What process can you follow to try to make sure at what you are getting is the truth?
• talk to as many people as you can on the subject
• make eye contact
• try to read their body language
• be sure to get quotes
• do research on the topic or background information
• check out your facts
Once you got it (the truth), then how do you present the truth to the reader?
• write in a story telling format
• don’t make your graphs to long
• have a strong lede
• don’t dance around the subject or sugar coat things
• choose the right words
• don’t make it look like you are trying to hard to tell the story
What is the context…focus in what Bernstein means about context…How can Murray’s ideas work to obtain the truth
• it is the information in the story
• hopefully, it is the truth, but it hard to tell exactly what the truth is
• these two men focus on trying to obtain the truth, but how?
• basically, use your best judgment, more often than not, reporters should be somewhat moral people, so go with your guy and instinct
• Murray’s techniques should help us by telling the story and using the elements of newsworthiness to try to unearth the truth
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
David Usborne's 9/11
1) He makes the story flow like a good novel. I liked the piece a lot, wanting to read more even after the story finished. Just like the Pulitzer Prize winning piece I read, this one made me want to read more. It is different reading journalists accounts who where actually there and who actually saw everything versus someone who would be reporting in the Midwest or as far as the West Coast. What is the same about the day after and Dec. pieces of the disaster are he explains what he saw, what was going on, the people he interviewed, what was going through his head. However, the day after piece has MORE urgency, as far as getting to a phone to share what he was going through. Also, on the day after, he really didn’t comprehend what was going on. He kind of shrugged off the falling bodies, looking at the "specks" until he focused on what was really going on at the time. I am sure that after four months, he had time to reflect and process everything he was being bombarded with. What this tells me about deadline writing is people work well under pressure, but they might comprehend or understand everything they have written until they have a chance to read it when it is published. Only then can they go back and study what was written to understand everything.
3) I learned from him about the ethics and instincts where always try to get to the source no matter what. But, on the flip-side he finally did figure out he had to get away, for safety's sake. I remember him saying in the story he imagined going inside the buildings and examining what was going on, because only the building's top was on fire, and he didn't even think, like many other people, it would come down. He just wanted to get closer than and as close as he could to everything that was going on. What I learned from him, that I can apply, is just get as close to as possible to the source...but don't get hurt doing it or don't be in the way of police, fire fighters, etc.
3) I learned from him about the ethics and instincts where always try to get to the source no matter what. But, on the flip-side he finally did figure out he had to get away, for safety's sake. I remember him saying in the story he imagined going inside the buildings and examining what was going on, because only the building's top was on fire, and he didn't even think, like many other people, it would come down. He just wanted to get closer than and as close as he could to everything that was going on. What I learned from him, that I can apply, is just get as close to as possible to the source...but don't get hurt doing it or don't be in the way of police, fire fighters, etc.
Friday, November 2, 2007
The Eye of the Storm Story
Quote 1 -
"In the movie "Armageddon," the asteroid pierced New York buildings sending shrapnel out the other side. That, remarkably, is exactly what it looked like from the street, when the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade center."
Having seen this movie, this is an excellent choice to use, because it explains really what happened through a "fictional" Hollywood movie...which seemed to come true during this time.
Quote 2 -
"In the blackness, he tried his radio: "Mike! Mike! Where are you?" No answer. Again, and no answer. My hand was on his trembling back, the better to brace myself, and I thought about asking him how long these blackouts and ash clouds could last. Then I realized the full ridiculousness of the question. How would he know? How often does a 110-story building collapse to the ground. I honestly wondered whether I'd survive long enough for the air to clear."
This quote, was one that stuck out to me, maybe because he says how big the building actually is, a 110-stories, and how the massive building had so much of an impact, literally, when it collapsed onto the ground...I remember when watching this in high school, I was thinking more of the people inside the building and yards away from the entrance, not really who where blocks away. Reading this, it shows the account of what was going on semi-away from the area, and it was still just as bad. The repercussions of the fall where immense for blocks, to even miles away.
Quote 3-
"If there's only one sight I'll remember from the destruction of the World Trade Center, it is the flight of desperation -- the headlong leap from the top-most floors by those who chose a different death than the choking smoke and flame. Some fell swinging their arms and legs, looking down as the street came up at them. Others fell on their backs, peering upward toward the flames and sky. They dropped like deadweight, several seconds, hopeless and unhelpable. Always the same end. Some crashed into the Plexiglas awning over the entrance to the North Tower. Others hit a retaining wall. Still others landed on lampposts and shrubbery. After the 80-floor drop, the impact left small puffs of pink and red drifting at ground level. Firefighters arriving on the scene ran for cover."
This quote is probably the most powerful graph of the story. Reading this, and the rest of the story, it seems like it is straight from a book or movie...it is frightening this is from an eye witness who was watching all these deaths while the buildings where on fire, then came down. The way he talks and describes it makes it far more real to me, and I live in the Midwest, obviously a very long ways away.
"In the movie "Armageddon," the asteroid pierced New York buildings sending shrapnel out the other side. That, remarkably, is exactly what it looked like from the street, when the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade center."
Having seen this movie, this is an excellent choice to use, because it explains really what happened through a "fictional" Hollywood movie...which seemed to come true during this time.
Quote 2 -
"In the blackness, he tried his radio: "Mike! Mike! Where are you?" No answer. Again, and no answer. My hand was on his trembling back, the better to brace myself, and I thought about asking him how long these blackouts and ash clouds could last. Then I realized the full ridiculousness of the question. How would he know? How often does a 110-story building collapse to the ground. I honestly wondered whether I'd survive long enough for the air to clear."
This quote, was one that stuck out to me, maybe because he says how big the building actually is, a 110-stories, and how the massive building had so much of an impact, literally, when it collapsed onto the ground...I remember when watching this in high school, I was thinking more of the people inside the building and yards away from the entrance, not really who where blocks away. Reading this, it shows the account of what was going on semi-away from the area, and it was still just as bad. The repercussions of the fall where immense for blocks, to even miles away.
Quote 3-
"If there's only one sight I'll remember from the destruction of the World Trade Center, it is the flight of desperation -- the headlong leap from the top-most floors by those who chose a different death than the choking smoke and flame. Some fell swinging their arms and legs, looking down as the street came up at them. Others fell on their backs, peering upward toward the flames and sky. They dropped like deadweight, several seconds, hopeless and unhelpable. Always the same end. Some crashed into the Plexiglas awning over the entrance to the North Tower. Others hit a retaining wall. Still others landed on lampposts and shrubbery. After the 80-floor drop, the impact left small puffs of pink and red drifting at ground level. Firefighters arriving on the scene ran for cover."
This quote is probably the most powerful graph of the story. Reading this, and the rest of the story, it seems like it is straight from a book or movie...it is frightening this is from an eye witness who was watching all these deaths while the buildings where on fire, then came down. The way he talks and describes it makes it far more real to me, and I live in the Midwest, obviously a very long ways away.
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