Major Wars

Otherwise entitled, "An Argument With Myself Over Switching Majors for the Third Time."

Being in a writing mood, I started arguing with myself on Facebook. Yes. I did. I blame finals. Anyway, it all started with my status, "...I hate my life right now..." Which was a stupid, emo thing to say--but again, I blame finals. Two of my friends commented, and I felt I had to explain to them what was up. Besides, I needed to vent. So, here's the transcript:

Me: I'm wishing I hadn't switched my major... and finals kills everything. Heck, global warming (or pollution) takes too long! Just have year-round finals!

Me: But my new major has potential. I mean, who wouldn't kill for a good chance to rustle through archives! I've dreamed of it since... well, since I found out about awesomeness and libraries.

Me: But on the other hand, I've been bombarded with the awesomeness that is journalism. Why did I let myself get so freaked?

Me: On the other hand, who wants to spend the first few years of working life LIVING in the office? Especially when I'm planning on taking time to live at home. Let the men live at the office; I like home better, anyway.

Me: But then there's the question of dedication. If I won't dedicate myself in my career, who says I'll dedicate myself to more important matters?

Me: Priorities? Spend your time on what's more important.

Me: You could have left off the explanation and had a killer one-liner.

Me: Tangent. But now for the conclusion: I shouldn't hate life; being at a crossroads (or several, for that matter) is crazy, but a blessing, because it shows what an exciting point in my life I'm at, and I don't like boring, anyway. So I should be grateful.
And just to get the final word: One-liner's are REALLY important to happiness in general. Not.

Me: (I'll let that pass, being the magnanimous person I am.) That's the thing about having so many fantasies about what I could do with my life: if I'm indecisive, and lose one opportunity, I have another one. And another one. And another one.

Needless to say, I probably have some annoyed people who regret leaving their comments on my status in the first place. But thanks to them, I have had yet another small, but fruitful, talk with myself, and am in a better mood to do my take-home final. Yay!
On a side note, I'M GETTING MARRIED IN SIX DAYS!
Yeah, who am I to complain? I've got life so good.

Journalism According to Jon DuPre

For my journalism class, I completed an interview with Jon DuPre, a broadcaster who works for ABC 4 in Salt Lake. Basing my questions off the rubric Dr. Cressman provided, I succeeded in conducting a great interview. I learned many good things and some fascinating bits of recent history.

Jon DuPre was discouraged from following in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer, but he wanted to advocate for people, and so he decided on print journalism. As it happened, he accidentally took a broadcasting class instead of print. He liked the field’s use of pictures and sound, as well as words, so he stayed in the program. His first job was at KTVX in his senior year at BYU. As with other broadcasters, he worked long hours, filled in for others’ sick days and vacations, worked on holidays, and was paid very little for his efforts. But he loved it.

His definition of good journalism is to get the facts, double-source them, then double-check them. More than that, however, it is the responsibility to “tell the story behind the story;” in other words, to explain the situation and what the facts on the surface mean.

In my Communications 101 class, we watched “Outfoxed,” a documentary about the Fox network and Rupert Murdock. The movie’s purpose was to expose what the producers deemed bad journalism. In light of this, and the fact that Jon DuPre worked for Fox News in the past, I asked him what his thoughts were on the subject. “It’s a different sort of company,” he answered thoughtfully. “It has a particular political preference and serves a particular audience, namely conservative Republicans.” As for practicing good journalism, he replied, “I did seek to get the story behind the story, but the stories were supposed to appeal to a specific audience.”

Also necessary for good journalism is serving one’s community. Storytelling has its purpose, Mr. DuPre said, in helping people to make better-informed decisions. “I hope the people who watch are a little bit smarter and better at protecting themselves and their money.” For instance, he covered a story exposing NuSkin as a pyramid scheme in 1992. People were informed, and the company was forced to restructure.

Through journalism, Mr. DuPre feels that he has made a difference, advocating for the people. He told me of a Tooele woman who was charged for the murder of her ex-husband, and that the county attorney was corrupt and inept. He says the woman probably would have been acquitted without the story (her ex-husband was trying to kill her with a crowbar, and she acted in defense of herself and her children), but the attorney might not have been exposed. The benefit of the story was that the county attorney was exposed, and therefore couldn’t harm others in the future. In telling the story, I felt that being able to make a difference was the highlight of Mr. DuPre’s career.

Journalism has its difficulties, however. Due to the economic recession, a news source cannot afford to lose its company advertising, and therefore cannot say things against that company. Also, in order to get the audience interested, news operations have to focus more on entertainment and celebrity gossip, he told me. But why must news people do things they didn’t have to before in order to gain an audience?

