NewsU Webinar Info

Once we got started, I think the NewsU Webinar was useful for us and I appreciated the discussion. (Thank you, Tess, for lending your cell phone. I hope your bill isn't outrageous! I doubt the Poynter Institute is in your Fave Five.) (If it is, you get an A!) Remember, you need to write a half-page summary of this as part of your midterm exam grade. (This is not a "react" paper but a summary of salient points that you felt were important). The midterm is next class.

Some of the points that Keith Woods made well were:
Polls don't cut it - reporters must dig deeper to find out what the numbers might mean or not mean.

Some reasons to include race in a story:
When the story itself is about the issue.
When the subject of your study or other sources for the story make race an issue.

He warned against talking in code (such as using "inner city" as a euphemism for black or Latino).

He said "write what you mean," which was a plea to use precise language and statistics and not lump "immigration," "Hispanics," "illegals" and "Mexicans" into one meaning.

He made some other interesting points about journalists' responsibilities in "shedding light" on subjects that readers clearly care about.

I appreciated the critique, too, that race and ethnicity also cannot be lumped together as one concept, as he seemed to do. And, I would observe that in one of the examples he used of non-racial language that describing a woman as a "seamstress" could be code for "black woman."

These are interesting points to think about.

For a copy of Professor Keith Woods' slides, you can click here.