Navigating the News in the Digital Age
Today, access to a wide variety of news reports is not a problem:
News is part of the atmosphere now, as pervasive—and in some ways as invasive—as advertising. It finds us in airport lounges and taxicabs, on our smart phones and PDAs, through e-mail providers and Internet search engines. Much of the time, it arrives unpackaged: headlines, updates, and articles are snatched from their original sources—often as soon as they’re published—and excerpted or aggregated on blogs, portals, social-networking sites, rss readers, and customizable homepages like My MSN, My Yahoo, myAOL, and iGoogle. These days, news comes at us in a flood of unrelated snippets.
“Overload! Journalism’s battle for relevance in an age of too kuch information,” Bree Nordenson, Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 2008 http://www.cjr.org/feature/overload
The good news is that the Internet makes searching the news easier in one way—there is a greater diversity of news reports. The downside is that you can feel overwhelmed with so much information that you become a passive consumer, grazing the news without full attention. Readers of the news today face new problems—or challenges—as Steve Powers writes about in the following selection from the updated version of How To Watch TV News (2008).
News Paradigm Shift: Where Do We Go from Here?
Steve Powers
The digital revolution is expanding our information universe. The problem won’t be access but filtering the torrents of news into byte-sized information we can use.
In traditional or old TV journalism, the gatekeepers in newsrooms decided what was important or interesting, and some of that news was put on the tube. The number of editor-deciders increased as the number of networks and local stations increased as cable came on line. News was suddenly available 24-7, via outlets such as CNN with live pictures from around the world, and with it came instant decision making about what content was sent into homes, packaged as news. The neatly framed network news, which organized our view of the world, was forced to change.
The news paradigm shifted again just as suddenly with the advent of the digital delivery of information. A wild dance of zeros and ones shot through wires made of metal and glass and sped through space not just to our television screens but to an array of devices. The BlackBerry, Palm Pilot, iPhone, satellite TV, cell phones, and PDAs bombard us with info pixels. Now, instead of information only flowing one way from the gatekeepers to the public, the news poured onto the Internet and spread like a blot absorbed by the world. A video shot by someone’s cell phone camera could be uploaded, downloaded, viewed, edited, remixed, posted, and shown on TV. The one-way news flow had been splintered into fragments, all of them available for kaleidoscopic interpretations….
The conventional concept of news is, perhaps, no longer valid. Narrowcasting has become “microcasting.” An army of citizen journalists uses technology to post their stories, sound, pictures, and thoughts for mass consumption. YouTube visitors watched 100 million videos a day in 2006 [1 billion in 2008*], all videos shot by ordinary folks and posted on the Web site. Admittedly, the content wasn’t all Pulitzer prize material….However, important events are captured….On July 7, 2005, the most dramatic photos of the London terrorist bombing were taken by subway riders with cell phones and posted before news photographers could even get to the scene….The point is that suddenly the average person has a way to share homemade news with the rest of the world without going through a gatekeeper.
The two-way street of news gathering and disbursal is not just limited to videos, either. Internet users can now access news from around the world: newspapers in France, videos from Africa, articles from Iceland, wherever. Blogs, with the opinions of anyone who wants to post one—a teacher, a truck driver, a news anchor, whoever—can be put online around the globe with the stroke of a computer key. According to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, there were 12 million bloggers in the United States alone in June 2006, and 34 percent of them consider blogging to be a form of journalism. You don’t need a printing press. You don’t need paper and ink. You don’t need a deep-pocket publisher or an editor. You simply need access to a computer and the Internet.
This uncontrolled flow of billions of news bytes is causing friction with paper-bound newspapers who are feeling the heat of advertising jumping the divide from analog to digital. Newspapers such as the New York Times are moving their product toward an electronic “Continuous News” operation with constantly updated stories, pictures, videos, podcasts, interviews, journalist’s blogs, and even obituaries….With the onslaught of news sources….news-delivery systems…are multiplying every day….
New forms of presentation will emerge and wrap us in more news than we can constructively use: information glut to an unfathomed degree. We will be bombarded with news of the world, designed by us and, in turn, transmitted from us to others who will exponentially expand and distort our knowledge. The problem won’t be access but filtering the torrents of news into byte-sized information we can use. Without gatekeepers, we will be swamped with a mixture of gems, muck, and mire.
