Is it necessary to keep a tally?

By: Jessica Hartgers

Many of you may have heard of the most recent suicide at Southeast Polk High School. You probably heard that it was another teenage boy who committed suicide and he is the fourth student to do so in the last seven months.

My problem with the way journalists are reporting this subject is that they all seem to be keeping a tally to the number of students to commit this act. Journalists seem to be focusing on the total number and the timeline that things have occurred, focusing on the first and the latest.

I know the timeline and number of students is just a fact of the case, but is it necessary to keep bringing the previous cases up in each news story. In a way the journalists are making readers relive each death.

Journalists need to leave previous suicides out of the story.

Read more...

Palin in the news

By: Jessica Hamell

I’m so relieved the election is over but why is there still all this publicity about Sarah Palin? She is getting more news than McCain is and he was the one running for president.

There has been so much news about who her first interview would be with. She was invited on Oprah but she decided that shouldn’t be her first interview. This sort of stuff should not make news.

The New York Times wrote an article today about Palin. The said “She put herself on full display, in interviews with NBC and Fox News before Mr. McCain had a chance to take a no-victory lap on The Tonight Show. And she has many more appearances scheduled throughout the week, including a star turn at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Miami on Thursday.” She shouldn’t have gotten invited for an interview before McCain. That seems like a slap in the face towards McCain to me.


Now there are rumors about her running in the 2012 election. O please No!!!

Read more...

Newspapers downturn

By: Jessica Hamell

So now that the election is over will everything get better? Will our economy and newspaper industry be saved. I hardly think so.

The Kansas City Star is letting go of 50 employees. They are in their third round of cost cutting in nearly 5 months and nothing is getting better. The said 2008 is “one of the most challenging years in Star history.” All of them will receive severance pay, benefits continuation and outplacement services. If that is the case then why not keep them and just cut their wages. The newspaper won’t be making much more money by letting go of these employees if they keep giving them money.

These newspapers are trying to do everything they can to save themselves but nothing is working. When will all this stop.

“Many newspapers, including The Star, are attracting record numbers of readers to their news and advertising content. But most new readers are coming through the papers’ online Web sites, while readership and advertising revenue from their core daily printed products continue to soften.” Why don’t more papers make people pay for online subscriptions? That is where they are losing money, I think that would be a very good idea. If people pay to for an online subscription the cost of printing the product is taken out of the equation and money could be made.

Read more...

It's about time Kenny

By: Gabe Gilson

The funniest sports caster on ESPN finally has a new gig. Unfortunately for him, it is not as big of a deal I was hoping for.

Kenny Mayne now is the star of his own show Mayne Street, which was the idea of ESPN. The thing about this show that makes me rather unexcited for it is the fact that it only appears on espn.com. This truly is a bit of a bummer because a show that is half an hour of Kenny being Kenny that would appear on ESPN one night a week would most likely get tremendous ratings.

So far, there has only been one episode of the show online in which Mayne and Scott Van Pelt did a four minute bit on how Mayne had a hard time saying Rafael Nadal’s name when signing off at the end of the show Sports Center. If one would fully understand Mayne’s dark, sarcastic humor then it would be hard to do anything but laugh.

In this new technological era, this show got me thinking. Is it possible that the new, hip thing is going to be television shows only available to view online? I certainly hope this is not the case because I like to sit down and watch television. Every now and then, when I miss Monday’s How I Met Your Mother on CBS, I like watching the replay online. This is a lot different than only being able to watch the show online. For everybody’s benefit, I hope we can always be able to watch our television shows on television.

Read more...

Tired of hearing about it

By Kellie Green

The election is over and we know our 44th president but the media keeps printing about the outcome. I understand that it is a huge excitement that we finally know our new president but when does the media stop?

As I was reading the newspapers and some online blogs I kept coming across stories about Barack Obama and his views and how people are against them. In in an article in USA Today it talks about how the Catholic Bishops are going to fight Obama on his views of abortion.

I know that Facebook is not really a newspaper or deals with journalism but it is a media source because so many people use it. When I enter Facebook I always see people putting on their status how our country is going to fall and how we picked a communist for a president.

I just don't understand when it will all end. There are so many people against the idea of Obama but he is now our president and we have to stand behind him.

I just don't understand when the discussion of the new president will end. The New York Times is even running an article on a man named Howard Dean helped the President win the election. It just seems like enough is enough and I think people are tired of hearing about it.

Read more...

A whole new level

By; Sarah Keller

In class we have been talking about the web and how everything is starting to be published online. You can do so much more things with web sites. We also talked about how you could look at a map and click on states to see how many votes each state had for which presidential candidate, you can even look at previous years votes. I found this to be really cool so I decided to take another look at it.

I am very impressed with the way the map shows the state winners for each candidate. This is taking reporting to a whole new level, which I find very impressive. I only wonder what people will think of next to put up on newspaper web sites. I would just like to congratulate the New York Times for being so clever as to think of something like this to put up on their site, because it really is drawing people in to look at their paper and it is impressive.

Read more...

Newspapers need to kick it into high gear

By: Erin Floro

 Consumers buy newspapers in record numbers when a historical event happens.  Such was the case last week when Barack Obama was elected president.

 This enthusiasm for the post- election editions proves that newspapers still matter and are valuable keepsakes of a memorable event.  People can preserve these souvenirs better than YouTube videos or blogs. 

 Our nation also turned to newspapers after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and after Hurricane Katrina.  It shouldn’t have to be some shocking event to capture a reader’s attention.

 Circulation won’t be retained with vague news stories or boring accounts of civic meetings and press conferences.  Newspapers need to rejuvenate themselves and ignite their readers on a daily basis.  They need to report on stories that will grab people’s attention and pique their interest and then have them talking about it. 

If newspapers don't succeed in this they could possibly become extinct.

Read more...

A day to honor Veterans.

By: Sarah Harl

In honor of Veterans Day, I decided to do a Google search on the day.

The most interesting piece of information that I learned is that according to United States Department of Veteran's Affairs, as well as the AP style book, the veterans in Veterans day is simply plural. It is not a possessive noun.

According to the Veteran's Affairs website, this is because this day does not belong to Veterans. This a day when we honor Veterans.

I found this to be a very profound statement, as well as very fitting of the men and women that this day is meant to honor.

The men and women who are Veterans of our armed forces, put themselves in harm day after day, and it was never for them. It was for something larger than themselves.

Maybe they did it for their family, or their grandchildren, or the next generation.

But they always did it out of love for their country, a patriotism in which they never asked for anything in return.

And so, instead of just giving them a day, and calling it enough, the responsibility for once rests on the American people to give these men and women the honor they deserve, because they day does not do this, it is something that we must, and should do.

Read more...

Facebook ads are not going to work

By: Lexie Hagerty

An article in the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook is trying to find new ways to get ads out to its users.

The article reported that the website hasn't been able to keep a steady revenue out of any of its advertisers. I can understand that Facebook would want a steady revunue, but I don't think any attempts to display ads more will help the website.

I am a Facebook user. I like the website because it doesn't have a lot of ads and its safe and efficient in providing communication between my friends and I.

I think a lot of users like how simple Facebook is. They like that they aren't bombarded with ads every twenty seconds like some websites are.

The way I see it, Facebook can try to add more room and opportunities for advertisers to get their brands out there, but Facebook users won't like it and begin looking for new ways to avoid the ads. This could be a bad move for Facebook.

Read more...