Blog on Wartime Reporting

Lessons from the War zone by Farnaz Fassihi describes how wartime journalists are told not to tell one side of the confrontation what battle strategies may be used against them. Throughout the article he is contemplating whether he should inform the army as to what's going on because it could save many lives. Me personally I think that no matter what your job is if you can save an innocent life you should do it. I think doing this would be just instinct but I guess in his learning he forgot this.

The Way Reporters Use Words

In Reporters and Rhetoric the author believes that reporters shape the language that the audience uses today. They say that the newscast use basically the same language to present the information as the other newscasts. But when a program breaks this mold and speaks their mind it is out of the ordinary. I believe that this information is true and that the newscasts should relay the information in their own words. At least this will gain them more of an audience because of their courage to be their own program and do things their own way.

"What Orwell Didn't Know" Week 2

In "Welcome to the Infotainment Freak Show" , Martin Kaplan, explains his belief that media sites such as the news and the internet have changed into entertainment sites. He believes that the producers of these sites believe in having better ratings over the content of what the present. Kaplan explains this by using examples of news sites to illustrate his point.

Kaplan is right when he says that the news and internet have turned into being more of media outlets than a place to educate the public. The news cloud the important stories or don't even give them the attention that celebrity news garners. This proves that the producers of these shows and websites are interested in getting their ratings high at the cost of making their audience more knowledgeable.

Blog on "Politics on the English Language"

In this text Orwell explains his point that people tend to dilute their beliefs by using words that seem like intelligent words to use but take the meaning out of the writing. They use words or phrases that are used often and as a result of this the meaning is lost in what they have to say. Orwell thinks that people should use words that everyone understands and to use them in a way that doesn't confuse the reader. He uses political speaking and writing examples to prove how language can be used to misconstrue what the audience thinks and is used to try to get them to support what the speaker has to say.

Orwell is right when he says that politicians use words in a way that can convince the audience by manipulating what they say and how they say it. I also believe that people should use words that everyone understands because they have the same meaning as "more intelligent" words without the speaker looking like they want to prove they are smarter than someone. Using words people don't know also limits the conversation because the audience may not fully understand what is being said.

Bad Driving Gene

There is a new report that suggests that a specific gene can determine if you are a good or bad driver. This report is at http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20091030/hl_hsn/isthereabaddrivergene.

They conducted a study using a driving simulation using people that have the gene and people that don't. This gene also has different helpful effects that are dependent on if the gene is active or not. This article is written as a publication of the study where it documents its results. The results are pretty surprising because I thought driving was just a matter of practice until you become a good driver. This kind of explains how people who have been driving for a long time can still be bad drivers.

Drugs put on shelves without thorough testing

The FDA allows drugs that seem to help a problem hit the shelves without a follow-up test on the drugs. The writer clearly disagrees with the way the FDA conducts itself by the way she uses quotes to put a negative light on the FDA. Even though these medications may help people they aren't appropriately tested and can cause many people to waste their money on a product that may not work. Its wrong how the FDA can let these drugs go by when its their job to test the drugs. You can read more about it at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fda_unproven_drugs

New Stimulus?

When interviewing a senior advisor of the White House she said there would not be a second stimulus, but later in the interview she said there were policies being discussed that would be similar to a stimulus. Some political parties are torn apart by this proposal. Honestly what we should do is better spend the money on the old stimulus, but the government probably already spent all that money. I don't see how borrowing all this money is going to help us in a couple of years, but I guess they are trying to solve the problem in one move. Go to this site to read more at http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091019/us_time/08599193093200