Category Archives: Uncategorized

It’s one of New York’s snowiest winters and teachers and students want to know, ”Where are our snow days?” Azaria Charles reports from Brooklyn NY.

In the Richard Pryor article, you write “The black folklorist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston once wrote that, although she had “landed in the crib of negroism” at birth, it hadn’t occurred to her until she left her home town that her identity merited a legitimate form of intellectual inquiry”.  Do you believe it is the same way if you are writing a piece about someone who is either gay or black? Do you think that article could of been written by someone who isn’t black?

There were many important news stories this week. The Justice Department subpoenaed phone records of AP journalists who reported on a thwarted plane bombing CIA operation in Yemen. I feel this is the most important, because of it’s implications on a journalists constitutional right to gather news, and government interference with that right.

An article I read recently does not hold much news weight in the traditional sense, but I found it very interesting, and well written. It was about endangered Monk Seals being killed in Hawaii, presumably by angry locals who feel the endangered animals get more rights than the local fisherman whose families have lived in Hawaii for generations. It proposes an interesting dilemma. We have protected many endangered animals which are now making a comeback, but as population numbers return, humans don’t know how to live with the animals, and one realizes why they may have been killed off in the first place. Here is a link if anyone is interested in reading it.

By Jamilya

1. The original article in The New Yorker is more than 10 pages with very detailed and in-depth facts of Pryor’s biography, my question is what amount of  time was needed to compile the story?

2. Did Hilton Als watch all the mentioned movies in his article such as “Lady Sings the Blues” or “Uptown Saturday Night?”

By Jamilya

1. Russia ordered an American Diplomat to be deported  due to accusations of recruiting a member of Russian security  services. “Nikolai Zakharov, a spokesman for the FSB, said the Russian approached by Fogle was free and that there were no charges or accusations against him.”

Is this fair? If a Russian/Iranian/Syrian spy would have been detected on US soil, would his/her expulsion or deportation be a fair response?

2. 19 wounded during Mother’s day parade in New Orleans. Brings up two issues: 1. The gun law debate once again and the media coverage (i.e. terrorism attack vs. gun violence, the difference in the spectrum of the media coverage)

The justice department has seized the phone record of the AP press and its reporters. AP says that this violated their first amendment right to free speech and impedes their process for gathering news. They say that the phone records can reveal anonymous sources and other information that they have gathered. The government is citing national security as its excuse.

I think this story is important because it is undisputed that journalists and news organizations are a check on government and corporations. Where their tools for delivering the news to the public be seized, we would no longer have access to information. The fact that the government always uses “national security” as an excuse has become a pattern that will filter the news we receive and will allow the government no accountability for their actions.

You can read more about it with this link:

1) Do you think that there are any integrity issues with writing a detailed profile using stories and anecdotes to describe a person you have never met?

2)Would you describe works you have done like the piece on Richard Pryor as new journalism?

3) What is your process for maintaining a clear chronology, while writing a piece as long and detailed as the Pryor or Fonda profiles?

4)What is your note taking process like, and how do you use notes to develop a story?