Is this the real Montana?

Give this a read and post a comment about your reaction. When you do, also include where you grew up.

Henni Lowisch speech

If your hand has quit cramping from taking notes in class you'll be able to click on this link and find the speech from Henriette Lowisch, who is pictured at left.

For your stories, due by Monday noon, you can assume that she delivered this lecture Thursday in the University Center Theater. She is the T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professor. (In truth, she was, but not this year.) Anthony Pollner was a UM journalism school alumnus who died in an accident in 2000. His family and friends established the Pollner professorship in his name and each fall a journalist comes to UM to teach for the semester and deliver a lecture.

You can write the story to the length you think it deserves, but no longer than two pages.

Why do you want to be a journalist?

As you're finding out, journalism is a difficult business. But it's a rewarding and inspiring business too. In some cases it can change people's lives. In others it can provide a glimpse into what their lives are like. In a speech she gave in accepting the Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism, here's how Washington Post repoter Ann Hull described what she does in writing the stories, like many of you are doing, that focus on people:

"What does it feel like to be a woman in Hurricane Katrina in chest-deep waters carrying your child on your shoulders? What does it feel like to be a gay teenager in Newark, from these trash-blown and violent streets, and to watch your best friend get stabbed to death? To know that white America marched down Park Avenue for Matthew Shephard, but no one did anything for your friend Sakia Gunn, who was murdered."

To read more about what she said, check this out.

Writing the profile

What you want to do with the profile story is give your readers insight into what makes this person tick. Who are they, beyond the factual data like age, hometown, major, etc. As your text notes on pages 120-121, a good profile captures the feelings and attitudes of the subject though his or her own statements, and through the observations of others close to the subject.

Here's one I like (for several reasons) about Eric Bergoust, an Olympic gold medalist from Missoula. It appeared in the Baltimore Sun.

Bergoust set to show off flip side

For American aerialist, safety is leap of faith
By Kevin Van Valkenburg
Sun Staff

February 10, 2002

PARK CITY, Utah - When Eric Bergoust was a kid growing up in Missoula, Mont., it never crossed his mind that his sister's cat, Tattoo, didn't want to learn how to parachute off the chimney of his parents' house.

In fact, he and his brother just figured all Tattoo needed was the opportunity and the equipment. So they gathered up some string, a towel and a pillow, and ... well, it's better to let him tell it.

"We got a plastic grocery bag and punched five holes in it; one for the cat's head and one for each of its legs," says Bergoust, the gold medalist in aerial ski jumping in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. "That was our harness. Then we got a bunch of string and tied it to a towel for our parachute.

"We went up on the chimney and tossed it in the air and it was like time froze as it was falling," he says. "We had this little head pillow for it to land on in case it didn't work, but like five feet from the ground, there was a big 'poof' and the parachute opened. It set the cat down just perfectly. We've got some great pictures of it."

That was just the beginning. Not long after Tattoo's miraculous voyage, Bergoust was pulling all the family mattresses into his yard so that he could do gainers off the chimney. There are pictures of that, too.

"In the Bergoust family, our motto is, if you didn't get a picture of it, it didn't happen," he says.

All of it, of course, was just part of what went into making Bergoust the premier aerial jumper in the world. His parents, Don and Carol, tried to be strict, but they could only shrug their shoulders in the face of his thirst for adventure.

A penchant for thrill-seeking led him to try sky diving, hang gliding and juggling fire. Bergoust jumped off bridges and 60-foot cliffs all along the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers in the Missoula Valley.

But it was aerial skiing - which requires hurling one's self down a mountain at 45 mph before flying 50 feet into the air to perform multiple flips and twists - that stuck. After watching it on television back in 1988, he was hooked. He spent the next several years sneaking around Lost Trail Pass ski resort, building jumps out of bounds and honing his skill. He eventually became a World Cup veteran, and is the favorite to win the gold medal again Feb. 19.

"I wanted to be a stunt man when I grew up," he says. "I liked to do things that scared me, like jumping off bridges, but at the same time they were things I knew were safe."

