Colorful Reporting

By: Adrian Aitken

One of the topics this election period brought up in the early part of the campaigns was if America was ready for an African American president. I believe this to be an okay idea to focus on because whether you like it or not is a big deciding factor. Yet to report on this the reporter needs to be objective and sensible.

Quinn and Tennent are two radio talk show hosts on The War Room with Quinn & Rose who discussed Colin Powell in regards to his racial status. Rather than focusing on his achievements and advancing his race the pair talked about which race he belonged to.

At one point they agreed Powell was a white man as he served on the Bush Administration. The hosts agreed the public as a whole also thought the same way. They then moved on to stating that after Powell left he became "black by popular demand," as stated by Quinn.

Quinn and Tennent are tarnishing the media by taking such a hot topic and playing with it like play-doh. The media isn't seen in a good light as it is now, but this type of reporting does not help. I'm not sure if the radio hosts were punished by the FCC for calling Powell an Oreo, but their credibility must have taken a dive.

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Anti Web sites

By: Shauna Agan

Every once in awhile there are objections to certain media outlets and the way they report certain stories. One student in China had enough disapproval with the American media that he created his own Web site.

Jin Rao, a Chinese student, created the website anti-cnn.com. This Web site is designed so he can express his concerns about the distortions in all the Western media, and not just specifically CNN.

This site generates around 500,000 visits per day. The majority of these visits are from individuals who live in China, but many are from non-China residents.

Rao believes that the Western media does not expose the facts correctly. In an interview he conducted on China Central Television, he said his purpose in creating this Web site is to inform as many individuals as possible the truth about the people of China.

Rao would like peole to know that it is the Chinese police, and not the rioters, who killed people during the Tiebetan unrest, a series of activities to protest the Chinese rule in Tibet. He says the Western media makes it sound as if the individuals are the ‘bad’ people and not the government.

Web sites like these allow individuals to express their side of the story, especially when they believe the media is not doing them justice. I think more people should speak out when they don’t think the media is presenting the stories correctly.

One similar Web site is foxattacks.com. I think more Web sites or media sources should be devoted to showing different individuals’ perspectives on how media reports stories incorrectly.
Although I do not necessarily agree with personally attacking one individual Web site, I think it is a good idea to research inaccuracies or distortions in all sorts of media and present them to the public. Many individuals are apt to believe whatever they are told from the media, so Web sites such as anti-cnn.com are a great way for individuals to show their side of the stories media is publishing.

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First Amendment Issues

By: Quinn Albrecht

A Florida high school has hit a rough patch in producing a long time running student news paper. The Red and Black has been around since 1899 and currently is putting out an addition daily. 

One of their writers wrote and article and printed it that the administration was unhappy with. While it was being printed, they cut the article out of all the copies of the newspaper, over 2,000 papers.

The local media has picked up on this story and is running with it. The article was about the achievement gap of white and black students at the Hillsborough High School.

The article was not run because the administration felt that the article could harm students self esteem. Where does the First Amendment come in and protect these students, don't they have a right to print this, and a right to know?

The principal felt that he had the legal right to take that article out. Also, the students involved are not supposed to talk to other news outlets about this story.

Would the administration been better off leaving this alone, of did they in fact save their students from harm.

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Curiosity killed the cat

By: Katie Anthony

For this particular blog entry, I decided to do a little bit of investigating. After story two for class and hearing "TOPIC LEAD," "TOPIC LEAD," "TOPIC LEAD," over and over again, and getting frowned upon for leads that were more than 30 words, I wanted to see how true those rules stand for real journalists. Honestly, I'm grasping at any straws I can get my hands on that will help leads not suck as much for me.

The one thing I struggle the most with leads is writing a mere topic lead. Some of us don't have the creativity like Gabe Gilson does, and if you don't believe he's creative, I'm 90 percent sure he's the only student who has hyperlinked the urban dictionary in his blog.

For my investigating, I went to GoogleNews and made a collaboration of random leads that consisted of one or two leads per section (news, entertainment, sports, etc). Overall, my findings weren't what I wanted them to be. Simply put, we've been taught correctly in class.

I was hoping to find that in at least one section the leads would run over 30 words, but all of the leads were 30 words or less. In the sports section, the two leads I pulled were both under 20 words.

There is no hope for people like me who suck at leads.

In simple terms the media may be changing, but AP style is here to stay.

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Racism and Presidential candidates

By; Sarah Keller

I have been curious as to whether racism would play a factor in how people vote fore the next president. I read an article from AOL news over this subject. The article did a pretty nice job of reporting. It talked about how people who are normally considered “racist” are actually thinking about voting for Obama because of his educational background and half a Caucasian ancestry.

The article did however discuss that some people who said that they would not discriminate based on the color of skin are the ones who are voting for McCain. I am really glad that this article was written. I think that it is important for people to read about how racism could affect the presidential outcome.

Racism is a real issue that is at hand and one that needs to be discussed. It needs to be known that the next president of the United States should not be elected based on the color of his skin but rather the way he can lead our country, I feel as though some people tend to forget that key detail at times.

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