Revised - Broadcast Style Exercise

Holiday Flights
20 seconds


NORTHWEST AIRLINES ANNOUNCED THIS MORNING, THAT IT IS CUTTING ITS DOMESTIC FARES BY UP TO 40 PERCENT FOR HOLIDAY TRAVELERS.

NORTHWEST AIRLINES C-E-O FRANK DEWITT SAID THAT THEY LIKE TO THINK OF IT AS A HOLIDAY GIFT TO THEIR CUSTOMERS.

TICKETS MUST BE PURCHASED BY FRIDAY FOR TRAVEL BETWEEN NOVEMBER 12 AND JANUARY 14 IN THE LOWER 48 STATES, ALASKA AND CANADA.

DISCOUNTS VARY DEPENDING ON TRAVEL DATES AND ARE NOT AVAILABLE ON CERTAIN POPULAR DAYS, INCLUDING NOVEMBER 23, NOVEMBER 26, DECEMBER 23, AND DECEMBER 26.

WITH THE DISCOUNTED NON-REFUNDABLE FARES, A PASSENGER COULD TRAVEL ROUND-TRIP BETWEEN BOSTON AND SAN FRANCISCO FOR FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS ON CERTAIN DAYS.

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IMHO extra credit - Journalism: a Risky Business

Future Journalists to Meet Uphill Struggle

“At the peak of the ‘dot com’ boom we were making $125 million a year, just on job placement ads alone,” San Jose Mercury spokesperson, Patty Hannon said.

That was back in the year 2000. In 2008 they only made $15 million on classified ad sales in the San Jose Mercury.

Journalism has become a much less prolific career than it was a century ago. The rise of online classified ad sites such as Ebay and Craigslist have forced newspapers and some magazines into endangerment.

Advertisers would much rather pay a small amount of money to have a banner placed on a Google web search engine than thousands of dollars on one small print ad.

Our parents would pay to subscribe to daily or weekly papers to get their news. Our generation stays well-informed by simply having access to the internet. The truth is, we don’t have to pay for our news, so why would we?

Hannon threw out a question that us Journalism majors must be asking ourselves: “If I’m not paying to get the news, how will I get paid when I work for the industry?”

As a student journalist, I have been told by guest speaker after guest speaker, that I better be prepared to work somewhere far from home for low pay if I want to get my career going.

San Jose Mercury columnist Joe Rodriguez said that it is even harder as a freelancer because you won’t have superiors to train you and help you learn. You don’t get benefits, the pay is low, it is hard to get papers or magazine to pay you for your articles. Some editors will hear your idea then give it to another freelancer that they know will do it for less pay.

I asked them, honestly, if we should just switch majors.

Rodriguez said that he has tried that and did very well in other subjects, but his love was for writing. We should follow what we love and not what will make us money. If we feel like we are meant to be writers and being in the journalism field makes us happy, then stick to it and we should be able to live a happy life and make decent pay.

So, my advice, make sure you are good at writing and that you would be happy to write for free if you want to stay in journalism. If you’re in this mostly for the money, go elsewhere; but I’m sure if you have already chosen journalism as a major, you aren’t a gold digger anyway.

-Justin Riray

Revised - Soft Broadcast Lead

HOW DOES A SQUIRREL STOP MULTIPLE TRAINS ALL AT THE SAME TIME?

BY CLIMBING ONTO THE METRO-NORTH COMMUTER RAILROAD'S POWER LINES AND CAUSING AN ELECTRICAL SURGE.

THE RESULTING POWER OUTAGE LEFT 47-THOUSAND RAIL COMMUTERS STRANDED IN MANHATTAN.

A METRO-NORTH SPOKESWOMAN SAID THAT THE SQUIRREL WAS ELECTROCUTED WHILE SCAMPERING ON THE POWER LINES.

SERVICE IS RESTORED BY CREWS ON TUESDAY MORNING.


note: I think you're right. I probably hit save as draft instead. Perhaps I was incompetent at the time, haha.

Revised - Real Life Reporting - Educational Psychology

California College Students lack Motivation

The California college system, and perhaps the rest of The United States, have failed to successfully motivate students to perform to their full potential according to Roxana Marichi, Ph.D., educational psychologist.

