Nick's Comm 303 Blog

1. Passive voice

“It was posted on Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s personal website.”

2. Subject-verb agreement

“Erica’s headphones stopped working after listening to the song.”

3.Comma splice

“The doctor bought an expensive fur coat for his wife, in Fargo N.D.”

There should be no comma after wife.

Since I wrote the press release regarding the swimming classes offered at the YMCA, I focused on blogs that would be concerned with swimming lessons and children’s fitness.

1. The Water Family
2. The Starting Block
3. Learn to Swim
4. Children’s Fitness
5. Kids’ Fitness Blog

I decided to cover a package that is within an article on The Washington Post’s web site about the Washington Capitals and their three-game skid.

There are five lateral tools that accompany this article.

1. A video from Washington Post Live with Tarik El-Bashir talking about the Capitals’ six remaining games on CSN.
2. A link to a Q and A with staff writer Thomas Boswell inviting readers to ask Boswell questions about “the NCAA Tournament, March Madness, Nationals Spring Training, Stephen Strasburg, the rest of Major League Baseball, the Caps, Redskins and his latest columns from Spring Training.”
3. A link to Tarik El-Bashir’s “Capitals Insider”,  a blog that deals with inside information about the Washington Capitals.
4. There is a comment section that accompanies the article allowing readers to comment on the article.
5. There is a widget within the article that takes the reader to links to the article showing who is blogging about it.

I liked the video accompanying the article and the link to the Capitals Insider. I thought these were good ways to give readers more information about the team in different mediums.

I wouldn’t have clicked on the Q and A, but that’s because I don’t ever look at Q and A’s because I don’t find them interesting or insightful.

One thing about this year’s New Jersey Nets: they don’t get a lot of media coverage. There’s a reason for that, they are currently 6-52 with 24 games left to play in the NBA season. To give that a little bit of context, the worst record ever in an 82-game season belongs to the ’72-’73 76ers who finished 9-73. What Joe Posnanski focuses on in his “Sports Illustrated” article is the fact that this year’s Nets don’t really look like a team that could go down as the worst NBA team ever.

This article is a little unusual because terrible teams don’t typically get an article devoted to them in a national sports magazine like “Sports Illustrated.” When sports media outlets focus on terrible teams, they typically focus on why those teams are so bad. Instead, Posnanski writes about how the Nets don’t play like a historically awful team: each game isn’t a comedy of errors and the team actually has NBA talent. It’s refreshing to see that Posnanski tries to create a somewhat positive spin on a very negative situation in Newark, NJ.

Drinking at fraternities has become a serious problem: one student at LSU and another at MIT have died due to alcohol poisoning.

Three more students from the Alpha Beta Zeta fraternity were admitted to a local hospital Sunday morning, diagnosed with alcohol poisoning. Press Martin, from New Hampshire, Al Amalek, from Tennessee and Rob Smith, from Fairfax, were the three students admitted. Martin and Smith were released Monday morning, but Amalek is listed in critical condition.

According to Busy University, the three students were seen at the ABZ fraternity house and multiple witnesses confirmed they were consuming alcohol. “Based on that we are suspending the fraternity and all its activities on campus,” Jan Mize, a representative from the public relations department, said. According to Mize, a suspension like this typically lasts for one year.

“Any fraternity in which the members have alcohol will be immediately suspended,” said university president Harvey Smithville. “A second offense within a year will result in the banning of that fraternity for five years.”

“We wholeheartedly agree with President Smithville that alcohol has no place at fraternity parties,” added Interfraternity Council president Bart Addison. “I am shocked that this incident has occurred. I believed that everyone was adhering to the University’s policy. However, I do not believe that the entire fraternity should be held responsible for the actions of a few.”

Because of these recent incidents, the university is considering increasing police patrols of fraternity houses on the weekends.

Ellie Maston filed a $100,000 lawsuit against Amburn’s Produce Market today.

Maston claims the accident occurred on April 1: she was walking through the supermarket, slipped on green beans that were on the floor and broke her hip as a result. The lawsuit Maston filed says she “suffered permanent bodily and mental injuries,  incurred medical expenses and lost income” and charges Amburn’s with negligence.

Direct-news lead: “Former vice president Richard B. Cheney was hospitalized Monday at George Washington University Hospital after suffering from chest pains, his office said.” http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/02/cheney-reportedly-admitted-to.html?hpid=topnews

Anecdotal lead: “It set in during the introduction of the Wizards’ starting lineup, when there was an intimate smattering of patrons in the arena.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/17/AR2010021705872.html

Question lead: “Have you heard? They’re renaming the rose.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/21/AR2010022103394.html?hpid=voicesopinion

Disliked lead: “We meet here today at the bizarre, powerful and unsettling intersection of real life and celebrity circus, sincerity and corporate calculation, profound apology and ultimate reality TV.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/19/AR2010021904962.html

I didn’t like this lead because I thought it was too wordy and long to lead into what was being written about: Tiger Woods’ press conference.

As has been made public by every media outlet known to man, Tiger Woods held a press conference at 11 a.m. today. He called a press conference to apologize for cheating on his wife and kids, disappointing his friends and falling from grace as a role model to children across the world.

ESPN was gearing up for this press conference the moment they found out about on Wednesday. Ever since Tiger delivered his press conference today ESPN has spent all but about an hour devoted to Tiger Woods. I haven’t seen coverage over an event like this since 9/11. SportsCenter has been bombarded by coverage of the press conference, rehashing the same angle over and over again. There are other things going on in the sporting world than this press conference today. The Winter Olympics are still going on, MLB spring training has begun and over 30 NBA players have switched teams thanks to the trading deadline. But the sporting world has been taken hostage by one man and his 15 minute press conference.

Marilyn Wall, president of the Walls Tire Co., said that the company’s are up by about 20 percent and many of the employees that have been laid off in the past three years have been brought back. Wall said 20 new jobs will be available.

Marsha Moss, director of the local symphony orchestra, was grateful for last night’s audience and prefers playing for them as opposed to critics.

Martin Goldsmith, general manager of the local public radio station, said that their goal is to raise $100,000. This money will help pay for the programming efforts that the audience would like to have on the station.

Laura Stewart, president of Stewart Advertising Agency, claims her agency increased its gross revenues by over 20 percent. She said most business is local but about 25 percent is out-of-town clients.