COMM 291: edits, first batch, for Sleepy Weasel

Emailed to magazine editing students Sunday, February 28, 2010 9:23 PM

Hi everybody --

Just got back from Peoria a couple of hours ago, and I've been doing rough edits on the first batch of Sleepy Weasel material. Four of them are ready to go, and I need you to edit them and get 'em back to me ASAPest. They represent about half of what I've got in so far. So we do need to get copy from the masscomm students! Attached are:

-- Virginia Boehl - Angels
-- Nathan Peter - Cemetery
-- Amalia Ramirez - Clarity
-- Natasha Keenan - Garth Brooks

I think it'll work best if you create a new folder in "My Documents" and keep them there. I'm labeling my folder "weasel 2010," and it might help us communicate better if you use the same label. As you finish your edits, email them back to me as Microsoft Word attachments.

For the time being, let's do the edits using the "tracking" or "redlining" functions in Microsoft Word. It's the convention of using a strikethrough to show deletes and underlining to show inserts or additions (see "Subversive Copy Editor," pp. 16-17 for a better explanation). I'm going to be sending the same stories to all three of you and asking you to get your edits back to me, so I need to be able to track your changes as we put together a final draft. It'll help you see your own edits, too.

I can't show you an example in plain text email, but I'll post one when I copy this message to the blog.

Any questions? If so, let me know.

-- Doc

Example of tracked edits

Strike through copy that you want to take out. Like this: I just decided not to say this.

Underline copy that you want to put in. Like This: I want to say it this way instead.

Put 'em together, and it looks like this: I just decided not to say this. I want to say it this way instead.

If you're ever around the state Legislature, which I heartily recommend, you'll see a lot of this. It's exactly the same system they use to show amendments to bills.

COMM 291: Clearing the decks for action

Copied from an email sent to students in COMM 291 Friday, February 26, 2010 3:28 PM (CST)

Pete, Amy and Mike --

March is going to be our busy month, and we're going to start editing next week. I want to make a big push before spring break to get the mass comm students contributing stories, and I'll try to get the first batches of stories out to you Sunday or Monday ... have to have your edits back by the end of the week (which is also the first day of spring break). I'll talk with Scott, too, next week and get a sense from him of where the Sleepy Weasel will fit into his production schedule. That, in turn, will drive our deadlines. Broadly speaking, I want to have all copy edited and ready for the next stage of production by the end of the month.

A word of warning. The deadlines I'll be giving you after I talk with Scott are REAL-WORLD DEADLINES and not the LITTLE PLAY DEADLINES you've heard me give you in class (forgive me for shouting, but I want to be utterly unambiguous here, especially since I'm STILL NOT GETTING your "Years With Ross" papers). If we blow these deadlines, we won't have product on the street in time.

So, please try to wrap up the Ross papers and get them to me. If you can't, put them aside till after we get the magazine out.

Please also read pages 3-30 in "The Subversive Copy Editor" ASAPest because I think it'll help you get the right attitude toward the copy when you starting editing. You won't be dealing directly with the writers like the book editors Carol Saller talks about, but I want you to take the same attitude she recommends. You're there to fix grammar, sure, and there'll be plenty of that, but you're also helping to bring out the writer's intent ... use a light touch.

I'm going to post this message to the Mackerelwrapper, too, so it doesn't disappear out of your inbox.

And be watching for more email.

We're about to shift gears in a big way now.

-- Doc

COMM 150: Watch this space for exciting new assignments!

Next week (the week before spring break):

• News and Public Relations

Week after next (week after spring break):

• Public Relations and Advertising

We'll work out the rest of it later.

* * *

http://www.sci.edu/faculty/ellertsen/masscom/com150syllabus.html

Sixth Week. Midterm over Chapters 1-10. Read Chapter 11, News; and Chapter 12, Public Relations.

Seventh Week. Read Chapter 14, Entertainment.



