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Bad writing on the job
FOX Monday night football wants college students
Nationʼs employees lack fundamental writing skills
Broadcast journalism majors sought for news competition
By KEVIN METZ Daily Titan Staff
By KELLY HICKMAN Daily Titan Staff
In an effort to gain more involvement with college students and campuses, FOX News Channel has launched for the first time a nationwide “FOX News Channel College Challenge” competition for junior and senior undergraduate students majoring in broadcast journalism. “In securing FOX News Channel on college campuses, we noticed a strong following for the channel among university students,” said John Malkin, vice president of affiliate sales and marketing for FNC. “The passion that we saw from those students led us to want us to be further involved on college campuses.” Only 102 schools accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications are invited to compete — Cal State Fullerton is one of them. Others include Arizona State University, Howard University, Kansas State University, Syracuse University and New York University. “The competitionʼs mission is to recognize, encourage and support excellence in broadcast journalism in Americaʼs colleges and universities,” Malkin said. The response from the number of entrees so far has been going “pretty well,” said Lauren Kinelski, FNC press contact. Malkin also anticipates having “our hands full.” Competitors in teams of two to four will research, write, produce and submit a three to three and a FOX 3
DAVID PARDO/Daily Titan
Fans gather around at the Off Campus Pub for Monday Night Football to see the Dallas Cowboys play against the Washington Redskins. The Cowboys won 21-18.
Arboretum hosts wine tasting Rotary Club sponsors annual harvest event to benefit local groups By CRYSTAL LAFATA Daily Titan Staff
Itʼs harvest time again, and the Arboretum is holding its annual food and wine tasting benefit called “Crush Time.” The event will be held at the Arboretum on Oct. 1 at 5:30 p.m. and will feature food, wine, beer, ciders and live country music. The Fullerton South Rotary Club will sponsor the event, with proceeds benefiting the Boys and Girls Club of Fullerton and the Friends of the Arboretum. “Last year we bought the Arboretum a backhoe with the money from the ticket sales,” said Brian Fairley, rotary member. The date of the harvest-themed
event has been moved for more favorable weather and will feature some new attractions. The Paso Robles winery, River Star, has donated grapes and a large barrel for the event. The barrel will be located near the entrance of the Arboretum and will feature girls from local restaurants stomping grapes to make wine. “I donʼt really know what I got myself into, I might get stained,” said La Vie En Rose Banquet Manager Korrine Esner. In addition to winemaking, there will be a contest to see who can guess the amount of liquid the girls will stomp out of the grapes. Other door and raffle prizes will be given away including wine products, vacation trips and cash. Local restaurants will be donating over 50 varieties of wine, 12 beers and 2 kinds of cider as well as delectable menu selections for tasting. The
food will range from appetizers to desserts and the wines will be in all colors and flavors from Riesling to Shiraz. “We might do our Crème Brulee or Pumpkin Brulee. Just something nice to surprise everyone,” said Stadium Tavern Manager Tom Dow. Last yearʼs event brought in 800 patrons, and Fairley said this yearʼs attendance is expected to be the same. “The key to enjoying wine is just to relax, and I hope to provide that kind of atmosphere,” he said. There is no minimum age for those who attend, but Fairly said the event is intended for an adult audience. “The $35 is well worth it to try all the different foods they have there,” Dow said. Tickets are tax deductible and can be purchased at the Arboretum or at participating local restaurants. Parking for the event is free.
Governor signs ban on smoking in prisons State correctional facilities to be smokefree in July of 2005 The Associated Press
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Monday that will ban tobacco use by both inmates and staff at the stateʼs adult and youth correctional facilities, starting July 1, 2005, except in staff housing when prisoners are not present and at Indian religious ceremonies. The ban covers smoking, snuff and chewing tobacco. The Department of Corrections already bars tobacco use by inmates in 13 of its 32 adult prison facilities. The California Youth Authority has banned tobacco use by its wards since the late 1980s, but both systems have smoking areas for staff. The billʼs author, Assemblyman Tim Leslie, R-Tahoe City, predicted it would “drastically reduce” prison health care costs. “The governor has put us on the road to saving taxpayer dollars and prisonersʼ lives.” But Jim Lindburg, legislative director for the Friends Committee on Legislation, a Quaker group, predicted the ban would merely drive tobacco use underground and that a more effective approach would be
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to encourage prisoners to stop smoking by providing them with nicotine patches and gum. “There is a lot of evidence that suggests that in prisons that have already done this that tobacco is becoming the No. 1 contraband item,” he said. “The reason for that is it can be purchased very cheaply on the outside and can be sold over and over on the inside. Itʼs a big money maker.” Margot Bach, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, said tobacco and tobacco-related products are probably the “top seller” at prison canteens now and would definitely become “a hot contraband item” when the ban kicks in. “Anything thatʼs banned is highly prized,” she said. But she said prisoners already face smoking bans at most county jails and in the stateʼs 11 prison reception centers and two prison medical facilities. “We would hope that when they move on to their mainline institutions they will kick the habit.” A Leslie aide, Kevin OʼNeill, said seven other states already have full smoking bans in their prisons and five others have partial bans. The ban on staff smoking was added at the insistence of the Senate Public Safety Committee and Leslie thought it was fair, OʼNeill said. Schwarzenegger also signed
