Comment Response: Emma Pagni

I just read one of my classmates lecture responses http://freshoffthepresswithemma.blogspot.com/  and I have to say I do agree with her. The TV lecture was a lot of information I had already heard prior... but then... Politics got involved. I had never realized the impact TV had on politics, much like Emma. I do agree that it did get very interesting there and that it too helped me "connect the dots." I like how Emma expressed her own opinions in the response as well as clearing things up for me too. 

News Response: Data Totals

Today in class we added up each category that we've collected over the month.As we were analyzing the data I realized WHAS isn't the only news station that completely sucks. They all seem to lack the ability of covering important stories and it is most likely due to laziness of the station causing them to break the yardstick of enterprise. It is ridiculous. We are in the middle of an election season yet that is only a small portion of the coverage (Only 7.41% of total coverage including all publications). All of the publications choose the easy way out, especially WLKY, by making most of their news stories about crime ( __% of total coverage including all publications). Now that the data is clear to me I can make the conclusion that if you want better news, go to the Courier Journal. Though it is still not up to standards, it is much better than any of the broadcasts or online sources. 

Comment Response: Maya Malawi

Maya Malawi did  a post on her blog http://mnm4jc.blogspot.com/  about the poor variety in stories. She was in a group studying WLKY and learned that around 40% of it's coverage over the ten data collections was strictly dedicated to crime. I, personally, was in a sharing group with Maya and every week it was the same joke-- How many crime stories Maya? Is the headline a murder? It was pretty pathetic how expected it was to write a large number in the crime section and how exciting it was when the headline actually mattered. Though I thought Maya's response was short, it was to the point and it was certainly true.

News Response: National vs. Local

As I tuned into the news Sunday night, October 25th, I found myself extremely excited because there was a national story being covered. It was strange for me to be so happy over a single story but it was the first time WHAS had two national stories out of the nine data collections and the first time in four collections there has been one national story. WHAS doesn't do a good job covering important, national topics. Now, I don't think it's fair to say it's their job to cover a certain amount because it is a local station. However, other stations are doing much better, proving it can be done. On October 11th, WAVE had two national stories, WLKY had five, WDRB had four, and WHAS fell short with only one. This was the firat time it had ever had a national story and would remain the only time for a long while. National stories can be covered... So why is WHAS not doing so?    

News Response: The Weather Block

The fast-forward button on my remote is almost completely broken and it is WHAS' fault. Every other night I tune into the news and I watch all of it. But I am not watching much at all... Each time I watch I have to skip at least two, usually three, four minute weather blocks and a full sports block which is about eight minutes long at the end of the broadcast. When you add the three or four blocks together you get about sixteen or eighteen minutes dedicated to nothing but the temperature and sports scores. Over half of the show is spent not even attempting to get news!  I don't know if it's due to the laziness of the station or other factors, but it certainly isn't because there is a lack in news considering each and every time the other stations get a significantly greater amount of stories. 

News Response: Expectations

Growing up, my family would watch WHAS in the morning before they went to work and at night before dinner. Because of this, the slogan " 11@11" was stuck in  the back of my head while choosing our news groups to examine. I was the first of my class to pick and I decided to go with the most familiar thinking it was also the best. I was horribly wrong. The first night of tuning in I was thoroughly disappointed. Now that I had learned what good journalism was after our yardsticks/elements lecture, I was able to notice all the problems with the news and conclude my own opinion. On September 30th, 2015, the first night we began collecting data, there were a total of six stories. This was low in comparison to WAVE with nine, WLKY with fourteen, WDRB with twenty-one, and the courier journal with twenty. I had expectations and WHAS failed to meet them.

Sharyl Attkisson: The Same Subjects, Biased Reporting

"Untouchable subjects, fearless reporting" is the description of Sharyl Atkisson's personal journalism website. But when every subject is the same and the reporting isn't even truly investigative, there is reason to have problems with her being a good journalist. 

Good journalism abides by all ten elements and seven yardsticks, but in a series of articles written by Attkisson you can see she breaks many of them such as fairness or verification, newsworthiness, and inclusiveness.  

