Multiple Lives of a news story paper - Fort Hood Shootings

Multiple lives of a news story paper - I focused mainly on the Fort Hood shootings, specifically the first two hours after the beginning of the reporting for the shooting. And I analysed the life of the news story from its very birth ...

Hope the birth step that I took is okay .....

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AczniGLMpAg4ZGRreGh3N3JfNGMzcXp2M2hm&hl=en

Follow link above .....

Taking an Approach ... Last blogpost ...

Harris' definition of taking an approach is very closely tied with his definition of forwarding and countering. Closely tied but they are wholly different. Forwarding and countering dealt with the portraying of other writers ideas and taking an approach does the same. But this approach takes it one step further; we, as writers, come in. The previous steps were all about taking other writers opinions and ideas and including them into your work. This step is all about thinking for ourselves and form our own ideas based upon other writer's ideas. So, we basically "reshape, not replace or rebut". Harris best summarizes his "taking an approach" by writing, "In taking an approach, you rewrite not passages or ideas from a text but another writer's mode or style of working".

The New York Times constantly "takes an approach". It is really obvious in any of the articles you read especially because different sources of news (fox, times, etc, etc) need something more than many facts thrown together. That's where Harris' step is seen. They all state the facts, yes, but then they go on ahead to say something more, something original. The blog I'm reading (Hot Air) does the same thing as the New York Times basically. It takes an approach after putting in its fair share of information and facts. After that though, they have a conservative twist most times which by itself is indicative of the taking an approach step that Harris describes. I don't think there is a lot lost by writers following this step and the facts remain the same. However, the entire viewpoint of the story can be altered in any way even after stating the facts; but ultimately it is good in a twisted way.

And so ends the string of blog posts that I have written. I don't think I will be writing any more blog posts even though now I'm positive I've going to be writing other forms of literature ...

Goodbye !!!

"Blog Post 6 - A press sphere" posted on October the 20th is the blog I'm going to counter in this post. I prefer countering to forwarding for this post since I am revising my own post and, well, it will be more interesting to counter.

On the previous post, I had written, "The New York Times is thorough while both Hot Air and Rotten Tomatoes are not. The Times’ purpose is to inform about everything and is therefore very thorough about the topics it pulls up. It has its own sections of traditional news, news that you expect to hear (example: global events), and it has its fair share of entertainment news that includes all topics from politics to books to music and movies. Hot Air and Rotten Tomatoes are specific. They address political and movie issues respectively."

In this post, it is now clear to me that what I had written before was wrong. Completely wrong in one sentence. I wrote that Hot Air and Rotten Tomatoes are not thorough as compared to the New York Times. I now have a different opinion which is that Rotten Tomatoes and Hot Air are just as thorough as the New York Times. I suspect the reason I now have this change of opinion is because I had barely looked into the two blogs before I wrote that original post. Now after following the blogs for two weeks, I see that both the blogs are just as focused as the New York Times. It is true that both blogs were created for a singular, focused purpose - such as movies. However, for the New York Times, it was way more general just because of all the topics are covered. In some ways, I can even say that the blogs are more thorough since they go in deep into their particular areas while the New York Times scratches (though quite deep) many more topics.

Hopefully I did this assignment right ...

Harris’ ideas of “countering” are just as interesting and valid as his idea of “forwarding”. In this idea, the aim of academic writing must be to add what can be said about a subject. To do this, it may be necessary to identify the weaknesses and limitations of other writings but that should in no way be the sole point of writing. “Counter” is not to nullify but to suggest to someone, a different way of thinking. The basic defining phrases for countering are “On the other hand ...” and “Yes, but…” In Harris’ idea of countering, countering brings a different set of interests to bear upon a subject, to look and notice what others have not. The main aim is not to wholly refute what has been said before, or to bring the discussion to an end, but to respond to prior views in ways that move the conversation in new directions.

In “Hot Air”, the blog that I’m following, one of today’s featured articles was titled “Report: Hasan attended same radical mosque as 9/11 hijackers; Update: “He was a typical fundamentalist Muslim”. This article shows Harris’ idea of countering. While other articles around it talked about how no information was acquired on Hasan and how we may never know if religion was a factor, this article thrust its nose in clearly with some new information that set the argument about religion as a factor for the massacre in a different direction but almost proving that Hassam was a fundamentalist Muslim. It does this somewhat obliquely as what this article counters to remains general and hidden at first sight. However, the article by itself has only added its own viewpoint which incidentally carries along evidence that Hassan was Anti-American. And nothing seems to be lost as it builds of the main stream idea with one of its own.

Click HERE to go to Hot Air

Forwading ... .... .....

Harris’s idea of “forwarding”, I had thought, wasn’t a big enough topic to take 20 pages of the textbook. It turns out that it is though. My previous concept of “forwarding” was in every way similar to forwarding an email for example. Add a few comments about the joke and zip it along to all your contacts.

Harris’s definition is a little more than that though. He says that a writer forwards a text by “taking words, images, or ideas from it and putting them to use in new contexts”. In forwarding a text, a writer tests the strength of its insights and the range and flexibility of its phrasings. In forwarding, the focus of the readers is shifted from what the author has to say onto the writers own project. This is done in four ways: Illustrating, Authorizing, Borrowing, and Extending.

Out of the blogs I keep up with (Rotten Tomatoes and Hot Air), Rotten Tomatoes isn’t exactly the site where forwarding is apparent; this is mostly because it is full of videos, pictures, synopsis(es?) and opinions. On the other hand, Hot Air is the perfect example of forwarding. For example, one of the articles posted in the site was titled ‘Gay Marriage rejected in Maine’. It is started out backed by facts and linked to other sites, especially news sites such as Yahoo News and bangordailynews.com. There’s the illustration and authorizing.

Evidence of borrowing is evident in the article but isn’t expressly shown while the extending is there too. After the facts come the author’s main purpose; it is condensed into a sentence: “The recognition of marriage is a legitimate public policy question, one that should be decided through either the legislature or by direct vote in referendums”. From then on, the author puts in his own spin on the concepts he took from the news. In this forwarding, the straight out facts are kept and everything else is changed to fit the authors point.