Using the Media for some good

In 2007, Dutch television station BNN hosted a fantastic hoax of a TV show that reached almost all of Holland. The premise of the show was to take one terminally ill person and have 25 other kidney needing candidates to plead their case as to why they should get the kidney.  Hundreds of thousands of Hollanders (is that a word?) watched the show and it created a huge buzz.

The Show took a turn for the best when it was announced that everyone involved was actor and the show attempted to persuade watchers to, "that people need to take action now and fill in a donor card." (source). Too often are kidneys and other vital organs not available and Holland isn't the only country that seems to be suffering from lack of donors.

A pretty big medical problem in America is a lack of donors for vital organs. Kidney Link, a website to match donors with people in need of kidneys proved that, "people wait several years for a good match" (source). Several years is an incredible amount of time to suffer from either pain or go through more years of dialysis and all the struggles provided with that.

In this instance, the media/television was used to educate. It drew in viewers with an incredibly clever ploy and BNN (the tv company) was able to educate a substantial amount of people and do a good thing for the community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttri_GOSMcY--- ***Here is the link to the final 8 mins of the show and the announcment that goes along with it, English subtitles can be turned on***

Social Class Sends You to Jail?

Social class can determine many different things. The current prison makeup, with over 50% of prisoners being African American doesn't seem to show how only 6% of the population is African American (source). There seems to be a big connection on socioeconomic status (SES) and the criminal justice system. So why is it that people of lower SES tend to go to prison more often?

One reason, and the most well known reasons is due to money. People with more money can pay for the best lawyers that can negotiate the best deals. It also would not be a stretch to say that people with more money live in neighborhoods with people of similar wealth and thus, people in trouble with the law could use connections from their community and neighborhood to get them out of trouble.

The graph above accurately describes the divide of how many black individuals go to prison compared to other races. From the stat mentioned above, black individuals are only 6% of the population and it seems crazy to see that they almost triple the numbers of other races as seen in the graph above.

In your mind, Is social class a means for sending more people to jail?

Lupe, Chance and the media we all hate

If you follow my blog, I tend to write and cover a wide variety of topics but two things that have peaked my interest since September have been the media and music. They both tend to tie into one another with constant clash between artists and reporters and vice versa. In the eyes of some rappers, reporters don't tend to cover the issues that are really plaguing our country in terms of national security, murder and incarceration rates.

Lupe Fiasco and Chance the Rapper, both Chicago natives released songs entitled, "Words I never said" and "Paranoia" respectively. Both songs referenced the media and what they felt was wrong with it. 

Chance the Rapper (left) and Lupe Fiasco (right)

Where the f*** is Matt Lauer at? Somebody get Katie Couric in here

Probably scared of all the refugees; look like we had a f****** hurricane here----Chance the Rapper

If you turn on TV all you see’s a bunch of “what the f***s”

Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such

And that ain't Jersey Shore, homie that's the news

And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth

Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist----Lupe Fiasco 

Both songs seems to have some similar connections. Chance the Rapper aka "Chance" calls out Lauer and Couric, both journalists, for their lack of coverage to places in his neighborhood. Lupe Fiasco does the same by calling out Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, both openly Republican journalists, and he goes on to call them racist. Beck and Limbaugh both have been heard saying some incredibly vulgar words to describe African American people.

The truth of the matter is, too often the Media tends to focus on a new celebrity problem rather than focusing on murders. In Chicago, the hometown of both the rappers mentioned, four people were murdered just this past weekend (http://homicides.redeyechicago.com/) of April 11-13.  This lack of attention to serious issues is a real problem including issues in foreign problems, education and death rates. Dailysource.org cites the fact that, "Americans give low ratings to the media for school coverage." This limits the way in which we can make crucial decision to inform our government an its citizens about important issues. Without an increase in coverage of issues of all sizes, the public is then less informed about important issues that need voter recognition. This leads to a downwards spiral in which the public doesn't know about issues and legislation that can affect them on a daily basis. 

Michael Sam leads by example

Michael Sam was drafted by the St. Louis Rams as the first openly gay man to play in the National Football league. His face is now all over web and media; even the White House said on behalf of Obama that,  "you should be judged by what you do and not who you are.” (Source)

With regards to the quote above, it is interesting to think about if Americans really do not judge people because of who they are. Within the past week, Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers openly admitted to saying some incredibly racist remarks in private. Was Sterling living by the "judge by what you do motto"? He was not. I feel that too often in the news and throughout real life that many dont treat others with the respect that they want to be treated with. It seems childish to say but I think that in the examples of Sam and Sterling, that people can really learn a lot of how to treat others.

