Step 1: Find journalism student (preferably fresh.)
Step 2: Carefully remove marrow from the first two paragraphs of an article.
Step 3: Label anatomy of an article and then overexplain each segment. The use of models, diagrams, and strange pictures from the 80's are useful in this step.
Step 4: Have student read extensive piece on future of newspapers. (Doomed. We're all doomed.)
Step 5: Serve chilled.
Alright this is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. Chapters six and seven from the Missouri Group's "News Reporting and Writing" had its strong points. Nothing written was wrong. Yet, it's this sort of analysis that kills my appetite for journalism. The idea of spitting out inverted pyramids for the rest of my life is as far from appealing as I can possibly imagine. Journalism offers (and therefore needs) so much more than that both in terms of passion and skill. This reading committed the same crime that every English class I took in high school did... it makes journalism too concrete. "Use figures of speech" instructs chapter seven. "Analogies such as similes and metaphors permit writers to show similarities and contrasts." True, but wouldn't you think that journalism students at this stage would know such a thing?
I suppose I just need more ambiguity when it comes to my future career.
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1 comment:
Wonderful post. I laughed out loud at your recipe. The one ingredient that may save your enthusiasm in this semester of unavoidable inverted pyramids is content. There's nothing like a strong story.
Actually, that's not all. Some Web news producers are coming up with new ways to tell the news, such as breaking out the ingredients into separate chunks. I saw an ESPN page about a game that broke the story into pieces like "the hero" and "the turning point." I hope that isn't even more dismaying to you.
I'll think about working some assignments into the course that aren't hard news.
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