Ha ha, Brittany.
I am back in charge again.
So here is my question: If that was the favorite or best quote from the American Forum, why didn't I see it in anyone's article??
Professor Eisman
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Week with A Lot of Work
Well..at least we're all still alive. With the forum and the midterm, this week was worth 20% of our semester grades. I hope we all got A's!
Professor Eisman began Monday's class by passing back the "Hiker" stories (finally). She suggested that we save them as momentos of our early days of writing. After eight weeks, we've improved drastically, and Professor Eisman is beginning to know all our "little quirks."
Next, we received our Washington Post broadcast pieces back. In usual form, we argued about nearly every detail.
In general, we picked good stories, but used too many big words and weren't conversational enough.
Professor Eisman discussed the midterm and announced that she would email us the bio assignment for Monday. We also discussed the due date for our forum articles. Sometime in that process, confusion broke loose and Professor Eisman realized she was "losing control." I think the rest of us knew that weeks ago.
For those of us who couldn't attend the forum, Professor Eisman promised that somewhere, there would be a person talking about something because "that's all they do in this town."
We got a few great pieces of advice for our forum pieces:
-paraphrase bios for articles.
-don't write about ties, water, or the fact that someone tallked last night.
-"every fact you don't know is a fact I don't know, although I know more facts than you."-Professor Eisman
-use one speaker for the lead, and then transition into the rest of the article.
-or, summarize the news for the lead.
-avoid jargon!
-keep to one thought per paragraph, no matter what.
We also looked over some sample leads, and were given permission to criticize our colleagues because we'll be critcized.
Last but not least, we watched part of last year's forum and took notes to practice. We found out that we already knew how to indentify news-worthy quotes.
Tuesday, most of us covered the forum, which was a lot more interesting than I expected. I thought the best quote of the night was from David Corn: "anything involving Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, and sex, hopefully all three!" That's not a news value Professor Eisman taught us.
And then the day of the dreaded midterm arrived. We'll found out how we did soon, but I'm proud of all for making deadline.
Happy Fall Break Everyone!!!
-
Professor Eisman began Monday's class by passing back the "Hiker" stories (finally). She suggested that we save them as momentos of our early days of writing. After eight weeks, we've improved drastically, and Professor Eisman is beginning to know all our "little quirks."
Next, we received our Washington Post broadcast pieces back. In usual form, we argued about nearly every detail.
In general, we picked good stories, but used too many big words and weren't conversational enough.
Professor Eisman discussed the midterm and announced that she would email us the bio assignment for Monday. We also discussed the due date for our forum articles. Sometime in that process, confusion broke loose and Professor Eisman realized she was "losing control." I think the rest of us knew that weeks ago.
For those of us who couldn't attend the forum, Professor Eisman promised that somewhere, there would be a person talking about something because "that's all they do in this town."
We got a few great pieces of advice for our forum pieces:
-paraphrase bios for articles.
-don't write about ties, water, or the fact that someone tallked last night.
-"every fact you don't know is a fact I don't know, although I know more facts than you."-Professor Eisman
-use one speaker for the lead, and then transition into the rest of the article.
-or, summarize the news for the lead.
-avoid jargon!
-keep to one thought per paragraph, no matter what.
We also looked over some sample leads, and were given permission to criticize our colleagues because we'll be critcized.
Last but not least, we watched part of last year's forum and took notes to practice. We found out that we already knew how to indentify news-worthy quotes.
Tuesday, most of us covered the forum, which was a lot more interesting than I expected. I thought the best quote of the night was from David Corn: "anything involving Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, and sex, hopefully all three!" That's not a news value Professor Eisman taught us.
And then the day of the dreaded midterm arrived. We'll found out how we did soon, but I'm proud of all for making deadline.
Happy Fall Break Everyone!!!
-
Friday, October 9, 2009
Week 7
October Blues
Monday October 5, 2009
*Professor Eisman handed back the Obama assignment from last week.
Here are some tips:
-Report what happened
- Distant, but detailed
-Don’t use long quotes
-Don’t start a story with a quote
-Tuck in quotes; REMEMBER quotes are gems
-Ex: Use Mass. not the postal address MA
-Watch opinions
*The Feature assignment is due on NOVEMBER 9, 2009. It is worth 10% of our grade.
-The assignment should be double spaced and five pages or less.
