WDRB has been going overboard on unnewsworthy types of stories. One story - a story on McDonalds - was something that would not create a gapping hole in someone's life if they were not to know it. The article is called 'McDonalds recalls Happy Meal toy for choking risk'. The toy, a Hello Kitty plastic doll, is shown next to the article. The actual article itsself is very short, but has many quotes and sources to which they got their information. So though this article was pretty irrelevant to everyone's life except maybe a four year old girl, it manages to have the principle of verification down, that is no match and is almost completely cancelled out by the nature of the story. Hopefully the news that Hello Kitty whistles are no longer put into your Happy Meals doesn't upset you too much.

The article here

WHAS has been over doing the celebrity and fluff stories - this new article proves it. Bill Cosby, who has been famous since his sitcom The Cosby Show, put out a tweet onto twitter asking fans to make him into a meme - and with this came a reaction he wasn't expecting. People did turn him into a meme, but not exactly nice ones. Though this article is funny and laughable, it still isn't something very relevant at all. This story, among others that are fluffy and not important, have been racking up when it comes to how many there are on this news outlet. Newsworthiness just doesn't seem to be a trait that WHAS can manage. This station needs to get their stuff together and remember to report things that are actually important to what people need to know; at least have stories that are from real life, and all the other stories in their own separate tag.

The story here

The Courier Journal -

For you, or for your view?

 

 

For the past six weeks, the Courier Journal has noticably been reporting peripheral stories, such as human interest or celebrity and fluff. Their head story, online and in the news paper, has almost everyday been on a human interest type story, while four other outlets have been reporting crime. Are any of these stations reporting the most important news first? If thought about, no, they are not. It's not like CJ doesn't report important things at all, or that they never report the important things as headlines; it's just that they do it so much more frequently that those days are not nearly as noticable. People would rather look at stories that are not as serious and important as what they seem like. This brings up one of the commonly neglected yardsticks, newsworthiness. The stories may be newsworthy, but not worthy of the position they are given. The Courier may have been trying to get by on doing this unnoticed, but watch out CJ, it's been noticed.

Courier Journal-

Online and on point

 

The Courier Journal, on the date of October the 29th, 2014, had a wide range of stories on their online website - in fact, they had the widest range, starting at twenty three stories that were local, twelve that were national, and five that were international. These stories were also well spread out on the types of stories that they published. Here is what they had that day:

• accidents and disaster - 0
• politics and government - 5
• crime - 2
• war and diplomacy - 0
• business and economy - 10
• social issues, human interest, and education - 3
• health, consumer, and environment - 5
• celebrity, fluff, and other - 15

Though they do not have accident and disaster stories, nor do they have war and diplomacy, they still have stories in every other category, and in each category, there is a fair amount. With this, they have proven that they have inclusiveness, not leaving important things out.

Television is apart of life: everyone around the globe with a tv watches it. Maybe they have a favorite show or two, or check the news and weather. No matter how much they watch it, 7 hours a day or 15 minutes a week, it is watched. Why? Because it's convenient, and that's what everything is about, right? Convenience? All these fast food restaurants, highways, little convenience stores; all ways to make life 'simpler'. Television is just another convenience for humans. If leaving the house is too much work, one could watch church on tv; watch other people work out; watch other people socialize, other people do anything with their lives. Television isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can turn into one when used how most households use it: constantly. That's when it turns from a good thing to a bad thing. TV influences people like no other; when a favorite character is seen, or any character actually, wearing or doing something new, it's something that is 'needed', because television is so much like reality, we lose ourselves in it.

