JRN 200: That's All, Folks

Everything is in. Nothing left to do. I'll do the math on your base grades, and then I'll make any adjustments based on extra credit, and that's that. Your grades will be locked in, and soon you'll be finding out exactly what you got.

The only thing left for you to do (if you haven't done it already) is evaluate this class via the SARS online teacher evaluation site. The site is live until late August. Please take a few minutes to let us know how this online version of JRN 200 went, what we should keep doing, and what could be better.

Plus, there's only one thing for me to do, and that's to thank each of you for (kinda/sorta) spending a summer with me (online, at least). I enjoyed working with each and every one of you. I really did.

Everyone comes into JRN 200 at a different starting point. Some have some journalistic experience; others don't. A few people have a natural talent; others need that talent cultivated a bit before it becomes apparent.

No matter where and how you started, I got to see improvement. Growth. Little everyday victories. Some defeats, but also renewed efforts to overcome those losses.

No matter if you did great in this class or just eked by, remember this is just one step in a larger journey: one toward the day after graduation. Between now and then you'll build on the skills you learned here. You'll improve. You'll get more comfortable doing this. Things will seem more natural as you do them (like AP style).

If journalism was easy to learn, it would be a two-week certificate class at the local community college, and not a four-year major. This is just an early step in that longer trip to your careers and independent lives.

You're on your way. If there's anything I can do to help along the way, please don't hesistate to ask. (All because our class is done doesn't mean I'm not willing to help!)

Good luck to everyone in the coming semester, and one last time, thank you.

Job Shadows: What You Saw, Part 8

Here's a sampling of some of the various job shadows done by you all (this will be updated as job shadow reports are turned in, so please check back frequently). Take a look and see what you can learn from everyone's visits. There's a lot of good stuff here to help you decide what you want to do with your lives; what you need to be doing to get there; and what to expect when you do get there.

Please give each one of these a quick read as they come in, will you?

***** 

For my job shadow I spent half of a day with Dallas Morning News writer Mike Heika. Heika has the main role of covering the Dallas Stars NHL team for the news, along with covering some college football and other sports around Dallas-Fort Worth from time to time.

For the day we spent together, I went to the meet him at the final day of the Stars development camp, which he was covering. There I got a first hand look at what it is he looks for to cover, while he was taking notes. For example, one of his prepped stories was on the South Koreans that were invited to the camp, and one of them had a great performance in the scrimmage. And although that would have been a great story, the Stars previous year first-round draft pick stole the show, and would make for a better story that day in his opinion. What I learned here from Heika was that a story can not be forced.

Another example of how a story can come to you happened just the previous day when the Stars made a blockbuster deal for Chicago Blackhawks forward, Patrick Sharp. Heika said, “It was even out of the blue for me, I knew it was the biggest story by far, so I immediately got on the phone and got to work on it. (Stars GM) Nill did such a good job of hiding it, it was a whole new story for me.”

There while watching and taking notes he was able to provide a lot of useful information when it comes to how to be a successful journalist. Heika told me about three main keys starting with what he believed was the most important, which is preparation. Heika said, “It is important to know everything you can about your subject.” When talking about preparation he also went on to tell me about the story selection process and dealing with preparation. Heika noted he usually comes into game nights with anywhere from three to five stories prepared and then in crunch time following the game is able to quickly produce a story for the news.

I thought this was interesting because Heika said, “I will sometimes get quotes for stories in the morning, and then if something I prepped happens in the game, I will already have quotes to use in that story.” It seems strange to me to get quotes before you even know what the story is, but he explained how you reference in the story that the quote was from the morning.

The second key was to use the human angle in stories. He said, it is key to remember the people you are writing for and about are just people, and almost everyone wants a humanizing angle to relate to. With this he said you just want to find the most interesting or important thing for people to know.

Heika’s final key he offered was to practice as much as possible when it comes to writing. Suggesting that writing for the school newspaper or a writing club would be good places to look for practice. As for the sports aspect, Heika touched on how it is a good idea to quote stats from online, and to have practice finding ways to incorporate putting those into your paper.

Heika was able to provide advice on what he wished he knew in college that he now knows today. Heika said, “Sometimes a game is going to finish around 10 p.m. and you are going to need a story out by 10:15. The main thing here is not to panic because as a deadline reporter you don’t have time. Writing the story actually is not all that difficult since you have them already prepped from that morning, and sometimes will only need to grab a quick post game quote.”

Continually, Heika was able to express to me how important it is to be prepared and not to panic because you will not have a clear thought process when it comes to your writing, which he mentioned as an important aspect.

During the interview with Heika I was able to learn something about this classes main point, which is getting it right. By this I am referencing the answer Heika had when I asked about a draft pick of the Stars from this year. I continually saw posts about the Russian, with some using a y in his last name, and others replacing that with an i. Heika said, “In an instance like that, you go by what the league has officially listed, not the player, not the team, but the league.” I found this interesting, but when it comes to getting it right for the NHL, the league is the correct source.

