JOUR1111- Lecture 3

Todays lecture was another testament to the varied and engaging nature that has made JOUR1111 my favourite subject so far this semester.  The lecture was presented by Skye Doherty. She is an extremely accomplished journalist with a long list of reputable experience behind her. I won't go into the specifics of just what this experience in the journalism field entails but rest assured she gave an extremely comprehensive lecture.

Text is the foundation of journalism.

Despite the growing use of visuals in advertising text still plays an irreplaceable role in the communication of information. While a message can be conveyed through an image, that same image is categorised, analysed and searched for through the use of text. Text underpins all communication.

The main diagrammatic element of this lecture was the inverted pyramid news model. It is succinct and logical and makes me question why on earth this was never covered during school, it would have made many a report an absolute breeze.

Skye explained that in an article it is of utmost importance to convey the key facts of the story as fast as possible. This is because statistically people will often read the first part of an article and cease reading. While this is a rather depressing fact as a journalist it is a harsh truth. Another reason for the inverted pyramid structure is that apparently when an editor wishes to shorten a story they will simply remove the excess and cut it from the bottom up. For me this is unnerving and reiterates the point that I must be concise with my writing.

The next concept Skye approached was that of news values. The reason that we don't see the local school fete taking up the front page the same way we do a brutal murder. The news values conflict, power, control, sex, money and death in its correlation of stories. This is because it is what we, as a society, have proven ourselves to be concerned with. I find this a sad fact of life. I myself must admit to falling into the norm of society and being concerned with news values. I think in a way however this is a good thing. As a journalist I do not wish to change these values but to profit from them, so holding the values as my own interests could serve me extremely well.

I found Skye's lecture to be far more resonant with my personal interests than the last. It seemed that it was really addressing the specific details of journalistic writing and as such I found it to be very engaging.