Quote of the Day

"This instrument can teach, it can illuminate and yes it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is nothing but wires and lights in a box." -RTNDA Convention

I picked this quote out from the previous readings and lectures we had earlier on in the semester. I liked this quote because not only does it talk about he power that stems from being a journalist but also the power the reader plays in society. Without the journalist, true journalism wouldn't exist. There would be non one who puts out thorough articles that have been reviewed by multiple people. You wouldn't have anyone who is verifying their facts and checking their sources to makes sure the information they are putting out there is accurate. People wouldn't have a legitimate source to go through after hearing news from a friend, on a blog or through a facebook status update. As the quote states, journalists ave the power to teach, illuminate and inspire. What a great opportunity, and responsibility us journalists have.

Just as the journalists have power to produce news, viewers have the power to receive it. Without people reading the newspaper, reading articles online, checking blogs weekly, or watching their morning news, journalists wouldn't have a job. It's the people that crave the news that keep the journalists working. If journalists produced an article but there was no one to read it, no people to talk and discuss it, it would be dead. A lot of society determines what is news and what is in the papers. Ultimately companies like the New York Times want to make money and hey will produce and put out stories they know will sell and they know will interest the general public. As long as the people want to read an follow stories like the balloon boy or Tiger Woods personal affairs, news outlets will continue to put those stories in the paper. We as society have the power to steer what direction will the news will turn. So as the quote says the news can inspire to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends.

So the power lies within us journalists and as readers in society. Lets just continue to produce and be influenced by good news.

ohhh adam lambert.

Adam Lambert, who is he? I didn't know up until today. I was driving home and my mom told me about the former runner-up on American Idol performed this racy number on the American Music Awards. He made a mark because news, twitter and blogs are all talking about this one man.

Lets start with twitter... Adam Lambert is currently a trending topic  along with New Moon and Allen Iverson. Surprise? No. Once one person does anything to shake up the social media, people are all over it. The news spreads and people talk. Here's what some are saying...

 Adam Lambert has a new fan. =)

 Waiting to watch Adam Lambert on Letterman. Then I try to sleep for the night. Will I be able to?

 Adam Lambert? Ain't he that fag who kissed some guy at the AMA's and basically put a guys  face into his  junk?

 Listening to Adam Lambert. You know even though his performance was disturbing his still very  talented  i'd say.

 #iamthankfulfor God, for created such a beautiful person like Adam Lambert x)

Those were just a couple tweets that people are currently posting as I type. I decided to write one about Adam Lambert and the fact that he was appearing on Letterman. Everyone else was doing it and I wanted to see how many people would tweet about the same thing seconds after me. There were 10 within the next couple minutes. Apparently, everyone else had that same idea to tweet about that. He is on the Letterman show so people were going crazy with their tweets about what they were waiting to witness on television. Oh the beauty of Twitter. If you want to know about any on topic in particular, go on Twitter and you can find out from hundreds of different sources the inside scoop. I heard about the scandal but did I know he was on Letterman? No. It wasn't until I saw the thousands of tweets. So, thousands might be an exaggeration but their was a lot. 

And then there's the performance and all the shows that reported on Adam's scandalous acts at the American Music Awards. The View, ABC, CBS and the Letterman Show (as previously stated) are just a few who spoke out about this issue. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone wants to be heard.  Lets look at all the comments made on some of the videos posted on the web. 

 He went straight to a genre that's going to kill his career. He'd be much better off in a metal band. His actions at the AMA only made me dislike him more. I get it, he's openly gay, but all that crap the AMA's was over the line. I don't want to turn on my tv and see him swapping spit with another guy or thrusting his hips into a dude's face. He needs to get control of himself.

Me and my friend are 14 years old and we are like seriously THE BIGGEST Adam Lambert fans. We have already memorized every song in his new album... we are still huge fans but you are right he shouldn't have done that at the AMA's. His excuse was "It's okay if girls do it but it's just cause I'm gay that's why it's wrong?" There are a lot of female preformers who do do stuff like that and it wasn't because Adam was gay that it was wrong.. it's just that wasn't appropriate for the time and place.

modern day boy george!!! what a twat for his outlandish behavior! for someone who just started out this was the waaaay wrong way to go son!

so before all the accusations of homophobia continues just think about this, its not about the fact that he's gay. Its the fact that his actions were visible to a family audience on broadcast television. That type of programming is geared towards a family audience that could include very young children. And while it was late in the east coast, it was still early in the west coast. The kissing that went on with Britney, and Madonna was on Cable television. Standards are different. Ask the Fcc.

