Rosenburg makes a good point when he says :

Most of the mainsteam media doesn’t want to do this story.

Why? Because these athletes are private citizens and responsible media members tend not to care if private citizens commit adultery. It is not our business, and we generally don’t think it’s your business. But now, because of the interest in Tiger, the weakened media sector of the economy, and the loose standards and easily measured readership metrics on Web sites, we are acknowledging these stories in ways we never did.

I think this brings up a great point. Due to all of the attention the media has placed on the Tiger Woods scandal, it has set the media up to report on similar stories. Take for instance the recent situation between Sandra Bullock and Jesse James. This type of reporting has brought the media to an all time low I think. Whether or not a star was the victim or committed adultery is something that I could honestly care less about. It’s not going to affect my life in any way and I simply do not care.

I’ve never been one to understand celebrity obsessions, so it would make sense that I find obsessions with sports figures to be ridiculous as well.

Every day, Sandridge approaches a stranger on the street and offers them $10 to tell him their life story. So far he has given close to $1,200 away. After hearing their life story & interviewing them, Sandridge posts their story to his blog. So far he has done this for 116 days.

I thought this article was very interesting because it reminded me of a guest speaker I had in one of my History classes last semester. A new type of history that is taking place these days is recorded stories. One of the professors in the History department here at Baylor is involved in this new area of History. His research consists of going to visit people from different eras such as the civil rights era or WWII and recording their story on a tape recorder. I found this to be extremely interesting because this way you are hearing the story raw. At its basics. From the point of view of the person involved, without beint tampered with. When stories are written, a writer chooses what to include about a story in order to make the article “flow” the best. By doing so, the story is tampered - and looses its impact in a way. Through this new type of history, the subject has the ability to tell their story as they saw it. Putting emphasis where they see fit. And having their story unaltered. He played a few samples for our class when he visited and I was surprised by how much the actual voice impacted the story. I’m excited about this new type of history because I think it will be very cool for future generations to have the opportunity to hear stories from the past from mouths that were there to experience it.

I really think that what Sandridge is doing is cool. If I had money to just give away, I think I would do the same. There is nothing cooler than hearing the life stories of people – it’s cool when those people are your best friends, but how much cooler would it be if they were simply strangers? Maybe thats what I’ll do when I graduate. It beats looking for a job!

It is interesting how much importance and focus we place on issues that are completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Who cares whether or not our President has the occasional cigarette or whether or not Tiger Woods is cheating on his wife. When we step back and think about our own personal lives – the fact that my roommate just took a cigarette break on our balcony would hardly be of any interest to anyone! So why does this change so much whether or not a person is famous? They are still mortals like us. They are not divine! I am always fascinated by how much people pay attention to the lives of celebrities.

Most scientists don’t see a contradiction between a warming planet and lots of snow.

Another thing that is messing with the weather this year is a strong El Nino. That’s the weather pattern that, every few years, raises itself up out of the western Pacific Ocean and blows east to the Americas. It brings heavy rains and storms to California and the south and southeast. It also pushes high-altitude jet streams farther south, which bring colder air with them.

Scientists are focusing on the definition that climate is the long-term trend of atmospheric conditions across large regions, even the whole planet. Changes in climate are slow and measured in decades, not weeks.

Climate scientists say they can’t prove any single weather event is due to climate change. Thus, they say, Hurricane Katrina or the heat wave in Vancouver that’s dogging the Winter Olympics isn’t proof that climate change is happening. Nor can southern and eastern snowstorms prove that it’s not.

I thought that this was an interesting article because lately I have been wondering if the whole “Global Warming” thing was fading into the past or not. With all the recent weather, it has been a topic for the back burner. It seems fitting that we, the fast paced, impatient Americans that we are, would think that after a few weeks of cold weather – the issue of Global Warming would simply disappear. But as the author of this article brings out, climate is the long-term trend measured in decades – not weeks.

My mom seems to have been more affected by all of the media than I have, but unfortunately now she is affecting me. I have never been a stick figure in my entire life, as a child I was always normal – not fat but also not skin & bones. Since about the 5th grade, my mother has been very harsh on me about my appearance. It got progressively worse as I got older. My mom seemed to think that because I was overweight – the consequence would be having no friends and that I would never date. You would think that by having tons of my friends around all the time, and two serious relationships with great guys would change her mind but unfortunately my mom still stuck to her idea. My mom seems to have bought into the idea of what we are supposed to look like – and what our lives will be like if we do look like the women in the media. I can’t even count how many different diet programs she has had me on, or the countless times that I didn’t follow through. It’s always been hard for me to want to lose weight for a number of reasons. First, I am not unhappy like my mom thinks that I should be. Second, it’s difficult to want to lose weight just because that’s all I ever hear from my mom, and seems to be all she cares about. When she calls she’s asking about if I’ve exercised or drank enough water that day – rather than wondering how I’m doing in my classes. It really takes a toll on my relationship with her. I didn’t realize how abnormal her obsession with my appearance was until I came to college – I’m honestly surprised I survived high school and turned out as normal as I am. In a way – I tie eating healthy and exercising to my mom and have a negative connotation of it  now because it’ll make her happy. But something about making my mom happy by losing weight doesn’t sit right with me. I want her to love me for who I am, not what I look like.