“When students get a tangible reward, like good grades or a top spot in a class, it actually makes them less motivated,” says Marachi.

The college system is based on grades and students are rewarded and valued by rank. This is not the way to motivate us to succeed.

Marachi, San Jose State’s assistant professor of the college of education, led a workshop for teachers and staff about how to better motivate students. The session took place at San Jose State in IRC 101 on March 3 at 1:00 p.m.

It was a smaller classroom that seemed to be at full capacity with only 12 of us there. The seating was meeting room styled with everyone in a circle; a setting that encourages equality between teachers and students.

The basis of the meeting focused on healthy learning versus unhealthy learning. Marachi explained that, behaviorism, on of the oldest learning theories, actually has nothing to do with learning.

For students, grades become the prize at the end. Students learn to work solely for a reward. This works for a short period of time, but is detrimental to their work ethic in the long run.

SJSU e-Campus blackboard.com administrator, Mark Adams said that the top performers in their field “spent an enormous amount of time in practice; they also enjoyed practice.”

The best way to learn is to learn for the sake of learning, and not to pass the class.

Engineering professor, Jacob Tsao, Ph.D., brought up a discussion on what student, Justin Riray, likes to call, “the cemetery syndrome,” in which the entire class seems dead. Tsao said that on a regular basis, he would ask the class a question and not a single hand would raise. Marachi reminded us that it is the teachers responsibility to make the subject matter seem interesting and useful to the students.

Marachi explained the expectancy - value theory of motivation; multiply what the learner expects to learn by the value of the material to calculate their motivation level. “This is a multiplicative model, it is not additive,” Marachi said.

“If one of them is zero, then they are all zero.”

It was discussed that if a student believes they will do well, but is not at all interested in the subject, or visa versa, then they will have zero motivation.

Dennis Hungridge, M.A., a human resources workforce planning manager reminded us how the U.S. has built itself on opposite values from the rest of the world.

“The cultural myth of the United States is working hard; not education,” claimed Hungridge.
While Europe and most of Asia founded their worth on knowledge and learning in order to succeed, the United States has founded it’s values on working hard.

Since society has taught this generation to work for short term goals, they have developed short term motivation. People give up to easily. Failing just one class could completely hinder a student’s full potential, because they are likely label themselves a failure from then on.

Marichi advised that students have to learn to love school for the sake of increasing out knowledge and preparing themselves for life using the tools offered to us by teachers. People also need to be optimistic about difficult trials and failures.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

Jordan once observed, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life.”

“That is why I succeed.”

-Justin Riray, SJSU Journalism Major

Libel? Playing Editor!

Play editor! Read the following draft of a college newspaper story and determine if it contains any passages that are libelous. If you believe you have found a libelous passage, describe the passage and why you believe it is libelous. Then briefly explain what you would need to do to fix it -- or what you would need to omit -- before running the story. (Or would you run it at all?)

Here's the draft to review for libel:

A sophomore at Springfield University claims a chemistry professor has sexually harassed her.

Karen Hart, 123 Hill Hall, says the professor, George O.T. Jungle, has touched her during tutoring sessions in his office and has invited her to his apartment several times. She said she declined his invitations.

"I am having trouble in the class and I have to go see him to get help with my papers and projects," Hart said. "But I am scared to go in his office now."

Jungle denied having an improper contact with the student and threatened this newspaper with a libel suit if it published the story.

Hart said she is thinking of filing a formal complaint with the university.

"I don't know how to do that," she said. "I don't know what to do."


