Shane Hoffman-Feature Downgraded to Wrap :-(

Journalistic Reflection

Susan Boyle went from a unknown unemployed woman of 47 to an overnight singing sensation on Britians Got Talent. Now, naturally this was a story news media outlets all over the world could get excited about. No later than a few hours after she had sung her youtube video hit a million views and news networks were scrambling to get the inside story on this woman.

Over the past week there has been many stories about Boyle's background and recent success. However, I recently came across a story on msnbc that seemed to hit at why so many people are worried about this every day woman changing into just another celebrity:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30387337/

Sure, she looks "better" with her new "mini-makeover" but what does "better" actually mean? Authenticity is lost when you artificially enhance your body to meet societies needs and not your own. This point was proven effectively in the article and I was happy to read for once that news media reported a makeover as something to be concerned about instead of a reason to throw a corporate party.

ABC Labs Experience

Sometimes to put it bluntly, people who give directions suck at it. That's what happened when I recently volunteered to visit a lab building that Gov. Nixon was holding a press conference at. I went to the wrong location and actually missed the entire conference. When I got there it seemed at first as if I had missed the story, but I didn't give up and decided to interview the CEO of the company as well as other corporate officials. After collecting a few sound bites my fellow coworker and friend Carolina decided to try and get us a tour of the lab. It worked.

In the end, we had more than enough for a story. We could have walked out the door after we found out we had missed the governor, but staying proved to us what our teacher Greeley Kyle does his best to hammer home: There are ALWAYS new angles you can apply to a story. In fact, it may have actually been better that me missed the governor after all.

Gov. Nixon Announces New Internship Plan

Earlier today at ABC Labs in Columbia, Gov. Jay Nixon announced plans for the Next-Generation Jobs Team.

The program will match around 3,000 Missourians between the ages of 16 and 24 with summer internships and work experiences.



Byron Hill, ABC Laboratories President and CEO, says he hopes the program will encourage more young people to pursue a career in math and science.

“If we can encourage the young person to go into that discipline and then come out 6, 8 years down the road as a full fledged scientist and come to work here for us, Hill said. “It would be a plus situation for us.”




Nixon says the program will mostly be funded by an estimated $25 million in stimulus money.

Program officials plan on starting the interview process in the next couple of weeks and hope to being hiring by the end of May.

Shane Hoffman: 8th Feature School Board Magic

Journalistic review

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30065504/

Obama tells Turkey: US Not at War With Islam

When I first saw the link to this article I gasped at an immediate "uh oh" moment. The Bush Administration had spent nearly 7 years since 9/11 fighting what they called "a war on radical Islam." The war is still being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Naturally, Foxnews was all over Obama for his remark:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/06/obama-arrives-turkey-strengthen-ties/

Yet, the typically more liberal MSNBC downplayed the comment.

Foxnews announced the incident was "alarming" however MSNBC highlighted the postive aspect of it. The Turkey Parliament did after all, give President Obama a standing ovation after the comment.

No matter which news station is more right on the issue, only time will tell if President Obama says the same thing to the American people. If you tell Europe that the war is not being waged against Islam but you say the exact opposite to the American people, something is wrong.

When I was set out to cover the Columbia Election coverage I figured I would sit in on a candidate who had much knowledge and experience in dealing with the media. However, when I arrived at the Heidelburg Restaurant my assumption was quickly proven false.

Now, don't get me wrong. Dan Holt was very gentleman like and at times even went out of his way to take time in answering my questions. But, there are just some things you don't offer the media. Like...alcohol for example. Water is fine and maybe even occasionally a soda if they offer it to you, but alcohol on the job not only reflects poorly on your reputation but also the station you're working for. I appreciated Holt's hospitality but I had to decline.

Overall though, it was a great experience and as I said before, Holt was nothing but cooperative and kind throughout the evening. Hopefully I'll get another opportunity to cover his campaign in future elections.

Holt Finishes Third in Election

Dan Holt greeted about forty friends and family last night at the Heidelberg Restaurant in Columbia.


By 8:30, 51 year-old Holt was in 4th place with 75% of the precincts yet to be reported.

As Holt continued to monitor the results, his wife Lisa admitted the end of the campaign had snuck up on her.

“People were asking me yesterday if I was nervous and I hadn’t even really thought about it. And finally today it kinda hit me. It’s like woah, today’s the day that they’re actually voting and we are going to know about it by the time we go to bed tonight.”



By 9:30, the crowd had dwindled to 16 people. Holt watched as the final precincts announced his third place finish.

Although he was disappointed, Holt said Columbia elected two great school board members who will better serve the community.



“Solid people, they really are. We’ll be satisfied with the job that they will do.”

