Class-August+25

=**Summary of August 25 Class**=

//“It’s the expansion of social scale that brings in the need for journalists….”//

//-Jay Rosen//

**Site Organization**

 * I want to start on informing you first about the layout of the webpage and how we shall keep everything organized and keep the ease-of-access at a maximum. A lot of what I will put here is observed on Wikipedia itself that you can refer to as an example.
 * First, headers should be used to keep everything in the same category. These can be made by changing the font of your desired header to one of the header fonts and follow that with your post in the “normal” font. This way we can keep everything organized and those that wish to post under that subject can without needing another section for the response.
 * Second, there is a discussion tab at the top of each section to be used for exactly as it sounds. The main page of each section should be reserved with general knowledge or opinions while the discussion tab can be used for the small posts of questions or discussions.
 * Last, please only post in the appropriate section. The left-hand panel will direct you to the specific subjects.

Gossip Vs. News
The major difference between the two would be that gossip relates to a small number of people while the news relates to a much larger number of people. The line between the two though is very blurred. News can become gossip via public interest stories or pushing opinions while gossip can become news via facts and how it travels. It is very hard to distinguish the two, as there are so many variables. Why are certain things considered news? Why are certain things considered gossip? Variables such as location, topic, target audience, and many others differentiate gossip from news. A main thing is that in journalism you are accountable for what you say and post while gossip has little to no accountability. (If you have an idea on what makes the two different please post it in the discussion section of this page.)

Print
People can get news from so many sources today: Smartphone, word of mouth, internet, TV, radio, ect. We must remember though that the true start of news revolves around print and the evolution of journalism. It really kicked off in the mid 1700s when Ben Franklin started using the paper to push his ideas and spread revolution around the colonies. By the mid 1800s though it truly became a professional field with businesses popping up all over to spread the news around. William Randolph Hearst pushed it further around 1900 as companies started using yellow journalism to catch the eye of readers. This trend continued for years and still exists today in some forms. From 1950s-1980s newspapers started to shrink as fewer people owned and operated the print as the press started to shrink and has continued to shrink. We have more forms of news and ways to push opinions out today than all other forms before it put together, but the old fashion factual news days are getting closer to an end. Today news has become flashier and opinion pieces are starting to replace the old news forms.

=**Comments and discussion about class**=

Class today was interesting to hear what everyone had to say about gossip being news, news being gossip, or it having nothing to do with one another. It made me really think, what would the world be like today without CNN, FOX news, internet or even E news, which basically only talks about gossip, so I don't understand why people say that gossip and news are totally two different things, yes they are two different things, but they aren't two TOTALLY different things. It's still delivering news to the nation, and look everyone reads it, everyone listens to it, everyone still watches it. All of it. It was cool to hear about how in the 1700's before print was out the men would sit around a table at a cafe, and just talk about all the new things that have been going on and then in the mid 1800's started to get more professional and they would have to listen to what the government would say and use that in the newspaper.

-Shelby Hayden

In my opinion when we talked about News vs. Gossip, when the comment of Gossip not being able to be in the same category as news I agree to disagree. Things that People magazine and OK! magazine publish is obviously what people want to know. It's news to them, maybe not to some people but to others thats the news they want to hear. I actually know a few people who would rather know about the most recent celebrity break up then hear about politics. They are two totally different categories, yet in my opinion depends on the person it's coming from. If celebrity hook ups and break ups wasn't a certain news that people were into the magazines obviously wouldn't publish them if nobody wanted to hear about it. -Devyn Kinard

I thought todays class was quite interesting and very informational.. To find a common ground between what is gossip and what is news is a harder question then I necessarily thought it would be. In todays world we thrive off of news, and without Its distribution we would all be doomed. But how does a society made up of lies and rumors, get the concrete truth? Well, in my opinion, that line between gossip and new's is very much blurred. I think the both of them intertwine with each other in a sense. When our culture gets some sort of news, no matter how it was told to us we all put our own unique spin on it.. Not fabricating it, just exaggerating how we perceive an event, idea or situation... So inn conclusion, gossip is essentially news.

