COMM11007 Week 9 Blog Activities

Week 9  -  Blog Activity

1.      Inquiry: Review a newsletter

a. Visit the website of the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist Group (CSG) at iucncsg.org/. 

b. Download and review the latest newsletter [CSG Newsletter 36(2) Apr-Jun 2017] (see   http://www.iucncsg.org/pages/Publications.html Search by Category > CSG Newsletter] 

c. Reflect on your analysis, and respond to the following questions your blog:

 i. Who do you think comprises the organisation’s audience?

 ii. What kinds of stories are in the newsletter?

 iii. How do these stories target the audience?

 iv. If you were an Australian journalist, is there anything you may be interested in following up as a story, and why?

v. What do you think is effective or otherwise about this newsletter?

i.                    The Crocodile Specialist Group (CSG) Newsletter’s audience would be Academics, Scientists, Environmentalists, Conservationists, and Crocodile Farmers from around the world. As stated in Whitaker, Ramsay & Smith (2012), the newsletter is a time-honoured publication, and has a function as an in-house organizational communication to a particular public.

ii.                  There is a wide range of stories in this newsletter, including an article from the Species Survival Commission (SSC) Code of Ethics, which all CSG member were requested to agree to be bound by.

An Editorial covering the latest news, events and meetings.

A major story about the ‘2^nd Siamese Crocodile Meeting on Husbandry and Conservation’, and ‘Siamese Crocodile Task Force Meeting’, in Thailand.

Regional reports from around the world from scientists, conservationists and husbandry of crocodiles.

iii.                The stories target the audience by providing a wide range of research, and updates from international sources, which cover areas about the work of scientists, management, protection, conservation, breeding programmes, farming, diseases, threats to crocodiles, threats by crocodiles and fossil finds.

iv.                The abstract from: Tumor Bilolgy, March 2017: 1-11, about potential cancer blocking activities of crocodile choline on human gastric cancer, is a story of interest for an Australian journalist to follow up, in the field of medicine.

v.                  This is a very professional newsletter with a lot of well-researched articles, from wide ranching, varied sources around the world, and would be of great interest to anyone in these fields of endeavour. To have all this information available in one newsletter, would be very convenient for crocodile specialists – it would save a lot of time looking for this information if it was scattered around the world wide web, as described by Ames (2017, week 9 notes).

References:

Ames, K 2017, COMM11007 Newsletters and Brochures, Lesson 1: Introduction to Media Writing, CQUniversity, Rockhampton. https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/course/view.php?name=COMM11007_2172

Crocodile Specialists Group Newsletter 36(2) Apr-Jun 2017, viewed 16 September 2017, file:///F:/CQUni/Term%202%202017/Media%20Writing/Week%209/CSG%20Newletter%2036(2)%20Apr-Jun%202017.p

Whitaker, WR, Ramsey, JE & Smith, RD 2012, Media writing print, broadcast, and public relations, 4^th edn, Routledge, New York.

Quiz Week 9 – Punctuation

Hicks (2013, p. 73) makes an interesting point: that sentences are shorter now than they use to be. This is most noticeable in Media Writing, and something I have had to make a conscious effort to change when writing for media.

Must remember the new use of the colon, in preference to the comma, to introduce full-sentence quotes. Also, that ‘white space punctuates,’ and not to use full-stops after captions and other forms of displayed type.

I have learnt that writing short paragraphs for news writing is part of the style, which is what people from outside journalism find jerky and disjointed.

I managed 100% the first attempt on the quiz, for the second week in a row; even the final apostrophe question – so, I was very pleased with that.

Reading, and re-reading this chapter has been a very helpful exercise, especially as there have been a couple of changes to punctuation since I first learnt it – ‘way back when’. Another example is, how hyphenated words transition to whole words, like, e-mail to email.  This book will be a constant ‘go to’ reference well into the future.

Reference:

Hicks, W 2013, English for journalists, Chapter 6, Punctuation, pp. 73-93, 4th edn, Routledge London and New York.