Courage and Journalism

After finishing Dying to Tell the Story, it has become more evident to me, how much courage is required in the field of war journalism. Journalists put their lives on the line, all in the name of showing the world what is going on. It is a very dangerous job, and these journalists have chances—time and time again—to get out, but again and again they go back. These are people that make the world a better place. They aren't changing the world, necessarily; but they sure as hell are making a difference, by consistently exposing injustices throughout the world.

In Egypt, we have journalists working round the clock, many of whom have been attacked or even sexually assaulted. They do not have an easy job. And yet, over and over again, they are committed to being good journalists and showing events as they are. It is courage, and it is admirable.

It is courageous, and while being a war journalist isn't exactly a field I would like to pursue, I admire the intrinsic values involved. There is a fascinating aspect of madness involved, of courage tested every day of the job. Simply put, it astonishes me the bravery of these journalists, no matter how protected they are. It's a commendable trait, and these men and women are, without a doubt, making the world a better, more open place every day.

Questions

1. What do you find meaning in?
2. Would you rather be a house cat or a manatee?
3. Do you use your cellphone as a watch? Is a watch as an accessory redundant?
4. What is Rachel's name?
5. Why do people have eyebrows? Do you find eyebrows useful?
6. Why do you use Facebook?
7. Do you think rats are cute?
8. If you could eat one person, who would they be? Appropriate condiments and sauces will be provided.
9. Do you really like the taste of pretzels or is it just their shape that is so appealing?
10. How scared are you of tap water?

RCSD College Preparation Rate

A recent study presented by the New York State Board of Regents revealed that only 5% percent of students in the Rochester City School District are prepared for college.

As a student in said school district, this statistic is alarming. There are a number of problems with schools these days. The problem here, however, can't really be narrowed down to one source. It's a wide array of problems, which makes it all the more difficult to fix. Pretty much, the entire system is broken.

It starts with the homes. In order for this whole public education thing to work well, kids have to actually care about what they are doing in school. This means parental involvement. If the parents don't care it is likely that, likewise, the kids will not care.

Of course, this is a very hard problem to approach, because there is only so much the district can do in terms of getting parents involved. The other idea, then, would be to offer programs in schools that kids will care about. An obvious example is the arts. Going to School of the Arts, many students actually care about what they do. SOTA has the highest attendance rate in the district, perhaps because the arts are a motivational factor. The arts aren't for everyone, though; vocational education needs to be offered in more schools. It provides something for kids to care about and as an added bonus is beneficial to society; instead of shoving more Foreign Language credits down kids' throats, offer them some vocational education, such as carpentry. The world always could do with more carpenters. Many of these trades taught through vocational education don't necessarily require college; it's a decent opportunity, and a much better option than just dropping out of high school.

There needs to be increased incentives for schools, and more pressure on them to churn out adequate numbers. The statistics provided in the study are interesting. This college preparation number is actually a great number to have for schools, and should be required to report along with the obligatory graduation rates, etc. If schools aren't performing well, do something to fix them. Offer those schools who put up good numbers an incentive. Point is, we need to stop throwing money at a system that isn't working. Nothing good can come from it. Regroup, reevaluate everything, and spend money accordingly on things that will actually improve the state of schools.

Education isn't something to be messed around with. This is the rest of our lives we're talking about. I only hope the school district can figure out their problems and start coming up with some reasonable solutions. The future of our society depends on it.

New Media as a Tool for the News

New Media serves an important and interesting role in the whole enormous field of contemporary journalism.

An earnest example is the protests in Egypt: they were, in fact, originally started over Facebook. It was this newfangled social networking site that allowed for the revolution of a country to be organized and begun. This nascent revolution is still going on weeks later, and shows no signs of letting up soon until the protestors’ demands are met. In response to the protestors the Egyptian government shut off the internet. This only demonstrates the power these tools present a society, if used correctly. It is a whole new, uncharted form of power to the people: they can communicate at will.

Of course, the spread of news over the Internet through New Media is supplied and supported by the process of people sharing links. With the rise of New Media, one can share a news item with a buddy in an instant; it is a whole new way of communication.

The internet, as a whole, offers a forum for debate and discussion. News events can be talked about, analyzed, scrutinized, and admired. Of course, there will always be the assholes on the internet. But as New Media becomes a more and more respectable entity in respects to Journalism, the internet will only grow as an increasingly essential tool as a hotbed for debate. This type of discussion—where the whole world can talk—has never before been possible.

With this advent, there is now no excuse to not be aware of what is going on in the world around you. There has always been and will always be newsworthy events. A good number of these events would go unheard of. New Media changes that. It is a platform wherein one can talk about these sorts of events over the net and share them with others. In the world of reblogs and retweets, everything has a chance of being put out to an infinite amount of readers. We can even watch videos of news events that are happening live around the world. Such is the case with Egypt; there are many amateur videos that we can watch to help increase the world’s empathy levels.

There is no denying it: New Media is, in some way or another, the future of journalism. It also happens to be a very exciting future, promising a world more connected than ever before.

Privacy, the Internet, and Parents

"Privacy" and "internet" are two terms that go hand-in-hand in that one's existence depends on the non-existence of the other. The internet, inherently, cannot exist with privacy. Yes, one can protect their privacy—to an extent—on the internet. But the internet's purpose and well-being depends on its nature to present information to the masses.

This is somewhat of a double-edged sword. On one hand, there is a certain openness of the internet that makes it appealing. On the other hand, anything posted on the internet is, in almost all cases, permanent. Not that something can't be taken down—it certainly can. But, since almost anything the normal internet-goer would be posting to on the internet would be open, it can instantly be viewed. There is no way to stop this. All those pictures someone else posted on Facebook? No way for you to take them down but ask the uploader. Even if they take them down, the internet has already seen them. People could've saved them, Facebook has them in their records. It's an entirely new concept that is at once exhilarating and terrifying.

On a relevant note is the issue of identity. The internet's innate openness creates a ground for anyone to do anything and say anything. This, of course, leads to such problems as cyber-bullying. This creates a problem for parents: how can they keep their children safe online? There is no easy answer. They can simply prohibit their children from using the internet, though this seems a bit extreme, not to mention they are missing out on a wonderful learning tool. They can limit their child's internet use, or even monitor it through the use of a third-party application. These may be reasonable or even very successful solutions for some; to me, as a teenager, they seem all too parent-ish. For me, the best approach would be to simply talk about the subject, warn about the dangers, and tell children to not get sucked in to a world where they might put themselves in a vulnerable position to cyber-bullying.

Truth is, most parents don't know a rat's tail about what their child does online. Is this a bad thing? From a parent's perspective, understandably yes. And it is, in most likely the majority of cases, a bad thing. But, as with most things with the internet, it is that all too familiar double-edged sword: the internet has a highly underrated educational functionality. Believe it or not, people learn stuff on the internet. They may be boring their eyes out on Facebook or Tumblr most of the time (this, by the way, is in no way a good use of time and the author is not promoting it in anyway), but there is also a sense of exploration on the internet. It is, after all, infinite: there is a whole world of untouched media and information, ready to be consumed by the hungry individual. It may not always be the most respectable media or information, but at least its something. The trick, then, is to promote this pursuit of this information; spark the curiosity, and put the internet to use in its fullest potential.