Friday, October 29, 2010

Mid-terms: Here's what the curve(s) looked like

Lots of variation.  Most people did pretty well on at least one section and/or one essay.  Almost nobody did equally well on all parts of the test.

... but by checking your scores against these graphs, you can get a pretty good idea of how your work stacked up.  Scroll down to see the rubric that I used for grading the essays.

Note:  There's something weird about how the first graph displays-- there's all this blank space on the left.  I have no idea what that's about. 




How the Essays were Scored

Each essay question actually broke down into 5 smaller questions (tricky, huh?), so each smaller question was worth 4 points (4 points x 5 questions = 20 points per essay).

... and each smaller question broke down as follows:

Responsiveness:  Did you deal with the question at all?  1 point
Specificity:  Did you cite specific examples?  1 point
Relevance and Cogency:  Did your argument hold up reasonably well?  2 points

And here are the mini-questions:

Essay #1: Tribune Co.
TribCo recent history
Current media/biz environment
First move/rationale
Longer-term strategy
Examples of TribCo properties strengths/weaknesses

Essay #2:  Beachwood Reporter
Visuals and rationale
Content changes/retention
Frequency, format
2nd Person's role
Current Strengths/weaknesses

Essay #3:  Vocalo blog
Title, topic, tagline
Sample headline/entry
Frequency/formats
Audience
Competition and unique strengths

Essay #4:  Technology
Past Example #1
Past Example #2
Past Example #3
Current Trend & Change in practice
Significance of current change

... I'm having a bit of trouble generating individual reports from my spreadsheet, so I haven't given you a point-by-point breakdown. But if you want one, just ask.

Friday, October 22, 2010

[UPDATED]: Journalism and the law-- WikiLeaks material

Now that the mid-term is over, you can start reading up for our next class!  Lots of important, thorny issues.

Starting with this story from the Chicago Reader:  Journalists have been lobbying for a national "shield law" for years-- to help them protect their sources.  But a bill is held up in Congress right now over the question:  Who is a journalist?  (Sound familiar?)

Now, the main event for this week:  WikiLeaks, the group that released almost 400,000 classified military documents about the Iraq war last weekend.  The New York Times and three European newspapers received advance access to the documents and published stories based on them when WikiLeaks published the material.

There's a lot to read here.

1. The most helpful place to start is also the longest article (no, it's not as long as the 400,000 documents themselves):  A New Yorker profile of WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange, published last June.  It's epic.  You'll probably want to print out a copy.

2.  Compare this to the profile of Assange that the Times published last weekend to go with its Iraq War reporting based on the WikiLeaks documents.

3.  This opinion piece from Fox News suggests that the U.S. government should declare WikiLeaks staff to be "enemy combatants" and punish them accordingly.  Also, please go to the comments page to see the response.  Sort them by "oldest first" and read through the first few pages.

4.  Sample the NY Times reporting that grew out of the WikiLeaks project.   Be sure to read this story about the role of private contractors and this one about civilian deaths.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

What do you make of this?

Actually, before you watch the video, read Lewis Lazare's story from the Sun-Times:  "Local reporters get into tussle over Rahm Emmanuel."

THEN, do watch.  We'll be discussing this in class tomorrow:

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

This week's homework: Put it here

Once again, the blog is the place to turn in your homework-- specifically, in the comments section for this post!

You've got the syllabus, but here's that assignment again:

Visit Everyblock.com and look up your own address.

If you do not live in the City of Chicago, enter an address or neighborhood that you are familiar with—other than Columbia College Chicago. 

OR:  If you're from one of the other cities that Everyblock covers-- including Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Boston, and about ten more-- then look up an address in your city.

 Post to the class blog before class meets on October 15:
  • What did you learn that you didn’t know before? 
  • What was interesting? Newsworthy? 
  • What (if anything) did you not understand? 
  • What would you change about the site—add, subtract, or re-arrange?