The Last Days at CNN

Sharyl Attkisson resigned from her job at CNN because she felt the organization was failing to cover news on the democratic party because she thought they were liberally biased. What's ironic about all of this is that she is the one who is failing to meet the element of verification. Sharyl conveys obvious signs of being biased just by looking at her website. On the site you see many stories covering the democratic party, often attacking President Obama, but not as many covering the republican side. 

The First Article: Support for Trump

One of the most recent articles is "Donald's Duck: 7 Reasons Why nothing Sticks to Teflon Trump" in this article she lists claims that people who oppose Trump supposedly say (none of these were sited) and basically why they're wrong. However, in some of her responses she would simply dodge the statement as if it didn't matter anymore... which isn't how it was intended to work.

One of the points in particular caught my attention, "#5. Trump personally insults people." In her response she went around the point saying "... his penchant for insult outweighs the skillset he has to accomplish things that matter."  Now, people may truly think this, (but we wouldn't know because she doesn't say who she gets these comments from) but she didn't disprove the point or even try. Her "reporting" she did on this "news" was so minimal that the informational article turned into her using her own opinions to argue the opposing side. In a single article Attkisson has failed to be objective, cover what is newsworthy, and provide context. This is not good journalism.

The Second Article: Attacking Healthcare

As I was scrolling through the portion on her website entitled "NEWS" I found an entry that was nowhere near what news is. This entry was a short description of a forum she put on the site. The forum was called, "Obamacare Fail Stories." Not, "Obamacare Stories," or "How Healthcare Affected the People?" but a single forum on the negative side of healthcare. Sharyl could've easily made the forum include stories from people that had positive views on the subject to get that fairness and all sides of the story but she did not do this. This was another story with two yardsticks broken: Fairness, and Newsworthiness.

Change

 To continue about her career she needs to stop, read up on the ten elements and seven yardsticks, and ask herself (or me) what she is doing wrong. Maybe then she will realize how she fails to cover both sides of a story, report on newsworthy topics, report at all, and site her sources. 

Peer Response: Mattie Townson

I really like Mattie's thoughts on the positives of demassification and how she thought of how the media world has changed because of it. She gave insight on the good of it and I never thought of it in a positive light. She also related it to TV channels which was understandable and relatable. She did an all-around good job on it and I am glad I took the time to read it.

The Future of Newspapers

Do All Good Things Come to an End?

By understanding the history of the world if enables you to somewhat predict future events, not let the bad stuff repeat itself, and fix problems in our society. So by understanding the history of newspapers you can try to see how long they last, the good and bad things about them, and how to keep them around. During our lecture I realized how important they were and wondered how much time they have left... 

Newspapers have been around for a very long time, obviously. However, many technological advances have caused them to decrease in popularity. But a decrease is not necessarily a death. Newspapers are still around due to many factors but I think the most important one is that they are Non-linear. You can go about reading the newspaper however you want, which you don't get with other mediums. TV and radio both have a selected time that meets their needs but not every single audience member. If you have to be at work during the news cast then sorry but you're going to miss it. But with newspapers you can read certain parts, all of it, a little at lunch, some more before dinner. The point is it doesn't matter with newspapers. 

But can this one factor keep them alive? Yes. Newspapers will never be as popular as they once were. That's just the way it is, but you will still see them. I think the future of this old writing isn't as good as it could be but it will not come to an end.

They're so simplistic and normal. Not many other media forms can say the same. 

Peer Response: Sofia DeVenuto

I liked Sofia's post on the printing press. It was very interesting when she took the subject and focused on the fact that education is power. I liked that she included a real world current statistic to show change. I think the post was insightful and informative especially when she used examples to prove her points.

Conglomeration: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

As the lecture on business went on that day I found myself getting very frustrated when we discussed one of our topics-- conglomeration. I was shocked by my immediate reaction... How could I get so upset over something that fuels my fangirling? To answer this I decided to write a reflection of some sort and compare what was good and bad.

