10 years of music reporting

By: Sara Crouse

Reporting today is about getting the facts fast. Its about getting the facts accurate though too. Breaking news is perhaps the hardest to get accurate, but reliable sources can be a reporter’s best option. One TV station, MTV, dedicated a show to getting the facts straight about new music.

Total Request Live, (TRL), is a commonly known MTV show that focuses on world-premier music videos and artist commentary on CD releases. How else would the public comprehend what the latest Miley Cyrus song is truly about? TRL provides fans with direct interviews to get the latest on Miley and many more A-list stars.

The show dedicates itself to not only showing the latest videos/interviews, but also the most popular ones. This concept of viewer voting was relatively ground breaking when TRL started 10 years ago. A viewer having the option to pick their Top 10 videos perhaps limits the public’s accessibility to a range of music though. What if the nightly news were done in the same format?

Instead, the American public relies on reporters to pick the Top 10 news stories of the day. Reporters are perhaps more credible than the everyday man in the street. Reporters strive to bring us ‘news’ and educate the public.

Whether TRL reporters are credible is debatable, but they have left an impression on the music world. The zany interviews with some of the past decade’s most famous celebrities are unforgettable. Such interviews have pushed viewers a step closer into the world of musicians.

With TRL’s recent cancellation, music lovers will have to decipher the best new music on their own. Reporters won’t be available to help us understand the latest love songs on the radio. We’ll have to become our own reporter.

As N’SYNC would have said 10 years ago, “Its tearin’ up my heart” that we’ll have to become conscious of our music tastes.

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Editing does make a difference

By: Shauna Agan

When visiting Lincoln High School in Des Moines, I came across a copy of The Railsplitter, a student-ran newspaper. I haven’t read this newspaper forever and wanted to see what was new at my former school, so I decided to pick up a newspaper.

From what I have been taught already, I saw a lot of things in the paper that can and should be changed in the writings, but of course these students may not have learned proper techniques to writing yet beings they are still in high school. What disturbed me, though, were the inaccuracies and contradictions in the sports section.

As a former softball player for Lincoln, I decided to look at the softball article wrapping up last season’s results. The article said, “A key highlight of the game was Junior Courtney Ghee’s three run homerun which made the final score 2-1”.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if Ghee hit a three run homer, shouldn’t the final score have been 3-1? A little bit of simple editing would have caught this mistake.

Next, I read an article about the varsity football team. The article said that the sophomore team last year had a record of 7-1. However, right after stating this, a quote from football player Devon Miller says, “Our sophomore year we went 0-8”.

Now, either the writer completely messed up the record of last year’s sophomore team, or he was referring to a different class and did not clarify the distinction to the readers.

While I understand that these students are still in high school and have a lot of room for improvement in their writing, the editor or even the teacher in charge should have caught these errors. Maybe a little extra time editing before sending the paper to print wouldn’t hurt.

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Media outlets also struggle during economy downfall

By: Taylor Browning



As the economy takes a turn for the worse, everyone relies on newspapers, the Internet, and television to get their facts. Due to this reliance it would seem newspapers would be booming with profits, but in reality they are also at a downfall.

Companies are cutting back on advertisement spending in order to save money, which is taking away from newspaper's income. Along with the accessibility of the Internet, it is difficult for these newspapers to make back the money they are losing through empty advertisement space.

Newspapers are now subject to budget cuts as well as laying off employees due to their shortfall of money. Altering newspaper layouts and cutting out 'unnecessary columns' such as fashion and opinion columns to shorten their paper is becoming an alternative to help money issues.

While insurance and banking companies are receiving billions of dollars in loans to keep afloat, many other niches of businesses are not receiving the financial help they may need. Newspapers are the ones informing us about the economic turmoil, while feeling the burn they initially report about.

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Time for change

By: Adrian Aitken

Web logging is a trend which spread through the country like wildfire. Anyone can do it from anywhere in the world and can also be viewed by anyone everywhere. Today though what is the point?

