"Got anything for me?"

I had been sitting at the desk for about ten minutes when I heard one of the sports guys (Scott?) start talking to Colin, a copy editor/reporter.

Apparently an intern called him earlier this afternoon and asked if they were going to have any work for him to do. Sports Guy Scott said, "Uh...Yes." Intern Dude said, "Ok. Cuz I just didn't want to waste any time and was just making sure."
...Interesting.

Wow. I don't know about you all, but in my world, that's not exactly something you say to a potential employer. That's not something you say to anyone you've agreed to go and work for. I know that I haven't had very much work experience besides bookstores and volunteering and now this opportunity at the Tribune, but calling in to say anything besides "I am dying of tuberculosis" or "This blizzard is so bad all the highways are closed" is, in my book, out of line.

I even secretly hate the part-timers from the bookstore who would tell me, the unbiased student who of course relates to everything via drunk stories, that they were really tired but were going to go out anyway and get completely sloshed and call in the next morning. I'm sorry, did I miss something? Are we supposed to be lazy and shirk all responsibility?

Of course some of you are thinking right now, "Oh, sure, she's one to talk, she's blogging while at work. Hypocrite." I'll just point out that the blog is required for the internship class, I'm in between projects (I don't write this all at once, you know), and, last but not least, I take no official breaks.

I told Sports Guy Scott that he should be sure to give that intern the most mundane job he can think of. As I write this, Intern Dude is typing up the schedule. And that, for a terribly evil reason, is immensely gratifying.

Oooohhhh....a new project! I get to triple edit the Tribune's Stylebook! Yay!
And by that I mean, oh help. This stack of paper is almost half of an inch high. I might need more than one felt-tipped pen to finish this baby up.

Now for a word question. Why do we pronounce "indictment" as [in-dahyt-muhnt]? It came from the middle English "enditement;" why didn't we just keep it the way it was? I'm sorry to say that before about two years ago, I had no idea that it wasn't [in-dict-muh nt]. I really didn't. I knew what "indictment" was, I just didn't know how to spell the real word.

I wonder how many other words there are like that? I used to be so vain about my spelling skills, hurrah for spelling bees. Then I started learning French, and speaking a different language with so many cognates whose only differences are spelling (usually "s" in French when it's "z" in English) really messes me up. It's like I don't know who I am anymore.

It's even worse when I realise (see? Example #1) that the British spell it differently than we Americans do; and like the proper snob that I am, I decide to go British. I don't know why part of me thinks that the British are cooler speakers than Americans are. We just sound so....dull. Like no one cares about speech anymore. They just want to get it over with; if they just barely manage to get their point across, that's fine by them.

I say that everyone should start caring and begin pronouncing vowels the way they were born to be pronounced! .......Uh.....And how was that, again?

Wikipedia and Opining

Sometimes the addictiveness of certain websites really scares me. Take icanhascheezburger.com for example. I love that website (with a very mild, detached love I mean). It makes me laugh, and shake my head, and roll my eyes, and a lot of times I'll get on it to take a five minute break, but not stop looking at the pages of pictures for at least half of an hour.

It's really rather ridiculous. But today, it wasn't pictures of funny cats and their captions that got me. I fell into the Wikipedia abyss. "It's not a credible source," teachers say. "Stay away from it except for looking up simple things you are supposed to know anyway and will never cite in your papers."

But I was doing research. I was looking at conservative and liberal media, and trying to find a simple list of corporations (papers, networks) that would give me any idea of what everyone else thought. And I did find an article about "Media bias in the United States". It was very easy to find. I can hear the tiny voice in my head of one of my teachers scolding me and making sad tsking noises.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I read the entire thing. I'm sorry I've turned into every other college student on the planet. It's very shameful, and I apologize.
But where else can you find easy information?
Wikipedia seems to have a little bit of something for anything you want to know. And other sources of information do not lend themselves to the usage of broke college students (hey, that's me!). Sometimes it's just not possible to find information in "credible" news sources.

