Sunday, September 14, 2008

Free Press story is classic public service journalism, told over different platforms

This week, Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick leaves office in disgrace. He's headed to jail after pleading guilty to two felonies. His downfall started with an investigative story in the Detroit Free Press. This Free Press video explains how the story unfolded. It also is an example of telling a story in a new way. The newspaper reporters have written dozens of print stories about the mayoral scandal, but they've also used multimedia to supplement their story telling. Reporter Jim Schaefer talks about the public service role newspapers play in a story like this.">

Friday, August 29, 2008

Elicia's Bio

What's your name? Elicia Dover
Where are you from? Bryant, Arkansas
What year are you in school? Junior
What is your career goal? To be a reporter for a major news network or newspaper.
What do you like to read? Mostly web sites and newspapers. I don't read a lot of books on my own since I always have about 5 that are assigned to me at one time.
Where do you get your news? 80% online 10% newspapers 10% 24 hour cable news stations
Do you have any journalism experience? Yes, I was editor of my high school newspaper, worked for the DN for only a short time, had a summer internship with a news station in Little Rock, AR, this summer had an internship with Fox News in NY, and also have gained experience from my J-classes in which I have had to write a lot of stories for.
Do you have a blog? I kept a blog this summer for the Journalism School's web site about my internship.
What are you passionate about? I honestly really love journalism and reporting. I thrive on asking tough questions and making people squirm! Also, I really believe that high school journalist are at an huge disadvantage in this country because they are too afraid of getting in trouble if they report certain stories. I once had an administrator tell me he was going to write me up and put me in detention if I wrote a story about something he was doing that was going against the handbook. I wrote it. High school students have the same freedoms as anyone, and I don't think a lot of principals realize that.
Is there anything else you'd like us to know about you? I'm a cheerleader for UNL, which I love doing. Also, I do a lot of work with the American Cancer Society here on campus since my mom is a breast cancer survivor and my grandmother died of it. I really think a cure is just around the corner.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

My Bio

What's your name?
Adam Clay Templeton

Where are you from?
Dickinson, North Dakota

What year are you in school?
Senior

What is your career goal?
A writing job that lets me go in depth with my stories, such as magazine writing, instead of producing blunt daily articles that barely scratch a topic's surface. I also have aspirations to at least finish a novel. Getting it published is an entirely different beast to tackle.

What do you like to read?
Like I said in class, I read comics. A lot. That's not to say I don't read actual books, either. My favorite novelists at the moment are Neil Gaiman and Christopher Moore. I'll pretty much read anything, so long as it has quirky characters and dash of the supernatural in it. As far as comics go, my favorite series right now are Garth Ennis' "The Boys" and Robert Kirkman's "The Walking Dead." Schlocky, I know. But I likes what I likes.

Where do you get your news?
I get my local news from the Daily Nebraskan and the Lincoln Journal Star. For world news, I use CNN.com and Wired.com

Do you have any journalism experience?
I've written for the DN since March of 07. Currently, I work as the Features editor. I've also contributed a few articles to Lincoln's "L Magazine." I interned for DTN this summer, where I covered agricuture and enviromental issues such as climate change. And I've been a contributing writer to the DailyER Nebraskan since its inception.

Do you have a blog?
My friends and I started one called Entheogen, but interest in it quickly fizzled out.

What are you passionate about?
I'm passionate about telling stories. I'd much rather tell a tale than write an article, if you know what I mean. And, on the nerdy side, I'm far too passionate about video games. I think there's potential in the medium for storytelling, but it gets pushed by the wayside by people who assume video games are all about blowing stuff up and killing people. (If you think "Halo" is the greatest game ever created, please... don't talk to me.)

Is there anything else you'd like us to know about you?
I have the organizational skills of a paranoid-schizophrenic lab rat.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Bio

What's your name?
Carson Daniel Vaughan

Where are you from?
Broken Bow, Neb.

What year are you in school?
Junior (year 3)

What is your career goal?
To obtain a news-editorial position at a magazine or newspaper that allows me the freedom to investigate topics I am interested in and tell other people's stories in an interesting manner. I would also like to write a book.

What do you like to read?
I enjoy reading most forms of literature, whether it be a newspaper or a fiction novel. I've recently been on a Great Plains literature kick, reading such authors as Bruce Barton and the New Yorker's Ian Frazier. I have also been reading a compilation of letters from H.L. Menken, as well as Menken's biography, The Skeptic, written by Terry Teachout. I am also a fan of The Onion, as well as The Borowitz Report and other satirical news sources.

Where do you get your news?
The New York Times, Omaha-World Herald, Lincoln Journal-Star, and Daily Nebraskan's print and online editions, as well as CNN television.

Do you have any journalism experience?
I am currently a contributing writer for Lincoln's L Magazine, and recently finished up an internship with The Onion in New York City. I am the founder and editor in chief of the DailyER Nebraskan, UNL's satirical campus newspaper. I have also written for several online music review websites.

Do you have a blog?
I created one over the summer, but since it's inception I have not posted to it. I find it difficult to believe that anyone wants to read about my personal life, and if I were to write newsworthy stories I would submit them to a newspaper, rather than to a blog that most people--not knowing my credentials--could and would be smart to dismiss.

What are you passionate about?
I am passionate about defending the relevance and value of satire. I am dorkily passionate about the Great Plains. I am passionate about writing to change society for the better, and I am passionate about writing simply to entertain.

