Losing Newspapers?

    My family receives the newspaper, always has, always will. if I said this about five years ago people would have rolled their eyes at me and said "Who doesn't?"

    Now, I get a different reaction entirely.

   Those same people's eyes would practically pop out of their head as they tried to imagine somebody actually reading the newspaper, not some electronic knock-off. This begs the question: What would happen if we lost newspapers? I mean, the real ones that are delivered to your doorstep.

    Well, we probably wouldn't have Current Events Quizzes in J1 anymore.

     On a more serious note, what would happen if they just disappeared? Newspapers are like air, they're just there. They can't just be gone. I think a large part of American identity would vanish with the newspapers.

    Think about it, the newspapers were born around the same time the idea of rebelling against King George was. Actually, newspapers helped spread the spark of patriotism. In fact, John Peter Zenger was taken to court and that decision gave way to the freedom of the press, which has stood the test of time.

    Newspapers have been there since the very beginning, cataloging every victory, every dispute, every election, every war, and every tragedy. What would we do if they just vanished?

     I don't even want to know.  

Will Lake Being a Little Harsh on Syria

    I was going through the list of blogs, picking URLs at random a couple minutes ago when I stumbled across Will Lake's blog (here) and I found an entry on Syria. I hadn't seen anybody else do a class response on Syria so I read on, intrigued. It was a brief entry that outlined why at first glance the "side" that countries should pick to fight against, but it concluded with this statement:

"I for one think that, at the very least, air strikes on key Syrian government positions are necessary to show the {world's} despotic little dictators that we will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons."

    Wait, what? Will, you were doing so well! The problem here is that we can't just attack countries because they annoy us. Then we would be abusing our power and our military prowess, which we don't have because Obama cut the military budget.

    Which brings me to another point: we don't have any money or men, which is essential to starting a war, or just being in one. Why don't we have these things? Why don't you ask our President, who cut our military budget?! Plus, we still have soldiers coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq. Like I said, we have no men, and no money.

     Also, Will is talking about essentially making an example out of the Syrian government to show "despotic little dictators" who's boss. First of all, isn't that something that Bashar Al-Assad might do? I for one, refuse to turn into Syria. Secondly, we cannot continue to bully other countries into doing what we want, regardless if what we want is for them to follow correct morals. This is why other countries don't like us.

     Will, I appreciate the fact that you came up with an original idea for your classroom response, but there were some flaws.

    

 

Don't Diss Demassification

    I'm infatuated with demassification, althougth it is often viewed as conglomeration's "evil twin." Sure, there are cons to demassification, but its not all gloom and doom.

    First of all, breaking mediums into genres or niches counteracts the lack in diverse content generally brought about through conglomeration. Imagine radio without demassification. You could really want to listen to girl-power ballads from the likes of Kelly Clarkson and Demi Lovato but get stuck listening to Taylor Swift singing about yet another time that she's had her heart broken because to there only one radio station that plays all different genres, and not exactly the best of every genre. I'm sorry T-Swift, you know I love you but either find a better taste in men or a puppy. Pick one. Personally, I think it would be much easier to just get a puppy. Then you could make beautiful songs about your new puppy.

    The point I am trying to get across is that with out the demassification of the radio, we would all be listening to the same thing. Then, the cultural diversity that America is so proud of wouldn't exist because we all be the same. Could you imagine all being the same? This doesn't just go for radio, its for all media because all media impacts our culture. If all our media was the same, so would we. Americans wouldn't have any depth; we wouldn't millions of different type of people (because each person and their beliefs are unique) we would have one.

    Also, demassification normally happens because a "new" medium comes along and steals all of the "old" medium's advertiser, audiences, or both. Without new media, we wouldn't have demassification. If demassification went away, so would magazines, TV, radio, and the internet.

    I guess demassification isn't so bad after all.

