Maddy Williams: Her Strong Words

After reading through nearly all of Maddy's blog I notice one that almost help me understand the topic better. She wrote about Mr. Miller's lesson on the intake of journalism. Maddy used strong language and wonderful description to explain her view of he lesson.
I love how she took the lesson and rerouted it in her own words. She describes in the beginning what that lesson was all about. Following up with a clear version of what she learn from the lesson. Maddy is also one of my best friends and the way she has been stressing about how well her blog would turn out. With her strength in writing I am not very surprised at how well it turned out.
I realize that this is short because the only critique that I have is, absolutely nothing.

*turns around and drops the mike*

Luigi Approved 

Maddy's Blog

Jessica Martel: Her Witty Remarks Against Racism

After the recent events that happened at the UK Constitution Day celebration, Jessica wrote a wonderfully sculpted remark to what happened. I read through her article and Jessica clearly and firmly shows her views on the issues of Racism in the 21st century.

She goes on about how race is simply just a word for someones skin pigmentation. Jessica specifically said this in her blog, "The fact that this argument is still considered valid, that it is still needed against Anti-Semist, Islamophobic, racist, sexist, supremacists in modern-day society is absolutely disgusting! We should no longer have any need for that, yet we do, because some people still insist on having the racial/sex/religious divide!" I agree fully with what she is saying in this and I am disappointed to say that I see this type of behavior in my own family.

It is truly hard to live in a society where we can not simply accept each other as we are. We are all human beings and our differences are so small that they should not matter. I have just recently been exposed to this in our very own school, duPont Manual High School.

Lastly I would like to point out that Jessica perfectly shows that the racist issue in the 21st century is absolutely absurd.

Jessica's blog

Class Lesson: 7 yardsticks & 9 principles

9 Principles
1. Truth: giving the audience reliable, accurate facts. Should be a journalists first priority
2. Loyalty: Tells the reader and majority of the public what is needed to be told. Not slanted or obscured for appeal.
3. Verification: rely on only trustworthy and professional verifying information. Making sure the information used is credible.
4. Independence: a journalist should not take no for an answer when it comes to publishing something truthful and what they believe should be known.
5. Watchdog: The journalist should keep an eye on all government officials from all levels.
6. Forum: should be backed up by facts and can be in relevance to the public.
7. Make the important interesting: storytelling with a purpose. It has to balance what the readers want to read and what they need to know.
8. Inclusive: Keeping news at proportion without leaving anything important out.
9. Room for Dissent: every journalist has to have their own moral compass.

7 Yardsticks
1. Newsworthiness: based on two major factors... (1) weather the story topic is core or peripheral (2) whether the story is to have a direct or lasting informational impact on the audience.
2. Context: measures the number of sources and independent sources in he days top stories.
3. Explanation: to capture the big picture while reporting about issues and thematic events as opposed to episodic reporting on isolated events.
4. Local relevance: to focus on the important events in one distinct area. Don't report on London when your area is the United States of America.
5. Civic Contribution: measures how well reporters kept an eye on government officials of all levels from The White House to the school board.
6. Enterprise: measures whether reporters keep up with other press releases by listening to the radio, investigating in that area, or asking the community basic questions
7. Fairness: whether the reporters get all sides views of the whole.


This lesson helped me understand the true meaning of Journalism. As well as the procedures that a journalist has to take in order to be considered a fair and true writer in this field.
The nine principles helped me find out that there is so much more that should be a priority to journalist. I knew that truth and verification had to be two of them, but I noticed others that I wasn't sure about. Such as, watchdog, forum, and room for dissent. Watchdog is the principle that the piece must serve as an independent monitor of power, like focusing on those people with more power than others, such as the governor. Room for dissent, is where the journalist has to have his or her own moral compass in the piece that they have written.
Onto seven yardsticks, this something that I already knew pretty well but this lesson defiantly cleared things up for me. I knew that the topic had to be newsworthy as well as the fact that the piece had to have local relevance to some degree. Civic contribution is one that I was a little fuzzy about what exactly it was. With this lesson I learned that civic contribution is where you keep an eye on every government official from school board to The White House.
This lesson is going to seriously help me when it comes to writing a legit piece.

Response: The History of Magazines

The fact that caught me off guard was the fact that Benjamin Franklin wrote the first American magazine in 1714, it was called the General Magazine. I also liked hearing about the Saturday Evening Post, which is a magazine from the early 1820's that was the most popular at the time. This magazine like many others tried to incorporate bits of everything from hard news to silly morning comics.
Magazines also helped develop many things like photo journalism and national advertising. National advertising helped support businesses and helped them grow, I find this as an important advancement that the magazine industry came up with. Not only did it introduce new advancements but it also spread literacy because of their lower prices next to books.
Magazines were eventually down graded because of the radio, which could reach millions instead of thousands. Now it is hard to find a true national magazine that has a little bit of everything. It is more likely to find gossip, fashion, or sports based magazines.
This lesson was absolutely fascinating. I love learning about the history of literature and journalism, especially when I love magazines. I was rather excited for this lesson hoping that I would learn when magazines came along and how they turned out like they are now.

Media Critique: USA Today? In What Way

Going through the Courier Journal leads to an expectation of important and trustworthy news. Although, flipping through it you would never expect to see an article titled, "Kate's pregnant again, and again struggling with morning sickness". Finding this in the place that it was, brings question to whom put it there to begin with. The article that addresses Princess Kate's morning sickness was in the USA today section of the widely read and known Courier Journal.

Thinking of where this article is it clearly looks over one of the seven yardsticks, Local Relevance. In order for an article to be Local Relevance in the USA today section it would clearly have to be in the general area of the United States of America. This article has to do with a whole different place across the Pacific Ocean. In order to fix this article's problem you should move this article to a different area of the newspaper or out of the Courier Journal in general.