You know you have been in journalism school to long when

in your dreams, there is breaking news that President Obama's 10 year-old daughter has been caught prostituting herself, and you are feverishly hearing arguments about whether you should run the story or not in your publication. You can almost hear loud shouting matches between your colleagues in the newsroom. "No! There's a little girl that's involved!". "Yes! Because the public has a right to know!". "Blah blah blah blah?!!". "Razz razz razz razz!!!".

And then you wake up, laugh thinking about how absurd it was, and start the countdown 'til the semester ends.

Strangely enough, though, I think my dream made me think of an interesting question that editors must ponder: When can minors be treated as adults, and when should they be allowed to just be kids?

It would be my sincerest, idealistic hope that, in the highly unlikely event that something like this should ever come to light about Malia Obama, the news media would not acknowledge it. She is, after all, a little girl whose life would probably never be the same afterwards. It's hard to imagine all the damage it would cause that could possibly never be repaired. A little girl's self-esteem can be as fragile as glass.

But, the reality is that every single news outlet in the world would publish it. It would probably be one of the biggest news stories we have seen in a very long time. With all the money that could be made, would an editor really have a choice whether or not they should ran the story? Would the people that would have their wallets fattened by this kind of story have the same feelings of moral obligation? Would the readers be disappointed when they opened up your publication, expecting to find out more about the Obama girl scandal, and find nothing?

Must the decisions that editors make be based on more than just right and wrong?

Sexy Obama

This month's cover of the magazine "Washingtonian" featured a picture of our new president shirtless. The photo is a candid shot taken of Obama while on vacation in Hawaii, so it is not as though it looks like something straight of the pages of Playgirl. A caption next to the photo said "Our new neighbor is hot".

This has made some folks uncomfortable. It is one of the first times where an American president has been looked at as a sex symbol, and not every feels we should regard our president in such a way. According to a poll on AOL News, 54% of respondents gave a "thumbs down" on the cover. Yet, another poll that asked "Would it catch your eye on newsstands?", 63% of respondents said yes, it would.

I personally don't have a problem with it, if that is the choice of the editors. Yes it's strange and almost silly, but you must remember that this is a magazine and not a newspaper. Magazines are meant to be silly and amusing, especially if the magazine's tone is as such. It's certainly a different way of looking at the president.

Still Not Convinced

Sorry I missed last week. In the exhaustion of trying to complete the J-425 critique project, I passed out on Wednesday afternoon and forgot to blog. Fortunately, that project is now complete and my focus is back on the paper for this class.

I said I would come back to the issue of political endorsements, and the result is I am still not convinced that endorsements are the right thing to do. One of the arguments I have found that some make for the case of endorsing is that it's a tradition. In my research, I have come across a funny quote that shows just how silly and absurd that argument is.

According to Richard Stengel from Time magazine, back in 1936, the Chicago Tribune was very vehemently opposed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Ten days prior to the election, people that happened to call the Tribune's offices for whatever reasons were greeted by switchboard operators with the words "Hello. Chicago Tribune. Only 10 left to save the American way of life".

So yeah. My position in my paper is that political endorsements 1) are not objective 2) open up a proverbial pandora's box for corruption and 3) outdated and no longer have the clout that warrants having them in the first place.

Alright. I'm out. Back to writing.

ciao -K

I was having a difficult time thinking of something to write about this week, so I went to The Poynter Institute website. I flipped through some of the recent articles they are featuring. I found one that is pretty relevant. The title of it is "Is It Right to Say the Suspect is Black? Or Latino? Or White?". The title is pretty self-explanatory.

It's a pretty interesting thing to ponder. Steve Parker from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the writer, and he cites the words of Keith Woods of the Pointer-Institute. Woods hosted a seminar where he presented his position that journalists should NOT use the words "black", "Latino", or "white" to describe a suspect.

I think he is right when he says that "black", "Latino", and "white" are one-dimensional words to describe groups of people that come in many different skin tones, facial structures, hair texture etc. I think he's right when he says that it is better to find other outstanding characteristics to identify a suspect, if they are available. People should try to be more creative and descriptive in trying to identify suspects than using old terms that can be stereotypical.