-Everybody you talk to is on the record
-Everything you write can be published
-Explain that something is on the record:
Example: Hello my name is _________________ from Amy Eisman’s writing class. I’m doing a story on _______________. I need to interview students, officials, etc. This interview will only take about_________ minutes. It may be published in the school newspaper, a school publication, American Observer, The Northwest Currant, etc.
-Don’t use fake names
-Everything you do for stories needs to have evidence and hard facts.
-Do not be in the mindset of “Oh, I got a student!”
-Interview until you get a good quote/idea for a story.
-The reference librarians can help you find original sources.
-Attribute research to the original source.
-Do not quote a blog that isn’t credible.
-Do not interview friends, roommates, etc. This should not be a hard assignment, and you do not want to have a potential conflict such as a close friend telling you after the interview to not use their name.
-Interview Professors from other campuses, if possible, instead of just AU professors.
-Be able to write down your story idea in ONE sentence before you write.
-FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS
-Stay focused in whatever direction you take.
-First get the facts; then write the story.
-If you have a question, or want to do a type of story you aren’t sure about, make sure to ask. “Clear everything with the boss of all bosses.” Aka Professor Eisman. Make her happy.
*Writing Tips for Broadcast
-Simple Sentences: subject, verb, object
-Use active verbs and avoid passive voice.
-Avoid clauses that sound unnatural.
-Avoid Run-on sentences.
-Attribution is at the beginning.
-Don’t begin a story/idea with an unknown name.
-Use hyphens between things you want to say separately. Example: At the U-N.
-Avoid using too many pronouns.
-Use phonetic spelling.
-Auto only-no sound-bites.
-Remember; you are writing for the ear. Tell the story as if you are picking up the phone and telling your friend.
-READ the chapter from the other textbook for more tips.
-Use a conversational tone; keep it short and easy to follow.
-You do not have to use the inverted pyramid.
-Use present tense: “says” is ok to use instead of “said”.
*After, we listened to NPR.
-The context was before the news story.
-More descriptive and humorous than a regular news story for print.
-Do not put words in “quotes”; the listeners cannot see them.
-Listen to NPR’s 5 minute Daily Summary.
*We practiced summarizing a story for listeners and will continue to work on broadcast in the next class.
Thursday October 8, 2009
*Reminders
-Exercise 9.9 will NOT count.
-Washington Post assignment will count.
-Next week, we will go over how to cover a forum (Tuesday Oct. 13).
-There is no homework this weekend.
*Our guest speaker was Professor Carolyn Brown. She teaches journalism at American University. She came to the SOC after working as a producer for MSNBC News, Fox News. She also worked as a producer in local news in San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Arizona. Her new career started at CBS News, The Early Show, and other television shows. She is an excellent broadcast writer, and she graciously took the time to look over our work and prepare a class for us!
*Here are some of her notes (also see handouts)
-Producers are the writers for broadcast.
-TV directors have more of a technical job.
-Use conversational writing;write how you would speak.
-Read aloud after writing.
-Always check multiple sources and do research.
-Use clear, short, simple sentences.
-Emphasize the latest news of a continuing story, but give necessary background
information. What is going on TODAY.
-For TV, write for a 10-year-old.
-Keep the lead simple: Who, what, when, where, why is too much for TV writing.
-The most you can fit in is probably two or three “Ws”. Put them all in, but not in
the first sentence.
-Avoid highly technical terms like “police talk” and “PR talk”.
-Example: Instead of vehicle, use car or truck.
-Instead of the location of the vehicle accident, say- The accident happened on
Mass. Ave.
-Be careful when writing crime stories- use the correct terms.
-Do not convict a person before they are actually convicted of a crime. Say
“person of interest.”
-Avoid clichés. Example: Lucky to be alive.”
-Write in all CAPS for spoken text. Usually, sound bites are in lowercase.
-Remember, you are writing to video/pictures.
-Connect the words with the images, or you will lose the viewer.
-Use contractions if you want; this is how we speak.
-Don’t forget the basics-even though it may be a short news story.
-The “How” is sometimes hard to include in video, but include as much as possible.
-You have 1 Pass at making sure the viewer understands the story.
-There is no going back to reread parts as in print journalism.
-Using commas in TV writing is NOT a good idea.
-Commas do not show up well on a teleprompter. Use ellipses instead.
-If you need to use a comma, consider writing two sentences.
-Example: Garlic . . . Onions . . . and Salt.
-Needs to make sense when read aloud.
