Pulled Quotes

In Monday March 10’s USA Today there was an article on page 3D written by Gary Strauss called ” ‘High School’ goes confidential” and it is about a new television series about 12 girls lives in high school. I thought that the article was really well written and contained plenty of information valuable for the readers’ knowledge about the television series. I really liked how Strauss quoted the creator of the show, and the ideas that fueled her into creating this television show. I thought that using the creator as a source for the article was really great for the article. I also thought that Strauss provided readers with good background information, and a good understanding of why Sharon Liese (creator of the television series) wanted to make this part documentarty/ part reality series. Strauss also provided readers with a brief, quick, yet informational background on the characters and people that are going to be on this television series.  I also liked how Strauss talked how the influence the show is trying to make on the public. I think by including this in the article, readers will be motivated to watch the television series on a different level from just watching it for entertainment. 

 There were only a few questions that remain for me personally as a reader of this article. First, I would have liked to know how these girls were chosen? Did they audition? Did Sharon Liese just pick a high school and then pick girls from it? Why was this school chosen? Why aren’t boys included in this television series?  How did the high school allow access for filming? Did it disturb the academics of the girls on the show? Did it disturb the other students in the school? These questions may not be as important but I still really would like to know the answers to them, personally as a reader. The only other problem I had with this article was the lead. I think that the lead lacked the newsworthy components of the story. Instead, I think that the lead of this article was everything that we were taught not to do in a lead. The lead acted if it was telling the beginning of a story more than it did the beginning of a news article. I personally thought that the lead was not strong and did not automatically tell the reader the most newsworthy information about the article.   

All in all, I really liked the article. I have to say that I saw previews for this television series and I honestly was not very interested in the show until I read this article and obviously the article had to be written well if it is able to draw a reader like myself into wanting to watch the show.  

According to a recent study it is now said that exercise may not actually help improve your mood. Although according to other studies in previous years this is not the case, the article “Gene Study, Exercise may not improve mood,”begs to differ. The article does not state exactly why exercise wouldn’t improve ones mood, but does state that in surveys handed out the results did not prove that exercise would actually help.

Unfortunately, we do not know what the surveys said or who they were given out to, but obviously this new way of thinking assumes that people aren’t to happy to go to the gym (go figure). The other misunderstanding is why the study was done on twins, are they the best judge of this study? What it really comes down to is genes and whether or not exercise makes you happy is really dependent on the individual.  The ultimate outcome of this is that we may not know if exercise will make you feel better or not, but it may make you look better in the mirror!

I was flipping through Thursday’s edition of USA Today and came across a very interesting article about the new way in which textbooks and teachers are going to start approaching math lessons. The article, “A solution to how to teach math: Subtract” looks at a new approach of getting rid of larger math textbooks (700+ pages) and replacing them with “books as slim as 150 pages to help children solidly learn just a few key skills each year.” A professor from Michigan State University stated that the problem is that teachers in the United States (as opposed to the ones in China) are “trying to teach first-graders 20-something topics.”

The solution to the problem of US students’ lack of math skills is outlined in a table titled “What kids need to know – and when.” According to the table, third graders need to know how to add and subtract. Fourth graders will have mastered that skill, along with learning how to identify and use decimals and fractions. Fifth graders would need to know how to do the aforementioned skills, along with adding, subtracting, and comparing decimals and fractions, and starting to solve simple geometric problems dealing with perimeter and area. Middle schoolers would need to focus on integers, volume, surface area, and line slopes.

Looking at this article, I have to say that I was very disappointed with the lead. “Wondering why your child isn’t learning enough math in school? Her textbook may be too thick” seems too magazine-y for USA Today. The next paragraph definitely ignored the inverted pyramid style, saying that “…a blue-ribbon panel commissioned by President Bush has been working since 2006 to find out why the math skills of U.S. students pale next to those in so many other industrialized nations. The 20 respected scholars scoured more than 16,000 research studies, heard testimony in eight cities and argued among themselves — sometimes heatedly – for more than two years.

Holy details.

Anyway, I am left with a few questions.
1. When is this going to take place?
2. Is every state mandated to participate, or is this new method of math teaching optional?
3. How will the change in elementary and middle school teachings affect high school curriculum?
4. Will other subjects (science, for instance, which is closely connected to math) soon follow this model?
5. Taking an eco-friendly “green” standpoint, what is to be done with the old books? Will they be recycled, or can they be sold as supplements to the teachings?

In the recent article in USA Today, “Hospital to fire workers in Spears case,”it is apparent that employees at UCLA Medical Center are going above and beyond their normal responsibilities. Although the article states that several employees were fired for looking at Britney Spears medical records, it does not state how many or what records they were looking at. While we can assume that these records were obviously of much interest to people, it is uncertain as to why their punishment should be so harsh.

The story also fails to state when the action took place and who exactly was involved but what is certain is that these employees may think twice about taking a look at a celebrities private medical records again. Although, some doctors were only “disciplined” for their actions, other obviously less important people were immediately fired, with no justification. Their is no real response as to what Spears thinks about these snooping doctors but we can predict that she may not want to be hospitalized again anytime soon.

