Alexis Pelayo

Police debate over education requirement for police - Opinions

2010-10-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

Police debate over education requirement for police - Opinions

Q & A: Kirsten Miller FOX Chicago News

2009-11-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

Kirsten Miller is the Interactive Manager and Senior Web Producer at Fox Chicago News. She is in charge of the daily content operations of myfoxchicago.com. She is also an adjunct lecturer at DePaul University and teaches Online Journalism.

Miller started her career in Seattle working at a trade magazine. Once she started grad school a new media caught her eye and that is when she went into online journalism.

Miller received her Master's degree in New Media journalism from Northwestern's University Medill School of Journalism. She also teaches at graduate students there on multimedia journalism skills. Miller also keeps up with the buzz online by using Facebook and Twitter.

Q: Why did you decide to leave the trade magazine?

A: I was getting "frustrated with the timeliness and that things were out of date and it drove me absolutely bonkers." She then decided to look into grad school programs because of the market in Seattle wasn't at its best. She originally was looking into going to newspaper

Q: What made you choose online journalism?

A: It was a new media that caught her eye. "I honestly didn't know what it entails, but I'm going to do it because I'm sure it's much more fast paced than newspapers and I was right."

Q: What do you offer your online journalism students?

A: Miller explained that every professor has their own expertise and also shares hers; "Mine is how users get information and how they consume information online."

Q: What do you believe is the future of online journalism and what does that mean for print and broadcast?

A: "For the past couple of years I've been saying it's going to get bigger and it's going to get smaller." She goes on to explain that, "People are going to start using their TV's as a computer monitor... so they can browse the internet while they watch TV." She also goes on to say that people are using their mobile devices and their mobile browsers to view the news instead of applications. "Users certainly demand information the way they want it when they want it." "People will determine how the industry will shape out."

Q: What advice would you give students who are currently studying journalism?

A: "Focus and learn a certain beat... yet be a jack of all trades... learn to shoot, edit, write, etc..."

Miller also advises the students focusing on online journalism to intern for Web sites. "Every job is going to want to know how you're going to contribute to digital effort, and I mean digital web not digital TV." She also says that being able to carry certain equipment and being able to use it really helps students with "backpack journalism."

Q: What do you believe DePaul University offers journalism students that other schools might not?

A: "The fact that there is a downtown campus, and most of the communication courses are taught in downtown." She also mentions the new building built for the College of Communication on 14 E. Jackson.

Another thing DePaul offers is, "the up-to-date equipment that DePaul now has that will be helpful to journalism students to understand the technology the industry is using today."

(Picture from the Medill at Northwestern University Website)

Mashup websites, helpful tools for journalists

2009-10-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

Every journalist needs help from other sources, especially on the internet, to write their stories. Whether it is for basic information, statistics, or just an idea for a story. There are great websites out there that can help journalists write detailed stories and sources to back them up. These websites are called Mashup websites that combines data and is able to be located quickly and efficiently.

I looked into the various sites that were mentioned by Mike and was very impressed with how helpful they can be. I looked into the Mashup sites such as StateMaster, This We Know, Stumbleupon, and many other great sites.

I found StateMaster to be a great tool for journalists to use as a reference to information on geographics. They have loads of information on states, flags, statistics, and maps. They have tabs that take you to the most rich, most poor, most taxed, and many others. I enjoyed this site because it can be extremely useful to those who are not familiar with all origins.

The next one that I really enjoyed was Stumbleupon. This site also has a large variety of topics such as...news, art, business, lifestyle, music, sports, science and more. The cool feature that I liked was that you can rate certain posts/stories on the site and the ones that are most rated are featured on the main page. This is a useful site for almost any topic.

Lastly, I checked out This We Know. This site was one of my favorites because it goes by communities. It's similar to the State Master mashup site, but this is a little more into details on all communities. Some people don't care about what's going on in other communities they just want to find out about about the one they live in. On the main page it shows the cities that have the least toxins, lowest employment, most cancer and so on. This is another site that would be very helpful to not only journalists, but for members of a certain community that wants to know more about where they live.

