fandomhigh | Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 3

Entry tags:

journalism

Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 3

"Anybody who isn't sitting before the bell rings gets a detention!" Jonah yelled ten seconds before the bell rang. "Just kidding. I enjoy messing with your adolescent minds. Still, you never know when I might give any of you a detention, so stay prepared for it at all times."

"Today we're going to be talking about news briefs. According to the dictionary, a news brief is 'a summary of a news story; also a short news story.' Or, if we're talking about television or radio journalism - which is a medium that isn't nearly as terrible anymore as it had been because you people voted for me, good job - 'a broadcasting blurb.' We're going to focus on the 'short news story' definition. You take a story that's noteworthy but that you can't find interesting enough to write a few paragraphs about, you boil it down to its bare necessities, and you spit out whatever the result is. They should only be a paragraph long, somewhere around a hundred to a hundred and fifty words, give or take. And don't waste a great headline on these. Briefs are usually hidden a few pages into the paper and the headlines are in a much smaller font than your normal headlines. In other words, nobody will ever care what your headline is and will only read the brief if they're the kind of person who would normally read news briefs anyway."

"So, let's do a quick example of a good news brief. I'll take something I don't care enough about to write a lot on. Teenage fashion, for example. I couldn't give a crap about that if I tried and I can guarantee that I will never try so long as I live. Quick headline: Teen Fashion: Still Sucks After Many Decades."

"Now you have to find a way to write a paragraph about this crap. And, yes, you have to do it. A huge part of being a journalist is reporting on crap that you're not at all interested in but that still needs to be reported on. News isn't necessarily what you care about. News is what happened, sometimes with a bit of a spin. But now's not the time for spin. Now's the time for just what happened. And in this case, what happened is that young people have dressed like drunkards in a fabric store for the fifth straight decade."

"So, here's my brief on teenage fashion. AHEM."

FANDOM - Continuing a decades-long tradition of being walking aesthetic disasters, teenagers today continue to obsess over fashions they will be embarrassed about within the next ten years. Just like the hippies and disco kids of the seventies, the giant-permed weirdoes of the eighties, and the grunge and goth kids of the nineties, the children of the naughts will be ashamed to show their future children pictures of their high school days because they won't be able to figure out what possessed them to wear whatever it was they were wearing. "I can't believe I thought I ever looked good with that haircut," any number of students will be quoted as saying by this time next decade.

"That's one hundred and fifteen words. Great length for this kind of thing. But you're amateurs, so I can't expect you to write that much. So your assignment for today is to write an exactly one hundred and five word news brief about a subject that you don't care too much about while still trying to sound like you're at least slightly interested in it. Suggested topics: what celebrities are doing, what other teachers are teaching, the fact that our roads aren't big enough to drive on, animal migration, or anything else you only care enough to write one hundred and five words about. Get to work!"

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

With an apathetic icon.

Possibly note that JJJ didn't mention sales at all this week. Because nobody will ever buy a newspaper for the news briefs and it's not even worth mentioning.

Pick a topic, write a brief, read it to the class, have Jonah tell you that it's crap.

Craaaaaaaaaap.

When she makes with the pinging.

This would have been up last night, but it turns out that I apparently needed sleep more than I needed to finish writing class.

Annja Creed

Claire Fisher

This actually kind of made sense to Claire. She didn't really need to take notes, but she was listening.

Edited 2009-01-22 13:59 (UTC)

Blair Waldorf

It's still snowing out. It has been since Tuesday. It may never stop. There is also no heat, and it is so cold in the dorms that my shampoo was frozen solid inside the bottle this morning. So, if students' hair looks greasy, that's why, not that anybody wants a shower when it's so cold you can see your breath. I think someone's going to get hypothermia that way. There are five zillion people who can do magic here. How come none of them fix this? I swear I'm going back to Los Angeles if it doesn't warm up soon.

Claire may have misunderstood the difference between "writing a news brief" and "bitching about whatever comes to mind."

