There were lots of great editorial team moments from today’s workshop, but a few that stood out as most helpful and impactful were around student perspectives and how to place our statements in the correct context. Sarah Bourdeau offered two really helpful points. One was during our workshop on Caitlin’s story, where she made the point that it might be best to bring in the fact that UNE is a private institution, as Caitlin’s story is about UNE’s tuition. I found this to be really impactful as we think about how we as journalists represent the facts we have – if certain points are taken too far out of context, we might be creating a narrative that strays a bit from the whole truth. On the same note, when workshopping Sarah Bedore’s story, Sarah Bourdeau offered some advice on the importance of interviewing students if the story centers on student experiences in the mailroom. Again, placing the story in the context of the actual students it impacts, such as work-study students being the only people available to work in the mailroom, provides a whole new perspective to her issue in mailroom complaints. Another helpful example from our classroom-style newsroom came from Tony as we were workshopping Cole’s story on UNE’s dorm accessibilities. When our conversation turned to the potential angle of looking into UNE’s elevators, costs, etc., Tony jumped in with a personal connection to someone who would have a lot of expertise and credibility and offered to share that with Cole.
A few comments stuck out from this class, one being from Kristen while we discussed Cole’s piece on accessibility in the quad. She brought up an interesting question about the probability of making the quad buildings accessible, and also what that cost might look like for the school. Incorporating this information may help shape Cole’s piece further into the finer details of what goes into installing elevators. Professor Miller added on to this thought by commenting on the laws that may be in place for the institution to need such accessibility. Interviewing someone like an accessibility officer or any staff member who may have information about this matter would add to the piece nicely and remove part of the bias from the journalist.
In Caitlin’s piece, Finn made a comment about attributing the data and perhaps adding some information on how those numbers were calculated. This comment felt useful for the feature, as a reader may be wondering where these figures came from and what goes into their calculations. It is a matter of credibility and additional information on the research that went into this feature.
The two comments that I found the most impactful in the class came from Elia and Nick. Elia’s quote was to “let the quotes speak for themselves” I found this interesting because it is very simple yet very powerful. In our features, the quotes are a big piece, but also in journalism, it is a huge piece of the work. The other quote from the class was less constructive and more so just genuine. I liked hearing Nick’s comment on Kristen’s feature. He said, “This isn’t much of a comment as much as it is a statement. I just genuinely enjoyed your story.” Nick’s sincerity resonated deeply, highlighting the emotional connection that storytelling can evoke. It reminded me of the importance of authenticity and genuine appreciation in feedback, fostering a supportive and enriching learning environment.
Journal #12: EDITORIAL TEAM REACTIONS feedback group #4(focus on 2 comments)
In my opinion the two most helpful comments made during this feedback session were #1 was in response to cole’s piece about accessibility Mr. Miller reminded us to check with your sources before publication. Cole had several quotes from disgruntled RA’s on the topic and Mr. Miller reminded that those students are being paid by the university and might change their minds and not want those things to be on the record. This is good to keep in mind for any interview that you take quotes from to just check with your sources before publication to make sure that is how they want to be represented. I don’t know if this is allowed but the second comment that stands out to me was one that I made. In Sarah and Kristen’s pieces I felt like certain aspects of the (who, what, when, where, why) were missing. For Sarah’s piece I feel like the story could benefit from the who as in how many workers work for the mail room and who is in charge of hiring and promoting the position. I also felt that her story could benefit from adding some stats like what time the mail room is open and how many packages usually come in a shipment. For Kristens piece I felt that it would be beneficial to add why the boats are so important to the UNE community and what exactly the boats are normally used for. My comment about adding more (who, what, when, where, why, how) also made me reflect on my piece and think about the parts where I need to improve on my piece specifically around the (who, what, when, where, why, how) of the grant.
Journal 12
Some comments from class that really stuck with me. Was when Elia asked the question about how tuition prices get made and decided. When we were talking about Sarah Bedore’s headline Professor Miller made the comment of a “dad joke” by saying “post off” as a headline or subheadline suggestion. And then Miller talked about gathering information and then how it is important to get the view point perspective of an interviewee. How journalists don’t use their perspective because they are not writing about themselves but other people and issues.
There were several thoughtful and insightful comments made during the editorial session this past Tuesday, but a few stood out to me in particular. I thought Zak’s comment to Caitlyn about how her feature needs to strike a middle ground between an essay or research paper and a article stood out, as it’s somewhat of a repeating theme in our class. Trying to switch your writing style to be a lot more concise and precise is often a challenge. I thought it was a great observation, as her piece had a lot of good informational content but was lacking the elements that transform it into a journalistic article. Another great point made during the session was during the review of Sarah Bedore’s piece, where Kristen suggested that she should employ quotations from people in the place of explaining the information in her own writing, which I thought was a particularly interesting and important part for journalistic writing and being concise with your words. Not restating yourself and being effective in communicating information without exceeding your word count is an essential skill to being a journalist. In addition to this, it’s writing in a way where you aren’t inserting yourself into the narrative, which is another tenet of journalistic writing.
