November 17th

Readings 

A Public Can Talk to Itself: Why the Future of News is Actually Pretty Clear

The Debate Over Online News: It's the Consumer, Stupid

Accountability Journalism and New Media Models

Video

Traditional Media in Transition

Homework

Analyze the graphic below, which explains the basics of news writing. It's a variation on what's called the "inverted pyramid," which is used to illustrate how important details come before less important details. Then, using the "inverted pyramid" writing structure, turn a scene from a movie into a news article between 300-500 words.

Interesting Links and Articles 

• http://www.slate.com/id/2223381/pagenum/all/ This is specifically about music journalism, and it's not entirely related to new media, but it's a quick read that touches on how the way we hear about music, and the way we listen to music in the first place, is changing due to emerging media, and thus, music journalism is being hit hard. 
• http://www.andykessler.com/andy_kessler/2007/05/wsj_a_future_fo.html Andy Kessler talks about busting pipes.  He's an unwilling participant being dragged kicking and screaming into the new-media age, but this article is an interesting read nonetheless. 
• http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/whats-black-and-white-and-red-all-over-top-newspaper-circulation-numbers/ This was from an Andrew Keen tweet. 
• http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/times-says-it-will-cut-100-newsroom-jobs/ New York times is cutting more jobs. 
• http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200904u/media-insiders Atlantic article about how the Internet has hurt journalism and newspapers. 
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/monroe-price/journalism-bailout-bill-t_b_154779.html  
• http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/columnists_news/article/COLL09_20091108-214607/304525/ A Richmond Times article about how journalism is suffering along with newspapers, and also how in changing to a more electronic form of news some of apsects of good journalism will be lost. Try to ignore the huge picture of the author's face. I find it very annoying.
• http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_surowiecki_on_the_turning_point_for_social_media.html James Surowiecki: When social media became news

Interesting questions to ponder:

• How has the decline of newspapers affected journalism?
• How has citizen journalism changed the news structure?
• What needs to change about journalism for it to adapt to a more electronic form? - What are existing journalistic channels doing to adapt to the transformation of journalism?
• In what ways has journalism been a watchdog to politics and high society?

Group Members:

Brian Rusnak

Zeena Alkurdi

Laura Mann

Laura-Jane Cunningham

Anika Forsyth-Smith

Alison K