Jennifer Salane: Creative Project Proposal

*The Onion vs. The New York Times*

Project Focus
Jennifer Salane proposes to create a “play on roles”, so-to-speak, concerning the relationship between what is real, hard news versus what makes fun of the real, hard news. Jennifer will demonstrate this comparison through the creation of a blog that contains information from both a tabloid-type newspaper, such as The Onion, and a hard-news newspaper, such as The New York Times. The proposed title of the blog is “Real vs. Superfluous News: What Modern Day Society Really Needs to Know vs. What They Are Actually Reading”. Within this blog, Jennifer will explore what sorts of articles would appear in each type of publication, the effect those articles have on the reader, and the overall benefit of the publication to the general public, whether available through hard copy or online. Jennifer hopes to approach this project with a sense of humor, but also hopes to show the irony of having “superfluous” news, which might prevent or distract people from real life, pertinent news.

Background Information: The Onion
The Onion features satirical articles compiled of international, national, and local news. According to Frank Athens in “Area Readers Get the Joke,” The Onion claims a national print circulation of 710,000 and says 67 percent of its website viewers are between 18 and 44 years old. The publication is available online daily and in hard copy once a week. The articles contained in The Onion discuss current events, both real and imagined, that parody traditional editorial-style writing, layout, and Associated Press (AP)-style editorial voice. Much of the humor in these articles is created by conveying what is hard news in a lighter, more comical way; in some cases, this can be a play-on-words with simple things like headlines on stories.

Specifications
Jennifer plans to create a basic, yet specified blog with creative visuals of articles, photographs, and interviews, in a way that they would be presented in the real news as well as the superfluous “Onion” news. Jennifer will make a number of sections on the blog, including a part devoted to pieces of research (“artifacts”) that she finds pertaining to her subject that provide good commentary from various users of both types of publications. The blog will be done from a third-party point of view, like a birds-eye view of what goes on between these two news sources; the news will essentially speak for itself.

The technology and software we will potentially use includes the internet, www.blogger.com (to create the actual body of the blog), Photoshop, and music sources. Other software may be needed as we work through the project. Once she has completed her blog, Jennifer will save the link to it and email it to Professor Fishman. Screenshots can also be taken.

Tasks
1. Create the body of the blog (color, font, font size, etc.)
2. Choose how the information will be organized on the blog
1. The New York Times
2. The Onion
3. Collect research
4. Screen captures of online versions of newspapers?
5. Other images that pertain to the subject/main idea
6. Text/ Audio from articles, clippings, interviews
7. Full interviews- funny and real
8. Web sites, blogs, YouTube clips, etc. that support the ideas and go with the blog’s theme
9. A poll?
10. Insert research, complete blog, get interaction/feedback?

Footnotes
Ahrens, Frank. "Area Readers Get the Joke", The Washington Post, 2007-01-18, p. D07. Retrieved on 2007-01-18.

www.theonion.com

www.wikipedia.com