This is still a battle that deal with daily.

All of this personal sap just to say that the media not only affects young women, but parents as well. I think that it is a sad reality that it has come to this, and that we project so many false realities on our children. Having the great body will not automatically supply you with the perfect friends and most romantic/loving boyfriend. Luckily I have been through this experience and have not been affected enough to take my health to extremes and have avoided any eating disorders. Our class discussion reminded me of my experience and I felt the need to tell my story because it related – and shows that parents are also affected by the media.

The only place the left hasn’t placed the blame on is on the their agenda. The Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda will make America less secure, more in debt and more under the thumb of big government”  – Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin spoke at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville to her fans, whom she refers to as the “soldiers in the cause.” She gave a shout-out to the new senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, and threw some light jabs at Nancy Pelosi, President Obama and Rahm Emanuel.

She said the Tea Party movement is a ground up call to action to force both parties to change the way they do business, and “that’s beautiful.”

Palin spent several minutes on national security and terrorism, pointing to the failure of the system prevent the Christmas Day bomber from boarding a plane.
“We need a foreign policy that recognizes its friends from its enemies,” she added, and called for sanctions against Iran.

On the economy, Palin railed against the federal government’s bailouts, the use of stimulus funds for “pet projects,” called for oil drilling in the U.S. and the deficit, which she called “generational theft.”

“The list of broken promise is long,” she said. “Washington has broken trust with the people. We are drowning in debt and many of us have had enough.”

The audience who listened to Palin’s speech were the same estimated 600 patrons who paid $549 to attend the full convention. Over 1,000 paid $300 just to see Palin speech, which was broadcast on CNN, CSPAN and MSNBC and available via the Web on cbsnews.com and other sites.

Cashing in on her political celebrity, Palin was paid $100,000 for her appearance, which puts her in the same league for speaker fees as recent past presidents, such as Clinton and Bush.

Palin gave no clues to what her plans for her political future included.

1. Media are not neutral tools, but they have considerable psychic and social consequences.
2. Media are extensions of men and women’s senses.
3. Each Medium is in constant interplay with other media.
4. Media manipulate our perception of space and time.

McLuhan was known for a different theory as well, the Global Village theory. According to McLuhan’s theory, the more technologically advanced we become in our media, the more primitive we become. How is this possible? When humans depended upon tribes for their survival, they shared similar beliefs. If one tribe member experienced a tragedy, the tribe learned and responded in the same way. How did they learn about it? Audio. They heard someone tell them about the tragedy. This same thing takes place in this new Global Village (Tribe.) One person suffers a tragedy, and it is broadcast to the world. How do we learn about it? Audio. We hear the newscaster deliver the news on T.V. Hearing the news requires little effort on our part.

 According to McLuhan, “print is the technology of individualism.” McLuhan favored print media because it allows humans to remain individuals. When electronic media emerged, McLuhan said humans took steps backward into the same interdependent tribes of pre-history.

This article by Rebecca Solnit brings to light many problems with the reporting of news that we don’t always consider. We too often forget that the captions that go along with photos are not 100% truth. A photo can represent so many different things, depending on what eye’s you’re looking at it with. She discusses a couple examples of photos that were described as “looting” by the Los Angeles Times, and backs up these examples with an alternative viewpoint. She admits that “The pictures do convey desperation, but they don’t convey crime.”

Solnit does an interesting thing, she puts the “ball in the readers court,” so to say. She asks the reader to place themselves in that of a survivor of a disaster. As I was reading through her synopsis – I found myself admitting that I would have no choice but to take matters into my own hands in order to save myself and my family. Should it be a crime to take food from an abandoned grocery store during the wake of a disaster? By taking food in order for others to survive – would that make you a criminal? Or are you a rescuer? These are great ethical questions to consider.

Solnit also has a great section called “If Words Could Kill” where she discusses how the media use the term “looting” too loosely. She claims that the media often calls everything looting and thereby incite hostility toward the sufferers as well as a hysterical overreaction on the part of armed authorities.

This article just shows that it’s important to always double-check the media as well as compare it to other sources in order to get the clearest story.

It caught me off guard when they asked for a few of my blog entries for my writing samples. I have created about 5 blogs between the time I was a freshman and now. Most of them only lasted a few months and are stagnant now. (I’ll blame this on my ADD) I think it was a pleasant surprise because in those posts you can truly hear my voice, because I’m being genuine and real. If I would have known my postings could be used in an interview or in my portfolio, I think it would’ve altered what I wrote.

So far at my internship I’ve been working a lot with the social media for the company. I have set up their Twitter account as well as their Facebook page and was really surprised to see how many companies rely on both as a form as free advertising and PR.

Technology is obviously advancing everyday, and it is interesting to watch how these advances affect the media. I think social media is worth paying attention to!