Eighth Week. Read Chapter 15, Media Research



Ninth Week. Read Chapter 16, Mass-Media Effects on Society



10th Week. Read Chapter 17, Global Mass Media



11th Week. Read Chapter 18, Mass Media and Governance



12th Week. Read Chapter 18, Mass Media Law



13th Week. Read Chapter 18, Mass Media Ethics

COMM 150: Postmodernism, 'hyperreality' and 'simiculara'

Before diving into the second half of Vivian's book on the social, cultural and political effects of mass media, we'll take a look at a philosophy called postmodernism. I think it helps explain some of the effects of mass media on our world. Or maybe the effect of our world on communications media ...

For Friday, read an introductory essay "What do we mean by 'mass media' and 'modern culture'?" by Val Pope, who writes for Lit Notes U.K., a website that helps British students prepare for their university-level entrance exams (roughly equivalent in the U.S. to junior year of college). In the meantime, you already know a lot about this stuff just by living in the modern world - what I would call a postmodernist world.

Question: Do the media create our world, or do they merely reflect it?

Another question: Is there a good answer to that first question?

Anyway, I think it'll help us as we try to keep straight some of the political, cultural and economic effects of media on modern life - or, as many call it - postmodern life.

Jean Baudrillard, a French sociologist who died a couple of years ago, had a very influential theory he called "hyperreality" - which he put in very complex language that's often hard to follow (especially when it's translated from French) but which boils down to a claim that we are so bombarded with advertising and other media messages, we can no longer distinguish between reality and images of reality that may in fact be false.

Said Baudrillard, "The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. . . The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: that is the hyperreal. . . which is entirely in simulation.

Example: How real is the image of Tiger Woods?

Another: How real is your average couch potato who sits around and drinks beer all weekend while he watches professional sports on TV?

A couple of other examples from the Wikipedia article on hyperreality in Baudrillard's philosophy:

• A magazine photo of a model that has been touched up with a computer.
  
• Films in which characters and settings are either digitally enhanced or created entirely from CGI (e.g.: 300, where the entire film was shot in front of a blue/green screen, with all settings super-imposed).
  
• A well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal).
  
• Professional sports athletes as super, invincible versions of the human beings.

There are more cited in Wikipedia. How many other examples can you think of?

There's a very good introduction to "Jean Baudrillard and Hyperreality" on the website for a Vanderbilt University anthropology course. (I couldn't find the name of the author, and I wish I could so I could give credit ... it's where I got the quote about hyperreality, and it also has the best explanation I've seen of another one of Baudrillard's concepts: Simiculara.) I'll just quote from the outline:

simulation:
-the process in which representations of things come to replace the things being represented . . . the representations become more important than the "real thing"
-4 orders of simulation:
1. signs thought of as reflecting reality: re-presenting "objective" truth;
2. signs mask reality: reinforces notion of reality;
3. signs mask the absence of reality;
-Disneyworld
-Watergate
-LA life: jogging, psychotherapy, organic food
4. signs become simulacra - they have no relation to reality; they simulate a simulation
-Spinal Tap
-Cheers bars
-new urbanism
-Starbucks
-the Gulf War was a video game

Like anything else, you want to take Baudrillard with a grain of salt. But this stuff is worth thinking about.

"Jenny Get Your Hoe Cake Done"

"Jenny Get Your Hoe Cake Done" (1840)
The Celebrated Banjo Song,
as sung with great Applause at the
Broadway Circus,
by
Joel Walker Sweeney, ca. 1810 - 1860

[Source: 020/003@Levy]

1.
De hen and chickens went to roost,
De hawk flew down and hit de goose
He hit de ole hen in de back
I really believe dam am a fac,
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done my dear,
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done.

2.
As I was gwain lond de road,
Past a stump dar wad a toad.
De tadpole winked at Pollewog's daughter,
And kick'd de bull frog plump in de water.
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done my dear,
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done, love!

* * *

6.
Massa un Misse promise me
When dey died to set me free,
Now dey both are dead and gone,
Left ole Sambo [haeing?] out corn
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done my dear,
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done, love!

http://www.pdmusic.org/1800s/40jgyhcd.txt

Sheet music (three pages of GIF files in the Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music collection of the Library of Congress. First page is pix of Sweeney (?) in blackface.

Covered as recently as 1978 by Grandpa Jones (on an album with "I'm My Own Grandpaw" and "Five String Banjo Boogie").

