Harry Potter!!!

I picked this article from the New York Times because it is about something important to me.
On Oct. 19 (my 21st birthday), J. K. Rowling was at Carnegie Hall in New York City for Scholastic's Open Book Tour Sweepstakes. If you don't know who Rowling is, first of all you must live in a box and second of all she's the author of the Harry Potter series.
Well for a little back story here, only 1,000 people got tickets to the book signing on Friday. You had to enter a contest through Scholastic and be chosen. Your prize was two tickets to the show.
I love Harry Potter. Call me whatever, I'll be the first to stand up and say I freakin love Harry Potter and Rowling. So I entered the contest thinking nothing of it until I got a call on Sept. 19 from Scholastic saying that I had won. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday present.
So I picked this article from AP in the New York Times about Friday's event.
This article isn't necessary long and detailed but it covers probably the most interesting part of the evening. During the question and answer session, someone asked Rowling is Albus Dumbledore (Headmaster of Hogwarts) ever found love in his life. Rowling said she always pictured him as gay and the whole auditorium cheered. She jokingly responded, "If I had known it would make you this happy, I would have told you years ago."
Though many people find this tidbit about Dumbledore interesting and pleasing, many people are outraged. My dad heard on TV earlier today that many religious groups are yet again protesting Rowling and Harry Potter, now for homosexuality.
What I love about the whole thing, though, is that Rowling is fully aware of all of the controversy and doesn't let it bother her. Towards the end of the Q & A, an announcer, from backstage, said (not exact words )"Hello? Can you hear me?" And Rowling responded, "God? Is that you? And people say I don't believe in you!" I love that about her.
I get sick of hearing people complain about Harry Potter. Obviously enough people like it that it is the most successful literary work ever. I'm also extremely glad that I got to meet her.
OK, that's the end of my birthday story.
And that's the end of my converged journalism blog!
It's been fun!

Oops...

Maybe Britney Spears is trying a little harder to clean up her act. Maybe. According to an article by Gina Serpe at E! News, Spears willingly went to the police to be booked for two driving misdemeanors.
The article was very thorough with its description, even including a link to Spears' booking sheet.
What I liked the most about this article, was the video provided of Spears. The first part of the video was of Spears leaving the police station and the second part was later in the evening when Spears and her producer friend Sam Lufti went to Jack in the Box.
The video added a visual aspect to the article because in the article Serpe described how Spears looked and acted as she left the station and her wig at Jack in the Box.
Yes I said wig. Spears brought out her pink wig again. Who knows why.
Even though the video was shaky and rough, it added a lot to the story because it gave an important visual.

The Dark Side of Peanuts

I stumbled across an article on The Times Online about a biography coming out this week based on Charles Schulz, the creater of the Peanuts comics.
Snoopy's unhappy father, AKA Schulz, apparently lead a dark life behind the scenes and let it out through his Peanuts characters. According to the writer of the article, Tony Allen-Mills, Schulz was never very happy in life. The biography, written by David Michaelis, tells about Schulz's life and why Peanuts was the way it was.
Michaelis said that adults who were familiar with Peanuts probably saw Snoopy as lonely and underrated. He assumed kids just saw him as a cartoon dog. Schulz molded Snoopy a particular way for a reason.
At the end of the Peanuts run, Michaelis discovered that of all the cartoons, Lucy always snatches the football away from Charlie Brown and Charlie Brown never got a Valentine on Valentine's Day.
According to Schulz, it was because unhappiness was funny.

I found this article highly interesting and well researched. I had NO idea that Schulz was such an unhappy person. As a critic from the New York Post said, you'll never watch Peanuts the same again after hearing these things. It's true. Next time I watch A Charlie Brown Christmas (like I do almost every year), I'm going to notice the sadness in the characters and I'm going to connect it to the sadness in Schulz's life. I imagine people who read the biography will do the same.

Cleveland shooting

I looked into the shooting at a Cleveland high school because it is close to my hometown. I found excellent coverage at WKYC's website. WKYC is Cleveland's local news station.
By just going to this link, you can find many videos relating to the shooting. Talk about amazing coverage. WKYC provides multiple stories on the shooting as well as related video and related stories.
Related stories include testimonials from fellow students as well as information on the security plans the schools are going to be implementing.
I clicked through some of the stories and what I really like, other than the extensive coverage, is that at the bottom of the stories, such as this one, have links at the bottom to other stories that are similar to that one. It also has links to the related video.
Back on the main story page, at the bottom you can also find web extra links to stories exclusive to WKYC's website.
All in all, I thought WKYC covered this tragedy well. It's hard to try and find something good within this whole topic, but I tried.

