Cliches and the art of the press release

Our discussion today on sports cliches took me back to my time as a music editor. Just like in sports, there are countless traps that musicians fall into when dealing with the media, and, like the coaches, musicians usually have PR people right over on their sideline.

There is all sorts of information out there about how to write a press release, including this site.
But really, it's a simple matter of journalism: Show me how your submission will interest me and tell me something I can't find on Google.  

Just like we went through the sports coverage, there is a little bit of cliched lingo you might encounter in music press releases and will want to watch out for. Use this glossary to see what they really mean.

•  Anthemic--rambling
• Beatlesesque--- sounds like every other band 
• Can't be labeled/pigeonholed--- publicist is lazy
• DIY (do it yourself) work ethic--band can't afford to pay someone else
• Ethereal/chanteuse--slightly over-the-top female signing
• Impassioned lyrics/ vocals--someone who cares about what they're saying, often to the detriment of what they're playing
• Hook-filled--there are multiple chord progressions
• Indie/Alternative--hated the idea of a major label (or couldn't get signed), so went to one of the equally elitist indie labels in Omaha, Portland, etc.
• Progressive--Too mediocre to be rock, but not avant garde enough for art rock
• Singer/songwriter---has no longer come to represent the actions of the person, but rather the entire genre of acoustic music they perform. Some of it is great, but you often have to hear it in a less than ideal setting, like a coffeeshop.
• Veteran-- musician who long since past his prime, now traveling the nostalgia circuit to pay off a lifetime of poor financial judgment.
• Wall of sound---lots of overproduced dissonance and noise  
• __________core--taking a nice idea and adding lots of screaming on top of it

If course, some bands (or journalists) take the deluge of releases with a comical tone. Here is a site that counts down  some of the funny ones in extreme music.

For more examples of over-the-top music language, read the band bios at  www.riylrecords.com or www.reybee.com and enjoy.

Ben Sellers
North Stafford High School
Stafford, Va.

A Plan

One of the staff models created and shared by Kristy Roschke.

Kristy Roschke encouraged us to publish our news online because that is where teens go for information. I had already decided during these last two weeks that for a new high school, with no established tradition of print, a strictly online newspaper made most sense. Thankfully, she went beyond theoretical advice and told me exactly how to get there.

First, Roschke said you will need a plan. Students and advisers must decide how often to publish, where to publish and they must determine a mission or purpose for their publication. Beyond planning, she told us step by step how to start the process. For a publishing platform, thanks to the advice of Alan Weintraut, Sarah Zerwin and Kelly Robinson, I know that we will use School Newspapers Online. Since I have a combined Newspaper and Yearbook class, I think I'll be using a structure similar to the one above. Photographers attend a different class period, but they will be contributing to both publications. With our principal already updating the school's Facebook page regularly, we have begun to build an online community before the building has opened. We'll be targeting the online community to promote our paper and yearbook, as well. Planning eases the anxiety.

To be honest, during several sessions the past two weeks, particularly the ones about the logistics in the classroom (mostly Alan's sessions), I felt entirely overwhelmed. The amount of new things to learn and incorporate into my curriculum overcomes me. How can I remember it all and do it right when none of it will be second nature? Then, I remember that Roschke said start small, give yourself time and celebrate your successes. All of you get it, and I know that I have a supportive community in you.

After class, I ran into Roschke in the hallway and we thanked her and shared a little about our situations. She said she thought that I had chosen the best option for my school, and even though I knew I had done so, it felt good to hear her encourage me a bit. I look forward to the Reynolds 2012 fellows encouraging each other from a distance and sharing all of our new plans.

Rhonda Dickens
Chisholm Trail High School
Fort Worth, Texas

Power to the people

The people at Reynolds have been just as important as the lessons about teaching, journalism, or technology and will remain so as we leave and head home. 

When I was in college, I was in an honors program. It wasn't until I got my first teaching job that I realized the actual value of it - meeting the people in my community and helping establish relationships with them. During school I shrugged when people said that making those relationships was the lasting effect.

Now I realize how wrong I was and appreciate the true importance of creating a network of people around you that can help you and support you.

I wrote my article about the News21 program. The student journalists that I talked to said something similar- learning what they have about technology and multimedia storytelling has been great, but equally important to them are the relationships that they have made with well-known professional journalists.
Those relationships will play an equally important role in shaping them as journalists and helping them in their career in the future.

