Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Dan Ruth: A No-Nonsense Approach

Dan Ruth was my professor for Beginning Reporting so hearing him talk about his no nonsense approach was like I had stepped back in time to last semester. Classes were always filled with stories of his escapades as a police reporter and reactions he received from his opinion pieces.
The reactions the class would give to his stories were of awe and amusement. Discussions were begun about his stories because he wanted to know how we felt about the subject. He seemed to always be looking for a reaction whether it was for or against what he thought.
A good reaction is what Ruth looks for in his pieces and he feels that his best work has been those that have stirred up good reaction. In our Critical Writing class Ruth said, “The purpose of writing a column is to make people think. It is the market place of the newspaper.”
One of the most memorable reactions that Ruth received was when he wrote about the League of the South, a group that believed they should be allowed reparations from the north because of the Civil War. The group claimed the north disrupted their lifestyle of slavery.
Ruth made several quips about the idiocies of their allegations including that the north should get something from the south for the amount of kerosene they had to use.
Ruth appreciates a good or bad response from readers.
In Critical Writing, Ruth elaborated on the uses of a column as a means to improve reader’s citizenship, and in his sense, use some satire to make the column more interesting.
Ruth grew up with three other brothers so his use of sarcasm comes naturally. “If you get the reader laughing, they’ll read until the kicker.”
Columns can also vary in the sense that there is reporting columns and in the head columns.
With column writing you essentially “honor the muse.” You must be informed but you do not have to give the opinion of the institution. You can do the same amount of reporting for both sides but you can pick the side you agree with.
Of course whenever journalism is present the effects of the internet are brought into conversation. Ruth believes that blogging doesn’t act very responsibly and does not allow for the value that can be created by the cycles of the newsroom. As Ruth eloquently said in his conversation with the class, “Blogs are like assholes. Everyone has one.”
Ruth is a force to be reckoned with and if your group, institution, etc. ends up on the end of his battering ram you better watch out.

1 comment:

  1. Ruth made several quips about the idiocies of their allegations including that the north should get something from the south for the amount of kerosene they had to use.

    Good one! That's almost as funny as the Chinese communists charging the families of political prisoners for the cost of the bullets used in executing them.

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