Media Crtitque: CNN Coverage of the Steubenville Rape Trial in March

    In March, six months ago, the rape trial involving high school students in Steubenville, Ohio, made the national news due to the fact that the accused rapists (Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, 16 and 17) and posted photographic and video-taped evidence of the event and its participants on Twitter. That evidence was removed, but was then recovered by hackers and a blogger who was desperate to break the story and hold the rapists accountable regardless of their age. News of this sparked outrage because this girl was black-out drunk and unaware of what was happening; if she can't physically say yes, then nobody has permission to engage in sex with her.

    For those of you who are unfamiliar with the details of the trial, there was an girl who was 16 at the time of the event (August 2012), she has chosen to remain anonymous, and she went out partying one night. She got very drunk and it eventually got the point where she passed out. She was then taken by teenage boys from one party to another, and on the way to the second party she was sexually assaulted while she was passed out. Then, when she arrived at the party (still passed out), she was sexually assaulted for a second. After the event, the rapists recorded a video of themselves talking about how they raped this blacked-out girl, referring to her as being "dead" and saying that somebody urinated on her and she didn't wake up. They continued to make jokes about how they raped this poor girl, and the rapists had throughout the event posted things on Twitter (pictures of this girl and messages about her rape), which they tried to delete along with their video. However, a couple of hackers and blogger caught wind of this girl's story and went to recover the hard evidence.

    In mid-March, CNN reported on the outcome of this trial when the rapists were convicted in juvenile court  by a judge and no jury to a minimum of a one-year sentence in prison up to a maximum sentence of until the rapists' turn 21. This would have been a great story, considering there were two women delivering it, Poppy Harlow reporting and the CNN anchor Candy Crowley. However, this story turned out to be one carrying heavy tones of apology for the rapists. Poppy Harlow kicked the story off by saying:

"I've never experienced anything like it, Candy. It was incredibly emotional-- incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures.... Literally watched as they believe their life fall apart."


    The two women then continued to tell this story in such a way that was blatantly apparent in trying to gain sympathy for the two boys convicted of rape, only mentioning their charges briefly once and mentioning the victim a grand total of three times. Candy Crowley then called in legal expert Paul Callen to explain how these boys' being on the Registered Sex Offenders List would "haunt them for the rest of their lives."

    Now, in any kind of journalism, tone is everything. If a journalist delivers facts in a biased way, they immediately violate the yardstick of fairness. This is a prime example of that. When Poppy Harlow mentions the alcohol involved in the event, she describes it as if it the alcohol who caused the rape, and not the actual rapists. When she describes the additional charge that Trent Mays received aside from the felony of sexual assault of felony of taking pornographic pictures of a minor, she describes it as almost accidental. Listen carefully to her tone and voice and its almost like she's implying that he just saw a naked girl drunk and passed out on the floor and his finger slipped, taking her picture. Listen to the way she says "because he took a photograph." Then his finger slipped again and they were posted all over Twitter.

    By doing this, not only did Poppy Harlow violate the yardstick of fairness by airing biased facts, but CNN in general crossed over the lines of both the principle and yardstick having to do with truth. If someone manipulates the truth for their own means, they are no longer telling the truth, they are giving opinions. When Candy Crowley brought Paul Callen in to do a legal analysis, she said that despite "what big football players they are, they still sound like sixteen year olds to us." Notice how she didn't include the victim in this statement, who was also only sixteen, but mentioned her separately.

   CNN tried to abide by the yardstick of explanation by having Candy Crowley and Paul Callen discuss the "big picture" of what the "lasting effects" of the court decision to convict these felons (CNN also failed to mention that rape is a felony in Ohio, yet again violating the principle of truth).
However, they failed by only mentioning the effects of the rape on the rapists, not the victim (there's that pesky yardstick of fairness again).

    Lastly, CNN violated the principle of exercising your conscience by airing a story that heavily seemed to justify rape. Rape is a serious problem in America, and its a violent crime against women. If someone tries to justify rape, then they are trying to justify men using women's bodies whenever without the need for permission. Morally, this is wrong. Shame on CNN, Paul Callen, Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow.

