journal 4

Quotes

For this weeks journal I chose an article from The Chicago Tribune called “More Youngsters Having Unsafe Sex: Global Study”, and from The Guardian called “Striking California Nurses Return to Work as Patient Death Raises Tension”. Both of the articles have extremely different subject matter and use quotes in very different ways. Both articles use quotes from only two people. In one situation I think it worked, however in the other story the lack of quotes made the article less less successful.

The article in The Guardian was about a death that occurred during the nurses strike in Oakland CA. when a fill in nurse accidentally over-dosed a patient. The nurses were only supposed to be on strike for 24 hours but when they attempted to come back to the hospital after the 24 hour period security guards turned them away. During this time the nurses were being turned away the patient died. The quotes came from Dr. Steve Brian head of medical affairs, and one of the nurses who was boycotting and then was denied access to the hospital upon returning. I didn’t feel there was a person to really make sense of the news. One quote was defending the hospitals decisions to keep the nurses away, the other was blaming the hospital for the death of the patient. The article never explained a clear reason for turning the nurses away when they tried to return and the quotes just seemed to point fingers at the opposing sides. I also thought it would have been nice to have a quote from Ming’s family, the women who died. 

     The other article was about a recent survey that the World Contraceptive Day Committee sent all over the world to find out if adolescents were practicing safe sex. The answers were pretty astonishing in that the number of young people who are not practicing safe sex has risen tremendously. This article only took quotes from two people as well, but I thought it was much more successful than the article prior. The quotes came from a member of World Contraceptive Day, as well as a woman who works for Planned Parenthood. The woman working for Planned Parenthood helped to make sense of the news as she deals with adolescents on a day-to-day basis that aren’t practicing safe sex, and she sees the consequence of this problem. Although it may have been nice to hear from some young people who admittedly don’t use contraception when having intercourse ,I didn’t think it was necessary in this article because the information that they accumulated and discussed in their surveys was from the point of view of these young people and was discussed clearly. The journalist was able to include the point of view in a poignant way without directly quoting them. 

 
     I never realized how quotes can really make or break an article. I talked last week about political news, and how it is often very hard to follow. I think a major reason for this has to do with the quotes coming directly from the political source, and the lack of quotes coming from the “Sense-maker.” 

Work Study

Students Greatly Affected by Cutbacks in Work Study

By Jolie Peters

New York, Ny--The Students at The New School have been greatly affected by the lack of job opportunity and cutbacks in the work study program which occurred at the beginning of this fiscal aid year thanks to cuts made in the congressional budget package. 

  

Rumors were surfacing around the school that the work study program had been cut entirely because it was becoming increasingly hard to find jobs. The program still exists, however due to decrease in money provided for the program the job opportunities have decreased as well. 

“I applied to a variety of places through the school however no one returned my phone calls or responded to my applications. I was told to look elsewhere for a job. What I didn’t understand was how in an economy like the one we are currently facing our school could just assume an outside job will hire a college student. Between time I would have to take off for breaks, and days I wouldn’t be able to work because of my schools work load, I wouldn’t exactly be a perfectly dependable candidate for a regular job. The benefit of working through the schools work study program is the jobs are sensitive to the students needs,” said Olivia Scalise, a sophomore student at The New School. 

The job offerings ran out about a month ago. Students that were offered work study last year are automatically eligible again the following years. The new students are offered based on need. However, the jobs are a first come first serve basis so if a new student applies to a job and gets it the returning students must look elsewhere. Because the money decreased, The New School gave out less money to each department and therefore the departments had less job openings because they couldn’t afford to pay the same amount of people. 

“In the beginning of October we will be reassessing our aid. The students who have yet to use the work study money’s aid will be terminated. Then we will see who is still interested in working under the work study program. Students who are still interested in jobs will be given more money, and then it will be up to them to start their job search,” said Elliot Anderson the Assistant Director of Financial Aid at The New School. 

The reason it was so much easier to get jobs in the past few years was thanks to the work study act which occurred in 2009. The schools were given more fiscal aid by the government for campus based programs such as work study, perkins loans, and the federal opportunity grant. Although the money was allocated in 2009, some schools chose to split the aid in half and use some for the 2010/11 school year. The schools normally have the same base amount of money for campus based programs year after year. They are given another amount which is determined yearly by the congressional budget package and is subject to fluctuation. 

FAFSA does have some hand in determining how much schools will get for these programs. A student’s FAFSA profile determines the financial need of the student which allows the schools to determine their eligibility for work study. Also, by looking at FAFSA profiles, FAFSA is able to determining the financial need of a student body as a whole. They can then allocate more money for programs, such as work study, to schools who have a large body of students in need. 