I'm certain the same will be true of the 2012 Cronkite School Reynolds folks.
We will all go back into some sort of unknown this fall ready to use what we learned here. We all learned something different and will focus on something different at home. We'll have each other to reach out to for help and support. Or at least I offer myself up for that. And I warn my fellow Reynolds fellows and instructors that I will probably call on you when I have questions or want to share something. That's the lesson I've learned - classroom lessons are important and useful, but the relationships you make with people and the lessons they teach you have just as much if not more of an impact. SO if I may say so, I suggest we stay in touch. I will keep an eye on our wonderful Facebook group, a testament to our support and sharing.
I want to hear how you have used your learning. I want to know what you do for your First Amendment project! I want to hear what went well and what flopped. You teach me just as much as anything else!

Thanks Steve, Alan, Anita, all the presenters, all the behinds the scenes people. Thanks to my fellow Reynolds teachers. You've all been an infinite source of wisdom and support these couple weeks.
I promise I'll return the favor!

Hannah Sagaser
Mandan High School
Mandan, ND

SPORTS?!?

AGHH! Sports is my worst nightmare as a an adviser. This isn't because I don't like sports, I love them. But I really struggle to get my students motivated to go to the games let alone to come up with ANYTHING to put on our sports page.

Students will say their doing a review of the upcoming season and then submit a small paragraph of information only containing stats. They constantly say, "there's nothing else we can do!"

Beyond going to the game and covering it, I didn't know what to tell students. I didn't know how to generate sports article ideas. I was at a loss every month when we started pitching our ideas.

I am super grateful for Alan's section on Sports Writing today. Not only do I have an idea of several different types of sports stories my students could brainstorm, I have a list of over 20 possible stories that we came up with as a class.

I feel as if I was given a valuable tool today - an idea of how to cover sports so that our newspaper will actually do the athletes, fans, coaches, parents and reading community justice.

Sarah Noah
Goshen High School
Goshen, Indiana

Copyright and photos

Scenario: A student wants to post a photo from Fox Broadcasting Company (FBC) website for an online review on your student newspaper. Is this considered an infringement of the copyright law?

Well, according to LoMonte, it depends.

If the review is for a show that is produced by FBC and the photo is accompanying a review of that show, then it is covered under fair use.

However, if the photo is used for any other reason than a review of the show then the photo is not covered under fair use.

There are some examples of media sites, such as the FBC website, where they openly allow downloads from their website, or have a “commons” area where photos are shared with the public. Pictured right is an example of a the page for the actor Mark Salling as Puck from the “Glee” show on the FBC website. 

If you scroll down the page, you see a “download” section with several options. In this case, FBC is promoting this show by allowing the photos of the actors to be downloaded.

Here is a quick reference guide I put together with a few websites you can and cannot use content from for student publications. Please comment if you have additions or modifications.

Fair use. . .

• ·      a photo from a movie or TV show’s official website to accompany a review of the movie or TV show
• ·      a photo of the entire album cover to accompany a review of the album
• ·      a photo from a “common” area of a media website that states it is openly shared
• ·      .gov websites: examples include

o   usa.gov

o   images.fws.gov

o   photolib.noaa.gov

(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

o   nlm.nih.gov (National Library of Medicine)

o   nasa.gov (NASA)

o   imaging.cancer.gov (National Cancer Institute)

o   mypyramid.gov (Department of Agriculture)

• ·      public domain image websites - examples include:

www.public-domain-images.com 

            www.publicdomainpictures.net

• ·      anything on Wikimedia commons; a database of “freely usable media files”
• ·      anything on a website where the policy is clearly stated that uploaded photos are waived of copyright, such as www.copyright-free-images.com

Don’t touch. . .

• ·      Reuters
• ·      AP
• ·      Disney
• ·      breaking news or local news websites
• ·      any website where they make money off of their photos

Linda Hopson

Adviser, Three Penny Press

Bellaire High School

Tips and tricks from the Font man...

 Turns out, font matters.

I couldn't figure out what I hated about this sign that someone posted downtown Seattle. I love/hated it so much that I kept a picture of it. It certainly pops, but I'm frustrated by it. I never looked up the app online.  Perhaps the red evoked anger. Perhaps it was that looming oxford comma in the subheading. Sure, I'm impressed by the QR code. I fit the criteria since I really like to laugh. But, it's still not for me. 

I suppose Tracy Collins would call this my "red tie" issue. Some will love it. Some will hate it.

I'd love to have Mr. Collins evaluate the red sign. 

He would know the name of the fonts. Heck, he would have a name for each of the lines, curves and holes of each letter. He would speak to the apex, aperture, spur and crossbar. 

