Lecture on Radio Review

Radio was a very important media, in my opinion. It was the first live mass media.  It was also a very different form of media compared to the other types of media at that time (newspapers, magazines, and books). Before if something happened, people would have o wait for the next newspaper to come out to learn about it. When radio came out, people could learn about news seconds after an event happened. It grew popular the same way the internet and TV did. Within about 20 years radio went from not being popular at all to nearly every home having a radio in it. I thought it was interesting that radio used to have shows with actors and other forms of entertainment that we see on TV now days. I only listen to music on the radio, so its weird thinking about people listening to fictional shows on the radio.

Response to Will's Blog

Will's posts on his blog are great. He is very to the point in all of his posts.
http://thedovahkiinoflegend.blogspot.com/2013/11/television-how-it-has-affected-us.html This is my favorite post of his. Its about the television lecture we had. My favorite part is when he said  "Before the invention of the TV, what did people do with their time? Before people spent hour after mind numbing hour staring blankly at a screen, what did people do? They were..... Social *gasp*" Will adds a little bit of humor in most of his posts, which makes them a whole lot more enjoyable to read. He also made some good points in this post. A lot of people would prefer to sit around their house and watch TV than go outside and be active, or go somewhere with their friends. I admit, I am very guilty of this at times, but I do try to be active and social sometimes. It is definitely a problem with our society today that needs it to fixed.

Response to Stephanie's blog

 Stephanies Classmate Response- http://crushthe-patriarchy.blogspot.com/2013/11/classmates-blog-response-televisiondid.html
Allysa's post about television- http://fhblove.blogspot.com/2013/10/television-class-discussion.html


Stephanie has done a few responses to her classmates blogs, most of which seem a bit harsh, but one in particular I think is very picky. On her response to Allysa's post about the television lecture we had, she wasn't entirely fair to Allysa. When Alyssa said "before television, people did not publicize their stand on relationships", i don't think she meant that no one had ever publicized their stand. I think she meant that it wasn't as common at that time. TV definitely helped homosexuals to feel more open about their sexuality, even if people in the past had already been open about it.

Stephanie also mentioned that 25% of the worlds population is gay. This is  incorrect.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/6961/what-percentage-population-gay.aspx  According to this webpage, a survey was taken among Americans in 2002 about the percentage of gay people. In the survey, Americans were asked what they thought the percentage of American men and women were homosexual was. The average estimate was about 25% of men and women. This is not the real percentage of gays, this is just an estimate made my Americans. There is actually somewhere between 3 and 5 percent. Of course a true percentage of the amount of homosexuals would be impossible to find because not everyone is honest about it, and not everyone in the world can be surveyed.

Stephanie also said, "Alyssa summed up her response with: "Social issues, such as the gay issue, also were affected by television and people's change of opinion." Again, poor phrasing. "The gay issue," as if it is an issue when, in fact, it is an issue of opinion and bigotry and not the fact that people are gay."

I think Stephanie was too picky with this as well. Clearly she didn't mean that "the gay issue" is a problem with people being gay. People not accepting gay people is the problem. By saying "the gay issue" she is not trying be offensive. I think she is just stating that there is a problem.

I think Stephanie was a little too picky on Allysa's wording for her review. I respect Stephanie's opinions and that she had information to back it up, but she needs to stop being so picky about wording and make sure her information is accurate.

Response to Desha's Blog

http://deshahorton.blogspot.com/2013/11/jeopardy.html
Desha posted a response on her blog about the games of jeopardy we play before we take tests. I completely agree with her! I always feel a lot more confident about taking one of my Journalism One tests after playing a game of jeopardy. It's a really fun way to review the content that's going to be on the test, and it helps me know what i do and don't know. And like Desha said, being competitive, and playing with friends is a much more fun and interesting way to study!

WHAS Media Critique

WHAS violates the enterprise yardstick of journalism. They report on a lot of crime stories. 6 out of 8 stories in their main news section (http://www.whas11.com/news) were crime. These stories included one about a roommate fight that led to stabbing (http://www.whas11.com/news/LMPD-Roommate-fight-leads-to-stabbing-assault-charge-231966111.html) and of course a trial story (http://www.whas11.com/news/Hearings-delayed-for-Mellencamps-teenage-sons-231959041.html). These types of stories are not only un-newsworthy, but they are also passive reporting. WHAS is getting stories the lazy way. They should be going out and investigating to find information instead of just going to a location and reporting on the obvious information. This also violates the principle, make the important interesting. WHAS is taking stories that might be interesting and making them sound important.

Lecture on Television Review

The lecture we had on Television is my favorite lecture so far. We learned about how television evolved and how it changed society. I was surprised that color TV took so long for TV shows to use. It was invented in 1946, but it wasn't until 1967 that most TV shows were in color. To me it seems like color TV would have been something that TV shows would use as soon as they could. I think its funny, and slightly ridiculous, that there are more TVs in the U.S. than there are Americans, and there are more households with a working TV than households with plumbing in the U.S.

