Tweet #2

30-year old man became third victim of shark attack around 1:30 p.m.  He was knocked into the water from his rowboat.  Most body remains have not been found.

Tweet

Swimmers seen leaving Amity beaches this weekend after another shark scare.

Caught

Shark Caught and Killed in Amity

The shark that allegedly killed two people at Amity's tranquil, relaxing beaches this past week has reportedly been caught and killed by a local fisherman.  The shark was found about one mile south- southwest of Amity.

According to the town meeting that took place last night, the person who finds and kills the killer shark, will receive a $3,000 reward.  At the meeting, the police department also said that the town will be bringing in extra deputies and experts to find out more about these recent attacks.

Chief Martin Brody said that beaches will be closing temporarily, but are trying to be open again as soon as possible, just in time for the Fourth of July weekend.

Massachusetts resident and Marine Biologist Matt Hooper, of the Oceanographic Institute, inspected the shark once it was brought ashore by the unidentified fisherman who killed it.  Hooper identified the shark as a Nurse shark.  The  Police Department claims that the shark is one of the most dangerous of all sharks along the East Coast of the United States.

According to National Geographic Magazine, Nurse sharks are generally slow moving, nocturnal sharks that stay closer to the ocean floor.  These types of sharks are usually harmless to humans, making this a very rare, unusual event. 

Brody encourages all people to partake in their usual Fourth of July weekend activities in Amity, and to go out and recreate the beaches.

Those who choose to go to the beach should not be alarmed by shark spotters from the Coast Guard, Marine Patrol, State Police, FBI, and other agencies who are there to protect the beaches of Amity during the busy summer weekend.

The Amity Police Department wants any shark sightings to be reported at the toll-free shark hotline, 1-800-sharksee. 

Last Blog of the Semester!

I figured for my last blog, I'd touch on some big news in this particular area that has seemed to make it beyond just local television and newspapers.  What I've heard a lot about lately is Jessica Linscott and her boyfriend, who dropped their child off at Exeter Hospital after burning him and abusing him.  They then took off to Florida to enjoy a vacation in Orlando.  This is such terrible news, and it really made me even more interested in it because Exeter Hospital is about 10 or 15 minutes from my house, so thinking these people were in the area and did such a terrible thing is upsetting.

After a semester of writing and reading news, I just wanted to reflect a little bit on it as part of this last blog.  I think taking this class has made me learn a lot about writing news and reporting.  Although I am not continuing with news writing classes in the future at UNH, I think I learned a lot, especially interviewing skills and different types of writing skills.  Writing about news made me learn to pick more of the important facts out of things rather than just the random details, which is an important skill in general.  I also learned a lot just through reading news and realized how it is important to keep up on it. Sometimes, I think I learn more through reading articles about current events than in some classes because a lot of news is factual and can teach you about things you never knew where going on in the world.

Nov 28 News

I spent a good amount of time on Boston.com today to look at news, since I have not spent too much time on it all semester.  I read a couple interesting articles, many about crime in Boston and whatnot.  One of the articles I read was about a Lynn school teacher giving marijuana to at least one student this past week and he was of course, arrested.  I just thought that this was interesting because it seems crazy to me that a teacher would even do that, or have it on them while in school.  Another thing I looked at was the murders in Boston over the course of the year.  This was more of a chart than an article, but definitely spoke for itself and was very informative.  I think I like that type of "reporting" because it makes it more interactive to me, since I was able to essentially come up with my own assumptions and results to the chart.  There were about 45 murders this year in the city, with most of them coming from the Roxbury and Dorchester area.  

Also, to update on my last blog, the powerball is now at $500 million and gets picked tonight.  I think it'll be interesting to see if it gets hit, and if not, what happens next.  How high will it/can it go? 

Powerball!

Today, I focused on reading some stories in my local newspaper, the Hampton Union.  I read about the local High School football team winning the state championship, and a story behind the quarterback of the team, as well as a story about the Christmas parade coming up this weekend, as well as an article about a 19 year old in town who is convicted of a rape crime.  I also read an article in the USA Today about Powerball and how it is now a $425 million dollar jackpot.  I read that they are debating whether or not to raise the jackpot, since it is likely to raise even higher between now and Wednesday, but they said that the lottery commission is waiting until later tonight to see what sales are like, then making a decision.  I thought that this was interesting because I didn't know that people raise the jackpots in lottery games, I thought it raised no matter what as long as people were buying into it.

