In class, we discussed the newspapers obligation to provide the public with a forum. Forums open up an opportunity for many parties to state their honest opinion without interference from the news gatekeepers; however, forums are more conducive to those that are best with public speaking. In a way, forums can be dangerous when they become more emotionally involved. There is a power in emotion that many people don't know how to separate from truth, which makes it harder for people to chose their sides according to where they stand on a topic.
The public deserves a forum where they too can state their opinions; as we discussed, Rick Sanchez opens up to the public's opinions live on his show by using Twitter. My hometown newspaper the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald has the RH-line where local citizens can call in and have a short paragraph sharing their opinion in the newspaper. The Daily Universe does a similar thing by allowing students to write in and share their opinions on matters. These types of forums are important in involving the reader: the more the reader feels they are part of that newspaper or news program the more they will regularly tune in to that specific program.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Bias in Journalism: Is it impossible to remain objective?
On October 18, Clark Hoyt wrote a column for the New York Times titled, "Keeping Their Opinions to Themselves." With the election being this year, there have been a collection of complaints to the New York Times over them being biased. While I too believe that every medium holds some degree of bias, I know that there is always a goal to maintain as much objectivity as possible.
In the article, Clark Hoyt writes, "Like a lot of news consumers — and at least some Times readers — O’Reilly appears to have a hard time with information that does not fit his view of the world. It is a tough reality every news organization faces."
This comment suggests that readers see biases because they too are biased and only want to hear their side of the story. Do you think newspapers are biased, or is it really the readers that search for bias? If so, how can journalism mediums keep bias out of their work?
To view the article by Clark Hoyt click on this link: http://tinyurl.com/55qxmr
In the article, Clark Hoyt writes, "Like a lot of news consumers — and at least some Times readers — O’Reilly appears to have a hard time with information that does not fit his view of the world. It is a tough reality every news organization faces."
This comment suggests that readers see biases because they too are biased and only want to hear their side of the story. Do you think newspapers are biased, or is it really the readers that search for bias? If so, how can journalism mediums keep bias out of their work?
To view the article by Clark Hoyt click on this link: http://tinyurl.com/55qxmr
Newspaper Analysis
Throughout this semester, I have been examining the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald. The Reporter Herald is Loveland, Colorado's local newspaper that focuses on community journalism. As far as I have seen, the newspaper does a good job of bringing the community stories on matters that effect the community or would interest the population. Each story is written in a way that the average person should be able to understand the article.
It is easy to interact with the reporters and other workers with the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald. When I needed to contact them, I checked their website and immediately found an phone number and e-mail address that we could contact them at. The e-mail I sent them was promptly responded to within 24 hours.
The format of the website for the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald is very basic. The website makes it difficult for the eye to know what to look at first because the page is busy with typed text. There is hardly pictures or colors to liven up the web page. It would help the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald if they would make their website more attractive and easy on the eye.
The Loveland Daily Reporter Herald is a newspaper that tries hard to serve the community they write for and successfully does so. They focus on matters that effect the community and they make the news easily accessible. With a little work on their website, the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald would be a prime example for presenting good news to the public.
Check out their website and share your opinion: http://www.reporterherald.com/index.asp
It is easy to interact with the reporters and other workers with the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald. When I needed to contact them, I checked their website and immediately found an phone number and e-mail address that we could contact them at. The e-mail I sent them was promptly responded to within 24 hours.
The format of the website for the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald is very basic. The website makes it difficult for the eye to know what to look at first because the page is busy with typed text. There is hardly pictures or colors to liven up the web page. It would help the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald if they would make their website more attractive and easy on the eye.
The Loveland Daily Reporter Herald is a newspaper that tries hard to serve the community they write for and successfully does so. They focus on matters that effect the community and they make the news easily accessible. With a little work on their website, the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald would be a prime example for presenting good news to the public.