He would address the "dogleg" of the continued title. I wonder how he'd feel about the aesthetics of the dead red space. 

Today he gave us a three hour tour through design basics. It was incredible. I feel overwhelmed. In that short time, we got a short history of newspaper design, a walk through pages that he loves and hates, the 10 Commandments of Type, and a critique session looking at some of our own school papers. 

I loved how he dissected a front page of The Arizona Republic, defining terminology used by the staff. He addressed the magazine approach that he approves of.  He has had to disappoint so many artistic design editors who insisted on a 32 degree tilt. 13 is max, kid. Max. He forces a grid and locks the fonts and word counts in InDesign.

We all think we know great design when we see it, but Collins does have a decent corner on page balance and order, font spaces and choices, photo placement and use. 

He gets the kerning and letting. He'd have a snappy comeback for each serif vs. sans-serif type quip.  And as he puts it, "Leave that skanky type for the teenagers."

Stephanie Platter

King's High School

Seattle, Wash.

My take-aways

SO much. I've learned so much over the last two weeks and there it is just swirling around in my head.

It's time I work to hammer some of this stuff down.

I want sound bites that I can install in my students' heads, that they can carry around with them, that will make them think more like journalists. Super journalists, and I their super adviser.

Okay maybe not quite, but I do need to do the important work now of distilling all I've taken in here and making it my guide for the year ahead.

1. It's all about storytelling. No matter the medium, good journalists are good storytellers, and 21st century journalists need to be able to tell good stories in multi-media. 
2. First Amendment rights are sacred. I'm lucky to teach in a state that has a law to protect student free press. I want my students to know how awesome and rare this is. I pledge to do a better job teaching them about this. 
3. Three things my chiefs need to work on and revisit at the start of each school year:
1. Mission statement--my staff needs one to guide all their work. I think I'll have the chiefs determine this each year so they can really work toward their vision for the publication. 
2. Create a code of ethics for my publications, including digital manipulation. 
3. Editorial decision making process.
4. The Royal Banner needs better story ideas. I love story mapping. My students will too (well at least they will get very familiar with it). I want them to look for that human dimension to everything, something my students have always called the "Fairview focus." They need to get a bit more serious about this, though.
5. Photo slide shows: my students are not using the full capabilities of our website to showcase the photos my students take. They need to figure this out.
6. Use Vimeo instead of Youtube.
7. Beginning-of-the-year boot camp on writing. They'll all cover a speaker together and write about it and do feedback circles (institute lesson plan to come!).
8. All opinion pieces will include actual reporting from here all out. 
9. I want all staff members to be able to put together simple video. I'm thinking a beginning of the year music video contest. 
10. Move the website to a more central position in the operations of the newsroom. Teach the students why this is important (because the online world is where more readers go to get their news and they must know how to do journalism in this world!). The job of the journalist is evolving and I want my class to prepare them for that.
11. Teach my students to use social media for journalistic purposes--they will Tweet. They will Facebook more to drive readers to our website. They will learn about using social media to report, to distribute news, and to interact with their readers.
12. The rule of three. This will guide my newsroom. I have some work to do to shift things around to support that, but I like it. I will also add some new responsibilities to my two business managers: the managing editor tasks. They will be VERY good at this and it will free me up to work more closely with my students on their story ideas and writing.
13. Students will include hyperlinks in web stories as a matter of habit. 
14. I will attempt to find a way to make my students care about following copyright laws. This will start by educating them.
15. I'll meet with my principal when I get back and tell him what I've learned.
16. I will work intentionally toward diversifying my staff. It's important that student publications speak for as many community voices as possible.
17. Collect online resources for my students and then actually use them as a key component of my instruction so that my students will seek out and use great online resources to make their work better. 
18. I will obsess over AP style and strike fear into my students (maybe "fear" is too strong of a word, but I want them to get serious about it and I can do that by example).
19. I now have a start on better feedback to my students with their design. I'm so excited about this. I used to look at their work and know that either I liked it or didn't, but I never knew why exactly. Now I do. One of the roles in the rule of three choices will be to work on the staff clip book. This job will be to seek out good and bad layouts, compile them in an area of our website, and share them with the staff once a week. 
20. Assess the typography. Teach my students about this as the chiefs are putting together each year's style book. 
21. Teach the whole staff about sports writing. 
22. Keep in touch with all of you through twitter and facebook!!!

Death by Design

Did you all know about this stuff?  It was review for me.

I learned a lot today about design elements that I had never even thought about. I mean, obviously I knew about all the parts to a single character of text (sarcasm).

