News Flash: Libya is a Mess

CNN posted a great video today that gives an inside look to Misrata, Libya after five weeks of battle. The city looks completely torn apart, complete with bullet holes and abandoned vehicles everywhere. Watching the video reminded me of some type of level in a first-person-shooter video game. There was not anyone in the streets without a bullet-proof vest or at least a semi-automatic weapon. Footage is seen of several attacks, including one within about a 100 yards of the CNN crew. There is also footage of an rocket-propelled-grenade firing on tank from relatively close range at the 1:30 mark. CNN then visited a hospital in Misrata where many civilians were being treated. Some were being looked after with seemingly good care, but the Emergency Room was in a tent out front of the hospital and many patients are being cared for in the parking lot. Many of the civilians are victims of Colonel Qaddafi's attempt to smash the rebel uprising. Seeing so many civilians injured puts the question to mind: Is the US helping the right way? There is a large debate in Washington about our country's role in Libya. Ideally the United States and the rest of the world would like to have him out of power as soon as possible, but no one really knows how long it could actually take. One of the major problems on the table with helping free Libya is how long it would take and how much the United States would be leaned on for help for another decade or so. There are no foreign troops on the ground yet from western powers, however military officials are hinting that other countries are capable of handling the load.

Admiral Mullen replied, in an echo of Mr. Obama, that “we certainly are looking at options from not doing it to doing it,” and then added, “there are plenty of countries that have the abilities, the arms, the skill set, to be able to do this.”

Another country helping out in that region certainly wouldn't hurt the United States, as long as they are an ally or at least neutral to the us. However, if other countries are going to carry the load in Libya how much longer should the United States continue to drop money on them? After seeing the CNN video I'm thinking that the US would be better off dropping care packages and sending the Red Cross over there to help with civilian casualties rather than risking more innocent lives with air strikes. From a military standpoint, the US does not want to spread too thin. From a civilian standpoint, I would rather have the US help wounded civilians than risk creating more. Finish Qaddafi and be done with it. 

Digital Subscriptions

The New York Times announced this week that they will start digital subscriptions in the United States. The idea has already been implemented in Canada, and the news came to the rest of the world on Monday. According to a letter from the times, Canada was being used  as an experiment (does not say much for them) in order to fine-tune and fix any lingering issues before unleashing the new revenue generator on the globe. Subscribers to the newspaper will still have free access on the internet, as will select other folks with subscriptions to the International Herald Tribune. Non-subscribers will still be able to view the website as long as they stay under the 20 article views per month quota. If a reader exceeds this amount, they will be asked to subscribe. Prospective subscribers will have options for different packages they would like to receive in their daily news. For those who use search engines to find news, the New York Times has them covered as well. Articles will be free to view for them, however there will be a daily limit as to how much they can do that. I think they did an excellent job of pricing their services. The way the times set it up allows causal news readers to be in the know, but they also can generate revenue from their more faithful readers. The faithful readers probably won't have a problem subscribing to their favorite news organization either. This will surely point online news in the right direction in terms of generating revenue, but there is still work to be done.

Interactive Journalism

One of the better things that has come out of the Internet is the interactive factors that come into play for the consumer. These interactive features can be used as tools, entertainment, and file sharing. Certain online news outlets have done a great job of harnessing the capabilities of the web. Many news sources use slide shows, amateur video, charts, time lines, among other things that take on an interactive feature of their own. When the 2010 US Census became public, news outlets needed a clear and efficient way to let readers see where our population is currently. Thanks to the Internet, the New York Times was able to use this interactive chart to tell the story. The best part about this feature is that it lets you see population growth in every county of the United States. Before the internet, newspapers had to pick and choose what information to put into the article or map, deeming what was important and what was not. Now, there is infinite space for the same outlets. Readers can deem which information is important for themselves. There are several different maps to look at. They range from racial breakdown to housing vacancy. Whatever information anyone would want to know in regards to the census is available in a couple of clicks and zooms.

As I was messing around on one of the maps, I realized that someone had to put all of this information into the map. Every county has different numbers. That sounds like an insane amount of man hours to me. I would like to give credit to Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter, and Alan McLean for their hard work in putting this great tool together for the rest of the world to better understand the US population.

Prepare for Harshness

Courtesy of FBI

One of the things we have talked about in class is how new media, in particular the Internet, has brought down the quality of reporting as a whole. The speed at which news moves on the web has a direct effect on the quality of writing that consumers read every day. On Yahoo today, Brett Dykes wrote about a FBI press release asking the public for help in decoding encrypted letters. These letters are clues in an unsolved murder case that happened back in June of 1999. The FBI is looking for a fresh set of eyes (public) to take a look at the notes and are encouraged to see what they can come up with. Dykes does a good job making this clear in his writing. However, Dykes fails to leave out an important piece of information that would perhaps hinder the public's ability to help with the case. In the FBI release, it is clear that the encrypted notes were written by the victim, suspected to be written several days before his death. In Dykes article, he fails to clarify that fact to mine and others' frustration. This is the type of article that could have some interesting comments attached to it. Reading the comments it was clear that many of the readers thought the encryptions were written by the murderer, not the victim. This steers many people in the wrong direction and actually hinders the FBI's attempt to get help from the public. When I first read the article I was under the same impression until reading the FBI press release. This is a great example of the fact checking that is available to us, but it is shows that there is lazy/careless mistakes that come with the vast sources of news outlets there are today. I commented twice warning of this error, but they both have since been deleted. Interested to see who controls reader commenting...