True many blogs give exclusive information about items people care about yet countless more don't. Finally the fire has reached the tops of the trees and the celebrities have joined the blogger's ranks. Paris Hilton for instance has recently posted about her latest promotional trip to Europe. This really seems unnecessary and distracting in the media world.

On the other hand not all celebrity blogs are bad. Bono for instance has recently started a new posting. It is not filled with which shirt he decided to buy today, but rather the post informs people of an international peace conference from an inside reporters view.

Blogs need to have a purpose beyond random tidbits of useless information and more regulation. Now I'm certainly not saying blocking people from blogging, but separate it into different categories. For example, a blog about sports where a guarantee of seriousness in facts is present could be called a splogg.If everyone "Blogs" it will lose its meaning much like saying a word out loud over and over.

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NBC.com & CNBC.com reach new heights

By: Katie Anthony

As a firm believe of "every negative holds a positive," I searched long and hard for the positive of the Wall Street misfortune.

The best I could come up with is that CNBC's website hit new heights of "abnormal" customer usage that Monday of the Wall Street crash. I suppose someone has to benefit, right?

The Wall Street drama brought a new number of "abnormal" (non-frequent) users to CNBC's website. Their new total of "abnormal" users reached to 1 million. Which is a 26 percent increase from the previous site's best.

Not only was the Wall Street trouble what helped CNBC hit a new peak, Tina Fey's "Saturday Night Live" Sarah Palin impression was posted on their other Website, which also made iTunes' rating soar as well as many people downloaded the Palin impression.

Within four days of the Fey video being posted on NBC, it had reached a new height of 5.7 million views, and it's still growing.

I think this shows that while a lot of people are concered with the issues on Wall Street and what the latest poll shows on the race for the office, many people are also taking a few minutes to lighten their day by laughing at the numerous puns throw to Palin from Fey.

If you haven't seen the impression yet, I urge you to catch up on Wall Street and follow up with a few laughs from Tina Fey as Sarah Palin.

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Media & Conflict

By: Pat Tierney

This past week I had the opportunity to hit the McCain Palin campaign trail during their mid-west tour. One of their largest rallies, was right here in Iowa, at an airport hanger in Cedar Rapids.

Having a photography background really makes me key into the press pool photographers. This Cedar Rapids event was no different. The rally started off with the excited cheers of a couple thousand McCain and Palin supporters. After only 10 minutes though the domineer changed.

From the back corner, right in front of one of the largest media platforms, a girl jumped on a man's shoulders and started yelling in protest as Sen. McCain was giving his speech. Sen. McCain calmly ignored the taunting but the press did not.

As if wild wolves on a pack of sheep, all cameras focused on this girl. Photographers we're scrambling around the press area to get that "shot."

That "shot" was taken over and over again, as Sen. McCain tried to continue his speech. As I was standing there surrounded by press, my mind couldn't help but think about the media's obsession with conflict.

Time and time again the public has seen the headlines that scream about conflict. Conflict sells papers, it attacks viewers, and will get reader attention. Some may say that the protester at the McCain Palin rally was or wasn't the biggest news from the event. But there's no questions about it - that the media had it covered all over.

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The world of journalism.

By: Sarah Keller

At our Simpsonian meeting last Monday a Simpson Alumni, who is now an editor for The Record Herold and Indianola Tribune, came and spoke to our class about his job and the world of journalism.

Something that he said which really stuck out in my mind was that today's papers are about 40 percent news and 60 percent advertisements. It used to be that news papers were about 50/50 or even 60 percent news and 40 percent advertisements. This statement just reinforces what we have talked about in class about the subject of a reader only giving a few seconds to an article, things in today's fast past society need to to be short and informative. One web site showing support of the statement that newspapers have more advertisements than news is the popular site slate.com, where there are advertisements on the top and the side margins

Another thing that the editor spoke of that I really enjoyed was regarding the subject of jobs in journalism. Many people in the classes have blogged about how it is impossible to get a job in journalism in the world today. However, according to the editor who spoke to our class last week, when his newspaper is looking for people to hire, they look for people with experience; but they also look for new young talented adults who can write stories well and fast. This could be any number of students in our class.

