Defoe's The storm as a model for contemporary reporting

First paragraph: Daniel Foe was born into a family of a successful tradesman in 1660. As a young man he went into business too, dealing at various times in meat, hosiery, wine, tobacco, perfume, horses and bricks, often with disastrous results such as bankruptcy and imprisonment in 1692 and 1703. Defoe married in 1684 and was the father of at least six children, one of whom became a journalist, although without notable success. Foe added the prefix De to his name in 1695, perhaps, as some have speculated, to enhance his social standing by the adoption of a name that sounds more aristocratic (Richetti 2006: 19). He was educated at the Nonconformist Morton’s Academy, renowned for its forward-thinking approach to education which stressed science, economics and modern rather than classical languages. Defoe acquired a strong interest in politics and social affairs as well as religion, at a time when deep divisions separated Catholic from Protestant in all aspects of life including the accession to the throne. Along with his business activities Defoe held public office but by the 1690s he was establishing himself as an energetic and eloquent writer of political, religious and moral polemic and satire. This got him into trouble with the authorities for which the punishment was to stand in the pillory. From the early years of the eighteenth century Defoe depended on highlevel patronage for his livelihood and was employed as a propagandist and a secret agent charged with setting up an intelligence network by those in power, most notably Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, a Secretary of State ‘and prime minister in all but name’ (Downie 1979: 2). Defoe developed his extraordinary facility with words to become a writer of astounding productivity and invention. He is widely credited with a role in the foundation of at least two genres – journalism and the novel, although his most famous fiction, Robinson Crusoe, was not written until 1719 when Defoe was nearly 60. He died in 1731, alone and impoverished. 2 For someone who wrote so much there is surprisingly little known about his personal and domestic life

Preparing Journalism Students for the Blameless Bugle and the Guilty Gazette

First paragraph: When a 13-year-old girl from my children’s school drowned with her father in a boating accident a few years ago, the story prompted me, as a journalist and lecturer in journalism, to reflect again on the way journalists act. I remembered why my training on a regional daily paper convinced me I was not cut out for a career in hard news. I now teach students about how to approach death knocks and rehearse for them the arguments of news editors about why these have to be done, but I was never convinced by the latter and consequently never comfortable about doing the former. Intruding into a family’s grief and shock is, it seems to me still, a low-rent way to make a living. I know editors say the family often finds it therapeutic to talk, or may be keen to see the loved one honoured, but I doubt whether many families would choose to be pursued by a pack of baying hacks within hours of a tragic death. The justifications for death knocks are spurious, as any journalist knows deep down. And, as I’ve suggested elsewhere, (McKay 2006: 217-218) journalists are definitely not the most appropriate or helpful people to speak to in a time of great personal trouble

Journalism and the Literature of Reality

First paragraph: Journalism matters to us all. I believe that or I wouldn’t have spent my working life as a journalist and then as a lecturer in journalism, training students in the skills they’ll need if they want to be reporters and writers of features. Some of the skills have changed -- familiarity with HTML or how to produce a podcast wasn’t needed when I worked for the Newcastle Evening Chronicle or Brides magazine. Equally, some have not – the ability to use words well is as vital for journalists today as it ever was, and old-fashioned shorthand remains a key skill, at least for news reporters

Invisible Journalists

First paragraph: If you go into a newsagent to buy a magazine you’re likely to find around 450 titles to choose from. If you shop at one of the bigger supermarkets there might even be as many as 800. Yet this still represents only a small selection of the total number of magazines published in the UK. That figure is about 8,500 and can’t be precise because every year another 500 or so titles are launched. Some disappear too but the fact is that the UK has a large and lively periodicals industry publishing a huge range of titles to expanding audiences at home and abroad. These audiences tend to trust what they read in their magazines more than they trust their newspapers. Millions of magazines are sold weekly and almost everyone reads or buys one, or more likely several, at least on an occasional basis

Best Practice for Insomnia Patients at a Sleep Center

Sleep disorders affect millions of people worldwide. The purpose of this project was to determine if individuals with sleep disorders can achieve better outcomes with treatment that includes education classes and cognitive therapy than with current treatments which utilize medication and equipment. Seven articles, obtained from a search of CINAHL, JBI, Medline, and Psych Info, were reviewed and critiqued. Studies contained samples of men and women with sleep disorders, reviews of previous studies, and reviews of effective alternative treatments. Designs included systematic reviews, meta-analysis, randomized control, longitudinal two group pre-test posttest, and a narrative review. Findings showed that when traditional pharmacological treatments are combined with alternative therapies, patients have much better outcomes. A decision to include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and music therapy was made. A new education program will include a briefing about therapies for individuals with sleep disorders and a discussion about how to help patients incorporate CBT and music therapy into their current plan for treatment. In the future, patients will be educated about the importance of keeping a sleep journal to evaluate their progress. Patient success will be measured using data from patient journals and a sleep center survey

Antecedents and Consequences of Board IT Governance: Institutional and Strategic Choice Perspectives

In spite of the potential benefits of board IT governance and the costs of ineffective oversight, there has been little field-based research in this area and an inadequate application of theory. Drawing upon strategic choice and institutional theories, we propose a theoretical model that seeks to explain the antecedents of board IT governance and its consequences. Survey responses from 188 corporate directors across Canada indicate that both board attributes and organizational factors influence board involvement in IT governance. The results suggest that proportion of insiders, board size, IT competency, organizational age, and role of IT influence the board’s level of involvement in IT governance. The responses also indicate that board IT governance has a positive impact on the contribution of IT to organizational performance. Overall, the results support the integration of strategic choice and institutional theories to explain the antecedents to board IT governance and its consequences, as together they provide a more holistic framework with which to view board IT governance

Selected Papers in Combinatorics - a Volume Dedicated to R.G. Stanton

Professor Stanton has had a very illustrious career. His contributions to mathematics are varied and numerous. He has not only contributed to the mathematical literature as a prominent researcher but has fostered mathematics through his teaching and guidance of young people, his organizational skills and his publishing expertise. The following briefly addresses some of the areas where Ralph Stanton has made major contributions

Educational Professionals' Use of Written Language Materials

Educational professionalis often are faced with the dilemma of trying to find appropriate written language materials for students with poor reading ability with little clear guidelines available in the literature. The purpose of this study was to inve tigate what four groups of professionalis in education, namely speech language pathologists, reading specialists, regular education teachers and teachers of students with learning disabilities are doing to determine the difficulty level of a text. Also, information was sought concerning what types of text modifications, instructional organization and/or modification, and adaptation to the requirements of the students, they make when forced to use difficult texts. A survey format was utilized with a follow-up interview with a same portion of the subjects. Descriptive statistics were utilized in order to analyze the data