Blog #4: Choice

Due: Sunday, March 3
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.

The following video talks about this Paradox of Choice. If the video won't load, go here.

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: Sunday, February 24.
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 3
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 MySpace - 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 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.

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





Be sure to fill out a blog evaluation form when you are done with your blog.

Post #1: What is Truth

"The task is the same no matter where the skilled journalist plies his trade: be inquisitive, be honest and beloyal 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 24.

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.

2012 Blogs

• B. Braatz


• P. Cassady


• T. Dahlof


• K. Danielson


• C. Dickhausen


• T. Eakins


• C. Engel


• L. Fauhaber


• J. Faust


• J. Flesher


• E. Freer


• A. Goodfellow


• P. Hasledalen


• T. Holt


• T. Kramer


• M. Kwakenat


• B. Leipholtz


• L. Lingo


• J. Mason


• T. Maxson


• D. Minor


• J. Robinson


• J. Striebel


• T. Susa


• N. Triden


• J. Willmert


• O. Wyatt


• K. Zumach

Your Final Blog

This is it. Your Final Blog!

The purpose of this blog is to reflect on the work you’ve done this quarter. It can include:

1. Links to something you’ve done on Hoofprint.net that you're proud of with a description of the type of work you’ve done this year on Hoofprint.net

2. Links to your favorite blog or blogs and a description of your growth and development as a blogger.

3. A description of what you've thought about throughout the class.

4. A summary of what you’ve learned and gained in the class as well as what you contributed.

5. A final statement about what you have contributed and produced. You don’t have to give your self a grade. This should be more of a narrative.

Blog #11: Where do you get your news

Due Date: Sunday, May 27
Word Count: At least 400
Links: At least 2

Before you write, you should take this quiz from the Pew Research Center. Take note of how you did compared with the rest of the country.

I got them all right, so take that.

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You've spent the last 10 days being exposed to news that comes from sources you don't typically consult. You've hopefully learned something or evolved in your way of thinking about news in general.

When you think back on your experience, what conclusions can you come to about;

• The purpose or biases of your news source,


• The point of news,


• The importance of news,


• Your attitudes toward news,


• Whether you'd keep looking for news,


• Where people should look for news,


• or anything else.

Once you've thought about your own reactions, take a stab at one of the questions you came up with as a group at the start of last week. What meaningful conclusions can you come to?

Why does news matter?

Why is news so depressing?

Why is “cute cats” news?

How much of news is entertainment?

Who defines news?

Are you better off if you’re up to date on news?
Are you worse off knowing?

Why are there so many places to get news, why not narrow it down to five?

Does anything change when you’re looking at news?

How does news make you feel?

How does it benefit you?

How can you make others better through your knowledge?

Why do we get so interested in things that are none of our business?