Blog #5: A Good Story

Due: Friday, March 14
No minimum word count. 
No required links

Your task this week is to create something totally unique. You don’t have to link anything, find any outside sources, or process. Your job is simple, but it’s the most consistently challenging task for great journalists.

Go out and find a person with a story to tell and get a story from them. Pass that story along on your blog in the form of an extended quote. Challenge yourself to keep your post to only the quote and descriptions of their speaking.

You’re not allowed to do email/messenger reporting. Online video and audio reporting is acceptable. This should be a quote you get as a result of a conversation.  Think about relatives, teachers, siblings, bosses, or just interesting people who will let you talk to them. You do not need to put the person’s name in your post if they aren’t comfortable with you using it.

The story could be sad, funny, nostalgic, powerful, or mundane. The most important thing is that you’re finding it and getting it down to share. Use your best judgment about what is appropriate to publish online and protect the identity of your source if the story is sensitive.

I can’t wait to read what you guys come up with.

If you want an example of people getting stories from people who they care about, listen to these excellent examples on StoryCorps.

If you want to know what StoryCorps is, check this out. There's also a great NPR story/audio about it.

If you would like to do your update an an audio file or video file, go ahead. I can help if you need it.

Blog #4: Choice

Due: Sunday, March 2
Word count: 400 or more.
Minimum number of links: 3 actual sources, not just definitions.

5 Potential New Questions:

• What kind of choices do you make about news? How does that impact your view of the world? Choosing "No." to news is also a choice.


• Do you believe what the old folks say about online news being bad for people? Were things better when we had fewer choices? Or, is this something great?


• Barry Schwartz argued that too many choices lead to paralysis. Do you think that applies to news coverage? If this is true, what should a person do to stay up-to-date on news coverage, narrowing choices down without falling victim to confirmation bias? Maybe Barry is full of crap.


• Whose fault is it when people make bad choices about news?


• What's the difference between allowing people to customize their news and encouraging confirmation bias?


• Does "He-said-she-said" Journalism encourage the propagation of unpopular opinions or is it balance?

People are customizing their news sources, clicking on only stories they want to read, and deciding where they get their news from on an individual level. One one level, this is a great thing. People are more involved with news than ever before, and that means that people are more likely to read news.

On the other hand, this means that people can choose to ignore news that they don't like or topics they simply don't want to hear about. This could create problems.

This video talks about this Paradox of Choice.

What do you think the right balance is?

There are certainly things people need to know, but we know that not all people will choose to listen to it. How do you break through the culture of choice when there are important issues to be heard?

How do you break through the issues of 140-character attention spans and give people something other than a headline. We all blogged about how the truth is a lengthy process, but we rely on summaries and headlines more than ever.

We expect doctors to do what's right for our bodies or mechanics to do what's right for our cars based on their expertise, training, and experience, however, we may not give that same permission to editors or publications.

Are people capable of making good information choices for themselves?  Are we losing something by replacing magazines and newspapers with digital content? Is confirmation bias a real problem, or is it even an issue at all?

How to you still give people a choice while also making them knowledgeable, informed participants in the global culture and a democratic society? Or, is that even desirable?

Blog #3: The Future

Due date: Wednesday, February 19.
Minimum words: 350
Minimum links: 2 (Link to at least your project and one other group's project for the 2 links)

As you and your group works to create a newspaper, news system, device, or media outlet that can survive the next ten years, you’ll be asking important questions and coming to some conclusions about the state of newspapers.

Remember, you don’t have to answer all or any of these prompts.

From your experiences brainstorming for this project;

1. What have you come to understand about newspapers right now?
2. Are you finding any "good news" about either the present state or the future of news?
3. What are successful outlets doing that others aren't?
4. How do you think the job of a reporter is changing? How will it continue to change?
5. What are the main struggles you had making a newspaper people would buy and advertisers would support?
6. What are newspapers (or any news agency) going to struggle with in the near future?
7. What are you basing your ideas for the future on?
8. What are your main conclusions about the future of news, reporting, and/or news creation?

Embed your group's project and PowerPoint and write a reflection on it as a portfolio entry.

Include visuals if possible. Take pictures of your designs, export your InDesign project as a jpeg, embed your Google Presentation, or save your Illustrator or PhotoShop files for the web and upload them to your blog.

Reflection:

• Write about what you did, the things you learned along the way, what you think you did well and what areas you still have for improvement.
• What would you do differently if you could do it again?
• How can it be applied to future projects and layouts?

Blog #2: What is journalism, anyway?

Due date: Sunday, February 2
Minimum Word Count: 400
Minimum Links: 3

If you're like me, it's been a long time since you've gotten most of the news about your world from a print newspaper (besides The Hoofprint, of course) or traditional television news broadcast. Subscription numbers and revenue is starting to drop for traditional media outlets. Chances are, you've been getting your news from websites - even sites like Facebook and Twitter - your cell phone, YouTube, or other non-traditional media. More and more, Blogs are becoming news sources, and phrase Citizen Journalist and Participatory Journalism are becoming part of our common vocabularies.

This brings us to two important questions for the modern journalist:

1. How does journalism survive when digital devices have made centralized printing presses and TV stations all but obsolete?


2. What is journalism, anyway, in a time when citizens with a cell phone and laptop can tell stories, take photos and be journalists for a day anytime they want?

Tackle one or both (or neither) of these questions in your blog. Remember to make these posts your own. Link to and quote from other sources, including your classmates' blog. Proofread your blog after you post and feel free to make changes to it after you've proofread it or read more of your classmates' work.

Gentle reminders:

• Please use paragraphs.
• You need to include links to outside sources in this blog. Don't just say "Here is a link I found about this". Include a sentence or two that relates what you've found to your point. Use them as evidence.

