Author: zeinabdaher

Do you know your freedom of information rights?

Reading about Digital Journalist’s Legal Guide made me realize how many rights journalist has. FOIA stands for Freedom of Information Act.

The guide states that people have legal rights to open records, for example, police misconduct, how the government spends taxpayer money and any kind of traffic records. People also have the right for open public meetings such as meetings of commissions, councils, and boards.

When it comes to news gathering reporters have limited rights. Reporters can come to a news scene but it depends on whether the property is public, non-public or private. The owners of private property usually have more control over who accesses their property. Public properties have a place and time to when reports can come and access the property.

A journalist should always know their rights when reporting and also be sure about the information that they publish. If publishing a false document, it could affect a reputation and could lead to criminal charges and be taken into court.

Anything that the government does, including salaries and information on money as a citizen you are allowed to ask for the information, and they have 20 days to respond to your request.

 

Verifying what’s true and what’s false

Verification is very important when it comes to journalism. One of the most important things is that all your information should be verified to make sure your facts, images, or videos are correct.

These days on social media such as Instagram or Twitter people could easily know if a person or news source is verified by looking for the blue check next to the accounts name.

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While doing my dataset research, there were many websites I needed to make sure that the information I took was correct. The two websites I used to verify my information was factcheck.org and also snopes.com . I use these two websites to put my facts that I want to verify and they would confirm to me how true a fact is.

There were websites I was using to check the cost of tuition at different colleges in Michigan. When coming along to the facts I was getting certain prices and I wanted to make sure the price is accurate. Snopes and FactCheck let me know if it was true, false, or in the middle.

Verifying everything you put online and making sure it is accurate is very important for reporting.

 

 

Author Daniel Pink states “timing is key” on CBS this morning

CBS This morning is one of the most popular T.V programs with reporting on international news stories and interviews figures in politics, business and entertainment.

One podcast that caught my attention while browsing through the news category was Timing is key says author Daniel Pink. This is a great podcast where Daniel talks about his book “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing”.

Something that makes me very interested in listening to this podcast is the fact that the author was sitting and explaining what his book was about and also the meaning behind the book. It really makes you connect to the author when listening to the interview.

Daniel explained that his book gives people tips on how to be productive throughout your day especially for the busy people that have school and work all day. He also empathizes how “Time is key”.

This makes up for a great podcast because I feel like its always important for an author to get on the news and do an interview about the book they have written. In this interview, the author really went into detail and it really helps the people connect and understand the author’s point of view while reading the story.

Stranger hitting on women slashes her face after she rejects his advantages in Midtown- New York Daily News

“Stranger hitting on women slashes her face after she rejects his advantages in Midtown” This is an article headline I came across on the New York Daily News website. This headline drew me in because it basically stated exactly what the news is and what the article is going to be about.

The lede in this article was “A peeved pick-up artist slashed a 28-year-old woman in the face when she spurned his advances in Midtown early Saturday — as the victim’s boyfriend watched in horror, cops said.” This is a great lede because it states most of the 5 W’s.

The first sentence of an article and the headline kept me interested and made me want to read the rest of the article. This lede lets me know who is involved, what it is about, when and where it was and why it happened.

When you google the headline of this article it provides you with links to New York Daily News website. As you can see there are many things that come up on google when searching about this headline.

 

 

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Google fusion tables- Adult cigarette smokers in 2010

Gathering a data set off the internet for cigarette smokers around the United States was a bit tricky but I ended up finding a great one and made a Google Fusion Table.

The data shows adults that are currently smokers in the United Sates. The fusion table is divided into 3 buckets. The yellow dots are based between 9.1 up to 15.3 adults who smoke, the green dots are based on 15.3 up to 21.567 adults who smoke and the purple dot are between 21.567 up to 27.8 adults who currently smoke and are all out of 100.

 

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