Journalism Class - Wednesday November 9

[jerusalem-s.livejournal.com]

The cat has a frog, Spider has his coffee and all's well with the world, apparently. Spider's sprawled behind his desk, bare feet resting on the blotter and his laptop propped on his legs.

"Morning, class. Today we have an interesting exercise as well as the announcement that I've decided to expand our activities a bit. There'll be some shifting of computers and other technology this weekend as I have this entire department to use and we've been more or less keeping to this room. I felt it might be more productive to change things around a bit. More on that later."

Lighting a cigarette for himself, he waved to the students. "Today I want you to choose an article from today's or yesterday's headline at the The New York Times website. Again, the login is jerusalem_s and the password is fandomhigh. Once you've chosen an article I want you to go on-line and search for two other articles on the same topic. Please be certain they are not merely re-postings of the same article, by the way. Compare all three articles as far as differences and similiarites. As a great many sources simply lift from the wire services, you will get more credit for this assignment if you choose independant reports."

Grinning, he concluded, "I want to hear what you think about the various reports, how they could have been improved on or what you might have said in their place."

Comments

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

John does his research and finds this (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/national/nationalspecial/09levees.html) at the Times website. He also finds this article (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3434965) in the Houston Chronicle. He also finds this (http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/299106/louisiana_mulls_legal_action_on_failed_levees/index.html?source=r_science) on Red Orbit.

John says, "The first ones seems to be more focused on the actual act of having an inquiry. There are reasons given for having said inquiry and how the inquiry will proceed in Louisiana. A lot of scientific facts were also brought up in illustrating why the levees failed."

"The second article focuses on the exact cause of levee failure, mainly contractor corruption. There's a lot of finger pointing in this article, the blame game so to speak."

"The third article is about the possibility of legal action taken against the people behind the levee failure. It explains what is being done to find the exact causes of the failure and gives possible compensation options for those whose homes were destroyed."

John takes a breath. "I think the first one, the recent one, seems to be a bit behind the other two. With the latter two saying that both corruption and legal action are going to be taken. But, they do get points for explaining the levees, which the other two articles failed to do in such detail. The second article is very biased towards the failure and towards the contractors. Assumptions are made. The third article is concise in it explains the legal action and also gives brief scientific facts while keeping the bias at a somewhat even level."

[jerusalem-s.livejournal.com]

"It's difficult to judge unfamiliar technical details and perhaps the omissions on the levee system were made due to space as we discussed yesterday. However, I agree with your analysis on all counts." Spider frowned slightly. "The Times does appear to be slightly behind the curve when it comes to timeliness here. Did they perhaps have an earlier article on the same topic and this would then be more of a follow-up piece than a lead story?"

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

John does some quick, further research. "It appears this is an update or an add on of sorts to an earlier article. I found this (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/03/politics/03levees.html) which is similar to the article from the Houston Article. So, it does appear that the Times covered their bases and just did so in two different articles, showcasing two different sides of the levee debate."

[jerusalem-s.livejournal.com]

"It's an interesting fact that newspaper readers average in age around 53 years. It's a daily habit, an inexpensive one and one that keeps you well-informed... but if you don't keep up with it, you can miss things. You can gain a very clear picture of a historic event sometimes, by going back to the various newspapers of the day and seeing how each one reported it and continued to report and what the various viewpoints and baises say about not only the reporters but the prejudices of the time." Spider gestured with his cigarette. "However, picking up just one paper or just one article will leave you with just enough information to hurt yourself. A newspaper is meant to bring you the news... but there's rarely enough information included for true context."

He paused. "And that was probably more lecture on the topic than you needed, truthfully."