The Good

Businesses do conglomeration for a reason. Usually if you created something you would need someone else to distribute it because you can't but with conglomeration you can. A great example is Disney. If you walk outside you will see Disney. They're pretty much everywhere. From movies, to channels, to bikes, to makeup, to (I kid you not) baby food, you can say they have it all. This is because they bought it all. They went from a content creating company to also a distributor (hence the Disney store). So the main reason they do this is so they get more of those beautiful, green dollar signs. Disney can do more and pay less while also getting different sources of income so they are financially secure.

 So obviously businesses benefit from conglomeration but what about the actual consumer?

The Bad

Because conglomeration takes over so much so quickly, we as the customers get much less diversity with our products. This can be good or bad because sometimes we want the same stuff because we like it! Businesses will get as much as they can out of a popular franchise so they get as much money as we can but so we also get as much enjoyment as we can. However, sometimes they go overboard with certain things. Remakes of movies and original stories make me want to throw my TV. I've already seen it and I don't need to see it again with different actors.

The Bottom Line

When it comes down to it conglomeration has changed our society and things would be very different without it. Even I would be a different person when my interests are involved... But maybe it would be better for the consumer if it was different. Everything is becoming the same, and to me, that's not a good thing. Conglomeration allows having the same stuff shown all the time when people want new things, excitement, and diversity. This will not get you that. This will not get you  anything different.

GutenWORD

GutenWORD

"To have literacy you have to have books." -Miller. 

The above quote was said during our most recent and my personal favorite lecture. We discussed the invention of the printing press and how books affected life as we know it. The lecture could've gone on all day because having writing be spread everywhere really does affect everything. When people thought about or saw the printing press they probably said, "Oh cool," and moved along with their day but this lecture did no such thing. We not only discussed the dates and the invention itself but the before and after, the impacts, the why. By doing that I think I got the deepest understanding possible. 

By understanding the "pre-Guten world" then learning how it changed after the invention, I was able to see clear improvements and effects throughout the word such as, wide-spread literacy which led to the renaissance, political/ religious revolutions, journalism itself, standardized maps, basically an advanced world. 

But how could a metal machine that imprinted ink on a page cause all of that? Well, having a machine that doesn't break as much helps and the fact that Gutenberg's books were pretty cheap helped, but I think the biggest factor was that it wasn't in Latin! All the common people of Germany could read from it not just the highly educated elites of Europe. Now that it was translated to a simpler language it could be further translated to English or French or whatever because it wasn't Latin. Having writing be available to more and more people is what led to the spread of literacy and innovation. I can imagine that if Gutenberg or anyone else printed their work into Latin instead of a language people actually used it would not have spread as quickly and we wouldn't have been as advanced as we are today. 

Mass Media: My Trouble Internalizing

I like school to make sense like almost any other dumb teenager in America. So naturally, I like Journalism 1. This is mainly because Mr. Miller is very good at taking somewhat complicated concepts and connecting the dots by using his words and illustrations to make it understandable. This is greatly needed especially in subjects that have many parts to it such as mass media. 

As I was going over my notes on this topic I came to a realization... I knew a lot of this previous to the lecture. Now I'm not talking about the actual names of the processes or types (encoding, transmission, decoding, internalizing, stimulus, etc) but the ideas. Whenever I talk to a friend (individual), or a teacher is giving a lecture (group), or even when I'm on my phone watching videos in study hall (mass) I am participating in a type of communication without realizing it. The realization part occurred during journalism class.

After we learned what the three types of communication were and we discussed each, there was still something missing. I knew individual because there wasn't much to it, you have a conversation with one person, that's it. I understood group simply because it reminded me of a college lecture hall-- only some people, can't see the same lecture again (unless it's recorded but that then becomes mass media), immediate reaction from facial expressions and response, etc. etc. However, mass was kind of tricky for me...

I didn't get why sometimes certain things would be group when I was almost sure it was mass. It was extremely frustrating then something finally happened. By going over the beautifully drawn model, it finally clicked in my head the difference between group and mass communication and that was key in learning how to recognize the different types of medias on a daily basis. Mass=no feedback. Since mass media can reach everyone, anywhere, at anytime the creator cannot get immediate feedback! They can certainly get feedback but is a comment section truly immediate? No.

During this lecture Miller took a simple thing like communication, went into detail of each and every part, and connected each thing so that you are able to distinguish between types of communication.