Blog #8 - Typical Blog Pattern

In our book All the News, there are a few pointers on what is normally included in a typical blog:

• A snappy headline that grabs the reader's attention
• A lead summarizes a recent news report or other online posting and includes a link to that item
• One or two paragraphs provide pertinent quotes from the item
• One or two paragraphs offer comments from the blogger
• A link connects to comments others have made on the blog entry

Group of Armed men attacking various people in Anne Arundel

Two men were robbed by a group of armed men in the parking lot of Arundel Mills Mall late Saturday night, Anne Arundel County police stated.

Two men were leaving the Golden Corral restaurant just after 11 p.m. and were approached by four to six men carrying handguns and demanded money, said police. The suspicious men fled the scene after taking money from one man's pocket and the other man's wallet.

On Oct. 8, two men attacked a woman leaving a Wal-Mart store near the mall. The men put her in a headlock and rifled through her pockets before leaving the scene in a dark-colored sport utility vehicle.

Neither of the suspects have been declared as the same group of men and police have not made any arrests in either attack.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/annearundel/bal-robbery1014,0,452124.story

Blog #7 - The Inverted Pyramid

So what exactly is the Inverted Pyramid? Basically, it's a structure that journalists use when their primary job is to convey important information quickly. Many readers tend to not read the entire article, so by placing the most important information at the beginning is a very effective way to get information out there. The most important details are stated at the beginning of the article and the least important are stated further down. Information in an article is listed in the following order, as stated in the book:
1. Convey important information
2. Add interesting, colorful details
3. End with remaining facts

The story I chose to use as an example for the Inverted Pyramid comes from The Baltimore Sun. The story itself is very upsetting but is a good example for this structure. The article is named "Suspect in girls' deaths had criminal record." There are only three paragraphs in the article, which does help for me to explain why I chose this article as an example. The first paragraph gives the most important details: who the suspect is, which is what the article is all about. The second paragraph is about the case and the final one is about her charges. However, due to the topic of this article, the first paragraph is the most important because it explains who this woman is. The photograph attached with this post is the woman, Renee Bowman.

This is the link for the article: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-deaths0930,0,5431304.story

My First Event!! *UPDATE*

So the first event I am going to cover will be "Good Mourning: How Losing a Parent Changes an Adult's Life for the Better." Jeanne Safer, a psychotherapist and author of the novel Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change an Adult's Life will be speaking on Thursday about her latest book. Dr. Safer has been in private practice for thirty-five years and has written four novels about neglected psychological topics mainly about adults coping with deaths of their parents, siblings, etc.

I am very interested in hearing what Dr. Safer has to say and hopefully I will get an opportunity to talk to her after her speech. I feel as though her speech could be beneficial for me when I get older and I am interested in hearing about her viewpoint with her new book.

For further information on this event please visit this website: http://www.towson.edu/applications/dailydigest/databases/news/20080916_042035PM_wiesand_1075.asp

My First Event!!

I'm still debating which event I want to attend but there are two that I am choosing from: Jeanne Safer: "Good Mourning: How Losing a Parent Changes and Adult's Life for the Better" and Global-Warming: Sources and Solutions. Both of these events take place on Thursday somewhere on campus. Right now I am looking more into the talk about Global Warming just because I feel like at this moment, that is what is affecting me the most. It also is through the Center for Science and Mathematics Education and even though I am a Mass Communications major, science and math are still an interest to me.

Blog #6 - Twitter!

The first Twitter I looked at was musicboy232. All of his headlines are written in active voice and are set up in the form of object-verb-subject. They all are concise, but fully explain the story and gave me knowledge as to what the story was about. Each of the summaries answer all of the 5 W’s and H. For example, the first story: who – Towson students, what – starting to recycle, when – now, where – Towson University, why – because recycling is good! How – there will be single stream recycling containers.
http://twitter.com/musicboy232

The second Twitter I checked out was lmarti10. Their headlines were also written correctly in active voice as the first one I read and each fully explained the story concisely. Their summaries also followed the 5 W’s and H guidelines. An example: who – Sean Schaefer, what – had many turnovers, when – last weekend, where – Towson University, why – because he had an off game, how – same thing as why basically.
http://twitter.com/lmarti10

The last Twitter I looked at was jceccorulli. All of her headlines were in active voice and gave me a concise explanation of the story, as the past two did. Her summaries answered the 5 W’s and H so I was able to further understand the story. An example for her : who – university system, what – many professors will be laid off, where – Towson University, when – in the near future, why – potential budget cut, how – answered in why as well.
http://twitter.com/jceccorulli

Blog #5 - Press Release/Original Reporting

Press Release:

Journalists and PR practitioners may not agree on many things but when it comes to news releases, they can be the best of friends. Which is a good thing considering I am double tracking in Journalism and PR. However, that's not the point. Luckily The Baltimore Sun is so easy for me to read online because The NY Times online confuses me, it's just too crowded. But right on the first page online of The Baltimore Sun I found the perfect news article that I believe and know was generated by a press release: "Target gives city $300,000." And there's even a picture from the event!

The picture is of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon announcing the donation. The picture was the first detail to give away the fact that this was a press release but also reading the article helped me to conclude this thought. Sun staff writer Justin Fenton even quoted, "At an event outside City Hall Tuesday, Mayor Sheila Dixon and police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said the money would enable the department to purchase portable command posts and enhance a cell-phone tracking system designed to solve violent crimes, particularly robberies."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-target0916,0,7555378.story

Original Reporting:

I'm not exactly sure if I fully understand original reporting correctly or not but I believe that it's a news story shown through someones view point that actually experienced it. For example, people that were at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007 took amateur videos of events that occurred throughout the day and sent it into news teams. This would be an example of original reporting. I chose to attach a video from You Tube to further describe original reporting.

This video is an amateur video that someone recorded and sent in to news teams of Hurricane Ike passing through the Caribbean.

"Raw Video: Hurricane Ike Slams Into Caribbean" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXpcIpilEPA

Blog #4 - Summary Lede/Short Report

Summary Lede
A summary lede is a sentence that typically contains the follow things: a subject followed by a verb and an OBJECT. It basically sums up what the following article is going to be about in one well thought out sentence. I decided to find my information from baltimoresun.com because I'm from around here. An example of a summary lead that is currently posted on the website is:

"2 city sheriff's deputies shot in West Baltimore"

Just by reading that statement I already know what I'm reading about. The "2 city sheriff's" are the subjects. "Shot" is the verb and "West Baltimore" is the object.




A man was taken away in handcuffs after the reports of the shooting.









Short Reports
Short reports can be presented in a few different ways but no matter how they are presented, they all are basically the same. Short reports may be a result of limited time, space or information. These are the different types of short reports:

• Bulletin-runs only one or two sentences in a broadcast or online news to get the information to the public quickly


• E-mail Alerts- some news operations send news-bulletins by e-mail for those more likely to have access to their e-mail than a television.


• Crawlers- shortest reports that pass for a story that you can find sliding across the bottom of the screen during a news report (like Fox 45)


• Newspaper Briefs- summaries of interesting stories but don't cover the full report
  

An example of a short report in "The Baltimore Sun" online would be "Harford man, 21, killed in two-car accident." The article only contains 97 words but still gives a lot of information even though it may not be full coverage. This article would fall under the category of a newspaper brief.