Manjoo

    Let me start off by saying, I am always skeptical about what I hear on the news or read in the paper. Everyone has their own opinion even if they say they don’t. There is always two sides to a story, his-hers-and the truth. To form your own opinion you would have to look at both sides and then decide on your own what the truth is. With technology today it is getting a lot harder to do this. So-called journalist can post anything on the web and if you want to believe you can but is it the truth?

     Farhad Manjoo wrote “True Enough”, and explored why hardnosed journalism is no more.  Manjoo gave examples of Kathy Dopp and the presidential mistake, the Swift Boat Veterans, “truthiness” and peripheral processing.

    I found the Swift Boat Veterans story to be quite entertaining. These veterans believed that John Kerry had not done half of what he said. Even though they were not reporters or journalist they were able to spread their views and thoughts. They were able to get backing finically which allowed them to reach national levels. This furthers proves the point that anybody can reach the mass public. I believe the same tactic was used during the 2008 election. Many people were distraught over Obama possibly being president. They tried every trick in the book to attempt to get the America population to vote against him.

     The Kathy Dopp story emphasized the power one person can have. Dopp, a mathematician who is an election observer, noticed an irregularity in the Florida results. It ultimately turned out that there was not an irregularity, but it showed what power one person can have when they notice something wrong. Dopp posted all of her findings to the web and even had charts that prompted the question, “Is it possible to rig op-scan voting systems?” The web was able to make Dopp, essentially, an amateur reporter; she told us what she thought the experts weren’t.

    This brings me to my next point, Experts. Experts are no longer experts in a field they are experts in delivering a message. In a sense this is good and bad for news reporters. The good way is for the power hungry reporters who think they can say whatever they want and the public will believe them…the bad part is that people who know this trick will not tune in and instead go somewhere where they can get more “expert” news.

    This goes into peripheral processing. This is where people who may be lazy at the time or don’t know anything about a subject will turn to “Consumer Reports”. The book said, “How often are Consumer Reports wrong about some product endorsement?” This is where it gets confusing in my eyes. Think about how many times an average person might look for advice on everyday items. What is they can’t find a Consumer Report on the item they are looking for? What if the Consumer Report they find differs from a blog they read? These are the questions that could alter someone’s peripheral processing.

    “Truthiness” is what is known as two parts one is those who “think with their head” and the others are those who “know with their heart.” This occurs everywhere. A part of truthiness is that people may believe a story just because it may feel right even though there is lack of evidence to prove it. “Truthiness” took off, a person of expertise was able to come up with this term and let it ride.  It’s the power people have over the public. If they say it with confidence and meaning and people have to same views they will accept it.

    The future is coming and with that journalism is changing and it may not be for the good. We are all going to have to adjust to the new age of journalism. It is our job to sort through the junk and deliver the actual facts to the public. The biggest challenge is to not get sucked into the technology that is toxic to journalism. 

Trial Post

   I arrived to the courtroom of Judge Manuel A. Lopez and noticed three officers. One of them was escorting an inmate and the other two were standing alone, I assumed incase anything gets out of hand.

   The case that struck me the most was this 16 years old. His last name is Terrance Oliver and was facing the judge for resisting arrest, obstructing an officer without violence and misdemeanor allegations. He was already on probation.

    The reason this case stuck to me out of the other ones is because he is only 16 years old. Even though I am only a mere 5 years older than him I feel like he is just a kid. I listen to the news and hear about kids his age getting arrested, being involved in gang activity and the list goes on. I just think about what could have gone wrong in this young man’s life to land him in front of the judge.

    Oliver lives with his grandma because his mom recently died. Doing his part to speak he tried to use his mother’s death as an excuse for what he did.  I couldn’t believe that he was trying to use that as an excuse. My girlfriend lost her dad when she younger and isn’t out committing crimes and getting arrest. I know that people handle the death of a parent differently but using that as an excuse for his mistakes is ridiculously.

     The youth today seems to always find something to blame on their behavior. I believe this is what Oliver is trying to do. Instead of being a kid and staying out of trouble he is acting out and thinking that using his mom’s death as an excuse will get him off the hook.