“If the school does not receive more money because their student body is of a higher socio-economic status, but they still have students that need loans and aid, they are able to offer one of the other campus based loan programs to the said student. FAFSA is only responsible for 70% of the work study money, the other 30% is provided by the school. When the government passes a lower budget, we do everything we can to work with the school and accommodate the students in need” said Jane Glickman a public affairs specialist for FAFSA. 

Students can check back on Collegecentral.com/newschool at the beginning of next semester to see the new job opportunities that may have opened up. 

Journal 3

For the past few weeks I have been noticing the different techniques journalists use depending on what publication they are writing for. It is clear that there is a fine line between a healthy level of skepticism and cynicism. I have found that it is often hard to detect when there is a healthy level of skepticism and not as hard when an article is downright cynical.  

While emerging myself in all of these news websites I have noticed the bar set for quality news tends to fluctuate depending on the site. For example, The New York Times has their bar set very high when it comes to the quality and content of their news. However, the news website Gawker does not seem to have the same goals with their articles. The stories on Gawker are often short, easy to read, humorous, and they appear to be geared towards a younger audience. It seems that when the bar for good news is set at a lower level, the line between skepticism and cynicism becomes completely blurred and sometimes non-existent. 

All of the articles that I have read on Gawker have a high level of skepticism and many of the articles reek with cynicism. One of the articles I chose this week was about students at a high school who made a sign for a basketball game reading, “You mad bro!?” The sign was said to be based on Cam’ron’s remarks towards Bill O’Reilly on the O’Reilly Factor. The episode of the show quickly became a Youtube phenomenon and the remarks (which included “you mad bro”) became a  running joke  among anyone who had seen the clip. The kids who had posted the saying on the sign got in trouble with the school for “racial intimidation”. If this article had been covered by The New York Times, which if it had would have been approached from a different angle, the story would have taken the matter very seriously. The Times would have remained neutral on the subject and no bias’s would have been easily detected. This is the closing remarks on the Gawker article,

“ it seems unlikely that the Kirtland students intended racial animus in the sign, though, high school students being racist? Stranger things have happened! (The kids will likely get punished anyway, for "lack of sportsmanship," or something.)” 

To say that this statement has a high level of skepticism would be an understatement. It is just about to fall over the boarder between skepticism and cynicism and plummet head first into cynicism’s side. Although this leans more towards cynicism, based on the other articles I read on Gawker this one seems to still be on the boarder. 

The other article I chose to examine was on Gawker as well. The story was about a congressmen who claims he spends two hundred thousand dollars a year on food for his family. I would hope that this statement would raise a level of skepticism in anyone. Gawker however took this statement and ran into the land of cynicism a hundred miles an hour. The article concludes with this quote,

“See? This guy's barely keeping his chin above water! He can even hold onto a lousy 600 grand without his enormous family of ravenous truffle addicts whittling it down to just $400,000. So how many kids does it take to consume four times the U.S. median household income in food each year? None. According to his bio, Fleming is "married to his wife Cindy for 30 years and the father of four adult children." 

Maybe he sends them each like 12 gourmet fruit baskets a day, every day.” Although this makes for a good read, this high level of cynicism takes away from the quality of the news article. In Gawkers case, this is fine because they are not trying to get a highly intellectual crowd returning to their site everyday to read their stories. At least this is what one can assume by reading anything on the website. Although I like Gawker, and I have it on my list for sites I will return to week after week, I think this style of writing raises some problems. 

If the reader is not approaching these articles with an open mind, their mind will be made up for them after reading the story. If I wasn’t looking at these articles and being critical of them, if I was just another young adult visiting Gawkers site and using it solely as my way of getting news, this could be a problem. These articles don’t give the reader a lot of room to take the information, digest it, and decide how they feel about what has been presented to them. I think that ability to make up my mind on what I’m reading is one of the main purposes of reading news in the first place. It allows for one to develop a healthy level of skepticism on their own, and by teaching them to have this skepticism they are able to approach situations in the real world the same way.

However, I also think it is important to have sites like these where news is easily accessible to young people. Nothing on this site is an intimidating read. Maybe if Gawker added a debate section where different journalists could post articles on the same matter, but approach them from different angles, it would help young people take more away from the stories they have read. The journalists could keep the same sense of humor and level of cynicism, however the reader would be getting the story from different sides. In order to make this work, Gawker would also need to raise the bar for “good” news, which doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. 