Good news for the ‘08 presidential election:  John McCain seems to actually care about foreign policy–enough to make multiple visits to Iraq and to other countries in which the U.S. has (or, shall I say, should have) important interests.  In another demonstration of his foreign policy aptitude, Senator McCain visited Baghdad on Sunday ”for meetings with Iraqi and U.S. diplomatic and military officials.”   The Associated Press article covering this diplomatic mission did its best to overcome the little information provided about McCain’s travels to provide an interesting article nonetheless.   Its lead simply states that McCain was in Baghdad on Sunday for meetings, described above.  However, it is the following information–the history of the senator’s relations with foreign and U.S. leaders, and the various places he has visited and plans to visit on this “fact-finding venture”–that are of major interest.   Thus, the lead draws the interest of readers by making them think that they will learn about what exactly McCain is in Iraq for, and then fills in the gaps (created by the confidentiality of his exact purpose there) with historical information and so forth.  Still, because the article reveals what can be revealed about his Iraq trip, it effectively satisfies the reader.   Notably, the author did mess up big-time with the lead, not concerning the point of the story, but with the identification of Senator McCain’s position in the presidential running:  It says, “Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee who has linked his political future to U.S. success in Iraq,”  when, in reality, McCain is the Republican presidential nominee, and has been for about a week.  Oops.

Kimberly Hefling of the Associated Press recently wrote an article about Senator Arlen Specter that explored his new book, Never Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate.  Her lead started with the Senator’s name, indicating that the most important news value she was aiming for was prominence.  Overall, her writing is objective and easy to follow, but some of her paragraphs are a bit confusing and could have been written another way.  Specifically, there were two paragraphs that I couldn’t connect with their preceding and following ones (the one about ‘chemotherapy cocktails’ and the ‘confused aide’ ancecdote).  I think that this story would have been better as a feature on Specter, simply because it’s hard to present a story about a 78 year old who beat cancer while serving in the Senate, and still plans to run again in 2010, without giving it any of the emotional appeal it deserves.

There has been a lot of information in the news the past few weeks about former Governor Spitzer and his call girl experience.  The stories range from his resignation, the opinion of the public, and finally the girls identity.

Recent news stations, papers, and online sites have posted pictures of the girl who was the alleged call girl.  Although her pictures were on myspace.com, a public viewing site, her name could be slandered by the news that is being written about her.  After learning in class about the different ways to slander people and rules for publishing pictures, I do not believe they should be using her picture.  No one received permission to post her images in the media, according to this article.

I liked the direction of this article.  Instead of giving specifics on the details of what happened, it looks at the media and the damage it can cause.  The media has been camping outside of her apartment, which raises the question, is that fair?   Every journalist wants that perfect shot or perfect quote, but how far should you go, when you know you are disturbing other bystanders?

The media really should focus on what is newsworthy right now.  It is the fact that he had an affair with a call girl while in office, and shouldn’t be who the girl is.  I believe the other articles are exploiting her.  Some may believe her “calling” may be exploiting her, but she should not have to suffer for what she has done.

It would hard to be a journalist covering the story.  The sensational media wants to cover who the girl is and give the public all the pictures. After all, it is probably what most people want.  People get tired of hearing about politics, but when they are scandalous, the public wants to dig deeper and deeper into every detail.  I have heard that tasteful journalism is somewhat of an oxymoron.  When they cover the 5 W’s to inform the public of current events then they are doing what they should.  However, I agree with this article in that the media is unfairly exploiting the call girl.

Reading the news from back home is always interesting.  I get to stay in the loop of things.  When I read an article about one of my peers becoming a con artist, I was astonished.  For one thing, I had heard the rumor Donna had married a millionaire, and then this story emerges.  The story was very informative and well written.

There are changes that I believe would make the story better.  For anyone not from Sweetwater, Tennessee, the names may become confusing.  The writer uses the names and aliases and there are several of them.  They all seem to run together toward the end of the story.

I would have liked to hear quotes from the people in Sweetwater that fell for his cheap tricks.  The girls cousin quit the police force to be a body guard.  I would like to know how he feels in hind-sight about the situation.

The article is informative in the way that it had a posted picture of the two, their license plate number, and several aliases.  Not only was it breaking news to inform the town, it also set the people of the city on lookout for the criminals.

Millsaps also mentioned the accomplice that had been charged and is in jail now.  I would like to know about her and what information she is giving to the police.  As we have learned through our road blocks trying to get public records for previous articles, the information may not be published yet to help with the investigation.

When a journalist does not have a short word limit as in this story, much of the information is published.  That allows the reader to know the most about the situation at one time, instead of having to go back every day for updates.

I figured this story would be well publicized throughout East Tennessee but I did not see it on the other major news station, WBIR.com.

An AP article about an illegal woman locked in an holding sell for four days, was too short and in need of many more details.  The lead was very well written   and included the 5 W’s, however, the more I read of the story the more I wanted to know.  There were several details that could have been explained.

One user comment in the forum about the story stated, “what’s the news”.  I questioned this, also.  Was the news that she was illegal, locked in a court house, what she was charged with, or what the judge is going to do to prevent the problem next time.  All of these were mentioned, however, each were simple statements.  Instead of going from general to specific, like the inverted pyramid, it stayed very general the entire way through.

Many people pirate CD’s, but not many go to jail over it.  I would have liked to know if that was the real reason she was locked up.  In the 5th paragraph, it describes her living conditions through those 4 days.  I would have liked to read that at the very beginning.  Of course, if it was a nice holding cell with a restroom and a nice chair it would have been a different story.

Journalists are often faced with word limits and this could be the reason this article was very brief.