Overall, I had a fantastic experience meeting a writer, in Mike Heika, that read very often. The advice he offered was actually very helpful, and I learned about a lot of aspects I had never really known about before, which I believe will be very beneficial to me in the future.

MM #3: What You Did

Okay, so here's the video/blog/tweet recap, posted in the order in which they were received. I ask that you please look at EACH multimedia package and read my comments for EACH MM package (not just your own!), so we can learn like we've learned from each other throughout this semester. If you're not looking at the work of others and the related comments, then you are not learning from this exercise.

Also, examine how the mediums complement each other: the preview does just that; the tweet stream allows you to follow what was previewed, as it actually happens; and the recap wraps it all up.

BTW, unless you received an email from me noting a specific grade, your grade for the Web posts, video and Twitter exercises was 4.0 on each.

One more thing: a number of people did not turn in this assignment at all. I need to warn you one last time that not turning in any assignment will do damage to your final grade. Not turning in many assignments will do much damage.

Here we go ... 


****

Courtney K.: online dating video and blog preview and recap and tweets #onlinedating

Lots of hyperlinks! You can never have too many. 

*****

Rachel B.: Common Core video and blog preview and recap and tweets # ccssatmsu

We're missing a lede tweet that would let people know what they're about to read about. With the video, we were missing attribution/identification for several sources and the B-roll was too repetitive.

*****

Hallie A.: Teen moms video and blog preview and recap and tweets #pregnantinschool

*****

Kenedi R.: crime video and blog preview and recap and tweets #lowerdetroitcrime

The video is entirely missing B-roll to show what is being talked about: B-roll like a cop car rolling down the street, and officers walking around a neighborhood and engaging citizens, and the outside of police headquarters, etc. We need to show what is being talked about in video, a format which demands visuals.

*****

Nadia L.: homelessness video and blog preview and recap and tweets #toneyhigh

The blog posts are nicely written but are entirely missing embedded hyperlinks, as shown in the other blog posts we've seen sofar. I very much like what the tweet stream did here: it took one component of the story and highlighted it, even including a short embedded video so we could see what was being tweeted about. The video sorely needed B-roll showing what the subject was talking about regarding his daily routines. Yes, that would have taken a lot of time but that's the point: we do the work for the viewer.

*****

Shannon K.: urban renewal video and blog preview and recap and tweets #dinneronthedock

*****

Kamen K.: boating safety video and blog preview and recap and tweets #alcoholboats

Very weak B-roll here: the video is about boating safety and the B-roll is of boats on car trailers and an empty lake. If it's a story about boating, then we need to show boating. If you lack B-roll of the main point of the story, then you don't really have any B-roll.

***** 

Natasha B.: road work video and blog preview and recap and tweets #sterlingbecomingnew

Two things with the video: first, I don't expect technical expertise but I do expect people to be presented right side up. One source was shown sideways. Second, the video would have flowed more smoothly if we had all the comments about the road work in one section, and then on general improvements in another. Third, for video we only need an attribution for a source's first appearance; after that on video, the source's face is the attribution cue.

*****

Aundreana J.-P.: mentoring youth video and blog preview and recap and tweets #mentoringyouth

Good use of both video B-roll and still photos as B-roll to show what is being talked about, as someone is talking about it. We see and hear simultaneously. That's what B-roll does best.



*****

Sakiya D.: college choice video and blog preview and recap and tweets #goodchoice

Blogging does not mean we are allowed to be more careless with fact-checking. There's no excuse for the one post when we say "chose," when in fact we meant to say "choose." Regardless of medium, we have to be just as diligent in fact-checking as we are for writing a traditional print story. Wrong is wrong in any medium, and equally damaging to your credibility.

With the video, the B-roll segments in-between interviews were way, waaaay too long. Transitions should only last a few seconds, at most. It's just boring dead time that doesn't say much in terms of the story. Plus, B-roll should be used DURING interview segments; we start with the talking head; while keeping the talking head's audio we show B-roll that shows what the person is talking about; and then we go back to the talking head shot. That breaks up that boring face shot with something useful: actions representative of what they are talking about, while they are talking about it.

*****

Rachel F.: campus living video and blog preview and recap and tweets #msuliving 

B-roll doesn't have to be video or even still pics. Here, we use charts that show the statistics behind what each speaker is talking about, as they talk.

*****

Meghan C.: live entertainment video and blog preview and recap and tweets #liveat8 

The blog posts are entirely missing embedded hyperlinks, like those included in most oft he previous blogs. It simply isn't online journalism unless you are providing hyperlinks to your sources that allow the reader to further explore your subject via hyperlinks without having to go anywhere else, like Google, to find out more.

With the video, I liked the back-and-forth nature of toggling between and back to sources, making the vid more conversational and like a discussion in tone. But we could have used more B-roll, and we need to remember that if we're shooting for a horizontal screen, we need to hold phones horizontally while shooting, and not vertically. 

