What the hell is social media (in 2 minutes)
June 14th, 2010 — Uncategorized
The Onion: Serving readers (?)
June 11th, 2010 — Uncategorized
Pulse news reader for iPad
June 3rd, 2010 — Uncategorized
How much oil has leaked into the Gulf of Mexico?
May 31st, 2010 — Uncategorized
Wired on the iPad
May 26th, 2010 — Uncategorized
All about Google TV
May 21st, 2010 — Uncategorized
The social media revolution
May 13th, 2010 — Uncategorized
What are we going to do without newspapers?
March 9th, 2010 — Comm203, Introduction to Journalism, journalism
Think the media doesn’t have impact?
March 8th, 2010 — Comm203 Tagged Network
Common Errors: Bias article (cont.)
February 21st, 2010 — Comm203, common errors, journalism
There’s some repetition here, but that’s the point: It is my experience that you repeat the same mistakes over and over. So try to pay attention to these points and learn from them. Your next story will reflect the improvement.
- While and as: These words make poor connectors after a comma or semicolon. Instead, start a new sentence. Keeps it simple!
- I wish I could have a quarter for every comma fault …
- So many overlong paragraphs.
- So many long, run-on sentences.
- The word “claims” is biased. You are doubting someone else’s comment.
- MW = missing word(s). It indicates a lack of proofreading.
- Journalists are reporters or writers, not authors. Authors write books.
- Avoid some prepositional phrases by using the possessive.
- Sarah Palin is Palin on second reference unless there is another Palin in the story.
- Using the passive voice is like running around a forehand in tennis to hit a backhand.
- “Orphan quotes” tell the reader that you’re not using the best, or right, word.
- Magazines publish stories. Journalists write stories.
- Bias is a singular noun, biases is a plural noun, biased is a transitive verb.
- Republican and Democrat are not interchangeable with conservative and liberal. The party names are proper nouns and capitalized.
- There is no ital or underlining in Associated Press Style.
- The purpose of circling pronouns in your first draft was: a), to see if you can identify pronouns; b), to create a habit on your part to replace pronouns, which are euphemisms, with nouns.
- Words like “continues” and especially “goes on to say” indicate that you are writing chronologically rather than in descending order of importance.
- First names on first reference.
- Reporters don’t write their own headlines (PLEASE don’t use the word “title”). Therefore, a headline doesn’t necessarily indicate the writer’s bias.
- WC and WW indicates poor word choice and a failure of the editing process of reread, revise, rewrite and proofread. Use a dictionary!