Current Events Activity 4.1

To get to the Austin American-Statesman - click the link and then put in the user name and password.

http://nieonline.com/austin/studentconnect.cfm

The user name is MAC-J

The password is Knight1!

To answer question no. 1, please read, "Hegar: State can endure falling oil," atop page 1A.

1. Who is Glenn Hager and what question was he asked by state Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas)? What change prompted West to ask the question? What was Hager's answer? What evidence did Hager provide to support that answer? What are severance taxes and why are they going to bring in less money to the state than expected?

To answer question no. 2, please read, "Trump says he won’t take part in final debate," at the bottom of page 1A.

2. I guess the headline says it all ... except why. Why is Donald Trump sitting out tomorrow's Republican debate?  What is happening on Monday that makes his decision a bit risky? What is he doing tonight instead? Do you think his decision will help or hurt his campaign and his chances on Monday? Speaking of debates, what dilemma are the three Democratic candidates facing (Hint: it's scheduled for Feb. 4.)? What does it look like the three of them are going to do regarding that dilemma? What happens just five days later? Do you think the Feb. 4 event will take place? Why?

To answer question no. 3, please read, "Brazil is ‘losing battle’ to virus-carrying bug," at the top of page 3A.

3. Nearly a quarter million Brazilian troops have been called into battle in a war that the health minister says his nation is losing. Who is the enemy they are fighting? How is the army going to fight this enemy? What are Zika, dengue and microcephaly and how are they related to the war? Why are the health minister's remarks controversial? What huge events--one next month and one this summer--are to take place in Brazil?

To answer question no. 4, please read, "McRaven to uphold campus carry," at the top of page B1.

4.  What provision did UT professor and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg add to his classroom policies recently? What statement did the UT Chancellor Bill McRaven make yesterday about the same issue? When does the campus carry law go into effect? What law went into effect on Jan. 1? What comment did Justin Wood of Harris County district attorney's office make about the impact of that law since it went into effect?

I have to ask this next question to support my editor Natalie Murphy whose awesome video helped shape my understanding of this topic. To answer question no. 5, please read, "Paxton: U.S. resettled Syrians in Texas without proper notice" on the top of page B3.

5. Who is Ken Paxton and what objection with the Justice Department did he raise yesterday? What did the Justice Department do on Friday that prompted his comments? What did Paxton ask a federal judge to do on Dec. 2? How did the judge respond to the request? 

To answer question no. 6, please read, "

A GRAND CELEBRATION

," at the top of page C1. You have to love a city and a newspaper that will lead its sports page with women's basketball.

6.  What landmark achievement might happen if the Lady Longhorns basketball team beats Kansas at home tonight? How is the current season going for the UT women's basketball team? According to the article, what is the team's greatest weakness or problem?

THE BIG QUESTION: 

7. Let this questions serve as a reminder that your obituaries are due on Friday. Abe Vigoda died yesterday, and I read his obituary in The New York Times and the one in The Statesman (please see the bottom of A12).  Please read them both and let me know which one you prefer. Which lede (or lead) do you think is better? Why?

Feature Writing: Mitch Albom on Writing

Read "On Writing" by Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom and respond to it in writing by doing the following:

1. Write a full paragraph (minimum 4-5 sentences) summarizing the message of the entire speech.
2. Write one paragraph explaining the message of each of the three main parts of the speech:
1. One paragraph on LEADS
2. One paragraph on MIDDLES
3. One paragraph on ENDINGS
3. Select five representative passages that you either admire or feel make a strong impression:
1. Copy and paste or retype each quote each quote on your blog.
2. Write a response after each quote.  Why did you choose it?  Why did you like it?  Why did it leave an impression on you?  Do you agree or disagree with what he is saying?  Explain.

Writing an Obituary

Your first journalistic writing opportunity is here. [Insert appropriate reaction here.]

“There is nothing morbid about a good obituary because a good obit is about life, not death.”

-- a New York Times editor

OPTION ONE – Write your own fictional obituary.

1. Imagine the life you hope to lead as an adult.
2. Extend it to old age and determine all of the activities and accomplishments you want to have in adulthood.
3. Write an imagined obituary that pays tribute to the person you plan to become, celebrating the life you plan to lead.
4. Have fun with it and use it as a visualization exercise.

