Media Critique

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/09/06/waitress-receives-huge-tip-dnt.kstu/video/playlists/thanks-for-the-tip/news

In this article from September 2015 CNN covers the story of an everyday waitress who gets a $3000 tip from two men who had just had a normal night at the bar getting food. At the bottom of the receipt there was a $3000 tip in the tip section that the two gentlemen left for the waitress, Bre Snow, after having a total bill of $500. The two men were with an instagram page called @tipsforjesus. Overall, this is not awful footage and it is a "feel good story", but it is not newsworthy. This article violates the first and fourth yardsticks of journalism which are newsworthiness and local relevance. While watching the video for this story, a person may think, how is this going to affect my community? This story was highlighted as one of the top stories in the "money" section. Instead  of being informed of pertinent, relevant financial news, the viewer was given a minute and thirty seconds worth of material that was designed to entertain and uplift. Stories like this should not be treated as top news alerts thereby wasting the viewers' time.

Response to Binary Models: Information vs. Entertainment and Elitist verse Populist (Lucy Calderon)

I can relate to Lucy because if I am honest, I do enjoy hearing about all of the celebrity drama that comes with a lot of media sources. I know that news like that is pointless, but it is entertaining, and therefore many people would prefer to hear it than an elitist news organization that only gives you cold hard news facts. Sometimes, I feel we have to lighten up a bit and have a bit of fun with the news. Although, in the little time that I have been in journalism 1, just like Lucy said, I have begun to appreciate elitist news just as much or more than a news organization that just gives you gossip. I love the feeling of actually knowing in-depth information that is going on in our community and in our world.


http://livinginthefastlucy.blogspot.com/2015/09/binary-models-i-nformation-vs.html#comment-form

Response to Conglomeration (Maggie Mitchell)

I agree with Maggie because having only a few companies that control all of the content that is made in our media industries reduces the amount of new content that we receive as an audience. Also, all of the smaller companies that are within the large company that owns them will produce content that only the larger company approves of. Maggie says this as, "Therefore, when a company under the conglomeration is creating something, they have to worry about pleasing their boss." I thought this statement was very valid because media networks and businesses should be able to be their own creative force and produce original content. With conglomeration, one large business ultimately has the control over its smaller businesses.

http://moderatleymaggie.blogspot.com/2015/09/conglomerations-good-or-bad-for-consumer.html?showComment=1442364726954#c7306155411037105007

Demassification

I personally found demassification an interesting concept to learn about because it is the way our media is presented today. In my lifetime I have only witnessed the separation of the different types of media such as television, radio, and magazines etc. It is difficult for me to imagine only one channel on the TV or for example only one magazine in the grocery store aisle that would appeal to everyone. My dad sometimes refers to his childhood and will say that his family only had one or two channels on the TV to choose from, and therefore the whole family would sit together and watch the same program. I think that one television station must have had to go through the process of demassification to prevent extinction within its network. Thankfully, because of the demassification of networks that happened, we have television channels that fit everyone's interests and likings.

Conglomeration

My younger brother is a huge fan of the Disney Channel, and sometimes while sitting with him I see commercials for channels such as ABC or ESPN. I often wondered, why is Disney advertising for these different networks? After our class lecture on conglomeration I understood the purpose of Disney advertising for these other channels. I thought it was really cool that what I learned in class was applicable to what I witness in my own living room. Conglomeration is where one large company buys and sells smaller companies to increase profits and become more successful. Disney is a fantastic example of conglomeration because it owns so many different companies and media organizations. After our lecture I thought about the Disney to ABC/ABC Family connection. Many actors and actresses star in shows on both networks, thereby bringing in more money to a company that is already worth almost 80 billion dollars.

Objective Reporting and Inverted Pyramid

Learning how newspapers have progressed and slowly morphed into what they are today was very interesting to me. I assumed that objective reporting would have existed as long as the genesis of the newspaper. You have to wonder how long opinion was being used in news stories where opinion is not appropriate.

During the lecture I was surprised to discover the inverted pyramid continues to be the most widely used style of journalistic writing. The idea behind the inverted pyramid was to get the important information into the telegraph first so that if something prevented the reporter from putting their message into the telegraph, the important information would still make it to the publishers of the newspaper. Today, we really don't have the worry of being unable to deliver our news messages out to the media companies that produce them. As I thought more about this I decided that it really is not all that surprising that the inverted pyramid is still used today. What do people really want to know? They want to know the most important facts first. Unfortunately, some people are too lazy to search through an article to retrieve the main idea of the news.

Gutenburg's Contribution

Books are obviously a huge contribution to society and how our world works. Almost two-hundred years ago the majority of the world's population was illiterate and now approximately only 26% of people do not know how to read. In the words of Mr. Miller, "good job humanity!" What was intriguing to me was Gutenburg's contribution of making books more accessible and the stirring of huge historical movements. It was a surprise to me that if we lived in a world without Gutenburg today there may not be separate denominations of the Christian church, journalism, public schooling, and we possibly would not even be living in America. Books are the root foundation to the media technology we have today. Without the development of the printing press, we may have none of the forms of media we take for granted in today's society.