- One topic I would like to discuss further in class from The New Precision Journalism is the term “passive innocent” and seeing journalism as a whole through the sense of a scientific method. I wouldn’t say I don’t understand it, but I do think it is something that could be debated and would like to talk about it. I understand the importance of remaining “objective” and see where the writer is coming from in the sense that journalism has to root from facts because if it doesn’t than it is fiction instead of news, but I don’t agree with turning it into a systematic formula. (I could also just be reading way too much into that paragraph.) On a more technical note, I seem to struggle with grasping the concept of percentages over 100, and percent increases over 1,000, etc. And although I previously stated my disagreement with making journalism scientific, I did like the comparisons the writer made regarding the similarities between the way journalists and scientists think. If there is one thing being a journalism major has made me, it is a skeptic.
- Yes. I believe that the concept of class, and the visual stereotypes and societal norms that go with it, are still so engraved in people’s minds that class and the income inequality debate go hand-in-hand.
- “A little over a month ago I got really drunk and lost my ID. I don’t have a car so it’s hard to go to the DMV to get a new one,” Hunter Smith, 22, said in response to asking why he works at the Taco Bell on Wedington Drive. “My mom works here too so it’s really the only place I can work for the time being.” Smith is saving up as much as he can so he can get a car, move out of his parents house, go back to school and finally get a “real job, maybe at IHOP or something,” he said. Smith, who only makes $8.50 an hour, considers his family to be in the lower-working class in Fayetteville, but he said that it didn’t use to be that way. “Ten years ago my mom was a nurse and my dad was a doctor, now we’re barely making ends meet.”
Katie
Yes, we plan to discuss the “passive innocent” concept in journalism, which I hope has died and gone to the great beyond. But this idea is part of the fiber of the field, so it is worth understanding.
This Hunter Smith material seems terrific. How did you find him? Nice work!
Comments on graphics.
They look good. I would be a but more bold with the colors – try to get a better visual variation on the data
County names should be simplified to get rid of “county,Arkansas”
I like the “single mother households” headline. Smart way of distilling it down.
Should Franklin and Stone counties, with 0 returns, be in the list?
With the 67 counties below the national poverty line, what is a good way to designate the national and state average?
Write out Percent instead of % in the headline.
–Prof. Wells