the Vagabond Journalist
Elon Reacts to the Proposed Bailout of Financial Markets
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While top economists and Congress debate the country’s course of action with last week’s financial institution meltdown, Elon students and other locals confront the reality of their own uncertain financial futures.
“Obviously it’s going to be different for a lot of people,” said Ellis Bridgers, a junior at Elon. “I’ve been privileged enough to have the opportunity to travel outside of the country. With the way things are now it doesn’t look like it will be a possibility anymore.”
The proposed bailout in the works at $700 billion amounts to $2,333 per American citizen. This figure can be more or less, depending on how the markets react to the infusion of money.
It would be one of the biggest government interventions into the market since the Great Depression. While politicians and Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, debate the fine details of the proposed $700 billion dollar bailout plan for Wall Street, people all over the country are just beginning to come to terms with how this uncertain future could have an affect on their lives.
“I think it’s kind of scary that everything’s going under,” said Megan Wanner, Elon sophomore, “My parents have investments that are keeping me here at college.”
“It’s going to take a long time for it to be fixed,” said William Austin, a Financial Advisor at Burlington’s Edward Jones. “Tt took a long time to see the full extent of the problems we’re facing now.”
Austin said that, for his clients, only a small percentage have come to him with their concerns on the future.
“Most investors realize it’s a volatile situation as it is,” said Austin.
With the economists debating how effective this proposed bailout could be, people all over the country debate their next course of action as they move into an uncertain financial future.
Good Examples of Beat Reporting
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CIA Holds Terror Suspects In Secret Prisons from The Washington Post
This story was one of the first in presenting to the public the controversial and suggestive details of the CIA’s secret prisons where terrorist suspects were being captive. An article, making such a bold claim has got to build up the trust of the readers. Priest does this by providing rich details, history and scope to this issue. Proving that this story was well-researched with its claims, the readers are more likely to trust the controversial content that it has found.
For the details that still remain vague or unclear, the article makes sure to mention them early and why they were not able to obtain the information. By describing the barriers that Priest hit while finding out details and what could be published, Priest further gains the readers trust and gives a better picture of the seriousness of the situation.
Radio Conglomerates Skirt Payola Laws, Critics Say by from the Los Angeles Times
What’s the best way to have audiences understand a complex way around the law for radio stations to exhibit power over artists? A specific example. That’s exactly how this story starts and ends, providing a clear and specific example of Bryan Adams song, and how it remained on the radio stations of one company well after the other stations had stopped playing his story.
This example is the first thing readers see, giving them a simple understanding of a smaller situation to grasp the larger one. The use history and background, that of the “payola” scandal, to tell how this scandal compares.
Making a claim against businesses is hard to do and must be substantiated with hard facts and figures. This story, through many different examples and instances, brings clarity to a complicated way around the law.
100 years, 100 million acres of land saved from the San Francisco Chronicle
The detail given out in the headline displays this story’s most interesting element that intrigues readers.
“1 million acres of land for each year of his life.”
This story advances from the lead by using a quote of praise. You see at the end of this quote that it was said by Bill Clinton at a Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony. You only realize, as a reader, after the quote how important those words are. 100 years gives Kay plenty of material and achievements to highlight in this story. Through Wayburn’s life, Kay is able to put his biography alongside the history he has lived through.
The Judge and the G-Man from the Village Voice
“The case of People of New York vs. R. Lindley DeVecchio has now entered week two in the new Supreme Court building in downtown Brooklyn, and the parade of gangsters, molls, and G-men to the witness stand is expected to last several weeks more.”
This is the lead used in this story, which ultimately ends up being a story about the judge overseeing this case. It is certainly an off-beat approach to what becomes an off-beat story. This is a story about a judge who lived through the turbulent 60’s to find himself on an FBI list. It brings readers from the interesting material of a gangster filled court room to an interesting look back into the background of a judge.
The approach of bringing readers along to believe one thing, then eventually leaving them at a completely unexpected different place keeps a story fresh and interesting. Robbins is able to find parallels between the life of a life-long mobster and a judge. This is the heart of the story, and what it becomes about.
