Media Fellows Final Project

Week Twelve: CHAOS!!!!!!!

Bob Garfield’s opinions in Chaos Scenario were very… strong. I wasn’t a huge fan of the jargon. It may be direct, but I prefer to be treated like an intelligent audience. Looking past that, however, Garfield’s arguments can’t be ignored—if they can be disputed. Admittedly I don’t really have much stock in television—it’s nice to flip it on and watch Family Guy or How I Met Your Mother, but it’s not anything I’d hate to live without. What’s more disturbing to me is the state of the New York Times (or the New York Fuckin’ Times, as Garfield so aptly calls it) and other papers, which are struggling as an industry. The fact that even the Times struggled off to pay its debt of $400 million is more indicative of this fact of anything. However, I don’t think that newspapers are going to die off. Other print media are still around—Kindles haven’t eradicated books yet. It’s true that it’s far easier to put a newspaper’s contents online than a book’s due to length, and we’re seeing a lot more of that with the latter. However, newspapers have weathered the test of time and the changes that accompany it. Radio didn’t obliterate papers, and neither did television. The Internet is the next big thing, but it, like every other media that was once new, does not guarantee the same qualities that print does. Having the same material online is just not the same, for online material is under pressure to be short and watered-down. Online material of the print media will likely at one time or another assimilate to these standards to reach readers, setting them apart from their printed counterparts. Thus there will still be a demand for a product that’s still original. I’ll be the first to admit not knowing enough to make an adequate hypothesis, but there it is. Have at it like piranhas.

I was one of the few kids who read the Times last semester—before things got insanely busy, anyhow. One of the things that struck me was that the coverage on Romney exceeded the coverage on Obama during the 2012 presidential campaign, but I supposed that that was because Romney was the new candidate. Speaking as a liberal, I do not believe the Times is slanted. Of course, I don’t really read the Opinion section where the slant purportedly shows. Anyhow, I chose “In Gun Bill Defeat, a President Who Hesitates to Twist Arms” for this week because I’m trying to follow the standing of gun control in America. One thing I found interesting was the statement that Obama “rarely demonstrated an appetite for ruthless politics that instills fear in lawmakers.” What about drones, then? I do love Obama, but I wouldn’t call his instances of ruthlessness rare. However, I do agree that Obama uses reason to get his way quite often (more often), as this is one of the many things I like about him. I wouldn’t have seen this if not for the NYTimes because I deactivated my Facebook and am not active with Twitter, and I don’t own a radio or a car or a television or seek out television news. Talk about cut off.

Week Eleven: Public Relations

PR is one of those topics I admittedly know nothing about but have long been interested in in theory. Thus it’s probably the only topic we’ve discussed this year I’m completely objective about. (It must be a nice break for others having to read me spout off on my blog.) I liked our discussion in regards to it on Monday and found it interesting that a few students were wary of it. As a journalist, should I be wary of PR? I’m still not sure, though Wednesday’s class gave me a bit of an idea. I’ve actually got endless admiration for the people who have to put up with politicians’ crap and was highly amused at John Coffin’s reaction to the question: “What do you do when your politician makes a really stupid mistake?” (I’m paraphrasing here.) I mean, at that point, there’s really nothing to be done except back slowly away. Too bad for Mourdock. Mwahahahahahaha. (Pardon my schadenfreude.) Going off on another tangent: like Franki, I had no idea about DePauw’s party ranking upon coming here—to be truthful, it amused me more than anything—so DePauw’s PR people must’ve done a good job covering that up. My mom actually just today made a remark on seeing DePauw’s high academic ranking and how she knew it was good, but not that good. Bravo! Brava! Bravi! to public relations. My expectations are a little bit more specific this week. I’d love to talk more about how PR ties into our careers, especially if we’re aspiring journalists.

