I like grammar. I think that to effectively communicate your feelings, opinions, and knowledge you also will have to be able to adequately use grammar. I can’t stand when someone calls me out on using poor grammar because I think it makes people look uneducated when they do not use it correctly.

I think the most difficult thing about grammar is using colons and semi-colons. All of the rules surrounding those things all get mashed together in my mind. On top of that throwing things like “complex sentence, compound sentence, predicate adjective, predicative nominative, and objects” into the mix only makes it more confusing.

Additionally, I feel like in every class that I have been the teacher has had their own set of little rules that they consider to be canon, and then the next year the next teacher goes all Martin Luther and decides they know better.

I think if we as a society decided to use one set of rules then that would make things a little bit easier. Until then… the dash will continue to be my best friend. I also wish that there were not so many rules to so many different things, but I suppose that is just the English language.

Brief refreshers of . , ? – ; : would not be a bad idea in addition to Who, whom and those sorts of things.

My grammar pet peeve: when people do not correctly use good and well.

My partner and I decided to do our project over Russian-American relations. This sparked our attention because of the crisis in Syria, and the way it is affecting the two parties. Additionally, this topic is not something that is going to be going anywhere anytime soon. Ever since the Cold War things have always been a little tense between the two nations, and the Syria conflict and Edward Snowden have only increased that.

I hope that we learn a little bit more about what causes such tensions, and why the two nations have such difficulty getting along. I hope that it broadens our horizons about international politics. I also hope to see how biased certain publications are to the different countries and how authors handle such controversial issues.

I really enjoyed going up to people and getting their opinions on this issue. It was a little nerve racking at first, but I got used to it after a while.

Question: How has Syria had an impact on the relations between America and Russia?

Ryan:
Strains it. Forces it into conversation about a lot of controversial topics right now.

Eric:
It causes significant tension between the two for the first time since the Cold War.

Austen: The Syrian conflict had caused Russian-American relations to become even more tense than they were before. Differing interests, as well as different motivations for control in the area, has caused a political conflict to compound the issue of a chemical conflict in Syria.

Grant: I feel like Russia has a weird motivation for what should happen in Syria. It is seems like they have their own interest at hand and we are seeing a cold war return.

Jace: I think that the conflict in Syria is making any negotiations or future negotiations between America and Syria more difficult.

Jeremy: I honestly do not really know.

For this assignment I used a Lariat Article from last April about Holly Tucker. The Lariat is a student publication at Baylor University. Holly Tucker is a former contestant on The Voice.

In this article quotes were utilized very well. They displayed emotion and they portray the primary character well.

“Whenever the song ended and I saw that all four chairs had turned around I was just in utter disbelief,” Tucker said. 

In addition to this they got a current student and give her reaction to a classmates ability. It is a different kind of quote because it has a paraphrased insert by the author in between.

“I didn’t really know how good she was until I saw it”, said Padilla, who had never heard Tucker perform before. “But once she started singing it was crazy.”

In addition to that she also got other parties involed with Holly as well. Such as her former record label, Uproar.

“We have always loved Holly’s music,” said Uproar publicist Zane Harrington. “We’re so excited for her success on “The Voice” Monday and we wish her the very best luck in the episodes to come.”

I think the only thing that was really missing was a voice of someone that was not Holly’s fan- someone that maybe did not like her voice.

The quotes make the story more real. They add different perspectives to the story. Additionally, they make the paper seem more established.

Obviously I would want to be quoted in a newspaper as shown above. I thought it was a lot of fun being interviewed.

Today I read the Huffington Post. It is an online publication that publishes every single day at any hour. The Huffington Post is a news aggregator and blog that was founded in 2005. The Huffington Post tends to write articles in a short form. The sentence structure is very simple, and a lot of times the article will be connected to another so that you can get more of the story that could have possibly been published an hour earlier. I think that the Huffington Post is meant for younger to middle aged readers that don’t have time to sit and read a whole paper. It is for those readers that prefer and quick skim of what they want to read and then they are ready to move on to the next thing. In addition to being at consumer discretion, the Huffington Post is also free.

For this post I read the The New York Times article titled “The Brand Of Me, As Seen On TV.” It was about the new appearances on day time talk television. The article is decently written. I found two pros and two cons for the article.