Did Somebody Say Midterm?

Why, yes!  And the Journalism Department has something to say about it.  

There are 8 sections of this class, and while each instructor writes an exam tailored to their section, the Department issues guidelines to make sure there's some consistency across the board.  I got those guidelines today, and now I share them with you!

We'll talk more about this on Friday.  For now, enjoy!

************************************
Section 1: (20 points) 
Current Events: 10 questions, open-ended, not matching or multiple choice. 
Two points each, one for correct identification, the other for identifying why the person/place/thing has been in the news.

Section 2: (20 points)
Terminology: 10 questions, open-ended not matching or multiple choice.
2 points each, one for correct definition of term, the other for identifying how it fits into journalism or a relevant example.

Section 3: (20 points)
Short answer: Journalism History
Explain terms/dates/etc succinctly, relating answers to journalism history.

Section 4: (40 points total)
Short Essays (2 x 20 pts)
Give four essay questions, allow students to choose two. Relate the questions to discussions, guest speakers, readings, and assignments from your section.

Friday, October 8, 2010

The New News, from Columbia's own Community Media Workshop

We will be a bit talking today-- and more next week-- about this report from the Community Media Workshop, a nonprofit based at Columbia College about the media environment in Chicago.


So WHAT exactly happened at the Trib?

This week's New York Times story on the company is among the most-emailed stories on the paper's web site.  It's also got a ton of detail, and there's a lot to keep in your head at once. 

It's also important background to the story of how Steve Rhodes quit his gig blogging for NBC5.

So, to make sure we're ready for our visit from Steve, here's a little outline, so he won't have to walk us through it, and we can get right to his work and his story.


Thursday, October 7, 2010

One more story for today: MSNBC-TV vs. msnbc.com

The New York Times published excerpts from a memo by msnbc.com's president, which the newspaper says was part of an ongoing corporate discussion about changing the website's name, to avoid confusion with the MSNBC TV news network. 

The TV network has been increasingly known for its liberal slant on news and opinion in recent years, while the msnbc.com web site-- a separate company-- stakes out a politically neutral position and is the number-three news site on the Web. 

Maintaining both companies under the same name amounts to "brand insanity," says the memo. 

But as the Times points out, changing the name of a popular website kinda sounds like a good way to confuse-- and thereby drive away-- readers. 

What do you think?

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

UPDATED, 10/6: This week's homework: Comment here!

UPDATE:  A few people have written in with questions about the assignment, so here's a quick note:

1.  Here's the assignment, from the syllabus:
Choose a local story that’s covered prominently in at least four major outlets on a single day this week
(10/1-10/6). Pick three versions of the story and post your analysis of the strengths and weaknesses
of each one to the class blog by 9 a.m., Thursday October 7. [NOTE THAT THE DEADLINE HAS ALREADY PASSED.]


2. For examples:  Scroll down!  About half the class has already completed this assignment.  (Which was due about 45 minutes ago, BTW.)  If you've written in with questions, you've got until 1 pm today to do the assignment for half credit.

***************************
You're asked to post your homework-- an analysis of three versions of a local story-- on the blog.  But where?  In the comment section for this post!  Have at it.

This week's reading and guest speaker: special focus

Part of your assignment for the week is to follow The Beachwood Reporter, and while I'm sure you're reading it faithfully I want to point out that today's post is especially significant for our class.

We'll be talking about it on Friday.  A lot.

Two big themes:

1.  The Tribune Company as a case study in how the business side of journalism affects the work we do.
2.  Journalistic ethics. 

Be sure to follow the links-- you won't be able to understand the story without them.