Alex

Another Attack at a Beach in Amity

At 2 p.m. today, another life was taken at the beaches in Amity.  This time, it was Alex Kinter, 10, of Mayfair Court.  This attack appeared to be a vicious and unprovoked shark attack.

According to Witnesses, Kinter was floating in the ocean when suddenly, a ring of blood appeared, and the boy disappeared off his yellow raft at Village Beach. 

His body has not been recovered, however, his raft floated ashore with a large chunk taken outof it.

This is the second attack of the day at the beaches in town, making it more clear that a shark attack could be linked to the cause of the death of Chrissie Watson, 17, who was found dead earlier this morning on South Beach after last being seen at around 11 p.m. the night before at a beach party.

The attack on Watson is still under investigation, as her body is still at the coroner's office for an autopsy. 

The 10 year old was at the beach with his mother, Marion Kinter, who is currently being treated at Amity General Hospital for shock, where she is reportedly in fair condition.

Amity Mayer Larry Vaughn is expressing his deepest and most sincere condolences to the Kinter family. 

Due to these unfortunate events, a meeeting will be held at the town hall by Mayor Vaughn, Chief Martin Brody, and the Amity Board of Selectmen at 6 p.m. to discuss the recent events of Amity and the closing of the beaches on July 4. 

Chrissie

Amity Teen Found Dead on an Amity Beach

Chrissie Watson, 17, of 23 Sharkstooth St., Amity was found dead on a beach in town today.  She was reportedly last seen leaving a beach party with another teen male last night.

The male she was last seen with, who was identified as Christopher Hoggenbottam III, is a sophomore at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., who is a former resident of the island, at around 11 p.m. last night.

Hoggenbottam reported to the police at 6 a.m. that Watson's body had been missing, after he realized she had not returned from her swim.

According to the press release, Hoggenbottam told police that Watson entered the water in a remote section of South Beach near the South Beach bell buoy.

Witnesses told police that the two had been drinking heavily at a bonfire previous to the incident, and possibly smoking marijuana. 

Jay Hendricks, Amity Police Deputy, found Watson's body mangled up early this morning after briefly searching.  Her body has been reportedly mauled by an unkown attacker, and has been transported to the coroner's office for an autopsy. 

Watson was a member of the varsity swim team at Amity High School and a lifeguard at the Amity Island YMCA pool in Oak Bluffs.

The attack, which is still being investigated, is thought to possibly be a shark attack.  However, according to Hendricks, the likelihood that it was a shark attack are very, very slim. 

"There is no evidence that it was a shark attack," he said. "It could have been an assault, we don't know."

The beaches of Amity Island are still open for swimming until outcome of the investigation is released. 

If anyone has any other information about this incident, please email brodyman@beachcop.com with your information.

Shopping Season

Many of the articles I saw/read today revolved around shopping this weekend.  According to a USA Today article, this was a record shopping weekend, and tomorrow, Cyber Monday, is expected to make it even more of a record.  The article stated that many people, more than ever, came out on Thanksgiving night to get the deals at stores like Target, Sears, and Toys R Us.  One site reports that there was over 59 billion dollars in sales between Thursday night and today, Sunday. More people were out shopping, as well as spending money online.  The article said that people spent about 41 percent more this Black Friday weekend than any other.

Another interesting article I read over the weekend talked about YouTube, and the newest thing, Gangnam Style.  The video on Youtube by an artist named Psy has officially topped most ever view on the website, passing Justin Bieber (who had the most prior) by about 2 billion, with around 306 billion views.  I'm shocked because I don't know why it is so popular in the first place, but I thought it was amazing how quickly it got so many views.

French Connection

French man shot and killed by New York Detective Sunday Late Sunday Afternoon

A long police chase ended in death for a French man on Sunday at 4:08 p.m.  Detective Jimmy Doyle of the New York Police Department killed the 36 year old man with one shot of a gun at the 15th Street Station after following his train from 35th Street Station.

Pierre Jeantot of Nice, France was suspected of working for a French drug kingpin in the city.  The man is also currently under investigation for possibly being involved with a crime involving a heroin shipment between France and New York City.

Jeantot had reportedly shot at the detective from a rooftop, which he quickly fled from after shooting and killing a woman walking by.  Police officers quickly made it to the top of the building, where they found an automatic rifle and many shell casings.

The chase involved Jeantot hijacking the train while Detective Doyle followed it in a commandeered car. 

