Ana Santos sheds light on untold stories of migrant working mothers

Ana Santos stole the audience’s breath at Elon University last Wednesday as she spoke of female OFW’s and the hardships they face while abroad.

Ana Santos presents her migrant worker findings to a room of Elon University students.

Santos is a Persephone Miel Fellow at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting who has dedicated efforts toward producing multimedia stories on the issue of migrant workers in her home country of the Philippines.

OFW stands for “overseas Filipino worker.” These workers originating from the Philippines are comprised mainly of mothers working abroad to better provide for their families. Santos said there are about 2.56 million Filipino families with at least one family member working abroad today.

Why go abroad? The value of the dollar is low in the Philippines. Workers go abroad in order to earn a sustainable income for their large families. The Philippines has one of the highest birth rates in Asia, due to both a lack of open communication about sex and a shortage of money to pay for contraception.

Why is there a demand for OFW’s? Mothers in developing countries are now working. They are no longer available during the daytime to care for their young children. This is where a migrant worker faces their biggest hardship.

Who will take care of their own kids? Usually, the eldest daughter of the family will assume all responsibilities of a mother, no matter how old she is. This transition can take a big toll on the well-being of these daughters, and the relationship they hold with their mother.

Santos described the experience for OFW families as feelings of abandonment. Children often feel “orphaned.” This is what stirred the room at Elon University. The fact that these Filipino mothers are doing the best they can to provide a better life for their children, and their children do not feel any benefit other than bigger funds to buy a new shirt or an extra package of pencils for school. Mothers are treated more like a bank than a parent.

An interview with a teenage daughter of an OFW said it all. With tears in her eyes and sobbing words, she told Santos how difficult it was to grow up without a mom. She was just three years old when her mother’s contract began.

And how do most mothers say goodbye before they go abroad?

They don’t. Most tell their kids that they are out running errands. And instead of grabbing a shopping cart they grab the nearest airplane flight.

BSO calls on Zacharias to perform, again

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is one of the nation’s five premier orchestras based in Boston, Massachusetts. The orchestra typically performs in the grand Symphony Hall, and was founded in 1881.

Photo taken of the BSO at Symphony Hall http://mmone.org/wp-content/gallery/bostonsymphony/600full-boston-symphony-orchestra.jpg.

Eloquently written, the news release located under a tab labeled “Press Releases” on the BSO website, writes about an upcoming event with German conductor Christian Zacharias scheduled to perform with the BSO in October. The lede contains the details of the event including its location, date, subject, background information about the subject and what will be performed. All of this information is packed into one lengthy sentence.

The BSO’s news release was surprisingly different from the guidelines of news releases given in our textbook. It is written with descriptive, opinionated language and contains many thoughts and ideas within single sentences. The structure of the news release is blocked. There are clearly titled subheads in boldface type that make it easy for readers to follow along. It achieves the goals of a news release in that it provides links to further information pertaining to the event, as well as all of the necessary details a potential ticket buyer would like to know.

Performing at Symphony Hall twice in the past five years with the musically talented Westborough High School Symphonic Band made this news release an exciting read. It brought back the greatest memories of band and past high school music adventures.

CMT unveils honorees for artist of the year

When you want immediate knowledge into country music happenings, Country Music Television is the place to go. CMT is the hub of all things news, music, TV and radio. Filled with colors, images, videos and more, CMT.com becomes a haven for fans and friends all around.

With CMT acting as a national news outlet into the country music world it is not surprising that they have a separate press website strictly for news releases, programming, frequently asked questions and public affairs.

This press release about “CMT artists of the year” being honored at the fifth annual awards   immediately introduces the topic with an engaging headline, a compelling lede and important information.  In the lede the release jumps straight to the facts and says the artists’ honored, the location of the award show, the date, time and length of the show and what exactly will occur. Every piece of information in the release crisply reaches the point without fluff or exaggeration. It does a great job telling readers exactly what they need to know in a clear and concise way. The wording is clear and follows AP style precisely.

Information following the lede details nominee history and the importance of the event to the country music world. Similar to inverted pyramid styles, the release starts with the most relevant information then trickles down to to the least important facts. The reader could skim the first two sentences and be fully clued in to what exactly is happening and when it will occur. A quote in the third graph adds extra umph  giving personal insight to readers on what it is like to be an honoree.

I don’t know about you all, but I sure would love working for such an impressive organization. Internship applications officially in progress.

Care to Skimm the news?

Reading news via theSkimm is like chatting with a hip twenty-year-old. It is painless. Genius, even.

Former NBC producers Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin launched theSkimm in mid-July of 2012 in hopes of enlightening those not working in the news world about all of the latest current events. Weisberg and Zakin took into account the fact that although people want to know the news, they do not have a lot of spare time and patience to read it.