This is a total Bull Sh%&! issue. Any of you that love music should value artistic expression whether you love the artist or not. You gotta realize that they treated Elvis, the Beatles, The Doors, Bowie and even Madonna with disdain when their career first began. Adan's performance was not that big a deal, it was just Adam being Adam. The nutty over reaction just means it is time to break down some barriers and let in new artistic expression - let Freedom Reign!

     videos posted on the web. 

Oh the beauty of public forums.  You see that a lot on the web. A video is posted, people comment and express their difference in opinions. Everyone has a statement about matters especially if they are willing to take the time to further investigate a certain topic. On one website there's already over 500 comments and how long has it been since that video was posted or since Adam Lambert performed? Not long. If you google search Adam Lambert tons of results pop up about this issue. There's over a million blog posts about this man. If he wanted to create a buzz cause a stir he definitely accomplished it. I hadn't heard of him, I stopped watching American Idol after the third season but I now know who this guy is. So, if that's what he's going for than I hate to admit it and give him that glory, but his mission was accomplished. The beauty of the Internet and mass communication. Nothing escapes the media. So if you plan on doing something provocative, unorthodox or scandalous you might want to think twice. What you might think is between you and a few people or you and the audience can translate to millions and millions of people. I wouldn't have known about this issue if it wasn't for the thousands of people later talking about it.

Powerhouse

We don't even need to watch the 4 minute and 16 second video clip of Tom jumping on chairs and making weird hand gestures can we just focus in on the Oprah Winfrey crowd gone crazy? While a lot of the screaming has to do with Tom being on the show, this sort of reaction isn't unusual for a taping on her show. She is the ultimate powerhouse and now she is leaving television come fall of next year. What are all these middle aged women who act like oprah is their best friend, who look to her for advice and opinions on about any all topics to do? Yes she has her daily television shows but she does more in the world. She helps out the poor and during President Obama's election she went political. She spoke in front of thousands of people talking about the serious matters in our country and expressing her support for our current President Barack Obama.

Oprah has done it all. I think you know where I stand on this woman. I am in favor of her. She is a strong woman and I have nothing but respect. She has become one of the most successful women in my opinion. She has one of the top rated program of her kind in all history and the richest African American of all time.  But I don't want to go on and on about this woman. I just know she is powerful woman and the fact that she isn't going to be on the air much longer isn't that upsetting. In the New York Times it said she is going to team with Discovery to create her on television channel where she will most likely have some kind of talk show in it.  There hasn't been that many details as to what the channel will entail but should Oprah really be all that sad?

She's only going to go onto something bigger, her on T.V. station. 

It just amazes me how one person can have that much influence on the public. She has her own magazine which hundreds of thousands subscribe to. She has her own book club. She makes little known authors become famous. People go ou and read books on her book list not because they have heard a ton of great reviews by other people but because Oprah said ti was good, it must be worth reading. People watch her on TV, other famous celebrtiies have nothing but respect for Oprah. If you were to say the name Oprah, everyone knows exactly jsut who you are talking about. People have a lot of power, more power than one realizes. As journalists we too have an immense amount of power. We can control what is news, what is printed in the papers, how things are written and stories are presented. We have so much power and freedom given to us, we must use it to our greatest capacity.

What is Journalism All About?

My group presented on Monday regarding this particular topic..."What is Journalism All About?" and i would just like to discuss a couple major points that I got out of the reading. 

