Kid’s Music Magazine: Sesame Street featured a character named Zoot with a seemingly unique voice. However, this voice has a specific origin, rooting in the rock and roll great, Bob Dylan.

In the article about finding Bob Dylan’s voice’s roots, I really thought I would actually find out about the roots. Instead, I learned about Dylan’s past, which is significantly more interesting. The dude is weird–he has reinvented himself many times, and will continue to do so. However, the pictures we’ve all painted of him are solidified by one particular moment, whether it’s a concert, a movie, a song, lyric, or personal experience (as was the case with Jaqi the bartender and Dylan hater). It’s interesting to see how Dylan acted before he actually became Dylan.

I think the story, as short as it was, showed tremendous skill on the part of the writer because he had to have penetrating discussions with the ones he talked to in order to have them open up. He needed to show them that he wasn’t just another music reporter trying to re-cover Bob Dylan’s past. And he succeeded.

Like much of Dylan’s work, the story meandered a bit. However, it was appropriate and easy to read. At the end of the story, I wanted to hear more, a sign of a good article (both because I actually got to the end of it on my own accord, and because the writer kept some of his secrets hidden).

Wonderful.

Grade: A

News Articles

• “Hovering ‘helicopter parents’ go on interfering as children start university” Alice Klein of Western Mail, Jan 4 2008
• “Parents, quit the hovering; It’s graduation season, and all our 24/7 helicopter parenting has come to fruition, right? Wrong. Many of our kids still have no idea what they want to do, and it’s all the parents’ fault” by Debra Bruno of USA Today June 17 2008
• “Too Tight? Or Just Right? Their children have grown up. But parents of this generation don’t want to let go – and neither do their kids” by Marianne Jacobbi of The Boston Globe, July 27 2008
• Letting Your Grad Student Go By AMANDA M. FAIRBANKS, New York Times Nov 1 2009

Magazine Articles

• “Take Our Kids—Please” by Nadine Joseph, Newsweek Aug 11 2008
• “Parents Behaving Badly” by Nancy Gibbs, TimeMagazine Feb 3, 2005
• “Baby Einstein vs. Barbie” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merriman, Time Magazine Sep 22, 2006

Experts

• Halaine S.Steinberg
• Briggs, Sarah
• Honoré, Carl
• Skenazy, Lenore
• Hodgkinson, Tom
• Mary Elizabeth Hughes, a sociologist at Duke University

Students

• Molly Clark
• Rachel Benson

Parents

• Chris Clark

Other Sources

• Generation Y Vs. Helicopter Parents group on Facebook
• College Parenting of America
• College Board

My next story I would like to write I want to be about art, though I’m not sure where to begin. My inspiration is actually the graffiti vandalism that’s been happening in Bloomington. Perhaps if there was an outlet for the artists, they wouldn’t have to vandalize.

I’m also interested in writing about baseball, although it’s not the season for it yet here at IU. I could technically do a story about the MLB post season that’s right around the corner, but I’d be hard-pressed to find a local interest in it.

So far, magazine writing is much easier to me than newspaper/news writing. Features are just more fun to write, even if they are softer in content. Didn’t think I’d like it at all.

We’ll see if I’m still singing the same tune after a 2,000 word story…

He talked about what he looks for in writers, and that good ideas are the best thing to have under your belt. In journalism today, creativity is needed more and more to fill the gap between dino-reporting and the multimedia, multiplatform arena. He also talked about staff changes and lay-offs, a real-life thing that we don’t always hear about.

I feel like we are constantly hearing that we can all be free-lancers who are looking for work, but I also think hearing about the realities of a tough economy on an already teetering business is so important to our learning and understanding (both as journalists and young adults).

This week I also had a classroom video chat with Brian Storm, the owner of Media Storm, a multimedia production and distribution company, and the publisher and photo editor of Jasper Indiana’s Herald (that award-winning local paper known for their Saturday picture stories). What I’ve been hearing from these people is that the industry stand-outs are really, really good at doing quality work. You cannot be successful (or even slightly successful) without quality. It’s not about the number of pieces, it’s about the quality.

As a perfectionist, that’s nice to hear, but it also scares me. All work has flaws. I’m interested to see where this “quality” thinking will lead me.

I will probably end up discarding Hackwork. For me, the moment just didn’t occur. It was informative, certainly, and it gave good information about Eli Roth’s background and his future in film. But the story lacked flavor. I could have missed it; the New Yorker is supposed to be for smart, sarcastic people. But if I’m not mistaken, I felt like his mother was more of a Rambo than he was, especially after I read that she cut her son in half! Perhaps the story should have been about how she and his father raised him.

It’s interesting that I am in Roth’s demographic, but I left the story without any feeling at all toward his films. I felt like the writer used Roth’s inspirations as a centerpiece to the story, but didn’t talk about how they affect him directly. Perhaps he just couldn’t get anything out of the guy to work with, so he had to use the stories about them rather than digging deeper. And maybe he’s just too green to the film industry to have his own stories. But either way, the story was boring and needed a little salt and pepper!

I wish I could have done this story for Bloom instead of class!

• Explaining the BBC environment, then naming her credentials and what she does for the community
• Talking about her early bagel days, making the piece more chronologically oriented
• Showing the readers why she has the business, and why she’s still in business, even in these tough economic times
• Opening with a revealing quote, then showing off her credentials

2. Why is it important for us to stay informed about research at IU?

3. Where do the stories come from? Are they difficult to track down, or do they fall into your lap?