OPTION TWO – Write an obituary for a deceased family member.

1. The person need not have died recently.
2. Interview family members to learn the necessary biographical details but more importantly to recover stories that convey the person’s legacy and character.
3. Write the obituary in either standard of feature form.
4. This could be a great way to preserve the history of an important family member.

ASSIGNMENT WEIGHT: Major Grade

DUE DATE:  Friday, Jan. 29

For pointers, please review the class discussion on obituaries by clicking the links below.

I have posted the lecture notes in PowerPoint and PDF format.

(If you a doing option two and need a second weekend to conduct interview, I will give you until Feb. 2. Just let me know.)

Last respects and learning about obituaries

This has been a rough month for all of us. Every day in January it seems, we have had to say goodbye to a celebrity who was in some way special and important to our collective memory and culture.

It has gotten to the point where I feel we have to pause what we are doing and pay these figures their last respects.

Amiri Baraka (1934-2016)

David Bowie (1947-2016)

Monte Irvin (1919-2016)

Andrew Smith (1990-2016)

Alan Rickman (1946-2016)

Glenn Frey (1948-2016)

Read at least three of these and after you finish them, write a post to your blog in which you pay your respects to one of these figures by saying why you think they should be remembered or missed or celebrated.

In a second paragraph, please tell me what obituaries you decided to read and then tell me what similarities you observed in all of them. Consider the similarities (or differences if you observe those too) and indicate why you think those elements appeared (or why they didn't appear) in all three obituaries that you read.

The New York Times did something interesting to commemorate the MLK holiday yesterday. It re-ran the obituaries of black leaders to show how they were regarded in American society at the time of the their deaths. Those of you seeking a extra credit could read these obituaries and compare them to show how our societal perception has changed (hopefully) over the course of the century.

For Martin Luther King's birthday, black leaders as obituaries portrayed them

Searching for Stories with the Pros

Feature writers show discipline in their reporting and their fidelity to the truth, yet they also take risks in their use of language and narrative structure.  We are going to take a look a some professional examples of this type of narrative journalism (a fancy term for the type of nonfiction writing using the narrative techniques explained in the Hawthorne reading we did last class).

We are going to start by reading, Jon Franklin's "Ms. Kelly's Monster" together. As I said last class period, it was the first story to win a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. After we read the story, we will discuss it using the questions below to guide our discussion.

1.  What is the significance of the story? How does the writer show that the subject’s story is bigger and more important than the experience of one person (or place)?

2.  To what extent does the writer insert him / herself into the narrative? How does that affect the article’s objectivity?  How does it affect the article's transparency?

3.  How does the writer veer away from traditional newswriting? In other words, how does the reporter put into practice the advice that Hawthorne offered in our reading from last class. Find examples of literary devices (metaphors, similes, imagery, symbolism).

4.  How did the writer report this story? How many sources were used? How much time seems to have spent in the reporting process? How much of the article do you think was based on interviews? How much on the reporters direct observation?

5.  Find three particularly powerful quotes. Infer: What questions do you think the reporter would have asked in order to get these responses?

After we conclude our discussion, I am going to assign you one of the articles below. Please read the article and (hopefully) enjoy it. These are all great stories. Some of them are long but worth the time to read them. After you finish reading, go back and use the above questions to analyze the feature article you have been assigned. After you are finished, you will discuss the article with your classmates who read the same article, then you will share the article with the rest of the class.

Article links:

The American Man at Age Ten by Susan Orlean  

When Your Dream Dies by Rick Reilly

Sheltering Sky by Joanna Connors

Megacity by George Packer   

Bobby Hawthorne introduces us to feature writing (without using the word feature)

Read Chapter 4 of Bobby Hawthorne's most excellent writing guide, The Radical Write. Just read it and understand it first.

Then after you have read it answer these few questions well. I deliberately tried to cut down on the number of questions so that I could encourage you to write longer answers to the few questions that I give you for this reading.

Write a solid response to each question: multiple paragraphs or at least one super meaty one.