Check out their website and share your opinion: http://www.reporterherald.com/index.asp
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Community Journalism
This week in class we had the opportunity to have a small town journalist,Heather Bowser, speak to us on community journalism. This partnered with the journalist interview that I completed this week helped me to see where I would like to go with my journalism career; both Jeff Stahla and Heather Bowser discussed how their primary purpose as a journalist is to serve the community and that is precisely what my goal as a journalist is.
Community journalism is the focus of the small town happenings: the citizens, their activities, and random stories. This soft news is what makes people smile and the news people can find joy in. While community journalism does lean towards the entertainment side of news, it also can carry important messages and news aspects to the community. It is through community journalism that small town newspapers will stay alive.
Community journalism is the focus of the small town happenings: the citizens, their activities, and random stories. This soft news is what makes people smile and the news people can find joy in. While community journalism does lean towards the entertainment side of news, it also can carry important messages and news aspects to the community. It is through community journalism that small town newspapers will stay alive.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Serving the Community
Growing up in Loveland, CO I was part of what would be considered a small town. In this small but growing community, I felt close to all of my neighbors and can attribute that to my local newspaper. While the small community's population has matured to 59,563 citizens according to Loveland's online profile, I still feel that the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald is working for the people to maintain a tight knit community.
In an effort to remind myself why I am choosing to obtain a degree in journalism, I went to my roots. I contacted the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald to interview one of their reporters and was fortunate enough to get in contact with the city editor Jeff Stahla. Stahla shared his story on how he became a journalist with me as well as his personal opinions about journalism with his newspaper.
Stahla's journalist path began during his freshman year of college. As a math major, Stahla was not satisfied, so he searched for alternate activities to participate in that would be as he said, "more intellectually and spiritually stimulating." In his search, Stahla ended up volunteering for his school's newspaper and began to study communications. From there, Stahla took a job with a "small community newspaper in Wyoming," which he attributes for teaching him more about journalism then school.
Now as the city editor for the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald, Stahla is able to mold the newspaper into a true community journalism medium and share what he believes is good journalism with the Loveland community.
"Good journalism makes readers smarter and empowers them to take appropriate action to have a more fulfilling life and better community," Stahla said.
Through out the questionnaire, it is evident that Stahla is devoted to serving the Loveland community and dedicated to bringing citizens "good journalism." Stahla and his staff have developed a relationship with the readers, so that the community will come to the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald to share their story ideas with the reporters. This enables the newspaper to cover community activities that might go over-looked with a limited staff.
While Stahla admits that his newspaper is affected by the shift in how news is shared, he says that the circulation continues to grow. He gives the supportive community the credit for the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald's ability to stay afloat; the public is willing to share their personal news with the community, which makes a difference when the newsroom is smaller then desired.
"I went into journalism because I am impassioned by the duty of making th people around me more aware of the world around them-- including matters of substance, like government and finance, and matters of more entertaining value, such as features on personalities and other topics," Stahla said.
Stahla reinforced my beliefs in journalism and reminded me of my motivation to become a journalist who writes for the people. I hope that I can channel my passion for serving the community into the news I share with them; Stahla's opinions have shown me that I can make a difference in the community that I write for.
In an effort to remind myself why I am choosing to obtain a degree in journalism, I went to my roots. I contacted the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald to interview one of their reporters and was fortunate enough to get in contact with the city editor Jeff Stahla. Stahla shared his story on how he became a journalist with me as well as his personal opinions about journalism with his newspaper.
Stahla's journalist path began during his freshman year of college. As a math major, Stahla was not satisfied, so he searched for alternate activities to participate in that would be as he said, "more intellectually and spiritually stimulating." In his search, Stahla ended up volunteering for his school's newspaper and began to study communications. From there, Stahla took a job with a "small community newspaper in Wyoming," which he attributes for teaching him more about journalism then school.
Now as the city editor for the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald, Stahla is able to mold the newspaper into a true community journalism medium and share what he believes is good journalism with the Loveland community.
"Good journalism makes readers smarter and empowers them to take appropriate action to have a more fulfilling life and better community," Stahla said.
