The News About The News

Catholic priest honored by Jewish paper

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

By: Erin Floro

The Forward, a national Jewish newspaper, included a catholic priest, Rev. Paul Ouderkirk of Postville, in its annual list of 50 most influential people in Judaism. The list usually includes only Jews.

Ouderkirk was honored for his work with former workers of Agriprocessors Inc. In May, federal agents raided the company and 400 workers were arrested on illegal immigration charges. The company is the largest producer of kosher meat.

The 75-year-old retired priest, who speaks fluent Spanish, served the Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants who sought help after the raid. He aided workers and their families in obtaining food and shelter.

The editors of the paper considered the Agriprocessors controversy a top story in Judaism in 2008.

Health web sites

By: Lexie Hagerty

An article in the International Herald Tribune reported that the Kaiser Family Foundation is hoping to start their own Web site to cover the health issues that are being pushed aside by other media who's budgets are going down the drain.

The family thinks that even with the economic downturn, their website will succeed, because of the need to stay aware of all health related issues.

I think this is a good idea. The Kaiser Web site will be a good source for any person who wants to know the latest in any health issues. The Web site also hopes to be connected to other news organizations as well.

I think that with the frightening and sketchy health issues of today, it is important for anyone to stay connected to health news. It allows people to stay aware and what to look out for, especially in this winter season.

Plus, there are lots of things that people can do to prevent the spread of diseases. Hopefully, these new health Web sites will keep people updated and not push the issues aside.

Update your Web site!

By: Shauna Agan

Recently, an article on CNN.com was posted about the 25 best cities to find a job. Four of these cities were in Iowa. They were Ames, Iowa City, Des Moines, and Sioux City.

These figures were based on this year’s unemployment rate compared to last years and job growth.

Checking out DesMoinesRegister.com, there are many interesting articles, but none about this particular find.

It is surprising to me to find that a local newspaper that most of Iowa reads has not yet reported something this important. Four of the cities in Iowa are listed as top cities to find a job during tough economic times.

This is significant for Iowa. It shows that Iowa is doing something ‘right’ economically, but why hasn’t the Des Moines Register reported it yet?

As a local newspaper, one duty is to be aware of significant things such as these. Reporters should constantly be checking larger media outlets to make sure they have not missed anything significant.

If just one of the reporters had checked CNN.com, this story would be posted on the Web site of the Des Moines Register. Regardless of the fact that this story will more than likely appear in the Des Moines Register tomorrow, I believe it should have been reported on the Web site tonight.

This is big news for Iowa, but if Iowans follow local news via the Internet, this story is nowhere to be found. An update of the DesMoinesRegister.com Web site would be favorable.

Who cares?

Monday, November 24, 2008

By: Adrian Aitken

The Politico published a story about the extracurricular activities that Barack Obama partakes in. They focused on what Barack does during his Sunday mornings. According to the article the president elect has missed church the past few weeks to workout at the gym instead.

I don't understand this what so ever. Shouldn't the media be more focused on what our future has in store rather than Barack's religious habits. The article then compares Obama to President Bush.

Apparently George W. Bush has also missed a few services. I cant say for the publisher of the paper but I can forgive the president for being too busy to attend church. The Politico is being too shallow in reporting during such important times in America.

Hurricane Ike

By: Quinn Albrecht

In early September Hurricane Ike was approaching the Texas Coast in a hurry. News outlets were trying to figure out what they were going to do to keep people in the know about the breaking news.

They set up blog sites where people could post things and read up about new information about the up coming hurricane. Readership skyrocketed to new highs, sometimes even getting a million views per hour.

They also set up networks through cell phone blogging, so people could stay connected even if they did not have power. This picked up after the hurricane made landfall.

I think in the future more sites will be doing this 24/7 so that people can read the news where ever when ever. It wont take a natural disaster for them to gain the motivation to keep that up.

Newspaper standards

By: Taylor Browning

As I was searching through the Internet for my topic I fell off track with my short attention span onto some pretty outrageous headlines. One headline in particular was Pirates' luxury lifestyles on lawless coast.

With so much information a click away and the spectrum of news being reported, it is easy to see why newspapers are still holding on. The more I thought about it, well known newspapers have become a standard guideline for news reporting, even within their own online version.

There is no need to sort through the newspaper for 'meaningful' news because there aren't links, videos and other added things to draw the reader away from what is at the heart of the newspaper.

We talked in class how there are knock-off magazines of People Magazine, because they are a standard. Maybe newspapers don't have that much to worry about in the technological world if they keep setting the bar high and maintain their standard.