Lecture on the Internet Review

The discussion we had about the internet was very interesting. I use the internet everyday, but I have never really thought about what the history of the it might be. I was really surprised at how quickly the internet grew. Now it's something that nearly everyone uses every day. In 17 years (from 1995 to 2012) the internet went from having 16 million users to 12.4 billion users. That is nearly 80 times more users in 2012 than in 1995. I also have never thought about how you can get any information, TV shows, songs, ect. from the internet. The internet allows people to not need to watch TV or buy a CD because it is all in one place. There are millions of different websites that all offer something for some kind of niche audience. That allows everyone to have some interest in the internet, and have a reason to use it.

Local News Media Critique

Local TV Crime

     By Gabi Bleuel

Most local TV news stations focus the majority of their time for news on crime stories, and they showed lots of stories that were not actual news stories. A month long review of four local news stations (Wave 3, WHAS, WLKY, WDRB) showed that over 40% of all news stories played during this time were crime stories. Local news violates many principles used by good journalists.

The four local news stations surveyed showed that crime stories are very popular among local news stations. Crime stories are not newsworthy unless the people in that area could be affected by the doer of the crimes. Un-newsworthy stories are not showed for the good of the people, but for the interests of them. The David Camm Trial, for example, is a crime story. The outcome of his trial does not affect anyone but the family of David Camm. This may be interesting to some people, but it’s not newsworthy.

Crime stories also violate the Enterprise yardstick of journalism. Enterprise means that journalists should practice active reporting (investigating and seeking answers to relevant matters in the community) instead of passive reporting (waiting for an event to happen and reporting on the information that is given). Most of the crime stories aired on local TV news stations are found because the station listens to an emergency scanner radio and when a crime is reported, they rush to the scene to get video and interviews of the crime. This requires no investigating and hardly any work to do.  

The amount of crime stories aired on local news stations is overwhelming. Over 40% of the stories aired during the survey were crime stories! The next most played category is social issues and human interests, and it only accounted for 18.47% of the stories aired. The pie chart below shows the ratio of crime compared to other types of stories that were played in the month of the survey

Another problem with local news is that they do not make the important interesting. Instead they make the interesting sound important. In other words, they do not tell their viewers what they need to know. They show viewers what they might want to know. They have a lack of ‘real news’. Real news is not necessarily made to entertain people, it is made to tell people things that are currently happening, effect a large amount of people, and is relevant to a specific area. The pie chart above shows that the and fluff categorie take up another large portion of local TV news. Most of the stories in that category are not real news. On Wave 3 a story was played on October 28th during the 6-6:30 news about how the Louisville Orchestra has a new music director. This only affects the people in the Louisville Orchestra, and they most likely already know. This story is a fluff/other story. It does not tell the viewer anything they need to know or anything that could affect them.

Local TV news also violates one of the Seven Yardsticks of Journalism called explanation. Explanation means that news stations should have a reason that tells why their story matters. Wave 3 news often talks about a story for a long time without giving any reasons why the story matters to people or the community. Filling a story with facts and interviews can make it seem important, but there's often no real reason to air it.

Compared to the Courier Journal, local TV news stations could definitely improve. There was only 13% of crime stories compared to local TV new, which had over 40%.  The Courier Journal also has more range of stories. No one category stands out as much as the local TV news categories. Because of the larger range in stories there are also a lot more newsworthy stories. The pie chart below shows the relationship between different categories of stories in the Courier Journal during the month long review.

Crime  for the Courier Journal is not domination their stories. Its actually not even close to the main topic among their stories. Business/economy is the main category. Those type of stories are much more newsworthy than solved crime stories. The Courier Journal also is much more proportional. The newsworthy categories are larger than the others.

Local TV news definitely has a lot of problems to fix before they can be good journalism. They need to fix their problems with newsworthiness, explanation, enterprise, and making the important interesting instead of making the interesting sound important. They need to reduce the amount crime and fluff stories. Maybe one day local Tv news can be real news ‘instead of local TV crime’

Wave News Story- Not Newsworthy

http://www.wave3.com/story/23958752/woman-caught-eating-stolen-groceries-after-being-banned-from-store

       The link above is a link to a story Wave 3 News posted on their website about a woman who was arrested for stealing and eating food in a Kroger store. She is now banned from all Kroger stores. This story violates the newsworthiness yardstick of journalism. It has no useful information to the public and very few people are actually affected by this incident. The only people this affects are the people at Kroger, who were involved, and the women who stole the food, but all of these people already know about the incident. This story is also over exaggerated. The woman only stole $2.87 worth of food. This small amount of money lost could not have possibly hurt the business. This story may be a very entertaining or interesting story , but it is not real news that gives the people information the really need to know.