Story idea: Steroids

The story idea is: Government organizations have been neglecting steroid abuse at colleges and Universities and have mainly been focusing on Major league players, like Barry Bonds.

 

My facts come from various online sources that contribute to my story idea.

The first online source comes from this article by Jon Coury (http://www.helium.com/items/396862-an-inside-look-at-steroid-abuse-in-college-and-high-school). In his article he points out how the NCAA has been focusing on big time major league players and steroid abuse. He has quotes from college students who believe steroid abuse has increased.

 

The next source is the National Collegiate Association. (http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=43897) They are under criticism for not shedding more light on the issue of steroid abuse.  The NCAA has not been educating college athletes and students on the dangers of steroid abuse.

 

On the office of National Drug Control Policy (http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/drugfact/steroids/steroids_ff.html) there are facts and figures on last year’s numbers of steroid use among college students.

 

The next fact comes from the National institute on drug abuse. (http://www.nida.nih.gov/PDF/RRSteroids.pdf) Their research includes facts and figures on only high school and middle school kids. There isn’t anything on steroid abuse at colleges and universities. This is a government agency and it’s shocking that they don’t have facts on college students and athletes. They are forgetting about students and athletes at a college level and they are using steroids as much as high school and middle school students.

 

Another article, written by Ray Fauteux , explains why college students  and athletes are using steroids. (http://www.helium.com/items/1299831-drugs-and-sports-steroids-use-among-college-athletes)

 

The next site has an article on Texas picking a popular company to do steroid testing at high schools. It also talks about how companies compete to run drug test on students from high schools to colleges. (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/highschool/news/story?id=3208890) This website gives me facts on how colleges and Universities are testing their students for steroids.

 

My last site is the drug free sport website which explains how and how they test for steroid abuse at colleges and universities.  (http://www.drugfreesport.com/services/drug-testing-admin-services.asp)

Twitter: A non-Journalist journalism

Twitter is a new social networking site that some people use as a source for there news. According to Tom Tech’s blog, twitter should not be used or considered as a source for news. I agree with Mathew Ingram that twitter is becoming a source for news. I don’t believe that it should be fully taken as a source for news but it serves as the first place for people to at least know something is going on. If they read some news on Twitter they can then go to an actual news site and find out further and accurate information on it. 

Twitter should not be considered an actual source for journalism but it does serve as a way for people to be informed on things that are going on around them. An example on how it can be a source for news is like when you look to friends and people around you for news by word of mouth. The information they tell you may not be completely accurate but you get the idea of what is going on. I think twitter can actually help online news sites because people will first hear that something is going on from Twitter and than they will go check out, on a news website, to see what is really happening and the full story.

There are so many types of people on twitter and, according to one of the blogs I have read, many professionals use it. There are some journalist who are on twitter and if people follow them they can get the news from a journalist. They can't get the whole story because your only allowed no more than 140 words per post but they can get the truth of what's going on from a journalist. They can then go to that journalist website or any online news source to get the full story. Twitter can help journalist get the news out and keep people informed on the newest issues so they can then go and get more information on there favorite journalism sources.

Response to:Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs

After reading this article and looking at the web site’s mentioned I have some mixed feelings about the future of investigative journalism and online journalism. I think that investigative journalism is going back to what is was supposed to be. Now, as described in the article, news organizations and reporters don’t actually investigate on important issues and they wait until last minute to report on major issues. These new online journalism outlets are doing the back to basics approach to investigative journalism and are coming out with real important issues.  The down side to investigative journalist is that they are mostly freelance writers and they don’t get paid for what they do. In the article there was a quote that stated, news should be free and that people should not have to pay to get there news or be paid to report it. I completely disagree with this because the reporters work hard to investigate and write the news that people need to know. Although the news is important the reporters who find the real important news should be compensated for it.

 The web sites listed in the article get their money from donations because they are not for profit organizations.  This makes it harder to pay for reporters so they hire freelancers to cover most of the articles.  According to the article web site’s like the New haven independent don’t even run ads. These non-profit web site owners feel that journalism can be done without the big budgets I think that this is not true and because people need to get paid for the hard reporting that is done. At the same time I understand the idea of how the conglomerate news organizations have turned the news into a business rather that “the news.”

 Online journalism should reinvent itself because big print and broadcast news has become more business like then actual news orientated investigative reporting stories. It should have real issues and actual investigative stories that people need to know about. Reporters should get paid for there work and hard investigations but it should not get out of hand and become a big business like it is in print and broadcast. Maybe news related web sites don’t even need ads like the New Haven Independent.org but I think it all depends on the site. Regardless of the way online journalism goes people are going to got to the site they get the most recent, accurate, and important information from. Investigative journalism is really important for these web sites because it’s what keeps people going to their sites. Since print and broadcast news are not always giving the investigative news these sites have an opportunity to gain a major position in the news department.

Washington Post

I totally disagree with this man. The Washington Post should stay the way it is and should not be like other social networking websites like facebook. People should be able to write and post freely there ideas and it does not matter if they have a name or not. People could lie and but fake names and it would not matter who it really was posting anyway.

 

Assignment 2

The websites I visited:

http://www.moveon.org/ is produced by MoveOn Political Action. The content is informational and persuasive and the articles do not include dates and is unclear on how often it's updated. The information looks accurate but the site promotes Democrats and their issues. The websites focuses on getting information out to MoveOn organization members.

http://www.salon.com/ is produced by salon media group and the content is political opinion. The site is updated 24/7 and the information is accurate. The site looks well organized and has many pictures. 

http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml is produced by various media organizations. The content is international news and the information is accurate. The website is updated daily. This site had an add or donation for something in Brazil but they spelled Brazil on the site with an s (Brasil).

http://nationalword.com/ is produced by crazy republicans and the content are blogs that focused on putting down the Democrats and portraying them in a negative light. This website is updated daily and the information is inaccurate. The website is clearly promoting Republicans.

Assignment 1

Compared to the five websites I explored our school's communication website is not that bad but it could be much better. The best website I visited was FIU.edu communication department. The website was clearly ordered and was easy to navigate. In looking at other school's website I realized that the communications sign should be bigger and more noticeable. The picture on our website should be of us either in the studio or actually doing something that we do in the communications department. Our website should also display all the work that we do in the department from awards to projects. The southern online should be a link on the front page of the communication website. The front page of our website has to much to read. The font is small and annoying to read. There should be less on the front page and more links on the side of the page.