Reliving the past, one day at a time.

By: Taylor Browning

Everyone looks forward to the daily newspaper, or the updated version online, but some are looking forward to yesterday's newspaper. I never really thought twice about keeping old newspapers, until it had a special value to me.

Pictures and articles of my team's journey to the state tournament, or an article about my brother's football game are important to me. On a larger scale, many kept the newspaper on September 12, reporting the previous day's terror. Recently, many people are saving and selling newspapers over Barack Obama's newly won presidency.

Maybe this is a small key success, even a niche, in the journalism world. Hard paper provides more sentimental value and keepsake than an Internet bookmarked site. Reliving the past can become more of a reality and hold more meaning when one actually has an article of the past on hand.

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Journalism versus the law

By Austin Bates

In my weekly search of media related news, I came across an interesting news story about a young man reporting the news becoming part of it himself, through the use of the College Media Matters blog. Apparently he is a photographer with the Daily Collegian on Pennsylvania State College's campus, and after a football game one night, decided to start photographing a riot that began shortly after. Police breaking up the riot saw the photographer and asked him to leave the area. After several times of refusing to do so (by not leaving, that is), he was lead out of the area, had his driver's license confiscated, and later in the week, was charged with several criminal offenses.

This situation vexes me a little. By some accounts in the news story, the photographer displayed his identification signifying him as an official reporter for the college paper, and conceded to most of the officer's demands, even assisting them at one point; it's not like he was directly involved in the riot, like the police are claiming he was. He was peacefully photographing the scene and events like any good reporter should do, and does, without consequence.

The Constitution, specifically, the First Amendment, guarantees the rights of the press to do their duty, and the photographer was apparently doing just that. Therefore, he should be allowed to continue photographing the events of the riot, so long as he does not interfere or block police work (which would be something for which a criminal charge would be justifiable and understandable). People have as much a First Amendment right to say what they want to say as they have a right to hear (and see) what they want to.

As an up-and-coming photojournalist myself, I'm not sure if I would have the courage to ignore police requests to leave an area, like the photographer covering the riot apparently did, but I can only hope I would stand up for my rights as a citizen and member of the press. I agree that there should be cooperation between the press and police services, especially in the area of coming up with a quickly verifiable method of identification of the members of the press. Obviously, there is a need for the police to be able to perform crowd control on a riot, and just because you have a camera or a recorder does not mean you are a member of the press, but there is also a right of the press to cover the news.

Hopefully, future generations will be courageous enough, like the photographer at the riot was, to cover the news regardless of attempts at police intimidation.

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The New York Sun is forgotten

By: Kathryn Lisk

The New York Sun, a newspaper in circulation from 1833 to 1950 and again from 2002 until the end of September, didn't get the goodbye it should have.

A blog posted by The New York Times said that while the paper is gone, the remnants of the paper still remain within New York City. Empty newspaper boxes and the  yellow and white paper weights used by newspaper vendors are everywhere, but no one seems to care or even notice.

This story makes me sad for those who work for or even read The New York Sun because it was a paper that helped create news history. After so many years of producing a daily paper, saying goodbye surely isn't easy. 

The New York Sun stopped printing its news because of the same struggles other papers are having. A rough economy mixed with people who prefer news on the internet or don't get any news at all creates an economic disaster for the newspaper business.

The New York sun does still provide news on the Web, but is finished for good in print. 

As more and more papers are forced to close,  journalists need to learn how to report on the Web. Links, videos and audio attachments in addition to pictures and text are necessary to appeal to viewers.

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Great change

By; Sarah Keller

Ever since Obama was announced to be Americas next president I have been hearing great news. Of course there are still some people out there who are not very happy with the outcome and are more than willing to tell you how disappointed they are, but I must say that the news is doing a great job of showing their support toward Obama and speaking about how happy others are that he won and what good he is already doing for our country.

According to an article from the New York Times, Obama’s win was not a blow out, but it was a clearly cut win, so people can not try to argue the fact that he won the 2008 election. This was an election that many feel will change our country forever. According to an article from ABC.com “African Americans across the country are pinning their hopes on an Obama administration, seeing his victory as the ultimate fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther King's ‘dream’ .” Many prominent African American leaders could not be happier about the outcome of our election, the article went on to discuss. I have read many articles that help to show how important the election was to different individuals, showing the emotional side of reporting, drawing me into the articles and making me want to read more.

An article in the Chicago sun times talked about how Oprah Winfrey announced that "It was the best paper of all the papers in the world”; referring to the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper the day after Obama was elected. The paper had to make 350,000 extra copies of the paper due to the overwhelming requests for extra papers. Obviously the Sun-Times paper was doing a great job of reporting and covering the big story making it so many wanted a copy of the phenomenal announcement.

Not only is it a big deal in America that Obama was announced the next president of the United States, but other countries are jumping on bored with celebrating the wonderful announcement.
An article from AOL news.com discussed how people in other countries are accepting Americans more, how it is now considered “cool” to be an American because of our new president. The article told a compelling story about a girl who was a stranger in Australia, but once people found out that she was American this last week, they started excepting her and showering her with kisses on the cheek.

All of these articles just go to show that a huge part of history was made last week, and that things are in for a change. The articles I talked about reported really well on the emotions of the readers and showed great support for our next president of the United States.

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Get your degree by playing games

By: Katie Anthony

While browsing for a blog topic, (by randomly clicking links), on Poynter Online, I stumbled across a link for a board game entitled "The Be A Reporter Game." I was extremely intrigued, so I clicked on the link to see what I could find.

From that link, I was taken to News University, and given a brief overview of the game. Under the "What Will I Learn" section, this is what the game description is; "Be A Reporter, a game developed for an audience of all ages, helps users understand some of the basics: how journalists probe, clarify, verify and race against a deadline."

Along with this game there's also "Beat Basics and Beyond," "Math for Journalists," "Beyond the Inverted Pyramid: Creating Alternative Story Forms," and pretty much any other journalism course you can imagine.

Granted, these are both courses and games, but you're offered the same journalism degree if you get all of your online courses taken.

Cheaper, convenient, but just as effective as college courses?

I doubt it.

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