Bloggy Blog McGee

I feel that this documentary-of-sorts is both right and wrong. I can identify with both sides of the argument. As a college student myself, I understand the ability to feel like I can multi-task, but I can also see the logic in the studies that say that multi-taskers don't get as much out of any of the tasks they are undertaking at one time.
I think this video is effective in showing both sides of the 'argument/case.' I liked that they portrayed both sides equally instead of focusing on one aspect. It was important for them to interview a lot of people and get many different takes on the topic. I feel they did a good job at this.

One weakness could be the length and the repetitious nature of the video. About halfway through, it started to drag and I felt that they started to use more and more examples that are the same type as those used before, but targeted at different audiences (World of Warcraft, college student examples, middle school examples, Korean PC cafe example...). The redundancy gets old and makes it hard to continually watch and remain emerged in it.

One part of this video that I thought was particularly interesting was when Emroy University prof, Mark Bauerlein was interviewed about his book, "The DUmbest Generation." He said, "What I would like more than anything else is for young people to prove every single harsh judgement in that book flat wrong." Personally, this feels even more harsh than his book's title. He can write a huge book about how dumb (not as able to hold as much information at previous generations) the college-age generation is. It seems ridiculously hypocritical and pompous to me.

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For this blog, I utilized articles from the Star Tribune- Obama open to incorporating 4 new GOP ideas into health bill, eliminates Florida deal - and the Washington Times- Obama: GOP made good points at summit.

The S'trib's article was written by Erica Werner, a reporter from the Associated Press, where the S'trib picked up the story. The Washington Times article was written by Kara Rowland, a Washington Times reporter. The story was written for the 'Times by a 'Times reporter.

Erica Werner's article for the S'trib starts off very similarly to the other article I've chosen. She chose to use longer, direct quotes which seems to give her more credibility than just paraphrasing. At the end of her story, she highlighted the 4 GOP ideas she mentioned in her story. She goes into detail as to what the ideas are and how they would make a difference. While her story is much longer than Rowland's, I feel that this is the stronger article that provides more information and relies that information in a better manner.

Rowland's article for the Washington Times did not use very many direct quotes. She instead focused on paraphrasing what was said. Her lead is a bit wordy, and feels like it could use some more revising. For being a professional writer, her lead is not impressive. Perhaps it's her paper's preferred style, but reading "Mr. Obama" every every single time she attributed something to the president or referred to him got extremely redundant. However, she managed to keep the article short and sweet, which would most likely allow her readers to finish the story.

While both are informative articles, the S'trib's article does a better job at thoroughly explaining the situation/event to its readers. This may be because the story was written by the AP, which doesn't cater to one specific audience and includes all the information that is relevant to ensure that it is a quality story and is getting picked up by other news organizations. Though the Washington Times article is shorter and slightly easier to read, it doesn't offer the same amount of information that the S'trib's article does.

The United States uniforms for Sunday's Olympic men's hockey game against Canada are nearly identical to those worn by the 1960 gold-medal winning team at Squaw Valley.

-I found this article on the S'Trib's website. This short article talks about the resemblance between the 2010 men's hockey team uniforms and the 1960 men's hockey team.

-The lead works, but there is no novelty to it. It covers the Who, What, When, Where, but is very boring. It gives the reader knowledge of exactly what the article is about, but in no way does it make the reader want to continue. I understand that there isn't much more that the story can say that the lead doesn't, however the writer could have taken this story a bit further and expanded into other sports and any sort of similarities between 2010's uniforms and years' past. More detail could have been painted in the given article also.

This must be what hockey heaven is like.

In what was being billed as the biggest day in international hockey history, Super Sunday included a three-meal course of the last three Olympic finalists.

-I found this article on the S'Trib's website. The story addresses the upset the Americans caused the Canadians in Men's Hockey and what a feat that is for US hockey history.

- I like the first sentence of the lead the most. I think it does the best job possible of putting the emotions of the USA men's hockey team in to words. The rest of the lead includes the When, while the headline informs the Who, and What. The lead is not as informative as it could be, but the photos that accompany the story add a lot to it.

This article I found on the S'trib's website deals with the death of a St. Paul man on Saturday afternoon by his son's hands. It reports that after an argument, the father left and returned home to his son holding his shot gun and unloading several rounds into him. The father died later at Region hospital. The police are still investigating, but say that it appears to not be a case of self-defense.
This article is relevant because it is close to home. This took place in St. Paul, and is now charted as St. Paul's sixth homicide of 2010. This article is full of shock value because the man's own son killed him. This is not a usual story and a headline, like the one used, will draw in readers. While an article about a homicide is not novel, an article about a homicide committed by the victim's son is novel.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that a drunken man stole an ambulance from a Wisconsin ski area with a patient inside.

This article on the Star Tribune's website addressing the recent explosion at an under-construction power plant in Middletown, Connecticut. The lead explains everything that a lead should- five workers were killed and more were injured during a test today.

This article is both timely and relevant. While this article is based on event far from Minneapolis, it mirrors events that could take place here. It goes into the measures that were taken after to make sure something like this would not repeat itself, which would be important for other places to follow in step. This story is very relevant because it just took place and most people probably have not heard the news yet, which also makes it newsworthy.

This article from the Star Tribune's website discusses the drop in ridership of the south metro's leading transit, Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MVAT). This drop is blamed on lower gas prices and the economy. It says that because of many laid off jobs in the Twin Cities, fewer people are making the commute from the south metro.

This article is relevant because it concerns it's audience- the south metro. While this may be relevant to bus riders in the south metro, it is of no concern to anyone anywhere else. There is no real "so-what?" value to this story. I read it twice and got nothing of real importance, impact, or importance from it. I also felt no novelty. Even though this same story about transit ridership has been written before at an earlier date, there is nothing that makes it very time sensitive. This story could run 2 months from now and it probably would have changed very little.