COMM 337: 2nd analytical blog post - newspaper feature - ASSIGNMENT

From the syllabus -

Students will create a web Log (blog) and write analyses professional writing of 1,000 words each of: (a) a newspaper feature story, (b) a magazine feature, (c) a piece of public affairs reporting and (d) an opinion or op-ed piece on the blog.

As you read the story, be thinking about Donald Murry's "little green book that won't go away" and be sure to discuss these points in your analysis of the story:

• What does Murray mean by "craft?" What do you mean by it? How does "craft" differ from "art?"
  
• What the @#$%!& does that have to do with writing? What does it have to do with reporting?
  
• What is the relationship between the craft of reporting and of writing? To Murray? How important is reporting to this story?

Post your analysis to the blog, and email me at peterellertsen-at[spelled out this way here to discourage spammers]-yahoo.com when you do.

Our newspaper feature story is by Julia O'Malley, who writes a general interest column for The Anchorage Daily News. (She also is living proof there is such a thing as life after college for English majors.)

In this story about diversity training for a cpuple of radio announcers in Anchorage, O'Malley works off of a standard event for daily newspaper reporters -- a press conference -- but she talked, apparently at length, with the people who were part of the story, and got the information she needed to humanize it, to turn it into a feature.

The press conference was called by Alaska Native groups to publicize how radio station KWHL made amends after their morning drive disc jockeys Bob Lester and Mark Colavecchio broadcast a tasteless reference to Tlingit Indians.

A little background: Alaska Natives include diverse groups of people, including several American Indian tribes and the peoples we lump together as Eskimos. The First Alaskans Institute is a Native not-for-profit agency that focuses on "leadership development, education and public policy." One of the important Indian tribes is the Tlingit (pronounced KLINK-it). The controversy arose last spring when Rochene Rowan-Hellén heard a tasteless joke about "cash for Tlingits" on KWHL and contacted FAI. They met with radio hosts Bob Lester and Mark Colavecchio of the Bob & Mark show, whose joke it was, and their boss Anchorage Media Group General Manager Dennis Bookey. O'Malley continues the story:

At this point, something predictable could have happened, along the lines of what happened to KBFX personalities Woody and Wilcox, who made a similar on-air gaffe in 2008. That provoked rebuke statewide, from the Alaska Federation of Natives, to the mayor, to the Anchorage School District. The dee-jays were suspended and ordered to sensitivity training. And people whispered that Alaska Natives couldn’t take a joke.

Rowan-Hellén didn’t want it to go that way. Humiliating Bob and Mark wasn’t going to make them see things from her point of view, she said.

So instead of going public with the story, they quietly contacted the station and met with the disc jockeys. They promptly acknowledged they'd messed up and took steps to correct it. But it went beyond that, when they met with a group of Natives.

Lester, Colavecchio and Bookey agreed to be part of a working group to come up with ways to make lasting changes at the station and in the community. Lester and Colavecchio went to a training at the Alaska Native Heritage Center to learn about Alaska Native culture. When they were there, they met a lot of Native people who listened to their show.

“The thing that hit me that day was these people love what I do and I let them down. It’s like letting down a loved one,” Colavecchio said.

Out of the meeting came some changes in programming. Says O'Malley:

At KWHL, they reviewed all their radio skits and deleted the ones that had racial overtones. They apologized formally. They started planning some outreach events in the Alaska Native community. They discussed the possibility of having an Alaska Native intern on their show. And, the two guys, who over the years have flirted with shock-jock status because of edgy humor, thought hard about what it means to be funny. Funny can be irreverent. Funny can poke at public figures. Funny doesn’t have to rely on stereotypes.

“If I’m going to have fun, it’s with my arm around somebody,” Lester said. “I’m not going to punch them in the face.”

“You can’t satirize a culture,” Colavecchio said. “If nobody ever tells you that, you don’t know that. You are ignorant.”

For the last three months, they tweaked the tone of the show. And their ratings came back higher than at any time in recent memory. They hadn’t lost their edge. They’d gained audience.