Obama's Kansas Speech

"These aren't 1% values or 99% values. They're American values." These are strong words from Barack Obama from his speech in Osawatomie, Kansas last week. Obama addressed a lot of hard hitting issues and personally, I agree with most of his strategies to turn the economy around. America needs a business leader, not a government official pointing and clicking to create jobs. We actually need businesses to expand, to create, to develop, and to experiment. Obama talked about this and also talked about the plans of his competitors in the upcoming election. He gave various examples of how theories were tried in the past by other presidents and how the economy reacted. When talking about these reactions, you almost envision the economy as a living thing, and in some ways I guess it is. Obama has always been a great public speaker, but this has become one of my favorite speeches by him just because of the impact and clarity of the delivery. It is well thought out and doesn't beat around the bush on topics Americans care about. It gives straight answers but still keeps your interest with background, examples, quotes, and emotion. He even comes right out and says that he will veto any argument from congress that will prevent the economy's growth in the way he is thinking. He only scrapes the surface of the presidential election, which in a way, is a good thing. People don't want to hear how someone can bash the beliefs of another person; they want to hear your argument, your stand, how it will all come together. Being persuasive can be a good tool at your disposal, but having a reasonable and well thought out idea also brings people around. This is what America needs. Obama addressed that we need better schooling for higher education, fair taxes, and for everyone to do their "fair share." Using the word "fair" also catches an audience's attention. But, I am curious as to what exactly "fair" means to Obama and what needs to be implemented in order for things to be fair for everyone.

"What's Goin On..."

For me not to talk about this would be ignoring a large part of media. "What's Goin On..." is a youtube video created by a fourteen year old gay teen. It is heartfelt and emotional and has grabbed national attention. The boy in the video's name is Jonah, and he holds up flash cards during the video that read that he was bullied for years, a national problem that gained interest after the suicide of Phoebe Prince. Celebrity support of Jonah has grown and now Lady Gaga, Zooey Deschanel, and many others support Jonah and his struggle in school. What makes the video powerful is his facial expressions and tear-filled eyes. Almost everyone has been bullied at one time or another, and watching this video takes you back to a dark place where you may have been in his position. No matter who you are, it somehow hits close to home. The media has covered this story numerous times, and even though the video was put on Youtube in August, it continues to gain steam and an audience. This just goes to show how powerful internet media and social networking are. This video has had millions of views and the message is getting out to everyone.   It is the perfect example of new media and its effect on people and its audience range. It can allow a 4 minute video to be viewed all across the world and for a young boy to tell the world "what's goin on."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TdkNn3Ei-Lg

What Is Crossing the Line For Sexual Harassment?

In a recent article, a 9 year old boy from North Carolina was suspended after saying he thought his teacher was cute. His mother was furious that the reason for his suspension was classified as sexual harassment towards a teacher. He did nothing more than say the teacher was cute, and the school took the measures to suspend him for two days. These days, sexual harassment has no clear lines, but honestly I don't think a 9 year old meant any harm by saying it. He did not grab her or make any uncomfortable attempts, so I think the school took the matter too seriously. Yes, maybe a time out or something if the teacher felt uncomfortable would've been okay, but two days of suspension seems a bit lengthy of a sentence for this boy. I found the reporting for this story to be pretty scattered. As more information comes out, they add to it, but it doesn't seem like they are adding useful information. They seem to be repeating a lot of things and only adding one new fact. As some of this new information comes out, more claims as to why the school took that measure have been uncovered. The school claims that the nine year old was saying inappropriate things to classmates and swearing. They said he was being a disruption to the class, but the boy's mother says she was never told about these disruptions and warnings the school gave her son. Whatever the truth may be in this story, I still think a two day suspension was a little much. There are other ways of disciplining but when it is disruptive conduct of a small child, letting him have a two day vacation usually doesn't solve the problem.

Occupy Takes a Turn for the Worse

BBC news reported yesterday that Los Angeles police took apart a two-month-old occupy protest camp. Reports said that police wrestled protesters to the ground if they refused to leave. Police wore riot gear and made 150 arrests in Los Angeles. In Philadelphia, a similar event took place where about 50 arrests were made. So the question is, why now? These camps have been present for two months and now all of a sudden police are taking extensive action to remove them. As it turns out, the camp's eviction deadline was two days ago, and police were taking the notice very seriously when protesters still would not leave their camp. Many protesters did leave willingly, but many returned to rally on a nearby street. Personally, I have become less and less of a supporter of the occupy protests. their message has become hazy as more issues arise, and their protests have become sloppy. It's now unclear what exactly they are fighting for. Even here on campus, occupy UMass persists. Tents are set up in the middle of campus, although no one is actually staying in the camps.They occupy different buildings on campus and march around outside in the middle of the day. Their practices have become more or less an annoyance rather than a statement.They disrupt classes, pester employees who have nothing to do with the problems they are having, and don't actually get their messages across. I would have more faith in their cause if they knew what their cause was. They tackle too many issues at once and expect equal attention to each, but really it just makes it difficult to know what the individual issues are. Also, their protests on campus are sloppy and not very well executed. Twelve people running around the Whitmore Administration building holding signs and screaming doesn't exactly send a professional or serious message.

Is New Media Going Too Far?

A recent scandal took place for the Kansas Governor, Sam Brownback, after a high school senior, Emma Sullivan, tweeted "Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot." (Huffington Post). Apparently the governor's press manager found the tweet and confronted the 18 year-old. She gained thousands of followers on twitter from the incident and had to write a formal apology. So, is new media being taken too far? This incident has opened the realm of freedom of speech and whether or not she should be held accountable for her tweet. Twitter is an informal website where people post whatever comes to mind. Now that it has become so universal, tweets and informal talk has become a more serious issue because of its availability on the Internet. Another topic has come up from this scandal, Brownback is using tax payers money to make sure no one is tweeting bad things about him. It does make me wonder how citizens of Kansas are reacting to this knowledge and if their impression of him as a professional has changed. Personally, I don't think Emma Sullivan did anything wrong. She was expressing her freedom of speech and personal opinion, whether that be negative or positive is up to her and it should not be infringed on. The fact that she was "punished" for doing so, is absolutely absurd. As for governor Sam Brownback, if people are tweeting negative things about you, maybe you should change what you're doing and use it as constructive criticism.

How poor is America?

In recent years it has become obvious that Americans have had to buckle down and be savvy shoppers. The recession has taken it's toll on many people and loss of jobs is just the beginning. Rock Center with Brian Williams recently covered a story about a family in Idaho, both trained nursing assistants, who couldn't find work and were forced to depend on government assistance; mainly food stamps. The story talked about how people line up to go into Walmart at midnight on the first of each month when they receive assistance, and they even compared the chaos to a spectacle like Black Friday. The family said how they were embarrassed to admit they needed assistance, and that they would go out of their way to keep it a secret. Unfortunately, need of government assistance has become pretty common, the article continued to say that nearly 15% of the United States depends on government assistance. This topic really hits home for me, my parents are divorced so a single mother providing for two children is difficult enough. But, because of the down turn in the economy, my dad was fired from his job and is now unable to pay child support. I have to say my family got off easy though. I have friends who's parents sit at the kitchen table and honestly discuss if they have enough money to buy groceries for the week. It's a difficult situation for a lot of people who never thought it would happen to them. The question is whether or not there will be a sliver lining on the horizon any time soon.

Americans Arrested in Cairo

Protests in Cairo have been known about for a while, but last week three Americans were arrested for being in the crowd, and it caused the United States to pay a lot more attention. The American students claimed they were wrongfully arrested because they were only observing the protests, and they also said they were beaten after the arrest. One student went on the Today show on NBC to talk a little about what happened, and it was clear he was happy to be home. He, his mom, and his attorney briefly discussed what happened with the arrest and how he was freed. Apparently, police in Cairo claimed the three students were on the roof of a building with molotov cocktails, and as police, they were just doing their jobs. The students deny ever being on a roof or having anything remotely close to a molotov cocktail. Unfortunately, the story seems to have been pushed behind the ongoing election, the occupy protests, and the holidays. The protests in Egypt are, in my opinion, a main reason to keep an eye on all the occupy protests here in America. Protests can go from peaceful resistance, to chaos and rebellion in a short amount of time, which is why there is so much press covering it. Protestors here don't necessarily mean to try to overthrow the government, but if something doesn't get done, protests could become more severe until they end up like the ones in Cairo.

Interview with an Editor

Business West is the premiere business news magazine in western Massachusetts. This twice-monthly journal has embraced new media by creating a web page and a twitter. I talked to George O’Brien, the editor at Business West, to find out how the economy and how new media has affected publication. In the past he worked at the Westfield Evening News, but for the past sixteen years has been editor at Business West. With so many newspapers losing subscriptions, Business West has endured through this difficult time.