Movies date back to 1888 - When Dixon created a way to make evidence of motion on film. Since then we have built upon the idea of moving pictures with sound to go along this the picture. Very much like real life - In an hour and thirty minutes. Movies are a lot like TV in a way; People just like us going through daily life troubles, even if those troubles aren't daily for the average human. Movies are also a special experience, especially when seen in a movie theatre, surround sound and a huge screen displayed in front of the audience. There's the want to see the picture in the theatre maybe for that reason, but it's not ever that simple. Humans like to see things first, to see a life that isn't theirs displayed in a grander way than they ever see their life turning out to be. Movies depict a storyline that doesn't continue the next day, so, withing that hour and a half (given there is not a sequel), a whole story, a whole life, is basically written out for the viewer. Thousands upon thousands of frames flashed before one's own eyes in an ultimate illusion: that's all a movie is, an illusion. Not just in how the human's mind doesn't see each frame but rather sees it as a whole frame, but in what the movie is as one. The story put out is not real life, and never was. It's a way for real life humans to pretend like the happy endings and impossible worlds that movies put across are possible in at least some way. It's like watching a life happening - and being able to put the story into context of a real life.

Karac - a little man of a large mind

One of my friends and fellow classmates, Karac Medley, has a very intriguing blog that is quite in depth and on point, kind of like my eyebrows, though I think they're just slightly on a higher level. He uses very mature and well developed writing that makes him seem older than his age of a 9th grader. Though his articles aren't put into the form of directly being put into the spotlight of entertaining, it still has an entertaining taste to it as you read them. His points are valid and not only does he tell them well, they are also very well backed up. He has a great talent for writing and making what he writes a well oiled machine of work, so Karac, I salute you.

Communication is apart of nearly every one's daily life, even if you talk to no one and no one talks to you. There is actually a pretty in depth process that people go through for information and communication, whether it be giving or receiving the information. This process, being difficult but simple at the same time, is interesting.

1. An idea is created. This is stimulus.
2. The idea is put down in some way that it is preserved, but not shown to the public. This is called encoding.
3.  The idea goes through transmission, transmitting the idea so that the public can now see.
4. Then the idea is decoded - going through the process of translating the idea into something the information receiver understands.
5. Lastly, the idea is understood and interpreted by the receiver of the information, which is called internalization. 

There is much more to this process, such as what impediment each process between stimulus and then the idea being internalized, such as semantic noise; the disturbance of the idea being shared or internalized. This is linked to the encoding process. There is channel noise - choosing what is internalized. This type of impediment is like going on the Internet and browsing through the articles you want on a news site. Then there is environmental noise, which is being disturbed of internalizing information because of surrounding noise. This can be linked to cell phones, talking to someone but being distracted by the environment around you.

Wow! All of that, going through the process of internalizing information, and no one even realizes how they are doing so because it happens so quickly. This process, as stated before, is quite interesting and difficult, though the process is executed with ease.

Like anything else, books are a source of opinions for everyone. Do you like them? Reading them? Using them as a coaster for your soft drink as you watch the movie version instead? Either way, there's no mistaking the importance of books. They were, after all, the first form of mass communication. Books had many impacts on society when the printing of words became more efficient in 1450, the creation of the metal movable type press. A few of the impacts were increased literacy among all classes, protestant reformation, and the spreading of news, political ideas, art and music. Are books important? Of course they are. They can change people's lives, they create culture and leave behind something in an archive type of way. Books certainly are important and always have been, dating before any type of printing invention was made.

Kathryn the Slayer

My fellow classmate, Kathryn Minor, has one of the most... interesting*... and detailed blogs I've seen yet while going through all of me classmates' blogs. She uses her personality while writing, using voice, therefore creating a more personal feel as she talks to her readers in her reviews of our class topics. Her writing is exemplary and she uses details that work together to create very interesting pieces. She also puts the class topics we have gone over together in a way even I wouldn't have thought of, and come on, I'm pretty awesome. 

*I use the ellipses because Kathryn, I love you girl. Keep being a weirdo.

