khaven2

Final Project-Homeless in Seattle

Kort Havens — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 06:17:30 +0000

I was able to conduct interviews with three homeless people that sell Real Change throughout the city. They were willing to have their photographs taken as well. Each person I interviewed had interesting perspective on life and the homeless situation in Seattle. I hope that there might be something enlightening in this project for anyone who reads it.

Real Change for Change

Taking out the middle man?

Kort Havens — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 02:44:52 +0000

Susan Greenberg’s article “When the Editor Disappears, Does Editing Disappear?” raises some interesting questions about new media. As consumers and an audience, we often take the role of the editor for granted. We recognize the author who wrote the work and may even read the name of his or her editor in the acknowledgments section, but we seem to be more interested in consuming the end product than knowing about the steps that went into creating it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. The rise in online publishing via blogs and websites has shown the editor as another possible casualty of the digital media.

Ms. Greenberg argues that editing is a decision-making process usually within the framework of a professional practice which aims to select and link content. There has been a lot of criticism of blogs as journalism because of the lack of an editor to give the OK on the content that is published. I think the argument is similar to that of Wikipedia. Many people criticize Wikipedia as a source because of the lack of editing or verification. We cleared this issue in class previously. Blogging seems similar to me because user feedback may be similar to the process used by Wikipedia to verify the correctness of its content. I have read some blog articles that have been questioned by readers who post links to counter-arguments or facts. The authors of those blogs seem to be quick to correct the mistake or provide substantial evidence to prove their assertion.

As blogging continues to gain popularity as a news source, there may be new editor positions that open up to cover the need of a moderator to look at things from the perspective of the audience or perhaps there will be enough moderating done via programs, the author, and readers’ feedback. Maybe the guys who made the intuitive computer that won Jeopardy can create an equally intuitive editing computer program.

Colbert vs. Fox News

Kort Havens — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 02:04:05 +0000

How has parody in political media like the Colbert Report and the Daily Show become many people’s political news source?

Project Update

Kort Havens — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:09:03 +0000

The project is coming along well. I have completed one interview with Brenda, a woman who has been selling real change for over one year, and made appointments with two other homeless people for next week. The photographs turned out decently, and I’m in the process of editing them. Next week, I will be heading to the Real Change headquarters in Pioneer Square in hopes of interviewing some people there.

Inline CSS Assignment

Kort Havens — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:06:43 +0000

This is a test of inline CSS formatting. It may or may not work with your theme.

CC photo by DeVo

Sample Serif H3 Title

Sample Sans-Serif H3 Title

A monospace paragraph. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus tempor semper erat, ut bibendum nisl viverra id. Donec eu lobortis lacus. Quisque vitae condimentum nulla. Nullam suscipit facilisis euismod. Fusce risus lacus, semper eget vestibulum ac, vestibulum nec lorem. Curabitur eleifend sollicitudin arcu dictum cursus. In ut erat consequat purus viverra consequat vitae ut ante. Quisque euismod diam a lorem cursus non aliquam nisi consectetur. Maecenas facilisis felis ut velit elementum quis cursus lacus commodo. Maecenas non suscipit sapien. Duis sed turpis libero, in fringilla libero. Aliquam pellentesque faucibus libero, sit amet aliquam nibh eleifend a. Etiam interdum convallis accumsan. Vestibulum ante lacus, facilisis et rhoncus vel, pulvinar in eros. Integer in blandit purus. Aenean quis massa nunc.

A sans-serif paragraph set as bold type. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus tempor semper erat, ut bibendum nisl viverra id. Donec eu lobortis lacus. Quisque vitae condimentum nulla. Nullam suscipit facilisis euismod. Fusce risus lacus, semper eget vestibulum ac, vestibulum nec lorem. Curabitur eleifend sollicitudin arcu dictum cursus. In ut erat consequat purus viverra consequat vitae ut ante. Quisque euismod diam a lorem cursus non aliquam nisi consectetur. Maecenas facilisis felis ut velit elementum quis cursus lacus commodo. Maecenas non suscipit sapien. Duis sed turpis libero, in fringilla libero. Aliquam pellentesque faucibus libero, sit amet aliquam nibh eleifend a. Etiam interdum convallis accumsan. Vestibulum ante lacus, facilisis et rhoncus vel, pulvinar in eros. Integer in blandit purus. Aenean quis massa nunc.

A serif paragraph set as normal type. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus tempor semper erat, ut bibendum nisl viver

Peer Feedback

Kort Havens — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:24:44 +0000

This assignment was very helpful. One person commented that it might be helpful to have a better gauge of success. I want to think about that and find a way that I can really tell if the project has been what I’d hoped it would be. The project ideas I reviewed helped me realize that I need to keep my project focused and narrow the topics down so that I can have a manageable time frame.

