Dear Mcom 258

I am Brittany Leigh, an aspiring Broadcast Journalism Guru. The passion to write has been a burning flame since junior high school.

I believe media is a powerful entity that plays a major role in our everyday lives and I want to be apart of that. I am a 3rd year student and will be the first to earn a degree in my family. I have many new ideas for the newest stream of media, the internet, and I plan to peruse them.

I am currently working on establishing my own Media website that is strictly blogging the latest information. I beleve MCOM 258 will help me enhance my ideas and give me the ability to make my web dream a eality. I plan to let MCOM 258 prepare me for my current project.

Look forward to hearing about it and If you share my passion im always open to a business partner!

3 Most Ethical Responsibilties

Journalists follow ethical principles and take legal responsibilities for every aspect of their professional career. As an amateur journalist I find that the three principles/ legal responsibilities that are most important in my opinion are accuracy, protecting confidential sources, and transparency.

Accuracy should be the number one principle for every journalist. The entire discipline of journalism is based on accuracy. Without accuracy your writing cannot be named journalism but yet a fiction piece.

“In fact if a piece of journalism is not accurate, it has no value,” Thom Lieb said in All the News.

Protecting the confidentiality of sources is also a priority in my list of legal responsibilities. As journalists the public trust us to report accurate news and to have credible sources. As professionals if we expect the sources to be credible then we need to develop credible relationships with our sources. A journalist cannot develop a credible relationship with a valuable source if he/she does not protect the sources confidentiality by request. It is unethical to deliberately disregard the wishes of your source if they have upheld their side of the deal. In regards to the legal aspect of this I believe there should be shield laws against federal subpoenas.

Transparency is the third most important ethical principle on my list. To me its just as important as accuracy but goes a little further in dept. in Journalism it is just as important to be unbiased, clear and concise as it is to be accurate. If they want to “gain and maintain public trust”, as Thomas Lieb states, transparency must be apart of a reporters daily practices.

“ Journalist must be as open as possible about what biases they bring to the job, how they get their information and how they make decisions on choosing the reporting stories,” Lieb states.

One example of bad transparency is the Towson University newspaper, The Tower light’s reporting story on the Black Student Union’s party resulting in a violent affair. Many students felt that the two week long, front page story was biased and misleading. Student argued at the State of Diversity forum, host by BROTHERHOOD, about how the story was dragged over time by reporters who did not witness the event and did not have totally credible sources but printed the stories anyway; issue after issue.

Wisdom from West

Dr. Cornel West, author of Race Matters, engages in an interview with a Towson University student at the Baltimore Book Festival on Sunday.

West made his appearrence at the Baltimore Book Festival to promote his new book Hope on a Tightrope.

When I learned that Dr. Cornel West would appear at the festival i knew this would make the perfect print story. I am a great fan of his first nationally recognized novel, Race Matters. Please look forward to my print story about my face to face interviwe with Dr. Cornel West.

NPHC Forum

Towson's Greek Life held their annual National Pan-Hellenic Council forum on Thursday, September 18. The NPHC is combined organization of the nine black sororities and fraternities, "the divine nine". The forum is held annually to jumpstart the academic year and is most informative to those students who are interested in pledging to any of the fraternities or sororities.

In my opinion, this event is newsworthy because it is current, relative to the campus community, and may impact a student’s life in the future. I chose this event also because there is advance information available about the NPHC and the curators of the event are approachable.

I plan to interview the head advisor of Greek Life, Christian Steele for information on the forum. I am curious to answer these main questions, what is the main purpose of the forum, which NPHC sororities and fraternities are active on TU campus, and what do they expect TU students will gain from the forum.

Other details that interest me are background information on NPHC, when it was started, who started it, and why. I also will have interested students' opinions on how helpful the forum was for them in regards to pledging.

Reviewing Twittter posts of MCOM257 Students

Based on definitions given by “All the News”, written by Professor Thomas Lieb, writing a lede and a short report in journalism may seem similar, yet they are very different.

Practicing good journalism means the writer must know the difference between the two techniques, and how to practice 1-2-3 filing.
MCOM257 students practice these skills to master them for future careers in new media/ journalism.

When writing a lede, a one sentence paragraph that begins a story in thirty words or less, Cara Flynn stands out among the class with a 50 character lede about Towson’s football lost. She also includes a url that takes us directly to the story, writes in active voice and follows up with a short report, a 2-3 sentence bulletin that expands on the lede.

