My Trip to the Plain Dealer...

Okay, almost two weeks since my last post. I dropped my math class. Yep, I did. I thought I was passing, but didn't really know. So, I took the withdraw (W). Since I transferred into the college with math credits, and I'm really only .7 credits short (that's point 7), I'm going to try to petition for them to give me the credit.

Even though I'm down to two classes, my class load seems to have grown, mostly from my Media Writing (AKA Journalism). In the past month, we have been doing all kind of writing assignments. There was the "Man on the Street" interviews. We had a columnist from The Plain Dealer, John Campanelli, come in. He gave us a presentation and we asked him questions for a news story. Then, Thom Greer, retired Senior Vice President of The Plain Dealer, who basically did the same thing for us. However, with this story, the best news story would be published in the student Communication's Department Laboratory newspaper. Guess what? I was that story. The story is going to be published this week. I think it was due, in part, because I did extra research after to get extra information about him for the story. Plus, I was so excited to meet someone who's here, who's from my home state. He grew up in Pt. Pleasant (08742), New Jersey. Plus, he started out in news at the Trenton Times; a newspaper that we read regularly while growing up. I'll post the news story after it's been published.

On March 22, we took a field trip to Euclid, Ohio and met the mayor, Mayor Bill Cervenik. We held the meeting like a news conference, and, of course, did a news story about the news conference. After we got the stories back, my grade was 9.5 out of a possible 10 points. We discussed the information from the news conference. Someone tried to tell me that my facts were not correct. Because I've been tape recording the projects, I went back to my tape to prove I was right. Plus, I've been recording the projects to get accurate quotes for my news stories. EXCELLENT OPTION!

So, this past Friday, we took another field trip to The Plain Dealer. For those of you who might not know of the newspaper, it's the main newspaper for Cleveland, Ohio. We had an opportunity to sit in on their 4 p.m. Editor's Meeting. This meeting determines what stories will be on the front page of the first section of the newspaper for the next morning. They also showed photos and decided which stories could wait a day or two.

They went around the room and talked about the different segments of the newspaper. There was a story that was going to be on the front page, that also had additional information and photo slide show on their website, www.cleveland.com. They turned to us as visitors and asked if we had ever viewed additional information like that on their website. One of the editors argued that they wouldn't know about the slide show until they read the newspaper. Well, he asked again. Plus, he asked us how the website worked for us, were we able to search, etc.

I told him that I've never seen slide shows or anything like that from the website. Plus, it was very difficult to search. I had however been able to find information I was looking for by doing a "google" search (but I use Yahoo!). I had been able to find pages through Yahoo!, but was unable to find them directly through cleveland.com. The website really SUCKS for search capabilities. He didn't like that answer. But, one of the editors also agreed with what I said about search capabilities.

Then, he asked us if any of us were journalism majors. There were five of us from class. Because not all of us could go, the instructor gave us 3 extra credit points for going. Anyway, we all said no. I elaborated that, No, I wasn't a journalism major, but I was an English major. I guess he was really offended because he grunted and dropped the entire subject. That was it for talking with the editors.

The whole point of going was a networking opportunity for us. They were supposed to be giving us their business cards for coming for when we graduated. Well, I bit my tongue, which I should not have done, in hindsight. After, I told my instructor that I wanted to tell him that just because I was an English major doesn't mean that I didn't like to write. I love to write, ANYTHING. That's why you all live through my funky blog posts. But, I'm also getting A's in this class because I do like to write. The instructor told us we should have argued back to get them to listen to us. I just figured I was showing respect. GUESS I WAS WRONG!

Okay. Gotta go for now. I've got lots to do and about an hour to do it in. Rob goes tomorrow morning to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation for his prestart date HR stuff and medical stuff. So, I've got to get up early, plus get Cassi and I ready for schools.

Love to all,
Cathy 8^ )