Headline writing

Story 1

Teens negligence sets forest ablaze

In the first story two teens were responsible for starting a three day campfire in Ticonderoga County for not paying attention to their campfire.

Story 2

City votes against making dog bites a misdemeanor

In a heated debate the city voted down a bill that would have made owners of pets who bite other people pay a five hundred dollar fine and carrier a misdemeanor.

Reign of Error

I was amazed that many errors were found in these papers. It explains why people have lost trust in newspapers, and also may explain why readership has declined in recent years. If journalists want to be respected, then they need to take pride in their work and check their facts and not just leave it to the editors.

Corrections Policy

Everyone makes mistakes, but how a person handles and corrects those mistakes defines their character. The same can be said about a publication or newspaper. If the paper is up front and has a set policy to fixing and not hiding their mistakes, their readers will remain loyal.
Some blame may be necessary, but its important for the paper as a whole to work together as a team and avoid as many mistakes as possible.
In trying to discovery how the USA Today went about correct their mistakes I visited their website. Their was no defined policy for handling mistakes, but their was a list of corrections that was months long and had archives for more. There was also contact information for reporting mistakes using email or phone and the link to the corrections page was at the bottom of each story.
Although the USA Today did not have a defined policy, they made it clear to their readers that mistakes happen and they want to correct them if at all possible. The correction page was easy to access and gave the reader options to respond.

Money is a problem

In one of the more bizarre stories I can recall, A New York woman choked her boyfriend to death with a plastic bag when he ran out of money. The story was published in the New York Daily News, and was full of weird twists that probably made for an interesting day in court.
For one, the couple had meet in a psych ward, and where both released and later allowed to live together. Shouldn't the patients be required to have follow up visits. Second this woman had only dated white collar workers before so she should have expected less money.
It just seems that she should have been locked up more than 17 years for taking advantage of then killing a man with a true mental disability (bi-polar). She was a gold-diggerwho was way to greedy.

Jim Furyk's DQ

Jim Furyk did what everyone of us has done at least once in their life. He overslept. What makes it difficult is his tardiness cost him a chance at winning a Pro-Am tour event. It also cost him places in the overall standings in the PGA Tour.
It seems to me the Tour's penalty was a little extreme. In my opinion the PGA should have penalized Furyk a stroke or two for his tardiness but not disqualify him for a dead cell phone battery. The fans at the event want to see the best golfers in the world and were denied seeing Furyk until next year.

Important News Stories of 2010

Every year has news events that will stand the test of time. This year a lot has happened across the world from devastating earthquakes, the Olympics, BP's oil spill, and many more. Below is a list of those stories that have had significant impact this year.

1. Earthquakes in Haiti
2. House passes Healthcare bill
3. BP oil rig explodes leaving Oil gushing through the Gulf of Mexico
4. Republican Scott Brown wins in Massachusetts
5. Volcano erupts in Iceland suspending air travel in Europe for days.
6. Senator Robert C. Byrd of W.Va., the longest serving senator in congress passes away
7. Arizona passes the toughest immigration law to date.
8. Federal Judge overturns California's ban on gay marriage.
9. Chile mine explosion traps 33
10. Spain wins the World Cup for the first time.
11. Mosque controversy at "Ground Zero."
12. General McChyrstal Rolling Stone Interview
13. Jay Leno returns to Late Night.
14. Tiger Woods ever going scandal.
15 John Isner's epic three day tennis match at Wimbledon.
16. Financial Reform
17. Tragic death of Georgia luger's after crash in practice.
18. Recall of eggs after discover of salmonella.
19.SEC sues Goldman Sachs for bad financial advice.
20. Larry King divorces again.

Editing my peers

Editing can be a very fun opportunity to see how other writers cover an event. It was easy to read and edit people when I took JMC 302 and we where required to edit and design the Parthenon. It was not tough at all because I did not know many of the writers that I was correcting which made it easy to fix potential mistakes. As for editing peers it's a little tougher. I would not want to take something out of a story, re-word or potential change what a colleague of mine was trying to say if it would offend them. Yet on the other hand I would be afraid to miss a mistake only to have them come back and get upset that you did not catch it.