Because of a continuing discourse on gun background checks, I decided to go with “Seeking Gun or Selling One, Web Is a Land of Few Rules.” I had a bit of an idea from the aforementioned discourse but was mostly unaware of the online spin, so no, I wouldn’t have known about this without the good ol’ New York Times. Anyhow, Armslist is just… ugh. First of all, I love the hypocrisy of their theoretical mission of “creat[ing] a place for law-abiding gun owners to buy and sell online without all of the hassles of auction and shipping” while selling guns to people who legally cannot own them. (77% of sellers would sell guns to people who admitted they probably wouldn’t pass a background check, it says later in the article.) Then it feels the need to “protect the anonymity of their users.” Everything about this operation is shady, sounding paradoxical to “law-abiding.” I’m honestly aghast at people’s problem-solving skills or lack thereof. If this disgusting franchise is going to continue (and it will, beyond any doubt), background checks have to be done in tandem with the sales.

Anyhow, salaam, shalom, peace out, wear a flower, promote positive change, and make love, not war!

Week Ten: Lectures Galore!

Last Friday we heard Dave Weatherwax, photographer for the South Bend Tribune. His lecture was pretty interesting. What stood out for me, however, was his point that some local story beat Bin Ladin’s capture for the front page story and picture. Pardon the strong reaction that is to follow, but... what the hell? Is small town media really that self-absorbed? I understand that a drastic occurrence hitting a little closer to home (literally) is the easier draw, but why not at least put a little of both stories on the front page rather than allow a huge photo to hog all the room? (Yes, I understand that this is in direct contradiction to the lecture, but... I think what I think.) This is nothing against Dave--it’s more a question for the editor than anything--and most newspapers in smaller towns are surely in this vein of thinking, but I just find it ridiculous to condone the insular frame of mind that is exhibited by many Americans today.

On Monday we were graced with the presence of Kim McDaniel who works with various media for the Salt Lake Tribune. I didn’t really understand the ideas surrounding various online media, but the manner in which the Salt Lake Tribune, a print source, connected to audiences using Facebook, Twitter, etc. was really fascinating, especially in how it reached differing demographics. I think it ties in really well with Losing The News in that the Tribune, along with many other papers, is doing what’s necessary to survive--going multimedia. I only know what Facebook and Twitter are and have no clue about anything other platform mentioned, but I think I got the gist of it: online media are being integrated into print news. Papers are reaching out to new audiences by expanding their output to online media. It’s neat.

Wednesday might’ve been my favorite class this week. Even though I couldn’t really relate to Jill’s stories about the Ellen (Degeneres?) show, her enthusiasm was infectious. Besides, I’ve always wanted to go to Australia. What she said about working her way up by doing tasks quickly and thinking on her feet is applicable to most any occupation, so I did appreciate that bit of advice. I learned from Alyssa the benefit of interning at smaller locations. She mentioned getting to do a lot of things while she was in Paducah, KY, even directing a little bit. There’s the logical progression of everybody knowing each other and then the also obvious idea of less people, more work. It sounds vastly appealing. I enjoyed Dave’s talk and appreciated that he disagreed with the commonly-held belief that downloading songs was leading to the music industry’s demise. I did wonder why he wasn’t in the School of Music if he aspired to be a musician as early as college, but I forgot to ask. Whoops.

Talking to Angie over Skype on Friday was really cool because before college, I’d listened to NPR for most of my life. Now that I don’t own a radio or a car, it’s less practical to do so. However, I’ve always been impressed by the balanced perspectives. (At a young age I recognized this; Dad never failed to scream at an opposing viewpoint, provided it was dumb enough.) Of course NPR also exudes a quality in its news output that is nothing to be sneezed at. It’s the only source I trust that isn’t a newspaper. Anyhow, what I found perhaps most interesting about Angie’s lecture was the fact that NPR receives no government funding. I knew that they pushed the donations from listening to the show so often, but I guess I didn’t realize why.