Though his antics have long been legend inside ski circles, the world was just finding out who Bergoust was in 1998. ("He's always been a wild man," said aerial teammate Tracy Evans. "You never know what's going to come out of his mouth.") In Nagano, aerials was in only its second go-round as an Olympic sport, and it was often mentioned in the same breath with the X Games, an association Bergoust scoffs at.

"If the X Games was going on and I had nothing else to do, I still wouldn't go to the X Games," Bergoust says.

But when he nailed his second jump in the aerial competition, setting a world record and winning gold, everything changed. He did Letterman, went to the Grammys, rocked with Run DMC and drank coffee with Regis and Kathie Lee. He ended up on boxes of Kellogg's Raisin Bran, which earned him all the free cereal and Pop Tarts he could eat.

"It's funny, but I think everything goes in cycles," Bergoust says. "It's cool to be into extreme sports right now. For a long time that wasn't the case. ... When I decided to do this sport, it wasn't even in the Olympics."

Times have changed, too. In the last Olympics, Bergoust's father, Don, was the only family member who could afford to travel to Japan to see him. And to do it, Don Bergoust had to sell some guns and his saddles to finance the trip. This time around, he'll have an army of family piling in the "SuBergan," the blue family suburban, and driving from Montana to cheer him on.

"Growing up in Montana was huge for me," Bergoust said. "Maybe it was the laid-back lifestyle, or the fact that we don't put too much emphasis on making money or being successful. But we work hard. When we used to complain as kids, my dad had a saying. He'd say, 'You gotta be tough to live in the West.' He even has license plates that say: BE TOUGH.

"That's been my slogan my whole life: Be tough. When you don't feel like training, be tough. When you're scared of jumping, be tough. That's the only way I know how to live."


Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun
Photo: AirBergy.com

Keeping current

You'd be smart to make sure you know the answers to these questions before class tomorrow.

1) What are believed to be Al-Qaida terrorists detonated a truck bomb outside a Marriott Hotel, killing 16 people and injuring scores more. In what country did this occur?

2) What do investigators think may have been a contributing factor in a commuter train collision near Los Angeles that killed 25 people?

3) Sen. John McCain says he wants to postpone the first presidential debate, scheduled for Friday. Why?

4) Kaimin reporters and photographers have been barred from dorms on campus without the express permission of the head of Residence Life. What is UM's stated reason?

5) What famed baseball stadium had its last game there this week?

Identification (and why are they in the news)

Antonin Scalia

Merrill Lynch

David Petraeus

Clay Aiken

Joe Biden

Link to the homework assignment

In case you didn't copy the link correctly, here it is. Listen to, and take notes on, all answers from each of the three gubernatorial candidates, Brian Schweitzer, Roy Brown and Stan Jones. Then decide on the strongest news element and use that for your lead. Be sure to follow up your lead with details. If you can't say more about it than the single sentence in the lead it's probably not the most newsworthy item.

It's a good idea to take notes, then go back to the audio and compare what you've written as direct quotes. It will give you a chance to hone your note-taking skills.

You should write the story to the length you think it deserves. You don't have to cover every question in your story, just those you think are most newsworthy. You're writing for a Missoula audience.

Want access to the building on weekends?

If you think there are times when you will want to get into Don Anderson Hall after 5:30 weekdays or at anytime on the weekend, go to Room 201 this week and ask Judy for an access code. Using your Griz Card to get inside, you can then get into labs by punching in the code.

When Twitter works

Yesterday we talked about the Rocky Mountain News "twittering" the funeral of a 3 year old. I think most of us concluded that it wasn't a good use of the social networking site that limits posts to 140 characters.

But here's a story about Columbia University students twittering a presidential forum. I like this idea. Why? Because the students were in essence sending out new story leads as the news developed. It's a good way to sharpen your news judgment, critical thinking skills and concise writing. And, it gives readers constant updates. I'm betting we'll see more of it.

A good news story is...