Help is a long wait away at 18,286th on the list by Debbie Cenziper of The Miami Herald
How do you best portray the desperation of a desperate situation? For Cenziper, writing a story about the housing troubles and evictions Miami residents face as the result of government failure to provide affordable housing is best told through an anecdote. Ingrid Gordon is 18,286 on a list for a government voucher to help pay her rent. It gives the readers a scope of how big the problem, how desperate her situation is, and how pathetic the actions of the government have been in attempting to alleviate this problem.
A crumbling housing complex, mold, rat nests and feces, are just a few of the details Cenziper gives to help readers understand the condition Gordan’s family is living in. It doesn’t ask for the readers’ sympathy, it demands it through the use of specific details.
Pro-Israel, Pro-Palestine, Together as OneVoice
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This story was published in Elon University’s The Pendulum. You can find the published story here.
OneVoice Speakers from left to right; Rami Rabayah, Yaniv Sasson and China Sajadian.
Thousands of miles away from Elon University, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rages on, struggling to find a fair compromise for both sides to call progress. But here at Elon, Israeli Yaniv Sasson and Palestinian Rami Rabayah sat side by side in Yeager Recital Hall last Friday to deliver a hopeful message for the future.
“I am here to empower my country, he is here to empower his people,” said Sasson.
Sasson and Rabayah are members of OneVoice, a movement made up of both Palestinians and Israelis calling to end the violence and bring about a two-state resolution.
“We are asking our decision makers who we elected to do their job,” said Rabayah.
Rabayah, a 30-year old from West Bank city of Jenin, grew up to see many peace agreements that failed to bring security to his people.
“Since I can remember, I never really felt in a secure place,” said Rabayah.
This led Rabayah to join the OneVoice Movement. Having seen many Palestinians flee or join militias, Rabayah decided to take a much different road towards bringing about change.
“I think reality has brought us to these crossroads we are at today,” said Sasson.
Sasson, an Israeli Army Veteran and scholar, was brought to OneVoice with the same hopes Rabayah has, that violence in the area can be brought to an end through cooperation.
“I want security for my people,” said Sasson. “Every time you walk into a mall they check your bags. If there is no security at the entrance, something is very wrong. I don’t think this should be the norm.”
OneVoice focuses on finding the common ground between Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine movements to find a solution that satisfies the hopes of both sides. Their projects include holding town hall meetings with Israelis and Palestinians, traveling to college campuses around the world, and a project that compiles the answers of young Palestinians and Israelis of how they see their future in 2018.
For an area that has endured some 60 years of the violence of extremists and terrorists, Rabayah and Sasson maintain the hope that this movement could be part of bringing about a historic change.
“We could be a model for a lot of conflicts around the world,” said Rabayah.
The OneVoice event was sponsored at Elon by Hillel, the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, and Students for Peace and Justice. The event filled Yeager Recital Hall with a diverse audience of students and professors interested in OneVoice’s movement.
“I think it’s good that we’ve opened up the forum and gotten the Israeli-Palestinian conflict out there,” said Susan Esrock, President of Elon University’s chapter of Hillel, “I hope that this leads to other things.”
Good Examples of Profiles in Journalism
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Eugene Rivers’s Moment from the Boston Phoenix
This is a feature-personality on the controversial black community leader Eugene Rivers. The story starts by describing a casual interaction Eugene Rivers has within his church, followed by a new paragraph explaining who he is and his importance. I have seen very few personality pieces’s jump into answering the question of who the person is immediately, as it tends to make for a uninteresting lead.
Rivers’s controversy as of late is that he has been trying to replace Jesse Jackson as the African-American’s most prominent leader. It is a rumor that Eugene Rivers’s confronts in the profile directly as perplexing. This builds the readers interest to find out if the claims hold any legitimacy. This small controversy is the main point of the article that keeps it moving an interesting. Yet the story is, along the way, scattered along with specific details of who Rivers’s is and why he has brought this controversy to himself.
Privilege, tragedy, and a young leader from the Boston Globe
I chose to read through this article because I wanted to see how the profile of a well-known person in American politics might differ in style and approach to lesser-known individuals.
This article starts off with an incredibly catching lead, “By the time he saw the black Mercedes barreling into his lane, there was nothing Mitt Romney could do.” I would consider this a very unexpected way to start a profile on a well-known politician. This unique approach really grabs in the readers to expect something different then a dry straight news story on a politician. The story describes this thrilling instance in Mitt Romney’s life before jumping back to the details of his birth and upbringing. Were the story to have gone in strictly chronological order, it would be too predictable for readers to feel the need to read on.