COMM 291:

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
-- Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

COMM 209: Copy editing symbols for midterm

As I said in class today, I will give extra credit for handwritten edits* on the midterm story you write Wednesday in class. Here is a link to a set of standard editing symbols used by the University of Colorado at Boulder. One point added to your grade for each necessary edit, for a maximum of three. For example: If your grade on the midterm is an 89 and you have three handwritten edits, I will raise your grade to a 92, or A minus.
__________
* In writing and editing circles, "edit" is often used as a noun. You'd think we'd talk better than that, wouldn't you?

COMM 150: Study questions for Monday's midterm

COMM 150: Introduction to Mass Communications
Benedictine University Springfield

[Television] is not a tool by which the networks conspire to dumb us down. TV is a tool by which the networks give us exactly what we want. That's a far more depressing thought. -- "The Vent," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 19, 1999.

Midterm · Spring Semester 2010

Below are three essay questions – one worth fifty (50) points out of a hundred, and two shorter essays worth 25 points each. Please write at least two pages double-spaced (500 words) on the 50-point essay and at least one page (250 words) on each of the 25-point short essays. Use plenty of detail from your reading in the textbook, the internet and handouts I have given you, as well as class discussion, to back up the points you make. Your grade will depend both on your analysis of the broad trends I ask about, and on the specific detail you cite in support of the points you make. I am primarily interested in the specific factual arguments you make to support your points. So be specific. Remember: An unsupported generalization is sudden death in college-level writing.

1. Main essay (50 points). One of the trends mentioned by John Vivian, author of our textbook “Media of Mass Communication,” is what he calls the “demassification” of media. How, specifically, does Vivian define demassification? How is the internet contributing to the demassification of books, newspapers and magazines, sound recordings, film, radio and television? Do these trends help us or hurt us as consumers, creators of content and/or people who hope for careers in the communications media?

2A. Short essay (25 points). Which of the mass media we have studied (i.e. books, newspapers, magazines, records, film, radio, television and the internet) pay their expenses and make their profits primarily by selling advertising? How, specifically, does the need to sell ads influence content in radio and the magazine industry?

2B. Self-reflective essay (25 points). What have you learned about mass communications in this class so far that you didn’t know before? Consider what you knew at the beginning of the course and what you know now. What point or points stand out most clearly to you? What points are still confusing? In answering this question, please feel free to look at the “Tip Sheet on Writing a Reflective Essay” linked to my faculty webpage. In grading the essay, I will evaluate the relevance of your discussion to the main goals and objectives of the course; the detail you cite to support or illustrate your points; and the connections you make.

COMM 209: Inverted pyramid

Here's how I might write up the exercise I assigned today in class to rewrite the story on page 40 in Harrower (page 38 [?] in the old edition) inverted pyramid style:

The president of the Cornelis Banta School Parent-Teacher Association was shot to death Tuesday, police said.

Mrs. Noah ten Floed died instantly. Witnesses said she was shot between the eyes during an altercation over the election of new officers. Mrs. Gianello Venutoleri, 00, was taken into custody in connection with the shooting, police said. She was in county jail pending charges.

Van Emburgh’s Funeral Parlor is in charge of arrangements.

# # #

Notice how I left most of the detail about the shooting, and all the detail about the discussion at the meeting (which might involve motive for the shooting) till later?

'Ain't I Glad I Got Out of the Wilderness' - links

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=11138

Subject: Lyr Add: DOWN IN ALABAM
From: Q
Date: 28 May 05 - 12:30 AM
Lyr. Add: Down in Alabam
(or: Ain't I Glad I Got Out de Wilderness)
Melody by J. Warner, 1858

Subject: Lyr Add: DOWN IN ALABAM
From: Q
Date: 28 May 05 - 12:30 AM

Lyr. Add: Down in Alabam
(or: Ain't I Glad I Got Out de Wilderness)
Melody by J. Warner, 1858

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
My old massa he's got the dropser, um,
he's got the dropser, um,
he's got the dropser, um,
He am sure to die 'kase he's got no doctor, um,
Down in Alabam'.

Chorus:
Ain't I glad I got out de wilderness,
Got out de wilderness,
Got out de wilderness,
Ain't I glad I got out de wilderness
Down in Alabam'.