For this week’s article analysis, I chose Friday’s “With Police in Schools, More Children in Court.” So far police officers are creating new problems, and it’s unclear as to whether or not they’re solving the problem at hand. (The NRA has seized the opportunity to advance their views according to the anecdotes they provided in the article.) What seems to be the issue here is this: school officers are hypervigilant. They’re wasting their time on the smaller issues, which could mean they’re missing the bigger ones. (Marijuana crowd: does this sound familiar to you?) Until this problem is solved and officers learn to treat school principals as superiors except in cases of emergency, it is unfair to judge their effectiveness. I would not have known about this were it not for the NYTimes. Without a working laptop, I didn't even know Margaret Thatcher died until Media Fellows class later on that day. The one I have right now has a slow connection because I haven’t got an ethernet adaptor, so I still don’t receive much news. Anyway, my point is proven.

I know not what my expectations are for subsequent classes, but I do know that they are high. All of the alumni and guest lectures this week got my head spinning about internship possibilities, and, needless to say, I’m excited.

Week Nine: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

For my article this week, I chose “Syrian Newspapers Emerge to Fill Out War Reporting.”
 In the midst of the revolution, news standards are going down. Some sources are even using Facebook updates as official sources. In the midst of this, a newspaper called Sham uses 15 reporters all over Syria, none of them activists, to promote objectivity and write good news. I actually found this while in the middle of another story and felt it better suited my interests as a journalist. I definitely wouldn’t have found out about it any other way since my computer and charger finally succumbed to old age and years of being battered around. Any electronic work I want to do is moved to the library until I get a new computer, which doesn’t exactly leave time for web-surfing and other extraneous activities: if I trek out to the library, I mean business; no way am I going there to Google every little term that catches my fancy, so I’ll have to live archaically for a bit. (I wish I had the hard drive of my dictionary and thesaurus.) Anyway, quite frankly, the lack of factual material in news reporting in Syria is anarchic in a way and pretty scary in another. The media controls our perception of events beyond the places we can see, and thus it must be pretty hairy when it’s contaminated with bias and unverified facts. One can only hope in such a case that people there would know not to believe what they read, but even then it’s a world of paranoia where one doesn’t know whom to believe. It’s a lose-lose situation.

I read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death before starting school and was highly impressed by it. I never watched television news to begin with (Dad raised me right),  but I was even more wary of it after reading this book. (I suppose it can’t be too bad if cross-referenced, but why do that when my sources now are perfectly sufficient? *wink) Yes, I love Sesame Street—who doesn’t?—but I see Postman’s point there, that it makes education entertaining and, through his eyes, superficial. I would agree that “Sesame Street is an expensive illustration of the idea that education is indistinguishable from entertainment,” though I’d disagree that watching it would have any serious consequence. Children are children. They develop concepts of deeper subjects and their serious sense as they grow.

Week Seven: Not Feeling Clever Enough For A Title

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I’m not feeling up to a great blog post this week, and since I turned in my project, it’s going to be incredibly short, so I apologize for the lack of quality. Life has been horribly chaotic this past week.

For articles, Wednesday’s on the pope was my obvious choice for two reasons—one, I thought the red hats in the header picture were fezes because I miss Morocco and two, Francis, 76, is First Non-European to Lead Church in 1,200 Years. The last pope (I don’t remember his name, and frankly I won’t remember this one’s) was the first in 600 years to retire, and this one is the first non-European in 1,200 years. Not only is that two consecutive firsts, but one number is divisible of the other! How cool is that? Frankly—and I hope I don’t offend anybody by saying this—I don’t really much care about the pope, didn’t care about the last one, doesn’t really affect me at all until one or the other starts making homophobic comments. Anyhow, I think this is newsworthy because the guy’s Argentinian, and apparently this is big news. Maybe they’re going for diversity in the catholic church? (The pope is catholic, right?) Obama seems to be happy about the choice unless he was just feeding the media a line, which seems likely since he’s president. I definitely would not have seen this if it were online because the only reasons I was attracted to it were the fez-likes hats in the accompanying picture and the fact that 1200 divided by 600 is two, thus making the second pope the first in twice as long.

