Over the past 12 weeks I have learnt important writing techniques. I feel these will help me as I advance through university study and further on.
The key I have learnt the importance of the following in media writing.
Reviewing and editing
Grammar and spelling
Writing styles
Media platforms
KISS
Inverted pyramid structure
Lead paragraphs and the five W’s and an H
I have enjoyed this term and thank everyone for their feedback. It’s been a fun, albeit exhausting time!
Cheers,
Rebecca
Practical – Blog review
As per previous assessment feedback some areas that I needed to work on are :
Punctuation (no surprises)
Style
Tense
I have made gone through every blog post picking up on these errors. I have also read it out aloud as it really does make a difference in picking up those awkward sentences.
Technical – Reflect on the quizzes
This term, weekly quizzes tested our understanding of the prescribed text, English for Journalists.
Contrary to what seems to be popular opinion, I found it hard to engage in the text ‘English for Journalists’.
This could simply be my own different learning style. I find it hard to absorb any information from it. I am sure it is valuable for others though, otherwise it wouldn’t be a top seller!
I have to say, I am happy to be done with the quizzes.
I am a bit disappointed I didn’t always get good results but I am putting in the work to improve and hopefully this shows.
The mind frame guidelines for reporting self harm state it is best to minimise any description of self harm methods and to include help seeking information (Mindframe 2014). Therefore, the article does meet the guidelines.
Whitaker, W.R, Ramsey, J.E & Smith, R.D 2012, Media writing print, broadcast, and public relations, 4th edn, Routledge, New York.
Week 11 – Practical: Rewrite the article
Woman Injured in Train Incident
A woman , believed to be in her 30’s, was seriously injured after falling under a train at the Eagle Junction Station north of Brisbane.
A Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) spokesperson said the woman had sustained lower leg injuries but remained conscious throughout the rescue effort. The QAS said the woman had been admitted to the Royal Brisbane Hospital in a serious condition.
Police say they are treating the incident as one of self-harm.
For help with emotional issues or difficulties please contact Lifeline for support on 131114.
For help with depression, contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36 or the SANE Helpline on 1800 18 SANE(7263)
Week 11 Technical: Complete Quiz 11 – Style
I was hoping to get 100% for the final quiz but got 9/10 instead. Not a bad effort really. The question I got wrong was question five- ‘The most important factor influencing the way a story is written is?’
I selected the ‘subject’, but the correct answer is the ‘needs of the reader’.
Week 10 Practical: Photo Essay – Rockhampton River Festival
The Rockhampton River festival 2015 drew large crowds to the riverbank to celebrate the beautiful city.
Bettina Joyce, 49, enjoying the River festival markets.
Illuminated under colourful lanterns, filled with sounds of groovy music and mouth-watering smells of enticing foods, Rockhampton’s Quay lane came alive.
Rockhampton local Kiah, 21, enjoying the River Festival.
Local Rockhampton musicians filled the River festival with acoustic grooves.
A local soloist playing live at the Oxford hotel during the 2015 River Festival.
The Rockhampton River Festival also proved to be popular with families. Here, a local family is enjoying the 2015 River Festival.
The laneways were lined with a photographic exhibition by Local photographer Lisa Clarke.
The Jamaican food stall was very popular and the girls enthusiastic dancing and laughing brought smiles to every passer by.
Even rain couldn’t dampen spirits at the 2015 Rockhampton River Festival.
Week 10 Practical B – Headline:
A headline will vary depending on the genre it is written for (Ames 2016).
As stated by Whitaker, Ramsey and Smith (2012), a headline will summarise the story and capture the audience’s attention.
FAKECOMICCON REVIEWS SECURITY MEASURES FOLLOWING INCIDENT This headline outlines a key message and also states what the organisation is doing about it.
FAKECOMINCON PROVIDES SUPPORT TO INJURED This headline shows the positive actions of FakeComicCon and is an accurate summary of the story.
REAL FIGHT AT FAKECOMICCON A play on words, to capture attention.
References
Ames, K 2016, COMM11007: Week 10: supporting the story: packaging and supplementing your writing, study guide, CQUniversity, Rockhampton.
Whitaker, WR, Ramsey, JE & Smith, RD 2012, Media writing print, broadcast, and public relations, 4th edn, Routledge, New York.
