Learning standards:I can cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
I can determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power and persuasiveness of the the content. Essential question: How does a journalist determine what is newsworthy? **********************************************************************************************
Oh, you thought Black Friday was dead? Think again. Americans spent a record-breaking $7.4 billion in online purchases on Black Friday alone, and another $4.2 billion on Thanksgiving Day.
News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising. Lord Northcliffe, British publisher 1865-1922
Well, news is anything that's interesting, that relates to what's happening in the world, what's happening in areas of the culture that would be of interest to your audience. Kurt Loder, American journalist, b. 1945
******************************
. Open a word document
2. Please read the following articles, noting specifically the 7 attributes that make something newsworthy. When you have finished, you will find 7 contemporary news articles.
3. Using the format below, (a) list the 7 attributes that make a story newsworthy (b) for each of the articles, write out the headline, (c) write out the author (note: some may list only associated press) (d) say why the article is newsworthy (note that there may be more than one reason); (e) then copy and paste some supporting evidence from the text to support your selection for why the article is news worthy.
Model: First list the seven attributes (make you understand these)
headline:
author
how news worthy:
evidence:
Due by midnight tonight
***********************************
What Makes Something Newsworthy?
1. Impact or Consequences
Generally, the greater the impact a story has, the more
newsworthy it is. Events that have on impact on your readers, that
have real consequences for their lives, are bound to be
newsworthy.
An obvious example would be the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In how many ways have all of our lives been affected by the events of that day? The greater the impact, the bigger the story.
2. Conflict
If you look closely at the stories that make news in any given day,
chances are most of them will have some element of conflict.
Whether it’s a dispute over banning books at a local school board
meeting, bickering over budget legislation in Congress, or the
ultimate conflict – war – conflict is almost always newsworthy.
Conflict is newsworthy because as human beings we’re naturally interested in conflict. Think of any book you’ve ever read or movie you’ve ever watched – they all had some type of conflict. Without conflict, there would be no literature or drama. Conflict is what propels the human drama.
Imagine two city council meetings. At the first, the council passes its annual budget unanimously with little or no argument. In the second, there is violent disagreement. Some council members want the budget to provide more city services, while others want a bare-bones budget with tax cuts. The two sides are entrenched in their positions and in the city council chambers the conflict erupts into a full-scale shouting match,
Which story is more interesting? The second, of course. Why? Conflict. Conflict is so interesting to us as humans that it can even make an otherwise dull-sounding story – the passage of a city budget – into something utterly gripping. And the ultimate conflict – war – is always a huge story.
3. Loss of Life/Property Destruction
There’s an old saying in the news business: If it bleeds, it leads. What that means is that any story involving loss of human life – from a fire to a shooting to a terrorist attack - is bound to be newsworthy. Likewise, nearly any story that involves property destruction on a large enough scale – a house fire is a good example - is also bound to be news.
Many stories have both loss of life and property destruction – think of the house fire in which several people perish. Obviously loss of human life is more important than property destruction, so write the story that way.
4.Proximity
Proximity has to do with how close an event is geographically is to your readers or viewers. A house fire with several people injured might be big news in your hometown newspaper, but chances are no one will care in the next town over. Likewise, wildfires in California usually make the national news, but clearly they’re a much bigger story for those directly affected.
5. Prominence
Are the people involved in your story famous or prominent? If so, the story becomes more newsworthy. For example, if an average person is injured in a car crash, chances are that won’t even make the local news. But if the president of the United States is hurt in a car crash, it makes headlines around the world.
Prominence can apply to politicians, movie stars, star athletes, CEOs – anyone who’s in the public eye. But it doesn't have to mean someone who’s famous worldwide. The mayor of your town probably isn't famous, even locally. But he or she is prominent in your town, which means any story involving him or her is likely to be more newsworthy. Prominence can apply on a local, national or international level.
6. Timeliness
In the news business we tend to focus on what’s happening this day, this hour, this minute. So events that are happening now are often more newsworthy than those that happened, say, a week ago.
