fandomhigh | Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 5

The fact that Jonah was wearing a giant bow on his head didn't seem to phase him as he started to speak today. "First things first, pass up your interview articles so I can skim them and tear them apart for everyone to hear. Come on, hurry up!"

After that was all done, Jonah moved on to today's lesson. "Reviews. They're the magical part of the newspaper that tells people how good or how horrible things are on a four star scale. It's completely subjective, so your biases are able to come out completely and influence you all you want. And everything needs to be reviewed! Food? Movies? Plays that nobody's ever going to see? If they don't have stars next to them, then they barely exist."

"Good reviews should be written with four things in mind. First, giving it a star value where one is crap, two is slightly better than crap, three is okay, and four is excellent. Second, your article should have something to do with the number of stars you gave it. Don't give me any Roger Ebert crap where you spend half a page complaining about a movie you gave three and a half stars to. Third, explain your biases so people know why you're giving a piece of crap action movie four stars even though it stars someone who couldn't act even if he was being paid millions of dollars to do just that. Fourth, remember that most people who read your review will never bother experiencing whatever it is you reviewed and will use your arguments when they talk about whatever it is you reviewed. It's healthy to develop contempt for those people early so it doesn't shock you later."

"So, homework again this week. Find something and review it. There are plenty of restaurants on the island, you all have access to movies on cable, and you're all halfway creative people so I'll trust you to figure something out. Get to it!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If you either have your interview written out or have a link to it, OR if you want to specifically not hand a thing in and get a detention. Otherwise, handwaved articles will be assumed.

Annja passed up her ~~handwaved~~ homework.

Toby hadn't had the time to piece together his article yet, so he provided transcripts of his two (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/2014182.html?thread=128357350#t128357350) interviews (http://always-damp.livejournal.com/6436.html) and a little explanation about how he wanted to try to get it in the paper.

Jonah stared at the transcripts after skimming them. "First, there is a lot of information here that I don't want or need to ever know and I'll never unknow it, so I hate you just a little bit for that. Even though it gives me plenty of ammunition to irritate Skywalker if he ever gives me a reason to do so. Actually, that erases the hate. Second, I would never print this. Ever. EVER. Third, there are some places that would. If you want to follow journalism as a career path, there are several magazines that would go for it. Fourth, it's not my call since the paper here isn't in my hands, but if it gets printed as it is, I'll probably have to send in a letter to the editor."

Amber turned in her ~~handwaved~~ assignment. Hopefully it was as good as she thought it was.

Blair turned in her interview (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomtownies/3602838.html?thread=149507478#t149518486) which highlighted Geoffrey as a broken man who had problems accepting his sexuality.

"Not bad. This could be written about nearly anyone who's ever worked in theater, but it's still fairly interesting," Jonah said after a quick skim. "Good job."

"Thank you," Blair said, feeling rather smug.

To be fair, if you didn't get out much, you probably wouldn't know that Buffy had totally cheated.

David Smith was born on June 1, 1804, and died on September 17, 2001 in a freak rickshaw accident. Only in Fandom. He was a very quiet man in life and funnily enough in death, but he was nice and kind and very involved with his family. All of which are conveniently dead.

Didn't change the fact that her interview sucked a lot.

Jonah glanced at Buffy's interview. "That's it? Tell you what, I'll keep this for the week when we have to do obituaries, just to help you out because you clearly need some help."

There wasn't going to be a class on obituaries.

"I just worked with what he gave me," Buffy said.

She wondered if his hat was all pissed off under the hat. Like maybe it was banging on the sides begging to be let out.

"Then you did a bad job getting anything from him," Jonah said. "He's dead. I don't believe for a minute that you couldn't find a medium around here to help you out there."

"Well, I didn't want to be intrusive."

If she really listened, she thought she could hear it screaming.

She couldn't.

"Crap excuse. From now on you're on a two hundred word minimum word count," Jonah said. "Give me filler if you need to, but give me more than that."

"Could project another one fifty onto his hair right now," Buffy muttered. Except not so much with the muttering.

"That's it, detention!" Jonah announced.

"If that makes you feel better." That time it was totally muttered. Woe.

"It does," Jonah said with a smile. Yeah, he heard the mutter.

Robin turned in his interview with Yzma (http://saveonpostage.livejournal.com/1955.html?view=11939#t11939).

"Pretty good basic questions to lead off, but with how little she was giving you, you really needed to press more. Find some way to get her to open up. She didn't give you more than ten words in any answer," Jonah said. "Work on your follow-through."

Robin took notes and nodded. "Got it. Thank you sir."

Rikku ~~handwaved because the mun got the plague~~ passed in her homework.

Sam turned in his ~~handwavey~~ interview and waited for the axe to fall.

Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 5

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