RULE: Good writing uses short sentences….. For the most part this article used simple sentences.

i.e. “For her debut, Queen Latifah chose to go old school”

RULE: Good writing uses short paragraphs…. Most of the paragraphs were two sentences or less

i.e. “There are no rules to determine what works as a talk show. But increasingly, a talk show is something to be worked”

RULE: Good writing clears away redundancy, jargon, and institutional language….. The whole concept of the article was based on the brand of Queen Latifah, which could be confusing for the average reader.

i.e. “But this fall, new aspirants are jostling for a perch on day-time television , and they seek a talk show less to cap a career  than to expand their marketing horizons.” (Jargon and confusing language in bold)

RULE: Good writing comes to the point quickly…. This article from the beginning sort of beats around the bush with getting to the point and the things you really want to know.

To read the beginning of this article click Here.

In class we had to write news leads based on prompts that Ms. Cullar gave to us. As far as writing generic summary leads, I thought it was fairly simple. The only hard thing about writing leads in the inverted pyramid stye for me was that I always want to make them into headlines. I want to entice the readers to read the rest, not inform them of everything from the get go. Other than that I found it fairly simple.

Yes, I can better recognize the inverted pyramid in the newspaper. It makes a whole lot more sense why I never want to read to the end of the article. All of the important information is at the beginning and the filler is at the end. I get bored.

In class we discussed other people’s lead sentences. This was helpful because I now have a better understanding of what my classmates found as news worthy. Additionally, it was beneficial to hear the way they worded their leads versus the way I worded mine.

This week I will be writing about the September 11th edition of The Washington Post. Its first publication was released in 1877. The Washington Post gained high prestige for being published in the nation’s capitol. Due to its location, it covers the nation’s politics with more ease. It heavily covers politics, but being the major Washington DC publication, it covers a wide array of topics. The Post due to its high political coverage attracts people of a more educated and older demographic.

The first article I read was on the front page titled “DC Executive Linked to Secret 2008 Aid to Hillary Clinton.” In this article the author heavily discusses the new findings in the Jeffrey E. Thompson case. It has come to investigators attention that Mr. Thompson has donated a certain amount of funds to the Clinton campaign. These donations were made in the form of street teams that were sent around to help boost support in several states. According to the managers of the Clinton campaign, they had no idea that any of this was going on.

I feel like the author did a good job of portraying all sides of this story. It was unbiased from what I could tell. In addition to that- I did not finish reading with more questions than I had before. I actually had very few. I feel like the piece was well written.

The next piece I read was “Vegan Restauranteur’s Truck Aims to Make Prince George’s ‘Food Desert’ a Little Healthier.” I found this story to be very interesting. The author of this piece discusses the emerging topic of what a food desert is and how it affects the obesity rates around. The author portrays this through the Baruch Ben-Yehudah and his efforts to bring a healthy alternative to other establishments in Capitol Heights. The story was well done and incorporated differing opinions.

The next piece I read was “EPA to Revise Climate Rule for New Power Plants; Will Still Require Carbon Capture.” This article discusses the new standards that the EPA will propose. These standards with establish stricter pollution limits for gas-fired power plants than coal-fired power plants. These new standards will heavily restrict the greenhouse gas emissions. The writer did a good job of including the heads of the EPA under varying administrations. This eliminated it leaning from one way or another.

The Post is my favorite daily newspaper. I read it fairly regularly and it definitely resonates with me. I plan on reading it more in the future.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/new-charge-in-campaign-finance-investigation-into-dc-businessman-jeffrey-thompson/2013/09/11/c89cb2e2-1af6-11e3-82ef-a059e54c49d0_story.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-prince-georges-a-push-for-healthier-eating-in-food-deserts/2013/09/11/166f1f46-198f-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html?tid=auto_complete

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-to-revise-climate-rule-for-new-power-plants-will-still-require-carbon-capture/2013/09/11/89a78558-1b1e-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html

As discussed earlier in my bog, I will be reviewing various forms of news and news outlets. This week I am writing on the September 3rd edition of the The New York Times. The New York Times is a very well-established outlet, and it is probably one of the most popular publications in the entire world. Their long history of well-written journalism has increased their prestige exponentially since its founding in 1851. Since its beginnings The Times has covered a wide array of topics including current events, economics, politics, weather, business, arts, and sports. Typically the paper would attract readers that would be interested in such topics. As far as demographics- I think that The New York Times’ topics attract a very wide array of readership, however, I think that their main readers tend to have a higher level of education and are 35-85 age bracket. I think it appeals to this section because the writing is a higher level of writing. It takes an up to date mind with a great knowledge of the world to understand a lot of the paper’s articles. As far as the age group goes, I do not think that most people under the age of 35 probably read the paper on a daily basis. I am not sure whether it is because they don’t care, or don’t have the time, or want to choose what new the read. However, it is clear that readership in young adult audiences has never been as high.