According to the New York Police Department and several eyewitnesses, the eventful afternoon began with a gunshot from the top of an apartment building located at 1767 W. 57th Avenue.  All of a sudden, according to witness Tori Roche, 19, a woman who was pushing a stroller went down on the ground and appeared dead, while the detective went and hid under a tree for cover from the gunshots.  

Roche said that the detective was shot at again but was luckily not hit.  After 5 shots were fired, the gunman was done shooting, but babies were still crying from the loud bang of the gun, and people were screaming.  Detective Doyle quickly got up and scooted across the building and up the stairs to find the gunman, but he had escaped too quickly.

According to Roche, the gunman had been down on the street when the detective spotted him from the top of the apartment building.  She saw the detective disappear down the stairs quickly to try and catch Jeantot, but it was too late, he was already headed toward the train station.

According to a witness on the train, Sean Loucks, 23, the train with Jeantot was just as frightening and eventful.   Loucks said the gunman got on the train and started running through the carts as a man on the train who appeared to be either a police officer or a worker caught up to him, but the gunman quickly turned around and shot him in the leg.  The man went down to the ground instantly, according to the witness.

Loucks said that the gunman made it to the end of the carts and into the one with the conductor.  Jeantot reportedly put the gun to the conductors head and told him not to stop at the next stop, which Loucks believed to be the stop at 25th Avenue.  The conductor followed instruction and continued past the stop, while many people standing and waiting for the train looked angry and suspicious as to why there train went past them.  

On the train, Jeantot tried to make an escape and began trying to find a way out.  He ran back through the carts while shooting another police officer on the train in the chest on the way, and killing him.  The train also collided with another train soon after.  The gunman hit his head on the side of the train when the two trains collided and lost his gun somewhere in the cart.  

The gunman reportedly finished his train ride after escaping through a back door.

According to eyewitness Meghan Haughton, 22, while the gunman was on the train, detective Doyle was chasing the train in a reddish colored car through the streets of New York City.  She said that the detective was driving recklessly trying to keep an eye on where the train was at all times.

Haughton said that the detective was swerving through all kinds of traffic, and hit 2 cars while he was at it, but he kept on going.  The witness also mentioned a crazy amount of beeping done during the chase by the detective.  

According to witness Lauren Lawrence, the shooter was at the top of the stairs when the detective finally caught up with him once he was off the train.  Lawrence claimed that the detective was standing at the bottom of the stairs and looked at him in a calm manor before shooting him. 

The gunman quickly went rolling down the staircase as the detective stumbled onto the bottom of the stairs.  

The gunman was officially killed, after shooting and killing multiple people through the afternoon from the apartment building to the train.  

Detective Jimmy Doyle shot him with one shot of a .38 caliber service revolver.  The force used by Doyle was justified under the circumstances of what happened throughout the afternoon, as it is suspected that Jeantot was assigned to assassinate the detective earlier in the afternoon during the first shooting.

Police found Jeantot’s .44 magnum revolver gun on the train, which was recovered from the cart the man was in after the two trains had collided.  

This case is currently still under thorough investigation.  More information will be released once it is all unfolded.

Elmo

According to several articles, the voice of Elmo, Kevin Clash, has resigned from his job being a voice on Sesame Street.  He was recently accused of being involved in a sex scandal.  A few people have come forward claiming that the man behind the famous Elmo character has sexually abused them when they were younger.  He has been the voice of Elmo for about 28 years. With Christmas coming up, and Elmo toys being very popular, there was an article on USA Today that talked about how this would affect the sales.  According to the article, the sales will not be changing. Analysts say that Elmo is a much bigger icon than the man behind it, therefore, Hasbro could still sell $150 million or more of toys this holiday season.  I thought that this was interesting because I would think that it would change the sales, however, Elmo is everywhere, so it is almost hard to avoid it.

News Reading 11/19

Today, I am seeing more and more about Israel/Hamas attacks in the news.  It is now the sixth day and according to an article on the LA Times website, there are over 100 deaths now due to the bombings.  Another article I found on the site, that was Thanksgiving related, was about the amount of turkey Americans will buy this holiday.  Americans will buy 581 million pounds of turkey meat, and waste about a third of it.  I thought this was an interesting fact just because of the holiday coming up this week.  The article stated that all the wasted turkey is equivalent to enough water to supply NYC for 100 days in greenhouse gas emissions.  I thought that this was amazing.  I think it is sad how much we waste food here, especially because of all those that are starving.