- Madison Stratton

I really enjoyed yesterdays class and it exciting to start off in such a great way. From just the previous two classes, I can see that there is going to be a lot of communication and discussion from classmate to classmate, and from us students with the professors. I thought the video was very interesting and Jay Rosen brought some great points to mind while tying it in with his cheesey, but humorous "comedy." I felt Jerry's discussion on news history, although brief and very summarized, held a lot of information and shows us students a quick outline of the advancement of news and the use of journalism throughout the years. I found it amusing that one of the first papers in London was titled, "The Tattler." To me, gossip IS news, but not life changing critical news except to those possibly related to the figures involved. We as citizens use that more of entertainment to see celebrity flaws and get a laugh, or feel disgust towards people professed to be so "perfect." I would like to continue my discussion but it's time for class! -Jeremy Sawri

Yesterday's class was very informative for me. I had never really thought about what made news news. I also found it very interesting how students had mentioned newspapers from other countries containing American news and how they also arent shy when printing newspapers that are very bias. Learning some of the history of journalism definitely brings in, i guess you could say appreciation for it. Sometimes we dont look back at how things became, we just know they are. It makes you think you know, wow we are where we are today because of people like Addison and Steele or Hearst and Pulitzer. Another thing that had me thinking was, what's the difference between news and gossip and seeing how blurred the line is between them. Overall a great class with lots of new information for me.

After yesterdays class, I am really looking forward to this semester. The Gossip vs. News conversation, to me, brings forth a lot of interesting points. It does seem as though the two, yet different, are very much the same. When I went back and re-read the reading assignment from last time, it really struck me that so many people where interested in the news not just to find out about political events, but more to stay updated on entertainment and things that directly affected their day-to-day life even, even in the early 1990's. It seems that it is still the same today. Yes, so much of the news is important, and in order to make educated opinions when it comes to politics, however sometimes the other "less important" news, we use as a tool to communicate and socialize. As for me, the more social/gossip news (celebrity, etc) is so interesting because I think its so cool to see how different people live. I'm looking forward to learning more in this class! -Katie Moses

=== In Class, it was interesting to hear everyone’s opinion on how they deciphered gossip vs. news. So and So considerers their news to be on what updates there are about the war, while others see their “news” as being if Brad and Angelina are still together. So it’s still debatable on what can be considered news vs what can be considered gossip by the person who is asked. I love my gossip magazines, but I can’t always rely on what information it is telling me because more then half of the time, the information given is false. Gossip is a theory and a mix of fact and opinion, that being said it is not always seen as a reliable source of information as it may lead to being complete fiction. News being the sense of journalism, it is more reliable because most news stories are backed up with evidence and doesn’t contain personal opinions. Again, it depends on who is asked to see what they consider “news”. -Danielle Davis ===

Yesterday’s class was very revealing to me in many ways. First of all, it was interesting to see how many ways there are for people in this day in age to fin information or news, whether it is on the internet or in the daily newspaper. After this discussion, we went into the talk about the development of journalism starting in London in the 1700 coffee shops. It fascinates me to think that for hundreds of years, there was only one way to get information, which was through printed journalism. What amazes me is how quickly people could still write a story down and put it in a paper for people to read back before there was the internet, or even the radio or telegraph. The speed at which these people could distribute a story to people before our modern telecommunications devices truly shows how important the news, and journalism is to people. It really makes me feel like I picked the right major, since what we do matters to so many people. I really am looking forward to the rest of the semester in this class, especially after hearing the discussions from our class yesterday. -Eric Wilkinson

