Best Careers 2008

I was thrilled to read that a career in editing is one of the best 31 careers of 2008, according to U.S. News and World Report.

The web site says, "The careers listed at left offer strong outlooks and high job satisfaction."
Other "best" careers include landscape architect, mediator, professor, physician assistant, and school psychologist.

The Editor entry says that a key to being a good editor is to be able to write accurately and quickly. However, it also says you must "need the skills of a good diplomat, too, to be assertive yet tactful when dealing with powerful publishers and know-it-all writers."

I honestly don't know what I will do yet with my degree. When I finish school in December, I will immediately start looking around for a career that will interest me. I would like to find something in human resources, but this editing class has sparked my interest in editing.

The beauty of a degree in communications is that you can really be multi-faceted and good at everything. I think knowing a little bit about everything is key to finding a good career.

Tragic images

What is it about human carnage and tragedy that makes us stop and stare? As a young girl, I was interested in stories about the Titanic or the Civil War. I like reading about history, but even current "history" is absorbing. I don't mean that I find tragedies fascinating because I'm a sociopath. I find tragedies fascinating because there is a morbidity that calls to me, however strange that sounds. I think people are interested in tragedies because we are all human and we would like to know how death works.

The Poynter Online website has an article about a site that features journalistic and photo designs regarding the Minneapolis bridge collapse disaster that happened last August. The website is called "13 seconds in August", and it is a beloved work in progress.

This website from the Star Tribune is filled with testimonials, images, and sounds from that day in August 2007. One is able to scroll all the way down an aerial picture of the collapsed bridge, from car to car. Particularly sad are the numeral labels of cars in the Mississippi; some of these labels represent lives that were lost. Their biographies are also on the site.

In my opinion, there should be some sensitivity when publishing certain images. One must be careful that they have spoken with family and friends about the victim or injured person. In several cases, there must be consent given. On the other hand, tragic images often speak to us in a way that words cannot. Sometimes images reach beyond words to tell a story.

Headlines

During Monday night's class, we were shown the website www.newseum.org. This site has many treasures, but one of the most convenient features of this website is the Today's Front Pages section. This feature has virtually every national newspaper's front page available for browsing. I wanted to take some time and see if some paper's headlines are appropriate according to the guidelines in our textbook.

Sunday, Aug. 10, 2008:
The Birmingham News, Birmingham, AL
The main, centered story is weak because there is no (clear) headline that I can see for it. The one I can see does not attract my interest. Evidently the story is about a former football player who is now a motivational speaker.

The Fresno Bee, Fresno, CA
I really like the overall layout of the Bee. The front page features a large, underwater photo of swimmer Michael Phelps. The headline is "Golden Opportunity", with the word golden in gold print. It's a bit of a pun headline, but it is catchy and has a good photo to back it up.

Pioneer Press, St. Paul, MN
One of my favorite papers from when I lived in Minnesota, the Pioneer Press delivers on today's headline. "Violence in Beijing, sorrow in Minnesota". There is a secondary headline of "Assailant stabs and kills Bachman's CEO and wounds his wife". There is a clear subject in the headline. It is in bold, large print and it attracts attention. The verbs are clear and active. I found myself very interested in this story and I even read half of the story on the front page before I turned away.

The Fayetteville Observer, Fayetteville, N.C.
I like the headline on the front page lead story because it's all in caps and in very large print. It immediately attracts attention and gives a clear indication of what the story is about. Additionally, the photograph on the front page is apparently a satellite map of Interstate 95. The map itself points out where fatal accidents were located on I-95.

Topic Difficulty

When choosing a topic to blog about, sometimes I have difficulty coming up with a suitable topic. It would be completely easy for me to blog about things I know a lot about. For example, I have an interest in topics regarding the Sept. 11 tragedy. I could blog all day and night about that. Also, I am addicted to reading about the Kennedy assassination. History in general is something I have a great interest in.

For this class, however, we are to choose subjects that are current in media and journalism. I always try to find topics that would relate to both journalism and things I am interested in. This can be a struggle at times.

For now, I'm going to blog about Sept. 11 and the media coverage of it.

When Sept. 11 happened, we all knew about it nearly immediately. It was on CNN, the radio, the TV; it was everywhere. Isn't that amazing in and of itself? When President Kennedy was assassinated, the news got out immediately, but how many people learned about the assassination through CNN or CNN.com? No one. People had to rely on their radios or word-of-mouth.

Sept. 11 was an unspeakable tragedy, but it was also historical simply because it was one of the first times in American history where the general public could see first-hand how bad things were. The public were able to read about people jumping out of buildings, people being burned, where the President was at any given moment, and on and on. We saw videos on CNN. We looked at pictures in the newspaper or on TV. The coverage of live events had never been on such a massive scale as it was on Sept. 11. At that moment, we saw media history unfold before our eyes.

Are Tabloids Considered Newsworthy?

Our discussion last night about the John Edwards tabloid article got me thinking about tabloids. Are tabloids newsworthy? I think the National Enquirer article about Edwards was newsworthy, if you consider that the National Enquirer is one of the most popular "magazines" being sold today. There must be an audience that reads the Enquirer religiously otherwise the Enquirer would go out of business.

I admit, I love to read Us Weekly. But my guess is that some people out there don't think that an article about Brad and Angelina's new baby is newsworthy.

Our Creative Editing book lists the criteria to determine if a story is newsworthy:
1. Timeliness (up-to-the-minute information)
2. Proximity (something that happens nearby physically or geographically)
3. Prominence (people who are well-known or hold positions of prominence)
4. Relevance (how many people are affected by this event or story?)
5. Unusualness (enough said)
6. Conflict (should involve more than two positions)
7. Human interest (stories that touch readers' lives..)

If we go by these criteria, we could say that tabloids are newsworthy. Especially the facets of prominence and unusualness. I mean, how many times in your life are you going to read a story about a man who gets prank called by aliens?

Questions for Ethical Decision-Making

How often do any of us stop to ask ourselves 10 questions before we make a decision? My guess is that none of us do this very often. However, according to Bob Steele on the site Poynteronline, successful journalists need to ask themselves 10 questions if they are facing a moral or ethical dilemma.

I agree with the author in that it is important to take time to weigh decisions. I think decisions are made quickly in this fast-paced world. Sometimes it's best to make quick decisions, especially if you are in an environment like journalism. However, I also think there is a place for questions like this, especially if what you are doing could affect your own career and the lives of others.

Good-bye, World

In an English online article, article author Jeffrey Blyth reports that American newspapers are drastically scaling back foreign news.

Evidently, newspapers in the United States cannot afford to keep journalists who report on world news. And this is even at a time when we need news from abroad more than ever.

It's as if we are saying that we don't care about what happens in the world anymore. That is a scary thought, because we need to be more aware of what's going on in the world more than at any other time in history. Take the attacks of September 11 as an example. Is it possible that we would have taken more precautions on airport checkpoints if we knew that there were inklings of rampant anti-American sentiment in the Middle East? Could we have prevented such attacks if we, the general public, had any idea of what was happening overseas?

In my opinion, Americans in general tend to be blase about world news. It's time we open our eyes to what's happening all over the globe, not just the United States.