Home office lauds good work

Source: T-U, Apr 15, 2007, Sunday edition, Metro/Florida section

Writer: Jessie-Lynne Kerr

This article explains about getting an award for journalism and the written media. When I read the article it seemed like the academy awards. The Times-Union and the St. Augustine Record took a total of eight awards. The Florida Times-Union was in the large circulation catagory and the St. Augustine Record in the medium circulation catagory. The competition was 27 newspapers in 14 states. A etched glass trophy and $500 was awarded to each winner. For the names and catagories Check out the article

Nancy Comments:

I think this is a great idea, to acknowledge those that have the ability to write good and interesting articles. I think maybe they could even do it twice a year. Maybe we could figure out and separate the trashy and sensationalizing jerks in this media. Sticking to the facts and writing responsibly, and yet making the story interesting enough to encourage the reader to keep reading. This is something that might encourage a good journalist to strive harder to do a better job.

What is the bottom line here?

Please use this post for April 10, I posted last week and we didn't have to..Prof Blade said it was ok...Thanks...Nancy

Well, look what is going up for sale, the Chicago Tribune. It amazes me, if it is a smooth going newspaper operation, and making money why sell. All I can say is that someone has the brains and perception to know when it's time to get out. The article mentions that there was a long period of time before the bidders came to the table with an offer. What will the paper become (since the real bottom line is money)are we going to see sensationalism, more Nicole Smith stories, is the paper going to turn into a cheap tabloid? The article skims over the fact that subscriptions are on a decline. Then the rest of the article discusses money, money, money. One good idea however was the thought of employee own stock. Maybe that is the boost we need to see a rise in subscriptions. Wonder if they will give the employees an opportunity to participate? This is suppose to be one to the biggest newspapers around, what then is happening to the smaller ones. It just makes me wonder to what extreme are they going to go to, to sell newspapers. Check it out

Nancy's Comments:
The long and short of it is why would someone buy an in trouble newspaper? If they are going to try and turn it around from declining sales..HOW? Will we as readers suffer? We get most of our news from the internet, radio or TV or the new source our friends. I think a lot of us hear the daily news from our friends who are avid news junkies. Since the article was more about covering the finances, might the new Chicago Tribune turn into another Wall Street Journal?

News media like scaring us !

Title: News media like scaring us

Source: T-U Viewpoint section, Sunday Mar. 25,2007

Writer: John Stossel

Here is an interesting article about the news media in all forms, TV, radio and print. They are using words and half information to scare the living daylights out of us. They are hitting our scare factor beyond what is necessary by overstating or sensationalizing things that deal with our health, food products we eat, pesticides, etc. When writing or speaking of these things they are supporting advocate groups and are not supplying the public with backup information or the other side of the story. They are scaring the general public with words and generate panic. Once again I am sorry, but, my article was not available on the net....so I will hand type it out for you to read.

