Journalism 133: Prof. Craig: Working on Leads
WORKING ON LEADS
Here are summaries of stories from a Spartan Daily edition of 10 years ago. Let's come up with some ideas for good leads for them.
- Two years ago on this day, the city of San Jose enacted a minimum wage increase, from $8 per hour to $10 per hour. The increase was approved by voters in a ballot initiative, Measure D, in the previous November's election, with 58 percent of voters voting yes. The ballot measure began in an SJSU sociology class taught by Prof. Scott Myers-Lipton, when a student approached him about her experience working at a local YMCA. He encouraged his students to put together language for a proposed law, and it eventually was put on the ballot. Students are interviewed about their financial situations and the perceived pluses and minuses of the wage increase after two years.
- The SJSU women's basketball team upset top-ranked Colorado State in the Mountain West tournament quarterfinals despite being considerable underdogs. SJSU came in ranked 8th in the conference and Colorado State came in ranked No. 1. The final score was 64-55. Coming into the game, SJSU's record was 15-16 and CSU's record was 23-7, and SJSU had lost to CSU twice during the regular season. SJSU became the first No. 8 seed to upset a No. 1 seed in the Mountain West women’s tournament history. Aniya Baker led the Spartans with 18 points and Ta’Rea Cunnigan had 17 points. SJSU will play the winner of the Boise State-UNLV game on Wednesday in Las Vegas.
- Mysterious bright green posters have appeared on bulletin boards around SJSU in recent weeks. The posters say nothing but "Do you agree with Rolan?" Over time the message on the posters changed to "I Agree With Rolan," and students began to see the same message written on whiteboards in their classrooms. SJSU students took to Reddit and other social media platforms to discuss the phenomenon. One student wrote "Rolan is the Loch Ness monster of SJSU." In recent days a time and a place were added at the bottom of the posters: March 7, Student Union Ballroom. Rolan turned out to be senior communications major Rolan Jimenez, and the posters were designed to bring people to an event held by CRU, a worldwide Christian ministry organization. Students who attended the event were asked about the campaign, and they had mixed reactions.
- As previously reported, a new student recreation and aquatic center will replace the old Aquatic Center on campus. The new information is that the new center will contain two pools instead of the one in the existing center. One will be an Olympic-sized pool reserved for swim athletes on SJSU Athletics teams, club teams and recreational lap swimmers. The other will be an activity pool for leisure and relaxing. Construction on the new facility is scheduled to begin in summer 2016 and it is scheduled to be open in time for the beginning of the new school year in August 2018. While the new building is under construction, teams including the swimming and diving team and water polo team will have to find another facility to practice in. Plans for the new facility include a climbing wall, basketball courts and a yoga and Pilates room.