Google Wave

Tuesday, March 30, 2010


Technology is evolving everyday and that is why the way reporters gather information has to evolve as well. A plausible way to do this is to use Google Wave. It is a blog site that many of the top and most current reporters use and is a great way of scoring information.


Wave helps build relationships between reporters and common people and allows everyone, through blog, to keep up with the most current information. It allows reporters to find people who are highly educated on the exact topics they are researching and it is a blog site so it is much more effective than tweeting to get information due to the depth of the others responses.

Being apart of a blog on Wave is much different than the traditional one-on-one interview system of old. The blogs allow credible sources to post what they know quickly and efficiently and that allows other reporters to feed off what they find out. This helps shape the posts of the other sources you are receiving and helps form a new and efficient way to get credible sources.

Many criticize Wave because anyone can post and the inaccuracy of normal people may not hold up to that of professional reporters. No one knows if Wave will stand the test of time but it is a new and efficient way of getting sources and information.

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Opinion On Date Rape Causes Uproar

American University in Washington D.C. has proudly distributed it's campus newspaper, The Eagle, for over eighty-five years; claiming that the paper is "American University's Independent Student Voice Since 1925". Recently, the paper ignited student voices when it published a piece by staff journalist, Alex Knepper

Knepper, a 20 year old Political Science major, published an opinion column entitled "Dealing with AU's anti-sex brigade." In the article, Knepper exclaimed his disgust for what he described as the campus' "insular, solipsistic view of human sexuality." His comments were in response to student opinions about a Facebook note made by a potential student government body representative. The post contained what campus group Queers and Allies called "sexist, homophobic and explicitly trans-phobic and intersex-phobic remarks". They found the candidates comments disturbing, and voiced concern about his ability to lead the student government. Though the candidate claimed that the post was misinterpreted, the concerns were voiced not only by members of the group, but by others on campus as well.

Knepper's article described the note only briefly before labeling all who were concerned about the comments, "a sniveling bunch of emotional cripples." He continues on to elaborate on his opinions about the current state of Feminism and Gay Activists before claiming the statement below, which caused an uproar of protest from the student body.

"Let’s get this straight: any woman who heads to an EI party as an anonymous onlooker, drinks five cups of the jungle juice, and walks back to a boy’s room with him is indicating that she wants sex, OK? To cry “date rape” after you sober up the next morning and regret the incident is the equivalent of pulling a gun to someone’s head and then later claiming that you didn’t ever actually intend to pull the trigger."

The article was read and approved by a student editor, and published in the newspaper on March 28th. In response, the editor received over 75 pieces of mail and numerous comments protesting the opinion column. Someone on campus went as far as collecting the newspaper from various locations, and dropping it in front of The Eagle publishing office with a note proclaiming that the campus had "No room for rape apologists".

The editor of the paper has responded by stating that she chose to publish the piece to "foster an interesting discussion." She also responded in a letter to the student body explaining that the decision to publish the opinionated column does not mean that the paper itself is inline with the journalists views, but they are also not in the business of censorship. "As an editor, I would not feel right to fire or censor a writer who has offended people, because I believe that he has raised questions that warrant discussion."

She has a point; opinions are opinions, and not everyone is going to agree. Freedom of speech is something that is cherished by all facets of society and especially by journalists. The truth should be free and clear to the public.

But how much truth is in that very opinionated statement Knepper made? When rape, especially acquaintance rape, (which accounts for 77% of sexual assault crimes according to the National Center for Victims of Crime), is such a he said-she said crime, to have even one person believe that the victim was asking for it has the potential to cause more harm than good. How are victims supposed to feel if they know even one person believes that they put themselves in a bad position on purpose? Acquaintance rape is also only reported 2% of the time; articles like this could decrease that percentage that even more on a large campus, where the majority of these crimes occur.

Moving back to the freedom of speech discussion, does publishing an opinion like this, simply to encourage interesting discussion, stay inline with the Society of Professional Journalists 2nd point of ethics - that journalists should try to minimize harm? I, for one, do not believe it does. Knepper's opinion is a common one, which is why acquaintance rape remains a largely unreported crime. Victims suffer in silence, rarely get counseling, and have disastrous and troubled relationships following such assaults. How many journalists have published articles regarding surviving sexual assault, the importance of reporting the crime, and, above all, a person's right to refuse sexual contact, no matter what the circumstance.

