Classmate Reaction

I recently read Olivia Dawson's news media critique, and from the opening paragraph I couldn't look away from the screen. Her opening paragraph was very intriguing, which is an essential for good writing. Olivia followed up the strong lead-in paragraph with a lot of description as to why it failed to meet the yardstick of newsworthiness. Also, she finishes with a shut-down idea in which she states that the story is unimportant due to the lack of lawful repercussions. Overall her critique was very well written and she obviously put a lot of thought into each sentence. Great job Olivia!

Reaction the Skyler's blog

I read through Skyler Markwell's blog about the class magazine lecture and let me say, I was impressed. Skyler went in depth on her thoughts of the lecture. While reading it I could picture her saying it. I felt like she did not hold anything back when stating her opinion. Overall I felt like this was good blog with a lot of quality. Good job Skyler!

Link to Skyler's blog- http://markwell0819.blogspot.com/

Binary Models Lecture

Binary models were the topic of a recent lecture in Journalism 1 class. There are many different kinds of binary modes such as: Content- Distribution; Elitist-Populist; et al. This lecture was very interesting because I had never thought about the what a news outlet's focus was. An elitist outlet does not worry about the outcome of their publishing, they just want to convey their message. A populist outlet is only concerned about getting the most views, making the most profit, or as it says in the name, being popular. Another model is the Hot-Cool model. I thought this was interesting because hot medias (such as a book or any type of print) require your full attention and cool medias (such as music or T.V.) don't require as much attention.

Newspaper History Lecture

A few classes ago we talked about the history of newspaper; the first newspaper, the first US newspaper, and so on and so forth. Previously I had pondered why newspapers were still around given all the technology that humans have at our fingertips such as cell phones and tablets, all of which can get news apps or websites. The answer to this question was given to me during the lecture: The older generations are who keep print newspapers alive. Older people grew up getting the newspaper and they just stuck with it either because they like reading it or they have always done it so they keep doing it. Now I wonder what will happen when my generation becomes the older generation? Will newspapers completely vanish into the shadow of news apps? We'll just have to wait and see.

9 Principles and 7 Yardsticks

The first lecture that Mr. Miller gave us was about the nine principles and seven yardsticks of journalism. These 16 things are what a journalist should do and the guidelines they should abide by. I thought that this lecture was very important because knowing these things will help me and my fellow classmates during our four years at Manual and for the rest of our years after high school, wether we are journalists ourselves or just critiquing the news. Specifically I found the the yardstick "Newsworthiness" the most interesting because in today's world it seems that a lot of "breaking news" isn't really news at all.

New Device... Same release. (A Media Critique)

The Courier Journal recently published an article about the new phones by Apple; the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. More specifically the article talks about how people will have to wait in long lines for hours on end if they want to get their hands on one of the phones on release day. This article fails to stick to the concepts of Newsworthiness and Local Relevance.

         Newsworthiness means that it is new, or important news, and this story is neither. Whenever a new device, especially and Apple device, is announced there are always long lines to get it. Since it has been happening since the release of the iPhone 3 in 2008, it is not news. If the Courier Journal had known that a certain store would have a significant amount of iPhones and then published a story about that, then that would have been newsworthy.

         Local relevance is also an important factor when it comes to a local media outlet such as the Courier Journal because it's stories should mainly be about news affecting the Louisville area. This article does not once mention anything about the Apple store at the Oxmoor Mall, which is sure to have the most new devices. It mentions a few stores such as Target and Wal-Mart but those could be any Target or Wal-Mart around the country or world. If the article contained information about how much stock the Apple Store at Oxmoor Mall would have, then the story would have some local relevance.




The link to the article is- http://www.courier-journal.com/story/tech/2014/09/16/iphone-long-lines/15721253/

Mass Communication Lecture

The lecture from a couple of weeks ago about the different types of communication (Mass,  group, and individual) was very interesting to me. I had never thought about the different ways an idea can be mass communicated. The process for mass communication goes like this: Stimulus (thinking of the idea), encoding (putting it into writing or typing),  Transmission (publishing the idea or releasing it to the public), Decoding (when the reader reads or listens to the information), and Internalizing (when the reader processes what they have read). I think this lecture will help me and the rest of the J&C students throughout our manual careers and life.