Today, I decided to also look at a newspaper covering southwest Florida, because my parents have a house in the area so I thought it'd be interesting to look at what is going on.  It is funny looking at that newspaper compared to my own local paper because it just seems like so much more goes on.  An article I found interesting was about college tuition rates in FL may decrease to try and help out the economy.  The article said basically, that the colleges may start to charge different rates per major, and if the prices are lower and more people and go and get jobs, it could help the economy down there again.  I thought that this was an interesting concept, especially because FL colleges are already very cheap to go to an in-state school, especially compared to UNH!

Hostess

For the past few days, on television news and in the newspapers, I've read/heard a lot about Hostess going out of business.  I think it is kind of funny how this is such big news to everyone, because it makes me realize how much a company that makes donuts and other bakery snacks seems to mean to people in America.  On the news, it showed several people going out of there way to go to the store to buy "the last twinkies" and ding dongs, ho-ho's, etc.  I just think it is interesting how it seems to effect everyone.  Television news also reported on many stores actually being out of twinkies and other Hostess snacks after people heard that they'd be going out of business. I think the most devastating part of the news about Hostess leaving is that so many jobs will be lost from it.  According to a news article I read about it, it said the number of jobs being lost would be close to 18,000, which is such a large amount of people that are officially out of a job now after the strike against Hostess.  Luckily, I heard there were many companies planning to buy out Hostess, so maybe all the snacks people are buying could be back on the shelves before we know it.

Libel

Today, it seemed that there was a lot of news going on, however, a story I found on USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2012/11/02/amanda-bynes-not-naked-not-troubled-but-very-rich/1677765/?morestories=obnetwork, was the focus of my attention because it goes really well with what we talked about in class a few weeks ago about libel, and what you can say in the media.  In this story, popular actress, Amanda Bynes, is reportedly suing InTouch magazine because they reported on her in a tanning salon walking around naked because she forgot a robe. Bynes claims this is not true and is suing for printing a fake story, why InTouch says they stand by their printing.  I'm still kind of confused on what the rules are for her doing so, since she is a public figure, but I thought this story was really interesting, mostly because of what we talked about in class.  The discussion we had definitely made me think more about celebrity gossip magazines more than others because of what they put out there, for instance, almost every week I see something about the Kardashians, and how Khloe Kardashian and her husband are getting divorced, but they are clearly not getting divorced.  I think it's interesting that the rules vary for those in the public eye.

News Reading 11/14

Today, I read a couple of different articles.  One of the articles I read was from my local newspaper, Seacoast Online, about a man jailed for having heroin in his house.  This article caught my attention because its kind of a rare occasion in my area to see in the news, and stood out to me over the rest of the articles which seemed to be able school related things in the area.  Another article I read was in the Huffington Post, and it was about 5 hour energy drinks and how they have been reported to be a possible cause in 13 different deaths over the past 4 years.  I thought that this was a particularly interesting article, because although I don't drink energy drinks like 5 hour energy, I know a lot of people that do, so I was very curious to see what it had to say.  I think this kind of story would draw a lot of people in with its kind of delayed headline, "Caffeinated Drink Cited in Report of 13 Deaths."  I thought this was a good title on the writers part because automatically, readers, including myself, will be interested to see exactly which caffeinated drink it is talking about.

News reading 10/9

I read some articles today about the progress of New York City after the hurricane last week.  One article I read was the implementation of the even-odd gas rationing system in NYC.  On even numbered days, those whose license plate ends in an even number can get gas, and on odd numbered days, people with an odd last license plate digit can get gas.  According to the article read on USA today, this has worked a lot better and gas lines in the city are now only about 20 minutes compared to the hours and hours of waiting that was taking place before this happened.  Apparently, people were also selling gas on Craigslist for outrageous amounts of money.  Personally, I thought that it is rude for people do sell it for so high when there are plenty of people in need and who have been out of power for over a week at this point.

Today, I decided to finally take a look at the Washington Post as well because it is a site a have forgotten about all semester up to this point.  On the site, I found an interesting article about a Jeep recall from Chrysler in Detroit.  The jeeps are apparently recalled because of an airbag problem.  The airbags have been randomly deflating while people are driving in the 2002-2004 grand cherokee models.  The recall includes 919,000 vehicles.

In other news, I decided to do my issue story this week on the gym and was very surprised at the amount of survey-takers I have gotten on the survey I did, as it was more than double what I got on my last one!

Laws passed yesterday

Today, aside from reading a lot about the election itself and President Obama's big re-election, I found a lot of articles on the law that passed making marijuana legal in Colorado and Washington State.  I not only read about this on the news sites, but also on social media sites like Facebook and twitter.  It seemed like people almost cared more about that than the win from Obama.  I personally believe it is really stupid for people to be so hyped up about it, and it's actually annoying to see that people seem to care more about that, at least, people from my hometown.  I think it partially shows that people don't really know about politics in my age group, so it is definitely time for everyone to get more educated before the next election.

Election Day 2012

Today, as I expected, the election is taking over everything for one of the last times!  I decided to read some articles in the Hampton Union today, as well as in the USA Today.  The articles in the Hampton Union I read were pretty random ones, like about some kids who are facing criminal charges that went to my high school because they decided to break into a house.  Another article I read pertained to the election, and was actually about a man that comes into my work and how he is voting for Romney, and his quick election day story.  One of the articles I read in the USA Today was about how Dixville Notch, way up north in NH voted.  This one was interesting to me because I heard in the past that usually, whoever wins in Dixville Notch is the president, and since results aren't in yet, I was curious.  However, it came by surprise to me that Dixville Notch actually was a tie- 47% Democrat, 47% Republican.  This will make it very interesting to see how the election goes, especially because I've been seeing that it is a tie in many polls that i've looked at over the past few days.

Election Takeover on the news

Like I've mentioned in many posts lately, the election is really taking over the newspapers and TV news.  Today, on the Huffington Post homepage, there is a big chart of the 50 states and it gives you a lot of information and statistics about the candidates, as far as how they're doing in each state and what states are swing states, etc.  I took some time to look at this and kind of put it together, and it looks like there are a lot of Romney states, especially in the Southern portion of the country, however, electoral college wise, I'd say Obama definitely looks like the winner, but I guess we'll all see on Tuesday.  On top of spending time looking at the charts on the election, I noticed in several news sites, including the Huff. Post, there were a few articles about the New York Marathon being cancelled.  In the New York Times specifically, it went into how canceling it wastes a lot of money, however, I think there is more to it than just that, as there are many people still without power in the city.  Another article I read was about the MBTA system in Boston shutting down during the storm.  What I liked and found most interesting about this news story (found on the Boston Globe site), is that the article had little writing by the actual author, and mostly used peoples tweets about the MBTA system and its updates during the storm.  I thought it was very effective in telling the story, as twitter is very updated nowadays and you can find things out on there before even the newspapers report on something.

Hurricane Sandy

As I expected, Hurricane Sandy is taking over just about every platform of news.  When I looked at sites like the Huffington Post and LA Times, it was very well covered, as well as the New York Times, which is to be expected seeing how it hit New York and New Jersey very hard.  The hurricane is very big news because it generally does not happen in the New England area, and at this point, about 8.1 Million people are without power according to a short article in the Huffington Post.  Sandy brought winds up to 90 mph through the NJ/NYC area, leaving the city in a blackout.  The trains going in and out of the city were cancelled, as well as all flights in the entire area that Sandy was expected to hit.  I was fortunate through the storm and although my lights flickered a few times, and the winds and rain were insane, I did not lose my power.  The storm was very big news and I'm sure it will be in the headlines all throughout the rest of the week.

News Reading 10/28

Today, I decided to start off by reading the LA Times for a while.  I found it very interesting that not only is Hurricane Sandy taking over the news over here on the east coast, but many of the articles in the LA Times are also about the weather over here.  When I was reading, I found that about 90% of the articles on the "nation now" page were about it.  I read an article about how many flights were being cancelled, along with the evacuation of NYC areas, and about the Governor of Virginia and his message to people of Virginia about safety and staying off the road during the main portion of the storm.

In other news, I read an article in my local newspaper about Michelle Obama visiting UNH on Tuesday, but I later found out that it is cancelled, due to the storm coming in between Monday and Tuesday.

Interesting articles

Today while looking at the news, I spent some time reading the LA times.  I found an interesting article on Jerusalem and some more strikes in the Gaza Strip.  What I particularly liked in the article, was the lead.  The lead reads,

"Tension along the Gaza Strip intensified Wednesday as a sustained barrage of rockets fired into Israel prompted an Israeli airstrike, marking an escalation in the latest round of fighting in the region."  

I particularly liked the usage of words in it, and how it started to create a picture in my mind of these attacks going on over on the other side of the world.  After reading multiple articles, I'm starting to realize how boring my leads tend to be. I think reading good articles will help me start to develop better writing styles when it comes to starting off my articles so that they will be more interesting and I could keep the readers interested for longer.

After reading a couple of articles in the LA Times, I moved onto the Seacoast Online website to find that there was a keg explosion death at the Red Hook Brewery in Portsmouth in April.  I never heard about the initial death, but the article says a keg exploded on a 26 year old brewery employee while he was cleaning it, and he died.  The article I read was a short one about how OSHA found things wrong with the brewery and plans to fine them a lot of money because of it.

10/22 Blog

After several weeks of reading news now, I'm starting to realize that I don't really like the New York Times website compared to other news websites out there.  I think it is informative, but I just find it very boring to get into.  I recently started reading off the Huffington Post website, as well as USA Today, and my local newspaper, and I like those websites a lot more.  I also like the CNN and WMUR websites, although those are TV news website.

As for my news reading for today, it mostly was made up of political articles since those are almost all that I see on the pages today due to tonights debate.  Another news article I read was on the meningitis risk and how it could effect up to 14,000 people, which is an insane amount!  The article talked about how it may have come from an infected needle, which always seems to be the case in big problems like this.  What I particularly liked about this article is how it started out, because it started with "Cathy Literski could tell something was wrong just from her mother's voice on the telephone," which is a clever way to make the reader (me) keep reading and wanting to know what else is going to unfold in this article from just the lead.

In the News..

This week, there seemed to be quite a bit going on in the local news.  Over the past week or two, the search for Lizzie Marriott's body has been making newspapers all over the area, and has also been broadcasted on TV news as well, as it is a very unusual and sad event to happen in NH.  An earthquake that happened Tuesday night also made new for a little bit because it is once again, also an extremely unusual event in New Hampshire.  Something I found in the Hampton Union that was somewhat big news in my town is the head girls basketball coach at the high school resigned unexpectedly before the new season began this year.  This is big news in town because he has lead the team to four state championships in the last five years, so girls basketball has made a name for itself over my time in high school.  Last but not least, as always, political news was popular in the past few weeks because of all the debates, and will only become more talked about from now on with the next debate being tomorrow night and the election being about three weeks away.

Meeting Article

Instead of letting students with a disciplinary problem sleep in late like on a normal Saturday morning, the Portsmouth School Board has other plans. 

At the meeting on Monday, the School Board proposed a new idea for students with a disciplinary problem.  School Board member Tim Steele wants to approve a new policy where students who have gotten into trouble during the week will have to return to school on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. for a four hour session of detention.

The newly proposed detention session would require about $3,000 extra in the budget to provide staffing to watch over the badly behaved students.

Portsmouth resident and parent, Peggy Bacon, disagreed with the proposed idea.  “I work six days a week – including Saturday morning,” she said.  “It’s bad enough to get my son off to school Monday through Friday.  Why should I have to worry about Saturday as well?”

“I know my son isn’t perfect,” Bacon said.  “But I’m not going to force him to go.  I just don’t think it’ll make any difference, and the parents are going to pay for it—in higher taxes as well as in ruined Saturdays.”

Steele believes that the new policy would reduce the number of in-house suspensions, which involves the misbehaved students to spend a day of school under supervision in an empty classroom.  “I know this isn’t good news for parents, but I hope the threat of Saturday classes will make the students think twice before breaking the school rules,” he said.

Portsmouth resident Bob Farley agreed with the proposal.  “Parents can whine all they want about this, but maybe it’s time parents in America were made to take a little responsibility for their kids,” Farley said.  “Maybe if they have to miss a few Saturday morning cartoons they’ll start wising up.”

Portsmouth senior, Lisa Gallagher, had another take on the new rule.  “In 12 years of school I’ve never served a detention, and I don’t intend to,” she said.  “But I don’t like this idea. I think it’s just being done to make life easier for the faculty, so they don’t have to deal with detentions during the week.  Anyway, what if someone skips the session? What are they going to do, make them stay all weekend?”

Steele said that if students decide to skip a Saturday detention session, it would result in the student being unable to return to school until the detention has been served.

Steele also said that smoking is the worst disciplinary problem they have in the school.  “I just want to keep students from smoking in the high school bathrooms.  There are other problems, but smoking is by far the biggest one,” Steele said.

The School Board ended up voting 5-3 on the new policy after plenty of discussion. 

Steele was told to return at the next meeting on March 7 with more information regarding in-school detentions so far for the current school year. 