1.  Hawthorne offers this premise for the chapter: "We're not collecting data. We want to tell stories." How does he suggest reporters go about realizing this objective?

2.  On page 41, Hawthorne says that you shouldn't write stories that are the metaphorical equivalent of microwave popcorn. For the rest of the chapter, he presents his recipe to cook up a much more delicious, satisfying story. What is his complete recipe for writing an excellent story?

Welcome back, J1 All Stars!

Let’s get started today with a fun little assignment.

Since it's now 2016, I think it’s appropriate that we look back at the year 2015 and reflect upon the things that happened in that year.

First, let’s look at some photos.

                               

Go to the following websites and look at the photos there. On your blog post your THREE (3) favorites and tell me why each photo was one of your three favorite photos of the year. I realize this isn’t photojournalism, so I don’t expect you to judge the images solely based on their composition or their aesthetic strength. Just explain why it is one of the three best (or most important) in your opinion.

Please credit the photographer, who he or she works for and the site where you found the photo.  I have included a few websites for you to look at. Spend at least 20-30 minutes looking at these sites. The photos are truly awesome. You may have to wait for the images to load AND you may need to search out the images on Google (or take a screen shot) as you might not be able to download the image directly. You will also probably have a slideshow to look at - please make sure you are looking at more than the first photo. You should read the stories of those photos you find compelling.

The New York Times Sunday Review -- The Year in Pictures 2015

The Boston Globe's The Big Picture -- 2015 Year in Pictures: Part One (January-June)

The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture – 2015 Year in Pictures: Part Two (July-December)

CNN Photos -- 2015: The Year in Pictures

TIME Lightbox -- TIME Picks the Top 100 Photos of 2015

Reuters -- Pictures of the Year 2015

Mashable -- The Best Photos of 2015

BBC News -- Year in Pictures 2015

USA Today -- 2015: The Year in Pictures

Christian Science Monitor: Our Best Photos of the Year 2015

Twisted Sifter.com -- The Top 100 "Pictures of the Day"

Magnum Photos -- Photographer's Choice: Pictures of the Year 2015

GoPro's Best of 2015 Year in Review

(OK, so you can't get a still photo from this link, but it is pretty awesome: you should just enjoy it.)

Second, let’s write about some things you found interesting this year. Below I have listed five prompts. Please find and post a photo on your blog that goes with each prompt and then write a paragraph about each. Why did you chose that as your main choice, what things attracted you to that choice and why was it the best of 2015? To help you a little I have put a link below the prompt that may or may not help you. You are free to find your own sources.

1. What was the best song of 2015?

Rolling Stone -- Best 50 Songs of 2015

Billboard -- The Year in Music 2015

The Week: The Best Songs We Heard in 2015

2. What was the best movie of 2015?

Rotten Tomatoes -- Top 100 Movies of 2015

IMDb.com -- Most Popular Films Released in 2015

Fandango: "Moviegoers pick 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' as their favorite movie of 2015"

3. What was the most important news story of the year? If you want to really impress me, use the news values you learned last semester to justify your choice.

ABC News Year in Review -- 13 Biggest News Stories of 2015

Facebook 2015 Year in Review -- Story of the Year

USA Today -- 10 Most Read Stories in 2015

4. Who was the most important person of 2015?

TIME 2015 Person of the Year -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel

(includes a good video justifying their selection)

TIME 2015 Person of the Year Reader's Poll results

(lets you know who most readers though were worthy of a vote or two)

5. What was the biggest sports OR entertainment story OR sports/entertainment person of 2015 (you should Google what is appropriate for your choice), I leave this one to you to find a photo for.

Finally, I want to know about YOUR holiday

 .

1. Tell me what is the one thing that happened on your holiday that you will remember? It can be a trip, a family visit, a present, something fun.

2. What are your resolutions for the 2016 year?

3. What are you looking forward to in 2016?

We have a busy six weeks ahead as well be learning about feature and review writing, and we’ll start learning about how to design a newspaper page effectively. And you'll have a chance to write not one but three stories: a feature story, a feature profile and a critical review. You don’t have to thank me for all of these opportunities all at once, but I am looking forward to another fun and productive semester in J1.