With a blocked-style and quick summaries one paragraph each, busy, time-crunched people can stay current. The writing is easily informal and jam-packed with informative details. Most summaries have a knowledgable source accompanied with a quote. “Who, what, when, why, and where?” questions are answered. There is no fluff. And if a reader cares to delve further into the issue, the news briefings contain embedded links.

Simply put, theSkimm is candy-coated news. And its readers are treating the phenomenon with utmost approval.

Thoughts on news engagement

It was extremely interesting to research and write a blog about news engagement at Elon University. It was equally as intriguing to compare other students’ findings to my own.

In my blog assignment on how people engage in the news I asked an assistant professor, a senior who has the same office hours as I do at The Pendulum and two sophomore communications majors. I was interested in understanding how communications majors take in the news because I assumed they would appreciate and use all platforms, newspapers included. But I found that this is not necessarily true. Communications student or not, people are still moving away from traditional print news to online, quick and easy information.

The activity was definitely an eye-opener. I realized that people don’t always actively seek out news anymore. News seems to seek out us. Whether it be through Twitter links, Facebook articles, online organizations or simply things heard in passing, students tend to let the news find them, holding the mentality that if it is important enough, they’ll hear about it.

Six points to remember in blog writing

Structure matters. Here are a few points we highlighted in class today to help you organize the flow of your story.

One:  Be blocked

When you write for a blog, your structure should follow a blocked model.  Instead of decreasing in importance as you work down the article, your story in a blog format should be organized around chunks of content. These blocks (or chunks) probably will be about equal in quality and length.

You can have more than one paragraph per chunk.  That’s what you see here.  You can even add a direct quotation.  For example, let’s introduce your professor, Glenn Scott, as he reminds you that a direct quote does not need to be lengthy, but it should be compelling.

“A few forceful words,” he said, “can hit with a ton of impact.”

Two:  Use graphics tools

To help define your blocks, use devices such as bullets, numbers, bold type or sub-heads (as this example shows).  This helps your readers by clarifying where a new point begins.  It aids their searching eyes. It also gives the blog item a more varied look.

Links are important, too.  Embed a few links to add context.  Most great bloggers do this.

Three:  Seek visuals

People enjoy photos, if they are worthy.  OK to embed photos or other graphics.  We’ll discuss copyright law later, but as a general rule you’re better off not ‘borrowing’ a photo from a commercial site or photographer and running it on the web.  Some people will send you a bill.  If you shoot the photo yourself, you are home free, well protected.  The copyright is yours.  (To post a photo, set your cursor where the photo should appear, then click on “add media” at top of tool bar.  Then follow along.  You can figure it out.  Add names in captions.

Four:  Consider the flow

Even in a blocked form, we want to ensure that our readers can follow along without feeling lost or confused.  The first three or four paragraphs of your lede should help.  You also can add a line, as I did above, that tells readers what comes next.  Always think about what the readers need to make sense of your stories.

Five:  Remember the basics

A blog is a different form, but the principles of media writing don’t change.  Spend as much time — or more — revising, tightening and editing your blog piece as you do any other news story.

Six:  Find  examples

The web is the all-time-great laboratory for learning.  You can find a thousand good examples of effective, clever, clear and accurate blog items that carry news. Find some and study them.  OK if you want to try a structure you find another blog using.  In fact, ask yourself:

Is there a better way to learn?

Lack of voting rights forces Hong Kong students to strike

The New York Times published a stirring article today reporting student strikes at the University of Hong Kong. NYT writers Chris Buckley and Alan Wong reported with grave attention to quoting. It is clear that each quote was graphed strategically based on its relevance, importance, and source.

Buckley and Wong smartly cite student representatives, professors, and student bystanders which is vital for source diversity. The most common quoting style in the article is using direct quotation. These direct quotations crucially shed light on motives behind the protest.

Along with directly quoting sources, three paraphrased quotes sufficiently compliment the story. One paraphrased quote stems from a professor noting absences in his Monday classes. Absent is reason for a direct quote here as it is strictly fact. Because there is not a viewpoint being introduced here, a direct quote is not necessary. I enjoyed the structure of the article and overall I think that Buckley and Wong did a fine job with quote placement and choice.

UK takes anti-terrorism initiative: with rights to obtain citizen-issued passports

CNN World News published an article surrounding the UK’s recent initiative to limit terrorism on Monday. CNN is a high-ranking news site that delivers breaking news stories catered towards United States citizens.

In efforts to keep ISIS supporters out of the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron now grants law enforcement officials the ability to obtain passports from any suspecting individual who may attempt entry or re-entry into the country. This impactful initiative concerns UK citizens who may have travelled outside of the country, and return to discover they are not allowed back in. What will innocent individuals do if they happen to be deemed as a threat to their home country? How far will this temporary initiative go in terms of excluding and tagging potential terrorists? One may believe that suspects are sought out mainly by their appearance. Following the events in Syria and Iraq involving the late American journalist James Foley, countries like Great Britain are beginning to face these extremely controversial decisions. And now that the UK has begun this act, it is inevitable for other places around the world to follow suit.