He didn’t say this, but it appears that new technology and social media has made it possible for the so-called audience to gather and share news without watching the ten o’clock newscast. I asked him what his views were on the changing environment. “We have to put primary emphasis on posting news and information on the website immediately,” he told me. “The secondary interest is gathering and preparing it for news at six and ten.” That system poses a shorter deadline for verifying sources, and makes the job much different.

Social media has changed the news environment in other ways as well. Because of the internet, people can blog and Twitter news as it happens, making people less inclined to wait for the news report. His reaction to bloggers was simple. “I think that a lot of [social media] is valuable in that it encourages people to communicate, share their stories, share information; but it also allows for a lot of dissemination of misinformation,” he explained to me. “It’s important to know the difference between that and information that’s been validated. I get information from people. I think it’s valuable as long as you know the difference.”

After covering a few of the pros and cons of being a journalist, I asked him what advice he would give to students wanting to go into journalism. He answered immediately, “Don’t.” A brief laugh, and then he continued. “No, I’m kidding. Sort of, but not really. Something Walter Cronkite said, ‘If you’re not willing to do it for free, don’t do it.’ You have to be passionate about it. It’s hard work and crazy hours, and a thankless job, and as soon as you’re finished with your day’s work, you have to start over tomorrow. There’s never a time when you can rest, because news is always happening.”

The words are telling, but what impressed me was how he said them. I could hear how much he loves his job, and that to him it is all worth doing. There was one last word of advice he gave me, though. “Make sure you pay attention to every word Dr. Cressman says, because he is the smartest person in the business. He’s, like, borderline genius when it comes to news.” With the semester over, I wish I would have gotten the interview sooner. However, I have learned a lot, and hope to use the information I learned in whatever I do in my life. I have to love my job, and be willing to put forth the effort and do it well.

Code of Ethics

The season for evaluation has come. My topic for this post is to detail my personal code of ethics in journalism.
A journalist should have his or her first loyalty to tell people the truth. Although money, in many instances, "makes the world go 'round," I believe that people will trust those who have integrity. Not being a journalism major, however, I will apply this to Family History as well as journalism. In order to publish, or give a good report to clients, I must research thoroughly and present things in a proportionate way. In doing so, I will be completing my work with integrity. It frustrates me to see paintings in which people aren't portrayed with their own faces. Writing about someone's family history also creates a portrait; it would not be ethical to portray people in a way that historians, looking back, could date another historian's work by the stereotypical qualities integrated in the history. Newspapers, too, have their stereotypes. For instance, the name "yellow journalism" has significance because of the trend of reporters during that time. If we reported on the news of that era, it would be different, because while the trend of sensationalism still lives, making stories up is looked down upon when it comes to serious news (although fun stories like Bat Boy and Tiger Woods' mistresses are still contrived as junk news).
Due to the history of American journalism, I think that the news today is mainly divided into two categories: tabloid stories and substantial news. Everyone reads tabloids because they are so eye-catching. And if the purpose of writing is to entertain rather than inform, and people know that, I feel it is an honorable way to make money. Mark Twain did it on the radio, and everyone loved it.
Serious news, however, has had a good readership, because highly educated people have typically wanted more bulk and less drama. The honor of news writing is in informing the readers of the world around them. Not interfering with their ability to make decisions for themselves, or providing balanced information, despite taking a political stand.
To apply that to writing family histories, I believe that a historian should avoid tabloidisticity, unless it is a book like "1776 and All That." This is my ethics code, and I hope to fulfill it.