The first article that caught my attention on the first page is titled “U.S. FEELS CHILL IN ITS RELATIONS WITH RUSSIANS.” The article gives a very good overview of the United States involvement with Russia throughout the past few years. It heavily emphasizes President Obama’s pleasant relationship with former President Medvedev and more problematic relationship with current president, Valdimir Putin. Then after addressing the changes in the United States’ relationship with Russia, we are then reminded of the Russians’ involvement with the potential attack on Syria. Currently there is much strife between the two Russia and the United States. Syria is a great ally of the Russians. The Russians believe that military action should not be taken until it is approved by the United Nations.

I thought for the most part that the author did a good job of keeping the article bias free. There were, however,  times where I feel like some assumptions, not facts, were used. There were a couple of times that it was worded to sound as though Mr. Obama was only using President Medvedev as a pawn to accomplish a United States agenda. i.e “Mr. Obama resolved to what he could to build up Mr. Medvedev in hopes that he would eventually emerge as the real power.”

The next article I read was one of interest to me personally. It was also on the front page and is titled “CBS Returns, Triumphant, To Cable Box.” Since I worked this summer as an intern in the CBS News Press Office, I was affected first hand by the black out. Therefore, the issue is of high interest to me.

In the article, the details to the actual deal are not really discussed. However, this article does make it pretty clear that the CBS Corporation came out on top. In addition to the whole ordeal I did learn something new from this article. The article, towards the end, mentions that government agencies were planning on getting involved if the black out would have lasted much longer. I did not know that this was even really possible.

I think the article was very well written and does not show favoritism to either party. It does a good job of presenting the facts as they are and not embellishing them.

Lastly, I read “Ex-Nazi, 92, Goes on Trial In War Death.”  I really enjoyed reading this piece a lot. The article is about a former Nazi, Siert Bruins, who was convicted on the charges of killing a Dutch resistance fighter towards the end of WWII. In the article it says that in the last months of the was that Mr. Bruins and another German soldier took a dutch soldier to an abandoned factory and shot him to death. Mr. Bruins was found guilty.

I found this article to be very well written. I enjoyed reading it because I did not know that former Nazis could still be convicted for things that happened during WWII

I really enjoyed reading The New York Times. It appeals to me a lot because I like to know what is going on in the world. I will continue to read it for sure.

Hello Everyone!

My name is Zane Harrington. I am currently a Senior Music and Entertainment Marketing Major at Baylor University in Waco, TX. I will be writing this blog as a requirement for a class at Baylor. This class is Writing for Media Markets, and on this blog I will be discussing and evaluating various media outlets most specifically with regards to news. Other interests of mine include cooking, baking, reading, singing, dancing, and playing the piano.

As a total news junkie, I get my news from several different sources. As far as written news, I utilize Twitter, I read the Washington Post, and I am on Facebook. Occasionally, I will use GoogleNews. As far as television news goes, I regularly watch CBS This Morning, CBS Evening News, Face the Nation, and 60 Minutes. I am a very big fan of CBS News. I agree with their mission of sticking to hard news. In addition to that, I believe that CBS is the least biased news organization. Although this can be difficult sometimes, I feel that they adequately portray both sides.

In class the other day we discussed the various news sources that students utilize. This was very concerning for me. The number one place people claimed that they got their news from was ESPN. I am not saying that ESPN is a poor outlet for sports news, however; I will say that since my classmates and I are of the voting age I find this to be very disheartening. How can we live and vote in a country and world where we do not even know what is going on. News empowers the voters to make quality decisions.

Many stated that they use online sources as well. While I do not think that this is a bad thing, there is a limitation to it. With many online sources, a person chooses what they read about/what is they think is important. Although it very well may be important, I think that it also limits what the reader takes in. Just because they may not be interested in a story does not mean that it is not important for them to know.