Anemone

Buffy Summers

And like her previous class, Buffy became less focused on her injuries and more on what the teacher was saying. What was wrong with fashion?

Amber Atkins

Amber had no idea what was wrong with teenage fashion. But she listened and took notes, just 'cause.

Lois Lane

Amber chose a topic, her own, and wrote it down. Then she stood and read it out loud to the class.

"Snuggies might be odd. Snuggies might simply be just a blanket with hand holes. Snuggies might be frowned upon for their stupid, seemingly unreasonable waste of a good blanket. But without Snuggies, there are some teenagers who have nearly frozen to death in this, what some might consider detrimentally cold weather. With a Snuggie, one can answer the phone, eat, and put their make-up on, play Monopoly or any other board game for that matter, even charades! And go to the bathroom all while keeping toasty warm. So the designer wasn’t entirely detailed in the making of it. The Snuggie was made for functionality not looks!"

She was finished, but paused briefly before she added, "And they are on sale at Turtle and Canary! Get yours now!"

Cal Stephanides

Sam Witwicky

Fandom Island residents appear to have missed the memo that they live on an island, cut off from the outside world, and are vulnerable to natural disasters like hurricanes and, apparently, blizzards. Therefore, when temperatures became miserably cold this week and the power went out, residents found themselves without heat or power due to a tragic lack of foresight and no emergency generators. Generators are sold at Home Depot and other fine mainland retailers. Fandom students cannot concentrate in class, and we are all going to die of cold, in a tragedy that could have easily been averted. Will no one think of the generators?

Cal was never going to take notes in this class ever. The lectures were too entertaining to spoil with actually paying attention.

That, and it seemed the sort of stuff that anyone with half a brain would be able to know.

Teddy Altman

Robin

Rikku

Rikku made with the pinging! And with the bringing her ~~boss~~ teacher some coffee, like a good ~~minion~~ TA.

"I hate snow," she grumbled. "It's too freaking cold, here. Winter is just wrong."

Toby

Warren Peace

"It could be worse, thanks," Jonah said, taking the coffee. "I spent a winter in Buffalo once. This has nothing on that."

"That's not a news brief, that's whining," Jonah said. "Also, you're five words short."

"That's not a news brief, that's ad copy," Jonah said. "And you're thirteen words over."

"Good start, you hit your word count exactly, but it devolves into whining at the end," Jonah said. "Still a better job than your classmates, though. Mostly decent job, Witwicky."

Claire eyed him from beneath a curtain of hair. "Then add, 'My - toes - are - freezing - off'," she tried, counting each word on a finger.

"It could be an ad copy of... news worthy intent, considering the state of our weather right now," she argued.

"Good job, you've reached the word target. It's still not a news brief. It's whining plus five more words of whining," Jonah said.

"Nope!" Jonah said. "It's blatant advertising trying poorly to pass itself off as news. It starts off trying to convince people to buy a product and ends with telling people where to buy the product, even mentioning a sale. Whoever would have paid you off to write that wouldn't have even gotten their money's worth because it's so obviously lacking journalistic integrity."

"Well... leave off the end," she tried. "And it is news. It's news about a Snuggie that could..." um "...save lives!" She was trying really hard here.

"It's news that you can put makeup on while wearing a Snuggie?" Jonah asked. "And you're still one word over."

"Maybe to celebrities? I bet they'd like to know important details like that." She thought for a second. "Take out 'toasty'."

"You're not doing a good job making crap up here," Jonah said. "But at least you hit the wordcount now. I'll take that as a small victory."

Amber sighed. At least she got the word count.

It must have sucked for Diane Sawyer in the beginning.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 3

Sign In [Class 3]

Take Notes [Class 3]

Discussion [Class 3]

Talk to Jonah [Class 3]

Talk to the TA [Class 3]

OOC [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Take Notes [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Take Notes [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Take Notes [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Take Notes [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Talk to the TA [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Sign In [Class 3]

Re: Talk to the TA [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]

Re: Discussion [Class 3]