To help you out, here's a quick synopsis of the background material:

Part I:  December 2009
  • For about a year, Steve was a contributing blogger to Channel 5's website, nbcchicago.com.  Then, last December, he quit over an issue of editorial integrity:  
  • A post he had written about Randy Michaels, who had just been appointed CEO of Tribune Co., had been taken down.  When Steve asked why, he was told, essentially, that a Tribune exec had complained to an NBC network exec.  
  • The next day, while Steve was trying to figure out what was going on, the station pulled another of his posts, on an unrelated topic-- but again, he was told, because an executive (not an editor) had a personal issue with it.
  • Steve decided that since this is the exact kind of thing he would normally write about as a media critic at the Beachwood Reporter, he couldn't very well clam up about it and still respect himself.
  • So he quit, and wrote up the story on his own site.
With me so far?  OK, here's links to the full texts:
  • The text of Steve's original post about Randy Michaels is here. (Scroll down to about halfway through the page.) 
  • Steve's write-up of the reasons he quit the blogging job is here.
  • For more versions of the story, a Google search on Steve's name and NBCChicago.com brings up several writeups from local columnists (including Robert Feder, who Justin talked about last week).
Part II:  Now

Read up, folks!  Add comments below, post and vote on questions for Steve, and use the comments thread on this post for  your other homework assignment for the week.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The Paper

Congratulations!  You all made it through the first paper (assuming you turned it in).  I've graded them all, on a 100-point scale, using the following rubric:




Possible points
Lede (15%) ID class data 3

ID pew data 3

ID connection 5

Interpretive statement 4



Story #1 (30%) Provide link and ID 4

Coherent description 5

Describe Example 5

Analyze Example's effectiveness 8

Reflect on personal response 8



Story #2 (30%) Provide link and ID 4

Coherent description 5

Describe Example 5

Analyze Example's effectiveness 8

Reflect on personal response 8



Conclusion (15%) Identify an issue 5

Reflect on implications 10



Technical (10%) Grammar, spelling, punctuation 5

Basic style issues (awkward sentence structure, etc.) 5


100


Scores ranged from low-20s to 90 points, with a big cluster around 60 points. This graph shows the distribution:



So...

What's this all mean? 

I'm not giving out letter grades for this assignment.  Rather, your score on the 100-point scale goes into tallying your final grade in the class.

As I mentioned last week, you get the choice, since this was the first paper, of letting it count for 10 percent of your grade (as is on the syllabus) or reducing the weight of this assignment to 5 percent and giving the final paper a weight of 15 percent (instead of 10 percent, as the syllabus has it). 

So...  If you're taking this paper for 10 percent of your grade, just divide your total score by 10.  If you're taking this paper for 5 percent of your grade, divide by 20.  That's the total number of points on the full semester's scale that this paper got (or cost) you.

I'm about to email you your papers with comments and your score out of 100 points.  If you want to see the full breakdown for your paper or have any questions for me, just write back.

Onward!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Today's top stories...

We will be talking today about:

Tyler Clementi's death, with reference both to the Dan Savage site from last week's blog and the ethics of outing.

* We'll circle back to the Bill Ayers story.

*  The three versions of one story available at this one Fox News page.  Might have made a good example for last week's paper.

*  The Forbes stories about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.  Highlights:
  • A poll conducted for FORBES by Zogby International finds 63% of Americans don't trust Facebook with their personal information. Yet more than 90% of those polled are Facebook members.
  • Facebook is in direct competition with Google for advertising dollars-- the selling point being that "your friend likes this" is a stronger selling point than "here's what Google found":  "80 of the world's 100 largest advertisers are on Facebook, the company says. ... Tax prep company Intuit credits Facebook with a 15% increase in sales of its TurboTax, in a year when 2% fewer folks filed tax returns."
From your reading, the two key points, which we should talk about today, are the War of the Worlds broadcast and the debate in the Aughts about media ownership, especially in radio

If we do not talk about Net Neutrality today, we'll get to it next week.  Watch this space for some reading assignments.

When Justin gets here, we will hit him with some of your questions

* If we've got time, we'll listen to part of this story about the "War of the Worlds" event described in our textbook.



If there's more time, we may look at this video: