31 January 2007 - news summary lesson

McDaniel College Budapest
ENG 1103 Introduction to Journalism
Spring 2007

Instructor: Jacob Doyle
Email: Jacob@bbj.hu
Mobile: 06 30 233 5318


4:00 – 4:30: Review news summaries
• Review structure of a news summary
• Dissecting news summaries
• Class comments
4:30 – 5:00: write news summaries

5:00 – 5:15: swap papers, make comments
5:15 – 5:30: follow-up discussion


1. Short Summaries (teasers)
Read the headlines and short summary teasers and examine their structure and language.

Europe Resists U.S. Push to Curb Iran Ties
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The resistance threatens to open a new rift between Europe and the United States over Iran.

Bush Directive Increases Sway on Regulation
By ROBERT PEAR
An order strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules often generated by civil servants and scientific experts.

A Lively Market, Legal and Not, for Software Bugs
By BRAD STONE
Software vulnerabilities are bought and sold online, both by legitimate security companies and by thieves.

* First the Wait for Vista; Now the Marketing Barrage

Hamas-led Govt Accepts Saudi Invitation

2. Write headlines and short summary teasers from the following news briefs.
Read the news briefs below and write DOUBLE-SPACED headlines and teasers in the style of section 1. Once finished, exchange papers with your partner and write comments.

28/01/2007 - GAZA, (Reuters) - The Hamas-led government said on Sunday it accepted an invitation by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for talks in the holy city of Mecca with rival Palestinian faction Fatah.

"We welcome the invitation by His Majesty King Abdullah and the government appreciates this generous position, which comes in an attempt to resolve Palestinian internal differences," Palestinian Foreign Ministry spokesman Taher An-Nono said.

Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah official and aide to President Mahmoud Abbas, said Fatah had not yet formally received an invitation and would wait until it arrived before responding.

Twenty-two Palestinians have been killed in three days of fierce clashes in Gaza between Fatah and Hamas gunmen, which followed inconclusive talks in Damascus between Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal a week ago.

Hamas called off talks to form coalition government with Fatah on Friday, the bloodiest day of the recent fighting.


26/07/2006

By Shaker Abu Taleb

Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat - More people are using the internet in the Persian Gulf than ever before, a study commissioned by the Madar Center for Research concluded. In the Gulf Cooperation Council member states, the number of internet users increased from 513,000 in June 2003 to 1.8 million for the same period last year. This represents a 250-fold increase in two years.

In total, 5.24% of the population of GCC member states uses the internet. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates had the most users, with 12.9% of the population using the internet through DSL services.

Jamil Azro, director-general of an internet company in the GCC, told Asharq Al Awsat, “Broadband internet services are expensive across the Gulf and are not available to the public, in comparison to international prices and speed. This negatively affects the spread of the internet and information technology and hampers the establishment of an electronic government and a numerical society.”

Since 2003, the price of 256k internet connection fell from $108 dollars a month, on average, in GCC member states, to $76 dollars a month on average, last year. However, it remains significantly higher than the international average of $28 dollars a month.


3. Longer Summaries
Read the news summaries below and examine their structure and language.

01/30/07 - Coin Shortage Means a Penny Could Be Worth 5 Cents Soon
A potential shortage of coins in the United States could mean all those pennies in your piggy bank could be worth five times their current value soon, says an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Sharply rising prices of metals such as copper and nickel have meant the face value of pennies and nickels are worth less than the material that they are made of, increasing the risk that speculators could melt the coins and sell them for a profit. Such a risk spurred the U.S. Mint last month to issue regulations limiting melting and exporting of the coins. Raw material prices in general have skyrocketed in the last five years, sending copper prices to record highs of $4.16 a pound in May. Copper pennies number 154 to a pound. Prices have since come down from that peak but could still trek higher, Velde said. Since 1982, the Mint began making copper-coated zinc pennies to prevent metals speculators from taking advantage of lofty base metal prices. Though the penny is losing its importance — it is worth only four seconds of the average American's work time, assuming a 40-hour workweek — the Mint is making more and more pennies.

01/29/07 - Surprising downsides of car pollution
Particles from car exhausts generate more persistent and longer-lasting clouds but – paradoxically – less rain, new research suggests. Furthermore, putting more of these particles into the atmosphere reduces the low-level winds, which could reduce the amount of wind power available in very polluted regions. The result is that arid but populated regions could suffer a triple blow as a result of vehicle pollution: less water, less hydropower and less wind energy. The US state of California is a prime example. It is home to many of the biggest cities in the US, has tens of millions of cars, has suffered energy cuts and drought, and relies on wind power for 1.5% of its energy. Yet Mark Jacobson of Stanford University in California says that aerosol pollution could be causing a 2% to 5% reduction in water supply. Higher concentrations of aerosols were closely associated with slower ground winds. Jacobson and Kaufman then used computer models to support the idea that there was a cause and effect relationship behind this correlation. "When you take out the aerosols – and that was all we removed – you find that wind speeds go up and rainfall goes up," says Jacobson. The researchers calculated that the net effect in California is that winds are up to 8% slower than they would be if there were no aerosol particles floating around, and rainfall is 2% to 5% lower.