The idea of the Interlocking Policy talks about how there are three kinds of people when it comes to the news. First, there are the interested. They read any and all articles about a particular subject, pro or con. They know both sides and takes on a topic and are highly educated. If one were to ask them about their particular interest they could give them thorough, opinionated answer. They tend to be highly judgmental. Then there's those who are some what interested. They might read the headline or the first couple lines of an article but they don't have a lot of time. They don't get too involved with anything seeing as they don't have enough time or aren't truly passionate about one thing in particular. They float through the newspaper. They get by through reading some things but they get to nothing into super detail. Then there's those who aren't interested at all. The don't read the article in the newspapers. They don;t listen to the news reports on Fox television. They have no clue what is going on in the news world and they don't care to know. So the question remains. Do you cater to the specific audience whom you know will read your article? Why bother reaching those you know will never pick up the paper? In the eyes of a good journalist, they will try to target all kinds of people. They will make those who don't pick up the newsprint, pick one up. They will catch their interest and create a change in their daily patterns. Not only will a good journalist make those not interested, interested he will make the involved even more involved and the semi interested more interested. Easier said than done right. I think there are ways that you can target a wider audience not be based strictly on the content matter. I think a lot of it deals with how you present the material. Video media is the way which is why I wanted to demonstrate that point in class. I had someone read this contemporary artist in the New York who was being arrested for his acts but stopped a class mate abruptly to show the video clip which was more engaging and interesting.

Another point I wanted to make was about our role as journalists. right now tons of people are blogging and tweeting. People in the mass media are using that as their source of information. Instead of turning on the news or reading the newspaper they are looking to these venues. If people are emphasizing this role of citizen journalism so strongly, if all we seem to be talking about in our journalism class is the trend of blogging, tweeting, and facebooking and if its a required assignment even for the class to be doing these things then why have journalism? Is there a need for it? After all people are out their, voices are being hear, and people believe these sources to be credible.  While all of these things are true, there still is an important role for journalism. While people can look to all these other outlets to find out information, journalism and what is printed in black ink is what is credible. not everything you see posted on people's facebook chats are necessarily true.  They could have heard it through the grapevine, heard it from an unreliable source and they haven't looked up the facts or done their homework. A journalist would have. They would have gone out into the field and pieced everything together in order to produce a story. I think these outlets are good because if people aren't going to pay attention to the news at least they will get it somehow and if someone is interested in it enough they will do something about it. They will follow up and look on that news website to verify the  truth. Journalists, tweeters and bloggers all have a place in the journalistic society. 

I learned a lot during this presentation those are just two points I wanted to emphasize. While the procedures and way of delivering messages are evolving through time the need for journalism still exists and will always exist in my opinion.

Thirsty Anyone?

So today it was pronounced that drum roll..... there is water on the moon! Here's a short version of their discovery- A satellite known as Lcross crashed into a crater near the moon's south pole about a month ago. This crash caused a hole 60-100 feet wide revealing over 26 gallons of water.  For decades scientists have wondered whether this was indeed true, helping prove that water has been in the solar system for billions of years. This article was posted in the New York Times (Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/science/14moon.html?ref=todayspaper) and goes more in depth with science and their discoveries. I'm not going to lie, I tuned out. Yes, I read and finished the article but do I remember anything towards the end? No, not really. What interested me was the fact that water is on the moon. 

Having worked on my presentation today, I want tobring up the fact that when it comes to stories you're not going to capture everyone at once. Some people are engaged, slightly interested or not interested at all. In this particular case i would be the right in the middle. I did read the article. The headline on the New York Times website did catch my interest and pull me in as a reader. But do I really care about all the logistics and findings of this story? Not really. There are some people that do. There are people who live for science or outer space and were exstatic to hear of this discovery. Unlike me, they have probably heard about this before the article was even released. Even after it was released on the web, they will read the story again today when it comes out on print.  Then there's people who would even read the first line of this article. They only care about what personally benefits them and knowing that there's water on the moon is not one of them. 

What I have concluded based off my personal opinion and the readings I read based on the roles of citizens is that as journalists we need to cater to all types of people. In the Role of Journalist's article it described how the front page of the paper shouldn't be biased. It shouldn't only cover sports, or politics. A successful paper focuses on putting out a good variety of stories that will appeal to different people. Journalists and newspaper companies want to be known for delivering the facts and stories that people want to hear. Showing many different viewpoints and topics while staying unbiased is key. 