Punctuation – again!
Week 10 Technical: Complete Quiz 10 – Punctuation
The punctuation curse strikes again. On first attempt I made 6/10. A terrible result but this is how we learn! Questions I got wrong were Question five, six, nine and ten.
As always the feedback provided in the quiz is very helpful.
The Construction of the Rookwood Weir on the Fitzroy in Central Queensland is considered a critical nation building project . Anne Stunzner from Growing Central Queensland stated that Rookwood Weir will deliver $1 billion to Central Queensland annually and generate 2100 jobs (Gately 2016).
On the pre- election campaign trail, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce announced the federal government would commit to $130 million in funding for the development of Rookwood Weir (Rockhampton Regional Council 2016).
However, since the election, the issue has turned into a political shift the blame game.
Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce recently joined Capricornia MP Michelle Landry in an scathing attack at the State Government for holding up the Weir projects that will eventually amount to thousands of jobs and billions of dollars for Central Queenslanders.
It would seem that Landry and Joyce are utilising the weir funding to frame the ALP in a negative light so if the project does not go ahead then the public will see it as Labor’s fault.
Rockhampton Labor MP Bill Byrne fought back and stated that Mr Joyce was ‘muddying the waters’ (Mesner 2016).
“When Mr Joyce announced construction funding for Rookwood Weir, it was conditional on the Environmental Impact Statement and business case stacking up. Mr Joyce was aware at the time that these processes were underway, but not finalised,” said Mr Byrne (Mesner 2106).
Currently the Environmental Impact Statement is in it’s final stages and progressing as planned (Department of State Development 2016).
ALP candidate for Flynn Zac Beers also stated that it is not appropriate to announce funding for the project until the completion of the feasibility study.
Figure 2: Fitzroy River Turtle Source: Fitzroy Basin Association
Environmental groups have voiced concern over the environmental impact of the weir on endangered species such as the Fitzroy River turtle. Capricorn Conservation Council coordinator Michael McCabe stated that “The proposed Rookwood Weir and the raising of Eden Bann will drown over 200 kilometres of riparian vegetation, damage the integrity of the natural river levees and floodplains, reduce water quality, prevent fish migration and destroy habitat for vulnerable species such as the Fitzroy River Turtle,” he said(Mckee 2015).
Editorial – The editorial discusses general information regarding CSG
Scientific articles/ reports
News reports concerning crocodiles
The CSG newsletter contains a summary of the group’s activities, scientific reports and news and information relevant to Crocodiles and the Crocodile Specialist Group.
How do these target the organisation’s audience? The newsletter focuses strictly on crocodiles, research and articles relating to crocodiles. By focusing on the specific topic they are targeting the audience which would be scientists and researchers.
If you were a science journalist, is there anything you may be interested in following up as a story, and why?
The story of ESTIMATING POPULATION STATUS OF BROWN CAIMAN IN THE CARIBBEAN REGION OF COLOMBIA(CSG Newsletter Vol 35 no. 2 April 2016 page 15) contains information useful to a science journalist including figures, scientific data, dates and also covers the five W and H.
What do you think is effective or otherwise about this newsletter?
I found the newsletter hard to read, mostly because of the subject matter but also the way it is designed. As Ames (2016) suggests in the study guide, there needs to be white space between text and lines. The text within a box should be emphasised , instead it is hard to read and looks messy.
The newsletter has effective attributes:
Detailed and specific content
A Regular issue
Provides useful information to its target audience
Contains photos
Focuses on information that is relative to the target audience.
FakeComicCon officials are working with the authorities to investigate a serious incident at their Brisbane event which resulted in injuries to twelve attendees today.
FakeComicCon CEO Casey Smith expressed his concern for all those involved in today’s incident.
“We are working to provide support to the injured and their families”, he said.
FakeComicCon has run for three years in Brisbane without incident, providing a place for cosplayers to come and meet like-minded people.
“I am very upset that this has happened – an incident such as this is not in the spirit of our event.”
“We will continue to work with relevant authorities to investigate this incident to ensure it is not repeated,” CEO Casey Smith said.
The FakeComicCon series is an all age national event that is run in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. Attracting international stars of television and film , the popularity of the event has grown each year. In 2015, more than 30,000 people attended the Brisbane event.
Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
– Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Climate change is a contentious and hotly debated topic that divides political parties and communities worldwide.
According to NASA (2015), ‘Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities’.
While the science community is in agreement, it is clear that Australia has an economic interest in the maintenance of a global fossil fuel economy given its status as the world’s largest exporter of coal (Beeson & McDonald 2013).
In the 2016 Yale University Environmental Performance Index, Australia dropped ranks to now be placed as 150th out of 169 countries for its trend in carbon emissions from electricity generation(Yale University 2016).
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbot was quoted as saying “Coal is good for humanity, coal is good for prosperity, coal is an essential part of our economic future, here in Australia, and right around the world,” he said.
According to 350.org, Australia, since the last election The Coalition and Labor received large donations to the sum of $3.7million dollars from fossil fuel companies.
In the decade to 2014, the fossil fuel industry spent $484 million on major lobbying bodies such as the Minerals Council of Australia and Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA). This kind of money can distort the views not only of politicians, but set media agendas and influence the community (Ormerod 2016).
Figure 1: Temperature Anomaly Source: NASA 2015
A ReachTEL poll of 2,400 respondents in May 2016 revealed that 56% believed the government needed to do more to address climate change and 64% would vote for a party policies that plans to source 100% of Australia’s energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar ( Holmes, 2016).
The Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Kelly O’Shanassy said “the vast majority of Australians recognise that we need new and powerful laws to protect the places we love from the impacts of climate change. It is clear from this poll that an increasing number of Australians support that goal on climate change grounds,” she said( Mitchell 2016).
Based on the evidence available one cannot argue with the facts. With a strong scientific consensus about the need for Climate Change action and consequences of non-action, it is in all our best interests and also of future generations that we all work towards renewable energy sources and reaching a clean carbon neutral world.
For further viewing, watch scientist Brian Cox take on One Nation’s Senator Malcom Roberts on ABC’s Q & A is excellent viewing and shows how people can twist the facts and scientific data to suit their own political agenda.
References
Beeson,M & McDdonald M 2013, ‘The_politics_of_climate_change_in_Australia’ Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 59, No. 3, pp. 331-348.
GreenshackDotinfo 2016, Professor Brian Cox explains climate science to denier Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts, video, 15 August, viewed 7 September 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxEGHW6Lbu8
The NBN is a nation building project that will provide high capacity data communications across the nation for individuals and businesses (Parliament library 2014). The NBN has been subjected to intense political, media and industry debate since Labor first announced the project in 2009.
Labor’s proposal for the National Broadband Network (NBN) was to construct a fibre- to the premises (FttP) network with a total cost of $44.1 billion that would reach 98% of the population (The University of Melbourne 2014).
During the 2013 Federal Election, the Coalition released an alternative NBN Policy. Coupled with the slogan – “Fast. Affordable. Sooner.” – the policy outlined a Fibre to the Node (FTTN) network using the existing copper network. Initially the Coalition NBN project would be completed in 2019 and to cost less than Labor’s, at $29.5 billion (The University of Melbourne 2014).
According to a report by the University of Melbourne, which discusses research into the Australian media on agenda framing of the NBN coverage, there was no set agenda by the sampled media over a period of 5 years (The University of Melbourne 2014). Although, the media coverage of the NBN is almost always negative and doesn’t support any of the positives to NBN with the focus instead upon the technical, cost and management issues (The University of Melbourne 2014).
Chief executive of NBN Bill Morrow insists that the Multibillion dollar rollout of the NBN remains on target and on budget. On the ABC’s Am program Mr Morrow said that the ‘project will be complete by 2020’ and he that he remains confident that it will stick to the $49 billion budget (Ryan 2016).
For a good wrap up of the NBN politics watch The Project with Waleed eloquently explain the issue:
Week 7 Practical: Write a news story as a very short broadcast audio visual script.
Based on Week Four’s interview activity where we interview someone and write a short news story, week seven asks us to write that story as a short broadcast audiovisual script.
Timing
Audio
Visual
00:00 – 00:10
Reporter: sally Seabrook is a busy , fit mother of three children who is devoted to her family and her health.
