Learn to skate

The last video I watched was called learn to skate. It told a story about a college hockey team teaching kids how to skate. The story wasn't told very effectively. I have no idea what college it was and there were other questions that were left unanswered for me. The video they used was good, but the story wasn't told very well.

Wells eviction

The fourth video I watched was called Wells eviction. It told the story of people living in a health hazardous building being kicked out of the building. It showed the point of view of the people evicting the tenants, and it also showed the point of view of the tenants as they scrambled to move. I thought that the video was done very well, except for the large number of jump cuts that were in there. The story was told from both points of view and was told effectively.

Slipping and Sliding

The third video I watched was called slipping and sliding. It was about a woman who was driving her car and slid off the road near McCleary, don't know where that is, and there was no damage to her car. It landed straight up and down on a ridge and the only thing damaged was her front license plate. The story had her talking and showed the cops and tow truck pulling her car back onto the road. Sure the story would have been better to see her car actually swerve off the road, but it is hard to always get those things on film. Overall the story was told effectively.

Polar bear jump

The second video I watched was called Polar bear jump. It documented a charity event in which people jump into the water in Portage Lakes State Park during the winter to raise nearly $22,000 for the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. The video has interviews with the people putting the event on as well as some of the participants. The video then shifts to footage of people jumping into the freezing water. The story was told fairly well. They explained what they were doing and showed the people jumping in, but I felt there was more to the story that they could have shared.

One-armed soccer kid

The first video I watched was called one-armed soccer kid. It told the story of a boy in California who was born with his left arm only to the elbow. It showed interviews with his soccer coach and his father, and it showed clips and photographs of him during soccer games. The story told was one of success despite the fact that he only had one arm. The story was told very effectively.

centered text

I HATE MACS!
I REALLY HATE MACS!

LAKELAND, Fla. (February 10, 2009) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today released its February orange crop forecast for the 2008-2009 season, reducing its earlier estimate by 2.5 percent, or 4 million boxes.

The USDA did not attribute the decline to the freezes that hit the Florida citrus belt in late January and early February. The USDA attributed the decline to smaller sizes and increased fruit drop and said it would continue to assess the impact of the freezes. The crop is now expected to total 158 million boxes.

“The USDA has taken off several million boxes since their original orange estimate in October and with the field reports we’re getting regarding fruit damage and juice yield loss from the late January and early February freezes we would expect less juice production than we were just a month ago,” said Michael W. Sparks, executive VP/CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual.

“As a result, we would anticipate better grower returns for the late crop than what we experienced for the early crop,” said Sparks, “This is most definitely a challenging season, however, Florida citrus growers will continue to produce the quality citrus known across the globe for its taste and health benefits.”

Florida citrus was hit with a cold spell on January 22 and February 5 which dropped temperatures below 28 degrees for several hours on both nights.

In its release Tuesday, the USDA said “A freeze survey…conducted on (January 27-28) showed little or no damage at that time. Additional assessments will be made in mid and late February.”

The USDA makes its initial forecast in October and then revises it monthly until the end of the season in July. In 2007-2008, Florida harvested 170.2 million boxes of oranges.

The USDA maintained its prediction that 23 million boxes of grapefruit will be produced in ’08-’09. 
The early and midseason crop is now projected at 83 million boxes, down from 84 million boxes. For more information on the USDA go to

The Valencias projection is now at 75 million boxes this season, down from January’s forecast of 78 million boxes. Florida specialty fruit is down; the USDA predicts 1.3 million boxes of tangelos, down from 1.5 million in January, and 4.6 million boxes of tangerines, down from 4.9 million. The yield for from-concentrate orange juice (FCOJ) is expected to be 1.61 gallons per 90-pound box, down from 1.62. To see more estimates visit

The Florida citrus industry creates a $9.3 billion annual economic impact, employing nearly 76,000 people, and covering more than 576,000 acres. Founded in 1948 and currently representing nearly 8,000 grower members, Florida Citrus Mutual is the state’s largest citrus grower organization.

Home Page:
Related articles: Florida Orange Crop Declines for Third Month
Citrus Farm Prices Projected to Decline Further
OJ Farm Price Forecast Is Good
Related web sites: Florida Juice

media outlets linking to other news stories

I think that this is a very bad idea. Not only does it show support to other organizations and add credibility, it makes the organization doing the linking turn lazy. If they don't have to cover something and can just link to another place covering the story, what motivates them to send someone. In the long run this will only hurt the sites that are linking to other sites. That said, I don't think it will hurt the AP all that much. The AP is a staple, and will continue to send people to cover stories, if anything this might make the AP create its own website and make other organizations link to it instead of sending stories out to all the different organizations.

Best Final Fantasy training video ever.

