Can I get your blog address?

This semester has both been both frustrating and exciting for me in Journ 420. Growing up, writing always came naturally to me, it was just fun, but grammar nor spelling were my strong areas. I have achieved a lot out of this class whether it was learning about the correct spelling of words or subject-verb agreement. I may not be perfect at grammatical functions or sentence structure, but I feel like I have come a long way.

One thing I probably will not miss too much about this class is blogging. I'm not the type of person to continually think of exciting or worthwhile ideas that should be put on the net for the world to read. It's not that I think my ideas are boring, but translating your ideas into a blog that appeals to a wide variety of people is extremely hard. This is one of the qualities any good blog should have in order to stay alive. I just lose interest in talking about either myself, or my own opinions. I guess you could say I am more worried about what is happening out in the world then how I personally feel about these events.

But, with blogging becoming so popular as of lately, I am glad that I got to experience a little of what the craze is all about. Maybe one day, when I feel like I have a better grasp on editing techniques and my own personal style, I will take up blogging again. And who knows, instead of asking for phone numbers, people may start asking for blog addresses.

Ignorance is NOT Bliss

As of lately, I'm becoming more concerned with my fellow college students. I admit I don't watch the news religiously--or that much at all--but I do frequently check CNN.com even if it's just to look at the headlines. But, when something such as the terrorist attacks in India happen, students should be informed.

It just seems odd to me that people do not know about major events. What is happening in India is horrible, unexpected, and heart-breaking. If we don't know about events such as these, does it suggest that we don't care. Or are college students just too busy for the news anymore. If that is the case, it is upsetting that world events have to take a backseat to homework. Then again, I think people have a personal responsibility to at least pick up a paper once a week to get an idea of what is going on.

I guess as future journalists we just pay more attention to what is happening around us.

Multiple Ways to Edit

As we were reading each other's final draft of the Urbana shooting story, I noticed that editing can vary in major ways. We each had received the same information and the same basic story, yet most of our drafts were different in at least one way. It proves that while there are multiple rules and guidelines to follow with editing, no one editor thinks alike.

Each person may have different preferences about what quotes to include, how to paraphrase, where information would be most beneficial in the story, and the syntax of a particular sentence. This all depends on our personal writing style and the articles that we have learned from. While I may believe one quote is important to a story because it adds a element of surprise or it is unusual, someone else may see that quote as meaningless. These differences make reading a newspaper or magazine enjoyable. If everyone had the same style and followed the same exact format, who would really want to read the news.

Preggers Man-Headline

As I was doing my daily review of what CNN.com has to offer, I noticed this headline "'Pregnant man' expecting again." I'm sure by now most of us have heard about this miracle man, but possibly not as much as myself. My roommate last year was a slightly obsessive fan of the pregnant man--who has a name by the way, it's Thomas Beatie--and watched the Opera special and every news report she could find on him. After listening to countless reports about the couple I would say I grew a fondness for their story, so when I saw this headline it immediately caught my eye.

But, this isn't about the pregnant man, or my roommates obsession, this is about online headlines. Recently we have been discussing how online headlines need to be able to capture the reader with just a few nouns and a possible verb. I thought this headline did a good job because out of about 20 headlines I was drawn straight to it. Maybe it's my familiarity, or maybe it was good writing. Either way I think that with an online source such as CNN.com headlines should have the power to jump at us.

Here's the link posted by CNN.com for the Larry King Live special with Beatie.

The Future of Journalism...Doomed?

Is my career doomed before I even get started?

I don't know how everyone else feels about this, but I can't help but wonder what journalism will look like in ten, five or even two years. It seems that each year as I get further into my journalism classes, journalist themselves, statistics and society are telling me this is a dying profession. Maybe not so harshly, but rather, "It's a horrible time to be getting into the field." I realize people are just trying to make me aware of what I am getting myself into, but constantly hearing that can put a damper on anyone's attitude.

I think that journalist and teachers should take a different approach to informing us about the current situation. I believe were all aware of the occupation were getting ourselves into, and we wouldn't still be taking classes if we felt we couldn't do it. Journalists and teachers should just encourage us to keep on learning and become better journalist. Our profession will never die because there will always be a demand for the news, so I think this should be the governing statement told to young journalist versus the negative attitude many throw our way.

QUIZ QUESTION!!!

Q:  Dumping is when you sell your current stocks or products in a foreign or domestic country for a lower price than they should be?

A:  Foreign.

AP Business Guidelines- Dumping

According to the AP Stylebook Business Guidelines section, dumping is: "The selling of a product in a foreign market at a price lower than the domestic price. It is usually done by a monopoly when it has such a large output that selling entirely in the domestic market would substantially reduce the price."

An example of the verb was used in the article, "Investors succumb to fears of recession," found at The Wall Street Journal's website. The article said: "Charles Smith, a retired former International Business Machines Corp. marketing manager, hasn't dumped stocks since the 1987 stock-market crash. But, angry about the state of corporate America and worried about the economy, he is selling stocks, getting out of his index funds and going entirely into cash." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122333567578609541.html

While Smith is not a monopoly as suggested in the definition of dumping, it is implied that he is selling all of his stocks to a foreign market at a lower price then they are worth because their value is rapidly decreasing in the U.S.

This practice by monopolies is considered dangerous to the foreign country they trade with. Because the goods are priced lower, the people from the foreign country begin to buy the cheaper goods rather than their more expensive domestic goods. Ultimately this can run a domestic company out of business, giving the foreign company a opportunity to later increase prices. More information about dumping and anti-dumping laws can be found at, http://www.freetrade.org/node/222.

Example: The U.S Steel Co. dumped all of their steel on France, increasing the consumption of U.S steel in France and decreasing the consumption of domestic French steel, creating a U.S Steel Co. monopoly in France.