The last thing that the editor spoke of that I would like to share is about the importance of the inverted pyramid, which we have been discussing in class. He said that it is necessary to use the inverted pyramid about 90 percent of the time, and it is an important thing to know in the field of journalism.

It disappoints me a little bit that news in today's society has to be very short and to the point, and that there is more room for advertisements than news itself. But that is what society wants today, and I believe that journalist are doing a great job of meeting these requirements.

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Journalists criticizing movie critic journalists

By: Hannah Pickett

In a recent entertainment article I read criticizing movie critics was journalistically interesting. The MSN writer was criticizing movie critics in general. Aren't movie critics just journalists who form opinions about blockbuster movies?

The MSN writer discusses three main criticisms of the movie critic profession.

1. They have the dream job--getting to see movies before everyone else. 2. The "geezer syndrome" saying that the current critics have been around since the beginning of time. She goes on to suggest that they shouldn't allow critics over the age of 30. 3. They have no respect for the superhero movies. 4. Lighten up. The writer thinks that movie critics need to realize they aren't criticizing Shakespeare, but rather modern writing and acting.

The MSN writer believes that we are the true movie critics-bloggers. Movie critics for print and broadcast are a thing of the past.

If a journalist specializing in criticizing movies' job is becoming obsolete, when will other journalism professions follow?

In a nutshell, the MSN writer thinks that because of her view of the average movie critic's age, movies don't get the reviews they deserve. Would this be considered age discrimination?

You think of age discrimination in the professions that are in the spotlight. A journalist to end his/her career at the age of 30 because they are considered "ancient" in the industry is insane. Movie critics are just journalists publishing their opinions on a film.

In the journalism world, how old is 'too old'?

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It's their right

By: Jessica Hartgers

Protesters heckle Sarah Palin, vice presidential candidate, in Cedar Rapids, IA while delivering a speech on Thursday.

Palin stood her ground during the verbal attack and waited for the protesters to be removed. McCain supporter and interpreter for the hearing impaired, Donna Carroll, said that the protests did not bother her either and agrees with their rights to speak their minds saying, "All I can say is, praise the Lord they can do that in this country, it's their right."

The protesters of this rally have the right to speak their mind, however the government has restrictions on political speech regarding time, place, and manner. These protesters violated this restriction and were removed for the event without punishment. After several minutes of protests, the rest of the crowd rallied behind Palin with shouts of "USA."

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Happy National Punctuation Day

By Liz Tjaden

National Punctuation Day is just around the corner, so polish off your quotation marks and exclamation points and get ready to party!

Jeff Rubin, also known as the Punctuation Man (seriously, he has a cape and everything….) is the founder of National Punctuation Day that is celebrated on Sept. 24. His idea for this day started in 2004 as a clever way to remind professionals and business people about the importance of punctuation. He has turned this day into a way of helping children learn the importance of proper grammar and punctuation at an early age.

It also is a reminder that by not using the correct form of punctuation can cost your company millions of dollars. A Canadian company, Rogers Communications, misplaced a comma in one of its contracts, costing the company almost $2.13 million.

Whoops.

I am a “comma happy” writer who never really learned the correct way to use a comma. My rationale is, “When I feel there should be a comma, so be it!”

Thankfully, as an intelligent and resourceful journalism student, I can now rely on my “Working with Words” book and my “AP Stylebook” to bail me out of these sticky situations.

However, thanks to Rubin, we now have a reason to celebrate the nerds in all of us.