Another factor that relates to timeliness is currency. This involves
stories that may not have just happened but instead have an
ongoing interest to your audience. For example, the rise and fall in
gas prices is something that’s been happening for several years,
but it’s a story that’s still relevant to your readers, so it has
currency.
7. Novelty
Another old saying in the news business goes, “When a dog bites a
man, no one cares. When the man bites back – now that’s a news
story.” The idea, of course, is that any deviation from the normal,
expected course of events is something novel, and thus
newsworthy
************************************************
News Stories
1)
Thousands run in annual Webster Turkey Trot
WHAM
Webster, N.Y. (WHAM) - Thousands participated in the 48th Webster Turkey Trot on Trot on Thursday.
The event was started by Jim May in 1972 as a practice run for his cross country team, as a way for them to get a workout on Thanksgiving Day.
As the years progressed, the event grew in size to over 4,000 runners.
Runners had the option of a 4.4 mile race or a 2.5 mile fun run.
Michael Jackson and his glove performing in 1984. Photograph: Doug Pizac/AP
Johnny Depp is producing a musical about the life of Michael Jackson that will be told from the perspective of the late singer’s famous sequin glove.
Playwright Julien Nitzberg wrote For the Love of a Glove: An Unauthorised Musical Fable About the Life of Michael Jackson, As Told By His Glove, which is described as “a fresh, revisionist look at the strange forces that shaped Jackson and the scandals that bedevilled him”.
Nitzberg proposed a solution: “I said, how’s this? Everything MJ has been accused of has actually been caused by his glove, which is actually an alien from outer space [and] feeds on virgin boy blood. They laughed and said, ‘Can you do the normal version?’”
The playwright turned down the TV network’s offer and decided to write the idea for the stage. Nitzberg began working with Depp’s production company, Infinitum Nihil, on a biopic of 1960s one-hit wonder Tiny Tim.
It is the latest project about the late pop star to enter production. Earlier this week, it was reported that Bohemian Rhapsody producer Graham King had acquired the rights to make a film about Jackson, which is said to span his life from child star to death.
For the Love of a Glove opens on 25 January at the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan theatre in Los Angeles.
Trump’s big, ‘exonerating’ piece of Ukraine evidence takes a hit
By Aaron Blake
President Trump’s Sept. 9 call with Ambassador to the European Union Gordon
Sondland is now the core of his Ukraine defense. Republicans have argued that the
conversation, in which Trump allegedly said he wanted “no quid pro quo,” is
exonerating. Trump himself waltzed outside the White House last week with a notepad
featuring the call and declared: “I would say that means it’s all over.”
Except the call might not have actually taken place — at least not like Sondland
remembers it.
The Washington Post’s Elise Viebeck, Aaron C. Davis and Josh Dawsey are out with
an intriguing piece that raises the possibility that Trump and Sondland
did not actually speak on Sept. 9. Instead, Sondland may actually be remembering
a phone call that other witnesses have pegged as taking place on Sept. 7.
And the evidence is compelling:
Trump has said he doesn’t remember the call.
Text messages that Sondland said surrounded the call (between him and top
Ukraine diplomat William B. Taylor Jr.) indicate the call would have taken place between 12:31 a.m. Eastern time and 5:19 a.m. Eastern time on Sept. 9.
A colleague of Sondland’s in Brussels said Sondland was comfortable calling
Trump only after 7:30 a.m.
The White House has found no record of a Sept. 9 call between Trump and Sondland.
Sondland isn’t understood to have Trump’s personal cellphone number, meaning there should be a record of the call.
Sondland himself testified he was “pretty sure” the call was on Sept. 9, but that he wasn’t completely sure because the White House didn’t provide him records
He also said he couldn’t “specifically recall if I had one or two phone calls” with Trump between Sept. 6 and Sept. 9.
Sondland’s testimony has been dodgy — to say the least — before.
