The News About The News

Palin preps for debate

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

By: Erin Floro

Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin met with world leaders on Tuesday, September 23. These included Afghan President Karzai, Colombian President Uribe, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. She was preparing herself for the upcoming debate next week with the Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden.

At least five U.S. news networks protested the fact that she would not let them sit in on the meetings. She also refused to take any questions from journalists. In meeting with these dignitaries, Palin was trying to prove that she is comfortable and can handle herself in these situations dealing with foreign policy.

The Democrats are trying to draw attention to her inexperience in foreign relations. However the Republicans defend Palin, that she is no different than Reagan and Clinton who also prepped themselves with international leaders.

Palin herself, even though she is being attacked for lack of knowledge in international affairs, feels confident that she is ready for the job of Vice President.

Chrysler and GM's eco-friendly investments don't look promising

By: Kathryn Lisk

As gas prices continue to soar, the features people seek in a new car have shifted immensely. People care less about the convenience of SUVs and more about gas mileage. Americans continue to buy into the foreign car industry because the Toyota Prius simply can't be beat by any American car.

It seems Chrysler is ready to stand up to the challenge. They have designed vehicles that still have the convenience of an SUV or the luxury of a sports car without the gas price. Tom LaSorta, president for Chrysler, unveiled their plan to release three electric cars, including one resembling their current mini van, a four-door Jeep Wrangler, and a Dodge sports car by 2010 that will run exclusively on a lithium-ion battery.

Chrysler is not the first company to bring these ideas to the table. General Motors has already released information on the Chevy Volt, which is also scheduled for 2010 and will run exclusively on battery, as well.

Chrysler and GM are both praying that releasing eco-friendly vehicles will be exactly what the public has been waiting for. But is it?

The Chevy Volt is currently priced around $40,000, which is a little expensive for a family looking to save money from gas prices. Plus, most cars within this price range are faster and obviously don't need to be charged every 400 miles. This makes long road trips inefficient and difficult.

Not to mention that neither company has formally contracted someone to produce the lithium-ion batteries. Producing this product on a large scale has never been done before and will be a challenge for either corporation to find someone who can do it by 2010.

I was very happy to see that American car companies were trying to go green, but I don't think 2010 will be a shifting point for GM or Chrysler. It is definitely a step in the right direction, but it looks as though America hasn't found the answer to the energy crisis yet.

Fake news story

By: Jessica Hamell

Writers from the Los Angeles Times are suing ex-subscribers because they “failed to appreciate our bodacious journalism and recklessly canceled their subscriptions.” they are suing 425,000 of the ex-subscribers.

A piece of the lawsuit states, “By recklessly canceling their subscriptions, these morons have caused irreparable harm to the newspaper, breached their civic duty to stay fully informed, and missed some totally awesome articles by Pulitzer Prize-winning auto columnist Dan Neil, as well as money-saving Sunday coupons that could easily offset the subscription price.”

It isn’t fair to sue these people because they don’t know for sure what their reason for cancelling was. You can’t prove that every one of those 425,000 people cancelled just because they didn’t appreciate the writing.

Who would think of suing someone for not wanting to read your newspaper? If you have 425,000 people cancel their subscriptions you must be doing something wrong.

The lawsuit is seeking damages of $2.99 a week.

I am pretty sure this is a fake story because is comes from The Fake L.A. Times Web page. This somewhat shows that you can’t believe everything that is written.

This Web page has established itself as untrustworthy by the stories it writes which are just to amuse the readers.

Journalist's Display of Tact Refreshing

By: Sarah Harl

Over the last few weeks, it has been no secret that the economy has encountered its most difficult stage since the Great Depression. It has caused a financial crisis of epic proportions. But one place where you won't find words of doom and despair is the printed pages of a newspaper.

Not wanting to cause panic or rash decisions by readers, journalists at many newspapers across the country have refrained from using language that would cause panic among their readers--words such as "crash" or "failure".

This is not to say that journalists are not accurately and harshly reporting on the shortcomings of many of the financial institutions in the US. Nor are they downplaying the current economic status of the country.

Instead, many journalists have consented to the fact that they are not, in fact, financial experts, and realizing the weight of some of the articles they write with everyday Americans.

It is the job of a journalist strictly to report the news and what is happening. Not to convince people to move around their money or pull out of the stock market. That job belongs to professionals who are frantically working to minimize the damage of this economic downfall.