Is there anything else you'd like us to know about you?
I honestly believe "Ghostbusters" is the greatest movie of all time.

Bio

-What's your name?
Karalynn Emma Brown. Or Kara.

- Where are you from?
Gretna, NE.

- What year are you in school?
A junior year-wise. Probably more credit-wise.

- What is your career goal?
I’m not one for decisiveness, but here it goes: in two years, I plan to be in the Peace Corps teaching English or doing NGO/community development in either Jordan, Eastern Europe, or somewhere in South America, depending on how my study abroad and language learning pan out. In five years, I plan to be in law school for international human rights, in graduate school for English/sociology, or working as a journalist, hopefully in order to do foreign corresponding, all depending on how the Peace Corps pan out.
I have a lot of interests.

- What do you like to read?
This could also fit under my “passionate” subcategory.
At present I’m really into stream-of-consciousness, like Virginia Woolf, and post-colonial literature, like Salman Rushdie. Also, Audre Lorde’s 1989 commencement address at Oberlin College is fantastic. Reading is probably the single greatest activity that exists. Period.
And now I have proven myself a literature geek.

- Where do you get your news?
The Journal-Star, the Times (especially on Tuesday), the DN, my economist/computer scientist brother.

- Do you have any journalism experience?
I suppose one could say that. I am currently an “Editor Intern” (indentured servant) for an online publication called Watching America, which translates foreign press articles about the U.S. into English for the small and peculiar percentage of the American population that actually care what everyone else thinks.
And then there's the obligatory high school newspapering and Alumni Magazining.
But I think journalism can be a broad term that involves all forms of disseminating information, in which case we all do it to varying degrees in our daily lives.

- Do you have a blog?
Nope. But perhaps I should; I do like to read them.

- What are passionate about?
I believe in international cooperation and full engagement in the world community. I teach English as a learned language to immigrant women and read and think about cultures and disenfranchised groups.
I believe that language and consequently education are the cornerstones of social change and one of the most subtle yet accurate indicators of power structures, both on the micro and macro levels.
I’m interested in how these groups, especially women in the Muslim world and the Eastern European bloc, are feeling the backlash of globalization on all levels. And I’m passionate about getting groups in power, like comfortable Midwestern university students, to care.
I’m incredibly passionate about art—in the visual, musical, written, spoken (Spanish and English now, hopefully Arabic or Russian soon), eaten and worn forms. I, like Vonnegut, believe it makes life worth living.
And finally, today I’m pretty passionate about my mom’s poetry, dorking around in a house on 16th Street, and a song called “The Wild Kindness.”

- Is there anything else you'd like us to know about you?
I can be socially awkward from time to time, or so I hear. But it’s just as well; I think most of what we do anyway is the result of social constructs.
So basically, I´m rebelling.
Yeah, take that society. I will be as awkward as I want.

bio

- What's your name?
Mark Edward Joseph Green, Sr.
- Where are you from?
Dallas, TX.
- What year are you in school?
the forever-th grade
- What is your career goal?
do what i like and still have enough money after rent to buy beer and food.
- What do you like to read?
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac, Hemingway, Woody Guthrie, New York Times, The Onion
- Where do you get your news?
The New York Times and the big annoying TV wall in Andersen (informs me on what celebrity scandal is happening this week and what part of California is currently on fire)
- Do you have any journalism experience?
Yes. I was editor-in-chief of my high school paper, work for KRNU, sometimes for the DN, and I attend journalism school.
- Do you have a blog?
No. I'm very 20th century.
- What are passionate about?
Music. That's about 98-percent of my passion. The other 2-percent is: my cat (Loretta), biking, camping, sunsets, green energy, beer, and patiently waiting for the collapse of the American Empire.
- Is there anything else you'd like us to know about you?
I am thoroughly convinced that everything I learn in college will be of no use when we all live through massive economic collapse after we give all our money to Saudi Arabia for oil, and the only skills that will be of any use will be basic pioneer skills like farming, cooking, and living like human beings instead of a bunch of goddamn robots. This is why my lifelong goal is not a corner office in a glass building but a farm in a remote corner of British Columbia with a shotgun hanging over the front door.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

302 students: Tell us about yourselves

As we start the beat reporting class, we'd like to know a little bit more about you. By the time class begins you each will have received an email inviting you to join the On The Beat blog. Please sign in (you may need to create a Google account if you don't already have one) and create a short post answering the following questions:
- What's your name?
- Where are you from?
- What year are you in school?
- What is your career goal?
- What do you like to read?
- Where do you get your news?
- Do you have any journalism experience?
- Do you have a blog?
- What are passionate about?
- Is there anything else you'd like us to know about you?

Make sure you use bio as a label for your post and please put your name in the headline.

Blogging is good writing practice. But remember whatever you post is public. You should take care to follow the same spelling, grammar and style points you would use if you were writing for print.

Your deadline for this short post is by the beginning of class Thursday, Aug. 28.

Monday, August 18, 2008

How to start a new beat

Eric Morath started his career at The Detroit News as a technology reporter. Last year, he was assigned a new beat, covering Chrysler. He suggests getting to know the stakeholders on any beat as you start to look for stories. Steve Buttry, now the editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, suggests you need to do your homework to learn the topic when you start a new beat.