ARTICLE BELOW:
I'm embarrassed by my profession.
Consumer reporters should warn you about life's important risks, but instead, we mislead you about dubious risks.
I started thinking about this when interviewing Ralph Nader years ago, before he stopped speaking to me. Nader worried about almost everything.
Food? "It can spoil in your own refregerator."
Chicken? "It's contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides."
Flying? "Inadequate maintenance."
Cartpet? "Rugs are dirt collectors. And dirt collectors mean internal, indoor air pollution."
Coffee? "Caffeine is not very good for you."
He went on and on. Just interviewing him was exhausting. Nader and interest groups like his fuel the Fear Industrial Complex? The network of activists, government bureaucrats, and trial lawyers who profit by scaring people.
The media should be skeptical of their prophesies of doom, but we rarely are.
My TV program, 20/20, has done frightening reports on the dangers of paper shredders, soccer goals, lawn chemicals, cell phones, garage-door openers and more.
There's always some truth behind the scares - someone got hurt, or some study somewhere found a risk.
But we rarely put the danger in perspective. We give you a breathless rush of alarm over every possibility, often delivered with a throbbing rock beat.
Sometimes we don't even get the nubmers right. Remember the summer of the shark? It was nonsense. That summer the number of shark attacks was hardly different from two previous years. But in those other years we had an election to cover, or O.J. was on trial. Mid-summer 2001 didn't bring many sexy stories, so Time did a cover story on "the Summer of the Shark."
It should have embarrassed the media into putting risks in perspective. But it didn't.
Listening to us, you'd think our growing exposure to pesticides, food additives and other mysterious chemicals has created America's "cancer epidemic." But there is no cancer epidemic - cancer incidence is flat, and death rates have been falling for years. But such good news doesn't get much play. No interest groups benefit from it.
Remember the breast-implant scare? Some lawyers and activists said silicone from breast implants caused lupus, breast cancer and more. Connie Chung did a scare story on CBS, the FDA banned silicone implants, and soon many women were certain that their medical problems were caused by their implants.
How could they not think that? The Fear Industrial Complex told them they were being slowly poisoned. Lawyer John O'Quinn helped spread the fear and reaped the reward. He sued implant makers again and again until they paid his clients over $1 billion. Fortune called O'Qunn and his partner "lawyers from hell." O'Quinn won't say how much money he made from these lawsuits, but he's now rich enough to have a warehouse that holds 900 valuable cars.
After the suits from O'Quinn and others bankrupted implant maker Dow Corning, and after many women were terrorized, scientists started saying there's no evidence that silicone causes autoimmune disease and cancer. Study after study failed to find a link.
Sherine Gabriel, chair of the department of health sciences research at the Mayo Clinic, announces that there was "no significant difference in the occurrence of connective tissue diseases between the women who had the implants and the women who did not."
The FDA has now re-approved silicone implants, and thousnands of women are having implants inserted, implants that contain the very same silicone that was used before.
So has O'Quinn apologized for scaring women and bankrupting Dow Corning? No. Did he give the money back? Of course not. The lawyers never do. Instead, O'Quinn impugns the authors of the medical studies. "Who bought and paid for that science?" he said to me, indignantly. He told me he's prond to sue rich businessmen.
Reporters rely on lawyers like O'Quinn bureaucracies like the FDA and interest groups like Nader's to give us safety warnings and "dirt" on evil companies. We should be more skeptical.
The Fear Industrial Complex has motives of its own.

Nancy's Comment:

This is terrible, but all most of us are capable of is being too gullible. We either read about it or hear about it on the radio or TV. Unless we are part of the health or food industry we aren't all that knowledgeable about these scares, but many readers and listeners get panicky and go to extremes to avoid them. I think we tend to have to much faith in the media reporting. Many of us probably feel that surely there has been enough research, before reporting scares to the general public. And of course when we finally do get answers, we start to lose faith, but in who? I think according to this story it should be in those that give us our daily news, and I agree with the writer of this article....Shame on them. But who are we to believe and how much of what we are told should we believe...Some day all that sensationalism might kill us all....Your comments please.

What do they look like?

This article comes from last week's Sunday edition of the T-U edition.

The article was, I think from the entertainment section. The heading said Journalists are great. but let's get real..
The article was about a new movie release call Zodiac in which Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr.play two journalists bent on cracking the case of the Zodiac a whacked out serial killer. They are dressed in jackets and ties and seem to have a more conformed formal appearance. This is just a movie, they seem like they want to protray jounalists in a conservative way. Is this the idea of how given the way the press and movie people want to protray them and we should except this idea. Since this article was not available for linkage to my blog, let me rewrite it for you.

In the new flick zZodfiac(just released on Friday). mega cuties Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. play two journalist bent on cracking the case of the Zodiac, a whacked-out serial killer from the 1960's.
While us folks onin the newspaper bix are equally courageous and morally righteous. I'm gonna level with you : Journalists don't look like that. If we did, we'd be America's next top models--or hosts of our own shopping show on VC.
This Hollywood warp isn't journalish-specific, however don't most doctors look more like McCrabby rather that McDreamy?

Nancy Comment: So what do you think a journalist looks like. Is he/she wearing blue jeans and sunglasses. Does his upbringing and neighborhood have influences on his style of writing. Does life's experiences play a part of his writing or his interests. I think journalists write on be half of their background and experiences personal or professional. So how do you imagine the journalist that writes a story or column. Does his story satisfy or interest you, and if it does, you might wonder why. If you had to describe him/her by the column or story you just read, what would they look like and what are their morals. Are they a Harvard graduate or did they graduate FCCJ. Does their background affect their writing. Are they biased in any way? And one last question...Why do the movies portray them as well-dressed, suit and tie people. Is this acceptable, or is this the way we want to see them portrayed. I really want to see some comments on this one....had me baffled.....

