On Campus Event!

There are many events that occur each day in Towson especially on the Towson University campus. This coming week their will be a discussion about “School of Emerging Technologies”. When I read about this in the University Daily Digest, it raised my interested because, in the future, I plan on working with different types of technologies in my daily job. ( Picture From ABC News)

If you want to read up more information about “School of Emerging Technologies” you can find it in the Towson Daily Digest under All Campus, number 14. After clicking on the title, it will link you to the URL site. This site will inform you that there are three discusses open to students, faculty and staff going this week Monday, Thursday and Friday with different times for each event and room information.

If you click on the link it will tell you too more information about the current event. The article informs readers how they plan to integrate two reports into one for the Towson University School of Technology. The two reports are the Zweben Report and the SET Report. After reading the two reports, I had no know idea what they were about, so I needed to do more research.

For this report, my main sources will be Acting Dean and David Vanko. Some of the questions I might ask:
• What do you like most about SET and Zweben reports?
• What do dislike the most about SET and Zweben reports?
• Why are these reports so important to Towson Campus?
• What are the benefits going to be for students and faculty?


After conducting all the research, I am now prepared for a discussion about the reports and look forward to new ideas that might come up in tomorrow’s meeting.

Twitter Headlines!

(Picture from Twitter Homepage)
After learning how to use twitter, I posted some of my own headlines. I’m not going to lie, it was hard for me at first, but by the end I started to feel like I was getting the hang of it. Here a link to my twitter site, if you want to review my headlines, I would love to get some feedback.

Once I was done my headlines on twitter, I decide to check out what some of my classmates had done. The twitter profiles I visited were Marisa B., Abby C., and Chantel J.

Marisa B’s twitter headlines used active voice and summarized the main point of the recycling story. I could understand what the story would be about from her headlines. Abby C’s twitter headlines used active voice, were factual about the football game and answered most of the 5W’s. Lastly Chantel J’s twitter headlines used active voice, summarized how USM is coping with the poor economy and answered the 5W’s.

Overall, for our first assignment using twitter, I think everyone did an awesome job using the 50 characters lead and link, posting a second story with 130 characters and not repeating any information in the first lead on the story.

What are summary lead and a short report ?

(Picture From The Huffington Post)

News comes in many different forms; from newspapers, magazine, websites, blogs, and TV. But it’s up to the reporter to select how they want to present the information. Two ways to this is summary lead and short report.

Now I’m sure your probability thinking, what’s the difference? Well according to Thom Lieb, summary lead is the opening of a print or online news story. An example of a summary lead can be found on front of the NY Times homepage called “Thousand in Texas Flee Hurricane Ike”. Right under the title of the article it gives short opening point, which you can use to summarize what the article is going to be about.

A short report is less information that could be wrote into single sentence or even two and can displayed by bulletin, e-mails, and crawlers according to Thom Lieb’s definition. An example of a short report is shown in the Baltimore Sun homepage article about September 11th. This article gives a few short sentences and bulletin list that links you to other articles. (Picture of Twin Towers from Grasping Reality with Both Hands)

Now that you have better understanding of difference ways news can be presented, it should be easier to present news in a quick and short way.

Newsworthy Stories from The Baltimore Sun

In today’s society, news means important information or events that locally or globally interest society. After reviewing The Baltimore Sun homepage, I selected three news stories to evaluate how they are newsworthy. Under the printed edition, I selected:
• Private-School Families Feel a Financial Pinch
• Old Report Causes United Airlines Stock Panic
• Ike Targets Havana.

(From The Baltimore Sun, photo by Lloyd Fox)

The story “Private-School Families Feel a Financial Pinch” by Liz F. Kay, discusses how today’s economy with its rising prices are causing parents to search more for financial aid to help pay for their child’s tuition. This story is newsworthy because it affects some of local citizens in Baltimore.