I received a lot of advice that stuck with me, particularly from Kayleigh and Sarah Bourdeau about adding more context to the portion of my piece that focuses on student opportunity. That’ll have to be something I really work on, as it is a vital part of my piece that holds the entire take-home message of the story. I also enjoyed getting positive comments about my piece, regarding the things I did right, as I think it will really help me know what to change or keep the same when I’m editing. Also, it’s just nice to hear that people liked the story 🙂 . Overall, I think that, during this class, we really focused on how to realistically improve the stories, and everyone contributed changes that are small, but very important.
This class was super helpful with feedback when it came to my own article’s review and others. One topic that stood out to me was a comment that Professor Jesse made. He states, to let the quotes stand alone and speak for themselves. In an article, it’s important to give voice to each side of the story so everyone feels represented. Quotes often have a powerful impact on the story that shares what it is like from the other perspective. For my article, Cole and Kristen suggested adding students’ quotes on struggles with the mailroom to make it more reliable and relatable. The class also discussed the importance of story-telling and adding spice to these articles. Adding a storytelling element helps keep the article interesting to readers and allows it to flow better. Spicing up the article allows for character and tone to be added rather than just statistics and a straightforward article.
I think for Caitlin’s article, the majority of the class had relatively the same consensus with regards to the rigidity of the paper’s language. For example, Zach said something that I agreed with in that he thought that the paper read a little bit too much like a scientific article. The paper does a fantastic job at being informative, but the writing style gets a little bit too wordy for the reader to be entertained and drawn in enough to engage in it for too long. I really like the direction that Caitlin is working in, it’s just a matter of making the paper more palatable for a broader audience. Finn, Nick, and Ella do bring up the fantastic point that the article brings in many different perspectives from various sources, and how helpful the article could be for impoverished students who really need to contemplate how much they can actually spend on housing. It’s so much easier to live off campus simply because of the cost of living. It makes it difficult to do that, however, when the campus requires you to be on-campus for housing for the first three years. I think Sarah’s article had the same problem, which is something Tony brought up during the review session with her. It was so wordy, but the story needed more story, so to speak. The article was incredibly informative, but it was so dense that it was hard to see the reasoning behind anything unless you inspected the words with a magnifying glass. This isn’t to say the article wasn’t good, I loved reading it, it was just very dense.
9 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 12”
There were lots of great editorial team moments from today’s workshop, but a few that stood out as most helpful and impactful were around student perspectives and how to place our statements in the correct context. Sarah Bourdeau offered two really helpful points. One was during our workshop on Caitlin’s story, where she made the point that it might be best to bring in the fact that UNE is a private institution, as Caitlin’s story is about UNE’s tuition. I found this to be really impactful as we think about how we as journalists represent the facts we have – if certain points are taken too far out of context, we might be creating a narrative that strays a bit from the whole truth. On the same note, when workshopping Sarah Bedore’s story, Sarah Bourdeau offered some advice on the importance of interviewing students if the story centers on student experiences in the mailroom. Again, placing the story in the context of the actual students it impacts, such as work-study students being the only people available to work in the mailroom, provides a whole new perspective to her issue in mailroom complaints. Another helpful example from our classroom-style newsroom came from Tony as we were workshopping Cole’s story on UNE’s dorm accessibilities. When our conversation turned to the potential angle of looking into UNE’s elevators, costs, etc., Tony jumped in with a personal connection to someone who would have a lot of expertise and credibility and offered to share that with Cole.
A few comments stuck out from this class, one being from Kristen while we discussed Cole’s piece on accessibility in the quad. She brought up an interesting question about the probability of making the quad buildings accessible, and also what that cost might look like for the school. Incorporating this information may help shape Cole’s piece further into the finer details of what goes into installing elevators. Professor Miller added on to this thought by commenting on the laws that may be in place for the institution to need such accessibility. Interviewing someone like an accessibility officer or any staff member who may have information about this matter would add to the piece nicely and remove part of the bias from the journalist.
In Caitlin’s piece, Finn made a comment about attributing the data and perhaps adding some information on how those numbers were calculated. This comment felt useful for the feature, as a reader may be wondering where these figures came from and what goes into their calculations. It is a matter of credibility and additional information on the research that went into this feature.
The two comments that I found the most impactful in the class came from Elia and Nick. Elia’s quote was to “let the quotes speak for themselves” I found this interesting because it is very simple yet very powerful. In our features, the quotes are a big piece, but also in journalism, it is a huge piece of the work. The other quote from the class was less constructive and more so just genuine. I liked hearing Nick’s comment on Kristen’s feature. He said, “This isn’t much of a comment as much as it is a statement. I just genuinely enjoyed your story.” Nick’s sincerity resonated deeply, highlighting the emotional connection that storytelling can evoke. It reminded me of the importance of authenticity and genuine appreciation in feedback, fostering a supportive and enriching learning environment.
