“What society requires is reputable
journalism”
- I would not say that arguing that
newspapers are dead is pointless, but it is not quite yet a valid argument. I
believe we could be very close to the end of newspapers, but at this point, I
feel that they are very much still alive and well.
- The author says “It is possible to store
a CD of information in a secure location. But, as with all electronic storage,
will we be able to read it or see it a hundred years from now?” While the odds
of that are highly unlikely, I feel that if the equipment is used properly and
as efficiently as possible, I think you could be able to preserve electronic
information for over 100 years.
- The author says that daily newspaper
readers don’t pay for the news, they pay for the delivery method. I think with
the technological advancements we are seeing come about, not too far in the
future, it will just become easier not only for readers, but for news-delivering
companies to put all of their material online. The cost of printing out all of
the newspapers soon may become reason enough for them to stop putting out daily
newspapers. I feel the same way with magazines. The internet, I believe, will
one day be the only source of news other than television.
- The point about newspaper readers
knowing that what they read is clear opinion or veritable fact doesn’t hold
much merit for me, because if you go to a top news organization’s website, that
information most of the time is the same as their newspaper or magazine, and
even when not, it is still highly credible information.
- “Solipsism is unattractive in any guise
and the kind of self-selection that dominates online searches gives rise to the
narrowing of intellectual discourse.” I could not figure out this sentence for
the life of me, even after I looked up the words that I didn’t know.
“The Dark Continent of American
Journalism”
- The Richard Loeb lede at the beginning,
it is noted that the “How” was left out. I thought I/we was/were taught that
you should try to get everything in the lead. I may be wrong though.
- “Journalism is, in fact, a curriculum.
Its first course is the breaking stories of the daily press.” I feel like if we
view journalism as a curriculum, then its first course would probably be
writing. A few steps were probably skipped if daily press is the first course.
- “More journalists and scholars have been
ruined by self-importance than liquor.” While the meaning of this thought was
not entirely clear to me, I think it makes sense in a roundabout way. I read it
as most journalists and scholars are ruined by the things that make them,
rather than things that we would generally think ruin people, like liquor.
- “Journalists present to the world not a
mirror image of truth, but a coherent narrative of the world that serves
particular purposes.” This quote hit me the most of anything I read in this
essay. I feel like journalism is what the reader wants it to be. We, as
journalists, can put what we feel is the truth, or the most relevant
information, but it’s ultimately up to the reader to decide what purpose the
information serves.
- I found it interesting that burglaries,
fires, and the like used to be in the advertisement sections of newspapers,
while what we see today as advertisements appeared in the news columns. It goes
to show not only how newspapers have changed, but how the importance of
different areas of our culture have changed over time.
- “It is precisely the bizarre and
inexplicable quality of the event that makes it a story.” People want to hear
about funky, crazy, silly stories. Whether you think that’s right or wrong, I
don’t think that’ll ever change.
- “I have argued that ‘why’ is the question
most often left unanswered, or answered with an insinuation.” I have personally
always found this to be the biggest struggle in developing a good story. It is
(in most cases) fairly easy to give the crux of any story, but when the reader
wants to know “why,” it is usually difficult to give them that answer.
- I did not fully understand how he was
comparing journalism to a courtroom. Maybe something someone else in class
could clear up for me.
*I know I did not do this one correctly. I misinterpreted what we were supposed to do. I thought it was meant to be more of a response rather than a summary. I will fix that for next week's post!*
No comments:
Post a Comment