This is perfect, I am currently taking Mass Communications Law, Mcom 101.
So, I’ll give my expert opinion!
First of all, for a statement to be labeled “actionable libel” it MUST be false. So, I cannot be truly sure about whether or not the statements are libelous or not because I do not know if they are true. So, I’ll do my best.
The first sentence is libelous is it is a false statement or if whoever gathered that information from Karen made the news gatherer promise confidentiality--to not repeat or publish what she told him or her.
This is on the verge of libel, but it is not. The writer makes a good move by always including “she said,” in the statements. But still, this is too detailed to release to the public considering she hasn’t even filed a formal complaint.
It is not libelous, but it is stupid to write a story without reasonable proof. Just hearing this news from a student is not enough.
I would omit the parts in the second paragraph about Jungle touching her or inviting her to his apartment. Also, in the fourth paragraph the use of the word “threatened” has a very negative connotation. I would either omit that sentence, or at least not use “threatened.”
The entire piece seems like it was meant to ruin Jungle’s reputation, which is one of the characteristics of a libelous publication.
Overall, this is very libelous, but I am not sure if it would be labeled completely libelous in court. I would have to know more about the truth of the statements Hart and Jungle made.
If I were the editor, I would leave it a short, impersonal article and not name the teacher. However, if Hart told my reporter that she wanted to be named, then I would name her.

Copy edit the World #3 (extra)

This is from my Cases in Communications book by Zelezny.
The sentence reads: Respondent publishes American Opinion, a monthly outlet for the views of the John Birth Society.
This is a GFE: It should be "the John Birch Society"


Didn't get to take a picture of it, but in the "One and Done for SJSU" sports article in the Wednesday March 11th, 2009 issue of the Spartan Daily there was a GFE!
Under the picture it named "Chastity Shavers" but in the scoring chart it read: "C. Shaver"
So, I am not sure which one is wrong, but one of them is!




This is from one of my sister's high school text books. I can get the name of it if you would like me to, but she's in school right now and isn't texting me back.
The sentence, show in two consistent pictures, is: Your purpose to kill me.
That isn't a complete sentence. It should say: Your purpose is to kill me.


It says " ... student that is majoring in broadcast journalism who shown ... "
It should say " ... who has shown ... "


My next three corrections come from this book.


IEE should be IIE for the Institute of International Education.



From Edward R. Murrow..., there should be commas before and after the word "officially" and it should read: Although, officially, its assistant director ...


This is also from Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism by Bob Edwards. It should be written as: Alger Hiss'



Hapiness should read: Happiness. Plus, I have no idea why all those words are capitalized. I found this in a newspaper back home in Pittsburg. It was probably the Contra Costa Times classifieds.

Ethical Decision Making

Scenario 1

You are interviewing a high government official about her involvement in a bribery scheme, when she is called out of her office. While alone, you notice some documents on her desk that appear to be related to your investigation.

Would you read them? Take them? Ask her
about them when she returns?

I would ask her about them when she returns, most likely. However, if it were a story that I was very passionate about and I felt like the government was keeping a bad secret from the American public I might take a peek at them, but it would have to be on a day that I am feeling extra brave and risky.
Also, it wouldn’t be the disrespect of personal privacy that would keep me away from looking at the papers. It would be fear of being caught snooping. I’m just being honest. I for sure wouldn’t just take them; that is plain stupid. She would ask where the hell her papers went, then I’d be caught, and screwed.
I am aware that it would be a breach of privacy, or illegal interception of classified documents, but I still say there would be a one percent chance I’d go for a quick glance. That means I’d have a one percent chance of serving jail time and would have to kiss my career goodbye.



Scenario 2

Conditions at a local nursing home are known to be substandard. It’s privately owned, and efforts to gain admittance or information have failed. Your editor asks you to get a job as an orderly and write a story based on your first-hand experiences.

Would you do it? Why or why not?

I would love to, unfortunately I wouldn’t want to do any undercover reporting that had to do with grubby situations. I would only go undercover for positive, or fun stories. Being an undercover reporter to uncover an individual’s or a company’s mistakes and incorrect activities is like going up to a police officer and punching them in the face; you’re just asking to be thrown in prison.


Scenario 3

You are writing a feature story and find some excellent quotes about your subject from another written source.

– May you use those quotes as if you
obtained them yourself, or must you
credit the other written source?
– What if you obtained the quotes from a
web site?

Of course I would cite the paper, magazine, or website I got it from. I would cite the author of the article or piece I took the quotes from. Even though it is nice to be the first to come up with a news story, I am very sure readers don’t subtract points from an article just for citing information from another article.
In fact, most news stories come from information from wire services or other newspapers or websites. So, there is nothing to be ashamed of about quoting another journalistic source.
Definitely, always, quote anything that you did not come up with, yourself.