College Drinking

To start out, I felt this week was another great week of productivity.We put a lot of practical media practices to work throughout the week and I had fun in the process. I felt the most helpful presentation was The Soundslides rotation. I didn't really know how to use this program at all going in and I came out with a great, basic knowledge of how to use the program. I found that it was a very easy and mainstream way to accomplish. I was able to put together a pretty respectable presentation with audio that I can use in my projects not just for Media Fellows but into the future. I look forward to continuing work on my projects and delving into my story on meth use in the Putnam County Area.

As for my article, I felt that the selection I chose about drinking rates over Spring Break time for college students would be prevalent. The article entitled "Spring Break Gets Tamer With World Watching Online." The article gives a new perspective of what most people would consider a generation with more liberal boundaries than the one that came before.

Twitter and Facebook are also seen by many as websites that have a negative influence on teens because it creates a largely impersonal experience with peer groups. The article gives an alternate perspective, a job of hard news. Even though thousands of college students flock Key West, Florida for spring break, many bartenders in the article claimed these students are from the 'prude' brand, and do not engage in as many risky behaviors.

The latter stems from teens recognizing that one bad photo can lead to a firing or difficulty in trying to find a job. Many young people hide beer cans in photos or try to stay out of them altogether in fear of being judged by out of context photos on the internet. So, in a sense, these websites for the better or worse have acted a taming mechanism that disallows young people from choosing to commit regrettable acts.

I find this article to be an essential component of hard news. I think one of Jones' main points is informing the public to the best possible degree. With this inherent responsibility to take a story and give an alternate perspective with a new element of truth. Without reading this article I would even perceive Facebook and Twitter as casual sites, but when you think about using them in the context of the professional or academic world, the results are much more important. This is a story that epitomizes the variance in stories covered in the N.Y.T. another principle of Losing the News. A story like this one can change perspectives of those who judge too quickly and lays out a new trend in society that shows how younger generations have evolved. Within this story lies the small story and the big story, a change in young people's overall societal standards. Without a larger context to a local or regional event, the story will cease to be hard news.