*****

Kevyn C.: starting college video and blog preview and recap and tweets #schoolsinsession

The biggest video miss is the absence of B-roll: the student hanging out in her childhood room, or her looking at a college brochure or her college's Web site, or her interacting with her mom. In videos we need to be able to visually show the story, and not just show interviews. Plus, the best way to identify interview subjects are through captions that offer attribution.

OOC #3: A Good Example

Out-Of-Class #3

8-17-2015

Online Dating

If you’re an American over the age of 16, chances are you’ve heard of or maybe even visited one of many popular online-dating NO HYPHEN HERE sites like Match.com, eHarmony, OKCupid or Tinder.

            Dating habits have drastically changed in the 20 years since one of the first online dating sites, Match.com, launched to the public. An industry once plagued by bad stigma and skepticism has now grown in both popularity and acceptance in today’s society.

            Today, America’s booming online-dating NO HYPHEN HERE industry is estimated at about $2.2 billion and is expected to grown by another $100 million every year through 2019, according to a Pew Research study.

            Some dating sites and apps, like eHarmony and Match.com, use algorithms to match potential dates together based on the answers to long questionnaires regarding a users likes and dislikes. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? ATTRIBUTE!

            Other dating apps, like Tinder, match people together based on things like pictures and location, allowing users to simply accept or deny potential dates with the swipe of a finger. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? ATTRIBUTE!

Dan Ariely, a Professor of Psychology TITLES ARE LOWER CASE WHEN FOLLOWING THE NAME OF THE TITLE HOLDEFR, PER AP STYLE at Duke University, has done extensive research on the topic of online-dating and is hopeful that it will one day evolve into a platform that can actually help people come together.

“I think that the most successful approach would be the eHarmony approach,” said Ariely. “The one that is the least likely to help people is probably something like Tinder, which is relying on a very superficial initial starting point.”

            Jeannette Pesamoska, a 30-year-old professional, enjoyed the simplicity of the Tinder and even met her current boyfriend on the site. “I liked Tinder because it takes significantly less effort and provides instant gratification with matches and the ability to chat in a text message format,” said Pesamoska.

While apps like Tinder are geared toward a younger crowd, sites like OurTime.com and eHarmony have focused their attention on older generations.

According to a Pew Research survey, 45- to 54-year-old Americans are just as likely to date online as 18- to 24-year-olds.

While online-dating NO HYPHEN WITH ONLINE DATING can be very rewarding, it can also have its drawbacks.

Lonnie Ross, a 58-year-old communications professional, spent years going on awkward and unfulfilling dates with men she met online, before meeting her current boyfriend Steve. FIRST AND LAST NAMES NEEDED ON FIRST ATTRIBUTION, PER AP STYLE

“There are a lot of pros and cons to online dating,” said Ross. “You get exposure to a wide variety of people, but often, the people aren’t what they seem in their profiles, so it takes a lot of fishing to find the right person for you and you have to have a lot of perseverance.”

Laruen LaBeau, a 30-year-old online-dater, ONLINE DATER HAS NO HYPHEN agrees.

“There are a lot of weird people out there,” said LaBeau. “Some are inappropriate…some are emotionally unstable. I’ve experiences a few of these firsthand.”

Ashley Hempel has had similar experiences, but insists that online-dating helped her meet the love of her life. “Some people are very deceiving in their information and I don’t like how many creepers there are online,” she said.

“But, I met my fiancé online, and we are engaged now, and it’s honestly been one of the best things I’ve ever done,” said Hempel.

Although dating apps are becoming increasingly popular, many people seem to agree that they would still prefer to meet someone the old fashioned way.

 “I would honestly prefer regular dating as opposed to online-dating,” NO HYPHEN HERE said Pesamoska. “I feel like regular dating has more potential to work in the long term because you’re usually brought together by some mutual interest or mutual friends. In todays society, it is jus not nearly as feasible for people to get together in a natural way.”

While the topic of online-dating NO HYPHEN HERE was once coupled with feelings of embarrassment and shame, people in today’s society are beginning to see it as one of the few ways to meet others with similar personalities and interests.

 “I’m really not ashamed or embarrassed to tell people that I’ve met guys online, because everyone’s doing it now,” said Ross. Everyone’s doing it now, so while I think there once was a stigma with Internet dating, I really don’t think there is anymore.”

            While online-dating has seemingly become the new norm, there is no clear way to tell how its presence will affect the future of dating.

WORD COUNT: 710

SOURCE SHEET

Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology at Duke University, dan@danariely.com

Lauren LeBeau, Current Online-Dater, 734-751-0533, Tavihorse@yahoo.com

Lonnie Ross, Former Online-Dater, 248-568-6139, lonnie1424@gmail.com

Ashely Hempel, Former Online-Dater, hempel.ashley@yahoo.com

Jeanette Pesamoska, Former Online-Dater, 313-590-2269, jpesamoska@gmail.com

ASSIGNMENT GRADE:(GRADE REDACTED)

INSTRUCTOR COMMENTS: OTHER THAN SOME AP STYLE MISSTEPS, VERY NICE WORK HERE! YOU ARE PEAKING AT THE RIGHT TIME.