Class expectations haven’t changed. I wish I had more energy to put something more meaningful, but alas, I do not. I’m giving my presentation tomorrow, so perhaps I expect that to be an informative experience as I’ll get to know all the mistakes I made in the Soundslides and perhaps learn what I need to know going forward with the video project in May. Speaking of May, Maybe I’ll go sleep now. I know it would surely benefit others in my presentation, since being articulate is typically a good thing.

Midtern Soundslide

My actual blog is coming later tonight. However, in the meanwhile, I present that which you have all been waiting for: my midterm Soundslide! Enjoy with fervor.

Week Six: Soundswiped

All right, so I honestly don’t remember what happened on Monday, my head is so swamped. Soundslides blew everything to a mental wasteland. To be quite honest I’m not a huge fan of the program (though I am of the project—those are fun) because while it is very easy to use, it’s also a pretty basic program for seventy bucks. If I wanted to cut the audio (which I didn’t for the test project, but still), I had to do it in Audacity. Besides that, the program makes it pretty difficult to export a video file. I was fiddling around with the program for kicks and tried to export a video. The first one I got was cut off at the top, and the second I never received. Enough of my griping, though. The actual test project was fun once I got past the difficulty of downloading Soundslides, and I expect the midterm soundslide to be equally fun. For the test one, I messed around with other 70-80 second public-domain audio files even though I had a couple of the Bach cello suites on my iTunes, but Ravel seemed more suited to my pictures. As for the audio for the actual project, I’ve had that since early last week—talked to Stevie for my newspaper project and took video, and all I’ve got to do is rip the audio, then presto! Mid-terms made manageable (and alliterative).

My expectations for the course haven’t really changed, though I actually think it’d be quite nice to incorporate a print journalism product as well as the audio and soundslides—I know we studied some storytelling techniques of print journalists very early on in the semester, but it’d be nice to have something for everybody. While working with soundslides and video is new and exciting, I’m so technologically disinclined that sometimes I’d like to rip my hair out. It’s nice to have a home base, a bit of familiarity.

For this week’s article, I chose “Qaeda Relative of Bin Laden’s Facing Charges” for this week because the drones have been on my mind lately, and I played “Six Degrees of Barack Obama” and got to Osama somehow. (If I had a better way of explaining this, I would, but I haven’t slept a wink tonight.) I believe it’s Friday’s issue. Interestingly enough, it’s his son-in-law, so he can’t use genetics as an excuse. His charges are relatively tame—not involved in 9/11, purportedly not an Al Qaeda operative for years, but at the time of involvement, he was big. “He called upon ‘the nation of Islam’ to do battle against ‘the Jews, the Christians and the Americans,’” the article said, and he’s facing charges and a possible sentence for life. Perhaps another reason why I picked this was for that fact: life imprisonment. Nowadays it’s either about the death penalty or drones, neither of which I’m too keen on. I hope he gets life, I’m glad to hear that’s what’s on the table, and it’s nice to see some pressure off on this “eye for an eye” business. Also, based on his standing right now, I agree on a Manhattan trial and disagree on straight to Guantanamo. It’s not that he isn’t dangerous, but we picked him up, and we should be responsible for giving him a trial as long as he’s not an immediate threat, and the guy’s inactive—need I cite right to a fair and speedy trial? I might’ve seen this via a news alert online since it’s big news, but I wouldn’t actually have known about it were it not for the good old New York Times.

Lilly Slideshow

Enjoy!

Week Five: Video, Audio, and Mars

I’d like to start by saying that not only am I doing an audio/video project on the Lilly renovations, but the newspaper also asked me to write a story about them. Way to do this multimedia! *self-five

Classes this week were interesting—now I anticipate learning lots about audio mixing and using microphones (my computer audio is awful), as well as using B footage in videos to fill out the awkward spaces in interviews. Lisa Pratt’s lecture about Mars rovers on Wednesday was interesting—one thing that particularly fascinated me was her acknowledgment of science fiction’s influence on actual scientific ideas. That was something I didn’t expect, but, then, “truth is stranger than fiction” might hold here.

