Second Life

It was announced Monday June 8th, that Washington State University will expand their distance degree programs by using a virtual program called Second Life.
WSU has created a three dimensional campus replica, which will be used all around the world by people affiliated with the school. Far away students and teachers can communicate effectively, despite the geographical separation. This program can be used anywhere in the world as long as the local computer has Second Life downloaded, making the distant degree programs more effective and state-of-the-art.
Second Life, which was created in 2003, is really taking off. Over 100 colleges use Second Life in some way for educational purposes. Some of the highly touted schools that use the program include Harvard and Stanford.
Brett Atwood, a professor at Washington State University, is a supporter and helper of Second Life. He worked with Linden Lab, which is the company that created this virtual world. He plans on using the program this upcoming fall for his classes in Journalism and Public Relations.
"It's easily mocked. I get that," Atwood stated. To some, the program may look like it should be for kids. What they don't know is all the precisions and advancements that make the virtual world more for adults and the real world.
Professors and students will be located on a replica campus, using a 3-D person to act as them. Classrooms and voice chat allow everyone to feel like they are actually in the classroom, despite possibly being 3,000 miles away. Everyone can pitch in on conversations, or the instructor can simply teach their class.
A lot of people don't like change in life. This program can seem intimidating and scare people away, but it is very effective and convenient in many circumstances. It is quite simple to use: one must be 18 years of age and older, and able to download the program.
"It requires somebody to take a leap of faith," Atwood added.Second Life is a major step in the way education is executed. This opens doors to new ways of teaching and learning. The program has rapidly gained popularity and hopefully will change the way schools are run in the future. Professors now have another option for teaching classes online classes could possibly boom.
This new virtual world will make education easier and open up new doors and opportunities for WSU employees and students around the world.

Ethics Assignment

1. When Smith said it was newsworthy if he was the mayor, he meant that the story needs to be read under certain conditions. People with a big title or is an icon nationally or locally have a big target on their backs. Not many people would care about the story if it happened with a person know one knows. But since its a mayor, the story is huge. People looked up to this guy and voted for him for a reason and know they must feel cheated or lied to.
2. Morlin knew he couldn't personally create an identity on Gay.com and disguise himself as someone else. The newspaper would not allow that, so he found a loophole to get the information he wanted. He hired someone on the side to do the dirty work for him so he could have a story. There was nothing illegal about what he did, so he felt what he did was legal and clever and didn't get in trouble.
3. Big stories get a lot of press. When a cities own mayor gets in trouble, several articles are going to be published about it. And with charges pending or the story is ongoing, newspapers are going to update people and bring up new info. Spokane newspapers have an audience that is affected by this scandal. Their largest market is the city that believed in this leader. They deserve to know everything there is about the story.
4. This whole story benefits nobody. If anything, the people of Spokane got to know the truth about their mayor, but most of the story invaded his privacy and was very personal. No one would care if the person in trouble was some nobody who lived alone. The people that are harmed are the people of the city who need a leader, the gay community, and family and friends of Jim West. I don't think the outcome was worth it. There was too much drama and effort put into this, and little to show for it. People don't care about the job offering, just the sexual confrontations with other men. That is his personal life, and now it has ruined it forever.
5. I can see why people are unhappy with how the Spokesmans-Review handles its reporting. They are very aggressive and fight hard for details. The second story seems like they are making a story out of nothing. They could be on to something, but nothing is for sure and they are trying way too hard. It kind of reminds me of paparazzi near Hollywood. The Spokesman seems very pesky and need to just take a break. Sometimes, they just need to not assume and let people live their lives. If they assume something and are wrong, it can still hurt a persons image for life. That seems pretty unfair to me.

Frontline

Watching the show opened my eyes to all this journalism going around that I was unaware of. It started off with a good point about how news has changed based on the type of stories published. The Frontline correspondent talked about how stories are getting popularity in todays world, but wouldn't have 30 years ago. I agree and think stories have changed. We are reading more bizzare and entertaining news, rather than important, but bland news.
The internet has opened up opportunities for anyone with access to be a journalist. Students and random citizens are making their own broadcasts and doing their own stories. Like the show said, anyone who captures something new happening and talks about is considered a journalist. People are leaving their original news casts and flocking to the hundreds of different sources online. Even the comedic Jon Stewart show gets watched for news purposes. People's needs for news has adopted a different style of reporting, causing old news sources to dwindle in popularity.
Later in the show, they talked about saving newspapers, specifically the L.A. Times and Craigslist. The founder of Craigslist was asked if he thought his free ad website was hurting newspapers income from classifieds, which he didn't think was happening. Newspapers are on the decline for many reasons. One, the internet holds many more stories, and from different views of different sources. Also, newspapers are read several hours after stories or events happen. The internet can publish stories within a half hour after something occurs. The LA Times was declining, as a result of the internet and TV taking away customers. Head guys were getting fired, shareholders were backing out, and people started getting worried.

International News

Al Jazeera-After watching their news, I was quite impressed. They didn't seem biased much, compared to what I was expecting. There was news about riots in Australia, United States and Palistinean successful talks, and the US journalists captured in North Korea. As for those journalists, they even state they "allegedly" illegally crossed the border. For an anti-US market, I would expect them not say allegedly, but in fact DID cross illegally.

Russia Today- The Russian news station was more of an upbeat national news station. Most stations for this assigment do a lot of international stories or conflict reports from within their countries. Russia did stories about little kids who want to be scientists and the importance of the periodic table, another story on the Russian soccer team, and one on a lady who likes knitting really neat and beautiful patterns. The news wasn't negative, and showed the better side of the Russian people.

