Classmate Review: Maddy Williams

While reading Maddy's blog about television, I was felt like I was getting the information, but not really understanding what she was saying. She gave the information, but not with details or examples. She says, "Television comes with many positive impacts but also some negative." This is a great lead, but she only goes on to list one negative impact. She fails to mention a positive effect of television such as the communal experience. She touches on the impact of Political ads, but she doesn't mention if it is positive or negative. I think that if she had given examples in her writing her blog would be one of the best I've seen among our class.


Maddy's TV Response

Classmate Review: Olivia Dawson

After reading Olivia Dawson's blog about radio I feel like anyone could understand the history of radio. Her first paragraph is strong, outlining all major parts of radio's history. However, her second paragraph is not entirely accurate. radio did not directly demassify because of TV. Radio demassified to movies, which then demassified to TV. While movies did most of the work, I am sure that TV did a good deal of damage to radio as well. Other than that minor misstep, Olivia's review was well thought out, organized, and easy to read.



Olivia's Radio Summary

Classmate Review: Skyler Markwell

One thing I have noticed about Skyler in Journalism1 class is that she always pays attention to the details. She can usually tell you exactly what someone said, even though they themselves might not even recall what they said.

Skyler's critique on the Courier Journal was very factually based; it does have way too many "fluff" stories, as I talked about in my critique of them. However, one part of her critique is not backed up by facts. She claims that they covered the Grimes vs. McConnell race very well, but how can this be if they had very few political stories? On October 28th, just 7 days before the election, the Courier Journal had only TWO stories about politics! 

Other than this slight mixup, Skyler's review was structured very well and had a lot of helpful information. Overall, this was a very good critique of the local newspaper, the Courier Journal.


Skyler's Critique

Classmate Review: Sylvia Goodman

I thought that Sylvia's media critique on WLKY was spot on. She clearly stated what the problem was, and presented examples of the problem, which was too many crime stories on WLKY. I love that she used a graph to give the reader a visual representation of what WLKY was doing wrong. Using a visual helps appeal to all types of people. Another thing that I like about Sylvia's critique is that she presents possible reasons as to why WLKY has so many crime stories. I like that because it helps the reader to better understand the topic she is writing about. A link to her critique is below.


Sylvia's Critique

Why is No-one Covering This?

My last two critiques were both about the local news paper, The Courier Journal. However, this critique is about five local news outlets: WAVE3, WHAS11, WLKY, WDRB, and The Courier Journal. On October 28th, 2014, there were zero stories about War on ANY of the five named publications. Now doesn't that seem odd considering that a new terror group has emerged? Whether you call the group The Islamic State, ISIS, or ISOL, they are still a threat to the American Society, as they have stated in many of their public protests and executions. So why is not a single one of these media outlets covering such a serious event like this? Even though it ISIS might now affect Louisville of southern Indiana, it may still affect the United States, and we need to know as much as we can about them in order to be prepared if anything were to happen. This violates the principal of Loyalty because they are not doing their duty to educate us on this important matter The local news outlets need to do a better job of covering the ongoing "war" between ISIS and the United States.


Links to the five websites-

WAVE3- http://www.wave3.com/
WHAS11- http://www.whas11.com/
WLKY- http://www.wlky.com/
WDRB- http://www.wdrb.com/
CJ- http://www.courier-journal.com/

It's Too Fluffy!

The Courier Journal is a local newspaper that has countless subscribers across the Louisville and Southern Indiana areas. The idea of a newspaper is to bring important happenings to the people of the subscribing area. However, this has not been the case for the Courier Journal. On October 28th there were thirty-seven stories on the newspaper's website. Thirteen of these stories (over one third of the stories on the website that day) were about celebrities or other things that were not important for people to know. This violates the yardstick of newsworthiness because these stories will not have a lasting affect on a large group of people. The Courier Journal needs to stop publishing so many "fluff" stories and perhaps focus on more important things, such as the upcoming election.


Here is a link to a "fluff" story on The Courier Journal- http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/indiana/2014/11/02/new-albanys-jr-stuart-slips-easily-character-mark-twain/18396293/

What about politics?

In Journalism-1 class I have been following the local newspaper, The Courier Journal. While I have been recording each type of story (business, disasters, etc.) I noticed that there have been a lack of political stories, which is odd considering that the election for the senate race in Kentucky is tomorrow, November 4th. On October 28th, just one week before the election, there were a measly 4 political stories in the actual paper, and only 2 stories in the online version of the Courier Journal. What this boils down to is that the Courier Journal is not keeping up with the principal of Watchdog. This means that they are failing to keep up with political figures, even 7 days before the election that could change the majority of congress from Democrats to Republicans, ultimately changing the course of our nation. The Courier Journal must make a serious effort to bring more political news to the people of Louisville.


Here is a link to one of the few political stories on the website for The Courier Journal-  http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/kentucky/2014/11/02/alison-grimes-pounds-street-western-kentucky-bid-upend-mitch-mcconnell/18389983/