National Debt

So, I'm reading the assignment for my Marriage and Family class, and the section about debt reminds me of a Saturday Night Live skit. I know, some people think putting the two together is a sin nigh unto murder--okay, I exaggerate. But here's my point: this economy is not bad because we're in a war; it's not bad because, according to some people, Obama is the Antichrist; it's not bad because those darn liberals or those darn conservatives are screwing everything up (or maybe it's those darn moderates). While these may be contributing factors, the real issue is this: we're spending more than we earn. We're borrowing money from China, for crying out loud. China, which, awesome as it is in some ways, is selling us lead-laced kids' toys and toxic drywall. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's a conspiracy to take over the world. Maybe it's because we buy it, therefore they don't see a reason to up their standards. Also, we owe them so much money; they've got it hanging over our heads. That can't be good for independent trading, let alone diplomacy or our economy.
So, what should we do about this government debt? I don't know what we can do to decrease it quickly, aside from raising taxes and cutting spending astronomically. And you know people won't like that one bit. In the papers, you hear about all these people who are affected by changes or lack of changes in health care. These heart-wrenching, frustrating stories about people who slip through the cracks and fall through the loopholes, having medical issues sap their lives away, and costing the government more than if they would have been covered for non-transplant-rejection pills instead of another organ transplant. Anyone who reads these articles cannot deny that the government is inefficient, at least in health care if not in other areas.
But we cannot take out our frustrations by laying bitter and vicious blame on the president, or our senators, or anyone else. I repeat, we cannot pin all the blame on our elected officials. We need to get involved and write our senators, and do research and vote. But more importantly, we need to focus on our own spending habits first. As the scripture says, "First pluck the mote out of thine own eye; then thou canst see clearly to remove the beam in thy neighbors' eye."
Thus we come full circle to my point, illustrated in the video clip: don't spend money that you do not have.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/saturday-night-live-dont-buy-stuff
Also useful is the article that got me thinking about it in the first place.
http://institute.lds.org/manuals/eternal-marriage-student-manual/d-e-debt-2.asp

Email versus cell phone

I realized today how annoying cell phones are for contacting a bunch of people. Usually I use my phone to schedule and figure out things with my mom, or to set up an appointment with caterer for my wedding, or the ward clerk calls me to schedule a meeting. It's not that much, when I'm just being contacted, or when a lot of my phone call is mother-daughter conversation, and I call her all the time, and know her schedule.

I had to call three people to schedule things among us. Normally, I send out an email, or a bunch of emails. Does it take the same amount of time as a phone call? No. Why? Because in an email, you send out the message, and they get it and respond whenever they check their email. With a phone, either you reach them in that moment, or you have to leave a message, call them back, etc. All told, it can be twice or three times the amount of time you could have spent just shooting them an email. I used to call my friends from our home phones all the time to see if they could play. I remember always calling when my friend was in the shower, or eating dinner, or something else; I typically have bad timing with those things. But I usually didn't get the answering machine; one of her numerous little siblings would answer the phone--and proceed to tell me too much information as to why she could not come to the phone.

It is utterly disheartening to get answering machine after answering machine. I feel bad for telemarketers in that way; but I feel even worse for them, because I, like most other people, do not welcome their calls, and therefore do not pick up, or if I do pick up, I do not want to buy what they're selling, and therefore their call is fruitless, even if I'm polite about it.

Bottom line: email is the new contacting device. Not only is it more time efficient, it is also more organized. You don't have to go through "missed calls," "made calls," "text messages," and "voicemail" to get all of your messages and who called who. You have an inbox and an outbox, and it's easy.

What are the downfalls of email? It's not as personal. You don't hear his or her voice. The very fact that it is faster means that it is not as valuable. In other words, it doesn't mean as much as if you took the pains to call and call again.

In this changing technological world, the protocols of polite communication change inherently. I think people will understand if it's a business email, as opposed to a wedding gift thank you note. I could go on, but I think my message is clear. I much prefer emails, when they are the polite thing to do.

America the Empire

By accident, I searched for a bunch of random letters in a Yahoo search engine just now, and the results reminded me of an earlier discussion. A bean bag falling on my keyboard typed in "lk huy." The first result was a site for Pizza Hut in Sri Lanka (www.pizzahut.lk).
My fiance and I were recently talking about American Imperialism, a topic of discussion in the World Civ(ilization) class he TA's for. In a way, Pizza Hut, and other American brands that have been established in foreign countries, are a form of imperialism.
With this in mind, I wonder how much connotations of words play into such philosophical discussions. Is the conversation fair? What is the underlying message? For instance, when asked the question "Is America an empire?" a lot of people may infer that to be an empire is a negative thing, and that since they don't view their country as an evil, or a menace to world society, they automatically respond with a "No." The question is, does the asker imply that? If so, or if not, does the word "empire" really have the denotation of a land-grabbing menace? I'd argue that it does not, but I'm willing to hear your reasoning for why it is.
I can understand that "empire" may have a negative connotation in many minds. After all, history has shown us some very negative effects of empires. Some are manifest in trends such as the persecution of the Jews in Rome, or the extravagant tributes that other countries offered Egypt to bribe the pharaoh into not attacking. A lot of blood is spilled in wars that lead to the growth of an empire. And don't forget taxes, the physical sign of being subject to an emperor.
I guess I'm arguing for American imperialism, given all the things I've just said. But what I'm really arguing for is a free market. If Pizza Hut has the potential to be popular in Sri Lanka, why not open a store there? Globalizing is a good thing, in the sense that it brings valuable things to a wider audience. Globalization has its dangers, but so does everything.