Journal #12: EDITORIAL TEAM REACTIONS feedback group #4(focus on 2 comments)
In my opinion the two most helpful comments made during this feedback session were #1 was in response to cole’s piece about accessibility Mr. Miller reminded us to check with your sources before publication. Cole had several quotes from disgruntled RA’s on the topic and Mr. Miller reminded that those students are being paid by the university and might change their minds and not want those things to be on the record. This is good to keep in mind for any interview that you take quotes from to just check with your sources before publication to make sure that is how they want to be represented. I don’t know if this is allowed but the second comment that stands out to me was one that I made. In Sarah and Kristen’s pieces I felt like certain aspects of the (who, what, when, where, why) were missing. For Sarah’s piece I feel like the story could benefit from the who as in how many workers work for the mail room and who is in charge of hiring and promoting the position. I also felt that her story could benefit from adding some stats like what time the mail room is open and how many packages usually come in a shipment. For Kristens piece I felt that it would be beneficial to add why the boats are so important to the UNE community and what exactly the boats are normally used for. My comment about adding more (who, what, when, where, why, how) also made me reflect on my piece and think about the parts where I need to improve on my piece specifically around the (who, what, when, where, why, how) of the grant.
Journal 12
Some comments from class that really stuck with me. Was when Elia asked the question about how tuition prices get made and decided. When we were talking about Sarah Bedore’s headline Professor Miller made the comment of a “dad joke” by saying “post off” as a headline or subheadline suggestion. And then Miller talked about gathering information and then how it is important to get the view point perspective of an interviewee. How journalists don’t use their perspective because they are not writing about themselves but other people and issues.
There were several thoughtful and insightful comments made during the editorial session this past Tuesday, but a few stood out to me in particular. I thought Zak’s comment to Caitlyn about how her feature needs to strike a middle ground between an essay or research paper and a article stood out, as it’s somewhat of a repeating theme in our class. Trying to switch your writing style to be a lot more concise and precise is often a challenge. I thought it was a great observation, as her piece had a lot of good informational content but was lacking the elements that transform it into a journalistic article. Another great point made during the session was during the review of Sarah Bedore’s piece, where Kristen suggested that she should employ quotations from people in the place of explaining the information in her own writing, which I thought was a particularly interesting and important part for journalistic writing and being concise with your words. Not restating yourself and being effective in communicating information without exceeding your word count is an essential skill to being a journalist. In addition to this, it’s writing in a way where you aren’t inserting yourself into the narrative, which is another tenet of journalistic writing.
I received a lot of advice that stuck with me, particularly from Kayleigh and Sarah Bourdeau about adding more context to the portion of my piece that focuses on student opportunity. That’ll have to be something I really work on, as it is a vital part of my piece that holds the entire take-home message of the story. I also enjoyed getting positive comments about my piece, regarding the things I did right, as I think it will really help me know what to change or keep the same when I’m editing. Also, it’s just nice to hear that people liked the story 🙂 . Overall, I think that, during this class, we really focused on how to realistically improve the stories, and everyone contributed changes that are small, but very important.
This class was super helpful with feedback when it came to my own article’s review and others. One topic that stood out to me was a comment that Professor Jesse made. He states, to let the quotes stand alone and speak for themselves. In an article, it’s important to give voice to each side of the story so everyone feels represented. Quotes often have a powerful impact on the story that shares what it is like from the other perspective. For my article, Cole and Kristen suggested adding students’ quotes on struggles with the mailroom to make it more reliable and relatable. The class also discussed the importance of story-telling and adding spice to these articles. Adding a storytelling element helps keep the article interesting to readers and allows it to flow better. Spicing up the article allows for character and tone to be added rather than just statistics and a straightforward article.
I think for Caitlin’s article, the majority of the class had relatively the same consensus with regards to the rigidity of the paper’s language. For example, Zach said something that I agreed with in that he thought that the paper read a little bit too much like a scientific article. The paper does a fantastic job at being informative, but the writing style gets a little bit too wordy for the reader to be entertained and drawn in enough to engage in it for too long. I really like the direction that Caitlin is working in, it’s just a matter of making the paper more palatable for a broader audience. Finn, Nick, and Ella do bring up the fantastic point that the article brings in many different perspectives from various sources, and how helpful the article could be for impoverished students who really need to contemplate how much they can actually spend on housing. It’s so much easier to live off campus simply because of the cost of living. It makes it difficult to do that, however, when the campus requires you to be on-campus for housing for the first three years. I think Sarah’s article had the same problem, which is something Tony brought up during the review session with her. It was so wordy, but the story needed more story, so to speak. The article was incredibly informative, but it was so dense that it was hard to see the reasoning behind anything unless you inspected the words with a magnifying glass. This isn’t to say the article wasn’t good, I loved reading it, it was just very dense.