My List

The New York Times

The Gaurdian

The New York Times Magazine

Gawker

The Star Tribune

The Chicago Tribune

The Huffington Post

Politico

Food VS. Politics

        Considering the theory of the interlocking public, I am the poster child for the “involved public” when it comes to the food and dining section of any news chronicle. I’m not sure if it is my passion for food journalism, or just a plain fact that stories about food are just more interesting. Food is the one common thread that ties together every person on this planet; we all need it to survive. 

      In class we discussed the fact that a lot of news stories seem to leave out a certain group of people. Political news, for example, can be extremely intimidating and hard to follow for someone who suddenly decides to take up an interest in politics. It is typically for people that know the in’s and out’s of the government and can pick up any paper and know every Tom, Dick, and Harry that the article is describing. In my eyes however, whether or not you have a passion for food like myself  there is something relatable about about every article dealing with food because every person encounters food. I’m not talking about articles that state the proper way to brine a turkey, I’m talking about the larger issues we face with food today. 

      It is not just these two previous weeks of journalism class that has brought out my love in food journalism. Food articles have typically always rung true to me. There isn’t any political jargon. The articles typically have a clear motive that is backed up by a variety of facts. Food journalists tend to add a personal touch which ads a strong and interesting voice to the piece. 

      Just like a cheating boyfriend who you catch trying to hide something from you and then denies it, there has to be a reason that the boyfriend was hiding something in the first place. I compare political news in this case to a cheating boyfriend. Why exactly is it so hard to put all the clues together in these articles for the average reader? It could just be that the government is incredibly intricate and setting up the story with background information all the time would be impossible. However, policies within the food system are also intricate and the authors seem to be upfront with their motives in the opening paragraphs of their articles. This is why food journalism has not only earned my undivided attention, but my trust as well. 

     I have chosen to compare a political article with a food article for this weeks journal. Because we face enormous issues with our food system, and with our politics as well, it is important for any reader to be able to pick up a magazine or newspaper and understand one article just as well as another. However, I don’t feel this is always the case.

     POLITICO published an article called “Special House Elections a Moment of Truth for Dems.” The opening paragraph is, 

“A Republican win in Nevada’s GOP-friendly 2nd Congressional District was all but guaranteed even before polls closed. But Democrats were increasingly panicked at the prospect of a loss in New York’s 9th District, a strongly Democratic seat that should have been an easy hold. Missteps there by Democratic candidate David Weprin and defections by Jewish voters unhappy with President Barack Obama forced the national party to spend heavily in the closing days to hold former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s seat.”

       Whats a GOP-friendly 2nd Congressional District? Why would Democrats panic at the though of losing the 9th district seat? Why are the Jews unhappy with Obama? Some of this I can piece together, but not without a little trip to google to freshen up my memory and fill in the blanks. The entire article goes on like this. Jumping around between names I have never heard of, using terms and phrases unfamiliar to me, and never backing up any of these statements with some easily understandable background information.

       I went to a hippie-esque private school in Woodstock, New York that prided themselves on teaching self-esteem. Maybe in doing so they skipped out on teaching some core parts of the government. Maybe it’s just me that is confused by this opening paragraph. However, I can’t help but think that if I am confused, someone else out there is. It is a turn off to read an article like this. As I said earlier, this style of writing makes me feel like there is something to hide and in turn loses my trust. Not only that, but its frustrating to read. I don’t like to feel stupid, and I’m sure as hell most people don’t. The problem arises when people stop putting themselves through the frustration of muddling through articles such as this, and just stop reading about politics altogether.

         If you look at the opposing article I chose which is about rare forms of E.Coli in our nations meat which will now be banned, I did not run into any of the same problems I had with the article prior. The article’s paragraph states that any meat contaminated with the strains are being banned. It goes on to say that these strains are related to the E.Coli Americans are more familiar with and have seen contaminate a good amount of  food in the past. It discusses what the other strain has done in the past in terms of sickening people. The article has quotes from the food safety board, a valid and well-known source. The article is incredibly thorough in talking about problems in the past with E.Coli, as well as the problems at hand. This background information clarifies any confusion one might have about the issue of E.Coli and the reasons for banning these new strains. It is the clarity of this article that makes its truthfulness and accuracy seem easily understandable. It makes it a more interesting read for the average person like myself. 

Assignment 1: due Sept 7

Young Man Hit by Car and Killed in Stamford New York 

Stamford NY-- Nineteen year old Brett Barnett was killed on September third at five am when he was hit by a driver on Rt 10 after he left a party highly intoxicate and passed out in the middle of the road. 