A display of journalists remembering what their job is, as opposed to trying to offer advice they have no expertise in giving is refreshing, and will help to keep panic to a minimum. And if panic is kept to a minimum, we will be able to recover from this period of time hopefully on slightly worse for the wear.

How old are you again?

By: Jessica Hartgers

A 37 year old woman has been arrested for allegedly having sex with a 15 year old boy. Shannon Rew of Indianola was turned into the police by her mother who was fed up with the whole situation, later Rew admitted to having romantic feelings for the boy.

Rew is being charged with 12 counts of third-degree sex abuse after having a sexual relationship with the boy that lasted approximately two months. Rew is also being charged with dissemination and exhibition of obscene material to minors and admitting minors to premises where obscene material is exhibited.

The day after the Indianola police got the call from Rew's mother, the police and local news crews showed up at Rew's place of work which happens to be a day care in Indianola. In the background of several interviews held at the day care there are children playing outside on the playground. The news crews should have chosen a different location to use as a background for their interviews, young innocent children should not have been in the news at all.

In fact, the local news stations should not have even shown up at the day care. The 15 year old boy Rew was having sexual relations with was in no way connected to the day care, yet the journalists made it seem that way.

News reporters and journalists held out this major detail until the very end of the story to keep the viewers attention and to keep them tuned into their channel. The way the journalist reported this story on television was a sneaky way around the truth.

Gay news is great news

By: Kayla Miller

Of course, we all have a tendency to make sure we are up-to-date with the latest news of the celebrities. Especially those who are gay. I mean, of course, it is juicy gossip when you hear that Clay Aiken came "out of the closet" to People Magazine.

I can hear it already, friend to friend, "Did you know that Clay Aiken is gay and has a baby?" Most people had a clue about his sexuality way back from when he won American Idol. But now it is finally real news when it comes out into the public and makes the topic of conversations.

How does the media know what kind of stories bring in viewers? Do they ever think that they are invading Aiken's space? Well, by the looks of it, Aiken wanted people to know by saying, "I cannot raise a child to lie or hide things." And according to People Magazine, they wanted the world to know, too, because of course... gay news is great news.

Wall Street for dummies

By: Gabe Gilson

There are many newspapers out there for a college student to read. Of course, any student would like to read the local student published paper, or maybe the city run paper. As a college student, I cannot be sure how another student my age could read The Wall Street Journal for more than five minutes.

Over the past few weeks, I have tried and tried to keep up with the newspaper. It seems as if one would have to have multiple degrees from Harvard or Yale just to understand the topics of some of the articles.

And while not everything is that confusing, inapprehensive and downright befuddling, how can a newspaper come out without even a sports section? Is this not unconstitutional? Yes, this may be the business man’s paper but, would you not want to know a few scores here and there?

U.S.A. Today has become my favorite nationally published newspaper. When reading this particular publication, one can find out everything you ever needed to know in the sporting world as well as the news about the $100 billion tax break passed by the Senate, or about Clay Aiken coming out of the closet, or even information about business that The Wall Street Journal could provide.

So here is my proposal to The Wall Street Journal: make a daily edition of the paper entitled The Wall Street Journal for dummies. This is why it would work. The writers that would be hired could be just people that got C’s in college rather than A’s. The reading audience would be much larger because America has become stupid (watch Idiocracy anybody that argues). There could be an entire section that defines those hard vocabulary words in the big boy Wall Street Journal
of that day.

So why not Wall Street? Why not make my day and publish a newspaper for those who were not the valedictorians of their respective high schools. Hell, why not a paper for those who do not have to use spell checker to spell valedictorian? Just a thought.

Blogs are media

By: Alex Jones

Blogs are becoming more popular among today's Web-surfers. 77.7 million people in the U.S. visit blogs each day and Along almost 1 million posts per day are made. Blogs are even being compared in relevancy to the New York Times.

With the growing number of viewers, blogs are slowly being transformed into a source of media. They are providing lots of people with information that is credible for them. Not only is blogging a way to get information to a large audience it can also be a way of earning an income.

Attract 100,000 viewers and you could be looking at a $75,000 paycheck per year. Blogging is a simple and effective way to get your points heard. You no longer have to be a serious journalist to have people listen to your opinions, perhaps why blogging is so popular?

