Do You Have Your Face Mask?

I'll admit, when it first came in the headlines I kept saying "spine flu," but came to realize it was swine as in pig.  Well, this swine flu has impacted people in North America and Europe and has the caught attention of the World Health Organization, Center for Disease Control, governments and citizens.  Well Monday April 27th  the CDC , the "Director-General raised the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 3 to phase 4" and the cable network channels raised their level of coverage to turbo.

While information about the swine flu, its symptoms and how to prevent it is important to cover via mass media, putting it on the same pedestal as a plague seems a little too much.   While this illness can make people sick and even cause death, it's probably not going to do as much impact locally as it may seem.  While unfortunately people have passed away from swine flu in Mexico, here in the United States at least about 36,000 people die of flu-related causes each year according to the CDC.

I feel it's important that news media explains how swine flu differs from the "normal" influenza and not just highlight the same symptoms.  With all the images of of people wearing blue face masks, just the masks alone install a sense of hysteria. 

This leads me to conclude that sensationalism by the media can lead to over hype and hence panic.  While the Swine flu could potentially could be dangerous odds are that it's not.  I almost felt as if networks were sitting on edge just waiting for new case to be confirmed so they would have a new story. I say this because major cable networks sat on this topic all day and almost seemed to run out of stories and new topics.  

Last Friday I along with some fellow classmates met Phill Brooks at the State Capitol.  Phill is the director of the Missouri School of Journalism's State Government Reporting Program.   He showed us around the Capitol as well as the proper protocol for how things work.  I think the most beneficial part of the tour was learning about the XLR's and MDN.Org.

A XLR is an outlet where one can plug in their audio jack into it and retrieve sound on the camera.  They can be found in the the House and Senate Chambers as well as in the hearing rooms. It just helps improve the quality of sound.

A great website that can help make reporting more accurate and in-depth is the website, Missouri Digital News.  MDN.org shows what House and Senate committee meetings are occurring.  The website also highlights the rosters for the Missouri House and Senate, who voted for what, different bills and just about all the activity that is
happening or has happened.

Well, as the semester winds down, I'm just working on getting things finished and ending on a good note.

- Cheers Sophia

Al Jazeera English and Election Night

Sami Zeidan from Al Jazeera English came to talk to our broadcast class Tuesday and expressed about the importance of keeping up with current events as well as worldly events.

I am so glad he addressed this issue because as journalist I think it's key that we know , or at least have some familiarity with different cultures,religions and events world wide. He mentioned that its a privilege to be a journalist in the sense that we have a lot of power and hence a lot of responsibility.  We direct how an event will be remembered, how it will be labeled or what it's associated with.  With the use of images and headlines, we can create or stop disorder.

Tuesday proved to be another interesting day at KOMU.  It was election night! Clark residents voted on a proposals to annex the city as well as pay a retail sales tax.  All these items were on the ballot due to the Junction Project.  The Junction Development Group LLC.  wants to put up a mega sports and entertainment  complex in Clark on 480 acres of land.  That is huge!  It will include a paved race-car track, a coliseum for national horse events, hotel, restaurants, gas station, lake, shooting range, night club, as well as retail stores.  This place is practically a city.  It's a multi-million dollar project that is funded by private investors and will take ten years to complete.  

My job was to find out who won and get an interview with someone who voted and get their opinion about the matter.  Well, since Clark is such a small town, it's part of Randolph County.  I went to the county clerk and waited for the votes to arrive so I could get shots of them counting them.  Since the polls close at 7:00 p.m. , ballots didn't start rolling in until 7:30. 

At that point I left to go back to Clark to try and find people who would talk to me.  I went door-to-door and asked people if they would talk to me.    Clark is a town of about nearly 300 people, so it is extremely tight-knit  and when something happens, odds are its going to spread like wild fire.  I went to so many homes, and people did not want to speak because they were either against the proposal and didn't want their neighbors to know, or they just didn't want to be on camera.

I finally found one lady who was glad to do the interview and explained to me how she is excited about the new complex as well as the sales tax.  She said it's not nearly as bad as some other towns, and it would help Clark as a city.

Now, when Greeley says to always be prepared, I experienced this first hand yesterday.  I usually carry my closet with me whenever I report, but it was such a beautiful day that I left my jacket at home and thought "Oh , I'm not going to need it."  Correction, I did! Don't let beautiful days fool you.  I ended up doing what's called an "On-set."  The reporter sits with the anchors during the newscasts and explains his or her story.  

I was nervous during that "On-Set," but it went well , didn't bomb it , but it wasn't perfect.   They didn't ask me to do a package so I tried to read as much information about these proposals as possible.  I'm still learning a lot as a reporter and as a young adult with taxes and things of this nature.  Frankly, I've never really had to worry about these things because that is something my parents always took care of, but now taxes and part of my reality.