Perhaps the most successful aspects of this story is how it provides, piece by piece, a background of Mormonism as well as how it played a role in Romney’s life. The piece is challenged by having to fully explain both of these complicated matters for the reader to understand. The article is part of a seven part series, Interestingly enough, the article ends back at the car accident that threatened Romney’s life. The same detail used to readers into this story is used to conclude the article and encourage readers to want to read onto the second part of the series.
Michael Kelley’s Obstacle Course from the Charlotte Observer
This article takes a fairly common approach to writing profiles, by leading readers by mentioning the most thrilling aspect of the subject’s life. In this case, it was Michael Kelley’s encounter with an air-collision at Pope Air Force Base. However, this detail is not revealed into a few lines in the story, only hinting at it other times in the lead by mentioning how he had gone through a huge “healing stage.”
Amazingly enough, the article doesn’t explain the crash Kelley experienced but rather the training he had to endure to become a police officer.This vignette within his life is a story runs parallel to the story of his heroic recovery. It is written in an energetic style, with time’s starting each section like the beginnings of an episode of 24.
This is not at all a story about the Pope Air Force Base of a survivor, but a survivor who defied expectations and came through an amazing recovery. And Tomlinson is able to emphasize this by the describing Tomlinson’s training in a compelling way.
A Father’s Pain, a Judge’s Duty, and a Justice Beyond Their Reach from the Los Angeles Times
The headline and lead of this story could not be any more compelling. Only a few paragraphs into the story, readers are already drawn in from two different perspectives of the judge and the father. For the father, Wayment, the story could not be anymore heartbreaking.
The story tells the story in a way that is sympathetic to Wayment, describing his negligence in a situation that got his son killed, the guilt he felt for what happened, as well as the rumors and allegations that spread as to what could have happened. This story is a crime story as much as it is a profile.
Having all the details today, it is able to refer back to the time when the details weren’t all there to give a complete picture of what happened. While the story is somewhat chronoligocical, revealing the details along the way is an interesting approach that makes the story all the more compelling. The story also spends a great deal of time profiling the man who sentenced Wayment, Judge Hilder, and the background on his life that made it so difficult to deliver a sentence in this case.
A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds from the New York Times
This profile does more than profile the life of an imam living in Brooklyn. It also tells the story of how a Muslim lives in the United States, an intriguing story to readers that widens the scope beyond the life of Mr. Shata.
Mr. Shata arrived to the United States a day after September 11, and found many challenges as a church leader for himself and the people he led in his mosque. As you read through the story you see how Mr. Shata’s story is really one of adjustment. It notes all the changes he has had to make with his life personally, as well as evolving the way his mosque functions in a country far from his home in Egypt.
It also tells of the discrimination he faced following September 11, including his mosque being “defiled with graffiti and smeared with feces.” Profiles often become stories about more than just one person. This profile rarely strays from the stories or experiences of Mr. Shata, yet is still able to touch on many other important things. Through his experience, his story becomes one interest for everyone, of what it means to be a Muslim in Brooklyn, to face discrimination after September 11, and to fulfill the lives of mosque attendees and provide for them the religious service we see in all forms of religion. It makes a story detailing a life that few know about become a story about something we can all relate to.
OneWebDay – How the Internet Has Changed My Life
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This is a piece I wrote for OneWebDay and the Greensboro News & Record on how the internet has changed my life. You can find the published article here.
When people think about how the internet has changed music, most will tell you how the music industry has collapsed, or how people have since traded in there compact discs for iPods and mp3s. Yet, what you have not heard about is the new generation of music fans that have picked up the pieces of the music industry’s downfall to usher in an entirely new era in the ways that we enjoy music.
Were I to tell you the most significant impact of the internet on my life, it would undoubtedly be how it has revolutionized the ways I go about finding all kinds of music.
As a 21 year old, I can hardly remember the days when my music taste would have been confined to artists I heard on the radio, on television, or from the recommendation of a close friend with mix-taping abilities.
Pandora.com creates radio stations of artists similar to the ones you enter in. It's simple to use design has made it a popular resource for music fans.