Below-average writing skills among one-third of the nationʼs workforce have many top U.S. companies voicing concern, according to a recent survey conducted by the College Board National Commission in Writing. The study released earlier this month emphasizes the high importance of writing skills in a companyʼs decision to hire, promote and retain its hourly and salaried employees. The majority of the companies that participated expressed frustration over this diminishing fundamental job skill. The study attributes this decline in part to a higher demand for writing in the workplace, less time spent teaching writing basics in K-12 education and reluctance for companies to provide adequate training in written skills. While the scope of the study is nationwide — focusing on hourly and salary-based employees in six major sectors of business — college students and graduates are not immune from the issue, according to Cal State Fullerton professors, officials and recruiters. “I often hear [and have heard] complaints [from employers] in the past about several of our graduatesʼ level of writing skills,” said Dana Loewy, CSUF business writing professor. “There is a general sense that somehow writing skills are deteriorating.” Loewy said she doubts that writing skills have decreased over time, but instead suggests that companies have higher demands for their employees to write in todayʼs fast-paced, technology-driven workplace. “It used to be the boss would have a secretary and would often rely on that person for proper writing,” Loewy said. “But nowadays pretty much everyone, even the people in lower level positions, are writing their own documents and e-mails.” Lowey said companies will need to lower their standards for writing skills in entry-level employees if they keep hiring people who canʼt write well. “You have to make due with what you get,” Loewy said. “So if compa-
nies are getting employees that are not as well trained in writing skills, the companies will have to train them themselves.” According to the study, the private sector cost for the 64 Business Roundtable companies surveyed to provide writing training to their combined eight million employees would total $3.1 billion, nearly $950 for each employee. The Boeing Company, a top recruiter of CSUF students, is a company making that investment. “We get some [hires] out of college that arenʼt very good at writing,” said Boeing Senior Engineer Stephen Danko. “But because we are focused on getting them to communicate effectively we work on them trying to get them to a more professional level.” Danko also said the company provides both technical writing classes and peer reviews from senior staff members to improve and critique employeesʼ writing skills. Boeing was one of more than 100 companies that attended the CSUF Internship and Job Fair last Wednesday. Jim Case, director of the Career Center that put on the event, said he believes diminishing writing skills might be a result of increasing language barriers in education, which affects graduates in the workplace. “Over the last 20 years a lot more people have come into higher education that in the past might not have been able to,” Case said. “A huge percentage of the students have a native language that isnʼt English and they have some additional challenges learning to communicate on the level that employers expect.” Statistics from the June 2003 English Writing Proficiency test, a mandatory writing assessment for all CSUF students to graduate, back Caseʼs theory. According to statistics provided by the CSUF Testing Services Center, approximately 46 percent of the 466 students who took the test and identified themselves as non-native speakers, passed. In comparison, about 91 percent of the 751 native-English speaking students passed. Twenty-six students did not specify their native language. The overall pass rate for the 1,243 students who took the test was 74 percent. “If you donʼt have that level of communication ability, it can be hard to get hired, advance in a job or even stay with an employer,” Case said.
Warlord power threatens October Afghan election Human Rights Watch says armed factions corrupting process The Associated Press
SEAN DUFRENE/Daily Titan File Photo
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, pictured greeting supporters in Huntington Beach in August 2003, signed a bill Monday to ban tobacco use by inmates at corrrectional facilities. another prison-related bill by Assemblywoman Judy Chu, DMonterey Park. It will require courts, except in unusual cases, to order a hate crime defendant placed on probation to stay away from the victim or the victimʼs family. The parole board will have to
impose the same requirement when inmates convicted of certain haterelated crimes are paroled. It also will allow a court or parole board to order a person convicted of certain hate crimes to receive counseling or attend a class on racial sensitivity.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Elections heralded as the dawn of democracy in war-ravaged Afghanistan will be hijacked by warlords able to intimidate voters and candidates to entrench their own power, a leading rights group warned Tuesday. The U.S. ambassador acknowledged problems ahead of the countryʼs first-ever direct presidential vote on Oct. 9, but insisted recent demotions for faction leaders and a belated disarmament drive are “breaking the back of warlordism.” In a report titled “Rule of the Gun,” Human Rights Watch said armed factions — some allied with the
United States — were using force, threats and corruption to dominate the election process. Independent political organizers were receiving death threats, while others were too scared even to get involved, it said. “Political repression by local strongmen is the principal problem,” the New York-based rights group said. “Most signs suggest that warlordism and factional dominance will only increase.” Millions of Afghans have registered for the Oct. 9 vote, despite threats and attacks by followers of the Taliban regime ousted by a U.S. bombing campaign in late 2001. American-backed interim President Hamid Karzai is widely expected to defeat 17 challengers for a five-year term as the countryʼs first popularly elected leader. ELECTION 3