Just as the big bang gave birth to our universe more than 13 billion years ago, the digital revolution is expanding our information universe. Innovators will continue to devise electronic nets to catch the information flying through space, and, as it is scooped up, other devices will process and organize it for our use. The information that we designate as “news” will be differentiated into a variety of forms and then delivered in the most timely and convenient of them. The media will be fast moving, portable, descriptive, textual, visual, and audible. It will be there when you want it and as you want it presented. And it will be up to you to decide its value and validity. The wise will not drown.
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Becoming a Questioning Reader
To ANALYZE—“to reveal a greater truth”—news readers need to Learn More, as Neil Postman and Steve Powers point out so well in their Preface to How to Watch TV News (x-xi) when they ask readers to consider television’s presentation of the uprising by Chinese students in Tiananmen Square: the image of a solitary student standing in front of a tank, obstructing it from proceeding.
"Tank Man" stops the advance of a column of tanks on June 5, 1989 in Beijing.
Photo by Jeff Widener (Associated Press).
They write: Mao Tse-tung preached that power begins behind the barrel of a gun. But this image, as media critic Jay Rosen once remarked, seemed to suggest that power also comes to those who face the barrel of a gun, provided that a camera catches them in the act and that the image is witnessed by a vast audience.
Then they raise this question: But what if this image is all someone knew about the student uprising?
If that were all someone knew about the student uprising, it wouldn’t be very much. One would have to know something about who rules China, and where those rulers came from, and by what authority or ideology they claim to rule, and how the students interpreted the meaning of freedom and democracy. These are complex matters that are beyond the scope of simple television newscasts and must be learned through extensive reading of newspapers and books.
News organizations, like BBC News, have begun to help news consumers find their way through a flood of information by providing links that will make it easier for readers to Learn More. Go to > http://www.news.bbc.co.uk and perhaps check out a world news event in the Middle East or South Asia. Providing context is especially important in an ongoing news story.
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Readers at Work: A Guided Reading Assignment
Detecting Bias: Triangulating a Train Robbery Story
Comparing coverage of events can give perceptive readers insight into the subtle biases that creep into the news and affect our perceptions of events. Read the following three reports about a robbery that occurred in West Sacramento as a passenger train coming from the San Francisco Bay area was approaching Sacramento’s rail station.
Amtrak engineer dragged off train, assaulted
San Francisco Chronicle 4/17/2007 | Michael Cabanatuan
April 17, 2007-- The engineer of an Amtrak Capitol Corridor train was seriously injured Monday night in West Sacramento after a group of people forced the train to stop, dragged the engineer from the train and assaulted him with rocks and bottles, according to Capitol Corridor officials.
The attack occurred as the train from the Bay Area neared the I Street Bridge to Sacramento's rail station and slowed for a signal, said Eugene Skoropowski, managing director of the Capitol Corridor, said. A group of people stood on the tracks to block the train, which stopped. When the engineer went downstairs and opened the door, he was dragged off the train and assaulted, Skoropowski said.
The engineer, who was taken by ambulance to UC-Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, suffered head injuries and possible internal injuries, he said. He remains hospitalized.
Skoropowski is calling for more police patrols in the area, for all vegetation around the rails to be removed, for federal agencies to consider filing federal charges in the case, for Union Pacific Railroad to take steps to speed trains through the area and for additional security measures, including night-vision cameras.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/17/BAGAVPAK9O4.DTL
W. Sac's focus on security in attack on train- Mayor wants report after beating of engineer Monday
Sacramento Bee (CA), 4/18/2007 -- Tony Bizjak: tbizjak@sacbee.com
April 18, 2007-- West Sacramento officials say they will work on railroad security issues in the wake of a brutal assault on an engineer that briefly disrupted Capitol Corridor passenger train service earlier this week.
Mayor Christopher Cabaldon said he has instructed the police chief and city manager to report on what can be done after an engineer was dragged off a Sacramento-bound train and beaten by several people with rocks and bottles Monday night.
"This is lawless barbarism," Cabaldon said. "We have been proud of how safe and secure the trains are. We want to be sure this does not escalate."
Another train was hit by thrown rocks in a separate incident Tuesday afternoon in Richmond, Capitol Corridor officials said. One of the rocks broke a window and cut an engineer.
"I am just beside myself right now," said Gene Skoropowski, executive director of the Capitol Corridor system, which runs between Auburn and the Bay Area. "This is crazy. This is federal offense stuff in my book."
In the West Sacramento incident, the engineer had stopped the train at 10:15 p.m. Monday when signals alerted him that something was on the tracks ahead. He was attacked when he opened the cab door to investigate, according to Capitol Corridor officials.
The engineer was treated Tuesday for head and internal injuries, Skoropowski said.