By Tuesday, a group of students delivered a message to The Eagle demanding that they fire Knepper, and issue an apology for the insensitive comments. What will ultimately happen remains to be seen. In my opinion, Mr. Knepper should remember his comments regarding submission and acquaintance rape being an "incoherant concept" should he ever find himself at a party, under the influence of too much alcohol, and being led back to a strangers room for who knows what.

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Meet the Magazine of the Future

VIVmag released several videos of their new iPad application last week. The completely digital magazine was featured in The New York Times as a "taste of digital reading's future," but according to Sarah Perez many still had doubts of its cost.

Since VIVmag is already an online magazine, it was not hard for them to make the switch to video rather than just photos. Creating this digital content costs about as much as making a print issue, and the magazine has created reusable templates to speed up the process.

This video shows how VIVmag will create their interactive story


VIV Mag Interactive Feature Spread - iPad Demo from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.



Zinio, the magazine's distributor, will also be creating an iPad application for publishers that do not want to make their own. Through this app readers will be able to easily find and subscribe to different magazines through an online "newsstand".

VIVmag has definitely found a great way to keep readers interested with a flashy app, but will users pay for content like this?

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Student Columnist Under Fire

Alex Knepper, sophomore at American University, wrote an article on the way women will attend a "frat party" and then in the end should not be saying anything about rape. He says that the women are indicating that they want sex if they attend and get drunk.


Many people have critized the article and are wanting the staff of the school paper to fire the student who wrote the article. The staff and editors are standing behind the student. While they do not nessarily agree with the article, they are against censoring the article. Many students seemed appauld by the column and the decision to publish it.


A group of students are delivering a list of demands to the staff and asking that the editors actually fire Knepper and make him apoligize. They will make fliers, signs and other means to show support against the article.

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Is Media Spin Wearing Thin?

Matt Lauer of NBC's "Today Show" sat down with President Obama at The White House yesterday for a wide-ranging interview.

Video of the interview was shown on this morning's "Today Show."

When asked about the political polarization of America, President Obama indicated the media is partly to blame and here's what he had to say:

Frankly, it gets spun up in part because of how the media covers politics, in the 24/7 news cycle, cable chatter and talk radio and the Internet and the blogs, all of which try to feed the most extreme sides of any issue instead of trying to narrow differences and solve problems.
I absolutely agree with President Obama! I think there is much more "sensationalism" in the news than true "journalism." I think the media puts too much spin on stories and doesn't delve deep enough for the truth; the important truth. I think they too often go for the wild and outragous to sell newspapers, magazines, etc. and don't report on the most important, meaningful issues affecting our country today. There's too much high drama reported in the news!

How about you? Do you think the media's spin is wearing thin?

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The Digital Age

Almost everywhere we go at any time you might find someone using a social networking site. Either in a computer lab or on their phone social networking is huge. What happens then when a government shuts down media and no longer allows news correspondence into the country to cover protests and violence? Well, we turn to social networking as a way to gather and disseminate information.





In Tehran, where violence and protests have been going on since June, local citizens have been using networks such as twitter and facebook in order to post live video and other information onto the web. The local government in Tehran has closed down all access from outside correspondence and have even kept local media personel contained in their news stations.
When there is a big clash between amatuer journalists and professional journalists this is a big case for why amateur journalism can be a good thing. How else would the world get video information? They wouldn't because they aren't locals with video cameras posting videos on the internet.
News nowadays should be an equal give and take between local non news affiliated citizens and news reporters. Locals are probobly more likely to open up to someone they know who has a video camera than a news reporter who wants to interview them. Also, by locals using social networking sites to display information there is non to little editing taking place from time of creation until posting. By not going through traditional means to display the news there is also not a bias as to what is shown and what wouldn't be shown. As we know reporting is supposed to show an unbiased side of an event, however we know that some news stations do edit their media for content and to maintain time limits. When locals film things such as what is happening in Tehran we see hard unedited footage of the life as a person living in these troubled areas.

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