My article choice for this week is from Wednesday’s issue: “Justices Reject Legal Challenge to Surveillance.” It just caught my eye, especially since I grew up with the Patriot Act. I glanced at it before watching Charlie Wilson’s War and then finished afterward. With a five to four vote, a challenge to the government’s ability of further eavesdropping on phones and emails was overruled. What I’ve heard is that this type of power fluctuates depending on the national state, with power shifting more to the people in times of peace and sidling toward the government during war. This may be gross oversimplification, but the theory does make sense. Here’s a hard-hitting quote: “‘Absent a radical sea change from the courts, or more likely intervention from the Confgress, the coffin is slamming shut on the ability of private citizens and civil liberties groups to challenge government counterterrorism policies, with the possible exception of Guantanamo,’ said Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at American University.” I do not like hearing this as an American citizen, especially when the answer is right there in improper search and seizure, fourth amendment. Maybe I’m getting a bit too political in these blogs, but I think these sentiments help get across what I’m taking away from the article. As usual, I wouldn’t have seen this if not for the New York Times. It seems like one of those things that might’ve popped up on my Facebook newsfeed, but if it did, I never saw it. This doesn’t make it any less newsworthy. Anything having to do with our rights is newsworthy. In fact, it seems that the more newsworthy something is, the less it will be circulated. Few people care about newsworthy stuff anymore, to sound off; it’s all about the ratings and/or entertainment industry. I agree with Postman—it’s horrifically like Brave New World.

Week Four: Story Ideas and Rotations

As we had our last couple of general classes, I was eager to see how things would be when we split off into rotations. (I was ill. Yay me.) I’m looking forward to learning about Audacity! I already use it for my voice lessons and Musicianship classes for recording assignments and exercises, but my knowledge is very basic.

Going back a little further, I’m very excited to be starting out on my story idea of the possibility of charging students for the Lilly/Blackstock renovations in the future. When we were thinking of how we’d start off our videos earlier this week, I’ve got an idea that’s yet to abdicate to something better—not about to give it away in case it does change, but I’m liking what I’ve got if it turns out I can find the resources to make it happen.

Ah, for this week’s reading. Obviously, the “It Takes A B.A. To Find a Job As a File Clerk” caught my attention. I definitely wouldn’t have found out about it without the New York Times since this type of story doesn’t seem to be the Internet’s type. What pissed me off was the assumption of college graduates being harder or better workers than non-graduates. Adam Slipakoff in particular said something I shook my fist at: “College graduates are just more career-oriented. Going to college means they are making a real commitment to their futures. They’re not just looking for a paycheck.” Okay, first of all, yes, many of them are “just looking for a paycheck” thanks to today’s economy, so that right there is bullshit. Second of all, saying that college graduates are more career-oriented is an outrageous stereotype. Some people go to college and party all four years. Some people don’t go to college because they can’t afford it and get pushed into a corner with menial labor by high-reaching employers. This isn’t to discredit all of the kids who go to college who are ambitious, but saying that every single kid is ambitious, and, further, more ambitious than every single kid who didn’t go to college or didn’t graduate, is just ludicrous. Several of the hardest working people I know didn’t go to college. Furthermore, if “degree inflation” continues, colleges in this country are going to have to become much more affordable. Much. Mitt’s asinine suggestion of borrowing money from parents isn’t going to work. Not all parents have that money. It’s unfair to place the financial bar for attendance so high and then make all of these assumptions about how people who go to college are better in the workplace.

*Deep breath. Okay. Rant over. Signing out for tonight before I decide that I haven’t milked my bad mood for long enough a time.

