I’m not a smoker, none of my family members smoke and neither do any of my friends.
This weekend I discussed the issue of smoking with my new roommate. She said her biggest pet peeve is cigarette smoke and she can’t tolerate it. The problem is one of our roommates smoke and whether they will work the issue out or not is between the two of them.
Well that same weekend, I was watching America’s Next Top Model’s new season. As many of you know, it’s a show about young women who want to compete to become models and the winner is usually decided by how well they do in their photo shoots. For the models’ first photo shoot, they were asked to display a glamorous side to smoking and then go back to the make-up room and then come out for a second shot to display the horrible effects of smoking. The models portrayed effects of chemotherapy, emphysema, accidental burns, etc. This was supposed to show youths out there that smoking is not at all glamorous, in fact, it’s the opposite.
America’s Next Top Model is maybe setting these models to be “good role” models. The influence not to smoke could certainly help others to not start or to stop. And there are many more people following these steps and taking a stand against smoking, which could signal smoking to be more unpopular than popular.
As I was searching through non-smoking sites, I came across this article by the Washington Post about how Washington D.C. has banned smoking in 2005 in public spaces, restaurants, bars, etc.
The Washington Post article states:
National anti-smoking activists hailed the vote, saying that having the nation's capital go smoke-free carries great symbolic importance. "It puts an exclamation point on what we see as a national trend," said Daniel Smith, vice president of government affairs for the American Cancer Society.
Washington D.C.’s ban on smoking in public places was a great choice to be made. What could be a better influence? Being a non-smoker and asthmatic, I have to be glad about prominent places/organizations taking a stand against smoking. After all, what good can come from smoking?
Whether it’s the nation’s capital that says no to smoking or a model with scary make-up on, the word is getting out: Smoking is bad for you.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
A story unfolds
Our advanced reporting class went to a field trip to the Orlando Sentinel yesterday where we got to sit through a budget meeting in which editors, writers, page/web designers and photographers pitched their ideas about upcoming stories. After the meeting, a few of the Sentinel staff stayed to talk to us. As I was listening to Editor-in-Chief Charlotte Hall talk about the future of journalism, she mentioned that the inverted pyramid way of writing news is fading from newspapers and is more suited for the web, and journalists should start thinking about writing in an anecdotal way to capture readers.
I started thinking about all the stories I’ve read that really grabbed my attention and the one story that popped up in my head was from the St. Petersburg Times, titled,"Mary and Jim to the End." First of all, I first read this story in my news reporting class at Florida Community College. I remember we were discussing feature writing and my professor mentioned the St. Petersburg Times as a perfect example of anecdotal writing. My professor described the St. Petersburg Times as a “writer’s newspaper” because of the narrative and descriptive way they write some of their stories.
Mary and Jim to the End is an article about Jim Morrison from the Doors and Mary Werbelow, a woman he fell in love with before he became famous. The article is fairly long highlighting the years of Jim and Mary’s relationship from 1962-2005. But this doesn’t drag the readers throughout all those years, instead the St. Petersburg Times breaks down the years into segments and keeping only the significant parts of their relationship. It explores the first time Jim and Mary meets and carries the readers until the aftermath of Jim’s death. When I was reading this article in class, I had a hard time listening to my professor’s lecture that day because I couldn’t take my eyes off the story. Reading the story was like having a movie play inside my head, I could see the beach where Mary saw Jim the first time and I could feel the emotion coming from Mary when she had to make the decision to break up with Jim.
St. Petersburg Times writes:
He was drinking hard and taking psychedelic drugs. The darkness she says she had seen from the start was overtaking him, and she didn't want to watch him explore his self-destructive bent. She felt he had swallowed her identity. Whatever he liked, she liked.
"I had to go out and see what parts of that were me. I just knew I had to be away from him. I needed to be by myself, to find my own identity."
This type of writing really takes people in-depth into someone’s thoughts and feelings making the reader feel part of the actual story. Another reason why I loved this article because it introduces quotes perfectly into the article without making it sound awkward or surprising the reader. It flows well enough that each sentence in the story transitions smoothly to the next.
If this is the future of journalism, then I don’t mind. More importantly, I want to be this type of writer. To engage readers to a story by taking them on a journey from the beginning to the end is a more meaningful way of giving insight into someone’s mind.
I started thinking about all the stories I’ve read that really grabbed my attention and the one story that popped up in my head was from the St. Petersburg Times, titled,"Mary and Jim to the End." First of all, I first read this story in my news reporting class at Florida Community College. I remember we were discussing feature writing and my professor mentioned the St. Petersburg Times as a perfect example of anecdotal writing. My professor described the St. Petersburg Times as a “writer’s newspaper” because of the narrative and descriptive way they write some of their stories.