Yesterday's class gave me a much clearer perspective of the history of news. Since technology is constantly becoming more and more innovative and there is a plethora of different ways to get news, it is interesting that there was only one source that people relied on for centuries, print. A part of the history of news that really sparks my interest is yellow journalism. William Hearst and Pulitzer owned many newspaper companies in which they would fabricate and sensationalize the news for a more fascinating story and an increase in circulation. These journalists stopped reporting news and started controlling it, and consequently controlled the public's opinion who trusted their papers as credible sources. About gossip vs. news, I have to disagree with some of the classmates that gossip is news. Although many people are interested in and constantly updated on celebrity gossip, I don't think it can be considered news because it doesn't have any impact on their lives. If Tiger Woods cheats on his wife or Britney Spears shaves her head, that is their personal business and won't have any effect on the life of the reader. I myself occasionally tune into E! and find it entertaining, but I keep in mind that celebrity news is really only relevant to the celebrity themselves. But there is no doubt that a legislation passed, a new supreme court justice, or a natural disaster will have some effect on people's lives and the future, those are examples of news. Alisha Wexler

It’s funny to think about how no matter what decade (or even century) people are in, there has always been a craving for news. In today’s discussion, I truly agree with the fact that one cannot go a single day without contact to some sort of news source. In fact, sometimes we come across news without even trying. I used to think that the only place to get news online was to go to websites such as CNN or Yahoo directly. But with social networking sites such as Facebook, all you have to do is scroll down on the Wall and one of your friends is bound to have most recent news story posted for all to see. Whether it is the latest protest or proposition, it will be on there. It’s a curious thing, Facebook. Originally made as means for college students to keep in touch with friends and network with others, Facebook seems as though it is steadily climbing the wall to one of the top news sources. But just like any other news source, one must always make sure there isn’t some sort of twist or bias in it. -Andrea Blanco Gossip is news lacking purpose, news on the other hand is the cure for all of the ills in society that you didn't even know were there. The article "The Surge Home" in __The Christian Science Monitor__ demonstrates how news motivates your view. The article seems to be very sympathetic to the problems facing returning US soldiers; the caption on page 25 states, "Though veterans of all wars account for only 11% of the US population, they make up 26% of the country's homeless.", there are constant references to the lack of employment opportunities for vets with little on no correlation between the two and no regard to the responsibility of the American Government for soldiers. It seems to imply that the general view of the soldier should be one of pity, sympathy and reverence; the romantic embodiment of American patriotism. It is this image that sells, this story that sells, no one wants to hear about the soldier retruning from overseas where they typed letters and answered phones, and returned to the work force only to lose every job opportunity to a bearded 22 year old college graduate wearing psuedo-intellectual horn-rimmed glasses, talking on an iphone, red Vans and a BA in Political Science in his back pocket. Obviously lacking testosterone, that kind of story could not sell itself for a buck-twenty out on I-80.The article seems to focus explicitly on the devestating effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) establising the bar of expectation for most if not all US soldiers returning back America to be far below normal. Biased articles only contribute to the mass hysteria of a desensitized, hypochodrial society. Once the story is told, who really cares about how it truly ends... -Joey Thomas Journalism has never been my area of knowledge or interest, and I do not think it will ever will be. I do not read news because most of it is about politics, and I am just about as good at politics as I am good in math. (For those who did not get it, I do not understand math, and therefore, I do not understand politics.) However, I have to agree that gossip is not news because there is no validity to it. News, on the other hands, are facts; they are something concrete. Many people already pointed something like this out but if one were to compare the two, it becomes clear that one cannot truly verify if Brad Pitt is a homosexual (I obviously I made that up, but if I ever posted that online and it caught on, Brad being gay might have become the newest rumor), however, one can verify an article on newest legislature. - Denys Khalevskyy

=**Links from class**=

Neil Young: Ohio media type="youtube" key="OV0rAwk4lFE?fs=1" height="505" width="640"

[|Wikipedia entry on Ohio]

=**Video by Jay Rosen**= media type="custom" key="8228412"