A Response to Jordan Gould's Post on Local TV News

Jordan posted a story called, "News Evaluation: By the Numbers" a couple days ago. This was one of the better posts I've read so far because it really breaks down TV news and gives his opinions about the best and worst news stations. It was really interesting to me that he considered WAVE to be the worst news station because most of what I've heard people saying is that WLKY is the worst. I suppose it's really a decision as to which is the worse of two evils. WAVE is "full of fluff and stuff," as Jordan says in his post, whereas WLKY has over half of their stories about irrelevant crime. Jordan also does a good job at putting facts an data into his writing. If you haven't already read his post I suggest checking it out here.

A Response to Jamie D'Amato's Post on David Camm

Jamie wrote a post called,"News Source Review - Camm Trial Verdict". I thought it made a good point that I had also been thinking about. In her post she writes about how all of the local TV news stations, specifically WHAS, had spent to much time on David Camm in the evening news on October 24th.Of course that was the day Camm was given a not guilty verdict. Jamie notes that WHAS spent 9 minutes on the David Camm story when there was more relevant news. She states,"The Courier Journal's archive shows clearly that the two stories featured were not the only newsworthy of the day." Another thing she did was bring up the principles and yardsticks and tell how they were violated. I think Jamie wrote her post very well and brought up a valid point most hadn't thought to write about. If you haven't already read it I definitely suggest checking it out here.

A Response to Will Lake's Post on WDRB

I genuinely enjoyed reading Will's post entitled,"WDRB - An example of decent local news".  It was written professionally and had well thought out opinions. I found it interesting that the only thing he used to determine it was the best station was it's amount of crime stories, or lack thereof. While I believe crime stories are one of the main things that go into making or breaking a local news source, I don't consider it to be the only thing. My main critic for WDRB would be that it has so many stories that it probably doesn't go as in depth as most of the other stations. I completely agree that WDRB is better than WLKY, the station I watched, I'm not for sure that it is the best. Regardless, Will's post was well done and I was happy to read an opinion opposing my own. 

Response to Olivia Loy's Post on WDRB

Recently, Olivia  wrote a post entitled, " Detail Makes the Story," about the lack of depth in WDRB's newscast. Olivia stated, "I think WDRB needs to have less stories and longer stories with more detail." I completely agree that WDRB has more stories then the other local news stations and that it could potentially be limiting the amount of information the viewer receives. While I agree with Olivia, I actually wish she had gone a bit more in depth with her post. I feel she could have made her point stronger with a quote from the example she made about when WDRB had failed to give adequate information regarding a story. I also would have enjoyed having a link to the story she was talking about so I could see if I felt the same way.I think some of Olivia's posts before now have been better that this one but that it's an alright post that could probably just use more details. She did have an overall good topic and a strong opinion. 

A Response to Desha Horton's Post on Jeopardy

I agree entirely with what Desha said about Jeopardy being an effective way of studying. I love how honest she was and she was right for the most part. Jeopardy is a competitive game that the classes seem to really enjoy. You're right in saying that most of what we go over is in the test. However I'm not sure if people really pay attention to that. The jeopardy game could be a great study guide but I don't see many people take notes about what's covered so I'm not sure how great of a study tool it is. I suppose it really is an opportunity where some people make the best of it and others do not. All the same it's lots of fun and gets everyone pumped for the upcoming test. If I had any critic for the post it would be that there were a few grammatical errors, specifically spelling errors and capitalization. To see Desha's post on Jeopardy, click here.

A Response to Sarah Schmidt's Post

Sarah recently posted an entry entitled "WHAS 11 Media Critique"
 about the lack of newsworthiness in WHAS's evening news. In it she talked about how much time was devoted the the news stories in comparison to the break, sports segment and weather segment. 

This particular post caught my eye because I recently posted an entry about the lack of newsworthiness in the crime stories WLKY covers. In Sarah's post she also talks about the amount of crime stories in WHAS's evening news and how that in particular isn't newsworthy. Sarah states, "Most of the stories WHAS covered was crime...there was 41 crime (stories)."

Another thing she did well was that she was very data oriented. Her facts were relevant and to the point. Sarah did a good job at having numbers to back up her opinions.