Mary and Jim to the End is an article about Jim Morrison from the Doors and Mary Werbelow, a woman he fell in love with before he became famous. The article is fairly long highlighting the years of Jim and Mary’s relationship from 1962-2005. But this doesn’t drag the readers throughout all those years, instead the St. Petersburg Times breaks down the years into segments and keeping only the significant parts of their relationship. It explores the first time Jim and Mary meets and carries the readers until the aftermath of Jim’s death. When I was reading this article in class, I had a hard time listening to my professor’s lecture that day because I couldn’t take my eyes off the story. Reading the story was like having a movie play inside my head, I could see the beach where Mary saw Jim the first time and I could feel the emotion coming from Mary when she had to make the decision to break up with Jim.
St. Petersburg Times writes:
He was drinking hard and taking psychedelic drugs. The darkness she says she had seen from the start was overtaking him, and she didn't want to watch him explore his self-destructive bent. She felt he had swallowed her identity. Whatever he liked, she liked.
"I had to go out and see what parts of that were me. I just knew I had to be away from him. I needed to be by myself, to find my own identity."
This type of writing really takes people in-depth into someone’s thoughts and feelings making the reader feel part of the actual story. Another reason why I loved this article because it introduces quotes perfectly into the article without making it sound awkward or surprising the reader. It flows well enough that each sentence in the story transitions smoothly to the next.
If this is the future of journalism, then I don’t mind. More importantly, I want to be this type of writer. To engage readers to a story by taking them on a journey from the beginning to the end is a more meaningful way of giving insight into someone’s mind.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Tech savvy is the way to be
Browsing through UCF’s digital media department, I came across a link for the International Digital Media and Arts Associations (IDMAA). IDMAA is a professional group founded by 15 universities, including UCF, which assists professors, scholars and students alike in their digital media curriculum.
IDMAA’s introduction talks about how around the world, universities are creating new digital media programs that correlate with Art, Computer Science, Journalism, Music, Theater, etc. IDMAA’s purpose is to address upcoming issues with job-related digital media skills, new media that are emerging, upcoming graduate programs in digital media, so on and so forth. There are even conferences that are held in various cities, as well as interest groups and student groups within the site.
I even found a link to this site at Poynter Online where Steve Outing, founder and publisher of Enthusiast Group LLC, blogs about it.
It got me thinking about how digital media is overlapping within almost all industries. It’s not just computer science majors anymore who need to learn digital media, but even journalism majors like myself. This got me regretting picking my minor in Sociology and wishing that I picked digital media. So I opened up the UCF catalog just to see what classes I would be taking if I did minor in digital media and sure enough there is an introduction class called, Principles of Digital Media. As I closely examined the curriculum, classes like Internet Interaction, Internet Software Design and Converging Media immediately captured my attention. These are classes that I could learn a ton from that would greatly benefit me in the future, especially when working in a multimedia news organization.
Even the Orlando Sentinel has taken interest in digital media students. One of the featured news on the UCF digital media department site was the Sentinel’s involvement with the digital media program. The Sentinel has offered a scholarship worth $6,000 available to digital media students for the first time in UCF history. And to top it of, the student who gets the scholarship also gets to choose from three internships at the Orlando Sentinel which are “web producer with Orlando CityBeat, multimedia producer or video producer, or web journalism interim based on their skills and interests,” as stated in the website. The Sentinel is offering this scholarship in “hopes to educate, inspire and expand the real-life experiences of Central Florida’s young professionals who are interested in the growing digital media field.”
So, if I could give advice to journalism majors who are trying to decide on a minor, I would definitely try to persuade them to pick digital media as a minor because most likely, they will need it in the future. I just wished someone would’ve told me that a year ago.
IDMAA’s introduction talks about how around the world, universities are creating new digital media programs that correlate with Art, Computer Science, Journalism, Music, Theater, etc. IDMAA’s purpose is to address upcoming issues with job-related digital media skills, new media that are emerging, upcoming graduate programs in digital media, so on and so forth. There are even conferences that are held in various cities, as well as interest groups and student groups within the site.
I even found a link to this site at Poynter Online where Steve Outing, founder and publisher of Enthusiast Group LLC, blogs about it.