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What has happened to loyalty

By: Kayla Miller

This week the MLB franchise Brewers fired their manager Ned Yost. The funny thing is the Brewers are only one game out of the wild card in the NL. Has the media played a huge role in the firing of Ned Yost? I would say yes. The Brewers had a large lead over the Chicago Cubs and with no avail the Cubs caught the Brewers in the last fifteen games of the season to steal the playoff spot from the Brewers. However this year the Cubs have been in control of the division all year long. Though the Brewers for most of the season lead the NL wild card by almost eight games. And as it happened last year and this year the Brewers lost their lead of the Wild Card. Now, has the media played a huge role in promoting Ned Yost's classic meltdowns? I would say yes, and it does not help that the Brewers have thrown in all their chips this year to reach a playoff birth. I believe that the Brewers fired their manager because the media was demanding action.

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Status solves problems, sometimes

By: Katie Schaefer

I'm not talking about your facebook or how you feel for the day, but I'm talking about your social or celebrity status. Being a celebrity or someone with a higher status, can get you out of things that most regular people can't.

How many times has Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears hit other cars or were out in the clubs underage? Just because of who they are, gets them out of trouble.

Kobe Bryant, a LA Lakers basketball player, was found innocent of rape because he is really rich and he paid the girl off. Well I guess I shouldn't say he paid the girl off because that was never disclosed, but it's an educated guess. Two former University of Iowa football players are not as lucky as Bryant was, though.

The football players have pleaded not guilty on the account of sexual assault. Due to the fact that the University has flaws in the way they handled the case, the players may get off anyways. The school didn't protect the alleged victim from people saying things to her about what happened that night, so the school is in a lot of trouble for that.

Another thing is that everyone has a right to a fair and speedy trial, so why has this trial taking over a year to take place? I realize some trials take a long time, but this one should have taken place by now. It happened in October of last year.

It's mostly just celebrities that we find getting off for things that most people get in a lot of trouble for. Being in Iowa, though, a good athlete at the University of Iowa is enough to keep you out of trouble sometimes.

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The countdown for MTV's countdown

By: Callie McBroom

The New York Times TV Decoder is reporting that MTV has cancelled the once very popular show "Total Request Live." The top-ten countdown for music videos, has been on the air for ten years now. Dave Sirulnick, the executive producer of TRL told the Associated Press that it feels like the right time to pause in order to celebrate and reward the last ten years.

"TRL" peaked just a year after it debuted with 757,000 people viewing the show daily, according to Nielson ratings. Ever since, the show has been losing ground slowly. MTV claims that the show is not permanently eliminated but just taking a breather.

Many current famous celerities got their first exposure on "TRL." Now, the television show is hoping that the same celebrities that helped make TRL a hit will come back for the final 2-hour special. The last show will air in November.

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Online news discuss charging the public

By: Allison McNeal

Free viewing of online news organizations may soon become non-existent to the public.

The Financial Times recently introduced a new registration and subscription model to their Web site for daily viewers. This new method is trying to show that the media is not going to be free, like it has been in the past.

The Internet has been struggling to keep up with other media organizations because these companies have subscribers and funding from large corporations. With more and more large companies buying advertisements on media programs, the Internet is falling behind and has little, if any, money to support itself.

Since 2005, many Web sites have tried to turn their slump around and impliment a plan of charging customers. According to webmarketinggroup.co.uk, a survey conducted by "the UK Association of Online Publishers, showed that 63% of their members charge for online magazine content, up 5% from 2004".

Even though this survey was taken in England, it shows how the Internet is slowly gaining subscribers.

Advertising director, Rob Grimshaw, said that even though the Financial Times has more free subscribers than paying subscribers, revenue has grown from these non-paying users. Also, private corporations have also started helping out with the production of this new tactic.

This poses an interesting problem: How will these online media sources compete with other large corporations that lay a heavy hand on society?

Online newspapers and media sources will have to get out the word and keep pursuing other larger companies or privately owned corporations to help with the subscription process. Since there are many smaller corporations located around the world, they could influence these Web sites and give them a huge boost.

Individuals need to take this new subscription seriously and know that if they want to receive information online, they will need to start subscribing or paying to use these sites. Many people might not have a problem with subscribing to online media sites, especially if they do not subscribe to an actual newspaper.