I had a really difficult time thinking of something to write about for our class research paper. There's certainly a lot of interesting things going on in the media these days. Some of the things that I thought about researching were the media's obsession with kidnapping stories and trying to figure out why a vast majority of them are centered around very young caucasian females, when infact many children of all different races disappear all the time, including male children. I was also interested in researching possible sexism with the uproar of people made about the clothing that Sarah Palin wore during the presidential debates. I think I settled on a pretty decent topic.

One thing that has never made much sense to me is why newspapers endorse candidates during elections. It always seemed to me to be completely against what newspapers are all about. Why would a newspaper assume that its citizens are not intelligent enough to make their own choices? Who said they ever needed help in deciding who to vote for? Yet, a vast majority of newspapers, so it appears, do choose to endorse candidates. In some of my early research, a lot of newspapers that do endorse are supporting their position by saying that it furthers discussion, but I'm not buying it. With my paper, I am going to try to understand why and hopefully have a more well-rounded understanding of the topic after I'm done.

I'll check back later on in a few weeks and report my findings and see if my opinions have changed.

ciao -K

It's a crazy time to be at the University of Illinois. Unofficial. Massive power outages. Placentas in the water system. The kid elected to be student trustee is being stripped of the title. The controversial figure Bill Ayers is a guest-in-residence at Allen Hall. Each are newsworthy in their own way. The power outage is the one that really made me think.

I was stuck in my room with no internet. As someone who has the internet categorized as an absolute survival necessity, I was pretty lost without my computer. Fortunately, I could get twitter on my cellphone. It was at that moment that I had wished that I would have been following the Daily Illini.

Twitter, to anyone that doesn't know, is a social networking site where people can post status updates, not unlike the status feature on facebook. The more I think about it now, the more I realize how suitable it is for reporting breaking news stories. As every new sliver of information becomes available, it can be posted to the web. It allows for a new, interesting way for a story to unfold.

It will be interesting to see how the media is going to change in the future. I wonder if one day, written word as a medium will become obsolete. What will happen if one day the news is only presented through motion picture and audio? With the rate of technology soaring, one can never know.

A journalist should always be prepared.

Placenta in Urbana

Has anyone heard of the story about placentas being found in sewage plants here in Urbana? Click here.

It was featured on Perezhilton.com yesterday. Perezhilton.com is such a popular website, though not one considered to be the bastion of quality journalism. Other than that, the story seems to be covered in a few of the local papers including the News-Gazette, but not in any of the major newspapers. I think it's a little unfortunate that, since it got published on PerezHilton.com, now people all over the world might associate our university and it's surrounding community as the place that has placentas in the water system.

Like I said, Perez Hilton is a wildly popular blog that dabbles almost entirely in celebrity gossip. I tried to find a number of approximately how many hits he gets per day, and it looks like the best number I can get is probably an average of about 10,000,000 per day. While the website is can be addicting, it's popularity goes to show downward trends. It shows that people aren't caring about the "meat and potatos" news stories anymore, and prefer "junk food stories". I wonder. If people only consume junk food stories and miss out on the good "nutritious" news stories, will society's health start to suffer? I already feel like it is.

Maybe I'm alone in my thinking, but it seems like people in America just aren't as intelligent these days as they used to be. They seem to be more shallow also. Individualism isn't as valuable as I wish it were. Atleast that's what the media seems to portray. But I think in the coming years, this will start to change when things like youtube allow for so many different people to have their voices heard, and allow so many more options for someone that wants to consume media that they can relate to. That is my prediction for the future of the media.

In terms of the R. Budd Dwyer photographs, there are far too many "depends" scenarios that have been left unaddressed. Some of the questions I have before making a decision on what photo to run would be: is this a paper that is primarily distributed by mail subscriptions or one that is primarily sold on newsstands? Newspapers that have wide distribution by subscription have to be handled much more sensitively. Subscribers are placing even more trust in you as an editor in making appropriate decisions on the things that are coming into their homes every morning. Newspapers that have greater circulation through newsstands have much more leeway.

