A Comm 361 Online Journalism Blog
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Photo obtained from iranreview.org
Click the link below for the full story…
Palestine Fundraiser: A Tale of 1001 Nights at George Mason University
To sponsor children in Palestine and Lebanon and help fund their education, check out the Children’s Relief Fund.
Kevin Goldberg, Journalism Law professor at Mason and attorney at the communications law firm, Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, PLC, spoke with our class about the ‘Seven Deadly Sins Committed by Young Journalists’ and how to avoid them. He compared the seven deadly sins (pride, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, and envy) to common mistakes journalists make.
The lecture took up the majority of the two and a half hour class and was chock full of useful information about communication and journalism law.
With details obviously too great for one blog post, just the essentials are below:
Think you know everything about intellectual property rights? Test your knowledge here.
For more info on all things media law, check out Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth’s Communication Law Blog.
Mason Collects Change for Palestine »« Steve Buttry comes to Mason
Steve Buttry. Google him. Or better yet, just click here to see why he’s a big deal in the journalism world.
Buttry came to Mason on Feb. 26 to talk to journalism students about what he does and how to succeed in the business.
Obtained from blogs.dailymail.com
Learning how to learn is the most important thing you’ll learn, Buttry said.
Buttry is the Digital Transformation Editor for Digital First Media and Journal Register Co.
What does that mean?
Well, when a new form of technology comes along, companies can react in two ways.
1. Ignore the new technology.
or
2. Force their product into that new space.
Buttry is a multi-platform specialist. Buttry learns and teaches others how to work new technology and makes writing and creating on that platform part of the process. He takes new technology and formulates what opportunities it could bring.
The internet was the first major technology to transform everything.
Mobile is the second.
Smartphones and wireless devices are taking over and transforming how we reach new information and interact.
Technology is a tool to tell a story in different ways. –Steve Buttry
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Advice for Young Journalists/Professionals:
Buttry said blogs build reputations in journalism. That’s why you should have one. Write everyday.
What Buttry asks entry-level applicants:
What he looks for:
For more on Steve Buttry, check out his blog here.
Kevin Sites, the renown backpack journalist best known for his coverage of global wars in his Yahoo! blog Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, came to Mason on February 12 to speak to journalism students.
Sites presented several points he felt were important to mention to young journalists.
Check out some of the highlights below:
Photo obtained from Wired.com courtesy of Kevin Sites.
Shrink the Footprint: Backpack journalism is all about traveling light to get the best story. With backpack journalism, all the equipment needed for a traditional news crew is shrunk and there is more of a direct deposit from capturing the news to posting the news.
Sites used to be a field producer for ABC, NBC, and CNN. But he noticed that when he was talking to people with a small recorder or just by means of an in-person interview, he got a more genuine response from them. Talking to people with large cameras, boom mics, and an entire field producing crew is intimidating, and Sites found that people would build themselves, or their stories, up in front of the them. Their quotes would change, their posture would change, their whole personality would change.
“Shrinking the footprint” makes the standard interview more of a conversation and gets to the heart of who people are and what they’re dealing with.
Report in 3 Dimensions: People live in 3 dimensions, so it’s incomplete to tell their narrative in text alone. Sites emphasized the importance of knowing when to shoot video, take photos, audio record, and use text. They all have a different effect. All can be used to illustrate a larger truth, but you have to know when to use what. You can’t do everything, but leverage those mediums to tell a complete story, Sites said.
Exploit the Tension: Every story needs tension or conflict, otherwise it’s not a story. That doesn’t mean you can’t tell happy stories, Sites said. The tension, might be the war within yourself. As a journalist, you can affect peoples’ lives forever. Do you choose to tell a story or not? Do you choose to continue filming for the sake of the story or drop the camera to physically assist someone in need? Do you tell a story even if it could get you or a person in authority in jeopardy?
Storytelling is Healing: After covering roughly 20 wars and dealing day by day with this reporter-tension, Sites developed symptoms of PTSD. Soldiers often get this–it’s the result of guilt associated with killing or surviving.
How to treat it?
Forgiveness.
Sites discovered that storytelling was a way to mitigate the symptoms of PTSD. Sharing stories is therapeutic. Storytelling is part of the healing process. It helped him with his PTSD, but for the soliders…
” They’re not using it so much. That’s the problem. It’s the things they cannot say. You get to this position where we come back and we don’t think society is going to understand and so they’re really not talking about their experiences. We as a society have to engage them to get them to tell the stories. And we have to ask them the proper questions. And the problem is we come back and we ask them these deeply disrespectful questions–‘Hey, did you kill anyone?‘– Now, wanting to understand what that’s like, if it actually happened, is not the bad thing. It is a sense of curiosity that we have in society. We should know about it, but we have to ask in the proper way. And it means showing respect to the soldier or marine by letting them control the dialogue to some extent.
You tell them, ‘Listen. I want to understand what you experienced over there. I want to understand what you went through and I’ll be here as long as it takes for you to tell me that. And tell me when you’re ready, but I really want to know because I care about you.’
And that allows them to be back in control, it shows respect for their complex experiences, which can be funny. I mean, they might be ashamed because some of them are funny and they don’t want to seem politically incorrect if they tell you something was really cool or ‘I felt really powerful.’ They’re worried how people are going to react to that and they’re worried also that they did something that they’re not proud of. It’s a difficult situation when you come back from a war zone and all everybody wants to do is pat you on the back and say ‘thanks for the great service.’ What if you did something that you’re not happy with? …It would probably compound the injury to some extent.
Getting them to talk about these things, enlarging the dialogue, is our role in society. That’s something we have to do very proactively and we have to engage them in that way…
Everybody’s experiences are different and that’s kind of what we have to appreciate–is the idea that war experiences are complex and unique and there isn’t a one size fits all in dealing with those issues.”