Accurate
Its spelling, names, dates and facts are all correct.
(If you read the Missoulian today you saw this lead and graf 2:)
HELENA - Republican John McCain has taken a double-digit lead over Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential race in Montana, a new Rasmussen Reports poll shows.
Obama leads McCain 53 percent to 42 percent, according to the telephone poll of 700 likely Montana voters taken Monday.) Oops...
It is not misleading; facts are not stacked or given undue importance
It doesn't editorialize
It warns readers when stated facts are in doubt

Clear
It is understandable; readers don't have to puzzle over its meaning
It presents facts as simply as possible; it shows the reporter understands the facts
It avoids jargon; if the reporter must use technical terms, they are defined
It is organized logically; unrelated facts are not joined in a single sentence

Interesting
It shows reporters have weighed the information and used critical thinking skills and news judgment to present the information
It has an "energy packed" lead that draws readers into the story

Complete
It leaves no gaps or unanswered questions
It does not leave readers hanging or confused by omitting important details
It delivers what was promised in the lead. (If you say the meeting was heated, back that up in the story by direct quotes that show just that.)
It includes essential background information to provide context, but it does not begin with the background
It is specific in important details


Swift moving
It generally uses short sentences and paragraphs, but the sentence length is varied to provide rhythm and interest
It does not get bogged down in unimportant details
It uses good quotes that add color

Leads homework

A clarification on homework for Thursday: Once you have completed the two leads you can either email them to yourself or load them on a thumb drive that you bring to class. I'll have you post them to a folder on the school server so that we can project them for class discussion.

So that you can get individual feedback from me, please also bring to class a printed, double-spaced copy of the leads. Don't forget to put a slug on the upper left corner of your printed copy.

News, or piling on?

Today's New York Times has three stories at the top of the Web having to do with the announcement that Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Take a look at them here, here and here.

Do you think those stories are legitimate? How would you cover the issue of whether the McCain campaign had thoroughly examined Palin's background before she was chosen to be the Republican VP nominee?

If newspapers don't cover news, will bloggers?

Here's an interesting story from the New York Times about a woman who wanted more information about a violent death in her Brooklyn neighborhood and turned to blogs when it wasn't thoroughly covered in the mainstream media.

As newspaper and TV staffs shrink, do you think people will find what they want to know by reading blogs? Do you get news from blogs?

Your news budget

Here is a list of stories from which you'll select your top picks for class discussion on Thursday:

You are editor of the Kaimin and must select four stories for Page 1 of tomorrow's paper. From the list below, which would you choose?
Are there any you would not run at all? What other information would you want to know about these stories?
If you were news director of KGBA, which story would you select to lead your morning news broadcast?


1. Journalism students did well in recent national competitions. Kaimin editor Bill Oram won a $7,000 Jim Murray Scholarship and a $3,000 NCAA Sports Journalism Scholarship. RTV senior Caitlin Mallory won a $1,250 Broadcast Education Association Scholarship and the student documentary “Montana Journal: Where are the Alternative Fuels?” won a northwest student Emmy.

2. George Bush will deliver the Mansfield Lecture in the spring, Mansfield Center director Terry Weidner announced today.

3. A professor of geography at UM died last night on campus from what the chief of campus public safety says is a suicide.

4. More than 30 students who eat at the Food Zoo turned up at the Health Service with what appears to be food poisoning.

5. Weezy will appear in concert in Missoula on Nov. 13.

6. Five monkeys escape from a psychology lab on campus. They are still at large at press time.

7. UM Grizzly football coach Bobby Hauck said the team will put aside distractions from last season that resulted from murder charges against one player and robbery charges against four former players and will win the Big Sky conference title this season.

8. The Regents vote to add 10 credits to UM’s graduation requirements, effective with freshmen entering in fall 2008.

Welcome to Journalism 270

You'll be learning a lot this semester. Much of it will be fun and interesting, but it will also be hard work.

This semester you'll learn print journalism in the first half of the semester and then switch professors and learn broadcast journalism for the remainder. Since we'll be setting a fast pace we'll use this blog to discuss things we didn't get time to talk much about in class. You can post things you want your classmates to read, or respond to what I've posted.

Along the right side of this blog you'll find useful links to Web sites.

One of the best sites for discussions about this changing, endlessly fascinating profession you aspire to is the Romenesko blog. Romenesko is an aggregator. That means he rarely posts his own writing, but he does us all a great favor by providing headlines and links to stories about the news media. Check it out.

Your first assignment is to write your own obituary. Obituaries can be fascinating when they reveal something about a person's character. Here's a great example of one for a "gonzo street photographer."