Tasha is doing a project which sounds like it may have a similar format. I will be touching base with her for ideas about my project.

http://tashamartin13.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/project-adjustment-sex-trafficking-the-youths-of-king-county/#comment-18

Benjamin’s post was useful in helping me decide how to gauge the success of my project. He mentioned that one gauge of success will be if he isn’t embarrassed by the project when it’s finished. I think that is a good gauge of success when most of us are our harshest critics.

http://benjamincom495.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/project-details-and-timeline/#comment-21

Ben’s project will be an interesting one to follow. He discusses his need to have an all-in-one website/portfolio/bio.

http://benryoncom495.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/portfolio-vision-and-timeline/#comment-17

So….twitter’s not just for celebrities to tell me that my life sucks?

Kort Havens — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:55:41 +0000

I have been surprised by the usefulness of twitter for businesses and news organizations. I had never used twitter prior to this class. My experience with twitter consisted of hearing about some crazy tweet by Sarah Palin or how sweet Ashton Kutcher’s tweet was about Demi Moore (pre-breakup). Most tweets I heard referenced in the news or by friends made me fear that thinking had died in America and all that was left was to pick up the dribble that was every thought that could claw and fight it’s way from Lady Gaga’s brain down to her fingers and out into the world through her cellphone.

I signed up for a twitter account a week into class. Twitter was kind enough to make some recommendations of people for me to follow. I’m now following the Seattle Times, Capitol Hill Seattle, and some local businesses. Twitter has been helpful in giving me quick “headlines” for things that are relevant to me. I can get through the news much more quickly than I used to by scrolling through news sources I follow and clicking the link.

A more detailed description of my project

Kort Havens — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:30:01 +0000

The goal of this journalism story package is to explore the effectiveness of the Real Change News program at fighting homelessness inSeattle. The project will be presented in an online package through a wordpress blog with a few pages detailing the company’s goals, possibly three individual stories of people that sell real change and how it has affected them, information about the legal issues facing real change like pan handling laws, and statistics on real change provided by the company.

Timeline for project:

February 9: Develop abstract, layout, finalize list of sources and works cited.
February 12: Complete one interview and photographs.
February 14: Contact Real Change News for statistics or use website. Take photographs of Real Change News center.
February 18: Complete 2^nd interview and photographs. Draft interview.
February 19: Complete 3^rd interview and photographs. Draft 3^rd interview and edit all interviews.
February 20: Update plan and post an update to the blog. Submit bibliography. Write draft of main article.
February 22: Edit content and photographs. Work on the format and layout for the page.
February 25: Begin adding content and photographs to page.
February 26: Have peer review of the site and content. Add external links, keywords, etc.
March 12: Write final essay to submit on March 15.
By March 17: Have the work posted and viewable.

Sources for research paper

Kort Havens — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:59:13 +0000

I’ve included a few examples of projects that have a layout similar to the one I would like to use and a few sources that may be useful to my project.

Examples of journalism story package from previous students:

http://619art.wordpress.com/

http://jmjohnsen.wordpress.com/

City of Seattle. (2011). Emergency services & ending homelessness. Retrieved from http://www.seattle.gov/humanservices/emergencyservices/

This website highlights current city government policy and what services are currently offered for the homeless.

Seattle (Wash.). (1986). Homeless strategy: Discussion paper. Seattle: Office of the Mayor.

This was an outline in 1986 of a strategy to deal with the homeless in Seattle. It created some of the framework for current policy.

Capitol Hill Community Council (Seattle, Wash.)., & First Hill Community Council (Seattle, Wash.). (1994).Inventory of social service facilities on Capitol Hill and First Hill assisting the homeless population, the correctional population, and people with disabilities: Chemical dependent, mentally ill, developmentally disabled, AIDS housing and nursing homes : also, an inventory of tax subsidized housing. Seattle, Wash: Capitol Hill Community Council Building Design & Review Committee.

This will provide a review of the policy foundation set in the 1990s in a few Seattle neighborhoods. It also will help highlight the how complex of an issue this is.

A New Biased Media?

Kort Havens — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:06:01 +0000

There has been much criticism of the capitalistic model of mass media and news coverage in the United States. News stations strive to remain objective. During presidential campaigns, this objectivity leads to horse race coverage of elections and little coverage of the candidates’ political policies. The article “Blog for America and Civic Involvement” talks about the usefulness of a biased media to increase civic involvement in U.S. history. Biased coverage of elections by newspapers led to increased voter turnout when voter rights were given to more people. The authors cite a similar occurrence during Howard Dean’s presidential bid in 2004 when his campaign used a blog to rally support for Howard Dean.

How might voter turnout be affected by the more widespread use of biased campaign blogs during this year’s presidential elections?

How will biased political blogs affect the “objective” mass media networks’ coverage of elections?