    He was found guilty and sentenced to 39.5 months in a state prison. I hope for his sake that his sentence with be a wakeup call and he will be able to straighten his life out.

Politics

      After listening to William March I have decided that I would not be suited to be a political reporter. Although finding out about the spending in political parties is interesting I’m not sure I would want to do it.

     The most interesting aspect of March’s presentation was that people have found ways to beat the system on contributing to political parties. So how it works is that the max limit for a U.S. citizen is one thousand dollars. What a person might do, such as the person March talked about, is have people who work for their company donates to the party with their money. This is the part that is illegal.

       March walked us through some websites that allowed him to research the donations to the Clinton party in 1996. By using this website he was able to find that Mark Jimenez had contributed around three hundred thousand dollars to the Clinton administration. By using the website for Florida Corporate records, sunbiz.org,                          March was able to connect Jimenez’s company and his employers to donating rough five hundred thousand dollars to the Clinton administration.

       Being able to have this type of public record is crucial for a political reporter. Without this information March would not have been able to connect the dots. This is the part of political reporting that I find most interesting.

        I  always love a good scandal and the Jimenez case was exactly that. March was able to present hard evidence against the employees of Jimenez’s company. Some of the employees had not even voted since they registered. Many of them were even republicans which throws a red flag instantly. All of the evidence was gathered together and made into a story and ended up ruining Jimenez’s company and ultimately forcing Jimenez to serve jail time and pay fines. 

Budgets!!!!

        Money in, money out, proposed, adopted, all things budget and all things that do not tickle my fancy. That’s right I learned more about a budget than I would have liked but am glad I did. As Preston Trigg told us, budgets are the least taught subject in schools, and for good reason. Listening to the ins and outs of a budget bore me but I am aware that budgets are important to know.

        I guess the most important thing about budgets is not knowing every single detail but knowing how to navigate around one. Trigg mentioned that those who propose the budgets also put out an executive summary. At first I thought GREAT! that means I do not have to read everything else. Then he had to go and burst my bubble and say that is what they want you to read. With all things there is a fine print and putting out an executive summary they are trying to make us not see the fine print.

       I found this quite interesting, why wouldn’t they want us to dig deeper into their budget. Well I learned that in the summary they might say there is going to be a 2 cent increase on salaries, which may not seem like a lot. But if you look harder at those 2 cents  that could mean a 45 percent increase overall. Now that is something to look at. I know that if I was covering that government agency I would want to know why there is such a high percentage increase. On the flip side it is also important to look at decreases. They may decrease one item and raise another to make it seem like everything is even but in reality someone is getting taken for a ride.

       What makes my job as a journalist even harder is trying to find a story out of these increases and decreases. Sure a tax increase is a no brainer but what it there is an increase in the computer equipment budget. On the surface it may look like they are replacing old equipment but it could mean that their current equipment is magically appearing in employees houses.

     All things considered I’m glad I learned how to look at a budget and what to look for but hopefully I will not have to deal with them. 

Public Meeting 2

           I arrived at today’s public meeting about intersections expecting the same thing I experienced my last public meeting. What I found was that even though this meeting was a lot smaller than the recognition meeting I attended before it was a lot more lively and interesting.

          Unlike the other meeting this one was about tax payer’s money and construction in their backyard. The crowd was pretty diverse, politicians, heads of neighborhood associations and just everyday folk wanting to know what’s going on.

          I walked into the rec center off of North Dale Mabry and Northdale Blvd, which is one of the intersections they are talking about redoing, and noticed poster boards with Google image type pictures depicting what the roads would look like. I thought this was a great idea to have the resident’s visual the changes instead of just telling them about it. The other intersection in question was North Lakeview Drive South and North Dale Mabry. There were also poster boards of this intersection next to the other ones. 

          This particular meeting was in what they call the Preliminary Design and Engineering Study, which in laymen’s terms means that they are proposing this to the public and trying to convince them to vote on it. The first intersection had 4 choices and the second had 3. The country and contracting company is trying to figure out which choice the residents would prefer over the other.

         The contracting team put on a video for the residents at the meeting. I thought this video was top notch and made me feel like doing this construction was a great idea….I DON’T EVEN LIVE HERE. That’s how convincing I felt this video was. It had great graphics and details, it told exactly what was going to be done and how much it would cost. At least that is what I thought…I’ve been around enough politics to know not everything will be disclosed.

