Author: Kevin Pang
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0331-gervais-qamar31,0,3662172.story
This story was a Q and A with Ricky Gervais ( a British comedian if you didn't know). It kind of gave me a sense of what a Q and A is supposed to look like, which will help for our next story coming up. One thing that was stressed to us was to stick to a specific theme while interviewing our professional journalists. This article definitely has that: it's all centered on Gervais' opinion on comedy. What makes something funny? What's the difference between American and British comedy? I can understand why it's important to stick to a theme, because otherwise there would be no flow to the piece and the reader would get confused and bored. One thing that I noticed that I never considered is that a lot of the times, the interviewer didn't even ask a question; he just made a statement and Gervais would expound upon it. (For example, "Your podcasts had set a Guinness record for most downloads. It seems as if you're enjoying these audio shows"). I think this works because it makes the story seem more conversational. People don't go around constantly grilling each other with questions. They say something, and then the other person responds. It also ended with a great, humorous quote from Gervais...I think it definitely "ended with a bang" like we talked about in lecture.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Why you shouldn't take kids to see 'Watchmen'
Author: Michael Phillips
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/chi-0315-movie-violencemar15,0,4181994.story
This story was an opinion piece on the issue of violent movies and the kids who are watching them. Using the sensational new movie "Watchman" as an example, Phillips argues that many parents freak out about their kids seeing movies with bad language and sex, but don't blink an eye about letting them watch senseless violence. I thought the article was very effective because it used a current example that almost everyone has heard about to present an arguement for a larger issue. Phillips starts out by saying that no parent should bring their kids to see "Watchmen" and then gives several examples of some of the more violent scenes in the movie. He then compares it to other R rated movies that lots of parents wouldn't let their kids see just because they say the F word a few times. I think the reason I found this article to be effective was because Phillips used vivid, specific examples for every arguement he made. I hate when columnists rant and rave about some pet peeve of theirs and no where in the piece do they have anything to back it up (Michael Coulter from buzz *cough*). It's like "Ugh, people like this suck, blah blah blah, I hate them." In this article, the examples speak for themselves and the reader can actually relate to what the author is trying to say. I like being able to think, "He's right, it really doesn't make sense that 'Once' got the same rating as 'Saw V'" instead of just "Umm, yeah, I guess I know what he's talking about."
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/chi-0315-movie-violencemar15,0,4181994.story
This story was an opinion piece on the issue of violent movies and the kids who are watching them. Using the sensational new movie "Watchman" as an example, Phillips argues that many parents freak out about their kids seeing movies with bad language and sex, but don't blink an eye about letting them watch senseless violence. I thought the article was very effective because it used a current example that almost everyone has heard about to present an arguement for a larger issue. Phillips starts out by saying that no parent should bring their kids to see "Watchmen" and then gives several examples of some of the more violent scenes in the movie. He then compares it to other R rated movies that lots of parents wouldn't let their kids see just because they say the F word a few times. I think the reason I found this article to be effective was because Phillips used vivid, specific examples for every arguement he made. I hate when columnists rant and rave about some pet peeve of theirs and no where in the piece do they have anything to back it up (Michael Coulter from buzz *cough*). It's like "Ugh, people like this suck, blah blah blah, I hate them." In this article, the examples speak for themselves and the reader can actually relate to what the author is trying to say. I like being able to think, "He's right, it really doesn't make sense that 'Once' got the same rating as 'Saw V'" instead of just "Umm, yeah, I guess I know what he's talking about."
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Vital Idol: The predictions
Author: Curt Wagner
Link: http://weblogs.redeyechicago.com/showpatrol/2009/03/vital-idol-the-predictions.html
This was more of a blog than an actual story but I love American Idol so I had to read it. It's pretty much just this guy's opinion of all the contestants and his predictions of what place they will finish in. He also includes comments from people's Twitters about the contestants. There really isn't any special reporting in this story; anyone who watches the show could do something just like this. But I think it's effective. Full-out stories aren't always the best way to present material. This was just a simple list of the contestants with a few sentences about each one. It was easy to read and, most importantly, to the point. Perfect for my quick dose of Idol before I head to the gym.
Link: http://weblogs.redeyechicago.com/showpatrol/2009/03/vital-idol-the-predictions.html
This was more of a blog than an actual story but I love American Idol so I had to read it. It's pretty much just this guy's opinion of all the contestants and his predictions of what place they will finish in. He also includes comments from people's Twitters about the contestants. There really isn't any special reporting in this story; anyone who watches the show could do something just like this. But I think it's effective. Full-out stories aren't always the best way to present material. This was just a simple list of the contestants with a few sentences about each one. It was easy to read and, most importantly, to the point. Perfect for my quick dose of Idol before I head to the gym.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Best guests bring some game: How to be a good talk show guest
Author: Steve Johnson
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0309-talkshow-guestsmar09,0,4552274.column
This article was sort of an explanatory piece on how to be a good talk show guest. It started out with an anecdote lead, describing a recent appearance by Steve Martin on the Colbert Report that the reporter thought was particularly entertaining. I think this lead worked well with this kind of piece. It definitely drew me in and made me want to read more about how to perfect the "art" of being a guest. My only problem with the article is that it seemed kind of disjointed. It went on to give more examples of guests who got it right, and then guests who got it wrong, including Joaquin Phoenix's recent Letterman appearance. Then it went into more guests who got it right. Only towards the end of the article did it say that the best guests are the ones who come prepared with something extra to entertain with. And the end seemed very random; it mentioned that on shows like the Colbert Report and The Daily Show, it's best to just let the host do all the entertaining. This seemed kind of irrelevant to the author's main point. Overall the article was an entertaining read and it was a good idea, I just wish it had more structure to it.
