Nature of News, the Changing News Business and Interviewing.

I feel as though the first three chapters of our textbook are things that we keep hearing over and over again as journalism majors. One thing I did focus on more this time though was the fact that in Chapter One, it is mentioned that journalists are not effectively doing their jobs. Statements like this make me cynical about journalism sometimes. Personally, I understand why I am doing this and I believe that I have a grasp on what i think "journalism" is. However, in the grandeur scheme of things, sometimes I wonder if my view coincides with those of other journalists.

According to our book, there are three things that make a story "newsworthy"; relevance, usefulness, and interest. How relevant is the story, how useful will it be to the public, and how interesting is it? The text then goes into explaining different things that can add to a story's relevance, usefulness, and interest. These days though, I feel as though media utilizes the novelty and prominence aspects far more than the impact and conflict aspects. I just feel that too many of the stories in the news now are either playing too far into getting a bigger audience [for example, celebrity news], are irrelevant, or are embellished. I understand that our first loyalty is to the citizens and that we write for an audience. However, shouldn't we be giving our audience information it can use in addition to information that can be entertaining. One thing I do know, is that I definitely believe that deciding on what makes a news story is one thing that modern journalists should work on.

Chapter Two also talked a lot about something I keep hearing recently; newspapers are dying. Every journalism class I have sat in, ever source about journalism I've ever read, they all say the same thing; that newspapers are dying and technology is changing journalism. This is undeniable. As technology continues to advance, the different mediums for journalism will change. I, however, continue to believe that there will always be a need for journalists who excel in print. Journalism started as nothing more than the printed word, nothing fancy.

As far as interviewing goes, that is a skill that I feel i really honed last year in J Research. That class made me feel pretty comfortable talking to people for articles. And [in my opinion] more importantly, I feel that I've also become a lot more comfortable approaching people to ask for interviews. This time last year, I was basically terrified of calling a random stranger for an interview.

The reading on punctuation was definitely something I learned from. I've always considered myself as knowing a fair amount about grammar and punctuation, but the AP stylebook definitely proved me wrong. There were things in there that I never knew through high school.