With technology increasing each day, the general public will need to decide if online subscriptions will start to catch on or if they will get lost in cyberspace.

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The future of newpapers

By Austin Bates

A lot of debate rages constantly about whether newspapers have any place in the future. Some think they do, but in more limited form. Others think they may have little to no future at all. I have to believe they will survive.

Without a doubt, newspapers will change how they work, how they're distributed, how they're read, how they're formatted, and how popular they might be. But I do not believe that those neatly bundled collections of folded together recycled paper will go the way of the dinosaur. News outlets that own print newspapers will have some serious changes to make, but doing away with newspapers altogether may be too extreme, and end up alienating a lot of readers.

I am the kind of person that will ALWAYS enjoy the feel of a paper book in their hands much more than sitting stiffly in a mildly uncomfortable chair while I strain my eyes into a too bright monitor and have to wade through a miasma of links, information tags, and scroll bars in order to read the same thing. Besides, it's not like you can take a computer, even a laptop, everywhere you could a book. Same goes with newspapers; I think they're easier and more enjoyable to read.

I'll admit, I read most of my daily news online, mostly from MSN. However, I get my news from there when I'm in a hurry or doing something else and something just catches my eye. When I'm trying to relax, and have time to do so, though, I enjoy opening a newspaper and casually scanning through the pages for interesting pieces of information.

Now, of course, many of newspapers's most faithful readers will be older generations, especially those that have yet to figure out how a computer mouse works, and, objectively, it is wise to worry less about them than the future generation, where your money will be coming from. But losing print newspapers altogether could still end up costing newspapers a good chunk of change and might not even solve all their problems anyway.

I believe that in the future, the print newspaper will become more of an elective novelty type item, more like a novel, than a needed source of news. More likely, newspapers will become weeklies only, serving to wrap up, in detail, the major stories and events of the week on Sunday, the source of most revenue for print papers. For daily news, readers will know to turn to the Internet, and this will most likely be automated through small fee subscriptions that automatically send the daily issue of the newspaper to your inbox every morning.

Newsprint has a long way to go before it ever really dies, and I do not believe that day is anytime soon.

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Palin still dominates the media

By: Kathryn Lisk

While the presidential polls between candidates have leveled out since the Republican National Convention, Sarah Palin is still attracting quite a bit of media attention.

With so many controversial issues surrounding Gov. Palin, including her pregnant 17-year-old daughter, her 5-month-old, disabled son, and the fact that she is a woman who will be on the final presidential ballot, the media is still having a field day.

It could be that Americans still don't know enough about Palin, since she was an unexpected vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party. Or it could be that she has more baggage than Joe Biden does. Regardless, everywhere I look, whether it's on newspaper Web sites, magazine covers, or blog sites for my BNR entry, Sarah Palin dominates.

Palin is mentioned in a story in The New York Times because she drew 4.9 million people to one of Fox News' shows on Wednesday night.

The Huffington Post covered a story about how an unknown group hacked into her Yahoo e-mail account and posted her personal e-mails onto Wikipedia.

Finally, all three newspaper Web sites I checked, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Des Moines Register, each have a story involving Palin on their home page.

As someone who is very interested and informed in politics, I have been equally intrigued by Sarah Palin. It's important to know what she stands for and her political experience.

But I've hit my limit. I know more about Palin than I need to and the media needs a new story.

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Old School vs New School

by Peter Merchlewitz

I know that there are people afraid of change. Some people believe that the old ways are best. Or in the words of one of my favorite musicals: "Tradition!". Dave Lee's jBlog reports the feelings of Middle East reporter Robert Fisk, who believes that the new age of internet blogging is crippling the quality of news writing. "To hell with the web. It's got no responsibility." said Fisk after being challenged about a quote whom the caller stated that he "...read it on the Internet."