Holt said he learned plenty from the campaign and plans on running again in the future.

7th Feature-The Perfect Bracket

Journalistic Reflection

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/01/obama-tries-rally-world-cope-downturn/

Foxnews is one of the three news sites I always like to scroll through, part of the "the Holy Triumvirate" if you will.

Although traditionally republican and mainstream conservative, I've seen quality, fair journalism come out of there from time to time.

This article however, was not one of them.

The AP writer made very strange and seemingly inaccurate assumptions including saying that President Obama "had no worries about the stability of the U.S. economic system." Given the state of the economy the sentence seemed utterly ridiculous, but it was enough to spur over a hundred comments from readers who felt after reading the article that the President was out of touch. It's amazing how one sentence can spur on an entire mass of people.

In journalism as well as any kind of writing really it's always important to choose your words carefully. This is just one example of how a misleading sentence can ruin the objectivity of an entire article.

Reflection

I've heard stories since I've arrived at the MU School of Journalism that sometimes, on rare occasions, the perfect story will fall into a reporters lap. I have always been skeptical as this sounds more like an unrealistic dream than anything else, but this past week I became a believer.

Last week was Spring Break but unlike most of my fellow classmates I stayed in Columbia. My girlfriends roommates boyfriend (sounds like some kind of weird Star Wars parallel but it's true) was over at her house and stopped me at one o'clock in the morning.

"Hey Shane," he said. "Have you heard about Hank?"

Unknowingly I shook my head..."He has been hounded by ESPN and CBS for the past week because he still has a perfect bracket."

To some this news may not have been much, but to me it was a hard-stopping/unbelievable revelation. I had too filled out a bracket and like all of the other millions of people in the world had seen it crumble. ESPN announced the night before on Sportscenter that to their knowledge not a single perfect bracket remained on any website and it made sense. The probability of that happening was so small it seemed almost comical. However, when I logged onto Facebook Hank Sherman did indeed have a perfect bracket and a colt-like following to go along with it.

The next day Hank I was the first of any news-outlet to interview Hank and the next evening I watched the Sweet 16 with him as part of a feature. Although the situation may never happen again in my career, the opportunity was one that was literally handed to me and even though it was a mostly uneventful break I'm glad I stayed in Columbia because the story would not have been possible had I been somewhere else.

MU Student Holds Only Remaining Perfect Bracket

When the Missouri Tigers recently played Memphis in the NCAA Mens sweet sixteen basketball tournament, MU student Hank Sherman had more on the line than just his school spirit.

Going into the game Sherman held the only known perfect bracket in the world.
Every year millions of people fill out brackets to predict the winners of every game in the men’s NCAA tournament.

Sherman had defied the odds by correctly picking the first 50 games of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

To remain perfect, Sherman’s bracket depended on victories from MU and Duke. By halftime MU had a comfortable 13 point lead but Duke trailed by 3 to Villanova.



Sherman says he was surprised by how well MU was playing, but the Duke game was a bit of a concern.

“I’m feeling pretty safe after the first half. I can’t believe we’ve been trouncing Memphis like we have been,” Sherman said. “Are you worried about the Duke game? A little bit. Yeah. Definitely worried about them.”

Statisticians calculated that Sherman had already overcome odds of around one in six quadrillion to have a perfect bracket after two rounds. The odds of anyone having a completely perfect bracket are so unlikely, that if every man, woman, and child on the planet randomly filled out 10 million brackets each, the odds would be LESS than 1% that even one person would have a perfect bracket.

Sherman’s close friend and fellow MU student Ben Rodgers watched the MU game with Sherman.

“It’s kind of impossible, I don’t know,” Rodgers. “It’s unbelievable. It blows my mind.”

Rodgers was not the only one who was in awe of Sherman’s bracket. After each correct pick, thousands of people commented on Sherman’s online Facebook bracket referring to Sherman as “the Oracle” and “God incarnate.” Andy Greeley from the University of Minnesota referred to Sherman as “the Sherminator” while Kevin Fitzpatrick from Providence University said “This dudes from the future.”

As Mizzou came out strong in the second half Sherman remained optimistic.Yet, as Mizzou was pulling ahead Duke fell further behind. As the games began to wrap up Sherman’s dream was about to come to an end.



“It’s 73-54 Villanova right now with a minute eighteen left so it looks like your brackets busted,” Sherman said. “However, your team and your school is moving onto the Elite Eight for the first time since 2002. How are you feeling? Totally bittersweet. I’m pretty upset with Duke right now just basically falling apart. They weren’t even in this game it seemed like.”

Although his 15 minutes of fame are up, Sherman says Mizzou advancing to the Elite Eight still gave him plenty of reason to celebrate and the experience is one he will never forget.