And would Encyclopedia Brittanica have a side-by-side comparison of the most and least liberal news media organisations in the States? Nope.
"There are no topic results related to your search." Okaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy.... Great. Thanks.

Even I am really tired of hearing classmates and professors rant in class about the decline of the newspaper and how much they hate blogs and Wikipedia and Twitter (and who knows what else) because they demean journalistic integrity, but still. Since even I fall into this hole, I suppose I still don't have a set answer in my own mind.

I do find it incredibly amusing that some students of journalism hate blogs because they contain too much opinion. I am apparently not a "real" journalist.

Now, I really don't think...

Oh, I'm sorry...I forgot that opinion has no place in "real" journalism. I'm supposed to participate, but not contribute, is that it? How in the world can you write an article, not put your opinion into it, and keep a reader from falling unconscious after the second sentence?

Saying that makes me think of my AP History teacher, Mr. Lightfoot. He was an interesting person. Maybe I'll write a profile about him someday. The strangest thing about Lightfoot was his inability to answer questions. At least, that's what we thought it was. Turns out he actually hated history, and only wanted to teach biology. Go figure. Anyways, sometimes we would ask him who his favorite president was. Or even the top five. He would NEVER give us an answer! He'd say, "What I think doesn't matter. I don't want to color your judgment."

The entire class would always bristle at that. Color our judgment? What, are we lemmings? Mindless and hopeless with a penchant for only following the leader?
Yup. Apparently we are.

Why else would we spend so much time complaining that FOX is conservative, the Times is liberal, and that something needs to change? The conservatives want more conservative reports. The liberals want more liberal reports. No surprises there. I find, to my relief, that a large number of the people whining about media biases are at least the informed citizens.

And I believe they're all complaining because the liberals are afraid that people will listen to the Washington Times and turn into Bible-thumping pastors, and the conservatives are worried that people will listen to the Wall Street Journal and become, what? Sorry, I can't think of the opposite transformation. Something about gays? Probably.

Of course, the relief I felt after finding out that journalists are worried about the general population being led astray disappeared quite soon after I remembered that they are, after all, simply complaining and slinging mud at one another.

I did find an article, written in 2005, about the findings of one UCLA professor of political science. Of all of the outlets researched, apparently Jim Lehrer was the most central-thinking. Looks like I'm going to have to do some more research. I wouldn't want to read unbalanced material and stop thinking for myself.

Final thought: Apparently FOX News execs get morning memos detailing the stories of the day and how they will be covered? I actually have heard this before, but I'm still wondering about the truthfulness of the fact. Who's to say the other papers don't get the same thing?

Hating conservatives and liberals

In honor of journalism and all that is fair and good in the world, I'm going to begin a mini research project.

I want to know why everyone hates conservative journalists.

I'm sure there is a good number of you who are now saying, "But I don't hate them! That's not true!"

It is true. Just try sitting in on one of my Journalism classes, it doesn't matter whether it's Reporting or International Media or any of the others. If you enter into ANY sort of discussion about what newspapers students read, there is ALWAYS at least one person who says something along the lines of, "Oh, and I look at Fox News sometimes. But I hate it."

And then someone mentions Rupert Murdoch, and then someone says something about conservative journalism in general. During the entire discussion, I sit in my seat trying to figure out why I hate neither liberal nor conservative journalism. I hate reporters who only ever talk about one side of the story, and then claim that they are unbiased.

What I really want to know is this: How do we KNOW that liberal papers are unbiased, and that conservative papers are biased? Or vice versa?

Because it seems to me that in the end, all it comes down to is a matter of personal opinion. So we'll have to see how this goes.

And on a completely random note:
The sports desk is listening to songs from the Little Mermaid (Disney, of course) on YouTube. It's very strange to hear middle-aged men singing along with a cartoon I was tragically devoted to when I was little. At present, I am afraid of sharks and fish in the ocean. Tragic.