Thursday, September 17, 2009

Silent Broadcast

So for the silent part of the assignment I decided to watch The Glen Beck show on FOX. I'm not a big fan of FOX in general, but Glen Beck is one of the few on the station that I will listen to. If for nothing more he can be pretty entertaining with his wacky personality and warnings of the end of America. So I wondered how his program would be without any sound at all.

I have to say that even with the sound off Glen Beck was still pretty entertaining, if not more so than usually. I was watching him do his crazy faces he does and had no idea why he was doing them. He is very much an actor during his broadcast and this came out more with the sound off. But with the sound off I couldn't really tell what he was reporting on. The first story or bit of news that he was talking about had something to do with the Department of Treasury, because he had this big TV screen behind him and on it was this document that had the Department of Treasury at the top of it. He seemed to be talking about this document because he kept turning around pointing at it. I didn't read what it was about, but there were a few sentences that had been blacked out, which is sometimes on documents that the Government releases to the public. I don't know what it was about, but it took up about half the show. There were also a bunch of clips brought up of people from congress that were dated almost half a year ago and they also showed a clip of President Obama speaking back in June.

I thought that I would be able to read his lips to understand what was going on but Glen Beck talks too fast that I couldn't keep up. The only thing I was able to get out was "Congress doesn't matter anymore." If you have ever watch his show or listened to him on the radio, you would find that this attitude towards the Government is quite common from Beck. After the first story it seemed like Beck was turning to something else when he started to talk about something called re-founders. He started to show pictures of the Constitution and pictures of the founding fathers. Then pictures of the constitution was being shown with pictures and video of congress members of today. With some of the pictures there would be a quote that the person had said about the constitution like how it is suppose to grow with the people. There were many other quotes like that and it seemed to me that the show was going after the idea that some members of congress are trying to imply the ability to change the constitution. That's just what I took from it, but if you have watched any conservative news outlets you will hear every now and again the idea of the left wing attempt to change the constitution for there own gains. But this is the same sort of threat that you would hear from the liberal media like MSNBC, when Bush was still president.

So after Glen Beck was done I decided to just stay on FOX and do the just listening portion of the assignment. I have no idea what the show was called it might have been FOX and Friends, but don't hold me to it. Anyway I found that just listening to the news program was a lot easier then watching it without the sound. I had no issue trying to figure out was going on, the only problem that I had was that I couldn't see what they were reporting on. The first story was about Obama switching the missile defense over in Europe from a land setup to a mobile one. I couldn't see the missiles being shot off, but I could still hear them. They then went to talk about the possibility of Iran having a Nuke, the banned funding of Acorn by the Government, praying in school and a few other stories. However the most important thing is that I had no trouble following along with what the stories were about. I think the only thing that it proves is that we don't get the news from the visuals. They are important and they can add to a news story, but anyone can get the important facts from words alone. Look at the radio, a big chunk of the radio belongs to 24 hour news stations or at least stations that gives news for the most of the day. All the stories that we get are told to us, we don't get to see anything from video, it all comes from the host/reporter. I actually prefer the radio news over television news. There are no distractions like holograms or any other gimmick CNN comes up with, just the news. That's all I really want out of news outlets,no gimmicks, no news anchors that just want to be loud and get attention, no BS what so ever, just the news.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Lead Critique

For the most part I feel that Jeff Zeleny's lead in the "New York Times" that starts his article off works quite well on telling the reader what it's about while trying to get us to read more. His lead that he wrote to start his story about "Thousands Rally in Capitol to Protest Big Government" has all the info that we need and covers the five W's of the story. We don't really get a "How" in the lead, but it doesn't really matter if were told how they protested. There's no real set rules or guidelines for protesting so I think that we can all figure out how the people were getting their points a crossed (with a lot of yelling and screaming.)

I wouldn't say that all five W's are as clearly stated as they could be, and perhaps one or two might even be implied, but overall they seem to be there in the lead. The "WHO" of the lead is right at the beginning only a few words in when Zeleny tells us that it is a "sea of protesters" that are the subject of the story. We find out a little farther along in the lead that it is actually the "largest rally against President Obama since he took office." Zeleny doesn't come right out and state the "WHAT" of the story, but since it is about protesters it is sort of implied that they were, well protesting. It wouldn't make sence if they were protesters doing community service, so even though he doesn't tell us directly it is simple enough that since we know the "WHO" that we know the "WHAT." We're told in the second line that it occurred on Saturday on "the west lawn of the Capitol and spilled onto the National Mall." So Zeleny gives us the "WHEN" and "WHERE" in the same line of the lead. The "WHY" of the story is also sort of implied, Zeleny writes that the protest was "a culmination of a summer-long season of protests that began with opposition to a health care overhaul and grew into a broader dissatisfaction with government." He tells us that this protest is sort of the last stand of the summer protests that have been going on with health care and a growing Government, but he doesn't tell us exactly that this protest is about health care. If you keep reading after the lead, you actually find out that the protesters are protesting a lot of things, including gun rights and lower taxes. However the use of the word "broader" in the lead sort of helps to tell us that these protesters were protesting against more then just health care reform.

I think that the lead gives us the right amount of info that the reader will need to figure out what the story is about. It doesn't feel like too much info or not enough, but I think he could be a little more clear on some of the facts of the event. The only thing that maybe I would revise would be to state what exactly the protesters were protesting. However like I stated in the paragraph above, even though it isn't directly stated, Zeleny still gives us the info that tells us that the protesters were protesting for many different issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/politics/13protestweb.html?hp

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Resume

Arlen J. Faloon
433 York Hall
arlen.faloon@umit.maine.edu
207-867-5309

OBJECTIVE: Bring to light the stories of the weak and downtrodden.

EXPERIENCE: Staff Writer for The New York Times, Assistant Editor for The Boston Globe, Film Critic for the Chicago Tribune, Sunday Comics writer for The Bangor Daley News, Chief Editor for The Rolling Thunder. Writing consultant for DC and Marvel Comics.

Education: Nokomis Regional High, B.A. in English with a Film and Video Minor at the University of Maine Orono.

Skills: Good Listener, hard working, and won't quit until I lose or until I'm dead.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Accuracy

It's always hard to know how accurate anything really is, especially when dealing with the news. There is sort of this unwritten rule that whatever is labeled as news we assume is accurate and true. So in the article that I read in the Bangor Daily News about the superintendent of RSU 67 changing his mind on allowing his students to watch Obama's speech, I assume that all the quotes and all the info is true, even though I have no proof of this. And I think we all know what assuming can do to a person.

Overall I think that the article I chose is a good example on how an article can be accurate on what it is reporting on. I did not do any extra investigating on any of the quotes that were in the article to verify if they were quoted in the correct context. However the quotes that were used in the article seem to come from those that would have been quoted by other news outlets, other then just the Bangor Daily. Meg Haskell also notes at the end that some of the info came from The Associated Press, so if I wanted to double check any of the quotes used I would start there. Overall the entire article seems to be made up of about 75% from the quotes of those that were interviewed. So the entire article is told to us by those who were involved on both sides using what they said. Haskell even takes an except from the email that started it all. So there is plenty of facts in the article due to all the quotes that are used. Even when Haskell is not using any quotes she still notes where she gets her info, instead of filling in between quotes with her own assumptions on the matter. Like I already stated there is plenty in the article that someone could double check on if they wanted to. I think it is this reason that helps to show the accuracy of the article itself, because when your making things up you don't want to give your readers anything they could use to prove you wrong.

You can read the article yourself here and see how accurate you think it is.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/119515.html