Leads (10/1 class assignment)

An eighty year old unconscious man whose car was stalled on the Amtrak Downeaster traintracks in Old Orchard Beach, Maine this morning was rescued thirty seconds before the train arrived.

9/30 Newsreading

Today, I found quite a few interesting articles, especially on the Fosters Daily Democrat website.  I read an article about President Bill Clinton and how he is visiting UNH on Wednesday this week, which was news to me.  The article didn't inform me too much because I guess there was not very much information available, however, I did find it good to know since it was about my own school.  I also read an article about a bus and car colliding in Kittery, Maine, today, Sunday. Another article I read was from the USA today, which had to do with attacks in Iraq where 26 people were killed, and atleast 94 were wounded. After a few weeks of reading news consistently, I am beginning to realize that I like smaller and more local papers more than big ones like the NY Times or LA Times.  I think I like the smaller ones more because I find the local articles to be more interesting.

News Reading 9/28

The articles I read today were from a variety of sites, like the NY Times, LA Times, and some sports sites.  I read one article about the political races and how Obamas ratings might be going down after how he handles the Libya situation, but apparently people don't like Romney's reaction to it either, so I'm unsure of how bad it actually hurts Obama.  Regardless, I thought reading this article was interesting and helpful because I don't usually like reading political articles because they only interest me for so long, even though I know I should be paying attention to them.  Another article that particularly caught my eye was one about partying at Cornell in Ithaca, NY.  As a college student, this article caught my attention.  However, I don't really like the way it was written.  The beginning starts off with a narrative type of lead, telling a story basically at a bar, then goes into its main point about bars in the college town of Ithaca.  As I was reading the article, I realized it really doesn't have too much of a point.  I found myself reading and looking for the point of it, and I just didn't find it, so I think the article was lacking the "so what" aspect, which I find I also lack so far in a lot of the articles that I have written.  Because of my age group, I thought the article was worth reading, but overall, I didn't really like it.  I also found out tonight that the New York Times has a limit on articles you can read a month, but there are ways around it by clicking on articles that tweet on Twitter.

News Reading 9/27

Today when I did my news reading, I focused a lot on local, New Hampshire news because after scanning some World and US news headlines, nothing seemed interesting enough to really catch my eye.  I found a few local articles that seemed to qualify as "breaking news."  One of the articles was on a crash that killed a man at Hampton Beach.  I found this article interesting because it happened in my town, yet I heard nothing about it until I looked on the WMUR website and found it.  There was also an article on it in the Hampton Union, but I used all my articles I could read for the month, so I have to hold off another few days before I can read from that paper online again.  Another article I came across was about an attacker in the Mont Vernon, NH area who assaulted a woman in her home.  The article was very fresh, so it didn't have much to it, but I thought that this was terrible considering it could have been similar to what happened a few years ago in the same town where a woman was killed and her daughter was injured by high school boys who broke into a home there. After reading some articles on WMUR, I realized they are all, for the most part, very short and to the point, which is different from those articles on sites like the NY Times which are not necessarily made for broadcast news stories, but written by legitimate journalists.

Newsreading This Week...

Today while I was reading articles, I decided to read more of the "world" type articles, since I've realized that I haven't been following too much besides my own, local, news now, and I am officially out of articles to read online on my local newspaper website because I am only allowed ten a month, unfortunately.  I was reading some articles in the USA Today and came across a few things I haven't heard of, like a pipeline fire in Mexico that killed 29 people.  After reading the article, I realized that it followed the inverted pyramid very closely.  The lead answered some of the "who, what, where, when, why" questions, and as the article went on, it definitely became full of more of the useless quotes and facts.  Another article I read had to do with a helicopter crash in Damascus, Syria, which I found to be a coincidence because I remember, "where is Damascus" being a question on our first news quiz, but I had actually never heard of it before, and now since I had that quiz, I have seen it in an article.

Ideas from Around Campus on Monday/Most interesting story.

The group I was in for Mondays class was looking for sports stories around campus.  We decided to look at the Whittemore Center for what was going on in the sports world, and with campus recreation.  We found things about the football team and homecoming, the dance auditions, intramural sports starting, and more.  It surprised me that just by looking at one place, we came up with six different ideas for sports stories, and if we were to go to the Field House, or even check the UNH website for Campus Recreation, we probably could have come up with even more.  When I am looking for stories to write about each week, so far, I have tried to just think about things that I have heard by word of mouth around my town, but that definitely won't always work out since there will be some weeks when things don't come up that I could write about.  So far, this week, the most interesting story I have come across was this story on weight gain and soda among teenagers, probably because I drink a lot of soda, so naturally, I clicked on the story.  I also found it interesting that the story was under "nation" on USA Today because typically in my findings, studies like that usually just are listed under the health section because they are perhaps less important than some of the political and other world news that is currently going on.

