W12 – Part 2 : More Feature Stories

I don’t really know what to say about these feature stories. The main theme for these three readings were quite interesting, but it’s been really hard for me to get into the story.

W11 – Part 2 : Feature Stories

Actually, I was kind of relieved when I read all these three different feature stories, because I got no clue of what kind of feature story we could read. I know that I am not a good writer at all, but the thing that I like with the feature story is, it is still linked to the journalism rules, but the journalist has to tell a story. It is longer than a short story for example. It could almost be a novel.

If you compare it with a book, the functioning is not really the same. The writer has to hook up the reader since the first lines and give the justifier quickly, not like a book. With a book, we can read few pages and being finally in the story, with the feature story, the journalist doesn’t have this time. Why ? because, even if it is a story, there is a newsworthy part. This is what keeps the reader until the end and he can get the entire news.

Among these three readings, the story is treated differently. The first feature story is about a profile story. The second one deals with a cold case. The last one is about a personal experience. All of them reveal elements, describe details, and have a different writing style. This proves that a feature story could be modelled in so many forms. Also, there is not the perfect style to approach a feature story.

I just want to say that it didn’t pop in my head at the first sight, the idea to write about my own experience. But thanks to the reading “Serving in Florida”, it made me think that I could write about my love situation which is a love long distance. I know that a lot of people wrote about it before me, but the newsworthy point is that a French channel is going to do a documentary about us. That would keep readers from the first word to the last one. And, what is easier than talking about yourself and your own experience ? Who is the best product ? You.

W12 – Part 1 : Opener & Closer

1.

Opener :

The idea of the construction of a pulp mill, in Tamar Valley in Tasmania, doesn’t please the surrounding community. In that case, people, involved in this disagreement, started a peaceful protest and civil disobedience.

Closer:

Even the fines won’t stop the protesters. Having an airway company on your side to help you to protest proves that it worth it to fight against this project. Having a pulp mill in the vista when you take a picture of the Tamar Valley, is not the most exciting thing. Are they going to be able to protect the nature ?

2.

Opener:

Everything seemed like a nice cruise toward the Jordanian port. The problem is that the Melody  boat and its staff didn’t know yet, they would be a part of a pirate story

W11 – Part 1 : Feature Story Practice

Jerry the oldest dog

Wilcannia is a small and quiet city located in outback at almost 1000km from Sydney. Named the “Queen City of the West” back in 1864, and was at some point the third largest inland port in Australia. Nowadays, this city is struggling not to become a ghost town with its banks, motels, or shops.

Almost the whole population of Wilcannia is indigenous and most of them consider animals as a constant companion. The oldest celebrity in Wilcannia, is turning to 27 years old on Sunday. He has four paws and a tail, and he is named Jerry.

W8 – Part 2 : How to build a feature story ?

I really enjoyed reading these articles, it was engaging and disturbing, specially the trauma story. I don’t say that the other profile story was not interesting, but I am more into shocking story.

If we focus only on Thomas Kossmann story, this guy was not that stupid, but it is an other point to discuss about. Let’s see the other side of the story, how did Baker and McKenzie build this story ? Who did they need to speak ? When they published those articles, was it ethical to reveal everything ? How long did it take to build the story ?

Well, for the investigation, the collect of information, I think they had to dig deeply and needed to talk to a lot of people. They had to interview the staff from the hospital, also the financial part, I guess that they had to check with all the banks, insurances, hospital again, and maybe families. It was not a safe story, because too many parts were concerned with this craziness. You know, when money is involved, it is never a safe investigation. There is always a dark side to discover.

For the publishing and ethical part, I think they didn’t really ask themselves the question. If I were them, I would have done the same thing, reveal everything to the readers. It was a pretty bad situation. He treated his patients as a big gold bag. As it said in the second article, he “harvested patients for cash”, so if we want to talk about ethic, this was not ethical. SO the only fact that they Baker and McKenzie revealed only the truth, I guess it is just fair from them. Who wouldn’t know the truth from a case like that, it is such an important event, that it doesn’t sound real for me. It is always what we can read or see at the cinema. But what I have just said depends strictly on my personal opinion, someone else could be offended by this revealing.

Now talking about the time that it took them to write the story. I think they investigated more than a year to get all the information. It is a massive story, and there are always some delays such as waiting for the answers from interviewees.

I want to add few words about the second story. This woman who published her story through the help from the others, like professionals or unknown persons. It is a good adventure that she lived, and she is about to live. When no one want to publish your story, why don’t you take the lead and do it by yourself ? that was a good initiative. It reminds me this singer in France who could realise his album and distribute it thanks to a website. The functioning was, you edit your songs, put it in the website, and people could vote and participate with giving some money. At the end, he got enough money to produce his album, and few month later he got an award. Cool isn’t it ?