Comparing video

I heavily criticized the video on the Orlando Sentinel's website last week so I went searching for a publication that did a better job with online broadcast.
I found one.
On the Sacramento Bee's website, they have a multimedia section with video, audio, slideshows and more. I went to the video section and picked the first one. It's about bridge safety and bridge inspecting in their area.
I wouldn't really call this the most interesting video, but it is presented in a much better way than Matt Sokoloff's videos from the Orlando Sentinel.
This video is actually done out in the field - from a bucket truck hanging over the side of the bridge. The guy narrating is one of the bridge inspectors, so he's very knowledgable.
The video provides an inside look at what these men do day in and day out. Their jobs are probably underappreciated. People often forget about workers like these men and the amazing work they do. In that sense, I think this video is highly important because it shows the people in the Sacramento area how these men protect their safety.
Plus, I don't think it takes much to outdo Sokoloff at the Sentinel.

Job market getting better!

As I was searching around the Internet for information for our website project, I stumbled upon an article from today's New York Times.
The article discusses job growth and how much better it was than anyone had anticipated. According to the writer, Michael Grynbaum, the economy added 110,000 jobs in September and about 90,000 jobs in July and August.
The article also said that the fear of recession is decreasing and the chance of the Federal Reserve cutting the interest rate is growing slimmer.
This article is crucial to our job market website because it is information like this that we are basing everything off of.
Not only am I excited to find an article for today about this, but I'm excited about the outlook of the current job market. That's great that jobs are being added.
This also provides an angle for our website because later in the article it said that hiring in the private sector has weakened but the overall economy no longer appears to be on the verge of recession.
That will give us something to look into: why hiring in private sectors is lower. Hmm...

Long...but good

I came across a story from The New York Times Magazine about three young students from Bronxville and their college application process.
The story, Tense Times at Bronxville High, had the stories from three high school seniors in New York. The writer, Susan Dominus, told each student's story separately, but wove them together. The first student, Maria Devlin, is what I like to call the poster child for perfection. She is good at everything - the kind I love to hate. The second student, Winthrop Rutherford, wanted nothing other than to go to Princeton. And the third student, Alex Likovich, thought she had nothing to worry about when it came to her early decision application at Middlebury.
This story, isn't hard-pressed news, by any means, but it was really interesting. Dominus told these students' stories in a way that made me keep reading. I felt like I knew these kids - like maybe I went to school with them. Dominus made them relatable. She described them in a way that reminded me of people I went to school with. For instance, she talked about Rutherford's SAT scores and his love of military history and I couldn't help but thinking, hey, that reminds me of Brad from high school.
What I'm trying to say is, Dominus wrote in a conversational manner and that is my favorite type of writing. Two thumbs up for her.

Video issues

After watching a video on the Orlando Sentinel's website in class last week, I was curious about other videos that they may have on their website.
I'm watching a video right now on Universal's Halloween Horror Nights and EPCOT's Food and Wine Festival. (If you go to the Orlando Sentinel's homepage and go to the video section, it's currently the fourth video.)
The movie is hosted by Matt Sokoloff, who, last time I watched him, didn't do such a hot job.
Well in this video, he seems much more relaxed and doesn't seem so much to be reading straight from a newspaper. He still is in the newsroom and the background is entirely too busy for a video like this. The only thing I can focus on is what everyone behind him is doing.
Another problem I have is the camera movement. On a video on current TV about shooting movies, they stressed more than once that it is important to stick with one camera shot and don't zoom all over the place. It is so annoying to the viewer. I would be very happy if the cameraman would park in one spot and stay put!
What I did like in this video, is all the information that was provided. I learned a lot of various tidbits about HHN and the F&W Festival. But, even though the information was good, I wish Sokoloff and the other guy, Dewayne Bevil, would have talked with just a little more enthusiasm in their voices. It was a little flat for me. Especially since the video deals with two really large Orlando events that are hugely fun.
I think someone needs to give Sokoloff a quick lesson in broadcast journalism.

...