Week Three: Watergate and Other Stuff

Carl Bernstein created quite a stir in the community this week. I proudly placed my autographed copy of All the President’s Men on my highest shelf and hope to read it soon. Regrettably I had a 4 o’clock class and couldn’t stay for the MeFe pre-session, but the lecture was fantastic. Anyhow, I really enjoyed Professor Steele’s talk on media ethics, especially considering that the American code of journalism ethics originated right here at DePauw with Sigma Delta Chi, or the Society of Professional Journalists. (I think I picked it up from Losing the News a while back, and it stuck.) Integrity and hard work/verification, among other factors, comprise journalistic ethics, but these two are the ones that are most important to me, especially since they are so rarely seen on the Internet. (The latter especially is impractical due to time constraints.) One of Professor Steele’s points that resounded with me in particular was equating ethics with excellence. Not only is it alliteration, but it rings true. It’s profound and well-spoken—both I appreciate.

My article of interest this week was “Russia seeks the arrest of a politician from Georgia,” which I chose for the fact that it is the first case of Russia’s pursuit of a political figure who is not Russian. I found it interesting that Georgia could not send Targamadze to Russia (the lions) but would open up a criminal investigation into his doings. I would have liked to see some input from Georgians, as well, not just from the Russian president, Putin. I definitely wouldn’t have known about it otherwise, since it’s such an obscure little piece. This is why International News is my favorite section of the New York Times. I haven’t been following the story and thus don’t know a lot about Targamadze and the riots he purportedly incited, only that he seems to be in a lot of hot water with both the Russian and Georgian governments. I’ll end this rather before I fall asleep, even if it’s a bit shorter than my usual.

Week Two: Storytelling and Mali

Eh, I’m ashamed to say that between missing class due to illness on Wednesday showing up half an hour late because of a lengthy interview on Friday, my attendance wasn’t exactly up to par this week. *bows head However, this seems just as good a place as any for shameless advertisement: go read my story in next Tuesday’s issue!

The bits of class I did catch were certainly more print journalist-y than I had anticipated, and I was elated. Telling True Stories is giving me the tinglies, from Jacqui Banaszynski’s nod to The Things They Carried in the first few pages to the whole section on travel memoir in Part III. (Morocco memoir, here I come.) Not only is the writing exquisite, but it’s providing excellent tips on assembling a story, conducting interviews (nice to know I’m not the only one who hates tape recorders), making characters come to life, etc. I know I’ll be going back to this book again and again to remember how to put a fresh coat of paint on that story, how to find a new angle to replace a tired and formulaic old lead, how to arrange things in an order that makes sense. I’m glad I didn’t rent this one because it’s certainly a keeper. In actual class, I really enjoyed the avalanche video and found that I could apply that to storytelling in print media, too, because in many ways it’s really similar across the board. My expectations for this course remain the same, concerning learning media production across the board, but I’m infinitely more excited about it now that I have an idea of how these different media click together.

Ah, the New York Times. Apart from my thirty-minute rant about the Superbowl photo being the cover photo as opposed to something more newsworthy such as maybe, hmmm, a perfectly decent photo accompanying PENTAGON EXPECTS TO KEEP PRESENCE IN AFGHANISTAN on the very next page, it was an enjoyable experience as always. I’ll talk about both pieces of news, since they both affected (afflicted?) me in—ah—very different ways. I would not have heard about the Superbowl blackout had I not seen the NYTimes—I would not, in fact, have known about it at all had I not been in class on Monday, seeing as I was too busy ranting about “that sports photo” to note what it was about. As I’m rather a dullard about sports, I didn’t even realize that the Superbowl was happening. Even if there was a blackout, I still think that’s no excuse. Boot it over to the sports section. The article that most caught my eye was As Extremists Invaded, Timbuktu Hid Artifacts of a Golden Age (with another photo that should have beat out the Superbowl one, even more than the Pentagon one, on A8) for two reasons—one, I’ve always been fascinated with the methods of preserving artifacts in warfare and two, I was staying a country up in the Sahara just two or three weeks ago. I hated to hear that the Tuareg were burning so many artifacts because I had met some Tuareg traders in the desert and understood them to be a peaceful tribe. They comprise a demographic of the Amazigh people (or, as the West derogatorily calls them, “Berber” people), and the Imazighen (plural for Amazigh) are working toward recognition from their respective national governments by demanding that their languages be taught in schools along with Arabic. Amazigh methods are peaceful, and they get their message across through music and cultural messages. There’s a certain allure about the Imazighen that attracts me as a pacifist and as a musician, and thus I forged a deep bond with Amazigh culture. Every bull has its horns, and I met Tuareg people from a different location, but it still hit me hard. I had heard about French and Malian troops advancing to Timbuktu on NPR when I was at home a little while back, but I wouldn’t have heard about this current story otherwise because I have no car and no way of listening to NPR. Either way, this blog is getting too long. Toodles!

