Class blog – Page 21 – Online Reporting, Research & Writing

Content curation at its Finest: The case of Alton Sterling Murder

Alton Sterlings Killers won’t be charged!

July 5th, 2016, Alton Sterling was shot and killed by officer Blane Salonomi of the Baton Rouge Police Department for selling cd’s outside of a liquor store. Since this time there have been several witnesses that have come forth , to give personal statements as to what had taken place the day of the murder. People such as the actual owner of the convenience store gave his testament by saying that he had never seen Sterling with a gun , or any weapon at that.

The Attorney General has released statements and personal records regarding the case , and also other pending documents, that are exposed to for public record. This gives great insight from a first person point of view as to what happened, and them being able to give detail as to what actually had took affect that day. It adds value and more credibility to the story that was generated because of the supporting documentation. With this story affecting the more than just the people that are directly involved in the case, it is easy for the truth of this story to be manipulated by other out sources.

Whats the Real With Betsy DeVos

Ron French digs deep into U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos !

Senior writer for Bridge,Ron French, used information and used a interview with U.S. Secretary of Education , Betsy DeVos, asking about the current state of the educational crisis with in the State of Michigan. A special interview was conducted by “60 minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl , where she asked the question to DeVos,” Have the public schools in Michigan gotten better”. DeVos responds saying, ” I don’t know , overall I cannot say that they have all gotten better”.

Ron French proceeds to give supporting details by bringing in out sources that in fact contribute to the statements in which DeVos is saying. Some of his main sources are extracting data from the NAEP ( National Assessment of Education Process) which gives statistical data between the years of 2003-2015, the State of Michigan has been last in its math and reading proficiency. French then brings in other sources of information such as educational budgets , and other professional input.

French introduces continually linked people towards his story such as gaining insight from people such as Brian Jacob, a University of Michigan professor of economics and education, and having a linking story to his biography , and some of this other research pertaining to this data set.

Example of Curation

Buzzfeed’s news articles have many links throughout their articles, creating smooth curations along with hectic curations. The website is more entertainment based, so writers have to adapt to this form of delivering news.

Jane Lytvynenko’s article “Here Are The Hoaxes And Conspiracies Still Going Around About The Parkland Students” gives information about the negativity that the public has placed around these people. This includes fake Tweets and photoshopped images.

There are not only links in Lytvynenko’s article, but there are images from social media that correspond to these links. This makes it easier for the audience to follow along with stories without having to click away from their article.

The crossing between images and curation can effect the audience in a negative way. The audience might only pay attention to the massive images instead of reading the actual article that is tagged along with them.

Ron French’s article on Betsy Devos

Ron French created a very detailed curation about Betsy Devos’s interview on 60 Minutes. He uses multiple sources to back up the evidence he found about Michigan schools. His efforts and research make it be known that Michigan schools need improvement.

Just a few months before, Bridge MI released an article on January 28 titled “Michigan’s K-12 performance dropping at an alarming rate.” This article by Ted Roelofs uses statistics from the U.S. Census and other databases to provide access to the evidence used.

An outside source that French used is Brookings. This website uses hyperlinks in a different way. Brookings cite their evidence at the end of each sentence instead of including it directly in the article. This may be confusing to first time users and they may not want extended information.

The way that French introduces his evidence is by continuing his sentences as if the hyperlink was not there. However, the hyperlinks explain exactly what one should expect to find when clicking.

Ron French on Betsy DeVos interview

Recently Ron French curated a story for bridemi.com about the 60 minutes interview with Betsy DeVos over the state of Michigan schools, as well as gun control, and her bad reputation. The interview was… well… it wasn’t good, it was in fact pretty bad. DeVos stumbled through almost every question that was asked and really showed how much she didn’t know about Michigan schools.

What was good was the way Ron curated the story using links to previous Bridge articles to let readers get extra information on the story that they might not know. A good article he links to is Michigan’s K-12 performance, but many other links in the article are used.

Other than links directly in the article to relevant stories on Bridge there are also links in between the breaks to sources that were used to create the article. A good link for those who are looking to find out more about their school districts is Stanford University’s district comparison chart.