This week in class I found some things interesting and other things not as compelling. The first class of week was a nice discussion that we had with Dr. Bohmer and the rest of the class on the effects and actual definition of public relations within the media landscape. It was an interesting discussion because I feel that P.R. is often times left out of the fold when we talk about the media. In terms of the discussion's viability, I felt that we covered a lot of ground and sparked some new ideas about the meaning of P.R. I had really never thought of P.R. as the dark side, but now that that point was even brought up, it makes me look at the industry in a new way. But after Friday's discussion with the panel, I actual see that journalism can be the dark side as well. But relating back to Monday, I feel that the discussion was a very necessary prep for the next two days to come. Wednesday and Friday were interactive platforms to talk with actual DePauw students who are successful. On one hand, these are great. We see how people succeed and they tell us how they did it. There were young people, older people, an advertiser, public relations gurus, newspaper journalists, art oriented designers. I found all of these different angles within the media to be unique and cool in the sense that for most of these people they were passionate about what they were doing. On the negative side of those two latter days, I felt those discussions to be overly dragged out, so much so that they took away from the meaning of the discussion. The hour and a half time slot for Friday was just too much and it got kind of boring in my opinion. I was interested for an hour, but they you start spinning your own wagon too much and it's like, alright let's end this discussion. Obviously, that's just the nature of the class being that amount of time, but it was a complaint I had. Overall, I found it to be a nice week with some different elements and I look forward to hearing from Brother Coffin.
For my newspaper article, I chose 'In Miami, Winning Is Not the Only Thing', from the Wednesday, April 11th edition. Why did I chose this article? It was a front page article on baseball. So that's pretty much it, but then I thought of a different aspect of this article that makes it important. Ozzie needs some P.R. help to the max right now if he wants to regain popularity in Miami. It is funny to me how such a huge new operation, over $600 million dollars of time and investment, new players, new logo, new name, and your team's integrity is essentially squashed by one comment. Humorously, that is the one comment you do not want to make in Cuba, USA. The comment I'm so ambiguously referring to is Ozzie Guillen's praise of Dictator Fidel Castro, saying that he respected him. Wow, that is the one thing you don't do down there. Who is his P.R. guy? I know the guy is variable all the time, but there are a few general things that you just don't say. It really shows how a few insensitive comments can totally, eternally ruin a person's career. I don't care if its sports, politics, or entertainment, if you are in the spotlight and are not being constantly guided on what to say, one bad slip could cost you millions of dollars. In this case, many of the Cuban-Americans want his head and are asking for Guillen to resign immediately. One man said he wants a refund for his $900 season-ticked package unless Guillen leaves Once seen as a Latin-American icon in this region, his reputation literally changed overnight. I think that this is a sports story that can relate to life. If you mess up, there is serious consequences on any stage and I'm glad the N.Y.T. recognized the importance of this story. As usual, the Times took this story and dissected it in a very chronological and cohesive manner. It's the duty of any great investigative newspaper to get to the root of the source of the people affected. In this case it was the Cuban-American community. Well, OK, who was interviewed. How about the senior fellow at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami and the director of the University of Central Flordia Institute for Diversity in Sport. So sports, aside they got to the root of the issue and interviewed these two people with very specific talents and credentials. Newspaper journalism is so contingent on getting to the root of a story and thinking outside the box. Most sports outlets would simply comment on Guillen's comments, but the Times really looked at the effects it had with Cuban-Americans, the fans, and Mr. Guillen himself. The facts were there, the reporting was strong, and the sources were legitimate. This is what I hope we don't lose with the death of a newspaper model in the American media.
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