Old blind horse come from Jerusalem,
Come from Jerusalem,
Come from Jerusalem
He kicks so high dey put him in de museum,
Down in Alabam'.

Dis am a holiday, we hab assembled, um,
We hab assembled, um,
We hab assembled, um
To dance and sing for de ladies and gentleum,
Down in Alabam'.

Far you well to de wild goose nation,
Wild goose nation,
Wild goose nation,
I neber will leab de old plantation,
Down in Alabam'.

"Ethiopian Refrain as sung by Bryant's Minstrels. Melody by J. Warner
harmonized and arranged by Walter Meadows."
Published by Wm. Hall & Son, New York. 1858.

This seems to be the original that spawned many parodies and folk variants, both black and white.

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=31024 Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Brave boys died, down in Alabam...

Subject: Lyr Add: GO IN THE WILDERNESS
From: raredance
Date: 18 Feb 01 - 11:09 PM

This song is from "Slave songs of the United States" by Allen, Ware and Garrison first published in 1867 (reprinted once in 1929 and again in the 1960's by Oak Publications, the latter with upgraded musical arrangements) Essentially the same song was printed more recently in "Slave Songs" compiled by Jerry Silverman (Chelsea House 1994)
GO IN THE WILDERNESS

If you want to find Jesus, go in the wilderness,
Go in the wilderness, go in the wilderness,
Mournin' brudder, go in de wilderness,
I wait upon de Lord.


CH:
I wait upon de Lord, I wait upon de Lord,
I wait upon de Lord, my God, who take away de sin of the world.


You want to be a Christian, go in the wilderness,
Go in the wilderness, go in the wilderness,
Mournin' brudder, go in de wilderness,
I wait upon de Lord.


similarly:

You want to get religion....

If you spec' to be converted (connected)...

O weepin' Mary...

"Flicted sister...

Say, ain't you a member...

Half-done Christian....

Come backslider...

Baptist member....

O seek, brudder Bristol...

Jesus a waitin to meet you in de wilderness...

rich r

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=38269
Subject: Afro-American Hymnal

American Negro Songs, 230 Folk Songs and Spirituals, Religious and Secular. John W. Work, Dover Publications, Mineola, NY 1998. Orig. pub. Crown Publishers, NY, 1940. ISBN 0-486-40271-1.


INDEX OF SONG TITLES

Ain't I Glad I've Got Out of the Wilderness * * *

COMM 150: Questions for midterm ... and next week's classes

1. How does the manner in which each medium earns its money -- in other words, the structure of the industry (“business model”) -- influence the content it communicates to its audience?

a. how does it make $$$$? For the people who create content? For the people who distribute content?

b. does that affect the content?

2. How is the Internet changing that?

Books
Newspapers
Magazines
Records
Film - movies
Radio
TV

Be ready to define “convergence” --

COMM 291: Nag, nag, nag (and some mixed metaphors) about your Harold Ross papers ...

Emailed to Pete, Amy and Mike this morning ...

Hi everybody --

We're starting to get submissions trickling in for The Sleepy Weasel, and we'd better clear the decks for action. That means finishing your papers on "Years With Ross" by James Thurber ASAPest (as I'm sure you already know, "ASAP" means as soon as possible and "ASAPest" is old-fashioned wire service talk for even sooner). I'll copy this message to the Mackerel Wrapper blog and link you to the original assignment sheet.

In the meantime, I'll be sending you a specific reading assignment from "The Subversive Copy Editor" very soon. I want you to read a chapter or two before you start editing live copy.

If you have questions, comments or suggestions (within reason!), please don't hesitate to ask. Basically, what all this means is the rubber is about to hit the road.

-- Doc

Here's the permalink to that assignment sheet. And here's the questions again:

... A couple of questions to keep in mind as you read ... and as you write the inevitable 750- to 1,000-word reflective essay on your reading. Post it to your blog when you finish the book, oh, in the next week or two:

-- James Thurber was one of the senior writing/editing people at The New Yorker for a long time when Harold Ross was editor. How did these people work together to get a magazine on the street? What was Ross' management style? What was their attitude toward literature, journalism, business side, in short all the things that go together to get a publication on the street?