Code of Ethics

By: Kayla Miller

It's one thing to commit suicide. But it's different story when you post a video of your suicide on the internet. And of course this makes national news. Is this right?

CNNs Prime News reports that 19-year-old Abraham Briggs commits suicide live on Justin.tv last Wednesday. This suicide is now known to all viewers, and now I'm sure people aren't trying to look for the suicide video.

Is this ethical for journalists to make this national news? Think of Briggs's family. It is only making matters worse to have them know that their child's suicide is on television. I thought jouranlists were supposed to "show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage" according to the Harrower text.

To me, it is wrong to make it national news. I know if I had a child, I wouldn't want his suicide being known to everyone, even people they don't know. Next time maybe they should think twice before putting it on the air.

Best man for the job

By: Gabe Gilson

Kansas State University has made news again in College football for a recent decision that the University has made. Three years into the Ron Prince era of Wildcat football, they decided to let their coach go and hire back the man that brought the school the greatest amount of success, Bill Snyder.

Snyder was the coach that brought the program 136 wins over his 16 year hiatus. He is also a 69 year-old white man. Prince is a 39 year-old African-American and his firing made it so there are no African-American coaches out of the 119 Division-I football teams.

On Monday’s episode of Around the Horn on ESPN, Woody Paige who writes for the Denver Post said it was an awful idea for Kansas State to bring back Snyder without even interviewing any other candidates. He also said it would be smart for all football programs to have to interview at least one minority candidate for a position as the head coach.

The media has voiced its displeasure recently about the lack of diversity in college football coaching. While it does seem like an unfair problem, it seems as if it has been blown out of proportion lately. Most colleges try and hire the best man for the job, at least I would think. Until the African-American candidates become the best person for the job, this sad trend will continue.

Oh my God

By: Alex Jones

Where is God's place in the journalism world? For talk radio reporter it sure isn't on talk radio.

Carolyn Lewis a talk radio voice for "an especially churchy" audience was fired after a discussion about abortion. The conversation brought her to the conclusion that she was weary of anyone that claimed to know what God wanted people to do.

For something so minor, it is surprising that she was fired. Especially in a country that promotes free speech. So where does the news draw the line? Why is religion many times, the exception? Reporters are sometimes reluctant to cover religious controversial topics.

I believe in free speech and I also believe that no topic should be taboo, religion is no exception!

"Slow blogging" is a flop

By: Kathryn Lisk

Sharon Otterman from The New York Times wrote a story on Sunday about how today's blogging world is too fast-paced for its own good.

Slow blogging, which was inspired from the slow food movement, argues that quality writing can take time. Just like fast food, which can be consumed occasionally yet isn't healthy on a regular basis, immediate blogs shouldn't be the only form of news for readers.

Slow bloggers said they take their time with what they write and can spend a month or more in between blogs. They said writers from Web sites like Huffington Post, who publish up to 50 entries a day, aren't thorough enough with their work.

I understand the phenomenon of slow blogging and respect writers who examine their work and add artistic style. But little is achieved from a few bloggers fighting against others who post their thoughts on the internet faster.

Writing about breaking news a month later makes the story entirely irrelevant.

Furthermore, how is this issue any different than the way stories are written in newspapers? Regardless of how fast a blogger posts, news will continue to unfold. Faster blogs just mean faster news for the public. Where's the problem?

Spiders and grapes.

By: Sarah Keller

Spiders, I absolutely hate them. I do not know what it is about them that scare me so much, if it is the way they look and all of those legs that come crawling toward me. Or if it is the fact that there are some poisonous spiders out there that could possibly bite me and kill me, though very unlikely. Whatever the reason is, I know that I hate them.

When I was looking on the internet the other day I came across an article about one of my favorite things; grapes, and one of my least favorite things; spiders. I decided to look further and read the article to see what it was about.

The article was an opinion piece by Geoff Williams from Wallet Pop. Williams talked about a woman who bought grapes from Costco, and was washing them and found a spider in them. The woman did research on the spider to find out what kind of spider it was. It turned out that the spider was a black widow, one of the most deadly spiders there are.

After reading the article it made me realize that I really should wash my fruit out before eating it like I was always told to do, but never chose to actually do. You never know what you will find in your fruit so you should be careful. The article talked about how it is more common than people may realize to find a spider in your fruit.