For more on Kevin Sites, check out his website or his newest book, “The Things They Cannot Say.”
Steve Buttry comes to Mason »« Better Than Your Average Library
Libraries, databases, resources. They’re everywhere. And Mason offers access to ones that you otherwise would need a private or expensive membership to access.
In a presentation at the Library Resource room today, our talented class of online journalists learned how to access all these resources. More interestingly, however, we discovered some new and uncommon databases that make the research process exceedingly more intriguing.
This last one is unrelated to research, but I still found it incredibly awesome…if you’re a musician, that is…
For more databases and resources, check out library.gmu.edu
Online Journalism isn’t just about words online. It’s about the multimedia components that make those words come alive.
Yesterday, Alexis Glenn and Evan Cantwell, two photographers from GMU’s Creative Services, came in to share their snap-shooting knowledge.
Below are some highlights:
Photo courtesy of A. Mansour.
Photo courtesy of Nina Scholl.
Better Than Your Average Library »« Citizen Journalism Takes Command
Citizen journalism — or collaborative journalism — is said to be replacing traditional journalism in the 21st century.
Everyone knows what traditional journalism is. Those who might be too young to recall it probably have seen an old movie or two that could give them the gist of it. Traditional journalism is all about going door-to-door for the story, hunting down the experts to give their opinions on relevant topics, and looking up information in libraries, office buildings, and nothing being with WWW dot.
In this new internet age, the spread of information is far more rapid than ever before. If you need to find the right person to interview, it’s as easy as a few key strokes on a search engine. Need to get the opinion of third parties or the public? You can find your way to them, too. And all without ever leaving your desk–or smart phone, for that matter.
In checking out Paul Lewis’ Ted Talk on Citizen Journalism from Thessaloniki, Greece, I learned more about how citizen journalism is working for news organizations in particular.
Journalism is everyone’s job. In the age of traditional journalism, expensive, professional equipment was needed to capture sound, video, and still photographs. Now, as a large portion of the population has a smart phone, all of those tools are affordably combined into a pocket-sized device. When breaking news happens, anyone at the scene can immediately capture what’s happen on their device and upload it for the world to see. This collaboration and spread of information is creating the new era of journalism called citizen journalism. The lines of who is a reporter and who is not are blurring. People around the world not directly involved in news media, now get to decide what is newsworthy. And access to links with more information on any subject reported are just as easily accessible. Social media is transforming into the new form of news media.
Even the spread of breaking news becomes faster through citizen journalism. A small post highlighting what just happened can be shared without a conclusion to the story. Adding to that post as the story progresses in real-time is a benefit of citizen journalism. Smaller posts are acceptable in this new journalism realm. Even formal news stations are taking on this method of reporting. In essence, citizens are collaborating with the news media, and vice versa, to disseminate information like never before.
Obtained from http://rwconnect.esomar.org
There’s something odd about this picture. Can you spot it?
This photo was taken from the inside of Fenwick library. So why is this book-castle sporting a host of empty book shelves?
Because just like every other building on George Mason’s Fairfax campus, Fenwick is under construction. Don’t roll your eyes just yet, because this renovation is actually pretty sweet. As for those missing books, don’t worry, they’ve been temporarily relocated and you can still use the library.
The addition to Fenwick is scheduled to be completed around December 2014. (Sorry, seniors) The superior add-ons include stylish study spaces, a 24-hour cafe, reading rooms, classrooms, and what GMU Liaison Librarian Theresa Calcagno described as a “light soaked” room. Translation: A trendy study space supposedly encompassed by glass all-around.
Interested in checking out the actual design for the Fenwick project? Click here.
Citizen Journalism Takes Command »« Om Nom Media: Food vs Media Pyramids
I’m a health freak. Or at least, that’s what my family and friends constantly define my eating habits and persona as. Tell me something is all-natural, organic, loaded with vitamins and antioxidants and chances are I’ll start eating it. When it comes to media consumption, however, I’m not as hard-core.
With college comes an unprecedented amount of required reading. So when I find myself engaged in some form of media, it’s usually for entertainment or emailing purposes. A major exception to this is when I tune into WTOP 103.5FM, an all-news station, as I’m commuting to and from school. (I’d listen to music but anything “hit” or “top 40” is generally suicide for the senses—hearing in particular.)
Handmade Media Pyramid
For the rest of an average day, my media consumption is loaded with Gmail and Facebook. But hey, ones newsfeed has a surprising amount of links to actual newsworthy sites like the New York Times and the Washington Post. (Advice: befriend scholars and other intellectually great people). Also, for a couple months now I’ve subscribed to Time magazine, so I tend to read through an issue on a weekend morning when I don’t have to rush to class. They usually elaborate on stories I heard on WTOP or provide opinion articles on new topics.
If procrastination is the game, then I’m also probably checking out online clothing stores, YouTube, Amazon, earning money via Swagbucks or Zoombucks (yes, you can earn money by doing various forms of nothing online) or Googling things to no apparent end.
Last, but most entertaining of all, is my newly-acquired thrill—Netflix. With everything from documentaries to fantasy series, the chance to feel intellectual or live vicariously through some incredibly adventurous (yet sadly fictional) character is at the command of a few buttons on my remote.
So let’s stack it all up. On a traditional food pyramid, grains should have the greatest intake. That’s probably e-mail and Facebook in this case. Fruits and veggies? WTOP. The next up is Time magazine, Netflix, random bits of internet procrastinating described above, and the occasional evening broadcast on WUSA9 or CNN.
What does your media consumption look like?
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