-Round up big numbers, unless you MUST give the exact numbers.
-$201,300.01à 2-Hundred Thousand Dollars.
- Only write for as long as you have compelling images.
-Example: A School Board Meeting about a budget would be a boring picture. So
get footage of school children instead and tell the story to images of kids.
-Sometimes, print stories and just words cannot capture a story like a video can.
Example: Obama on election night.
Use Active Voice. Do not use Passive Voice. (Subject, Verb, Object)
Tense has nothing to do with voice.
-Never use the word yesterday. If you don’t have another choice, say the day of
the week you are talking about.
- VO-Voice Over. About 20-25 seconds.
-Don’t start with “Last week”à start with current news
-For local news, give the exact location. Ex- 1400 block of Mass. Ave.
-Gray areas need attribution usually.
-Present Continuous Tense. The Subjects are_______ing.
-Be conversational to a certain extent. Do not use slang unless it is in a sound bite.
-Be aware of what video you have and when the story is going to air.
- :00-:10 zero to ten seconds.
* After the notes, Professor Brown went over our Dog broadcasts from 9.9.
-For the correct format, go to Table—Insert—Columns 2—Rows 1—Enter to make bigger.
-Here is what we came up with...
A Frederickson dog is chasing cats again after getting a pacemaker implanted. The 14-year old retriever named Wrangler is recovering today. The owner took Wrangler to the vet last week after he collapsed. Dr. Charles Eulau did the surgery. Wrangler is the first dog in the area to get a pacemaker. The pacemaker came from the local hospital.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Week Six; Kennedy's Eulogy
Greetings, classmates!
Week six looks to be uneventful. Bereft of our Commander in Chief, professor Eisman, we occupied ourselves with an in-class assignment. I think the highlight of the class was when the TA introduced the activity as "Obama's Eulogy," and most of us got scared that Obama had died without us even noticing.
Remember there is no class on Thursday, but be sure to e-mail professor Eisman with activity 9.9 from the syllabus.
Stevia
Week six looks to be uneventful. Bereft of our Commander in Chief, professor Eisman, we occupied ourselves with an in-class assignment. I think the highlight of the class was when the TA introduced the activity as "Obama's Eulogy," and most of us got scared that Obama had died without us even noticing.
Remember there is no class on Thursday, but be sure to e-mail professor Eisman with activity 9.9 from the syllabus.
Stevia
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Information about upcoming American Forum
:
AMERICAN FORUM ON OBAMA, MEDIA AND YOUNG PEOPLE, ONE YEAR LATER
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13TH, 6:30 TO 8 P.M.,
KATZEN ARTS CENTER
Dear Colleagues:
We have a terrific group of panelists for our Oct. 13th American Forum on Obama, media and young people, one year later. Young people played an important role in voting and organizing for Obama through innovative media in 2008. In this American Forum we'll talk about how 18-to-24-year-olds view Obama and the issues facing the country, from the economy to health care--
and the role of social networking and media in reaching them.
The Forum will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13th, in the Abramson Recital Hall in the Katzen Arts Center, across the street near Ward Circle on Mass Ave.
Please tell your students they need to be there at 6:30 p.m. We will tape the program for WAMU from 7 to 8 p.m. for broadcast later that night,
and the doors will close before then. We have also invited other media coverage, including C-SPAN. This is a great topic and a great showcase for our students--so please
encourage them to attend. Thanks, as always, for your support. .
Student Questions --Also--Please encourage your students to get to the mikes and ask questions--AND to submit questions beforehand.
The email address for that is americanforum@american.edu.
.
Our panelists are:
• David Gregory, journalist and moderator of NBC's Meet the Press
• David Corn, Washington Bureau Chief for Mother Jones magazine and columnist for PoliticsDaily.com
• Jose Antonio Vargas, technology and innovations editor for Huffington Post
• Erin McPike, reporter for Congress Daily
• David Winston, Republican strategist and President of the Winston Group
AMERICAN FORUM ON OBAMA, MEDIA AND YOUNG PEOPLE, ONE YEAR LATER
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13TH, 6:30 TO 8 P.M.,
KATZEN ARTS CENTER
Dear Colleagues:
We have a terrific group of panelists for our Oct. 13th American Forum on Obama, media and young people, one year later. Young people played an important role in voting and organizing for Obama through innovative media in 2008. In this American Forum we'll talk about how 18-to-24-year-olds view Obama and the issues facing the country, from the economy to health care--
and the role of social networking and media in reaching them.