One alleged attacker was arrested by Union Pacific police, Skoropowski said.
Calling the West Sacramento attack the worst in the train system's eight-year history, Skoropowski said he is contacting officials with the cities and with Union Pacific, which owns the tracks, to discuss more security and other operational changes to increase safety.
Skoropowski said the section of track west of the I Street bridge has suffered vandalism over the years, as have sections of tracks in Richmond.
Cabaldon suggested West Sacramento police can maintain closer contact with trains so they can check out disturbances on the line rather than the engineer.
Edition: Metro Final; Page: B3; Record Number: SAC_0405146009; Copyright 2007 The Sacramento Bee
Mob Forces Train to Stop, Assaults Engineer in West Sac
The Associated Press (AP)
Published: April 18, 2007, San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ An Amtrak engineer remained hospitalized after he was attacked by a mob that dragged him from a train it had forced to stop by standing on the tracks, according to a railway official.
The Capitol Corridor train was en route from the San Francisco Bay area and approaching Sacramento when it encountered the group of people blocking the tracks near a signal, said Eugene Skoropowski, the route’s managing director.
After stopping the train, the engineer opened the door, was pulled off and then assaulted with rocks and bottles, Skoropowski said.
He was admitted to the University of California, Davis Medical Center with head injuries and possible internal injuries.
To beef up security, Skoropowski wants more police patrols in the area, the installation of night-vision cameras, and for trains to be allowed to speed through the area.
The Capitol Corridor operates on a 170-mail route, stopping at 17 stations between San Jose and Auburn.
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These reports ran in two different newspapers, one in San Francisco and the other in Sacramento where the attack took place. The third report was published in the San Francisco Chronicle by the Associated Press (AP), an American news agency cooperatively owned by contributing newspapers.
Analyze
How are the attackers described? What authorities (officials) are included? How do the headlines differ in emphasis? What are the publication dates? Which newspaper published the first report? What is the political bias of each newspaper? You can use a search engine and type in the name of the newspaper and key words (political bias, for example, or liberal or conservative) and see what comes up. Create an analytical framework for each category. Creating an analytical framework—a structure for breaking a complex whole into parts—will help you note and study differences in news reports of the “same” event.
Example: News Headlines & Publication dates
An analytical framework is a starting point for analysis. You can add notes as you Learn More and you can also expand your framework to include observations and critical reflections. (See “Creating an Analytical Framework,” Resources, pp. 0-00.) Your final analysis—your informed reading—will need to go beyond comparison to how differences in reporting as well as learning more affect your reading of a news event.
Reflect
In these initial reports of the event, the attackers are described similarly—as “a group of people,” for example. In the third report, however, the word “mob” is used in the headline and in the opening sentence. What feelings does the word “mob” evoke for you? How did the use of “mob” color your reading of “the group of people blocking the track” in the next paragraph? QuickWrite informally for 5 minutes in preparation for discussion.
Discuss
Form a small group to discuss differences among these three accounts and how they affected you as readers of the news. For further discussion: What would you like to learn more about this event? What questions do you have? Perhaps make a list of some questions to share with the whole class.
Learn More
Option: You can work collaboratively to Learn More in your small group.
A follow-up AP report published in the Sacramento Bee (April 20, 2009) identified the “mob” that forced the train to stop as a West Sacramento street gang known as the Broderick Boys. One teenager was arrested and charged with violating a 2005 court order that prohibits members of the Broderick Boys from hanging out together and staying out after a 10:00 p.m. curfew. Use a search engine to learn more. To learn about the court order issued in 2005, go to www.news10.net and search for “West Sacramento Gets Court Order to Restrict Gang,” March 2, 2005. To read specific news reports, check your college or university website to see if an American newspaper database is available. Who are the Broderick Boys, also known, according to one report, as the Nortenos? What is the population of West Sacramento? Has the city grown? Check the most recent census. Key words search: census West Sacramento California. You can compare to the previous census or try using key words: West Sacramento population growth. What percentage of the population is below the federal poverty line? To what extent has the Mexicano/Latino population increased? Broderick is a neighborhood in the north side of West Sacramento. How is it different from the south side? Do some demographic research. What kind of a “place” or community is West Sacramento? What kind of changes were going on when (and where) this incident took place?
Reflect
Before you continue to Learn More, stop and QuickWrite your reflections at this point. How has what you have learned informed your reading of this news event?
Discuss
Share your reflections in your small group. What larger story is emerging for you as readers?