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0309-talkshow-guestsmar09,0,4552274.column
This article was sort of an explanatory piece on how to be a good talk show guest. It started out with an anecdote lead, describing a recent appearance by Steve Martin on the Colbert Report that the reporter thought was particularly entertaining. I think this lead worked well with this kind of piece. It definitely drew me in and made me want to read more about how to perfect the "art" of being a guest. My only problem with the article is that it seemed kind of disjointed. It went on to give more examples of guests who got it right, and then guests who got it wrong, including Joaquin Phoenix's recent Letterman appearance. Then it went into more guests who got it right. Only towards the end of the article did it say that the best guests are the ones who come prepared with something extra to entertain with. And the end seemed very random; it mentioned that on shows like the Colbert Report and The Daily Show, it's best to just let the host do all the entertaining. This seemed kind of irrelevant to the author's main point. Overall the article was an entertaining read and it was a good idea, I just wish it had more structure to it.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Unofficial St. Patrick's Day at University of Illinois
Article Link:http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-talk-stpats-05-mar05,0,5700717.story
I was surprised and excited to find this article on the Chicago Tribune's website. Me being a freshman, I've been pretty blown away by all the hype that surrounds Unofficial and I've found myself wondering if it's really that big of a deal. But apparantly it's pretty infamous if the Tribune thinks it's newsworthy.
The story starts out with a nice feature lead:
"College students drink. College students go to class."
The next two paragraphs describe the general scene on campus during Unofficial. She gives us the nut graf in the fourth paragraph, which is that campus officials will be cracking down on intoxicated behavior. I would say this is kind of a narrative lead, since the reporter decribes an event and then gives us what's newsworthy.
The story only has two quotes, both from the same "U of I spokesperson." I think the reporter definitely needed some more sources to make this story more interesting...a quote from a student, a teacher and maybe a cop would have been cool. It also has a pretty flat ending, just saying that 19-year-olds won't be able to get in the bars. This story definitely needed some sort of colorful quote to end it, especially since it started out very feature-like. Another weak aspect of the story (I think) is the use of the word "you" at the end, which is usually avoided unless the reporter is trying to deliberately stylize the story. Here, it just seems kind of lazy and out-of-place.
I was surprised and excited to find this article on the Chicago Tribune's website. Me being a freshman, I've been pretty blown away by all the hype that surrounds Unofficial and I've found myself wondering if it's really that big of a deal. But apparantly it's pretty infamous if the Tribune thinks it's newsworthy.
The story starts out with a nice feature lead:
"College students drink. College students go to class."
The next two paragraphs describe the general scene on campus during Unofficial. She gives us the nut graf in the fourth paragraph, which is that campus officials will be cracking down on intoxicated behavior. I would say this is kind of a narrative lead, since the reporter decribes an event and then gives us what's newsworthy.
The story only has two quotes, both from the same "U of I spokesperson." I think the reporter definitely needed some more sources to make this story more interesting...a quote from a student, a teacher and maybe a cop would have been cool. It also has a pretty flat ending, just saying that 19-year-olds won't be able to get in the bars. This story definitely needed some sort of colorful quote to end it, especially since it started out very feature-like. Another weak aspect of the story (I think) is the use of the word "you" at the end, which is usually avoided unless the reporter is trying to deliberately stylize the story. Here, it just seems kind of lazy and out-of-place.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Work-in-progress event promoter ordinance still cause for concern in music community
This article really confused me. It had something to do with a city ordinance being passed in Chicago that will limit music clubs from staging events. I don't really understand what it was about, which could be my fault because it's dealing with an issue I'm uninformed about. But then again, the job of a reporter is to help the uniformed understand, so I think he could have done a better job with that. He used a summary lead, which worked well because the piece had a newsy feel to it, even though it's in the Entertainment section. He also provided a link to the actual ordinance, which was good (although I didn't read it, to be honest). There are a couple quotes in the article but I feel like they could have gone earlier in the story. Overall, it was just a boring story that I didn't really get anything out of.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Chicago Tribune
Alright, so my beat is the Entertainment section of the Chicago Tribune. I choose the Tribune because it's close to home for me (like 98% percent of the people at UIUC, I grew up in the Chicago suburbs). I remember last year when I did reporting for my high school paper, our editor definitely seemed to hold the Trib to a high standard. We were constantly hearing "Look at how the Tribune does it", or "Start following the Tribune". One the other hand, I hear criticism of the Tribune as well...people say it's biased or sloppy. So here am I now to form my own opinion on it...we'll see how it goes.
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