Jobs in Journalism

When thinking about a college major, I thought about going for an English degree. But when telling family members my major choice, they all said, "English. What are you going to do with that?" My next aspiration was journalism. With a journalism degree, they all said, "Journalism. So you're going to be a journalist." No one is an Englishist, so I suppose this was my error.
I love journalism, and I love writing articles for newspapers, however, I highly doubt I will find the perfect print job. I own a house and have a chubby Chihuahua to feed, so I kind of need to make some money and have a steady income right out of college. I got to thinking about it, and although I may be able to find a print job I would like, it most likely wouldn't have the income or benefits I would want to go along with it, especially because I don't really want to move out of the area yet.
There are lots of careers, however, that a journalism degree would be useful for. Book publishing, for example, needs copy editors--in the books I have read this fall, I have found at least 10 errors that made it to print; even in a Dickens book! I thought they raised the bar a little higher for classics! I would love to write fiction, too, like a lot of journalists would, and a job at a book publishing company could get your foot in the door.
Big employers like State Farm have marketing and public relations departments; all of which need things copy edited and written. And with employers like State Farm, there is generally an opportunity to rise on the pay scale if you stay with them for a while.
For any advertising job, a background in multimedia journalism and layouts is helpful.
With doomsday prophecies for the future of print journalism, at least physical copies, this definitely helps boost my morale.
Hopefully I will find a good job of some sort.

Newseum Articles

The North County Times, from Escondido, CA, was very interesting because I was expecting to see something about Prop 8, and the paper didn't dissapoint. Here there is a front page article with the headline, "Thousands march in SD for gay marriage." I actually have a friend, living in California, who is gay, and I know that he was planning on marching in some of the protests. I, personally, was shocked California passed Prop 8. The LA Times has a large photo on the front page of protesters of Prop 8. It's a really neat photo; I like the angle, and some of the protest signs are a little fuzzy, but I think it really adds because they are being waved around.
I thought the Sun-Times's front page was kind of funny; it says "Collectible Obama Edition Inside!" I know that he's from Chicago, but come on, it sounds like a cereal box.
I really liked this website, Newseum. It was neat to see all of the different pages, and how similar some were.

Busting J-School Silos

I really liked Amy Gahran's article; I definitely think that there is too much emphasis put on certain things in journalism programs. Gahran says, "everything in academia 'takes time'--and lots of it." That is so true! Just the programs set in place take time for students to complete--let alone coming up with the programs in the first place and getting them into play. I also think that with the face of journalism changing rapidly, the courses in journalism should also change, and rapidly.
I know that U of I has that News-Gazette writing class now that is really neat, and a very good idea. But there is no way a lot of students have the time for that kind of a class with all of the other requirements that they have.
I also think that a lot of time is spent on dragging out courses, when students could get more information in and more done if they spent less time in class, and more time at home studying or working on their homework. Journalism school requirements here are somewhat repetitive, too, I thought. I took J200 and J400 at the same time, because I was a transfer, and it was basically the exact same class, except J400 just took a little more of my time. I know that there have to be some stepping stones, but when trying to get out of school on time and trying to encompass as much necessary knowledge as possible, it sometimes gets a little frustrating.
I think that departments getting together and sort of picking a minor through journalism, like journalism and business or journalism and political science, would be good things. It would also be nice if you could partner with the English department, and do some creative writing with journalism. A lot of journalists go on to become novelists, and I know that is something I'm interested in, and so are a lot of other people.

Halloween

I really love Halloween. I can't wait to dress my dog up like a pumpkin and hand out candy to adorable children. My favorite costume I saw last year was a 3-year -old dressed like a race car driver, race car included. It was very inventive.
The Daily Illini has had some coverage on Halloween. Like this story about Wesley United Methodist Church's haunted house. I thought it was a really good story. I actually went to a haunted house at a church when I was in high school, but it doesn't sound like this one will be anything like it. In the one I went to, you entered to find someone dressed like Jesus looking forlorn because you're on the path to Hell. And Hell was mostly scary clowns. Personally, I hate haunted houses. I don't feel the need to be scared for fun. However, I thought that donating money to the food pantry from haunted house admission was a really good idea. And if people have fun dressing like zombies in the process, good for them.
I know some people may think that routine holiday coverage is cheesy, but I love it. I love holidays. And I think it's nice that the DI is giving such a good cause coverage.

Grammar Gorillas

I always thought that grammar was one of my strong points. I took a grammar class at Parkland College for an elective. I've always pointed out grammar errors in books, on signs, etc. I work at a library, too, and always skim through books when I'm covering them, and actually enjoy it if I find a mistake. I actually just found one the other day, in a book called "Catching Katie" by Robin Lee Hatcher. I can't remember what it was, now. But if anyone reads it, there's one there; it was something like the wary/weary thing, where they used the wrong word.
Anyway, I was actually looking forward to the copy-editing class, because I thought it would be pretty easy for me. It's not. I feel very small sometimes. So, because I apparently forget what I thought was ingrained in my mind, and sometimes the WWC book doesn't cut it for me, I found some online activities.
You can play Grammar Gorillas here. Also, this a link to one called "Grammar Blast."
I know the games are really basic, but so often that's what everyone misses, that it's sort of fun anyway.

Gas Prices

Today in Farmer City, at Huck's gas station, my parents filled up their car for $2.99/gallon. Under $3! Not to be dramatic, but I was in shock. It was fabulous. I filled up for $3.03 the other day. I'm pushing for $1.98, myself. But I'm definitely happy that prices are cheaper.
This article confirms that I'm obviously not the only one noticing cheaper gas prices. Find it here. I thought that this was a good article, because lots of numbers were thrown around, but none of them confused me. There were no percents, just dollars and cents. The article also actually cited the survey that evaluated the prices, instead of leaving it up to the reader to guess.
I remember filling up my '96 Saturn for under $20 when I was in high school and got my first car. I have a new car now, that gets good gas mileage, but driving back and forth from school everyday obviously gets expensive. So I'm thrilled about lower gas prices, as I'm sure most are. Yay!

Photo Ethics

I took Photojournalism last semester, and the ideology in that class was to shoot first, decide later. So, although the fact that these photos were taken sort of disgusts me, the shot was there, and they are, some of them, amazing (although gruesome) photos.
Personally, I wouldn't run any of these photos. If I absolutely had to pick some to run, I suppose the first one, with the little boy with his poor dog, would have been my pick because although that's one of the most terrible things ever, unfortunately almost everyone goes through that at some point in time in their life. My parents' dog, Griffin, who I adored, was killed by a car this summer. He didn't look quite so peaceful, however. It was very traumatic and therefore I wouldn't have run this photo, for the family, but at least it isn't someone killing themself or something.
I wouldn't run any of the other photos, under any circumstances. I suppose the one with the 15-year-old boy with the fence post through his lip maybe, only because he survived. But this photo is the one that affected me the most. It made my stomach flip when I saw it. Even though there are other photos that the people actually died in, at least it doesn't look so unnatural.
If the events were local, I most definitely wouldn't run any of the stories. I work for my local paper, and I cannot imagine EVER running anything like these in that paper.
In addition to the fence-post picture, I struggled with the last picture of the woman in the crowd probably the most. Almost all of these pictures make me realize just how sick some people are. It's just sad. And yes, it's news, but do we really need to focus on how sick people are more than we already do?
Obviously these photos were printed in some fashion, because we've seen them, so someone made the decision to use them somehow. I think these kind of photos are best left to the "Most Amazing, Death-Defying Moments" kind of shows on Spike TV. Except all of these people didn't live. So sad.