If I had one critic, it would be that there were some obvious grammar mistakes that need to be addressed. While her message was good and interesting, it was sometimes hard to figure out what she was trying to say due to some off the grammatical mistakes.

Overall, it was a post I enjoyed reading and I would definitely suggest checking out her blog at the link in the first paragraph.  

Radio

I found the lecture on radio to be very informative. I had little information about radio going into the lecture. All I had ever really known about radio was that it had a ton of station and got really fuzzy on car trips when we went through the mountains. My only complaint is that it was a shortened class that day and I wish we had had a bit more time to go over it.

The thing that seemed to be most important about radio was the fact that it was live. This really set the basis for television. The fact that it was live allowed for news to be delivered to the public in a more timely fashion. This intrigued me because before, most of my exposure to radio had been to bad music stations that were all prerecorded. I had never really thought of it as being live, but it was obviously different then.

The other thing that really struck me about radio was how big of a deal radio DJ's were. The fact that they were like celebrities was such an odd concept to me because the current DJ's are far from it. Radio DJ's had the ability to make of break people's music and have an immense influence over music and culture.

All in all, This was a good lecture that I feel could have been given a bit more time in class. I learned it had the first live news and  influential DJ's.

Response to Morgan Johnson's Blog Post

Morgan recently posted a critic of The Courier Journal's coverage of the government shutdown. The post was very well written and insightful. Her opinions were well thought out and thorough. The only problem I found was that she failed to cite her sources for the articles quoted from in her post. I would have enjoyed being able to read the same articles to see if I drew the same conclusions she did or if I saw something different. When I looked further I found that I couldn't find and sources on any of her blog posts. While I'm sure this is a requirement she wasn't aware of it's definitely something to improve upon for future reference. All in all, her post was well done and there was very little I could find to critic. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

WLKY- A Crime Disaster

After spending a month watching WLKY's evening news, I've gotten a good feel of what it's like. On any given night about half of the stories will be crime filled and those stories will take up more time than anything else. Surprisingly, the data my group collected found that the crime stories take nearly as long as the weather and sports combined! Not only are the crime stories getting more air time then necessary, but they are also lacking newsworthiness. 

One example of a crime story lacking newsworthiness was an article entitled, "Camm Evidence Shown to Media". In this article, the reporter had a field day over the latest details discovered in the David Camm trial. The problem regarding this story is that it isn't newsworthy.  This is because it doesn't effect the the general public. This one case that so many obsess over is only truly effecting David Camm, his family and friends, the family and friends of the deceased, and the people involved in the trial. For the story to be newsworthy it needs to effect a large amount of people for a time to come. 

While this is just one example of a horrendous crime story published by WLKY, there are many more, most just as bad as the one above. Because of the sheer quantity of crime stories WLKY publishes, I consider it to be among the worst local news stations in Louisville. 

WLKY has an entire section of their website devoted to David Camm that can be found here.

Response to Olivia Loy's Blog

I found Olivia's post about recordings to be rather enlightening. As I've said in a previous post, I didn't find that particular lecture to be super interesting. Normally his lectures are way better than that of other teachers, but with this one I felt it was only on the same level as other teachers. It was interesting to see how Olivia felt about the lecture compared to the way I felt about it. She seemed to really enjoy the lecture and gave very good detail about it. So if you read my negative post and decided you want to read a more positive one, I definitely suggest checking out her blog at the link below.

http://olivialoy.blogspot.com/

Media Critique of WAVE3 Education Article

On September 20th Wave3 News posted an article to it's website about bus issues on the first day of school for JCPS. It was written by Cedra Mayfield. It was well written and comprehensible but there were a few things missing. Those things included newsworthiness, and truthfulness.

This article was not newsworthy because there was no problem. The article was literally reporting that there was no issue. The headline of the story was "JCPS: No major bus issues during first day." There was no purpose to the story because it was not delivering anything important. The most newsworthy part was where it quoted Hawthorne Elementary principle saying, " As our kids were getting off the bus, we put tags on them so we knew exactly how they were getting home." This would be a newsworthy fact if it was relevant but unfortunately, different schools have had similar procedures in place for years. In fact, on JCPS's 2009 online newsletter it explicitly states,"JCPS elementary students will receive a bracelet to be worn during the first week of school." Hawthorne Elementary having a new policy doesn't affect anyone outside the school. The only other important information given is JCPS contact information, which is already available on the JCPS homepage.