Are newspapers on their way out? Some people say yes, mostly younger individuals who are used to reading the news on their phone, seeing it on the tv, or just not even look at the news; and then there are the people who say no, the older mass of people who grew up with the newspaper being the main source to getting the news on a daily basis. Well, are they? Though many people would say yes, even more people would say no. How could they be? Newspapers date back to 59 B.C.E: The Acta Diurna, meaning "the journal newspaper" though the newspaper was made of metal rather than paper. Then the Publick Occurrences came out in the United States in 1689, the first newspaper, even if it did only last one issue. The Zenger trial came up, a journalist named John Peter Zenger having criticized William Cosby, the Rhode Island colonial governor. In this era of time, this was of equivalence to criticizing the king. The grand jury refused to charge Zenger after the mayor admitted to the charges that had been the source of criticism. The judge charged Cospy with libel, and after this trial, freedom of the press was a more prominent law, thus being the first thing mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Party papers came out, telling citizens to vote for their party. Through all that history, newspapers still exist. There are daily newspapers, both local and national. And now, with all that in mind, the question again: Are newspapers, existing for almost 2100 years, going to be taken over by more high tech ways of getting the news? Many people are asking that question in the face of the Internet, but there are strong reasons keeping the answer still yes:

• They're portable
• Low tech
• Cheap
• Replaced easily
• Very traditional for families
• They are physical objects

And while smart phones and news shows can match up to one or more, none but one can match all: newspapers. Are newspapers going out? Not today, son.

A source of interest and a sick twist of entertainment can be linked to skeletons, (especially around Halloween) such as in scary movies where they jump out of the dark, unhinged jaw gaping open. They are entertaining (again, in a sick and twisted way), yes, but are they relevant enough to make a whole news article about?

Archaeologists from the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (otherwise known as ULAS) have found eleven skeletons at a lost chapel in Leicester. Two of them, the skeletons focused on and that seem to be the center of the article's purpose, are said to be "holding hands." And though this fact is quite interesting and mysterious, something that would catch a reader's attention, is it really as important as they make it out to be, being labeled as the latest on World News?

According to the yardstick 'newsworthiness,' one of the Seven Basic Yardsticks of Journalism Quality, it is not. It is not a subject, that of a couple of skeletons with their fingers entwined in a sign of dead love (hah), that will have an impact on a large audience. Though it may be a core topic (science/tech) it is not of a level of importance to the science community, such as discovering the extreme length of human stupidity, that it will mater to people and keep it on their minds for six months at the least.

Then there is the core principle 'make the important interesting,' one of nine Core Principles of Journalism, which also supports the idea that this article is lacking relevance. Of course the fact that two skeletons, having been buried around 700 years, were found holding hands in their grave is quite interesting; but as interesting as it is, the principle isn't just about making something interesting. The point has to be important in the first place. For reasons why this isn't an important article, please refer to the previous paragraph.

There is nothing wrong with articles on things other than politics being counted as world news; things can still be just as equally relevant. There's a fine line between relevant and interesting, both commonly being muddled together based upon perception. This article could have been labelled better, seeing as when you go to the page for world news, it is surrounded by links centered around ISIS and Iraq. It was put into the wrong category, and though the article itself is a fairly nice article to read, it's not something that would be happily read by viewers if they were trying to catch up on their worldly destruction.

Link to the article: Skeletons found holding hands after 700s years

Monopoly. Everyone links the word to the board game, some not even knowing what it means. Then there are hexopolies; more specifically, the hexopoly of six corporations that essentially rules media all across the United States and innumerable companies that all Americans know. A majority of the population uses the services those companies provide. A hexopoly like this, as disturbing as it is, is even more alarming. Six large companies with a vast power over resources that all Americans use? How can that be good? If they were to ban together or to take over one another, which are both a large possibility,* what type of power would that give them? They, the six companies with more power than most people know, would have the type of money sum that people can't even fathom. This type of power certainly isn't safe, but there isn't much anyone could do. Americans will have to deal with the fact that six companies, larger than anything they know, may turn into one as time passes, and the power that comes with owning things people value most (like their phones, or television) given to one single corporation that strives toward two things; money, and keeping the hold over Americans that keeps their income growing.

*In 1950, there were 50 corporations that controlled the media. That has changed to six. Which way does this seem to be heading?