If you couldn't tell by some of the things I've blogged about so far, I'm basically a little kid. I like little kid things which is why I was drawn to this article in the Indianapolis Star. This story is about the upcoming Hannah Montana concert in Indianapolis.
For a quick background tidbit, Hannah Montana is a 14-year old singer from the Disney Channel. Her real name is Miley Cyrus and her dad is the country singer, Billy Ray Cyrus. She has a TV show where she is a popstar and this fall she is taking her tour on the road across the country. So far every show that has been on sale has sold out completely.
The writer, David Lindquist, addresses Indianapolis' problem witht he sellout and goes in depth about how ticket brokers get so many tickets. What I liked so much about this article was basically the topic in general. I admit, I tried to buy Hannah Montana tickets last weekend for her concert in Tampa and was disappointed to find that they were sold out before they even went on sale online. I wanted to know why and this article told me. Lindquist talked about how ticket brokers get so many tickets per concert and how many venues have a pool of tickets to sell, which I didn't know. I thought everything went through Ticketmaster.
I also liked the box he did within the article that gave some background on Hannah Montana and her dad.
My only issue, and it's not really with the story, is with their commenting feature. The Indianapolis Star has a place for readers to leave comments about stories and it says by the comment box that rude comments will be deleted, but it doesn't say anything about stupid comments. Several people on there are posting about how terrible of a singer Hannah Montana is. Someone tell me why they waste their time. I personally don't like commenting areas because they turn into a place where people post stupid, rude and offensive things. I tried to count how many people called Hannah Montana a crappy performer or a waste of space but I lost count. Why would you post that on a story about how popular she is? Obviously someone likes her.

Small town news chatter

Here's what you get in your newspaper when you live in a small town...Perfect reading score.
This story, like one I mentioned last week is from The Daily Record in Wooster, Ohio. I'm sure subjects like this make many small town newspapers. Apparently this boy got a perfect score on the reading section of the Ohio Achievement Test.
Call me somewhat biased, here. This kid is from Triway, which is Orrville's (my hometown) biggest rival, so I already don't like him. To make it WORSE, not to brag or anything, but I got a perfect score on the reading proficiency test TWICE. Not once, twice, and I never made the paper.
But here's the rub. Triway isn't really a town, it's a section of Wooster and a lot of the people who work for The Daily Record live in "Triway." Triway tends to get a lot more coverage in the paper for that reason because so many of The Daily Record's employees are biased and show that in the paper.
My senior year in high school, my cheerleading squad took first place (over Triway, by the way) at our big local competition, but whose picture was on the front of the sports page? Triway's! There was a picture of the Triway cheerleaders with a headline that read, "Orrville cheerleaders sweep competition!" Now, tell me how that makes sense.
It did later when someone informed us that the guy in charge of that section was from Triway.
To make my point here, The Daily Record has a huge tendency to show bias and I know that tends to happen, but it's annoying. This goes hand in hand with my ethics lesson this week which was about truth and objectivity. The Daily Record doesn't pay much attention to objectivity.

Video=goodness

It's amazing how much a video can add to a story. I was reading about EPCOT's secret garden and honestly, a story about lab work and science doesn't tend to interest me much. What drew me in to the story originally was the topic of Disney. I work for Disney and I love it as well. Throwing EPCOT in the headline was very smart.
So as I was reading the story I was getting a tad bored so I scrolled back up to the top of the page and watched the video instead. What a difference that made. To actually see the man mentioned in the story talking about this subject himself and showing the different labs in The Land attraction made me much more interested. He talked about a lot of things I didn't know, like that there's a backstage tour of The Land.
For me, I grasp some things better when I see them rather than read them. For a story like this with mixed topics, Disney and science, it was very smart to add the video that showed the attraction.