    CNN has since taken this video off of their website, but it can be found on an infotainment news source that is actually more reliable than it sounds.


http://sourcefednews.com/cnn-reporter-labeled-rape-apologist-after-steubenville-update/

Classmate Resonse: You Know You're a Slacker When....

    One word: wow. I just read Stephanie Little's blog (http://www.crushthe-patriarchy.blogspot.com/), and I must say, I feel like a total slacker now. Just looking at the blog makes me sigh, its very well laid-out. Every entry has numerous links and images inside of them, so that without even reading the full entry you can get a sense of what she is talking about.

    Once you actually get inside the blog and start reading her entries, you will be astounded, like I was, in the sophistication of her writing. Her class responses are very insightful, and her media critique was good, but it seemed like she was more focusing on the broad issue of rape culture in our society (though I can see where she has a point, I also know that many Americans are disgusted with the violent crime that is rape) than the actual media article she was critiquing. Nobody is perfect, I won't hold it against her.

     Anyways, I absolutely love her blog and if you have the chance, you should check it out.

Class Response: The Importance of Magazines to Our National Identity

    Today, when most people think of magazines we think of glossy volumes full of fashion, beauty, scantily-clad women, cars, or anything else that stereotypical audiences would enjoy.

    I refuse to add the Swimsuit addition of Sports Illustrated for obvious reasons, but I'm sure you can grasp what I'm talking about without having it displayed along with the women's parts that are normally covered up with clothing. I refuse to participate in the sexualization of women.

    Anyways, before magazines were demassified they had everything in them, and they rose in popularity to become the first national medium. Magazines contained something for everyone: sports, fashion, literature, comics, puzzles, recipes, and in-depth investigative reporting.

     Now, some people might say that because magazines ended up being demassified courtesy of television anyways, we might not have needed magazines to have our own national identity. We would have used some other medium, like newspapers. I disagree.

    Magazines had something for everyone, so everyone wanted something from the magazine. This boosted literacy rates in the United States as reading became instrumental in keeping up with this new trend. Also, because the majority of Americans were reading the same or similar recipes, fashion advice, regular advice, literature, and whatnot they began acting a certain way as a nation. That's right, they no longer were a collection of people from various different countries but Americans. They had American fashion trends, cooked American foods, and read stories from American authors posted monthly or bi-monthly in magazines.

      Which brings me to my next point: magazines kick-started American literature. Authors were able to send their stories in by chapters to be published in the magazines. The use of publishing houses to publish full-lengthed novels was an oddity among emerging authors. Magazines became a discovery tool much like YouTube is today for upcoming musical artists.

        Magazines were an irreplaceable part of the development of the United States of America as a country.

9/11 Video

 

 

 

   I always cry during 9/11 videos.

 

 

 

   I made the mistake of not watching the actual event on my own, which I though was a good decision. Until I saw it in class on 9/11's anniversary last year. So the first time I watched it, I burst into tears. Its an emotional event in history, and today as soon as the video started, I was mentally preparing myself for a flood of emotion.

 

 

   It didn't come.

 

 

  I was so fascinated by the tales of the photojournalists as they tried to pull the nation together during a time of crisis that I wasn't slammed with tragedy, only awe. I actually applaud the makers of that video for making me focus on the unsung heroes of that event. I can't even imagine the aftermath of the attack without the photo documentation by those photographers. The reason being that when the first plane hit the World Trade Center, nobody believed that it was truly happening, and nobody thought that it was done on purpose.

 

 

Until the second plane hit.

 

 

   The fact that photographers were able to capture the second plane, poised to strike, was proof. It was not a horrifying nightmare that we could all wake up from. It was not an accident. The pictures all those photojournalists took that day were proof, and for that I'm grateful. We need to remember that day. We need to remember our vulnerability, and our humanity. We need to remember watching our "untouchable" buildings come crumbling down. It hurts, but we need to remember.