Category Archives: AP

North Korea Illustrated

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I don’t normally link to the Daily Mail – really, I don’t – but there are some good pictures of North Korea there, taken by Simon Cockerell,  an extremely knowledgeable Beijing-based tourguide who has visited North Korea 150 times.

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Apparently, the playgrounds are alarming.  Also worth noting is the instagram account of AP’s North Korea correspondent Eric Talmadge, which has some nice shots.  Including the traffic ladies in action.  (Click on it and you’ll see what I mean by going back in time).

For Tuesday’s class, read Nothing to Envy ps90-159

ASSIGNMENT: Pick one unusual or surprising story that upends popular preconceptions of your country. It could be a profile of an unusual person, or a more upbeat piece, or even a series of photographs or a video about your country.   Write a 300-word blogpost about the piece, describing the methods that journalist used to create a different perception of your country from the norm, and how successful they were.  (By Tuesday noon).

 

 

 

 

Welcome to Comm 439!

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Welcome to Comm studies 439!   This is a class website, and I’ll be posting assignments, reading lists, random thoughts and other general info here.

On a day we should all be thinking about media freedom, here are some cartoon tributes to the murdered Charlie Hebdo journalists in France.   Interesting to see which news outlets refused to publish the cartoons – AP, CNN, The Daily Telegraph, New York Daily News and many others, while the Washington Post, Buzzfeed and Huffpost were among those that did.  As for the New York Times, there was a lot of back-and-forth, as described by Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, who explained the thinking of Editor Dean Baquet, “I sought out a lot of views, and I changed my mind twice,” he told her, “It had to be my decision alone.” He decided against, citing the sensibilities of Muslim readers, “We have a standard that is long held and that serves us well: that there is a line between gratuitous insult and satire. Most of these are gratuitous insult.”

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On another topic, there are some great opportunities for student journalists on the horizon – there’s a position at Michigan radio for students with work/study funding which would allow for some writing and reporting experience.    Also the deadline is approaching for the Pulitzer Center’s student fellowship.  Email me for more details, or I’ll post shortly.  And finally, the deadline is fast approaching for the AP paid internship over the summer, which offers posts all over the US as well as Bangkok; Berlin; Johannesburg; London; Mexico City; New Delhi; Paris; Rio de Janeiro; Seoul and Tokyo.   Start filing your applications now!