Krystal Mess - The embarrassing—and painfully familiar—story of an overeager young journalist. By Alex Heard
Krystal Mess
The embarrassing—and painfully familiar—story of an overeager young journalist.
By Alex Heard
Posted Friday, April 29, 2005, at 8:44 AM PT
In case you've missed the big media flap concerning a young woman named Krystal Grow, here's a review. Grow is a 21-year-old college journalism student and newspaper intern based in North Adams, Mass. Last Friday she wrote an article for the North Adams Transcript detailing her failed attempt to get a summer internship at Spin, the music magazine. She came off as green, honest, pesky, and perhaps a trifle pouty about losing. She admitted to being so confident about getting the job that she'd started looking for an apartment in the East Village. When she was rejected, she wrote, she "cried until I passed out, then woke up and cried some more."
The media hubbub started when Jim Romenesko linked to the article on his widely read journalism Web site. Before long, Grow was Topic A on his Letters page, where she inspired a hurricane of ridicule, fury, preaching, sympathy, and multidirectional bloviation from older journalists that hasn't stopped yet. Grow was alternately torn apart for being young, naive, entitled, and bratty, and defended for being young, airheaded, and pitiable. For you non-journalists out there who are baffled by why journalists seem to care so much about this episode, here are two bits of perspective: 1) Krystal is best thought of as an Everykid who represents the bumpy ride awaiting youth on the way up; and 2) No, in fact, the reporters who haunt Romenesko's Letters page don't have anything better to do.
I noticed a couple of things about this discussion. One was that, with an exception or two, none of the reporters theorizing about Grow tried to call her. The other was a theme in the letters: We all make mistakes when we're young, so lighten up. On this score, a woman named Pam Robinson referred to cringe-inducing things from her own past that "I will never write about."
Krystal Mess - The embarrassing—and painfully familiar—story of an overeager young journalist. By Alex Heard: "Posted Friday, April 29, 2005, at 8:44 AM PT"
False Pregnancy - Who really wants to debate the morning-after pill? By William Saletan
Regardless of where you stand on this issue, look how the media is handling it.
False Pregnancy - Who really wants to debate the morning-after pill? By William Saletan
4 steps: Surviving the college search - Apr. 28, 2005
Most "selective" schools
BEND, Ore. (CNN/Money) - The deadline for college-bound seniors to make their final college decision is just days away. By now, these students know there is no magic formula for choosing a school.
Only a fraction of the students who applied to these schools got in.
School Acceptance ratio
Curtis Institute of Music 5.3%
The Julliard School 7.5%
Bennett College 9.9%
Yale University 9.9%
Harvard University 10%
U.S. Naval Academy 10.2%
U.S. Military Academy 10.3%
Columbia University 10.9%
Brigham Young - Hawaii 11.8%
Aquinas College 11.9%
Source: Thomson-Peterson's
4 steps: Surviving the college search - Apr. 28, 2005
TIME Magazine: TIME 100 - People of the Century
TIME Magazine: TIME 100 - People of the Century
CNN.com - Friends find treasure buried in backyard - Apr 27, 2005
Let the digging begin!
CNN.com - Friends find treasure buried in backyard - Apr 27, 2005
CNN.com - Hey! Shut off the TV! - Apr 25, 2005
Hey! Shut off the TV!
TV-Turnoff Week asks you to do without the box
NEW YORK (AP) -- Television is accused of many things, from corrupting our morals and co-opting our republic to undermining our families and making pudges of our children. For all sorts of reasons, TV routinely gets kicked around plenty. And now's a great time to kick it altogether -- at least, for a week.
CNN.com - Hey! Shut off the TV! - Apr 25, 2005: "Hey! Shut off the TV!"
Technorati: Tag: photojournalism
For all you aspiring photojournalists out there... check out this site.
Technorati: Tag: photojournalism
Notes from a Teacher: Mark on Media � DYING NEWSPAPERS
No more newspapers? Hold on just one sec.
Notes from a Teacher: Mark on Media � DYING NEWSPAPERS: "All the editors and publishers were speaking under the Chatham House Rule, which means their quotes can’t be attributed. But the consensus was clear: newspapers are dying and dragging their news sites down with them."
Newspapers struggle to avoid their own obit | csmonitor.com
They face dwindling circulation and competition from other outlets, but are likely to survive - if they can adapt.
By Randy Dotinga | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Will the last American newspaper lose its last reader before the middle of the century? Journalism professor Philip Meyer thinks it's possible.
After all, the percentage of adults who report reading daily newspapers has fallen from 81 percent in 1964 to just 52 percent in 2004. If the trend continues, there won't be any readers left within a few decades, says Mr. Meyer, an author and former reporter who teaches at the University of North Carolina.
Newspapers struggle to avoid their own obit | csmonitor.com
Journalism.org- The State of the News Media 2005
The annual report on American journalism
Journalism.org- The State of the News Media 2005