Here are some signs of this story newsworthy:
•It does not show bias
•It informs the public
•There is wide-ranging data
•Quotes are included
•Picture are included


The story “Private-School Families Feel a Financial Pinch” also demonstrates the traditional values of timeliness and proximity. Timeliness is how recently the event happened. This story relates to when schools started, which was last week in August. Proximity refers to a physical location. Since this is a local story, local news stations are more likely to shift their focus and cover it.

The second news story called “Old Report Causes United Airlines Stock Panic” originated from the Chicago Tribune according to the Baltimore Sun Web-page. It’s about the Chicago airport and how United Airline service has fallen along with their stock price. The story is newsworthy because United Airlines stock falling affects stockholders and its service falling affects customers both locally and globally.
(Picture from Travelhouseuk’s Travel Blog)



Signs of newsworthy:
•Important data is provided
•Dates are provided
•There is a link to other newspapers


The United Airline story includes the traditional values of currency, timeliness, and impact. Currency means it ties to stories already in the news. This story has already been in the news once and ties to many stock market stories. Timeliness means how recently the event happens as evidenced by when United Airline stock began to fall last Friday. Impact means how something might happen as a result of an event. In this case, the impact would be the stock and services decreasing so much that it negatively affects stockholders and customers.

The last news story, “Ike Targets Havana” by Carol J. Williams is from the Los Angeles Times as found in the print edition in the Baltimore Sun. This article discusses how hurricane Ike ravaged Cuba and is heading towards Havana.
Ike is a newsworthy story because hurricanes are a global event that affects many people.

(Picture by Newsround.com, showing Hurricane Ike hit Cuba)


Signs of newsworthy:
• It has videos
• Pictures are also included
• The story is not bias
• Data is provided
• Quotes are included



Hurricane Ike shows traditional news value because it discusses what might happen to Havana and displays direct impact. Impact means things that might happen as a result of an event. Other traditional values shown are timeliness and proximity. Timeliness refers to how recently it happens which in the case of Ike is still happening. Proximity is the location or physical nearness which is the case of Ike will occur when it approaches the US coast.



I believe the Baltimore Sun has many newsworthy stories. The Baltimore Sun seems to go out of their way to give readers news stories from all over the world as demonstrated in “Old Report Causes United Airlines Stock Panic and “Ike Targets Havana” articles as well as local stories like “Private-School Families Feel a Financial Pinch”. These articles and authors appear to always use one or two traditional news values. In conclusion, readers should determine if traditional news values are present when they determine the source of their everyday news.

My Favorite outstanding portfolio

The portfolio I like the most is Nick Trost. On his home page, he has this tree with two red apples and when you click on the apples they play video's. He's portfolio is creative but yet easy to navigate. After awhile I started to wonder what he kind of equiment he keeps in his backpack. So I brainstorm some idea's. I think he carries notebook, pen, pencil, highlighter, carmera digital, USB drive, digital video camera, digital audio recorder, cell phone, and resume. I think he carries these things because of his portfolio displays pictures, video, and audio. I figure Nick keeps computer and USB drive in his backpack to update or download any information and transporting files. Also I thought Nick might keep cell phone and resume in his backpack because you never know who your going to meet or need to contact. These are just some guess's of what I think Nick keeps inside his backpack. Who knows what he really keeps inside his backpack? I guess only Nick knows the answer to that question.

What does Jared Silfies keep in his backpage?

Well inside Jared Silfie's backpack, he keeps notebook, planner, computer, digital carmera, digital audio recorder, 3 USB drives, book called "The Elements of Style", cell phone, I-pod and of course pens, pencils and highlighter. Well he must have heavy backpack. I think he carries all these items in his backpack because he doesn't know where news might strike or something interesting, which is important to reporters. One item that I didn't understand why it was in his backpack was "The Elements of Style". So after buying the new edition and spending sometime looking through it, I started to understand why. He carries this book to help guide in many areas of reporting. For example this book has rules, dictionary, encyclopedia, APA formatting and much more. I can't wait to gain some practice with this book. Now, what I keep in my backpack are my books, notebooks for the day, USB drive, chap-stick, cell phone,planner, pencils, pens, highlighter. I guess you could say my backpack is work in progress.