3.1 Dissecting a news summary
Examine the below news summary dissections and get familiar with how they are constructed.



Teaser










Headline
Coin Shortage Means a Penny Could Be Worth 5 Cents Soon

Teaser
A potential shortage of coins in the United States could mean all those pennies in your piggy bank could be worth five times their current value soon, says an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Conflict
Sharply rising prices of metals such as copper and nickel have meant the face value of pennies and nickels are worth less than the material that they are made of, increasing the risk that speculators could melt the coins and sell them for a profit.

Resolution
Such a risk spurred the U.S. Mint last month to issue regulations limiting melting and exporting of the coins. Raw material prices in general have skyrocketed in the last five years, sending copper prices to record highs of $4.16 a pound in May. Copper pennies number 154 to a pound. Prices have since come down from that peak but could still trek higher, Velde said. Since 1982, the Mint began making copper-coated zinc pennies to prevent metals speculators from taking advantage of lofty base metal prices. Though the penny is losing its importance — it is worth only four seconds of the average American's work time, assuming a 40-hour workweek — the Mint is making more and more pennies.


Headline
Surprising downsides of car pollution

Teaser
Particles from car exhausts generate more persistent and longer-lasting clouds but – paradoxically – less rain, new research suggests.

Conflict
Furthermore, putting more of these particles into the atmosphere reduces the low-level winds, which could reduce the amount of wind power available in very polluted regions. The result is that arid but populated regions could suffer a triple blow as a result of vehicle pollution: less water, less hydropower and less wind energy. The US state of California is a prime example. It is home to many of the biggest cities in the US, has tens of millions of cars, has suffered energy cuts and drought, and relies on wind power for 1.5% of its energy.

Resolution
Yet Mark Jacobson of Stanford University in California says that aerosol pollution could be causing a 2% to 5% reduction in water supply. Higher concentrations of aerosols were closely associated with slower ground winds. Jacobson and Kaufman then used computer models to support the idea that there was a cause and effect relationship behind this correlation. "When you take out the aerosols – and that was all we removed – you find that wind speeds go up and rainfall goes up," says Jacobson. The researchers calculated that the net effect in California is that winds are up to 8% slower than they would be if there were no aerosol particles floating around, and rainfall is 2% to 5% lower.



4. Dissect the following summaries

Japan Space Program Lagging While India and Iran Push Forward

Japan announced earlier this month that it may scrap a lunar mission originally scheduled for lift off in 1995. The mission would have been Japan's first to the surface of the moon, putting them in company with only the United States, Russia and the European Union. While Japan has yet to launch a manned flight of its own, India seems to be inching ever closer to accomplishing its goal of 2008. India's space agency announced the safe return of an orbiting capsule that "was blasted into space as one of four payloads on January 10 from a launch pad 100 km (60 miles) north of the southern city of Chennai. It splashed down in the Bay of Bengal 11 days later, boosting plans for a lunar mission in 2008." Iran also seems on the verge of a space program breakthrough by converting its most powerful ballistic missile into a satellite launch vehicle, which is set to launch in the near future. Some are skeptical of the space exploration aspirations of the country, however, suspecting a "wolf in sheep's clothing" for testing longer-range missile strike technologies.

12/31/06 - FDA Decides Cloned Animals Safe to Eat

"After five years of research, the Food and Drug Administration has decided that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe to eat. From the article: 'The government believes meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones is as safe to eat as the food we eat every day, said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine. Meat and milk from the offspring of clones is also safe, the agency concluded. Officials said they did not have enough information to decide whether food from sheep clones is safe. If food from clones is indistinguishable, FDA doesn't have the authority to require labels, Sundlof said. Companies trying to distance themselves from cloning must be careful with their wording, he added.'"


5. Create a news summary from the following “raw” copy

The Wang Shum Ho Prototype Electricity Generator was reportedly demonstrated to five Chinese Officials on Jan 15, 2007. Lawrence Tseung, a colleague of the inventor, has said the plan is to initially build four 5kW working units. One of these will be located in Beijing, another in Hong Kong and the third one at the United Nations in New York The fourth unit is to serve as a portable demonstration device. All will be made available to universities for academic validation. Then, 200 more will be produced. They intend to present one of these to each member country of the United Nations, as a gift from China. Mass production may begin in 2008. Tseung has written: Devices of this nature are “converting the electromagnetic wave energy that surrounds us all the time. Some call this Zero Point Energy. That energy is due to the rotational motion of the electrons. Unless the electrons stop spinning and fall into the nucleus, that electromagnetic energy exists.” Tseung states: “The World Energy Crisis is effectively over.” (from zpenergy.com) / We are actually immersed in electromagnetic waves. When electrons rotating around the nucleus change orbits, they give rise to electromagnetic waves. Light is only one form of electromagnetic waves. We emit and receive electromagnetic waves all the time. Unless the electrons stop rotating and fall into the nuclei, there will be electromagnetic waves. Thus we are never in a CLOSED system. We are always in an OPEN system with energy interchanges. For example, we were in calm waters and good sunshine. If we did not know how to use solar panels, we might conclude that we were in a CLOSED system. We should use our muscle power to row the boat. The Lee-Tseung Patent information (PCT/IB2005/000138) states that Energy can be extracted (Lead Out, Lead Out, and Lead Out with Pulse Force) from Energy Fields via oscillation, vibration, rotation or flux changes. Energy Fields can be gravitational, magnetic, electric or electromagnetic.