It got me thinking about how digital media is overlapping within almost all industries. It’s not just computer science majors anymore who need to learn digital media, but even journalism majors like myself. This got me regretting picking my minor in Sociology and wishing that I picked digital media. So I opened up the UCF catalog just to see what classes I would be taking if I did minor in digital media and sure enough there is an introduction class called, Principles of Digital Media. As I closely examined the curriculum, classes like Internet Interaction, Internet Software Design and Converging Media immediately captured my attention. These are classes that I could learn a ton from that would greatly benefit me in the future, especially when working in a multimedia news organization.
Even the Orlando Sentinel has taken interest in digital media students. One of the featured news on the UCF digital media department site was the Sentinel’s involvement with the digital media program. The Sentinel has offered a scholarship worth $6,000 available to digital media students for the first time in UCF history. And to top it of, the student who gets the scholarship also gets to choose from three internships at the Orlando Sentinel which are “web producer with Orlando CityBeat, multimedia producer or video producer, or web journalism interim based on their skills and interests,” as stated in the website. The Sentinel is offering this scholarship in “hopes to educate, inspire and expand the real-life experiences of Central Florida’s young professionals who are interested in the growing digital media field.”
So, if I could give advice to journalism majors who are trying to decide on a minor, I would definitely try to persuade them to pick digital media as a minor because most likely, they will need it in the future. I just wished someone would’ve told me that a year ago.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Protecting the St. Johns River
I have to give kudos to the The Florida Times-Union for producing a series of videos on how significant it is to preserve the St. Johns River.
The videos are named as if they were horror flicks with titles such as, Return of the Green Monster and Honey, I Shrunk our Environmental Footprint. The videos definitely attracted me to click on them and what I expected to be entertaining was something much more.
The video, Return of the Green Monster, started off with images of green algae dominating the St. Johns River, but the more the video played, the more it became clear that the video was more informational than entertaining. The video is very organized in a way that it takes viewers step by step on the problems polluting the river. It describes seven reasons to why the St. Johns is the way it is, with such reasons being: nutrients overload, suffocating streams, hazardous toxins and failing septic tanks. And as each reason is revealed to the viewer, a speaker talks on behalf of the reasons. The speakers varied from community leaders such as, Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton, St. Johns County Commissioner Ben Rich and University of North Florida President John Delaney to experts in the subject like, Forensic Toxicologist Richard Lipsey and Bill Belleville, author of "Losing it All to Sprawl," among others.
Another video titled, Showdown on the St. Johns, describes the Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP is responsible for giving discharge permits to waste plants which limits the amount and time of discharges in the river. The video investigates the violations of some of the discharge permits. There were 294 wasteplant violations that were discovered. This type of video took viewers indepth to witness some of the problems occuring that damages the St. Johns.
The series of videos are excellent examples of keeping the public inform. Not only does it take viewers behind the scene, but it explains the issues in different angles. Two other websites I found helpful also is The River Returns which shows documentary videos of the St. Johns River and even takes you underwater. Another is Vanishing Wetlands by the St. Petersburg Times. This is a cool website that not only includes awesome pictures and articles, but graphics like the cycle of wetlands.
Hopefully these types of coverage raise awareness and call for some much needed changes for Florida's longest river, the St. Johns.
The videos are named as if they were horror flicks with titles such as, Return of the Green Monster and Honey, I Shrunk our Environmental Footprint. The videos definitely attracted me to click on them and what I expected to be entertaining was something much more.
The video, Return of the Green Monster, started off with images of green algae dominating the St. Johns River, but the more the video played, the more it became clear that the video was more informational than entertaining. The video is very organized in a way that it takes viewers step by step on the problems polluting the river. It describes seven reasons to why the St. Johns is the way it is, with such reasons being: nutrients overload, suffocating streams, hazardous toxins and failing septic tanks. And as each reason is revealed to the viewer, a speaker talks on behalf of the reasons. The speakers varied from community leaders such as, Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton, St. Johns County Commissioner Ben Rich and University of North Florida President John Delaney to experts in the subject like, Forensic Toxicologist Richard Lipsey and Bill Belleville, author of "Losing it All to Sprawl," among others.
Another video titled, Showdown on the St. Johns, describes the Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP is responsible for giving discharge permits to waste plants which limits the amount and time of discharges in the river. The video investigates the violations of some of the discharge permits. There were 294 wasteplant violations that were discovered. This type of video took viewers indepth to witness some of the problems occuring that damages the St. Johns.
