front-page-news.doc 

1. Today we began a look at the front pages of newspapers and the consideration and politics that goes into its organization. There are several newspaper front pages posted around the classroom and I had other examples to share placed on the board with magnets. What we are looking at are types of news (hard or soft), facts vs opinions (not as easy to locate as when you were in grade three), the reasons things are discussed in the news (proximity, conflict, novelty, etc) and the idea of Freepress articles, not being censored or swayed by politics.
2. We read through several pages of the handout and for the last few minutes of the class students were each given the same edition of the Regina Leader Post and in their groups had to find examples of some of the concepts we have discussed in class, such as an article highlighting soft news, one that focused on novelty and another that was news because of proximity.
3. We will continue with the discussion tomorrow.
4. Students also negotiated that Thursday and Friday will be the days groups can present their Bias in the Media posters. After Friday, your group will not receive a mark. (With grad being the focus last week and attendance ‘iffy’, some groups were not able to present the posters they created.)