This We Know also reminds me of everyblock, that has information on a person's block, neighborhood, and city. So far they feature about fifteen of the biggest cities including Chicago. The site is continuing to grow and is adding more cities as the site attracts more people.

These are only a few examples of mashup sites that are useful to journalists. It's just to show how the times have changed and how easily accessible information is and makes a journalists job just a little bit easier. Whether we are journalists or not we all know how lazy one can get when needed to acquire information. Going to the library and looking through books is just not fast or fun. This is why these sites were created and I'm sure we are all thankful for them.

Opening of Aldi Grocery Store near DePaul Campus

2009-09-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone has heard of the discount grocery store Aldi but few have seen any near Lincoln Park. Look no further, on October 29th there will be an Aldi grocery store opening at 1836 N. Clybourn Ave for those who look to save money on groceries. Aldi has a great selection of food and at a great price! It's only a straight shot down Sheffield St. to Clybourn Ave. Included below is a map of the location where the Aldi will be opening in late October.

Ignorance in the classroom

2009-09-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

I am a women's and gender studies minor and this quarter I am taking WMS 100. In this class we talk about various issues that might make people uncomfortable. Well in last week's class we were going over Peggy McIntosh and her piece, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. I thought it was a good piece on the subject, but didn't really go in depth with how others who are not white feel about white privilege. During our class discussion one of my classmates wanted to comment on her personal opinion that didn't really have anything to do with our class discussion or the piece we read.

I was shocked at what came out of her mouth; "Well I just want to say that growing up I lived a very privileged life due to the fact that my family is wealthy. I went to the best schools in my area and was taught how to be proper, and how to speak proper. I just want to say that I have Ebonics. I hate how it sounds, to me it makes black people sound unintelligent and stupid to hear them speak that way in public. I don't understand why they feel it is okay to speak that way and why they don't learn how to speak proper English."

You can just imagine at this point the reactions of each of the class members. What I didn't realize at the time was that there was a black girl sitting one seat away from me who instantly wanted to make a comment. As soon as the teacher called on her she started to say, "I really don't know where you're going with this..." This was when she started to cry. She went on to say, "I realize that we do speak differently but it's something that we can't help because that's how we're taught to speak and I really just don't know where you were going with this. It just hurts to hear that." I just want to add that hardly anyone speaks proper English, and what is "proper" English anyways? The girl who made the comment wasn't speaking "proper" English herself because she kept saying, cuz, um, and like. So to that girl, if you're going to criticize someone, or a group of people, for not speaking right you should make sure you do so yourself.

At this point I'm already filled with anger at the person who had the audacity to say such a thing. Even though I am very much for freedom of speech and I myself am very opinionated, that is just something that you do not say. This hit me on a personal level as well being Mexican and having a Spanish accent. Spanish was my first language and I still speak fluent Spanish today so I know, and I know others have noticed, that I have a bit of a Spanish accent when I speak English. So it definitely made me think that she was being critical of all dialects that weren't of her own or what she thought wasn't "proper" English.

FLYP Definitely more than just a magazine it's News

2009-09-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

While looking over the website I was very impressed at how much information there was. It it definitely the right step for anyone who wants to be a journalist to create a website. It is sad that the print newspapers are seeing a decrease in sales, but it's the sad truth. It is very convenient now a days for people to just go online and type in whatever it is they are interested in learning more about. Not only is it much faster, but you can avoid looking over information that doesn't interest you.

FLYPmedia has a great setup. I like how the different topics and blogs are featured on the main page and the scroll at the top of the page that also gives images with the stories that are featured. The fact that it has audio and video clips to go with certain stories is great too because it helps the reader to better visualize the story in their head rather than just reading a long article. However, for the those that prefer to have text only there is a link for that as well.

I like that it's focus is more on serious topics rather than focusing on celeb gossip. Don't get me wrong celeb gossip is interesting, but that's not something of much importance. There are plenty of other websites that focus on entertainment news. We need more websites that focus more on real news besides those of news channels.

Kate on The View

2009-09-17T13:47:00.000-07:00