Different Types of Leads

While reading news stories and referring back to the textbook on leads, I realized that there really are many different ways to write them.  One that I found was a story using the delayed identification lead in the New York Times.  I think these work best on stories where crime may be involved, because if the lead only says something like, "A police officer was arrested Friday night," then most people would be likely to keep reading, and want to know which one they are talking about, especially if it were a local story.  Another type of lead I found was a narrative lead in a story about Apple's new IPhone 5 and Samsung.  It would be a narrative lead because the lead is telling a mini-story about what happened last month between the two companies.  I think narrative leads may be good generally in follow up stories, because not everyone reading the follow up story may have read the story before it, so a quick narrative about what the previous problem was would be helpful to readers.  Another lead I found was a question lead which, in the textbook, are told to be avoided because they are weak, irritating stalls.  I think question leads may work in some cases, like in health articles, for instance, if one started off with, "is dark chocolate really healthy for you?" because in that case, people may want to know, and be curious, so they will keep reading the rest of the article to find out the answer, however, in the article I found, I think another lead would have been a better choice because it would be more interesting if the author had just gotten to the point instead of dragging it on.

9/14 News Reading

Today while I was reading some different newspapers online, I found myself looking at many different articles.  I realized that I focused a lot on the technology portion of the New York Times today, mainly because of the IPhone 5 release and because I happened to pre-order it, so I wanted to read more about it.  According to one of the articles I read, it was already getting more orders than planned an hour after it was put up to buy, so shipping was moved to a week longer for those ordering it after that time for the Apple site.  I also found through another article some of its features, and things that it cannot do, which was new to me.  Another article that I chose to read was an article on the anti-American protests that happened in the Middle East and beyond.  What I noticed in the article is that the lead seemed to be kind of drawn out and boring to me, however, I still ended up reading the rest to see if it would get better and more interesting.  It made me think about how maybe short, straight forward, leads are probably more appealing to readers, or at least to myself. I found myself wanting to know the who/what/when/where/why/how questions right upfront in the article.  I also read a police-report like article in the Hampton Union, my hometown paper, about firearms being involved in an incident at a house in the town on Thursday, which interested me since not too much ever happens in the town.

News Reading on 9/12/12

Today, I read a variety of different articles from many different newspaper websites, such as the Hampton Union, Seacoast Online, Boston Globe, and the New York Times.  After doing so, I realized that I probably learn more from reading news articles than any other way of learning.  Some of the articles I read were dealing with political issues between president Obama and Mitt Romney on Obama's immigration plan, then other articles were completely different.  For instance, one of the articles I decided to read from the Boston Globe website was about how a man from Massachusetts has a court date because he captured a skunk and left him in the box he captured him in for a few days, so the skunk died.  The article kind of reminded me of the one we were analyzing in class on Monday in the sense that it is kind of ridiculous and is not necessarily news, however, it is somewhat unusual so I suppose it could count.  I also read an article from the health section of the New York Times that talked about studies done to prove that being on computers, IPods, etc. within in hour of bed can hurt melatonin levels.  The article interested me because I use computers before I go to bed most nights, so I was curious as to what the article had to say.

My News Diet

I set up my news diet using Twitter.  I decided that I will follow the newspapers that I want to read, like the Boston Globe, Union Leader, LA Times, New York Times, and Seacoast Online because that is my local newspaper.  It will be easier to use twitter because I enjoy using it, and most newspapers tweet the headlines of their articles so that I can have easy access to them if an article interests me.  I also will most likely be checking the websites for the accounts I follow so that I will have more of a variety of articles to choose from.  I think doing my news diet this way and looking at the newspaper websites will give me the opportunity to be immersed in news whenever I check my twitter feed, which is quite often. 

What is News?

I think that news can be anything that would be of personal interest to the public.  It generally is something that is recent or is currently happening at the time of the report, rather than something that has happened a long time ago that no one may necessarily care about right now.  For instance, when a president is elected in November, that would be news because it is something that people are very interested in and something that everyone wants to know about.  However, if there were to be something small that happened to a person that was not so significant, it is not generally considered news because it is not exactly in the interest of the public, although it may be of interest to a select group of people.