BBC- The BBC to me was kind of in the middle of their own policies and the murrow paradigm. None of the news they read was opinionated, but the stories were different than most news sources. They did a lot of reporting on torture, misconduct, and foul play of minorities and other groups around the world. There wasn't much world news that is "exciting", but more politics and other bland news. Plus the reporters talked slow and monotone, making the stories less exciting than what they should be.

Press TV- This news station is based out of Iran, and I knew from the beginning that their news would be much different. The stories I listened to actually had a lot to do with conflicts within Iran, rather than international news. There was a lot about the economy there and voting and polling for leaders. The few international stories I heard were mainly about America and our fight in the Middle East. The news slammed us in their stories, particularly about an air raid that killed "dozens of civilians, including 7 children." Even Al Jazeera seemed in support or didn't have an opinion about the American journalists in North Korea. Iran's news doesn't seem that they would read positive United States stories.


Al Jazeera part 2.-
1- The internet is great for reaching out to groups of people to spread your product, but they need to advertise a lot if they want to expand. It's great that they are online, but how would people know that? They need to extend efforts to show their news is out there and free to watch for all with a computer.

2- After watching the news, Al Jazeera wasn't too negative towards America and had a good variety of world news. Their stories were exciting and not just politics and other bland topics. I would not be offended having their news on the US market. Out of these four news sources we watched, this one was actually the most entertaining. With that said, it means I would rather have Al Jazeera on my TV than BBC. I think people like the more exciting news and with their news not slamming the US, I would assume Americans wouldn't mind the news.

3-Their approach to the news was not much different compared to American news. They talked about a market bombing the killed a lot of people, riots in Australia, and the journalists captured in North Korea. All these stories would be top priorities in America, too. I know Al Jazeera gets a bad rap, but after watching their news for a good hour or so, I saw nothing negative about them. They were very similar in chosing their top stories, and didn't show as much bias as most people would expect.

4- Their ethics were followed completely in their news. They read the basic news, didn't have an opinion, and didn't hide the truth. Most would think they would target the United States for bad news stories. But they were well balanced, and just read the biggest stories of the day, despite where they take place. Their style of news is the style I like. I want the facts and no edited or biased stories.

Human Interest Feature Story

Summer Jobs Rare In College Towns

Pullman, Washington-- The economy has really tanked over the last few years, and hasn’t made much of a recovery so far. How long it will take to return to normalcy, nobody truly knows. Unemployment rates have reached the highest level since 1976, and people are struggling to bring in much of an income.

During a college school year, the university employs hundreds or thousands of students. Most students can only afford a few hours a day due to their busy schedule; therefore several students are used for a basic eight-hour-per-day shift. Many places all over campuses employ dozens, but tend to be closed during the summer. Teachers no longer need assistants, dining halls are used at a minimum, and all other school resources go unused, causing student jobs to vanish.

Another down side of a college town is the tight knit community that knows each other very well. It’s easy to see someone you know living in a small city rather than one like Seattle or Portland. People in these small cities tend to have been born and raised or have a significant history in the area. This comes into effect when high school students need jobs, too. Local high school kids have more connections to the area, thanks to family and friends that are well associated to the community.

“I have been rejected a job that has high school kids and 40 year-old adults working there,” jobless Washington State University student Nick Martin said. “I don’t have a degree, nor do I know the area very well.”

The economy and paranoia surrounding the cities causes backlash and hesitance from store owners and operators. During the summer, business hours are being cut short, stores are not surviving and eventually closing down, and older adults have the upper hand for typical college-aged jobs.

With middle aged people getting laid off from companies cutting back, the unemployment rate skyrocketed. With what minimal jobs are available, there now becomes a larger audience vying for those positions. Instead of having a certain amount of college kids fighting for a job, they are now fighting older adults going for the same position. The older crowds typically have a better resume, having most likely finished college, built a longer and more impressive resume, and become jobless for something out of their control rather than being fired.

College kids in a small town seem to be at the bottom of the food chain. Jobless middle aged adults have the upper hand, as do kids in high school that are more familiar with the area and store owners. The college students, who actually can’t say they have a college degree, have it as hard as anyone else, if not harder, to make money. They are at that transition point in their life where the parents aren’t paying for much, yet they don’t have the credentials to make a lot of money yet.

A lot of college kids are paying their own way through or at least using student loans. They don’t want to start of their careers with a lot of debt needing to be paid off. Not getting jobs during the summer or having to stop your job for the dead season takes away a lot of potential money kids could be making. Families who lose a single source of income still have their significant other to depend on for the time being. Most college students are not yet married, and therefore rely on only themselves. The more the kids sit around without a job, the more dept they will build up.

Most of the jobless talks are focused on middle age people who lost big corporate jobs and are having a hard time raising kids. They usually have a house, a few cars, and several other assets. Kids in college are being released to the new world and not living off of their parents anymore. They have minimal assets, minimal money, and a lot less free time to work.

“I can’t get a job anywhere in Pullman,” unemployed WSU student Chris Darling said. “I have filled out multiple applications and been rejected or ignored every time. I need to pay for summer school and I’m running out of options.”

The economy is taking its toll on most everybody. College kids are a small portion of the population, but life is not very easy right now. They are graduating in debt, and struggling to find jobs. Older adults have been laid off a lot the last few years, but many still are keeping their jobs because of being in the system for so long. College kids have no experience, no money, and very few places to turn to. Desperate times calls for desperate measures, and that is what most are resorting to.