Most of the years I have been listening to music, I have been able to seek it out from all kinds of sources. Today’s providers of music include music blogs, services like last Last.fm and Pandora, close friends with the ability to hit send on the computer, and so on. A whole community of music listeners, both young and old, have been liberated from the confinements of an industry-dominated culture that once was Rock n’ Roll.
Last.fm creates radio stations based on what you listen to. It also allows you to interact and share with other music fans.
So you say you want a revolution? I say the changes are well on the way for music listeners. My knowledge of music doesn’t stop with songs I have heard on the radio, or records that I happen to own, it stops where I choose it to. And that’s the power of our limitless world of the World Wide Web, brinding us that much closer to the things in life we are most passionate about.
Tags: digital- revolution, internet, internet radio, last.fm, music, music industry, pandora.com
Good Examples of Explanatory Journalism
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Rock legend can’t play, but knows how to listen from The Age
This is almost a profile, yet written with a unique twist. It is a profile developed around a story that spans long enough to note the dramatic changes in the music industry. This allows the article to explore each side of this story, Seymour Stein’s career, and the ever-changing music business where he managed to find constant success.
Using a personal story to help progress alongside a larger picture of the music business’ evolution allows readers to more easily follow and understand both of these stories. The article comes to a very interesting story when, after continually defining Seymour Stein’s success, it comes to the point of the music business’ downfall. It uses this point in the article to ask Seymour Stein what went wrong, allowing for him to give an expert opinion in an industry he has made a career out of.
The article is not just a story about the failure of the music business, but is able to provide insight into the matter in a more unique way than simply providing research into where the industry went wrong. A story about Seymour Stein, an old baron of the music business, is able to contrast the past music business with the present.
By hearing how things have changed in the industry and even for Seymour Stein, you are able to see that the future of the music business will be drastically different from the one that fostered Seymour Stein’s career.
Even though Stein’s career is one that has adapted to the constant changes of music styles in his long career, he is still able to acknowledge the drastic shift the music business is being forced to take.
The Primeval Tide of Toxins by the Los Angeles Times
Explanatory journalism is a great way to approach the subject of pollution, one with a complex web of cause and effect relationships that can sometimes span the globe. With Kenneth R. Weiss’ story on toxic algae and bacterial blooms in oceans around the world, he is able to take from many viewpoints of a story to bring together a comprehensive look at the problem of ocean pollution.
Weiss doesn’t start his article explaining how the field of science has found ocean pollution to be a problem, he tells of the struggles that fisherman face working with the polluted algae blooms on a day to day basis. The story gives some scientific background, then goes on to widen the scope by explaining other people’s struggle, all over the world, in dealing with rising ocean pollution.
Science is used alongside with the viewpoint of fisherman working the oceans. The phenomenon of the jellyfish bloom is dissected alongside the story of a former shrimp fisherman who has now taken up fishing for the more plentiful jellyfish. This helps to make, what could be a cut-and-dry story on science, a more interesting and dynamic story that brings much of the science down to a, more easily understood, human level.
The article ends by bringing the readers back to the subject of the fisherman. It takes several direct quotes that show that it the irritation from the toxic algae is the only thing that can stop them. It is a direct quote that further emphasized the direness of the situation, if it is bad enough to stop the rugged fisherman, surely the problem must be one to note.
Executive Privilege by The Wall Street Journal
For a story highlighting the greed of a corporate executive, this story takes a distinctive approach that highlights the problem on all scales. What better way to describe greed then to start off detailing how corporate money was recklessly spent on lavish personal items for decorating the house of Tyco CEO, L. Dennis Kozlowski. Exact prices are given for items he bought to furnish his house, which include, among other things, a $6,000 shower curtain. Using such exact and fine-details helps the reader gain trust early on in the story. It leads readers to the conclusion that the authors of the story are well-read and educated on the issue, and can be trusted.
The story is not told chronologically, which allows for it to be told in a dynamic way, revealing certain details and time-periods in the story in whatever way fits to telling the story. To make sure that the details and time sequence is not lost, the author also includes different spending statistics and a timeline at the end of the story.
This article takes on a controversial subject, but finds success in it’s use of statistics and details. Without explicitly stating that what Kozlowski did was wrong, they are able to provide a detail-rich story that says it all without the gush.