First Amendment Doesn't Protect Poor Choices

By: Kelsey Knutson

According to FOX news an 11-year-old boy was suspended from school after he refused to take off an anti-Obama shirt. Daxx Dalton walked into school Monday sporting his "red, white, and blue," however he did so in tasteless fashion.

Dalton was given the option of turning his shirt inside-out or being suspended from school - the 5th grader chose to be suspended.

The FOX article suggests how Dalton's father was upset about his son being suspended, and how Dalton and his father both agree that they are taking away his right to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech or not, how in the world does any parent allow their child to leave for school in a shirt like that?

Over the course of time the media has gotten away with outrageous print and accusations towards people in society. Our culture as changed and allowed people (even fifth graders) to test the boundaries and limits set up in society that are actually set in place to protect them. The "freedom of the press" and therefore "freedom of speech" issues have trickled down into our everyday lives.

We now have parents who think it's okay to let their kids go to school with homemade t-shirts bashing a particular individual - and then say that it is considered "patriotic."

Where are the parents, where are the rules, and where is the respect?

What we do for a story

By Kellie Green

Governor Sarah Palin has been big news ever since Senator John McCain named her his Vice President running mate. The media keeps coming up with more news about her for citizens to read. However, when does it just become to much?

I know last week in my blog I talked about how I wanted more. Now I am contradicting myself. In going over an article in Journalism.org , I found an interesting story on Governor Palin. It was talking about Palin's religious views and how they can and might affect the votes.

We have heard almost anything and everything about Governor Palin but the media keeps coming up with more. I am not a support of Governor Sarah Palin but I still don't think that she should have things, like their religious views, strung out through the papers.

In the article, it talked about how a journalist reported in World Magazine about Palins views on religion and how she expresses them. Religion is a big thing in our country but is it what makes a person who they are?

Seeing all the stories being posted about Governor Palin I thought this was the most interesting because it is basically saying that her religion is what is going to swing people's votes. Which may be true. However, shouldn't our society be focusing on what she is wanting to change or do if she holds office.

New change of topic

By: Lexie Hagerty

In the campaign coverage index on Journalism.org, there was an article about how economics has become the new topic for the campaign. The article focuses on how it took a meltdown on Wall Street for anyone to notice that the candidate's views and ideas to help the economy might make or break their campaign.

I personally love the article and am glad someone has finally pointed out that the elections are getting off track.

It is not necessarily society's fault, however. Society learns of the elections through the media. The campaign article said that the Wall Street story is only the second time this year that an event other than the compaign emerged to the no. 1 topic of the week.

Thus, the media should quit focusing on Barack Obama's race and Sarah Palin's sex and instead inform our nation about important issues like the economy and the financial crisis that could take place.

10 years of music reporting

Monday, September 22, 2008

By: Sara Crouse

Reporting today is about getting the facts fast. Its about getting the facts accurate though too. Breaking news is perhaps the hardest to get accurate, but reliable sources can be a reporter’s best option. One TV station, MTV, dedicated a show to getting the facts straight about new music.

Total Request Live, (TRL), is a commonly known MTV show that focuses on world-premier music videos and artist commentary on CD releases. How else would the public comprehend what the latest Miley Cyrus song is truly about? TRL provides fans with direct interviews to get the latest on Miley and many more A-list stars.

The show dedicates itself to not only showing the latest videos/interviews, but also the most popular ones. This concept of viewer voting was relatively ground breaking when TRL started 10 years ago. A viewer having the option to pick their Top 10 videos perhaps limits the public’s accessibility to a range of music though. What if the nightly news were done in the same format?

Instead, the American public relies on reporters to pick the Top 10 news stories of the day. Reporters are perhaps more credible than the everyday man in the street. Reporters strive to bring us ‘news’ and educate the public.

Whether TRL reporters are credible is debatable, but they have left an impression on the music world. The zany interviews with some of the past decade’s most famous celebrities are unforgettable. Such interviews have pushed viewers a step closer into the world of musicians.

With TRL’s recent cancellation, music lovers will have to decipher the best new music on their own. Reporters won’t be available to help us understand the latest love songs on the radio. We’ll have to become our own reporter.

As N’SYNC would have said 10 years ago, “Its tearin’ up my heart” that we’ll have to become conscious of our music tastes.

Editing does make a difference

By: Shauna Agan

When visiting Lincoln High School in Des Moines, I came across a copy of The Railsplitter, a student-ran newspaper. I haven’t read this newspaper forever and wanted to see what was new at my former school, so I decided to pick up a newspaper.