W4 - Interviews

For this week, the readings deal with three different ways of interviewing a personality with an impressive nature. An article about the interviewer follows each interview.

We really can all the different approach from the interviewer. All of them had to face strong character which mad the interview not that easy.

For example, the first one is quite disconcerting. Mae West tries to drive the interview by asking questions to Charlotte Chandler. Also the way she acted could make Charlotte uncomfortable, because she was kind of judged. I don’t know why, I could feel a lot of sensuality when I read the interview, maybe because of the main character.

In my opinion, the second interview was a good one, because Capote created a bond between him and Marlon Brando. Also the way he wrote the interview makes the reading easy, it is like a story. Truman had to deal with a very complex personality. But at the same time, he reveals about the interviewee, a lot of personal details. But I guess that the interviewee is, in that case, reflective. It is not like the previous interview, where she performing. She played a role , her own role that she always played, the seductive one. Here with Marlon, he is such a tortured personality, that Truman could feel it during the interview.

For the last Interview, we really can see that they were performing. They didn’t really care about the situation, and what position would the interviewer. And clearly, this doesn’t reveal anything about the band, except that they have no respect. It is disadvantaging for them.

W6 – Shooting Report

I couldn’t do the training, because I was sick.

W8 – Part 1 : Media Conference

Soft News

“We lost our car, but we could have lost our lives”. This was the thankful statement made by 23 year old retail assistant Rachael Williams.

          A casual trip to McDonalds in Frankston turned into a nightmare for Rachel and her plumber boyfriend, Jim Allan, 23, after they lost control of their car. Jim attempted to do a burn out at over a 100 kilometres an hour, skidded across Richardson road and crashed into an embankment.

         The vehicle burst into flames with both Rachel and her boyfriend trapped in the car. Two detectives, who were patrolling the area, witnessed the incident and were on hand to rescue the couple from the burning wreckage.

Hard News

           Police rescued a couple from their burning vehicle after they lost control attempting a burn out in Frankston at 10.30pm last night.

         The car skidded into an embankment and burst into flames after speeding out of a McDonald’s driveway in Richardson road at over 100 kilometres an hour.

         The couple, plumber Jim Allan, 23 and his girlfriend, retail assistant Rachel Williams, 23 were rescued by two detectives who had been on patrol.

Mr Allan sustained burns to his legs and torso while Ms Williams escaped unharmed. He is currently in a stable condition at The Alfred Hospital.

Ms Williams spoke to reporters outside the hospital. “I’m just glad Jim is ok. It was just a silly stunt that went too far and it could have ended really badly”, she said.

         Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland, commended the two detectives on their bravery. “The two detectives risked their lives to come to the aid of civilians. Victoria Police, on behalf of the wider community, commend their fast thinking actions and their bravery”, he said.

(…)

W7 – Hard And Soft News Leads

1. Hard News Lead :

         According to new research, Indian and Chinese students became a boom market for the Australian universities.

    Soft News Lead :

         An Indian student, Abhishek Puljal, does his studies at the University of Sydney. He arrived more than a year ago, and he selected Australia for many reasons. His brother came first in Australia and has been one of his motivations, but the quality of education attracted his attention as weel.

   

2. Hard News Lead :

         A Kew Grammar School student finished her graduation speech naked.

    Soft News Lead :

         The private Kew Grammar School has been a victim of a prank during the graduation speech. The teenage girl, Kate Logan, thought that after spending six years in the school would be the best way to mark the event, by finishing the speech naked.

3. Hard News Lead :

         In Castlemaime, after 41 years, « The Boy in the box » has been exhumed by the police in order to find how did he die, by using the DNA technology.

Soft News Lead :

         A four or six years old boy has been killed in Castlemaine, and has been found in a cardboard, 41 years ago. Due to the lack of the technology’s efficiency to solve murders, the “The Boy in the Box” case has been unclassified. With the extract of DNA, the medical examiner could determine the death cause.

4. Hard News Lead :

         A 42 years old man has been jailed after assaulting a police officer, yesterday afternoon at 3:49pm, at 63 Gold Street, Richmond.

    Soft News Lead :

Police has been sent at 63 Gold Street, in Richmond, because of a domestic fight. At 3:49pm, the 42 years old man, Harley Dudley, threw a painting of Elvis Presley at Sergeant’s head. He has been released last night.