Learn More
Shortly after the attack of an Amtrak engineer in 2007, the 2005 injunction was overturned.
Ø Go again to www.new10.net and search for “Court Tosses West Sacramento Gang Order,” April 24, 2007. Work individually now if you have been working in a group and take notes.
Ø Then read the following two Reader Responses, one an editorial by a regular columnist for the Sacramento Bee (April 29, 2007) and another posted by a reader in a forum in Front Page, an online conservative magazine (May 18, 2007).
Editorial: West Sac's gang law was racially unfair
Sacramento Bee
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Marcos Breton (Columnist)
During the Vietnam War, it was said you had to destroy a village to save it. In West Sacramento today, you apparently have to racially profile a neighborhood to save it -- and the more expensive homes on the other side of town.
That's an unfair analogy, but there is nothing fair about this. It's just life.
To combat violent gangs, West Sacramento police fought back with a legal injunction against gang members.
The injunction covered a three-mile swath of West Sacramento's poorest neighborhoods. It called for curfews and barred unnamed gang members from gathering.
The American Civil Liberties Union challenged and the California's 3rd District Court of Appeal struck down the injunction last week saying it violated the due process rights of gang members. A three-judge panel said members of the gang weren't given enough advance notice of the injunction by police.
In a vacuum, that ruling inspires sarcasm.
Yeah, sure. Gang members need plenty of lead time. Just imagine their packed schedules: Monday -- carjacking. Tuesday -- homicide. Wednesday -- illegal drug sales. They're busy people.
But what about the feelings of some that the injunction -- because it blanketed largely Latino neighborhoods -- was racially profiling brown people?
OK. But no one denies that bad dudes were getting rounded up, too. According to West Sacramento police, violent crimes -- homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault -- were down in the Broderick and Bryte neighborhoods after the injunction was imposed in 2005.
"I was in favor of it. I felt safer," said Maria Mendoza, a five-year resident of Broderick.
As a Mexican American myself, I'd argue that the phrase "Viva La Raza" should never include murderers, drug dealers and other criminals.
But let's not get lost here. This isn't just about racial profiling or gang violence.
This is about a city of 40,000 changing rapidly -- becoming more affluent and wanting to shed its image as a backwater of Sacramento -- and the people being left behind.
The south side of West Sacramento is sprouting half-million dollar homes seemingly overnight. In the north side neighborhood of Broderick, 30 percent of residents live below the federal poverty line, according to the 2000 census. It's easy to see how a form of martial law could be levied in such an area -- and pretty much expected that new city residents would seek to avoid schools populated by Broderick kids.
This story line plays out all over America.
But driving around Broderick and the adjacent Bryte neighborhoods late last week, they both seemed so familiar. They were like the San Jose neighborhood where I grew up in a house with metal bars on all the windows because we got ripped off more than once.
In Broderick and Bryte, you saw homes displaying American flags, gardens planted with care. There is a baseball field where kids play and their families gather to watch.
There are people such as Benjamin Chavez, a welder and 20-year Broderick resident, who was against the injunction while acknowledging it brought down crime.
"I was against it because there are good kids here, too. They aren't all gang members," he said.
On Thursday night, Chavez and other concerned parents gathered at Holy Cross Catholic Church -- in a hall where Chavez said a birthday party for one of his two daughters ended in gunfire several years ago.
Now, Chavez and others are trying to learn how to communicate with the local school board to show them that they, too, care about their children.
These folks defy stereotypes, are good people in a "bad" area.
West Sacramento officials are wrestling with what to do in the wake of their gang injunction being struck down by the courts.
They should go to Holy Cross Church to gather with willing people. They should convince their constituents that reconciliation is in their interests:
Gang violence spreads from disaffected areas.
In a neighborhood targeted by police, people sit in a church hall after long work days, and are trying to organize themselves. And when their meetings end, they lower their heads and say the Lord's Prayer.
Marcos Breton: mbreton@sacbee.com. Back columns at www.sacbee.com/breton.
Edition: METRO FINAL; Section: METRO; Page: B1; Record Number: SAC_0405148439
Copyright 2007 The Sacramento Bee
Learn More
Learn more about racial profiling. Use a search engine to do a key words search. What do you understand Breton to mean when he writes: “You apparently have to racially profile a neighborhood to save it—and the more expensive homes on the other side of town”? What do you understand him to mean when he writes: Gang violence spreads from disaffected areas. Look up the word “disaffected” in a dictionary, even if you generally know what the word means. Then use a search engine to see what reports come up when you type in these key words: disaffected youth. Can you find some discussion of probable causes and programs to help this population?