How readers interpret writers new stories

Writer: Wayne Ezell

Source: Sunday T-U Mar 4, Viewpoint section

I found this article in the Sunday newspaper about the reaction to a news article that upset a lot of readers. It was about mis-interpreting a story about the American people learning to speak Spanish as a second language. The article explained further that some local companies were providing Spanish classes for employees, and some adults were signing up at FCCJ for Spanish classes. Readers were upset by this article saying that if you come to American as a spanish speaking you should go to class to learn English, our official language. It explained that people are learning Spanish to better communicate customers. What the writer wrote and the point he was expressing didn't seem to come across to his readers. (PLEASE NOTE: there are three different articles in this one article, I am blogging on the first one) To get you opinion on the article click here

Nancy Comment:

I think this must happen a lot. As the world changes and more people are affected they the changes they have more opinions and are more outspoken about them. I think these newspaper writers need to re-read their articles more carefully and maybe consider writing other sides to the story. He mig;ht have mentioned the fact that Spanish speaking people moving to our country might take English classes to better understand Americans.

Can your local newspaper attach a name to you?

Title: Stinky spy: Trash bins as monitor

Writer: Liz Ruskin

Source: T-U Sunday edition, World section, Sunday Feb 25

I read this article and was fancinated and stunned at the same time. This article takes place in London. From what I understand the British do a lot of serviellance, but this took the cake and icing too. The are putting microchips in the trash bins, and using a flimsy excuse of monitoring collections and boosting the national recycling rate. Resding down further, London is one of the lowest in the country. They are trying to be sports about this by saying that big brother has gone too far. Their newspaper has attached the name Bin Brother to the situation, and headlines read "Germans Plant Bugs in our Wheelie Bins" referring to their trash bins. I am sorry that the T-U didn't put this article on line so I couldn't link it. Therefore I decided to type out the article for you because I found it that interesting. See article below:

LONDON -- The British tolerate millions of surveillance cameras watching their every public move. They agreed to let roadside cameras record their vehicular movements and store the information for two years. But when they discovered that their garbage is being bugged, they howled that Big Brother had gone too far.

Local governments have attached microchips to about 500,000 "wheelie bins," the trash cans that residents wheel to the curb for collection. The aim, they say, is to help monitor collections and boost the national recycling rate, now among the lowest in Europe.

The public has reacted with suspicion and fury.

"Germans Plant Bugs in Our Wheelie Bins," a Daily Mail healine announced in August. Two of the bin manufacturers are German. Newspaper letter writers have taken to calling it "Bin Brother."

A member of Parliament from London's Croydon neighborhood denounced the chip as "the spy in you bin."

"The Stasi or the KGB could never have dreamed of getting a spying device in every household," said Andrew Pelling, a Conservative, referring to the former East German and Soviet spy agencies.

Small-scale revolts have erupted across the United Kingdom for months as the technology has spread. Some towns failed to mention the feature.

In Bournemouth, Cyril Baker, 72, ripped the chip off his new bin, then went on national TV to show how he did it. Thousands of his neighbors followed suit.

"It was a very emotional issue," he said.

Nancy's Comments: I couldn't believe this article. I need not say more. The feeling I would get, being monitored constantly. That is a scary thought. Then there is the fact that the press could destroy you reputation by labeling you. Let's say you or one of you family was accused of being a murderer or kidnapper, and was labeled by a newspaper by giving you an offensive name. Then maybe 5 years later you were found innocent. That stigma would follow all of your life. I would guess that the paper would appologize, but the stigma would stay. Somehow I don't think that labeling should be allowed. I need to explain that the mention of the Germans was because a German manufacturer made the trash bins. This article amazed me. We Americans are complaining that we are vulnerable to highway camera's peeking at our driving. Let's hope we are not invaded by the invasion of our privacy with microchips any time soon. Please let me know how you feel...

Digging for the truth

I almost passed up this article. This is a story about a lawsuit and what further probing by the Times-Union writers did to aide with more information and facts about the lawsuit implications. They got information from the St. Johns River Community College. They are also withholding other information from the public whereas protecting more harrassment suits from other employees. Check this check this An employee said she was groped by the president of the college of which he has been in that post for some 34 years. The employee felt she had no future at the college as long as the president was still employed there. She claimed that he intimated her by telling her he had control over her future. He still remains in his position. She was awarded $40,000 after asking for $300,000.

This is so interesting because the Times-Union did such a great job of exposing records of the president. He didn't have a past record of any such decrepencies. Of course neither did the woman in question of the allegations. The Times-Union in this case seems to be doing an excellent job of delving into the public records and reporting the facts. On the other hand they are withholding news that could harm the repetition of others from further law suits. I am beginning to wonder about the honest and sincerity of the Times-Unions and it's reporters. In this story I really want to give them the credit they deserve. It was great reporting and judgement that they used. 'bout time........