Our classroom discussions and notes may help you as you consider this topic.

Blog #1: What is truth?

"The task is the same no matter where the skilled journalist plies his trade: be inquisitive, be honest and be loyal to the truth and your reader. Advocate for the community, and tell it like it is. Ask and learn. Share the knowledge."
- Source

Due date: Thursday, January 23

Although all journalists are supposed to be loyal to the truth, truth is a difficult concept to define. For the past two days, we've discussed your interpretations of the meaning of Truth. We came up with a wide variety of possible definitions and characteristics for the concept of truth, but we were unable to come up with a broad definition that could satisfy everyone. Your first blog entry should tackle this difficult situation.

Take a look at the following questions and respond in any way you choose on your blog. Try to include the word "Truth" somewhere in your post's title.

1. What is truth to you?


2. What should all journalists know about the truth?


3. What does it mean to be loyal to the truth?


4. In what ways can a high school journalist find a report the truth?


5. Can you find or link to a story/video/podcast that exemplifies the pursuit of Truth.

Your response should be thorough and personal, capturing your unique voice and perspective. Try to write at least 200 words. A true blog will contain links to outside sources or responses to the thoughts of the other blogs in the class. Look to last year's examples to see what a good blog should be like.

Good luck.

• Here's one example from last year.


• Here's another one.


• Here's a third.

Blog #10: Creativity

Due: Sunday, June 2
Word Count: At least 400
Link count: At least 3 good links

“An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.”
― Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

You know what's hard? Figuring out how to ask people to be creative - or even deciding how to ask people to think about creativity. I don't think it's possible. I can't tell you to be creative. I can't tell you how to be creative. The very act of asking you questions about creativity takes away from the value of your art. Creativity definitely cannot be demanded, so go ahead and throw all these questions away and take your own path here. I'm going to throw enough questions out there that you may be able to ask your own.



Some journalists are reporters. Others are artists. I struggle with knowing whether the artists take more liberties with the truth. Since all stories are filters - where the storytellers choose which details to include and which to omit - then all stories are untrue. Some people take that to mean that being a creative journalist means telling better lies. I'm not sure what to think about that.

Here are a ton of questions that we came up with as a group.

There's a bunch of TED Talks you could use to spark ideas, too.

1. Is journalism creative work? Create an example of Creative Journalism for your next story on Hoofprint.net and post it here. Talk about the work that went in to making something creative.


2. Find an example of creative journalism or non-fiction, link to it, and explain what makes it unique, original, and worth reading/viewing/consuming.


3. How are your thoughts on creativity evolving? What does it mean to be creative?


4. Is it possible to do creative work on your own?


5. Do people get less creative as they get older? Why? What influences people to become less creative? If we are getting less creative, how do we recapture creativity?


6. Check out this TED Talk by Ken Robinson. Do schools really kill creativity? How could schools or society do better at fostering or maintaining a child's creativity as they group up? What role has school played with your creativity throughout your life?


7. Here's an article about research that proves that most teachers don't like creativity, because creative traits are typically described by teachers as obnoxious.  It shows that teachers not only neglect these traits, they actually punish them.


8. Speaking of schools killing creativity... What are grades for? How do they influence or hinder creativity?


9. How important is creativity to the job you'd love to have one day?


10. What is your creative process?


11. Many of you say that you have to wait until you go home to do blogs or creative work. What are the elements or environments that surround creativity? If you have to wait until you go home to be creative, then what is school for?


12. Do parents harm creativity?


13. Is creativity an act of boldness or bravery, or is it the only rational way to work?


14. What role does failure (or the fear of failure) play in developing or expressing creativity?


15. What role does the internet filter play on creativity, learning, or inspiration?


16. Is creativity dangerous or disruptive by nature? If so, is too much creativity a bad thing? Is a system needed to channel or focus creativity, or do systems break true creativity?


17. How does a person be creative within a structure?


18. Does a person need to first live within a pattern in order to be truly creativity?


19. If we have to break rules to be creative, then what are the point of rules? How should rules be used? Does a person have to be "ready" to be creative?

Here's a video on 29 ways to stay creative. It's blocked at school.  It may help you.

So, now that you've seen 19 sparks, see if you can turn one of them into a fire. Combine them, ignore them, take them in totally new directions, or remix them into whatever you need to come up with something new.

Good luck! I'm excited to read what you come up with.

Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.
― Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Blog #9: Starting a Discussion

Due: Friday, May 17, at the end of class
300 words minimum
2 links minimum
PLEASE INCLUDE TWO QUESTIONS AT THE END OF YOUR BLOG THAT COULD START A GOOD DISCUSSION.

Your blogs this week will be the basis for class discussions next week. It's very important these get done by Friday so I can spend some time this weekend to put together discussions for next week. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Take a look at one (or a few) of the following sites that deal with current issues in Journalism and New Media.

Journalism.org | Pew Internet and American Life Project | Pew Research Center | Columbia Journalism Review |  Journalist's Resource | Sensible Talk: Analysis | NPR's On The Media | CyberJournalist.net | New Media @ Media Life|Online Journalism Review | Newsthinking.org | Poynter.org |

1. Either find an article that presents or raises  a great question and explore it. Examine the author's points and bring in some points that either support or refute it. Finally, ask questions that could lead to a great class discussion based on what you researched.

2. Ask questions first and find articles that could give clues to answers. Create the discussion yourself.

 

For example: I found this tremendous article on the influence of a single person on journalism that could be greater than Twitter or even Facebook. I would love to start a discussion based on this, including the visual data included in the article. I'd reflect on it, finding some other sources that helped with my understanding and then include some questions to start a discussion.