Sometimes though this is easier said than done. Your boss tells you that you have to write on a certain topic and you have no other choice. The Deseret News is more family oriented while the Slat Lake Tribune takesa more liberal stance. Sometimes people want to read about things that aren't in your opinion news worthy. Because people are talking about it and making it news you have to report it. When Michael Jackson dies people were going on and on long after his death about his life and story as a performer. Things were going on in the world but what made it to the front countless times? Michael Jackson. Was this because journalists wanted to cover this or was it because they knew this is what their audience wanted to read? There will be articles that you might not want to read but that's where the freedom lies. You can do what you want. You can read what you want. You can go to whatever website you desire. The option lies in you and that's the beauty.

Twitter

Twitter is new to me. Up until this semester I had heard about this thing but never expressed any desire to subscribe. I already had facebook. Why would I want one more thing? And what's with this whole tweeting business anyhow.

Today, I wouldn't call myself no expert but I have a grasp of this online program thanks to a class where the number of times I tweet is represented through a grade. While I still haven't fully entered and emerged into this tweeting world, I am getting more used to how this program functions, why more people are using it and what benefits it has to the social world. 

In the NY Times today Twitter joined with it's ally LinkedIn to continue it's spread across the web. “Twitter is not only a massively open platform, but also it’s a place where there’s a tremendous amount of professional information already being shared, and we wanted to be sure that was coming to our LinkedIn user base,” said Allen Blue, LinkedIn’s co-founder and vice president of product strategy. Microsoft and Google claimed they would incorporate tweets into their search results. By joining these two companies it will become more of a powerhouse. In the article it talked about how it will have a broader reach especially in the professional world. They aren't sure how well this will start off or how much revenue they will be making right off but it is worth the try.

Isn't the power of the people amazing? People can express or share their ideas about whatever they desire and millions of other viewers can be connected to that. Even this thing called a blog, (which I am currently using) has made a huge impact in the advertising and social networking world over the past couple years. Someone who started a business, created a blog and found a million followers interested in their work are now millionaires. Now that's saying something. In my opinion, the power lies more in the average everyday person more than ever and what a great opportunity that is. The power lies in our hands.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/tweets-are-coming-to-linkedin/?ref=technology

Commander in Chief Steps in

Just 26 minutes ago youtube posted this video. In a time of crisis who comes to the rescue? Who attempts to put the people at ease? In this case it was President Obama. Just today their was a shooting in Fort Hood Texas killing at least 12 people, 30 were wounded. The information is still being revealed but that's where the stats stand currently. The shooter had been killed and 2 people are in questioning for having helped contribute to this horrific act of violence. We see and hear about soldiers dieing overseas as they fight in the war but never would I imagine it happening in American soil.  Mother's pray for their children in hopes that they will serve honorably, and come back untouched and unharmed. I am 100% sure they never thought that their own children would be at risk in training, right here in the United States. At least I never saw something like this coming. 

As i read the New York Times from day to day, I kind of wait for the breaking news to develop. I wait to see some interesting, outrageous story to hit the front headlines of the paper. While the swine flu vaccinations, war in Iraq, and health care seem to always make it up there I have been waiting for something big. I guess I got what I was waiting for. 

What I want to discuss is the speech played out by Obama. He talks about the men and woman that were killed and injured in this situation. How they are these brave Americans who put their lives at risk on our behalf and for our freedom. He talks about how they are working with the Pentagon, the F.B.I. and Home Land Security to ensure the safety of those around. 

He sympathized for the people by stating his heart goes out to the family of the wounded. He brings up the security and claims his support for the community. There is no greater honor or no grater responsibility to make sure that the people in the army are properly cared for. If anything could put these families and parents who are directly involved at ease, the president could help in that department. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/us/06forthood.html?_r=1&hp

Here's another clip of the President stepping in on September 11 with the terrorist attacks an on the world trade center. This is a day we will always remember. This was a day marked in history. While the shooting that happened today on the army base may not be as big of a tragedy, it's interesting to hear the speeches given by the presidents. They as the leader of our nation step into give the people a sense of peace and hope. In trying times like this or that on September 11, that is exactly what the people needed. A feeling that life can go on and will get better. My prayers go out to all those personally affected by this situation.