Shot of reporter
00:10 – 00:20
Sally Seabrook : My kids are important because I always wanted to be a mum (SOT)
Shot of Sally being interviewed on camera preparing healthy food with her children
00:20 – 00:30
Reporter: Health and is also very important to Sally. Being fit and healthy enables her to keep up with her kids and also take time out and look after herself. (VO)
Shot of Sally working out at boot-camp
00:30 – 00:40
Sally Seabrook I keep fit and train regularly to keep my mind in a good place. It’s my release time. It helps me keep up with my kids (SOT)
Shot of sally chasing her children around.
00:40 – 00:50
Reporter: When she isn’t busy keeping up with her children’s lives, sally spends time at boot-camp working out with her friends (VO)
shot of Sally working out with boot-camp friends
00:50- 01:00
Sally Seabrook: Being fit and working out is not just about looking good, it’s a lifestyle change. It makes you a better person all around.(SOT)
Shot of Sally with her children.
Week 7 Inquiry: Review Chapter 11 of your Media Writing text (Whitaker, Ramsey & Smith)
Chapter eleven of Media Writing (Whitaker, Ramsey & Smith) discusses writing copy for radio and television news. Writing broadcast copy is both more difficult and easier than it seems(Whitaker, Ramsey & Smith 2012).
The Key points of chapter 11 Media Writing is:
Keep sentences simple, brief, and energetic with only one idea per sentence.
Readability: broadcast is written to be read by the announcer as well as the audience.
Clarity: it should be written in a style that casual listeners can understand as well as making pronunciation obvious.
Avoid editorialising the news, remember to let the audience decide whether events are good or bad. Leave interpretations to the listener.
What are the key differences between writing for broadcast and print-based media?
Although print- based media and broadcast media journalism and broadcast journalism have a lot in much common, e.g., both disseminate information to the general public and engage in investigation, there are significant differences.
The key differences between writing for broadcast and print-based media are :
Print allows for greater development of a story that broadcast cannot achieve.
Broadcast is a simpler direct style that engages with the audience in a limited time frame using visuals and sound.
References
Whitaker, W, Ramsey, J & Smith, R 2012, Media writing: Print, broadcast, and public relations, 4th edn, Routledge, New York, NY.
Week 7 Technical: Complete Quiz 7 – Words
The Week seven quiz required us to read chapter nine -Words of ‘English for Journalists’.
This following quote from Hicks stood out to me:
‘You must learn to recognise the words and phrases that will convey your meaning exactly and vividly to the reader’ (Hicks 2013, p. 108).
My results from Week seven quiz were not bad, scoring 9/10 on first attempt. I made the error of not reviewing my answers before submission and selected the same wrong answer , twice !
I achieved 100% on the third and final attempt. Another lesson in always review your work.
References
Hicks, W 2013, English for Journalists, Routledge, New York.
For assessment two I spent a lovely day at the Rockhampton Cultural Festival.
Questions to consider are:
Who will be the audience? : The local Rockhampton Community including members of the Multicultural groups that were there on the day.
What Might they learn about the event? : Facts about some of businesses that attended, such as the refugee support groups. Dance and music groups they may be interested in joining. They may discover the huge range of food available and attend next years event.
How will I structure the story?: Using the inverted pyramid style and the 5 W and H with the most important information at the top and the other details fleshing out the story underneath(Ames, 2016, p. 1).
References
Ames, K 2016 COMM11007 Media Writing Study Guide Lesson 3: The basic news story, CQUniversity, Rockhampton.
Week 6 Practical A:
After setting up a Storify account, the requirement is to write an article based on the interviews from week four on what is the most important things. I did have some technical difficulties with Storify. It took me longer than it should have but it could be because of my computer. I was worried at first it would take me awhile to work out Storify, but I picked it up easily and it is really a simple and user friendly program. Here Is a link to my Storify article.
Random fact, but as a child I was an excellent speller. I loved spelling tests. It’s a bit of a worry I only got 6 out 10 correct for Week six. I think maybe I am starting to rely on spellcheck too much. I have to remember to focus on the quiz too, as I found myself skimming and not concentrating. On the second attempt and with more focus I made the 100%.
Emergency services outside Eagle Junction train station Source: Jasmine Lill.
Rebecca Ward 