The article was lacking truthfulness and inclusiveness as well. It did this not by lying but by leaving out different sides of the story. In the article, the only people quoted were Ben Jackey( JCPS spokesperson), and Jessica Rosenthal ( Hawthorne Elementary Principle). This is leaving out the opinion of the parents and students, two groups directly affected by JCPS information. The journalist would have done better to get a wider variety of people and views before publishing the article. 

What Cedra Mayfield did do well was verifying information. It was very objective and she did not give her own opinion. There was also a forum section on their website, which is very important because it gives people the a place to make their opinions known and have a public discussion. 

Overall, there was no real story to begin with, and she would've done better to leave this particular story unwritten. It was written well but the story was missing purpose.

Critiqued Article: http://www.wave3.com/story/23197025/jcps-no-major-bus-issues-during-first-day
2009 JCPS Newsletter: http://www.jefferson.k12.ky.us/pubs/parentconnection/Archive/July%2009/Features.shtml

Response to Alyssa Durbin's Blog

I really enjoyed reading Alyssa's post about conglomeration. She gave the positives and negatives of conglomeration while still clearly stating her own opinion. It helped remind me of some of the good things that can come from conglomeration because I hadn't really committed those things to memory. It also helped explain how monopolies and conglomeration are related, which I was a little fuzzy on. Alyssa's post was incredibly accurate and clear. If anyone needs help remembering the important parts of that lecture I would definitely encourage checking Alyssa's blog at the link below.

http://fhblove.blogspot.com/

Recordings

For whatever reason I didn't find the lecture on recordings to be nearly as interesting as some of the past ones. It was probably due to the fact that we had shortened classes that day but I found it harder to concentrate and I was loosing focus. Despite the fact I found it a bit dull, there was still some interesting information. One such tidbit was how before recorded information bards would put news into songs and travel between towns to deliver the news. Learning how music has changed from a social interaction to something done individually was also an interesting thing I learned. To some degree I wish it was more of a social interaction but at the same time I don't think I could ever stand to listen to what everyone else listens to. If we had had a regular class length and had been able to go more in depth I would have probably enjoyed it more.

Conglomeration

After the lesson about conglomeration I was very interested to learn more. When I went home that day, I went over all of my journalism notes with my dad. He seems to want to take the class as much as I do, and he always insists on going over lectures with me. Of course, being my dad, he had to have input on the subject and later on told me he had contacted Mr.Miller saying he had a poster about conglomeration that I would be more than happy to bring in the next class. This came as a touch of a shock. But I did bring in the poster. When I got a chance to look at it I saw on a bigger scale what conglomeration looks like and just how much some corporations own.  It was very fascinating and I enjoyed learning more about conglomeration and monopoly. What did you all think about conglomeration?

The Printing Press

The lecture on the printing press was incredibly interesting to me. I've always loved reading and I've often wondered about what life would be like without books but I never considered what role the printing press would play. The fact that the printing press influenced things like education and maps never occurred to me. The spread of maps allowed for easier travel. The printing press influenced the course of history exponentially and I had never really considered that.  When Mr.Miller had us picture how our lives would be different it really made me think. The fact that most of us would probably be living in Europe with full time jobs shocked me. I am beyond relieved that the printing press was invented because I don't think I could survive in a world like that, especially considering what a huge role books play in my life. This lecture was definitely one of the more interesting ones for me!

Magazines!

I've never spent much time reading magazines because they never interested me. However, after the lecture on magazines I've come to realize how truly important magazines are to the history of journalism. Magazines were great innovators and started many important things in journalism. These things include investigative reporting, photojournalism, and personality profiles. In addition, magazines were the first mass media. If asked beforehand I would have assumed it was newspapers, so to find this out was rather shocking. I had no idea that newspapers operated on such a local  level beforehand. After I had learned so many fun facts about magazines it was a bit of a letdown to learn about how it demassified. Magazines demassified advertisers moved their ads to TV in an attempt to save money. Before, most magazines had made money almost entirely off of advertisements. This caused the magazines to almost go out of business due to a lack of profit.