According to Sondland’s version, he called Trump on Sept. 9 after Taylor texted him
that it was “crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
Sondland said he went directly to Trump to get clarity on exactly what he wanted.
“I recall it vividly, because it was keyed by the frantic emails from Ambassador Taylor,”
Man jailed for crossbow murder of pregnant ex-wife
Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo shot Sana Muhammad at her home in east London last year
Aamna Mohdin
A man has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years for the crossbow murder of his heavily pregnant ex-wife.
Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo, 51, killed Sana Muhammad, 35, at her home in east London on the morning of 12 November 2018. He burst in and fired an arrow into her stomach as she tried to flee upstairs. Muhammad, formerly known as Devi Unmathallegadoo, sustained catastrophic internal injuries and died while her unborn son - her sixth child – was delivered by caesarean section and survived.
A jury at the Old Bailey rejected the defendant’s claim it was an accident and found him guilty of murder after four hours of deliberations last week.
Passing sentence on Friday, the judge Mark Lucraft QC said it was a “brutal and evil attack” and were it not for the presence of Muhammad’s children, he would have shot her new husband too.
He told the defendant: “You have carefully planned this attack. You had two loaded crossbows and I’m entirely satisfied you intended an attack on Sana and then on Imtiaz. One can only assume that you were jealous of their life together and the fact that they had formed a loving bond between themselves and with your children.”
The judge said the crossbows and bolts the defendant acquired did not require a licence and could be bought online. “As is shown by events that followed, they can be used to devastating effect to kill,” he said. “Many, I am sure, will find the ease with which some items are available deeply concerning. It is for others to consider whether these items should be controlled and require a license for ownership.”
Unmathallegadoo took up position in the garden shed armed with two crossbows, bolts, a knife, duct tape, cable ties and a hammer. He was discovered by the victim’s husband who called for his wife to run as he was chased into the house.
Muhammad had an arranged marriage to the defendant, who was 30 at the time, in Mauritius on her 16th birthday, the court was told. Their relationship broke down in 2012 after an incident in which Muhammad jumped out of an upstairs window and broke her ankle. She told the police that Unmathallegadoo had stared at her as he sharpened knives in the garden.
Muhammad successfully filed for an emergency non-molestation order, which barred the defendant from coming within 100 metres of the family home in Ilford. The order was still in place at the time of killing.
Muhammad went on to marry Imtiaz Muhammad, a builder, and the couple had two children together and were awaiting the imminent arrival of their third.
The ducks on a small French smallholding may carry on quacking, a French court ruled on Tuesday, rejecting a neighbor's complaint that the birds' racket was making their life a misery.
###################################Story 6
(Note cite was posted Friday)
Black Friday shoppers flock to stores early for doorbusters, deals
If you received extended time, you have until midnight tonight to submit your material.
Let's review the rubric
Rubric for
Presentations
Category
Scoring Criteria
Total Points
Score
Organization
(15 points)
The type of
presentation is appropriate for the topic and
audience.
5
Information is
presented in a logical sequence.
5
Presentation
appropriately cites requisite number of references.
5
Content
(45 points)
Introduction is
attention-getting and uses a hook sentence, as one would in an essay. Lays
out the topic well and establishes a framework for the rest of the presentation.
5
Any technical terms
are well-defined in language appropriate for the target audience.
5
Presentation
contains accurate information.
10
Material included is
relevant to the overall message/purpose.
10
Appropriate amount
of material is prepared, and points made that are supported though visuals
that contain only a minimum of text.
10
There is an obvious
conclusion summarizing the presentation.
5
Presentation
(40 points)
Speaker maintains
good eye contact with the audience and is appropriately animated (e.g.,
gestures, moving around, etc.).
5
Speaker uses a
clear, audible voice.
5
Delivery is poised,
controlled, and smooth.
5
Good language skills
and pronunciation are used.
5
Visual aids are well
prepared, informative, effective, and not
distracting.
5
Length of
presentation is no more than 5 1/2 minutes. Warning given at the 4 1/2 and 5.
