Wk 8: Three Styles…

What is the author’s approach in each of these stories? Gardiner’s article used the chronological account of Romona Moore’s missing person’s investigation from the perspective of an event now being scrutinised for racial bias.  The writing is spare, uses a mixture of basic incident description and quotes from participants to add further illustration. Weingarten is [...]

WK7 : Teflon man’s entrepreneurial tips

Living in Sydney, in a house valued at 3 million dollars,  driving a bullet-proof Bentley, that’s alright for starters.  Add to this, remodeling your  nightclub every 5 years at $400,000 a pop, being surrounded by chic models, and dating classy socialites like Chelsea Mitchell.  Need I include mention of his having dark, attractive good looks, [...]

Slinging hash compared to succinctly sending sound bites…

Is better late than never applicable here? Barbara Ehrenreich’s chapter, Serving in Florida, was an insightful, enjoyable read. She decides to go undercover in Florida, to find out what it’s like to earn minimum wage from service jobs, and have to live on that. To do this, she cuts herself off from her regular life [...]

Week 7: A Chat with Sean

A Chat with Sean Ross How does a young person who has never had a job get started? One answer is that they take a job at McDonald’s.  Whatever else one might think of this company, their contribution to youth job training is hard to deny. Former McDonald’s employee, Sean Ross, brought this to my [...]

Week 6 : You want it ‘hard’ or ‘soft’?

The first thing to notice about the writing we were given to read for this week, is that it’s all from online.  So this is really a look at online examples of hard and soft news.  My understanding is that I need to give comment on how effective these stories are in their style, and [...]

Week 5 : Second News Story – attack

Car attack leaves one man unconscious Two people sustained minor injuries in Frankston last night, after being pulled from their burning car by police. The driver, Darren Brown, lost control of the vehicle after four men threw objects at the passing car, in what appears to be a random attack. Mr Brown, 25, was knocked [...]

Week 4 – Media Release Exercise

Here’s a go at producing ‘hard news’: Ineffective GM food labeling laws are under attack in a damning report released by Choice consumer advocates this week. According to Choice, many Australian consumers are still buying GM products at their local supermarkets without knowing it.  Choice reports that numerous foods containing genetically modified ingredients are sold [...]

Week 3 – Ahh -story ideas…

Our brief is to come up with three short news story ideas that will be of public interest, and we need to provide at least two potential interviewees for the research of this article. First idea: Disappearing public amenities: public phone booths, water fountains When I arrived in this country again after being away a [...]

Week Two : Williams & McKenzie

A friend of mine was telling me that a journalist job is to scrutinize the halls of power in a community and bring them to task for any indiscretions.  That was her version of the role of the fourth estate.  Both of these articles performed this function.  Paige Williams in a thoroughly well-researched article brought [...]

Week One : Niall Lucy

Lucy’s article – deconstruction of images/text; what is journalism/journalist role; exposing perceived hypocrosy Does anyone think that the news we read and hear is unmediated?  It’s tempting to imagine we can just lay back and absorb the text and imagery without question.  Sitting back, thinking that this way we’ll receive the ‘Truth’ of events on [...]