Journalism. Defined as the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media, the public press, or an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium, by Merriam-Webster.
I would have never guessed in a thousand years that I would be a part of a newspaper staff, or even interested in journalism whatsoever.
When I was in high school I began writing in a word document whenever I had something on my mind. It was my own personal computer journal. I would write about everything and anything that was going on in my life. It was my "safe place" where I could talk about anything and no one would judge me. I used to try to write a book about this boy I met before I went to high school named Jake Adams. He had a "Lifetime Movie" sort of life, full of drama and I used to want to write a book about my experiences with him as a friend. I got to page 2 and I was done. I was bored of writing about the same topic in such depth; I didn't like only having one subject, one person to write about. I needed to have numerous things to talk about, so I just continued to journal on a regular basis. I decided that writing about one subject wasn't my thing, writing about numerous subjects and life experiences was.
So I continued writing until college, but when I got to school I started writing less and less. Only writing when I was bored or had something very interesting happen to me that I never wanted to forget.
I have over 80 pages of text about my life; they are full of secrets, dreams and aspirations. They are about me.
When I learned I had to take newspaper as part of my major, I looked at it as a learning experience. I thought I would be able to have my own column where I could help other people with their life experiences because that is what I have always enjoyed doing, but I was soon disappointed. I would have to write about something every two weeks that I wasn't necessarily interested in. I was not excited about this at first, but once I got my first story topic I became more intrigued. I was going to broaden my mind by writing. I was going to learn about things I had never had much of an interest in and actually enjoy it.
I wanted to enjoy it and also be good at it, so I enrolled in Advanced Reporting and Editing. It probably wasn't smart to get into the advanced class before taking the regular one, but I did it anyways. I was out of my element! I was so behind compared to some of my other classmates, so I had to adapt. Although it wasn't easy, by the end of the semester, I had more of a feel for what I was doing. I really felt like a journalist.
The classes I've taken that include journalism have made me respect journalist a lot more. It's not as easy as I thought to write a really great, intriguing story. It takes a lot of time and effort, as well as knowledge about journalism and grammar.
My future in journalism probably won't go past college, but I plan on using everything I've learned over the next two years of school. I hope to one day get my own "Ask Alice" column in the school newspaper and really do what I love; help others and hear personal stories.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Time To Upgrade
So...it's my job to make a website for a newspaper, and I need to make it innovative and exciting! I need to make it unlike other any other website...I need for it to appeal to all my readers. How am I going to do this?
First, I am going to look through some of the most famous and "looked at" newspaper websites, including: news.yahoo.com, CNN.com, nbcnews.com, nytimes.com, huffingtonpost.com, foxnews.com, washingtonpost.com, abcnew.go.com, and usatoday.com to see what catches my eye, and what makes me want to look away.
So what caught my eye? What intrigued me? What looked new and hip? What were some common themes?
One common theme was a BIG PICTURE in the middle of the screen of the "Breaking News". This look isn't necessarily bad, it's showing me what the most important thing, in their eyes, that is going on in the world.
How would I put the "Breaking News" on my website? I would do it in the same way, with BIG BOLD lettering, but I would make sure to make it in a easy to read font, that was also interesting and eye catching. There are many fonts out there that are much more interesting than TIMES NEW ROMAN and if they are readable, I think they should be used.
Also, with that "Breaking News" I would make sure it had a link posted on it where you could click to see photos along with a different link where you could read the full story. Making it more innovative then just having words to read.
I would also use color coordination, like USA Today does. Each one of their tabs at the top of their website has a different color, News is blue, Sports is red, Life is purple, and so on making it easy to know what part of the paper you are looking at.
To be honest, I would do pretty much what USA Today does all together.
- They have quick links on the left side of the page taking you to Sudoku and Crosswords and in the middle is all the most recent, most important news.
- Each story is in a block with a picture inside of it with the story title on the bottom of the photo and the name & color of what part of the paper it is under on the left upper corner. When you hover over the picture you get a small blurb about the story and who wrote it.
- They have a photo gallery at the bottom of the page with scroll options so you don't have to click on each individual photo to see what they look like larger
- Down the right side of the page the have "Right Now" news that is updated with other, interesting "new" news stories. Even though they're not "World Breaking News" they're still important stories that should be read
I would catch their eye, I would use a font they've never seen before, I would give them something new and fresh instead of your typical TIMES NEW ROMAN I would make them want to come back for more and make them want to see what each colored tab meant, and what stories were under each tab. I would make them want to comment on how easy it was to find the newest stories as well as the most important, "Breaking News" stories. I would give them what they were interested in & the stories that influenced them the most.