US stem cell research lagging by the Boston Globe
Garreth Cook’s article on Stem Cell research starts with a lead that validates immediately what the headline claims, the United States is behind in breakthroughs in stem cell research. This attention-grabbing vignette is followed by the history of the problem which answers the question of why this is.
The challenge this story face is that it has to explain science that is unfamiliar to some, and how it is entangled and related to the complexities of our political system. It takes the approach of going back and forth between providing details on each aspect of the story. To show the significance of this relationship, history is given as to how stem cell research was initially discovered in the United States, but has had its progress halted by various federal bans.
Like many examples of explanatory reporting, the story ends where it began, bringing the story back to the Czech researcher, and how he has become a leader in an area where the United States has lost its ground.
Think Tank Warfare by Phoenix New Times
I chose this as an example of explanatory journalism because it was not as high-profile of a story, somewhat less complex than other stories I have read, and on a subject that I know very little about.
This article faces an interesting problem that, presented alone, is intriguing to the readers. Barry Goldwater, founder of the thinktank “The Goldwater Institute”, expressed concern over what the institute named after him had become. This story is able to focus into the specifics of the Goldwater story to share insight on how all think tank institutions function. Think tanks generally take on one guiding philosophy and intervene and provide research around this core-philosophy.
The challenge for this article is to explain this core-philosophy in enough detail for readers to understand how it has been distorted to the point that it troubled its own founder. To simplify this to readers, the issue of charter schools was used as a specific story within the story of how this think tank has, in Goldwater views, gone astray.
5,620 Students and Counting: Enrollment Numbers See Another Record Breaking Year
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This story was published in Elon University’s The Pendulum. You can find the article here.
This incoming year, Elon University will break a record for its highest enrollment numbers ever, with 5,620 students. But before you go running to save your spot at the gym or to get in-line for lunch at your favorite dining hall, it is important to note that this number includes the students from Elon’s graduate schools in business and law.
While the total student enrollment, including graduate, has seen an increase, the number of undergraduate students on campus has grown only slightly. Elon University’s total enrollment for undergraduate students is 4,987.
This number is only slightly higher than the total number of undergraduate students a year ago, which was 4,939.
“Our goal with each freshman class is at 1,275 students,” said Greg Zaiser, dean of admissions.
While holding exactly to that number is out of the university’s control, Dean Zaiser assured that in the past few years, this number has remained unchanged.
This year’s undergraduate freshman class is only slightly off this mark, with 1,290 students. According to Dean Zaiser, factors taken into establishing this ideal number for a freshman class include class sizes, physical space and the annual budget.
The top reason for the large increase in total students this year was due to the addition of new class of law students to Elon University’s graduate law school in Greensboro. The recent addition of Elon’s graduate program Interactive Media is expected to further increase the size of Elon’s total enrollment by next year. The university has a target class size of 37 additional students for this program.
Although Elon University has seen growth in numbers over the past few years, the things that give Elon University’s sense of community have, in many cases, improved. The student to faculty ratio, one Elon’s assets as a smaller school, has dropped to 14 students per every faculty member, what Dean Zaiser says is the lowest it’s been in his 18 years at Elon University.
Elon’s sense of a smaller-school community is often cited as one of the school’s best assets, one of the many reasons students choose to attend Elon.
“I think Elon should stay about this size because it means it will keep its sense of community,” said Meg Hewitt, an Elon sophomore, “it’s always nice to walk around campus and see familiar faces.”
With traditions such as College Coffee and the faculty’s Take-a-Student-to-Lunch-Program, Dean Zaiser does not expect that Elon’s sense of community will disappear with an increasing numbers of students.
“The interesting thing about Elon is that even though it has grown so much, it still feels like a small community, which is remarkable,” said Zaiser.
World Wide Web, Here I Come!
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This is my first post, of many to follow, for my class here at Elon University, Reporting for the Public Good.
Here I will be publishing various articles I have written about events taking place in and around Elon, NC.
I am looking forward to it and hope to see your comments.
A little about me…
I am a Junior at Elon University, majoring Journalism with a minor in philosophy. I have a deep passion for music, nature and people. For me, writing and journalism is a limitless oppurtunity to never stop learning about the world. I write to share my gained knowledge, insight and understanding with anyone who cares to listen.