From what I have been taught already, I saw a lot of things in the paper that can and should be changed in the writings, but of course these students may not have learned proper techniques to writing yet beings they are still in high school. What disturbed me, though, were the inaccuracies and contradictions in the sports section.

As a former softball player for Lincoln, I decided to look at the softball article wrapping up last season’s results. The article said, “A key highlight of the game was Junior Courtney Ghee’s three run homerun which made the final score 2-1”.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if Ghee hit a three run homer, shouldn’t the final score have been 3-1? A little bit of simple editing would have caught this mistake.

Next, I read an article about the varsity football team. The article said that the sophomore team last year had a record of 7-1. However, right after stating this, a quote from football player Devon Miller says, “Our sophomore year we went 0-8”.

Now, either the writer completely messed up the record of last year’s sophomore team, or he was referring to a different class and did not clarify the distinction to the readers.

While I understand that these students are still in high school and have a lot of room for improvement in their writing, the editor or even the teacher in charge should have caught these errors. Maybe a little extra time editing before sending the paper to print wouldn’t hurt.

Media outlets also struggle during economy downfall

By: Taylor Browning

As the economy takes a turn for the worse, everyone relies on newspapers, the Internet, and television to get their facts. Due to this reliance it would seem newspapers would be booming with profits, but in reality they are also at a downfall.

Companies are cutting back on advertisement spending in order to save money, which is taking away from newspaper's income. Along with the accessibility of the Internet, it is difficult for these newspapers to make back the money they are losing through empty advertisement space.

Newspapers are now subject to budget cuts as well as laying off employees due to their shortfall of money. Altering newspaper layouts and cutting out 'unnecessary columns' such as fashion and opinion columns to shorten their paper is becoming an alternative to help money issues.

While insurance and banking companies are receiving billions of dollars in loans to keep afloat, many other niches of businesses are not receiving the financial help they may need. Newspapers are the ones informing us about the economic turmoil, while feeling the burn they initially report about.

Time for change

By: Adrian Aitken

Web logging is a trend which spread through the country like wildfire. Anyone can do it from anywhere in the world and can also be viewed by anyone everywhere. Today though what is the point?

True many blogs give exclusive information about items people care about yet countless more don't. Finally the fire has reached the tops of the trees and the celebrities have joined the blogger's ranks. Paris Hilton for instance has recently posted about her latest promotional trip to Europe. This really seems unnecessary and distracting in the media world.

On the other hand not all celebrity blogs are bad. Bono for instance has recently started a new posting. It is not filled with which shirt he decided to buy today, but rather the post informs people of an international peace conference from an inside reporters view.

Blogs need to have a purpose beyond random tidbits of useless information and more regulation. Now I'm certainly not saying blocking people from blogging, but separate it into different categories. For example, a blog about sports where a guarantee of seriousness in facts is present could be called a splogg.If everyone "Blogs" it will lose its meaning much like saying a word out loud over and over.

NBC.com & CNBC.com reach new heights

Sunday, September 21, 2008

By: Katie Anthony

As a firm believe of "every negative holds a positive," I searched long and hard for the positive of the Wall Street misfortune.

The best I could come up with is that CNBC's website hit new heights of "abnormal" customer usage that Monday of the Wall Street crash. I suppose someone has to benefit, right?

The Wall Street drama brought a new number of "abnormal" (non-frequent) users to CNBC's website. Their new total of "abnormal" users reached to 1 million. Which is a 26 percent increase from the previous site's best.

Not only was the Wall Street trouble what helped CNBC hit a new peak, Tina Fey's "Saturday Night Live" Sarah Palin impression was posted on their other Website, which also made iTunes' rating soar as well as many people downloaded the Palin impression.

Within four days of the Fey video being posted on NBC, it had reached a new height of 5.7 million views, and it's still growing.

I think this shows that while a lot of people are concered with the issues on Wall Street and what the latest poll shows on the race for the office, many people are also taking a few minutes to lighten their day by laughing at the numerous puns throw to Palin from Fey.

If you haven't seen the impression yet, I urge you to catch up on Wall Street and follow up with a few laughs from Tina Fey as Sarah Palin.

Media & Conflict

Saturday, September 20, 2008

By: Pat Tierney

This past week I had the opportunity to hit the McCain Palin campaign trail during their mid-west tour. One of their largest rallies, was right here in Iowa, at an airport hanger in Cedar Rapids.