I would make sure that there were lots of visuals and videos as well as well written stories, but if the story needs visuals to make it more clear and concise, I would make sure to have them. I would make a story as realistic and as "feeling like you were there" as I could.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Wanna Hear a Secret? My Personal Experience
A personal experience that I want all my classmates to know…hmm…let
me think about this so it doesn’t come back to bite me in the butt. Alright,
how much do you guys want to know about me? Well, sorry, but this story might
not interest you, but it was a very big turning point in my life.
High school, sophomore year; I was just getting in the swing
of things. I had made my core group of friends and was enjoying my classes for
the most part. But the part of my classes I wasn’t enjoying was the grades I was receiving. C’s, D’s and an occasional
F mocked my report card. Although that F was in French class which I already
didn’t understand, I obviously didn’t want to get an F in it for goodness
sakes! So I was starting to get worried, “my parents are going to be so pissed
off when they see my report card.” That is pretty much all I could think about.
I was dead. I studied so hard with my dad for all my tests, I did all my
homework (for the most part) and I even had a math tutor. What was going on?
Why did I suck at school so much?
So one day my geometry teacher came up to me and asked me if
I had been tested for ADD. I was dumbfounded that a teacher just came up to me
and asked me something so personal and heartbreaking. Was something really
wrong with my brain? Was this the reason that I was so prepared for a test and
then when I finally took the test, I didn’t know a dang thing that was on it?
So I went home and told my mom and dad what my nice teacher
had told me that day. They weren’t too surprised (ouch that hurt to write that)
because they had been noticing me not getting the grades
that they thought I should have been earning.
So we made an appointment with a specialist who could test
me for ADD.
I was one of those kids who kept a journal in school, make
fun of me all you want, but I love to remember things, and this was my way of
doing so. Here is an entry I put in after I took the test for ADD:
“Trying to raise the grades is something I have always tried to do, but
it never works. My parents decided to see if there is a reason to why my grades aren’t so good, and there may be a
possibility which is ADHD. I have a 52/100 which means that I have 52% ADD,
which could be the reason why it is hard for me to focus and not do random
things, and to be able to do better on tests. I don’t know what else to do
other than study and try to stay focused but it’s hard for me to even do those
two easy tasks.”
After taking the test consisting of sitting on a computer
and was told to click every time I saw a certain letter on the screen, my
results came back with the obvious; I not only had ADD, I had ADHD.
This was hard for me to grasp. I didn’t understand why I had
yet another health problem. The other ones I have are for another time…maybe.
But it just didn’t seem fair. Another pill to help me get through the day; just
another pill to rely on to seem normal, I couldn’t believe I was one of “those
kids” with a learning disorder.
So I started taking my medication for ADHD, and let me tell
you. The first day I took my medication, I was walking on air! I have never
been high before or under the influence of any drug, but I am guessing that is
what it feels like to be on them. I didn’t really know even more than before
what was going on around me. I wasn’t hungry anymore, and I just wanted to be
alone.
Gladly, that didn’t last long. In another journal entry of mine
I wrote:
“Speaking of school,
we are getting our grades soon & I am
quite nervous! I am going to make some guesses of what I have so far and when I
get my grade card we will see how close I was to being correct. I hope my ADHD
medication is working... =3.14 (highest GPA I would have ever gotten so far).”
A 3.14 as the highest
GPA I have ever received…now that’s sad to read. On my previous grade card, I
had a whopping 1.9 GPA. Yes, you read that right. And what did that 1.9 GPA get
me? It got my kicked off my high school golf team for a semester because I was on
academic probation. That didn’t make my dad or me too happy. That GPA kept me
from going to state that year. It was one of the most devastating things I had
ever had to go through.
Because of that 1.9 GPA and me feeling like my grades weren’t changing fast enough, I was worried
that one day no college would ever want me because I wasn’t smart enough, or that
I wouldn’t have the grades in general to
even attend school. In another journal entry, I wrote about my college dreams.
“My grades are starting to blemish in a way… I know
that I at least got an 80% on the Geometry test, but French and English are the
classes that I am very, very worried about. I know I need to do better to be
able to play golf in college, but honestly the sad thing about this, is that I
am trying. I really want to go to NC State, but we will have to see how this
summer goes & see if any colleges want to even consider having me play for
them.”