I think the article did a nice job of supporting both the woman’s anger at Costco for finding a deadly spider in her grapes, and a nice job of supporting Costco’s side by talking about how the grapes are organic and natural, not dripping with pesticides, because if they were the spider would have been dead. Also you cannot expect the store to thoroughly check every grape. Luckily for the lady and everyone else who may come across a black widow, the journalist said that no one had been killed by a black widow since the 1960’s. The article definitely made me think twice about cleaning fruit before eating it; I don’t want to be the one to eat my biggest fear in my favorite fruit.

The headlines that shouldn't be

Sunday, November 23, 2008

By Austin Bates

As I scanned the headlines concerning news behind the news, I came across one very short, very simple post that pointed out something very simple about a fairly simple headline: was anyone thinking about this before it was printed? The headline in question read "Ruler can't measure Johnson's impact."

Now, I'm sure that more than a few people will read that headline and think nothing of it, and when they see the snickers around them, might honestly shrug their shoulders in confusion. But chances are that the majority of those who read the headline will instantly think of something quite different and involuntarily burst into laughter at a very poorly worded headline.

In all reality, badly worded headlines of that kind of magnitude are fairly rare. Yet enough crop up from time to time for comedians to make a living off of them. Case in point, Jay Leno's "headlines" skit that he performs every Monday night on "The Tonight Show".

My point in all of this is this: how do headlines like these make it to final print without somebody stopping it and saying, "Wait a minute, you think this is appropriate?" All they would really need to do is show the headline to a young adult, and if the headline elicits a snicker or a laugh out of them when it wasn't supposed to, you know you wrote something the wrong way. In the end, the publisher of said headline could avoid quite a bit of embarrassment.

A change for the season

By: Lexie Hagerty

I am sitting at my computer and listening to Christmas music. I love Christmas music and find that in any setting, it helps me get in to the Christmas mood.

Next, I look at my TV, where I am learning how to make the perfect Christmas meal for that anticipated holiday morning.

During the commercials, "The Twenty-five Days of Christmas" along with Christmas sales and specials are being advertised.

I get out my daily newspaper and check out the funnies, all associated with the holidays.

What is my point? My point is that in my last few blogs, I have done nothing but critique the media for its views and its way of doing things.

This time, however, I am not in the mood to do so. After all, it is the holidays and nothing is on my mind but the Christmas spirit and delightful snow days.

At this point, I want to commend the media for instilling this delight and this Christmas spirit into my everyday life. Even though, the media is everywhere and can influence anyone at any time, it is times like these, where I don't think that is such a bad thing. Thank you!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Religion, politics, and the media

Saturday, November 22, 2008

By: Katie Anthony

Everyone knows that in the election, religious affiliation was a strong deciding factor with many voters.

However I for one, did not realize how much of the media focus was on Barack Obama.

Overall, 53 percent of the total religion covered was spent on Barack Obama's affiliation-and pathetically enough, most of that number was spent covering the affiliation that isn't true.

John McCain and Sarah Palin combined only got a total of less than thirty percent.

President-elect Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim, and it saddens me to think about how much air time was wasted on false information and petty rumors.

And yet, perhaps that's what the media will focus on now-false information and petty rumors over certain candidates religious affiliations.

I think they could find something of a stronger benefit to fill that airspace with.

Who is writing what now?

By Liz Tjaden

To celebrate our Public Relations week before break, who better to recognize for her efforts than Angelina Jolie.

As she often appears in the spot light of celebrity gossip for a new movie role, philanthropy work, or news of another pregnancy, Jolie is shown in a typically positive light. (Disregard the years she was making out with her brother.)

In PR, the most important rule is to never lie. Turning bad situations into positive ones is a goal, but lying will only make things worse.

From adoption and giving birth, Jolie and husband Brad Pitt currently have six children. As the NY Times reports, Jolie and Pitt negotiated almost $14 million with People magazine this summer with pictures of their newborn twins.

Oh and...they also wanted to oversee the journalistic aspect of what was printed about them and their family.

The ethics of this deal is something for an entire different blog. Looking at only the journalistic aspect, who is now writing our news?

Obviously, nothing incredibly dire pertaining to our everyday lives comes from celebrities or can be found in People but it still puts a damper on the whole “hard working journalist” thing.
Who needs us around if we throw people a pad and pencil and tell them to write their own damn news?

It’s just sad that this is what it is coming to: needing to sell magazines rather than report the news.

Write it right

By: Erin Floro

Editing, proofreading, spellchecking are each important tasks when journaling.

A spokeswoman for the city of Des Moines, Amelia Hamilton-Morris, was reminded of this last week. She sent a press release to several dozen media types using a misspelled word. When referring to a dam on the Des Moines River, she called it a damn.