The Forum will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13th, in the Abramson Recital Hall in the Katzen Arts Center, across the street near Ward Circle on Mass Ave.
Please tell your students they need to be there at 6:30 p.m. We will tape the program for WAMU from 7 to 8 p.m. for broadcast later that night,
and the doors will close before then. We have also invited other media coverage, including C-SPAN. This is a great topic and a great showcase for our students--so please
encourage them to attend. Thanks, as always, for your support. .
Student Questions --Also--Please encourage your students to get to the mikes and ask questions--AND to submit questions beforehand.
The email address for that is americanforum@american.edu.
.
Our panelists are:
• David Gregory, journalist and moderator of NBC's Meet the Press
• David Corn, Washington Bureau Chief for Mother Jones magazine and columnist for PoliticsDaily.com
• Jose Antonio Vargas, technology and innovations editor for Huffington Post
• Erin McPike, reporter for Congress Daily
• David Winston, Republican strategist and President of the Winston Group
Saturday, September 19, 2009
I Adore...Week Four!
Monday, Sept. 14 – HOW TO WRITE NEWS I
How news content is written
What makes news—news? Well, there are several traditional ‘news values’ that help us know when a story is worth writing about, including:
-Timeliness of the incident. For example, once Oregon State beats Cincinnati this weekend at football (I’m crossing my fingers…), there will be a number of news stories written in the next 24 hours about their glorious victory.
-The impact/consequences. After the Beavers beat the Bearcats by a whopping 40 points, they will be ranked in the top 25 in the country! Not exactly surprising, but still news worthy.
-Prominence of people involved. Jaquizz Rogers, our 5’6’’ running back and former PAC-10 offensive player of the year is a national hero. Inevitably, everyone in the country will be reading about him after he destroys the Bearcats.
-Conflict. The Beaver’s will trounce them. Period. The only news story focusing on ‘conflict’ that could be written would be about the Bearcat’s players fighting over tissues to wipe away their tears.
-Unusual Nature. Professor Eisman gave the example that a ‘dog biting a man isn’t news, but a man biting a dog-NOW THAT’S NEWS!’
-Proximity of Readers. The Corvallis Gazette Times will cover different aspects of the game in at least three or four articles, whereas the Ney York Times might only cover the game in two.
-Interest or Novelty. These could include public service announcements about floods, storm warnings, etc.
In other words…News stories are written for: relevance, usefulness, and interest
Structures of News Stories
I: The News: Who?/What?/Where?/When?/Why?/How?
II: The secondary news; important details that were not included in the lead.
III: More information and evidence about the story
IV: Either quotes or context about the story
VI: Conclusion
Exercise on leads, collect Lincoln homework
Writers should develop an attractive lead. A lead could be: a summary, one side of a debate (followed by the other side of the debate later in the story), or an expert’s view of what happened.
The class proceeded to do an exercise on leads, and Professor Eisman collected our Lincoln homework.
Thursday Sept. 17 – HOW TO WRITE NEWS II
Grammar/News Quiz
We started class with a grammar/news Quiz. From now on, we should expect random news quizzes! To study, know all of the main, headline stories out of the on the Washington Post and CNN. A great way to stay caught up on the news is to set Google News as your homepage. It isn’t biased (like the Huffington Post, Politico, or the Drudge Report), and it presents links to several different articles.
Lessons learned from the Lincoln Assignment:
Then, Professor Eisman returned the Lincoln assignment. The students reviewed their scores, and asked Professor Eisman a number of questions. The lessons learned from the assignment were:
-When starting a new quote, it can be used within a pre-existing paragraph.
-say: 4 million, instead of four million. When describing a number in the millions, use the #. It is one of those weird grammar rules we have all come to love so much
- Attribute statistics-ALL THE TIME! Never trust a statistic without a source, and expect your audience to think the same way.
-Try to break up long quotes and insert a ‘said so-and-so,’ at natural breaks so it is easier to read. For example: “As soon as I looked up,” said Bearcat’s quarterback Tony Pike, “I was immediately smashed to the ground by the Beaver defenders.”
Quote Notes:
-Paraphrase long quotes.
-Use correct punctuation inside of quotation marks.
-Do no convict a criminal before his trial. (Unless he is OJ Simpson…)
-Follow AP Style (duh!)
