Go Twins!

My hometown paper, Startribune.com has had fantastic coverage on the Minnesota Twins' AL Central lead the last couple days, which for some reason wasn't a top headline on any of the national newspapers.

I know the average American would probably rather read about the bailout or the debates instead of local sports teams and problems with local public transit, but that's why I love local news. It doesn't update as fast or have as many videos as my favorite national websites, but it's the only place I can read about things like this.

I can't wait to go to StarTribune.com and read about the Twin's getting a spot in the playoffs later this week.

blogs are tedious

I read it in the Daily Universe - Utah state government now has a twitter. They post pretty much anything about Utah - events, hearings, or how the elk are doing.





It's good news. Twitter is so hip now, it looks like I got one just in time. Chief Deputy of the Utah Senate, Ric Cantrell, agrees: "Maybe this is a sign of the times, but blogging got to be too tedious."

What are your thoughts on journalists, and government, having Twitter accounts? I love the instant news, but I think it definitely needs to be supplemented by something.

economic pandemonium

An article printed in the New York Times the other day says that journalists are trying to tone down the language they use when writing about the economy, to make sure that they don't scare people. I always find articles about journalists, and obviously by journalists, amusing. None of my coworkers agreed that journalists are toning it down - one of them even claims that journalists have invented the economy problems.

We talked a little on Monday about the tendency for the press to attack things, do you some journalists are making the economy problem out to be a bigger deal than it is? Do you this is telling people what they want to hear? Or just giving honest news?

I personally don't think most journalists are toning it down... the article mentioned that words like "'Crash,’ ‘panic,’ ‘pandemonium,’ [and] ‘apocalypse'" are being avoided by the Wall Street journal. Those seem extreme, an article can be sensationalist without using the word "apocalypse." Check it out here.

The Star Tribune

It was easy to choose my hometown newspaper : the Star Tribune. Besides having a classy name and a killer location (Minneapolis-St. Paul), they're a huge part of the community where I'm from.

They've gone through some pretty big changes recently- StarTribune.com was created in 1996 (I think that's about the time most papers started going online, what have you noticed with your hometown papers?). Possibly even cooler is the local news sections the paper started doing a couple years ago, which tells me about concerts and news going on within a few minutes of my house. I'm pretty impressed with the way StarTribune.com stays current and connected. And excited to start following their online news.

Breaking News: White girl writes blog post

It might be a little late for this, but I thought the Race and Ethnicity lesson we did the other day was pretty sweet. I'm definitely going to be paying closer attention to the articles I read.

Has anyone noticed this problem with other ways of describing people, besides race? What about when an article mentions that someone is elderly, or lower-class? I think that sometimes descriptors like these can help paint a picture for the reader, but they can also be biased or just completely unnecessary.

fine line between online and on the newsstand

After becoming better acquainted with the New York Times in the past week my only complaint is the constant double-takes : reading an article on the web and then seeing it again in the paper. I'm thinking of the article on sexual stereotyping in ads, which showed up online last night, and was printed the exact same in this morning's paper. The online version delivers us the stories as soon as possible, but the print edition wants to give us the biggest stories, even if they took place the night before. So obviously there's going to be some overlap.

I wonder how the paper could solve this problem, if it is a problem. The benefits of online and print versions definitely outweigh annoyances of news deja-vu. But is there something the print version could offer that the online version doesn't have? (Besides making me look sophisticated as I carry it around campus.)

On a related note, I'm amazed at how fast newspapers are printed. How did an article put on the internet at midnight make it onto a stack of newspapers outside the Kennedy Center by 7 am? In my opinion that's even more fascinating than instant news updates online.

What is a journalist?

A journalist is anyone who reports the news. In the past few years "anyone" has become literal, as journalism has become an interactive medium. Readers can add their comments as a story unfolds and expands, bringing new levels to the idea of journalism.

Audience interaction forces a writer to listen to their opinions. It also allows the readers to become journalists themselves. Thanks to internet publishing, anyone can produce news, even if they're not a journalist in the traditional sense. Non-traditional journalists can offer their views on news that interests them faster and more personally than the New York Times.

Lee Wilkins, a teacher at the Missouri School of Journalism, was recently quoted in the Times as saying “I think our profession has not decided whether bloggers are journalists.” (read the story here)