Seriously, though, I never put much thought into leading and skewing and so on.

I was happy that I didn't get "crucified" for the wrongdoings of The Dublin Shield.

The one thing I want to bring back from this session is adding variety to our layout. Every page looks like the center spread. Although my layout editors were starting to take some risks at the end of the year. I think it was Heather who posted on Facebook that we share our issues with one another. I'll be sure to send a link of the Shield's .pdfs for you all to check out.

"Dustin Dieber" and the hypothetical news scenario

During week one of the institute we had our hypothetical reporting scenario. Obviously Steve spent a LOT of time writing that one, because it was so involved. I was impressed!

Last school year I composed several hypothetical reporting scenarios for my students. I might be submitting my best one as my lesson plan for the institute, so I won't share it here. The one I am sharing here is not really a reporting scenario because all the information is already given to the students. This assignment works best at the VERY beginning when you're still teaching your students basic story structure.

I teach mostly freshmen girls, and a lot of them are Justin Bieber fanatics. I tried to poke fun of them with this.

Let me know how you like it.

A Hostage Situation!?

Elaine Broussard
Belle Chasse High School
Belle Chasse, La.

Why it sucks to be an English/Journalism teacher

My MLA-solidified brain feels traitorous breaking some of the hard and fast rules I've been hammering into my students for the past ten years. Silently I weep on my keyboard as I use quotation marks instead of italics for a title.
I am going to struggle this year. I accept that. My big hope is that I struggle this year only. If I struggle every year moving between MLA and AP, I am going to have to build my journalism so big they can't get me in an English class any more.
Either that or I receive treatment for split personality.
So, I plan to get to know AP intimately- and hopefully I don't confuse the rules on a daily basis. Does anyone struggle between the two? Does it eventually get easier?
Janice Johnson
Vista del Lago High School
Folsom, Calif.


My completely legal AP photo. Suck it MLA.



Sports Coverage 101

Finding unique ways to cover the sports scene on high school campuses is vital to a school's publication, said Alan Weintraut.

Weintraut, a journalism teacher at Annandale High School near Washington D.C., discussed direct ways and angles to take in the sports section.

Similar to other speakers at the ASNE Reynolds High School Journalism Institute in Phoenix, Weintraut said students should focus on areas in their sports scene that they could be experts.

I often have trouble getting students to cover sports at our school. Whether it is because they are unfamiliar with the sport, don't want to stay after school or are intimidated by the coach or players, they avoid sports stories and that section of our paper really suffers.

One of the consistent complaints that we get is that we need to have a stronger sports section.

I think if I can point them to different types of stories as opposed to basic recaps or previews I might be able to get them more excited to write about sports.

Instead of doing a straight football game recap, maybe focus on practicing in the heat and weave in information about the game.

I also think that if we did shorter feature that were more visual, they might want to cover those.

Weintraut talked about an idea of "8 Things to Know about the Soccer Team", short, quick, relevant information with strong graphics that can serve multiple purposes.

I think I can also use the information discussed in the diversity discussion to try and recruit more students that like to write about sports. I have to go out and actively find those kids and get them excited to be the voice of our campus sports scene.

Chad Renning
Sandra Day O'Connor High School
Phoenix

You had me at Typography...

     Oh, Tracy Collins, you're dreamy!  When I took over the journalism department at my school I was overwhelmed...the curriculum, the program, the emotion...sigh.  Slowly but surely I started finding my niche and my talent.  All this time I've loved typography and design, and I didn't even know it.  I worked so hard with my staff to have good design and the kids really responded to my enthusiasm.
     I was always finding inspiration...newspapers, typography, magazines, programs, fonts, signs, Pinterest (heaven!) and even in nature.  I started my own idea bulletin board in the front of the room and before I knew it the kids made their own.  It was also wonderful because it gave me confidence and helped the kids see that I was invested in the program.  What I enjoyed the most was that I could show the kids an idea that I had found and then they would find inspiration to create something completely their own.  They loved that I gave them the seed; I loved that they grew.  It was fabulous!
     Yet I knew that I could do better...Reynolds Institute to the rescue.  I enjoyed the Advanced InDesign session with Amy King but wanted more.  Can I just say that I'd love to spend the weekend with Tracy Collins?!  So smart...so funny...so communicative...so experienced...what more could a woman want?  Although I bet Tracy is busy...for the next 20 years...I can't wait to go back home and dive in to all of the resources he shared.

Debbie Glenn
Blue Valley West High School
Overland Park, KS