Having a photography background really makes me key into the press pool photographers. This Cedar Rapids event was no different. The rally started off with the excited cheers of a couple thousand McCain and Palin supporters. After only 10 minutes though the domineer changed.

From the back corner, right in front of one of the largest media platforms, a girl jumped on a man's shoulders and started yelling in protest as Sen. McCain was giving his speech. Sen. McCain calmly ignored the taunting but the press did not.

As if wild wolves on a pack of sheep, all cameras focused on this girl. Photographers we're scrambling around the press area to get that "shot."

That "shot" was taken over and over again, as Sen. McCain tried to continue his speech. As I was standing there surrounded by press, my mind couldn't help but think about the media's obsession with conflict.

Time and time again the public has seen the headlines that scream about conflict. Conflict sells papers, it attacks viewers, and will get reader attention. Some may say that the protester at the McCain Palin rally was or wasn't the biggest news from the event. But there's no questions about it - that the media had it covered all over.

The world of journalism.

By: Sarah Keller

At our Simpsonian meeting last Monday a Simpson Alumni, who is now an editor for The Record Herold and Indianola Tribune, came and spoke to our class about his job and the world of journalism.

Something that he said which really stuck out in my mind was that today's papers are about 40 percent news and 60 percent advertisements. It used to be that news papers were about 50/50 or even 60 percent news and 40 percent advertisements. This statement just reinforces what we have talked about in class about the subject of a reader only giving a few seconds to an article, things in today's fast past society need to to be short and informative. One web site showing support of the statement that newspapers have more advertisements than news is the popular site slate.com, where there are advertisements on the top and the side margins

Another thing that the editor spoke of that I really enjoyed was regarding the subject of jobs in journalism. Many people in the classes have blogged about how it is impossible to get a job in journalism in the world today. However, according to the editor who spoke to our class last week, when his newspaper is looking for people to hire, they look for people with experience; but they also look for new young talented adults who can write stories well and fast. This could be any number of students in our class.

The last thing that the editor spoke of that I would like to share is about the importance of the inverted pyramid, which we have been discussing in class. He said that it is necessary to use the inverted pyramid about 90 percent of the time, and it is an important thing to know in the field of journalism.

It disappoints me a little bit that news in today's society has to be very short and to the point, and that there is more room for advertisements than news itself. But that is what society wants today, and I believe that journalist are doing a great job of meeting these requirements.

Journalists criticizing movie critic journalists

Friday, September 19, 2008

By: Hannah Pickett

In a recent entertainment article I read criticizing movie critics was journalistically interesting. The MSN writer was criticizing movie critics in general. Aren't movie critics just journalists who form opinions about blockbuster movies?

The MSN writer discusses three main criticisms of the movie critic profession.

1. They have the dream job--getting to see movies before everyone else. 2. The "geezer syndrome" saying that the current critics have been around since the beginning of time. She goes on to suggest that they shouldn't allow critics over the age of 30. 3. They have no respect for the superhero movies. 4. Lighten up. The writer thinks that movie critics need to realize they aren't criticizing Shakespeare, but rather modern writing and acting.

The MSN writer believes that we are the true movie critics-bloggers. Movie critics for print and broadcast are a thing of the past.

If a journalist specializing in criticizing movies' job is becoming obsolete, when will other journalism professions follow?

In a nutshell, the MSN writer thinks that because of her view of the average movie critic's age, movies don't get the reviews they deserve. Would this be considered age discrimination?

You think of age discrimination in the professions that are in the spotlight. A journalist to end his/her career at the age of 30 because they are considered "ancient" in the industry is insane. Movie critics are just journalists publishing their opinions on a film.

In the journalism world, how old is 'too old'?

It's their right

By: Jessica Hartgers

Protesters heckle Sarah Palin, vice presidential candidate, in Cedar Rapids, IA while delivering a speech on Thursday.

Palin stood her ground during the verbal attack and waited for the protesters to be removed. McCain supporter and interpreter for the hearing impaired, Donna Carroll, said that the protests did not bother her either and agrees with their rights to speak their minds saying, "All I can say is, praise the Lord they can do that in this country, it's their right."

The protesters of this rally have the right to speak their mind, however the government has restrictions on political speech regarding time, place, and manner. These protesters violated this restriction and were removed for the event without punishment. After several minutes of protests, the rest of the crowd rallied behind Palin with shouts of "USA."

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