Digital Enfeebling

An interesting New York Times essay on whether digital classrooms might make students less able to learn. The piece notes, “What is really lost when this happens is the self-invention of a human brain. If students don’t learn to think, then no amount of access to information will do them any good.”

Click here: http://nyti.ms/9v2gPU

The Wrong Spin?

Is The Eagle putting the wrong spin on this? A 17-student decrease isn’t much of a slump, especially when overall credit hours are up. It amounts to a few fewer students, but more overall revenue. I hate to sound like a homer here, but why not spin it right? This is bad journalism. Comments? Click here: http://bit.ly/cLTIba

Here is WSU’s press release: http://bit.ly/b9GZAm

Quaint Journalism Artifact

A blogger trashes a quaint, overly optimistic 1965 guide to journalism. Beneath the sarcasm, there’s some melancholy about how we ended up this way. Click here: http://bit.ly/b0T45G

Tim Russert

If you care about the state of journalism, and enjoy reading the late Tim Russert, I encourage you to go to this Poynter Institute for Media Studies Web site and read his remarks. There’s also a YouTube video showcasing part of the speech. Enjoy! And, as always, I encourage your feedback. Click here: http://bit.ly/jn2E4

Font Humor

This video made me laugh. It was sent to me by my wife, the always lovely L Kelly. Click here: http://bit.ly/44PPXn

Who Do Students Admire?

Five of us had lunch a couple of years ago with Jay Smith, the recently retired president of Cox Newspapers. Smith was in town to talk to a couple of classes at the Elliott School of Communication. Smith posed a couple of interesting questions. One that particularly struck me was: “Who do your students look up to?” Smith wasn’t asking about celebrities, but about media mentors, specifically in journalism. Going to high school and college in the 1970s, my journalism heroes were broadcast giant Walter Cronkite and investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, famous for their sleuthing in the Watergate crimes. In terms of literary models, my writing mentors ranged from Ernest Hemingway to Hunter S. Thompson, an admittedly wide net to cast. His query intrigued me because I have no clue what my own students would say if asked that question. Would they cite old-school journalists? Or would they throw out the names of unknown (to me) bloggers, website gurus and social media freaks? Who are/were your mentors?

Smart Students

At Wichita State University, there were four sophomores taking journalism classes and all of them had an ‘A’ so far. These four friends were so confident that, the weekend before finals, they decided to visit some friends and have a big party. They had a great time but, after all the hearty partying, they slept all day Sunday and didn’t make it back to Wichita until early Monday morning

Rather than taking the final then, they decided that after the final they would explain to their professor why they missed it. They said that they visited friends but on the way back they had a flat tire. As a result, they missed the final. The professor agreed they could make up the final the next day. The guys were excited and relieved. They studied that night for the exam.

The next day the professor placed them in separate rooms and gave them a test booklet. They quickly answered the first problem worth 5 points. Cool, they thought! Each one in separate rooms, thinking this was going to be easy… then they turned the page. On the second page was written…

For 95 points: Which tire? ________________

Big Booksale!

The Friends of the Wichita Public Library will hold a used book sale at the Wichita Public Library, 223 S. Main, in the third floor auditorium NEXT WEEKEND! Thousands of books will be available at bargain prices with options for every interest and reading level. All proceeds benefit the Wichita Public Library.

Thursday, Sept. 23, 5:30 – 8 p.m., Friends Members Only!*

Friday, Sept. 24, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

* To become a member, join at any Wichita Public Library location. For more information, see our web site at http://www.wichita.lib.ks.us/Organizations/Friends/Membership.htm.

Friends of the Wichita Public Library

223 S Main

Wichita, KS 67202

http://www.wichita.lib.ks.us/Organizations/Friends/

College newspapers

A federal judge last week ruled that state laws can restore to the college press much of the First Amendment protection that a 2005 appeals court ruling appeared to limit (the ill-advised Hosty v. Carter ruling). The ruling came in a suit by the former faculty adviser and the former student editor of Tempo,the student newspaper at Chicago State University. Read all about it at http://bit.ly/djBFVg

Sunflower Survey

This article in College Media Review features an extensive and important readership and marketing survey done by the newspaper in connection with classes from the Wichita State business school in 2009.

Sunflower survey