Shouting Fire Discussion Questions

“Shouting Fire” Discussion Questions

1)   Why do some people believe the First Amendment “goes too far”?

2) What is your reaction to the story of school principal Debbie Almontaser?

3) Sometimes, freedom of speech means protecting speech you don’t agree with. Use an example of one of the freedom of speech stories from the film to help you look for a current event where the discussion of freedom of speech or press is involved.

Please post your responses to your blogs. If I do not have your blog address, please get it to me. 

"Sources" in Journalism

How important is a source in a story? Remember back to the beginning of the year when we looked at ethics in Journalism?

What about what type of source it is? The last few weeks have been interesting to say the least when it comes to what sources to believe, what sources to report, and who is a "victim"?

This week, hackers broke into Sony's email system and published several emails. Now, many are saying the media should not be able to publish "personal"property that was stolen. You can read more about it here. What about when celebrity photos are hacked? Should we be allowed to publish them?

Also, another story appeared last week where the popular magazine "Rolling Stone" supposedly did not fact check a story, and instead of interviewing multiple sources from all angles, just interviewed one. Some are saying that journalists are not "doing their job." You can read more about that story here.


Read the two articles and post commentary about it. What makes a journalist "do his job?" What are the responsibilities of a journalist? Do they have any? What could the writers in both situations have done? Lastly, post any other commentary about viable news sources and what makes someone a "good" journalist. 

Twitter Project- Journalism and Social media

Please find your next project here:

Three-A-Day Plus Ten
-- a Twitter-based project for journalism students
1. Each student will create a Twitter account FOR USE WITH THIS CLASS ONLY. I fully encourage you to have an active personal account, but this account is for class. I really don’t want to have to sift through your other posts, so just create a separate account. Account must be created by Wednesday December 17, 2014. If anyone needs help in getting an account set up please let me know ASAP. When the account is created, please follow @MSBink_BHS so that a notice is sent to me.  
User Name – last name + first two letters of first name Password – 50mittens
2. Also by Wednesday December 17th. Please follow ONLY each other’s classroom Twitter accounts, other high school newspaper accounts, organizations related to grammar, writing, or journalism. You can find excellent examples of groups to follow by checking out the list of followers on the @MSBink_BHS account. Mandatory accounts include @GrammarGirl, @AP stylebook, @jeadigitalmedia, @Manfull,  
3. For week one, Wednesday Dec. 17 – Friday Dec 19. Create and post three tweets a day. Label each with the hashtag #bcoatnews. This will help sort all of your tweets for this project for easier grading.
Each day’s tweets must include (1) one related to AP style rules or grammar, (2) one related to writing tips, hints, or possible ideas (3) one promoting Burncoat 2015 yearbook with a creative post, sneak peek, or insider details (4) one commenting on a current event or issue happening now
You may not choose any topic that your classmates have already used in a post, so be careful. This means you have to read all of your classmate’s tweets before you post your own.
Each day’s tweets must be posted by 9 p.m. that day in order to receive credit for the day’s assignment. Nothing posted after 9 pm will be given credit. You will receive 5 point per tweet, only those tweets will perfect spelling and grammar will be graded.
4. Be careful! No mistakes in spelling, etc ... and you have a limit of characters, including the hashtag. This means you will some- times have to be concise and will sometimes need to get quite creative with your posts. Keep it professional, please.
5. During week two, Dec. 18-Dec 23, tweeting will continue, but the emphasis will change from learning how a journalist uses Twitter to actually gaining followers for our Burncoat yearbook account. During this time period, you will be responsible for posting only one Tweet per day. By the end of the week, you should have posted at least one Tweet that promotes the First Amendment and one that contains a link to our Burncoat yearbook twitter or to Jostens where a student can order the yearbook. The other three can be from any of the categories from the Three-A-DayWeek.
6. You will be responsible for gaining at least 10 new followers for our @bhs_yearbook_15 Twitter account by Friday, Jan 9th. You will need to document that someone is following as a result of your efforts by turning in a handwritten listing of the Twitter user- name for every potential follower you have contacted. You may contact them in person or online, but you will not receive credit for the follower until that user has actually followed @bhs_yearbook_15. As the @bhs_yearbook_15 gains new followers, I will check the usernames against the sheet you have turned in to me. I may also randomly contact the new followers to verify the name of the staff member who encouraged them to become a Burncoat Yearbook follower.  

What's a good source for news?

For the semester, you have been doing weekly current event posts on your blogs. But how do you know the news is any good? There have been a few very high profile news stories the last few weeks where the journalist did not "do" their job. Even the highly reputable Rolling Stone magazine has been questioned on a story recently.

Your assignment for the next few days is to find a current event article that fits under the category of "good" news from a "good source."

Read the article here. And find an article that you think is from a reputable news source. Post on your blog, what the article is, why you chose it, and then two paragraphs of why you think this article is a reputable source using examples from the "Six questions" article.

Post comments if you have questions.