Week 21

A little early, but who cares ...

1. Could this idea be the future of newspapers? And, how might this trickle down to high school journalism?

2. How can The Voice capitalize on new media? Is this the way to increase our readership? Do high school students use this form of communication?

Share, comment, inform.

Week 20

1. This is a great profile piece on a former college basketball star. It's well written and reported, and illuminates the life of most college players post college. What do you think of this piece? Is there a place for some Alumni news in The Voice? Is it worth following up on grads after their life at MA is over?

2. Here is another great idea from the NYTimes. It's a sound slide package -- something we can't do on paper -- that focuses on one person each week. It could be an interesting way to bring more people in to The Voice. We profile athletes and some artists, but what about the regular Joes and Janes? What do you think of this package? What about something like it in The Voice?

3. This is a great piece on the fate of the newsweekly. With US News and World Report gone and Newsweek on its heels, the role of newsmagazine is not good. So, instead of reporting the news, many magazine are turning to commenting on the news rather than reporting the news. What do you think of this? Could this be the fate of newspapers as well? Will this trickle down to student press?

Week 19

1. At the end of the NYTimes magazine there is a piece called "Lives." Today, the piece focused on a topic we at MA speak about often: privilege. Last week, the piece focused on food and a child's passion for the forbidden. I liked both so much and I couldn't pick which one to post. Lucky you! The topic of the first piece is well covered territory, but accurately articulated in such a simple piece. The second piece just made me laugh. What do you think of the writing? As mentioned before I would love to see more of this in the My MA section of the newspaper. How can we get more people to participate?

2. While the article about Obama and basketball was interesting, the graphic was even better. Check out this link so see what I'm talking about. What do you think of the manipulation of the simple headshot? This article was in the Sunday Styles section — a fairly light-hearted section — but what do you think of the idea behind the dream teams? Could we put together a dream team of sorts at MA? If so, what would it be. We have the artist skill and know-how to make this work graphically.

3. This piece — again from the NYTimes Magazine — confused me a bit. No, I wasn't confused by the content rather how I felt while reading the article. It's about service and companion animals and their role in society and the life of their owners. Great writing, awesome sources, but still hard to take seriously. Why? If you were assigned this piece, how would you tackle the naysayers that might think your story was a joke?

Happy 2009!

1. Here's an interesting article on Caroline Kennedy and her desire to become the next senator from New York. While I find the entire piece well written, pay particular attention to the opening paragraph. The lead is quite catchy. What is the author trying to accomplish with this anecdotal lead? Is the author successful? Is the author successful at bringing the topic back to Whitney Hoffman? What are your thoughts? In what kind of article could we employ this technique?

2. Check out this piece on Obama's speech writer. It's a well written piece, but I find the topic of more interest than the execution. What do you think? Many writers want to be famous in their own right, not because they're good at making other people look great. Thoughts?

3. For some fun, check out this news quiz. Not going to lie -- I struggled a lot with this one. Then I just started guessing.