Semester #2 Blog #6

In the course of the Industrialization Newspaper mini-project, what stands out most to you?

It stood out to me how much work is involved in just simply doing the front page of a newspaper, or just an article. Also how important time is and how you much you have to rely on the people you are working with in order for your final product to end up good. It took me more than 3 days to get a decent draft of my article but many journalist and people that write articles in newspapers have to write and get in the newspaper in a day or less than a day. For example the people doing the news section in the New York Times have to go to where the event happened and report everything they see and report what other people say and edit and post it on that same day on the website. It took us about a week just to do the front page of a newspaper but real newspaper companies have to do that and the rest of the newspaper in like a day. They have to rely on everyone else to do their section of the newspaper and at the end put all their work together. It is a lot of work.

What stands out about the work of one specific other newspaper that you saw in class?

One newspaper that stood out to me was "THE CHICA-GO TRIBUNE" one. It stood out to me because it had a variety of articles: news, feature, editorial. It also had a variety of images and stuff like that, it had two pictures, a bar graph, and some sketches. It had a great variety of everything, it had a good layout, and overall it looked good and professional. This wasn't the only newspaper that stood out to me though. I thought overall, that our class did a great job in this project. All of the newspapers from the different groups looked really nice and professional.

How does this affect the way that you see news or information around you?

Now I'll be able to tell what kind of different articles are in the newspaper my dad reads. Usually I just look at the newspaper and I just don't read it unless the title or the picture seems interesting but now that I've done this project I've learned that its not just about the title or the picture but it is also good to read it, you might find something interesting in there. For example, my article was probably very long but I think it was interesting, or at least for me it was, and probably the image wasn't the best but once you start to read it you understand why the picture is there and the title. I also respect the people that create the newspaper a lot more now. It might seem like making a newspaper is easy because its just words and images and titles but it involves a lot of work and the people that work in making newspapers take their time to get all that information in a way that we will want to read it and learn about what is going on in our world.

What new thoughts do you have about the subject matter (i.e., the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the Pullman Strikes, etc.) covered by your newspaper or the others in class?

By this project I learned a lot more about the working conditions during the 1900s and about the workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Before doing this project I only knew that there had been a huge fire in a shirts company in New York that killed a lot of girls. But, after doing this entire project I learned so much more about this specific topic. I got to read stories from the survivors of the fire, find articles about this topic from back in 1911. I got to find some really great websites. I was able to learn about how horrible the working conditions were at the time. The girls were paid about $6 per week, working 6 days a week for more than 12 hours a day. They did so much work but earned such small amount of money while the company owners were becoming so rich from all the money they were making. They weren't allowed to talk to each other, to sing, or even to spend a long time in the bathroom. They were locked in while they worked and so much more stuff they had to go through. It was also shocking that in the actual day of the fire they fire-fighters' latter only reach the 6th floor so it was almost impossible to stop the fire quickly. After reading all this, I was happy that things aren't like this anymore and that there was people back then who spoke up and fought for better working conditions but unfortunately had to go through things like the Shirtwaist Fire.

What new thoughts do you have about the way that you work through specific assignments, projects, etc.?

In this project I noticed that I usually take a while to get to the final draft of something I write. I just always want it to be as perfect as it can be so I read it over and over again and create different drafts and have various people read it and I think that's good but maybe I should do everything a little quicker like journalist do. I also think that evidence is really important to back up everything you say, like in articles and essays.