Last week, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service editor Sharon McGowan visited the #loweclass #digital classroom to introduce us students to the website. The website originally covered three Milwaukee city neighborhoods, covering more than just the crime that seemed to find its way into the major news outlets. Now, the news service covers fifteen neighborhoods. McGowan came into the class because we will be doing a story through the Milwaukee NNS. Milwaukee NNS has been working with Marquette, as the website is run out of Johnston Hall. McGowan told our class that while companies are sources for news service, they are not partners. They are not their personal PR service, but rather report on solutions that these companies come up with.
Because of their work so far, the Milwaukee NNS has won the regional Edward R. Murrow Award for 2012. This award is awarded for excellence in electronic journalism. To Milwaukeee NNS's credit, the majority of the writers for the service are professional writers who have come out of journalism schools in the Milwaukee area.
"No matter what field you enter, you need to know how to write," McGowan said.
Milwaukee NNS uses a variety of writing and multi-media. In class, McGowan showed a video about two Milwaukee women who were creating concerts to raise money for the community. Stories of improving the community, rather than the negative stories the larger media covers, is the goal of Milwaukee NNS.
Milwaukee NNS is a news service that uses a variety of professional and undergraduate students to write stories that include print, by-lines, and multimedia. Stories can range from the crime that the big news sources covers, to what people in the community are doing to correct these problems. I am looking forward to what story I will cover, and how the final product will look.
Over the weekend, the biggest event to hit television was the Emmy Awards. The Emmy's, which are awards for the best television, was seen by 13.2 million people, according to Press-Telegram of Long Beach, Calif. Being in Los Angeles, the Emmy's were the top trending topic on the Times website.
The Times's main headlining article had a video accompanying the article, and like we have been taught in class, the video compliments the story while not repeating the story. I clicked on the video first, and the video did an recap of the major awards, while also providing some analysis of the pick. The video also had winners' reactions and small interviews after the show. At the end of the video, the anchor breaks down some of the info that was not expressed in the live footage of the event.
I thought the video was very well done. It gave me the information that I needed to know, and probably covered the information better than the story would have. After watching the video, I scrolled down to the article. it was a sizable article, and had I not been reading the story for this blog post, I would not have read it. But, the article moved quickly as analyzed the entire show, and rarely went into who won what. The article graded sketches and acceptance speeches, and the overall idea of repeat winners.
However, outside of this article, there isn't much multimedia being used by the Times. There is a small video section on the home page, but of articles that are "human interests" stories. It seems that the Times likes to use multimedia for entertainment stories, and rely on traditional story writing for the more important stories.
I personally like what the Times is doing. I think that having the human interests stories house the video is a smart call because a video can tell the story better than a written story can. Being able to watch scenes unfold is much more appealing than reading them. But with important series, a video would distract the viewer from the more important issues, something that can be conveyed better in written stories. I would like more audio, but video is a much better su
Highlights- Garces started driving LIMOs last semester.
- He works, on average, 25 hours a week.
- Being a LIMO driver has not affected his studies.
| Vic Garces may just seem like a normal student to anyone who passes by him. The sophomore in the College of Health Sciences is not what he appears to be. While he is not Batman or Superman, he is still a part of the Student Safety program here at Marquette, specifically driving LIMOs around campus. “I don’t know why, I just love driving,” Garces said. My freshman year, I went from driving almost every day in the summer, and I got here, and I wasn’t able to bring my car. So I needed to find something that just involved driving.” Garces found the perfect job, as he works four shifts a week, two of them on weekdays and two on the weekends. Before he could even be a LIMO driver, Garces went through 25 hours of training. On total, an average week consists of 25 hours working for Student Safety. “I’ve always been a morning person,” Garces said. “I get up early in the morning and study. So I’m not really even spending that much time at night studying.” Being a LIMO driver goes against the normal college culture, as Garces, depending on his schedule, works on weekend nights instead of going out. But Garces says those nights are actually the best nights. “Weekends get hectic,” Garces said. “I love the weekends. (One weekend) I was driving the LIMO express, and 13 or 14 people got in my van. All of them were inebriated. ‘ Call Me Maybe’ came on, and they were jamming to that together. It was a hilarious moment.” However, even while jamming out with intoxicated, and hopefully of age, college students, Garces still says there are aspects of the job that he does not like. “I feel bad when people have to wait, but there’s really nothing we can do,” Garces said. “We’re doing the best we can, we’re operating at full speed every time, but if you have to pick someone up door to door, it takes a lot of time.” |
 Pac-12 college football, rather than NFL football, graces the sports homepage of the Los Angeles Times for the weekend review. The Los Angeles Times has an interesting situation when it comes to weekend football. Los Angeles has two major colleges in the area, University of Southern California, and University of California-Los Angeles. USC is ranked no. 2 in the AP Poll, and no. 3 in the USA Today (coaches') poll. However, the Los Angeles area has no local team, but there are three major teams in the Southern California area (San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Oakland Raiders). The Times stayed with the local aspect of the paper, and predominantly featured college football over the NFL. The Times focused on college football in the weekend wrap-up. The main headline was Pac-12 teams playing spoiler to Top 25 teams. Unranked Oregon State played no. 13 Wisconsin at Reser Stadium, and held the Wisconsin offense to just seven points. The Beavers led 3-0 at the half, and scored a touchdown in the 3rd before holding off the Badgers to win 10-7. UCLA hosted Nebraska, and went blow for blow against the Huskers until a touchdown and safety in the 4th quarter sealed the win for the Bruins. Oklahoma State went into Arizona Stadium to face the Arizona Wildcats. The Wildcats took the lead in the second half, and never looked back, defeating the Fiesta Bowl champions 59-38. College football and the Pac-12 upsets was the main story for the sports section, but NFL football did find its way onto the newspaper's website. On the Times homepage, there was a video link for Times' writers discussing Week 1 of the NFL season. On the NFL homepage, Robert Griffin III and his upset over the New Orleans Saints was the lead story. But there was no mention of the San Francisco 49ers defeating the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. The only preview for the Monday night showdown between the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Raiders, is a surface level look at the team's major performers and the head coaches. The Times may not have a football team, but are still a prominent name in the journalism world. It focuses on local issues first, and then expands to the country's issues, and it seems that the same can be said for sports. However, being a prominent name, I would have expected more coverage of the nation's favorite sport, regardless if there is an actual "home team" to cover. But, I guess USC and their title hopes are more important than another city's professional team.
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