-- What can *you* learn from this? Compare what Thurber says about The New Yorker with your experience on a magazine, a paper, a radio station, a fund-raising drive ... any collaborative effort you've been a part of that involves communicating with a public ... and reflect on: (1) what's the same, and what's different; and (2) what specific points can you use in future publication projects (including, of course, The Weasel, The Bulldog and/or projects for an off-campus not-for-profit organization).

-- Thurber is a tricky writer, there's more to him a lot of the time than what's immediately apparent on the surface. And his attitude toward Ross is, well, let's just say it's pretty complicated. But he was also an astute observer of human nature, and he had a gift for summing up a person or a situation with a well-crafted phrase or two. What, if anything, can you learn from reading him that might help you in your own writing?

My advice: Read the book quicky, and read it with these questions in mind. You're not so much savoring the work as mining it for information. (Think strip-mine operator driving a D-9 bulldozer.) ...

And now before I can hit you with any more mixed metaphors, I'll sign off.

COMM 150: Class notes from Wednesday; planning ahead a little

Friday, Feb. 12. Last night I got worried and skim-read the rest of the textbook ... it's going to get better after midterms. (Translation: At least I'll like it better.) Which leaves us a problem of what to do between now and your midterm. Let's write the midterm in class Monday, Feb. 22. I think there's so much random information in the first 10 chapters of Vivian, we'll learn more if we concentrate on a few questions - basically the ones I plan to ask for the 50-point essay - and go back through the book next week in addition to doing Chapter 10 on the Internet. So bring your books next week.

In the meantime, our notes from Wednesday (below, after the dotted line) will be a good start on this. We'll ask basically the same questions about print media, too.

- pe


-----------

Records -
movies
and radio

1. How do people make their money [structure of the industry]? Cite textbook and/or internet pages (p. 000).
-- How are artists paid - and how do they exercise artistic control?
-- What is the role of distributors - e.g. record companies, film studios and broadcasters?

2. How are the internet and digital technology changing this?


For Friday -

• Read Ch. 9, Television.

• Find out and post: Who was Philo Farnsworth and how much TV did he allow his children to watch?

First one to post the right answer gets double credit.

COMM 209: For Friday

For Friday:

Write a 500- to 750-word story about Andrew Belle, the singer who’s performing in the student lounge downstairs today.

Quote at least three people. Describe stuff. What’s it look like? Use the other four senses.

Make a “Quote-kebab” out of the story.

[indie - cover Trevor Hall]

Wisdom from a refrigerator door / Chicago Cubs

The Roman philosopher Boethius said that adversity breeds character, but he didn't root for the Cubs.

-- The Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 16, 2003.

COMM 209, 150: Kind of makes me proud to be a journalist

This nugget on the Chicago Breaking News website. A heart-warming tale of the gutsy reporters for The Chicago Tribune who tracked down the woman who took out an order of protection in 2005 against the man who won this week's Democratic primary for lieutenant governor of Illinois.

David Heinzmann reports "the Tribune" smoked her out at a massage parlor in the west suburbs. His account:

A Tribune reporter visited the massage parlor where she works on Thursday afternoon and spoke to a woman who handled appointments as well as giving massages. The reporter asked if "Mandi" or Amanda was available. The woman said she was not there at the moment, and could not give a schedule of when she would next work, saying she usually gave massages by pre-arranged appointment.

The reporter asked the worker if she knew Amanda Eneman well, and she responded, "I hope so, I'm her boss."

At that point, the reporter gave the woman his Tribune business card and asked her to have Eneman call him. Later Thursday, a woman called the reporter's desk and left a voice-mail message, stating: "Hi. I received your business card. You're looking for me. I don't know exactly what it could be that you need to find me. I would appreciate that you make no further contact to locate me. Thank you."

But that's not the end of the story. Heintzman continues:

Later Thursday, another reporter returned to the massage parlor and encountered two women, including one who fit Eneman's physical description. The reporter addressed that woman as "Mandi," and asked to talk to her. She said nothing, but another woman with her yelled, "Quick--run to the car!" and told the reporter they wanted nothing to do with the story.

My question: Now where the hell was the Tribune with this story before the election?

COMM 209, 150: Media as government watchdog?