-Do not back into a sentence with a prepositional phrase. Sadly, I do this all the time. Prepositions are used to indicate location. Examples are: with, on, in, at, etc. Writing a sentence like: “At the twenty yard line, he dropped the football” is worse than re-arranging it and writing it like this: “He dropped the football at the twenty yard line.” The second example is more active and direct, and therefore superior. You want active, direct sentences in news stories, so avoid beginning sentences with prepositional phrases.
Homework for next week: Read the three articles that Professor Eisman sent us via email to prepare for the guest speaker.
And that, my friends, is the week review. See you guys Monday!
How news content is written
What makes news—news? Well, there are several traditional ‘news values’ that help us know when a story is worth writing about, including:
-Timeliness of the incident. For example, once Oregon State beats Cincinnati this weekend at football (I’m crossing my fingers…), there will be a number of news stories written in the next 24 hours about their glorious victory.
-The impact/consequences. After the Beavers beat the Bearcats by a whopping 40 points, they will be ranked in the top 25 in the country! Not exactly surprising, but still news worthy.
-Prominence of people involved. Jaquizz Rogers, our 5’6’’ running back and former PAC-10 offensive player of the year is a national hero. Inevitably, everyone in the country will be reading about him after he destroys the Bearcats.
-Conflict. The Beaver’s will trounce them. Period. The only news story focusing on ‘conflict’ that could be written would be about the Bearcat’s players fighting over tissues to wipe away their tears.
-Unusual Nature. Professor Eisman gave the example that a ‘dog biting a man isn’t news, but a man biting a dog-NOW THAT’S NEWS!’
-Proximity of Readers. The Corvallis Gazette Times will cover different aspects of the game in at least three or four articles, whereas the Ney York Times might only cover the game in two.
-Interest or Novelty. These could include public service announcements about floods, storm warnings, etc.
In other words…News stories are written for: relevance, usefulness, and interest
Structures of News Stories
I: The News: Who?/What?/Where?/When?/Why?/How?
II: The secondary news; important details that were not included in the lead.
III: More information and evidence about the story
IV: Either quotes or context about the story
VI: Conclusion
Exercise on leads, collect Lincoln homework
Writers should develop an attractive lead. A lead could be: a summary, one side of a debate (followed by the other side of the debate later in the story), or an expert’s view of what happened.
The class proceeded to do an exercise on leads, and Professor Eisman collected our Lincoln homework.
Thursday Sept. 17 – HOW TO WRITE NEWS II
Grammar/News Quiz
We started class with a grammar/news Quiz. From now on, we should expect random news quizzes! To study, know all of the main, headline stories out of the on the Washington Post and CNN. A great way to stay caught up on the news is to set Google News as your homepage. It isn’t biased (like the Huffington Post, Politico, or the Drudge Report), and it presents links to several different articles.
Lessons learned from the Lincoln Assignment:
Then, Professor Eisman returned the Lincoln assignment. The students reviewed their scores, and asked Professor Eisman a number of questions. The lessons learned from the assignment were:
-When starting a new quote, it can be used within a pre-existing paragraph.
-say: 4 million, instead of four million. When describing a number in the millions, use the #. It is one of those weird grammar rules we have all come to love so much
- Attribute statistics-ALL THE TIME! Never trust a statistic without a source, and expect your audience to think the same way.
-Try to break up long quotes and insert a ‘said so-and-so,’ at natural breaks so it is easier to read. For example: “As soon as I looked up,” said Bearcat’s quarterback Tony Pike, “I was immediately smashed to the ground by the Beaver defenders.”
Quote Notes:
-Paraphrase long quotes.
-Use correct punctuation inside of quotation marks.
-Do no convict a criminal before his trial. (Unless he is OJ Simpson…)
-Follow AP Style (duh!)
-Do not back into a sentence with a prepositional phrase. Sadly, I do this all the time. Prepositions are used to indicate location. Examples are: with, on, in, at, etc. Writing a sentence like: “At the twenty yard line, he dropped the football” is worse than re-arranging it and writing it like this: “He dropped the football at the twenty yard line.” The second example is more active and direct, and therefore superior. You want active, direct sentences in news stories, so avoid beginning sentences with prepositional phrases.
Homework for next week: Read the three articles that Professor Eisman sent us via email to prepare for the guest speaker.
And that, my friends, is the week review. See you guys Monday!
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