But since the page asks "what photos would I run in MY newspaper", I need to figure out what MY newspaper is. For all practical purposes, let's just say that my newspaper is The News-Gazette.

For the R. Budd Dwyer photos, I would be the most inclined to publish the 2nd picture, assuming that it is an immediate breaking news story about his death and a feature. Under absolutely NO circumstance would publishing the 4th, post-bullet picture be acceptable. That sort of thing is best saved for those disgusting shock websites that post videos of beheadings, torture, and all that other stuff, which by the way, apparently still have the video up of this incident if anyone is so inclined and disturbed enough to watch it. You have to remember that not everyone in this country has sound mental and emotional health. It's far too intrusive to publish something like that on a front page. I think you would atleast owe you readers a warning, and you can't do that on the front page. You have to remember that subscribers are inviting your paper into their homes every morning because they trust you, and to publish something like that on the front could be a violation of that trust, especially to families with impressionably young children in them. If a newspaper showed up on my front porch with that picture, you better believe I would throw it straight in the garbage because I would be extremely offended by it. I have to imagine that a lot of people would be too disgusted with that picture to even get past the first page, and get chucked in the garbage. Not good if you are the editor. I would not publish the third picture either because it also pushes the line. The second picture would be my choice. It pushes against the fine line, but doesn't go over it, while doing the story justice for the provocative story that it is.

Onwards to the other photos. There are only two of them that I might consider publishing. It's hard for me to see how a story about a kid whose dog has got run over by car would ever be newsworthy enough to publish, so I can't think of why it would ever be published. But, if there were newsworthy text that could be supported by this picture, I would consider publishing it. There's no doubt that it's a beautiful picture, but it seems more like an art photograph than a journalistic photograph.

The picture of the devastated family with their son in the body bag is another photo that I would consider publishing. The death of a child is always a newsworthy story. It's an excellent picture because the emotional quality captured is extremely intense and very difficult to ignore. If the people agreed that it would be ok to publish the photo, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Under no circumstance would I publish any of the other pictures. Like I said earlier, they would fit right in to any of those shock/gore websites online. I would want my newspaper to be a classy publication, and there is no class in any of those pictures. I would find better pictures to visually communicate any of those stories.

Love Pacifica, Hate Name Errors

I have been a huge fan of the Pacifica Quartet ever since I arrived on campus. I don't think I missed even one of their performances when I was a freshman. Had I continued on my path of being a violin major, one of the violinists would have probably been my professor, which is an interesting point for me to daydream about. Needless to say, I'm very excited for them for winning a Grammy. They are such an amazing reflection on our university and I'm tremendously proud of them.

The Daily Illini ran a story about their win. It was a decent story with interesting quotes. The only problem is they made an error with one of the performers' name. The quartet's violist is Masumi PER Rostad, not just Masumi Rostad. I guess it's a good sign that my editing skills are improving because I'm noticing small inaccuracies like that. It's not a very big mistake when you look at it, but it's vital to not screw up someone's name.

That reminds me of when I was concertmistress of my high school orchestra (for 3 years straight ;)). I would get my name published in the program under a seperate subheading than everyone else, which was a great honor for me.

I don't think they spelled my name right once in my four years at Mother McAuley. It didn't bother me too much, but the more I think about it now, the more pathetic it seems. I even had a favorite misspelling, from which my current blog nickname is derived. They spelled it "Kimbereley", and I liked the ring to it so I changed the spelling so it would look sexier. And my name wasn't the only one misspelled. Some of the name misspellings were blatantly obvious.

I'm beginning to wonder how parents sitting in the audiences and reading those programs could ever send their daughters to McAuley, let alone choose to pay the exorbitant tuition. Whoever it was who proofread the names obviously didn't take it seriously enough. Since no one cared enough to make sure that the programs were presentable to the public, it almost devalued whatever we were doing onstage.