Though they do not have a direct competitor, the Springfield Republican does cover business and is printed weekly and has proven to be a bit of an obstacle. Even with their balance of media, they try to focus on their print version as much as possible. “We try to direct as much traffic to the print version as possible. We delay information printed online to keep it up,” says O’Brien.

            Circulation of papers around the country have gone down significantly. Business West, however, has only decreased in readers slightly. “Fewer people read print these days. The newer generation reads less in general. The fact that most people read the news on new media has been a challenge,” says O’Brien. But they do not plan on raising prices for subscriptions. Their new media outlets like their web page and their twitter have been beneficial. “There are a lot of people who are more comfortable with reading information online. We want the print to succeed but new media is just more popular. It gets challenging though. It requires staff, not much revenue, and you’re basically giving the product away,” says O’Brien.

Page One

The documentary, Page One, is all about the New York Times and how new media has affected circulation and the paper as a whole. It talked about the lay offs, the papers shut down, and the constant struggle for newspapers to try to keep ahead of the internet, which seems pretty impossible. I have to wonder how media will affect newspapers in the future. Will there even be papers to pick up at convenience stores? Will they become so obsolete that the next generation will not get to even see or hold a newspaper? The documentary seemed to keep focus on a few individuals throughout the corporation. One being David Carr, an outspoken and opinionated columnist for the New York Times. Not only did he provide entertainment value to the movie, but he also brought up some very hard hitting problems journalism will end up facing. It even showed how he was reluctant to use twitter, but after trying it he became hooked because of all the convenience and ease. He was amazed and said how you could look up all this information before you're done waiting in line at Starbucks. The entire documentary was revealing in a way I never thought about. Obviously, as a journalism major I think about working in some sort of news room some day, but actually seeing the inner workings of such a major company was eye opening. I never thought of something like the New York Times having financial troubles or looking for hand outs, so not only was this unsettling, but it also made me feel the need to reevaluate my decision for becoming a journalism major. Newspapers are slipping, what will be next? How much longer will broadcast news be around? When will it become obsolete? Will the only way of getting the news be via internet, or will something else come along? For students studying journalism, will there actually be any jobs? If there are jobs, how long will one be able to keep it, or will they be laid off within the first year? New media raises a lot of questions and there is no way to tell for sure what the future of journalism has in store.

Photo journalism reaction

 

This is the image of a young girl terrified by one of the first attacks in Iraq. I think it is a great depiction of how the war affected the real people living there. When Americans think of Iraq, they think only of terrorists and not of the people trying to make a living to support their families, or the little kids who barely know how to spell and are being subjected to this kind of violence. I think this picture helps us realize that there is more than the stereotype, and that behind the hype there is a country full of people just like the United States. What really speaks in this picture is the little girl's face as she cries from the chaos set forth by the attack. The black smoke from behind her only adds to the guilt one feels while looking at it.

Should we expand UMASS football?

"Football Delusions in Amherst" was featured in the Hampshire Gazette a few days ago and honestly, I agree with the majority of what it said. The columnist talked about how most universities who spend a lot of money in their football divisions end up using it as a means of gambling. He compared it to a game of craps and said UMASS could never afford it. He's right. UMASS has never been a huge football school, if anything people's favorite sport here would be hockey. Building a new stadium for football would be a waste of money and cause a lot of trouble for students already struggling to make ends meet financially. The columnist says if they were to build the stadium, the university would have to charge more in student fees to compensate for such a vast amount of money spent on it. However, I don't agree with a couple things mentioned in the article. He quotes a man saying the campus is run down and dangerous, but besides some construction, the campus is in good shape. We could potentially afford it, but to put so much money into something that lacks the fan base necessary to make it worth while, it would only make the school lose money.

CBS news vs. FOX news: protests on wall street

CBS and FOX have always been, in my opinion, on completely different wavelengths when it comes to news. CBS tends to deliver the news without much fluff; while FOX news usually adds in a lot of side comments that take away from the story. Both channels did stories about the protests on Wall Street. CBS started by talking about an interview on 60 minutes and showed a clip to support the argument that people should support big businesses instead of protesting against them. They went on to interview a democratic senator from Wisconsin who also held to the argument. He did something different though, he acknowledged the reasoning behind why people should be protesting but still managed to be convincing that people shouldn't be protesting against GE.

Eventually in the interview he even admitted he didn't actually know what exactly people were protesting about, but he supported how "American" they were being. FOX news on the other hand started off by making a joke in "Envy Driving Wall Street Protests?" They didn't really seem to take the matter seriously and showed pictures that looked down upon protestors. They showed pictures of a man relieving himself on a cop car and the anchors had a sarcastic tone throughout the entire story.