The series of videos are excellent examples of keeping the public inform. Not only does it take viewers behind the scene, but it explains the issues in different angles. Two other websites I found helpful also is The River Returns which shows documentary videos of the St. Johns River and even takes you underwater. Another is Vanishing Wetlands by the St. Petersburg Times. This is a cool website that not only includes awesome pictures and articles, but graphics like the cycle of wetlands.
Hopefully these types of coverage raise awareness and call for some much needed changes for Florida's longest river, the St. Johns.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Oprah and Obama
Oprah Winfrey has made very clear that she is supporting Barack Obama for the 2008 presidential election.
Winfrey held a gala fundraiser at her Santa Barbara estate where 1,500 guests attended, USA Today reported. Famous guests showed up to the event such as Stevie Wonder, Chris Rock and Cindy Crawford. Tickets to the gala cost $2,300 each so it's no surprise when big names are involve with this kind of fundraiser. With Winfrey's name attached to Obama's, there's definitely going to be perks.
Presidential candidates in the past has had their share of Hollywood-star-type media attention and some endorsements along with it. But how does it really help their platform when a name like "George Clooney" supports them? Other than give them a glitzy, glamorous image.
Although, Winfrey isn't like most celebrities. Don't get me wrong, she's a household name and she could probably buy Hollywood, but her influence extends further than the movie/tv crazed fans that we see screaming outside of TRL. Her show covers day-to-day problems that has affected millions of viewers making her more acceptable among the commoners.
Winfrey's influence has been so widely accepted that even books she reads ends up at the NY Times Best-Seller list.
Marty Kaplan, professor of communications at the University of Southern California told CNN, "People buy books when she tells them to. They will watch her shows, and buy her magazines when she asks them to...So, the question is, are enough of them willing to follow her lead not with a consumer good, but with a ballot cast?"
The article also states that women make up the majority of Winfrey's audience and with her support for Obama's campaign, she could sway more votes out of women which would rival Hillary Clinton.
Could this be the future of presidential campaigns? Celebrities are no longer just for entertainment, but also a political commodity.
Winfrey held a gala fundraiser at her Santa Barbara estate where 1,500 guests attended, USA Today reported. Famous guests showed up to the event such as Stevie Wonder, Chris Rock and Cindy Crawford. Tickets to the gala cost $2,300 each so it's no surprise when big names are involve with this kind of fundraiser. With Winfrey's name attached to Obama's, there's definitely going to be perks.
Presidential candidates in the past has had their share of Hollywood-star-type media attention and some endorsements along with it. But how does it really help their platform when a name like "George Clooney" supports them? Other than give them a glitzy, glamorous image.
Although, Winfrey isn't like most celebrities. Don't get me wrong, she's a household name and she could probably buy Hollywood, but her influence extends further than the movie/tv crazed fans that we see screaming outside of TRL. Her show covers day-to-day problems that has affected millions of viewers making her more acceptable among the commoners.
Winfrey's influence has been so widely accepted that even books she reads ends up at the NY Times Best-Seller list.
Marty Kaplan, professor of communications at the University of Southern California told CNN, "People buy books when she tells them to. They will watch her shows, and buy her magazines when she asks them to...So, the question is, are enough of them willing to follow her lead not with a consumer good, but with a ballot cast?"
The article also states that women make up the majority of Winfrey's audience and with her support for Obama's campaign, she could sway more votes out of women which would rival Hillary Clinton.
Could this be the future of presidential campaigns? Celebrities are no longer just for entertainment, but also a political commodity.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Not having better pay, keeps the doctor away
Born in the Philippines and having moved here in the U.S. when I was 7 years old, I've neglected to keep track of what's going on in the other side of the world. I haven't been back to Philippines since the age of 12, making that 10 years ago, so it really caught my attention when CNN reported that the Philippines are losing doctors. The CNN news segment titled, "Doctor Drain," talked about how Filipino doctors leaving their jobs to become nurses in the U.S.
For the past three years, 5,000 Filipino doctors have migrated to U.S. to become nurses, said Philippine Secretary of Health Dr. Jaime-Galvez Tan in an article CBSnews.com
"Doctors no longer want to train as a resident or to become specialist, but they'd rather take nursing as a specialty and then move to the U.S.," Tan told CBS.
One of the biggest hospitals in Manila had 152 interns last year, now it only has five, according to the article.
So why the big move?
Better pay. According to an article from San Francisco Chronicle., doctors are paid less than $500 a month in the Philippines. Whereas, here in the U.S., nurses could typically make $40 an hour.
This interests me, not only because I'm originally from the Philippines, but because both of my parents are nurses, with my dad being a nursing professor. They both see the trends in both hospitals and nursing homes that the numbers of Filipino nurses are increasing. My dad mentioned that the hospital he works in, Baptist Medical, has just hired new nurses who were also M.D.'s.