Review
What is Breton’s view of the overturning of the injunction against gang members?
What is his view of the racial profiling argument? Re-read the headline. What does he mean by “racially unfair”? Who is “speaking”? (What is Breton’s cultural background? Where did he grow up?) Add to your analytical framework. Take and make some notes.
Reflect
“This [story] isn’t just about racial profiling or gang violence,” Breton writes. What does he think this story is really about? And what is your response? QuickWrite for five minutes.
Discuss
In a small group share your understanding of the position this columnist shares in the local newspaper of the community where this event took place. Join the conversation!
You could share your QuickWriting as a “Comment” online.
Blogs, with the opinions of anyone who wants to post one—a teacher, a truck driver, a news anchor, whoever—can be put online around the globe with the stroke of a computer key.
--Steve Powers, “News Paradigm Shift”
This reader has closely followed this news event as it developed. He summarizes the event, reviews the news coverage and his concerns, and ends with his position.
The Great PC Train Robbery (Domestic Terrorist gang attacks train)
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | May 18, 2007 | Lloyd Billingsley
Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 1:12:58 PM by FreeThinkerNY
On April 16, a Monday, passengers aboard the last Amtrak train of the day back from the Bay Area wondered why the engine ground to a stop as it approached the I Street bridge over the Sacramento River. They didn’t know that five people stood on the tracks, gang members among them, throwing rocks at the engineer, who stopped the train. The attackers dragged him out, demanded his wallet and cell phone, then beat him senseless with a bottle and a fire extinguisher. They also attacked the train's conductor. The engineer, with head and internal injuries, was taken to hospital. The train finally crossed the river to the Sacramento station under the control of a student conductor.
Train robberies were common in the wild west but are now practically unknown. By any journalistic standard this one was Big News, page-one material, especially with the gang involvement. The attack happened at about 10:15 pm, plenty of time for next-day coverage in the Sacramento Bee, the only daily in California's capital. A lot of people ride Amtrak too and would certainly want to know if gang members had robbed a train and nearly killed the engineer.
No story appeared on Tuesday. The next day, April 18, the Bee ran a 378-word story about the attack, not on the front page, and headlined "W. Sac's focus on security in attack on train: Mayor wants report after beating of engineer Monday."
"This is lawless barbarism," West Sacramento mayor Christopher Cabaldon told the Bee's Tony Bizjak, but the attackers remained unidentified. An April 18 Associated Press story came headlined "Mob forces train to stop, assaults engineer in West Sacrament" but mentioned only a "group of people" on the tracks. That could have meant anybody, but on Thursday emerged the involvement of the Broderick Boys a criminal street gang under a court injunction by Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig, who calls the gang "domestic terrorists."
Reisig's 2005 injunction set up a 10 pm curfew for the Broderick Boys and a "safety zone," which included the area where the train attack occurred. The lead attacker was 17 but would be tried on some 14 felony charges including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, mayhem, train robbery, vandalism and criminal street gang activity. Even though he will be tried as an adult, the Bee chose not to reveal the lead attacker's name.
The paper's brief April 18 editorial called for greater security on the train tracks and decried the "gang of hooligans," along with "vandals" and "thugs." All that fell short of the "lawless barbarism" decried by the major [mayor]of West Sacramento. The editorial did not name the actual gang in involved in the attack. The Broderick Boys soon caught a bigger break.
On April 24, an appeal court tossed Reisig's injunction, under which violent crime had decreased eight percent in the safety zone. The next day, the Bee ran a prominently featured piece of nearly 1,000 words by veteran reporters Bill Lindelof and Stephen Managnini. It turned out to be a forum for Joe Castro, 76, who described himself as proud to be a Broderick Boy, even though, he said, "I've never been around them when they caused any trouble." Castro's wife Mary said the injunction was "the worst thing that could have happened here," stigmatizing a Latino community. Activists of La Raza Network said likewise. Neither Castro mentioned the train attack.
Bee columnist Marcos Breton also failed to mention the train attack at all in his April 29 column, "West Sac's Gang Law was Racially Unfair." He conceded that crime was down in the areas covered by the injunction but charged that the measure was a kind of racial profiling of "brown people." The piece included no opinion on the fairness of the injunction from the engineer whose head the Broderick Boys had bashed in, nor from the conductor who had been beaten. The "alternative" Sacramento News & Review likewise avoided any mention of the train attack in its piece on the gang injunction against the Broderick Boys.
