Photo Choices.

Printing photos of a man's suicide is in no way, shape or form appropriate. I feel as though only one of the four photos depicting the suicide of Pennsylvania treasurer R. Bud Dwyer is appopriate. Why? When choosing what I consider to be a suitable photo of a tragic incident, I feel as though it is most important to consider the friends and family of the individual. In this case, I would only post photo 1a. Dramatic, appropriate, and accurate, it captures the incident in a manner that cannot be misconstrued as poor taste. The gun is still visible, but it is not yet evident what he is planning on doing with it.

As for the rest of the photos...I would refuse to post any of them. How visually boring, right? I believe that a journalist's job is to cover a given story with the use of words, primarily, and the use of photos to emphasize the story. In the fourth picture, a young child is seen with part of a fence piercing his throat and coming out of his mouth. Maybe I have a weak stomach, but if a journalist was to describe this photo in explicit detail, I would cringe. It is easy to visualize after hearing a description, and I feel as though showing it is a bit too explicit. The reader doesn't need a photo. The words should be enough. If they aren't, perhaps the journalist hired to cover the story should look into another line of work. I hate to sound boring, but my sentiments for the rest of the photos are similar. I find them to be inappropriate. Graphic displays of a dead child being mourned by his family, a woman whose clothes have been torn to shreds by a mob of Mardi Gras driven men, or a photo of a murder victim sprawled across a printing press is probably NOT what most people expect to see while pressing a hot cup of Folger's to their lips. As journalists, we should all understand that words are powerful. Describe these photographs! Explain how the drown victim's brother has to be held up by two different adults because he is so distraught.

Yes, descriptions can be important. We often strive too much for short, concise sentences that we forget to include some much needed description. I am not against visual aids. I enjoy pictures. They enhance stories. However, if a story is full of detailed descriptions, maybe photos of dead bodies wouldn't be necessary, and a flood of letters to the editor can be avoided.

I hate being gullible.

This class makes me feel like I'm being lied to.  No, not the lab...but for the past two weeks, I have left lecture feeling like I need to read the paper and question every little detail.  First, we covered how some reporters have been found guilty of making up sources, details or even stories in general.  On Monday, we covered doctored photos.  What?!  Sure, I'm not so gullible as to believe that every photo I see in the paper or in a magazine isn't tampered with, but if I see a picture of four men talking, I assume that there were, indeed, only four men talking.  Our reading from this week made me realize that this is not so.  People can be taken out of photos without so much as a hair left behind.  Ok, that's fine if you're posting these pictures on Facebook and you wanted to remove the random guy that jumped into your photo with your sister, but actually publishing fake photos isn't right.  Aren't there people that check this?  Probably.  What's worse is that they most likely don't care so long as it makes their paper/magazine more visually appealing.  (<--That is only an assumption.)  I guess I'm kind of mad at myself for believing every picture I see.  I mean, I don't want to look at every photo or newstory with an extremely investigative eye.  I would rather enjoy it a bit.  What's funny to me is that I ask so many questions that it has become one of my flaws.  When people are telling me a story and I think something doesn't line up, I have no problem interrupting with a question--how rude of me!--but when I'm reading something, I don't question it, unless it is blatantly obvious that something is not right.  As I said, I do not want to start reading things and question if the murder really happened or not, but there is nothing wrong with looking at things a little more carefully than I have been.  I suppose that can be the second thing I am going to work on.  1.) Be more grammatically correct in text messages, despite what the receiver may think (see previous post) and 2.) Question things I read, but not to a fault.  

I suppose that is all for now.  Oh, and this video is what came to mind during lecture.  It's pretty crazy what computers can do.  I wonder if people were more commercial in the 1900s...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

I wonder if I've ever been lied to.

Well, by a newspaper, that is.  This thought resonated through my head throughout the course of the readings we had to complete for Monday's lecture.  I don't consider myself to be a naive person, but I do tend to trust people until they give me a reason not to.  This goes for professors, friends, family and newspapers or magazines.  Now I'm starting to wonder just how much I should trust the last two.  Clearly, I know that mistakes and typos will always find a way to slide past some editor somewhere.  People make mistakes, and people miss things.  However, I'm not quite sure how someone could fabricate names and quotes and feel comfortable enough to publish it.  Just as we said in class, pulling that off takes serious talent and could be considered an art.  Oh wait...it already is!  Storytelling has been around since the beginning of time, and fictional writing is praised all the time today.  Why the journalists that fabricated names, just as Steven King and Stephenie Meyer do, is beyond me.  Part of me wants to know how some of these conniving journalists got away with lying for so long.  I understand that there may have been no reason not to believe them (other than the fact that their stories were full of lies), but some of them got away with this for far too long.  Ugh, I feel as though I'm rambling and sounding scatterbrained, but that's how I felt when I was reading the articles.  I couldn't get my brain to shut up and stop asking questions or go off about a particular lie.  Hopefully I will catch one of these liars.  I think that would be an extremely rewarding experience.

I think I have a problem.

Hello, again!

Grammar, grammar, grammar...

In 3rd grade, I learned I was a bit (understatement) of a grammar cop.  This was the year all of us learned when to say "my friend and I" verus "my friend and me."  Regardless of whether I was in the classroom or choosing my team for kickball, whenever someone used "me" instead of "I," I was all over them.  I would clear my throat, just as Ms. Oakley, my teacher, did and ask, "Whoooo?" in a drawn out manner.  The number of eye rolls I received from the general 4" tall population that year was countless.  

This memory flew back to me after reading chapter 1 of When Words Collide.  The "Insta-talk" section spoke to me directly.  Why?  Because I, Annie Colletti, in addition to being slightly obsessed with grammar, am a texting fiend.  If I leave my phone at home, I feel like I've lost a limb.  Sad, I know, but I can't help it.  Despite the fact that my relationship with texting is going quite well and may even be considered unhealthy, I do have one slight problem with the system.  Just as Kessler and McDonald wrote in When Words Collide, it seems as though a texter's respect for the English language vanishes just as quickly as his thumbs fly across the tiny keypad.   I have even noticed myself do it here and there.  While I always include colons, periods, commas and apostrophes when necessary, I do not always capitalize proper nouns or words that I should.  The difference between those that throw out the entire language and me is that I know exactly what I am doing.  I do it because I don't want people to think I am a "know it all" or something of the like.  It makes the conversation more informal and casual, which is how it should be.  Deep, grammatically correct conversations are not meant for a Nokia screen.  I do not know why, though, and that bothers me.  I couldn't agree more with Kessler and McDonald.  The English language has one set of rules, not various rules depending upon the medium.  For this reason, I am going to take a stand.  I will capitalize when I should and avoid the "hahas," even if I really did laugh.  It'll be interesting to see how many virtual eyerolls I get this time.

I have never blogged before!

Hello, blog world!

Even though I'm a journalism major, I have never had a blog.  It's not as though I've ever had anything against them, but I just never set one up.  The thought that my ideas are floating around the Internet could be the reason.  Anyway, I missed doing this in class so I hope I'm not messing it up!  That's all for now.

--Annie