Lee comes to the defense of blogging by reminding journalists what it is that we try to accomplish: to inform, educate, and and apply a sense of public voice. He even goes a step further, talking about an image shown in one of Fisk's articles, one of a man holding his dead daughter whose bones were protruding from her legs. However, due to traditional news reporting mediums, part of the picture was cropped, cutting the daughter off just below the bone, thus changing the caption of the photo "A man carries his wounded daughter."', ergo, completely changes the initial impact that the image presents.

Had Fisk actually given this new fangled thing called blogging a try, he might have realized that he would have been able to post the entire image, instead of just most of it. But not only that, blogs are becoming more and more popular source of news information, when compared to ABC's figures of people who read the news paper.

Some people say that without tradition, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on a roof. One of these days, that fiddler might fall and break his neck. And when that day occurs, make a picture, and make sure you post it on your blog.

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Web site pros

by Sarah Keller

My blog last week was about a small paper that was not utilizing their web site and resources properly, but this week I would like to blog about journalists who are using their tools and congratulate them for being resourceful.

As been discussed on various people’s blog entries from the classes, the world of journalism is being turned toward the internet. There is more and more blogging being done, and mostly all newspapers have a web site in today’s society, even small colleges like Simpson have web sites for their papers. Since the dynamic of journalism seems to be shifting toward the web I have to applaud sites such as abc news.

The home page of abc news is probably my favorite web site to check for daily news, I am there at least once a day and I have to say that they are doing a great job of keeping the world updated on top news stories. They are using the things that we have discussed in class as being important for journalists today. They do a great job with their photography; every good journalist needs to have the ability to take good pictures. The abc network also updates their articles throughout the day portraying the immediacy element of journalism. On top of all of that abc also has videos to watch and not just from abc news channels they also give you the opportunity to watch news broadcasts from shows such as 20/20, Good morning America, Primetime, and more.

Not only is abc on top of their game these days but sites such as cnn.com and google news are also going along with what society is craving. They are staying on top of things and making great news with pictures, updates and video clips.

I have to salute abc news, and other popular web sites for their commitment to making their web sites the best they can be, updating the world daily, and for drawing me in.

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Dirty Cops

By: Jessica Hartgers

During a traffic stop Friday two citizens claim to have been mistreated by two Des Moines police officers. Des Moines residents Octavius Bonds and Erin Evans filled formal complaints with the department. The case is now under review.

I think it is a very interesting as to what angle the reporter takes on this case. A wide range of evidence and facts are being left out of the report in order to protect the two Des Moines police officers under investigation. If the situation had been turned around and the police officers were the ones being mistreated the content of this story would be much different.

The reporter waits until the near end of the story to mention that the Des Moines residents were African Americans, while both the police officers were Caucasian. Either the reporter didn't want to draw attention to the race issue on behalf of the police or he didn't want readers to stereotype the alleged victims.

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Comedian Vs. Journalist

By: Erin Floro

To some, Jon Stewart is just a comedian. To others, Jon Stewart is both a comedian and a journalist. Jon Stewart is the host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and is known for his humor of mocking people and politics. He says he is just a comic but a lot of journalists disagree. Nathan Kasper, a Stewart fan said "I see him as a journalist first and a comedian second. When he's reporting the news, he's still reporting. He's just making it funny."

Depending on who you ask some think that "The Daily Show" is a "news" program and some think that it is a comedy show. With the 2008 election coming up, everyone is tuned in to his funny style of journalism because he is unbiased. Some people think he has an impact on how the election will turn out. This is the third presidential election in which Stewart has been at "The Daily Show."

In a survey ranked in the public's favorite journalist, he is in a five-way tie for fourth overall with Anderson Cooper, Dan Tarther, Tom Brokaw, and Brian Williams. Mike Connell a college student at the University of St.Thomas in St. Paul said "And he rips equally on both parties. I think it's hilarious."

Almost one in four adults aged 18 to 29 are informed about the election from watching "The Daily Show." Also, "The Daily Show" scored higher on a campaign knowlege test than news viewers and those who read the newspaper.

So, if you want to be informed about politics and want some humor at the same time, check out the famous journalist and comedian Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show."

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