The Daily Mistake

The newspaper where I come from in Ohio has been nicknamed "The Daily Mistake" by many people in the area. The article Volunteer Killed Responding to Fire Call, is not necessarily one full of mistakes but just one that makes The Daily Record out to be a not-quite-up-to-par publication.
This article is about a young man who was killed in while driving recklessly. The man, Jared Zimmerly, was a member of the reserve fire unit.
In this article, the writer references Zimmerly as well as his father. Rather than using their first names each time, she refers to Jared by his full name every single time. It almost makes the reader think his first name is JaredZimmerly. In Dr. Fedler's news reporting class he told us to just use first names when you have multiple people with the same last name. Especially in this case, since it is talking about the wonderful things Jared did and his untimely death, I think it would have been OK to refer to him as just Jared.
Another problem I had with this article was the lack of personality in some of the quotes. At the very beginning of the article, the writer quotes the fire chief twice and neither one is very strong. Since these quotes are so early in the story, they should be strong and really make a statement. The weak ones should be left to the end.
This story, sadly enough, is one of the better ones produced by this paper. It's published in Wooster, Ohio. It is the main source for local news in my hometown of Orrville. I found it frustrating while at home that so many things were constantly misprinted in this paper. They have even been known to misspell names of important people, such as the town mayor. Now that's something they should get right. Hence the nickname, the Daily Mistake.

Ooh, scandalous!

I consider myself a very devoted High School Musical fan. I love everything about it including all the actors. Because of this, I was a little shocked and disappointed to hear about the most recent sex/nudity scandal in Hollywood. This latest one involved Vanessa Hudgens, one of the main characters in Disney's High School Musical movies.
I have been reading articles about it all over the internet. The first article I came across was actually in National Enquirer in Wal-Mart. I didn't believe it because, well, it's the National Enquirer.
When I got home I heard it on xl1067, the local radio station. They said TMZ.com had confirmed the story was true. So, I looked into it more.
The article I found to be most useful was from The National Ledger. According to them, Hudgens shot photos of herself nude and nearly nude to send to her boyfriend and costar Zac Efron. Somewhere along the lines, though, these photos made it to the Internet.
Most of the stories on the web are of the same thing; the background story and Hudgens' apology. Not the National Ledger. They were the only site that I could find that actually posted a link to the photos in question.
I'm not saying I want to see nude pictures of Hudgens, but when that is what the whole scandal revolves around, I think it's extremely important to take the reader to them.
I warn everyone, though, the first photo this link takes you to is just a picture of Hudgens. It is up to you to click on and see the more scandalous ones.
I commend the writer at the National Ledger, Angela Carson, for posting the link to the photos, no matter how scandalous they may be.
My only question after this whole thing, though, is where did the photos come from in the first place? No one seems to have an answer for that one.

Is this really news?

I'm so confused these days as to what qualifies as news. It seems like no matter what Britney Spears does, it's newsworthy. I read on article in Us Weekly today and I can't figure out what is newsworthy about it.
I know the purpose of Us Weekly is to publish all entertainment related news. I know Spears is a hot topic right now because of all her crazy antics. (i.e. head-shaving, return to the music industry, custody battle with K-Fed etc.) In this article, Brit Goes Clubbing the Night Before Rehearsals, it mentiones what Spears was wearing, what she had to drink and what time she turned in for the night. Is that something so important to publish?
I like to read entertainment news as much as the next person but I don't think I really need to know that she was sucking on a lollipop the night before her VMA rehearsal.
I think even the entertainment publications need to take a step back and really look at what they're publishing.

Multimedia Mania

The Associated Press knows a thing or two about utilizing multimedia as they demonstrated in a story today.
MSNBC posted an excellent article today about Sen. Larry Craig's resignation over soliciting sex in a bathroom.
Yes, the story is thorough, but that isn't what kept me on the page. As I scrolled down I noticed different video and audio clips about Craig.
When simply reading a story, it is hard to visualize what is actually happening, but by MSNBC posting a a video of his resignation along with the audio from his arrest, you're drawn in and can get a better understanding of what is actually happening.
The site also has links to a political calendar as well as other political stories. The AP used what Dr. Collins referred to as "chunking" because they have a ton of related links all over the page that relate to the story. This way the audience can navigate around to other things of the similar nature.

Avoiding Controversy

Today marked the 10-year anniversary of the death of Princess Diana of Wales. I found what I thought to be pretty good coverage of the event and her life on CNN. The story,
'Loving sons' lead Diana , was the first I came across. What impressed me the most about this article was the fact that Prince Charles' new wife Camilla's absence from the memorial was not dwelled upon.
The article provides a link to further information on Camilla's absence but steers clear of going into much detail about it in this particular story about Diana.
The author seemed to take a cue from Camilla by focusing on the event at hand and that was a memorial to the lovely Princess Diana. Kudos for avoiding controversy on Diana's day.