Sterling was racists in his remarks and still has failed to apologize to the people that he offended. Sam has gained tons of praise for coming out, and now for being the first openly gay man to be drafted to the NFL. Both of these situations are directly contrasting in terms of the responses given by the public.

This quote made me instantly think about the words of MLK jr. when he said, "I look to the day where people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

The people(s) behind the media

"[Rupert Murdoch] publishes 175 newspapers, including the New York Post and The Times of London. In the U.S., he owns the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Fox Network, and 35 TV stations that reach more than 40% of the country" (American Progress). Many Americans are unfamiliar with who Murdoch even is or what his role in the media is. Judd Legdum, American Progress writer shows readers he is one of the biggest media holders in the country and this has a lot of impacts. Murdoch has been known to control the right side of politics, taking extra time to cover issues that benefit Republicans through his station Fox News. 



John Malone seemingly controls the left or the more liberal side of politics. He owns the media holding of Liberty Media which in 2013 was revealed to have been funding a PBS news cast for over 20 years. Both men are splitting the media down the seam, pulling it in a direction in which only issues are shown that support one specific political party and then seemingly trash the other side.

In the comic above, we see a fairly apparent bias in terms of the 2012 presidential election. The first thing most readers would see and read would be the adjacent headline next to both of the candidates heads, which seems to support Obama by criticizing his critics and making fun of Romney by calling him a wimp. The editor of this magazine also added a picture of Romney where he looks to be fooling around while Obama looks tremendously more serious. This is an example of media polarization and it can affect the way American citizens vote and make decisions in voting, which eventually hurts democracy. (Continued Blog post on media democracy HERE)

No more JT

So I recently finished a very large research paper for my combined history and english classes and it feels incredibly relieving. For any one reading this and for anyone who has to write a lengthy research paper in the future here are a few tips to help you do well.

1. Do as much research as you can right from the get go. It's important to get a grasp on your topic quickly so that you don't fall behind the allotted time given to you by your teachers. Therefore, read a lot of summary articles rather than looking at in-depth articles right from the beginning.
2. Read Books: It might seem outdated but books are often published by writers with an incredibly high knowledge on the subject. Books also provide great quotes for a paper and allow the reader to get a good summary on their topic while also eliminating a requirement for writing the paper too.
3. Stay on schedule: For a couple days while I was still researching many of my classmates had already written chunks of their paper while I still had nothing written down. It is important to stay up to pace with the class or else you will find yourself having to write a large amount of your paper at once rather than splitting it up along the way. 
4. Talk to your teachers: I think this is the most important step to writing and researching for any paper. Consulting with your teacher(s) is such a crucial step because they can recommend tons of resources and materials that can benefit you in your writing process. Also, it is a good idea for them to look over some of your paragraphs to change any parts of your paper that isn't useful or is just too repetitive. 

Democracy in our Media?

At first, hearing the words democracy and media, I would assume many people would think there is little to no connection between the two words. In recent years, the media has seen a loss of democratic values. No longer is there a structure to showing issues and there is a constant lack of democratic debate in which newscasts watchers can think critically for themselves rather than absorb the thoughts of the news anchors and their distorted facts.

Michael Sandel, expert in democracy and politics believes that, "we too rarely articulate and defend and argue many political questions in politics." The current problem with the media is that it is incredibly polarized in the status quo. A major reason for this is due to the downfall of democratic practices throughout the media. With a lack of democratic practices, Americans don't get to think for themselves. If all the TV that Americans watch is polarized with left or right wing bias, then they too will become polarized in their political bias. This leads to not only increased political polarization but it will create a downward spiral affect with American politics and media both becoming more and more split and a lack of bipartisanship.

In 2013, the United States was voted as the thirty-second out of one hundred seventy-nine most democratic medias according to a Reporters Without Borders index study (“Freedom Index” 2014). The study took into account issues, “ranging from legislation to violence against journalists, democratic countries occupy the top of the index while dictatorial countries occupy the last three positions”. It is fairly easy to see that the United States’ media isn’t the most democratic in the world, and it isn’t even close to the top.