        After the video, the head of the contract team offered the attendees of the meeting to get up and look at the poster boards and ask questions to any of the staff located at the boards.

        Although some might not agree I thought this meeting was very interesting. It made me think towards the future and if I would be attending a meeting towards such a topic. Being forced to attend public meetings, it made me realize that these are important and informative meetings that someday I will want to go to.  

          

         Quote of the meeting: “There will be a no construction option.” That was replied with clapping from the attending residents.

Public Meeting 2

           I arrived at today’s public meeting about intersections expecting the same thing I experienced my last public meeting. What I found was that even though this meeting was a lot smaller than the recognition meeting I attended before it was a lot more lively and interesting.

          Unlike the other meeting this one was about tax payer’s money and construction in their backyard. The crowd was pretty diverse, politicians, heads of neighborhood associations and just everyday folk wanting to know what’s going on.

          I walked into the rec center off of North Dale Mabry and Northdale Blvd, which is one of the intersections they are talking about redoing, and noticed poster boards with Google image type pictures depicting what the roads would look like. I thought this was a great idea to have the resident’s visual the changes instead of just telling them about it. The other intersection in question was North Lakeview Drive South and North Dale Mabry. There were also poster boards of this intersection next to the other ones. 

          This particular meeting was in what they call the Preliminary Design and Engineering Study, which in laymen’s terms means that they are proposing this to the public and trying to convince them to vote on it. The first intersection had 4 choices and the second had 3. The country and contracting company is trying to figure out which choice the residents would prefer over the other.

         The contracting team put on a video for the residents at the meeting. I thought this video was top notch and made me feel like doing this construction was a great idea….I DON’T EVEN LIVE HERE. That’s how convincing I felt this video was. It had great graphics and details, it told exactly what was going to be done and how much it would cost. At least that is what I thought…I’ve been around enough politics to know not everything will be disclosed.

        After the video, the head of the contract team offered the attendees of the meeting to get up and look at the poster boards and ask questions to any of the staff located at the boards.

        Although some might not agree I thought this meeting was very interesting. It made me think towards the future and if I would be attending a meeting towards such a topic. Being forced to attend public meetings, it made me realize that these are important and informative meetings that someday I will want to go to.  

          

         Quote of the meeting: “There will be a no construction options.” That was replied with clapping from the attending residents.

Not a T.V. body

      I am a big fan of violent, investigative, no holds bar kind of shows. In those types of shows you see a lot of dead bodies and wounds that make you desensitized to that stuff, if you are into that. All of the shows in the world could not have prepared be for what I saw and heard from the Hillsborough Medical Examiner’s office.

     Vernard Adams, MD Chief Medical Examiner spoke to my class for roughly 20-30 minutes, telling us the legal stuff about his line of work. A couple of interesting things Dr. Adams told us were about, who would want the public record, what their missions are and how they dispose of bodies.

      I was intrigued to learn that their missions were to investigate deaths that are unnatural and dispose of unwanted bodies. I just thought that an M.E. just autopsied the body and wrote a report. Dr. Adams told us that they have switched to cremating unwanted bodies instead of burying. I found this interesting until I heard later that it is because cremating cost about ¼ less. Some of the people that I didn’t think would want to have the public record were life insurance policy, state attorney and public defender. After Dr. Adams explained why, it made a lot my sense.

      Finally we get to the good part, so we get the tour around the three buildings and end up at the autopsy room/coolers.  Now I have to admit the way Dr. Adams talked about dead people amazed me, I’m thinking to myself “geez this guy has probably seen it all and it just doesn’t affect him anymore.” So we’re standing in the lobby and he tells us that there is an autopsy going on and he doesn’t think we can go in there room. Then all of a sudden the door to the room opens and BAM there is one our my classmates and a dead body.

       I got to tell you seeing a lifeless body just laying there with practically nothing inside was gut wrenching. Those T.V. shows don’t do anything to prepare you for the real thing. I am glad I experienced a body in that state. I’ve been to funerals and even though they were sad, the body was put together. I’m going to stick to journalism and public records.