There are the 10 commandments of main stream media news that most reporters follow. I write about Cultural Health so the "commandments" needed some modification.
I am African American so my AA cultural Orientation is reflected in these commandments. If you are Asian American or Latino American modified, these commandments will function for your ethnic group too, check it out and tell me what you think.
1. Cultural News is at the intersection of culture and News. Big news is where the pictures are in cyberspace and/or the video is on YouTube or supplied by a hyperlocal news reporter.
2. The Days news has to fit in 4 or five paragraphs or 1 to 2 minutes of video clip on your blog
3. Use Cultural Health phrase bites (like MSM sound bites) connected to Knols e.g. Cultural Poisoning, Cultural Literacy, Cultural Terrorism
4. Anything the First AA President does is potentially Cultural Health News. Anything done against him, friends or family is potentially Cultural Health News.
5. If the competition has it, carry it, but put your own cultural commentary on it. Your unique view from a Cultural Health perspective is what is added value to the story. e.g. Angry Blacks get more media attention than 'nice' Blacks. Other ways to get media are to be insanely rich (Oprah, Bill Cosby), or to rhyme (Muhammad Ali, Hiphop singer etc.). Or to be a Black Anti-Black, a Cultural Traitor like Clarence Thomas, Alan Keyes or Armstrong Williams. The competition my carry it but the Cultural Health news task to shed light in dark places, play the good actors more then the bad actors an put the average man into the popular mix.
6. A little show biz doesn't hurt. That translates into, sometimes dramatic "racially" or politically charged headlines are needed to get peoples attention but then be serious and civil in content.
7. Cultural news follows the Network News which, has to follow the lead of the New York Times and/or the Washington Post, with imitations of the original story - Cultural Commentary added. Old Commandment superseded by Cultural News follows Cybernews like Newsvine, Google News, Twitter, Buzz, etc.
8. Visually unexciting stories are TOLD, while visually engrossing stories are SHOWN. Rodney King police beating or a Police shooting are shown while a story of institutional discrimination or invisible Cultural Poisoning is not told.
9. If it it did not happen today, it is not news anymore. Exception, cultural injustice anywhere at anytime is an injustice when I/public finds out about it. e.g. America infecting Latio's in Guatemala with syphilis 40 years ago is cultural news today, because we found out about it today.
10. Leave the viewers/readers thinking a little harder then they were before, and/or challenged to act.
What did I leave out? How would you modify these 10 for your ethnic group.
No comments:
Post a Comment