First Blog Post Title (I know. How novel.)

The classes this week were really interesting. It was especially useful getting to know the Slideshow program and how to make a slideshow for the ending project. I’m hoping to get some skills I can use as a print journalist out of this course, which is why I’m enjoying Telling True Stories. Storytelling is something I’ve always tried to display in my journalistic writing, and I’m trying to grow in this aspect by drawing from my experiences as an editor-in-chief and writing material for the news section of The DePauw on a regular basis. I would like to see a healthy focus on this in our course syllabus, as well, since I’m at a bit of a loss in working with visual media—i.e., taking photos and making videos and/or slideshows. I’m sure that it will be useful information for me in a modern media setting, especially pertaining to the current situation facing newspapers—which I’ll get into now.

I read Losing the News before beginning my first semester at DePauw, and it had a profound effect on me. I agree with Alex Jones’ view that iron core news as provided by newspapers is shrinking and just generally in danger with the rise of the Internet and “citizen journalism,” and I’d like to think that there’s something we can do to keep newspapers going. Print media, after all, have survived other technological revolutions through film, television, and radio—why should the Internet wipe them out, as long as we play our cards right? Newspapers have to maintain their income, especially through the expenses of printing and distribution—but there’s a way if they can use some of their online revenue to replace funds. One idea in Losing the News I liked was making the search engines pay (More? This part of the book is fuzzy) for the news content they take from other online extensions of newspapers. Not only do I believe we’re losing an in-depth quality of news if we let newspapers go, but I’m rather loath to write shorter stories on a time crunch for the Internet. For the hope that I can write for a physical paper after graduation, I’d like to see newspapers survive—and even thrive—in the digital age.

I began reading hard copies of the New York Times last semester as they became available to Media Fellows. Not only did I love the smell of newsprint and the feel of opening the pages, but I also became much more aware of current affairs—I’d even call people to discuss the news if I had time. I liked this feeling most of all because I wasn’t heavily involved in campus news, not any more than I was obligated to be as a writer for The DePauw. Admittedly, I no longer have time to read the Times every day, but I pick up issues when I can—two to three times a week, now that they’re required. One story in particular that popped out to me this week was “Ban on Gays May Be Lifted By Boy Scouts” (link provided to online version at bottom of page—title listed here is print), which initially shocked me—I thought that, no matter how unethical it was for an organization of such magnitude to propel discrimination, bigots would continue to be bigots for a very long time. Once I got over this shock, I noted where the article was placed—above the centerfold, marking the Times with a liberal slant. (I’ve got no problem with this as a hearty liberal. Besides, during the election last year, I noticed Romney getting more coverage than Obama—probably because he was a new candidate. The Times has no problem with objectivity, least of which in content and coverage.) Anyhow, I was excited to read about the news, even if it allows for decisions to be made by individual organization about whether or not to let gay scouts in—this would merely change national policy about sexual orientation. Still, it’s a step in the right direction, far sooner than I anticipated. I’m also interested in finding out about the standing of religious discrimination in the Boy Scouts and how that progress transpires. As of right now, out atheists still won’t be allowed in the Scouts—which pisses me off, as an atheist. Huffington Post and Washington Post state that their policy is unchanged. It’s understandable, since we comprise such a minority. Still, I can hope it’ll come soon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/us/boy-scouts-consider-lifting-ban-on-gay-leaders.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0