Now that a man accused of domestic violence has won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, an columnist for The Aurora Beacon-News has apologized for the fact the news media hardly mentioned it before the primary election.

Charges were dropped, and the story is developing. But she may have a point ...

(And in all candor I have to add: I'm a self-confessed news junkie, and my job as a journalism teacher includes keeping on top of stories like this. But I didn't know about it either.)

Here's a link to the column by Denise Crosby of the Beacon-News at http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/crosby/2030966,2_1_AU05_DENISE_S1-100205.article. Her headline:
We're sorry: Media let voters down in lt. gov. race

Crosby begins by apologizing, a "Mea culpa."

We here in the media -- in spite of all our crusading, editorializing and watchdog reporting -- blew it big time by letting a pretty important race fall through the cracks on Tuesday.

And I'm so very sorry we did.

Scott Lee Cohen, a pawnbroker with a GED who was arrested for allegedly beating up his prostitute girlfriend a few years ago, is now sitting in the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket.

And his opponent on the Republican side? A kid from downstate who is named Jason because, of course, he's under the age of 30.

She adds:

I suppose we can point the finger at voters who went to the ballots and checked off Cohen's name simply because they repeatedly heard it touting job fairs on reality show commercials. We can even throw the dunce hat on his opponents who didn't do their homework and blast this guy's credentials to smithereens.

But the blame also has to point back at us. We in the media, after all, are staking our future on that noble mission of providing readers all the information they must have to make wise and informed decisions.

Scott Cohen, I'm thinking, does not reflect a wise and informed decision.

In fairness, Crosby notes that the Chicago Sun-Times mentioned Cohen's past but kind of blew it off. The rest of us, she says, didn't even do that much:

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown admits he knew about at least some of Cohen's past because the candidate voluntarily disclosed the arrest in an interview. But Brown cast him off as a nut case with little chance of winning, then buried the really juicy stuff deep in the story.

And we media-types in the 'burbs didn't write boo about the guy -- or Plummer, either -- because we were too busy focusing on the governor's race, as well as some interesting local battles.

Nobody cared. Nobody paid attention.

Same thing downstate.

For his part, Brown acknowledged in his column in the Sun-Times at http://www.suntimes.com/news/brown/2029178,CST-NWS-brown04.article he could have handled the story better:

Let the record reflect that on the very day last March that Scott Lee Cohen announced his campaign for lieutenant governor of Illinois, he voluntarily disclosed he had once been arrested in what he described as a domestic battery case involving a live-in girlfriend.

It seems only fair to point that out now that Cohen is the surprise winner of the Democratic primary -- and everybody is suddenly digging into his background and trying to figure out who he is -- beyond that carefully crafted image as "the only candidate who is doing something about the economy."

The problem for Cohen was that he made his announcement to me, and I wasn't taking him very seriously.

Give Brown credit for writing about his role in the debacle at all. He doesn't really explain his motives, but he says:

How was I to know way back then that the Democratic voters of Illinois would be so dumb as to elect him, brainwashed by millions of dollars in advertising about his job fairs?

That's why I told Cohen at the time that nobody even knew who he was, let alone cared enough to want to read about his dirty laundry, and I didn't see the need to go into it.

I was only writing about him because of Cohen's line of work: pawnbroker. I'd never heard of a pawnbroker trying to break into politics, let alone aspiring to being a heartbeat from the governor's office.

But Cohen insisted he thought it was important to make the incident public right from the start, because he didn't want it to come up later and look like he was hiding something, a la Blair Hull or Jack Ryan.

So I duly reported the information, along with his explanation that the charges were dropped when the girlfriend failed to appear in court and with his denial that he'd done anything wrong in the first place. The whole business was tucked into a couple of paragraphs deep within the story, which I thought portrayed Cohen overall as a bit of a goof.

I can understand that. You don't have the time to write very much about every goofball who decides to run for office. It's like covering the Kentucky Derby: You concentrate on the horses that are most likely to win the race. Brown says he didn't take Cohen seriously until:

... a few weeks ago, when I started receiving calls from Democratic political types as his opponents came to realize Cohen might actually win, which I'd already figured out for myself just by hearing all his radio commercials and seeing his campaign mailings.

