The first and most obvious thing I need to do to succeed this semester is finish my P.R. story. As things work out, the best time for me and my client to work together is on Friday, and I have lost the past two Friday’s as work days, and am very far behind on this assignment. The most important thing for me to do is get information from my client, and work with them to develop a useful positioning statement and target audience. I think that if I can make quick, strong developments in these areas, I feel that completing the assignment on time and in a somewhat effective manner will be only a matter of finding time to work on it before Monday night.
In a broader sense, I am not sure I have improved as a writer this semester. It is possible that I have, and simply cannot see it because of the nature of the improvement, but it seems to me that my writing is at more-or-less the same place it started. The drop in grade from my first to second assignment, I believe, can be attributed to a change from print to broadcast style (with which I am very uncomfortable) and my finishing the assignment at three o’clock the night before the assignment was due.
As before, it seems like I need to continue to work on AP style, but I also understand that I will always need to work on AP style, and expecting to complete my understanding in one semester is too great of an expectation. During the final weeks of the semester, I would like to continue to improve my grasp of AP style, as well as improve my writing. In ways that I am not sure I understand, my writing is simply not as good as writing I have seen in news publications, and would like to put my finger on that difference, at the very least.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
broadcast lede
Anchor: Fencing is often seen as a sport for the wealthy. While that may have been true a few hundred years ago, some UNR students are showing that is no longer the case. Reporter C.W. Wilkinson is life from UNR with the story.
Anchor: In Beijing, the U.S. woman’s individual saberists won all three metals. The same sport is being practiced by some students at UNR, where reporter C.W. Wilkinson has the story.
Anchor: In Beijing, the U.S. woman’s individual saberists won all three metals. The same sport is being practiced by some students at UNR, where reporter C.W. Wilkinson has the story.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Visual ideas
Heineken – Standard writer’s table, strewn papers, etc…a frosty Heineken sits in the middle with writers around working hard at writing it into the story.
Casablanca over-dub with congress quote.
Integrating products organically: reporter in produce section. Run visual with audio from article would work almost anywhereUse actual examples of product placement in broadcast. For instance, news anchor could be sarcastically decked out in products. When talking about scrolling bars, etc, the screen could begin filling up with clutter forcing the anchor to the top corner.Little girl text messaging (music @ end of show, etc.)
Casablanca over-dub with congress quote.
Integrating products organically: reporter in produce section. Run visual with audio from article would work almost anywhereUse actual examples of product placement in broadcast. For instance, news anchor could be sarcastically decked out in products. When talking about scrolling bars, etc, the screen could begin filling up with clutter forcing the anchor to the top corner.Little girl text messaging (music @ end of show, etc.)
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
online story outline
1) What is gerrymandering? How does it happen? What’s it look like?
Fairly drawn legislative districts are often in the eye of the beholder. Unfair drawing, called gerrymandering, can be easy to recognize but difficult to define, and is almost always subjective.
The courts say districts are drawn fairly when they are contiguous and as compact as population density will allow.
2) What is the effect of gerrymandering? Who does it affect? How do we stop it?
Gerrymandered districts often lead to more extreme politics and politicians, Herzik said.
When more extreme politicians, elected from districts which are almost entirely loyal to one party or the other, they are less likely to compromise when they get to the legislature.
Herzik said the best way to ensure fairness would be to take district redrawing out of the hands of the legislators, and give control of the lines to a non-partisan commission.
3) What other corruption is going on?
Republican Assemblyman Bob Beers says that gerrymandering is just the tip of Nevada’s iceberg of corruption.
According to Beers, many of the state legislators are on the take. Bribes and gratuities are made more attractive by the low pay legislators receive.
For a two year session legislators receive only $7500 and, according to Beers, are expected to work as full time legislators.
This presents a cash flow problem that many legislators have sought to fill by taking outside moneys.
Fairly drawn legislative districts are often in the eye of the beholder. Unfair drawing, called gerrymandering, can be easy to recognize but difficult to define, and is almost always subjective.
The courts say districts are drawn fairly when they are contiguous and as compact as population density will allow.
2) What is the effect of gerrymandering? Who does it affect? How do we stop it?
Gerrymandered districts often lead to more extreme politics and politicians, Herzik said.
When more extreme politicians, elected from districts which are almost entirely loyal to one party or the other, they are less likely to compromise when they get to the legislature.
Herzik said the best way to ensure fairness would be to take district redrawing out of the hands of the legislators, and give control of the lines to a non-partisan commission.
3) What other corruption is going on?
Republican Assemblyman Bob Beers says that gerrymandering is just the tip of Nevada’s iceberg of corruption.
According to Beers, many of the state legislators are on the take. Bribes and gratuities are made more attractive by the low pay legislators receive.
For a two year session legislators receive only $7500 and, according to Beers, are expected to work as full time legislators.
This presents a cash flow problem that many legislators have sought to fill by taking outside moneys.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
ledes
1.Looking out over the men and horses arrayed against him, Lt. Cornel George Custer’s blood ran cold. Uneasily, he lead his men into battle, knowing defete was eminent.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Self Assessment
It is difficult to give myself an accurate assessment of my writing abilities, because of the contradiction in the previous two assessments I received. The managing editor at The Sacramento Union, Ryan Rose, had nothing to say but positive things about my writing. If I were to accept his opinion, I struggled with article organization and flow at first, but since then I have solved those problems, and now suffer from a lack of experience more than anything else. It is worth noting that the Union is a small, weekly tabloid that is distributed for free. When the summer internships ended early last month, the paper lost around 2/3rds of its reporting staff, and its possible that the only reason Rose has so many complementary things to say about my writing was an attempt to keep me at the paper.
On the other hand, Kelly Hayden, my Journalism 201 instructor, said that my work lacked something. During our end of the year conference, Hayden said he thought I was capable of better work than he had seen from me, but that because the work I was doing for his class wasn’t going into print anywhere, I had not put my best foot forward. If Hayden was correct in his assessment, which I believe he was, I run the same risk this semester—not putting my fullest effort into the stories I write for this class, and not writing the best stories that I can.
Despite the assessments of Hayden and Rose, I feel that the place I am weakest as a journalist is in AP style. I find it difficult and time consuming to reference the guide while I write my stories, and often I do not have time to check problematic words or phrases in the Guide. While much of AP style is self explanatory, I still often forget the proper spelling for words such as “percent”, or the proper way to include numbers in a story, or other basic elements of AP style.
As far as the rest of the semester goes, I would like to perform well in the print portion of the class, and experiment in the areas of broadcast and advertising. I will try to approach them with an open mind, however, I am very fond of print writing, and feel that the rest of the class will be a boring struggle.
On the other hand, Kelly Hayden, my Journalism 201 instructor, said that my work lacked something. During our end of the year conference, Hayden said he thought I was capable of better work than he had seen from me, but that because the work I was doing for his class wasn’t going into print anywhere, I had not put my best foot forward. If Hayden was correct in his assessment, which I believe he was, I run the same risk this semester—not putting my fullest effort into the stories I write for this class, and not writing the best stories that I can.
Despite the assessments of Hayden and Rose, I feel that the place I am weakest as a journalist is in AP style. I find it difficult and time consuming to reference the guide while I write my stories, and often I do not have time to check problematic words or phrases in the Guide. While much of AP style is self explanatory, I still often forget the proper spelling for words such as “percent”, or the proper way to include numbers in a story, or other basic elements of AP style.
As far as the rest of the semester goes, I would like to perform well in the print portion of the class, and experiment in the areas of broadcast and advertising. I will try to approach them with an open mind, however, I am very fond of print writing, and feel that the rest of the class will be a boring struggle.
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