything in your daily routine, I do mean anything. Cover your watching  your favorite TV show. Or your roommate making breakfast. Or a game on TV you're watching. Really, anything.

(I want these to be observations, not something you're participating in. For example, you can cover your roommate making breakfast, but not a first-person account of you making breakfast yourself. Just like with a news story, don't use first-person references.) 

The reason for that is that I simply want you to get used to the technical process, without having to do any real and time-consuming reporting. We will incorporate reporting in latter versions of this assignment.


The parameters  of the assignment include:

-- Each breaking news entry being about the SAME topic, being covered as a preview and then a recap of what happened
-- Each breaking news story staying over the 100-word minimum 
-- The breaking news stories being written in a journalistic style, as opposed to a first-person blog-like style
-- Each breaking news item containing two working hyperlinks, inserted onto text
-- A minimum of 12 tweets on the same subject as the breaking news topic 
-- Each tweet having a consistent unique hash tag, to allow the tweets to be chained together


Now, to give you an idea of what the final product might look like, let's look at breaking news/tweet combos from the first such assignment (cut-and-pasted here; though for this assignment I want you to do it on Twitter and blogspot.com and then send me the links) from a past JRN 200 class, and let's talk about what worked and what can be done better.

And we're off: 

26. Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    Girls begin to leave the kitchen and head to their 12:40 classes. Ryan will be serving lunch until 1:00pm. #bestcampuscook

    
    
27.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    The bus boys are beginning to clean the dishes of the girls who have already finished their meals. #bestcampuscook
28.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    More girls just arrived as Ryan puts out another round of chicken gyros. #bestcampuscook

     Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5
29. Liz Redmond: "This is my favorite meal that Ryan makes!" #bestcampuscook
30.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    Chef Ryan made glutton-free chicken nuggets for a couple girls who can't eat the meal today. #bestcampuscook

     Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5
31. The volume in the kitchen is louder than ever due to all the conversations by the girls. What is everyone talking about? #bestcampuscook
32. 
    

    Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    The girls just discovered the Italian wedding soup. 4 bowls were just poured. #bestcampuscook

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33.    

    Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    The smell of freshly cut tomatoes and onions are filling the kitchen. #bestcampuscook

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34.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    Chef Ryan, a U of M fan, lost a bet to the girls & he has to wear a green and white tutu all week. # 

    
    

    
    

    
    

    bestcampuscook pic.twitter.com/Kq4xdmAwvc

    
    

    
35.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    Chef Ryan just put out a fruit bar. Pineapple, cantaloupe, mangos, and oranges all freshly cut for the Theta girls. #bestcampuscook
36.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    
      
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Chicken gyros, homemade by Chef Ryan, look the best I've ever seen them. #bestcampuscook pic.twitter.com/AJP1dgD5nz

    
    

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
37.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    20 girls out of the 54 who live-in are attending lunch today. #bestcampuscook

    
    
38.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    It's almost lunch time at Kappa Alpha Theta with Chef Ryan! Chicken gyros are on the menu today. #bestcampuscook

Now, here are the blog posts previewing and recapping the event:

Lunch at Theta

Tuesday, November 5

Post

When it nears time for class, the ladies of Kappa Alpha Theta give their dishes to the bus boys who help clean up while Chef Ryan begins to prepare dinner. The bus boys are men from fraternities on campus who are expected to come by the sorority house at the end of each meal. Chef Ryan has only been with Theta for two years now and they've never been happier about hiring him from Campus Cooks. The girls always leave with their stomachs full and looking forward to dinner. It is rare when the girls have something bad to say about Chef Ryan's masterpieces. Today is was chicken gyros, wonder what it will be tomorrow?

Preview

Everyday at 11:30am, Kappa Alpha Theta's Chef Ryan has a full meal made and ready for the girls to eat. Each day it's a new meal, plus he will special make certain dishes for girls with allergies. Chef Ryan is a part of Campus Cooks here at Michigan State. Each Sorority and Fraternity have a Campus Cook Chef to cook for them 5 out of the 7 days a week. During lunch you can expect to see plenty of girls throughout all grades who live in the sorority come downstairs to the kitchen for a quick lunch before class. 

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Here's another example:

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2.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson finished the race with a great time, got first, and just won the game despite her interruption! �� #NikkiGameCubePro
3.    

   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson is on the edge of her seat on the futon, determined to take first place and win it all. #NikkiGameCubePro
4.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson moved on from the city ride to test her skills in the final race against her computer opponents. #NikkiGameCubePro
5.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Baker apologized and just left the room. Erickson has returned to concentrating on her goal of winning. #NikkiGameCubePro
6.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson is beyond frustrated that her chances of winning are in jeopardy now.  

   #NikkiGameCubePro pic.twitter.com/WJRRopg039

   
   
   

   
7.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson yells at her friend, Emily Baker, for her disturbance. #NikkiGameCubePro
8.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson's friend from down the hall entered her room and has severely interrupted her game. #NikkiGameCubePro

    Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5
9. Erickson just collected a ticking time bomb and had Kirby shoot it at a hopeless victim. #NikkiGameCubePro
10.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

    The game is getting intense. Erickson is extremely focused. #NikkiGameCubePro p

      

    ic.twitter.com/Nw0aayHiPp

    
    

    

    
    

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11.    

    Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

    Erickson is off to a good start, as usual, busting open boxes and collecting dozens of badges. #NikkiGameCubePro

     Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5
12. Erickson turned on her favorite game, Kirby Air Ride, and is beginning her quest through the city as Kirby. #NikkiGameCubePro
13.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

    Erickson kicked off her shoes, grabbed her GameCube remote and a blanket, and is now retrieving to the futon. #NikkiGameCubePro
14.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

    Nikki Erickson just returned to her dorm room for the first time since early this morning. She's eager to relax. #NikkiGameCubePro

Now, the blog posts:

Blog New Media #1 - Review 

Michigan State student Nikki Erickson quickly paired up with her GameCube controller when she came home from her class-filled day on Tuesday.

Erickson was going through her normal routine of dominating her favorite game, Kirby Air Ride, in an attempt to win it all as she had done many times in the past.
 
Just after busting open a crate with a bunch of badges inside to collect in the game, Erickson was interrupted when her friend down the hall, Emily Baker, entered her room unannounced.
 
Erickson's concentration had been blown and as a result, blew up at Baker. Baker left the room promptly after.
 
"I really didn't know she was so in the zone," Baker said. "I wouldn't have interrupted her if I knew."
 
Just when Erickson thought she had lost her chances, it was time for her final race that determined her fate.
 
After zooming past her computerized opponents as fast as lightning, receiving 3 speed boosts on the way, Erickson took first place and won the game.

Blog New Media #1 - Preview 

A student at Michigan State University plans to come home from a long day of classes on Tuesday and play her GameCube. Nikki Erickson has always enjoyed video games and playing Kirby Air Ride in her dorm room is something that helps her to unwind at the end of the day.
 
Erickson is extremely competitive and excels greatly at this game she plays so frequently. However, every time she sits down to begin to play, the excitement is just as great as before.
 
Erickson knows the game like the back of her hand, yet she strives to perform even better and accomplish more than she did in the game she played previous.
 
"I love playing my GameCube because it helps me forget my school work for a little while," said Erickson. "Instead of doing college algebra I get to zoom around on a Warpstar. Who wouldn't want to do that?"
 
Although that's an easily answered question, the one that's not is will Erickson successfully take on several races and mini games once again and win the game?