Through out the questionnaire, it is evident that Stahla is devoted to serving the Loveland community and dedicated to bringing citizens "good journalism." Stahla and his staff have developed a relationship with the readers, so that the community will come to the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald to share their story ideas with the reporters. This enables the newspaper to cover community activities that might go over-looked with a limited staff.
While Stahla admits that his newspaper is affected by the shift in how news is shared, he says that the circulation continues to grow. He gives the supportive community the credit for the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald's ability to stay afloat; the public is willing to share their personal news with the community, which makes a difference when the newsroom is smaller then desired.
"I went into journalism because I am impassioned by the duty of making th people around me more aware of the world around them-- including matters of substance, like government and finance, and matters of more entertaining value, such as features on personalities and other topics," Stahla said.
Stahla reinforced my beliefs in journalism and reminded me of my motivation to become a journalist who writes for the people. I hope that I can channel my passion for serving the community into the news I share with them; Stahla's opinions have shown me that I can make a difference in the community that I write for.
Friday, October 3, 2008
News mediums need to find a new stride
In class on Wednesday, we watched a PBS special called, "News War: What's happening to the news?" This documentary focused on the challenges faced by both broadcast and print journalists; since the development of cable and the internet, people now have a variety of mediums to choose from considering that they can dial through hundreds of television channels and surf the internet using a key word search. With these technological advancements, people are now tuning into the news that focuses on what they want to hear. This means mainly finding the news they enjoy over the internet. The PBS special said that part of being a journalist now requires that reporters, "Give the public what it wants." Not only does satisfying the reader become the only priority, but the segment suggests that hard news is being put second next to soft news.
In order to survive the shifting society cased by the technological advancements, newspapers will need to learn to use the technology to lead readers to the hard copy newspaper. Today there are websites developed that are giving a quick feed on stories or one sentence updates on what news is happening, such as Twitter. If newspapers can learn to post news headlines as the news happens and tell the public to look for more details in the following days newspaper, then they will be able to compete in the live news industry where stories are posted online or headlines cross the television screen immediately upon learning news. These quick headlines shared on websites such as Twitter will direct the curiosity of the public to read the following days paper, which would hopefully increase circulation.
Another shift the news industry will have to make in order to survive the changing times is making the news the community's news. Newspapers will need to save more spots in their layout for pubic columns, broadcasts will need to show more pictures shot by the public, and community members names will need to be shown frequently in the paper. The community has a voice and they will find a way to be heard even if it isn't through the news mediums provided. In order to share the important news, journalists first need to address the public's desires; these desires could be learned through allowing readers to give suggestions on Twitter.
Although the destruction of the news industry as we know it seems inevitable, I do not see the world not needing the news. The news is what connects a community and keeps it together in trying times. Yes, times are changing, but the both print and broadcast journalism will stay alive as long as they find a way to use what is changing to improve their news.
In order to survive the shifting society cased by the technological advancements, newspapers will need to learn to use the technology to lead readers to the hard copy newspaper. Today there are websites developed that are giving a quick feed on stories or one sentence updates on what news is happening, such as Twitter. If newspapers can learn to post news headlines as the news happens and tell the public to look for more details in the following days newspaper, then they will be able to compete in the live news industry where stories are posted online or headlines cross the television screen immediately upon learning news. These quick headlines shared on websites such as Twitter will direct the curiosity of the public to read the following days paper, which would hopefully increase circulation.
Another shift the news industry will have to make in order to survive the changing times is making the news the community's news. Newspapers will need to save more spots in their layout for pubic columns, broadcasts will need to show more pictures shot by the public, and community members names will need to be shown frequently in the paper. The community has a voice and they will find a way to be heard even if it isn't through the news mediums provided. In order to share the important news, journalists first need to address the public's desires; these desires could be learned through allowing readers to give suggestions on Twitter.
Although the destruction of the news industry as we know it seems inevitable, I do not see the world not needing the news. The news is what connects a community and keeps it together in trying times. Yes, times are changing, but the both print and broadcast journalism will stay alive as long as they find a way to use what is changing to improve their news.
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