         The difference in the quality of reporting and respect for the protesting was obvious. FOX news took the matter lightly and drained all seriousness from it. CBS took more time to give viewpoints other than their own, which to me gave them a better resulting broadcast. FOX really only showed their side of what was going on. They were very opinionated and their jokes and sarcasm made it seem unprofessional. Personally, I don’t watch FOX news for this reason. I would rather get the facts from an unbiased source and make my own opinions instead of hearing someone else’s.

"When Scientists Fail, It's Time To Call In The Gamers"

Journalism in the form of radio can be entertaining and sometimes more informative than news print. I found this radio broadcast on National Public Radio and decided to listen to it, at first, for its title. "When scientists fail, call in the gamers," it sounded exciting and interesting so I gave it a shot. That's one thing that no matter what form of media it is, is a constant lure. As it turns out, this broadcast was about scientists creating a three dimensional game that helps figure out the correct way to form a protein. The game was called "Fold It," and helped scientists predict the structure of a protein that causes aids in monkeys. This new technology can also be used to find new drugs and vaccines for other diseases such as the flu. This would be an interesting story no matter what means of media used, but the real hook was that in the beginning of the broadcast they played the sound effects from the video game. This really sucked me in and made me curious about the actual methods and outcomes in the game. The tones and inflections used by the host and the scientists who were interviewed really helped paint a picture of how important this milestone is. This importance may not have come out as easily in a newspaper article and in a newspaper article it is harder to pick out the humor and excitement in what they are saying. The scientists joked about how they popped open a bottle of champaign with colleagues over Skype, and their vocal inflections gave a better image of the situation than a newspaper could have. The broadcast was also a lot different than television broadcasts. On television, they can simply show you a model of what they are talking about and not have to go into as much detail, but on the radio they need to give you a mental image of what they are talking about. That's exactly what the scientists who were interviewed did. They compared the game to a three dimensional tetris, and by doing that it made it seem more familiar than just seeing something. All in all, I think the radio broadcast was informative and gave me a pretty good understanding of the technology they were talking about. I didn't have to rewind it and figure out what they were trying to say, because it was clear the first time and put into simple enough terms so that everyone listening could follow along.

Lou Grant

Lou Grant is a television series from the 70s and 80s about a man working at a newspaper. I had never seen an episode before this assignment but watching it did make me laugh. Grant's dry sense of humor lightens the mood throughout the show. When Lou first walks into the Tribune's office, I thought it was hilarious. Everyone was working on typewriters and Lou even played with an early model computer and said he didn't know what it was. The police sex scandal in the first episode was more than what I expected them to cover in a pilot episode, but it was  very entertaining. The acting was also entertaining. When Lou goes in for his interview with the publisher, her dog constantly cries and she still tries to be sophisticated while doing her crossword puzzle. I was also asked to watch the 9th episode of the first season, this episode starts off with a young woman complaining about her letters to the editor not being made into a story. She claims her boyfriend had an unfair trial and is being charged with manslaughter. I found the judge in the episode extremely funny though. As for my previous expectations of the show, I guess I was proven wrong. This show, although slightly slow going, is entertaining and pretty funny.

The 9/11 anniversary

In just about every newspaper in America the front page calls attention to the tragedy of 9/11 a decade later. Most of these articles talk about the grief and heartache families and U.S. citizens are feeling after the loss of loved ones. If I were the editor of a newspaper and I was covering the ten year anniversary, I would have a different approach. Why keep people buried in pain of their losses when we should be trying to support each other through this difficult time? A glimmer of hope is all that's needed. After ten years people need to know that America is healing and that with time we will become stronger. The generic picture of planes crashing into the Twin Towers would not be the first picture in my newspaper. I would have a picture of families who have lost someone in the 9/11 attacks, or just supporters, comforting and helping one another. My first article would not be about the devastation of the attacks (although it may be briefly mentioned), but rather how people are reacting and coping with this important anniversary. I would try to put stories of growth on the front page instead of stories of being stuck in the mourning of lost lives. This is a delicate time for many people, the time to commemorate those who tragically died in the attacks; there just needs to be balance between sulking and rebuilding. If every story is just about the lives taken and the sorrow felt across America, how can we expect anyone to move forward? I think the ten year anniversary should be a chance to not only honor those who died,  but those family members who live without someone they love. Stories about them and rebuilding their lives should be mentioned more than they are. I would include pictures of the development of the building being built in the towers' place and one picture of ground zero as well. It's important to include all faces of a story and not just focus on one.