Instructor blog – Page 2 – Online Reporting, Research & Writing

Here’s a summary of my social media and aggregation accounts

I’ve been posting online and aggregating for a long time, so I do have quite a few “aggregation sources” and other links about myself. The one place where you can find me is my own website, NancyHanus.com.

But my Twitter Feed (@nhanus) and my Instagram account have also been around for more than 10 years. I use YouTube and Vimeo to upload video, and SoundCloud for audio, although must of the things I’ve uploaded have been on publication sites, so what you’ll find on my personal profiles are videos of my family (mostly my daughter doing gymnastics!)

One YouTube channel you might find interesting, though, is this one called JournalismVideo, which I created for my MSU journalism classes and study abroad trips in 2010-2011. I had actually forgotten all about it until I dug it up for this blog. If any of you want to upload a video for this class on this site, let me know!

A journalism video account on YouTube for student videos.

I use Nuzzel for aggregation, as well as Feedly and Google Alerts. Feedly has been ticking me off a bit lately because the service keeps trying to upgrade me — and really restricts what I can do and have access for free. As a result I don’t use it much anymore. I love Tweetdeck for aggregating tweets and seeing Twitter lists.

There are a couple of really cool sites that allow you to aggregate in fun ways, such as StumbleUpon, which let’s you “stumble” into really cool stories based on your interests. I suggest you give it a try! I also like Flipboard, which I use on my iPhone and iPad.

For my professional profile, I use LinkedIn. I also have a profile at Muckrack.com. I have a Google+ account, but there’s not much there. It’s a good idea to have one because it gives you good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but it’s just not something I keep up with.

Ron French shines light on what Besty DeVos doesn’t know

In a “60 minute” interview with Besty DeVos, Ron French shines light on many questions that should have easily been answered by the current United States secretary of education. Ron also shines light on the lack of awareness that Besty DeVos has toward her job description and the school educational system in this live clip.

Betsy DeVos currently sits as the United States secretary of education and yet, she didn’t know and couldn’t answers fundamental questions like, how poorly the schools are doing academically and financially overall and or steps to take to bring solutions.(free Goggle art)

Ron French does a good job by providing meaningful counteracting solutions to help solve the rapidly growing problems that the educational system is currently faced with in Michigan.

Ron French, gives four different examples to move Michigan toward new ways that are beneficial to Michigan’s school, teachers and students while also highlighting important facts that are currently taking place and needing to be addressed. This story was covered in a way that allows the people to see who they elected or didn’t, and also how well they are really doing at the job they were selected for.

Other additional information is added below to bring more awareness to some of Michigan’s pending issues and solutions.

Michigan’s riding high. But a downturn is coming and the safety net is frayed.

Got 6 minutes? Highlights of a dozen studies on Michigan schools.

Being biased sure doesn’t pay off

Ethics really does play a big role in one’s everyday communications and overall viewpoints in life.

When journaling or reporting on topics and issues, one’s unique writing skills will be influenced by one’s ethics as well. This is why being non-biased really does play a major part in getting the correct information because facts are a must.(free art from Google library)

Being non-biased while reporting allows the writer to focus more on facts than feelings; now don’t get me wrong, I personally believe all stories should have a sense of feeling, but it can also hinder a writers viewpoint. I, myself as a writer, have fallen victim to writing under emotions toward a story which needed more attention on the facts than the overall issue at hand. When reporting, one can easily hinder their own story by not paying attention to being a non-bias and letting their own feeling affect the fact.

I watched a video on how “Jouranalists Minimize their own Bias,” and i found it to be very helpful because it touched on fact checking, credibility and the importance of not being bias when writing.

The FOIA grants the people public access

The Freedom Of Information Act, (FOIA) was established in 1967, which helped to ensure public access of federal, state or local governments records that are needed for use. All requested information collected on each agency by the individual interested must then be submitted to the FOIA once received, this way there’s a public database full of records and information for all to access.

(free Google picture art)

Without the FOIA being established, it would make it very difficult to gather needed information and documentation on specific important issues from governmental agencies like the FDA, DEA, and other agencies like the ACLU, which is an agency that focuses on protecting individual rights like helping to protect young girls and women by reporting sexual assault and harassment in specific locations under the law.(free Google picture art)

Federal agencies must disclose all information requested under the FOIA, and I find this to be very interesting to know along with the fact that there’s only nine known exemptions given which protects more than one hundred company privacy laws.

VIDEO: How journalists confront their own biases

This is a video from the Society of Professional Journalists. It features journalists talking about bias, and how they confront both their own biases and those biases others see in them. It’s worth viewing. I can’t actually embed the video, but if you click on the image it’ll take you to it.