Steroids on college campuses

I decided to search google to possibly get some ideas. The first site I found was https://www.elitefitness.com/forum/anabolic-steroids/ordering-gear-college-campus-215516.html. It brought up a, in my opinion, rather good idea. The link leads to a wall where a bunch of people are commenting about whether or not to get steroids sent through UPS to the college address or get a P.O. box instead. There is an obvious story here in that if you could get any of these people to actually interview with you, or just steal their comments but that is unethical right, you could easily get a story about why people do or do not send steroids to their school mailbox as there seems to be plenty of opinions both ways.
The second article I found could almost fit in as it has some statistics about steroids in college. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2383927 is a link to a site that has the results of a study done to determine steroid use in college. They tested over 50,000 random college students and found that between 1993 and 2001 steroid use in men went up from .3 percent to almost 1 percent. This could kind of tie in with how they recieve it because if you can get it sent to your box, then it would make it easier hence the larger number doing it.
The third site I found talked about the prices of steroids on the black market. http://www.steroid.com/black.php links to the site. This could easily fit into both other ideas. Who can afford it, is it cheaper then it used to be, etc.
The fourth article I found talks about why student athletes would use steroids and consequences that keep them using steroids. http://www.helium.com/items/1011668-consequences-of-steroids-use-in-college-sports?page=2. A little of prodding into some of the people you find that have taken them an gotten caught, or some research and probably anonomous quotes from some who are currently using them could make a good story into why they use steroids.
The fifth article I found has some good basic facts i.e., what steroids do for you, adverse affects, and signs of steroid use, that would be a helpful addition to any article about steroids. http://www.teendrugabuse.us/teensteroids.html.
The sixth and last site I found had a little more facts about steroid use. again a helpful site to supplement the rest of the research done. http://www.campuscompare.com/college-resources/college-athletics/steroids-in-college-sports/

Twitter

After reading all four articles, I don't believe twitter is journalism. however, I do believe it can be a start to find some stories at some times. maybe something happens and it is put on twitter and a journalist sees it and investigates and it turns out to be a credible story. I just believe that there has to be more research put into it then just someone, anyone, writing something on twitter. I also thought that the last story about the mother and her family was completely pointless. I don't care whether or not her daughters want to twitter with her.

investigative journalism

I liked what the sites try to do, uncover important stories that the papers and news stations don't cover, but there is no way they can keep it up without getting more funding. I don't think they should become more like the paper or the news station, but they do need to find advertisers or better funding, because they will slowly start to close and go out of business if they continue to rely on what little they have right now. 

washington post website

I agree with Tom Grubisich about how the site doesn't do enough to try and help the community, and if that is what Katharine Weymouth meant when she said "engagement" then the site has failed in that respect. However, I don't agree that they need to be like a facebook, which Mr. Grubisich was comparing the site to the entire article. If people want to visit a sit like facebook, visit facebook. there are plenty of sites like that all over the web, a newspaper can't make their site like that, it just isn't practical, they can make links to it, like a lot of sites do, but they can't make their site a pseudo facebook.

Air Congress site

The last site I chose was aircongress.com, which was a blog written during the Republican National Convention. It was not really biased as far as I could tell. It was accurate, as the person who wrote the blog was there and filmed some of it. The last post was on September 4th 2008. This was the most journalistic site I viewed out of all four.

National World Blog

The third site I chose was nationalworld.com. This turned out to be a blog which appears to be pro republican/conservative party. The particular article that is posted on the link we were given is from November of 2008, but I would assume that there are more recent posts. This isn't really a journalistic web site, it is completely an opinion written by the author, William Brady.

Our Media site

the second site I chose was the ourmedia.org. The site confused me from the time I opened it to the time I closed the window. It seemed to be more of a site designed for people to put whatever they wanted up on the internet. It is run by outhink media and drupal, I think. The design of the site wasn't all that good, although that could be because the computer I'm on doesn't have the plugins installed to see half the page anyway, also why it could be confusing looking at it. This site is probably more opinion then journalism since it appears to allow anyone to put whatever they want on the site.

Move On organization website

The first website I looked at was Moveon.org. The website is run by the move on organization, and is biased toward the democratic or liberal party. The content today was mostly about Obama's economic recovery plan and how the conservatives are attacking it. So I would assume the content is whatever is currently going on in Washington that concerns the average American, or that is what they say they do. The site seems to be more for people to join and start petitions and such, and the site is very much set up to try and get members. The first thing you see is a giant ad to sign a petition then next to it a place to sign up to become a member. I don't think this is a particularly journalistic website, it seems more to be an opinion site more than anything else.

Cornell University's comm site

The last site I chose was Cornell's site, because my rich friend goes there, but I digress. I finally was able to find a site that was as bad or worse then FSC's. Cornell's was less visually pleasing then FSC's, if you can imagine, and had less information.

Boston University's comm site

The fourth site I looked at was BU's site. it again looked a lot fresher, cleaner and had more pop then FSC's. It looked a lot more modern. If FSC would touch their site up a little and maybe make it more modern and have more visual interest, the site would look a lot better.

Boston College's comm site

The third site I visited was the BC communication's site. It seemed to pop more then FSC's page. it had pictures of students and faculty throughout the page. I might just think it pops more then FSC's because I am used to FSC's, but come on, who else is sick of the basic red top blue background and boringness of the FSC website in general?

UNH comm site

the second site i went to was the University of New Hampshire site. Overall I found the site kind of confusing and very un-user friendly. I believe the FSC site is much better and is more straight forward and helpful.

U Maine comm site

The first site I went to was for the University of Maine. The site was very similar to the FSC communication's department site. the only difference was it had links to all the major papers and channels in the area. it also, in my opinion, seemed cleaner then our site.