JOUR 61: Online Writing Exercise 1

For this exercise I used the BBC News website.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

a) Do the news items reflect immediacy?

They certainly do. Every page, home page and articles, have the exact time and date that the page was last updated. This allows the user to appreciate the immediacy of the news they are receiving.

b) Does the site try to help readers save time?

Yes. The home page is structured nicely in to different sections; such as sport, features and the major stories from different parts of the world.

c) Is it quick and easy to get information?

As mentioned, the home page is structured in such a way that getting the content you want is fairly simple. Furthermore, the link bars down the left of the screen also enable the user to easily navigate to the content that they desire.

d) Does it provide both visual and verbal information?

The main stories on the home page are accompanied by a small image and each individual story has at least one image – often more – accompanying the text.

e) Do the stories contain lists and bullets to make them easier to scan?

Only a small minority of stories contain lists and bullets to accompany their stories.

f) Are the stories broken into “chunks”?

Yes. There is a clear beginning “chunk” to each story which encompasses the essential information to the story. If the user were just to read this first “chunk”, then they would gain a basic understanding of the story. The remainder of an article’s content is also divided into “chunks”, separated by emboldened subheadings.

g) Do stories provide hyperlinks to additional information?

This is one of the best features of the BBC News website. Every story is accompanied by links to the most recent related stories on the right side of the article. Through this, the user is able to trace back through the entire history of a story as reported by the BBC. Furthermore, articles are also accompanied by links to relevant external sites.

h) Are there opportunities for readers to "talk back"?

There is a “have your say” link accessible from any page. From here the user can comment on certain stories. Some stories also have a section at the end where users with personal experience of the story can send in their opinions and also their own pictures and videos as well. The best use of user feedback though comes with sports stories, where there is an active forum for debate on many of the articles.

i) Does the site use multimedia to enhance understanding and add appeal?

This is another area where I think the BBC News website excels. Recently the website has begun including video links with many of their stories. The videos – showing news reports, interviews, or simply footage of the event that the text is describing – are included in the heart of the text of an article and simply need to be clicked to view. There are also video and audio links to the BBC’s news bulletins.

JOUR 61: Ethics

Scenario 1

It would be wrong to take the documents – this is theft. Given the magnitude of this story I would sneak a peek at the documents on her desk while she is gone. This may be ethically wrong but I think that the benefits would outweigh the harm in this case if the information is incriminating.

Scenario 2

This would be classed as deception and this is ethically wrong. Personally I feel that there is nothing wrong with undercover reporting in this scenario. If the nursing home has nothing to hide then they have nothing to worry about. If conditions are substandard then I would feel a duty to inform the public of this.

Scenario 3

This is a simple one; you have to credit any source you use in your story whether it is from print, on a web site or any other type of source. Not to do so would be plagiarism – taking credit from someone else’s work – and this is ethically wrong. Not to mention that it would also leave you open to legal action.

Article Libel Editing

The professor’s name should be removed from the article. If he is not identified in the story then there is no case for libel. The story is also crafted with bias. The bulk of the article is taken up with the student’s views and quotes, with only a brief comment about the professor’s response. The comment about the professor threatening the newspaper with libel should also be omitted. By including this it appears as if the writer is in support of the student; he/she wants to report this “crime”, regardless of the harm it does to the professor.

JOUR 61: Topical Post 3

I cannot recall a public discourse as one-sided as that over the issue of China and Tibet. The recent protests in Tibet, handled strong-handedly by the Chinese government, has re-ignited the decades old debate over China’s rule over the Tibetan region. Yet, the debate has been framed almost entirely from the point of view of the Tibetans seeking autonomy. Very little has been said about China’s perspective.

I am not taking a stance on this debate; my point is simply that the media has a responsibility to present a debate from both sides. There were thousands of people protesting in San Francisco during the Olympic torch relay for a “Free Tibet”. How many of these people know any more about Tibet than what the majority of this nation’s media have been expelling in recent weeks; that China is the big bad bully, who has ridden into Tibet, denying them independence and culturally oppressing them? How many know that the area of Tibet has never been independent from China? Or, that before China re-claimed autonomy in Tibet, in 1951, that ninety five percent of the population was hereditary serfs and slaves; that ninety five percent of the population was illiterate; that the average life expectancy was thirty-six years? And how many of these people know that China has since invested billons of dollars in Tibet, modernizing the area and providing the Tibetan people with an exponentially higher standard of living? Of course this is only one-side of the story, to find the other side you need not look far.

Jason Le Miere

MCOM 63: Weekly Blog Post

Not sure if this relates directly to the theme of these posts, but I thought it was very interesting. I read an article on BBC online claiming that a group which investigates war crimes, The War Crimes Watch List, is using social network site Facebook to track two men responsible for crimes in Darfur. This is a way of using these sites that I had not heard of before. In the article is a quote from Nick Donovan from the Aegis Trust who are behind the Watch List, "Wanted posters can only be seen by a few hundred people at most - the internet is used by billions." This is a very good point and it almost seems strange that this idea has not been utilized more extensively before. Certainly, this idea has possibilities far beyond this case.
The Internet and social networking sites in particular could be used for finding missing children, for example. Police should be given the means to send out a photo and information to the inbox, or bulletin board of every registered user in the area where the child has gone missing. I don't think anyone could question that this would be far more effective than the age old method of putting a child's face on a milk carton. It is one huge advantage to having such a large proportion of the population connected through an interactive medium, such as Facebook.

Read the article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7367634.stm

JOUR 61: Topical Post #2

In this country there was a founding belief that there should be a separation of church and state. Government funding of health education programs in schools that promote sexual abstinence until marriage would seem to fly in the face of that.

Of course, sexually transmitted diseases would be dramatically reduced if everyone were to abide by the Catholic rhetoric of abstaining from sex until wedlock. However, this is not a practical solution to the problem. We have to realize that teenagers today have sex; Planned Parenthood has estimated that two thirds of teenagers will have had sexual intercourse by the time they leave high school. The question is not how to stop them from having sex, but how to best ensure that they engage in safe sex. The government’s job isn’t to make moral judgments on the issue. Rather, it is their responsibility to provide young people with the education necessary to make mature, sensible decisions about sex.

America’s leading health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently revealed that one in four teenage girls have a sexually transmitted disease. This statistic has sparked an investigation by Congress into funding of the abstinence program. There can be no debate. Resources must stop being wasted on promoting this outdated, religion driven lifestyle choice and instead spent in a way that deals with the realities of today.

Piece inspired and facts garnered from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7368219.stm

JOUR 61: Focus Story

With the ball carrier hurtling towards him, Pete Stenhoff, a high school junior, charges towards the boy to make a tackle. This, though, will be the last tackle Stenhoff ever makes. His head careers into the ball carriers chest, cracking vertebrae in his spine. The 16-year-old will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

“I knew the risks involved when I decided to play football,” says Stenhoff, ‘I wish I would have known just how bad it could be.”

Unfortunately, this is a reality that is far too common for those who take part in high school football. There are 20,000 injuries each year at this level of the sport, 12 percent of which leave the victim permanently disabled. Thirty-five percent of injuries occurred to the head or neck. A large number of critics blame these statistics on the helmets used.

JOUR 61: Find that Lead

Both of my leads come from the April 25 edition of the San Jose Mercury News.

This first one is a Direct Address Lead:
"Angry about the price of gas? Just imagine paying for gas you don't get." (3E)

The second one is a anecdotal lead:
"Milan Michalek always is the last Shrak to leave the ice after pregame warmups. As the lights dim, Michalek still will be skating slowly, firing pucks into an empty net." (1C)