Make The Important Interesting

Towards the beginning of the year we discussed the nine principles of journalism.  The one that I understood most at the time was making the important interesting. I agreed with the fact that this is something extremely important in journalism more than I agreed with any of the other principles. Before joining the journalism magnet I never watched the news, nor did I have any idea of most of the current events that were going on around me. 

Although I was not reading about anything important or political I read the E news website religiously because I thought that was the only interesting news out there. Of course now I enjoy current events and love the fact that I am aware of what is happening in the world. I think the media is doing an amazing job of making the important interesting, now that I am constantly reading and watching the stories they are writing and broadcasting.

In class I immediately agreed with making the important interesting, because without that being a constant policy throughout journalism it would be a chore for me to learn about current events, when it should be something I enjoy doing. It is just as crucial to have people know what is gong on in the world, as it is to make the important interesting, because if people had no interest in the news because it was not interesting then we would have countries of people, who are ignorant as to what they deserve as a citizen.

Mikayla Response

I agree with Mikayla’s interest in Binary models because I also think the contrast between binary models is cool swell. ( mikaylahinton.blogspot.com/2014/09/binary-models.html?m=1 ) I agree that it is interesting to compare your personal experiences like listening to music and reading to what we learned in class about hot and cold media. I also agree with how she explains that its cool to take notice in things that we look at as so simple but are actually very complex.

Caroline Response

I completely agree with what Caroline had to say about The History of Printing. ( carolinesjourneys.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-history-of-printing.html?m=1 ) It is amazing how one person can effect our lives so much, and how people were able to create their own technologies. If you think about it, the fact that somebody created letters and vowels, and grammar is almost unreal. Caroline mentions how she would not be able to imagine her life without reading material, and I can completely relate to that. It’s amazing that Johannes Guttenberg can impact our entire world so much. You can only begin to wonder what life might be like if we were all illiterate.

No Adolescence

Our third lecture was about a man named Gutenberg.  He invented an efficient method of mass producing books.  During this lecture we discussed how the efficiency to create reading material raised the literacy levels all around the world. This lecture was my favorite because I loved learning about how one man who helped the world become more literate still effects us today because, what he did allowed the entire world to have the technology that is literacy.

Our lecture then moved into what life would be like if we had a majority of globally low literacy rates. Mr.Miller mentioned something that I would probably never have thought of on my own. He told us about how adolescence probably wouldn't be a thing. His reasoning was that adolescence is soupy based around school, and if we were illiterate there would be no reason for school. We would develop straight from youth to adulthood, because there would be no need for the mental preparation in between. 

I find this so fascinating because my life, everyones life could be completely different, and you could say that one man is the reason for that. I agree with what Mr.Miller says because I am comparing why my life is right now and what I plan on doing until I’m done with college, and basically the majority of my time is learning and preparing, so there would be no use in having teenagers.

General Magazines

I’m sure many people have a favorite magazine that they subscribe to. Maybe its vogue, because of a passion they have for fashion, or maybe its agricultural digest because they have an interest in home decor. When Mr.Miller first said, “ Magazine,” in class those are the types I thought of. The glossy paged, focused on one subject kind. I was extremely intrigued when I heard that magazines had drastically changed since when they first came out. 

I thought that it was so cool when I learned Ben Franklin created the first magazine. He is such a smart man that left such incredible things behind, so it is extremely amazing to me that he created such an important innovation in a field that I hope to go into one day. 

The name of his magazine was called the General Magazine. The name itself shows you that early magazines were general and not focused on a topic like magazines today. I love to watch how society shapes things over time, and I find it so interesting that newspapers developed into something that could have more information, which magazines had at the beginning of their time but now have their own topics.

I think in class we could have paid a little more attention to this subject because, I think its important to see how the needs and wants of the people changed completely what magazines were. I also would have liked to discussed what my piers thought the future of magazines held.

John Peter Zenger and the Future of Newspapers

Recently in class we discussed newspapers. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire lecture and found the development of the entire newspaper system extremely interesting. Although I was drawn to the entire topic I especially enjoyed learning about John Peter Zenger. John Zenger was a publisher in the 1800’s. 

He wrote an article criticizing a government official, which at the time, was an extremely serious offense. Zenger was charged with criticism of  public official, but he was going to change the entire future of journalism by fighting back. John started an entire case which stated that anybody should have the right to write whatever they want about any government official as long as what they were criticizing was truthful. In this case Zenger was writing completely true information about the official he was criticizing, so if he were to win his case he would be deemed innocent. 

In the end  John Peter Zenger won his case which resulted in the creation of freedom of press, which would soon become he 1st amendment. This proves that truth always trumps a lie. It is so inspiring that one man can have such a big impact on a subject that I am so passionate about. I was intrigued by how much society can change over time when I learned about the Zenger trial. Only 2 centuries ago, people were being arrested for speaking the truth that the government dint want to be heard, and now we re encouraged to speak our mind on whatever we feel needs to discussed, whether we are bias to the topic or not.

opTowards the end of our lecture Mr.Miller mentioned how he believes that newspapers will last much longer than some people might assume, which I completely agree with. We discussed how there are many things that can replace replace newspaper for example portable internet, but what we all seemed to agree on was the fact that things like the cheapness of a newspaper, the tradition and the low technology it requires ect, are reason enough to keep it around, for a very long time.

Media Critique

WHAS 11 recently posted a story entitled, “Louisville Women Loses State Fair Blue Ribbon,” under the National News section on the official WHAS 11 website. ( www.whas11.com/news/national/275663511.html ) This story is about a Louisville women who was caught in a scandal during a baking contest, because her recipe was composed of a store bought crust. This article, although intriguing has no relevance to a local crowd of people let alone a national crowd, in which this piece was categorized under. This is an example of breaking two of the seven yardsticks of journalism and one of the nine principles of journalism. 

The first yardstick that was broken was newsworthiness. To make sure a story is newsworthy the questions a person must ask themselves are if the topic is core or peripheral, and will it have a lasting effect for a decent amount of people. This story fails to positively answer any of those questions. This topic is not core or peripheral nor will it have a long lasting effect on people, because the fact that a women got a blue ribbon revoked does not effect anybody outside of the competition in which she competed in. 

The second yardstick being broken is local relevance. Local relevance asks how your article effects the audience that the story is being distributed to. This story for example is being distributed nationally and just as was mentioned previously, does not effect anybody nationally besides the few other bakers who participated in the contest, therefore there is no relevance for any of the citizens that have the opportunity to read this article. 

The principle of journalism that was broken by WHAS 11 posting this article was make the important interesting. As shown above this story has no real relevance to a relevant mass of people, and this article is not important at all considering the other current events that are being discussed. WHAS 11 is trying to make this minor (but interesting) scandal sound much bigger and more important than it is, and WHAS 11 especially breaks this principle of journalism by making this story national news which it should not be.

This article obviously does not meet the standards that are needed for it to proper journalism, but if WHAS wanted to post this story, they could categorize it under entertainment instead of national news.