Glad the parents went to NY the day AFTER this happened.

Through the past few days while I have been scrambling to get my blog ready for grading, I have kept seeing articles about the terroist attempt in Times Square. Each day, more and more, are added to the articles. As a grand finale, the media coverage on this event will be discussed. Everytime I go back to the New York Times website I am thrown into different articles relating to this attempt. One was when it happened, it showed the video of the suspected victim. The next was how they got the bomb out of the smoking SUV. Today, it is photographs of the house the victim lived in. Then, about three hours later, that same suspect is admitting to playing a role in the terroist attack. All of these occurences were seperate headlines at one point on the New York Times website.

1. I find it amazing how quickly new articles are being published to the web about an ongoing story. I think this definetly shows the strength that online journalism has gained. Who knew that this would be possible to have a different headline in a matter of hours.

2. The packaging for this entire incident has become astonishing, in a good way. You can click on any of the articles that relate to it and are able to link yourself to any other article that relates to it. This is another strength of online journalism. There are so many layers, and you are the navigator on what you would like to learn about the subject. There is also a slideshow attached, a media graphic that shows how the bomb was laid out in the car, and a video from the Department of Justice.

3. A weakness maybe, however, can there ever be too much information thrown at you all at once? This may be one of the online journalism's down falls. I feel that after searching for articles on that I would like to blog about, it seems hard to find something that doesn't relate to the attempted bomb. This is still something I am not entirely sure about. I think it is wonderful to have access to so much information concerning something like this, but already in three days, I feel that it is getting old.

4. Thank goodness my parents flew out the day after. :)

Insects and Art

While wondering through the interweb, I came across an interesting article in an unusual place. It was a piece done about art, and it was in the science section of the New York Times online. Right away, I was intrigued. It is an article discussing how various artists are going all natural by using items that come straight from the earth in their artwork. I think that by putting a peice like this in the science section is a way to read something that you would not normally read. I appreciate the idea of thinking outside of the box when doing such peices, especially stories that can relate to not just one group of people, but multiple. The image shown above uses soil for the skin, moss and leaves for the extremeties.

The introduction to this article directly addresses the who. It discusses an artist that collects cockroaches to use in his artwork. It is a well written introduction that makes you say 'what?', let me read more!

"The word organic means different things to different people. To the gardener it means compost heaps. To the chemist it means carbon compounds. To the artist, Fabian Pena, it means American cockroaches, those chunky nocturnal creatures often seen skittering around drainpipes or on the street."

I thouroughly appreciate introductions such as this because they are something that I struggle with in my writings. They create a reason for the reader to continue on. I feel that mine tend to make a reader want to stop. Hopefully one day, my introductions will entrap a reader (or one of my photographs), enough to engage them and have them continue learning on about the story. After all, isn't that the point of journalistic story telling?

Importance of Blogging and Pirates

Some believe bloggers can be as much as a journalist as those who write for the New York Times, others believe this not so. However, in this case, Jason Kottke, blogger, produced by the New York Times, succedes at both. He had found a video of Dutch commandos raiding a Somali Pirates Boat. Along with his explantation of what is happpening in the raid, there is the video. Yes, an actual video of commandos capturing pirates. Sadly, these pirates were nothing like those seen on television from "Pirates of the Carribbean", but it was truly interesting to watch. Blogging, may be the next step to further journalism. This blog, that is posted on the New York Times website, also has links to other website details regarding the raid of the Somali Pirates. If you would like to watch this new step in visual reporting (which is also extremely amazing that this camera was placed on the commando's helmet) then click here. I think the conglomeration of media is finally truly succeeding in merging media and blogs together, especially like the one in the link.

Leads

In this post I would like to discuss the importance of a good lead. I personally dislike boring ones that get straight to the point in normal journalists' stories. I appreciate the ones that keep you reading through the first paragraph and continue to engage you throughout the peice. One article that I believe does this very well is published by the New York Times. the article is called, "More Wander Off in Fog of Age". The introduction can be found here. I like that it doesn't give it the entire story away in the first sentence. One thing that gets me about leads in journalism is that they often have to follow rules and be so precise, but my favorite are when these rules are not followed, as shown in the example from above.

Another thing, besides just the lead, that I enjoyed about this article was the multimedia packaging that was concurrent with the story. It help give the story an emotional appeal which is much needed when discussing a topic such as dementia. Without this intriguing lead and multimedia packaging, the emotional appeal would not be attached.

Another emotional appeal that is attached to this publication is the quotes. I had discussed good quotes in one of my previous posts, but here is an excellent one that makes you aware of the immediacy of such a problem...

"We've had them die in as little as seven hours because they just kept going and don't realize they're getting dehydrated," Mr. Langston said.

MediaStorm

Mediastorm

This website is one of the best journalistic media websites I have ever seen. He and his team have created short documentaries that are more journalistic and cross-platform of story telling, pictures and audio. Brian Storm (creator of mediastorm) is sponsored by the Washington Post. He brings multimedia and journalism to a new level. One of his stories, "The Ninth Floor" is an epic story telling peice of people who live on the ninth floor of an abandon building. They live there to keep their addiction alive. For three years these addicts were followed. Some went to jail, others sunk deeper into their addiction. They had no valuables because everything was sold off. This story that is told has some extremely beautiful (and horrifying) photojournalism peices I have ever seen. There is also audio and texts that excentuate the story amazingly. In some of the other stories that have been created there is some video. However, I enjoy the purely photographic ones. A lot of these peices probably could not be shown on regular newspaper websites because there are often controversial shots including nudity, drugs and alcohol.

These media cross platforms create some of the most impactful and storytelling peices of journalism I have ever seen.

Weeds.

Throughout my J105 class, we have learned the importance of the who, what, when, where, why and how. One story that I believe was an excellent example of these was on the New York Times website, "Rise of the Superweeds". The first few paragraph talk about the farmer (the who) in the midwest (the where) who has started using herbicides because of recent growth of weeds (the why). This has started because of "drug resistant supergerms" and therefore weedkiller is being mixed with other toxic herbicides (the how), and will possibly lead to more expensive food prices (the what). This has changed dramatically in the past ten years (the when) and can be seen in an interactive graphic.

I really liked the interactive graphic because it shows where these superweeds have grown prevalent and resisting herbicides. Each year can be seen getting worse and spreading. According to the article at least 22 states have been infested with these Round-Up resistant weeds.

We have also discussed quotes in this class and what quotes are appropriate and what are just down right useless. This article has one quote that I think was very well placed. I think that it shows how impactful a quote can be, and that if it wasn't used and worded differently then it would not have the same impact.

"It is the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen," said Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.

I really hope that they can find something else then harmful herbicides to help the crops, I think farmers often times get the short end of the stick and people take advantage of our fresh food that we consume.