Matt Lund, student journalist, also practices correct news writing in his lede and short report about Towson’s GO Green campaign. He did not restate the lede within the short report and wrote his short report in active voice. His tweet also clarifies what the “RecyAll” policy includes.

Another tweet worth reviewing is Emily Peuchel’s lede and short report on Towson’s lost football game. Emily states a catchy, 5o character lead, and offers more detailed content in a 140 character short report. The lede reads, “Tigers defeated by Spiders!?, with a url to the site. Yes, the url is included in the 50 words or less. That’s amazing!

Hats off to those MCOM257 students who followed guidelines by writing in active voice, 50 characters or less for the lede, 140 characters or less for the short report, and no more than 1-3 sentences for the short report.

GIVE IT TO ME QUICK & EASY

Michael Nagle/Getty Images
The headquarters of Lehman Brothers in New York on Sunday.

As journalist we must find the core of the story. Report it as briefly as possible with as much content as possible. This almost sounds impossible but its not.

Two ways to write quick and easy for readers to comprehend are the short report and summary lead techniques. I found one example of each in the Baltimore Sun and the New York Times online.

“Bride-to-be dies when tractor-trailer hits limousine.” By JAMES DREW, Baltimore Sun. “About 4:30 a.m. yesterday, a tractor-trailer collided with the limousine in the 4000 block of E. Monument St., killing Sunshine Royston”. This summary lead was found in the Baltimore city news feed as the top news story. This sentence is written in the past tense and includes a time element. It is specific, concise, did not have an introductory before the subject, and uses an active voice. These are the essentials needed to grab a reader.

“Lehman Will File Bankruptcy; Merrill to Be Sold”
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN , NY times, 33 minutes after posted.
“In one of the most dramatic days in Wall Street history, Lehman Brothers said it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, while Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself to Bank of America for about $50 billion“. This is a story published on Sunday, September 15, and continuously updated with bulletins, such as the one above as the story continued to unfold. A bulletin is a form of a short report with a sense of urgency. In addition to the story becoming available to me 33minutes after the author posted it is enough urgency to me.

The shortest written stories can have the most impact.

What's News

As author Thom Lieb says in All the News, "watching and listening to news is not good enough to make you a good news writer. To become one, you have to go a step beyond and study the news". Good journalist study news patterns to determine what is news and if it is appropiate for thier audience. Journalist also look for the traditional news values to determine if a story is news worthy. The local Baltimore Sun is a great source for local news spread accross Maryland. I reviewed some of their major stories to determined if they were news worthy and why.



On September 9, journalist Liz F. Kay and Jacques Kelly reported on a four-alarm fire in west Baltimore. The blaze destroyed three small businesses and part of Subway in the 61-year- old Edmonson Village Shopping Center. The entire shopping center was evacuated and there were no injuries or deaths. Although citizens were not directly affected by the fire, some nearby residents were out of power. In addition to the residents, the Edmonson High school dismissed classes early because of power outages in the area. The fire caused atleast $500,000 in damages.


I definately agree that the Edmonson Village fire is a story worth printing. This story has several news values alone. The fire had dirct impact on community members and surrounding residents. The story also has unsualness, proximity, and timeliness values. This elctrical fire was anything but normal. The area is close to west Baltimore residents including Mayor Sheila Dixon. Also journalist who reported on the story released it as the fire was still burning and crews were still trying to maintain the chaos.

Also on September 9, Annie Linskey reported on a bill submitted by City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. The bill is to create a toll-free hotline for students, teachers, and parents to report gang related crimes and violence in Balimore City schools. The hot line would be directed to school police and maybe even city police.




This story is also news worthy for Baltimore city local news becuase of direct impact on the community. Many parents send children to school trusting that it is a safe place and this bill will help maintain that sense of security. Also the story has prominence due to the involvement of City Council Prsident Staphanie Rawlings-Blake. Timeliness is also a key value here as the bill was introduced at todays city council meeting, both video and online statements became availible to the public. One could also argue that this story has affinity as it is referring to violence in the city school system with over 150 schools to include, this would interest parents teachers, and students of BCPLS.


The last story I chose for review today was written by Justin Fenton, Baltimore Sun. The Memorial Stadium playgrond was destroyed in a devestating fire today. This playground was built in the community three years ago by thousands of volunteers. It is a addition to the Famiy Center and YMCA located on the Memorial Stadium property. This was an unfortunate event that sadden community leaders who helped to make the playground prodgect a success.

The playground fire is a news worth story. This story again impacts the community, has timliness, definately unusualness, and human interest. The story may touch the hearts of readers to know the product of a united community had burned. These values are edvident in the story and makes it worth printing.