W5 - Lead and Follow Through

Emergency story

Lead :

According to the police officer of Townsville, Tom Dimatina, the city is in a real danger and has been destroyed due to the two tornadoes, at 2pm yesterday.

The Follow Through :

Some people are reporting that a school bus is missing. Townsville have been cut of electricity, phone lines, water services which means that more than 300 residents are evacuating, and Townsville is still waiting for more assistance.

Court Story :

Lead :

In 2006, Amanda Jane Felsbourg’s boyfriend, Wayne Laffey, has been stabbed and found dead on Keith Avenue.

The Follow Through :

The Supreme Court declared Amanda guilty. She killed her boyfriend after an on-off relationship, moreover they had a daughter together, in 2005.

W3 - Journalistic Investigation or Research.

These three readings illustrate different aspects of investigation and research from journalists. The first reading, "SuperMedia : the future as "networked journalism"" is about the impact of the web 2.0 on news and information. The second one, "Haunted by details missing in the struggle for objectivity", is about this reporter who took a picture of Tiananmen before the massacre, and he has issues with the way to remember the facts. The third reading, written by Paige Williams, deals with poverty in Atlanta, and the evolution of journalism and how journalists should consider the audience's opinion.

Firstly we had the Web that we can call : the initial one. People just had access to all of these many Internet websites, could read, collect, and perhaps share information. But they were only spectators, they couldn't enter in this giant sphere of virtual data. The interaction didn't really exist between the audience and the writer, the generator of content. The flow of information used to travel in one way : webmaster to reader.

Since the launch of the Web 2.0, everything has changed, and anyone who couldn't evolve with it was out. This new version of the Web is based on the sharing of content between you and the rest of the world. Now anyone who wants to create their own website, blog, video or song, they don't need help from a professional. Everything can be home made. The most affected part in the web is news and information. Why ? Because in the past, news and information were transmitted by journalists. It is still the case, but today, I can a journalist, my neighbour can be a journalist, everyone can be a journalist. Due to the blogs, a lot of people started writing about their passions, their feelings, their envies. They interact with their audience, which give their own advices back. They also relate news and information, which sometimes are not broadcasted or published. Journalists don't have the power of control of information anymore. They have to deal with it. Specially with websites like Wikileack, which talks about private information from the government that citizen shouldn't know. It is a difficult task, and some professional understood that, hence they include in their researches, readers' advice. The world of journalism has been shacked by the Web 2.0.

For the third reading, the author shows different aspects of revealing information and numbers about the same topic. In this case, Paige Williams talks about poverty. The writer uses several techniques of interpretation of data such as percentages, decimals numbers, different kind of units. He tries to connect all of them, and each part has their own signification. This is the funny part, because it talks about the same thing, but each time the meaning defers. We can clearly see that the writer investigate a lot to collect all these data.

W2 - Facts and consequences

These first two readings, "Shattered Glass" from Vanity Fair and "Ethics: Sticky Issues in Gumshoe Journalism", raise the question about ethic in journalism. Both of them describe a side of journalism where the question of privacy and the truth of facts and consequences writen in articles. One is dealing with the amazing story of a young journalist who mostly wrote fake stories for the biggest newspapers and magazines. The other one explains the evolution of technical gadgets for picking up information for writing articles.


I called this article "Facts and consequences", because this is the main idea which is coming out from these two articles. How do journalists use facts ? How do they write facts ? And what are the consequences ?
Journalists can invent, create, relay stories. The thing is, the readers mostly trust them. Their job is really ambiguous, they have to write with the most sincerity as possible without revealing any private details, which could be a tough decision sometimes. Between the truth and the lie, the gap is really small. Stephen Glass is the perfect definition of the difficulty of being a good journalist. His story fascinated me. The way he created his character as a perfect journalist who was trying to get the attention from all of his coleagues. Whith his own imagination he wrote articles with an unexpected quality for a young man. He was able to write for the most important magazines and newspapers in the USA, and a political journal hired him, which means a lot. But in this fabulous story, Glass didn't even thought about consequences. Why ? Because he thought that non of his coleagues could find the truth. For some articles he mixed real facts with the fake one. Due to his no sense of responsability, he put the editor in a very bad situation with his partners and the readers as well.
The other thing is about privacy, and the technics that journalists use to get their content for the article. The question is, where does the privacy start and finish ? Sometimes, publishing just a picture of someone diying at the hospital can be a relevant element or just an abuse of private life. That's why it is really hard for journalists to write the perfect article.


Just for information, I saw the movie about Stephen Glass titled "Shattered Glass". It is an entertaining movie, and basically what we've read is what I saw!