All told, a successful injunction against a violent gang garnered more wrath than a savage attack which Eugene Skoropowski, executive director of the Capitol Corridor train service, told the Bee was "the most horrific incident" he had seen in 40 years on the railroad. Even before the train attack, Jeff Reisig had ample justification for calling the violent Broderick Boys domestic terrorists. The DA did his best but was up against a politically correct media ethos which construes anti-crime measures, whatever their success, as racial profiling of an accredited victim group.
Violent gangs victimize innocents but in the politically correct view, gangs are victims of capitalist, racist society. In this case the Broderick Boys came out well. The press keeps the attackers' identity a secret and the gang avoids direct criticism. The courts provide the favor of lifting an effective injunction against them, followed by cheers from the press. That dynamic could well make train travel a more exciting experience in California.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1835849/posts
Review
What connotations do these descriptions bring to mind: “criminal street gang,” “domestic terrorist gang,” “domestic terrorists,” “gang of hooligans,” “vandals,” “thugs”? You can add these descriptions to your analytical framework. Review the next-to-last paragraph of this post. What really upsets this reader about the media coverage of this event?
Reflect
Re-read the first sentence of the last paragraph. What do you make of this either/or statement? QuickWrite for five minutes.
News Update
On December 31, 2007, the controversial injunction was reinstated. See www.news10.net: “Yolo Judge Reinstates Broderick Boys Order.”
Two years later in yet another hearing, opponents of the West Sacramento Gang injunction gathered outside a court house. (See “Citizens Call for Renewed Scrutiny of Anti-Gang Practices in Yolo County,” David Greenwald, June 11, 2009, The People’s Vanguard of Davis: http://davisvanguard.org/). They argued that “while there is crime in West Sacramento and a small number of gang members, neither the level of violence nor the number of gang members justify an injunction.” But they also made a point that Marco Breton made in his column—the need for discussion in this community, a community that has changed considerably in the last decade.
Write
What is this story really about? Isn’t it about gang violence and the need to prevent violent attacks like the one that occurred on the train tracks in Sacramento? The crime rate decreased from 2005-2009 following the court injunction. So wasn’t the injunction a good response? Didn’t residents feel safer? What’s race got to do with it? (Is the gang injunction “racially unfair”? Is a neighborhood being “racially profiled”? Are young Latino males being unfairly targeted?) Does there need to be a discussion in the community about larger controversial issues—race, and perhaps social class, and place as well, and how to help disaffected youth? How can this conflict be resolved, or can it be?
Using these questions as a prompt, contribute to the conversation with an informed reader response (700-750 words). Assume readers have been following this story. You do not need to summarize the news event (the train robbery and attack) as you would need to do if readers have not been following the story.
Some Guidelines for Writing Your Reading
Instead of reacting and sharing a QuickWriting, take time to reflect and revise before sharing your response. You could begin your work, however, by re-reading the questions in the prompt and QuickWriting without censoring your thoughts or writing. Then you could go back and review your analytical framework, notes, and earlier writing as well as other reader responses, and then your QuickWriting, and write a little more. This kind of work can help you reflect further about what you think this story is really about and your response to the follow-up “readings” of this news event. To quote Russian linguist Lev Vygotsky, “Writing can help pull your thoughts along.” Have you ever noticed that at the end of your writing, you often come to what you really want to say?
Once you have reflected further on what you think this story is about, try making some kind of position statement. (You may have to revise a couple of times to get the statement to reflect your thinking, and you can also revise it later.) Although you do not need to review other reader responses in detail (as you would need to do if readers have not been following the event), you may want to place your perspective in relation to them. You may also want to refer to other factors (how this “place” or community has changed, for example). In the writing you do for this project and for most of the writing you will do across the curriculum, you would need to support your perspective. Support can take different forms. (See “Some Common Forms of Support/Evidence,” Resources, pp. 0-00.) In this case, your readers need to be able to follow your reasoning so that they at least understand your point of view.
Consider these questions for organizing your reader response: What is the problem from your perspective? What is your reasoning? How does your perspective relate to other perspectives? How could the problem(s) this news event has uncovered be addressed? You could use these questions to create an outline for writing your first draft; however, you may want to use a different order. You may, for example, want to begin by discussing the initial response and how that has played out in the community. You will probably re-organize some for your second draft. The idea is not to make this first draft “perfect” but to get the groundwork done: critical re-reading, reviewing, and some kind of layout. Then you will be able re-see better as a reader rather than a writer and finally move on to editing for grammatical and mechanical conventions, word choice, syntax, and style.
Rewrite
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