Barnett was last seen leaving a house party down the road from the incident. He allegedly left the party around 3 am to walk home. Around 5 am the police were said to have gotten a call from an anonymous person who had been driving down Rt. 10 and claimed they had hit Barnett. The caller however did not stop to help the young man. Barnett was found dead when the cops arrived to the scene. 

Michaela Murphy, a fellow student and friend of Barnetts, was at the same party and discovered the death of her friend upon leaving for work the next morning. 

“I went to get in my car around six am when I saw a lot of commotion right up the road. I walked up the street to see what was going on and a police officer informed me that a young man named Brett had been hit and they informed me on what had happened. I could see from where I was standing that he had tire marks on his front side, however his face was unrecognizable.”

According to friends of Barnett’s, he was said to have struggled in school and had a dysfunctional family life. 

“He did have his struggles growing up. He really wanted to turn his life around and make something better of himself despite his past. He was a great friend and fellow team mate. He will be missed greatly.” said Gavin Patrick Boyle, a friend of Barnett’s as well. 

Barnett had just finished his first week at SUNY Delhi where he was pursuing a business degree. He was said to have been a well accomplished and versatile athlete.  Information regarding funeral services has yet to be released. 

First reading journal

Recently, news publications have been flooded with reports on hurricane Irene.  The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and POLITICO all covered Obamas trip to New Jersey, a state heavily devastated by the storm. Although each stories main theme was Obamas trip, which addressed relief efforts, each article’s underlying theme was the relationship between Obama and Chris Christie, (the republican governor of New Jersey who has been rumored to run in the upcoming election). The downfall of our nations economy, and the governments plans to fix the budget crisis have highlighted the differences between Republicans and Democrats. These three articles discuss Obamas promises for relief aid in-lieu-of his plans for cuts in government spending. Because the two men do not see eye-to-eye on the matter of government spending, each reporter was able to also show the discrepancies the two men have in regards to issues other than clean-up efforts. 

The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune were more obvious with their underlying theme. POLITICO let the reader in on the relationship between these two government officials in a more discreet manor. Although the structure of the three articles were similar, they did have some differences. The New York Times started by describing Obamas trip. In the middle and the end of the article the reporter abruptly introduced the relationship that Christie and Obama have. POLITICO started with a quote from Obama that assured the people of New Jersey the issue of government spending will not be effecting relief efforts. The article tells the reader that Obama’s need to assure the people of this is because recent comments from a variety of republicans accused Obama of not allocating money for this issue. Although it opens with this tone, the majority of the article reflects more on Obama’s plans to fix the damage. The Chicago Tribune’s structure differs from the other two the most. It actually has a separate section towards the end called “Unlikely Allies” which separately discusses the debates between the two men in regards to the budget crisis. The Tribune spent the most time discussing the the rivalry the two men face.

It is in the language of these three articles that I was able to detect a clear difference between the three. The New York Times emphasized Obamas words of reassurance to the people of New Jersey. The quotes were mostly from him, and they expressed his condolences as well as promises for relief effort. The article also focused the most on the similar goals that Obama and Christie have by describing their desire to rebuild the state of NJ. POLITICO contained more of Obamas comments on his trip. Unlike The New York Times which used language rich with imagery such as “swollen flood planes”, POLITICO had a heavier use of quotes from Obama’s speech. It was less sentimental and more factual. The Chicago Tribune used specific language to portray Obama and Christie. The language the reporter chose to use when describing Obama made him look like a super-hero, or a charismatic leader. They described Obama as being greeted by thousands of screaming fans, traveling to the poorest of neighborhoods, and they used quotes from his speech that that were absolute promises as opposed to hopeful outlooks. The way the Tribune portrayed Christie was not as flattering. They describe him as “a budget-cutting Republican who has bucked some of his party's fiscal hawks,” and a, “blunt-talking fiscal conservative.” By studying the language alone it seemed to me that the Chicago Tribune had the hardest time taking a unbiased stance on the differences that Obama and Christie have. The language they chose to use made Obama seem like he flew in with an S on his chest to defeat the big, bad Hurricane Irene, and Chris Christie as well.

I think that these three articles are very good examples of the underlying agendas that reporters may have. Their job was to report on Obamas trip, however all articles were rich with political drama. I think its very interesting that all three publications had this underlying theme even though their story was about something different. I can understand why it is important to incorporate the different outlooks the two have regarding the budget, because a portion of the budget will need to be allocated to repair damages in New Jersey. However, I’m not sure it is necessary to bring in the rivalries the two may have regarding Christie’s potential campaign in the upcoming election. It seems that when our nation is faced with an unavoidable crisis, such as a hurricane, we should be focusing on how we will team together to fix the matter at hand instead of glorifying and highlighting the rivalry these two men have.