Pentagon Delays Troop Request

On Tuesday, September 22, 2009, I read the article, "Pentagon delays Troop Request", in "The Wall Street Journal." The phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words", rings a bell to everyone here. The picture on the front cover depicts a state funeral at Rome's St. Paul's Basilica, with thousands gathered to honor six Italian soldiers who were killed by a suicide bomber in Kabul last week. The picture illustrates a 7-year-old boy, Martin Fortunato, blowing a kiss to his father's coffin, Captain Antonio Fortunato, one of the six dead. This is the worst attack the Italian forces have experienced in this 8-year-old war. Ironically, the article and the image are not directly related to one another. With the exception that various countries are now grieving for fallen soldiers. I learned more about this event and the identification of the boy from the "Los Angeles Times" website in the world section. Sadly, the United States has lost over 2,000 soldiers and counting in this war, yet the citizens of Italy want some of their troops home by Christmas. Yochi Dreazen and Peter Spiegel authors of "Pentagon Delays Troop Request" wrote a lead that would grab the attention of any American. Why would the Pentagon tells its top commander in Afghanistan to delay submitting his request for additional troops? Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has laid out several options, one seeking 40,000 reinforcements pushing the U.S. presences to 100,000 for the first time in Afghanistan. Gen. McChrystal feels that acting now on the Taliban is crucial and if the troops wait defeating them may no longer be possible. Ultimately President Obama has postponed his decision to send additional troops. During the Afghan presidential election last month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, was accused of scandal which may take months to be resolved. Meanwhile there has been an increase in casualties among U.S. and allied soldiers. Rep. John Boener, the House Republican leader said, "It's time for the president to clarify where he stands on the strategy he has articulated, because the longer we wait, the more we put our troops at risk."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-italy22-2009sep22,0,7867926.story

Pimp My Bed!

On Wednesday, September 23, 2009, "The Wall Street Journal" had an image of a bed on the front page with the caption, "The Ultimate Man Cave." The image was a red cube bed with a flat screen television built into the wall at the foot of the bed. The fact that the cube was red caught my attention first. Next, the idea that men feel the need to designate an area solely for their entertainment or piece of mind within an entire house is somewhat amusing to me. Ray A. Smith, author of "Pimp My Bed: The Male Sleep Lair", grabs the viewers attention with the first paragraph only having one sentence stating, "Bed makers are manning up." This lead is a good example that a nut graph will soon follow. A nut graph is usually the second or third paragraph stating the idea of the article, answering; who, what, when, where, why and how of the story. A good lead will answer these questions as soon as possible. The first paragraph does not answer any of those questions urging the reader to continue in order to find out the purpose of the article. In the past, women made the house hold buying decisions, the bed industry feels that men have been neglected and hope to caught their attention with built in entertainment-systems, wine coolers, safes and other guy gadgetry. Since men are more involved with the living room entertainment purchases, the bed industry is hoping that the bed will eventually become the new man cave. Spring Air International LLC and Dormina Inc., are promising to create mattresses with muscle recovery, cooling and sweat-wicking features, in hopes of keeping both men and women at a comfortable body temperature while they sleep. Although there is no scientific evidence proving that men are warmer then women while they sleep both sexes would contest otherwise. Regardless of statistics men and women are going to buy what feels comfortable, and men are more persuaded through entertainment.

Pandemic H1N1

While I have already mentioned that I am an avid evening news viewer, I also like to read up on issues that were introduced during the broadcast in an effort to gain more knowledge on the subject. For instances, everyone by now has heard of the swine flu or pandemic H1N1, but how many people truly know who is at risk and should be vaccinated? Unfortunately, I am interested in the facts of the pandemic H1N1 because I have been fighting a cold for the past two weeks. Recently when I spoke with a friend over the phone the first question that I was asked, is do I have the swine flu? I believe that the news can either educate or prompt us to be paranoid. This is why I find it important to seek alternate news sources on present issues pertaining to health. So regardless if the article as a straight news lead, which is a "just the facts" approach or a summary lead, which may have more then one major fact being covered, I am going to read the entire article because I am curious about the material. "The New York Times" published an article in the health section titled, "Vaccine for Swine Flu is Ahead of Expectations" on Sept. 18, 2009. The lead informed the reader, that more than three million doses of swine flu vaccine will be available by the first week of October. Donald McNeil, author of the article, said "The vaccine will be of the FluMist nasal spray which is not recommended for people with weak immune systems, pregnant women, people over 50, those with asthma, heart disease or several other problems. The nasal spray contains a weakened live virus, while injections contain killed and fragmented virus. The spray gives a stronger immune reaction but carries a small risk that the virus will multiply too quickly in people with comprised immunity." This articled allowed me to use my prior knowledge to better understand the form in which the vaccine is administered. I enjoy reading the newspaper because it allows readers to review information that as been presented so that the reader may become enlightened.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/health/19flu.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=h1n1%20articles&st=cse

Introduction

Hello, my name is Nicolette Nagy; I am a student at the University of North Florida majoring in Communications with a track in Advertising. I am working on my second bachelor's degree at UNF; my first degree is a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a major in Creative Photography from the University of Florida.
This blog will be dedicated to a class that I am currently taking called Advanced Writing for the Media. The class is geared toward mass media communications with an emphasis on printed materials such as newspaper articles. Although I am not a frequent newspaper reader I have already learned several interesting facts about the average newspaper reader. For instances, the average reader only spends about 26 minutes a day reading the newspaper. A typical reader might skip over an article that does not interest them based on the lead, which is the beginning of the story. The stronger the lead is on a subject that interest the reader the higher the likelihood is that the reader will read the article. So regardless if the story is considered hard news, if the lead does not interest the reader the reader will simply skip and go to the next article. The articles are also set up in an inverted pyramid format. Which means the most important information of the article will come first, then the second most important information, then the third and so on. So for all those busy people who do not think they have the time to invest in reading the newspaper, for less than half an hour a day you could.
I have always found it more stimulating to catch up on the news by watching broadcasts; my favorite is "The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric." However, the majority of nightly news programs consist of the same stories with different narrative view points. My hope in doing this blog is to become more informed on different news stories and events that are not necessarily seen on TV. And I hope to expose myself to different verbal accounts and different approaches reporters take on conveying news information.