Today the New York Times reported that Colonel Qaddafi is continuing to fight back against rebel fighters in Libya. This is being done by way of a counter-offensive while rebels have sat back while diplomats met in London. Qaddafi is now attacking from the Mediterranean Sea, which brings the battle to the water for the first time during the 10 day campaign. According to the report, one of Libya's vessels was forced to beach and another was sunk. Col. Qaddafi has ignored the United Nations resolution for a cease-fire issued 12 days ago. This isn't going to bode well for him in the long run. In all likelihood, western forces are going to continue to help the rebels by air-raiding Libya until Qaddafi has nothing left to throw into the battle. Rebels have pledged that they will hold democratic elections should Qaddafi be foiled in his attempts to shut down any opposition facing him. This still points to more guidance by the western world. France and Britain are the ones forcing the issue for the most part. It seems as though the United States is there to just blow things up at this point.

Police Cracking Down on Students this Spring

According to an article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette the local police are planning on stepping up enforcement for the inevitably wild springing that happens every spring. Scott Merzbach tells his readers that the Amherst Police Department usually puts more officers on duty for weekends in the spring time, but this year they are starting their extra spring shifts earlier. The money for the extra shifts to police officers come from state grants that will be distributed to the Amherst and UMass police department's respectively. There a re plenty of statistics to digest in the article, but I feel as though only one side of the story is conveyed to the reader. What about the students? What do they have to say about extra police forces on the weekends? I for one question whether the state's money should be going towards the prevention of underage drinking when everyone knows it is going to happen regardless of how many officers are patrolling. I understand that UMass is trying to change the culture here in regards to drinking and partying, but attempting to throw money at the problem isn't going to fix much. Drinking at college is a national, cultural idea. Should there be alcohol education? Absolutely. Should underage kids get fined? Sure. I think the better idea that comes into play with this article is the drinking age. If the drinking age is lowered, there are not nearly as many fines (revenue) coming into police departments. Not sure how big of a role the money actually has in this debate, but it is certainly something to ponder.

All the President's Men

If there are any aspiring journalists out there that want to watch a movie that exemplifies what it takes to be a journalist, All the President's Men is definitely the movie. Starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redfod, they play the two reporters that uncovered the Watergate Scandal during Nixon's administration. I thought the movie did an excellent job portraying the daily life of a news reporter. They showed all the grunt work and dead ends that happen when trying to get the big scoop for a story. Although there were dramatizations like any other movie, All the President's Men did a great job of keeping things real. This movie debuted in 1976, so it was definitely dated. If I was in college when this movie came out and I was a journalism major I would have promptly switched to a different major. All the research for the story had to be done in libraries with huge stacks of books. Redford and Hoffman had to contact numerous type of administrations for different documents or receipts just to confirm their sources. The computer and internet has done incredible things to the business and its quite amazing to see how things worked back then. The typewriters were something else though. Even writers for the Washington Post were using the two-finger method as they typed up stories that would be read by thousands of people. Towards the beginning of the movie, Hoffman takes a piece that Redford has written and starts to retype it without asking him. In today's world, that would not of been possible thanks to email and other types of file sharing. However, the file sharing would have allowed both of them to continually edit their story as more pieces came to the forefront. This would have been much easier than re-writing  the story everytime a source went dead or turned out to be misleading. I was into the movie for the majority of it, only stopping to get a snack. This movie is a must-see for anyone that is thinking of becoming a journalist or is interested in reporting.

Expect the Unexpected with Versatility and Flexibility

It seems as though journalism is becoming a more and more flexible profession these days. Writers are expected to know the in's and out's of technology, while still being able to get the old-fashioned reporting done. Journalists not only should know multiple ways of getting news out to the public, but also should be able to report on a wide range of subjects. One will never know when breaking news is about to occur, so it is always wise to be ready. This article by Dave Kindred shows how important it is to stay on your toes as a reporter, even if you are on vacation. 

Redskin's beat writer Rick Maese from the Washington Post did exactly that. He was on vacation in Hawaii with his wife when the earthquakes/tsunamis hit Japan and Hawaii. Instead of continuing to relax and enjoy the vacation, Maese and his wife decided to travel to Japan and cover the disaster. They both risked life and limb to get a first hand look at the carnage and report back to their employer. They were armed with only Kleenex tissues to protect them from the radiation as they were driven around Japan by taxi.

This story shows how dedicated reporters are to their jobs. Even if they do not cover world news or natural disasters, it's still part of their job to report the news and sports journalists are no exception. Just because the sport's department of news outlets report more on games than actual news does not mean that they are incapable of covering a real story. If I want to make it as a journalist, I will have to be able to cover more than sports or politics individually. Flexibility and Versatility seems to be the key to success in Journalism. I hope that I'm limber enough... 

Dangers of Journalism

After reading a New York Times editorial today I have a new appreciation for Journalism as a whole. It is easy for anyone who has an interest to get their updates on anything news related. A click of the mouse here or there and "boom", consider yourself updated for the day. Before the internet it took days to gather enough information for a story, but now every moment can become news for the public (see Twitter). Not much thought goes into how the news was gathered, or what had to be done in order to attain it. Some journalists risk everything in order to get the scoop and inform the masses. With all of the issues in the middle east recently, journalists are once again in the middle of a lot of dangerous battles between oppressive governments and radical civilians. The editorial mentions that there have been 50 attacks on journalists since the crisis in Libya began about a month ago. Journalists just want to get the story right, generally. So why are they being attacked? It seems as though the profession does not get paid enough if you ask me, but my opinion is obviously biased.