She quickly sent an apology for the oversight. This just reminds us again the importance of looking over your work. Even in a professional setting, mistakes happen.

Exanding growth in hard times

By: Lexie Hagerty

BusinessWeek reported that Facebook is continuing to push growth even with the economic downturn.

This strategy seems ligitimate, but differs from other social networks like Myspace. The article said that Myspace has "dialed back on growth to focus on profits."

Facebook, on the other hand, is making small changes to fuel growth in order to gain ground on their competition.

I am not sure how I feel about this. I think it is great that they are taking risks, but it isn't probably all that smart.

However, Facebook said that they have quite a bit of income that they can risk losing in order to grow. In that case, it is their money and any risks they want to take is their choice.

Who knows, it might turn out to be a really good decision.

Journalistic ethics: Do they exist?

Friday, November 21, 2008

By: Hannah Pickett

Two weeks ago, the newspaper I write for published a leading front page story titled "It's an Obama Nation!" regarding President elect Obama's nomination. The article centered around my editor's political Republican-based views.

One week after the article was published, a former Winterset resident wrote a letter to the editor expressing her disgust with the article's content saying that such a biased piece of work combined with the lack of taste in the headline belonged on the opinion page, rather than being passed off as fact on the front page. In her letter, she also mentioned that she was in attendance at Grant Park in Chicago when Obama gave his speech election night.

My editor chose to use her eyewitness experience only when publishing the letter to the editor, leaving out her sentiments of disgust with the paper.

After seeing this, the woman decided to purchase an ad space to express her frustration with the paper and to print her letter to the editor-unedited. The publisher heard about it and edited her ad space. Since it was an ad, a proof was sent to her and needless to say she was very upset.

After much arguing between the publisher, the woman-who turned out to be a corporate attorney, and the paper's lawyers, the decision was made to just not run the ad at all. The publisher would only run it if he could cut all the bad stuff about the paper from it, and the woman didn't want that.

I realize that the publisher and editor have the final say on what is printed and what is not, but my question is about ethics. Newspapers are supposed to have integrity and some type of work ethic. Regardless of your political standing, where was the sense of ethics when my editor decided to cut this woman's letter to the editor to serve his own needs? Is there any type of law or punishment for editing a letter to the editor or editing the content of a paid ad space?

Free Expression Tunnel

By: Katie Schaefer

Graffiti is never something that I have got into, but for some it's a way of life. Some have grown up in parts of towns where all a person does is write on walls with spray paint.

At N.C. State University an incident occurred dealing with just that: spray painting. Four students painted racist messages on the Free Expression Tunnel on campus. Racism is already not a good thing, but the messages were specifically about Barack Obama.

The First Amendment states that we have the right to free speech, but how far is too far to stretch this Amendment?

The Supreme Court ruled that when yelling fire in a crowded theater a person is not at fault when there actually is a fire. If there is no fire, then that is where the problem and Oliver Wendell Holmes comes in.

Going back to the racist comments, though, why would people say and paint these things on the wall? Obviously they are probably thinking these thoughts, but what good is it going to do when they are spray painted on a wall?

It's not going to make the remarks more hurtful. I don't know what the students were thinking when they proceeded to write the comments, but maybe they thought by writing them it was going to cause more pain to Obama.

Let the bashing begin

Thursday, November 20, 2008

By; Sarah Keller

It is inevitable, comedians are going to be on the lookout for Obama to screw up, to say something or do something dumb or embarrassing. Then the comedians will start cracking jokes about him and never let him live it down. It may take a little more time to find something to make fun of with Obama than with previous presidents, but comedians are pretty sure that it will happen sooner or later, and once it does they will be relentless.

According to an article from MSNBC, it talked about how comedians are going to start looking for jokes to crack about the president. I think that it is sad that comedians are anticipating making fun of the president of the United States. Why must comedians bash our president?
According to the article they believe that it is going to be more difficult to find good material about Obama because he is well educated, and speaks very properly and wisely. It was easier to make fun of past presidents because of things such as Clinton and Monica, or just the fact that Bush said and did really dumb things.

“ When Barack Obama officially takes over on Jan. 20, he will not only assume duties involving the economy, health care, national security and many others, he will also be given the solemn task of providing this nation’s wisenheimers with stuff at which to make cracks,” the article said. I think its unfortunate that this type of thing happens, but the article is correct it will happen sooner of later, no matter how unimportant or immature I believe it to be.

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