There is also a shortage in the profession of nursing. The San Franciso Chronicle article states:
"The greatest shortage is among registered professional nurses, which comprise the largest segment of all health professionals," said Phyllis Hansell, dean of Seton Hall University's College of Nursing. "Currently, there are 2.6 million nurses in the U.S., and it is forecast that by 2010 an additional 1 million will be needed. Nurses will be required in all health care settings."
Recruiters have found a dependably supply of nurses in the Philippines, where salaries are low, unemployment high and English fluently spoken.
This is good news for health care in the U.S., but bad news for a third-world country like the Philippines. The economony isn't exactly booming and with this type of shortage, it puts more people and healthcare at an even higher risk.
For the past three years, 5,000 Filipino doctors have migrated to U.S. to become nurses, said Philippine Secretary of Health Dr. Jaime-Galvez Tan in an article CBSnews.com
"Doctors no longer want to train as a resident or to become specialist, but they'd rather take nursing as a specialty and then move to the U.S.," Tan told CBS.
One of the biggest hospitals in Manila had 152 interns last year, now it only has five, according to the article.
So why the big move?
Better pay. According to an article from San Francisco Chronicle., doctors are paid less than $500 a month in the Philippines. Whereas, here in the U.S., nurses could typically make $40 an hour.
This interests me, not only because I'm originally from the Philippines, but because both of my parents are nurses, with my dad being a nursing professor. They both see the trends in both hospitals and nursing homes that the numbers of Filipino nurses are increasing. My dad mentioned that the hospital he works in, Baptist Medical, has just hired new nurses who were also M.D.'s.
There is also a shortage in the profession of nursing. The San Franciso Chronicle article states:
"The greatest shortage is among registered professional nurses, which comprise the largest segment of all health professionals," said Phyllis Hansell, dean of Seton Hall University's College of Nursing. "Currently, there are 2.6 million nurses in the U.S., and it is forecast that by 2010 an additional 1 million will be needed. Nurses will be required in all health care settings."
Recruiters have found a dependably supply of nurses in the Philippines, where salaries are low, unemployment high and English fluently spoken.
This is good news for health care in the U.S., but bad news for a third-world country like the Philippines. The economony isn't exactly booming and with this type of shortage, it puts more people and healthcare at an even higher risk.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Jackpot!
Four people have the winning numbers (8, 18, 22, 40 and 44, with the mega ball being 11) to the estimated $330 Mega Millions Jackpot, USA Today reported today.
According to an article from USA Today, each of the winners is from New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and Texas and chances of someone getting all five numbers right and the mega ball number is one in 176 million.
Everyone has probably heard some point in their lives that one has a better chance of getting hit by lighting twice or drowning in a bathtub than winning the lottery. That doesn’t seem to have any effect on my mother and her co-workers who repeatedly buy 130 tickets every time there is a jackpot. Each of her co-workers spends to an average of $10-$15 in tickets.
The Florida Times-Union also had an article featured about the lottery winnings. According to the article, a man named Joe Abufarha, a manager for RaceWay, states that business is big when there are jackpots like this. He told the Times-Union, he sold $200 worth of tickets to one customer.
So has the lottery become a new form of gambling, losing more money in hopes of getting more?
If this is so, more people may likely to buy it now than ever before since the jackpot could happen to anyone and not just anyone, in this case, four people. The dream of becoming a millionaire at any given moment can now be a reality if people just picked the right numbers.
According to an article from USA Today, each of the winners is from New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and Texas and chances of someone getting all five numbers right and the mega ball number is one in 176 million.
Everyone has probably heard some point in their lives that one has a better chance of getting hit by lighting twice or drowning in a bathtub than winning the lottery. That doesn’t seem to have any effect on my mother and her co-workers who repeatedly buy 130 tickets every time there is a jackpot. Each of her co-workers spends to an average of $10-$15 in tickets.
The Florida Times-Union also had an article featured about the lottery winnings. According to the article, a man named Joe Abufarha, a manager for RaceWay, states that business is big when there are jackpots like this. He told the Times-Union, he sold $200 worth of tickets to one customer.
So has the lottery become a new form of gambling, losing more money in hopes of getting more?
If this is so, more people may likely to buy it now than ever before since the jackpot could happen to anyone and not just anyone, in this case, four people. The dream of becoming a millionaire at any given moment can now be a reality if people just picked the right numbers.
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