Surveillance Memorandum

Problem Space

Write a Point Paper.
– You are a journalist working at a local media station that has a radio and television station. You discovered what you believe to be a major news story about commercial surveillance in your community. You pitched your story to your editor, she asked you to draft a point paper that will pitch your story. She emphasized that you had to identify the issue, why it is a problem, and what should the community do in response to remedy the issue. After conducting research, you must write a point paper for her to pitch the story to the senior editor that follows the following criteria:
– Create a professional document in accordance with instructions in the Professional Writing Guide.
– The length must be between one and a half to two pages in length. You will be penalized for shorter or longer memos. Footnotes will be subtracted from the page limit. Footnotes must be single-spaced and no line spaces between entries.
– Cite sources using footnotes only.
– Use proper grammar and punctuation
– Only Word Documents will be accepted. Do not provide links to Google Documents or other third-party applications.

Assumptions
– You are a journalist working for AtoZ Media. You have been employed at AtoZ Media for three years. Your goal is to eventually work for the company’s parent company in New York City where the career opportunities and salary are better than working in a small town.

You convinced the station manager at AtoZ Media to let you cover technology as part of your journalist duties. You like to write news stories and your long-term goal is to eventually get on air as a reporter.

So far you have had good experiences with AtoZ Media. Your editor, Mrs. Redpen, use to work at the parent company in New York for twenty years. When her father became ill, she transferred to AtoZ Media so she could help her sister care for their father. Mrs. Redpen has taken you under her wing. She often says, she sees a lot of her younger self in you.

You have learned that a news story must grab the attention of the viewer. You have contributed to many successful stories by working in your knowledge of social media and live polling that adds a spontaneous element to the daily news.

You are aware of Edward Snowden’s was granted Russian citizenship in 2022. You want to do a piece on surveillance. You learn of surveillance capitalism after reading Shoshana Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. As part of your research, you learn of commercial surveillance in your community. The reach of the surveillance is significant, and you decide to pitch your news story to Mrs. Redpen. Mrs. Redpen likes the story and gives you a couple pointers on approaching the story from the angle of commercial surveillance versus government surveillance as disclosed by Snowden about the NSA. Mrs. Redpen asks you to draft a point paper that will pitch your story.

Mrs. Redpen emphasized that you had to identify the issue, why it is a problem, and what should the community do in response to remedy the issue. After conducting more research, you must write a point paper for her to pitch the story to the station manager.

To help you with preparing the point paper, you use a copy of the Professional Writing Guide you used while an undergraduate student at the University of California Irvine.

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