Some hoped I would remind voters about Cohen's arrest, but I thought that if his opponents or the candidates for governor believed it was important, they should make it an issue themselves.

Instead, I wrote a column about the very real possibility Cohen could win and pointing out how he was going out of his way to hide his occupation in those campaign ads touting him generically as a successful small-business man.

I hoped that would be enough to bring voters to their senses, which was my second mistake.

There's plenty of blame to go around here. And both Cohen and Brown deserve credit for going public about their mistakes when they might have chosen to remain silent.

But at least to me, it points up the drawback of "horserace" coverage that doesn't inform the voters about their choices in an election.

Mission statement / Sleepy Weasel

The Sleepy Weasel is a campus magazine of the arts and public affairs published by students and faculty of Benedictine University at Springfield, on the World Wide Web at and in a hard-copy format at the College's campus in Springfield. The Weasel seeks to highlight written and artistic work by BUS students, both in and out of class, and to help promote a sense of community on campus by providing a voice for the creative work of students, faculty, staff, alumni and others in the Springfield-Benedictine community.

# # #

[Rev. Feb. 1, 2010]

COMM 209: Tuesday's assignment

Tuesday is election day. Yep. Illinois has a primary election. Your assignment: Do a "soft news" feature on election day. Oh, about 500 to 750 words (two to three pages typed in 12pt Times New Roman). Choose any angle you want, and develop it.

At this point, I'm less interested in what you say than in how you say it. Talk to at least three people, and use direct quotes. The more quotes, the better, right? Organize as a "quote-kebab" story:
lede
+
your best quote
+
a 'graf (see below) or two of transition
+
another quote
+
transition
+
another quote
(and so on).
______________

* "graf" is short for paragraph.

COMM 150, 209, 291, 297, 393: Which means I want everybody to read it because it's the future of journalism ...

In this month's Illinois Issues magazine, a profile of Rich Miller, who reports and writes Capitol Fax, a newsletter on state government and politics that simply outclasses the so-called "mainstream media," i.e. the papers in Chicago, Springfield (and hardly anywhere else in recent years) that maintain bureaus in the Illinois Statehouse.

Nut graf, followed by a really good quote:

Miller’s readers are the legislators, staffers, lobbyists, reporters and business owners throughout Illinois who pay $350 a year to subscribe to Capitol Fax, the two-to-three page daily faxed newsletter that’s unknown in most of the state but ubiquitous in the Statehouse.

How many subscribers there are remains a guarded secret. Miller reveals only that there are fewer than 2,000; his home on Lake Springfield suggests it’s maybe not many fewer. In any case, friends and foes alike acknowledge that the newsletter generally delivers on its mantra of “Political Intelligence.’’

“In caucus, people will say, ‘Let’s keep this confidential, I don’t want to read this in Capitol Fax,’ and afterward, sure enough, there’s a special edition’’ revealing what went on in caucus, says state Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat. “He’s obviously got his sources.’’

McDermott also says:

... Miller, a former door-to-door salesman (“Better journalism training than anything,’’ he insists), started Capitol Fax in 1993 with $7,000 borrowed from his parents.

At the time, the newsletter’s mix of information, analysis, opinion and even advice to the state’s political leaders was unusual-bordering-on-sacrilegious under the rigid rules of mainstream political journalism. Today, those very media are morphing at the edges into something like Capitol Fax, with snarky blogs, real-time insider political analysis and other relatively new offerings.

“I think Rich was probably ahead of the curve,’’ says Don Craven of the Illinois Press Association, “and the curve is catching up with him.’’

Miller's way of reporting is more traditional, even time-honored, although we see less of it than we used to because newspapers have cut back so much on their coverage of state government.

If the legislature is in session, he’ll drive to the Capitol by midafternoon and stop by a series of what he calls “watering holes.’’

“It’s like hunting — you know, you go to a watering hole, and you wait for the animals to come to you. You don’t go out in the middle of the desert searching for animals.’’ The watering holes include the brass rail outside the House and Senate chambers, certain hallways, certain lawmakers’ offices, “the little nooks and crannies of the Capitol.’’ And, later, the bars.

The story is by Kevin McDermott, bureau chief for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It, too, is a model of good political journalism.