Climate Change and Respect for the Earth

Ever notice how no two years are the same, weather-wise? This year, we've had the wettest summer of recorded history. The first snow also hit at the end of September up in Brighton, whereas last year it waited at least another month. I think we're due for another ice age. It's been about ten thousand years since the last one, and they come at intervals of roughly ten thousand years.
If asked whether I believe in global warming or, as it is now called, climate change, I usually answer no. I became very disenchanted with the whole idea after Al Gore. And try as I might, it is just difficult for me not to be skeptical of anyone who flies the colors of climate change. Such is the human mind.
I guess Al Gore got a lot of us with that. He professed that the world was ending, showed what I later found to be skewed evidence, and promoted all these energy-saving schemes. A lot of it I chalk up to exploitation. It doesn't help that further research found that he has a large "carbon footprint."
Understand, I have always felt that taking care of my environment was a valuable thing to do. I grew up aspiring to be a Native American from the so-called glory days of the nations. My favorite book was probably Indian in the Cupboard, and me and my best friend pretended to be Indians all the time. I also wanted to be Pocahontas sometimes, although I wanted to be an Indian Brave more. I was oblivious to the fact that in order to be a Brave one had to be a man. But I digress. One of the key factors in being an Indian, as they were then called, was respect and gratitude to the land that gave them life. I embraced that concept fully.
No matter what we do, the climate is always going to change in cycles, with or without humans' pollution and mistreatment. Still, it's negligent of people to strip the land, to fill the water and the air and the soil with foreign things. I am not a save-the-whales person, but I wish there were a better, efficient way of moving in the water, without filling the oceans with sound pollution, or filling the air with smog from our cars. We don't know how much of an effect we have, or how little. In fact, if I were to judge from how things have been in the past, there is always going to be evidence that points in both directions. What should we do, then?
Live moderately. No matter what people say, we should take just what we need, and give back to the environment that supports us.

Human Pheromones

I always thought that my fiance smelled uncommonly good (particularly at the end of the day) and now I have more solid evidence as to why; he'd always said there was a study done on human pheromones. Check out this link (I couldn't find a Share button). http://howlifeworks.com/health_beauty/sex_peromones/?cid=8088ib_dfinance

My kind of debate

I like fair debate. It's fun. Sometimes I argue a point just to pursue it, just to think it through fully. I wonder what people think about me, as far as what my views are. And then I remember that if I have any viewpoint whatsoever, there's always going to be someone who disagrees.
I guess you could say that what someone chooses to argue is something that the person thinks, to a certain degree.
As for me, I'm experimenting with my own views, and probably will for as long as new issues come to the surface. I hope no one takes offense at what I view as a necessary part of life. It's easier for me to debate freely with people I have some sort of relationship with, because they know I still care about them as individuals, and vice versa. And there's that added benefit of being able to explain what I mean better after I've thought things out more, or being able to show them I'm actually multi-dimensional.
I'm rather disenchanted with politics these days--not that I liked them in the first place. But to know that everything is about winning people's opinions and support at the expense of propriety is discouraging. How am I supposed to react to people saying stuff like, "So-and-so should apologize for saying something, because Joe Wilson had to." It's devolved into two-year-old tattling and getting back at each other. I idly wonder if we need another Reagan to make fun of all the mud-slinging that's going on.