Here’s a side note. My dad is really into golf and all
during high school my dad didn’t think that any college would want me with the
scores I was shooting. This only pushed me harder to get a college golf scholarship.
So the day came where my grades
came out, and thankfully, my medication was working and I raised my grades, tremendously. I had also found out that my
school gave out help for finals for students with learning disabilities. All of
the students who had these disabilities got to take all their finals in a separate
room than everyone else where we got to take as long as we wanted on the final.
This was a blessing! Even though I usually finished in the regular allotted
time, it was so much less stressful and a huge relief.
By the end of high school, I had gone from a 1.9 GPA, to a
3.8 GPA. I ended up on the Dean’s Honor Roll and I had received a 24 on my ACT.
I had gone from nothing, to something. I also got to go to my junior and senior
golf state championships, where my team finished first and I finished in the
top 10 both years. With this, I got many
college golf scholarship offers and was happy to have proven my dad wrong.
I choose Ottawa University in a way because of my ADHD because
I sometimes still struggle, and with the small class sizes I felt like it would
be much easier for me to concentrate in class. This ended up being VERY TRUE! I
ended my freshman year of college with a cumulative GPA above a 3.5, broke a
school record with golf, and received my first 4.0 this last fall. Although
this isn’t a hard thing for many people, this is one of the biggest
accomplishments I have ever achieved.
Although many people don’t understand why people should get
special treatment because of a learning disability; they think that they are
getting special treatment by taking their tests in separate rooms with X amount
of time to take a test, they need to understand that if they were in the shoes
of someone with a learning disability they wouldn’t be whining about it so
much.
It is a very hard thing to live with and I am very grateful
that I have a family who actually cared enough to get me tested and to get me
the medications I needed to get better.
Now enough sappy stuff; yes this was a very “traumatic”
personal experience that I went through, but I got through it and it made me
who I am today.
So now that I finally got to blog about myself, you’re
probably bored. So I apologize, but I didn’t grow up with an easy life and I
like being able to relate with people who are afraid to tell their friends
about problems like this, so if anyone wants to talk to me, just hit me up!
Thanks for listening guys!
Thursday, February 7, 2013
National News Story...Ban of Gays in the Boy Scouts of America
Who do people talk to, to find out more about the ban of
gays in the Boy Scouts of America? I did some research to find out where
different news mediums got their information and how they presented it.
Beginning with the New York Times, they site the United
States Supreme Court, which is a very reliable source when talking about an end
to the national ban. They talk about the supporters along with scout leaders
and the national Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board. Also,
talking about a national poll that was released by Quinnipiac University, which
I personally have never heard of, makes it harder for me to relate to. They
also end with the quote “Correction: February 6, 2013; an earlier version of
this article misstated the color of the uniform worn by Boy Scouts. It is tan,
not green.”
Then, the Los Angeles Times begin with the Scouts’ national
board and an interview with an Eagle Scout. Then, they tossed in some talk
about religion, which the New York Times did as well. But the Los Angeles times
talked to an Austin-based conservative advocacy group called Texas Values; and
then they continue to talk about people they have interviewed regarding the
religion side of the situation. They mostly talked about religion and the bias
of each religion in whole.
Lastly, The Washington Post started out with comments from
both sides of the debate, making bias seem less. They had a spokesperson from
the Boy Scouts of America, and also the president of Texas Values, which was
written about in the Los Angeles Times. They continue on with comments from
President Obama, a mother of a Cub Scout who was ousted as a leader because she
was lesbian, a Scoutmaster, the campaign director of Scouts for Equality, a
male Scout Leader, an Eagle Scout and also Scout Leader, and lastly the
associated director of Concerned Women of America.
Boy Scouts Postpone Decision on Gays, Boy Scouts are
expected to address gay ban, Reaction to the decision by the Boy Scouts of
America to keep debating ban on gays. Are these young boys in the military? Is
this the new “don’t ask, don’t tell” when these boys are just learning skills
of responsible citizenship, character development, and through outdoor activities,
work towards career orientated programs with community organizations?
So decide for yourself...does it matter to you if you have a gay who is extremely educated on the outdoors and also has exceptional character and has learned extreme leadership skills...or can you not handle that?
Here are the web addresses of the news articles.
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