For my final concert, I was asked to perform a special solo with orchestral accompaniment. It was a standard reward given to the best seniors over the years, and I was so proud to be one of them. It was my big moment. My glimmering good-bye. And what appeared in the program?

Meditation from Thais
Written by Jules Massanet
Performed by Kimbereley Scarabello

I think it's a small statement of neglect when someone publishes material that gets the person's name wrong. It's not fun to see your name spelled wrong in print. But more importantly, it gives off the impression that you, as the writer and editor, didn't find their input to be valuable enough that they deserved their name to be spelled right.

After Janet Cooke fabricated a pulitzer prize-winning story for The Washington Post, she sold the film rights to her ordeal to Columbia TriStar Pictures for $1.6 million, which was split between her and a few other people. The film has never been created.

After Jayson Blair fabricated and plagiarized articles for The New York Times, he wrote a tell-all memoir about his ordeal.

After fabricating stories for The New Republic, Stephen Glass wrote a book and also was the subject of a major motion picture - both of which put money in his bank account.

After talking about all of this in lecture, I wondered whether or not this was fair. In these days, notoriety can be a pretty profitable commodity. It seems as though Cooke, Glass, and Blair have all been rewarded for their stunts with million dollar movie deals, a spark to sell their books, and a lasting legacy (not a good one, but that doesn't always matter to some). After all, why work hard and devote your every waking thought to your journalism career when it's just as easy to make up all your stories and land a major motion picture deal after you get caught and be set for life?

That's one thing that appears to be emerging in American culture that I really don't care for. Dignity doesn't have the value that it used to. Everyone's can be bought or sold at a price, with the market price getting lower and lower.

Nothing at the surface is ever at face value, so you can't make any character judgments on the part of Cooke, Glass, and Blair. I just wish they could have set a better example and did not take a swipe at American journalism's creditibility.

introductions

I'm no stranger to blogging. I've been blogging since high school. I currently host a blog that I have titled "Don't Worry... She's Harmless" on livejournal. Click here if you would like to see it, though it's probably not worth your time considering 1.) you have to have a livejournal account to open it and 2.) I've locked it off from the world except my two best friends in the entire world - my wildchild Jasmine from DePaul University and whiz kid Lina from the University of Chicago. By the way, the "adult content" disclaimer is a joke.

I suppose I should tie all of this in to news editing. I have found that, as small and insignificant as a personal blog may seem, it's true that you really have to make your own editorial decisions from time to time. One of the most important ones is who you are willing to disclose your information to. This new blog is exciting for me because a part of me has always wanted to have a public blog, yet I have always made the editorial decision that it is best for me to keep my writing private. I have developed a strong belief that my blog is mine. A part of what has made my blog such a positive part of my life is that I feel free to say whatever I need to say. My blog becomes my confidant.

As Professor Follis said, blog entries are the most likely to be successful when they are short and concise. This is where I fail. My blogging tends to be very long-winded, just ask my friends. During summer, weekends, or whenever I feel so compelled, it is not uncommon for my blog entries to be about 13 pages long when copied and pasted into a Word document. Most of the time now, with classes in full swing, I use my blog to record my moods, ability to concentrate, to-do lists, shopping lists etc. Sometimes, though, I like to write carefully-crafted memoirs for entries. In fact, I was preparing a lengthy draft for this first post that included my history as a blogger/journal-keeper; life lessons; favorite quotes; and all kinds of other stuff, but with all the deadlines (and tiredness) looming over my head, I'll try to keep it short and sweet for now.

But to sum it up, the written word is my voice. I am generally meek and mild in person and don't have a lot of things to say. It's easier for me to write my words on a page than to annunciate them with my mouth.

I am what I am.

Otherwise, my name is Kim Scarabello. I'm 21 years-old. I'm from Blue Island, Illinois. My favorite color is green. My favorite animals are tigers and English bulldogs. If I could have one superpower, it would be to fly. My favorite food is Indian. The three places in the world that I would like to travel to the most are India, Israel, and Prague. If you can think of any other standard icebreaker questions and are curious, send them my way.