Complete me.

Today in this computer lab, you are to complete an assignment similar to the one you completed yesterday.

(If you were absent, you will need to come in after school today or before school tomorrow to complete the print portion of this work.)

Visit each of the websites in the list that follows this assignment. They correspond to the papers we examined yesterday in class. For each site, spend some time scrolling through the front page. You're going to stay here for a while, looking at how these online papers differ from their printed counterparts. When you answer the following questions, be sure to keep those printed papers in the back of your mind.

1. What is the most prominently featured story on the main page?
2. How is the main page constructed? Is it busy, simple, filled with photographs, rotating stories?
3. What kinds of photographs are visible when you first visit the site? Describe them and their effects.
4. How easy is it to navigate the site? List the sections of the paper on the menu bar.
5. Is the audience for the online site the same audience you inferred from the printed papers?
6. What are the biggest differences you see between the two versions (printed and online)?

Be prepared to discuss both the online and printed versions of the NY papers tomorrow in class.

Here's the list:

New York Post
The Daily News
The New York Times
And because it's the world's only reliable newspaper: The Weekly World News

You must also read and/or print the newspaper background that is in one of the posts below this one. I will remind you in class about this.

Remember me.

Here is a master list of your assignments as of Wednesday, October 24:

- Newspaper comparisons (print and online) due on THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25
- Reading (newspaper background) due on FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26
- Susan Sontag article and questions due on MONDAY, OCTOBER 29
- Questions for guest speaker due on MONDAY, OCTOBER 29
- Op/Ed and SOAPS due on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31
- Newspaper article due on MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5

Print me.

Well, not the post itself. Print this:

Newspapers and the Rise of Modern Journalism

Read this on your own. We'll review some of the material in class over the next few days.

Lead.

This is so I can find it later, when I go to show you examples of effective leads in newspaper articles:

Calif. wildfires burn scores of homes

Post-script to Op/Ed assignment.

In the previous post, I gave you a list of reputable newspapers from which you may draw your opinion or editorial article. Stick to that list. We looked at The Huffington Post today, and it's true that it features virtually nothing but opinion and editorial; however, it isn't associated with a newspaper of any kind, which defeats one of the purposes for which you will ultimately use your SOAPS analysis.

Opinions and editorials.

One of your assignments as we study newspapers is to analyze an Op/Ed piece from a respectable newspaper. Here is the link to the assignment:

Op/Ed Assignment

The due date will be determined in class, but you'll have enough time to pick up newspapers from the stands, if you like. You can also obviously use the WWW, although you must be sure to follow the guidelines for the source and date range.

Here is a list of links to reputable newspapers' Op/Ed sections:

The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal
The LA Times
USA Today (Notice the URL - blogs, huh?)
The Washington Post (Registration required but free)
The Journal News

There are certainly others, but check with me before using them.

tvlinks.co.uk

This news comes from the UK, but the site was mentioned in our class:

Major pirate website shut down

We'll use this in class as the first newspaper article read for structure and pacing (including the effectiveness of what is called "the lead"), but it's also worth discussing the subject matter. After searching for more information on the arrest, I was able to find the following:

TV-Links.co.uk Raided, Owner Arrested: UPDATED

You should notice the general difference between the two presentations of the same story, but for the purposes of today's class, we're going to discuss

1. the lead, or opening paragraph, and

2. objectivity.

More if I see another article on this topic.