fandomhigh | Journalism Class - Wednesday November 9

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."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Rogue searches and finds this: Schwarzenegger Is Dealt a Stinging Rebuke by Voters (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/national/09cnd-ballot.html?hp&ex=1131598800&en=fba24a79406f28db&ei=5094&partner=homepage). Googling 'Schwarzenegger,' she comes up with this (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/09/uarnie.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/11/09/ixportaltop.html) and this (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/09/MNG6IFLAMF1.DTL).

The original source focused more on the measures themselves and the failings of the governor. It emphasized how much money and time he spent to pass these measures. The second source focused on what the opposition had done to defeat them. The unions spent millions of dollars to keep these measures from passing. The third source, like the first, emphasized Schwarzenegger's failings, but as a whole, not just this election. His Year of Reform, which these referendums were a part of, is focusing on the wrong issues. The Governor is realizing that, and the article implies, will be changing his tactics soon.

Each article made a different aspect of the campaign the main one. The first two seem to be the most biased, either in favor of or aginst the governor. The third is much more evenhanded, focusing on the issues, and quoting Democratic leaders who want to work with Schwarzenegger to make California a better place.

"Very well-chosen examples and a clear analysis," Spider told her approvingly as he skimmed the articles. "Also a relatively easy subject to follow even to someone unfamiliar with the situation at hand."

Rogue smiled, pleased that Spider seemed to like her assignment. "Thank you, Professor."

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."

"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?"

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."

"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."

Chihaya shuffles papers. And shuffles. And shuffles papers before pushing them away in frustration. What he wants to write about, he's not finding the appropriate sources to support. Maybe he doesn't understand the exercise, he's not sure.

Waiting until Chihaya was obviously well and truly frustrated, Spider came to look over his shoulder. "Problems?"

"Yessir," Chihaya says glumly. "I have what I want to discuss but when I try to find other articles on the same subject, all I'm getting is stuff written months ago." He shoves at the papers again. "It's about the same subject sort of but I don't know..."

On his desk are the three things he picked out. The New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/politics/09detain.html) and two (http://www.president-bush.com/torture-waterboarding.html) others (http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/735/1/80/).

Scanning the articles, Spider nodded. "I see your point. The articles are well-chosen, nonetheless. If you want timeliness, however, you might want to try one of these (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/1788) articles. If none of them support as well as the older ones, however, I'd stick to what you have. Sometimes older can be more accurate, as newer articles are hastily thrown together to get onto a hot-topic bandwagon."

"Thank you, sir," he says. Chihaya huffs out a breath and blows his bangs out of his face. "I'll try it again." He goes back to reading, working and making notes.

Veronica comes to class, but instead of doing the assignment, she makes notes on the interviews she conducted last night and tries to draw some sort of conclusions.

[ooc: V is gonna be out of it until this plot is over, fyi]

Journalism Class - Wednesday November 9

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