Good Sense--Hopefully It's Common

Lately, I've noticed that people in the United States treat everything like a spectator sport. I had the opportunity to attend the BYU-Florida football game. From my seat I could hear the angry, frustrated responses to fumbles, scores for the other team, etc. Now we've all been frustrated at a game, or sat by extremely displeased football fans who shout out what the players on the field should have done, or didn't do right. My high school history teacher called it armchair quarterbacking. I don't recall being so engulfed by fans hating on their own team. Except in politics.
Instances like Joe Wilson shouting "you lie" in President Obama's speech, or the outrage at the president's school broadcast telling kids to stay in school, have been displays of disproportionate hatred. There was a time when the president was supported, regardless of whether the people voted for him or for his opponent.
The above are recent events, but past presidents have had similar reactions. President George W. Bush, for example, was publicly hated. I cannot tell you how many conversations I hear that criticize President Bush personally, unrelated to decisions he made in office -- I mean below-the-belt insults that went after his accent, or his grammar (I even had a friend curse him repeatedly during the early election process before his first term in office). I cannot tell you how disgusting it is to hear people still grumbling about how Senator Al Gore should have won, eight, even nine years after the election. Being that bitter about the way things happened is ridiculous; if you want the system to be changed, then do it through the system; being bitter isn't going to change policy.
The first president I remember was hated on as well. And I think the trend of unreasonable attacks really took off during his presidency. President Bill Clinton was attacked vehemently, so much so that he got impeached. Of course having an affair is not right. Lying under oath about it was doubly not right. The outcry from these things was merited, to some extent. But in reviewing the situation, and age-old question comes to mind: do the means justify the ends? Several presidents have had affairs, and have not been impeached for it. It goes under the category of 'personal life,' and not under 'oath of office.' Of course there's the argument of broken trust. If he lied under oath about an affair, would he lie under oath about other things? Possibly. But it's arguable that the people who most vehemently propagated the cause of impeachment just used the affair as an excuse to kick the president out of office. And that's where I come to distrust this method of hatred.
Have you ever heard the idea that anger blocks out reasoned thought? That's what I think the effect is of this spreading bitterness. People aren't able to see past the apparent faults to what may be the motive behind the message. Everyone has a reason to speak their mind, from the proverbial little kid who wants a cookie and tells his or her mommy that cookies are healthy, to the official who wants to win an election, or the writer who wants to sway opinion. Perhaps it would be easier to see motives and act according to one's best knowledge if anger and bitterness is rethought and held back for the sake of reasoning.
And this is where my argument gets tricky. I don't believe it's good to listen to people like Glenn Beck, who yell at the top of their lungs and shut out fair debate. If an argument is so high-stakes that he, or anyone else, can't let it be said, it implies that he can't capably rebut it on his own radio talk show, where his opinion can be said unfettered. A radio talk show, in my opinion, should be about talking things out, exploring the details and letting ideas and opinions form and change to reflect the most reasonable conclusion. I don't trust people that won't let the facts stand on their own. I don't think anyone else should, either.

Journalism: the political yo-yo

It surprises me how much public opinion of journalism changes, and how the trends seem to bounce back and forth between opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. Reading over the assigned ER readings, it appears difficult to try to categorize time periods into unified views of free speech. And well it should: with the broad spectrum of people, there are doubtless many points of view. The overall theme seems to be a bouncing-back of ideologies from censorship to free speech and back again, with changing rationales for the reasoning behind it. This pattern leads me to believe that it will continue, and in new and interesting ways. Since the internet has blossomed, censorship laws and possibilities of communication have grown in size and diversity. Government authorities have had to adapt to the capabilities of internet communication, adjusting censorship policies and tenets as twittering of news from other countries, as well as the transmission of ideas, have taken ahold of the internet. Those who deal with free speech issues will have to come up with new reasons for restricting or not restricting media flow. My dearest wish sometimes is to make all this fluctuation stop, and have absolute definitions of things like free speech (and which political party is completely right). Unfortunately, like most idealist dreams, this will remain unfulfilled(unless some scientist brings Martin Luther King, Jr. back from the dead to rally the masses and change things).

What is journalism? Who is a journalist?

Journalism is the product of a journalist. A journalist is someone who researches and reports, writes and edits. He or she is the insider who brings hidden things to view. Despite personal opinions, the writer attempts to present a balanced view of a situation. In writing, the thesis is defined and backed with specific and related concrete detail from both points of view. Commentary and opinion are minimized. It is the journalist’s job to make extracted information interesting to the audience, and let the audience decide for itself what its opinion is.

Journalism, however, is not neutral. It is biased by nature, and as such must be read with a critical eye. It is compiled and sold to the general public in order to educate and to sway opinion. Journalism is a written form of media, a branch of the business that appeals to the educated and those who seek knowledge. In order for it to thrive, it must appeal to its audience. It must adapt to the environment, and compete in areas that may threaten its popularity, and even its existence.

But is journalism relevant to today’s society? Is it limited to hard copy or does it encompass the internet as well? If it is only on paper, it may not survive the culture it depends on and supports. Transferring from newspaper stands to websites may be necessary to adapt to a changing world. After all, written history had to adapt when the printing press was invented. Information sharing was no longer limited to monks in monasteries copying books for the nobles. Journalism was born from the increased accessibility of the printed word. Now that print decreases, journalism must adapt. Freedom of the press no longer means exactly what it did when the Constitution of the United States included the clause in its time-worn document. The press has become even more public, as anyone with access to a computer and the internet can post information, true and false, and opinions can be shared by commenting on someone else’s work, at little or no cost to the people involved.

So the question is, can journalism survive when so many people can share information and ideas without spending as much as they did when journals were popular?